Where was Montague John Druitt 1 December 1888

[GUT]

G'Day John

Thanks for posting that. It was what I recalled having seen that he was last seen alive on 3 Dec. I have no doubt that if it was referred back it would go to Christchurch.

As I said in the original post the main reason I believe it was referred back is that it is described as a "Stated Case" and simply that is what happens in most stated cases if it is decided that the lower Court got that issue wrong.

However as I said in an earlier post it may well be that the authorities did not proceed, after all it seems to me that loosing that issue really sounded the death knell to their case. I think however that given the limited time that if that is what happened I would expect appearances on the Saturday to announce same.

I have perused the whole page of the Times but am still of the opinion that Druitt's matter on behalf of the Messrs Hake was referred for rehearing. There is however one thing that gives me pause and that is that at the end of the article it states that the Appeal was dismissed with costs!

It is also not really a theory that I hold to I am simply trying to get my head around how it fits in. In particular the ticket found on his body puzzles me, where was he coming from? I wondered if a trip from Christchurch would explan t?

[Jonathan H]

A total unknown?

Where do you get this stuff from?

With all due respect, I just find this line of thinking hopelessly reductionist.

Typical of much of so-called 'Ripperology'.

This requires a police or legal standard of evidence quite different from what is required by historical methodology. The former, understandably, deals in absolutes (a guilty verdict by a court) and the latter with openly provisional conclusions. Choose the best argument based on the little we have--hence it being resented here with a vengeance.

The "son of a surgeon" story leaked out of Dorset where Charles Druitt and James Druitt Sr. lived, in 1891. They were Tories and so was Henry Farquharson, the local member.

Later a highly regarded police chief, celebrated for his memory, committed to the official file that the Druitt family 'believed' their M. J. was the Ripper because he was--for a fact it was asserted--sexually turned on by ultra-violence (a circular argument, I grant you).

The police chief's pal--the most famous crime writer of two eras--wrote about the 'friends' who were worried at his being missing, and we know they stand in for family (see Griffiths 1898) and we know from an 1889, regional source that William Druitt was looking for his missing brother.

Finally the police chief wrote, for the public under his own name, that the killer's 'own people' knew he was 'absented' and that this being AWOL was linked to being the fiend.

We were never meant to know any of this, and so what we do have are glimpses but they are enough to get the gist.

[GUT]

G'Day Jonathan

A total unknown?

Where do you get this stuff from?

With all due respect, I just find this line of thinking hopelessly reductionist

I'M not sure what any of this means.
What has been claimed to be a total unknown.
What stuff are you wondering where it comes from?

This requires a police or legal standard of evidence quite different from what is required by historical methodology. The former, understandably, deals in absolutes (a guilty verdict by a court) and the latter with openly provisional conclusions. Choose the best argument based on the little we have--hence it being resented here with a vengeance.

Yes maybe we are looking at different standards of proof. Yes one of the things I was lamenting is the dearth of evidence.

Later a highly regarded police chief, celebrated for his memory, committed to the official file that the Druitt family 'believed' their M. J. was the Ripper because he was--for a fact it was asserted--sexually turned on by ultra-violence (a circular argument, I grant you).

'm sorry but I agree with the part about circular argument and in my opinion that is exactly where circular arguments belong, in the circular file.

I presume you are talking about Macnaghten, if so he only says that Druitt was "sexually insane" with no explanation at all as to what that was supposed to mean, and I have seen numerous interpretations as to what is meant by that term.

The police chief's pal--the most famous crime writer of two eras--wrote about the 'friends' who were worried at his being missing, and we know they stand in for family (see Griffiths 1898) and we know from an 1889, regional source that William Druitt was looking for his missing brother.

Again I presume you mean Macnaghten's friend Sims wrote about it. But where dd he get his information from? As far as we know from Mac himself, so what does t add to our knowledge? and to be clear I mean to our knowledge not to our speculations.

Finally the police chief wrote, for the public under his own name, that the killer's 'own people' knew he was 'absented' and that this being AWOL was linked to being the fiend.

Where was he AWOL from, who were his own people, his family, his fellow Barristers, his teaching friends, his cricket club chums.

Secondly how does being AWOL lnk one to being the killer.

[Jonathan H]

Everything you have written is a deliberate attempt to obscure and reduce.

To make it seem as if nothing is visible through the fog.

Let me show you how this works.

You write:

I' m sorry but I agree with the part about circular argument and in my opinion that is exactly where circular arguments belong, in the circular file.

Is that supposed to be clever? It is an attitude which is the enemy of historical analysis. Sources that feel the need to be circular is what has to be explained, or at least to try to do so.

Macnaghten's circular argument was due to potential political and bureaucratic pressure if the Dorset solution leaked again.

To get it on record that the family 'believed' because he was sexually insane. What made them think that? Because he was 'Jack the Ripper'. Therefore he was 'sexually insane'.

Therefore they had no prior belief, before discovering his dual identity.

I presume you are talking about Macnaghten,

Obviously I am, and you know that but I love the superior condescending tone.

if so he only says that Druitt was "sexually insane" with no explanation at all as to what that was supposed to mean, and I have seen numerous interpretations as to what is meant by that term.

Again the heading off of the easy explanation before it is even made, a form of intellectual passive-aggression. You have have seen "numerous interpretations" (numerous? really? I have seen ... two?) but they are all tepid.

Actually people in an earlier era knew what Macnaghten meant when he used that term in 1894 (and arguably 1898) and in 1914. Especially since in his memoir he defines it, straight-forwardly, as a person who gains erotic pleasure from committing acts of violence or watching such acts.

A legion of Ripper buffs have done their best to do what you have just done: either pretend the meaning is obscure, or to claim it means homosexuality, which it doesn't. It is referring to violence as a form of sexual satisfaction.

It is vital to make it seem that Macnaghten always talked in riddles without solutions, therefore he is discredited source.

Because if he isn't ...

Again I presume you mean Macnaghten's friend Sims ...

That's a bit repetitive, don't you think? Try and think of a new superior way of acting like this is all beneath you.

But where did [Sims] get his information from? As far as we know from Mac himself, so what does it add to our knowledge? and to be clear I mean to our knowledge not to our speculations.

You could not be more off-track. I'll tell you what it adds.

Sims repeated information from Macnaghten that the latter did not record in either version of his report or memo.

Several times Sims claimed that the mad doctor had himself been a patient in an asylum where he said he wanted to savage harlots.

It is one the clinching pieces of evidence that establishes the doctor as the fiend.

Sims also claimed that the friends of the mad doctor were trying to find him when he vanished from where he lived.

It is the one of the most important textual breakthroughs in understanding the case.

Paul Begg had argued--very incisively--that Macnaghten only knew about Druitt from P.C. Moulson's Report (eg. the drowned man's name; the date of the body's recovery; the season rail pass) and that is why the other details are wrong (a doctor, middle-aged, disappeared at the time of the Kelly murder) as they came from somewhere else, and were inaccurate, eg. and not a source who knew much about the real Mr. Druitt.

However, Sims writing about the friends searching for the missing medico is a fictional version of William Druitt searching for Montie.

That could not be in Moulson's Report.

And it is accurate.

Even if Macnaghten learned about it from the same 1889 newspaper account as we do that would still tell him that the deceased was a 31-year old barrister, not a doctor.

Where was he AWOL from, who were his own people, his family, his fellow Barristers, his teaching friends, his cricket club chums.

Secondly how does being AWOL lnk one to being the killer.

The impression given by Macnaghten is that the 'Simon Pure' lived with his own relations and they noticed him missing on the nights of the murders.

This is a fictional compression of where Montie worked and lived (and worked part-time) and multiplies one episode of being AWOL into several.

This was not how the family found out their member was a serial murderer.

They did not live with him.

His going AWOL was no doubt stressful and perplexing, as they did not hear from him and he was dismissed from his school and sporting association.

It was because he had confessed to a priest who now cracked and told the family, or older brother (and may have been a family member himself).

Sims had turned this into the asylum episode; a confession before the murders, despite it being ludicrous that he would be let out (Logan has him escape ti try and make it credible).

Macnaghten could not use this in his memoirs because he was also debunking the hated Anderson and his claims about the Ripper being a locked-up lunatic Pole, and so removed the asylum detail.

He replaced it with a crib from "The Lodger" novel which in the same paragraph he somewhat disparages as inaccurate (so as not to address Anderson directly).

[GUT]

G'Day Jonathan

I'm sorry if you feel that I have a "superior condescending tone". I have felt the same about many posts on these boards and I can assure you I have no feelings of superiority towards anyone.

Yes do reject circular arguments and please don't lecture me on historical methodology.

What is sexual insanity

[QUOTE]Oscar Wilde wrote in seeking to avoid a prison sentence that he was not a criminal but sexually insane. So clearly One Explanation can be homosexuality.[QUOTE]

From the Medical Herald 1895 Sexually insane for many years. Violent nymphomania.

In relation to a woman.

The late Dr. Skae described, under the name of sexual insanity, a form of acute dementia met with according to him both in the male and female sex, but more often in the latter, which he believed to be produced by the mortal and physical effects of sexual intercourse upon the nervous system. From The Pathology of the Mind by Henry Maudsley (1890)

The cases of sexual insanity that have come under my own observation have been most difficult to manage. The patients usually have lost all moral sense. Their will power has succumbed to the most brutal instincts. The drain on their nervous system is kept up by nocturnal pollutions. They are consequently not amenable to the usual methods of treatment pursued in other forms of the same disease. Excessive Venery, Masturbation and Continence : Joseph William Howe (1887)

I can only assume that he refers to excessive masturbation when he says nocturnal pollutions.

Satyriasis: This is unquestionably a sexual insanity. It is a morbid amative passion, nearly allied to nymphomania in the female, and from similar causes. There is a chronic inflammation of the sexual organs, causing abnormal appetites. A Treatise of Practical Instructions in the Medical and Surgical Use of Electricity by S.E. Morrill (1882).

Modern references to being sexually insane refer to an insatiability such as promiscuity, hypersexuality, satyriasis or nymphomania as well as compulsive masturbation, all of which are really different ways of saying over sexed.

I have read suggestions that it may mean any form of sexually deviant behavior, including fetishism, sadism, or masochism.

In a nut shell they really boil down to Homosexuality, Excessive interest in sex, [including nymphomania] Sadism, Excessive masturbation, masochism and fetishism.

Personally I believe Macnaghten was referring to an excessive sex drive, hence his later use of the term "sexual mania", but that is merely the interpretation I apply to his description.


Please do not misunderstand anything I say, as I respect your views, and clearly you hold to them very strongly and I have gained much from exchanges with you.

One issue that we obviously take a radically different attitude to is the standard of proof that we require. I am not prepared to settle for the level of proof that would be acceptable n an historical research context, nor do I expect to find evidence that satisfies beyond a reasonable doubt, or the criminal standard.

[Jonathan H]

But you need more than just a lecture in historical methodology, you need to do the whole course, mate.

Your passive-aggressive hunkering down when you are shown to be wrong, due to ignorance, is your undoing. You claim to want to learn, yet nobody can tell you anything.

I presume that's what drew you here. For much here is in mothballs forever.

All those quotes about 'sexual mania' are not relevant.

Only what Macnaghten meant by the term is relevant, but you never quote those sources do you.

Such as this:

'Days of My Years' (1914)

ps. 100/1

'... Both of these murders were committed by sexual maniacs--by men who killed for the joy of killing ... such madness takes Protean forms ... sexual mania exists ... Students of history, however, are aware that an excessive indulgence in vice, in certain cases, to a craving for blood. Nero was probably a sexual maniac. Many Eastern potentates in all ages, who loved to see animals slaughtered or wild beasts tearing each other to pieces, have been similarly affected. The disease is not as rare as many people imagine.
As you walk in the London streets you may, and do, not infrequently jostle against a potential murderer of the so-called Jack the Ripper type. ...'

[GUT]

Deleted

[GUT]

Can we get this tread on track.

Where was MJD on 1 Dec?

Was he in Court?

It seems at least arguable that he was, in my opinion and it is only my opinion it is likely that he was.

Does his legal work explain the cheque for 50 pounds found on the body?

Again, my opinion is that it does, 50l. I have read that a professional Engineer in '88 would have been paid about 80l per year, so 50l would be most of years pay for a teacher. If he was dismissed for serious trouble would Valentine have been so generous?

If he had been to Christchurch does that explain the return ticket?

I have no idea, I freely confess that train travel in 1888 with multiple companies running lines and them intersecting, it seems at different points is a bit like "a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone" [ to quote Jim Croce].

I'D still like to hear thoughts on the issue of if it was the return half of the journey or a regular return ticket for the second half of the year.

Was he seen on 3 December?

As n the application for administration of his estate. If so by whom? Where? When was this reported to, I guess, William?

It would also explain the date of death given as 4 December on his tombstone.

[GUT]

Jonathan

All those quotes were quoted because you challenged by statement that I had seen many definitions of the term. So n that context were extremely relevant.

As for your lecturing me on Historical methodology, I repeat that I do not require it, if I want a lecture on the topic, I will ask my wife who just happens to hold a PhD in the subject, has been an University lecturer and whose written work is on required reading lists in UK, USA, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Australia at last count. If she can not satisfy my educational needs on the topic I will ask our good friend who just happens to be a Professor in History and now retired from his post as Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

Boy you talk about superior condescending attitudes.

[GUT]

And Jonathan

Petty you don't read first, the issue you challenged me on was the meaning of Sexually Insane, but the quote you post is on Sexual Mania.

Maybe you need a refresher course on Historical methodology.

Also on that topic, since you seem to want to argue who has a better grasp of the subject, Sims is a novelist, no historian I've ever met will even try to claim a novel is a historical source of any sort.

As for your claims that MM was trying to disguise who he was talking about so as to protect the family and the establishment. But in the MM he says MJ Druitt Pulled from the Thames on 31 December, a damn poor cover-up don't you think?

[Jonathan H]

No, I did not think you would be able to admit error, and you haven't and I suppose you never will.

I showed you what Macnaghten meant by sexual mania and you slide right past it, as with every other substantive point.

Please ask your wife a few things about history and historians so that she can stop you making a fool of yourself.

Novels by Jane Austen, the Brontes, Hardy, James, Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy et. al. are used extensively by historians to gain a picture of the world in which they were written. They are fiction but not worthless as historical sources as you mistakenly think.

At least you have dropped the pretense of being unbiased and a free thinker on this subject, about which you seem to know little yet make sweeping and definitive statements such as there are no primary sources on Druitt.

This is wasted on you, whom I won't waste my time on anymore, so I write only for other new readers.

The celebrity-writer of the mid-Victorian and Edwardian eras, George Robert Sims, was not just a novelist but also a poet, a playwright, a journalist and a leftist, progressive activist.

He was a also a self-styled criminologist.

In 1904 Sims had helped to exonerate the falsely convicted Adolf Beck, a case so seminal and sensational that it led to the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in England. His standing with the world-wide public as an authority on crime and criminals and justice had never been higher. If he said the Ripper was known to the highest authorities to be a mad, English, unemployed, affluent, doctor, who had drowned himself in the Thames in early Nov 1888 as the police net was fast closing, then he was likely to be believed--or at least be seen as accurately reflecting the broad opinion of the state (we know that he was doing neither).

When Macnaghten committed Druitt's name to the Scotland Yard file in 1894 it was in a report to the Home Office that he never sent to that department of state.

In that document Macnaghten gave the entirely false impression that Druitt was a minor suspect in 1888, which we know from other primary sources he clearly was not--and which Mac admitted to in his memoirs twenty years later.

On the other hand, the Chief Constable also committed to an official police file that Druitt may not have been a doctor but was definitely turned on by ultra-violence and thus believed by his family to be the Ripper (this report cannot bear up under the weight of its fictions, deflections and contradictions and it is no wonder he never sent it to the Home Sec. Asquith).

Nobody even knew it was there until 1966, and only then because the draft or rewrite's salient sections had been published the year before.

It was a successful concealment of Druitt's true identity starting in the Late Victorian Era and lasting until the Beatles, but you are by no means the first who will argue with its success, and no doubt, tiresomely, you will not be the last.

There was not enough information provided by Macnaghten, or Sims (or Frank Richardson) to give the game away.

In succeeding generations William Le Queux, Leonard Matters and Donald MCCormick (three writers perpetuating hoaxes I might add) did the simple and obvious--they checked newspapers from late 1888 for the story of a drowned, English physician.

Finding no such person they concluded that the Drowned Doctor was a myth, created to enhance Scotland Yard's rep (even Guy Logan turned against the by then deceased Sims), and they were half-right.

It is delicious to think that these flim flammers were themselves conned by Macnaghten, and from the grave.

By 1959, Lady Christabel Aberconway decided to make her move to establish that there was such a doctor figure, not realizing what her father and Sims had been up to, even though she herself demanded of Dan Farson that the name not be used.

If the name was not to be used in 1959 what did she think her father had been doing giving away the man's basic identity in the 1900's--unless it was an identity that still kept Druitt shielded?

To be fair, The Lady Aberconway knew nothing about the Drowned Doctor solution propagated to the public in the Edwardian Era, so could not realize that her father's document she held was already a mixture of fact and discreet concealment.

Finally, Druitt was not in court on Dec 1st he was heading off to Chiswick to kill himself. I appreciate that once you have pronounced from on high nobody and nothing will be able to change your, eh, mind.

[GUT]

Read what I said and don't misquote me I have never said

there are no primary sources on Druitt.

What I said was that they are "sadly lacking" in any sources on any area of his life, I'll spell it out again e are LACKING in any sources, [primary or secondary], in any area, [teaching as a Barrister, as a sportsman], of his life GET IT RIGHT if you want to critise.

I showed you what Macnaghten meant by sexual mania and you slide right past it, as with every other substantive point.

And again if you bothered to read the issue was what dd he mean by sexually insane, and you accuse people of sliding right by, I actually posted that I understood it to mean a hyper-sexualism and that was based on Macnaghten later changing the term to sexual mania.

Novels by Jane Austen, the Brontes, Hardy, James, Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy et. al. are used extensively by historians to gain a picture of the world in which they were written. They are fiction but not worthless as historical sources as you mistakenly think.

Yes,they may be used to gain a picture of society, but they do not try to elevate them to primary or secondary sources, nor attempt to use them strengthen primary and secondary sources, as you attempt to do with Sims and Griffiths claiming that they verify your hypothesis about Macnaghten.

The celebrity-writer of the mid-Victorian and Edwardian eras, George Robert Sims, was not just a novelist but also a poet, a playwright, a journalist and a leftist, progressive activist.

Yes he was and his work under the pseudonym Dagonet that included his much talked about, by you, work on Druitt was published in a weekly column of miscellany, "Mustard and Cress," in the Sunday sports and entertainments paper, edited by Sampson, The Referee. True journalistic endevour that.

He was a also a self-styled criminologist.

Yes note self-styled.

When Macnaghten committed Druitt's name to the Scotland Yard file in 1894 it was in a report to the Home Office that he never sent to that department of state.

And that he never knew if it would be called for.

In that document Macnaghten gave the entirely false impression that Druitt was a minor suspect in 1888, which we know from other primary sources he clearly was not--and which Mac admitted to in his memoirs twenty years later.

No he only lists him by name as the first of three suspects he names, real minor and really well disguised.

It was a successful concealment of Druitt's true identity starting in the Late Victorian Era and lasting until the Beatles, but you are by no means the first who will argue with its success, and no doubt, tiresomely, you will not be the last.

It was only successful if no one read the memorandum, it was only successful if the Home Office didn't call for the report. A pretty risky cover-up.

By the same token there must have been a cover up about Tublety and by Anderson and Swanson because they only became known in later years too.

There was not enough information provided by Macnaghten, or Sims (or Frank Richardson) to give the game away.

No only his name M.J. Druitt not much information to go on at all, oh and that he pulled from the Thames on 31 December 1888, boy what a great cover up.

Finally, Druitt was not in court on Dec 1st he was heading off to Chiswick to kill himself. I appreciate that once you have pronounced from on high nobody and nothing will be able to change your, eh, mind.

Now of course I've only provided a primary source, the London Times of 29 November 1888, to show that he may well have been in Court that day, you have provided a bland statement that he wasn't, where are your sources if you are such a great historical methadologist. And you accuse me of pronouncing from on high and nobody and nothing will change my mind. Ever hear of pots and kettles.

Again if you will read the thread I have stated clearly that I am not sure if he was in Court on that day or not, I have said that the evidence, something you seem unfamiliar with, points to the arguable conclusion that he was. I have also never said that if he was in Court that day he could not have killed himself later the same day.

You have also done what you accuse me of doing and totally ignored the application for letters of administration that states that he was last seen alive on 3 December. But as you say I'm displaying my bias, just what bias I'm not sure but I sure know what your bias is as does anyone who reads these posts.

Now as I've said before we obviously have different standards that we want to see satisfied and mine for sure aren't a hypothesis based on assumptions of conspiracy and cover-up.

[Jonathan H]

Just quoting me and then writing your biased tripe beneath it is not a counter-argument. Where is your wife when we need her?

There are primary sources on Druitt, albeit meager, but you refuse to back down.

Sims was not just a novelist, but you refuse to back down (the column he wrote as Dagonet, 'Mustard and Cress', was about real eventys that struck his fancy, 'talk of the town' type stuff)

Griffiths was not writing a novel about crime in 1898, but no doubt you will not back down from that mistake either.

Macnaghten did not mean gay when he wrote sexual maniac, as his 1914 memoirs show and yet you will not back down (Macnaghten was quite possibly the only policeman at the Yard with a sophisticated attitude towards homosexuality).

Mac's decision to disguise Druitt in a private file nobody at the Yard or the Home Office saw, and in an alternate version only cronies and family saw, and in the proxy writings of a pal, and to a lesser extent in his memoirs worked a treat.

Druitt was successfully hiddenuntil 1959--yet you will not back down that it was too risky and therefore he did not do it. It's an offence to logic, but you will not back down.

That Druitt was in court on a Sat ... and so on.

If you want to keep going, keep going. It's your right.

In the end I wondered how long it would take for you to trot out the cliches that I only have a hypothesis (no, it's a theory) and that I am a conspiracy nut (a single cop who acted, at times, as a law unto himself is not an institutional conspiracy) and am proposing a sinister cover-up (it is not a cover-up if you are broadly sharing the solution with the world).

I just wish you really would respect me and yourself by engaging with what I write, because you have not done so once.

What Sims wrote in the 1900's matches the 1899 source--about the frantic brother--and matches what Macnaghten wrote in his memoir about 'absented' from 'his own people. It is a straight through-line despite the fictional overcoat once it was repackaged for the public. It proves that the police chief knew the details about his suspect, as he said he did in 1913 and 1914.

On the other hand, many of the vile here love to see me hounded, degraded and excluded so you have made many allies. I wear this disdain and venom with pride and honor.

[GUT]

Just quoting me and then writing your biased tripe beneath it is not a counter-argument. Where is your wife when we need her?

Actually right her laughing at the crap you try to claim is historical, she just said "you are behaving worse than year a 7 student".

There are primary sources on Druitt, albeit meager, but you refuse to back down.

And again I never said there aren't I said and I repeat they are sadly lacking, what don't you understand about the difference between sadly lacking and non-existent.

Griffiths was not writing a novel about crime in 1898, but no doubt you will not back down from that mistake either.

Yep I was wrong when I said that.

Macnaghten did not mean gay when he wrote sexual maniac, as his 1914 memoirs show and yet you will not back down (Macnaghten was quite possibly the only policeman at the Yard with a sophisticated attitude towards homosexuality).

And I have never once said that was what he meant, what I questioned was what he meant when he said Sexually Insane again what part of the difference between sexually insane and sexual mania don't you understand, and yes again if you bother to read what I wrote I actually said that the most likely explanation was sexual mania. But let the facts stop you.

Mac's decision to disguise Druitt in a private file nobody at the Yard or the Home Office saw, and in an alternate version only cronies and family saw, and in the proxy writings of a pal, and to a lesser extent in his memoirs worked a treat.

Druitt was successfully hiddenuntil 1959--yet you will not back down that it was too risky and therefore he did not do it. It's an offence to logic, but you will not back down.

So he wrote a memorandum, placed it on the Scotland Yard file but no one did or could have seen it?

That Druitt was in court on a Sat ... and so on.

As I said earlier I quoted the primary source and also said I was not sure if he was in Court on that day or not, but the evidence made it at least arguable that he may have been.

If you want to keep going, keep going. It's your right.

Gee I have a right to an opinion, thank you.

In the end I wondered how long it would take for you to trot out the cliches that I only have a hypothesis (no, it's a theory) and that I am a conspiracy nut (a single cop who acted, at times, as a law unto himself is not an institutional conspiracy) and am proposing a sinister cover-up (it is not a cover-up if you are broadly sharing the solution with the world).

A hypothesis is either a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon, or a reasoned prediction of a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena. A theory is a tested, well-substantiated, unifying explanation for a set of verified, proven hypotheses.

Nobody has a Theory about who Jack the Ripper was, they are all merely hypothesis, because they can't be tested.

I just wish you really would respect me and yourself by engaging with what I write, because you have not done so once.

No actually it is you who wants to bring every thread back to your hypothesis and try to hijack any discussion, as you are trying to do with this one, ie the original post is about MJD's whereabouts on 1 Dec, the cheque and the train ticket, it was later expanded slightly to include the "last seen on 3 December".

What Sims wrote in the 1900's matches the 1899 source--about the frantic brother--and matches what Macnaghten wrote in his memoir about 'absented' from 'his own people. It is a straight through-line despite the fictional overcoat once it was repackaged for the public. It proves that the police chief knew the details about his suspect, as he said he did in 1913 and 1914.

And you want to elevate him to some type of authority, at the absolute most all it proves is that Mac told his mate about his idea, so what, I have never tried to say that Macnaghten didn't consider Druitt a suspect in 1890's.

On the other hand, many of the vile here love to see me hounded, degraded and excluded so you have made many allies. I wear this disdain and venom with pride and honor.

And I'm starting to understand why.

[GUT]

Hi GUT,

There is an alternative answer regarding "the case to be amended".

To understand more fully one has to read the whole of the cases that Lord Coleridge took on that day. These are included on the same page as the Druit report.

Lord Coleridge heard four cases that day, the first being Smith v Chandler which ended with the following exchange between lawer and judge.

"MR ROMPAS informed the Court that the next case in which he had to argue raised a similar question, and perhaps the Court would hear it argued before deciding the present.
LORD COLERIDGE assented.
No counsel appeared on the other side, and it was remitted for amendment accordingly, and the next case was taken"

I therefore think that the case to be amended was Smith v Chandler.
Also note that Druit's case was number four.

Rgds
John

John just read the newspaper for about the 10th time today and I certainly agree that your interpretation is arguable.