Two reasons AGAINST Tumblety being the Ripper

[curious]

Hi Curious,

So far, there's no evidence -at least that I know of- connecting Tumblety to Druitt. His later relationships with young men was to hire them as a personal secretary or traveling companion for a few years and dominate their life. He even did it with young Hall Caine. Driutt's life seemed never to have changed, so it doesn't fit the pattern, but certain connections do resonate. Maybe it's an area of future research.

Sincerely,
Mike

Hi, Mike,
thanks for the replies and bearing with me.

Actually, when "the solution" popped into my head, it was just a fun moment.

Perhaps Tumblety simply saw Druitt in a cricket match and became intensely infatuated. Why wouldn't the aging Tumblety be drawn to a sport with fit young men.

Therefore, Druitt's life did not have to change . . . would Tumblety as a stalker work?

My mind will have to play with this idea, because on some levels it does resonate. It would also explain how the "doctor" got mixed into Melville Macnaghten's discussion. Druitt could have been nearly incoherent as he discussed the situation with his trusted cleric. Perhaps knowing that people claim "a friend" is responsible for something they have done themselves, the cleric never believed the "doctor" existed, but that Druitt was himself guilty.

BUT, it was mainly just a fun ah ha moment and I wanted to be able to say "case closed"

So, Mike, thanks for the comments.

curious

[Ben]

I don't agree that if all the suspects offered forward were lined up in 1888, then Tumblety would stand out above all others, because Fleming was taller for a start.

No, he wasn't.

However, I would agree with the points raised regarding Tumblety's incompatibility with eyewitness descriptions.

[mklhawley]

A slight correction here Mike, I know you like to be accurate.

Neil Storey didn't actually discover the Tumblety letters to Hall Caine...nor did I, although they are mentioned and quoted from in my 1995 book. The letters were discovered and accessed by researcher and biographer Vivien Allen over twenty years ago when researching her excellent book Hall Caine Portrait of a Victorian Romancer, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. They were housed in the Manx Museum in their Hall Caine collection and were subject to a seventy-year embargo expiring in September 2001.

With the permission of Hall Caine's granddaughter, Mrs Elin Gill, of Greeba Castle, Isle of Man, Vivien was granted permission to access and quote from the letters. Vivien spent 'well over a year' going through the museum's then uncatalogued archive.

Hi Stewart,

Thanks for the corrections. I certainly appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Mike

[mklhawley]

No, he wasn't.

However, I would agree with the points raised regarding Tumblety's incompatibility with eyewitness descriptions.

Hi Ben,

Great to see your reply. Just a quick reminder, Tumblety did fit a late October, early November eyewitness description. Just as Sir George Arthur experienced, they were on the lookout for a lone male in an American slouch hat...

The San Francisco Chronicle, 18 November, 1888, GOSSIP OF LONDON.
A Heavy Swell Arrested in Whitechapel. A Score of Prisoners, but No Clew.
[THE NEW YORK WORLD CABLE SERVICE; COPYRIGHTED, 1888 - SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE]
LONDON, November 17.
...That was the case with Sir George Arthur of the Price of Wales set. He put on an old shooting coat and a slouch hat and went to Whitechapel for a little fun. He got it. It occurred to two policemen that Sir George answered very much to the popular description of Jack the Ripper.


The Evening World, October 2, 1888.
Horror-Stricken.
[Special Cable to the Evening World]
London, Oct. 2 – The London police are still working at random in the Whitechapel cases. No arrests have yet been made this morning, tough it is not at all unlikely that a half a dozen suspicious characters maybe taken into custody before night, as was done yesterday… With this indefinite and aimless policy on the part of the police, it is hard to tell whether any real detective work is being done. The detention of Fitzgerald, the hauling up of the poor German who quarreled with a woman he had met by chance and the late seizure of the mysterious gentleman with the “American hat” are proceedings which have only gone to strengthen the discredit with which the populace regards the police efficiency in this emergency.
The curious disposition to connect the crimes with an American has been carried to an absurd extreme. “An American hat,” “an American medical student,” an American…


The Sun, January 13, 1889.
LATEST NEWS FROM EUROPE.
London, Jan. 12 – It is sad to have to say so, but murder in its most unattractive shape is becoming positively fashionable in this island… The Whitechapel murderer’s exploits were promptly and universally credited to some foreigner –an American preferred- on the ground that the slaughter of defenceless (sic) women was incompatible with the noble instincts of Englishmen; but this characteristically British theory has been damaged by the readiness which the Englishman has shown to imitate Whitechapel methods, and the American-with-the-low-hat theory is being gradually abandoned…



The Saturday Budget, October 6, 1888.
MORE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS.
A man was arrested at midnight last night on suspicion of having committed the horrible murder in Whitechapel. He is a tall man with dark beard and wore an American slouch hat, by which he was traced from the locality of the latest murder...


Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 November 1888
London's Reign of Terror.
The assassin of Whitechapel has claimed his ninth victim, having planned and executed his latest crime with all the deliberation and cunning that characterized his former exploits…It has been said among other things that the assassin is an American, because he wears a slouch hat…

Georg Hutchinson watched Mary Jane Kelly with a suspicious man in Commercial St late Friday night, November 9, 1888. His description:
"dress long, dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan [sic] and a dark jacket under, light waistcoat, dark trousers, dark felt hat turned down in the middle…

"Matthew Packer keeps a shop in Berner St. has a few grapes in window, black & white.

On Sat night about 11pm a young man from 25-30 - about 5.7 with long black coat buttoned up -soft felt hat, kind of yankee hat …


The Echo, October 29, 1888
The various districts are being patrolled by extra constables, and their zeal has lead them into several excesses, notably, an arrest of three young men made on Thursday night in Berner-street. The police, according to a morning contemporary, have so much in mind the vague stories of an American perpetrator of the dastardly crimes that any person in a wide-a-wake or soft felt hat becomes an object of suspicion. A comic singer was unfortunate enough during a professional visit on Thursday to Whitechapel to wear one of these hats; and when during the interval he …


The Sun, October 2, 1888, LONDON’S GREAT SCARE
LONDON, Oct. 1. – There is no real news about the Whitechapel women-killing mystery,… This original theory appears to be based principally upon the fact that some poor wretch dragged from his lodging house on suspicion in the middle of last night and released at once was described by his fellow lodgers as an uneasy gentleman with an American hat. What may be the Whitechapel lodgers’ precise conception of our national headgear it would be difficult to say –probably a modified form of the sombrero made popular by Buffalo Bill.

[Hunter]

Yep, the American slouch hat thing took on a life of its own, like the black bag. Even the Daily Telegraph published an illustration of the murderer with such a hat, prompting the police to publish a rebuttal and the actual witness descriptions of Schwartz and Lawrence on October 19.

[Hunter]

Lawrence?
I didn't type that.
Lawende.
There, take that 'smartphone.'

[Ben]

Many thanks for providing those extracts, Mike.

As Hunter points out, however, none of the "slouched hat" descriptions seem to originate from any genuine sightings that were taken seriously by the police at the time. If Packer's man in the "yankee hat" or Hutchinson's Astrakhan man prompted the police to search for an American suspect, it can only have been temporary, as both witnesses were fairly swiftly discredited. Moreover, assuming even that the Packer and Hutchinson "suspects" were anything other than fabrication, neither looked anything like Tumblety. To my mind, it is rather more significant that the few witness descriptions that were, apparently, taken seriously by the police point very heavily, if not conclusively, away from Tumblety.

All the best,
Ben

[pinkmoon]

Like I said before can we take any of the eye witnesses descriptions seriously I think the answer to that is no.Tumblety would certainly be on the top of my list of people to question if I was investigating these murders in 1888.I think when the penny dropped with the police and they realised tumblety had done a runner they tried to find him in a low key manner to save face in case they couldn't find him and save any embarrassment.

[mklhawley]

Many thanks for providing those extracts, Mike.

As Hunter points out, however, none of the "slouched hat" descriptions seem to originate from any genuine sightings that were taken seriously by the police at the time. If Packer's man in the "yankee hat" or Hutchinson's Astrakhan man prompted the police to search for an American suspect, it can only have been temporary, as both witnesses were fairly swiftly discredited. Moreover, assuming even that the Packer and Hutchinson "suspects" were anything other than fabrication, neither looked anything like Tumblety. To my mind, it is rather more significant that the few witness descriptions that were, apparently, taken seriously by the police point very heavily, if not conclusively, away from Tumblety.

All the best,
Ben

Hi Ben,

That fact that we are not privy to all of what the police had, means you can't make that assumption. What we do know is, Sir George Arthur was picked up because he fit the description... of what then? Notice that Scotland Yard took seriously lone suspects in American Slouch Hats.

Also, 'genuine' sightings of the Ripper? No. pinkmoon is absolutely correct.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Ben]

We shouldn't treat the eyewitness descriptions as gospel, Pink, no, and nor should we use them as the ultimate barometer for ruling suspects in or out, but we should certainly take them "seriously". It's each to one's own, of course, but Tumblety would be very far down my list of people to question in connection with the murders in 1888, simply because what we know about him is so very far removed from what we know to be true of the vast majority of serial killers.

[Ben]

Hi Mike,

I should make clear that I never said "genuine sightings of the ripper". I meant "genuine" in the sense that they were considered by the police to have been truthfully imparted by witnesses and relevant to the time of the death of the victims.

I'm afraid there is no evidence that "Scotland Yard" had any interest in "lone suspects in American Slouch Hats". We are indeed "privy" to what the police had in terms of eyewitness evidence. Swanson penned an internal document on eyewitness descriptions collated up until (at the very earliest) the immediate aftermath of the Eddowes murder, and they don't include any slouch-hatters or Tumblety-a-likes.

All the best,
Ben

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

I should make clear that I never said "genuine sightings of the ripper". I meant "genuine" in the sense that they were considered by the police to have been truthfully imparted by witnesses and relevant to the time of the death of the victims.

I'm afraid there is no evidence that "Scotland Yard" had any interest in "lone suspects in American Slouch Hats". We are indeed "privy" to what the police had in terms of eyewitness evidence. Swanson penned an internal document on eyewitness descriptions collated up until (at the very earliest) the immediate aftermath of the Eddowes murder, and they don't include any slouch-hatters or Tumblety-a-likes.

All the best,
Ben

Ben,

Not only do the articles I posted demonstrate that Scotland Yard did indeed have interest in lone males in American Slouch Hats prior to and during the Kelly murder, Tumblety admitted in his interview in Jan 1889 that he was arrested for his American Slouch Hat. It's truly an anti-Tumblety bias to reject this reality.

There is a pattern with Swanson that you've never considered. His boss, even his hero, Sir Robert Anderson, maintained the same silence as Swanson did about Tumblety. Luckily for us, the US chiefs of police opened their big mouths and we now know that Anderson had a big interest in Tumblety just after the Kelly murder. If it wasn't for these cables, one would say that Anderson never knew of Tumblety, since we have no other record of him discussing him. To say that Swanson did not have the same concerns about Tumblety just because he did not mention him, ignores the reality of Swanson's relationship with Anderson.


Sincerely,

Mike

[Ben]

Not only do the articles I posted demonstrate that Scotland Yard did indeed have interest in lone males in American Slouch Hats prior to and during the Kelly murder

I'm afraid they demonstrate nothing of the sort, Mike. They are press articles, as opposed to police reports, which evince no indication of originating from police sources. Tumblety's protest that it was purely down to the "slouch hat" that he was arrested can only have been his own interpretation, since there is no realistic possibility of a policeman approaching Tumblety and saying "you're nicked because of your ownership of a slouch hat". Hunter's already made the point that the police had to intervene and set the record straight in response to all the "slouched hat" press nonsense.

As I've already mentioned, Swanson provided an internal police report on the eyewitnesses, and if any slouch-hat spotter was being taken seriously, it would certainly have been included in that. Indeed, its absence tells us for certain that the police were not in pursuit of a slouch-hatted suspect.

As for Swanson's and Anderson's interest in Tumblety, it clearly wasn't to last as they ultimately believed a Polish Jew was responsible.

All the best,
Ben

[mklhawley]

I'm afraid they demonstrate nothing of the sort, Mike. They are press articles, as opposed to police reports, which evince no indication of originating from police sources.

Ben, you have blinders on. To suggest the press did not receive their information from police sources is ridiculous. In fact, the very same article that discusses Sir George Arthur and his hat is the very same article we see Tumblety connected to the Whitechapel murders AND it points out the police source:


San Francisco Chronicle, 18 November 1888
[THE NEW YORK WORLD CABLE SERVICE; COPYRIGHTED, 1888 - SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE]

LONDON, November 17.--Just to think of one of the Prince of Wales' own exclusive set, a member of the household cavalry, and one of the best known of the many swells about town, who glory in the glamour of the Guelph going into custody on suspicion of being the Whitechapel murderer. It is the talk of clubdom tonight. Just now it is a fashionable fad to "slum it" in Whitechapel. Every night scores of young men, who never have beeni n the East End before in their lives, prowl around the neighborhood of the murders, talking with frightened women and pushing their way into overcrowded lodging-houses. So long as two men keep together and do not make nuisances of themselves the police do not interfere with them, but if a man goes alone and tries to lure a woman of the street into a secluded street to talk to her, he is pretty sure to get into trouble.

That was the case with Sir George Arthur of the Price of Wales set. He put on an old shooting coat and a slouch hat and went to Whitechapel for a little fun. He got it. It occurred to two policemen that Sir George answered very much to the popular description of Jack the Ripper. They watched him, and when they saw him talking with a woman they collared him. He protested, expostulated and threatened them with the royal wrath, but in vain. Finally a chance was given him to send to a fashionable West End club to prove his identity, and he was released with profuse apologies for the mistake. The affair was kept out of the newspapers, but the jolly young Barnets at Brookes Club consider the joke too good to keep quiet...


Another arrest was a man who gave the name of Dr. Kumblety of New York. The police could not hold him on suspicion of the Whitechapel crimes, but he will be committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court under the special law passed soon after the Modern Babylon exposures. The police say this is the man's right name, as proved by letters in his possession; that he is from New York, and that he has been in the habit of crossing the ocean twice a year for several years.

A score of other men have been arrested by the police this week on suspicion of being the murderer, but the right man still roams at large. Everybody is momentarily expecting to hear of another victim. The large sums offered as private rewards have induced hundreds of amateur detectives to take a hand in the chase, but to no avail. Leon Rothschild has offered an income of £2 a week for life to the man who gives information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the assassin.

This is evinced indication.

Tumblety's protest that it was purely down to the "slouch hat" that he was arrested can only have been his own interpretation, since there is no realistic possibility of a policeman approaching Tumblety and saying "you're nicked because of your ownership of a slouch hat". Hunter's already made the point that the police had to intervene and set the record straight in response to all the "slouched hat" press nonsense.

The problem is, how the heck did Tumblety even know about a slouch hat causing the arrest of lone men in the first place? It couldn't have been the Sir George Arthur story, since the police were successful in keeping it out of the British papers, and that's where Tumblety was, on the streets of Whitechapel. And to suggest that it's not realistic for a constable to approach Tumblety is actually unrealistic, because they just did it to Sir George Arthur AT AROUND THE SAME TIME.

As I've already mentioned, Swanson provided an internal police report on the eyewitnesses, and if any slouch-hat spotter was being taken seriously, it would certainly have been included in that. Indeed, its absence tells us for certain that the police were not in pursuit of a slouch-hatted suspect.

You're doing the 'absence of evidence is evidence of absent' fallacy. The fact that Anderson was indeed interested in Tumblety negates this kind of cherry picking.

As for Swanson's and Anderson's interest in Tumblety, it clearly wasn't to last as they ultimately believed a Polish Jew was responsible.

Just as Guy Logan pointed out, they tried to keep their interest in Andrews' suspect -Tumbley- a secret, which causes Polish Jew theorists a problem. Interest in Tumblety waned only because he was across the Atlantic when post-Kelly victims were murdered by who they believed was Jack the Ripper.

Sincerely,
Mike

[Lechmere]

Am I correct in thinking that Tumbelty’s self-serving interview with the New York World, of 29th January 1889 is the only reliable source for him having set foot in the East End, when he said:

‘I had been going over to England for a long time-ever since 1869, indeed-and I used to go about the city a great deal until every part of it became familiar to me.
‘I happened to be there when these Whitechapel murders attracted the attention of the whole world, and, in the company with thousands of other people, I went down to the Whitechapel district. I was not dressed in a way to attract attention, I thought, though it afterwards turned out that I did. I was interested by the excitement and the crowds and the queer scenes and sights, and did not know that all the time I was being followed by English detectives.’

As for his fondness for wearing slouch hats of the American pattern, is this self-same article the only source for his predilection for this variety of chapeau:

‘Someone had said that Jack the Ripper was an American, and everybody believed that statement. Then it is the universal belief among the lower classes that all Americans wear slouch hats; therefore, Jack the Ripper, must wear a slouch hat. Now, I happened to have on a slouch hat, and this, together with the fact that I was an American, was enough for the police.’