More Tumblety in the Evening Post

[GUT]

To GUT

Sims is a primary source on being in London during the murders, he even traveled to the East End one night..

But I also now know that Sims met directly with the family of the murderer, and was not just a third-hand source: e.g. from a Druitt, to Macnaghten, to Sims.

That makes the famous writer, along with the police chief, a first-hand primary source about the posthumous investigation into Druitt as the Ripper.

The limitation of Anderson is that whilst he is a primary source on the Polish suspect his information arguably came second hand--from Macnaghten--who was I believe from the evidence misleading his boss (Swanson is a third hand primary source because he is, probably, simply repeating what Anderson told him)

G'day Jonathan

Is this in the book, or a post completion discovery.

[Jonathan H]

It's in, which had the effect of delaying publication though in a good cause.

[GUT]

It's in, which had the effect of delaying publication though in a good cause.

So when is publication date now, I thought release was next month, or is that the delayed date?

[pinkmoon]

Dare I say those dreaded words could it finally be case closed I look forward to this book to find out why sir Melville picked Monty over Kosminski very exciting.

[Mayerling]

Unrelated to the current discussion, but related to the New York World.

I have located an edition of the December 2nd, 1888 NYWorld which is far larger than the December 2nd edition here on Casebook.

As I mentioned over yonder, if someone would like to transcribe the one I found, please feel free to do so and give it to Stephen to put in the NYWorld archive.

The article is here :


http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....d=1#post261297

I have been going over the article from the New York World of December 2, 1888, and decided to see if I could find out about the sources the reporter interviewed (whether primary or secondary I leave to everyone else on this thread).

Actually I have found one of them, and it turns out he was a relatively important figure. The first person that is interviewed about Tumblety is An attorney named William P. Burr (his law office, presumably, is given as # 320, Broadway in Manhattan (lower Manhattan about a mile and a half from the financial district - I can vouch for that as I used to work near City Hall in Manhattan at 270 Broadway, which was on the corner with Chambers Street - a street which got it's name for the law "chambers" that were on it.

Mr. Burr was hired in 1880 by Dr. T. for a law suit that never got very far against a Mrs. Lyons to recover funds apparently peculated by her son who had been strangely given a power of attorney by Tumblety in 1878 when he had to travel to England. Even if one reads between the lines of this odd action that Tumblety and the young man had some sexual relationship, it is odd that with such brief notice the doctor gave the young guy such an important power. The stolen or lost funds were apparently (according to another suit filed, but dropped by Dr. T.) under the control of a brokerage house, Boardman & Boardman, with the broker involved one William O'Connor.

The Brooklyn Eagle for November 14, 1930, P. 19, had the obituary for William P. Burr:

"Ex-Justice W. B. Burr dies.

Suddenly at 74.

Former Supreme Court Justice William P. Burr who had a notable career in the law department of the city, died suddenly last night of a heart attack while seated in the library of his home 65 Central Park West. He was 74.

Justice Burr's appointment and election to the Supreme Court Bench followed his 16 years of service as a public official. He was an Assistant Corporation Counsel from 1904-1914, and was appointed Corporation Counsel in 1918. On of his famous cases while in the Corporations Counsel's office was the "80 cent gas" litigation, which he prepared and tried. He won the case and saved the consumer about $20,000,000."

A notice about the death of his granddaughter appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle for Wednesday, Dec. 26, 1951, on P. 13. She had children.

Jeff

[Jonathan H]

To GUT

There is a delay due to new and critical information/sources, hopefully not too long.

To Pinkmoon

Sorry, in my opinion no such case closed solution can ever be possible.

Case probably closed is the best we can get.

A police chief of the day was as certain as he could be about a suspect who was already deceased and therefore the solution could never be tested in a courtroom. That solution was shared with the public, though discreetly disguised to protect the murderer's respectable relations.

[pinkmoon]

Hi Jonathan,thank you for your honesty we are all still battered from the recent shawl fiasco but if you could answer a question that has been hanging round for years then I think we could well be the closest ever to having an answer to the identity of our killer like you said hand on heart we can never know for sure .

[Mayerling]

Unrelated to the current discussion, but related to the New York World.

I have located an edition of the December 2nd, 1888 NYWorld which is far larger than the December 2nd edition here on Casebook.

As I mentioned over yonder, if someone would like to transcribe the one I found, please feel free to do so and give it to Stephen to put in the NYWorld archive.

The article is here :


http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....d=1#post261297

One of the incidents reported in this long article (related by William P. Burr) is how Dr. Tumblety tried to sue a broker named William O'Connor of a firm called "Boardman & Boardman" for allowing money or stock he owned to be sold due to a power of attorney Dr. T. gave to a young acquaintance. We are informed that this suit was derailed because the brokerage firm got considerable information against Tumblety through the work of two detectives from Brooklyn, Detectives Charles Frost and Charles Chambers.

They are both mentioned in the files of the Brooklyn Eagle. Charles Frost served 36 years on the Brooklyn Police Force as a detective, and retired in March 1881 (Brooklyn Eagle, Thursday, March 3, 1881, p. 4). He was on the whole highly respected, and there is an interesting account of his involvement in an 1862 case of a gentleman jewel robber named Charles Gordon (a.k.a. Charles Grant) whose series of jewel robberies netted about $50,000.00 in 1862 currency. See the Eagle for May 18, 1890, p. 12. Gordon was involved in a divorce case as a detective in the Eagle of October 2, 1891, p. 6. His death notice was in the Eagle of 28 December 1898 on page 5. No age was given. Interestingly his reputation must have remained high, because in the Eagle of December 28, 1923 (a quarter century later) they chose to include the notice of Frost's death from the 1898 paper as one of three items for a column of news stories from 25 years earlier (Friday, Dec. 28, 1923, p. 21).

Charles Chambers was a younger man who worked up from the ranks (he joined the police in October 1865) to becoming a detective in 1879. On Feb. 28, 1881 Chambers almost got killed in a collar. He confronted a burglar named Edward Ferguson, who shot him in the face - penetrating an eye and destroying that eye but also temporarily blinding him. Incredibly, Chambers survived, and actually testified against Ferguson (Eagle, Sat., March 19, 1881, p. 4) and gave an excellent account of how Ferguson was captured. Ferguson, one is glad to report, was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he was a notoriously difficult prisoner (once trying to stab a fellow prisoner), and finally died in prison in 1886. These details came out in an article about the retirement of Chambers (which was announced in the Eagle of April 17, 1891, p. 6). Chambers was still not out of the woods when he testified against Fergusson - he was so badly wounded it was believed he'd have to retire due to permanent blindness, and there was an actual benefit given to Chambers by the police for him and his wife and four children. But he regained the sight of the good eye, and continued until his retirement in 1891. There is a really nice account of his career in the Eagle of Saturday, 25 April 1891, p. 6. Chambers father had lived with the detective and his family until the old man died at almost 101 years in 1889 and there was a whole article about that (Saturday, May 4, 1889, p. 6). His father was born before George Washington was inaugurated President in April 1789.

There is certainly a great deal of material about the two detectives, but I so far have seen no reference dealing with them (or William P. Burr) concerning the material in the original article of December 1888 about Tumblety. No reference to the quack so far whatever.

Jeff

[Roy Corduroy]

David, thanks again for the articles, and also for the transcriptions you have made of articles and shared here on Casebook. We're glad you're here.

This thread has gone a lot of places, but if I could make one small observation about the discussion of Francis Tumblety in general. How very very little I hear of Timothy Riordan's book, The Prince of Quacks, which was the end result of a marathon of team research, clocking Tumblety's movements and his encounters of every type all over the states and Europe, explaining quite clearly his business and his lifestyle, chock full of information carefully weighed and sifted by a professional historian. I liked it.

And I also know that, should I ever want to, I can find the answer to any and all Tumblety questions large and small, important or arcane, in Tim's book.

But nobody ever goes, oh yeah, page 126 Riordan, or, yes referring to Riordan's section on this or that episode. And so forth.

I wonder why is that?

Roy

[Mayerling]

What Hansard said

Out of curiosity I checked the Hansard website to see if there was any kind of discussion about Inspector Andrews at the time. I don't know if anyone else has, and if so I am sorry for putting it down here, but it turned out that there were two brief flurries of discussion of his trip to America.

Background is that political bugaboo of 1887-1889, the Parnell Commission. It was shortly to come to a head when Sir Charles Russell would detatch himself from the strange death of James Maybrick in Liverpool and concentrate his abilities as a cross-examiner on Mr. Richard Pigott. T.M.Healy, a leading Irish M.P. and news editor - and ally of Parnell - was to joust twice with Henry Matthews on the subject of Andrews.

The first was on 21 March 1889 (Hansard, vol. 334, cc 397-398):

MR. T.M. HEALY asked if Inspector Andrews, an officer from Scotland Yard, visited America since the passing of the Special Commission Act, and if his business there was connected with the charges and allegations made before the Royal Commission.

MR. MATTHEWS: "The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative; to the second in the negative."

MR. T.M. HEALY: "Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether Inspector Andrews saw [Henri] Le Caron [the anti-Fenian spy]?"

MR. MATTHEWS: "I am not aware at all whether he did or not."

The second was on 22 March 1889 (Hansard, vol. 334, cc 519-521):

[You have to keep in mind that the debate is due to a letter sent by Sir Robert Anderson to Mr. MacDonald of the Times of London - Healy is actually trying to show that Scotland Yard is working hand-in-glove with the newspaper that possibly smeared Parnell in the "Parnellism and Crime" campaign, which is actually highly questionable behavior - the police are theoretically politically neutral.]

MR. T.M. Healy: "I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was by his sanction that Mr. Anderson, as state in his letter yesterday, furnished Mr. MacDonald, of the Times, with the name of a confidential person to support of the Times in what is called the American branch of the case; and, if not, on whose authority did Mr. Anderson proceed? I wish also to ask whether Inspector Andrews, whom he admits to have been sent to America since the forming of the Commission was passed, was the confidential person who aided the Times with the American part of the case at the suggestion of Mr. Anderson?

MR. MATTHEWS: "The question with respect to Mr. Andrews does not in any way arise out of the question on the paper. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put it down."

Of course, Matthews could have been lying - not the first time a high ranking government figure anywhere lied or covered up an embarrassing point. But he may also have been badly out of the loop regarding Andrews' mission to North America (he was useful for political reasons to Salisbury due to his religion - not to his brains). Or, he knew Andrews was making inquiries about something else.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Tumblety's Poetic Rant

Hi Howard,

I noticed that when you transported the article from the Evening Post of Dec. 4, 1888 to this column there was a bit of a piece of poetic (?) doggerel by Dr. T, venting about how his reputation was smashed by unfair attacks on his character (i.e., he was a Ripper suspect, although it could also reflect on the sexual charges as well). I noticed that there were several people who had rushed to his defense, to whit, a Mr. Dan Sweeny of Sweeny's Hotel, Rev. W. H. Du Puy, D.D., and Dr. N. B. Holbrook. Naturally I was curious about these three, and started checking the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the New York Times on the web.

There is nothing I found on Holbrook. Many Holbrooks, and a considerable number who are doctors, but "Dr. N.B. Holbrook" is not among them in either newspaper. The most notable one was a Dr. Martin Holbrook (died 1902) who was a leading advocate of better hygiene for people.

There was at least one Sweeny Hotel in Brooklyn - near South Ferry (convenient for going to Manhattan by Ferry, and later by the Brooklyn Bridge when it was built. The name Daniel Sweeny did not appear (as far as I saw). A Mr. Martin was listed at Sweeny's in July 1880.

But it was Rev. W. H. Du Puy that gave me the biggest thrill. I could not find a final obituary for the man, but several references, three of which suggest why he like Dr. Tumblety.

Rev. W. H. Du Puy is listed as having been involved in several "Reformation Day" services in October 1890 (Eagle, Sat. 25 October 1890); 1894 (Sat., 27 October 1894, p.7), and 1897 (Sat. October 30, 1897, p.8). The last one was interesting because (among other clergymen there) he shared the pulpit with Rev. W. H. Milburn, the chaplain to the United States Senate.

Du Puy was literary. He was Assistant Editor of a religious paper, "The Christian Advocate", probably published in Manhattan. But there are several advertisements for a twelve volume concoction he edited called "The People's Cyclopedia". It had over 3500 illustrations in it, and 300 maps and charts, and Du Puy was assisted by a "large corps of able assistants". What I found amusing was it was originally quite expensive at $24.00 a set (roughly about three hundred fifty today), but apparently it was not a seller. One advertisement reduced it to $9.48 a set (quite a drop). See Eagle on Thursday, Dec. 12, 1901. Then, presumably after Christmas, it was reduced again!! Now it was $6.98 a set (roughly about $70.00 at this point - a real drop in price) (See Eagle, 6 Jan. 1902, p.10). One wonders what the editor and his busy assistants thought about all this.

Then came the big bombshell. In the Eagle of Feb. 1, 1895, p. 5, was an advertisement for something called "Electropoise" Du Puy was the sole individual quoted as saying, "My experience with the Electropoise enables me to commend it to any community." "Electropoise" was a quack electric gizmo that was being sold, which "Cures disease without medicine, and often when other remedies fail." An address is given for the "Electropoise Co., at 346 Fulton Street, corner of Boerum Place (again in Brooklyn), and it comes with a large booklet "of theory and results" to anyone enquiring without charge. By the way, "Electropoise" we are told is a trademark (but does it have any legitimate patent?).

Du Puy followed this up with a second Electropoise ad (with his name - but this time with others) on Feb. 10, 1895, p. 3 of the Eagle. Not only (does it say) Du Puy uses the gizmo, but so do Mr. A. D. Matthews of Brooklyn, Rev. D.W.H. Bode of Staten Island, and (I love this one) Professor Totten of Yale College. That last one got me - no first name, and it is not Yale University, but College. None of them were in either the Brooklyn Eagle or the New York Times.

The last of the Electropoise ads was from Sunday, Feb. 11, 1897, p. 15 of the Eagle. This time the names of Du Puy were different. He was listed with ex-Judge William Fullerton, Mr. J. A. Horsey of 17 William Street, and Rev. George C. Needham, with an address at the "Great Anglo-American Evangelist Hotel San Carlos, in Brooklyn. Du Puy was given as being contactable at "Bible House". In 1897, "Bible House" was located at Astor Manhattan, and was notable for distributing and pushing the reading of the Bible (Christian edition, of course). It was not Du Puy's residence.

I had been hoping to locate his obituary, but did not find it. But his willingness to believe in patent medical machine garbage directly links his firm belief in Dr. Tumblety and his form of quackery. No wonder he comforted the Doctor in 1889 when that poem was published.

Naturally I was also curious about the other champions of "Electropoise": Fullerton, Horsey, and Rev. Needham. Needham actually was very prominent as an evangelical preacher of the day, and a friend of the great Dwight Moody, and that explains his use of that hotel in 1897 (it was meant for clergymen like him). He died shortly after a tour of Tennessee where he gave various sermons and revivalist lectures in 1902 (his obituary was in the New York Times of 17 February 1902 - he having died the day before in the Nesbeth suburb of Philadelphia (his home) of what was termed "neuralgia of the heart". No report given of using "Electropoise" on him at the time.

William Fullerton was a former State Judge, and prominent attorney. His best know court appearance to the public was as one of the prosecutors in the Tilton-Beecher adultery case of 1875, where Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was sued by his former friend and protegee Theodore Tilton, for wrecking Tilton's happy marriage to Libby Tilton. The case was notorious because Beecher apparently had other affairs. Fullerton did a good job in cross-examining the abolitionist preacher, but Beecher was popular in Brooklyn, and survived the trial (he was acquitted, despite really crazy evidence). Fullerton's obituary was reported in the New York Times of March 16, 1900 - he died at Newburg, NY., and was survived by his wife and daughter. He was 83.

The best was for last. Who was Mr. J.A. Horsey, whose praise was considered as important to Electropoise as the praises of Dr. Tumblety's comforter, Dwight Moody's friend, and Rev. Beecher's court room bete noir?
Mr. Horsey was (according to his obituary) a leading merchant, and a vice president of a railroad in Mexico, who was born in Exeter, England in 1826, and came with his father to the U.S. in 1842. He started off in a drug business, of all things (obviously he felt the future of medical cures was not in drugs and medicines but in electrical doo-hickeys). Ironically he did not last very long after praising Electropoise. He had gone with his two sons to England later in February 1897, and while there was run over by a train. He survived (probably in great agony) for a week. His wife was able to be with him when he died. His obituary was in the Eagle for Saturday, 27 Feb. 1897, p. 14. There was no record in the obituary if Electropoise was used to prolong his life. Who knows?

Jeff

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

There is nothing I found on Holbrook. Many Holbrooks, and a considerable number who are doctors, but "Dr. N.B. Holbrook" is not among them in either newspaper. The most notable one was a Dr. Martin Holbrook (died 1902) who was a leading advocate of better hygiene for people.

"It may be significant that of the small number of Tumblety's testimonials, three of them were from the proprietors of New York's most famous Turkish bathhouses. Dr. M. L. Holebrook ran the New York Hygienic Institute at 13 Laight Street, which was the first Turkish bath in New York. Dr. E. P. Miller, who began by working with Holebrook, ran Dr. Miller's Turkish Baths on W. Twenty-sixth Street. Finally, Dr. C. T. Ryan operated the Lafayette Baths on Lafayette Place, which would become the most well-known homosexual bath house in the early 20th century."
Timothy Riordan, Prince of Quacks, page 187.

Wolf.

[Robert]

Tumblety may have visited a Turkish baths over here, if he patronised them in the US. This site has a lot of info :

http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/5COMPANIES/2COLISTSEARCH.htm