Macnaghten knew about Druitt being a barrister?

[Jonathan H]

Good luck, Adam.

[tji]

Hi Adam

Instead, how about this:
I hereby pledge that if nobody else is able to do it, I will take it upon myself to uncover the necessary proof to show that M.J. Druitt was not/could not have been Jack the Ripper, and clear the name of an innocent man once and for all – sooner rather than later.

Not happy taking on little assignments, you have to go for the Herculean!!!

Seriously though, I admire your determination, good luck and you know where I am if I can help in any way.

tj

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

Thank you. Best prepare to find yourself a new suspect - Chapman, perhaps?

Tracy:

Oh i'll take it one step further too - I'll allow myself one year as of today to find said evidence, and should I fail, I will publicly declare myself as a Druittist, having ditched George Chapman. It may be a big task but it is a necessary one and one that I feel needs to be done, it's way overdue.

I'll be sure to let you know if you can be of any help, though my e-mail is playing up again so it might come in bits and pieces....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

Welcome aboard, in advance, Adam!

[D'Onston]

The Anglican Vicar

Hey All, From the source posted relating the story of the Anglican Vicar, we see that his story is hearsay as it was supposedly told to him by yet another Vicar!

The news report states that he has a "fictionalized" story of the hearsay evidence in his possession. It sounds to me as if he is flogging his "fictionalized" story for a publisher willing to take his bate.

Anyway, there is no way that the "Vicar's Story" can be linked to anyone, much less Druitt, so it is a great leap of faith to pin the "VS" on Druitt. Why him and not anyone else alive during the unknown time frame of the dubious confession?

Then there is the RC priest supposedly delivering papers on his deathbed to the authorities!

All of this "information" appears in the papers of the relative period of interest in the WC crimes; papers that were not known for their impeccable veracity.

All these ecclesiastical rumors (and they are definitely no more than that!) sound to me like the rumored coins and M. Packers' grapes. In short, they appear to be a foundation of sand, not strong enough on which to build a theory, much less a case.

Best Wishes, Mike

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

You know how much it would irk me to have to do that, therefore, it will not be allowed to happen. I'm going by the theory that if Druitt can be satisfactorily eliminated from one, perhaps two of the canonical murders, then he could not have been Jack the Ripper. I'm confident that the necessary information is out there somewhere to do just that - and you should be worried. Very worried.

Mike:

My god, a voice of reason! Thank you!

Cheers,
Adam.

[belinda]

Keep up the good work Adam. I don't believe Druitt did it.

The evidence is so circumstantial.Druitt is wrong in so many ways.

[Jonathan H]

To Mike

Of course, the Vicar's Ripper may not be Druitt, may not be the real Ripper, and may not be real at all.

But in RipperLand it is always a 'stacked deck' being played against Macnaghten and Druitt.

eg. If the interpretation can break against this police chief, and most sources can be interpreted for and against, then it is always against, always grabbed as a 'definitely ascertained fact' that Mac was wrong, must be wrong, and that Druitt is innocent -- must be innocent.

Apparently the un-named Vicar really existed, as he was visited by a frustrated reporter, and is thus not a rumoured-to-exist figure like the Catholic priest.

Far from trying to procure a 'publisher' the cleric allowed his tale to go unpublished because he would not budge about what what was fiction, and what was not.

The glimpse we get of the Vicar's Ripper is of a figure who is closer to the Druitt of the primary sources than the 'Drowned Doctor' of Major Griffiths, who also turns out to be, as the Vicar says of his deceased suspect, 'substantial truth under fictitious form'.

In RipperLand that is not even allowed to be a mere coincidence.

It is nothing. It does not exist.

Consider that the Vicar is directly quashed by Sims, a Macnaghten crony, within days.

Look how he does it.

Sims does not claim that the story is a tabloid invention.

He accepts that the Vicar -- actually it was not the Vicar but a fellow, deceased priest who passed the confession on -- is real, and that he heard this confession from a dying criminal [actually this suspect had an 'unblemished record', like Druitt].

But Sims dismisses it as a colourful 'exit'. In other words, some dotty cleric is simply being misled, being deceived, by a low-life on his death-bed -- because the former is not an experienced criminologist, unlike Sims the clubby insider.

Sims' main argument against the Vicar isn't that he's fictional, or making it up, but that the real 'Jack' killed himself immediately after the Kelly murder -- no time to confess anything to anybody.

We know that in fact the figure hidden behind Griffiths/Sims, the drowned barrister Montague John Druitt, did have time to make a confession.

In fact, he had three whole weeks!

The very aspect that Sims scolds the Vicar for is the very aspect which matches the historical Druitt about whom Sims thinks he is writing of.

That's, at the very least, another coincidence.

Not so in RipperLand.

It is nothing.

Consider also that Sims is Macnaghten's puppet here.

The police chief had taken the famous writer, his pal, and totally turned him around 180 degrees on the mystery. From the scathing wit of 1888 to 1891, who stomped on SY, to the main propagandist from 1899 to 1917 for the 'Drowned Doctor' mythos; the efficient police hunt which nearly nabbed the mad medico.

Therefore Sims' quashing of the Vicar is really Macnaghten doing this.

This is the same police chief who presumably feeds Sims other details which turn out not to be true of the real Druitt -- one of which, in his memoirs, Mac directly debunked: that the fiend had ever been in a madhouse, let alone 'twice'.

Sure enough, Druitt's mother had been permanently institutionalised, not her son.

Mac of the muddled memory, Mac who knows nothing about the real Druitt, has that detail correct.

Perhaps that's just another coincidence?

Not in RipperLand. It does not exist. It is nothing.

Why did Mac go to all this trouble?

A repentant Ripper who was alive and well, and making trips to church, or to a priest, and then conveniently expiring -- all without the knowledge of Scotland Yard -- is excruciating, publicity-wise, unless you crush it under the much more satisfying, if implausible, yarn of the 'shrieking, raving fiend' who staggered all the way from Kelly's mutilated remains to Chiwick and hurled himself into the river.


To Belinda

That's right, Druitt is wrong in so many ways.

Macnaghten would have had exactly the same attitude about a fellow gentleman, especially one in no position to defend his name, a tragic Oxonian no less -- yet he accepted that the family's 'belief', and the MP's 'doctrine' was 'in all probability' due to 'certain facts' and was correct.

Of course the family, the Tory MP, and Mac could have been all wrong.

Mac would have wanted to be wrong ...

[Adam Went]

Thank you Belinda. In my view Druitt is among, if not THE most unfortunate suspect to ever be seriously considered as Jack the Ripper, and I thank you and anybody else who now takes the view that enough is enough of the rubbish and false suspicion.

If you happen to come across anything which could be even the slightest bit helpful to the cause, it would be hugely appreciated.

Cheers,
Adam.

[D'Onston]

Dear Jonathan, It's my understanding that the Vicar who was visited by a reporter is the one who "heard" the story secondhand from another, unidentified Vicar. If I am correct in my understanding of this, it's just too much hearsay to bear much (or any) evidential weight. As far as the flogging his story for publication, I think he had this in mind but would of course not change his "fiction" or even identify it for fear of a libel action.

Best Wishes, Mike

[Jonathan H]

As far as the flogging his story for publication, I think he had this in mind but would of course not change his "fiction" or even identify it for fear of a libel action.


Mike, you mean like Macnaghten, via Griffiths and Sims, carefully changing his preferred suspect into semi-fiction [eg. the Major, by himself, changing the Druitt 'family' into 'friends'] to avoid libel trouble and/or to spare the feelings of people who would recognise the real Druitt?

[Adam Went]

Just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has contacted me thus far and either assisted or offered to assist in the effort to forever clear MJ Druitt's name from the suspect list. I have been pleasantly surprised by the effort that's been put in this far and I can only ask again that if there's anybody out there who feels that this whole Druitt thing has gone on for far too long and is a great injustice to a perfectly reasonable man, as I do, and there's anything you are able to contribute, it would be hugely appreciated - not just by myself but by many others as well. The information collected even just in the past week or two is more or less conclusive enough evidence to eliminate him forever, but it's better to absolutely crush and smash the theory into the ground altogether than leave any doubt. And if the work so far is anything to go by then it won't be long at all.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan H]

Bold claims Adam?!

And if you have found a new source, or sources, which absolutely proves that Druitt could not be in two places at once, then I will be the first to congratulate you, and realise, for myself, that Mac has actually been talking about Tumblety all along [this was put to me by a brilliant researcher some years ago].

But if you actually have nothing, or only painfully ambiguous scraps -- or have just worked out that Druitt is not a doctor and therefore Macnaghten is mistaken -- then it's time for you to exit this debate about the 'Druitt Thing' [eg. the Jack the Rikpepr mystery] with what little dignitas you will have left.

By the way, since you operate from an avowed agenda, a proud bias, even a passionate crusader on a mission 'to crush and smash' -- all totally at odds with historical analyses -- are you getting somebody else, eg. somebody objective, to also assess these new bits and pieces?

[Adam Went]

Jonathan:

Obviously I won't be revealing anything at present, but what I will say is that from everybody I have spoken to, the sentiment expressed has been virtually identical - Druitt as a suspect has gone on for far too long already, there's no way he was the killer, let's eliminate him once and for all.
There is no agenda here other than clearing the name of a perfectly innocent man, and regardless of my own personal views on Druitt the suspect or anybody elses, evidence is evidence and it speaks for itself.

By the way, "dignitas"? I presume you mean "dignity"? How very ironic!

Cheers,
Adam.

[D'Onston]

Dear Jonathan,

Sorry, don't mean anything of the kind regarding the "Vicar". Actually by calling his "story" hearsay evidence, I'm being kind. I don't really believe that he heard
anything from anyone. I think he made up his story out of whole cloth to flog something for publication after a few too many glasses of port in the vicarage. I think the reporter heard a good tale when interviewing him, sized up his credibility, and took away with him an interesting "story" for publication. I think he was being kind to the Vicar with his explanation why neither his paper (nor anyone else) would publish the long form of the tale. I think if the reporter saw any slight hint of veracity in the Vicar, he and his paper would have jumped at the chance to publish it. However, I believe that the reporter found the Vicar not credible and the tale, just a lot of hooey!

Best Wishes, Mike