Proof of Innocence?

[Chris Phillips]

The article is not specifically about test matches. It says "generally the same as the number of balls per over in force in other first-class cricket in that country."

That is confirmed by other online sources, such as this "A History of Balls to an Over in First-Class Cricket" (reprinted from the journal of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians):

https://acscricket.com/?page_id=464

At that level, a four-ball over seems to have been the invariable rule before 1889. I couldn't find any indication that it was different at other levels. If you can find any, please do. But if you can't find any at all, I think there will be a strong presumption that the same rule was followed.

On this point of the four-ball over - this was actually specified in the original version of the "Laws of Cricket" formulated in 1744:
"There were four balls an over in 1744 and this did not change until 1889 when a five-ball over was introduced."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Cricket

In case anyone is sceptical, a copy of the laws as printed in 1755 is available here (see "Laws for the Bowlers" in the first column):

http://originallawsofcricket1744.blogspot.com/

[Chris Phillips]

Chris’s discovery is very interesting. Why might Mr Brennand of the Recreation Ground Committee have been asked his opinion on early closing? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it had to do with the implications early closing would have on usage of the Ground.

Perhaps he told them, ‘If you push it forward to 4.00 o’clock, we could then start our cricket matches just after breakfast and get them over and done with before the masses get off work.’

(Mr Stow doesn’t have a monopoly on satire)

Whatever the answer to the particular question about the game on 30 August 1888, I'm sure it's no accident that two meetings were organised on the same day in 1883 by officials of the Recreation Ground Committee (1) to form a cricket club and (2) to adopt early closing.

[Michael Banks]

I didn't assume it - I pointed it out as a likely possibility. Taking a day visit to London to commit a murder is an unlikely possibility but seems to be assumed solely by those who think Druitt was the killer.

Firstly, and for 1,534th time, I have not said, and have never in 35 years of interest in the case said, that Druitt was the killer. Will this simple FACT ever sink in.

Secondly, why do you assume that he went to London specifically to kill? He not only lived in London but he worked there. How do you know (or how is it unlikely) that he might have had some kind of meeting during the day on the 31st and that’s why he travelled back? We have no way of knowing these things so why make an assumption? Unless to set up a straw man point of course.

Thirdly, if Druitt was the killer (and for the 1,534th time I’m not saying that he was) then he was a serial killer. How can any of us say that we could know his thought processes or be aware of what he felt or didn’t feel was a reasonable thing to have done?

[Gary Barnett]

Could you explain why you’ve resorted to a bit of Rubenholdian editing of my quote?



My point wasn’t simply about where the murderer picked up his victim but why he would pick one up at a location that he had no connection to and then take her to a location that he did have a connection to, to killer

I suspected as much!

This is what I love about ‘Ripperology’. We’re no nearer identifying JTR, but we now know stuff about rural Dorset that we might never have known if MJD hadn’t lived and played cricket there.

[Michael Banks]

Mr Banks
that was also satire

It’s difficult to tell for someone like myself who apparently has some kind of psychological or psychiatric ailment and who is so unbalanced by his rabid defence of a suspect that he doesn’t promote. So it’s understandable.

[Gary Barnett]

Whatever the answer to the particular question about the game on 30 August 1888, I'm sure it's no accident that two meetings were organised on the same day in 1883 by officials of the Recreation Ground Committee (1) to form a cricket club and (2) to adopt early closing.

And no accident that Thursday was both early closing day and the day favoured for mid-week cricket matches.

[Edward Stow]

Isn't that what I said Gary?

[Edward Stow]

Methinks the not at all, non, semi, partial, ok a little bit if you must, of a Druittist doth protest too much.

[Michael Banks]

So to briefly sum up.

We know that half day closing meant 4pm and we can say for a fact that the game wouldn’t have started at 4pm or just after.

We know that the weather wasn’t great but we have no evidence of the game being delayed (a small point is that low level games are a little less weather sensitive as higher level ones where results are more important to the team. I’ve played cricket in periods mild rain for example and wind wouldn’t have been a factor)

We can’t know exactly but our knowledge of cricket tells us that this was a game of very short duration.

We have it from people that study and research Victorian cricket that the likeliest start time was probably 12.00 or very possibly 11.00.

We know that there was a 4.55 train meaning that Druitt would have had to have left the cricket ground at let’s say 4.30 to have made, it which is no issue with what we know so far.

We can even state the ‘possibility’ that if the game did begin at 11.00 it could have been over by 2 making the 2.29 train possible (however less likely)

We know that we can’t assume that, if guilty, he’d have left for London purely to kill. For all that we know he may have had an appointment on the 31st.

…….

Now, I realise for some that I’m wasting my breath in stating that I’m not saying that Druitt was guilty because I’ll still be quoted as someone trying to prove him guilty. I’m not suggesting that I know his thinking more than anyone else could. I’m not saying that I know for a fact the starting time of the game. I’m not saying that I know exactly what the weather was like. I’m not saying that I can tell you exactly the duration of the game. Anyone is free of course to call Druitt a terrible suspect and Melville Macnaughten the greatest liar in the history of creation. But nothing changes the fact that nothing that we have learned so far in any way eliminates Druitt. Some will suggest that it reduces the likelihood and that’s fine, it’s an opinion, but I disagree.

[Michael Banks]

Methinks the not at all, non, semi, partial, ok a little bit if you must, of a Druittist doth protest too much.

Then your psychic.

Stick to your obsession with an innocent witness Ed.

[R. J. Palmer]

Given the date in question here's a possibility. Druitt would have has no reason to be in London, or even in Blackheath, because it was school holiday time. Could he have holidayed at the family home for some days before/after these 3 days. His mother was incarcerated on 5th July. Would it not have been natural for him to go home and provide care/company for his sister. That seems an entirely reasonable possibilty - far more so than going up to London specifically to commit a murder between 2 cricket matches.

With a few exceptions, the theorists here are clearly partisan---some want Druitt to have an alibi, some don't. I'm trying to remain objective and I can see that Gary and one or two others are as well.

To my mind, there is ZERO possibility that Druitt isn't staying down in Dorset for the summer break.

I don't make this statement without a reason--I've studied his pattern of movements, not just in 1888, but in 1887, 1886, 1885, 1884....etc.

And it's not simply a matter that he's playing various games in Dorset and Hampshire, etc. every August. It is that during that month he is also NOT playing for M.C.C. or Blackheath or other clubs that he is sometimes associated with in London. If he was up north, he would have done so.

This tells me he is stationed down in Dorset in August and very early September--during the school holiday.

But the question I think you should ask yourself is this: does that make it LESS likely that he would go on a whirlwind trip to London, or MORE likely that he would do so?

From your post, I gather you think it makes it less likely.

I'm not so sure. In fact, I think it is the other way round.

Let's leave the 'Ripper' question out of the equation-- focusing on that makes us stop thinking objectively.

From my point of view, if a man has lived the greatest majority of his life in London over the past 8 years, that's where his 'complication' are. His friends, his acquaintances, his enemies, his love interests, his business arrangements, his nagging obligations, etc.

Most of his life is in London.

And six or eight weeks can be a long time to put your 'real' life on ice.

And Druitt would have had two 'circles' in London at the very least--one in Blackheath and one in the City.

Given this, and given the fact that he's stationed in Dorset, I think this would increase the possibility that something could draw him back to London, if even only for a day.

Yes, he presumably played on August 30 and again on September 1st, but that could mean that he has a 40 hour window of opportunity, and with something in London beckoning, he might have taken that opportunity.

Until further information is available, I'm not convinced that he wouldn't have gone to London, even if it only left him with a 40 hour 'window' and 7-9 hours, possibly more, of that span being consumed in roundtrip travel.

[Gary Barnett]

Isn't that what I said Gary?

I’m sure it was.

[Chris Phillips]

We've been discussing the "return match" on 30 August, This looks to me like the first match, played at Wareham on 21 July, as reported by the Blandford Weekly News on 28 July 1888. No Druitt, but still a win for the Isle of Purbeck on the first innings, "time not allowing the game to be finished":

[Edward Stow]

To reiterate
I think it's almost certain the game started after 4.
That it was an established part of the half day closing 'festivity' (to slightly overstate it) - involving the Recreation Ground and the band.
The cricket was more background action - an event, a bit of sporting fun - than something that had to reach a decisive conclusion necessarily (this was evidently the case across a wider area where many were more interested in the social side of the lunch than the game itself).
It doesn't make much sense holding the cricket on half day closing and playing it in the morning. Given the choice, a boss with a good cricketer employee is going to prefer the match to be held when everyone has half a day off - particularly if this happens every week.

[Gary Barnett]

This is from the Croydon Gazette of 8th September, 1888: