Proof of Tumblety's Misogyny

[Stewart P Evans]

Liaison

...
The problem with making a case that Tumblety was a Fenian - or rather more to the point that he would have attracted Littlechild's attention as a Fenian is that he was a con man.
He was also vain and liked applause. So in front of an Irish audience in a district where Irish sentiment ran high he can be seen - superficially I Would suggest - playing to the crowd.
...
Also be wary of ascribing any Irish reference to Fenianism and any Irish politician who represented Irish interests as being a Fenian - Littlechild seems to have understood the difference .
And please there were plenty of Irish Catholics who loyally served the crown - even after independence and most I am sure we're apolitical.

There was a highly developed liaison between the Canadian and Metropolitan police with regard to suspected Irish American sympathisers. This would have certainly brought Tumblety to the attention of the English police. Tumblety himself published his Boston speech so it did not reach a mere limited audience. I am well aware of Irish political history, the history of the Fenians and religious loyalties. We have some very good Catholic friends, with whom we have stayed, in Dublin.

[Stewart P Evans]

Ambivalent

...
We also see heightened bitterness against Albion following his arrest on charges of Gross indecency.
Prior to this London and London society - mixing with the Old Ascendancy - was his favourite playground - hence his bitterness.
In any case let's give all the evidence such as his grovelling pro British letter at the time of the Boer War.
Also be wary of ascribing any Irish reference to Fenianism and any Irish politician who represented Irish interests as being a Fenian - Littlechild seems to have understood the difference .
...

Tumblety always had an ambivalent view of England and the English which was evinced in his writings as far back as 1866. Whilst greatly admiring such literary figures as Dickens he, at the same time, railed against the English treatment of Ireland.

It amuses me how those with an agenda tend to try and write Tumblety off as a mere con man at the same time forgetting how many con men have figured amongst the worst murderers. There is no way that Tumblety would have been written off by Littlechild as not worth being looked at as an Irish sympathizer.

But, hey, you are brim full of idees fixe and I appreciate that nothing can change such an inflexible mind. Sorry, but I really have tired of this pointless 'debate'.

[The Good Michael]

Tumblety was born near Dublin and was a Catholic. His sympathies would be natural and inborn. It is not a mere aside and with these published sympathies, some as early as 1857, he had all the credentials for a Fenian supporter, if not a member. Certainly enough to be worth watching as an Irish American visiting London at the time of the troubles.

As McCulloch states, 'It is not necessary to identify Tumblety as a covert Fenian organizer to understand how he could be taken as a representative of certain strands of Irish radicalism.' And this was speaking with knowledge gleaned from 1857 sources and written in 1993 before Tumblety became known as a Ripper suspect. However, people with a Ripper interest usually see only what they want to see.

It is understandable for those wishing to minimize Tumblety's profile with regard to his Fenian sympathies and hatred of women to gainsay clear evidence. That's 'Ripperworld' for you.

The hiring of Fenian lawyers is what I was referring to. He wanted representation that would keep him out of jail.

Mike

[Lechmere]

Let’s take a closer look Tumblety’s abortive 1857 election bid.
The accounts appear in his self-published 1866 book ‘A few passages in the Life of Francis Tumblety’ and should be read in contex, and it is simplest just to quote from the suspects section here on Casebook:
‘Tumblety was arrested on September 23, 1857 for attempting to abort the pregnancy of a local prostitute named Philomene Dumas. It was alleged that he sold her a bottle of pills and liquid for the purpose, but after some legal haggling Tumblety was released on October 1. A verdict of ‘no true bill’ was reached on the 24th and no trial was ever undertaken.’

Soon after this damaging incident a report appeared in various newspapers speaking of Tumblety in glowing terms:
It is hinted that Dr. Tumblety will offer himself as a candidate on Grittish principles, in case of a vacancy in this constituency, and that he is now feeling the pulse of the people. The Doctor having amassed a fortune in the treatment of “all the ills that flesh is heir to”—in which treatment he has ever been successful—now philanthropically proposes to devote his brilliant abilities to the cure of the dangerous diseases affecting the body politic, and is proudly conscious of the success that awaits him in the effort.

Who do you think might have written such cringeworthy purple prose and supplied this story to the press?
To which, he replied in an equally cringeworthy manner – declining to stand in the Irish interest.
Not as a Fenian, merely as a representative of the Irish community.
And to emphasise the non-threatening nature of his involvement in Canadian politics Tumblety went on to list members of Canadian society who he claimed endorsed his professional standing:
Sir E. Head, Governor of Canada.
Hon Hy. Sternes, Mayor of Montreal.
Hon. Geo. Hall, Mayor of Quebec.
Hon. Jno. Hutchinson, Mayor of Toronto, C. W.
Hon J. B. Robinson.
Hon. James Cummings, Mayor of Hamilton, C. W.
Hon W. Matthews, Mayor of Brantford, C. W.
Hon W. Barker, Mayor of London, C. W.
W. Savage, Col. of Artillery.
H. P. Dwight, Superintendent Montreal Telegraph.
J. Taylor, Justice of Peace, Toronto, C. W.
R. H. Cook, Alderman, Toronto, C. W.
J. Urquhart, Surgeon, Toronto, C. W.
Not very revolutionary.
The only hint at sentimental Oirishness in this book comes in this passage:
‘The chronicles of Ireland will furnish many instances of undue harshness exercised during troubled times, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but I challenge the record to produce such a flagrant abuse of power’.
He was actually moaning about being arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Lincoln assassination!
Tumblety’s references to Britain, her culture, Empire and leading men in this book can only be described as warm and positive.

His 1889 book ‘A Sketch of the Life of the Gifted, Eccentric and World-Famed Physician Francis Tumblety’ also talks warmly of Britain. The only vaguely Oirsh passage being a reference to Parnell:
‘Now let me say a word about the attacks which certain American newspapers recently made upon me, attacks that were as unfounded as the onslaught made on the great Irish leader. While I was not in a position to defend myself, these papers continued their foul slanders, but my friends will readily see, from the foregoing pages and from the testimonials that follow, how utterly base and wholly groundless these aspersions were. Like Parnell, I have emerged from the battle entirely unscathed with my social and professional standing unimpaired.’
He is of course referring to the allegations in the US press where he was accused of being a Ripper suspect and compared his plight to that of Parnell.

This book, with the New York World interview in January 1889, were part of Tumblety’s plan to rehabilitate himself and clear the air after the dust had settled and the Gross Indecency charges had been forgotten about in the brouhaha he himself generated about being a Ripper suspect.

So Tumblety’s self penned books give no space to promoting Fenian viewpoints and the 1857 election episode is of no utility in suggesting that Tumblety has Fenian leanings.

[Lechmere]

[QUOTE=Lechmere;281358]Let’s take a closer look Tumblety’s abortive 1857 election bid.
The accounts appear in his self-published 1866 book ‘A few passages in the Life of Francis Tumblety’ and should be read in contex, and it is simplest just to quote from the suspects section here on Casebook:
‘Tumblety was arrested on September 23, 1857 for attempting to abort the pregnancy of a local prostitute named Philomene Dumas. It was alleged that he sold her a bottle of pills and liquid for the purpose, but after some legal haggling Tumblety was released on October 1. A verdict of ‘no true bill’ was reached on the 24th and no trial was ever undertaken.’

Soon after this damaging incident a report appeared in various newspapers speaking of Tumblety in glowing terms:
It is hinted that Dr. Tumblety will offer himself as a candidate on Grittish principles, in case of a vacancy in this constituency, and that he is now feeling the pulse of the people. The Doctor having amassed a fortune in the treatment of “all the ills that flesh is heir to”—in which treatment he has ever been successful—now philanthropically proposes to devote his brilliant abilities to the cure of the dangerous diseases affecting the body politic, and is proudly conscious of the success that awaits him in the effort.

Who do you think might have written such cringeworthy purple prose and supplied this story to the press?
To which, he replied in an equally cringeworthy manner – declining to stand in the Irish interest.
Not as a Fenian, merely as a representative of the Irish community.
And to emphasise the non-threatening nature of his involvement in Canadian politics Tumblety went on to list members of Canadian society who he claimed endorsed his professional standing:
Sir E. Head, Governor of Canada.
Hon Hy. Sternes, Mayor of Montreal.
Hon. Geo. Hall, Mayor of Quebec.
Hon. Jno. Hutchinson, Mayor of Toronto, C. W.
Hon J. B. Robinson.
Hon. James Cummings, Mayor of Hamilton, C. W.
Hon W. Matthews, Mayor of Brantford, C. W.
Hon W. Barker, Mayor of London, C. W.
W. Savage, Col. of Artillery.
H. P. Dwight, Superintendent Montreal Telegraph.
J. Taylor, Justice of Peace, Toronto, C. W.
R. H. Cook, Alderman, Toronto, C. W.
J. Urquhart, Surgeon, Toronto, C. W.
Not very revolutionary.
The only hint at sentimental Oirishness in this book comes in this passage:
‘The chronicles of Ireland will furnish many instances of undue harshness exercised during troubled times, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but I challenge the record to produce such a flagrant abuse of power’.
He was actually moaning about being arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Lincoln assassination!
Tumblety’s references to Britain, her culture, Empire and leading men in this book can only be described as warm and positive.

His 1889 book ‘A Sketch of the Life of the Gifted, Eccentric and World-Famed Physician Francis Tumblety’ also talks warmly of Britain. The only vaguely Oirsh passage being a reference to Parnell:
‘Now let me say a word about the attacks which certain American newspapers recently made upon me, attacks that were as unfounded as the onslaught made on the great Irish leader. While I was not in a position to defend myself, these papers continued their foul slanders, but my friends will readily see, from the foregoing pages and from the testimonials that follow, how utterly base and wholly groundless these aspersions were. Like Parnell, I have emerged from the battle entirely unscathed with my social and professional standing unimpaired.’
He is of course referring to the allegations in the US press where he was accused of being a Ripper suspect and compared his plight to that of Parnell.

This book, with the New York World interview in January 1889, were part of Tumblety’s plan to rehabilitate himself and clear the air after the dust had settled and the Gross Indecency charges had been forgotten about in the brouhaha he himself generated about being a Ripper suspect.

So Tumblety’s self penned books give no space to promoting Fenian viewpoints and the 1857 election episode is of no utility in suggesting that Tumblety had Fenian leanings.

[Lechmere]

There’s a bit more that can be said about Tumblety’s abortive 1857 election bid.
He said ‘it is intimated that it is my intention to offer myself at the ensuing election as a candidate to represent the suffrages of the people in opposition to D’Arcy McGee.’
Tumblety was proposed as a candidate against D’Arcy McGee.

Michael McCulloch wrote a paper in 1993 entitled ‘Dr. Tumblety, the Indian Herb Doctor": Politics, Professionalism, and Abortion in Mid-Nineteenth- Century Montreal’.
He identified Tumbletys defence lawyers in the abortive abortion case in the autumn of 1857 as being Bernard Devlin and Lewis Thomas Drummond.
McCulloch states that Devlin ‘played a part in securing for Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the ex-rebel of 1848, the support of the Irish voters and in arranging his alliance with the anglo-rouges in the election of 1857-58.’
In other words Tumblety’s defence lawyer was actually a backer of Tumblety’s possible 1857 political opponent D’Arcy McGee.
There is a big difference between being a politician who represented Irish interests as Devlin did and a troublesome Fenian – although it is true his opponents later accused him of being secretly well disposed towards Fenianism.

Drummond had been a member of the Liberal-Conservative Government of the province of Lower Canada and represented what was then a Protestant English township on the local legislature. Certainly no Fenian. He wasn’t even very good art harnessing the support of Irish voters in Canada. If in doubt, check him out!

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=5491

Incidentally D’Arcy McGee in his younger days had supported radical Irish groups and described himself as a ‘Traitor to the British Government’ and advocated that Canada should be annexed to the United States. However by the 1857 election (when he was backed by Devlin) his opinions had completely changed and he advocated a united Canadian Kingdom ruled by one of Queen Victoria’s younger sons!
D’Arcy McGee’s defeated opponents in 1857 were Conservatives.
If Tumblety was going to stand against D’Arcy McGee in 1857, then logically he was going to stand as a Conservative. The Canadian Tories were actually on good terms with the Catholic Church and certain sections of the Irish community.

If you look at the list of Canadian worthies who Tumblety claimed gave him testimonials you might notice:
Hon Hy. Sternes, Mayor of Montreal.
This is actually Henry Starnes, the Conservative Mayor of Montreal from 1856-58 and 1866-68.
In the 1857 general election he was defeated by D’Arcy Magee for the seat Tumblety claimed he was offered.

[Lechmere]

It amuses me how those with an agenda tend to try and write Tumblety off as a mere con man at the same time forgetting how many con men have figured amongst the worst murderers. There is no way that Tumblety would have been written off by Littlechild as not worth being looked at as an Irish sympathizer.

I commented on Tumblety as a con man with respect to evaluating whether or not he genuinely held any strong political opinions.
I have not discussed the whether or not being a con man made him more or less likely to be a murderer.

However I have totally demolished the claims made that the identity of Tumblety’s 1857 lawyers and his supposed nomination to fight the Canadian 1857 election can be used as any sort of evidence that he was a Fenian or supporter of extreme Irish viewpoints.

[Lechmere]

The three passages under the heading ‘Dr Tumblety as an Orator’, with regular applause, come from his 1893 book and recount what are almost certainly fictitious events.
However Tumblety does express very pro-Irish and anti-English sentiments.
The trouble is these remarks were penned by him after Littlechild had lost track off him and believed it likely he was dead – so these supposed opinions of Tumblety’s cannot have led to any expansion of that dossier.

Tumblety did not express any anti English sentiments prior to his arrest for Gross Indecency.
Thereafter he tried to imply that he was arrested (as Jack the Ripper) because he was Irish and/or American (depending on his audience).
He would also have been angered that he was deprived of being able to visit his favourite London playground and hob nob with the British Ascendency.
Tumblety was known for engaging in exaggerated prose aimed at those who annoyed him.
In this case ‘England’.

Those passages should be read with this in mind.

[mklhawley]

You really hate Stewart don't you Ed.


The primary mission of Special Branch was to combat illegal Irish Nationalist activities in England and even in the US, and Tumblety was a wealthy Irish-American with sympathies to the Irish Nationalist ever earlier than 1871. At this time, though, Francis Tumblety roomed at the Northern Hotel on Cortland Street in New York, which was a hotel managed by Irish Nationalist and Fenian sympathizer Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.

In the Brooklyn Eagle, April 27, 1890, it states,

He [Tumblety] was last heard of a couple of years ago in New York, where for a time he was under suspicion on account of his supposed connection with the advance branch of the Irish national party.


Really, get over it.

[The Good Michael]

You really hate Stewart don't you Ed.

Why would you say such a thing? To plant such an idea on these boards is irresponsible and immature. You owe an apology to Ed.

Mike

[Lechmere]

Michael - those sorts of childish remarks are like water off a ducks back.
I have nothing whatsoever against Stewart Evans although we have clashed a few times (on internet discussion boards which aren't 'real life') and I disagree with some of the conclusions he draws -but not all - and many items and documents he puts up really valuable.
I don't think he should be immune from criticism or that his opinions should be accepted uncritically. I know this is an unpopular stance in some quarters - and as one of my aims is to popularise 'Ripperology' (I personally hate that term) being at odds with a big fish isn't helpful - but my nature is to probe and dig and find weaknesses in arguments. Hopefully politely.

Mike
Tumblety was a rich Irish America.
In 1888 could he have been identified as a politically active Irish nationalist agitator perhaps funder?
He stayed at a hotel owned by a Fenian?
Is that all we are left with?
Apart from the 1890 article?
That is why I say it us not likely that the Scotland Yard dossier concerned anything other than details about Tumblety's sexual antics.

[mklhawley]

I say white, so you say black, tirelessly.

Everyone else, other than your pals, sees what you're doing, and maybe they do too, but are protecting you. Pat the Good Michael on the back. With this kind of evidence connecting Tumblety to the Irish Nationalist cause, Scotland Yard would have been idiots not to investigate, hence a file on him in Special Branch. Oh yah, Littlechild worked there! You do realize I'm keeping material away from you for obvious reasons, don't you? Your deconstruction-reconstruction young earth creationist-style method of arguing is certianly apparent.

It's clearly evident that you're trying to swamp the Tumblety threads through exhaustive persistence, backed up by one or two pals. Don't you have a job?

I say again, why on earth would Ed have such interest in Tumblety at this particular time?

[The Good Michael]

Michael - those sorts of childish remarks are like water off a ducks back.
I have nothing whatsoever against Stewart Evans although we have clashed a few times (on internet discussion boards which aren't 'real life') and I disagree with some of the conclusions he draws -but not all - and many items and documents he puts up really valuable.
I don't think he should be immune from criticism or that his opinions should be accepted uncritically. I know this is an unpopular stance in some quarters - and as one of my aims is to popularise 'Ripperology' (I personally hate that term) being at odds with a big fish isn't helpful - but my nature is to probe and dig and find weaknesses in arguments. Hopefully politely.

Mike
Tumblety was a rich Irish America.
In 1888 could he have been identified as a politically active Irish nationalist agitator perhaps funder?
He stayed at a hotel owned by a Fenian?
Is that all we are left with?
Apart from the 1890 article?
That is why I say it us not likely that the Scotland Yard dossier concerned anything other than details about Tumblety's sexual antics.

It's about putting the idea of hatred in others' minds. That's my objection.

As for Tumblety: All Irish hated the English and in America it seemed to last longer. Local bars in my hometown were always collecting money for the IRA even when the activity was on the wane into the 1990s. And of course Ireland is synonymous with rebel music in the American minds. I'm sure Tumblety was looked at for Fenian activity, but I don't think he was involved except as a way to boost his image in certain circles and as perhaps a donor of money for similar reasons. This is the kind of man he seems to be. Certainly a charlatan and guilty of bad and illegal medical practice, but a threat to England? In the minds of Special Branch perhaps, in reality, doubtful.

Mike

[mklhawley]

I say white, so you say black, tirelessly.

Everyone else, other than your pals, sees what you're doing, and maybe they do too, but are protecting you. Pat the Good Michael on the back. With this kind of evidence connecting Tumblety to the Irish Nationalist cause, Scotland Yard would have been idiots not to investigate, hence a file on him in Special Branch. Oh yah, Littlechild worked there! You do realize I'm keeping material away from you for obvious reasons, don't you? Your deconstruction-reconstruction young earth creationist-style method of arguing is certianly apparent.

It's clearly evident that you're trying to swamp the Tumblety threads through exhaustive persistence, backed up by one or two pals. Don't you have a job?

I say again, why on earth would Ed have such interest in Tumblety at this particular time?

__________________
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. -Sir James Dewar

[Digalittledeeperwatson]

It's about putting the idea of hatred in others' minds. That's my objection.

As for Tumblety: All Irish hated the English and in America it seemed to last longer. Local bars in my hometown were always collecting money for the IRA even when the activity was on the wane into the 1990s. And of course Ireland is synonymous with rebel music in the American minds. I'm sure Tumblety was looked at for Fenian activity, but I don't think he was involved except as a way to boost his image in certain circles and as perhaps a donor of money for similar reasons. This is the kind of man he seems to be. Certainly a charlatan and guilty of bad and illegal medical practice, but a threat to England? In the minds of Special Branch perhaps, in reality, doubtful.

Mike

Nice post. Although, anyone can be a realistic threat if they realise it. But I tend to agree with this assessment of Tumblety. Think he was out for number one, and number one only. Maybe the potential threat he could've been was cause for concern type of thing.