How certain was Mac?

[Scott Nelson]

So far nobody has even laid a glove on it, except for one accomplished and experienced researcher --

Newland Francis Forrester Smith.

[Jonathan H]

Nice try, Mr. Nelson, but no, it's not you either.

And I'm afraid that is a terribly weak line of argument, that the MP was referring to Newland Smith.

So weak I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are doing a self-satire on close-minded buffdom.

In that case, bravo!

If not, oh well, at least it's a step up from simply screaming that I'm wrong because, eh, you say so.

Of course Henry Farquharson meant Montague Druitt, but I understand why you have to resist the obvious at all costs.

Because where might it lead ...?

Comments like yours always leave me more certain than when I began, but at a very, very cheap price and so it's an unearned confirmation.

The researcher I was referring to is R. J. Palmer.

[Scott Nelson]

I knew that, of course.

Macnaghten's source for Druitt was Met. Superintendent James Butcher, as I mentioned in an early Ripperologist article.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

I was being perfectly serious.

"I received information in professional confidence, with directions to publish the facts after ten years, and then with such alterations as might defeat identification.

The timing of the North County vicar story and the January 1899 second edition of Griffiths' book goes beyond coincidence.

Next, Griffiths' book was used as "confirmation of the vicar's sources of information."

That appears satisfyingly circular, except that a reader at the time might have been forgiven for asking how, if the vicar was the only person who knew the truth and had kept it secret for ten years, Griffiths had first published the drowned doctor story two months earlier?

Of course, we know the answer.

Also, rather conveniently, the vicar's story hinged on a second-hand ten-year-old narrative all neatly trussed up in secrecy under the seal of the confessional.

Perfect.

"Failing to see how any good purpose could be served by publishing substantial truth in fictitious form . . ." the Daily Mail and Western Mail published it anyway.

And Major Griffiths raked in the royalties.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

Yes, I see. That's a clever argument for sure.

My counter is that the reason Macnaghten knew what the Vicar knew is because the story leaked in Dorset -- where Montie's clerical cousin resided as did the Rev. John Henry Lonsdale -- in 1891, along the local Tory grapevine and picked up by Farquharson

It was not just the priest and then this unidentified Vicar who knew, but also the family, or at least some family members.

We agree that the close timing of Griffiths' book and the Vicar's revelation is not a coincidence; that they are timed together and intertwined.

We disagree on why that came about.

I theorize that Mac knew it was coming and got in first via his literary pal with 'Aberconway' (written in 1898) falsely trumpeted by the chief as a definitive document of state (Sims, 1903).

That Montie himself set in motion the confession which must be published in a decade, and that this is one of the pressures that caused Macnaghten to bob and weave between 1891 and 1899.

Also the newspaper did not publish the Vicar's article 'The Whitechurch Murders: Solution to a London Mystery' which was 'substantial truth under fictitious form' eg. that the title not the content is fictional (as it matches Montie Druitt except for the 'at one time a surgeon' line, which of course is also the case with Griffiths' and Sims' 'drowned doctor').

Instead it published an article complaining about why they could not publish the Vicar's piece.

Here is the original for those who have not seen it. Most researchers dismiss this piece as nothing much; as so much tabloid detritus, and perhaps they are right.

I argue that this, found by Chris Scott, is a key piece in the jigsaw explaining not only Mac's machinations but also why the family -- rightly or wrongly -- thought their deceased member was Jack the Ripper.

Western Mail
19 January 1899

WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
DID "JACK THE RIPPER" MAKE A CONFESSION?

We have received (says the Daily Mail) from a clergyman of the Church of England, now a North Country vicar, an interesting communication with reference to the great criminal mystery of our times - that enshrouding the perpetration of the series of crimes which have come to be known as the "Jack the Ripper" murders. The identity of the murderer is as unsolved as it was while the blood of the victims was yet wet upon the pavements. Certainly Major Arthur Griffiths, in his new work on "Mysteries of Police and Crime," suggests that the police believe the assassin to have been a doctor, bordering on insanity, whose body was found floating in the Thames soon after the last crime of the series; but as the major also mentions that this man was one of three known homidical lunatics against whom the police "held very plausible and reasonable grounds of suspicion," that conjectural explanation does not appear to count for much by itself.
Our correspondent the vicar now writes:-
"I received information in professional confidence, with directions to publish the facts after ten years, and then with such alterations as might defeat identification.
The murderer was a man of good position and otherwise unblemished character, who suffered from epileptic mania, and is long since deceased.
I must ask you not to give my name, as it might lead to identification"
meaning the identification of the perpetrator of the crimes. We thought at first the vicar was at fault in believing that ten years had passed yet since the last murder of the series, for there were other somewhat similar crimes in 1889. But, on referring again to major Griffiths's book, we find he states that the last "Jack the Ripper" murder was that in Miller's Court on November 9, 1888 - a confirmation of the vicar's sources of information. The vicar enclosed a narrative, which he called "The Whitechurch (sic) Murders - Solution of a London Mystery." This he described as "substantial truth under fictitious form." "Proof for obvious reasons impossible - under seal of confession," he added in reply to an inquiry from us.
Failing to see how any good purpose could be served by publishing substantial truth in fictitious form, we sent a representative North to see the vicar, to endeavour to ascertain which parts of the narrative were actual facts. But the vicar was not to be persuaded, and all that our reporter could learn was that the rev. gentleman appears to know with certainty the identity of the most terrible figure in the criminal annals of our times, and that the vicar does not intend to let anyone else into the secret.
The murderer died, the vicar states, very shortly after committing the last murder. The vicar obtained his information from a brother clergyman, to whom a confession was made - by whom the vicar would not give even the most guarded hint. The only other item which a lengthy chat with the vicar could elicit was that the murderer was a man who at one time was engaged in rescue work among the depraved woman of the East End - eventually his victims; and that the assassin was at one time a surgeon.

In the original, physical copy you can see that the word 'Whitechapel' is actually 'Whitechurch', very similar to the name of Druitt's cousin's parish, for what that is worth.

For me that two semi-fictional Rippers were in competition, Mac's Drowned Doctor and the Vicar's Sometime Surgeon -- and that the former is secretly fictionalized and the latter candidly so, and that the former is police-friendly and the latter is not -- it too great a coincidence to be about different suspects.

Especially since the Vicar's matches Druitt better.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

I don't know what to say.

I think the North Country vicar's story was a smart marketing ploy, whilst you think it was a vindication of Big Mac's denunciation [via Griffiths] of Druitt.

The gentlemanly thing for us to do is agree to disagree.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Of course, Simon, unless another source truns up which clarifies the existence, or non-existence of the Vicar.

You may well be right.

On the other hand, as a 'marketing ploy' it was quite feeble and [potentially] extremely offensive to the state church of the realm -- if it was all made up, or a cleric was press-ganged into fibbing.

The clergyman seems real as a reporter interviewed him, or at least allegedly did so.

Also, the story does not work as a 'marketing ploy' because Griffiths is saying that there were three possible suspects, while the Vicar offers only his single confession -- and it's not to him!

It's a disappointingly second-hand tale.

In a sense Sims, a few days later in 1899, cleans up the Vicar tale for 'marketing' purposes by having the Vicar himself hear the confession from a criminal-lunatic on his deathbed.

That's much more satisfying as a marketable story.

Having rewritten the story Sims, in the same breath, denounces it as impossible because the real 'Jack' had no time to confess anybody anything as he staggered to the Thames river -- immediately -- and drowned himself after the penultimate horror of Miller's Ct.

This is why I think it is Druitt's confession. The man who knows the Duitt story, Macnaghten, is determined to keep that detail buried -- until his own memoir conceded that there was time for such a confession.

Also, Sims, from 1902, adopted a key tenet of the Vicar's tale: that the 'doctor' was only 'at one time a surgoen' as he was inavlided out of the profession by his own bouts of homicidal insanity -- which apparently caused him to say that he wanted to kill poor harlots.

But the penny-pinching state, Sims huffs, scandalously let the ex-doctor back on the streets and, after a year of affluent unemployment, sure enough he began killing East End prostitutes -- just like he said he would.

Note how this profile, completely at odds with the known facts about the real Druitt, plays into Sims' leftist ideology of the benefience of Big Government. He now gets to apportion blame to a heartless, reactionary state for the Whitechapel murders, a further twist/amplification on George Bernard Shaw's leftist-satirical writings at the time of the murders.

I see Mac, the overgrown Etonian schoolboy and a Tory with Liberal pals -- like Sims -- as having cheekily exploited the famous do-gooder writer's 'It's Christmas Day in the Workhouse' prejudices. He did this by borrowing a detail from the debunked Vicar, who was essentially discredited according to Sims because of the timing of the alleged clerical confession -- after Kelly. He combined this with the clercial confession but redacted it back into a'confession-of-intent to anomic physicians well before the murders (which neatly protects both the Druitt family and the Anglican Church, while enhancing the rep of the Yard).

The ecumenical slyness of Mac is that he has used a Liberal Trojan Horse to hide a Tory fiend-murderer.

Whereas in his 1914 memoir, Macnaghten agrees with the Vicar: 1. no other suspects are worth mentioning, and 2. the likely fiend killed himself 'soon after' Kelly, not immediately after; specifcally at least a full day and a night later which renders the hysterical odyssey to the river impossible and ludicrous -- and so the location and method of self-murder are not, and in fact could not be included.

[Jonathan H]

Macnaghten's source for Druitt was Met. Superintendent James Butcher, as I mentioned in an early Ripperologist article.


To Scott Nelson

Bravo to another one of you non-answer answers. This one takes the proverbial biscuit for arrogance -- surely it has to be a parody?

So you wrote an article, so phucking what?

Who hasn't? You make no effort to even summarise your argument or name the article in question, or concede that it must be a contingent opinion.

To anybody reading this I suggest they check out 'The West of England MP -- Identified' (2008) by Andrew Spallek, in Dissertations.

My significant disagreement with Spallek's phenomenal breakthrough in finding the missing link in the primary sources between the 1894 Mac Report(s) and the sympathetic 1899 obits, like 'Sad Death of a Local Barrister', is that he did not consider the timing of the MP leak -- Feb 1891 -- as matching Mac's memoir words; that the critical and posthumous intelligence about [the un-named] Druitt as the Ripper only reached him 'some years after', whereas I most certainly do.

[robhouse]

The main, if not only, interesting thing about "the timing of the MP leak -- Feb 1891" is that it matches (within 4 days) Kozminski's incarceration at Colney Hatch asylum.

RH

[Scott Nelson]

Instead of poo-poohing the the information given, why don't you check it out yourself? You're a relative newcomer with an air of self-superiority. You need to read more published stuff on the case. There's lots of it. You can't expect researchers to spoon-feed you regurgitated information just to satisfy your languor.

[Jonathan H]

So, it's the full pincer here against the Oswald/Druitt leper.

I'm the rude, young whipper-snapper (I'm 48) who should know my place in RipperLand's rigid hierarchy-- and I see still no counter-argument to make because you have none of course -- and the usual projection of your own self-superiority because I dare to defend myself.

How old are you by the way? My impression is that you must be much younger than me, in years.

To Robhouse

That a probable link between Macnaghten regarding Druitt as the Ripper is not worthless, except to the horoughly biased.

Inevitably with you Rob, despite all your research and elegant prose, you over-reach by stacking the deck for the lay-reader and thus give the misleading and false impression that Aaron Kosminski was Scotland Yard's prime suspect (much later his fictional counterpart, 'Kosminski', was Anderson's and maybe Swanson's).

That the primary sources of Macnaghten and Griffiths and Sims refute that opinion are just not allowed to breathe life are they? You quote Evans when it suits you, but bury way in the back that his conclusions are opposed to yours, let alone let his 'Sailor's Home' theory with Rumbelow be shared with the readers.

Yo don't even let the witness who said no to Salder in your book do you? Do you think that was just an oversight?

[Scott Nelson]

OK, OK, you've got me pegged. I'm only 17. Now what was I supposed to making a counter-argument about? I honestly can't remember.

[Bridewell]

"How truthful was Mac?"

[Simon Wood]

Hi Colin,

Regarding the "Ripper", Macnaghten was no more truthful than Anderson.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Bridewell and Simon

I think that is a perfectly reasonable opinion/theory.

That a source like Macnaghten who can be shown to be deceitful on a subject in some bits, cannot be trusted in anything they say about it in other pieces.

Not without verification.

Fair enough.

I argue that the two 'West of England' MP titbits establish that Druitt, as a Ripper suspect, began independently of Mac and among his own 'people'.

I also argue for the primacy of his memoirs, the only document by Mac on this subject which, 1. were for public consumption under his own knighted name, 2. were composed from the relative freedom and safety of retirement, 3. that they match the real facts about [the un-named] Druitt, and 4. they match the primary sources on the 1888 to 1891 police investigation, the only police memoirs to do so ('Laying the Ghost ...' is the de-facto and definitive third version of his 'memo').

I further argue that if Mac was just a liar about the Ripper he would have happily repeated the colorful and vivid Drowned Doctor' mythos he had himself created through cronies, and with which the Edwardian public were already familiar.

In fact, he does no such thing -- even to some extent debunking his own propaganda.

If the 1899 'North Country Vicar' is writing about Druitt -- and he may not be; it's just a coincidence -- then that backs up this independent confirmation too.