"City PC"

[Bridewell]

Thought I'd bump this thread as the Seaside Home / Anderson's Witness seems to be featuring quite a bit in discussion on others.

[Jonathan H]

Yes, the High Church wing of the Anglican denomination (eg. the one which tacked close to Rome, and still does).

But that is arguably small beer compared to what the Vicar is doing which is unusual and risky but comprehensible to his audience; that of mixing fact anf fiction to protect not just the dead but also the living (eg. the rep of the respectable).

I had been arguing the case for Macnaghtenn in his Report(s) and via Simsn mixing fact and fiction, covertly, and then this turned up in 2008 put here by Chris Scott as part of a 'Druitt in the Confessonal? thread. A Vucar doing the same thing overtly.

For me--and only me--it explainerd what lay behind Sims' fictoid that the 'doctor' had been 'twice' a voluntary patient in asylums, Wherein he had been diagnosed as not just depressed, but also a homicidal maniac who wanted to rip up harlots--and they ket onto the streets this ticking bomb!

The connecting theme here between fact and fiction is that culpability comes from Jack's own lips; by his confession to caring professionals of his desires-crimes.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jonathan.

Not being of any religious inclination myself, I am in no position to question the scenario offered in this article. What I do read though is a typically Catholic phrase "seal of confession", being used by a Church of England Vicar.

The Confessional, as I understand it is a Catholic practice, though I have been cautioned that in the late 20th century the Church of England began to adopt the practice with their own variations.
That may be, but this article is late 19th century, were the Church of England undertaking Confessionals at this time?

[Jonathan H]

To Bridewell

I would disagree that it is all futile.

It was believed to be solved by a handful of people a few years after 1888. This was broadly shared with the public from 1898.

Yes they could have been wrong, because Druitt was not caught in the act, but what an error for the police chief to make--let alone the man's own family.

If this is Druitt then he was telling people he had acted homicidally. If it is not Druitt, then it is an amazing set of coincidences:

Western Mail
19 January 1899

WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
DID "JACK THE RIPPER" MAKE A CONFESSION?

'We have received (says the Daily Mail) from a clergyman of the Church of England, now a North Country vicar, an interesting communication with reference to the great criminal mystery of our times - that enshrouding the perpetration of the series of crimes which have come to be known as the "Jack the Ripper" murders. The identity of the murderer is as unsolved as it was while the blood of the victims was yet wet upon the pavements. Certainly Major Arthur Griffiths, in his new work on "Mysteries of Police and Crime," suggests that the police believe the assassin to have been a doctor, bordering on insanity, whose body was found floating in the Thames soon after the last crime of the series; but as the major also mentions that this man was one of three known homidical lunatics against whom the police "held very plausible and reasonable grounds of suspicion," that conjectural explanation does not appear to count for much by itself.
Our correspondent the vicar now writes:-
"I received information in professional confidence, with directions to publish the facts after ten years, and then with such alterations as might defeat identification.
The murderer was a man of good position and otherwise unblemished character, who suffered from epileptic mania, and is long since deceased.
I must ask you not to give my name, as it might lead to identification"
meaning the identification of the perpetrator of the crimes. We thought at first the vicar was at fault in believing that ten years had passed yet since the last murder of the series, for there were other somewhat similar crimes in 1889. But, on referring again to major Griffiths's book, we find he states that the last "Jack the Ripper" murder was that in Miller's Court on November 9, 1888 - a confirmation of the vicar's sources of information. The vicar enclosed a narrative, which he called "The Whitechapel Murders - Solution of a London Mystery." This he described as "substantial truth under fictitious form." "Proof for obvious reasons impossible - under seal of confession," he added in reply to an inquiry from us.
Failing to see how any good purpose could be served by publishing substantial truth in fictitious form, we sent a representative North to see the vicar, to endeavour to ascertain which parts of the narrative were actual facts. But the vicar was not to be persuaded, and all that our reporter could learn was that the rev. gentleman appears to know with certainty the identity of the most terrible figure in the criminal annals of our times, and that the vicar does not intend to let anyone else into the secret.
The murderer died, the vicar states, very shortly after committing the last murder. The vicar obtained his information from a brother clergyman, to whom a confession was made - by whom the vicar would not give even the most guarded hint. The only other item which a lengthy chat with the vicar could elicit was that the murderer was a man who at one time was engaged in rescue work among the depraved woman of the East End - eventually his victims; and that the assassin was at one time a surgeon.'

[Bridewell]

So why take almost a year to sack Harvey? And Watkins resigned.

Contrary to belief, Harveys dismissal is noted. However the reason why is not given. He is noted as being dismissed with a fellow PC and reasons for his dismissal are not given either, which is normal for the monthly returns.

Is other words, his dismissal is seemingly routine and is most likey tied to drink, judging by his record.

Monty

Hi Neil,

There's nothing in his record. It's been stripped of almost everything bar the letters from referees supporting his appointment.

[Bridewell]

Montague's Homicidal Claims?

Yes, Macnaghen made a tiny error, but whether he and the family and the MP, made a colossal and ghastly error at taking Montague's homicidal claims at face value will probably never be known.

Hi Jonathan,

We don't know that Montague made any "homicidal claims", so speculating on whether or not MacNaghten or anyone else made the "ghastly error" of taking them at face value is surely an exercise in futility until such time as we know that such claims were actually made.

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

Yes, Macnaghen made a tiny error, but whether he and the family and the MP, made a colossal and ghastly error at taking Montague's homicidal claims at face value will probably never be known.

I think you're partially right; that he was concealing mistakes by the police such as erasing the graffiti.

I also think Mac had to get rid of it in 'Aberconway' in order to build up 'Kosminki' now supposedly seen by a beat cop -- well, maybe -- talking to a victim. But if you leep the graffiti for that murder then the ethnicity of the killer as possibly this Polish Jew is exposed, and nullified.

[mariab]

Thanks so much Mr Hainsworth for clarifying that Major Arthur Griffiths in his Mysteries of Police and Crime quotes the Aberconway version, making it public.
(Plus I'm afraid that last night I seem to have mixed up the year 1894, when the official MM was written - ouch! Might have been the fever taking over my brain.)

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jonathan,

I just wanted to see if you could acknowledge that Mac was capable of error...and you almost did! That's progress.

As for the graffito...since the MM was written in defense of the Met police, it only makes since that it would not make reference to their blunder of erasing what most of the public and their detractors considered one of their best clues.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jonathan H]

To Mariab

The official version of the Macnaghten Report was written in Feb 1894 and filed with Scotland Yard's archive (and I do not think was ever seen or referred to by anybody, before 1966).

The unofficial version, either a draft written in 1894 or a revision composed closer to 1898 -- nicknamed by modern researchers 'Aberconway' because it was copied by his daughter Lady Aberconway -- was used by Major Arthur Griffiths in his 'Mysteries of Police and Crime', published in Dec. 1898.

Griffiths was a Prisons Inspector and therefore, like Mac, whom he knew, an officer of the state. His adaptation of 'Aberconway' is in the introduction of his book rather than the chapter on police failures -- because now the Ripper case was apparently something of a success.

Reviewers at the time took note of this unexpected revelation, some quite scpeptically, and it was the first time that the [here un-named] 'Kosminski' and Michael Ostrog entered the public arena (the un-named M. J. Druitt, the 'son of surgeon', had appeared very briefly in Feb 1891 with the 'West of England' MP leak, thouygh he now became a middle-aged doctor).

In 1903, the retired detective Fred Abberline questioned the veracity of the drowned medico and locked-up lunatics suspects in Griffiths and George Sims(understandably from his point of view since they were not known to police in 1888, not until after the former was long deceased and the latter had been permanently sectioned).

Goerge Sims, a close Mac pal, hit back witn the first extant reference to the 'Aberconway' version, though is described as a definitive document fo state when it clearly is not:

March 29, 1903.


"Jack the Ripper" committed suicide after his last murder - a murder so maniacal that it was accepted at once as the deed of a furious madman. It is perfectly well known at Scotland Yard who "Jack" was, and the reasons for the police conclusions were given in the report to the Home Office, which was considered by the authorities to be final and conclusive.

How the ex-Inspector can say "We never believed 'Jack' was dead or a lunatic" in face of the report made by the Commissioner of Police is a mystery to me ...

April 5, 1903.

... A little more than a month later the body of the man suspected by the chiefs at the Yard, and by his own friends, who were in communication with the Yard, was found in the Thames. The body had been in the water about a month.

I am betraying no confidence in making this statement, because it has been published by an official who had an opportunity of seeing the Home Office Report, Major Arthur Griffiths, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of prisons.

I have no time to argue with the gentlemen, some of them ex-officers of the detective force, who want to make out that the report to the Home Office was incorrect ... "Jack the Ripper" was known, was identified, and is dead. Let him rest.

That reference to 'the Commissioner' writing the Report is the closest that Macnaghten came to be outed as the orchestrator of the drowned doctor tale, but it does not say which one.

It'sd amusing to think that all anybody at the Home Office knew about this alleged sucided, slam dunk suspect was what they could read in the tabloids.

[mariab]

To Mariab
It is more likely that 'Unofficial' is simply lifting this opinion from Major Griffiths' "Mysteries of Police and Crime" (1898).

I keep hearing about the Griffiths book today, but it went to print 3 years before the MM. “Unofficial“ wrote his letter to The Morning Advertiser on March 25th, 1903, clearly quoting the 3 “suspects“ from the MM. Is this supposed to mean major Arthur Griffiths' book (which I haven't read) already discusses these 3 suspects in 1898, prior to the MM? Pertaining not just to an incarcerated Polish Jew and to a “disappeared“ doctor, but also to Ostrog? For the latter, I have reservations.

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

My theory is that Macnaghten misremembered it slightly.

You see, he claims to be writing the whole book from memory and apologises, in advance, for any errors.

He's cheerfully dissembling as usual with a big Cheshire Cat grin. For we know that he had 'Aberconway' at his elbow when writing about the Ripper for his memoir, which he reshaped -- again.

But 'Aberconway' (and the other version) does not contain the graffiti detail or the street name, and so he had to use his memory.

What an oversight? The 'only clue left' behind by the murderer and Mac did not include it in either version. But in 1914 he needed that detail because it helped debunk Anderson, eg. the murder was not a Jew as he blamed some Jews for disturbing his 'work'.

To Mariab

It is more likely that 'Unofficial' is simply lifting this opinion from Major Griffiths' "Mysteries of Police and Crime" (1898).

The 'Aberconway' version was known to exist by Griffiths and Sims but they were miseld by Macaghten int believeing tha it was a copy of a definitive document of state, filed at the Home Office, when it was no such thing.

The official version of the same document, which is quiet different, was never sent to the Home Office, remaining on file at Scotland Yard. It may have been completely unknown until 1966 when Robin Odell gained access to it in order to compare it with the 'Aberconway' version.

Yet it was the 'Aberconway' opinion, in which Druitt is probably the Ripper, which Mac projected onto the public; first, anonymously, via proxies, and then under his own name in 1913 and 1914.

[mariab]

Sounds like this “Unofficial“ guy read the MM 2 years ago. (Stating the obvious here.)

[Tom_Wescott]

I have attempted to attach the clipping that we're discussing, where an anonymous letter writer to the Morning Advertiser on March 25th, 1903 refers to the PC witness as 'murdered', meaning PC Ernest Thompson. I NEVER post attachments, so I hope this works.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jonathan,

I noticed that Mac spelled Goulston street as 'Goulburn' street. Why did he do that?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott