Proof of Innocence?

[Gary Barnett]

Or else the original sculpture was quite different, and a local church group insisted that the artist add a pinkie, ring, and index finger.

Or the British version requiring two fingers.

[R. J. Palmer]

Or the British version requiring two fingers.

And all these years I thought you were giving me the peace sign!

[Gary Barnett]

And all these years I thought you were giving me the peace sign!

It was a V for victory, RJ!

I’ll pay more attention next time I go through Templecombe.

[Edward Stow]

I have reassembled all the relevant accounts from the Blandford Weekly News
This is from 25th August - advertising the Blandford Industrial Exhibition, Cottagers' Horticultural Show and Cage Birds' Exhibition held on 29th, 30th and 31st August (it was extended by a day).

[Edward Stow]

On 1st September 1888 the Blandford Weekly News reported on the Exhibtion... and the cricket match featuring Montague Druitt.
The report of storms in the afternoon interfering with the vegetable show relates to 29th August as is clear from this full report.

[Edward Stow]

The reason why the vegetable show was disrupted by the storm was that this part was outside and so rain at any time on 30th would also have made the vegetable show somewhat uncomfortable.

[Edward Stow]

The match is reported here, with the report that the weather was bad over the first two days - i.e. 29th and 30th.

[Edward Stow]

On 8th September an intersting cricket match was reported on between Durweston Boys and Shillingstone Second XI - on Thursday 30th August during very unfavourable weather.
Durweston were bowled out for a very low score - their second innings perhaps being affected by the bad weather as we now know that a sticky wicket - caused by rain - primarily adversely affects the batting rather than the bowling as was previously incorrectly claimed. This match also included a lunch break.
It looks like Durweston batted first - then Shillingstone - then Durweston's second innings. There was no need for Shillingstone to bat their second innings as Durweston had already failed to meet Shillingstones' first innings score.
On the same day the murder an inquest of Polly Nichols was reported on at reasonable length - with PC Neil as the discoverer of the body... The murder was presented as the third in a series - Martha Tabram's murder was alluded to and presumably they also counted that of Emma Smith. The dock fires were also extensively reported on.

[Michael Banks]

“their second innings perhaps being affected by the bad weather as we now know that a sticky wicket - caused by rain - primarily adversely affects the batting rather than the bowling as was previously incorrectly claimed.”

You clearly know absolutely nothing about cricket. A game that I played for 25 years and have followed for 45 years. A sticky wicket is not a sodden, waterlogged wicket despite your transparent (and more than likely deliberate) misinterpretation. I even posted a quote explaining to you about a sticky wicket. A wet wicket can certainly affect the way that the ball bounces which can make it difficult for batsmen but the true problems occurs as the pitch dries.

Have as many little digs as you like Ed. I realise that your little ‘celebrations’ have been spoiled.

[Edward Stow]

Oh dear Mr Banks.
I didn't say it was a sodden waterlogged wicket.
Who did? You.
I am familiar with the quotes you provided.
You claim to be an experienced cricketer, yet you incorrectly claimed earlier in this thread that a sticky wicket mainly disadvantaged bowlers, not batsmen. For obvious reasons.
That Druitt could, theoretically it seems, have got to London late in the night of 30th only diminishes his alibi to a slight degree.

The match ends - it can only have been around 4.30 at the earlier. But Druitt has plenty time to get one of the northbound trains from Blandford.
So he changes and has to take his cricket stuff with him to London. Pads, bat, gloves, whites, cap... box.
If he leaves it at Blandford left luggage, then when does he retrieve it prior to his next match on 1st September? Similarly if he left his stuff with a teammate how does he retrieve it to play with a completely different team?
He would have to leave it and retrieve it at Waterloo.
Did he bring his trusty knife to Blandford?
Or did he somehow buy a new one in London late at night.
Did he have access to his School lodgings out of term time at Blackheath? It seems doubtful as he seems to have spent his summers in Wimborne.
His Barrister's Chambers were a work office remember, not a doss house.
So what did he do prior to murdering Polly Nichols at the farthest reaches of Whitechapel?
Why did he chose Whitechapel anyway when he was right by a much poorer, dirtier, and equally prostitute frequented district in the streets around Waterloo?
Then, after getting to Blandford, playing a cricket match, getting up to London, stalking the streets until the early hours of the morning, and he then finds himself for some reason in Whitechapel... what does he do next? Does he have work to do in his Chambers as some have suggested? So he hangs around until they open, does his paperwork, retrieve his bag from Waterloo and gets a train back to Wimborne ready for his next cricket match? He would have been absolutely knackered by then.
Hardly an opportunist killer.

[Chris Phillips]

Getting back to the weather ...

The Met Office's excellent enquiry service has provided me with two more sheets of data, in response to my request at the weekend.

One is just daily rainfall, from a station described as Blandford Whatcombe. With a little help from online sources, this was recorded by John Clavell Mansel-Pleydell, who lived at Whatcombe House, Lower Whatcombe, which is about 4-5 miles south-west of Blandford.

The other is from Crewerne, about 25 miles to the west of Blandford, but about the same distance inland.

In terms of rainfall, the Crewkerne figure is quite high, but the Whatcombe figure is very small - only 0.07 inches. I think the variation in rainfall measured at different places must reflect the localised nature of the rain, which would presumably also mean the showers were of short duration. Particularly in view of the small rainfall at Whatcombe, I very much doubt the match that day was abandoned owing to the weather. But thankfully that is no longer a crucial point for us to determine.

[Michael Banks]

Oh dear Mr Banks.
I didn't say it was a sodden waterlogged wicket.
Who did? You.
I am familiar with the quotes you provided.
You claim to be an experienced cricketer, yet you incorrectly claimed earlier in this thread that a sticky wicket mainly disadvantaged bowlers, not batsmen. For obvious reasons.

This is simply a lie.

More charitably, not only do you have a poor knowledge of cricket but your reading skills don’t appear to be up to much either.

I said that a wet, soggy pitch can have uneven bounce which can certainly make batting more difficult but that there are also huge issues for bowlers too. This isn’t my opinion it’s a fact that anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the game would understand. Ask any bowler anywhere, no matter what level he plays at, if they would actually want to bowl on a sodden pitch for any potential advantages. Let me know if you find one that says yes.

I also said, and showed with quotes, that the big advantages of dampness is when the pitch is drying out but retains some moisture. This is also a fact not an opinion.

That Druitt could, theoretically it seems, have got to London late in the night of 30th only diminishes his alibi to a slight degree.

Stop sulking.

The match ends - it can only have been around 4.30 at the earlier.

An invention. The game could have ended much earlier. You continue to manipulate and invent. We don’t know when the game began, we don’t know when it rained, we don’t know how many times, we don’t know how heavily.

But Druitt has plenty time to get one of the northbound trains from Blandford.
So he changes and has to take his cricket stuff with him to London. Pads, bat, gloves, whites, cap... box.

He has a bag which he might or might not have taken with him. Your trying to turn it into an issue. Pathetic.

If he leaves it at Blandford left luggage, then when does he retrieve it prior to his next match on 1st September? Similarly if he left his stuff with a teammate how does he retrieve it to play with a completely different team?
He would have to leave it and retrieve it at Waterloo.

Or, a teammate dropped it at the family home and he collected it from there on his return. Or he took it to his lodgings in London then took it back. I can’t believe that this triviality requires an explanation.

Did he bring his trusty knife to Blandford?

Or did he pick it up when he returned to his lodgings? It was a knife not a crossbow. Another silly non-issue.

Or did he somehow buy a new one in London late at night.

No comment.

Did he have access to his School lodgings out of term time at Blackheath? It seems doubtful as he seems to have spent his summers in Wimborne.

This wasn’t a caravan park that he had to abandon during the holidays. Lodgings were lodgings. If you’re given lodgings as part of the job you’re hardly likely to have been forced to abandon them during the holiday period unless Valentine wanted to hire them out to a family of refugees for a couple of weeks. I’ve never heard such desperate bilge.

His Barrister's Chambers were a work office remember, not a doss house.

Really, no comment required.

So what did he do prior to murdering Polly Nichols at the farthest reaches of Whitechapel?

“Farthest reaches!” He wasn’t mapping the source of the Nile. It was Whitechapel.

Why did he chose Whitechapel anyway when he was right by a much poorer, dirtier, and equally prostitute frequented district in the streets around Waterloo?

Without a medium I can’t answer that one. It’s utterly irrelevant.

Then, after getting to Blandford, playing a cricket match, getting up to London, stalking the streets until the early hours of the morning, and he then finds himself for some reason in Whitechapel... what does he do next? Does he have work to do in his Chambers as some have suggested? So he hangs around until they open, does his paperwork, retrieve his bag from Waterloo and gets a train back to Wimborne ready for his next cricket match? He would have been absolutely knackered by then.
Hardly an opportunist killer.

No one knows what happened, unless they are so riddled with bias over their own suspect that they’ve manufactured a case against that they can make assumptions.

Why knackered? Kills Nichols - back to lodgings by what, 4.30ish. If he had a meeting next day who knows what time it might have been. It might have been 2.00. Giving him 7 hours sleep. You exaggerations don’t work.

All through this thread you’ve barely been able to contain your little jigs of celebration. We can see glee in almost every post. Now that ‘alibi’ has gone (and it has gone) you’re the only one still sulking and who won’t simply accept it and move on.

When you find something to eliminate Druitt I’ll accept it. As long as it’s fact-based of course unlike the tissue of biased manipulations that you’ve delivered above.

[Edward Stow]

What a load of 'utter drivel'... and do I detect anger? from the non Druittist Druittist. Yes I think I do.
He keeps going on about waterlogged wickets and how they affect batting. I only introduced a waterlogged wicket as a possibility for the match being totally abandoned (and so no further batting or bowling taking place, rather than the batsmen being bowled out for a low return on a sticky wicket) to allow Druitt to get an earlier train - something I clearly didn't think happened. I have repeatedly suggested a sticky wicket and low scores, not abandonment due to waterlogging.
I found my quote...

'Incidentally the low scores suggests a wet wicket that favoured the bowlers.
For the second innings to be abandoned early I would suggest that the pitch must have been totally waterlogged with no prospect of it drying out and so no chance of a spectacle for the late afternoon and early evening, half closing and expo crowds.
It is far likelier I would suggest that bad weather stopped play, but they cannot realistically have been in a position to judge that it couldn't resume before 4.30. Dusk was just before 7 and around that time cricket must have ended anyway. So at 4.30 there was still potentially two hours cricket available.'

Going through this thread I see that for a considerable part of it, it was assumed that Druitt could hypothetically have got to London - before the incorrect 4.55 deadline was found. We are back to the earlier proposition that it was hypothetically possible for Druitt to get to London quite late in the night, but not via his home town of Wimborne. Which creates some new issues.
The logistics of Druitt's travel arrangements, accounting for his cricket gear, his knife and where he would stay are actually of some importance.
Did Druitt have access to his term time lodgings during the close of school? I think it's probably unlikely that he did.
More implausibilties...
Which team mate went home via Wimborne to drop his bag for him?
He went from Waterloo to his probably inaccessible lodgings in Blackheath to get his knife, then went to Whitechapel?

Let the celebratory jigging continue.

[Tammy Green]

Well said Mr Stow, and if Nichols was the first murder in the serie, imagine Druitt taking all that effort to reach London just to kill his first one!

And the same can be said if Tabram was the first murder, this is not how it works, Druitt is not obliged to kill in the neck of time and only and exclusively in Whitechapel.


Druitt is history, only a couple of people want to still think he could have been the ripper, and for those, no amount of logical reasoning will make them change their minds, I know some peope believe Maybrick is the most likely suspect, very much the same.



Tammy

[R. J. Palmer]

Did Druitt have access to his term time lodgings during the close of school? I think it's probably unlikely that he did.

Why do you think it is unlikely? He's been living at the school for eight years.

Wouldn't it have been a major hassle to move all his gear down to Wimborne for five or six weeks every August, and turn in his keys?

I imagine if he wanted to spend a night or two at the school, he could have arranged it. Whether he did or not is another question.