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Welcome to Casebook, welcome to the hunt.
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Yes, and a pretty good article - at least, I didn't spot any serious mistakes.
One question - does anybody know when the photographs of Druitt were taken and what their source is? (As far as I know, there are only two?) It would be interesting to find out, as he looks a little too young and slim to fit the eye-witness descriptions of the Ripper (which are obviously not conclusive one way or the other) - but of course, this would be less relevant if they were actually taken a few years before the murders. -
To AndewL
Andy Spalleck went to Winchertser College, a few years ago, and found some more Druitt pictures. Though they are obviously not from 1888, they nevertheless show Druitt to be a more robust and broad-shouldered figure than had been previously appreciated.
In one shot he bears a remarakble a resemblance to George Sims, minus the beard. Sims had always claimed that he strongly resembled the fiend, that a witness claimed a suspicious, bloodied man was encountered the morning after the 'doubled event' -- and who accurately predicted two murders.
The eyewitnes claimed that the stranger was a dead ringer for how George Sims looked in an 1879 leftist pamphlet: young, thin, hair-parted in the centre.
It is the only picture of Sims which parallels Druitt's features, though presumably the barrister only had a moustache like his brother and cousin.
Macnaghten went to great lengths, in every single source by him, or by a proxy, to obliterate from the public mind that a critical witness, Lawende, saw a lithe, fair, Gentile-featured man, dressed like a sailor, amiably chatting with Eddowes.
The high school Druitt bears a generic resemblance to Lawende's 'Jack the Seaman'.Comment
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Hi Jonathan,
Very interested indeed to hear that. Can you tell me if those Druitt photographs are available to view anywhere?Comment
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