Killer description and Suspect appearance

[Jonathan H]

Sorry, I am writing all this on the run.

I meant to write before that 'Laying the Ghost' is the only document Mac committed hmself and his name to for public consumption.

He never mentions any internal report he had to write, in that chapter, let alone a 'final' or exhaustive' 'Home Office Report', but the chapter is an unofficial adaptation of the Mac Report -- the 'third' version io you like.

[Natalie Severn]

thanks once again Jonathan for your fascinating take on these matters.
I would only add that it is quite possible,in the case of both Monty and Kosminski,that since they were both mentally ill,the former taking his own life,the latter believing himself to be guided by a "universal instinct" that both may have alarmed and upset their families by asserting they were Jack the Ripper---or thought they were.A very great number of people wrote to the police stating they were Jack the Ripper or were related to him.Just as great a number queued up outside Leman Police Station every morning to declare to an exhausted police force that they were Jack the Ripper.There are several references to this in various books and it is very common for people suffering certain mental illnesses that prompt delusional thinking like this to do so in almost all murder cases.
I think Druitt went to see his brother that Autumn and "confided" his fears about his mental health "going like mother" who was in an asylum because of delusional thinking.I suspect he also "confided" that he was Jack the Ripper. When he topped himself his brother had been getting increasingly alarmed and came to London to look for him.
With Kosminski I believe he may well have been telling his family that he was "Jack the Ripper"---possibly because that was one of his "delusions",possibly because he wanted them off his back and tried to frighten them.
Neither of them were Jack in my view,but it suited Mac and Anderson to choose to "believe rumours" ,especially if they emanated from their suspect.

[Jonathan H]

Yes, Norma that maybe exactly what happened, whilst the real murderer, maybe Tumbelty was long gone.

The reason I do not think so is because what you have just said about alarmed families, falling for the mad ravings of a member that they were 'Jack', is precisely the argument Macnaghten would have used about Druitt, possibly even to William Druitt in person. Yet he came away convinced.

That Macnaghten was capable of dismissing a family's fears as mistaken is shown by his own rejection of Kosminski, whom he does not even bother to mention in his memoirs.

Macnaghten would not want it to be Druitt, a fellow member of the Gentile Bourgiosie, about whom the police could do nothing. Worse, since he killed himself in early Dec 1888 ['exactly six months before I joined ...'] they had been on a wild goose chase for this killer for years.

If you were looking for a convenient suicide you would want somebody, preferably foreign and poor who either suicided ior was incarcerated after the Coles murder. In effect, this kind of intense disappointment and frustration is what fuelled Anderson's memory to telescope 1891 into 1888, and inadvertently slander Lawende -- though not by name.

In Kosminski, Macnaghten had found, or had access to a suspect who lived in Whitechapel, hated prostitutes, was sexually aberrant, mentally unbalanced, had attacked a relative with a knife and, as you say, may have babbled delussionally about being 'Jack'.

To which Anderson said by 1895: he'll do.

Macnaghten said: no.

Instead he preferred ... Montague John Druitt?!

Why would he? Why would anybody? But especially why would a fellow gentleman -- without proof -- besmirch the memory of a tragic gentleman?

All these gentlemen accusing a fellow gentleman goes spectacularly against the expected bias of their class and race.

Consider that Farquharson, admittedly a twit, did not pause to consider the tabloid implications of a Ripper who could be connected to the Tories. About whom it could be asked: did the previous Tory government conceal this man's identity to avoid a scandal? He was so overcome, and so bedazzled by what he learned -- my guess is from the servant's grapevine in Dorset -- that he began telling people, excitedly and emphatically. Yet the tit-bit article from Feb 11th 1891 says that 'a good many people believe it'.

To be exposed to the Druitt-as-Ripper story is to be convinced, to become part of a magic circle. The full story, unfortunately, is lost to us.

I don't think Macnaghten ever intended to give us the real story, perhaps because he had promised the Druitts never to provide public information which would expose them and their ghastly tragedy.

True, Drutti's name is in the Report, official version, but that detail would never have been read out in the Commons. True the hundred rule would expose the name -- but so what? Who would care in fifty years let alone in an hundred -- right? True, his name is in the unofficial version but that was to show writers he could trust not to reveal the name, and they didn't.

I think Mac forgot to destroy the unofficial version and never would have wanted it published as it exposed his 'Home Office Report' as some kind of sleight-of-hand. Notice that the Lady Aberconway was still protecting the Druitt name in 1959, until 1965.

'Laying the Ghost' was to be true to the Druitt family's privacy whilst he took implied credit for identifying the fiend.

To me that chapter, quite differently from Anderson's, is calm and unstressed. It makes no effort, whatsoever, to convince us of the un-named suspect's guilt. It makes no effort to tell a story from which we could see some kind of evidence.

Anderson has a house-to-house search, and a Super-witness.

Macnaghten breezily says that the man had never been in an asylum, that there was never a decent witness to the crimes [a blatant lie], that he was absent from where he lived [well, he had to be to go and kill?] with his 'people', and that he was overcome by what he did to Kelly and killed himself.

A protean madman who imploded, luckily, because the police had no knowledge of him whilst alive. Whilst he swept aside worthies of state in his bloody wake.

That's it.

No mention of how he killed himself. No mention of why 'the police' think this is the killer.

Yet Mac writes like a man who does not have to prove anything. He is not desperate. Or, in a hurry. No sweating. He's just certain. He spends more time on the victims than their killer.

If we dismiss him as about as substantive as a Cheshire Cat grin -- so be it.

I have read that Anderson, in his memoirs, had his 'definitely ascertained fact' whereas Macnaghten only had 'in all probability'.

I could not disagree more. As a piece of literature 'Laying the Ghost' is written as a definitely ascertained fact, in tone and theme

Then why wasn't Anderson convinced about Druitt?

My theory is that during the Sadler investigation of Feb-March 1891 Mac had interviewed Farquharson, and very possibly William Druitt. He returned to the Yard frantic to get Anderson to forget Sadler as the Ripper, but certainly nail him for Coles. But there was not enough evidence. What a debacle! [Try reading the scathing Sims about this in 1891]

It galled Anderson's ego that his assistant, whom he hated, was right about Sadler not being the fiend, and that he himself was wrong.

So he refused to accept it.

When Mac found another anguished family, whom he knew were wrong about their Aaron, he told Anderson. Told him as a 'suspect' who is far less likely than Druitt -- because we know it was Druitt.

Anderson grabbed at this thin reed as a way of reasserting his superiority over Mac.

Once Anderson began talking up the Jew suspect, in public in 1895, a stealthy Macnaghten moved to head off this ugly nonsense by orchestrating the 'Drowned Doctor' propaganda campaign to quash it. Very successfully. His memoirs reverted to the truth.

[Natalie Severn]

you know Jonathan,Druitt would have been very hard pressed to have been murdering in between cricket.
For example,after kneeling and disembowelling Annie Chapman in a dirty back yard,he would have had to wash and change and show up at Blackheath ,just a few hours later ,pristine in his flannels!
Think about it: Just how manageable would all this have been?
How much access would he have even had to changing facilities,wash rooms etc without arousing suspicion?What are the practicalities of all this?
Moreover,if he was that unbalanced,could he have won a law case just a week after? I doubt it.
But he possibly could have been worried about his recurrent delusions about being jack the Ripper ,as his cricket did taper off a bit that Autumn.Mind,so might it have done had he been ill with depression.

[mattwill]

Yeah, he was depressed all right, that the mortuary attendants got to the organs before he could. He wished he would have brought his lunch that day.

wrong thread

[Jonathan H]

Norma, that is exactly the kind of objection that Macnaghten could have raised -- and yet he was convinced [Plus, the idea that the cricket games and the murders are impossibly tight, in terms of timing, is I think totally over-rated].

I quite understand why you feel Druitt is a non-starter. I myself have outlined so many arguments against Druitt on this thread that one poster thought I had changed my mind.

On balance, in my opinion, the strengths of the Macnaghten sources on this suspect outweigh their limitations.

I know I'm totally alone but, oh well, perhaps my forthcoming book will engage the odd lay reader ...

[Natalie Severn]

But Jonathan,
Its getting very complicated this.I mean Druitt would have had to have had training by Houdini to be able to change into all these different personnas like this.One day the bewigged barrister earnestly entering his plea,the next the respectably dressed ripper depositing his cricket gear in a Cannon Street locker and racing round to Hanbury Street readying himself to strangle and mutilate poor Annie Chapman all this before most people were up and about.And heis not finished because he has to find somewhere to change into his second outfit-probably his all white cricket gear ,the shirt, pullover, flannels and striped jacket and cap of cricket!

Also you imply that Anderson"s theory and Macnaghten"s sort of "lay fallow" for a while but eventually bits of the Druitt theory metamorphosed into the Kosminski theory in the head of Robert Anderson and bits of the Kosminski theory were absorbed into Macnaghten"s Druitt theory-as time went by? So we have two concurrent theories both as mixed up as a dog"s dinner to consider, the muddle in each case being because time has past and memories have faded?
My eyes are going in two different directions at once like,Jonathan.

But you may be right here its just its quite difficult to follow.
Cheers
Norma

[Jonathan H]

I don't think Mac was ever confused or forgetful about anything.

His memoirs make it clear that Druitt was not an asylum veteran, not a contemporaneous suspect -- and whoever thought he was a drowned physician?

Anderson, the unlikeable but honest figure of the two, was jumbling things in his mind across the board by 1910 -- and that is why nobody, not Swanson, supported him.

I don't buy the multi-tasking of Druitt as impossible. We see it in modern serial killers all the time. Plus it is just the sort of objection Mac could have raised, and yet ...

[Natalie Severn]

But why choose of all the days in the year, the very one when he had a cricket match to get ready for ?Knowing that by choosing to kill and mutilate a woman in a dirty back yard in Spitalfields ,he would have had to have been up half the night and risk splashing himself in blood and gore before washing and cleaning himself in order to catch the train for a cricket match in Blackheath where, like the rest of the players, he would require being clad from head to toe in white? Why not choose a "free day" any other day in fact---- when such concerns did not arise? Its not really to do with multi tasking but rather with choosing to have such a clash of tasks and consequent demands in terms of travel,laundry and wash and brush up and not least recovery time!
PS you also need to bone up on Anderson----the spymaster-----not at all honest there ,but by his very own admission the master of disinformation------outstripping Macnaghten"s duplicity by a hundred miles.
Best
Norma

[Jonathan H]

Lastly it should come as not surprise that I disagree witht he conventional wisdom -- which is perfectly reasonable -- that the reason Macnaghten has a beat cop seeing Eddowes is because he is confusing the Stride and Eddowes murders of the same night.

Well, deliberately I think and with a twist.

By 1891 Mac was convined that Druitt was the fiend. Therefore Lawende's description matched Druitt -- which at least it does generically from his Winchester pics. Moreover, Lawende had described a suspect who had Gentile-leaning features. Again, that fit Druitt.

In reality Lawende said no to Sadler in 1891, as Mac knew he would and yes to Grainger in 1895, which still suited Mac's opinion because the latter sailor was a Druitt double -- minus the seafaring tattoos of course.

Believing Lawende had seen Druitt in proletarian grab with a victim, Mac did the following to deflect people's attention away from 'Jack the Oxonian'.

He omits this Super-witness altogether from the 1894 official version of his Report.

He adds a witness to the unofficial version to be shown to Griffiths and Sims in 1898, because they might put two and two together that the middle-aged, Blackheath physician does not quite fit the much younger man that Lawende was describing?

So, Lawende ceased to exist, his suspect 'Jack the Sailor' ceased to exist, and they were replaced by the fictitious beat cop seeing a Jewish-featured suspect -- the reversal of the ethnicities of witness and suspect.

This fiction was swallowed whole by the two writers [quite inadvertently, once propagated by Sims in 1907, it became the origin of Anderson's treacherous Super-witness]. Sims writes of the cop seeing the Polish Jew suspect some time later and claiming that there was some resemblance.

All white lies.

When it came to his memoirs Macnaghten, knowing it was fiction repeated it yet now quashed it; claiming that the beat cop's description was 'unsatisfying'. That took care of both Anderson's memoirs and some kind of excellent witness, and more importantly obscured Lawende, a witness held in such regard he was used twice to try and indentify Gentile, sailor suspects.

Macnaghten's agenda in the surviving records, from 1894 to 1914 [or to Sims' memoirs in 1917] was to hide Montie Druitt; to make him unrecoverable.

Mission accomplished -- in fact done so effectively it lasts to this day. Who besides myself take Druitt seriously as a suspect? Nobody I know.

Had the Mac Report(s) been both lost, Druitt's name and identity would have forever remained unrecoverable inside the cocoon of the Blackheath Jekyll/Whitechepal Hyde.

Many on these Boards exonerate Druitt as a poor, tragic fellow ludicrously roped into the mystery by that affable buffoon Macnaghten.

Perhaps he was?

Odds are I must be wrong, and if a source turns up which shows Mac as a complete blunderer, or Druitt at night cricket training whilst a vicitim was murdered, I'll be the first to say so.

But let us also not kid ourselves.

There are certain people who would be totally devastated -- I mean shocked to their marrow -- if the best provisional solution turned out to be ... the Drowned Not-a-Doctor after all?!

[Tom_Wescott]

Jonathan,

Okay, then why does he transplant the three Jews to Berner Street?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jonathan H]

In my opinion, Macnaghten cleans up the Stride murder witnesses, who might be seem to have acted less than herocially -- including the PC on his beat, and with a man shouting 'Lispski' and so on, as part of his agenda to head off Anderson's politically incorrect claims starting in 1895 that it was a foreign Jew after all.

Macnaghten turns this into a trio of hard-working Jews who surprised the killer, who then 'had' to satiate his blood-lust elsewhere that night.

These Jews nearly saved this poor -- Gentile -- woman's life.

When the killer wrote the graffitti he was cursing those specific three Jews for forcing him to kill again on the same night. In his memoirs Mac writes that this was 'the only clue' left behind by the murderer. I doubt he actually believed this.

But it served his political, propagandist purpose, especially in the shadow of Anderson's 1910 article and memoirs, that the killer was not a Hebrew. In fact, the Gentile killer blamed some Jews that night -- in writing -- for nearly thwarting him.

[Jonathan H]

To Norma

Yes, perhaps Macnaghten was a blunderer, an amateur who locked onto Druitt in an histrionic way, when if he had done any kind of real investigation whatsoever he would have realised that, logistically, it was almost impossible for Montie. Not just impossible but ridiculously inconvenient?!

Perhaps the only member of the Druitt 'family' who 'believed' Montie to be the fiend was his own mother -- certifiably as mad as a March Hare!?

On the other hand, I think Macnaghten already long ago trod where we are going. He found that Montie could indeed have done all of these things in the time alloted despite his own, initial scepticism [interestingly the MP titbit mentions 'blood-stained clothes' as some kind of incriminating factor].

I think it is worth noting that Macnaghten alone amongst the police officers, in their recounting of the Whitechapel murders, has a very good sense of the victims' names, dates of their murders, their locations, and that the police investigation carried on into 1891. It is Mac, after all, who locked in which women were killed by Druitt, in his opinion, and who were not -- for example Smith and Tabram.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes,quite a different take on things than I have previously been used to Jonathan,I certainly give you that! But I hope I am following you properly because with it being "a road less travelled" it doesnt have the familiar patterns of thought to key into.
One thing I find throws me a bit is the notion that either Macnaghten or Anderson could keep their mouths shut like this if they really had hard evidence that either Kosminski or Druitt were the Ripper. Anderson ,by 1910 had become indiscreet to the point of being a political liability,shooting his mouth off to the press on several occasions about his secret service doings and Macnaghten loved to gossip about his library of criminal trophies to his friend,George Sims.
So it seems to me,given their lack of reticence on other matters-----that their evidence if any, was very flimsy,if they had any evidence at all as such.To illustrate what I mean about Macnaghten ,I have read that he showed everybody who came to his house the "Dear Boss letter" or one of the letters from the series,which he had had framed and hung up in his house by several accounts. So he wasnt exactly the soul of discretion in point of fact,that he led us to believe with his talk about burning all his evidence....pull the other one----what evidence?
We need to know what their evidence if any, actually amounted to really.

[Hunter]

On the other hand, I think Macnaghten already long ago trod where we are going. He found that Montie could indeed have done all of these things in the time alloted despite his own, initial scepticism [interestingly the MP titbit mentions 'blood-stained clothes' as some kind of incriminating factor].

I'm sorry, but how could he? He thought Druitt was a doctor and lived with his family. I doubt that he knew the man played cricket. With misinformation like that I don't see how Mac was able to fit Monty into anything, other than his suicide; which he was off on that by 3 weeks. Maybe I'm missing something.