There's Something Wrong with the Swanson Marginalia

[Phil Carter]

Hello GM,

My sincerest thanks for your correction. The memorandae thing was an oversight. I meant to write it without the "e", not in any plural form.
The Latin for " 'tis human to err", I was taught as written. However, having not studied nor conversed in Latin for many a year (since some incredibly boring school lessons), you could well be correct. I shall keep it in it's present form in any case, to emphasise human frailty in the art of being correct. I am thereby, an example of such human frailty.
A play on words for the aquainted, if you wish. :-)

Hope you are well.

best wishes

Phil

[Jonathan H]

On the message boards Stewart has said that a researcher spent many years piecing the whole thing back together, you know, a full copy.

I think I have that correct, though I can't recall if a name was mentioned.

So SPE has it, or has access to it, but cannot just just put the whole thing up for copyright reasons.

He did, however, put up the bit referring to the Coles murder, Sure enough, this bit is different in Aberconway. Macnaghten has added [or subtracted] depending on your point of view, that he thinks Sadler definitely murdered Coles.

So, that in the version seen by Griffiths and Sims the police look less like chumps -- the sailor did that murder, but the courts let us down -- and Sadler was certainly not 'Jack', and we never thought he was [a lie!] because he was not a hopeless suicide nor in a madhouse, after the Kelly atrocity.

Stewart also confirmed that Aberconway claims that Cutbush and Cutbush are related -- though primary sources seem pretty clear that they were not?

[The Grave Maurice]

Phil,

Your version of "to err is human" is perfectly correct. The nice thing about Latin is that there is no syntax. Any order of words will do. As for "memorandae", I was simply pointing out, if you'll excuse the expression, that you seem to have slipped into the genitive.

I am well, thank you. Hope you are the same.

TGM

[Phil Carter]

Hello GM,

Yes thank you. Very well. My genitves slipped at an early age, I believe..lol

Sorry all, back to the thread!

best wishes

Phil

[Natalie Severn]

I wish I could see it, especially as I alone understand Macnaghten, the Honourable Schoolboy, and can milk the most out of

Dont flatter yourself Jonathan.You only think you do!

He probably wrapped up the entire mystery in an afternoon at the Garrick Club with Henry Farquharson and William Druitt -- without breaking a swea

Had Farquharson known so would we.Had Macnaghten known so would we.None of them knew and the more honest among them admitted it.
The others only claimed they knew to save face.
And yes, I have read Macnaghten"s autobiography and
Andersons and Smiths.
As Smith said---"he had them all beat"!

[mariab]

Tecs wrote:
What in particular does this edition say about Anderson?
John Malcolm attempts to rehabilitate Anderson.

[Jonathan H]

Norma,

Henry Smith knew nothing about Druitt, and how on earth would he?

Macnaghten and Farquahrson did know and so do we.

I was being flippant about being the Mac expert, to meet your ludcirous presumably joking comment that I should read the official version of Mac's Report.

It was a joke, right ...?

[Natalie Severn]

Norma,

Henry Smith knew nothing about Druitt, and how on earth would he?

Macnaghten and Farquahrson did know and so do we.

I was being flippant about being the Mac expert, to meet your ludcirous presumably joking comment that I should read the official version of Mac's Report.

It was a joke, right ...?

No Jonathan.
Your interpretation of that report of 1894 seemed so way out and wacky that I wondered if you had read Macnaghten"s [official] February 1894 analysis of the Sun"s claims of the previous week in its entirety .Your conclusion about his words seemed a bit unreal to me,thats all.
As for Henry Smith, as Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police at the time,present in Mitre square in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Catherine Eddowes,the Ripper murders of 1888 would have figured large on his agenda---as he states in his autobiography.
Macnaghten wasnt even in the police force at the time---not for another 6 months.He was a close friend of James Monro, had known him closely in India and Monro had been instrumental in bringing him to Scotland Yard.
The 1894 Memo seems to me to be Macnaghten considering the Sun"s claims,quite seriously and methodically and deciding that Thomas Cutbush was an improbable candidate for Jack the Ripper due to his very different MO.
He puts Druitt and Kosminski and Ostrog into the frame largely to underline the better claim each of these had,in his view, to the mantle of Jack the Ripper.
I dont deny Farquharson may have been busy spreading horror stories in his club about a barrister rumoured to be gay , named Druitt, ---he had after all ,had to fight a libel case in the past brought against him for spreading similar stories about a young rival he alleged was gay who was fighting alongside him for his seat as an MP---so he seemed to have a fierce antagonism about gay men or men he considered to be gay.
I think myself that Druitt was clearly seriously depressed,his delusional mother had been recently institutionalised and believed she was being electrocuted ,his great friend Valentine had had to fire him from school teaching and he had had to abandon his beloved cricket club. His worried family,like many others suspicious about a family odd ball ,had him down as the ripper--maybe---and possibly he had even told his brother he thought he was the ripper but as Macnaghten said---"there was no shadow of proof" to this effect.
It was very probably all rumour and conjecture,repeated about a lot of mentally ill people at the time,
Anyway,I will leave it at that Jonathan , and leave you to have further "Happy Speculations" on the credibility of Druitt!
Best
Norma

[Jonathan H]

You just repeat stale cliches.

Here are a few:

Druitt did not come to police attention until early 1891, so Mac not being on the Force for the first six months of the Ripper 'mystery' is irrelevant.

The reason that Mac knew that Cutbush was not the fiend was because he believed that Druitt was, but it was delicate to put that to the Liberal Home Office since the fiend came from a Tory family.

Mac's 'no shadow of proof' line is blown apart by his own memoirs, his own 1913 comments and the other version of his own Report.

It is obviously rubbish in the official version, anyhow, of his Report because the family's 'belief' is proof's shadow!
,
The reason Druitt was not arrested was not because of a lack of proof but because he was dead -- over two years dead.

You just will not absorb this concept will you Norma.

I once asked you several times if Anderson could be mistaken about Kosminski but sincere?

You never answered.

Oh and Druitt was not gay, at least not according to his family and to Mac who claim he was 'sexually insane': that he erotically enjoyed hurting women, killing and mutilating harlots bringing him to some sort of orgasm.

And how did they come to that conclusion?

Because he was Jack the Ripper -- to them.

The unofficial version of Mac's Report -- whether a draft or a rewrite -- is completely different and matches the memoirs, the MP story and what Mac fed Sims: that Druitt, rightly or wrongly, was the Ripper.

The conventional wisdom says that Macnaghten was different from Anderson in that he was not deceitful, and not as certain.

Both assertions are theories, not facts, and terribly weak interpretations of the contradictory data.

[Tecs]

Thanks Maria.

For general,

just a small point but isn't it interesting that Henry Smith the only senior officer who wrote on the case to admit that Jack beat the lot of them is viewed as a buffoon wheras the others who had all sorts of wild and exaggerated theories aren't?

On that subject, Smith used to be seen as the one who knew most about the case, probably because he said so himself! As I said previously, at that time Anderson was viewed as the fool and Smith as the competent one. Their roles have prety much reversed now and again, as I said previously, that is in no small part because of the efforts of Martin Fido who has very effectively championed Anderson and rubbished Smith.

Maybe I should start a new thread on this but I'll put it here for now, then go and check if a similar thread has already been done! - Smith is said to be unreliable and a boaster. I've read his memoirs on the Ripper and unless I've mised something, there isn't anything, at least anything major, that he says which is absolutely, positively untrue, is there? (If I had an icon of me with a tin hat on awaiting the forthcoming flak, I would put it here!) I haven't read them for a couple of years but I recall that apart from the odd possible bit of poetic licence maybe, there were no outright lies?

I'll give you one thing that I was going to save for my book!!!

Forgive me if this has been gone over before, but one thing where Smith is called a "liar" or at least a boaster is his description of the night of the double murder. Many writers have laughed at his suggestion that he was so closely on the tail of the killer that he arrived at the sink where he had washed his hands just in time to see the blood stained water gurgling down the plughole. The obvious assertion that he was exaggerating to make his book more interesting and exciting. But he never said anything of the sort. He said that he arived at the sink "in time to see the bloodstained water for myself." Now I have always taken this as meaning that he was talking about either a sink of blood stained water which hadn't yet been let out because Jack, in a hurry, had legged it the moment his hands were clean and he didn't wait around to tidy up after himself. Or more likely, as anyone who has cut themselves quite badly will know, when you let the plug out after rinsing the blood away it leaves droplets of bloodstained water around the sides of the sink. Unless Jack stayed and wiped around the sides of the sink, they would be left until the next person came along to use it, which could be hours. Or third option, a hurried Jack in a rush would simply turn the tap on, put his hands under the water and scrub away probably with water going all over the place. This would leave bloodstained water all over the sink. So when Smith arrived later at some point, he would be "in time to see the bloodstained water for myself."

He didn't say I was seconds behind the Ripper or mention the word "gurgling" ever.

Maybe Smith needs rehabilitating?

Regards,
Regards,

[Chris]

Maybe Smith needs rehabilitating?

Surely the main problem with the sink story is the lack of any reference to it in any other source?

[Natalie Severn]

Jonathan,

Lets keep the real flag flying,

Cheers,
Norma

[sdreid]

I have always suspected that the sink story was apocryphal but perhaps I've been influenced by the negative way it was reported the first time I heard about it. Has this sink ever been located in any way? (Please forgive if this has already been covered) Has a search been instituted for sinks in the area?

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Tecs,

just a small point but isn't it interesting that Henry Smith the only senior officer who wrote on the case to admit that Jack beat the lot of them is viewed as a buffoon wheras the others who had all sorts of wild and exaggerated theories aren't?

This is true.Henry Smith , parallel in rank and a lot more urbane than the Ulster firebrand Robert Anderson, had no truck with Anderson"s theory about Kosminski and viewed his comments about the Immigrant Polish Jewish community "shielding the murderer " because "they wouldnt cooperate with Gentile justice",as deeply offensive and ridiculous and he said so.That he took such a position against Anderson is what has rankled.

as I said previously, that is in no small part because of the efforts of Martin Fido who has very effectively championed Anderson and rubbished Smith.

Absolutely.

He said that he arived at the sink "in time to see the bloodstained water for myself."

Well Tecs,--- as Chris says above,no other source refers to this so he quite likely made that bit up.Its not that important,its certainly no worse than Macnaghten quoting his "non referenced" "ditty" at the beginning of his autobiography about an alleged letter from the ripper not being a "Yid" or about Anderson stating the police knew who the ripper was as a "definitely ascertained fact" etc They all exaggerated or over egged the pudding like Smith and his sink story.
so good to see your post though!
Cheers
Norma

[mariab]

Tecs,
might I inquire, is the book you're planning intended to concentrate on Henry Smith? (Only if you wish to answer.)