Druitt's personality

[Robert]

Jonathan, can you give a source for Monty and William being in court together?

[caz]

In fact a range of primary sources between 1888, all the way to the end of the Edwardian Era, show that different police believed different things and at different times.

So the question I am left asking here is what would those different policemen have believed had Macnaghten given them chapter and verse about what he believed and why?

Assuming the information Mac once possessed was indeed good enough to convince him and at least one Druitt family member that Druitt dunnit, it should have been good enough for everyone else who had ever been involved in the investigation.

Why couldn't Mac have trusted any of his peers with his detailed findings? Or if he did, were they just not buying it - any more than most people are buying your interpretation of the case today?

[Everyone stand by for the fireworks - and probably yet another diary related distraction.]

Love,

Caz
X

[Jonathan H]

To Robert

It's secondary: 'The Cases of Monbtague Druitt'. Something like that. By Martin Fido.

But I can't find it in my various bits and pieces, so I will have to withdraw that claim until I can.

What I recall is that M. J. Druitt was in the High Court on Nov 22hearing that he had won the case for the restoration of a Tory renter's franchise rights in Dorset. I believe that his brother, William, is listed as being in attendance as Montie was working for the former's Bournemouth firm of solicitors.

Fido makes the point that it is very odd if 'Since Friday ...' means the Friday before Nov 30th, as it was a day when Druitt enjoyed a tremendous legal coup.

To the Other Poster

I've answered this many times and then get scolded for being repetitive.

You'll leave it for a while and then come back and ask what about this and what about that, and how come I have never answered this and that, when I have many times.

I am not saying the answers are convincing. They obviously are not to a majority here.

But I appreciate that it is very important to people like yourself that I be wrong. And you frequently tell me that I am wrong about eveything and you are right about everything.

It is your repugnant egomania, always expressed in superior, condesceding and mean-spirited posts that leaves you without adherents.

But what I find most pathetic is the passive-aggressive and persistent lie by you that I have never answered these questions before--when I have.

Macnaghten judged the situation to be dangerous for the Druitt family and the reputation of Scotland Yard. Nobody was going to be arrested, and libel suits might be activated by tabloids claiming the Druitts knew before the suicide and had done nothing (technically true as they did if the priest to whom Druitt confessed was also a family member, and William apparently was hunting for Montie knowing the terrible truth).

In 1895, for the first time, Anderson begins shooting his mouth off about having solved the case to Major Griffiths, and keeps saying it forthrighly in public forums. I think this is evidence that Mac was right. If you tell the conceited boss anything he will begin chatting about it quite freely, and so he served him up a suspect who fitted his sectarian and moral (eg. sexual) prejudices: a deceased local madman who masturbated himself into [potentially] being a serial killer. A theory in 1895 became a definitely ascertained fact by 1910.

That's not written for you, to whom it makes no difference, you will just write how come you have never answered ... but rather anybody who is curious as to the veracity, or not, of this revisionist theory.

Anyhow I'll be banned for good for defending myself, and that can only do me a favour.

[Robert]

Hi Jonathan

Well, if William was in court with Monty then that would be very interesting. And although William isn't quoted as actually saying that he last saw Monty in October, it certainly seems that the October remark was likely a reply to the question "When did you last see your brother?" But I still don't understand why William - even if he was trying to cover up a dark secret - should lie about it. What harm could it do to admit that he had seen Monty in court in November?

[Jonathan H]

Possibly to try and provide as long a period of time as possible for the still sudden and inexplicable breakdown of his otherwise successful sibling (note his being sacked from the school is not connected by the source to his suciide, nor is it even hinted at being scandalous. No more than when he was sacked from the cricket club in absenita.)

The brother seems not to have used the dismissal as a handy reason, or evidence of Montie's breakdown.

I say handy, because even if the brother had not seen him since Oct., and did not mean that he and the mother were the only living relatives, and did not mean to say that there were two notes, or one, or that his brother had only recently become a school master.

Even if all that is the case, William still misled the inquiry--understandably--about his brother being the Ripper, or so the family 'believed'.

The strength of the importance of this, the family's 'belief', is that it is resisted here at all costs, with the primary sources tortured into other, modernist meanings (Druitt was gay, he was sacked to his face, he was mentally unstable).

The identiifcation of the MP in 2008 as a near-neighbour of the Druitts rendered somewhat redundant whether Macnaghten got some things wrong--highly unlikely--because belief in Druitt as the fiend, whether it be right or wrong, originated with his own people.

Just as Macnaghten had written in alll three versions of this Report, despite other details being reshaped in each (1894, 1898, and 1914).

[Robert]

But all William needed to say was that he saw Monty in October, and that he seemed very low, despite William's attempts to cheer him up. He also saw him briefly in court in November, and thought that, despite Monty's triumph, there was still something preying on his mind.

[Bridewell]

Facts and Opinions.

Even if all that is the case, William still misled the inquiry--understandably--about his brother being the Ripper, or so the family 'believed'.

Jonathan,

What evidence is there that the family actually did believe that MJD was the Ripper? MacNaghten claims to have had (wholly unspecified) 'private information' which led him to believe that this was the case. Unless the private information was from a family member who held such a belief (and we don't know that it was) this is hearsay at best and, at worst, pure speculation (by MacNaghten). I acknowledge your opinion, and the sincerity with which you hold it, but newcomers to the forum could take it from some of your posts that the suspicion of family members is a known fact. It isn't. An opinion, however sincerely held, does not become a fact by virtue of that sincerity.

[Bridewell]

But all William needed to say was that he saw Monty in October, and that he seemed very low, despite William's attempts to cheer him up. He also saw him briefly in court in November, and thought that, despite Monty's triumph, there was still something preying on his mind.

That would resolve the same issues without the need to resort to perjury.

[Stephen Thomas]

The identiifcation of the MP in 2008 as a near-neighbour of the Druitts rendered somewhat redundant whether Macnaghten got some things wrong--highly unlikely--because belief in Druitt as the fiend, whether it be right or wrong, originated with his own people.

Hello Jonathan

Anderson uses the words 'his people' regarding his Jewish JTR which I've always assumed refers to other Jewish people but some say that in Victorian times the word 'people' was used as another word for 'family'.

Does MM ever say 'people' when he is talking about Druitt's family?

[Robert]

Hi Bridewell

Well, it would be perjury if Monty wasn't feeling low, but no one could ever prove William wrong.

[Jonathan H]

To Bridewell

The source of private info was the MP, and the two vital sources on him in 1891 show that Mac's claim about belief in Montie's guilt originated with his family is correct.

You are confusing legal with historical evidence. Montie confessed to a priest, and what he said checked out as true, to the people who were there--his own family would hardly want it to be true.

To Stephen Thomas

Yes, in his 1914 memoirs.


Why should not new posters not be rescued from decades of drivel?

[Graham]

Montie confessed to a priest, and what he said checked out as true, to the people who were there--his own family would hardly want it to be true.

Where can I find corroboration of this, please?

Graham

[Stephen Thomas]

To Stephen Thomas

Yes, in his 1914 memoirs.

Blimey, I've just checked and MM does say that but I suspect that he was subconsciously copying words that Anderson had used in his memoirs.

Was Druitt living with his family when the Ripper murders took place?

If he wasn't then MM must be talking about somebody else.

[Bridewell]

You are confusing legal with historical evidence.

I don't think so.

[Stephen Thomas]

Why should not new posters not be rescued from decades of drivel?

new posters are not the men

to not be rescued

from decades of drivel