How Cutbush outwitted his pursuers in 1891

[Sara]

Thanks Norma - yes I've always felt lucky not to have been attacked by the Wimbledon Common murderer - I did carry on walking there but might not have done if I hadn't felt CS was the likely culprit, having 'confessed' to the crime!! My dog would have died protecting me, but still... I found a pair of very sharp rusty long-bladed scissors on the common on a straight line between the murder site and Roehampton, while mushrooming about a year later, and handed them in to one of the mounted police who patrol there.

As for Cutbush, I think he's a very lively suspect in our quest, esp if there was more than one killer - I always wonder how much the mega-publicity prompted another killer to act out his fantasies.

I certainly think he should be on our 'main suspect page' now!

[Sara]

That's odd - I just replied and my post came up as number 16 on page 2 instead of in sequence!

Edit: And again... these posts should have been c22 & 23 on page 3

[Natalie Severn]

No, but he was the target (righly or wrongly) of a viscious national news campaign that, coupled with the police statement at the trail collapse (We are not looking at anyone else for the murder) led the majority of the British public to whisper "it musta been him".

Monty

Monty,
Given the immense coverage other much less likely suspects have been given on here,I think its about time Thomas Cutbush is allowed to be given some serious consideration.
The Colin Stagg case was shocking and thank goodness the DNA turned up to help to steer the case in a more probable direction.
However,CS was apparently the victim of an entrapment "set up" where both press and public became throughly confused and misled -not exactly helped by poor old Colin having been a dead ringer for the new suspect---on a photo its difficult to tell one from the other.
In the case of Thomas Cutbush, though,he had been up before the beak in 1891 for stabbing several women in the street ---moreover he was doing this creeping up behind them with a vicious looking bowie knife, causing,fear,trauma, blood loss and injury to his victims.By this time he was clearly losing his grip a lot more than when his work record had first begun to suffer in 1888,first by lateness and unreliability and by July 1888 by committing the violent assault on a work colleague .When he had been in better health,both physical and mental,and prior to 1888, he is said to have gone with prostitutes and as a result had contracted a sexually transmitted disease which may have caused him to consider he needed to "clean up the streets" . His family had also tried to hide the fact that he tried to cut the throat of one of his relatives around that time .So Thomas Cutbush did have a record of violence before he was sent to Broadmoor in 1891 ,and he continued to behave with unpredictable bouts of violence and was recorded there as being a danger to others.
None of this makes him Jack the Ripper,I admit, but when all the known material on him is put together,I for one can understand why Inspector Race wanted Cutbush to be throughly investigated for the Ripper crimes. It appears that Race only went to The Sun newspaper to try to get such an investigation underway but all that seems to have happened is that Macnaghten still categorically dismissed him as a Ripper candidate because Macnaghten had his own, very different view ,of what type of man the killer was as when he said,----"He was no Simon Pure---"etc etc.He was probably mindful too of his ex-colleague at the" Chief Commissioners Office",Scotland Yard,viz- Supt Charles Cutbush,- having already been put through the mill and in the spotlight by the court statement about his "nephew " being suspected of being Jack the Ripper back in 1891!


Ben,
Mitre Square isnt in the East End either......but like The Minories,it takes exactly half a minute to cross the boundary into the East End!

[Robert]

There's also his "Mile End job" remark

[Cap'n Jack]

The 'syndicate' one, Robert?
Where he was taken for a Jew in Aaron's pub?

[Robert]

AP, yes, the syndicate one where he just missed her that time.

[Natalie Severn]

re The Mile End Job Does he give us a clue to the Goulston Street graffiti?

There's also his "Mile End job" remark

Yes Robert,
Thomas Cutbush,when arrested for stabbing women in the street, allegedly asked his arresting officers,
"Is this for the Mile End Job? I mean the public house next to the Sydicate [Synagogue?] where I just missed her that time.THEY TOOK ME TO BE OF JEWISH PERSUASION."
The reporter wrote: "Inquiries were made for any trace of the Mile End job in the public house next to the Syndicate" to which Thomas referred on his arrest[1891].It was discovered that next to the Jewish Synagogue in the East End there is a public house and that during the Jack the Ripper period of 1888 a disturbance was caused one night at the bar by a "fallen woman" screaming that Jack the Ripper was talking to her.She had been talking to and drinking with a young man of slight build and sallow features,and she pointed to him when she made the startling statement that he was Jack the Ripper.The man immediately took to his heels,departing with an alacrity that prevented all pursuit.The incident was briefly reported in the papers under the heading of,"Another Jack the Ripper Scare".
But a description of the man was given as 27 or 28 ,slightly built and of Jewish appearance,his face being thin and sallow.This led to the theory entertained for some time that Jack the Ripper was a Jew."[this is how the Sun reported the incident ].The Sun went on to state:
The public house incident took place about the middle of September.On the night of September30, 1888 two women were killed,one in Berner Street and one in MItre Square.Over the latter was written on the rough wall in chalk,"The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing"...........a description followed"Age about 28 ;slight;height 5ft 8 ins; complexion dark;no whiskers;black diagonal coat,collar and tie;carried newspaper parcel.Respectable appearance."


Norma

They are obviously referring to the writing over the apron piece---not over the woman"s body!

[Natalie Severn]

Sara,
That sounds ghastly----you were lucky not to have been his target then!
Best Wishes
Norma

[Robert]

Hi Nats

Thanks for that reminder. Interesting how there can be two complexions characteristic of Jews : sallow and swarthy.

[Robert]

There definitely is something wrong here, because my post was sent after I read Ben's but it appeared before. The good news is that at this rate, I'll be back in 1888. I'll let you all know whodunnit.

[Ben]

Thanks for the info about Cutbush's employment as a cerk and traveller, Robert!

(Wondering where this post will end up!)

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Mitre Square isnt in the East End either......but like The Minories,it takes exactly half a minute to cross the boundary into the East End!

Right you are, Norma. I was just quibbling with an earlier suggestion that the Minories was in Whitechapel.

Best,

Ben

[Cap'n Jack]

You know what? I find this connection between Thomas Cutbush and the 'Mile End job' to be absolutely electric, for we appear to have two entirely individual sources relating the same story, Thomas himself, and then several press reports.
As I've stated before I don't believe Thomas meant a 'synagogue' in Mile End at all, but really did mean 'syndicate' in Mile End referring perhaps to the headquarters of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, or the Mile End Vigilance Committee, which was of course at a Mile End pub.
The descriptions given of the suspect at the Mile End pub do seem to tally with Tom's 'taken as of the Jewish persuasion'.
I'm persuaded.

[Chris]

It was discovered that next to the Jewish Synagogue in the East End there is a public house and that during the Jack the Ripper period of 1888 a disturbance was caused one night at the bar by a "fallen woman" screaming that Jack the Ripper was talking to her.She had been talking to and drinking with a young man of slight build and sallow features,and she pointed to him when she made the startling statement that he was Jack the Ripper.The man immediately took to his heels,departing with an alacrity that prevented all pursuit.The incident was briefly reported in the papers under the heading of,"Another Jack the Ripper Scare".
...
The public house incident took place about the middle of September.

I think all this needs to be taken with a large dose of salt. For obvious reasons, a newspaper report from the middle of September 1888 would not have been headed "Another Jack the Ripper Scare" ...

[Natalie Severn]

On the other hand Chris,we dont actually know when the incident was reported in the press---or even when reporters got hold of such a story.
I know there were reports of two young women in Mile End, being approached by a well dressed man with a black bag which he told them had something in it he wanted to show them---and they both ran off screaming.Doubtless there were a number of such oddballs doing the rounds in Whitechapel at the time of the murders.
Norma