The Missing Memorandum

[Herlock Sholmes]

Excellent Jeff!



The Baron

For crying out loud Baron is this what you’re reduced to.

Jeff has just produced a reasoned, balanced and cautious post which I also called excellent. He has simply proposed a possibility. He has not stated that this is what occurred or even that this is what he believes occurred but you jump up and down waiving flags because you see it as some kind of anti-Druitt victory.

Jeff is right to be cautious. Jeff is right to suggest and discuss possibilities. None of us know for certain.

As ive pointed out to you before ( many times) I’ve never once stated that Druitt was definitely the ripper. Or that Macnaghten was definitely correct. It’s called caution. You, on the other hand appear to be able to give a cursory glance at the available evidence and come up with definite facts. You appear to have the same kind of magical powers that Fish is ascribing to Dr Phillips. What do you base your absolute certainty on and why haven’t you solved the case with this kind of ability?

[JeffHamm]

Excellent post Jeff. To dismiss the document out of hand would be just as grievous an error as it would be to claim that Druitt was definitely the ripper. It’s also worthy recalling of course that Mac mentioned, on the occasion of his retirement in 1913, that the ripper committed suicide so he appeared to maintain his suspicion of Druitt.

This is also intriguing of course:

“I have destroyed all of my documents and there is now no record of the secret information which came into my possession at one time or another.”

Absolutely, the document is evidence of something, the lack of additional evidence is what screams "caution" about what that something is. McNaughton maintained his belief in linking MJD to the JtR series, or at least in the idea that JtR committed suicide in the Thames. Either those beliefs are based upon an intact long term memory trace (meaning, that yes, he did get private information about MJD that was sufficient to him to conclude a link, even if not sufficient to meet legal standards of proof - and that sentence opens a whole can of worms too of course - or over the years a memory error has occurred, creating a "false belief". I'm not suggesting dementia, or anything like that, long term memory is extremely unreliable and the information we store routinely gets corrupted and modified by other events and sources of information. This is why testimonial data must always be backed up by less error prone sources of information. It's not someone is lying if their long term memory of events does not correspond to the actual events - it is a normal function of our long term memory systems to modify past events simply by how it works. And the memory feels and seems entirely "real", so someone can be absolutely confident despite still being wrong.

The problem we have is we only know that can happen, we don't know if in this case it did happen. There are a number of things he suggests, such as the destruction of the record of the private information, that does point towards the one time existence of that information. Interesting that he describes destroying the "record of the information", rather than destroying the information itself. That suggests it was something he recorded, pointing towards a verbal presentation of the information rather than him receiving letters, or items of potential interest. I might be overlooking some other statements he's made, though, which could modify that interpretation. But if that is correct, we may never be able to find a second written copy of anything.

Obviously, if his memory of events have not changed in a substantial way (there's no doubt they have changed somehow, but whether that change is one we need concern ourselves with is the point here), then obviously there's something worth looking for concerning MJD.

However, I can easily see how a conversation around the time of MJD's death, or discovery in the Thames, that contained "private information" about family concerns of MJD relating to suspicions about him and something bad, but not the JtR crimes per se, could later get modified in his memory as being about MJD being connected, at least through family suspicions, to the JtR case because of the similar time frames of the events. If his records of that information only recorded the information about MJD and not the specifics of what that information made them suspicious of MJD having done, then his records might have even acted to further confirm his view of the mis-remembered link (What I mean is, let's say he had some notes, such as his family noted MJD had become reclusive, was keeping odd hours, had ceased communicating with the family, etc) and maybe only recorded that his family thought he had become mentally unwell. Indeed, his suicide would suggest that was correct, but it doesn't mean they actually suspected him of being JtR.

All of the above is, of course, completely hypothesis presentation, none of it is fact, and without more information coming to light, I have no more reason to believe it than any number of other hypotheses that also are possible to suggest given how few constraints we have. That is why I think MJD, and the MM, are well worth researching further. It's also why I don't put much stock in MJD being JtR, there are just too many hypotheses that could be true that don't require that link, but I also don't put much stock in any claim that he isn't, for pretty much the same reason (although things like his cricket record do tend to point this way). But in the end, MJD in that, we-don't-quite-know-enough-yet category. Strong views in either direction are unsound, and that is where the unbiased researcher is needed - someone who has no vested interest in how it turns out, but rather, one who simply wants to know.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

For crying out loud Baron is this what you’re reduced to.

Jeff has just produced a reasoned, balanced and cautious post which I also called excellent. He has simply proposed a possibility. He has not stated that this is what occurred or even that this is what he believes occurred but you jump up and down waiving flags because you see it as some kind of anti-Druitt victory.

Jeff is right to be cautious. Jeff is right to suggest and discuss possibilities. None of us know for certain.

As ive pointed out to you before ( many times) I’ve never once stated that Druitt was definitely the ripper. Or that Macnaghten was definitely correct. It’s called caution. You, on the other hand appear to be able to give a cursory glance at the available evidence and come up with definite facts. You appear to have the same kind of magical powers that Fish is ascribing to Dr Phillips. What do you base your absolute certainty on and why haven’t you solved the case with this kind of ability?

I just want to point out that the bit I've hightlighted in bold is exactly correct. I'm just proposing hypotheses, and those are a dime a dozen. Evidence, derived from careful and unbiased research, is what is needed to narrow down the number of viable hypotheses. As things currently stand, we have too little to work with. What we do have does, however, include some hypotheses that are potentially very important if they happen to survive the test that research puts to them. Because, of course, the "MJD = JtR" hypotheses are included in the set of possible outcomes. It's just that also included are all the "MJD <> JtR" hypotheses as well.

This is exactly the kind of situation that begs for further research, so to suggest "don't look here" seems to me to be unwise, ignorant, or afraid of what the truth might be.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Actually, he did.

John, I’ve just finished reading your new book. Excellent stuff. One of the best I’ve read for quite a while. Anderson (and Macnaghten imo) is dismissed far too easily and without good reason. There seems to be a compulsion amongst some to discredit. Words can be inconvenient of course.

[packers stem]

MEPO 3/141, ff. 177-83 in the National Archives is not written on blue lined foolscap without embossed Metropolitan Police crests.

Playing the faulty memory card really is the last resort.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon
Failing memory is used to explain numerous otherwise unexplained occurrences.
Within a year of Millers Court one police surgeon and two inspectors have had the most bizarre apparently false memories.

Phillips 'forgot' that no leg was amputated at Millers Court whilst giving evidence at the Pinchin Street case .

Moore 'forgot' that nobody left number 13 via the window when he was giving a guided tour to the reporter from Philadelphia

and poor old Reid 'forgot' that there were no coins left at 29 Hanbury Street at the McKenzie inquest

Stunning sudden memory loss of rather important events .....

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Druitt is not even a suspect.

In order to suspect a person you should have an evidence that points to him, you cannot just say this one is a supect without providing an evidence, we are not in a forest, the law of the jungle doesn't apply!

Druitt is as clean a person as anyone of us.

Why MacNathen named him is another matter completely, and something to be expected from a young non-experienced officer.



The Baron

You guys will know better than me, I read a dissertation a few years back that had thrown up some personal letters that came to light that explained how possibly Druitt became a suspect through his sister?

[Herlock Sholmes]

You guys will know better than me, I read a dissertation a few years back that had thrown up some personal letters that came to light that explained how possibly Druitt became a suspect through his sister?

Possibly the Crawford Letter Al?

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/letters-and-communications/651-crawford-letter

[packers stem]

Most interesting thing about this Crawford letter and the family are the connections with the Gull family .
Crawford's son rented 74 Brook Street from the Gull family.....

[Michael W Richards]

I wonder how many people have re-read the document lately, (I just did), ....like, oh... I don't know, Fisherman?..On the Pinchin Torso...…"The stomach was split up by a cut, and the head and legs had been severed in a manner identical with that of the woman whose remains were discovered in the Thames, in Battersea Park, and on the Chelsea Embankment on the 4th June of the same year; and these murders had no connection whatever with the Whitechapel horrors. The Rainham mystery in 1887 and the Whitehall mystery (when portions of a woman's body were found under what is now New Scotland Yard) in 1888 were of a similar type to the Thames and Pinchin Street crimes."

Just FYI Fish.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

It was the Crawford letter, the possible connection through Bernard Quartich. Thought it was interesting since no one really knows what the private information was that was fed to McNaghten about Druitt.