Lloyd's Articles

[Robert Linford]

You know, I've searched a certain database several times for Thomas Hayne Cutbush, Thomas Taylor Cutbush, Supt Cutbush....and found very little. Mostly I got a screenful of rose sniffers.

I found one or two things, which I've already posted. I also found one or two very brief mentions of Colocitt, which yielded nothing new so I haven't posted them.

Then tonight, I tried again, and bang!

LLOYD'S WEEKLY APR 19 1891

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/lloyds20april20192091.jpg

[Robert Linford]

LW APR 26th 1891

[Robert Linford]

BTW, note the weird echo of Hove when the ladies pick out Colocitt, but can't swear to him.

[R.J.Palmer]

A fascinating account, Robert, worthy of much discussion.

“Diligent reader of the Lancet.....”


“After his arrest some torn pieces of thick paper or cardboard were found in one of his overcoat pockets, and, upon being pasted together.... One represented the trunk of a woman, with the walls of the stomach thrown open and the intestines exposed, and another was of a still more remarkable character, being partially drawn in red ink.”

Does this indicate that Macnaghten was downplaying the The Sun's report, with his jibe about pink stockings?

Yes, and I agree with your last comment. It's also rather an amazing account of a young woman taken to an asylum to identify a caged lunatic...in 1891....

[Paul]

Excellent. This is what these message boards are all about.

[R.J.Palmer]

One interesting point is the remarks made by Cutbush’s solicitor. He implies that he could have proven Cutbush’s innocence in the jobbings, but the Crown pushed the insanity hearing.

While one might wish to take his solicitor’s remarks of innocence with a grain of salt, this could give some minor support to AP Wolf’s theory that there was a conspiracy to hide evidence on the part of the Crown. On the other hand, it almost looks as if Mr. Kirk is saying that it was more akin to a ruse on the part of the Crown: they could get their suspect locked away as a madman, without having to provide any actual evidence that he was guilty of the crimes. It was the quick road to a ‘conviction,’ without actually having to convict. It would be interesting to know whether any other solicitors lodged similar complaint against the Crown in regards to their clients during the Victorian era. It also now appears that Cutbush’s mother was active in his defense.

One final observation. It’s interesting that Miss Johnson is allowed into Peckham House Lunatic Asylum to identify Cutbush. One recalls Dr. Mickles’ refusal to allow a similar identification of the suspect Isenschmid by Mrs. Fiddymount. The difference in allowing access may be that, in the current case, another man stood accused, ie., Colocott, which in turn may have made the Peckham House keeper more willing to cooperate.

A remarkable article. Brilliant.

With all this digitization, the next couple of years will call for a serious reassessment of the case from beginning to the end. Let's hope it's done in an orderly fashion. I would say the above rather helps the Cutbush theory in some respects.

[Robert Linford]

Thanks RJ and Paul.

Well, Macnaghten may have been downplaying the Sun report. He seems to me to have copied the Lloyd's report a little - at least, the wording about the clerk and the canvassing seems to anticipate Macnaghten's wording.

I frankly don't understand how a man can be accused of vioent crimes, found unfit to plead, and then be sent to Broadmoor unless there was either a very strong presumption of his guilt, or he had exhibited unmistakable signs of violence in the period since his arrest. After all, another of our suspects, Kosminski, was only sent to Colney Hatch, yet he had to be taken from his home with his hands tied behind his back.

Perhaps Cutbush had a history of violence, as the article says that he was already known to the authorities. It then mentions the letter-writing, but it's difficult to believe that that was why he was known.

Kate and Clara seem to have been on his side, but were they and the solicitor merely seeking to salvage Thomas's good name (and their own)? I think that as far as the Sun articles were concerned, the impression was given that they didn't want any publicity - the Cutbush name wasn't mentioned. So they don't seem to have been actually trying to clear his name, or at least get him out of Broadmoor and into a private asylum.

Robert

[Robert Linford]

Re the legal issue, I have written to Andrew Roberts in the hope that he might shed light on it.

Robert

[R.J.Palmer]

Robert - There's an excellent and detailed contemporary discussion of the legal issues of pleading in Tuke's A Dictionary of Psychological Medicine (1892) pg. 951-964. (Now on-line at Google Books). It's under the heading "Plead, Capacity of Insane to," and contains case studies and legal commentary.

At the very least, the suspicions against Cutbush would have had to have been grave enough to make it past a grand jury, because a grand jury wasn't allowed to directly address the question of sanity.

[Robert Linford]

Thanks RJ. I'll read that when I can.

Robert

[Natalie Severn]

Thankyou Robert for this valuable article.I was interested in the fact that the reporter had sought advice from a medical authority on mental illness who believed Cutbush was not so irrational that he could not have appeared in court.Although its too early to say there was a cover up of more serious evidence against him ,I believe that the mention on several occasions in the article of the East End, his connection with it,the Whitechapel murders etc infers that there was believed to be some circumstantial evidence against Cutbush,held by the police possibly.Maybe it was confined to the peculiar medical drawings found in his pocket but I am mindful that there were also reports of bloodstained clothing found up his chimney!
Brilliant research!

[Robert Linford]

Thanks Nats. It makes me wonder whether the police ever searched MJK's chimney.;)

[A.P. Wolf]

Absolutely incredible stuff, Robert, my sincere congratulations to you my dear friend. I've read the report five times already, and there is just so much to comment and remark on that I must marshall my thoughts first.
But allow me to say straight off that this very important report you have found no longer allows the Macnaghten Memo - and Sun reports - to be viewed as items of splendid isolation with no relation to the Whitechapel Murders, for there are deep and searing points of contact here between two crimes that seem to find an echo in much of the rumour we deal with here.
I do believe you have almost done the impossible here, Robert.

[Robert Linford]

Thanks AP. Yes, there is a lot to digest here and who knows, there may be still more out there.

Robert

[Robert Linford]

Debs sends this from Lloyd's Weekly Oct 27th 1889. A previous sighting of Thomas?

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/lloyds20weekly20newspaper20oct20272.jpg

[A.P. Wolf]

Just keeps getting better, Robert... my thanks to Debs for that as well.

Quotation from Robert's find in Lloyd's:

'He (Thomas Cutbush) then went down Bird Cage Walk, and along the Embankment to City Temple... where Mrs. Clark (the Sexton's wife) gave him some water.'

Quotation from a letter, dated 21st August 1889, posted in South Lambeth, from 'Jack Rippers of Nobles':

'Where in Bird Cage Walk one of the old girls of Westminster, yours.'

I always told you, Robert, it was the Lambeth Walk.

[SirRobertAnderson]

First off, a tremendous find, Robert. Thank you for posting it here.



Well, Macnaghten may have been downplaying the Sun report. He seems to me to have copied the Lloyd's report a little - at least, the wording about the clerk and the canvassing seems to anticipate Macnaghten's wording.


I also sense a bit of cribbing. It's a puzzle unless he had a clipping of Lloyd's in front of him, as this story is from 1891 and the Memo is dated 1894....

Probably of no import.....

[A.P. Wolf]

And young Thomas liked to hear Dr Parker preach, well preach away Dr Parker:

'
At the close of his service in the City temple yesterday morning, Dr. Parker referred at length to the East end murders. Replying to the question of how far the pulpit was responsible for such crimes, the Rev. gentleman said the pulpit had undertaken instrumentally to convert society, and the pulpit had signally failed. Always allowing for exceptions, the pulpit was the paid slave of respectable society. The pulpit loved respectability, the pulpit boasted of respectable, intelligent congregations. The pulpit had lost its hold on the tragic and impetuous life of the world. The outcasts of society turned away from the preacher as from a man who talked in an unknown tongue and troubled himself about antiquities and metaphysics for which the sad and maddened heart of the world cared nothing. Men were wanted who knew the country they lived in, the sorrows which surged in billows around their very homes, the poverty that was completed by hopelessness and the mental unrest which could not be touched by dead fathers and living pedagogues. Every pulpit in the world should denounce the crimes which London mourned, but denunciation was a poor part of pulpit duty. Every congregation should offer a reward for the recovery of the criminal. What the Home Secretary was doing, or thinking of doing, passed his (Dr. Parker's) comprehension. If offering a reward for the discovery of the criminal did not detect the perpetrator of the crime what harm was done? But if offering a reward should end in the detection of the criminal great good was done. (Applause.) This quick murder of women, however, was nothing compared to the slow murder compared to the slow murder that was going on every day. Compared with many who were cruel deliberately, the perpetration of these East end crimes was gentleness - mercy itself. The magistrates should be armed with greater powers. Nothing would really make a certain class of criminals feel their crime but bodily chastisement. It was no use trying moral suasion upon garrotters, violent robbers, cruel husbands and fathers, they must be flogged. Church Congresses and Nonconformist assemblies should suspend their sittings, that these tremendous grievances might be attended to. They had had papers enough on distant subjects, addresses enough upon things that were only in the air. What were they to do with the real concrete intolerable life immediately around them? It was in vain to meet as quiet, respectable, gospel imbibing congregations drinking orthodoxy to the full, and setting down the empty goblet with a sigh of impious satisfaction. The Devil laughed at the sacrifice. As to denouncing the criminal, better ask how far they were responsible for his creation by making labour a disappointment, by running profits down so small as to turn young men to gambling, by surrounding men with drinkeries and then fining them for drinking. Away with piety that trifled with the stream when might dry up the fountain. '

[A.P. Wolf]

I'm also struck, Robert, by the fact that the Cutbush family had a wont to send young Thomas Cutbush down to Margate when he was in need of a spot of convalescence, by the seaside you'll understand, probably in one of the many Seaside Homes established there in the LVP for young London men in the need of some sea air.

Of course the assumption has always been - for no good reason other than argument - that Swanson was making reference to a 'Police' seaside home, but of course there is not a jot of evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case. The fact of the matter is that he was making reference to a seaside home with absolutely no connection to the police, or any other organisation, whatsoever; and all assumption or theory that has previously passed in this regard must now fall under the highest scrutiny.
The time has come for a change.

[Robert Linford]

Hi AP

Thanks for the Parker item, it makes interesting reading.

Re the Seaside Home, I thought the argument was that policemen always meant the Hove home when it was capitalised 'S' and 'H'. But I gather now that GH thinks it might have been the Seamen's Home in Well St, so I'm all at sea, you might say!

Robert

[A.P. Wolf]

'In its issue of 14th February, it is stated that the writer has in his possession a facsimile of the knife with which the murders were committed. This knife … was found to have been purchased in Houndsditch in February '91 or 2 years and 3 months after the Whitechapel murders ceased! ..."

Robert, that's what Mac says in his memo.

But the aunt says:

'He then told me that he had bought it in the Minories, and I found afterwards that he had bought it at Messrs. D--'s'.

!
?

[Robert Linford]

Bit of a disagreement, wasn't there, AP. My money's on Clara.

[A.P. Wolf]

So, Robert, Macnaghten might well have been blagging and winging his way out of a difficult situation; and making detail up as he went along then?

[Robert Linford]

Hi AP

I just feel that he was prone to get things wrong. I wish Race had left us a memo - but then, wasn't there a thread over at Casebook where he did an interview? Not about THC, but I seem to remember it was suggestive.

[A.P. Wolf]

Robert, I was struck by the fact that Thomas was fond of attending City Temple in the mornings to listen to Dr Parker bray; and then I found this piece from Forbes Winslow in the New York Times, September 1st 1895, which appears to give more detail than I have seen before... and St Paul's is but a spit from City Temple:

'Jack the Ripper was a medical student of good family. He was a young man, of slight build, with light hair and blue eyes. He studied very hard, and his mind, being naturally weak, gave way. He became a religious enthusiast and attended early service every morning in St Pauls.'

Winslow maintains that the young man is still alive at the time he gave the interview, in a county asylum.

How did Forbes Winslow know about the blue eyes?

[Robert Linford]

It's certainly very suggestive, AP. But did Thomas have blue eyes? I've forgotten. I know he supposedly looked very singular.

[A.P. Wolf]

We don't know what colour eyes anyone had in the LVP, Robert, but Forbes Winslow seems to.
From your well-found Lloyd's article:

'Excessive study unhinged his mind... for last 3 or 4 years Cutbush has been studying medical books... a diligent reader of the Lancet'.

I rest me case.

[Robert Linford]

AP, I wonder if FW followed the article up at the time.

[Robert Linford]

This is from the Times Jan 30th 91.

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/PARKER20JAN20302091.jpg

[A.P. Wolf]

Nice one, Robert, I can just see Uncle Charles and young Thomas emptying their revolvers into the ceiling of City Temple at the conclusion of that rant against Popery.
Didn't Uncle Charles have blue eyes?

[Robert Linford]

AP, he may have had a pair of laughing eyes - but I'm not sure whose they were.

[A.P. Wolf]

There is a letter in 'The Times', Robert, from GRIMTHORPE, bashing the same thing from around the same time... what with him and Tom being old pals and all that.

[A.P. Wolf]

Robert
I was also interested to note that 'Lloyd's' ran the report from April 26th again on the 3rd May.
Any idea why?

[Robert Linford]

AP, that was a duplication, wasn't it? I can't suggest a reason why that would have happened.

[Debra Arif]

I frankly don't understand how a man can be accused of vioent crimes, found unfit to plead, and then be sent to Broadmoor unless there was either a very strong presumption of his guilt, or he had exhibited unmistakable signs of violence in the period since his arrest. After all, another of our suspects, Kosminski, was only sent to Colney Hatch, yet he had to be taken from his home with his hands tied behind his back.



Robert, just going back to this earlier post of yours.
I've been looking into this a little and wonder if the difference was that Cutbush was a criminal lunatic and had been charged with an offence, I'm not sure that was the case with Kosminski was it?

Thomas Cutbush was on a charge of cutting and wounding at the South London sessions when he was found to be insane and unfit to plead and was to be detained at her Majesty's pleasure.
This seems to have been a perfectly normal and not uncommon procedure laid out in the Criminal Lunacy Act (of 1884?)
It looks like, to be detained at her Majesty's pleasure also meant that if a person who had not been tried due to insanity, became sane again they could be released and sent to trial.

After 1873 Broadmoor criminal asylum was reserved for the class of lunatic who had been charged with the comission of some criminal act have either whilst waiting trial, or when arraigned, or when tried, been found to be insane and have in consequence been ordered to be detained during her Majesty's pleasure. Up to 1872 there was another class sent to Broadmoor and this was those who had been removed from convict prisons on the grounds of insanity and taken to Broadmoor.
The former class according to the Superintendent of Broadmoor, consisted mainly of of persons whose offences had been isolated criminal acts, the direct result of their insane state, and who up until the time of the outbreak
of their insanity, have in most cases led honest and industrious lives.

I'm not sure if this was still case when Cutbush was sent there, but it would explain some of the things you brought up if it was.

Debs

[Robert Linford]

Hi Debs

interesting point - that Broadmoor was reserved for lunatics who had actually been charged with something.

Still, suppose we put Aaron to one side and look at Hyam Hyams. He apparently injured his mother while trying to attack his wife while he was in the asylum, so presumably he wasn't charged on that occasion. But what about his attack on his wife after his discharge? If you're right, then he was presumably so doolally when the police arrived that they saw no point in charging him. Maybe that's what happened. One does get the feeling that Thomas's mental condition deteriorated while he was in Holloway, and he may have seemed sane enough to be charged originally.

Colocitt is a different kettle of fish, for he wasn't even incarcerated. He may not, however, have been technically insane - just weak in the head.

Complicated business!

Robert

[Robert Linford]

Debs, look at this from Sept 4th 1894. Had this man been sent to Broadmoor three times?

Weird!!!

[Robert Linford]

Even weirder - no attachment.

[A.P. Wolf]

Debs, Robert, I have made quite an extensive study of HMP, and I must say that it is unusual, for such a non-judgement to be reached in the LVP, apart from two prevailing circumstance.
Circumstance one: the Treasury has directly involved themselves in the trial.
Circumstance two: the person on trial has acted so alarmingly in court that it has been thought that a normal trial is impossible.
As we know Thomas was coherent and quite settled in court, having giving a lucid statement to the police inspector in the waiting room, so I fear we must go for Circumstance one. The Treasury.
Perhaps they didn't like his letters?

[Debra Arif]

Hi Robert,
I had to get my magnifying glass out to read that one! I don't see Broadmoor mentioned though.
Percy seems to have been of the second class described by the superintendent of Broadmoor, the habitual criminal who became insane whilst serving a sentence, the type he was succesful in keeping out of Broadmoor.

You could escape her Majesty's in a few ways by th looks of it.
Becoming sane and being able to stand trial for the original crime if you were unable at arraignment, being transferred back to a prison if you had been found guilty of a crime and then become insane while serving your sentence, and a couple of other ways...including death.

Maybe there had to have been a charge and a full case presented in court and that may not have happened in the case of Hyams for example. Was he ever in court on any charges do you know?

[Robert Linford]

Hi AP and Debs

Yes, I remember that Thomas said something like, "I read in the Times that a man had been charged with stabbing women, and he is the man you seek."

I don't know that Hyams was ever in court. But I thought that the phrase "HMP" always indicated Broadmoor exclusively.

Robert

[A.P. Wolf]

Well Robert, both are moors.

[Mags]

Interesting that Cutbush says "...they took me to be of the Jewish persuasion"


I wish we had a picture!

[Robert Linford]

So do I, Mags! In press articles his appearance is variously described as "singular" and "terrible."

[R.J.Palmer]

A little off current topic, but the 1891 Lloyd's article confirms what I argued a few years back when The Times articles were first being discussed. Colocitt had no weapon on him when the furniture salesman yarded him in by the throat. All the cops ever really had on the hapless Colocitt was the fact that he had been seen pushing at a girl's behind with his hands, yet the Treasury was able to convict him of being the Brixton stabber.

The fact that Race was able to 'right the wrong' shows the fundamental honesty of the Met. He provided compelling evidence that Cutbush was, in fact, the man guilty of the earlier offenses, which is why Colocitt was released to the care of his parents, and why Race was applauded in his retirement for having proven the innocence of a condemned man, (as reported in the first edition of the Jack the Ripper A-Z without explanation). This explains it.

[R.J.Palmer]

From March 03, 2004 - 4:27 pm:

AP--Hi. More research is certainly needed, but here's what I think "went down." An educated hunch if you will.

In late 1890 and early 1891 a series of street 'jobbings' or stabbings took place in the Kennington/Clapham-Road area. Quite naturally, the locals--including our furniture selling chum Mr. Myers---were on the look-out.

In February Myers caught Colocott red-handed thrusting at some local ladies. But notice the careful wording of Mr. Myers. It doesn't really appear that Colocott was caught with a weapon; he was only 'touching' the ladies. He seems to have been stabbing at them with his bare hand. The other women who came forward at the trial that had been actually pierced with a weapon (Miss Lewis, for instance) were unsure of their identifications.
Despite this, Colocott was found guilty.
Then something remarkable happens. Another bloke in the same area (Kennington) is nabbed for an identical offense. It's Cutbush, of course.
In a rather remarkable legal twist, Colocott, though found guilty is given a delay before sentencing, while the authorities try to sort out what was going on.
Next, something evidently goes on behind the scenes, but we dont' know what it is.
The result? The next time Colocott shows up in court --for sentencing-- he's given no time. He's released to his family, though he is required to have a keeper. (I take it the £200 surety is insurance for the hiring of the keeper). The next we see young Edwin is in the 1891 census. And lo, he's living at home and there's no sign of a live-in keeper anywhere in sight.
Meanwhile, Cutbush finds himself up the river.
What's going on? My hunch, as I've said before, is that a closer examination by the authorities probably suggested that Cutbush was responsible for the earlier jobbings in Kennington/Clapham Road. Colocott was the wrong man

Four years later, AP, and I still see no reason to change my opinion. Colocitt was innocent; Cutbush was guilty. Only the spelling has changed.

[Natalie Severn]

Thomas Cutbush appears to have been a rather "refined"sort of chap,despite his very abnormal behaviour .I think Broadmoor "received" quite a few "ladies and gentlemen" all of whom had lost their marbles .This doesnt mean they were not dangerous and homicidal .Just that a section of Broadmoor seems to have catered for a certain "class" of the homicidally inclined-think Lord Lucan.

Natalie

[Robert Linford]

Nats, I think Broadmoor also had thieves and embezzlers, as well as murderers.

Some of the inmates were canny enough to know that if they slit a warder's throat, well.....what could happen to them?

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Robert,I am sure many of them,if not most, were very ,very canny indeed !-including smarty pants Cutbush!
Nats