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Druitt, M.J. and James Kenneth Stephen
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Druitt, M.J. and James Kenneth Stephen
Author: Tom and Raphael
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:15 pm |        | Has anybody read "Jack the Ripper revealed" by John Wilding? He brings up a somewhat curious theory claiming the Ripper was J.K.Stephen together with M.J.Druitt as his accomplice. Here's a summary, as short as possible:
Mary Kelly got pregnant by Prince Bertie and visited Druitt for counsel. Druitt immediately told the news that Bertie was going to have a child with a catholic prostitute to Stephen. Stephen got heavily worried about the future of monarchy as well as about his own future which he started to prepare by his friendship to Eddy. Thus his intention formed to kill the prostitute and her yet unborn baby. He won Druitt's support of his plan. M.Kelly, anxious to be observed, lent her bonnet to Nicholls at the "Britannia" pub; the cunning worked, Stephen followed Nicholls and killed her.
By media Kelly learned that Nicholls was killed and went to Druitt again, where she claimed, she had given two souvenirs, either stolen or recieved from Bertie, to one Annie Chapman - just to protect her own life.
Stephen killed Chapman and searched through her possessions for the two souvenirs. Queen Victoria got informed, that there was a women pregnant by her son; she wanted to save the life of the great-grandchild of Albert and declared, the child should be born. A conspiracy rose to protect Kelly.
But Eddowes claimed she knew the Ripper. And Druitt gave away Stephen to Abberline, which was not allowed to arrest him, but he gave him a piece of his mind.
It was part of the establishment conspiracy to reduce Eddowes to silence. It was planned that Kelly, now involved into this conspiracy, should make Eddowes drunk and leave her alone to be picked up by the police. At fixed time Eddowes would be released and Kelly was there to get Eddowes off her way home.
In the meantime Stephen an Druitt went to Berner Street, where they kept stored a carriage. But Stride was there and recognized the two men. Previously they may have asked her to show them Chapman. Druitt recognized her first and shouted to Stephen "(It's) Lizzie!", what Schwartz understood by mistake as "Lipski!" Druitt forced Stride into the doorway while Stephen was chasing Schwartz. When back to Dutfield's Yard, he forced Druitt to kill Stride and then they went to their meeting with Kelly and Eddowes, picked up Eddowes and Stephen killed her.
At Miller's Court Stephen killed someone else instead of Kelly. Thus Kelly officially was declared dead preventing a scandal, but the child survived according to the desire of the Queen. At least Stephen killed Druitt.
So far, so good. For Tom and me it looks like that Knight stuff and is hard to be accepted. But what is really tickling, is Wildings "evidence". He claims, the Goulston chalk message is an anagram. It reads:
"F.G.Abberline. Now hate M.J.Druitt. He sent the women to hell"
And the Liverpool letter, dated "29. inst." is, according to Wilding, an anagram too. It reads:
"To Charles Warren: 1. A Annie Chapman did not hold Bertie's 2 souvenirs. 2. I work at it - I lie in wait; i.e. the 9th November, Montague Druitt and I gag a bitch. I rip open Kelly. I save HRH crown an a 12th stroke. James Stephen."
But not enough: The Prince William Street letter, as an anagram, reads:
"I kill. Can the police trap me? I live in a Watling Street harem with people who love to fight fire. Come here. Yours, James Stephen. V.R."
Concerning an address, where Bertie used to stay for some doubtful entertainment, women as well as fire fighting.
Is there no mathematician amongst us, which could give us a probability calculus of sense making anagrams? Wilding claims, his three anagrams would be accepted by any court as an evidence.
What do you all think about it? |
Author: Dick Coburn
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:15 pm | | Not that it proves anything one way or another, but with very little shoehorning, the anagram you present could be rearranged into some statements that contradict each other. E.g.
"F.G. Abberline. Now hate M.J. Druitt. He sent the woman to hell."
"F.G. Abberline sent the woman to hell. Now he hate M.J. Druitt."
"F.G. Abberline hurt women w'th aid; O.J. sent them to hell at ten." ;)
(Sorry, couldn't resist.) But there are many others here that may be uncovered with a little more work:
"Wow, then Abberline loathed MJ. He frets not. Laugh, little man."
There are enough contradictory anagrams that refer to key people in the case that anyone trying to send a specific message would realize that nobody could ever know which message was the intended one. |
Author: William Tunstall-Pedoe
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:16 pm | | I have already looked closely at these texts about a year ago. I was approached by some people who were making a television documentary on this new theory and I made a special version of Anagram Genius for them, capable of taking very long texts.
I don't know what happened to the documentary - informed opinion was so against the theory that it probably never materialised. However, people involved in the Ripper mystery got very excited at the time.
I have seen the other texts and their proposed anagrams. One is about a hundred letters long and there is another even longer than that. The very simple refutation of the idea is that the English in the anagrams is awkward and inconsistent while the graffitti text is smooth flowing English. If the Ripper had written a real message and then muddled up the letters before writing them on walls you would expect this to be the other way around.
The second argument is based on the sheer volume of anagrams that can be made from long texts. I posted a calculation of the number of meaningful sentences that can be made from a set of scrabble letters (100 letters) a few weeks ago. My conclusion was a really stupid number, so big they could never be calculated and you would need to convert all the matter in the universe into hard-drives to store them (literally).
With large numbers of letters you can say virtually anything. The definitive refutation would be to take the texts and use them to "prove" using anagrams that Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan was actually the Ripper. (Unfortunately this would take more time than I can spare at the moment.) |
Author: Odista
Saturday, 05 December 1998 - 01:05 am | | This has got to be the most absurd theory I've ever heard. Anagrams? First of all, how do we know that Jack wrote the Goulston street message and the letters? Most likely the letters were hoaxes and the Goulston street message had nothing to do with Jack. That effectively flushes this theory down the toilet.
Of course, as previous posts had pointed out, you could make an anagram out of anything provided you have enough letters to work with.
The identity of JTR should be based upon facts and not wild speculation. I can't believe how anyone could take this nonsense seriously. |
Author: Kenneth Stephen
Sunday, 13 December 1998 - 02:48 pm | | | I have always favored M.J. Druitt as a suspect, but I think this theory requires some real imagination to make it work. I tend to think of what A.C. Doyle said via Sherlock Holmes (and I paraphrase)," the simplest explanation is usually the correct one." |
Author: J. Helsing
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 09:30 am | | Dear Odista,
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the message in Goulston Street was NOT written by JtR. The piece of Eddowes' bloody apron is just too much of a coincidence. If the message was not written by the Ripper, then I believe it must have been written by an accomplice. Hence, this theory is not flushed down the toilet by myself, or other various Ripperologists, effectively or otherwise. |
Author: RSattherwaite
Monday, 19 February 2001 - 01:49 am | | | Druitt's known cricket fixtures for August and September 1888 cast real doubt upon whether he could have committed three of the murders. |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 07:59 am | | J.Helsing's commitment to the belief that JtR or an accomplice wrote the Goulston Street graffito, and so neither he nor some other Ripperologists can commit the Wilding theory to the toilet, is obviusly sincere. But I don't myself know any other informed students of the case who still believe the Ripper had an accomplice. (We now know that the formula offering a reward to any accomplice not actually involved in commission of the murder was in fact the set form always used by the Home Office on the rare occasions when rewards were proposed). And while I know one or two people who, like myself, find John Wilding such an agreeable and sincere man that we'd love to agree that his theory is viable, I don't know any who are able to do so. Eheu!
Martin Fido |
Author: Sabine Maria Buechers
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 01:19 pm | | Can it have been Druitt?
To most "Druittists" among people who are interested in the Ripper-Case, the question will be as superfluous as the confession I'm going to start with may seem blasphemic: I used to be a Druittist faute-de-mieux - which means that I conceded to Druitt possibly being the man wanted just because he was the least unlikely. That was what I thought after reading Cullen and others. Since reading Howells & Skinner again - I read "The Ripper Legacy" once before, but I didn't know then what I know today - I'm getting closer to a real acceptance. Howells & Skinner manage to explain things that were, for a long time, inexplainable; especially they achieved to show that the most far-fetched theories usually contained one grain of truth, and therefore deserved considering and reconsidering.
What is missing, though, in their theory as in many others, pro or against Druitt, is a psychiatric evaluation of historical and criminological facts in the Ripper Case: Does the classical Serial-Killer-Theory back up or refute the conclusion of Montague John Druitt being Jack the Ripper? For a classical serial killer Jack the Ripper was, as much as Tschikatilow or Jeffrey Dahmer were, without the shadow of a doubt.
I cannot claim to be an authority on this subject. I'm a student of special pedagogics, and while psychiatry is a part of my future profession, the part of it considering serial killers and other major disturbances of the mind is only marginally touched in the field of children and youths with problems in mind and emotion, is, in fact, touched only because Tschikatilow once was a 14-years-old pupil who might not have killed anybody later on, if he had, then, been recognized for what he was. What I know, may be better known by others. Still, I would like to compare it with what I have learnt about the murders that took place in the autumn of 1888 in Whitechapel and Spitalfields. So, let's look at serial killers, let's do it carefully and slowly and take it step by step.
There are some criterias, as described for example by Ressler & Shachtman, which are true - if only more or less true - of every serial killer. By "more or less true" I mean that to many rules there is a additional sentence starting with "Except if ...". Anyway, so here goes:
a) The classical serial killer is a male and he is a Caucasian, meaning a white person. It is true that there have been series of killing by females (I'm not talking Lizzie Borden; direct your thoughts rather to the many hospital nurses who recently have been convicted for killing patients or else to Myra Hindley), but in their cases the killing was worst consequence of a disturbance which might easily have resulted in less gruesome effects or else these crimes were committed in connection with a male. There has, however, never been a Native or a person of Asian or African origin who showed the symptoms of a true serial killer.
b) The classical serial lacks any motive beyond the killer's own compulsion: the killer does not bear any grudge to his victim and in most of the cases the victim was completely unknown to him before the murder. Serial killer's have, however, been known to kill for the first time somebody they knew - for example, if the first victim was the easiest available - or else for the last time somebody important to him: Somebody with whom the hate of his mother is the heart and core of his disturbance may kill women he doesn't know and end up in killing his mother, usually afterwards provoking his arrest, because even doing what he had wanted to do most in the world did not stop his urge to kill. Keep this in mind, we may have to come back to this point later on.
c) Usually, the victims have one thing in common. This may only be their sex, more often it is their sex in combination with their age. One might say that this is because the victims represent the sexual orientation of the serial killer. The flaw in that is that usually he doesn't develop a halfway normal sexuality so that there isn't much you can find out about a sexual orientation. Jürgen Bartsch would have been a homosexual and indeed his victims were young boys, but this was because they reminded him of himself at a crucial point in his life; Jeffrey Dahmer had sexual intercourse with young men of his own age before he moved on to killing them. Bruno Lüdke killed women who were his mother's age. Ted Bundy's victims were young women with long hair parted in the middle who would have been his wished-for sexual partners if he had been capable to have a normal sexual life. There are exceptions to that: Tschikatilo killed men, women, girls and boys, and if the latter were his "favourites", his real inclination lay not in the killing, but in the eating up of organs taken from the bodies. Keep this in mind, too, I'm sure you know already where I'm heading, but do you know why?
d) At the time of his first murder, the serial killer will be a young adult, which means 21 - 25 or 27 at the most. The unfailing certainty of this is based on the fact that his disturbance is a psychosis which must be qualified as endogene and the development any psychosis must invariably take: the disturbance usually begins to build up at the onset of puberty and, just as it takes a certain amount of time to grow the body of a child into that of a sexually developed male, it takes at least 5 years for the disturbance to grow into a full syndrom. During this time, the person in question will be likely to show some symptoms, which, however, will be more or less remarkable. After this period of time fantasies, an inherent factor in the life of any serial killers, will be starting: A serial killer has been dreaming of murder many, many times before committing one, and will continue to do so long after the last one, sometimes for ever. The intensity of these fantasies, starting at the age of at least 16, more likely though, at 17 or 18 years, sign responsible for the lack of his grip on reality that will set on, at the latest, during this time: A serial killer may have daydreams about violence and murder and feel the same amount of guilt about them as if he already had committed a crime; when, finally, he has killed for the first time in his life, he may believe that he only dreamt the killing, thus denying any feeling of guilt. Still, a serial killer is not a person without a conscience or without morale or without fear; although he wants to kill, and wants it more and more, he wants, at the same time, to avoid the killing - more than anything else in the world. He may then take to substitute activities - apart from the fantasies he indulges in there is an unending variation of these, from drugs to verbal aggression to minor violence - bullying, destroying of things, robberies, whatever - to the killing of animals which is something many serial killers "in the making" have seeked relief in. For this period a durance of 2 or 3 or even more years may be supposed, so that he would then be 21 or 22. From then on, things depend on chance:
e) While it is true that at this time of his life he is comparable to a ticking bomb, in most cases the first murder does not happen out of the blue. Something sets him off: the loss of a job is a classical example, simply because he has a lot of time then and his self-esteem is at it's lowest point; there is, too, the loss of a person, as in the separation from a wife or mate, if he has one, or the loss of a parent especially if that parent is an authority in his life; but things can be much simpler than that: he may be attacked in the street by a burglar and respond with violence, thus being put on a track.
f) A serial killer is not a person without morale, strange as this may sound. It is just that in his psyche, the inclination to the Freudian entities of Eros (sexuality, erotic and anything that keeps life up) and Thanatos (death, aggression, destruction) are more widely separated from each other - albeit never completetly - than is the case in a sound mind. It is very likely that in his normal life he has not found a way to express a normal amount of aggression at all, or if he did, aggression found a sick outlet, as is the case when aggression is turned onto himself and nowhere else: some serial killers love to hurt themselves physically, or else are addicted to drugs or booze; a certain kind keep back their defecation for weeks. Usually, his personality is a bit split in one other way as well: While on the one hand he takes an enormous pleasure to be cleverer than police and authorities, on the other hand he suffers both from what he is doing in itself as from his qualms of conscience, and he wants to get caught. Before he was arrested, William Heirens wrote on a wall in a hotel room: "For God's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself!" Edmund Kemper frequented a pub where policemen working on his case usually had a drink after their shift and became good friends with some of them. This controversy accounts for the fact that serial killers sometimes mix with the crowd gathering around a victim or even pretend to have discovered it and then proceed to alarm the police - which, in the case of Polly Nichols, the Ripper may well have done.
So far the theory. Let' s now move on to compare it with what we know about Jack the Ripper and about Montague John Druitt.
1) That Druitt was a white male does not need to be discussed, and indeed we may suppose that his choice of victims - if it was Druitt who made the choice - fits the picture:
A) While he was familiar with Spitalfields and Whitechapel - not from visit in the institution where his mother was supposed to be at the time, but from his connection to the Cleveland Street brothel - so that he may have known some prostitutes from sight, he was not likely to have frequented them or to know them by name or to talk to - to know them as the human beings they were, which would have made them unfit to become victims. You will have noted that while Chapman only resorted to prostitution if she had no other way to survive and Kelly who was young and did have a room though she might not have kept it for much longer, the Ripper's victims were whores of the East End kind, which signed for availability: without a roof over their heads, without the possibility of keeping themselves clean, of an age that would have made prostitution impossible anywhere else (except if you let younger women do the job in a house that belonged to you, of course, which is quite another picture), alcoholics and visibly sick. Of these, Eddowes probably was worst off as the woman who was dirtier than others from hop-picking, drunker than others as she stumbled her way rather than going it, and so sick that she would have died in that same year. He probably told himself he might be doing her a favour.
B) That he did not bear them any grudge is obvious as well, in fact, you may suppose none of his victims suffered much, as the killing was a quick as possible and the mortilation as his "trademark" took place when they were already dead. One victim was heard to say "No" (Chapman, in Hanbury Street), once there was a cry "Oh, murder!" (Kelly, Miller's Court) and that one may not even have come from herself. In any case, a moment of fear was all they had to endure, then it was all over.
C) Druitt's own sexual orientation seems to be a crucial point. Howells and Skinner quite plausibly apt for the opinion that he was a homosexual - which Sir Melville described as "sexually insane" - and according to them accepting that Druitt's sexuality was directed at his own sex is the base for any persuasion that he might have been the Ripper: Only as a homosexual could he have been part of the Cambridge Group around Prince Eddy who frequented the brothel in Cleveland Street which had a homosexual clientèle, only his being part of the group would explain the hushing-up of his identity, only his connection to Cleveland Street would make it possible for him to be familiar with London's East-End in the first place. If you believe Druitt the killer you have to believe he was gay. Still, his victims were women. Ah, but not to have sex with them. Not really to kill them, even. (That would be only the case if to him they had been imaginable as sexual mates. Anyway, if he had been satisfied by the killing, he would not have turned to Mitre Square and Catherine Eddows after having been disturbed by the arrival of Mr. Diemschutz in Berner Street, als Liz Stride was dead by then). What he really wanted, merely made it necessary for him to kill them first. And what was it he really wanted, needed, to do?
A homosexual man who turns aggression towards women is not all that unusual, but in general you find this in men who are not just homosexuals but who, as well, identify, at least partly, with women - or with one woman, who, of course, must be their mother or whoever raised him - which means that they are really transsexuals or at least aimed in the direction of transsexuality, women in men's bodies; the aggression has its roots in the knowledge that they can't be women, never ever. If now it is in someone of an abnormal psychical structure that this bitter knowledge is settled, it may open the way to an inclination to incorporate a woman into the own self. To achieve this, you need of course, to take complete control over her, and who is as helpless as a dead body? Part of this inclination would be an urge to know about a woman's body, and how would you find out if you didn't take a look inside - which of course would mean to rip her open? And what else could you do then, if you wanted part of her to be part of you? You would have to eat it. You will remember the letter the Ripper wrote to Mr. Lusk, saying he had done exactly that, and enjoyed it.
2) The most crucial point of course is Druitts age at the time of the murder. He was in his early thirties. This would have been far to old to begin a life of serial killing. There have been exceptions to it - what else? - as follows:
- A person may been convicted for a minor offense before and was in prison at the time when, in other circumstances, he would have started to kill.
- It is imaginable, too, for a serial killer to have been in the army at the time in question, thus having been bound to a certain place as well as having been stabilized to some extent by a rigid frame provided by the army, so that the need to kill did not arise or not enough to ripen into action. In any case, for a delay of ten years - which would have to be assumed if Druitt were the killer - only a kind of confinement could be the reason.
- There have been cases known, of course, where, in a person of considerable intelligence, stabilizing factors - classical one: a wife and children who must be protected from suffering - did cause a delay, but this can only work, if it works at all, for a much shorter period of time, two or three years at the most.
And what does all that mean in regard to Mr. Druitt?
A) There was a confinement, true. The education one needs to become a barrister was and is not only expensive but, then, took place in a truly cloisterly atmosphere where every step was watched and "steps out" - like in the direction of Cleveland street - could only take place if he was protected by his special circle of friends (at least one of which was a barrister, too, I believe) and were still a high risk not to be indulged in often. If one supposes this is what happened, it may take off three years.
B) There were stabilizing factors in his life, too:
a) His mother was alive and until shortly before the murders started, without symptoms of psychical illness. It is quite possible that her influence on him was considerable, so that he would have wanted to spare her pain and shame, and made do with what he had.
b) What he had, was the other stabilizing factor: Cleveland Street - again, I know - or the circle of gay friends he had come into contact with who lead quite an exciting life that may have been a surrogate for him for a while.
c) And once more, Blackheath, not as a confinement, (if you were thinking along that line, forget it; if he can be believed to have been the Ripper at all, he must have managed to get to Cleveland Street from there, and anyway, he could go to London frequently and did so, too, as his tickets have proven) but as a surrogate as well. It was a boy's school, and he was gay. The fact of his sudden dismission and the report Druitts brother gave of his encounter with the headmaster gives way to the opinion that an involvement of sexual nature and maybe more (sadism/masochism) had been discovered. It may have served as a substitute for a darker urge as well as his Cleveland Street friends did.
C) And still, it's not enough. It does take off a certain time of these ten years he is too old to evolve, in the autumn of 1888, as a serial killer, but not nearly enough to make him a likely suspect, except ... Except if his first murder did not take place then but before, and maybe long before. We don't know much about Druitts life but let's take a look at what we do know: His family was a good one if a bit low on money by the time he was an adolescent, he went to an excellent private boarding school and then to Oxford, where he seemed to promise a great career both as a scholar and in sport, he was a bit unsure if he wanted to be a medical man or a lawyer, he decided, then, for the latter and enrolled to become a barrister. As he did not inherit as he must have hoped, he was obliged to work as a teacher in Blackheath, and when he did not keep the promise of his student years - he did not receive a single brief since he had been called to the bar - he had to keep the Blackheath job. The reason he did not make a career could not have been his sexual orientation. The Cambridge circle around Prince Eddy he got involved with was just as gay as he was, and they all moved high up. Except him. Was it just the fact that he had less money than, by rights, he should have had? Or was it that everybody sensed something was wrong? Some people may not only have sensed it but known. You remember the lodger story told by Walter Sickert? (Note that we are not talking about the hoax told by Joe and published by Knight!) A young man had rented a room with a good London family. He was well-mannered and well-spoken, if a bit remote and not of good health, and for a while he used to go out by night without giving an explanation. After a while, his mother came to London and took him home .... Mum knew. And if you go by Sir Melville MacNaghtens famous notes, you can assume that Druitts brother knew too, at least when Montague was missing. How could they know unless something had happened before? Something they had managed, then, to hush up. As it had to be hushed up in 1888, by all means and at whatever it must cost. It is quite possible that Druitt, who had high morale codes, could not forgive himself for having killed once and was trying to hold back his urge, until he could not hold on any longer because some things happened and he simply gave way.
3) This takes us to the next point. Indeed some things happened that may have served to trigger off the murder series - or to trigger him off again, as one should more correctly say, if I am right:
a) His mother was diagnosed as suffering from a disturbed mind, and at some point admitted into a sanatorium, never mind the fact that she was not a permanent resident there at the time of the first murders. If he had managed to control himself for her sake - or out of fear of her judgement - that controlling instance had left by then.
b) He had lost his job at Blackheath and whatever the reason was, he would have been as well deeply ashamed - all the more so if it was really because of hanky-panky with one or several of the students - as horrified at the fact of having to live without an income.
4) There is one more thing pointing to Druitt being the Ripper: the time of his death in relation to both time and character of the Kelly murder. In the beginning I have said that sometimes the last murder committed may bear a special meaning, as it was in the case of Cooper who after a series of killed women ended up in killing his mother, and provoked his own arrest when he found out that it had not quenched his urge as he had hoped it would. We have already talked about the fantasies a serial killer indulges in. When he has passed on to actually committing murders, his aim is to fulfill the fantasies but as there are always encumbering circumstances, reality never comes up to his dreams and so he has to go on, to try again and again, ever coming closer the achieve full satisfaction. The Ripper must have been frustrated. In one of his letters, he did write that he had "come down to whores". Come down he had, certainly for the reasons I have named above - availability and a morale code, however sick, which made him kill women who could not expect much from life any more - but as well because they were not the model of feminity he would, in accordance with the need to swallow up of womanhood as the heart and core of his urge, wanted as a victim: For all the female solidarity I can achieve they were hags, dirty, old - in Victorian England a woman past forty was past everything else as well - drunk, sick, and without hair and without teeth ugly on top of it. In the Ripper literature, the difference between the first four Ripper victims and Mary Jane Kelly has been exaggerated into the belief that she was a beauty and, in some cases, led to the opinion that she was the one intended victim which is, of course, a misunderstanding of the nature of serial killing. While it is true that Kelly was only in her early twenties and still had her teeth and her hair, she was still an East End whore, very poor and a drunk, a far cry from the Paris Courtisane she pretended to be, from the elegant woman of dubious notoriety London housed as well and even from the red-cheeked girls from the country who were caught up in a life they had not expected. She was just the best the Ripper could get if he wanted to get close or closer to what he dreamt of, because of the facts I just named, of course, but also because she was not resident of a doss house: Kelly had a room of her own. For once undisturbed and without a time limit, he would be able to make a feast of it. It is quite possible that he had some time before the murder choosen her out, to be the victim for the glorious experience he wanted the last murder to be. Glorious it may have been, - I have seen many photographies of victims, over the years, but still Millers Court is quite something - but, a few days later, he realized it had not killed his urge to kill. The only consequence a serial killer who does not want to go on and on because he can't believe in the urge ever to quiet down can take in this situation is either give himself up to the police or kill himself. For all the confusion in the naming of a date around which Druitt committed suicide, we can, today, assume, that it happened at the end of November, and this is the exact time span you would allow for the serial killer to feel at first relieved, satisfied, indulging in the belief that, finally, he had got what he needed - and then, to his own horror, driven on by the newly awakening urge again. Poor soul.
Yes, I believe Jack the Ripper was Montague John Druitt.
Cullen, Tom: "Autumn of Terror"), London, 1965
Howells, Martin & Skinner, Keith: The Ripper Legacy. London, 1987 |
Author: R.J.P.
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 06:36 pm | | Hello. One thing to add. It's now known that there is really no historical reason for suspecting that Druitt was a 'bad lawyer' (as someone stated a couple of days ago) or a 'failed barrister'. This wasn't discovered until fairly recently, but his suicide came directly on the heels of a successful legal case. He was working on behalf of his brother William's law firm, and it is possible that MJD might have contributed to other legal cases that we don't yet know about. His obituary said that he had a 'promising future' and there seems to be no good reason for doubting this.
But this is not meant to detract from your views above. I consider Druitt one of the better suspects.
I wonder, though, playing the devil's advocate, whether there could have been a physiological reason for Druitt having depression, and this is what really led to his suicide. The Druitts evidently had diabetes in the family, and one of the side effects of untreated diabetes can be clinical depression. His suicide note (or the paraphrase we have of it) is utterly 'text book': it states a feeling of losing control or losing one's sanity ('since Friday I felt I would be like mother') and a concern for not being a burdern to others (...'the best for all concerned'...).
My own rather perverse reason for liking Druitt as a suspect is by the very fact that he would have been such an utterly unlikely suspect to the Victorian police. He was not Anderson's street lunatic, nor the diabolical murderers like Chapman, Cream, Deeming, etc. He has no known criminal activity and he has no known connection to Whitechapel. So here's my point: his suicide in Chiswick didn't make the London papers, so there is no reason to suspect that this, in itself, would have made Druitt a suspect. So, to my way of thinking, there must have been something else that pointed to MJK---ie., the private information that his family knew of and that Macnaghten learned. And this information was likely to have been compelling, IMHO. RP |
Author: Sabine Maria Buechers
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 05:54 am | | R.J.P.
I can agree with a lot of what you say, but if you suspect Druitt you have to admit that the fact of having killed would be a far better motive for a suicide than a depression resulting from inherited diabetes or from other things. Anyway "... I have felt I was going to be like mother," is just a euphemistic way to say "I feel I'm going mad, just like mother" which in his own mind would have to be continued with "This is why I killed! I'm not evil, just mad!" And of course Sir Melville had another reason, apart from the suicide, to suspect MJD. William told him, it must be as simple as that. When he knew that the body from the Thames was his brother's and he was assured - if he didn't know already - that the whole gruesome thing would be hushed up, he had nothing left to fear, right? Macnaghten slipped his famous notes into the files much later, because he didn't like to die with a dishonesty on his soul, I suppose, but at the time it happened he was wearing the muzzle Warren, for all his faults, had refused. When he made the entries he was still wearing enough of it to add the two other suspects. Highly unlikely as they were, he knew people would find out what he wanted to say. He just had as much aversion to breaking his word as to leave the matter unsolved. It's sometimes hard to understand a Victorian mind but you can always conclude the way they worked. |
Author: Jon
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 09:26 am | | Sabine
I have vigorously defended Druitt in the past, and I was never too impressed by the books of either Cullen or Farson. Druitt is another one of those people who have been labelled as Jack without the slightest piece of evidence being brought forward.
Even the near contemporary suggestion (by Macnaghten) could be an afterthought. But, it was only when I read Howells & Skinner that I began to have an interest beyond the usual superficial suggestion by the likes of Cullen & Farson.
I was intrigued by the implication, or suggestion, that 'possibly' brother William had a deeper role to play in the circumstances of Druitts death than has been previously thought.
I personally think there is a case for reasonable doubt about Druitts actions on the weekend of his proposed suicide, the "since Friday" letter...
- who wrote that letter?
- when was it wrote?
- where was it found?
(we rely on brother William to supply all the answers to the above)
....and the implied close relationship between Macnaghten & William ("from private sources").
I still do not see Druitt as a murderer, but I do see him as a potential victim. And I think a greavous opportunity was lost that more is not known about the role (if any) brother William had to play in the death of Montague.
I am anxiously waiting David Andersons book on the next stage of the Druitt investigation.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 02:16 pm | | RJP :
"Although..the Whitechapel murderer in all probability put an end to himself after the Dorset Street affair , certain facts pointing to this conclusion were not in the possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer."
Macnaughten quoted in Cullen p.212 |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 03:36 pm | | Two other interesting points that Cullen makes about Druitt :
(i) The London-Blackheath season ticket proves that Druitt did not lodge at no 9 Eliot Place , but rather that he commuted from his lodgings at Kings Bench Walk to the school.
(ii) Cullen suggests that the body was caught underneath a boat and only when the boat was moved did the body come up to the surface. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 09:18 pm | | Dear Simon,
I beg to differ. The season ticket allegedly found on "Mr Druitt's" body is not proof of any such prior address...while the scenario concerning the discovery of the body is but one of many possibilities.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Saturday, 01 September 2001 - 03:05 pm | | ' Mr Druitt ' ? Are you implying that the person dragged from the water was NOT Montague , Rosey ?
I have suspected this too actually and I quote the following to back this idea up :
From The County of Middlesex Independent , January 2nd 1889 :
"FOUND IN THE RIVER - the body of a well dressed man who was discovered on Monday in the river off Thorneycroft's Torpedo Works , by a waterman named Winslow. The police were communicated with and the deceased was conveyed to the mortuary. The body , which is that of a man about 40 years of age , has been in the water about a month. From certain papers found on the body , friends in Bournemouth have been telegraphed to. An inquest will be held today [ Wednesday ] " ( Cullen , page 213 )
HOLD IT !!!!!
...The body which is that of a man about 40 years of age... - ???!!! Is this right ? If it is right , then the body dragged from the river was not Montague John Druitt who was only 31 at the time ( born 15th August 1857 ) , but somebody else. Maybe it was really a 40 year old doctor ? Who else ? Not William Druitt , he was only 32 ( born 1856 ) and he was a solicitor. Probably not Lionel Druitt either who was only 35 ( born 1853 ) , and who had emigrated to Australia in 1888 , he had married Susan Murray in Wagga Wagga earlier that year. So who then ?
Newspapers do certainly get things wrong , but to be out by 10 years of the age of the victim ? Could that be possible ? As far as I know the ages of the Ripper victims were reported reasonably accurately by the Press , why not here - there has always been this confusion over the age of the drowned man , why so ? And the newspaper report does seem to refer to the ' Druitt ' death and not to any other suicide.
As to the matter of why the body appeared , the Thames was a tidal river at this point , before the days of the Thames Barrier : flooding could have washed the body up from its hiding place. This is an explanation offered in the A-Z , under the entry to Andrew Holloway.
As for Druitt having rooms in Blackheath we have no evidence for this , whereas the season ticket would suggest Druitt commuted. No 9 Eliot Place was a large Georgian house and accomodated 3 resident masters and 42 pupils as well as kitchen staff , conditions may well have been very cramped there and it was unlikely that there would have been room for many more people : as yet we do not know if Druitt was one of the resident masters at the school , maybe David Anderson might know ?
Was it Druitt who was actually pulled from the river then - an intriguing question !
Simon  |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 06:06 am | | Simon:
I think that a brief newspaper report of the age of a corpse which had been in the river about a month is not necesarily accurate. Consider please that deterioration and PM staining could make poor old MJD look older than his actual age.
The season ticket can be looked at two ways: London-Blackheath or Blackheath-London. Regular business at his chambers coupled with the financial advantage of a season ticket could have made it sensible for MJD to have the ticket even if he didn't commute every day.
As to whether MJD resided in Blackheath or at his chambers, it's worth remembering that most barrister's chambers were business offices although some were residential. However the 1881 census does show MJD as a resident at Eliot Place meaning that he stayed there overnight at census time. It is of course possible that he changed addresses once he had established himself in chambers.
The evidence, such as it is, shows that it is more likely that MJD lived at the school and travelled by train to his chambers when necesary to conduct his other business. |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 09:58 am | | | Thanks for that Peter. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 04:03 pm | | Dear Simon,
I was implying that the identity of the corpse was of a circumstantial nature...personal effects found in the clothing. No more and no less.
I can read that something is niggling your own thoughts on the MJD business...that may be to do with having an open-mind on closed cases.Any further thoughts?
Rosey :-) |
Author: R.J.P.
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 11:58 pm | | Simon--Hello. Like you, I can't quite let go of Druitt-as-suspect. I think Druitt must have lived in Blackheath, but, interestingly, there's three or four independent --but unconfirmed--- anecdotes putting Druitt in the Minories. One was a letter to Daniel Farson from some fellow named Fredrick Pocock [a little too much like poppycock, for my liking] who remembered a fellow named Druitt living above a fried fish shop in the Minories 'next to the railway arch'.
As for Druitt's death. Some people go through a certain identity crisis in their mid-thirties. Middle-age is looming, and one's youth is quickly receding [or so it seems at the time]. Druitt's father died, his mother was going mad. It's probable that MJD had somewhat progressive or what we might nowadays call 'left-winged' sympathies, but in his last legal case his client was of the Conservative party. Perhaps, Druitt felt that the idealism of his youth was compromised--it's hard saying. At any rate, given all these factors, and the added probability of a scandal at Blackheath, we can't ever really discount the fact that he decided to top himself in a fit of depression. Still, I sense that there was something very strange about his death, but I don't think we'll ever know. The most I can bring myself to say is that he is a decent suspect [because Macnaghten thought so] but we don't know why he was a decent suspect... Meanwhile, I think I might have located a photograph of Thorneycroft's, and will post if I can confirm this. It might take a while, though. By the way, I wonder where Edward Druitt was in 1888. He didn't leave for Australia until the following year, but [evidently] didn't attend MJ's funeral. He was a cricket player, and we might well imagine he would have been close to his older brother. Best wishes, RP |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 01:13 am | | Damn the torpedoes!
R.J., looking forward to seeing the possible photograph of the torpedo works. It turns out that the torpedo factory made more than just torpedoes. See the following (I have put the Anglo-Norwegian into better English!!!):
The Norwegian torpedo boat Rap
In 1873, the world's first commissioned torpedo boat, Rap, was delivered to the Norwegian Navy from Thorneycroft's works, Chiswick, UK. Rap was able to do 14.5 knots, an impressive speed for the 18-meter long vessel. The concept of operation for Rap was the same as modern-day torpedo boats, i.e., to bring the torpedoes as close to the target as necessary and hit the target. Rap was equipped with self-propelled torpedoes in 1879. The torpedo was able to do 20 knots for 183 meters and further 9 knots for 1,800 meters. Due to the experience with the first Rap as a relative cheap platform and the torpedoes as an efficient weapon, new designs of larger and faster torpedo boats were developed. These new designs were called the cigars due to the shape of the hull with integrated torpedo tubes fore and aft. In 1905, 32 torpedo boats were under commission.
From http://www.knmskjold.org/english/enghist.htm
Rap, the world's first torpedo boat, built 1873.
Thorneycroft torpedo boats for coastal defense in New Zealand
Thorneycroft also supplied torpedo boats for the New Zealand Navy:
The Torpedo Corps and the Navals operated the first warships acquired for New Zealand’s external defence. These were four Thorneycroft spar torpedo boats. These slender, small craft were steam powered, capable of 12 knots and armed with a 38-foot spar tipped with a guncotton charge. Ordered in 1882 and arriving in 1884 the four craft were deployed to the four main ports of Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin.
From http://www.navy.mil.nz/rnzn/article.cfm?Article_ID=274
A brief history of the Chiswick works
According to a site on Chiswick, "Thorneycroft, a ship building company, was established in Chiswick in 1864. They built steam launches, river steamers, torpedo boats and destroyers, but were forced to move to Southampton in 1904 as ships became too large to move out of the Chiswick site."
From http://www.thamesexplorer.freeserve.co.uk/chiswick1.htm
Another site I found showed that the destroyer HMS Boxer, lost in 1918, was built at Thorneycroft's Chiswick works. Since the works described in the articles about Druitt's death is termed the "torpedo works" one has to think that the shipworks where anything as big as a destroyer was constructed may have been separate.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Arfa Kidney
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 01:26 pm | | Hello all,
This is an interesting thread.
One thought that occurred to me was,As the body had been in the Thames for a month or so,maybe it was simply its waterlogged state that made estimating its exact age difficult.Maybe our medical expert can help me here.
Regards,
Mick Lyden. |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 03:46 pm | | One wonders then how William Druitt identified the body Mick 
RJP : I am the same age as Druitt now - 31 - and soon to be 32 on September 16th this year ! OMG !
Maybe this explains my delving in conspiracies...
Simon |
Author: Arfa Kidney
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 05:50 pm | | Yep,good point Simon.
Thanks,
Mick Lyden. |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 05:56 pm | | Hi, Simon and Mick:
I don't think there is any mystery at all that a body that has been in the river for a month would look older than the person's actual age. I would expect the body to be bloated and perhaps even eaten by fish and rats, if it had washed ashore anywhere. Lovely thought. As you may know, a body immersed in water tends to turn to a waxy substance like ambergris. Yes, it is amazing that William Druitt was able to recognize the body.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 08:49 pm | | Presumably, what could have happened, was that
when the corpse was fished up the police found
the check for 50 pounds. It is likely they
traced the check to the school and to the bank.
From the school they would have located a near
family member (William). When the police came
they would have explained it was about Monty, and
would have said they needed William's assistance,
to make sure the corpse was his brother. He would
have gone with them to identify the body, presumably thinking of any telltale points that
might not have been obliterated by the long
immersion in the water. [Or, if he had planned to
hide Monty elsewhere, or kill Monty, he would have
been ready for this inevitable rediscovery of the
corpse.] The police may have also been aware of
any reports of a missing man named Monty Druitt
left by William and other members of the family.
But it is not so hard to imagine contact between
the police and the Druitts coming around quickly.
Jeff |
Author: Jon
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 10:17 pm | | What would be readable on a cheque which had been in the water a month?
Jon |
Author: R.J.P.
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 11:26 pm | | Mr. George--Many thanks for the above. Someone out there must know the details, but as for me, I've had the darnedest time trying to find out exactly where Thorneycoft's was located.
The message boards lately have struck me as 'the best of times, the worst of times', a fair amount of acrimony--but its good to see you & Jeff & Simon and others carrying on with good spirit. Best wishes, RP |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 03:41 am | | Hi, RJ:
Please, call me Chris. I don't believe in acrimony, I believe in contributing to the general knowledge here, and in a positive way, not with some way out theory either. It may not help us know who Jack was to know more about Thorneycroft's but I believe we can all be better informed about the case if we fill in our knowledge about the torpedo works and other side alleys in the case that present themselves.
Here is a bit more information that I have picked up:
Thorneycroft's was named for its founder Sir John Isaac Thorneycroft (1843-1928) who in 1864 established the shipbuilding empire of J. I. Thorneycroft & Co. Ltd. at Chiswick. He was knighted in 1902. In 1904, he removed the shipyard to Woolston, Southampton, as ships became too large to move out of the Chiswick site. As we previously noted, the firm built not only torpedoes but steam launches, river steamers, torpedo boats and destroyers. The firm it appears survives to this day and is known as Vosper Thorneycroft (UK) Ltd, still headquartered at Woolston, Southampton. Thorneycrofts have also been sculptors, politicians, and a general, Maj. Gen. Alexander Whitelaw Thorneycroft (1879-1931), who achieved fame in the Boer War at the Battle of Spion Kop and who founded the Thorneycroft Light Horse Regiment. See http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gcbodie/thornicroft/index.shtml
There was also a Percy Thorneycroft, a third class passenger, who lost his life on the Titanic when it sank in 1912. Apparently no relation to the shipbuilder (or the general!), Thorneycroft was the son of an agricultural laborer. His wife Florence survived the disaster, returned to England and remarried. Another Titanic survivor, Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe worked for Thorneycroft ship repairs in Southampton until he was over 80. During that time he was in charge of the fitting of Denny Brown Stabilisers to the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, among other work. All these irrelevant, arcane facts from Encyclopedia Titanica http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/c/d/rowe_gt.shtml
Here's a lovely name redolent of the great days of the British Empire, when Britannia ruled the waves:
HMS Bruizer, a torpedo destroyer built by Thorneycroft's at Chiswick in 1893/4. Check out http://www.btinternet.com/~britishempire/empire/forces/navyships/destroyers/destroyerbruizer.htm
Interestingly, and perhaps (?) of more relevance to our enquiries, the name "Thorneycroft" occurs in the Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of Priory School," published in Collier's magazine in January 1904. Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D. is the founder and headmaster of the Priory School, near Mackleton, Derbyshire. He is the author of Huxtable's Highlight's on Horace. In the story, Dr. Watson remarks, "His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds." Watson further says when Thorneycroft Huxtable entered the room, "so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first action. . . was to stagger against the table, whence he slipped. . . insensible upon our bearskin hearthrug. . . [a] ponderous piece of wreckage, which told of some sudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life."
While it is possible to take our scatterbrain theories too far, is there any echo here of the drowning death of Montague John Druitt, even if subconsciously, in the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mind? Of course, the name Thorneycroft's, as contractors to the Royal Navy and to foreign navies, was probably well reported in the press, and could have been picked up by the author as a name of solidity suitable for a headmaster, and to set off the pompous ass's pratfall. Yet, isn't it interesting that both Thorneycroft Huxtable and Montague John Druitt, found drowned near Thorneycroft's torpedo works, were schoolmasters? Is there any relevance in the fact that the character Bill Cosby played in his TV show was also named Huxtable????? Do I hear a theory a-building???
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 03:30 pm | | Jon - in answer to your very relevent query, I
cannot figure out how the ink on a submerged
thin piece of paper (like a check) would remain
undesturbed by water damage on a dead man's body
after nearly one month in a river. I can only
point out that occasionally it happens. I have
seen examples of water damaged writings, but
usually printed writings, after a shipwreck. A
menu for the second - class restaurant on the
Titanic was found and it shows some such damage.
But everytime I have read of Monty's body's recovery they mention that the check (or cheque)
was found, and it was for 50 pounds. Possibly
it was in a bilfold or wallet that was watertight.
As for Chris's suggestion of a connection between
the Thornycroft Family of the Torpedo Works,
Monty, Conan Doyle, and Cliff Huxtable (a.k.a.
Bill Cosby), you have me really stumped there.
Conan Doyle was very interested in undersea
warfare (mines and torpedos), and wrote a prescient warning short story, DANGER, in 1914,
suggesting that England could lose the next war
if it's opponent blockaded it by submarine (the
story ends with the torpedoing of the a large
ocean liner, similar to the Lusitania). As for
the "Priory School" one of the characters, a
brutal publican, always made me think of George
Chapman, but the fictional character is not an
immigrant, nor a former barber surgeon.
Jeff |
Author: Jon
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 03:48 pm | | Thanks Jeff.
Yes, it was meant as an observation rather than a specific question.
The school may have typed the cheque (they must have known it was for £50 somehow), and only the (indian ink?) signature was lost?. Who knows, I just wondered if anyone else had considered the state of this cheque.
Does anyone understand why a person would write a suicide note, then buy a return ticket?.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Simon Owen
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 05:48 pm | | This is what is fascinating about MJ Druitt , everything suggests he had nothing to do with the case but then again...
There are rational explanations for all the anomalities about his disappearance , suicide and the identification of his body but , then again , they seem to hint at something darker...and how did Druitt end up as one of Macnaughton's favourite suspects ?
So many mysteries about this man. Why did his brother William lie at the inquest ? Why is Druitt consistently confused with a 40 year old doctor ? Why buy a return ticket to Hammersmith of all places to kill himself when he could have thrown himself off Blackfriars Bridge - what was he doing in Hammersmith ?
Here is another anomaly : Druitt is assumed to have killed himself on the Saturday ( 1st December 1888 ) as that is the date of his ticket , the return half of which he never used. And indeed his note says ' Since Friday I felt I was going to be like mother... ' , presumably Friday 30th November , the date of his dismissal.
But : surely someone writing the note on the Saturday in this case would have written ' Since YESTERDAY I felt I was going to be like mother... ' and then signed and dated the note at the end ( although not a direct quotation from the letter one would expect the text to follow reasonably closely therefore the Friday reference was probably mentioned ).
All this suggests Druitt did NOT commit suicide on the Saturday , but more likely on the Sunday or the Monday when reports say he was last seen in chambers. But the railticket suggests that he killed himself on the Saturday , since he did not use the second half. Did Montague miss the last train and take a hansom cab home instead - if so what was he doing so late in Hammersmith ? Why did he have so much money on him on the day of his death - was he making a run for it , or paying off a blackmailer ? |
Author: Jon
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 06:18 pm | | Excellent Simon.
Hence a previous poste of mine asking:
- Who wrote that letter?
- When was it wrote?
- Where was it found?
And brother William has all the answers.
I agree with the "since Friday" being indicative of being wrote on Sunday as opposed to Saturday.
But, it would have been great if we could rely on it being a verbatim text.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 06:51 pm | | I wouldn't have thought it such a great puzzle that a man, after making plans for suicide, writing a note to that effect, then taking a train journey, after buying a return ticket,--- thats not so strange. Not if he had always bought a return, nor if the balance of his mind was disturbed. I don't think values and reasons mean the same to a man who is going off his head.
Rick |
Author: Jon
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 07:14 pm | | Correct Rick.
Thats the usual response, "he was of unsound mind."
And how would it look if Druitt had been enticed to Hammersmith with the impression he was going to return?
I think it's an interesting perspective, nothing more.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 08:59 pm | | Dear Jon,
The Koran describes Jesus escaping death on the cross by means of a simple substitution...the oldest trick in the Book. This "substitute" is a key clue.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Tuesday, 04 September 2001 - 09:28 pm | | So we are to consider Monty as planning to substitute another, and have brother William
"recognize" the corpse as his. It is similar to
the plot twist of Eric Ambler's A COFFIN FOR
DEMETRIOS.
On the matter of the dating of the letter, where
Monty wrote ever since Friday, rather than ever
since yesterday, perhaps he figured that the body
would not be found within a few hours or even by
Monday. It was being weighed down with stones.
So he could afford to be more specific about the
day and name it. But what on that Friday set off
the feeling that he was going mad, and would end
up like his mother (if that was what he meant)?
Whatever the actual solution of the identity of
Jack the Ripper, I would love to figure out what
supposedly led to the destruction of Montague John
Druitt!
Jeff |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Wednesday, 05 September 2001 - 05:56 am | | Dear Jeff,
For the substitution method to work successfully,
it requires prior secret arrangements to be made.
One does not just die...it is also necessary to live!
The informant who instructed me on the art of what he termed, "transfiguration", was also a solicitor.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 05 September 2001 - 10:28 am | | ' " Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts " she said. " Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned. " Then she turned the desk into a pig and back again. " '
Simon  |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Wednesday, 05 September 2001 - 05:49 pm | | By pigglypokery or jiggeryjokery
Its time you got off the mad carousel.
By ugglythuggery or just plain buggery
Mr Montegue Druitt...but Willie Tell.
Rosey:-) |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 06 September 2001 - 04:38 pm | | Dear Simon,
Was our William-in fact-Montague? |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 06 September 2001 - 06:28 pm | | | You mean William died and Montague took his place ? But what was William killed for ? And what evidence is there for this ? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 06 September 2001 - 08:19 pm | | Simon,
I must point out that it was you who raised the question as to why Montegue was invited to Wimbourne INSTEAD of William! SO WHERE WAS WILLIAM?
The ingenious leave nothing more than clear blue water.
Rosey:-) |
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