Ripperologist 125: April 2012

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Antipodean understatements are better known as silence.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Wel you made a statement which is demonstably false because it is too sweeping.

Why do you bother with a site dedicated to a killer you assert does not exist?

By the way, how's that Tumblety expose source going?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Sweeping perhaps, but not demonstrably false.

Aristotle was a regular subscriber to Flat Earth Monthly.

I'm reliably informed it may appear in the next edition of Rip.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Sweeping makes it false.

[Stephen Thomas]

Everybody wants their pet policemen to have had the purest of motives for writing the twaddle they left to posterity.

Very sweetly put, Simon.

Perhaps our Australian friend can explain why the apparent object of his devotion can attribute a finite number of murders to a serial killer who was never caught.

[Beowulf]

Debs, Stephen,
I think people should not lose sight of the fact that we are not necessarily trying to prove that someone was or wasn't Jack the Ripper, but are trying to establish why they were suspected.

Love this clarification.

Still working through the latest issue of Ripperologist, and Lynn's article is where I am at.

I did notice it mentions Isenschmid to be dangerous, and was held at Colney Hatch. "In his first committal to Colney Hatch it was said of Isenschmid that he talks with great excitement and violence...threatens to kill his wife and children...threatens to blow up the Queen with dynamite..." and various other statements.

That same asylum was where Kosminski was held, but one poster, I forget who, said he did not believe Kosminski to be JTR as he WAS held there, and if he was truly dangerous he would be instead held in Broadmoor asylum.

Found this interesting, in lieu of the info on Isenschmid. I'm not necessarily saying I think Kosminski WAS JTR, but that that reason right there should prob be thrown out.

Still reading this very interesting article by Lynn Cates. The issue is obviously very high quality and has so many good points, it's a bit like reading a history book for higher class levels.

[lynn cates]

Grove Hall

Hello Beowulf. Thanks for the kind words.

I've never quite understood why all Isenschmid's committals were to Colney Hatch except for 1888-9. That one was to Grove Hall from whence he was transferred to Banstead the following February.

My conjecture is that his symptoms approximated general paresis and Dr. Mickle, chief physician at Grove Hall, wrote the book on that disease in 1880.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Simon and Jonathan,

What's with all the nastiness? I thought you guys got along in spight of your different opinions.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Beowulf]

Hello Beowulf. Thanks for the kind words.

I've never quite understood why all Isenschmid's committals were to Colney Hatch except for 1888-9. That one was to Grove Hall from whence he was transferred to Banstead the following February.

My conjecture is that his symptoms approximated general paresis and Dr. Mickle, chief physician at Grove Hall, wrote the book on that disease in 1880.

Cheers.
LC

Your welcome.

I do hope you put this into book form. It's really good research and should be out there for the rest of the public to peruse, imho.

btw, I thought you were a girl with blonde hair. lol. Saw they were referring to you as a man, I guess now I will have to get rid of that image

[lynn cates]

homo hirsutus

Hello Barbara (hope I got that right). Actually I AM a girl--just can't afford electrolysis. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Beowulf]

Hello Barbara (hope I got that right). Actually I AM a girl--just can't afford electrolysis. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

Now I'm REALLY confused

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Don't worry, it's just a lively difference of opinion.

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

To Tom

Simon and I were getting along swimmingly, and he helped me with some vital sources for which I publicly thank him, but the break was not caused by an historical disagreement but because each thought the other was suddenly and inexcusably rude and mean-spirited.

I thought Simon's recent article was excellent, though I do not agree with its conclusions.

As I understand it, he theorised that 'Aberconway' was written second. I agree.

Rumbelow in 1975 speculated that it was not known for sure when and in what order they were written, which gave me the idea that the conventional wisdom might have it round the wrong way.

That the official version is, in effect, the 'draft'; written to please the Liberal government but never sent. 'Aberconway' was later written as an adaptation to show and persuade cronies in 1898/9 -- which it did.

'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (1914) is the [real] third version of the same document and arguably definitive as it was for the public under Mac's own distinguished name (and once he was safely retired).

Interesting that Mac never mentions in that memoir the one contribution he supposedly made to the Ripper case: the writing of a Home Office Report (which he had hustled to Sims as a definitive document of state).

Now that we can see the full 'Aberconway' it does not look like a draft, as it is missing 'Confidential', a date, corrections, and any reference to the troublesome Inspector Race, changes the date of 'The Sun' articles by one day, and adds certainty over Sadler's guilt for possibly not one but two other Whitechapel murders.

Whichever order in which they were composed -- after all, Macnaghetn may have been scrambling to activate Sims in 1894 -- they are quite different in thrust suiting the different audiences for whom they were composed (eg. the suspect trio are minor for the govt but 'sexed-up' for the pals, Mac and the Druitts exchange places as to who was sure of Druitt's culpability).

To Stephen Thomas

Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?

Druitt confessed either to a priest, or to a member of his family (or they were one in the same) and then, after his suicide, they concluded that he was not deluded but really 'Jack the Ripper'.

Years later Macnaghten conferred with the family, or a family member, and agreed that the evidence was compelling as to the drowned barrister's culpability, despite all the countervailing biases of personality and politics not to.

Since mad Montie had confessed to those five killings they became the 'canonical' murders.This was despite different police at different times believing that Mylett, McKenzie and/or Coles were also by the same criminal maniac's hand.

The 1891 Coles murder especially, you would think, 'disproved' the Druitt family's belief in their deceased member as the fiend, and yet they still 'believed', the MP remained 'adamant', and Macnaghten had a 'clear idea who [Jack] was and how he committed suicide'.

[Roy Corduroy]

Yes Lynn I enjoyed your article. Jacob Isenschmidt, unemployed butcher, was certainly a person of interest at the time based on the reports. His mental state, his nightly wanderings, carrying sharp knives, sharpening them. Was violent, he threatened people, tried to strangle them. So yes he could have been having one of his episodes and committed the two murders. It could have happened that way.

I noticed one thing that didn't add up. At the Prince Albert pub sighting, which was supposedly him, Mr. Taylor, who followed him pegged the ginger mustache alright, but said "his neck was rather long." That doesn't jibe with the Leather Apron profile of a stout neck.

But again, I found the article very readable.

Roy

[lynn cates]

neck

Hello Roy. Thanks for the kind words.

I don't recall a "long" neck, but I do remember--as you say--a discussion of a stout or powerful neck. Is that the one in the "Star" story?

Cheers.
LC