The Ripper : A Discharged Inmate Of The Asylum

[Cogidubnus]

With that thought in mind (Sims being wrong), and, unless I am in confusion here, has it not been suggested that Sims obtained his information concerning Druitt from Macnaghten?

Which begs the question, did Mac. ever share the thought that Druitt had been in an asylum, I'm thinking, 'not'. So, is this an isolated case of Sims confusing his suspects, or did he have another source for the 'asylum' theory?

Where is Jonathan when we need him most?

It's always interesting to conjecture just how much Macnaghten did actually feed Sims...and how much was written "evidence" (vide the mutating memorandum) or how much mere verbal implication over drinkies at the club...

Instinctively recoilling from being a Druittist, I'm not sure I buy all Jonathan's conjectures regarding Mac's motives, but nonetheless he certainly makes some shrewd points...It may well be that Mac's motives are more concerned with defending his department, or even mere self-agrandisement, but I'd still love to hear what Jonathan has to say about the "asylum theory" as Jon puts it...

All the best

Dave

[Wickerman]

No, Jon. Sims did not have his facts right, but he was under the impression that the 'drowned doctor' had been in an asylum. Many of the 'facts' about Druitt, as we know, were not facts.

Ok Cris, thanks.

With that thought in mind (Sims being wrong), and, unless I am in confusion here, has it not been suggested that Sims obtained his information concerning Druitt from Macnaghten?

Which begs the question, did Mac. ever share the thought that Druitt had been in an asylum, I'm thinking, 'not'. So, is this an isolated case of Sims confusing his suspects, or did he have another source for the 'asylum' theory?

I'm inclined towards Sims being confused.

Regards, Jon S.

[Fisherman]

If this was the sort of information Sims had been fed, one can imagine what Macnaghten had been lead to believe.

You can say that again, Howard!

To me, it seems there was a suit fabricated as a result of the ongoing discussions amongst the people in charge of the stranded investigation. And that suit was made up of a very ugly cloth - it was the suit of a homicidal maniac, bouncing in and out of asylums. Griffiths mentions it in the mid nineties, and Sims speaks of it much later. And that suit is tried on all three of the Macnaghten contenders at some stage. They are all presented as the homicidal maniac with the worst possible antecedentia, and they are all asylum customers due to their homicidal urges. They are one and the same, when clad in this suit, with a few built-in discrepancies inbetween them, answering to details that were known. But essentially they are all the same man when "on the stand".
Take that suit off, and we have one con artist and thief, one troubled, cricketplaying barrister and a confused, feebleminded man, cared for by his loving family and looking for food in the gutter.

It took some shoehorning to make these guys fit the bill, but in the end, they were all forced into the bogey man role.

Someone is going to thrash my bum for calling Kosminski feebleminded, I know.

But there you are.

The best,
Fisherman

[Howard Brown]

Cris:
Thanks for mentioning the 1902 article which Wick posted...I had not seen that either. Without the 'drowned doctor" rigamarole, I thought that Sims might have flip flopped on the Druitt theory...considering it was put out in 1910....a few years after he began mentioning that scenario in the press.
If this was the sort of information Sims had been fed, one can imagine what Macnaghten had been lead to believe.

Mike H :
Thanks for the kind remarks.
Here I thought it was something new, but as I now see, Sims had mentioned both the released lunatic and drowned doctor in one place....the article Cris mentioned.

[Hunter]

No, Jon. Sims did not have his facts right, but he was under the impression that the 'drowned doctor' had been in an asylum. Many of the 'facts' about Druitt, as we know, were not facts.

[Wickerman]

Folks, read Sims' Dagonet column from February 16, 1902, transcribed here on Casebook. I'd post the link but I'm on a cell phone.

Excuse me for stepping in...

Frequently this outburst - or, rather, this recurrence - of mania means a murder - sometimes a massacre. The homicidal maniac who shocked the World as Jack the Ripper had been once - I am not sure that it was not twice - in a lunatic asylum. At the time his dead body was found in the Thames, his friends, who were terrified at his disappearance from their midst, were endeavouring to have him found and placed under restraint again.
16 February, 1902.

I was not convinced that this was a good argument because I was not aware Sims had his facts right, had Druitt actually been in an asylum, ever?

Regards, Jon S.

[Hunter]

Folks, read Sims' Dagonet column from February 16, 1902, transcribed here on Casebook. I'd post the link but I'm on a cell phone.

[Errata]

Didn't asylums shave the heads of their patients to prevent lice, etc? If I recall correctly (and I may not) it was a way people identified recent asylum releases (and released prisoners) which would make the guy somewhat noticeable until his hair grew out.

[Abby Normal]

The best candidate for this would be James kelly. Eventhough he escaped just prior to the murders and not discharged. Of the viable candidates which one had just prior to the murders been in an asylum?

[mklhawley]

Great find Howard, and excellent replies. Love it.

Mike

[Hunter]

It was Druitt.

[Fisherman]

The following excerpt may be found in an article I just located...it may be worth discussing here.

The entire article may be found on The Forums :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=190498#post190498

Black & White
London
October 1st, 1910
*****************

The released lunatic, under the stress of a fancied wrong or in a sudden fit of homicidal mania, has proved another object lesson in the madness of letting him loose upon the world without the slightest provision being made for that after-care which, in such cases , is of the first necessity.

There is no need to labour the point. It leaps to the eyes of every thinking man or woman.

Many of the mysterious cases that baffle our police and remain mysteries are crimes of insanity committed by lunatics who have been released from control and allowed to go at large without the slightest attempt at supervision. The whole series of Whitechapel atrocities were committed by a man who had been discharged from an asylum.

George R. Sims

Thereīs that in-and-out-of-an-asylum reference again. This was, according to Griffiths, Andersonīs stance, was it not - that the crimes were perpetrated by a man who was "temporarily at large".

And even if Druitt did have the odd contact with some asylum pre -88, it does not seem to be him it is spoken of here. Sounds like a much more sinister character to me - some sort of bogey man ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Hunter]

Yes, it apparently was Druitt; just another piece of misinformation regarding the suicidal "doctor."

[lynn cates]

Druitt?

Hello Howard. Any chance this could refer to Druitt? I think I remember a snippet/post where he was thought to have been briefly in an asylum before 1888.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

Considering Anderson's opinion was serialized in Blackwoods in March 1910, and no doubt Sims was familiar with this latest revelation, by October of the same year Sims perhaps felt this was an official consensus and could repeat what he had read?

Regards, Jon S.