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To Simon
You make an excellent point, for sure.
I would counter with the following:
1. Macnaghten regarded himself as Etonian/ruling-elite and, I think, only regarded himself as 'subordinate', apprentice-wise to Monro. He was essentially parachuted into the Met to be a discre,et player, a mover-and-shaker between the competing forces, in and ousride the police force.
2. The very fact that the Report went nowhere might suggest that he knew he was over-stepping the chain of command.
3. He believed -- rightly or wrongly -- to have solved the Ripper mystery; to have 'laid' his 'ghost' to rest in 1891. He knew the fiend was Druitt, and thus everything he did, and did not do, flowed from that knowledge/belief.
I think that an argument can be mounted that Macnaghten had an over-rated memory.
That in 1891, he knew that Druitt was a surgeon's son, whose mother was in a madhouse, and that he killed himself three weeks after the Kelly murder, and that his brother was frantically searching for him in the city and in Blackheath. His body as fished out of the thames on Dec 31st 1888.
Before his memory began to fade and fail, Macnaghten had made the best assessment he could.
But within three years these details had begun to slide away, merging with half-rememgered bits and pieces of Dr Tumblety.
By 1898, Druitt is a middle-aged doctor himself, he had been in a madhouse, and he had killed himself within hours of Kelly, and his family were searching for him after he disappeared and before he turned up in the Thames on Dec 31st 1888.
Of those details we can see that in the twin Mac' Reports [where 'said to be a doctor' is sliding away to become 'doctor', as the further you get away from events the more certain people become] that the last two details are correct, and in Skms the detail abpout the frantic family is correct.
Yet by his memoirs I think that a perplexed Sims had told him about Jack Littlechild's bombshell letter the year before and this had caused Macnaghten's memory to be jogged, even shaken up.
That's right!? He thought to himself. The doctor in 1888 was some Irish-American swine. We, or me, knew nothing about Druitt -- was he even a doctor? Something to do with a doctor. Was that his father? I'll leave that detail out --until 'some years after'.
Hence the austerity of his own memoir chapter. He was not sure what was correct anymore.
But he was well briefed in 1891, for a suspect who would never go into a file because there was nobody to arrest.
You make an excellent point, for sure.
I would counter with the following:
1. Macnaghten regarded himself as Etonian/ruling-elite and, I think, only regarded himself as 'subordinate', apprentice-wise to Monro. He was essentially parachuted into the Met to be a discre,et player, a mover-and-shaker between the competing forces, in and ousride the police force.
2. The very fact that the Report went nowhere might suggest that he knew he was over-stepping the chain of command.
3. He believed -- rightly or wrongly -- to have solved the Ripper mystery; to have 'laid' his 'ghost' to rest in 1891. He knew the fiend was Druitt, and thus everything he did, and did not do, flowed from that knowledge/belief.
I think that an argument can be mounted that Macnaghten had an over-rated memory.
That in 1891, he knew that Druitt was a surgeon's son, whose mother was in a madhouse, and that he killed himself three weeks after the Kelly murder, and that his brother was frantically searching for him in the city and in Blackheath. His body as fished out of the thames on Dec 31st 1888.
Before his memory began to fade and fail, Macnaghten had made the best assessment he could.
But within three years these details had begun to slide away, merging with half-rememgered bits and pieces of Dr Tumblety.
By 1898, Druitt is a middle-aged doctor himself, he had been in a madhouse, and he had killed himself within hours of Kelly, and his family were searching for him after he disappeared and before he turned up in the Thames on Dec 31st 1888.
Of those details we can see that in the twin Mac' Reports [where 'said to be a doctor' is sliding away to become 'doctor', as the further you get away from events the more certain people become] that the last two details are correct, and in Skms the detail abpout the frantic family is correct.
Yet by his memoirs I think that a perplexed Sims had told him about Jack Littlechild's bombshell letter the year before and this had caused Macnaghten's memory to be jogged, even shaken up.
That's right!? He thought to himself. The doctor in 1888 was some Irish-American swine. We, or me, knew nothing about Druitt -- was he even a doctor? Something to do with a doctor. Was that his father? I'll leave that detail out --until 'some years after'.
Hence the austerity of his own memoir chapter. He was not sure what was correct anymore.
But he was well briefed in 1891, for a suspect who would never go into a file because there was nobody to arrest.
And it's supposed to be a holiday weekend...
, I just assumed that you were talking about some new information about another sink incident or who knows what. 
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