Archive through March 30, 2000

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Archive through March 30, 2000

Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects: Contemporary Suspects [ 1888 - 1910 ]: Druitt, Montague John: Archive through March 30, 2000

Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 11:09 am
The original article: - Forget the 'shawl', it no more belonged to Eddowes than it did Queen Victoria.
Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 11:29 am
Trying again, (scanner problems): -
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 12:03 pm
This is for STEWART and SIMON. First Simon: If you have any info on Lionel Druitt, post it here, anything at all, what kind of toothpaste he liked, anything. If it's too much I can post my email address. NOW FOR THE LONGER MESSAGE TO THE ERUDITE MR. EVANS: If you have read the People's Journal article, then I am going to have to take you very seriously. I am not writing a story where anything goes. I am trying to develop a premise that is plausible and allows for other elements of what I am doing to work with the flow. It is just your sort of criticism that I am fishing for on this board, so fire away all you like. One of the main themes in my own work is fact vs. fiction, truth vs. illusion, and you'll admit the subject of the Ripper is fertile ground for exploring those contrasts. HOW MAY I GET MY HANDS ON THE PEOPLE'S JOURNAL ARTICLE OF 1919? It goes without saying that I would like to read it myself. Actually you appear to have left a link, but it doesn't work. If there's a link to the People's Journal article, please simply post the URL here at your convenience. I would appreciate any information from anyone on this board to look the fabled piece over and form my own conclusions. Now, having said all that, my central point in my last posting was that Sugden did not elaborate on a facet of this research that was put forward by Rumbelow and apparently by Fido as well. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper left it at a footnote, a few passing sentences. So on that score, sir, I must smile and still gently site this as a weakness in Mr. Sugden's landmark book. Sugden could have cleared up a lot of confusion if he had gone into the detail you have poured out on this board. And if you have anything further to add, especially documentation, I am all ears. And certainly I'll check out your dissertation. But one of my biggest questions is how Rumbelow could say White was the person telling the eyewitness account when you say his name was never mentioned in the article itself? Not having seen the article myself, I would not know. Nor would I know that from reading Sugden's footnote. Simon has quote Fido, and Fido treats the article as coming from White as well. If you can make some sense of this to me, then we'll both have a candle in this dark corner of the cave. I may have more to say about both of the messages left here. But for now I must ruminate. In closing let me say that I seem to have chosen the smartest message board on this site. And anyone giving me feedback of the quality I have seen is certainly going to be duly noted in my yarn. Thank you for your time, Neal
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 12:18 pm
STEWART, as you can see it is impossible to read anything but the headlines. But I'll play with what you have posted and see if I can't enlarge it on Word or whatever. If this sort of thing works better by email just send an attachment to glass1999@email.msn.com. Thanks for the effort, Neal
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 12:25 pm
SIMON, I should say that I already do have Rumbelow's take on Lionel Druitt. I believe he was the first to mention that Lionel shared office space in Mitre Square about seven years prior to the murders. This involved a Dr. Taylor. And of course Peter has mentioned that he was living in central London in 1881 at the time of the census. There has been mention on this board of his staying with his uncle in Australia. And I know of dates that place him in in Australia after that on the weight of people who said they were acquainted with him. Beyond that, if you have anything to add from your own sources, by all means post it or send it. Thanks again, Neal
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 12:33 pm
STEWART, Word won't read your image. If you have some third party OCR software like Omnipage that can duplicate in text, you might try that rather than a photograph. If not please consider just emailing it as an attachment so I can play with it on my own equipment. Have a nice day, Neal
Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 02:11 pm
Neal, I did not say that Stephen White's name "was never mentioned in the article itself," as it most certainly was. What I explained, perhaps not too well, was the fact that the article was written under the pseudonym 'A Scotland Yard Man,' who was writing as a colleague of Stephen White who had just died. Thus it was a second-hand story by this unknown writer allegedly quoting White. Therefore, this article does not represent a first-hand story from White himself, although, unless totally invented, White may well have told this story, or at least a version of it. I will try to e-mail you a copy of the article. You have quoted both Don Rumbelow and Martin Fido, both friends of mine, on this subject. It is true, as Simon has pointed out, that what you have read is their own particular 'take' on the article and is thus opinion. Also, as Don will admit, his book is over thirteen years out of date and 'Ripper' research has moved on. As we know from other such policemen's stories, they often contained errors and faulty recall of facts. I hope this helps. Stewart
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 03:05 pm
STEWART, I appreciate all efforts to get the article to me. As for Rumbelow being out of date, that's a given. But this is still the author who established the Ripper's M.O. for the first time, as far I can gather. He also laid out the format that Sugden simply stepped into, just as he brought the discussion up to the level that it is today. The Complete Jack the Ripper was the turning point in Ripper studies. A classic. And if the author gave two pages to something that has since become part of the general lore on the subject, then it deserved more than the footnote that Sugden gave it. Clearing up misconceptions is the one thing nonfiction writers can do without ambivalence, I should think. Here I'm a story-teller trying to keep it real, so I expect the same from them. My only point for now. It's something you might even mention to Mr. Sugden for a future edition. Books are not written in stone. It's all ink and paper and ongoing. Thanks again for the feedback, Neal
Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 03:46 pm
Neal, Don is a very dear friend of mine and my comments are in no way a criticism of him or his pioneering work in the field. As you may well know I have been researching the subject for over thirty five years and photographed the murder sites back in 1967. It was about the same time that Don's own interest in the subject was developing. I have seen the progress of the 'Ripper' literature over the years, and I have every book written on the subject as well as all the official files, and much more besides. I recognised Don's book, which I bought when it appeared in 1975, as the best book I had seen on the subject. Indeed, it is still held in deserved high esteem all these years later. The book is a classic and Don is one of the true pioneers in the field of Ripper research. As I have said, Don knows that it is now out of date and would like to, and I hope he does, update it. It is only of recent years that people have realised the danger in accepting all the later newspaper stories as true. Interestingly Nick Connell has directed my attention to Stephen White's obituary and an observation made in it. This snippet casts more than a little doubt on the veracity of the People's Journal piece. The extract from the obituary reads: - "One night he was on what appeared to be a certain clue to the mysterious murderer of women in the Whitechapel region. He kept watch in an East End street, but the murderer's movements were not in accordance with anticipations. For about ten minutes only he left the street, and to his amazement he found on his return that a woman had been stabbed. He saw no man anywhere, and the mystery became even more baffling. [emphasis mine] As is well known, Jack the Ripper was never discovered." From this you will see that we are obviously looking at the same story but in a truer form. It mentions a stabbing only, which may have had nothing to do with the Ripper, and clearly states that White saw no suspect. I think we can safely regard the People's Journal piece as a prime example of press elaboration and fiction, and eliminate the man with the eyes with 'like two very luminous glow worms' as a press invention, or the invention of a cynical police officer 'feeding' the press a story he knew they would like. Stewart
Author: Neal Glass Tuesday, 28 March 2000 - 08:46 pm
TO ANYBODY WHO HAS TAKEN AN INTEREST IN MY EXCHANGE WITH STEWART: Stewart was good enough to e-mail me the People's Journal article. It has been difficult to read even upon enlarging, but it has not been impossible. The article is a tabloid piece. It can be compared to the National Enquirer here in the states. I don't know the British equivalent. But in papers like the Enquirer or the Globe you get stories about two headed extraterrestrial alien babies. That sort of thing. And that, it seems to me, is the quality of the People's Journal article. To date it remains inadmissible as a talking point for any serious discussion of the Ripper. Stewart has already pointed out that it is at best second-hand. White had died. That had not been my impression from reading Rumbelow on this, not at all. Considering this and considering that White could not have been at Mitre Square that night (or if he was, it would have been highly unusual), the article is useless. I still feel that Sugden could have been more articulate in his trashing of it. But I now feel he may have been holding back to spare Rumbelow and Fido undue embarrassment, as their scholarship here has not been the best, to say the least. I'm being kind, but Stewart has been very cool with me, and he knows these two. The article does not just stay with the familiar description of the Ripper known to most people who read the books. It goes on to detail a harrowing encounter White is supposed to have had with a gang of evil East End anarchists who put him on trial but spare him for some reason at the last minute. Obviously the story is just pandering to popular paranoia and xenophobia so characteristic of London in the early twentieth century. Sadly, like the alley Eddowes was found in, it's a dead-end.
Author: Simon Owen Wednesday, 29 March 2000 - 09:02 am
Incidentally , it was City PC Robert Sager who stated that the City Police Suspect was a man who lived in Butcher's Row , Aldgate. If PC Simpson had been watching Sugarloaf Baker's Court he could have been watching from the empty house in Mitre Square (North-West side) and thus when White turned into Mitre Square he would have been able to dash out and find the body. White might have been summoned by PC Watkins' police whistle as the latter dashed off to summon help. Sadly , just a theory ! The nearest British tabloid to the National Enquirer is probably the Daily Sport Neal , although there is a much greater concentration on sex and topless women nowadays. Still , some of their stories were classics : ' London Bus found on Moon ',' Hitler was really a Woman ', and the all time classic -' The Virgin Mary built my shed ! '
Author: Neal Glass Wednesday, 29 March 2000 - 10:50 am
Thank you for that note from the lighter side, Simon! I think I needed that just now!
Author: Neal Glass Wednesday, 29 March 2000 - 10:58 pm
In an effort to give some closure to my discussion with Stewart, I have sent an e-mail to Matthew Fletcher whose Casebook dissertation had influenced me in the direction of M.J. Druitt as a suspect in the case. Mr. Fletcher never sited the People's Journal article in his talk, but that is neither here nor there. I don't feel his position is as strong without a strong eyewitness. So anyway here is what I wrote to him in full: Here I am writing an e-mail message, but I'm not quite certain if this is going directly to Mr. Matthew Fletcher or not. But I'll assume he will read it, so I will address it to him directly. Mr. Fletcher, I was very impressed by your article on Montague Druitt. It is quite well written. I am also impressed with the Druitt message board here at the Casebook Website. There are a number of bright minds to be found there. So it seems that the most literate Ripper students do give a lot of credence to Montague's possible guilt. After reading your article I did. I was even going to use it as the basis of a story featuring Montague as the Ripper. But one of my naive assumptions was that there was at least some possible worth to the People's Journal article that quotes Stephen White as describing the Ripper. I realize you do not use this in your article, but it was part of the general Ripper lore that put your article into a certain context for me. This assumption got shot down in short order by Stewart Evans, co-author of The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper. He was good enough to send me a copy of the actual article, and I could see for myself that it was simply tabloid journalism, completely worthless. Seeing that there really is no witness of that caliber in the case, no constable, and realizing that anyone can make anything they like out of what most of the witnesses have to say, I have to step back from the article less convinced than I had been. Central to this is the fact that the killer of Liz Stride was seen with someone just as he was pushing Stride to the ground. The attacker pointed to the witness and called him by a local racial slur, indicating (a) that the attacker certainly was not Jewish and that (b) the killer was probably a resident of the neighborhood who did not look very English to the witness at all. The person who saw all this, as you know, a Jewish person named Lawende, is the one man that Anderson says was a "reliable" witness, for what that is worth. Lawende himself did not feel he could identify the man again if he saw him. Nonetheless it seems completely unlikely to me that he was seeing MJ Druitt. I seriously play with the idea that there were two men responsible for the killings that went on in 1888 (including those which happened after Druitt's death). When I think of it that way it still allows for someone else like Druitt, but then why Druitt at all? The reasons for Mcnaughten had him on a list seems dubious. Druitt is there in the company of Aaron Kosminski and this other character, the confidence man. Why is Druitt the more legitimate suspect of the three? Only because someone in his family or someone close to the family gave his name to the police, possibly. But then what self-respecting Victorian gives a family member's name to the police? That in itself is far more suspicious than the harmless figure of Druitt himself. It could have only been William Druitt who turned in his name, if it was indeed his family. Only him. But why would he do it? Why would he break this code of silence so deeply ingrained in any middle class family of that period of time? Why would he risk such a scandal ever coming to light, especially when we consider that his poor brother was already dead? Whatever danger William or some other Druitt may have perceived was over and done. The only consideration from there would have been the rest of his family, which he thought enough about not to mention at the inquest. We will never know how M.J. Druitt ended up on Mcnaughten's list. But I feel getting to the bottom of that is getting to the heart of matter. Regards, Neal
Author: Simon Owen Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 03:40 am
I think Neal that the consensus among the senior policemen was that , after the murder of Mary Kelly , the killer's mind would have snapped and he would have committed suicide. At the end of the year Druitt's blackened body was fished out of the Thames ( drowning was the favoured way to kill yourself in the 1890s ) after being under for several weeks - and presto ! a suspect is born. When it turns out that Montague had problems with his sexuality and in his personal life , that made the possibility of his being the Ripper even more likely. And somewhere along the way he was assumed to be a doctor or a medical student as well.
Author: Guy Hatton Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 04:22 am
Neal - You have completely and utterly confused Lawende with Israel Schwartz, who was the actual witness in the Stride case. Simon - We have no evidence whatsover as to Druitt's sexuality, problematical or otherwise. Any claims made are pure speculation. All the Best Guy
Author: Simon Owen Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 04:45 am
Nevertheless , Macnaughten assumed Druitt to be ' sexually insane ' which is a probable euphemism for being a homosexual.
Author: R.J. Palmer Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 05:13 am
Neal-- I think it might be premature to say that we will "never know" why Druitt ended up on Macnaghten's list. Surely it is a long shot, but researchers have come up with a heck of a lot of new information about Druitt in the past twenty years. For instance, he used to be thought of as a rather dismal failure in his law career, which now has been disproven. As for "problems in his personal life", the contrary seems to be true, he seems to have got on well with his collegues at Blackheath and at the Cricket Club...although he did, of course, eventually commit suicide. (It has been haunting me that Druitt did so a day or two after The Times mentioned his success in a legal case). I agree with you Guy, that Druitt's sexuality is total speculation. It's hard to even know what Mcnaughten meant by "sexually insane" (and this of course might have been based only on an unfounded rumor). Someone (Begg?) once remarked that Macnaghten used a similar phrase when discussing the homicidal Neill Cream, but this is hardly proof that Macnaghten had ironed down a specific definition for the phrase. Still, IMHO, I don't think homosexuality is a bad "guess" in regards to Druitt and his dismissal from the School and his subsequent suicide. One thinks of the Oscar Wilde case a couple of years later, and what a damning social stigma it would have been in Victorian England. This is pure speculation, but if this "guess" is true, could Macnaghten --in a very Victorian and simplistic way--have associated homosexuality with the hatred of women, and thus make Druitt seem a more likely candidate for the Whitechapel murders? This could be one possible scenerio how the hapless Druitt, though totally innocent, might have ended up on Macnaghten's list...
Author: Simon Owen Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 05:36 am
I think it is a very good speculation that Macnaughton believed that being a homosexual meant being a woman hater , and homosexuality would have been a very good reason for dismissal from a teacher's post , to protect the children from ' unwholesome influences ' ( in Britain we are still arguing about whether school children can be taught about homosexuality ). When I refered to Druitt's problems in his personal life however , I meant mainly his mother's slide into insanity and his own worry that he himself might go insane. The dismissal from the School ( according to Jean Overton Fuller this was on Dec. 1st 1888 , the day Sugden assumes Druitt killed himself ) might very well have been the last straw for a depressed and fragile mind.
Author: Guy Hatton Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 07:53 am
So long as we're clear that Druitt's alleged homosexuality is founded entirely on assumptions, guesses and the interpretation of euphemisms! :-) I'm puzzled, though, as to why Fuller should take Saturday Dec. 1 as the date of Druitt's dismissal, when his own suicide note points to an event taking place on a Friday which tipped MJD over the edge? All the Best Guy
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 10:11 am
Hi All, My impression was that Druitt's dismissal from the school had been on that Friday, 30th November, ie end of week (and possibly end of term?), but no doubt someone will correct me on that one. I thought perhaps that he was anticipating that people were bound to find out the reason for his dismissal, and the thought of his impending public disgrace (though never actually disclosed by the headmaster, possibly to save the school's reputation as much as poor Monty's), would be too much for him to bear. All IMHO of course. As for Macnaghten, can I refer you all back to Peter Birchwood's post of Monday, March 20th @ 12.32pm, in which he noted: �Interestingly enough, at a nearby school in Wimborne Minster there are 3 boys being educated: who are probably brothers: Alan, Melville and Mayo(!) Druitt aged 17, 14 and 11 all born at Christchurch Hampshire. Use of the reasonably unusual first name: Melville does make me wonder if there is a family link between the Druitts and Melville Macnaghten.� Well, checking the Full Monty story in my well-thumbed copy of the JtR A-Z (have you noticed my penchant for A-Z quotes on these boards? :-)), I came across a wonderful bit on p113 which makes it look like Peter was absolutely right to wonder about that family link. What�s more, the A-Z then directs us to W. Boultbee, lurking on p54, where we find, wait for it...one Alfred MAYO! (Well done Peter. And thanks for replying to me elsewhere, talk again soon on that one :-)). Love, Caz