What makes Druitt a viable suspect?

[rjpalmer]

February 13th, is the day the first article appeared in The Sun, suggesting the unnamed Tom Cutbush was the Ripper.

If he is responding to the article, which everyone believes,this would be the earliest possible date for Mac to have put pen to paper.

[Simon Wood]

Hi RJ,

Take any prize off the top shelf.

Macnaghten states this fact in the opening lines of his memorandum.

Regards,

Simon

[rjpalmer]

Hi Simon.

Yet, I'm not quite accurate. Mac alludes to 'The Sun' in its issue of 13th inst, & following dates..." So the window narrows even further. I also believe he alludes to elements that didn't appear until the subsequent articles.

The Aberconway version, meanwhile, uses the same wording, so it could not have been written as early as the 13th.

[Simon Wood]

Hi RJ,

Exactly.

Macnaghten would have to have written both versions during that 10-day window.

Regards,

Simon

[John G]

Hi John,
Yes, he is maddeningly vague. What he wrote in full was: 'Although 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.'

We don't know what the facts were, we don't know if they were investigated, and we don't know if the facts pointed to the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer or to him having committed suicide, or to both.

Whatever the facts were, they apparently implicated Druitt. That it was the same information as that which led to Macnaghten's conclusion about what the family believed is possible, but it's by no means certain, especially given Macnaghten 'one time or another' comment.

Hi Paul,

Many thanks for the reply, and apologises for the late response. Yes, I find Macnaughton generally frustrating, i.e. for the factual errors he makes and for his vagueness, although to be fair, he presumably had to consider the issue of confidentiality.

I think the "private information" has to be differentiated from the information that was in the possession of the police, as that information wouldn't have been "private."

I also find comments he made about the private information a little odd: why does he say that he had, "little doubt but that his own family believed him to be the murderer." As Sugden pointed out in his book, this means he wasn't certain. But why? If the source was a family member, the source isn't going to say something along the lines of, "I'm almost certain that I believe Druitt was the murderer". That would be nonsensical. If it wasn't a family member, then it's tantamount to hearsay so, in that case, why didn't he interview the family to confirm the information?

Then there's the comments about Druitt being a doctor. Of course, he didn't say that he was a doctor, but that he was "said to be a doctor and of good family." Said by who? The source of his private information? If so, he couldn't have been that well acquainted with the family because he gets his profession completely wrong!

[GUT]

Hi Paul,

Many thanks for the reply, and apologises for the late response. Yes, I find Macnaughton generally frustrating, i.e. for the factual errors he makes and for his vagueness, although to be fair, he presumably had to consider the issue of confidentiality.

I think the "private information" has to be differentiated from the information that was in the possession of the police, as that information wouldn't have been "private."

I also find comments he made about the private information a little odd: why does he say that he had, "little doubt but that his own family believed him to be the murderer." As Sugden pointed out in his book, this means he wasn't certain. But why? If the source was a family member, the source isn't going to say something along the lines of, "I'm almost certain that I believe Druitt was the murderer". That would be nonsensical. If it wasn't a family member, then it's tantamount to hearsay so, in that case, why didn't he interview the family to confirm the information?

Then there's the comments about Druitt being a doctor. Of course, he didn't say that he was a doctor, but that he was "said to be a doctor and of good family." Said by who? The source of his private information? If so, he couldn't have been that well acquainted with the family because he gets his profession completely wrong!

Maybe said to be by the MP

[SuspectZero]

That just makes way too much sense, Simon.

Hi Jon,

Not at all.

We have been fed the "done one, done 'em all, but nobody's sure who he was" scenario since 1888, which we have swallowed unquestioningly, hook, line and sinker. And over the ensuing 131 years we have not come up with a single piece of evidence or proof of guilt against any one of the endless cavalcade of "suspects" with whom we have been presented. We can't even be certain as to the identities of all the alleged "Ripper" victims.

I have posited a scenario which makes sense in the light of one of Ripperology's most sacred but untrustworthy documents—the Macnaghten memorandum, wellspring for Druitt, Robert Anderson's Polish Jew and the decidedly suspicious Swanson marginalia.

As I said to RJ in another post—

Perhaps if we took a breath and stopped trying to identify the man who never was, we might discover what was actually going on in Whitechapel.

We're wasting our time trying to pin the tail on a non-existent Ripper.

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Hi RJ,

Exactly.

Macnaghten would have to have written both versions during that 10-day window.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon.

When do we reach the all important bit that determines the AV to be the updated version?

[Wickerman]

That just makes way too much sense, Simon.

Congrats Simon, another convert to the fabricated Ripper theory.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

Glad to hear it. Welcome.

Melville Macnaghten, Aberconway Version—

"Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration, I am inclined to exonerate the last 2, but I have always held strong opinions regarding no. 1, and the more I think the matter over, the stronger do these suspicions become."

You'll find no such careful & deliberate consideration in the 23rd February 1894 version.

Regards,

Simon

[harry]

We are not discussing a court case Herlock,we are discussing a family's suspicions.Those suspicions cannot be proven to have been investigated. Mac doesn't express a conclusion based on the contents of the message.His comments only express a belief of honesty on the part of the family.You,like others,are dishonestly introducing claims that were never made,,and ignoring the words of police officers of that time,who claim there was no proofs and no suspects.Mac himself declares there was no proofs against anyone.You going to insist he didn't know what he was talking about,or that he was wrong.Police jargon is the only sensible way of determining suspect,and I'll repeat how that is obtained.Suspicion,investigation,conclusion. It has never been shown there was an investigation into the Druitt family's suspicions of guilt,so there can never be a conclusion as to guilt,and guilt is an essential element of suspect. My dictionary say's so.

[Wickerman]

Hi RJ,

Exactly.

Macnaghten would have to have written both versions during that 10-day window.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon.

Placing the two versions within the same 10 day window is fine, but there must be a way of determining internally, which document came first.
If you write an initial copy, then proof read it, you normally end up with a corrected proof copy and a more sober version as the final document.

Take for instance where we have this line in the A.V.

And now with regard to the 4 additional murders asertied ? [ascribed written underneath] by the “Sun” writer to the “Ripper”

It appears the writer proof read the A.V. and correct "aserted" with "ascribed", which is correct if the A.V. is the first draft.
In the official copy at Scotland Yard we read:

"With regard to the 4 additional murders ascribed by the writer in the Sun to the Whitechapel fiend:"

Also, when speculating on the fate of the murderer after Millers Court, in the A.V. Mac. provides a subjective opinion:

"...as a less likely alternative, was found to be so helplessly insane by his relatives, that they, suspecting the worst, had him confined in some Lunatic Asylum."

But, in the S.Y. version the subjective opinion is correctly removed and replaced with:

"...as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum."

You'll notice any reference to the "Ripper" in the A.V. is replaced with the more sober "man" or "murderer", which is correct in the S.Y. version As Ripper is the colloquial identification and assumes one man was responsible, whereas 'man' or 'murderer' is more neutral.

Comparing these documents line for line is fascinating and only serves to support the view that the A.V. is the proof copy and not intended to be the final document.

[GUT]

We are not discussing a court case Herlock,we are discussing a family's suspicions.Those suspicions cannot be proven to have been investigated. Mac doesn't express a conclusion based on the contents of the message.His comments only express a belief of honesty on the part of the family.You,like others,are dishonestly introducing claims that were never made,,and ignoring the words of police officers of that time,who claim there was no proofs and no suspects.Mac himself declares there was no proofs against anyone.You going to insist he didn't know what he was talking about,or that he was wrong.Police jargon is the only sensible way of determining suspect,and I'll repeat how that is obtained.Suspicion,investigation,conclusion. It has never been shown there was an investigation into the Druitt family's suspicions of guilt,so there can never be a conclusion as to guilt,and guilt is an essential element of suspect. My dictionary say's so.

Yet you want us to adopt police jargon??? Strange.

[Wickerman]

Hi Simon.

Yet, I'm not quite accurate. Mac alludes to 'The Sun' in its issue of 13th inst, & following dates..." So the window narrows even further. I also believe he alludes to elements that didn't appear until the subsequent articles.

The Aberconway version, meanwhile, uses the same wording, so it could not have been written as early as the 13th.

Yes, the A.V. includes a paragraph that refers to 15th Feb. but this paragraph is omitted in the S.Y. version.
Even if they were written on the same day, one had to precede the other, and only by internal analysis can we determine which is the more likely official (S.Y.) version.

[rjpalmer]

Yet you want us to adopt police jargon??? Strange.

In the same spirit, we should probably not call witnesses witnesses, because we do not know whether they witnessed a suspect or merely an innocent bystander.

Lawende, Schwartz, Long, Hutchinson, etc. should be considered "observers of interest."