Druitt's personality

[Limehouse]

What I am getting at is, that Montie visited his brother in late October, and Montie still had communications with the family, yet we read of no hints or expectations from anyone about a slow decline of Montie's mental ability or frequent bouts of depression, or anything to indicate mental troubles.
The letter comes across as if Montie, one day, just decided to throw himself in the Thames.
What we are missing is the slow decline, or the long build-up to such drastic measures.

By the same token, there is no hint in his behaviour that he had been roaming the streets of London slicing up women either. If his family could not even detect in him a hint of depression (as you describe) then how on earth did they conclude he was the ripper?

[Jonathan H]

If this is Druitt, then that question is answered.

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 Whitechapel 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.'

And here is arguably the veiled version of that confession:

"The Daily Express", London, Monday August 1, 1904, Page 5

"DAGONET'S" DOUBLE.

STARTLING REMINISCENCES OF THE "RIPPER" MURDERS.

...

Mr. Sims said that he had not the slightest doubt in his mind as to who the "Ripper" really was.
"Nor have the police," he continued.
"In the archives of the Home Office are the name and history of the wretched man. He was a mad physician belonging to a highly respected family. He committed the crimes after having been confined in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac."

[Lechmere]

Taking Sims's 'solution' in isolation, it is difficult to make a case that it refers to Druitt even.

[Jonathan H]

No, not at all.

Each element of Sims' profile is a veiled exaggeration of the real Druitt.

Macnaghten had written a report for the Home Office but never sent it. He had written an alternate version which had no official status, whatsoever, yet Sims calls this version a definitive document of state written by the 'Commissioner' and residing in the archive of the Home Office.

A young barrister and the son of a surgeon, Druitt, killed himself three weeks or so after the Kelly murder, becomes a middle-aged surgeon who took his own life the same morning as the Kelly murder.

Druitt's body was found with some substantial checks and a season railway pass, becomes a fabulously wealthy recluse who does not need to work at all, and who travels around aimlessly on public transport.

Druitt looked like Sims in a single picture from 1879 (when Sims by his own admission was ill and 'haggard') and this becomes a fiend who is the exact double of the famous writer--and that the murderer also sported a beard.

Druitt was suspected by his family, or at least by his older brother, after he vanished from his legal chambers because, arguably, he had confessed to a priest (culpability thus comes from the killer's own lips) and this becomes the frantic friends trying to find the mad doctor because the latter had previously been 'twice' sectioned as a voluntary patient--diagnosed as a maniac who wanted to savage East End harlots (culpability still comes from the killer's own lips).

Only once, in the 1904 interview I quoted from, did Sims let slip (not much of one) that the doctor came from a 'highly respected family', instead of having just anomic, concerned pals.

William Druitt, I believe, was interviewed by [just] Macnaghten in 1891 after the cop had spoken with MP Farquharson, and this becomes the 'friends' in contact with the 'police' in 1888--only to find that the super-efficient CID already know the doctor is the Ripper and are about to arrest him (a doctor suspect, Tumblety, really was arrested in that year but he jumped his bail and fled back to the States).

[Cogidubnus]

Blimey Jonathan...you're not by any chance another teacher who doubles as a barrister are you?

All the best

Dave

[Lechmere]

He's from New Zealand but pretends to be from Australia and pretends to favour Druitt as his suspect but really thinks it's Tumblety.
He says he gets numerous PMs telling him to carry on regardless but really it was one anonymous text.

[Jonathan H]

Shyt! They're on to me?!

Oh, well, 'tis of little matter as I waiting for the Wicker Man

[pinkmoon]

carry on doctor

This thing about druitt been a doctor always runs through the stories ,gossip,about him been our killer.How can police officials make such a glaring error.I know people have researched to see if he studied medicine I don't think anybody has researched to see if he studied medicine abroad.

[Jonathan H]

You're obviously not familiar with this source where [the un-named] Druitt is not identified, incorrectly, as a doctor:

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.'

Or this from Macnaghten's 1914 memoir chapter 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' which also does not claim the [un-named] Druitt was a doctor:

'... Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer.

...

There can be no doubt that in the room at Miller's Court the madman found ample scope for the opportunities he had all along been seeking, and the probability is that, after his awful glut on this occasion, his brain gave way altogether and he committed suicide ; otherwise the murders would not have ceased. The man, of course, was a sexual maniac, but such madness takes Protean forms, as will be shown later on in other cases. Sexual murders are the most difficult of all for police to bring home to the perpetrators, for motives there are none ; only a lust for blood, and in many cases a hatred of woman as woman. Not infrequently the maniac possesses a diseased body, and this was probably so in the case of the Whitechapel murderer. Many residents in the East End (and some in the West!) came under suspicion of police, but though several persons were detained, no one was ever charged with these offences.

Only last autumn I was very much interested in a book entitled The Lodger, which set forth in vivid colours what the Whitechapel murderer's life might have been while dwelling in London lodgings. The talented authoress portrayed him as a religious enthusiast, gone crazy over the belief that he was predestined to slaughter a certain number of unfortunate women, and that he had been confined in a criminal lunatic asylum and had escaped therefrom. 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.'

[pinkmoon]

Thank you Jonathan

[Lechmere]

Nearly always refereed to as a doctor and never referred to as a school teacher or barrister.
A veritable Jekyll and Hyde - a fictitious character.

[Limehouse]

You're obviously not familiar with this source where [the un-named] Druitt is not identified, incorrectly, as a doctor:

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.'

Or this from Macnaghten's 1914 memoir chapter 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' which also does not claim the [un-named] Druitt was a doctor:

'... Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer.

...

There can be no doubt that in the room at Miller's Court the madman found ample scope for the opportunities he had all along been seeking, and the probability is that, after his awful glut on this occasion, his brain gave way altogether and he committed suicide ; otherwise the murders would not have ceased. The man, of course, was a sexual maniac, but such madness takes Protean forms, as will be shown later on in other cases. Sexual murders are the most difficult of all for police to bring home to the perpetrators, for motives there are none ; only a lust for blood, and in many cases a hatred of woman as woman. Not infrequently the maniac possesses a diseased body, and this was probably so in the case of the Whitechapel murderer. Many residents in the East End (and some in the West!) came under suspicion of police, but though several persons were detained, no one was ever charged with these offences.

Only last autumn I was very much interested in a book entitled The Lodger, which set forth in vivid colours what the Whitechapel murderer's life might have been while dwelling in London lodgings. The talented authoress portrayed him as a religious enthusiast, gone crazy over the belief that he was predestined to slaughter a certain number of unfortunate women, and that he had been confined in a criminal lunatic asylum and had escaped therefrom. 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.'

First, we have someone who believes the killer did away with himself on the night of the last murder and that his clothes were blood-stained. This cannot be Druitt, who was seen alive and well after November 8th. Are we to assume, if he was the killer, he carried on wearing his blood-stained clothes until his death? Perhaps someone saw him, all blood-stained, leaping into the river? If that is the case, why did it take so long to find him and why did anyone go looking for him if they knew he was in the river?

Secondly, we have Macnaghten writing..

... Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer.

But the police had no real evidence, just speculation and assumptions based on ideas of 'sexual mania' and 'sexual insanity' but no, absolutely no, evidence that Druitt had ever been violent towards anyone, let alone women.

As an aside, with reference to the trouble he got into at school, could it not be the case that he had fraternised with a servant girl or another female member of staff? Is it possible a pregnancy resulted and the cheques found on his possession were something to do with this possibility? All speculation as well, I know - but surely just as likely as any of the other suggestions made about the nature of this trouble??

[curious]

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

Has there ever been anything that suggests Druitt worked among the depraved women of the East End?

He was busy with two jobs and flitting around playing cricket -- was he also doing rescue work? did he possibly have time?

If not, who was that disappeared? Any way to research that?

curious

[Wickerman]

To Wickerman

I have a potential source on Druitt's actual personality, if you are interested?

Thankyou Jonathan, yes I am interested.

[Robert]

Me too!