Is it plausible that Druitt did it?

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Andy,

Actually, Sam, what we are debating is whether the questions you are raising about Druitt would not have also occurred to Macnaghten

Ah - that's the point you're debating, and that's quite legit. However, my point relates to the question itself - viz., whether Druitt had any reason (apart from the tautological "He was a suspect/He was the Ripper") to have frequented Whitechapel and its environs. Whether Macnaghten, Farquharson or the Druitt family established that he had any such reason - over and above the tautological - remains very much unanswered.

Macnaghten may have asked the question, but there's not even a hint of Druitt's being anywhere near the East End, apart from a reference to his body being found somewhere in the Thames. If Sir M.M. had so much as mentioned Druitt's legal-eagle connections with the City of London, it would have been something - but we get not a whiff even of that, all of which should cast at least a shadow of vagueness over the "Monty" section of the Memorandum.

Whichever way we cut it, we differ. Anyhow, Pax vobiscum

[Graham]

The Druitt material contained in Thomas Toughill's new book, The Ripper Code, tells us something at long last about Druitt's character. What do you think of this new evidence?

Mrs H,

So what does Toughill actually reveal about Druitt's character?

Cheers,

Graham

[Mrs Hudson]

Toughill has discovered that Montague Druitt, although a keen debater at school, was actually blackballed by the Oxford Union, the most famous debating society in the world. That goes too for Druitt's fellow student, Oscar Wilde, who was Macnaghten's neighbour in 1888.

As to why Druitt and Oscar Wilde would have been rejected by the Victorian Oxford Union, well.........

[aspallek]

Hi Andy,Ah - that's the point you're debating, and that's quite legit. However, my point relates to the question itself - viz., whether Druitt had any reason (apart from the tautological "He was a suspect/He was the Ripper") to have frequented Whitechapel and its environs. Whether Macnaghten, Farquharson or the Druitt family established that he had any such reason - over and above the tautological - remains very much unanswered.

Ah, so that's the point you are debating. So, your question is "Did Montague Druitt have any reason for being in the East End, excluding the possible reason of killing East End prostitutes?" I would have to answer that he had no other reason that we know of. But I also have to ask what that question and answer tells us.

Yes, I would say that if, for example, Druitt had an office in the East End he would seem outwardly to be a stronger suspect. However, it is not logical to conclude from this that he is a weak suspect because we have no other reason. It is, in fact, your reasoning that is in danger of becoming circular. You are in essence saying "Druitt can't be the Ripper because he had no reason other than killing East End prostitutes to be in the East End." Don't you see? He doesn't need another reason to be there!

[Graham]

Toughill has discovered that Montague Druitt, although a keen debater at school, was actually blackballed by the Oxford Union, the most famous debating society in the world. That goes too for Druitt's fellow student, Oscar Wilde, who was Macnaghten's neighbour in 1888.

As to why Druitt and Oscar Wilde would have been rejected by the Victorian Oxford Union, well.........

Is the suggestion then that Druitt and Wilde were lovers? And that perhaps Macnaghten's "private info" came from Oscar?

Nothing would surprise me where the Ripper Case is concerned!

Cheers,

Graham

[Mrs Hudson]

Is it surprising that Oscar Wilde had a great deal in common with a "sexually insane" man like Druitt? A man who went straight from Oxford to teach in a boarding school for boys?

Toughill has also discovered that Wilde served as a probationer to the Oxford Union with William Harvey Druitt, Montague's elder brother. If anyone knew about the allegations concerning Montague, it was William Druitt.

William was elected to the Oxford Union. In fact, he signed Montague in as a guest in April 1875. (There are photos in Toughill's boook to prove all of this.)

[jason_c]

Slightly off topic but i think i remember reading a senior policeman alleging that Wilde liked to be smacked around a bit during his sexual adventures(not that such an allegation was necessarily true).

Am i completely wrong in thinking it was Macnaghten who made this allegation? If not, does anyone know who it was?

[aspallek]

^^^ It was Littlechild.

[caz]

Ooh we're veering dangerously towards a composite figure made up of non-doctor D and quack doctor T, who were sexually insane perverts who went missing and were believed to have committed suicide, and whose habits were associated with Wilde's, a man who liked "to be punched about", according to the Littlechild letter.

Doesn't bode well, does it?

Love,

Caz
X

[aspallek]

Ooh we're veering dangerously towards a composite figure made up of non-doctor D and quack doctor T

That's what I've been suggesting for 2-3 years now!

[caz]

Well, you can wheel him straight out again, Caz, because he isn't remotely applicable here. He didn't deliberately seek out an area than was advertised and alluded to extensively as one of the worst slums - if not THE worst slum - in Greater London (or the equivelent) purely for prostitution, especially when there were were numerous other prostitute hotsopts around.

Hi Ben,

Do keep up, there’s a good chap. Hugh Grant’s example was merely wheeled in to test the ‘rule’ that men never go for a bit of rough in a public place if they can afford expensive, high-class sex in luxurious private surroundings. I explained why it wouldn’t be relevant anyway, because Jack didn’t need to be remotely interested in what his victims could have done for him sexually. We only know that he wanted to take a knife to them and presumably didn’t want to be recognised by anyone in the process of picking one up and making his way to safety after leaving her dead.

So our hypothetical wealthy outsider decided that the best way of acheiving this would be to kill on the streets in a overcrowded district with a nocturnal population? No, I rather suspect the perpetrator selected these killings fields for a want of better options.

I don’t know why the penny still isn’t dropping, but I am not actually arguing for a ‘wealthy outsider’ - ie a man with limitless funds who didn’t know the East End from Timbuktu - sauntering into a strange and forbidding district to kill anyone. I have always suggested someone who knew his way around from personal experience, and could at least show his victims the money and not do anything to make them think he was ‘different’ or not to be trusted - especially by the time the street-wise Kate Eddowes accompanied this stranger into the darkness of Mitre Square.

So if the world was Jack’s oyster, what do you think would have been a better way of encountering a plentiful supply of women he could get alone and take his knife to and then leave the scene without a trace, free to repeat the process, if not on the streets after midnight in an overcrowded district? What would have been a better option for your local Jack, for instance, if he’d had other options?

I rather suspect the killer selected his killing field precisely because it was one of the best options, if not the best option, for his particular needs, evidenced by his repeated success in a short period of time to rip and run and rip again and leave everyone still guessing. The very fact that he did not end up one of your sad ‘locally caught’ statistical red herrings tends to suggest that factors like limited options and the increased police presence were not the problems for him that you would saddle him with, regardless of where he parked his hat between murders. Or rather, the problems you only seem to saddle him with if he is not George Hutchinson.

Poor George had no option at all of course, but to kill again on November 9th, after allowing himself to be seen in that same overcrowded district by any one of its nocturnal population, as he lurked for nearly an hour outside his targeted victim’s home, and despite the air being hot and heavy with the scent of all those extra coppers out looking for him. And yet none of it was a problem for him apparently. He even went to the cops himself, confirming that the killer’s best option of all was to keep killing in the same small area and forget about the rising numbers of police, whose speciality was letting killers eliminate themselves.

Yes, there is "reason to suppose" that. We have ample evidence that closely clustered crimes (where the murder locatations are within easy walking of eachother) are perpetrated by offenders who live, or at the very least have a bolt hole, in the area - and invariably it's area they have a close familiary with.

That’s fine then - we are in agreement that anyone with a close familiarity with their chosen killing field (whether that familiarity is linked to home, income, a bolt hole, romantic or sexual liaisons or - heaven forbid - artificially cultivated because the field is well known to be victim-rich) is likely to produce a cluster of crimes in that one area, and he will not tend to bolt to commit others in less familiar places when the going gets tough, just because suitable victims may be just as easily come by elsewhere. So even your own argument about clusters supports the streets of Whitechapel as being the best option from the killer’s point of view, if he was familiar enough with the area to begin doing his thing there in the first place.

A local man has not the luxury of seeking ripper pastures anew, especially if he's far from home and isn't remotely familiar with them. Of course you had doctors in the East End, and they were dwarfed, population-wise, by the local Joe-Average proletariat. But, of course, the latter category don't churn out enough "interesting" or titilating suspects so they're apt to be chucked out by those still wedded to their top-hatted "Haha, the fools" type chaacters.

Precisely. So why would a non-local man, who could have been familiar with the killing field for a wide variety of reasons, go to pastures new if they were no more familiar to him than your local man? I only wheeled in doctors because you seemed totally incapable of conceding there would be any daring to live or work in the area after sundown. I wasn’t saying that Jack was statistically more likely to have come from the doctor population than the much larger groups of manual labourers.

And why the typically sarcastic and desperate reference to top-hatted characters? This only shows your failure to grasp the finer points of the discussion, and the likelihood that you are failing to grasp a whole lot of other things besides.

Quote [by Caz]:
Nobody is arguing for a killer sporting a top hat, cape and large gold watch, while willingly walking through dangerous parts of the East End at night in search of his next victim, never mind suggesting that it was common for slummers to do the same in search of more innocent kicks.

It wasn't, that's the problem. They'd dress down.

Eh? It wasn’t what? What’s the problem? I’m well aware that slummers would have dressed down, Ben. That’s precisely why I wrote the above, to counter all these sarcastic references by you and Miss Marple and others, to top hat-wearing, cape-swirling, gold watch-flashing slummers walking in dangerous areas in the middle of the night. Nobody to my knowledge ever argues that they did this, or that they included the ripper among their number. So it’s like pointing and laughing at the man who wasn’t on the stair. Get a grip - a stair grip would be good. Your invisible man keeps tripping over.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

As someone who hasnt made their mind up about Druitt or the man Hutch saw who was a dead ringer for Druitt yes- titter ye not- right down to his watch and gold chain, I can only cheer the good thinking Caz has on this.

If the man existed that Hutch claimed he saw carrying a parcel wrapped in American cloth,then that man was probably the Ripper.

Hutch claimed he stood outside Mary"s lodgings for nearly an hour bringing the time he left to about 2.45.am.It was a rainy night in November and Mary,since she was apparently with a relatively well to do customer- would have been unlikely to have gone out again in the cold.

So why not Druitt? He is as good a suspect as any.A man who was formidably strong,especially his wrists.A man who was convinced that he was going bonkers "since Friday"-and wasnt Mary murdered on a Friday? A man who at 29 had got himself sacked from the school where he was a teacher because he got into terrible trouble.Druitt had no known girl friend but what he did have was some kind of dreadful kink-----or darkest sexual secret an overwhelming unbridled sexual lust- like a satyr ,well that is according to Macnaghten.
A dead ringer for Hutch"s man I would say.
Natalie

[Graham]

Well now...

I'm nowhere near as well-read about MJD's background as are some posters to these boards, so please bear with me when I confess that I wasn't aware until seeing Mrs Hudson's post ref: Toughill's book that Oscar Wilde and William H Druitt were acquainted. I'm no expert on Oscar, either, but the little I have read about him tends to suggest that the courting of his friendship was, in some circles, seen as positively risque. This not to say that WHD's apparent friendship with Oscar was anything other than above board, but if Toughill's "discovery" is true, then one might just tentatively suggest that there could have been more to it than meets the eye. By means of a slight stretch of the imagination, is it beyond the realms of possibility that MJD and Oscar were also acquainted? I'm fully aware that Macnaghten's description of MJD as 'sexually insane' referred to MJD's (possibly supposed) onanistic tendencies - but how would Macnaghten be aware of this unless his 'private info' came from someone with intimate knowledge of MJD? His brother? Wilde? Mr Valentine? All of them?

Not for one moment am I suggesting that Oscar, splendidly clad in lilac, sashayed up to Macnaghten in the middle of Tite Street to say, "I say! I have a little bit of information about that chap your lot dredged out of The Thames". Maybe that's stretching credulity a bit too far, but as with most things Ripper, you never know.

On the other hand, it still doesn't strike me as likely that MJD would turn into a murdering maniac because he liked a bit of solo frottage - largely for reasons Caz has stated above. But again - you never know. Ted Bundy said it was his addiction to pornography that eventually drove him to kill. And Abberline did once remark that you'd have to look in the upper strata of Society, where I personally wouldn't place Druitt, to find the Ripper, but maybe the old boy really did know a bit more than he was prepared to share.

Good thread - love it. Must read Toughill's book.

Cheers,

Graham

[c.d.]

If Macnaghten received private information from Druitt's family or friends of the family (and I have no reason to disbelive him), what was the purpose? Did they simply say "we think Monty is the Ripper but don't tell anyone. Have a nice day?" It would seem that they would either want it confirmed so that he could be discretely put away or they would want to be told that their fears and suspicions were unwarranted. In other words, why tell Macnaghten anything if they didn't want him to do something about it? Very strange.

c.d.

[Graham]

If Macnaghten received private information from Druitt's family or friends of the family (and I have no reason to disbelive him), what was the purpose? Did they simply say "we think Monty is the Ripper but don't tell anyone. Have a nice day?" It would seem that they would either want it confirmed so that he could be discretely put away or they would want to be told that their fears and suspicions were unwarranted. In other words, why tell Macnaghten anything if they didn't want him to do something about it? Very strange.

c.d.

Yes, but surely Macnaghten must have received the 'private info' after Druitt's death; the Memoranda were written in 1894 - had Macnaghten received the 'private info' when Druitt was alive then as a conscientious copper he'd surely have done something with it.

Incidentally, the wording of the relevant memo (Aberconway version - the Scotland Yard version is very similar) is 'from private information I have little doubt that his own family suspected this man of being the Whitechapel murderer; it was alleged that he was sexually insane'. Sir M doesn't specifically state that the 'info' actually came from Druitt's family.

Cheers,

Graham