Druitt's movements around murder dates

[caz]

Hi Dougie,

The point worth emphasising here is that Macnaghten did not claim to have received his private info directly from Monty’s family, but via another informant. Obviously Monty’s family and close associates would not have shared Macnaghten’s ‘mistaken belief that Druitt was a doctor’. They would have known his real age and what he did for a living for a start, and arguably a great deal more than Macnaghten ever learned about the man himself, his social life, sporting activities, inherited mental health problems and so on. So unless Macnaghten’s informant (or Macnaghten himself) was talking total rot about Druitt’s family believing him guilty of the ripper murders, the errors and gaps in Macnaghten’s knowledge about his suspect cannot take away from the fact that something must have ‘set him apart’ in the eyes of people far more qualified than Macnaghten to see it.

The question for Ben, Sam and others to address is therefore what set Druitt apart in his family’s eyes, assuming he had indeed managed to arouse their suspicions. It could still amount to precious little, but then again it might not. Given that they knew he was an assistant schoolmaster and lawyer, and not a doctor; that he played cricket in the summer and hockey in the winter, and that he divided his time between Central London, Blackheath and Dorset - then what was it about the man, or his behaviour in 1888, that could have made them believe he had journeyed to the dismal slums around Dorset Street, with the purpose of murdering and mutilating the desperate inhabitants he could expect to find there?

More importantly, in the context of this thread, would a worried friend or relative be likely to have confided their suspicions in anyone outside Monty’s immediate circle without trying to ascertain his movements around the murder dates? In fact, isn’t it entirely possible for a man with inherited mental health problems, who ended up getting himself sacked from a responsible post for some undisclosed ‘serious trouble’, to have been less than forthcoming with family, friends or colleagues about any unexpected absences, and that such behaviour could, by itself, have caused the suspicions in the first place? Whether that's the case or not, it hardly seems likely that family suspicions could have survived at all had the summer produced a wealth of Dorset-based activity necessitating Druitt's presence.

I just don’t see the logic in Ben’s argument that Monty was most likely to have spent all the school summer holidays in Dorset because of the few times he can be placed on a cricket pitch there. By that logic, in a hundred years from now it would be argued that I most likely spent all my time in the East End because I could be placed in a certain pub or curry house there on the first Saturday of every other month. No researcher would be able to place me in the vast majority of other places I frequent between meetings of the WS1888. Obviously it doesn’t matter where Monty went or how long he stayed in any one place if he had no intention of murdering anyone while he was there. But just as obviously, if his mental health problems in 1888 did extend to a secret penchant for attacking East End unfortunates, there’s no ‘most likely’ about it: he did not spend the entire school holidays in the West Country, conspicuously scoffing clotted cream teas with his team mates and giving his relatives no room for concern.

It also makes no logical sense at all for anyone close to Monty to have voiced a belief that he was the ripper, unless he had indeed been conspicuously absent at certain times during the summer hols, and for long enough to have commuted from the Dorset countryside to Dog Poo Alley Spitalfields between confirmed sightings of him in more pleasant surroundings.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

Whether that's the case or not, it hardly seems likely that family suspicions could have survived at all had the summer produced a wealth of Dorset-based activity necessitating Druitt's presence

Unless, of course, the informer was misinformed in the first place, and/or Macnagthen exaggerated the gravity of this "private information". Both seem reasonable suggestions, especially in light of Abberline's luke-warm reception to it.

By that logic, in a hundred years from now it would be argued that I most likely spent all my time in the East End because I could be placed in a certain pub or curry house there on the first Saturday of every other month.

But if I could place you in the East End on 1st September 2007, and then again on 1st November 2007, and then several times in between those two dates, I'd be more than entitled to arrive at the most parsiminious assumption that you were there for the duration.

But just as obviously, if his mental health problems in 1888 did extend to a secret penchant for attacking East End unfortunates

Yes, but there's no evidence of that, any more than there's evidence that he kept trafficking back and forth between Dorset and the East End within the space of a month.

Cheers,
Ben

[aspallek]

This perhaps isn't the proper thread for this discussion but it does go toward responding to the above posts.

Caz is absolutely right in her assertion that Druitt's family would have to have good reason for confiding in someone as to their suspicions. They would not have entertained such suspicions, and would certainly not have shared them with others, if they knew Montague had been playing cricket in Dorset when Polly Nichols was murdered.

Now, I believe we must approach this from both ends. We must ask who the family would have confided their suspicions to. We must also ask who was Macnaghten's informant.

Who would the Druitts have confided in? They were a religious family. I think it likely they would have confided in their pastor. Who was pastor at Wimborne Minster when Druitt died? Well, an assistant was John Henry Lonsdale. He would be the perfect confidant since he almost certainly knew Druitt and his circle of London friends and so could make inquiries and he would have to be discreet due to pastor-parishioner confidentiality. Perhaps all he could say was that the suspect was "the son of a surgeon."

Now, who was Macnaghten's informant? It could be that Lonsdale informed him some years later. But where does that leave Farquharson and his tale? Somehow Farquharson got wind of the story at least as early as 1891. He could have learned it from Lonsdale's wife, Kitty, who was from Blandford -- six miles from Farquharson's home. Perhaps they had known one another socially.

Caz is right. We do have to explain Macnaghten's errors. Actually, the official version of the memorandum only contains the error that Druitt was "said to be a doctor." The errors about his age and profession appear only in the Aberconway version, which is usually presumed to be a draft. There are three possibilities to explain the errors:

1. Macnaghten was misinformed.
2. Macnaghten's memory failed him -- he was writing some years later.
3. Macnaghten intentionally introduced the error(s).

[The Good Michael]

his athletic prowess is well documented. In particular, the game of "Fives" required great hand and arm strength.

Andy, I don't know that that is true, or at least by my standards of what constitutes great hand and arm strength. Fives is very much like handball, and the most important factors are hand-eye coordination, court movement, and technique. I think the same can be said of cricket (aside from court movement). Neither of these are 'strength' sports like rugby, rowing, or sprinting, or even boxing. If Druitt was a rower and a boxer, I might say he had great leg strength and back strength, and above average arm strength. Maybe he was, but I don't know that.

Cheers,

Mike

[Mrs Hudson]

New Druitt Material

Folks, what do you think of the information about Druitt which appears in the new book Thr Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill? Impressive what?

[Ben]

Hi Andy,

They would not have entertained such suspicions, and would certainly not have shared them with others, if they knew Montague had been playing cricket in Dorset when Polly Nichols was murdered.

But if the family didn't know that, or the rumours didn't originate from the family itself but from somebody on behalf on the family, it wouldn't be remotely implausible for Mcnaghten's informant to have been oblivious to Druitt's movements over the crucial dates. We must also entertain the possibility that the "errors" in the memoranda weren't Macnaghten's at all, but his informant's. If the latter, he wasn't very well-informed at all.

[aspallek]

Andy, I don't know that that is true, or at least by my standards of what constitutes great hand and arm strength. Fives is very much like handball, and the most important factors are hand-eye coordination, court movement, and technique. I think the same can be said of cricket (aside from court movement). Neither of these are 'strength' sports like rugby, rowing, or sprinting, or even boxing. If Druitt was a rower and a boxer, I might say he had great leg strength and back strength, and above average arm strength. Maybe he was, but I don't know that.

Cheers,

Mike

Alright, Mike, I won't quibble with you. I've never played the game so I was quoting what others have said. Suffice it to say he was still a competitive athlete and, as such, would have had greater than ordinary strength as well as coordination.

[aspallek]

Hi Andy,

But if the family didn't know that, or the rumours didn't originate from the family itself but from somebody on behalf on the family, it wouldn't be remotely implausible for Mcnaghten's informant to have been oblivious to Druitt's movements over the crucial dates. We must also entertain the possibility that the "errors" in the memoranda weren't Macnaghten's at all, but his informant's. If the latter, he wasn't very well-informed at all.

Do you really think it is plausible that Montague spent a month in Dorset playing cricket and didn't bother to visit his family? Surely the family knew what dates he was in Dorset and if they were interested enough to harbor suspicions (or even to "believe" that he was the Ripper), surely they would have been interested enough to compare these dates with the murder dates.

As to where the story originated that Druitt's family believed him to be the Ripper, that is an interesting question. But for our purposes here it doesn't really matter. At some time someone in the Druitt family must have confided in someone as to the family's suspicions. The information had to originate from the family regardless of who first shared it with Farquharson or Macnaghten.

[Ben]

Do you really think it is plausible that Montague spent a month in Dorset playing cricket and didn't bother to visit his family?

Some members of it, yes, but all of them?

What if the informant wasn't a particularly "close" member of the family, at least in relation to Monty? We can't assume either that a family member approached someone with an explicit "I think Monty might be the ripper". It could have been a distorted inference on either Macnaghten's part or that of the informant. Either way, it's second hand hearsay, and if the original "suspector" recalled Druitt hopping back to London peridocially from Dorset, surely a mention of this rather salient detail would have passed from "informant" to Macnaghten, thence to the memoranda?

Cheers,
Ben

[The Good Michael]

Suffice it to say he was still a competitive athlete and, as such, would have had greater than ordinary strength as well as coordination.

Andy, I would say that this would be a fair thing to say. His strength and coordination would probably have been better than that of a non-athlete, but perhaps not any greater, and perhaps less than someone who did manual labor.

Cheers,

Mike

[caz]

Hi Ben,

Obviously if Macnaghten’s informant was merely passing on misinformed, malicious gossip, or making up the family suspicions from whole cloth; and if Macnaghten was thereby deluding himself by having ‘little doubt’ that Monty’s own family believed he was the ripper, then yes, the suicidal sportsman could have spent all summer until early September doing nothing to suggest to potential informants that he had ever left Dorset between cricket matches. If that’s what you truly believe to be the most likely scenario there’s little left to discuss. This is only really worth discussing if you are prepared to explore the possibility that someone in Monty’s family did believe he was, or could be the ripper, and that this belief was somehow conveyed to Macnaghten.

If you could place me in the East End on 1st September 2007, and then again on 1st November 2007, and then several times in between those two dates, you’d be ‘more than entitled’ to assume I was there ‘for the duration’, if I didn’t tell you otherwise and nobody else could. But your assumption could still be wildly wrong because in any such period I am likely to have travelled to and from all sorts of places besides the East End of London, for a wide variety of purposes, and you'd have trouble ‘placing’ me at any of them without my co-operation. Your difficulties would increase considerably if you were dealing with someone who didn't want anyone knowing about certain movements or behaviour, and that would likely include anyone battling with a mental illness like depression, who was struggling to keep up appearances in a busy social and professional life.

The ‘serious trouble’ that cost Monty his teaching job could have been a simple case of not being able to pull himself together one day to face the pupils at Blackheath and fulfil his duties there. But even that would involve him not being where he was expected to be at the expected time. A man like that cannot be assumed to be anywhere ‘for the duration’ of any period during the last traumatic year of his life, on the basis of a handful of documented public appearances when he did manage to keep it together in the months leading up to his final leap into blackness.

In addition to being able to place me (or anyone else you don’t know personally) in the East End on the stated number of occasions, at pubs or clubs or markets and so forth, imagine that you learned that a senior policeman had put in writing that members of my family had reason to believe that I had gone out prostituting myself on a certain notorious street in Streatham on two or three nights during the same time period. Would you still feel confident in assuming I had most likely been behaving myself in the East End ‘for the duration’?

We may have been left with no evidence that Monty’s problems included ripping up East End unfortunates. But we do have evidence, in the form of a senior policeman’s belief, that Monty’s family evidently thought he did have the opportunity to travel to the East End in between sightings on a cricket or hockey field, at social functions or at one of his places of work.

What if the informant wasn't a particularly "close" member of the family, at least in relation to Monty? We can't assume either that a family member approached someone with an explicit "I think Monty might be the ripper". It could have been a distorted inference on either Macnaghten's part or that of the informant. Either way, it's second hand hearsay, and if the original "suspector" recalled Druitt hopping back to London peridocially from Dorset, surely a mention of this rather salient detail would have passed from "informant" to Macnaghten, thence to the memoranda?

It would only have taken one family member with suspicions (“close” or otherwise), and one other family member or associate who knew Monty didn’t leave Dorset that summer, to have prevented the former from ever confiding in anyone outside the family. I agree that we can’t assume that a family member would have put their unsupported suspicions directly to anyone outside the family who couldn’t be trusted 100% not to go blabbing without any further evidence. In fact I would find that highly unlikely. So I’m not too surprised that we have no record of Macnaghten's informant being told directly by a relative that Monty hopped up to London and that his hopping coincided with the murders. If basic information about Monty’s legal and teaching careers didn’t get passed to Macnaghten via this route, all bets are off concerning what else didn’t make it through and why.

Before taking it to the next level, a worried family member would surely have made discreet and innocent-sounding enquiries of anyone in a position to know if Monty had stayed put in Dorset or boarded a London train at some point. Nobody was likely to say “Hang on a minute, why are you asking me that? You must think he is Jack the Ripper!”, unless they were entertaining similar thoughts independently. On the contrary, the enquiries could have implied a natural concern that Monty was spending his spare time productively, with trips up to London for instance, rather than losing himself for perhaps days on end in sleepy Dorset, if black moods had begun to overtake him periodically. They could have evoked a response such as: “Don’t worry, old chap. I know for a fact that Monty was not lolling around, unwashed and unshaven, feeling sorry for himself on x or y occasion - he was up in London, with things to do and people to see”; or “Sorry, old sport. Now you mention it, I didn’t see anything of Monty then either. But he has been a bit of a dark horse of late. Makes himself scarce and gets quite touchy if a chap asks what he’s been doing with himself. Hope he sorts himself out.”

Love,

Caz
X

[aspallek]

Ben, you are grasping at straws.

Michael, fair enough. I never said he was physically more qualified than a manual laborer to have committed the murders.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

If that’s what you truly believe to be the most likely scenario there’s little left to discuss

Well, given that we're dealing with second-hand hearsay at best, and of the order that other senior detectives didn't believe amounted to anything, I'd say I have more than adequate grounds for believing it whether I "want" to believe it or not.

But your assumption could still be wildly wrong because in any such period I am likely to have travelled to and from all sorts of places besides the East End of London

Well, you'd be a better position that Druitt courtesy of increased transport availability since the LVP, and as such, the modern comparison isn't really apt. Dealing with 1888, then, if we have a record of you being in one county at the beginning of one month, and again at the beginning of next month, and periodically in between those dates, then the more parsiminious assumption is that you were there for the duration, especially if you worked as a teacher and the dates coincided with a standard school summer holiday.

Your difficulties would increase considerably if you were dealing with someone who didn't want anyone knowing about certain movements or behaviour, and that would likely include anyone battling with a mental illness like depression

Sorry, Caz, there's no evidence whatsoever that Druitt was any more cagey about his movements when discussing them with his family that your average Joe would have been.

The ‘serious trouble’ that cost Monty his teaching job could have been a simple case of not being able to pull himself together one day to face the pupils at Blackheath and fulfil his duties there. But even that would involve him not being where he was expected to be at the expected time. A man like that cannot be assumed...

...If he was a man like that. But we have no evidence that he was like that, and certainly no evidence that the "serious trouble" alluded to was simple absenteeism. You can't make a case for an evasive Druitt who kept hopping to and from the Capital based on an assumption that his mental instability and despression must have manifested itself in cageyness and absenteeism.

imagine that you learned that a senior policeman had put in writing that members of my family had reason to believe that I had gone out prostituting myself on a certain notorious street in Streatham on two or three nights during the same time period. Would you still feel confident in assuming I had most likely been behaving myself in the East End ‘for the duration’?

Well, I'd assess the nature of the gossip. I'd first ask myself if it originated from the family itself and went directly to Macnagthen, and then I'd ask myself if other senior policeman invested any stock in it, and finally, I'd ask myself if that senior policeman was the sort of chap to withhold potentially incriminating details from his colleagues. If all questions resulted in a resounding "no" as it does with the Druitt case, then yes, I'd be supremely confident. There's certainly no reason to ever suppose that a) the family member was expecially close to Druitt or b) he was acutely aware of his movements on the crucial dates, especially if those suspicions were voiced years after the event!

Ben, you are grasping at straws

Great comeback, Andy. You've explained your reasoning and everything.

[aspallek]

Ben, I've explained myself ad infinitum. Caz also laid it out neatly for you. I didn't feel the need to add anything more. However...

You are grasping at straws in that now you are presuming that the family member(s) that suspected Druitt were only distant family members who would not have known than Druitt was in Dorset the whole month of August and into September, as you insist he was. While that is not an impossibility, it is certainly not the most likely scenario. In fact, I would say it is not likley at all and this is "grasping at straws." I'm not tyring to be insulting about this so there is no need to take offense.

As to modern advances in travel over the LVP, consider the facts. London to Bournemouth by express train took 2.5 hours in 1888. That's not much longer than it takes today (just at 2 hours, no express train as such available). See http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...6&postcount=31 .

Train travel between Blackheath and London takes around 10-15 minutes today. I don't have exact train travel times in 1888 but logic dictates that on a short run the times would have been similar. This is supported by studying the departure times for early 1889 -- which we do have.

While we don't have any direct evidence that Montague's travel was particularly erratic, persons suffering from mental disorders, especially those suffering from bipolar disorder, frequently behave in such erratic ways. Flitting to and fro would be consistent with somone in the manic stage. However, such "flitting" is not necessary as the time period we are dealing with is more than a month which is plenty of time for a single trip to London and back.

[Ben]

Ben, I've explained myself ad infinitum. Caz also laid it out neatly for you.

I appreciate that, Andy, and I intend no offense when I say this, but you and Caz are both card-carrying members of the notion that an educated, upper-class outsiders was responsible for the murders. Granted, you both angle for different educated upper-class outsiders, but when you start patting eachother's back and pretending that the other "laid it out neatly", it becomes clear after a while that you're essentially in the same boat.

You are grasping at straws in that now you are presuming that the family member(s) that suspected Druitt were only distant family members who would not have known than Druitt was in Dorset the whole month of August and into September, as you insist he was.

I've presumed no such thing. I've suggested the possibility that the family members who allegedly suspected Druitt may not have been the ones who remembered precisely where Druitt was on a few specific dates in 1888, especially if the suspicions were voiced some years subsequent to that. That's not grasping at straws at all. It's just entertaining the possibility that second-hand hearsay ought not to be taken at face value, especially if it's predicated on the idea that Macnaghten deliberately withheld it from other senior investigators. More likely, he did share it with other investigators, but none of them viewed it as particularly incriminating.

None of that amounts to "grasping at straws".

Grasping at straws is deciding, for no reason at all, that Druitt's depression must have manifested itself in "flitting to and fro" or being deliberately cagey to his family about his movements. Either that or something akin to "Yes yes, there's no evidence that Druitt was ever in the East End...ah, but if he was the ripper...!"