Druitt's movements around murder dates

[aspallek]

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.

Nope. I've said repeatedly that I think it rather unlikely that Druitt is Jack the Ripper. Nevertheless, I think he is a good suspect. Seemingly paradoxical, but true. I think it most likely that an unknown and unknowable local person committed the crimes.

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".

But is seems you must have that possibility or your objection doesn't hold. If the far more likely scenario is that Druitt's Dorset family members were the ones who suspected him and they would have remembered his Dorset visit in August very well and would have known if he were in Dorset when Nichols was murdered.

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...!"

I'd like to give you more credit thatn that, Ben. I clearly said it wasn't necessary to attribute unusual movements to Druitt in order to put him in London at the time of the murders. London to Bournemouth was a 2.5 hour train ride in 1888. I was only saying that even if you think you would have to attribute such movements to him -- for instance if we knew he was in Dorset just prior to and just after a cannonical murder -- that could be explained at lease in part my his mental state.

[Ben]

If the far more likely scenario is that Druitt's Dorset family members were the ones who suspected him and they would have remembered his Dorset visit in August very well and would have known if he were in Dorset when Nichols was murdered.

But I don't think that is a more likely scenario, Andy. Even if the family member was one of the Dorset bunch, and did have an unusually impressive memory about specific dates several years prior to those suspicions being articulated, it would be highly unusual for a mention if Druitt's "flitting to and fro" to have escaped inclusion on the memoranda. It's conspicuous it its absence, and makes me think that the more likely scenario is that the family member - who may or may not have been a close family member - didn't know or couldn't remember what Druitt was doing on August 31st 1888.

I was only saying that even if you think you would have to attribute such movements to him -- for instance if we knew he was in Dorset just prior to and just after a cannonical murder -- that could be explained at lease in part my his mental state

It depends it his mental state manifested itself in County-hopping and evasiveness. I personally see no reason to think it it.

Best regards,
Ben

[aspallek]

Ben --

First, I regret ever bringing up any mention of "flitting to and fro." That was only meant as a hypothetical. No such behavior is necessary according to the information we have about Druitt's whereabouts. His being in London to murder Nichols requires only one return to London from Dorset in a nearly five week period. Actually, I think it quite possible that he made a number of trips to the country and back during this time as was is only a 2.5 hour rail journey and he certainly had the funds to do so.

As to which family members suspected Druitt, remember the origin of the story as we have it. Henry Richard Farquharson was MP from West Dorset and lived 10 miles from Wimborne Minster. Surely the most likely scenario is that the MP got the information from Druitt's Dorset family or from someone close to Druitt's Dorset family. We don't know when Farquharson first received the information but it had to be no later than early 1891, which is only two years after Montague's burial. Remember also that this is only the date of Farquharson's public blabbering of the information. We don't know when he first heard it and -- more to the point -- we don't know when Druitt's family began to suspect him. I think it highly unlikely that their suspicion was only first aroused two years after Montague's death. No, it is far more likely that they suspected him either while he was still alive or shortly after his disappearance. They would certainly have remembered a month-long visit in August-September had one taken place and a quick check of the facts would have told them of the date of Nichols' murder.

But I am going to have to acknowledge one thing here that will support your view and it is something I just now thought of. Even though Tabram's murder is generally considered non-canonical today, much of the press and some of the police considered it to be one of the series. So the question now becomes, would the Druitt's family have believed that murder to be a JtR killing? If so, their suspicion becomes problematic in that I will grant it's being unlikely (though not impossible) that Montague returned to London to commit the Tabram murder in between consecutive cricketing weekends at Dorset in early August. So, you see, I am trying to be very fair and reasonable about this.

[caz]

Hi Andy,

But think of it the other way round, and it becomes a commitment for Monty to return to Dorset for the second cricketing weekend, if he had taken himself off up to London after the first, perhaps because he preferred to spend the early August Bank Holiday in London. (I know what Ben's going to say: "Nobody in their right mind would choose to spend a bank holiday in London." )

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.

Hi Ben,

No offence taken, but the fact that you can get this so very wrong shouldn’t fill anyone with confidence that all your other observations are any more reliable. I don’t favour any ‘upper-class outsiders’ for the ripper crimes at all. In fact I think it’s unlikely, on statistical and logistical grounds alone, that the ripper will be found anywhere outside the working or lower middle classes, or that he won’t have had a sound grounding in the East End generally. If I am a card-carrying member of the notion that an upper-class outsider was responsible, I’d be interested to know which individual(s) you have marked my card with, because Maybrick would be out for starters on that basis - even if I had not repeatedly stated that he isn’t even a legitimate suspect!

I just speak as I find, and I find you regularly using unsound, unbending, black-and-white reasoning in your transparent campaign to eliminate anyone and everyone alive in 1888 and capable of using a knife who isn’t known as George Flippin’ Hutchinson.

As I said, if your campaign requires you to argue that the most likely scenario is that nobody close to Monty ever suspected him, then there is nothing more to discuss. You may as well just put your fingers in your ears and pretend Macnaghten did not believe what he wrote, or had no reason whatsoever to believe it, because your efforts to promote the merits of one-dimensional thinking are certainly not working. On the contrary, with every post you make, the perils become ever more apparent. You can barely bring yourself to concede that any lingering family suspicion would indicate that they tried to establish their troubled relative’s whereabouts, but were no more able to tie him down to Dorset for the duration of the long school holidays in 1888 than you are today with your unique brand of ‘parsimonious’ logic. So instead you wish away the family suspicion in the hope that it didn't exist or was never voiced, and now you’re even trying to suggest that getting the sack for some undisclosed serious trouble and going missing only to be fished out of the Thames weeks later could not have been regarded as evidence of ‘cageyness’ or ‘absenteeism’. Well you could have fooled me.

But instead you continue to fool nobody.

Love,

Caz
X

[aspallek]

Hi Andy,

But think of it the other way round, and it becomes a commitment for Monty to return to Dorset for the second cricketing weekend, if he had taken himself off up to London after the first, perhaps because he preferred to spend the early August Bank Holiday in London. (I know what Ben's going to say: "Nobody in their right mind would choose to spend a bank holiday in London." )

That's certainly a possibility, Caz. It will require a bit of a mental shift if I am going to embrace it, however. But it is not a great stretch to imagine that Montague had either a business or a social engagement in London at the time that interrupted his cricket schedule. Perhaps Wilson and the boys were having a get-together at The Osiers. But in my mind that is close to "grasping at straws." Ben would be justified in questioning it.

However, it's also possible that the suspecting Druitts realized Tabram was probably not a Ripper victim. Now the important questions become when did the "canon" begin to emerge and when did the family suspicions begin?

[Ben]

Hi Caz and Andy,

I'm not assuming that the family suspicions didn't exist. I'm simply saying that second-hand hearsay shouldn't be used to place Druitt in the East End between early August and early September 1888 when there is no indepedent evidence to place him anywhere other than Dorset during that time frame.

I don't think it remotely illogical or black-and-white to deduce from the various errors implicit in the memoranda that the private information may not be of the best quality (a family informant and only "said to be a doctor"?), any more than it is folly to conclude from the absence of any mention of Druitt's movements over the aforementioned time-frame that the family member didn't know or couldn't remember where he was at that time. Similarly, there's nothing wrong with inferring from the lukewarm reception to Druitt's candidacy (on the part of other investigating officers) that they were privvy to the rumours but didn't see much merit in them.

If anyone thinks there's anything "unsound" or "black-and-white" about that, show me where.

I think it highly unlikely that their suspicion was only first aroused two years after Montague's death. No, it is far more likely that they suspected him either while he was still alive or shortly after his disappearance.

No evidence either way, unfortunately, in the absence of which we can't say which is more "likely", but I agree with your Tabram observation, which I find to be both fair and reasonable.