Cutbush press source?

[Cap'n Jack]

Oh, and in Brick Lane, Whitechapel, was the very popular pub called the 'Seven Stars', the meeting place of all the unfortunates.

[Jake L]

Hi Nats, AP,

>>>...the very popular pub called the 'Seven Stars'...

...and then there is the Crown & 7 Stars on Royal Mint Street....a pub a short stroll away from a certain cutlery shoppe

Note that TC buys his Chinese dagger just a couple of hundred yards away from the Coles murder site (a couple of weeks after the fact). A simple defensive measure against the White Coat Army after him - and yet another TC coincidence with morbid undertones...
--
Actually whether TC was the real McCoy (or just a like-minded cousin) is a side issue to me.

When pressed, I'll ultimately place my money on that old favourite, "The Unknown Local", simply because I like the odds But as far as People with Names go, TC is a very dark, very overlooked horse indeed.

For such a "harmless" prankster-prodder he seems to have generated quite an extraordinary bit of bad vibes & strange talk...and there's very little info on how the 1891 events unfolded. And the parallels to modern cases drawn by AP are indeed disturbing...

As regards Race:

If the main instigator of TCs candidacy indeed turns out to be not just a gentleman of the press, but an experienced Police officer (*and* the one who was on his case to begin with), it does put a new slant on the Macnaghten memo.

Macnaghten seems to regard most of the things written in the Sun as inaccurate (some undoubtedly were), but it would be nice to know to which extent Insp. Race - a source for some of the information - would have agreed with him. Moreover, I should think that in order to "talk out of school" (to the press, no less) in order to effect an investigation he had to have more than just a hunch. And it may well be, as AP pointed out in "Myth" & what is hinted at in the '98 report, that Race's career took a hit over this debacle.

On the other hand, you can't really blame Macnaghten given that "solving" the case could do little practical good while it would do a great deal of harm to an already ailing colleague & good trooper. This probably was the Cutbush angle Macnaghten was more familar with & concerned about. In other words, they probably didn't even want to look into it.
---

Attached is a 1896 report on Race, after his transfer to Whitechapel.


It seems you can't keep a good man down.

[Cap'n Jack]

Jake, thank you, I've been waiting for a summer all my life.

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou Jake.I more or less agree with your conclusions.Cutbush could have been JtR but that ofcourse doesnt mean he was.He was certainly viscious enough and bright enough to have avoided capture in the earlier killings of 1888.It does appear to me that he was "suspected" after the death of Frances Coles,in February 1891 by some in the police force, because he seems to have been placed in the loony bin just two weeks later -March 4 1891.That too doesnt mean that he actually had anything to do with this murder ,unless he was actually JtR ofcourse,but its possible Frances Coles was murdered by JtR since the file on the Whitechapel Murders remained open until just after her death.The closure of the JtR police file, coinciding with the placement of Thomas Cutbush in a high security jail,Broadmoor, in Spring 1891,is definitely curious.You could almost say they were under the impression they had got their man.Maybe Race told them they had!

It appears Cutbush was also suspected of a "Mile End job" because he is reported as saying so,in the Sun reports of 1894,and the incident he recounts dates from a March 1891 during an encounter with a young couple he met in Camden.
There was at least one stabbing in Mile End ,but it was early in 1888.It involved a youngish man, posing as a salesman,with a curious complexion----the victim said it was sort of "sunburnt " .
It was not a murder but then serial murderers, as I have learnt here, often begin with more minor "attacks" such as this one.

Cheers
Natalie

but one swallow and all that AP...............thanks for the great picture of the dagger!

[Stephen Thomas]

It appears Cutbush was also suspected of a "Mile End job" because he is reported as saying so,in the Sun reports of 1894,and the incident he recounts dates from a March 1891 during an encounter with a young couple he met in Camden.

Hi Natalie

Some photos I took the other day from the approximate location of the meeting between Cutbush and the young couple in Camden.

This is the junction of Camden Street and Georgiana Street looking north (plus my bike, Robert ). If the story in the paper is true then Cutbush would have pretended to knock on the door of one of these houses.




Just for jolly this a very nice pub on the corner of Georgiana Street and Royal College Street and is the next one down from The Eagle that figured in the Camden Town Murder case.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Stephen,
Thanks for posting these lovely shots of Camden-----I do know the area reasonably well but hadnt connected it with the Cutbush encounter until now.I bet they look much as they did in 1888!
Best
Natalie

[Jake L]

Hi all,

With all the Cutbushing going about, I realised that the last installment of the Sun's articles, lost in the flood & not available in Press Reports might be useful.

---

19 February 1894

EXTRA SPECIAL
JACK THE RIPPER
A TALK WITH MR. LABOUCHERE
WHAT HE THINKS OF THE CHAIN OF EVIDENCE.

A Sun representative called on Saturday on Mr. Labouchere to elicit his views as to what steps ought to be taken in order to bring the House of Lords to a political end, but the member for Northampton declined to be drawn on the subject.
"I don't like the system of interviews," he said; "they are very well for newspapers that want 'copy,' but they are nuisances, not only to the interviewed, but also to the public, except in very rare cases. The thing has been overdone."
In vain The Sun representative endeavoured to convince Mr. Labouchere that he might be one of the exceptional cases. He was civil but uncommunicative; but The Sun representative was determined not to be beaten, so he asked him in n incidental fashion whether he had read The Sun revelations respecting the identity of Jack the Ripper? Yes, Mr. Labouchere had. "And what do you think of them?" softly asked The Sun representative.
The subject seemed to interest the member for Northampton. "I once had a lot of papers," he said, "proving conclusively that Jack was a Spanish sailor. The murders were all committed when the vessel in which the sailor navigated was in the London docks. He died in Aden and the murders ceased. He might have been this sailor, and equally he might not."
"Might we ask," said The Sun representative, "if you have given up this sailor and believe in

THE LUNATIC AT BROADMOOR?"
"I neither believe nor disbelieve in either," said Mr. labouchere, slowly puffing his eternal cigarette. "Hundreds of men might have been Jack, only one man was. What has The Sun shown? That a man of nasty habits and of homicidal tendencies lived in London whilst these murders were being committed. This man was employed in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel and resided within a short walk of it. He was accustomed to sleep late in the daytime, to go out in the evening, and to return home in the small hours. He was fond of medical questions, and often made anatomical drawing. He stabbed four girls in the back, and, having tried to cut a relative's throat, was arrested for the offence, when he turned out to be so much of a lunatic that he could not plead, and was sent to the Broadmoor asylum. All this does not show that he committed the crimes set down to Jack the Ripper."
"But look at all the coincidences," said The Sun representative; "his return home with bloodstained clothes, his knife precisely such a one as Jack must have used, a distorted countenance, and the fact that the police find clothes evidently stained with turpentine in his room."
"What of all that?" said Mr. Labouchere. "Who testifies to bloody clothes and to the distorted countenance? A relative. No evidence of this sort is of value until it has been subjected to

THE TEST OF CROSS EXAMINATION.
There is a natural tendency to exaggerate all involving a murder on the part of the witnesses. They improve on facts, and then they stick to their improvements. 'Distrust your own witnesses' is the first rule in these sort of investigations. As for the knife, a great many sorts of knives would have enabled Jack to effect his purpose. As for the clothes, many people clean their clothes with turpentine because they are dirty, not because they are covered with the blood of victims. Evidently the police did not think your lunatic was Jack, or else they would have sought to prove it in order to get the reward."
"Well, my lunatic, as you call him," said the Sun representative, "hinted to many that he was Jack."
"Which," answered Mr. labouchere, "is very strong proof to my mind that he is not. Your lunatic, too, fancied that he had some malady, and took remedies for it. Is a man a murderer because he is a malade imaginaire?"
The Sun representative was not to be done down in this weeping fashion. He pointed to the vast number of coincidences, and asked Mr. Labouchere whether he considered that no murder could be proved by a number of circumstantial proofs, all leading to one conclusion.
"Of course it can," replied Mr. Labouchere," murders, indeed generally are proved by circumstantial evidence, for if a man intends to murder another, he tends to be hanged; he does it secretly, not in the presence of witnesses. The Broadmoor lunatic

MAY HAVE BEEN JACK,
he may, for all that you know. Jack very probably was the same sort of man as the lunatic. But this, I should fancy, might be said of many inhabitants of this metropolis. But when you have to prove the commission of a murder by an individual, you must show, not that he might have committed it, but that there is no other hypothesis for an admitted effect but one. This you have not done. I read through attentively all the proofs and suggestions of The Sun, for they interested me. The conclusion that I arrived at was that The Sun had made out a fair case for public investigation."
"Then you would recommend public investigation?" asked The Sun representative.
"Yes; if I were Mr. Asquith I should elect a clever officer to look into the matter. He would do so carefully, for I suppose that the reward still remains valid."
"And now, Mr. Labouchere, how about the Lords?"
"I have already told you that I decline to be interviewed on any subject whatever."
The Sun representative withdrew, feeling that he had managed to get an interview out of this very recalcitrant and most dogmatic M.P.

ANOTHER YOUNG MAN
Mr. T J Crotty writes from Ramsgate:-
I read with amazement your account of Jack the Ripper. I had a young man about 27, He came in October, 1890, to us and told me and my wife that he was an ex-medical from the London, but had evidently led a very fast life. He had two cabmen who drove him about at night and at last he got a revolver to shoot me, and I went to his doctor. He was a clergyman's son, and my wife heard him say that he had done something to a woman and she would not live. He treated three or four patients in my house, and subsequent conduct points to him as being the man. He is tall, with dark moustache, and always out at night.

THIS IS NOT A NEWSPAPER DODGE
The editor of the Good Samaritan writes from fleet Street:-
I have read what has appeared in the last four numbers of your go-ahead paper about Jack the Ripper with interest, since your theory quite accords with my own - viz., that the author of the Whitechapel atrocities must have been a madman, probably escaped from an asylum, and that he must now either be dead or again in an asylum. I can of course respect your reasons for not entering fully into details relevant to the poor maniac's kith and kin; nonetheless, I would respectfully venture to suggest that, being a leading public man, concerning a public journal, and making for public good you owe

A DUTY TO THE PUBLIC.
You are considering the feelings of private individuals; and this, having gone so far, you are under an obligation to state the precise offences for which your suspect has been incarcerated in Broadmoor, his name and previous occupations. I find that although I am inclined to pay (with only the smallest reservation) tribute to your superb achievement in having tracked the miscreant, many people are asking if it is "only another newspaper dodge."

COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS.
"A Liberal" writes:-
I have read with intense interest your thrilling account of the discovery and also of the career of the ruffian known to the world as Jack the Ripper. The story which you have given to us with so much dramatic power seems to me to establish the identity of the miscreant beyond all possible doubt. Sir, is it not clear that the matter must not be left where it stands? Surely some action by the Home Office is necessary. What have the Police authorities to say? It reflects no credit on Scotland yard that the detection of this infamous scoundrel should be left to the enterprise of The Sun. If Scotland Yard still entertains a doubt, let Mr. Asquith appoint a committee of experts to examine into and sift the mass of evidence which you have gathered with so much labour.


THIS IS THE MAN.
Mr. H D Thatcher, of Kennington Park road, writes:-
After reading your story of Jack the Ripper, I must give you a description of my jack. About five years ago a young man, about 25 years of age, used to call here for tobacco, always late at night, about 11 p.m., talkative, always looked excited, a if he had just awoke from a long sleep, never talked to anyone in the shop but myself. His conversation was always about the way his face was twisting, always drawing up, and then in a most excited state tell me of the doctor administering a drug to poison him with, if the doctor offering him some thousands of pounds to compensate him, his refusal, and wanted a criminal prosecution against him. On one occasion he had communicated with the Public Prosecutor, also several M.P.s amongst them Mr. labouchere, who was going to bring a Bill before the House to prevent doctors dispensing their new prescriptions. Nearly every time he came here I had the same mad story. Sometimes he would lay an envelope on the counter addressed to persons of rank, would have a postage stamp stuck on it, but I never saw him post one. The box is only a few doors from here, His conversation led

TO AN OLD BLIND CAT I HAD.
I wished it would die. He once suggested some wonderful poison he had. I thanked him and refuse, and bade him good night, being then 11.30 p.m., the time I closed the shop. He darted off as usual without bidding me good night. It was a thing he never did was to say good night to me. To my surprise when I got outside I found him there. He tried hard for me to accept the poison, and told me in a cunning way that if I wanted to get rid of anyone it was a wonderful poison, as it left no trace of the death. I have noticed his walk as quiet still. His money was often marked with a black stain. He aid he had been using chemicals. Always talking about anatomy and chemistry. What with his distorted face, and prosecuting the doctor for poison, and showing me murder on easy terms, I though I had better get rid of him, so the next time he came I called him "Jack the Poisoner," and off he darted and I have not seen him since.

TWO COINCIDENCES.
Pall Mall, W., writes:-
There is as much of circumstantiality about your story of the Whitechapel tragedies, and no clear evidence that you have kept back many of the most important facts bearing upon your inquiry, that I have slowly come to the conclusion that you have, at least, made out a very good case for official investigation. Two coincidences impress me more than the others. In the first place the period of the murders seems to exactly fit the opportunities for their commission possessed by your lunatic. In the second, the difference in degree between

THE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION
of the man who is today in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum and the same man three years ago when escaping from police and workhouse officials, argues that at an earlier stage of his career he must have been endowed with a wonderfully acute intelligence and splendid athletic powers. These are also attributes which, I take it, must he granted to the real criminal, whoever he may be. There are other equally convincing details in your story, and I for one would be glad to know whether or not your views are borne out by a skilled official investigator.

19 February 1894

THE DISCOVERY OF JACK THE RIPPER
(Editorial)

Slowly but steadily, the public has come to the same conclusion as that to which we have been forced by months of investigation - that in the witless wretch who is at present in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum we have traced the author of the Whitechapel murders. We are not surprised that our statement should at first have been received with a certain degree of incredulity. Theories with regard to the identity of this murderer have been presented to the public by the score; time has passed away, and the theory has been forgotten. In the first article, too, which was published on the subject, we had to be satisfied with giving nothing beyond the broad outlines of our information. The manner in which we came to publish the article throws some light on contemporary journalistic methods. We had this information for months in our office, for months the representatives of the paper have been searching for witnesses, examining them, often finding them only after weeks of patient labour. It was not our intention to have published the story for some weeks to come, but on Monday night I was called out to the Lobby of the House of Commons by two of my staff, to tell me that a portion of our information was to be offered to two morning papers. I am glad to say, for the credit of journalism, that The Morning, a Conservative contemporary, refused to have anything to do with a discovery the credit of which belonged to another office; in other quarters the taste and the honour were not so delicate as we had anticipated, and there was consequently nothing for it but to stop up all night and bring out The Sun as a morning paper at five o'clock instead of an evening paper at the usual hour. Our staff - editorial, compositors, machine men, and cart men - were summoned; we all stayed through the watches of the night in consultation and in preparing the matter for publication; and day had already broken before any of us were able to start for our homes. It will be understood under these circumstances how our story on the first day suffered from indefiniteness; we were simply marking time, and had to await the opportunity of further consultation with our legal advisers before we could bring before the public the full materials at our command.
What reserve we had to make to defeat the acts of rivals, we were bound still further to increase by our sense of the public welfare and our desire to spare feeling. Many correspondents have written to us to demand that we should give the name of Jack the Ripper to the public. We may to do so in the end, but we shall do so unwillingly, for it is hard to make the innocent suffer for the guilty, and to expose the unhappy relatives - if such there still be - to the reprobation which will gather around his name. But we shall send to the police, when they ask for it, all the material at our disposal. The name which we had to tell under initials will be revealed to them. We have likewise the addresses, the occupations, all the particulars, with regard to all the persons who can either entirely reveal or throw considerable light on the mystery we claim to have solved. We understand that the attention of the highest police authorities has been called to our statements, and we confidently look forward to our story being subjected to the closest and most searching investigation. We believe that with others, as with us, facts will point irresistibly to the conclusion that the man we point out is undoubtedly the long sought criminal.
It will after all be a relief to the public mind to feel that this inhuman - or, rather, non human - monster is safe from all possibility of doing further harm. He has reached the stage when the decay of the mind has almost become complete, and probably the process of mental deterioration has already proceeded far enough to make him quite unconscious of his acts at the time when he committed the murders. From what we know of him - from the description given of him by our representative in the interview he had with him in Broadmoor - it is quite plain that mental derangement has produced an absolute eclipse of the moral nature. This man would commit a murder not only without remorse, but perhaps even without realising it a short time after he had committed it. It was thus possible for him to leave the scene of one of his crimes with but a partial recollection of what he had done. He would have neither terror nor remorse because he was destitute of mind and memory. In short, he would just feel after one of his crimes as might a tiger which had devoured a human being.
It is awful to think that human nature is capable of descending to these bestial depths; but in these things we must face the issue clearly and boldly; and if human beings of this kind exist - and they do - we must patiently analyse, study, dissect them until we come to the physiological basis of their abnormality. A complete study of this creature in his Broadmoor cell ought to give science some clue to the intimacy of the connection between the loss of brain power and the loss of moral conscience. Probably all this awful and fiendish wickedness and cruelty will be traceable to some lesion of the brain - inherited from dead ancestors - and aggravated by the habits of the creature's own idle, dissolute, and worthless life. It is a great thing to have set the public mind at rest as to the possibility of a repetition of these crimes; but it is a much more important matter to have facilitated such a study of this monstrosity as will cast the light of
(Article incomplete)

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/jake

[Sara]

Many thanks Jake for posting that up - I'd not read it before
I wonder of the current readers of the Sun would understand a word of it LOL

[Natalie Severn]

Many Thanks Jake for posting the lost Sun article.A brilliant find!
I was particularly interested in the comments of Labouchere to the representative of The Sun national newspaper.I recalled how he was onto the Pigott forgeries earlier than most people too.
With regards to one of his comments.When the Sun journalist put it to him that Thomas Cutbush himself had hinted he was "Jack the Ripper", Labouchere retorted that in his opinion that was proof he was NOT Jack the Ripper,I had to pause,because he does have a point.There were ofcourse large numbers of mentally ill people stating they believed they were Jack the Ripper and it undoubtedly led to many others saying the same thing later.Just as many mentally ill people believe they are Napoleon or Catherine the Great.
There is also the seeming incongruity of behaviour between the Ripper acts of 1888,and I am not talking here of the discrepancy between the murders and the 1891 jobbings which I wrote at some length about over the past few days.But rather the discrepancy between a silent ,stealthy killer operating with focus and speed and never getting caught----not even being properly seen,and the "blatant" stabbings or "jobbings" by Thomas Cutbush in 1891 ,for which he did get caught and arrested .
However,its undoubtedly the case that the mental health of Thomas Cutbush would have deteriorated and broken down significantly subsequent to 1888,-we dont ofcourse know what kind of mental health he had between 1888 and 1891 and we could do with knowing, but his ability to take care of himself would likely have deteriorated alongside everything else.In other words,IF Thomas was Jack ,then by the 1891 episode of insanity,Thomas had probably become " more" deranged and "less" able to take care of himself and was therefore likely to commit criminal acts in Kennington in a much clumsier fashion or without any of the grotesque panache that marked out many of the acts of the Ripper"s 1888 reign of terror.

[Fisherman]

Natalie!

I am taking part of all this with great interest; Cutbush is intereresting, to say the least.
What I am wondering about is this:

If Cutbush went through such a transformation as you propose, from a stealthy throat-cutter and eviscerator to something quite different and of a lesser magnitude - do we have anyone to compare with? Have there been other serialists that have taken their feet of the gas pedal and engaged in "small business" a number of years down the road?

The best, Natalie!
Fisherman

[Natalie Severn]

That I dont know Fisherman.What I do know about are some specific cases .In one case, a person,who had become violent towards several of his friends tried to strangle one of them, a flat mate ,and was sectioned.He later went into remission and didnt enter another episode of schizophrenic psychosis until two years later.On this occasion matters were much worse because he believed he was "under instruction" and had been "ordered" to blow up his block of flats with everyone in them.Fortunately the Fire Brigade rescued the situation from tragedy. Certainly the "orders from above" had changed with this new episode but on neither occasion was he attempting to avoid detection.
On yet another occasion he was obsessed with the reproductive organs of women,who he declaimed would be purged of sin by a visitation of Luther etc.The voices he heard certainly varied!

[Fisherman]

Hi Natalie, and thanks for this!

Unpredictability remains a main feature among these people, and it is therefore hard to see how anything - anything at all! - can be ruled out.
No matter what, I think one must keep in mind that serial killers of this disposition are very rare creatures, and those who really extend into the serialist field are very often caught, since their most obvious trait is not that of planning carefully.
That said, there is of course every chance that Jack belonged to this very group - the apparent obsession with the internal organs seems to tally with it in many a respect.

It´s a hard call!

The best!
Fisherman

[Vigilantee]

After studing Psychology at University for a couple of years I came to the conclusion that even normal 'human nature' is so diverse and relatively unique to the individual that any kind of behavioral generalisation tends to distort psychological theory. But ironically the more insane a person is the more predictable they seem to be! At one end of the scale everyday habitual behaviour seems closely related to neurosis, while at the other end the seriously psychotic's obsessional behaviour and lack of reason makes them quite predictable, once their behavior is analysed. Though each psychotic will be unique. Perhaps the clever psychotic like Jack oscillates between sane and insane behavior, which would involve selective memory. This might explain why Cutbush 'denied' he was the Ripper to the couple in Camden? And I think its safe to say that whoever the Ripper was he was both cunning and insane.

[DVV]

But ironically the more insane a person is the more predictable they seem to be!

That's a WON-DER-FUL thought!
Thanks for having expressed it.

Amitiés,
David

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Vigilantee,
Well as I understand it, the basic personality type does not change into another personality type.A psychoneurotic person will have the same psychoneurotic make up in ten years time ,as he does today.He [or she]may recover from certain neurotic symptoms but not the basic constitutional personality.A schizoid personality likewise remains schizoid throughout life,a psycopathic personality remains a psychopath.An individual may manage to "cover up" some of their traits and behaviours as time goes by but the underlying personality will remain the same.
But I am not sure what you mean by "how predictable behaviour is " -outside this context ,could you give some specific examples perhaps?
Best