Druitt family

[Howard Brown]

Bump Up

[Adam Went]

Hi Jonathan,

George R. Sims also conversed with Littlechild about Tumblety in later years as well, so what of it? Again, he was just a writer / journalist who wanted a good story, it's not a question of his stature in Victorian / Edwardian society. Can't blame him for that!

Yes, we are all aware that there are differing versions of Macnaghten's memorandum on Druitt, including his memoirs. Supporters of Druitt as a suspect would say that he was simply misunderstood or had reasons for being so vague / incorrect, deflecting the truth, etc. Others who are a bit more cynical like me would simply say that he was changing his story on a subject that he clearly had a very poor grasp on.

There is no 'conspiracy'. All we have is a case which has been manufactured against an innocent man. This whole "family suspicion" thing has been a red herring almost as old as the case itself. Most of the original theories surrounding this, including Lionel Druitt in Australia, have been thoroughly debunked, and as you just admitted in your last post, there is no surviving correspondence which specifically references Montague to the Ripper murders. So where is the evidence of this family suspicion? Who are the members of the Druitt family who suspected him and what were their reasons for that? Was it more than the fact that he committed suicide and had been suffering from mental issues? I'm yet to see anything compelling, though I would welcome it with open arms.

If there was a need to deflect, then why name the suspects in the first place? Macnaghten, if necessary, could have worded it in such a way as to keep his cards close to his chest without outright naming Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog. The very fact that he named Druitt indicates that he had no issue with the name being made public - he just didn't have all his ducks in a row regarding the case. And who could blame him for that? He wasn't involved in the police force in any capacity in 1888 - while others like Anderson, Swanson, Abberline, Littlechild, etc etc, all of whom were involved in 1888, all named suspects who weren't Druitt.

Even if you assume that this was necessary in the 1890's, with memoirs and interviews into the 1910's and beyond, surely if Druitt was the known prime suspect, there would have been some agreement on this by the old police officers who by then knew there was no hope of prosecuting the killer? Not a bit of it. As late as 1932, Superintendent Arthur Neil was still naming Severin Klosowski as his favoured suspect.

Have you read about the estate which Montague left behind? No, he wasn't poor, but by no stretch was he as successful as other members of his family had been either. He was 30, unmarried and had just lost his employment at Valentine's. I've got no doubt that he probably felt like some sort of a failure in late 1888, which contributed to his already fragile mental state. He'd hardly be alone there in any period of history - just it wasn't so well understood in the Victorian era.

Anyhow, i'll leave my arguments to rest at that as there is nothing more to be achieved by going over old ground ad nauseum. I wish Jonathan well with his presentation at the Ripper conference later this year and hope that it will shed some more light on the Druitt case for the Ripperologists present to dissect for themselves.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Adam, I'm going to break this up to reply. I hate doing this, as I think a post should be replied in totally, but I have little time, so apologies.

From terribly dated post I can see that you have never absorbed my arguments. I don;t mean you have to agree with them. I mean that you don't know what they are. You think this is still 2007, before the MP was identified, before the Vicar's story became available, before I discovered that you can show, textually, that Macnaghten likely knew that Montie's brother William was searching for him - and to know that you would have to know the basics about the drowned barrister - and my partner's discovery of a personal connection between Macnaghten, Sims and The Ripper (their mutual friend Colonel Vivian Majendie) motive, that Sims admitted in 1905 that his main concern was not ruining the murderer's family by revealing too much, and that the original version of "The Lodger" arguably shows that William Druitt at least believed his brother to be the Fiend.

Your avoidance of the above, and your trotting out tired cliches about journalism and cynicism, is almost like your saying that anything post-2007 is devastating to the conventional wisdom of so-called Ripperology.

George R. Sims also conversed with Littlechild about Tumblety in later years as well, so what of it? Again, he was just a writer / journalist who wanted a good story, it's not a question of his stature in Victorian / Edwardian society. Can't blame him for that!

Your constant demeaning of Sims via cliche - he's just making stuff up for a good yarn - is just hopelessly redundant. Because your both right and wrong. His importance is that he was close friends with Macnaghten, and thus provides a window onto his knowledge albeit refracted through careful mix of fact and fiction. We can examine, because unlike edwardians who did not know which was which, both the fact and the fictional elements, we know about Montague John Druitt.

Jack Littlechild wrote to Sims for a second time in 1913 because he was a self-proclaimed authority on The Ripper. Sims had written persistently about a mad, English doctor who had killed himself before he could be arrested. Littlechild decided to challenge the famous writer by revealing that the only suspect he knew that fit that description was an American quack suspect who had been arrested and was believed to have killed himself, after jumping his bail, maybe in France.

So-called Ripperology will never get this, but Sims was better informed about the case than Littlechild, via Macnaghten. We can see this because Littlechild is wrong. Sims has not been writing about a grabled Tumblety, but about "Dr D" about whom the ex-Special Branch chief is totally ignorant. Which of course he would be, as it was a CID matter and the decisive information about M. J. Druitt did not arrive at the Yard "until some years after" 1888, according to Mac.

Yes, we are all aware that there are differing versions of Macnaghten's memorandum on Druitt, including his memoirs. Supporters of Druitt as a suspect would say that he was simply misunderstood or had reasons for being so vague / incorrect, deflecting the truth, etc. Others who are a bit more cynical like me would simply say that he was changing his story on a subject that he clearly had a very poor grasp on.

Actually, Adam, it is you, if you like, who is being fooled by a cynical Macnaghten. The reasons he was deflective was because an honest profile, een without the name, would have destroyed the Druitts amongst their peers. "The Sun" makes exactly this point in its 1894 story about the un-named Cutbush. And Sims made the same point to a reporter in 1905.

I quite understand why this interpretation cannot be accepted, because down the gurler goes Ripperology.

There is no 'conspiracy'. All we have is a case which has been manufactured against an innocent man. This whole "family suspicion" thing has been a red herring almost as old as the case itself. Most of the original theories surrounding this, including Lionel Druitt in Australia, have been thoroughly debunked, and as you just admitted in your last post, there is no surviving correspondence which specifically references Montague to the Ripper murders. So where is the evidence of this family suspicion? Who are the members of the Druitt family who suspected him and what were their reasons for that? Was it more than the fact that he committed suicide and had been suffering from mental issues? I'm yet to see anything compelling, though I would welcome it with open arms.

The emotive, melodramatic word "conspiracy" has never been used by me, because there was not one. Unless the definition of the word has been broadened to mean when people play fast and loose with the data for some reason of discretion. In that case we are all conspirators, ever day.

True, the Druitts, not being idiots, did not leave a smoking gun around in their surviving correspondence: Montie was the monster.

But Macnaghten wrote that the family "believed". If he can be shown to be a reliable source, we are fast circling the plug hole again.

In early 1891 a Tory member of parliament who lived near the Druitt family home and who knew them socially, began telling his friends in London that he knew the identity of The Ripper. His story is also a mix of fact and fiction (though he chose different bits: keeping the true identity of a surgeon;s son but redoing the suicide). The inference, just like those who assert that Schwartz must be Anderson;s witness, is that proximity to the family brought him this solution.

In 1902 Sims will write that the "friends" of the "doctor", who strongly suspected he was the killer, were trying to find him because he had vanished from where he lived. William Druitt, mistakenly called a friend in the first newspaper account of the finding of Montague's rotting corpse, was trying to find his vanished brother.

In 1905, Sims will claim that the killer came from a highly respectable family who knew their member was the killer and who would be destroyed too if they could be recognised in Dagnot's column.

If there was a need to deflect, then why name the suspects in the first place? Macnaghten, if necessary, could have worded it in such a way as to keep his cards close to his chest without outright naming Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog. The very fact that he named Druitt indicates that he had no issue with the name being made public - he just didn't have all his ducks in a row regarding the case. And who could blame him for that? He wasn't involved in the police force in any capacity in 1888 - while others like Anderson, Swanson, Abberline, Littlechild, etc etc, all of whom were involved in 1888, all named suspects who weren't Druitt.

You are just wrong, Adam. First of all Anderson, Littlechild and Swanson, to the public, never named their best suspects. Nor did Macnaghten and Sims. Anderson alludes to the libel laws, as did the reporter in 1891 who broke the story about the MP's solution. The dead can't sue, but the living sure can.

Macnaghten feared the whole story might be about to blow, that the Vicar would move prematurely. He would need to be quashed. Macnaghten prepared two versions of a memo for the Home Sec. He could not just name Druitt as that gave the game away that he was the solution - hence his toning down the bit about : have always had strong feelings about no. 1, and so on. He also knew that the Home sec. was not about to name these three men. But Druitt's vocation and fate could give a way Montague's family to their peers. So he hedged: said to be a doctor.

As it was, the memo was not needed and the story did not break in 1894.

How do I know this? Because it does break just like this in late 1898 and early 1899, when Sims and [arguably] Mac successfully pincered the whistle-blowing Vicar.

Even if you assume that this was necessary in the 1890's, with memoirs and interviews into the 1910's and beyond, surely if Druitt was the known prime suspect, there would have been some agreement on this by the old police officers who by then knew there was no hope of prosecuting the killer? Not a bit of it. As late as 1932, Superintendent Arthur Neil was still naming Severin Klosowski as his favoured suspect.

You just don't get that with druitt dead, there was no need for Macnaghten to inform his lower class colleagues about a matter that could severely embarrass Majendie and his family. So, he didn't. There is not the slightest evidence that Anderson, Swanson, Littlechild and Abberline had access to the second stream of critical and definitive information about this suspect. Quite the contrary.

I argue that Macnaghten misled these figures: Anderson and Swanson thought Kosminski was deceased.

No, that's Druitt.

Littlechild thought Tumblety might have killed himself.

Still Druitt.

Grant's lawyer thought his former client was dead.

Still Druitt.

Dr. Forbes Winslow thought his medical student/lodger had drowned himself in the Thames.

Still Druitt.

Abberline has his death correct, but not the reason for him being the solution because hd did not have access to the later information (e.g. he still think he was a medical student. This was Druitt's lie to the cops upon being arrested, and was in the first stream of information).

Have you read about the estate which Montague left behind? No, he wasn't poor, but by no stretch was he as successful as other members of his family had been either. He was 30, unmarried and had just lost his employment at Valentine's. I've got no doubt that he probably felt like some sort of a failure in late 1888, which contributed to his already fragile mental state. He'd hardly be alone there in any period of history - just it wasn't so well understood in the Victorian era.

Well, you might be right - though not about the money which was a small fortune. He was much more 'successful' than his brother Arthur or his cousin Charles, on the basis of cash.

It's just that, Adam, people who lived in that era don't agree with you., They include a highly regarded, hands-on police chief, a famous writer, a politician and two members of the clergy - and according to some of them the dead man's own family - all believed he killed himself because he was a depraved serial killer who had reached the end of his tether.

Anyhow, i'll leave my arguments to rest at that as there is nothing more to be achieved by going over old ground ad nauseum. I wish Jonathan well with his presentation at the Ripper conference later this year and hope that it will shed some more light on the Druitt case for the Ripperologists present to dissect for themselves.

Thanks Adam. Hope to see you soon.

If you want to have the last word, then I'll subside.

Unless you answer two questions, that you have deflected away from, Mac-style:

1. Was the disguising of Montie Druitt for Late Victorians and Edwardians, because his being disguised is a fact, the question is was it deliberate or just a happy accident.

According to you the Druitt family had no idea that their tragic, innocent Montie had been dragged into the Whitechapel affair!?

So when a profile of their deceased member began appearing in 1891, albeit briefly, and then persistently from 1898 to the World War, they were bloody fortunate that the basic details were just different enough from the facts to render the family safe and sound! Right? They were protected from social ostracism due to an incompetent police chief's lazy, bureaucratic mistakes?

Wow, that was lucky. Lucky too for the hopeless police chief, who was opening the Yard to a suit for slander if the man who drowned himself really had been a middle-aged, super-rich, unemployed, reclusive surgeon who had twice been in a private asylum and was from a Big Shot London family (and where did those extra details come from as they are not in either version of the memo? From Know-Nothing Mac I suppose))

That good luck was certainly a two-way street, hey?

Or ... the was the disguise deliberate?

Which, by the away, according to Occam's Razor, e.g. the simpler and more sensible explanation and the shortest route between two points, is the likelier one.

In my opinion, the greatest singular failure of other writers and researchers, and that includes excellent ones such as Cullen, and Fido, and Begg, and Sugden (but not Evans and Gainey who grasped the propaganda aspects of what Mac was doing) is not to think through why, from the memo(s), the Druitt "family" were turned into "friends" for public consumption, by Major Griffiths and George R. Sims.

Because if the simple answer is to protect everybody concerned and to stay well clear of the libel courts, then who is to say other elements of the profile have not been carefully altered too?

Secondly (2) you said other equivalent families to the Druitts were accusing and suspecting each other practically on a daily basis in 1888. I'll even give you to 1891, which is when the Whitechapel murders actually finished.

Name them ...? How about name one ...?

[Adam Went]

Hi Jonathan,

You are correct, of course. I will be the first to concede that the vast majority of your case against Druitt goes WAY over my head. The reason for that is because it is YOUR own theory. It is the case which YOU (and your partner/s) have built up over recent years. How can I argue against that? There is nothing I can say about it at all, because when you do that the goalposts shift away from the two most important things, which are then rendered useless:

A.) The known facts
B.) Reasonable assumptions

To put it into some sort of context, it would be akin to you coming to Tasmania and trying to give me directions around my hometown. Call my thoughts on Druitt the "Sat Nav" version if you like, whereas yours are the "nah come this way, I know a shortcut through the back roads" way. You call it "conventional wisdom" - well, that conventional wisdom has been sought for more than a century by much greater researchers than myself or yourself. If that makes my arguments tired, old, cynical, whatever else, then so be it.

Jack Littlechild wrote to Sims for a second time in 1913 because he was a self-proclaimed authority on The Ripper. Sims had written persistently about a mad, English doctor who had killed himself before he could be arrested. Littlechild decided to challenge the famous writer by revealing that the only suspect he knew that fit that description was an American quack suspect who had been arrested and was believed to have killed himself, after jumping his bail, maybe in France.

So-called Ripperology will never get this, but Sims was better informed about the case than Littlechild, via Macnaghten. We can see this because Littlechild is wrong. Sims has not been writing about a grabled Tumblety, but about "Dr D" about whom the ex-Special Branch chief is totally ignorant. Which of course he would be, as it was a CID matter and the decisive information about M. J. Druitt did not arrive at the Yard "until some years after" 1888, according to Mac.

You're missing the point. Macnaghten was not only not in the police force in 1888, he wasn't even on the same continent. Littlechild of course was, on both counts. Yet Sims via Macnaghten is going to be better informed on the case than Littlechild? I see....

Of course the other issue with this is that Druitt wasn't a doctor either, nor was he mad - by any official diagnosis anyway. Tumblety had aliases, it's just as likely that "Dr D" was one of them if it wasn't a mistake in the first place.

Are you familiar with W.T. Stead and the Eliza Armstrong case? Late Victorian journalism was renowned for this sort of thing. Again, it's not a criticism of Sims, any journalist / writer worth their salt will use their contacts and friends to get leads. Just ask me, I do have a degree in journalism after all

Actually, Adam, it is you, if you like, who is being fooled by a cynical Macnaghten. The reasons he was deflective was because an honest profile, een without the name, would have destroyed the Druitts amongst their peers. "The Sun" makes exactly this point in its 1894 story about the un-named Cutbush. And Sims made the same point to a reporter in 1905.

I'd strongly advise revisiting some of the surviving correspondence between and from the Druitt family. I can send you some if you like. They weren't ones to shy away from tackling controversial issues in public.

In early 1891 a Tory member of parliament who lived near the Druitt family home and who knew them socially, began telling his friends in London that he knew the identity of The Ripper. His story is also a mix of fact and fiction (though he chose different bits: keeping the true identity of a surgeon;s son but redoing the suicide). The inference, just like those who assert that Schwartz must be Anderson;s witness, is that proximity to the family brought him this solution.

Let me ask you this. How much do you think Macnaghten knew about the Anderson and Swanson's Seaside Home identification? It's not a loaded question, i'm just curious to see how that might have rolled into later claims including the memorandum. Because assuming that event happened, the suspect obviously wasn't Druitt.

What you're talking about is a whole lot of hearsay. He said, she said. Chinese whispers. Call it what you want, but it's not something to build a viable case from.

No, that's Druitt.

Littlechild thought Tumblety might have killed himself.

Still Druitt.

Grant's lawyer thought his former client was dead.

Still Druitt.

Dr. Forbes Winslow thought his medical student/lodger had drowned himself in the Thames.

Still Druitt.


I do actually agree with you on this point that all of these threads probably did lead back to one original suspect or theory - a theory which had been muddied over time. Whether or not that suspect was Druitt though is questionable.

It's just that, Adam, people who lived in that era don't agree with you., They include a highly regarded, hands-on police chief, a famous writer, a politician and two members of the clergy - and according to some of them the dead man's own family - all believed he killed himself because he was a depraved serial killer who had reached the end of his tether.

The policeman, the priest, the writer and the politician....was the bar they walked into the Ten Bells?

In all seriousness though, have you found any more information about Druitt's departure / dismissal from Valentine's? I do think this could be closely linked to some of his reasoning for suicide. Now if Mr. Valentine had approached Macnaghten and told him that he thought Druitt could be JTR, I would be all ears!

1. Was the disguising of Montie Druitt for Late Victorians and Edwardians, because his being disguised is a fact, the question is was it deliberate or just a happy accident.

According to you the Druitt family had no idea that their tragic, innocent Montie had been dragged into the Whitechapel affair!?

To me, this all stems from that ancient story that Lionel Druitt wrote an article in the St. Arnaud Mercury here in Australia, citing his cousin as the killer. As we both well know, that story has been thoroughly debunked. So once again the goalposts have needed to shift in order for the theory to be sustainable, so the spotlight has returned to his family back in England. Yet we seem to only have hearsay.

I'm not quite sure what your question is? If you're asking whether I think that the deceased suspect could have been covered up in order to protect a prominent family, then yes, I suppose that could have been the case, but that requires one to believe that Macnaghten conversed with Sims about the case ahead of his own colleagues. And that members of the Druitt family spoke about it to friends. So much for keeping it all hush-hush, hey? Doesn't take much for a story like that to get out if there was any element of truth to it.

Secondly (2) you said other equivalent families to the Druitts were accusing and suspecting each other practically on a daily basis in 1888. I'll even give you to 1891, which is when the Whitechapel murders actually finished.

Name them ...? How about name one ...?

That's a silly question, because you're asking for middle class families. Contemporary opinion was largely that JTR was some sort of raving lunatic who came from the lowest rungs of society. We know better now, of course, but that was the hype at the time. Remember John Pizer? Just to name one example.

In saying that i've got no doubt that middle class families would have accused one another too, but I don't have the time / interest to scour the newspaper archives for examples.

In closing, I don't think we'll ever reconcile our opinions on this Jonathan, but once more I can only wish you well at the conference. Once that's done perhaps you can lay off the Druitt vendetta for a while and work on some cases closer to your home? What about the Adelaide Oval abductions in 1973, or the disappearance of the Beaumont children, or Tamam Shud? You'd be a national hero if you could get to the bottom of any of those!

In the meantime, if you'd like to check out a real Ripper suspect, look no further than Jacob Levy.

Cheers,
Adam.

[jachim3926]

Well put, Adam!
It is important that we adhere to the known 'facts (if any), unless we are in the practice of making an extra couple of bob by self- promotion and publication of personal ideologies.

I entirely agree that the Beaumont Case and the Somerton Man are worthy of further consideration, especially from somebody actually lives in the murder/lunacy capitol in this neck of the antipodes.

Jonathan , I completely understand your frustration in not persuading us lesser mortals to accept your views, but that is just part of life. In the words of the Prophet, 'just get over it and move on'. Your repetitive diatribes have passed their use by date!

Cheers,
merv

[Tammy Green]

In the meantime, if you'd like to check out a real Ripper suspect, look no further than Jacob Levy.

Cheers,
Adam.

Hi Adam,

May I ask you why Jacob Levey and not Kosminski ?

And if I believe the GSG authentic, can you please explain to me what he could have meant by it ?

Do you think Mary Kelly would let the mad butcher enter her room ? does he fit Hutchinson description ?

Why do you think the Police failed to consider Levy the prime suspect instead of Kosminski ?

Did his Family suspect him to be the ripper ? or his friends or anyone at the time of the murders ?

Can we build a case against Jacob Levy without hepotheses, and by only sticking to the known facts ?



Thank you very much!

Tammy

[Anna Morris]

Tammy: There is a great dissertation at Casebook by Scott Nelson, called 'The Butcher's Row Suspect.' I have read it several times but don't remember if Levy comes into it. As I remember it is a fantastic article about the Butcher's Row area, who lived there, how police surveilled it, etc.

[Tammy Green]

Hi Anna!

Thank you very much, I have read the article too, but I failed to understand why the last name mentioned by Swanson and Macnaghten was Kosminski and not Levy!

Tammy

[Anna Morris]

Hi Anna!

Thank you very much, I have read the article too, but I failed to understand why the last name mentioned by Swanson and Macnaghten was Kosminski and not Levy!

Tammy

We all wonder about Kosminski. There is a long, involved possibility that the GSG led to door to door searches and that some of Aaron Kosminski's relatives lived in the Wentworth Buildings and that police contact was made with them at that time and for some reason they followed through with the police at a later time. This has to do with Aaron's sister and other relatives.

Still, that doesn't answer the question, why Kosminski rather than Levy. Personally I REJECT Aaron Kosminski as a viable suspect.

There is also some other great research--I think Martin Fido's research--delving into the name Kosminski. All we have is a surname and the Aaron part has been extrapolated from that. Who knows what names people used when they immigrated, or who they were related to. I don't think it matters very much, but Kosminski is a geographical designation is Polish, man from Kosmin (or Cosmin). (Kosminska = woman from Kosmin.) Jews had traditionally used patronymics so Avram Avramowicz* from Kosmin could be a Kosminski. More or less. *(I made up that name for an example.)

So, could Levy have been a Kosminski one way or another? (I don't have the answer but it is something to think about and maybe someone has already looked into it. I know there has been some research that indicated there were more Kosminski's in the East End of London than Aaron's family.)

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

Thanks Adam, for all your good wishes. Sorry my theory is over your head. But then that's probably due to my poor writing skills or that nervous breakdown I had a few years ago, as diagnosed by Dr Barrett.

People can see that out positions are irreconcilable and make up their own minds.

Even in the 1889 Chiswick account of William Druitt's testimony he desperately though effectively dissembles.

I would advise you to look more carefully at the surviving correspondence and you will see the likely solution to the Crawford Letter.

So, you agree that there are no equivalent families to the Druitts accusing each other of being the Fiend. And you have no answer to the question about accidental or deliberate disguise?

The Lionel Druitt story does not date from the Late Victorian Era but from the 1960's when Daniel Farson mis-recalled a story about Deeming. Lionel Druitt has nothing to do with this and never did.

Whereas the older brother and the clergyman-cousin pop up persistently in the sources, albeit un-named and/or disguised.

Or, so I claim from my padded cell.

I subscribe to the theory that the Seaside Home identification never literally happened. There was a failed identification by a Jewish witness of a Ripper suspect at the time that Aaron Kosminski was permanently section and in the aftermath of the Whitechapel murder of a younger victim; it was the sailor Tom Sadler accused of the Frances Coles murder, and "confronted" by, almost certainly, Joseph Lawende, who had described a Gentile-featured suspect dressed rather like a sailor.

I would urge you to read the pertinent chapter in Evans and Rumeblow's wonderful book from 2006. It is their theory and is really touched with genius.

I also think that Macnaghten inadvertently set the Seaaide Home legend in motion, via Sims, when the latter, in 1907, mentioned a cop seeing - maybe - the Polish suspect and seeing him again (in a line-up?) and being unable to positively identify him.

Anderson's conceited yet crumbling memory - check out his 1908 interview which is a complete train-wreck and mean-spirited to boot as it unfairly blames others as usual - fused that story with the affirmation by [likely] Lawende of Grant in 1895, yet nothing happened. It's not a lie, just mis-recalled: e.g. the Seaman's Home of Sadler plus Grant being a Seaman becoming the Seaside Home.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

All Hail The Dear Leader

To Merv

Do you comprehend what a mean-spirited poster you are? With not a single counter-point offered, just telling people to Bugger Off!

Why do you read my stuff, if you don't like it - that's the really creepy part?

Another poster asked for my opinion? Was I supposed to say, sorry, I cannot possibly help you because "Merv" will be offended.

Sunsequently Adam and I engaged in our usual duet, so that a new member can see the positions and counter-positions in detail, and that was fine and done. Withtout the slightest rancor. Then others can make up their own minds, or at least have a sense of some opposing interpretations and them if they choose, go off and do their own research.

But you attempt to shut me down - rudely and childishly - because it offends you that I would write a defense of the Druitt solution on a Druitt thread.

This is not new; it is how it has always been since 2008, an I was warned by by about five posters -names with-held] that it would be. You can have any suspect you like, except the orginal. Not all have acted like this, but too many. Does not bother me, as Buff blustering merely confirms my opinion. People atacked me peronsally, and then went into shock when they got the same treatment in return. More pathetic blustering.

Do you not see that your appalling behaviour proves the point about RipperLand being built on the quicksand of Macnaghten being ignorant (and therefore Druitt can be cast to one side) and that this must be never, never, never conceded.

It's like North Korea; the totalitarian paradigm cannot be blasphemed against and if anybody dares, then bad manners will be deployed to initmidate anybody who does. Actually that might be somewhat unfair on North Korea, what with [maybe] cheery detente breaking out ...

[jachim3926]

Well Jonathan,
It is not often that when you first cast a bait you catch yourself a live one- 'Come in Spinner' , methinks.

All your comments, pathetic or otherwise have been noted and consigned to the rubbish bin for matters inconsequential.

Personally, I take no offence at your diatribe. Continue to bathe in your self -created limelight and brush up on how to be truly sarcastic. Given your 'Duet' with Adam , I assume that was intended to be duel - I hope the former makes the top ten!

Lobbing insults in my direction will achieve nothing-indeed water off a duck's back.

No further correspondence will be entered in to.

Your Dear Leader ( well, obviously you need one)

[Howard Brown]

C'mon fellas.....fight nice.
Thank you.




Let me ask you folks.....I know its an article of faith that as Littlechild typed 'Dr. D"....and that that is an indicator that he wasn't up to speed...or not au fait about the quack.

Isn't it possible he simply mistyped D for T ?

I think its worth considering.

[Jonathan Hainsworth]

He meant D not T

Don't ask me, Howard, to be spat on and pretend to like it. But in deference to you and your site I will do as you ask and let the latest salvo from that quarter go unanswered.

I will respond to your question Howard even though, apologies in advance, I may have to mention (speaks in low whisper) Montague Druitt on a Druitt thread.

Regarding D and T, of course, anything is possible. He may have mis-typed the letter.

What you have to further ask is whether it is likely?

Arguably it is not likely that the ex-chief mis-typed the letter D for T, because he is responding to that alphabetical letter, D, and asking Sims if his information - that is Sims' information - is garbled? That Sims perhaps should mean T rather than D?

Information that Jack Littlechild wrongly thinks originates with Anderson, via Griffiths, who was an unreliable police chief about this subject. Littlechild thinks Sims was misled by a conceited Anderson - and this is quite wrong, not about the conceited part, but about the origin of the information re: "Dr. D" which is arguably Macnaghten briefing Sims about Montague Druitt.

In my opinion, Littlechild, in 1913, came across an article about The Ripper case by George R. Sims (possibly the extensive 1907 article from "Lloyd's Weekly" Magazine) and was extremely perplexed about Sims' supposed police consensus-solution: that the murderer had been a rich, unemployed, middle-aged, asylum-veteran, doctor suspect who had comitted suicide.

This is because, to Littlechild, that could only be Dr. Tumblety and therefore Sims had some of the details wrong (e.g. Dr T was a Yank, not a Brit). For another example, Sims wrote that the police were closing on the doctor, but he escaped the net (and was next seen being fished out of a river). Whereas, Littlechild knew Tumblety had been arrested and then jumped his bail.

It was rumoured, however, that Dr T might have killed himself in France, so that broadly matches Sims' profile - or so Littlechild wrongly believed.

It niggled at Littlechild and he wanted clarification. I postulate that Littlechild wrote to his class and celebrity superior, G. R. Sims. This initial letter, which began the correspondence, has not survived.

Sims wrote back, providing his standard Ripper profile: his variation on Montie Druitt who was disguised - whether intentionally or not - as the mad doctor who drowned himself in the Thames. Sims always refused when asked to reveal his source for his hot inside info (Mac of course) and presumably stuck to that policy when writing to Littlechild. Instead he did what he had done in public; he referred as his authority to what Major Arthur Griffiths had revealed in his 1898 book.

Perhaps anticipating that he would need a little more heft than that, to show he had more than just Griffiths' information, Sims added what is not in that book. Not the name of Druitt, as that was verboten, but just the first initial of his surname: "Dr. D". That would surely do no harm.

Littlechild read this letter - which has also not survived - and was confident that the famous writer had definitely been misinformed (by Anderson via Griffiths). He therefore revealed what Sims had got right and what he had got wrong. He would know that the great Sims was a proud, old man who would not like to be shown up even in a private letter and so Littlechild is very deferential - and assures him that there is no need for a further reply.

Sims, I'm guessing, had referred in that letter to "Jack The Ripper" as if this was the killer's self-designation. No, it was a name created by a hoax letter by reporters writes Littlechild. In fact, since Macnaghten knew it was Tom Bulling as can be shown by other sources, then it is likely that Sims already also knew this. Ironically, it was Sims back in 1888 who instantly declared this letter a hoax before he knew who had definitely concocted it.

Littlechild tries to soften the blow by pointing out that T does rhyme with D.

It's not Littlechild's fault but he is [mostly] right about Tumblety but completely wrong about Sims' profile which is a fictional version, deliberately or accidentally, about Druitt. Littlechild had left the Force and was not in the loop by the time the second stream of information arrived "some years after" about the drowned barrister (rendering Druitt, rightly or wrongly, as the likeliest solution to Macnaghten and Sims).

Lastly, somebody has told Littlechild, quite falsely, that Tumblety was "believed" to have taken his own life. Other significant figures of that era also thought their best Ripper suspect was deceased when they were not. It was only Druitt who was dead; not Tumblety, not Grant, not Kosminski, and not Winslow's lodger. Did the same person mislead all of them?

[Paul Butler]

Jonathan. Rarely, if ever, have I been tempted to post anything on a Druitt thread, my abiding interest being in the diary. Being that sort of masochist I know what it's like when a perfectly good and plausible theory is shouted down by the mob who have little or nothing useful to add beyond their own prejudices.

I have enjoyed reading your original and fascinating take on Druitt's candidacy for JTR from the start, and find it plausible as a minimum. I never considered him as a serious suspect until reading your theory, and that has changed, not a lot, but it has.

Keep up the good work in the knowledge that there is very likely to be a sizeable silent minority reading it with a similar fascination.

Best wishes, Paul.