**** A Mad World **** Sims 1910

[Howard Brown]

Cris Malone pointed out the following article ( Not sure what magazine or newspaper it appeared in ) Sims had written under the nom de plume Dagonet and which Wick posted :


Frequently this outburst - or, rather, this recurrence - of mania means a murder - sometimes a massacre. The homicidal maniac who shocked the World as Jack the Ripper had been once - I am not sure that it was not twice - in a lunatic asylum. At the time his dead body was found in the Thames, his friends, who were terrified at his disappearance from their midst, were endeavouring to have him found and placed under restraint again.
16 February, 1902.

Here, in one paragraph, is the released lunatic and the drowned doctor in one place.Thanks Cris....because I have to admit I had never read that particular article. We have numerous articles by him on the boards, but I never saw that one before......glad you did.
Thanks Wick for posting it.

[Howard Brown]

Wick;
Back to your question for a second :
I guess that it was possible that Sims was using Anderson's version of events simply because the theme of the article was on madness.
It might suggest that he wasn't entirely sold on Macnaghten's version after 11 years of support in print.

[Howard Brown]

If that idea is right...that this was information Sims received from Macnaghten.....then is this another one of the graphic errors Macnaghten reported and/or believed about Druitt ( a doctor, 41 years old, lived with his people, etc) ?
I consider it cavalier that Sims posits this without ever mentioning it in any other writing we know of.
For the life of me, I cannot recall any reference in what I've ever read about a "released lunatic" before.

[Howard Brown]

Since Sims had been touting the Macnaghten version of events for over a decade...in print....here's one idea that I've come up with so far.
Macnaghten was the source for the reference to the released lunatic, but up now, we had not seen it in print. That's fairly simple..

Anyone else ?

[Howard Brown]

Lynn:

I saw your question about Druitt.

"Hello Howard. Any chance this could refer to Druitt? I think I remember a snippet/post where he was thought to have been briefly in an asylum before 1888."

I haven't got a clue, LC....I do not recall reading any reference to MJD having been in an asylum before, but of course, that doesn't mean that someone else hasn't.

[Howard Brown]

Thanks ST....

Considering Anderson's opinion was serialized in Blackwoods in March 1910, and no doubt Sims was familiar with this latest revelation, by October of the same year Sims perhaps felt this was an official consensus and could repeat what he had read?--The Wick

Your guess is as good as mine, old friend.
I just find it interesting that here we have a fellow ( Sims) who had supported the drowned doctor scenario on several occasions, Macnaghten's scenario to be precise, and now comes up with this one which is unique.
This isn't Anderson's theory, Jon. Anderson's scenario didn't involve a man, a lunatic, who was released from an asylum.

And he wasn't misquoted here either. He didn't pull the "released from an asylum" reference out of a hat. In my view, its an altogether different scenario than either Macnaghten's or Anderson's.

[Stephen Thomas]

Sims was an adherent of Macnaghten's theory wasn't he.... or am I completely losing the plot ?

If not, then what the hell is Sims talking about here ?

Hi Howard

The operative word is 'plot'.

Sims reveals stuff here.

Well discovered.

[Wicker Man]

Considering Anderson's opinion was serialized in Blackwoods in March 1910, and no doubt Sims was familiar with this latest revelation, by October of the same year Sims perhaps felt this was an official consensus and could repeat what he had read?

Regards, Jon S.
(I answered your question over at CB, it should have been here)

[Howard Brown]

Eleven years earlier, as many know, Sims wrote in The Referee about the drowned doctor.

I had asked whether he was a devotee of the Macnaghten theory...thinking then, that perhaps it has become known in the community that he did a flip flop on the Druitt theory, but that I didn't read about it.

I guess not.

[Howard Brown]

ST:

Sims was an adherent of Macnaghten's theory wasn't he.... or am I completely losing the plot ?

If not, then what the hell is Sims talking about here ?

[Stephen Thomas]

Another interesting Ripper related piece from the landmark year, 1910.

Am I mistaken or wasn't Sims a "Druitt" man ?

Look at the bottom left hand side of this article, please.

Black & White
October 1, 1910
************

Ah, so JTR was previously safely caged.

[Howard Brown]

Another interesting Ripper related piece from the landmark year, 1910.

Am I mistaken or wasn't Sims a "Druitt" man ?

Look at the bottom left hand side of this article, please.

Black & White
October 1, 1910
************