The Hot Potato

[admin]

Pardon my asking, but has it ever been determined as to who must have been Monro's 'hot potato' suspect? I don't think this has ever been discussed here.

[Mags]

I've only heard theories from the MM three to Cutbush.

The big problem is defining what "hot" would have meant.Hot as incriminating someone the police didn't want fingered? Hot as creating a scandal? Hot as inflamng a certain population?

[admin]

The big problem is defining what "hot" would have meant.Hot as incriminating someone the police didn't want fingered? Hot as creating a scandal? ?

Good thoughts there, Mags. Since I see Vila is reading this at the moment, it should be said that this might make an excellent chat topic.

Used in that context by Monro, it would seem likely that he was referring to an individual whose candidacy would be either politically or socially sensitive. Unfortunately, this interpretation would lend credence to the Royals Theory or some such.

But you are certainly correct when you state that it might be 'Hot as inflaming a certain population', more than likely the Jewish citizenry. Such a thought would certainly be in support of Warren's actions with the GSG.

Myself, I think it points toward a well-connected and influential individual. Think of Elliot Ness's prime suspect in the Kingsbury Run Murders, Dr. Frank Sweeney, whose cousin happened to be a Congressman. That is my opinion, that this 'hot potato' suspect had Friends or Relatives in High Places.

Anyone else?

[Mags]

I tend t agree with that and my reading of it has always sounded to me like a specific person was being referred to.

Yet I try to remember that the Victorians' use of language and my own modern American useage may be quite different.

[WRITEFX]

Anyone remember playing a game called 'Hot Potato'? I do.

So I take it that it's a suspect that you want to quickly off load onto someone else so they have to deal with the hassle and not you.

I thought the HP in this instance might be Druitt or Cutbush.

[Magpie]

I think Munro was referring to lesser known case of "Jack the Chipper"....

[Mags]

I wonder who would have been hotter, Writefx, Druitt or Cutbush.

My money is on Tommy there.

[Paul Butler]

Mags.

The normal British usage of "Hot potato" would be taken to mean "Too hot to handle", and I reckon you're right about it being Cutbush.

Paul

[Chris G.]

See what Google says:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22hot+potato%22+definition

-- the first one says it, from Princeton's word.net

"a difficult situation; 'he dropped the topic like a hot potato'"

-- I think we have all sensed that the thought that Thomas Haynes Cutbush could have been the Ripper was politically sensitive for Superintendent Cutbush even though today we have been unable to prove a close nephew and uncle relationship between the two.

Chris

[Vila]

Good thoughts there, Mags. Since I see Vila is reading this at the moment, it should be said that this might make an excellent chat topic.

Thanks, Tim. I added it to the list. I'm not going to use it for this week's chat because I'll be away in New Mexico and I'm not taking my laptop on the trip. But once I'm back I'd certainly love to see what people can come up with in a chat on this.

Vila

[WRITEFX]

I wonder who would have been hotter, Writefx, Druitt or Cutbush.

My money is on Tommy there.

Whose family could have caused the most hassle I suppose

[Mags]

Although the Druitts were respectable people with some connections, I would think that the Cutbushes, by virtue of the uncle being a copper, would have been more problematic.

[WRITEFX]

It does look as though MM seemed to try to counteract the newspaper exclusives re Cutbush.

[Mags]

And the thing to remember about the Sun articles is that they don't necessarily have to be true. Thomas Cutbush could have been just some poor slob who stuck girls in the behinds , not the most cunning murderer of their time.

The articles , in a grand tradition that journalists have followed ever since, just have to print something for most people on the street to regard it as gospel. And that in itself is a hot potato.

[How Brown]

Dear C.G.

You mentioned the degree of the relationship between Thomas and Uncle Charles as being ...."I think we have all sensed that the thought that Thomas Haynes Cutbush could have been the Ripper was politically sensitive for Superintendent Cutbush even though today we have been unable to prove a close nephew and uncle relationship between the two...."

Would that necessarily be that important whether they were close or even estranged for the connection in the mind of those who discovered they were related?

Wouldn't their mere biological relationship be "all that was needed" to become scandalous?

Where's A.P. ? What do you think over there, A.P. ?

[Natalie Severn]

Hi How,Mags, All,
The "hot potato", I would have thought,would be that it was someone working for the British establishment ,who was the Ripper----not someone perfectly "blameworthy"working for the other side!
Best
Natalie
---Mags and How,
AP can correct me if I am wrong but I think he believes Thomas and Charles did a"pas de deux"----

[Dan Norder]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think saying that it was a hot potato (and as far as I know, we only have heresay twice removed to even support that phrase in the first place) in any way gives us something significant to work with as far as guessing what Monro thought. The fact that the Ripper went uncaptured in general and that the press and politicians were all over the police to try to solve the case is sufficient reason all on its own for someone's relatives to get the idea that it was politically sensitive and that nobody wanted to end up being the one to be blamed for it.

[WRITEFX]

Where I read about HP originally I thought it was something that M.Macn. said not Monro. Perhaps it was a popular phrase in those times.

[Mags]

Dan is certainly right that anything about this case would be a hot potato as long as the case went unsolved, and reminded the public of the government's "incompetence".

We know from our 20/20 hindsight that the authorities stood a snowball's chance of solving it, pure luck aside, but I'm sure the public would never have seen it that way.

[How Brown]

Dan:

The term "hot potato" emanated from Christopher Monro to Keith Skinner and as you stated, not directly from James Monro, to our knowledge.

Do you or anyone else think that in addition to the Cutbush clan being linked to the Sun article, that other officials might have have been worried that the press might suggest that said officials assisted in some sort of "coverup" and that this could be the "hot potato" ? We get the impression that the papers by that time had abated from applying heat to the police...but maybe this would heat things up again?

[admin]

Is that the consensus, then, that this 'hot potato' suspect was Cutbush? Or is it maybe someone as yet unknown? I was hoping for the latter.

[Mags]

It could have gone something like this:

The Sun prints its article just to bump up circulation. The Police (or gov't or whoever) are upset, not because they think Cutbush is the killer but because just bringing up the case again will open a can of worms because

1. it will remind everyone how incompetent they were and is just an all around embarrassment

2. someone might go investigating further and find out that TPTB knew the identity of the killer but didn't publicize it because he was dead or incarcerated.

3. someone might investigate and uncover some other unknown but touchy fact about the case

so Mac writes his internal memo not to throw suspicion off Cutbush so much as to mislead some people in authority who were not on the job during 1888 and keep them from finding out about whatever the hot potato was.

Having said all that, I think it is total bull, and the hot potato was Thomas Cutbush.