Seaside Home?

[PaulB]

To PaulB

In fairness to me, I did not impose the 'case disguised' theory. It grew naturally out of the sources as I studied them.

I am not saying that the theory is convincing, or even very good.

I am saying that I did not have a theory and then went about trying to make it fit. I started with Tumblety as the likely fiend, and Macnaghten and his machinations as a minor sideshow.

What began to turn me towards my theory, rightly or wrongly, was that the memoirs of Mac were quite different from what I had expected and quite different from what secondary sources had claimed about them, your own -- ironically -- being the major exception.

Your own scepticism about Abberline's 1903 comments in '-The Facts' made me go further, and theorise that he knows nothing about Druitt.

Had there been a Report he would have known that this was a young barrister. If he was relying on Griffiths and Sims, he would have seen them describing a mddle-aged medico.

Yet Abberline shifts the profile a few inches towards a young doctor/medical student which suggests that Sanders is praying upon his memory.

When Druitt was fished from the river he was not a Ripper suspect at all, and there was no reason for him to be one based on what Abberline calls the co-incidental timing of his suicide because, at the time, nobody in the police had any inkling that the 'Jack' murders were over, let alone that he was supposedly deceased.

so, the very reason he gives for the 'medical student' to be suspected, is not a reason in 1888 that he would have been suspected.

That suicide in the river only came into the frame as a Ripper suspect years later.

Abberline is quite ignorant that it was not the timing of his demise, but that his family 'believed' he was the murderer, and this secret leaked in Dorset in 1891.

Abberline in a sense has to quash the drowned man and the locked-up lunatic or else his great scoop about Chapman is a limp noodle.

I mean, Paul, he does not know that when he says 'we' he is on his own, as the ex-Assistant Commissioner, Anderson, does believe in the locked-up lunatic and the current Assistant Comm., Mac, whom he touchingly wants to brief about Chapman, does believe in the drowned suspect.

That is why I weight this source as less reliable than Macnaghten, and I came to that conclusion long before I had grasped anything else.

Then the MP in 2008 was identified and it was all over ...

The connecting relevations for me were in realising the following:

1. 'said to be a doctor' also means might not be a doctor, which is correct.

2. the Sims' profile firewalls the Druitt family. I believe this has to be by design and not a happy accident.

3. That Mac's memoirs contain neither 'drowned' nor doctor' and furthermore, pointedly debunk key elements of the tale he had written up in the 'memo' and had enlarged for Sims.

4. Mac knew that William Druitt was trying to find his missing brother, and to know that you have to know the basics of Druitt's age, vocation(s) and date of suicide.

Abberline does exactly what I would expect him to do; he flails around trying to debunk the drowned doctor and every single thing he says is wrong.

It's not his fault -- Mac never told him, never told anybody at the Yard I think.

Paul you asked why Mac would commit Druitt's name in a file if he is trying to hide him for the sake of his family? I gave an answer.

That bad, huh ...?

"I know all about that story. But what does it amount to? Simply this. Soon after the last murder in Whitechapel the body of a young doctor was found in the Thames, but there is absolutely nothing beyond the fact that he was found at that time to incriminate him. A report was made to the Home Office about the matter, but that it was 'considered final and conclusive' is going altogether beyond the truth."


Jonathan,
You misunderstand me. I am specifically talking about the medical students. There is absolutely nothing in the information we have about them which suggests that Abberline had them in mind when he wrote of knowing all about the drowned doctor. That Abberline had them in mind is therefore not suggested by the source, but from a problem with Abberline talking about Druitt (namely the fact that he appears to be referring to 1888, at which time we know Druitt wasn't suspected). However, Abberline is clearly talking about someone pulled from the Thames after the murder of Kelly and it is nowhere suggested that any of them were found drowned or committed suicide. Abberline could, in fact, have been referring to a routine investigation of a suicide, the police perhaps anticipating that the murderer would kill himself, or possibly talking of a retrospective investigation made at a date significantly later than the suicide (such as when the private information was received).

[Jeff Leahy]

I don’t know if I’m just being cynical but my guess is that having been refused access to the Marginalia, Trevor has paid a graphologist to claim it’s fake and will try and run a news paper campaign to make enough stink to try and force Nevill into having it retested.

The irony of course is that Trevor clearly doesn’t understand that there isn’t a hand writing expert in the world who can give a 100% conclusive result. The Home Office expert can only give a probability based on his experience. There is no scientific test of certainty (Like there is for DNA) that can be done on hand writing, as far as I know anyway..

That said I looked into a story a few years back about a Canadian company trying to create a computer program that would make handwriting comparisons. I don’t know if they ever succeeded, I can find nothing on line, but if there were a computer program available I might be interested in those results (i'm interested in the truth), and obviously I possess the best images ever taken of the document, good enough to put them out as Bill Board poster anyway.

But I certainly would not dream of doing anything unless I’d run it past Nevill and had his absolute help, approval and permission. The copyright belongs to the Swanson family and is in care of the Metropolitan police. The book has much deteriated over the years and any testing would need to offer something very new and something we don't already know.

Yours Jeff

[auspirograph]

Indeed. A tad worrying for those of us who care. But isn't access still denied?

Yes, access is still denied but has progressed since the efforts of commercial authors Butterworth and Marriott to gain exclusive rights to their publication. The index ledgers had become redacted during this period and may not be of much use by now anyway. The Metropolitan Police are quite understandably fed up with the issue as the few entries on the Whitechapel murders are bundled up with other sensitive and legitimate confidential police data.

However, the question remains how did Marriott gain access to the unencumbered sections posted here on O'Brien and Randolph Churchill? And did he have permission to display them publicly? He has not said so and will perhaps gloat on this but it is of some concern.

He has claimed that Special Branch material will blow Kosminiski and all other suspects out of the water, but I am not aware that any such material exists or, that any further Victorian secret service material can support it. The files have been subjected to the same ravages of time and procedure as have the Whitechapel murder files. Yet a few posts back he back-peddles with claiming that the Macnaghten Memo is the document that exonerates.

The pattern, and there are other instances, is appearing as a campaign of misinformation motivated purely by commercial publishing interests. Not a situation that has not been seen before but certainly of concern in the handling of historical police documentary evidence on Jack the Ripper.

[Jonathan H]

To PaulB

In fairness to me, I did not impose the 'case disguised' theory. It grew naturally out of the sources as I studied them.

I am not saying that the theory is convincing, or even very good.

I am saying that I did not have a theory and then went about trying to make it fit. I started with Tumblety as the likely fiend, and Macnaghten and his machinations as a minor sideshow.

What began to turn me towards my theory, rightly or wrongly, was that the memoirs of Mac were quite different from what I had expected and quite different from what secondary sources had claimed about them, your own -- ironically -- being the major exception.

Your own scepticism about Abberline's 1903 comments in '-The Facts' made me go further, and theorise that he knows nothing about Druitt.

Had there been a Report he would have known that this was a young barrister. If he was relying on Griffiths and Sims, he would have seen them describing a mddle-aged medico.

Yet Abberline shifts the profile a few inches towards a young doctor/medical student which suggests that Sanders is praying upon his memory.

When Druitt was fished from the river he was not a Ripper suspect at all, and there was no reason for him to be one based on what Abberline calls the co-incidental timing of his suicide because, at the time, nobody in the police had any inkling that the 'Jack' murders were over, let alone that he was supposedly deceased.

so, the very reason he gives for the 'medical student' to be suspected, is not a reason in 1888 that he would have been suspected.

That suicide in the river only came into the frame as a Ripper suspect years later.

Abberline is quite ignorant that it was not the timing of his demise, but that his family 'believed' he was the murderer, and this secret leaked in Dorset in 1891.

Abberline in a sense has to quash the drowned man and the locked-up lunatic or else his great scoop about Chapman is a limp noodle.

I mean, Paul, he does not know that when he says 'we' he is on his own, as the ex-Assistant Commissioner, Anderson, does believe in the locked-up lunatic and the current Assistant Comm., Mac, whom he touchingly wants to brief about Chapman, does believe in the drowned suspect.

That is why I weight this source as less reliable than Macnaghten, and I came to that conclusion long before I had grasped anything else.

Then the MP in 2008 was identified and it was all over ...

The connecting relevations for me were in realising the following:

1. 'said to be a doctor' also means might not be a doctor, which is correct.

2. the Sims' profile firewalls the Druitt family. I believe this has to be by design and not a happy accident.

3. That Mac's memoirs contain neither 'drowned' nor doctor' and furthermore, pointedly debunk key elements of the tale he had written up in the 'memo' and had enlarged for Sims.

4. Mac knew that William Druitt was trying to find his missing brother, and to know that you have to know the basics of Druitt's age, vocation(s) and date of suicide.

Abberline does exactly what I would expect him to do; he flails around trying to debunk the drowned doctor and every single thing he says is wrong.

It's not his fault -- Mac never told him, never told anybody at the Yard I think.

Paul you asked why Mac would commit Druitt's name in a file if he is trying to hide him for the sake of his family? I gave an answer.

That bad, huh ...?

[PaulB]

Certainly Paul,

That's how I understand Stewart's, and Don's position also. Not sure why Trev is misrepresenting it, perhaps from desperation. And it's not the first time either he spreads such misinformation that may simply be down to not understanding the evidence in the first place.

Doesn't bode well for his handling of the Special Branch material unfortunately, if as a former police officer, he cannot grasp the implications of known statements of Anderson, Macnaghten and Swanson.

Indeed. A tad worrying for those of us who care. But isn't access still denied?

[auspirograph]

A big statement that requires a decent explanation.

Was Anderson trying to start UK pogroms?

And, by the way, the word is 'posterity'.

Posterity if fine by me if that is what you prefer.

I agree, it is a big statement to make and it was not made lightly. It also deserves a more decent explanation than can be given here in a message post. That is why I have written a book on it where it is fully explained and supported with credible sources. I urge you to read my book Stephen if you truly are interested.

Regarding UK pogroms, well they were a credible threat during the Whitechapel murders. Don Rumbelow tells us that:

At the time of the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888 there had been the serious risk of riots in London's East End as it was popularly believed that only a Jew could have committed such murders. Anti-Jewish feeling became anti-alienism and vice-versa. A foreign news editor said of the East End at the time that just by watching the eyes of passing Englishmen as they saw the Jewish girls in their Sunday finery, with golden rings on their fingers, sitting outside in the street, already you could "discern the look - which is already half indicative of the pogrom." He went on to say, "A pogrom in Brick Lane, in the crossroads of Commercial Road can be a more bloody and terrible affair than one in the Baltic."

[Monty]

Er, do you and I keep saying that we take the word of two officers from 1888? I'm not aware of doing so. Are you? And which two officers from the 21st century are we talking about here - Trevor and Stewart? Well, Stewart I'll listen to damned carefully any day of the week, but I am not aware that he's said anything comparable to Trevor about the marginalia. He noted the very slightly differences in handwriting and the use of different pencils and the Yard's handwriting analyst attributed this to entries being written at different times, possibly separated by several years, but apart from the usual backside-saving caveats, the handwriting was determined to be Swanson's and Stewart, as far as I know, has absolutely no disagreement with that. As for Trevor, well, as you say, his track record is pretty dismal and he has afforded us no information about his handwriting experts. We don't know whether they were forensic document examiners or time-wasting graphologists, we don't know their experience, we do know that they didn't examine the actual document, and, of course, we have no idea what their findings were. Which two are you going to side with? Well, now, that's a tough one - I'm going to stick with Stewart and the two guys from 1888.

Well yes Paul,

For Trevor to state he and Stewart are bedfellows is slightly twisting Stewarts position on the marginalia. Whilst Stewart has drawn attention to discprencies, he has never stated it is a false document, whereas Trevor has.

My point is that Trevor is NOT party to the full facts and is in NO position to state the document is indeed forged. He is viewing the case from a 120 odd year vantage point, has not taken into account the contemporary situation of 1880s/1890s and has most certainly not seen all the information Anderson and Swanson was party too.

Stewart has taken the path of common sense, questioned as any good investigator should, drawn possible scenario/s yet had not drawn conclusion. He is too wise for that.

However Trevor (with, if his press release is correct, far less experience in the case than Stewart) has drawn his and claimed its all tosh, this with a slight touch of arrogance befitting of a legend in his own lifetime.

And he places himself alongside SPE.

His method lacks, he has only part assessed (which is not entirely Trevors fault, the evidence is incomplete), and therefore his conclusions are flawed.

Yet he bellows and bleats about others incompetence and inflexability.

The irony is not lost on me.

Monty

[auspirograph]

Just to clarify, as I understand it, Stewart's opinion is not quite so simple. Whilst he understandably does not accept that the identification took place as described by Anderson and Swanson, he nevertheless accepts that something nevertheless happened which gave rise to the story they tell, and a possible solution is the suggested confusion with Sadler and the Sailor's Home. This is an utterly fair and sensible suggestion given that the marginalia tells a story which runs against expected procedure and that Anderson's conclusion goes against the general received opinion that the Ripper wasn't caught. Stewart and Don have therefore advanced a theory which fits within the known facts and allows that the sources are authentic and genuine, albeit confused.

Certainly Paul,

That's how I understand Stewart's, and Don's position also. Not sure why Trev is misrepresenting it, perhaps from desperation. And it's not the first time either he spreads such misinformation that may simply be down to not understanding the evidence in the first place.

Doesn't bode well for his handling of the Special Branch material unfortunately, if as a former police officer, he cannot grasp the implications of known statements of Anderson, Macnaghten and Swanson.

[PaulB]

The difference being is that you were not part of the original investigation nor its immediate aftermath Trevor.

You propose based on what remains, not experienced or party to.

Therefore you cannot possibly state your conclusion is final.

This coupled with you woeful theories drawn regarding organ removal and Eddowes apron leaves ones trust in your abilities lacking.

Monty


PS I'm so glad I touted to for the York gig Trevor, no, I won't ask for a percentage, its fine.

Er, do you and I keep saying that we take the word of two officers from 1888? I'm not aware of doing so. Are you? And which two officers from the 21st century are we talking about here - Trevor and Stewart? Well, Stewart I'll listen to damned carefully any day of the week, but I am not aware that he's said anything comparable to Trevor about the marginalia. He noted the very slightly differences in handwriting and the use of different pencils and the Yard's handwriting analyst attributed this to entries being written at different times, possibly separated by several years, but apart from the usual backside-saving caveats, the handwriting was determined to be Swanson's and Stewart, as far as I know, has absolutely no disagreement with that. As for Trevor, well, as you say, his track record is pretty dismal and he has afforded us no information about his handwriting experts. We don't know whether they were forensic document examiners or time-wasting graphologists, we don't know their experience, we do know that they didn't examine the actual document, and, of course, we have no idea what their findings were. Which two are you going to side with? Well, now, that's a tough one - I'm going to stick with Stewart and the two guys from 1888.

[PaulB]

Consider it not gotten rid of, but a judgement about its reliability made and it is found wanting. He does not know what he is talkin gabout reagrding 'Kosminski' either.

I think his memory is contaminated by the medical student suspect of 1888, John Sanders, about whom there was indeed a Home Office Report.

But, that aside, what has really misled Abberline is the notion that the 'medical student's' death explained the cessation of the 'Jack' murders, when the police thought they continued up until Coles in 1891.

The notion of an 'autumn of terror' is Druitt-centric, it's a Macnaghten notion which all other police fell under the spell of, except Reid.

I think that what happened in early 1891, with the backdrop of the Sadler debacle, is that Macnaghten met with Farquharson and was, to his surprise, impressed.

Mac moved onto the Druitts, or a Druitt, and was even more convinced because Montie had confessed all to a priest, and as the family scrambled to have him sectioned he took his own life -- trying to make it look as is he had skipped abroad.

Mac also discovered that by the time the confession-in-word tale had reached the M.P. it had been telescoped into a confession-in-deed: the suicide on the same evening as the final and most ghastly murder.

Macnaghten decided, later, to deploy that error: the so-called evidence of the 'awful glut'. in his much later memoirs he tiptoed away from it.

Back in 1891 Macnaghten also knew something else -- and it was excruciating. That Montie had wanted the truth to come out in a decade, and it could not be stopped. The one saving grace is that the coming story was going to be veiled to protect the family.

But the story might leak prematurely, as it had done in Dorset in 1891.

Mac was sort of sitting on a volcano.

Then in 1894, with 'The Sun' threat, Mac scrambles to get Druitt on a file -- as a minor suspect about whom they knew very little for sure -- in case Asquith asks for some info. to repudiate the Cutbush story in the Commons, and 'The Sun's' tale re-ignites the story of the 'son of a surgeon', and there are more questions for the top cops at the Yard to answer to the Liberals?!

Mac cannot have total denial about Druitt since he knows everything there is to know about him, and he's CID's no. 2, but if the whole thing is about to spill out of Dorset anyway he cannot save the family. So he must protect the Yard too.

The crisis passes, nothing happens, the Druitts are safe.

Mac mothballs the 'memo' but it's there, just in case.

The tenth anniversary, creeping ever closer, is going to reveal that the police had never heard of the real killer in 1888.

In 1898, Macnaghten either pulls out the 'draft' or rewrites the entire document to 'sex it up' for Griffiths and his big book, deceiving him into believing that it is a copy of a definitive document of state. The druitts become anomic 'friends' and their deceased, mad member becomes definitely a middle-aged physician.

Where the filed version is pinched and austere as it tries cut the know to suit everybody, the 'Aberconway version is much more of a Mac free-for-all.

Then the North Country Vicar appears the following month in Jan 1899, on schedule, with the true tale but candidly veiled: 'substantial truth under ficititious form'.

The Ripper was an Anglican with an 'unblemished rep', who suffered from 'epileptic mania', who had a 'good position' but also was 'at one time a surgeon', who went to help fallen women and who then became his victims, and who died shortly after Kelly -- the cause of his demise not given.

At that moment, Mac unleashes his second pincer, Sims, who directly and rudely quashes the clergyman as a blithering idiot.

The 'idiocy' of the Vicar's revelation being that the fiend could not possibly have functioned normally, even for a few hours after Miller's Ct., as he was rendered a shrieking husk (a symptom of epileptic mania) by what he had done to poor Mary Kelly.

Ergo he could not have confessed anything to anybody.

Furthermore, Sims pushes the line that the 'police' knew about the 'doctor' in 1888, and in fact were about to arrest him.

It's a jaw-dropping whopper but it is accepted by many, though by no means all.

In 1913, to reassure the Druitts, Mac claimed to have destoyed all documentation revealing Montie's identity, another gentlemanly fib. It also shows us that it was his property, not that of the state, from which it was a secret.

But that is all a theoretical argument, Jonathan, like you are plotting a novel, and whilst your theorising is all well and good in other contexts, in this case you are using your theoretical argument to impinge on the proper assessment of other documentation. Moreover, whilst your theorising can fit the factual information, it isn't emerging from that information, which is what it is supposed to do. So, yes, you can theorise that Abberline confused Druitt with the three insane medical students, but there is no reason to suppose that he actually did so and his reference to a drowned doctor suggests that he was talking about Druitt, especially as there is no evidence that any of the medical students drowned.

To look at this blatantly, Abberline referred to a drowned doctor, but it is inconvenient to your hypothesis that he should have meant Druitt, so you cast around for someone else Abberline could have meant, note the medical students, and theorise a scenario which allows for Abberline to have confused one of them with Druitt. That's not really history, it's plotting, and the simplest explanation is that Abberline talked about a drowned doctor and, in the face of no alternative drowned suspect, doctor or otherwise, he's talking about Druitt.

But whoever he was talking about, he knew the investigation had generated a file, so there were files.

[PaulB]

As I understand it,the origin of a positive identification,lay not with Anderson or Swanson,but with those they sent.That the information supplied by Anderson and Swanson is heresay.There is no way of knowing how the information was exchanged,but even if it was at first given orally,it can be expected that an oral exchange would be followed by witten report.As has been argued,there is nothing to suggest any such information was conveyed,in any form.As for ,it may have been lost or destroyed,well it has to be established that it existed in the first place before being lost,and that would only apply to written material.As for relying on the word of a person I have this to say.If I was told that an incident had occured on a hill at a certain location,and I could not find a hill at that location,I might be justified in thinking that the information was false,not that I had lost my way.

Harry,
No offense, but for the umpteenth time, you cannot base a conclusion on something not being mentioned in the official documentation, which is what you are doing, when most of that documentation is missing and none of it concerns any suspects. When somebody says the corroborative material could have been in the missing files, that isn't an argument for the existence of said material, but is simply pointing out that most of the documentation is missing and that no conclusion can be based on what remains.

And it doesn't have to be established that it existed in the first place before it can be argued that it has been lost because the probability is that it cannot ever be shown that it existed or that it didn't exist. Therefore no argument can exist, whether it be for or against the existence of the material. What we can do - indeed, the only thing we can do - is work with probabilities and we know that an investigation of suspects generated paperwork and probably generated paperwork in the case of Kosminski, Druitt, Ostrog, Tumblety, et al.

[Monty]

But you missed the point I get slated when i stick to the facts and then told my facts are not correct etc when I posted that long post on the ID parade and the marginalia.

It was after that that I found the previous thread where lo and behold Stewart had said virtually the same as me and no one questioned his facts. But of course as far as the marginalia was concerned I took it one step further and had my own experts examine it with blinding results.

So both of us cant be wrong if you are putting Stewart on a pedestal. Look at it another way you and Begg keep saying you take the word of two officers from 1888. Now we have two officers from the 21st Century with a wealth of investigative experience behind them who have become involved and made our views know on all of this having carefull reviewed, assessed and evaluated everything connected to these issues.

Which two are you going to side with ?

The difference being is that you were not part of the original investigation nor its immediate aftermath Trevor.

You propose based on what remains, not experienced or party to.

Therefore you cannot possibly state your conclusion is final.

This coupled with you woeful theories drawn regarding organ removal and Eddowes apron leaves ones trust in your abilities lacking.

Monty


PS I'm so glad I touted to for the York gig Trevor, no, I won't ask for a percentage, its fine.

[Jonathan H]

Consider it not gotten rid of, but a judgement about its reliability made and it is found wanting. He does not know what he is talkin gabout reagrding 'Kosminski' either.

I think his memory is contaminated by the medical student suspect of 1888, John Sanders, about whom there was indeed a Home Office Report.

But, that aside, what has really misled Abberline is the notion that the 'medical student's' death explained the cessation of the 'Jack' murders, when the police thought they continued up until Coles in 1891.

The notion of an 'autumn of terror' is Druitt-centric, it's a Macnaghten notion which all other police fell under the spell of, except Reid.

I think that what happened in early 1891, with the backdrop of the Sadler debacle, is that Macnaghten met with Farquharson and was, to his surprise, impressed.

Mac moved onto the Druitts, or a Druitt, and was even more convinced because Montie had confessed all to a priest, and as the family scrambled to have him sectioned he took his own life -- trying to make it look as is he had skipped abroad.

Mac also discovered that by the time the confession-in-word tale had reached the M.P. it had been telescoped into a confession-in-deed: the suicide on the same evening as the final and most ghastly murder.

Macnaghten decided, later, to deploy that error: the so-called evidence of the 'awful glut'. in his much later memoirs he tiptoed away from it.

Back in 1891 Macnaghten also knew something else -- and it was excruciating. That Montie had wanted the truth to come out in a decade, and it could not be stopped. The one saving grace is that the coming story was going to be veiled to protect the family.

But the story might leak prematurely, as it had done in Dorset in 1891.

Mac was sort of sitting on a volcano.

Then in 1894, with 'The Sun' threat, Mac scrambles to get Druitt on a file -- as a minor suspect about whom they knew very little for sure -- in case Asquith asks for some info. to repudiate the Cutbush story in the Commons, and 'The Sun's' tale re-ignites the story of the 'son of a surgeon', and there are more questions for the top cops at the Yard to answer to the Liberals?!

Mac cannot have total denial about Druitt since he knows everything there is to know about him, and he's CID's no. 2, but if the whole thing is about to spill out of Dorset anyway he cannot save the family. So he must protect the Yard too.

The crisis passes, nothing happens, the Druitts are safe.

Mac mothballs the 'memo' but it's there, just in case.

The tenth anniversary, creeping ever closer, is going to reveal that the police had never heard of the real killer in 1888.

In 1898, Macnaghten either pulls out the 'draft' or rewrites the entire document to 'sex it up' for Griffiths and his big book, deceiving him into believing that it is a copy of a definitive document of state. The druitts become anomic 'friends' and their deceased, mad member becomes definitely a middle-aged physician.

Where the filed version is pinched and austere as it tries cut the know to suit everybody, the 'Aberconway version is much more of a Mac free-for-all.

Then the North Country Vicar appears the following month in Jan 1899, on schedule, with the true tale but candidly veiled: 'substantial truth under ficititious form'.

The Ripper was an Anglican with an 'unblemished rep', who suffered from 'epileptic mania', who had a 'good position' but also was 'at one time a surgeon', who went to help fallen women and who then became his victims, and who died shortly after Kelly -- the cause of his demise not given.

At that moment, Mac unleashes his second pincer, Sims, who directly and rudely quashes the clergyman as a blithering idiot.

The 'idiocy' of the Vicar's revelation being that the fiend could not possibly have functioned normally, even for a few hours after Miller's Ct., as he was rendered a shrieking husk (a symptom of epileptic mania) by what he had done to poor Mary Kelly.

Ergo he could not have confessed anything to anybody.

Furthermore, Sims pushes the line that the 'police' knew about the 'doctor' in 1888, and in fact were about to arrest him.

It's a jaw-dropping whopper but it is accepted by many, though by no means all.

In 1913, to reassure the Druitts, Mac claimed to have destoyed all documentation revealing Montie's identity, another gentlemanly fib. It also shows us that it was his property, not that of the state, from which it was a secret.

[harry]

As I understand it,the origin of a positive identification,lay not with Anderson or Swanson,but with those they sent.That the information supplied by Anderson and Swanson is heresay.There is no way of knowing how the information was exchanged,but even if it was at first given orally,it can be expected that an oral exchange would be followed by witten report.As has been argued,there is nothing to suggest any such information was conveyed,in any form.As for ,it may have been lost or destroyed,well it has to be established that it existed in the first place before being lost,and that would only apply to written material.As for relying on the word of a person I have this to say.If I was told that an incident had occured on a hill at a certain location,and I could not find a hill at that location,I might be justified in thinking that the information was false,not that I had lost my way.

[PaulB]

Phil,

I think the reason that Druitt is not the subject of a genuine Home Office Report -- unlike what Mac hustled to his cronies -- is that he was an entirely posthumous suspect.

There was no suspect to formally investigate as there was nobody to arrest, but there was a 'good' family's name in the balance.

Jonathan,
I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why Macnaghten would have told Griffiths and Sims about Druitt if he didn't want anybody to know about him. If protecting the good name of Druitt's family that much to him, why bother to mention him in the memorandum - it wasn't necessary for him to name any suspect, let alone push Druitt to the fore.

As for there being no file on Druitt, Abberline said there was one and he also said that the drowned doctor/medical student was investigated and that there was nothing but the time of his suicide to connect him with the crimes. Abberline therefore agrees to the existence of a file and to an investigation.

And if there wasn't any investigation then don't we have to accept that Macnaghten received his private information about Druitt, swallowed it whole, and did nothing. That doesn't do as much for his credibility as supposing that he received his private information, investigated it, and accepted Druitt's guilt after careful consideration. Not a formal investigation, but surely some sort of effort to verify his information.

But, as said, there is that statement by Abberline and we can theorise around it, as we can theorise around most things, but that doesn't actually get rid of it.