Frantic Friends?

[Cogidubnus]

I take your point Jonathan, but I meant my questions entirely literally, and would love to see them answered likewise...I believe there were somewhat less than twenty pupils, and in any event, I gather crammers couldn't charge anywhere near the same scale of fees as reputable establishments, unless they were specifically aimed at entrance to particular target establishments which couldn't be "bought off"...so could Valentines pay very much in the way of emoluments? If not, why is Druitt still there ? (insight into character?).

Also I somehow don't see Druitt combining some sort of full-time housemastership with a successful barristers career - so what exactly was his role? If he's not a housemaster (in the generally accepted sense of the role), and not instructing in mainstream subjects, then occasional absences might well be more liberally viewed than otherwise...hence, (in part at least), my questions...

For once, my queries do not relate to MacNaghtens fondness for the old school tie ethos!

All the best

Dave

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

You are nothing if not tenacious.

30th December was obviously the date on which William Druitt visited the school.

MJD's note was found elsewhere.

In the note, to which Friday was MJD referring?

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Dave

I think that limited duties could be balanced for the simple reason that Druitt lived there.

To Simon

December 30th could be when William arrived at the school.

It's just that it begs the question as to why he took so long from, say, the 12th to the 30th to make inquiries there. After all, it is where his missing brother's things still were.

It's possible of course. In fact, if it were the case then it woudl sugges he was looking elsewhere for Montie. Where? In who's company?

It's also possible that it is referring to Druitt being sacked on Nov 30th, and the mistake is the month.

I just think the totality of the meagre sources makes it more likely that the meaning of the sentence refers to when William arrived at the school, and that it is more likely he did so as promptly as he could -- on the 13th.

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

Sorry, I missed the other question you asked: which 'Friday' was Montie referring to?

I presume the immediate Friday before he took his own life, and that if the North Country Vicar is really about Druitt -- and it may not be -- then this would make sense if he confessed to an Anglican priest.

For by that act of confession he faced 'going to be like mother' eg. permanently incarcerated in a madhouse.

Something made the family, the MP, the 'good many' people he told, and the police chief certain (and perhaps all mistaken), about Montague's likely culpability.

And in the veiled version the intention to kill harlots is expressed by the murderer to a compassionate counsellor of the state.

That 1899 Vicar source, though obviously incomplete, does fit snugly into all the other sources about this suspect.

Moreover, it fills two major gaps at once.

[caz]

The Man Who Wasn't There

Hi Jonathan,

Apologies for having 'gone abroad' for so long. I left Monty for just over a month but only went as far as Sidmouth in Devon and London.

Catching up, I'm wondering how much it would detract from your theory as a whole if you were misinterpreting this small turn of phrase (that I have known and used from my childhood) and reading much more into it than it truly deserves. I can't see that it would make that much difference, and I doubt I could make you change your mind anyway, but here goes nothing:

From Matthew Fletcher's excellent dissertation on Druitt:

' ... However, on 21 December, after MJD had vanished, but before he had surfaced at Chiswick, the meeting's minutes record: 'The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Mr M J Druitt, having gone abroad, it was resolved that he be and he is hereby removed from the post of Honorary Secretary and Treasurer' ...'

What made them think Druitt had gone abroad?

Well a clue lies in the fact that they didn't 'think'; it was stated in writing that Druitt had 'gone abroad'. And despite every argument you can come up with, this two-word phrase is ambiguous, and was potentially much more so back in 1888, and furthermore it was known to have an alternative meaning. So if Monty had wanted to leave a clear but false impression that he had literally 'left the country' and taken himself 'overseas', those minutes failed him. Anyone reading them at the time would have been left none the wiser and expected to draw their own conclusions. But if anyone had used or taken the phrase 'gone abroad' in the literal sense they'd have been dead wrong.

Therefore the simpler and more reasonable interpretation is that those minutes contained no error, no misinformation, nobody's lie. We know the truth. And it is bound up in the alternative, but perfectly natural use in Victorian times of those two little words, when stated as fact, to mean that one of their number had gone from their midst; done a disappearing act; gone AWOL; done a runner; was nowhere to be found; had left the scene. In short, Druitt had gone abroad in all of those senses. This was no mere belief; he wasn't around. But he had not gone abroad in the one sense you are trying to force upon that statement. And you have not provided a source that (wrongly) believed he was literally overseas.

An unconfirmed belief that Monty had left the country would - or should - have been reflected in the minutes as such: 'believed to have gone abroad/overseas/left the country'. Any combination would have been enough (and indeed necessary) to remove the ambiguity, since no belief is required when 'gone abroad' is used in the sense of 'gone missing'. They knew that much, hence the statement of fact.

Love,

Caz
X

[Bridewell]

Hi Caz,

I agree with you that yours is the most likely interpretation, and that such a interpretation doesn't (to me) adversely the strength of Jonathan's argument. Nowadays, the phrase "gone abroad" would be seen as unambiguously meaning "gone overseas", but not so in the LVP. Nobody had a clue where MJD was, in my view, and the use of "gone abroad" in the sense of "gone walkabout" reflects that. (I don't think Jonathan will agree though).

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

Likely?

This is what I don't understand.

Bridewell, you say that Caz's explanation, or the theory she adheres to is the most likely.

Why? Why is it the most likely?

Could it be correct? Sure. But the most likely?

The counter-argument I made is not actually dealt with, eg. that it is the official minutes of a club, and to take what they have written at face value they were confident that M. J. Druitt had fled abroad. He had to be sacked.

This was in the period in which brother William, knowing that Montie was the fiend, was desperately trying to find him as the family's good name hung by a thread (see: Sims, 1902, 1903, 1907).

This information, about being abroad, may have come from William himself because though he had a note alluding to suicide (as may have Valentine) he could not be sure that Montie had actually killed himself. Perhaps he had fled to France? It was a stall.

Then the body turned up, and everybody could get their ducks in a row. The cricket club duly noted their condolences. If the school sacked him whilst he was deceased then this debacle was played down in the respectable press, except fro one account which is ambiguously word.

The important breakthrough, where the old paradigm is yet again torpedoed, is that that single source referring to the 31st may really have been the 13th, referring to when William arrived at the school to investigate his brother's whereabouts.

I think that is more likely.

[Jonathan H]

A previous poster, some time ago, wote alleged examples of 'going abroad' as a common euphemism for having fled because of some problem or indiscretion.

The examples were terribly weak and thin.

The old paradigm being defended here is that Druitt was sacked because he was gay, and the latter is what Macnaghten meant he wrote 'sexually insane', and the dismissal caused his suicide (which no primary source even hints at regarding this successul barrister?!)

It's about getting Druitt of the hook, and these theories, treated by many here as fact, were always aritificial; a modernist bias imposed upon the sources.

Mac does not mean homosexuality, as is clear from his other writings.

The Druitt family 'believed' that their deceased member killed female prostitutes.

The single source which claims that Montie was fired does not even allude to sexual indiscretion. It is not even clear that he was sacked while alive, or perhaps sacked because he was missing -- which is echoed with the cricket club's dismissal.

It is all hostage to a theory -- arguably discredited due to the identiifcastion of Farquharson and the frantic friends in Sims matching William -- that Sir Melville Macnaghten did not thoroughly, albeit posthumously, investigate Druitt. He just relied on gossip about a sexually tormented and tragic figure about whom he as ignorant of the most basic biographical information.

Thsi was always unlikely ...

[Bridewell]

Gone Abroad

This is what I don't understand.

Bridewell, you say that Caz's explanation, or the theory she adheres to is the most likely.

Why? Why is it the most likely?

Hi Jonathan,

In my view, for the reasons Caz outlined. The Cricket Club could have referred to MJD as being overseas, but chose to record him as having "gone abroad".

The Collins English Dictionary lists two possible meanings for "abroad":

(1) beyond the sea, in foreign lands, out of the country, overseas.

(2) about, at large, away, circulating, current, elsewhere, extensively, far, far and wide, forth, in circulation, out, out-of-doors, outside, publicly, widely, without.

In the 21st century (1) is by far the more usual understanding of the phrase "gone abroad", I agree. In the late 19th century, though, I suspect that (2) featured rather more.

As you say, either is possible. I think, from the context, that, on the balance of probabilities, (2) is more likely. You think otherwise, which is fine. You're entitled. Whoever took the Cricket Club minutes used an ambiguous phrase. Was that deliberate or accidental? Who knows? All we can do is to form our own opinions. They don't have to agree. Whichever is the meaning intended, I don't think there is a detrimental effect on your MJD theory, and I prefaced my post by saying as much.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

I agree. it's small beer.

This is because it is of no consequence to the other primary sources on this man's death and as a Ripper suspect.

A young man was missing, he was a successful barrister, his suicide was inexplicable.

Behind those sources we have others which reveal that his own family 'believed' he was the Ripper, and he took his own life before he could be incarcerated. This was a tale [supposedly] so incriminating that it convinced his brother, later an MP, the 'good many' people' the politician told, and, most critically, a contemporaneous police chief -- three of them (if not more) all Anglican Gentile Gentlemen to a man.

It's an extraordinary story which, unfortunately, we can only glimpse.

What I do not understand is this: on the 'balance of probabilities' that they are using an 'ambiguous phrase', and that it is therefore more likely to be meaning that Druitt is AWOL having 'blotted his copybook'.

If anything it is more likely that they would close ranks about an indiscretion, but that aside I never see any hard evidence presented for this opinion.

It's just an assertion without a solid foundation.

A previous poster tried to provide examples and they were terminally weak and quickly spluttered out.

What I see is that the old paradigm cannot concede a single inch because the island of improbability on which it stands is already tiny -- and shrinking.

But at least it's trying to rebut.

Somebody else just wrote to say that I was wrong about everything and then made no effort to put any kind of counter-argument what-so-ever, because I was a lost cause and so obviously wrong.

Is that so?

This thread began because I am trying to show people that Paul Begg's reasonable theory in '--The Facts', that Macnaghten could only have had access to PC Moulson's report on the recovery of the body (hence Mac knew about the season rail pass, in 'Aberconway') can be shown to to be probably wrong.

1. PC Moulson's Report would have also revealed to Macnaghten that the body washed up at Chiswick. This is too far to have staggered within hours of the Kelly murder, a 'shrieking, raving fiend', with nobody noticing or obstructing his journey to his watery grave. Yet Mac let Sims publish this melodramatic climax, and over and over. We know that 'family' had been fictionalised into 'friends' in Griffiths to protect everybody.

So, Druitt was further protected by having his suicide backdated by three or so weeks -- which is Farquharson's mistake in 1891 retained. If Mac believed it to be true he would have changed it, but he left it there because it was usefully wrong.

2. The frantic pals of Sims in 1903 and 1907 is a fictional variation-compression of an un-named friend who informed the brother, in person, that Montie was missing from his city chambers, and of William Druitt's subsequent search for his vanished sibling. According to Sims' veiled version, they, or he, suspected the worst in terms of the 'doctor's' culpability for the Whitechapel crimes, confirmed in the official version of Mac's Report, and by a Tory MP learning of the story due to proximity to members of the same Tory family.

This detail could not be in Moulson's Report. It shows at the very least that Macnaghten carefully read all of the 1889 sources about the barrister's self-murder. Which means that, in 1891, Mac knew that Druitt was a barrister, a surgeon's son, a part-time teacher and a country cricketer, aged 31, and that he killed himself about three weeks after Miller's Ct.

More likely he did confer with William, a glimpse of which is reported in Sims though fictionalised. Why wouldn't he?


3. In his neglected and/or misunderstood 1914 memoirs, Macnaghten pulls right back from the 'shilling shocker' tale he hustled Sims, denying that the 'Protean' sexual maniac had ever been sectioned, and certainly not confirming that he had been a medical man.

Crucially, Mac also pulls back from the near-instant murder/self-murder; the supposedly incriminating timing which was the clincher element of Farquharson's 'doctrine' and Sims' scoop. Instead Mac gives the misleading impression that the suspect lived with family, 'his own people', who noticed he was absent. This took at least twenty-four hours, from the night of the 8th or the morning of the 9th when he returned home from his 'awful glut', to the day of the 10th, or even the night of the 10th and Mac hints that it might have been a longer gap -- which it was.

[caz]

This is what I don't understand.

Bridewell, you say that Caz's explanation, or the theory she adheres to is the most likely.

Why? Why is it the most likely?

Could it be correct? Sure. But the most likely?

The counter-argument I made is not actually dealt with, eg. that it is the official minutes of a club, and to take what they have written at face value they were confident that M. J. Druitt had fled abroad. He had to be sacked.

But I did deal with your 'counter-argument', Jonathan, by explaining that 'gone abroad' in this Victorian context can be, and probably would have been taken 'at face value' to mean 'missing'. He had to be sacked because he was not around to attend to his duties and had not informed the club where he had gone.

You said it yourself when you wrote:

A young man was missing...

Indeed he was, and he should not have been.

Without another source, it's still pure speculation that anyone fed anyone the lie, or misinformation, or even suspicion, that Monty was no longer in England.

Monty had, in fact, gone abroad, just like the minutes recorded.

Just not in the sense you'd prefer.

I don't see what impact it has either way on your theory as a whole.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jonathan H]

Who was the worried friend?

As I wrote, it is more likely that 'gone abroad' meant exactly what it suggests; the Cricket Club mistakenly thought -- either because this was a message left behind by the missing man or the brother stalling -- that Montie was suddenly abroad but had not resigned, and so had to be dismissed.

The fact that he weighted his body supports the notion that he may have been trying to disappear without it being clear what he had done, or where he had gone: maybe he had killed himself? If so where was his body? Perhaps he had absconded abroad?

Could that theory be wrong? Sure.

But it is very unlikely that in the official minutes of a club's meeting they used a phrase which was allegedly gentlemanly slang for getting out of Dodge, quick smart! The examples from sources which supposedly make this interpretation viable are unconvincing -- there is no hard evidence it was a common expression with this meaning.

On another matter,

How did William Druitt come to know or believe that Montague was not only missing but also likely to be Jack the Ripper?

Or, rather who told him, and why was this outlandish, and alarming, story so convincing? (apparently the MP only had to tell the tale and a 'good many people' believed it -- why?)

This is what the only primary source which mentions William Druitt's frantic investigation tells us:

Acton, Chiswick & Turnham Green Gazette
United Kingdom
Saturday, 5 January 1889

... William H. Druitt said he lived at Bournemouth, and that he was a solicitor. The deceased was his brother, who was 31 last birthday. He was a barrister-at-law, and an assistant master in a school at Blackheath. He had stayed with witness at Bournemouth for a night towards the end of October. Witness heard from a friend on the 11th of December that deceased had not been heard of at his chambers for more than a week. Witness then went to London to make inquiries, and at Blackheath he found that deceased had got into serious trouble at the school, and had been dismissed. That was on the 30th of December. Witness had deceased's things searched where he resided, and found a paper addressed to him (produced). — The Coroner read the letter, which was to this effect:-"Since Friday I felt I was going to be like mother, and the best thing was for me to die."

— Witness, continuing, said deceased had never made any attempt on his life before. His mother became insane in July last. He had no other relative. — ...


In 1894, Macnaghten committed to file -- though seen by nobody in the extant record until 1966 -- that the Druitt family were the origin of the terrible suspicion against Montie:

... He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.


This is how Macnaghten fictionalised this element of the tale to the public via Sims:

February 16, 1902.

[Jack] ... had been once - I am not sure that it was not twice - in a lunatic asylum. At the time his dead body was found in the Thames, his friends, who were terrified at his disappearance from their midst, were endeavouring to have him found and placed under restraint again.

and

April 5, 1903.

... A little more than a month later the body of the man suspected by the chiefs at the Yard, and by his own friends, who were in communication with the Yard, was found in the Thames. The body had been in the water about a month.

and

September, 1907

The doctor had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum for some time, and had been liberated and regained his complete freedom.

After the maniacal murder in Miller's-court the doctor disappeared from the place in which he had been living, and his disappearance caused inquiries to be made concerning him by his friends who had, there is reason to believe, their own suspicions about him, and these inquiries were made through the proper authorities.

And Macnaghten himself walked the tightrope like this in 1914:

'Days of My Years', Chapter IV:

Not infrequently the maniac possesses a diseased body, and this was probably so in the case of the Whitechapel murderer. ... I do not think that there was anything of religious mania about the real Simon Pure, nor do I believe that he had ever been detained in an asylum, nor lived in lodgings. I incline to the belief that the individual who held up London in terror resided with his own people ; that he absented himself from home at certain times, and that he committed suicide on or about the 10th of November 1888, after he had knocked out a Commissioner of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.


But who was the friend? The one who tipped off William Druitt that his younger brother had not been seen in his chambers for a week?

Whomever he was he may have been fused with the brother for public consumption. In other words, he knew that Druitt was missing but he had no no notion that might be the Ripper.

But the alternate interpretation, since the 'friend' is fused with the family member (who 'believed'), is that this generic identity does mean the friend knew too.

Especially when you consider that in the memoirs Druitt's place of work and place of living have been fused.

Though it is very opaque, Macnaghten's memoir is implying that those who noticed he was absent had a terrible suspicion as to the true reason why. That does not fit the Valentine School, where he actually 'resided', who don't even seem to realise that there is a letter among Montie's belongings, for his brother, alluding to suicide and some kind of psychological implosion (nor that they have sacked an AWOL employee who is deceased).

Therefore the unidntified friend may have known and passed on this terrible knowledge to William Druitt.

Why would this person not simple go to the police? Why would they know, or think they know, if Montague Druitt was Jack?

Unless he had told them.

But then why would they not still go to the authorities? Immediately?

Unless there is some other factor which is holding them back?

If the 1899 Vicar story is about Druitt, and it's quite a coincidence if it's not, then Druitt confessed to a priest.

That would explain the reluctance of the friend to not simply go to the police, rather than the brother.

Hence Andrew Spallek's working theory that John Henry Lonsdale may have been this linking figure. He worked near Druitt as a lawyer and would have been in a position to know that if he was not at work. He was also an Anglican reverend to whom Druitt may have confessed, tying the cleric to a vow of sacred silence. Lonsdale also had a parish in Wimborne in Druitt's home town in Dorset.

Further confirmation of Spallek's tentative theory, posted by 'Andrewa' a few years ago which I re-paste here, is that there is a source which shows that Lonsdale did know the Druitt family, specifically Montie's cousin the Rev. Charles:

THE SALISBURY AND WINCHESTER JOURNAL AND GENERAL ADVERTISER
SATURDAY MAY 14 1887

Dorsetshire

WIMBORNE
POLICE COURT, Wednesday – (Before Mr. C. J. Parke and Captain Carr S. Glyn) – William Dymott, gardener and Charles Brewer, baker, Wimborne, were charged with breaking into the dwelling house of the Rev. J. H. Lonsdale, and stealing a despatch box, containing a gold ring and papers to the value of 9l., the property of the Rev. C. Druitt, and an old brass blunderbuss, a sword, and a dagger, of the value of 10s., the property of the Rev. John H. Lonsdale. Thomas Dymott, coachman, and Jane Dymott, domestic servant, were charged with receiving these goods knowing them to have been stolen. The case created great interest, and the Court was crowded. Mr. H. Bowen appeared for Thomas, Jane, and William Dymott, and Mr. W. H. Curtis represented Brewer. Sarah Frampton, widow, said that on April 4th she was acting as housekeeper for the Rev. J. H. Lonsdale, in East Borough, Wimborne. She went to bed at about 10 o’clock on the night of the 4th, having fastened the back part of the house. Mr. Lonsdale and the Rev. C. Druitt were in the sitting room on the ground floor in the front. The front door was closed. There were two swords and a gun hanging in the hall. Towards morning she was disturbed by a noise. She stuck a light and looked out of the window. It was then twenty minutes past four. She saw nothing, and went back to bed. When she went down the stairs about six o’clock, she noticed a match which had been struck lying on the mat. The hall door was open. She went in to Mr. Druitt’s room at about twenty minutes to seven. She drew up the blind and found the window was wide open. The cloth on the table in the window was disarranged and twisted; and the flowers outside the window were trodden down. Shortly after this she went to the back door to take in the milk. The door was unbolted and unlatched. After that she saw Mr. Druitt and Mr. Lonsdale come downstairs and go out. After they had gone she missed the gun and swords in the hall. Mr. Druitt and Mr. Lonsdale returned at about ten minutes to nine, and she informed them of what had taken place. She identified a box and case that were in Mr. Druitt’s room, but she could not identify the gun and the sword produced. Mr. Lonsdale’s room was on the right-hand side going in at the front door, and Mr. Druitt’s on the left. John Hy. Lonsdale said he occupied a house in East Borough, Wimborne. The Rev. Chas. Druitt was staying with him. The last witness was his house-keeper. He remembered being with Mr. Druitt on the evening of April 4th. He had a sword, a blunderbuss, and a Japanese dagger hanging on a rack in the hall. On the following morning he came down at about ten minutes to eight and noticed they were gone. Mr. Druitt came down in a few minutes after, and they both went out to the service at the Minster. On his return, in consequence of what the housekeeper said, he noticed outside of Mr. Druitt’s sitting-room that a plant was crushed, as if someone had trodden on it. Mr. Druitt came in a few minutes after, and in consequence of what witness told him they examined his room and found that his despatch-box was gone. They at once gave information to the police. He was, about a fortnight ago, show the despatch-box, blunderbuss, and the sword now produced, and which he identified. The despatch-box was Mr. Druitt’s property. He went to the house of the prisoner, Thomas Dymott, with Sergeant Long and P. C. Powell. They saw Thomas Dymott and Jane Dymott. He heard Sergeant Long ask them if they knew anything about the things. They both denied any knowledge of the articles. The hall door was not open when witness went to bed on Tuesday night. Charles Druitt, who was the next witness, said he remembered using his despatch-box on the evening in question, and about half-past nine locked up some papers in it and removed it to a small table in the window. It was not in a case. The window was shut. Mr. Lonsdale afterwards joined him and they went to bed at about 11 o’clock. He next saw the box at the police station on Thursday, the 28th ult. ... On the 6th May he again searched the house, and found some coins, which were identified by Mr. Druitt. ...


In early 1891 the secret belief about Montie as the Ripper leaked not in London, or Bournemouth, but in Dorset and was picked up by Henry Farquharson a fellow Anglican, fellow Tory, fellow Old Etonian, and fellow Gentleman.

This may have been from the Rev. Charles who had heard it from the friend, Lonsdale, who may have tipped off William, or it came from Lonsdale himself.

We will never know, only speculate. Macnaghten knew all this but kept it veiled and mostly buried.

His memoirs certainly give the impression, perhaps a misleading one, that those who noticed the killer absent are also the source of the incriminating information which came the police chief's way -- 'secretly' -- some years after, that this 'Protean' maniac was Jack.

I am not putting anything new here, except that Mac-via-Sims emphasized the search for the missing 'doctor' by the 'friends' and that this tale seems to fuse together two parallel sets of data: Druitt's place of work and his place of abode; and a frantic 'friend' and a frantic brother.

Macnaghten wrote 'his own people': those who suspected or 'believed' were more than one (on the other hand that could simply mean more than one family member, but none of them could have noticed that he was 'absented').

In the fictionalised version the 'friends' suspect because their pal has confessed to doctors, years before, that he wants to kill harlots. Behind that is arguably somebody Druitt told he was the fiend, after the final murder. Somebody who would not immediately go to the police, but who would go to the family instead, once Montie was missing.

John Henry Lonsdale is a tempting fit because he was a barrister with an office nearby, he knows the family via cousin Charles, and he is a priest and therefore may have felt constrained between the time of the confession and the vanishing of Druitt -- which may have only been a few days ('Since Friday I have felt ...').

Lonsdale was also an Old Etonian, just like Macnaghten and Farquharson.

On the other hand, Lonsdale, who does not attend Montie's funeral, may have nothing to do with the Ripper side of the tale. Perhaps the tip-off came from somebody oblivious and lost to the historical record forever.

[Jonathan H]

'Absented' ...?

To sum up;

It comes down to these two sources:

Acton, Chiswick & Turnham Green Gazette
United Kingdom
Saturday, 5 January 1889

... William H. Druitt ... heard from a friend on the 11th of December that deceased had not been heard of at his chambers for more than a week. Witness then went to London to make inquiries, and at Blackheath he found that deceased had got into serious trouble at the school, and had been dismissed.

and,

'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (Macnaghten, 1914):

... I incline to the belief that the individual who held up London in terror resided with his own people ; that he absented himself from home at certain times, and that he committed suicide on or about the 10th of November 1888, after he had knocked out a Commissioner of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.

In the second source, the place of work and his place of living and part-time work have been fused, as has his brother with the friend.

His own 'people' regarded his absence as proof that their member was a 'Protean' maniac, the murder of Kelly and the self-murder of the killer having been telescoped to a tight timeline of twenty-four hours (or longer?).

Therefore, those who knew he was 'absented' knew he was the Ripper.

The first person who knew he was absent was not a family member but a 'friend' who is not designated as a colleague of Montague's. Rather this helpful person 'told' William that Montie was missing by going all the way out to Bournemouth to alert him.

That's some loyal pal.

The initial source of Macnaghten's 'private information', also called his 'secret information' in 1913 (secret from whom?), was obviously MP Farquharson, but was the full -- and accurate story -- learned from the 'friend' (who may have been fellow Old Etonian John Henry Lonsdale, and may not have been) to whom, arguably, Montie had confessed?

[Jonathan H]

To Jennifer Sheldon

You are right of course about the libel laws on the other site.

The dead can't sue but the living sure can, especially, though by no means exclusively, from a family of barristers (and doctors).

The suit would have been to challenge the alleged claim or implication that they knew; that they in effect harboured the murderer.

Macnaghten via Sims bends over backwards to have the frantic 'friends' standing in for the older brother, and who are responsbiliy in touch with the police as soon as Kelly is killed, though the constabulary supposedly already know about the 'mad doctor' suspect from their exhaustive investigation.

It's fiction, and like grandmother's night-shirt it covers everything.

Other primary sources allude to the libel laws preventing a full story from being told:

11 February 1891, The Bristol Times and Mirror:

I give a curious story for what it is worth. There is a West of England member who in private declares that he has solved the mystery of 'Jack the Ripper.' His theory - and he repeats it with so much emphasis that it might almost be called his doctrine - is that 'Jack the Ripper' committed suicide on the night of his last murder. I can't give details, for fear of a libel action; but the story is so circumstantial that a good many people believe it. He states that a man with blood-stained clothes committed suicide on the night of the last murder, and he asserts that the man was the son of a surgeon, who suffered from homicidal mania. I do not know what the police think of the story, but I believe that before long a clean breast will be made, and that the accusation will be sifted thoroughly.

Sir Robert Anderson also believed that his Ripper was safely deceased and yet he wrote in Blackwoods Magazine, in March 1910:

' ... Having regard to the interest attaching to this case, I should almost be tempted to disclose the identity of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter above referred to, provided that the publishers would accept all responsibility in view of a possible libel action.'

The very fact that Macnaghten via Grifrfiths and then Sims changed the Druitt 'family' into anomic 'friends' suggests the intersection of compassion plus the ferocious libel laws, despite the Ripper being safely deceased (in Mac's own memoirs they become even more anomic: ... 'his own people ...' which suggests family -- but does not confirm it).

And of course that Sir Melville changed Montague Druitt from a young barrister into a middle-aged doctor is also, arguably, motivated from the same sensibly discreet reasons.

The alternative is to believe that when William Druitt warily read George Sims' big article 'Who was Jack the Ripper?' in 1907, in 'Lloyds Weekly', it was just sheer luck that a police chief -- one famous for his accurately retentive memory -- had so buggered it up that Montie was inadvertently disguised as a an unemployed, affluent, periodically sectioned, middle-aged recluse who killed himself within hours of Kelly. Thus Montague was completely hidden from the Druitt's respectable circles in London, Bournemouth and Dorset.

This cheeky ruse fools people to this day, every day ...

[Scott Nelson]

If the 1899 Vicar story is about Druitt, and it's quite a coincidence if it's not, then Druitt confessed to a priest....

Lonsdale was also an Old Etonian, just like Macnaghten and Farquharson.

To me, this sounds like Newland Smith, who died the year before. As far as the postulated "Old Etonian" connection goes, it's as plausible as anything I've posted here in several months.