Days of My Years

[Bridewell]

"No proof he ever went to Whitechapel ,therefore he wasnt the killer" say the anti-Druittists It is a stupid "Alibi" No proof that he didnt either is there?

The onus probandi is on the prosecution though, is it not?

[Smoking Joe]

The onus probandi is on the prosecution though, is it not?

No doubt about it! But because some say there is no proof now doesnt mean there never was any . Which brings us back to Mcnaughton's reasons for writing what he did.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridewell,

Good call.

The burden of proof.

"It is a general rule that the party who alleges the affirmative of any proposition shall prove it. It is also a general rule that the onus probandi lies upon the party who seeks to support his case by a particular fact of which he is supposed to be cognizant."

This definition appears to neatly rule out Macnaghten and Anderson.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Michael W Richards

You are being fooled by a sly operator who has been deceased since 1921.

Macnaghten almost certainly investigated Druitt in 1891, personally and posthumously and thoroughly.

If you read my posts, even just the one above, it does answer all your questions.

But you are entrenched in defining Mac's opinion against the 'Report' and the 'Report' alone (which version by the way? There are two and they are very different) and this is what distorts your understanding of the subject.

If you examine all the sources regarding Macnaghten; by him, about him and on his behalf, you discover that he was a highly regarded, competent police admnistator who often left his desk to be a sleuth. He was a compassionate gent who preferred people to be happy and satisfied and not left miserable -- if he could help it. He was, moreover, obsessed with the Ripper case and was known for his formidable memory.

When Dan Farson, in 1959, first discovered that Druitt was not a middle-aged doctor -- yet he had in front of him Sir Melville's 'notes' which claimed he was exactly that -- he made an assumption, fair but nonetheless made from ignorance, that the late police chief had made errors, mostly likely due to a weak memory. Tom Cullen who first published the salient bits from the 'Aberconway' version agreed with Farson; it was a lapse in memory.

What neither man had access to until 1966 (thanks to Robin Odell) was the salient sections of the official version of the Report lodged not with the Home Office but Scotland Yard. In that version Mac equivocates as to whether Druitt was a doctor but firms up that Druitt was a sexual maniac.

The fault of both journalists is that they did not absorb the memoirs and realise that this was the de-facto third version of the 'Report' and essentially free of errors.

If you read his memoirs you would discover that Mac eliminated the Polish Jew and the Russian 'doctor' as worthless.

If you read Sims from 1907 you would discover that the famous writer, undoubtedly briefed by Mac, mentions that the 'Russian doctor' was in an asylum abroad. We have primary sources which show that Mac knew Ostrog well, that he knew he was a thief (the Old Etonian was at his school the very day the Russian stole from there) and thus not really a 'Russian doctor'.

Yet he used a fictional variant of Ostrog with his cronies in 1898 knowing that Ostrog had been cleared of the Whitechapel crimes (Ostrog would not have recognised himself in Griffiths and Sims).

When you examine all of the sources you discover how well briefed Macnaghten is compared to others of the day.

The reason he moved the three Jews around was for propagandist reasons, to insert the Polish Jew [maybe] being seen by a Gentile beat cop. In Sims in 1907 the cop now sees the suspect leaving the scene of the crime but later cannot identify him.

Secondary sources today discovering that Ostrog was exonerated are just catching up with Mac's memoirs of 1914.

To Simon

You are writing about 'proof' in the wrong context; in fact you are writing about it ahistorically.

Druitt could never be brought to trial, never even be interrogated. He could never officially be Jack the Ripper (though for insurance purposes Mac put it on file, awkwardly, that Montie was both a minor suspect and sexually insane. This Report lay dormant for decades).

In terms of historical methodology Macnaghten, with class and personal and professional reasons to want to exonerate a fellow Anglical Gent -- and not be too late to hunt the fiend -- yet he could not.

That's very strong, but must always remain provisional.

[Abby Normal]

Thanks Smoking Joe

And that's what it is: a theory.

If Mac, or 'Good Old Mac' as he was apparently known at the Yard, was anxious to protect the reputation of a respectable family then he succeeded for their generation.

Otherwise it is a remarkable series of coincidences, as you say, that this police chief's [acclaimed] memory failed him completely with his crony, George Sims and togrther they created an [un-named] Druitt who would not be recogniseable to those same respectable circles in which the surviving Druitts travelled, nor recogniseable to the grown-up graduates of the Valentine School.

Furthermore Sims' profile of the 1900's (which has additional bits not in either version of the 'Home Office Report') essentially rests on five pieces of evidence:

1. The 'mad doctor' had anatomical knowledge.

In his memoirs Mac did not claim the Ripper was a doctor or had such expertise -- and Druitt was't and he didn't.

2. The doctor had been sectioned ('twice') in a mental institution wherein he was diagnosed as suffering from a homicidal mania which would lead the sufferer to want to savage harlots. Therefore the best suspect's culpability comes from his own lips before the Whitechapel horrors even began.

In his memoirs Mac specifically denied that the Ripper had ever been 'detained' in an asylum by the state, but certainly does not qualify this statement by adding that he had, once or even twice, been a voluntary patient. The impression left is that he had nevere been in a madhgouse -- and Druitt had not been (a detail borrowed from his mother)

3. The Ripper killed himself instantly after the Miller's Ct. slaughter. Had he not done so, Sims assures us, he would have been found wandering around, 'raving' and 'shrieking' and covered in blood, as his mind was destroyed by what he had done. If he had not staggered to a river he would have been picked up and taken straight to an asylum.

In his memoirs Mac has the Ripper get away from the East End and kill himself maybe the next morning, or was it the next afternoon, or was it the next night, or maybe later than that; eg. he could function. That's too long to be 'wandering' about without being noticed covered in blood.

Yes, he was tormented by what he had done and this seems to have led to an internal collapse, but he was 'Protean' and thus capable of many faces. In other words to meet him, to bump into him in the street, you would never guess that one of those faces was tat of a sadistic, sexual maniac.

By extending the timeline from the instant self-murder, of the MP and Sims, Mac knew he would have to drop the watery grave finale -- which we know he knew -- and so he did.

4. According to Sims, the Ripper's 'friends' who were aware of his previous disgnosis as a potential maniac are terrified when their pal disappears from where he lives, which Sims implies is a private home. The unemployed dcotor is a wealthy recluse who is somehow monitored by his concerned chums (which is an awkward and unlikely bit of fiction).

In his memoirs Mac makes no suggestion that the Ripper is an unemployed surgeon, or that he is rich, or that he lives as a recluse. Instead he implies that he lives with his family -- who notice that he is absent at the time of each of the murders.

According to the chief 'His own people' noticed he was 'absented', which we can see is the veiled version of William Druitt trying to find his missing Montie but without giving it away that this is really about a drowned barrister and part-time teacher who lodged at his school (instead he goes out of his way to say the best seller 'The Lodger' -- which has a Ripper who is a young, tormented man who lodges and takes his own life -- is just clever fiction, eg. move along, move along, nothing to see here).

But what Mac is implying is that the 'certain information' which led to a 'conclusion' surely came from these people -- not a go-between -- who helped him to 'lay' to rest this 'ghost' which had haunted Scotland Yard years long after he had destroyed himself (take that, Sir Robert!)

5. The Ripper looked like Sims, and the murderer allegedly told a coffee-stall owner that they were about to hear of two murders that morning (and he was blood-stained). The 'mad dcotor' was, indeed, a dead ringer for the famous writer: a well-dressed, rotund, middle-aged man sporting a naval beard, or so Sims claims.

In fact, the actual picture of Sims from the 1879 'The Social Kaleidoscope' shows him to be younger and markedly thinner and with his hair, for the only time, parted in the dead centre. In 1904 he admitted that it was an atypical picture of himself -- 'haggard' -- because he was ill. Except for the beard it strongly resembles Montague Druitt (who had a moustache by the time he left school).

In the limited extant record the 1889 version of this story is that of a known crank who has supposedly met the fiend several times and is showing around the cover of a different book by Sims (Dagonet's ballads). Whereas the first time the atypical pic interns the extant record is in March 1891; in the wake of the Druitt tale leaking out of Dorset to the Tory MP Henry Farquharson (originally Sims had treated the tale as a joke, whereas by the 1900's its a serious bit of 'evidence') who by theh has shut up, or been told to.

Hi jh
Why would Mac give a rats ass about Druitts family? Why would he want to protect them even if they were "respectable". And anyway there was a history of mental illness in the family -that would not really tick the respectable box would it?. With the choice of protecting someone's family or being the man who solved one of the most notorious murder mysteries, I think if Mac really knew who the ripper was he would be shouting it from the rooftops the instant he knew it. Same as Anderson. They didn't because they couldnt because all they had was suspicion.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

"You are writing about 'proof' in the wrong context; in fact you are writing about it ahistorically."

Ahistorically: "Unconcerned with or unrelated to history, historical development, or tradition."

"Druitt could never be brought to trial, never even be interrogated [perhaps because he was dead]. He could never officially be Jack the Ripper (though for insurance purposes Mac put it on file, awkwardly, that Montie was both a minor suspect and sexually insane. This Report lay dormant for decades)." [my brackets].

Insurance purposes? Minor suspect?

"In terms of historical methodology Macnaghten, with class and personal and professional reasons to want to exonerate a fellow Anglical Gent -- and not be too late to hunt the fiend -- yet he could not.

"That's very strong, but must always remain provisional."

I'm sorry, Jonathan, but your post makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Abby Normal

Because Mac was the perfect combination from the Druitt's family's point of view of a compassionate cop and a smooth propagandist.

An Old Etonian of all things; a card-carrying member of the Old Boy Network who saw himself as outranking everbody at Scotland Yard.

'Good Old Mac' did not want to see the family ruined, if it could be avoided, nor he did not want to see the Yard further humiliated -- and so the story was altered into a near-triumph for the public -- and there was the ugly possibility of a lawsuit by the family if the press accused them of kowing about their member's dual identity and did nothing about it.

As for 'shouting it from the roof-tops', well that is, in a sense, what Macnaghten and Anderson did do.

From 1895 Sir Robert Anderson sincerely and forthrightly began telling people about the caged lunatic solution, and it was so published.

From 1898, Macanghten rebooted the MP tale -- minus the MP and Dorset -- reshaped with impenetrable fiction to be libel-proof, and had the 'Yard' as a whole take the credit for the 'drowned doctor' solution (while kicking to the curb the caged lunatic solution).

Mac did this anonymously, eg. sneakily.

In the Edwardian era, for those who regarded George Sims as an authority on such matters -- and he had a very wide readership across all classes -- the Ripper was not a mystery.

In 1913 and 1914, Macnaghten finally and publicly did take credit for posthumously indentifying the Ripper.

But because he did not use the 'drowned' and 'doctor ' elements his claims died with him in the early 20's.

All that was left was the Jack-the-Surgeon element in pop culture, whereas the tormented suicide element fell away.

The fiction stayed and the fact was lost.

Inadvertently this helped distort so-called Ripperology.

To Simon

Fair enough, I will try again.

The onus of proof in a legal case is not the same as the bar of history, which is lower -- and is therefore provisional and not absolute.

Macnaghten claimed to have solved it.

We do not know if he did or not (the chief suspect was already deceased).

We thus fall back on historical methodology.

eg. Is this a reliable primary source about the [putative] posthumous investigation into this suspect?

A strong argument can be mounted that because Mac is so deceitful he is therefore not reliable, and thus neither is his dodgy, semi-fictionalised solution (the traditional argument that he was a doofus is I think untenable).

Fair enough.

I subscribe, nevertheless, to the alternative interpretation that he is a reliable source because he fessed up in his memoirs that [the un-named] Druitt was not a suspect whilst alive. He also dumped the neat, fictional Dr. Jekyllish tale (which is partly why it gained no traction in pop culture) of Sims, which ironically he had originated.

Without the instant suicide as the incriminating slam dunk factor it left a gap which Mac does not fill.

This is what the 1950 reviewer has understood -- there is a missing link in the 'evidence' -- but which would be obscured all over again when Mac's various bits of disinformation for the plods and the public were exposed, but misinterpreted as memory lapses. The much more candid memoirs became sidelined.

In my opinion the North Ciountry Vicar of 1899 is the likely missing link, but it might not be.

[Albert]

Hi,
"In the Edwardian era, for those who regarded George Sims as an authority on such matters -- and he had a very wide readership across all classes -- the Ripper was not a mystery." The Edwardian Era isn't that long ago - when did it become a mystery again?
Cheers
Albert

[Jonathan H]

Rasputin and T-Rex

In 1921 Macnaghten died, and then Sims, the left-wing best selling writer, passed away the following year.

In 1923 the right-wing, best selling writer, William Le Queux rebooted the Ripper saga as a mystery which had supposedly forever baffled the police (LeQ had never been fooled by the 'drowned doctor' dodge) and came up with his own fiction: the Russian Czarist doctor acting for the Czar's dreaded Okhrana, via Rasputin (I'm not making this up).

In 1927 Leonard Matters, the Aussie adventurer who believed in dinosaurs still living in Africa, came up with Dr. Stanley avenging his son's syphilis.

In both cases the notion of Jack as a medical man was reinforced, the suicide element fell away, and the the new paradigm aggressively asserted itself: the police never solved it but we of the next generation of amateur sleuths sure can.

Matters was the first to try and actually identify the 'drowned doctor', and found that no such individual existed in any public records.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

It's worth mentioning that in 1924, the year following the publication of William Le Queux' Things I Know, the then retired Sir Basil Thomson, Macnaghten's immediate successor at Scotland Yard and later Director of Intelligence at the Home Office, wrote in the Radio Times—

". . . the Jack the Ripper outrages are now believed by the police to have been the work of an insane Russian medical student whose body was found floating in the Thames immediately after the last of the outrages."

A most inventive conflation.

Regards,

Simon

[Smoking Joe]

"The onus is on the Prosecution"....Indeed it is.But....
Does any of what you have read on this thread prove beyond all doubt that Druitt was the Killer? Probabley not ,but then such a degree of proof will perhaps always be unattainable. Does any of what you have read here prove Druitts guilt beyond even a reasonable doubt. The answer would be the same,again for the same reason.
Why is that evidence unattainable? Because the main players are long dead,and evidence and files that might provide a greater insight are missing too.
But there was evidence at one time ,Macnaughton's notes tell us as much.O.K one has the option of dismissing Macnaughton as a blustering, know nothing iDiot. In that case there is no further reason to discuss or investigate Druitt further, or for that matter Macnaughton,Anderson, Kosminski etc.
No case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt against any of the Suspects,or suspects yet to appear,because,again any such evidence is unattainable. The prosecution 's case then against anyone is a lost cause before it starts.
In the meantime is it so pointless or senseless to speculate,point out coincidences that sit on the shoulders of other coincidences until the sheer weight of those coincidences would make Samson himself buckle at the knees? If it is pointless then why casebook? why the Jack the Ripper cottage Industry ?If the prosecution has to provide absolute proof against anyone,then it might as well stop now,before it begins.

[caz]

Maybe the contradictory opinions of Police Officials were an attempt to mislead.After all ,Druitt was dead,the Druitt family name needed to be preserved etc .And who knows how much "clout" the Druitt family had in higher circles etc.

Ah, but this is the thing, SJ. The whole Druitt theory - according to Macnaghten and Jonathan - revolves around a supposition that it was the Druitts themselves who leaked the revelation that their very own Monty was the Whitechapel fiend. We are given no reason to think that his name would ever have reached Macnaghten's ears in the context of the ripper case had a family member, or members, not allegedly blabbed their suspicions abroad (and no, I don't mean overseas, in case anyone was wondering).

And yet we are asked to believe that Macnaghten not only took it upon himself to preserve the family name (while committing that name to an official document), but that he would have had the means to preserve it, had anyone else in the know decided to broadcast the 'truth' about Monty far and wide.

As Abby said, why would Macnaghten have given a rat's arse if he had proof that the Druitts had started the suspicion ball rolling in the first place?

Love,

Caz
X

[GregBaron]

Cash for trash...

If you consider that among the most senior investigative officials there are statements that state the man was institutionalized, the man drowned himself, that there was a ID by a witness at a Seaside Home in the winter of 89...(which of course would mean that Druitt was not the Ripper),... that Chapman was the Ripper, that no-one knew who the Ripper was, or that the truth was a "hot potato"....you really have to question any and all of their statements Joe.

This is well stated Michael. It’s either a cluster F… of epic proportions or the most convoluted conspiracy in history.

As Abby said, why would Macnaghten have given a rat's arse?

Whether ass or arse, this is a good question. Perhaps MM bowed (like most humans) to the altar of almighty greed. Maybe the fam paid Mac for his Magnum Opus……

Find the paper trail and we may be on to something...


Greg

[Stephen Thomas]

Why would Mac give a rats ass about Druitts family? Why would he want to protect them even if they were "respectable". And anyway there was a history of mental illness in the family -that would not really tick the respectable box would it?. With the choice of protecting someone's family or being the man who solved one of the most notorious murder mysteries, I think if Mac really knew who the ripper was he would be shouting it from the rooftops.

Please stop talking sense, AN.

This is a Druitt thread.

And Caz, that was a cute observation in your post above.

[Smoking Joe]

Ah, but this is the thing, SJ. The whole Druitt theory - according to Macnaghten and Jonathan - revolves around a supposition that it was the Druitts themselves who leaked the revelation that their very own Monty was the Whitechapel fiend. We are given no reason to think that his name would ever have reached Macnaghten's ears in the context of the ripper case had a family member, or members, not allegedly blabbed their suspicions abroad (and no, I don't mean overseas, in case anyone was wondering).

And yet we are asked to believe that Macnaghten not only took it upon himself to preserve the family name (while committing that name to an official document), but that he would have had the means to preserve it, had anyone else in the know decided to broadcast the 'truth' about Monty far and wide.

As Abby said, why would Macnaghten have given a rat's arse if he had proof that the Druitts had started the suspicion ball rolling in the first place?

Love,

Caz
X

Yes I noticed the abroad/ overseas chestnut.If there was ever a storm in a tea cup that was it.
Why did Macnaughton do what he did? Why would he have given a tinkers cuss etc?
Best ask Jonathan that methinks. But Macnaughton put Druitt at the top of the list for some reason, a list that he seemingly had no right to be on in the first place. What reason would he have had?
I am sorry for answering questions with a question,maybe thats because I dont have the answers.The answers arent available.....anymore.