The Escape Of Jack The Ripper ( Hainsworth & Agius, 2020)

[Joe Chetcuti]

I'm just trying to piece this together. The Paris news report was dated Dec 24th.

The report started out by saying, "About ten days ago the Scotland Yard detectives in London were notified…" So it was around Dec 14th when the French authorities contacted Scotland Yard.

Then the Paris report told us, "A few days previously, a middle-aged man of respectable attire..." had told the French police that he was employed as an attendant at a private asylum outside of Paris. So this conversation would have taken place around Dec 12th.

The asylum attendant told his Dec 12th story to the French police and stated that, "Three weeks previously a new patient had been brought to the retreat." So the arrival of this new patient would have been around Nov 21st.

Druitt was still alive at that time. He had attended a sporting club meeting on Nov 19th and he argued a case in court on Nov 27th. He apparently behaved in a sane manner on both of those dates.

It seems like it would have been a tight schedule for Druitt to fit in a roundtrip to a French asylum between the dates of Nov 19th and 27th. It would also have been an odd scenario: Druitt is sane on Nov 19th. But he is sick and raving soon afterwards, so he is brought to France. Then he soon regains his sanity and is arguing a case in England on Nov 27th.

But if this asylum patient arrived in France between, let's say, Nov 10-15, then it would be easier for us to consider Druitt as having been the patient.

In their book, Jonathan and Christine provided what they think was the location of this asylum near Paris.

[Chris Phillips]

I'm just trying to piece this together. The Paris news report was dated Dec 24th.

The report started out by saying, "About ten days ago the Scotland Yard detectives in London were notified…" So it was around Dec 14th when the French authorities contacted Scotland Yard.

Then the Paris report told us, "A few days previously, a middle-aged man of respectable attire..." had told the French police that he was employed as an attendant at a private asylum outside of Paris. So this conversation would have taken place around Dec 12th.

The asylum attendant told his Dec 12th story to the French police and stated that, "Three weeks previously a new patient had been brought to the retreat." So the arrival of this new patient would have been around Nov 21st.

Druitt was still alive at that time. He had attended a sporting club meeting on Nov 19th and he argued a case in court on Nov 27th. He apparently behaved in a sane manner on both of those dates.

It seems like it would have been a tight schedule for Druitt to fit in a roundtrip to a French asylum between the dates of Nov 19th and 27th. It would also have been an odd scenario: Druitt is sane on Nov 19th. But he is sick and raving soon afterwards, so he is brought to France. Then he soon regains his sanity and is arguing a case in England on Nov 27th.

But if this asylum patient arrived in France between, let's say, Nov 10-15, then it would be easier for us to consider Druitt as having been the patient.

In their book, Jonathan and Christine provided what they think was the location of this asylum near Paris.

Yes - that was my thinking about the dates.



Obviously you have the advantage over me, having read the book. But Jonathan kindly sent me a personal message to confirm that he thought some details in the report had been altered as a diversionary tactic - particularly the implication that the patient was still in the asylum and the statement that he had been interviewed by the British detectives.

[Trevor Marriott]

I'm just trying to piece this together. The Paris news report was dated Dec 24th.

The report started out by saying, "About ten days ago the Scotland Yard detectives in London were notified…" So it was around Dec 14th when the French authorities contacted Scotland Yard.

Then the Paris report told us, "A few days previously, a middle-aged man of respectable attire..." had told the French police that he was employed as an attendant at a private asylum outside of Paris. So this conversation would have taken place around Dec 12th.

The asylum attendant told his Dec 12th story to the French police and stated that, "Three weeks previously a new patient had been brought to the retreat." So the arrival of this new patient would have been around Nov 21st.

Druitt was still alive at that time. He had attended a sporting club meeting on Nov 19th and he argued a case in court on Nov 27th. He apparently behaved in a sane manner on both of those dates.

It seems like it would have been a tight schedule for Druitt to fit in a roundtrip to a French asylum between the dates of Nov 19th and 27th. It would also have been an odd scenario: Druitt is sane on Nov 19th. But he is sick and raving soon afterwards, so he is brought to France. Then he soon regains his sanity and is arguing a case in England on Nov 27th.

But if this asylum patient arrived in France between, let's say, Nov 10-15, then it would be easier for us to consider Druitt as having been the patient.

In their book, Jonathan and Christine provided what they think was the location of this asylum near Paris.

I cant understand why the need to take him to France. He could have quite easily been ensconsed in a private asylum in the UK under a false name, or better still detained by his family. The latter would have been a much more viable option because they could have kept the wraps fully on the situation.


and clearly if what is written is to be believed, he did not remain in the asylum. All of this does not make sense.


Druitt`s status as JTR is poorly deserved and is lacking in any real hard evidence.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Chris Phillips]

I cant understand why the need to take him to France. He could have quite easily been ensconsed in a private asylum in the UK under a false name, or better still detained by his family. The latter would have been a much more viable option because they could have kept the wraps fully on the situation.

I must admit I'm still sceptical about how easy it would have been to confine someone to an asylum under a false name, whether in England or France.

[Trevor Marriott]

I must admit I'm still sceptical about how easy it would have been to confine someone to an asylum under a false name, whether in England or France.

In Victorian times I would suggest anything would have been possible with enough money. But this scenario as has been described from the book as it stands does not stand up to close scrutiny.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Paul Butler]

Sending a mad relative to a French asylum makes perfect sense to me. Out of sight and out of mind. Wasn't Montie supposed to have "gone abroad"?

[Cogidubnus]

I must admit I'm still sceptical about how easy it would have been to confine someone to an asylum under a false name, whether in England or France.

Have you ever read "Inconvenient People" by Sarah Wise? There are tales in there that'd make your hair curl...the point being, asylums were seen by some as convenient places to "disappear" inconvenient people...especially when reputation and/or money were at stake.

[Robert Linford]

Hi Dave


Did that include men as well as women, and in particular young or middle-aged men?

[Chris Phillips]

Have you ever read "Inconvenient People" by Sarah Wise? There are tales in there that'd make your hair curl...the point being, asylums were seen by some as convenient places to "disappear" inconvenient people...especially when reputation and/or money were at stake.

Yes, I have read that book. I'm sure the system was abused, but I don't remember any cases of people being committed under a false name. Of course, I may be wrong.

[Simon Wood]

In the Butte [Montana] Weekly Miner, 2nd December 1897, a story appeared entitled “Skeletons in the Closet,” telling of the “Society of Reformers,” a sort of self-help group for “gentlemen of birth and of breeding” who had fallen victim to blackmail. The article then went on to detail how certain noble families disposed of their embarrassing black sheep by having them consigned, often without trial, to Broadmoor asylum for the criminal insane, “there to be detained according to what is styled in official phraseology ‘during Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
It's quite a long story, so here's the gist of it—

"Behind the walls of [Broadmoor] are hidden many of the grandest names of the United Kingdom, and terrible secrets affecting old houses of the nobility, which are known to few save the officials of the home department in London, and perhaps to some of the superior officers of the London police.”

“Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was at Broadmoor that the blue-blooded perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders is now admitted by the authorities to have breathed his last and it is likewise to Broadmoor that will be consigned without trial the well-born and hitherto successful member of the bar whose homicidal mania has now been ascertained by the police to have led him to perpetrate the mysterious murder of Miss Camp, on the Suburban London railroad last spring, and likewise to put to death in an equally unaccountable fashion a young woman whose body was found some six weeks later at Windsor. It is probable that his true name will be kept from the public precisely in the same way as that of the author of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ series of murders.”

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Dave


Did that include men as well as women, and in particular young or middle-aged men?

The very first case investigated concerned a young chap called Edward Davies who was falsely committed by his own mother, the second John Perceval, again put away by family members...and so it goes on...and of course we only get to hear about the ones who succeeded eventually in getting out!

[Robert Linford]

Thanks Dave.

[Cogidubnus]

Yes, I have read that book. I'm sure the system was abused, but I don't remember any cases of people being committed under a false name. Of course, I may be wrong.

I don't believe the book itemises any cases of imprisonment under a false name, but thereagain, a patient's insistence on a different identity would just as likely be seen as further evidence of lunacy...so how would we know at this distance in time? And don't forget we only hear about the ones who got away, (albeit sometimes after several years and great cost).

[Chris Phillips]

In the Butte [Montana] Weekly Miner, 2nd December 1897, a story appeared entitled “Skeletons in the Closet,” telling of the “Society of Reformers,” a sort of self-help group for “gentlemen of birth and of breeding” who had fallen victim to blackmail. The article then went on to detail how certain noble families disposed of their embarrassing black sheep by having them consigned, often without trial, to Broadmoor asylum for the criminal insane, “there to be detained according to what is styled in official phraseology ‘during Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
It's quite a long story, so here's the gist of it—

"Behind the walls of [Broadmoor] are hidden many of the grandest names of the United Kingdom, and terrible secrets affecting old houses of the nobility, which are known to few save the officials of the home department in London, and perhaps to some of the superior officers of the London police.”

“Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was at Broadmoor that the blue-blooded perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders is now admitted by the authorities to have breathed his last and it is likewise to Broadmoor that will be consigned without trial the well-born and hitherto successful member of the bar whose homicidal mania has now been ascertained by the police to have led him to perpetrate the mysterious murder of Miss Camp, on the Suburban London railroad last spring, and likewise to put to death in an equally unaccountable fashion a young woman whose body was found some six weeks later at Windsor. It is probable that his true name will be kept from the public precisely in the same way as that of the author of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ series of murders.”

There's a Casebook thread on the murder of Elizabeth Camp, including the likely identification of the barrister suspected of her murder, Charles Augustin Prideaux:

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/police-officials-and-procedures/anderson-sir-robert/5061-the-murder-of-elizabeth-camp-1897

[Howard Brown]

Chris:

Thanks for that info on Charles Prideaux. I'm familiar with the Camp case but didn't know about the accused attorney.