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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 382
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 11:05 am: |       |
Chris (Phillips)
In view of your commants above about Wilde, you might be interested in an article I read recently. For your reference, it is Wilde's the Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome
Journal article by Christopher S. Nassaar; Explicator, Vol. 53, 1995
The author summarises his thesis as follows:
In late 1888 a murderer who came to be known as Jack the Ripper terrorized London prostitutes and captured the public's imagination through a series of violent crimes. Not only did he kill prostitutes with a knife but he also ripped and mutilated their bodies, so that the result was quite gruesome. By early 1890, when Oscar Wilde sat down to write The Picture of Dorian Gray, the figure of Jack the Ripper was still dominant in the public mind. My thesis here is that the influence of Jack the Ripper is discernible in some of Wilde's writings, specifically The Picture of Dorian Gray and Salome.
Hope it's of interest
Chris |
Martin Fido
Detective Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 142
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 12:17 pm: | |
I really don't know, Tommy, but I should have thought it is almost certainly the case. Doyle's hero is a wonderfully boastful, swaggering, sexy, but intensely loyal and good-natured Napoleonic dragoon who, e.g., thinks he's being cheered enthusiastically by the British for his fine marksmanship from horseback when a fox they are hunting along their lines bolts for the French lines, and he makes after it with his pistol drawn and... shoots it!
Was the racehorse a steeplechaser? I should expect something a little heavy to carry the name, as Doyle's Brigadier (like Doyle himself) is a big man who gets a lot of confidence mileage from his size.
All the best,
Martin F |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 89
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 12:32 pm: | |
Chris (Scott)
Thanks for that recommendation.
Chris Phillips
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Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 553
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 1:56 pm: | |
Hi Jeff
Sorry I don't have the Doyle book you mentioned, but I do have "The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes" compiled by Richard Lancelyn Green, which contains "The Background to Sherlock Holmes", a short article based on the autobiography. About the dinner Doyle states : "Stoddart, the American, proved to be an excellent fellow, and had two others to dinner. They were Gill, a very entertaining Irish M.P., and Oscar Wilde, who was already famous as the champion of aestheticism. It was indeed a golden evening for me. Wilde to my surprise had read "Micah Clarke" and was enthusiastic about it, so that I did not feel a complete outsider. The result of the evening was that both Wilde and I promised to write books for "Lippincott's Magazine" - Wilde's contribution was "The Picture of Dorian Gray", a book which is surely upon a high moral plane, while I wrote "The Sign of Four", in which Holmes made his second appearance."
Green says that Doyle was fond of recalling the occasion, and "even after Wilde's fall from grace, Doyle retained a kindly feeling for him, as he believed that he should have been in a consulting-room rather than a prison."
Doyle also mentioned the meeting in a speech in Australia in 1920, also in the preface to "The Complete Long Stories" (1929).
Robert |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 114
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 11, 2003 - 11:32 pm: | |
Hi all,
Martin, actually I am pleased that you agree with
my assessment of Doyle's strengths and weaknesses.
And I do like the Gerard stories, as well as the
Challenger and Holmes ones. But there was a nice
collection of ghost stories edited by Blieler for
Dover books that was worth reading too.
Thinking about it, Orwell also had some nice things to say about another Reade novel, HARD CASH, for it's readability. However, unless there
is some British paperback group that is republishing lesser novelists, it is doubtful that
one can read Reade for a reevaluation. I have only seen one American paperback edition of THE
CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH (Washington Square Press)
and it was published back in the 1960s. Interestingly they also published LORNA DOONE about the same time. However, many Victorian
novelists are under-published (possibly deservingly). Bulwer-Lytton's LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (groan) was published by Dolphin Books in
the 1950s, and I have an edition of his PELHAM.
About 30 years ago there was a series of first novels by Victorians that was published, including ones by Kingsley and Surtees (I tried
to read Robert Surtees and found him incomprehensible).
Chris, there was a theory nearly twenty five years
ago that Oscar Wilde's friend Frank Miles had
actually lived longer than was publicly revealed,
and was the Ripper. It is discussed in the 1975
edition of Donald Rumbelow's THE COMPLETE JACK
THE RIPPER. Part of the theory is that the murder
of the artist Basil Hallward was based on the
murder of Mary Kelly. Since Miles is not frequently discussed among suspects, I suspect the
theory has been pretty much rejected.
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Tommy Simpson
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 7:50 am: | |
Martin
Unlike the apparently somewhat heavy Gerard, the Brigadier(as he was known) was as svelte as a running cheeta. He was a flat horse, who's best distance was a mile, and would have covered that distance the time it would take you or I to walk down Berner Street to the site of Dutfields Yard from Commercial Road.
Tommy. |
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 94
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 5:19 pm: | |
I checked up on a couple of the Wilde references today, still with the object of clarifying what Macnaghten would have meant when he said that Druitt was - or was suspected of being - "sexually insane".
First, Jeffrey Bloomfield's reference to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Memories and Adventures (1924). His comments are on pp. 79, 80:
I should add that never in Wilde's conversation did I observe one trace of coarseness of thought, nor could one at that time associate him with such an idea. Only once again did I see him, many years afterwards, and then he gave me the impression of being mad. He asked me, I remember, if I had seen some play of his which was running. I answered that I had not. He said: "Ah, you must go. It is wonderful. It is genius!" All this with the gravest face. Nothing could have been more different from his early gentlemanly instincts. I thought that the time, and still think, that the monstrous development which ruined him was pathological, and that a hospital rather than a police court was the place for its consideration.
Clearly, Doyle viewed Wilde's homosexuality as a disease, but the mention of madness seems to relate a lack of taste in recommending his own work, if anything!
However, Wilde's petitions to the Home Secretary (to follow) seem far more potentially significant.
Chris Phillips
|
Chris Phillips
Detective Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 95
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 6:27 pm: | |
Going on to Oscar Wilde's petition for release from prison, as suggested by Martin Fido. Actually there were two petitions, both printed in The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 2000).
The first is very lengthy, and the excerpt from the web page I quoted above is abbreviated almost to the point of being misleading.
The following are the parts relating to "sexual madness" and so on. I'm afraid they are rather long, but I hope I have included enough of the context that people can make sense of them.
(The emphasis is mine.)
2 July 1896:
The Petition of the above-named prisoner humbly sheweth that he does not desire to palliate in any way the terrible offences of which he was rightly found guilty, but to point out that such offences are forms of sexual madness and are recognised as such not merely by modern pathological science but by much modern legislation, notably in France, Austria, and Italy, where the laws affecting these misdemeanours have been repealed, on the ground that they are diseases to be cured by a physician, rather than crimes to be punished by a judge. In the works of eminent men of science such as Lombroso and Nordau, to take merely two instances out of many, this is specially insisted on with reference to the intimate connection between madness and literary and artistic temperament, Professor Nordau in his book on 'Degenerescence' published in 1894 having devoted an entire chapter to the petitioner as a specially typical example of ths fatal law.
The petitioner is now keenly conscious of the fact that while the three years preceding his arrest were from the intellectual point of view the most brilliant years of his life (four plays from his pen having been produced on the stage with immense success, and played not merely in England, America, and Australia, but in almost every European capital, and many books that excited much interest at home and abroad having been published); still that during the entire time he was suffering from the most horrible form of erotomania, which made him forget his wife and children, his high social position in London and Paris, his European distinction as an artist, the honour of his name and family, his very humanity itself, and left him the helpless prey of the most revolting passions, and of a gang of people who for their own profit ministered to them, and then drove him to his hideous ruin.
It is under the ceaseless apprehension lest this insanity, that displayed itself in monstrous sexual perversion before, may now extend to the entire nature and intellect, that the petitioner writes this appeal which he earnestly entreats may be at once considered. Horrible as all actual madness is, the terror of madness is no less appalling, and no less ruinous to the soul.
...
It is but natural that living in this silence, this solitude, this isolation from all human and humane influences, this tomb for those who are not yet dead, the petitioner should, day and night in every waking hour, be tortured by the fear of absolute and entire insanity. He is conscious that his mind, shut out artificially from all rational and intellectual interests, does nothing, and can do nothing, but brood on those forms of sexual perversity, those loathsome modes of erotomania, that have brought him from high place and noble distinction to the convict's cell and the common gaol. It is inevitable that it should do so. The mind is forced to think, and when it is deprived of the conditions necessary for healthy intellectual activity, such as books, writing materials, companionship, contact with the living world, and the like, it becomes, in the case of those who are suffering from sensual monomanias, the sure prey of morbid passions, and obscene fancies, and thoughts that defile, desecrate and destroy. ...
For more than a year the petitioner's mind has borne this. It can bear it no longer. He is quite conscious of the approach of an insanity that will not be confined to one portion of the nature merely, but will extend over all alike, and his desire, his prayer is that his sentence may be remitted now, so that he may be taken abroad by his friends and may put himself under medical care so that the sexual insanity from which he suffers may be cured. ...
... earnestly does the petitioner beg that he may be allowed to go forth while he still has sanity left: while words have still a meaning, and books a message: while there is still some possibility that, by medical science and humane treatment, balance may be restored to a shaken mind and health given back to a nature that once knew purity: while there is still time to rid the temperament of a revolting madness and to make the soul, even for a brief space, clean.
...
There are other apprehensions of danger that the limitation of space does not allow the petitioner to enter on: his chief danger is that of madness, his chief terror that of madness, and his prayer that his long imprisonment may be considered with its attendant ruin a sufficient punishment, that the imprisonment may be ended now, and not uselessly or vindictively prolonged till insanity has claimed soul as well as body as its prey, and brought it to the same degradation and the same shame.
[pp. 656-660]
10 November 1896:
The Petition of the above-named prisoner humbly sheweth that in the month of June last the petitioner, having been at that time a prisoner for more than a year, addressed to the Secretary of State a petition praying for his release on the grounds chiefly of mental health.
That the petitioner has received no answer to his petition, and would earnestly beg that it be taken into consideration, as on the 19th inst. the petitioner will have completed eighteen months of solitary confinement, a sentence of terrible severity in any case, and, in the case of the petitioner, rendered all the more difficult to bear, as it has been inflicted for offences which are in other countries of Europe more rightly recognised as tragic forms of madness coming chiefly on those who overtax their brain, in art or science.
...
Of all modes of insanity - and the petitioner is fully conscious now, too conscious it may be, that his whole life, for the two years preceding his ruin, was the prey of absolute madness - the insanity of perverted sensual instinct is the one most dominant in its action on the brain.
[pp. 667, 668]
I think the significance of these documents is two-fold.
First and most obviously, Wilde uses the phrase "sexual insanity" to mean homosexuality, and this is almost exactly contemporary with Macnaghten's memoranda (two years later, to be precise).
Secondly, Wilde claims - whether with any sincerity I don't know - to be afraid that this specific form of "insanity" may be succeeded by a more general form of madness. If this really reflects late Victorian thought, Druitt's fear that he was going to "be like mother" could indeed be consistent with a view of homosexual tendencies as symptoms of incipient "insanity".
Chris Phillips
|
John Ruffels
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 96
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 7:36 am: | |
Oh what a tangled thicket of Delight these by-ways
of investigation are!
For anyone to claim they are not better informed- and indeed more rounded- as the result of these multifarious inquiries,is ungracious.
I have had a quick look to see if a book on visiting writers to Australia quoted any of Conan Doyle's mentions of his good friend Oscar. But no.
I shall delve further when opportunity arises.
So far, all I have discovered of reaction by Australians to Conan Doyle's 1920 visit is that the Presbyterians prayed for his boat here to sink. "The result was an excellent voyage"...
And Doyle's impression of Australian ignorance of spiritualism as "far behind Iceland and Denmark"..
.. "They want spirituality and dynamiting out of their groves, though" ... |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 593
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 9:11 am: | |
Hi John
The part of the speech quoted by Green runs : "On one occasion an American who was visiting London in order to secure cheap stories from the new writers, invited us to dinner with the intention of doing business afterwards. Wilde was one of the younger authors there, and I was also one of the company. The result of the dinner was that I wrote "The Sign of Four", and Wilde wrote "The Picture of Dorian Gray." "
The source for this is given as "Literature. Present and Past. Some Reminiscences", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "Daily Telegraph", Sydney, 17 November 1920.
I don't know whether or not there is any more about Wilde in the speech.
Robert |
John Ruffels
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 97
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 3:11 am: | |
Thanks for that reference, Robert. I'll check that in the State Library in Sydney this week and I'll report back.
Especially if Conan Doyle mentioned Oscar's "insanity".
It looks likely, from the newly presented excerpts above, Victorians did included homosexuality amongst other forms of sexual insanity.
But the drift I got was that, regardless of the inclination of the "insanee", it was more, the excess, - the lack of self-control- which Victorians frowned most upon.
At one early stage there, I was thinking Conan Doyle might have suspected Oscar of having picked up a dreadful disease: one which would send him round the twist.
Interesting stuff, all of it.
So does this mean Montague Druitt was a sex maniac of some kind ?
If the above definitions tend to indicate this, then Montague's "trouble AT the school" is looking more like discovered sexually interference with the pupils. |
Donald Souden
Police Constable
Username: Supe
Post Number: 1
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 9:50 pm: | |
This is my first post, so please bear with me if I happen to cover ground already well trod. That said, fairly recent posts have discussed whether MJD could have committed murder a scant five or six hours before playing cricket at Blackheath. The consensus seems to be that while physically possible, it would be highly unlikely psychologically.
Let me introduce some evidence, albeit anecdotal, to the contrary. Ty Cobb (and for the benefit of those unfamilar with baseball, let me say that 75 years after his career ended he remains one of the ten best to ever play the game) once played -- and played well -- a game shortly after he had shot a man dead on the street (and received a severe knife wound in response). When the story came out Cobb claimed he had been attacked and was exonerated, but with him no one was quite sure it had not been the other way around.
On a more personal level, just a few years back I played in a baseball tournament with someone who before he left for the game had beaten his girlfriend unconscious. And again, the only thing that seemed the least out of the ordinary in his play that day was the fact that he suddenly bolted into the parking lot when uniformed police arrived at the field.
Of course, both Cobb and my teammate were not normal people -- but neither was JtheR (whoever he was). Cobb was always so intensely competitive to be considered borderline psychotic by everyone who knew him and my teammate was (and may still be -- happily I no longer play with him) a sociopath.
And that, I think, suggests an important caveat when considering Jack and his actions. He was not normal in some very real and basic ways and thus we ought not fall into the trap of measuring what he may or may or not have been capable of doing by ordinary standards.
That some people in my experience are capable of playing competitive sports within a short of committing mayhem on others in no way means MJD did. But it certainly suggests that what we might consider "highly unlikely behavior" cannot be dismissed out of hand. |
John Ruffels
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 134
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 6:23 am: | |
Hello Donald,
A nice post for your first try. Well done & welcome.
I think you expressed some interesting ideas very clearly.
And I can see your point about separating the things we see such people as Cobb and your ex-friend and Jack The Ripper doing.
It all seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
I think I have heard of murderers returning to eat a hearty breakfast; or attending his own wedding in a seemingly jolly mood....
As one prominent poster has said in the past (I forget which one), they have no problem with Montague Druitt turning up for a game of cricket, and playing very well, after a late night of slaughter.
If, as some commentators believe, JTR's stresses were released and his sexual appetite sated by his glut of horror, then it is quite believable he could attend the next days game with vigour and verve. |
Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 192
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 1:36 pm: | |
Very good post Donald. I had always heard about Cobb's reputation but didn't know the specifics. One might also remember that John Wayne Gacy performed as a clown for children's birthday parties -- though I don't know how soon after committing any of his murders.
I have always thought there was a stronger case for Druitt than normally believed.
Andy
|
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 372
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 1:50 pm: | |
Hi, Donald:
What you have written makes sense. The competitive spirit and daring that you describe that makes up the athlete and the serial killer alike would, I think, make it possible for JtR to appear in a competitive sports event hours after committing a murder. The way I see it, as John Ruffels says, he could have felt good about himself, his "stresses. . . released and his sexual appetite sated by his glut of horror."
All the best
Chris George |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 326
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 3:24 pm: | |
Hi everyone,
I would agree,that it is entirely possible, that Druitt if guilty could have fullfilled his engagement playing cricket , an occupation he obviously enjoyed, his lust would be over , and it would have been a perfect release for him.
I also must agree that Steven whites description , fits him to a tee, also The man seen with Kelly by Thomas Boyer on wed 7th nov,could be a description of the same man.
I will be honest with you , if by some chance Leanne and myself do not assetain the truth in our forthcoming book , that he is number 2 suspect
But at this moment runner up, and that is not good enough to spend all this time on number one.
Richard. |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Detective Sergeant
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 120
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 6:08 pm: | |
Ah but did he go on to knock up a century after supposibly killing these ladies? With the adrenalin in him after the murders, he must have been in the mood to whack the ball all round the field.
Cheers, Mark |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 150
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 10:09 pm: | |
Hello Donald,
It is an interesting first posting, and it's main
thrust seems correct to me - Druitt (if he was Jack) could have played a normal game of anything several hours after he killed one of the victims.
But I have to argue that story about Ty Cobb does
not seem to be correct. I read a biography of
the baseball legend, TY COBB by Charles C. Alexander (Oxford, London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, 1985), and while he was
a definitely vicious type (he purposely aimed his
spiked shoes at the players of the opposite team, while stealing bases, and he did beat up heckling
fans) he never killed anyone. Oddly enough, murder did touch his life - his father was killed
by his mother in an accident similar to that similar one in the 1950s involving a socialite
familty on Long Island. That is, the father was
shot entering the house via a window, by the mother (thinking it was a burglar). Cobb, who was
very close to his father, never forgave his mother.
Yours,
Jeff |
Donald Souden
Police Constable
Username: Supe
Post Number: 2
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 10:35 pm: | |
Thanks everyone for the nice words. It was fitting that I made my first appearance on a Druitt board because when I first began reading about JtheR MJD was just starting to be taken seriously as a suspect. At present, I favor no particular suspect, but even if MJD knew no more about the murders than what he read in newspapers, his life at least provides several interesting puzzles to ponder.
Perhaps it is because I was once (shame of it all) a "card-carrying" historian, but this time around I would like to touch on what might be called the "temporal fallacy." That is, just as it can be illusory to project our normal (one hopes) thought processes onto Jack, so too ought we not look at problems posed by the murders only from our modern perspective.
As a minor example, much is often made about how Jack could safely navigate the night-time streets with blood soaked hands and clothes. Even if scholarship now suggests Jack would not have been "bathed in blood," anyone walking the street today with blood on their clothes and person would likely be noticed quickly.
Ah, but the East End in 1888 was not today. There were no sodium vapor streetlights turning night into day, but only dimly flickering gas lamps. The streets were not choked with vehicles sporting halogen headlights and the buildings abutting those streets were not aglow with electric lights, TV screens and computer screens. It was pretty damned dark out and that itself ought give us pause about some of the very detailed witness descriptions made from afar.
Moreover, again especially in Jack's baliwick, personal hygiene was closer to the dark Ages than modern standards. There was no indoor plumbing, far less hot-water heaters and no laundromats at one end of the street and a dry cleaners at the other. The people and their clothes would more often than not be stained and begrimed. Descriptions of the victims and their clothes bear this out -- like the apron so filthy is was difficult to believe it was originally white.
And what does this then suggest? That in the murky dark of the East End back then a man quietly walking the street in soiled clothes, even at the height of the Ripper-mania, might well go unremarked by anyone he passed. And, if the blood on hands and clothes seemed too fresh, there was always plenty of dust, dirt, grease and grime near at hand to smear over the stains. So long as Jack looked like many another slovenly carman, porter or laborer on his was to or from work in the nightly gloom, any residual blood would seem invisible.
This possibility would tend to eliminate the legendary "toff" as being Jack; an otherwise well-groomed and well-dressed gent with stained clothes and body would likely cause comment. Of course, this need not rule out an MJD, Maybrick or the like so long as they bothered to dress down while on the prowl. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 332
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 3:41 am: | |
Hi Donald,
Good post.. I think a lot of people try to analyze this case whilst living in the modern world, one has to try and focus on what living conditions were like during that period, and you have sumed that up well,
I do feel that the killer, was aware of any mess he might have been in, and tried to wipe away any visable signs [ Eddowes apron] and of course any well dressed gent committing these murders is fantasy.
There is a possibility that he carried a change of clothing such as overalls, or wore two pairs of trousers, there is some evidence on record of this being a possibility.
Richard. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1052
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 6:51 am: | |
I shudder to think what the future training sessions for the England cricket team might involve.
Robert |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 455
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 6:54 am: | |
Hi All,
I too have no problem with Jack saying to himself after a bout of murder and mutilation: "Right, done that, now for a nice bacon sarnie breakfast to build me up for another of my favourite sports."
But I'm not sure how well this fits with someone who is so depressed about the thought of turning into his mother that after his crowning glory at Miller's Court, the only sport he can think about is a watery workout - or solitary swimming with stones. No possibility of trophies there.
Love,
Caz
|
Severn
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 11:20 am: | |
Donald thankyou for your post.This is very much how I see it too-elsewhere on these boards I have just written about the illness of schizophrenia.I learned a lot of it from books my mother leant me. She worked with a lot of people who were ill with it, she was an Art Therapist and many of her clients were or had been professional people like Druitt two were doctors two were very fine artists one a civil servant etc but during a psychotic episode all their behaviour became bizarre and often violently deluded.But one of the other characteristics was a chilling "sang-froid"-so yes I believe the cricketing was quite possible.It may even have increased his skills!I apologise if this has been ineptly put together Iam aware that I have still a lot to learn from more experienced users and that I need to register to engage properly.Best Natalie S |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1054
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 10:52 am: | |
Hi Natalie
Carry on posting! But it is better to register if you can - unregistered posts tend to come with a time lag, and the name seems to disappear from the screen very quickly, which means that they can be missed.
Robert
|
Donald Souden
Police Constable
Username: Supe
Post Number: 3
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 12:38 pm: | |
Jeff,
To paraphrase Mark Twain, it would seem the reports of someone else's death at the hands of Ty Cobb were exaggerated and are at best "unproven."
The story was much as I remember reading it many years ago that in August 1912 in Syracuse Ty Cobb had killed someone on the street, though instead of shooting him had beaten him to death with the pistol he carried. Supposedly, three thugs had been hired to attack him in retaliation for a previous beating he had given someone else.
A few years ago, baseball historian Doug Roberts did some spelunking in the records and determined that there was no coroner's report of such a death nor any police reports to that effect. He thus concluded the trio of assailants had escaped unscathed.
However, Cobb was treated for a severe knife wound and Cobb and acquaintances were insistent he had chased down, pistol-whipped and at least left for dead one of his attackers. Given that Cobb had such a violent nature and was also the fastest man in baseball at the time, that he did run down and severely beat, if not kill, one of his attackers seems well within the realm of possibility. That hired hitmen would not then file a police report is understandable.
As with so much of the past, that particular legend probably deserves a "Scots verdict" in terms of veracity.
Still, that doesn't alter the fact that Cobb was often involved in sudden episodes of violence, only to turn around and perform at his usual high standard on the field. As might a cricket playing Jack.
And, Mark, in his next game Roberts did determine Cobb had two hits in four at-bats. Not quite a century, but better than Cobb's usual standard -- and he still holds the highest career batting average in major league baseball history. |
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