Jack The Ripper - The Definitive History Part 11

Bond's report is highly speculative, his deductions befitting Sherlock Holmes, and his view that the murderer exhibited no anatomical knowledge or surgical skill or even the basic dissecting knowledge of a slaughterer or butcher was at variance with the opinion of most of the other doctors who had viewed victims of Jack the Ripper. One possibly significant point did emerge from his report and from other details: Bond said that 'both arms & forearms had extensive & jagged wounds . . . The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about 1 in long, with extravasation of blood in the skin & there were several abrasions on the back of the hand moreover showing the same condition'. This has suggested that Mary Kelly might have put up something of a struggle. Against this, however, is Dr. Bond's statement about the bed sheet, the corner of which 'was much cut and saturated with blood, indicating that the face may have been covered with the sheet at the time of the attack'. In other words, the cuts in the sheet suggest that it had been pulled up around her neck, wholly or partly covering her face, the reasonable inference being that Kelly had gone to sleep.

Did Kelly take a man back to her room and share her bed with him for the night? Or had she gone to bed alone and her murderer then entered her room? If the latter, was her murderer someone she knew or someone she had been with earlier that evening? The questions tumble out: if Kelly was asleep when attacked, would she have had an opportunity to cry out the words, 'Oh! Murder!', as heard by two neighbours? And even if she had had time to cry out, would she have cried out 'Oh! Murder!', instead of screaming or calling for help? Would 'Oh! Murder!' be more consistent with the discovery of the body than an exclamation on being attacked?

And why was the door to Kelly's room locked, as it must have been for McCarthy to take a pick-axe to it instead of opening it by reaching through the broken window, as Abberline said it was easy to do? Had Mary Kelly found the key to the room? Anyone studying the Jack the Ripper case is accustomed to questions. Sadly, answers are generally precious few!

Trying to calculate the time of death is equally problematic, but Dr. Bond's estimate of death about 2.00am is likely to be tolerably accurate. Unfortunately, this doesn't help to tie her time of death to the time when she suddenly stopped singing. Did she stop singing because she had fallen asleep? Did she go out? Did she die as George Hutchinson watched Miller's Court? Did George Hutchinson therefore describe her murderer? In death, as apparently in life, Mary Kelly remains an enigma.

The murder of Mary Jane Kelly was followed by a repeat of the procedures following each of the previous murders a search of common lodging houses, the questioning of lodgers, a series of arrests and subsequent releases after questioning and investigation. The inquest was opened and closed on 12 November at the Sh.o.r.editch Town Hall under the direction of Dr. Roderick Macdonald, Coroner for north-east Middles.e.x. There was some initial dispute between Macdonald and a juryman, the latter maintaining that the body of Kelly had been found in Whitechapel and that the responsibility for conducting the inquest fell to Wynne E. Baxter, not to Macdonald and the parish of Sh.o.r.editch. Macdonald responded that the body had been taken to the mortuary within his district and that legally he was responsible for conducting the inquest. Apparently Macdonald was wrong. It was illegal to remove a body from one district to another and in December 1889 a man who died in a common lodging house in Heneage Street, Spitalfields, had to be left laid out for three days on the edge of a kitchen table screened by a blanket from diners using the rest of the table because there was no mortuary within the district to which he could be taken. As the Pall Mall Gazette reported, 'as the law stood it would not allow a body to be removed' to a mortuary in a neighbouring district.39 Macdonald also heard the testimony of no more than a handful of witnesses before instructing the jury that they had heard enough to establish the cause of death and to bring in a verdict. The jury naturally returned a verdict of 'wilful murder against some person or persons unknown'. The press expressed much surprise at the sudden termination and Rowland Adams Williams, the former Deputy Coroner of Crickhowell, was moved to write in The Times pointing out several deficiencies in the proceedings.

Mary Jane Kelly was buried on Monday 19 November 1888 at the exclusively Roman Catholic Leytonstone Cemetery.

The remains of the unfortunate woman, Marie Jeanette Kelly, who was murdered on November 9th, in Miller's-Court, Dorset-street, Spitalfields, were carried on Monday from the Sh.o.r.editch mortuary to the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Leytonstone, for interment, amidst a scene of turbulent excitement. On the afternoon of the murder the body of the murdered woman was conveyed to the mortuary attached to St. Leonard's Church, Sh.o.r.editch, and there it remained until on Monday. Since the inquest a great amount of sympathy for the fate of the unhappy creature has been created, but it remained for Mr. H. Wilton, the s.e.xton attached to Sh.o.r.editch Church, to put sympathy into a practical form, and as no relatives have appeared he incurred the total cost of the funeral himself. Mr. Wilton has been s.e.xton for over 50 years, and he provided the funeral as a mark of sincere sympathy with the poor people of the neighbourhood, in whose welfare he is deeply interested. The body was enclosed in a polished elm and oak coffin, with metal mounts. On the coffin plate were engraved the words: 'Marie Jeanette Kelly, died 9th Nov. 1888, aged 25 years'. Upon the coffin were two crowns of artificial flowers and a cross made up of heartsease. The coffin was carried in an open car drawn by two horses, and two coaches followed. An enormous crowd of people a.s.sembled at an early hour, completely blocking the thoroughfare, and a large number of police were engaged in keeping order. The bell of St. Leonard's began tolling at noon, and the signal appeared to draw all the residents in the neighbourhood together. There was an enormous preponderance of women in the crowd, and scarcely any had any covering to their heads. The wreaths upon the coffin bore cards inscribed with remembrances from friends using certain public-houses in common with the murdered woman. As the coffin appeared, borne on the shoulders of four men, at the princ.i.p.al gate of the church, the crowd appeared to be greatly affected. Round the open car in which it was to be placed men and women struggled desperately to get to touch the coffin. Women with faces streaming with tears cried out 'G.o.d forgive her!' and every man's head was bared in token of sympathy. The sight was quite remarkable, and the emotion natural and unconstrained. Two mourning coaches followed, one containing three, and the other five persons mourners who had been fortifying themselves for the journey at a public house close to the church gates. Joe Barnett was amongst them, with someone from M'Carthy's, the landlord; and the others were women who had given evidence at the inquest. After a tremendous struggle, the car, with the coffin fully exposed to view, set out at a very slow pace, all the crowd appearing to move off simultaneously in attendance. The traffic was blocked, and the constables had great difficulty in obtaining free pa.s.sage for the small procession through the ma.s.s of carts, vans and tramcars.40 The most extraordinary thing is that whilst one would have expected the murder of Mary Kelly, by far the most horrendous in the series, to have sparked the press and public into another outburst of outrage and panic and sensationalism, the reverse was the case. Press interest poured away like bathwater when the plug is pulled out. The abrupt termination of the inquest on 13 November combined with the police news blackout deprived the press of material and the long murder-free month of October had exhausted the permutations of press speculation. All that could be said had been said and the radical press such as The Star was finding news and sensation in the semi-judicial Commission into Parnell and the Pigott forgeries. In dramatically diminis.h.i.+ng column inches the press continued to report the arrest of a.s.sorted oddb.a.l.l.s such as Dr. Holt of Willesden who with blackened face had been wandering the streets in the hope of discovering Jack the Ripper. On 11 November he terrified a woman named Humphreys by appearing from the shadows of George Yard, where Martha Tabram was murdered. A crowd descended, among them the famous pugilist Wolf Bendoff,41 and amid cries of 'Lynch him!' the police arrived and managed to get him to the safety of a police station, from where he was released a few hours later. He pa.s.sed into Jack the Ripper lore through the imaginative pen of Edwin T. Woodhall42 who described him as the 'painted menace' or 'white-eyed man' a ghoulish creature with large white-painted circles around his eyes (in reality Dr. Holt's spectacles), white-painted nose, moustache and mouth, and who when arrested was taken to Scotland Yard, but during questioning grabbed a heavy ebony ruler and laid into two senior officials, escaped and vanished, three weeks later being pulled from beneath a paddle boat on the Thames near Hungerford Bridge, the burnt cork and white paint still clear on his decomposing features. As his authority for this story Woodhall cited Sir Melville Macnaghten, who in his autobiography does indeed express his belief that Jack the Ripper was pulled from the Thames 'after he had knocked out a Commissioner of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one of Her Majesty's princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State'.43 However, Macnaghten was referring to the press condemnation of Henry Matthews, the resignation of Sir Charles Warren and the apparent suicide of a barrister named Druitt.

The day before the inquest, 10 November 1888, the Government offered a pardon to any accomplice 'not being the person who contrived or actually committed the murder'. It was no more than a palliative to public feeling, and Henry Matthews, the Home Secretary, had already mooted it to Ruggles-Brise: 'You say nothing about the suggestion of my offering a free pardon to anyone not the actual perpetrator of the murders, I could do that more easily, and with less discredit, than would follow from offering a reward'.44 On the same day Warren tendered his resignation and it was accepted. It had nothing to do with Jack the Ripper, but was in response to a reprimand by Matthews following the publication in the November issue of Murray's Magazine of an article by Warren in which he defended himself and the police in general against long-standing press criticism. The article was in contravention of a Home Office circular of 27 May 1879 that required Warren to obtain the permission of the Home Office before discussing police matters. He had obtained no such permission, and professed complete ignorance of the rule, but felt unable to stay in office if he was expected to carry the can for things that were not his responsibility and against which he could not defend himself. As Warren's grandson wrote, not unfairly: It has been publicly stated, both at the time and also in more recent years, that Warren's resignation resulted from the failure of the police to discover the Whitechapel murderer. This statement is absolutely untrue. Others have said that it was the result of pique at the censure which his Murray's Magazine article received. This, although somewhat ungenerously phrased, is nearer the truth. The censure of his article provided the occasion, rather than the cause, of his resignation. The real cause lay in the increasing lack of entente between Scotland Yard and the Home Office, and in particular over the question of police pensions, since Warren's pleas for an improved pension scheme and a curtailment of other less necessary expenses had been systematically ignored. He had accepted the chief Commissioner-s.h.i.+p solely from a sense of duty, and for the special purpose of increasing the efficiency of the police and restoring order among the riotous elements in the Metropolis. He had had, from the start, no intention of remaining in office after that purpose had been achieved. In March 1888 he began to discuss the question of his resignation with Matthews: in the late summer he resigned, but the outbreak of murders in Whitechapel made it undesirable that his resignation should be accepted at that time. The Murray's Magazine affair, however, left him no alternative but to resign again, which he did on November 8th, and this time Matthews was disposed to accept his resignation. The appointment of Monro as his successor a man who, as his sub-ordinate, had been instrumental in throwing obstacles in his way did nothing to gild the pill that Warren was forced to swallow.45 The dearth of news is probably ill.u.s.trated by two stories concerning John McCarthy and his wife. The latter received a Folkestone postmarked postcard saying, 'Don't be alarmed. I am going to do another; but this time it will be a mother and daughter', and signed 'Jack Sheridan, the Ripper'. It was handed to the police but treated as a hoax.46 And John McCarthy was offered 25 by a showman for the use of Kelly's room for a month, and another showman offered to buy the few sticks of furniture in Kelly's room. McCarthy rejected both offers.47 The curious thing about the murder of Mary Jane Kelly is that she was a frightened woman. Joseph Barnett was asked at the inquest if Mary Kelly had ever expressed fear of anyone. Barnett replied, 'Yes; several times'. And he went on to say that she had asked him about the murders and that he had 'bought newspapers, and I read to her everything about the murders'.

Walter Dew remarked, 'There was no woman in the whole of Whitechapel more frightened of Jack the Ripper than Marie Kelly'.48

Notes.

1. Anderson, Sir Robert (1910) The Lighter Side of My Official Life. London: Hodder and Stoughton, p.137. 'The last and most horrible of that maniac's crimes was committed in a house in Miller's Court on the 9 November.'

2. Report by Sir Melville Macnaghten dated 23 February 1894. MEPO 3/141 fol.178: 'Now the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims and 5 victims only', the last being Mary Kelly.

3. Blonde or perhaps not: Barnett 'at once identified the body as that of Kelly, or "Ginger", as she was called, owing to the colour of her hair' (Western Mail, 10 November 1888, citing a Press a.s.sociation report); 'a blonde of medium height . . .' (East London Observer, 17 November 1888); 'She was short and stout and dark . . .' (Maurice Lewis reported in The Ill.u.s.trated Police News, 17 November 1888).

4. Macnaghten, Sir Melville (1914) Days of My Years. London: Longmans, Green & Co., p.60.

5. Dew, Walter (1938) I Caught Crippen: Memoirs of Ex-Chief Inspector Walter Dew CID. London: Blackie & Son, pp.86, 146.

6. According to Charles Booth, Breezer's Hill and Pennington Street were noted for prost.i.tutes, 'but the prost.i.tution is of a st.u.r.dy kind and there are no bullies who live off the earnings of the women', said an Inspector Reid, Booth's guide.

7. Western Mail, 13 November 1888, quoting a Press a.s.sociation report.

8. Joseph Barnett's inquest testimony reported in the Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888.

9. Julia Venturney, quoted in The Times, 13 November 1888.

10. Dorset Street was noted also as Charles Booth recorded in his notebook when taken on a tour through the street for 'One very fat lady at a window. She has sat there for years. She is too fat to get out of the door!'.

11. Samuel, Raphael (1981) East End Underworld: Chapters in the Life of Arthur Harding. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p.100.

12. John McCarthy's son, John Joseph McCarthy, was an entertainer under the stage name of Steve McCarthy, and he married a top-billing music hall performer named Marie Kendall. They had two children, one of whom, Terrence Kendall-McCarthy married Gladys Drewery and was the father of Kim and Kay Kendall-McCarthy. See Aliffe, Andy (2002) 'The Kendall-McCarthy's: A s...o...b..siness Dynasty'. Ripperologist, 41, June, pp.56; Golden, Eve and Kendall, Kim (2002) The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, pp.78.

13. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 November 1888.

14. It was common practice among brothel keepers to keep their 'girls' in debt, thereby ensuring that they had to keep working for them. Kelly's debt has therefore been seen by some commentators as further evidence that McCarthy was a pimp. However, it is tempting to speculate that there was a family relations.h.i.+p oddly enough an American newspaper reported, 'About a year ago he [John McCarthy] rented it to a woman who looked about thirty. She was popular among the females of the neighborhood, shared her beer generously, as I have been tearfully informed, and went under the t.i.tle of Mary Jane McCarthy. Her landlord knew that she had another name, Kelly, that of her husband, but her friends had not heard of it' (Was.h.i.+ngton Evening Star, 10 November 1888). Or perhaps Kelly knew McCarthy through his links with the stage, Lizzie Albrook having said that Kelly had spoken of a relative who was on the stage in London (reported in the Western Mail, 12 November 1888). Could that relative have known McCarthy?

15. Statement by Joseph Barnett to Inspector Abberline, MJ/SPC/NE 1888. Box 3, no. 19. Corporation of London, Greater London Archives. Coroner's Papers.

16. Joseph Barnett, Western Mail, 12 November 1888.

17. Western Mail, 12 November 1888.

18. Dew, Walter (1938) I Caught Crippen: Memoirs of Ex-Chief Inspector Walter Dew CID. London: Blackie & Son, p.151.

19. Ill.u.s.trated Police News, 17 November 1888.

20. Mary Ann c.o.x, inquest testimony and statement to Inspector Abberline. MJ/SPC/ME. 1888. Box 3, no. 19. Corporation of London, Greater London Archives, Coroner's Papers.

21. Ill.u.s.trated Police News, 17 November 1888.

22. George Hutchinson, statement dated 12 November 1888, signed by Hutchinson, Inspector Abberline, Sergeant E. Badham, Inspector C. Ellisdon and Supt. Arnold. MEPO 3/140 fol. 2279.

23. Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888.

24. 'One policeman went by the Commercial Street end of Dorset Street while I was standing there, but no one came down Dorset Street. I saw one man go into a lodging house in Dorset Street, and no one else'. George Hutchinson reported in The Times, 14 November 1888.

25. Report by Inspector Abberline dated 12 November 1888. MEPO 4/140 fol. 2302.

26. The Times, 10 November 1888.

27. At the inquest she was questioned on this by the coroner: 'And yet you say you had only spoken to her twice previously; you knew her name and she knew yours?'. Maxwell replied, 'Oh, yes; by being about in the lodging-house'.

28. The Times, 12 November 1888.

29. Dew, Walter: op. cit., pp.1534.

30. See Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888; The Times, 13 November 1888.

31. Inspector Abberline reported in Reynold's Newspaper, 18 November 1888.

32. John McCarthy, an interview given to Central News and reported in several newspapers.

33. Dew, Walter, op. cit., p.86.

34. It wasn't naked, but was dressed in a chemise, clearly visible in the photograph.

35. Western Mail, quoting a Central News report, 10 November 1888.

36. Dew, Walter, op. cit., p.148.

37. Central News report, quoted in various newspapers including Western Mail, 10 November 1888.

38. The Times, 10 November 1888.

39. Pall Mall Gazette, 27 December 1889.

40. East London Advertiser, 21 November 1888.

41. 27-year-old Wolf Bendoff fought J.R. Couper in Johannesburg in July 1889 for the world heavyweight boxing champions.h.i.+p. Couper won. The fight lasted 30 minutes and went 26 rounds.

42. Woodhall, Edwin T. (1937) Jack the Ripper or When London Walked in Terror. London: Mellifont Press, p.79.

43. Macnaghten, Sir Melville, op. cit., p.62.

44. Matthews' comments are in a letter from Matthews to his private secretary, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, dated 5 October 1888. It is contained in the J.S. Sandars papers, MS. Eng. Hist. C.723 at the Bodleian Library, Department of Western Ma.n.u.scripts, Oxford. The letter is reproduced in full in Begg, Paul (1989) Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts. London: Robson Books, pp.1325.

45. Williams, Watkin Wynn (1941) The Life of General Sir Charles Warren: By His Grandson. Oxford: Blackwell, p.224.

46. Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1888.

47. East London Observer 24 November 1888.

48. Dew, Walter, op. cit., p.150.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Great Victorian Mystery: Who was Jack the Ripper?.

The American author and Ripperologist Christopher-Michael DiGrazia has called Jack the Ripper 'The Great Victorian Mystery'. This perhaps softens the fact that these crimes were the exceptionally brutal murders of women from the most vulnerable cla.s.s of society and replaces it with images of carboniferous fogs, hansom cabs, flickering gas-lamps, people in fancy dress clothing, Sherlock Holmes with deerstalker and meerschaum pipe and Mrs. Hudson ready with tea and a roaring coal fire back at 221b Baker Street. But for many people that image of Victorian London is what this subject is all about. It is an opportunity to mentally return to a different but not unrecognisable world to play armchair detective, a.s.sembling the evidence like the pieces in a jigsaw until a picture is produced. Some pictures are sufficiently persuasive to be advanced in books, others receive an airing in one of the several magazines devoted to the mystery. Some just get discussed in letters or on Internet message boards. Arguing for a favoured suspect with others is half the fun of being an armchair detective, although sticking to the facts is one of the rules of the game. The Great Victorian Mystery has all the attractions of a Sergeant Cribb or similar detective novel, but without a resolution, and for those who wish to leave their armchair, there is a chance to play the real detective, the tantalising pot of gold at the end of the rainbow being not a solution but the discovery of some new snippet of information.

But is it a mystery that will ever be solved? The disappointing answer is that it probably won't. In the absence of any firm evidence, you must choose the hypothesis you prefer. But as it is pretty much possible to make a case against almost anyone who was alive at the time, the most likely candidates must be those who were suspected by the most informed policemen of the day. There are five: Montague John Druitt, Michael Ostrog, 'Kosminski', Francis Tumblety and Severin Klosowski (otherwise known as George Chapman). We know the first three from a doc.u.ment known as the Macnaghten Memorandum.

The Macnaghten Memorandum In 1959, when researching a television series called Farson's Guide To The British, television investigative journalist Daniel Farson made a programme about cats and interviewed the Dowager Lady Christabel Aberconway, noted cat-lover and author of A Dictionary of Cat Lovers.1 He was also making a programme about Jack the Ripper2 and in the course of talking with Lady Aberconway he discovered that she was the daughter of Sir Melville Macnaghten and possessed some of her father's papers. The papers were a copy typewritten by Lady Aberconway's secretary, except for two pages, naming the three suspects, which Lady Aberconway had handwritten herself of the original doc.u.ment inherited by Lady Aberconway's elder sister, Julia Donner. The original doc.u.ments had pa.s.sed from Julia Donner to her son, Gerald Melville Donner, who took them with him when he went to India and all trace of them was lost with his death in November 1968.3 A second version of the Memorandum was found in the Scotland Yard files. They differ in several important respects from the Aberconway version, which was almost certainly a draft of the Scotland Yard report. The purpose of the report and who had commissioned it is unknown, but it was prompted by a series of articles in the Sun newspaper which argued that Jack the Ripper was Thomas Cutbush, a young man sent to Broadmoor in 1891 after having stabbed two women Florence Johnson and Isabelle Anderson in Kennington. The Memorandum may have been written at the request of the Home Office, either for the information of the Home Secretary or in antic.i.p.ation of questions being asked in the Commons. No questions appear to have been asked and as far as is known the Memorandum was never used. There are some differences between the two doc.u.ments, the most obvious being the deletion from the Scotland Yard version of almost every personal comment. The result is that the report reads like informed police opinion, whereas from the notes it is clear that much was Macnaghten's own perception. Both versions also contain errors that suggest that Macnaghten was relying on his memory. Perhaps the most important error is in his account of the murder of Elizabeth Stride, where he suggests that the murderer was possibly disturbed when 'three Jews drove up to an Anarchist Club in Berners [sic] Street'. It will be recalled that the murderer was possibly disturbed by the arrival of Louis Diemschutz, whilst the three Jews Macnaghten had in mind were probably Lawende, Levy and Harris, the men believed to have seen Catharine Eddowes. This error has a further implication because in the Aberconway transcript Macnaghten wrote that the suspect Kosminski 'in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square'. We do not know of any City PC seeing a suspect in the vicinity of Mitre Square, but a Metropolitan policeman, PC Smith, did see a man talking to a woman who may have been Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street. If Macnaghten mentally transferred Lawende, Levy and Harris from Mitre Square to Berner Street, could he have transferred PC Smith from Berner Street to Mitre Square?

The doc.u.ment is most important because it names three suspects. The versions differ in what they say and are given on pp. 31921 for comparison.

The general introduction shows the most difference. Macnaghten removes his personal conjectures. The official report makes no mention of the City PC, and he changes 'the police held very reasonable suspicion against' to 'more likely than Cutbush' (which with hindsight could have been said about almost anyone). This last change has suggested to some commentators that no particular significance should be attached to these suspects. However, given that in the draft Macnaghten felt 'inclined to exonerate the last 2' which would have been a superfluous comment even in a draft doc.u.ment if they were just a few names chosen at random that one of those named was Macnaghten's own preferred candidate and that another is believed to have been the favoured suspect of Sir Robert Anderson, it seems reasonable to suppose that these were the main suspects.

Montague John Druitt Montague Druitt's body was pulled from the Thames at Thorneycroft's Wharf near Chiswick by a waterman named Henry Winslade just after midday on Monday 31 December 1888. Winslade pulled the body ash.o.r.e and immediately fetched PC George Moulson, who searched the body, finding: 'four large stones in each pocket in the top coat; 2.10s. in gold, 7s. in silver, 2d. in bronze; two cheques on the London and Provincial Bank (one for 50 and the other for 16), a first-cla.s.s season ticket from Blackheath to London (South Western Railway), a second-half return Hammersmith to Charing Cross dated 1 December, a silver watch, gold chain with silver guinea attached, a pair of kid gloves and a white handkerchief. There were no papers or letters of any kind. There were no marks of injury on the body, but it was rather decomposed and was quickly removed to the mortuary'.

On 2 January 1889 Dr. Thomas Bramah Diplock opened the inquest at the Lamb Tap (it was common to hold inquests at pubs).

Aberconway version Scotland Yard version No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer (unless possibly it was the City PC who was a beat [sic] near Mitre Square) and no proof could in any way ever be brought against anyone, although very many homicidal maniacs were at one time, or another, suspected. I enumerate the cases of 3 men against whom Police held very reasonable suspicion. Personally, after much careful & deliberate consideration, I am inclined to exonerate the last 2, but I have always held strong opinions regarding no. 1, and the more I think the matter over, the stronger do these opinions become. The truth, however, will never be known, and did indeed, at one time lie at the bottom of the Thames, if my conjections [sic] be correct.

No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer, many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders: No. 1. Mr. M.J. Druitt a doctor of about 41 years of age & of fairly good family, who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, and whose body was found floating in the Thames on 31st Dec: i.e. 7 weeks after the said murder. The body was said to have been in the water for a month, or more on it was found a season ticket between Blackheath & London. From private information I have little doubt but that his own family suspected this man of being the Whitechapel murderer; it was alleged that he was s.e.xually insane.

(1) A Mr. M.J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family, who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st. Decr., or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was s.e.xually insane and from private inf. I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.

No. 2. Kosminski, a Polish Jew, who lived in the very heart of the district where the murders were committed. He had become insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, with strong homicidal tendencies. He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889. This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square.

(2) Kosminski, a Polish Jew, & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prost.i.tute cla.s.s, & had strong homicidal tendencies; he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circs connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.

No. 3. Michael Ostrog, a mad Russian doctor & a convict & unquestionably a homicidal maniac. This man was said to have been habitually cruel to women, & for a long time was known to have carried about with him surgical knives & other instruments; his antecedents were of the very worst & his whereabouts at the time of the Whitchape [sic] murders could never be satisfactorily accounted for. He is still alive.

(3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian doctor, and a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac. The man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.

A report in the Acton, Chiswick and Turnham Green Gazette, Sat.u.r.day 5 January 1889, states that Montague's brother, William, told the inquest that Montague had stayed with him in Bournemouth for a night towards the end of October. On 11 December a friend told William that Montague had not been seen at his chambers for more than a week and William travelled to London to make enquiries, learning at the school where Montague had taught that he had got into serious trouble and been dismissed. Among Montague's things he found a paper addressed to him which 'was to the effect: "Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die" '.

Diligent research has unearthed a lot of information about Montague John Druitt. He was the son of William and Ann Druitt, born on 15 August 1857 at Westfield in Wimborne, Dorset. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, graduating with a 3rd cla.s.s Honours degree in Cla.s.sics. In 1881 he took a teaching job at a school at 9 Eliot Place, Blackheath, 'a highly successful educational establishment'4 boarding boys destined for university, the army and the professions. Many of the pupils there achieved distinction in later life and the headmaster, George Valentine, was widely respected. The school itself was staffed with graduate teachers and servants. Druitt was a keen cricketer, began playing for the Morden Cricket Club, Blackheath, and was soon appointed Treasurer. In 1882 he was admitted to the Inner Temple and he was elected to the MCC on 26 May 1884.

On 29 April 1885 he was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple and had chambers at 9 Kings Bench Walk. The Law List entry of 1886 records that he was of the Western Circuit and of the Winchester Sessions. The entry for 1887 records that he was a special pleader for the Western Circuit and Hamps.h.i.+re, Portsmouth and Southampton a.s.sizes.

In September 1885 Druitt's father died of a heart attack and his mother's precarious mental health began to deteriorate. She developed delusions (that she was being electrified, for example; she also exhibited an unreasonable refusal to spend money and refused to eat) and became melancholic, defined at the time as a form of clinical depression accompanied by strong suicidal urges. In July 1888 she was sent to the Brook Asylum in Clapton, London, where she was placed under care of Dr. Frederick William Pavy, then to an establishment in Brighton, where she was looked after by Dr. Joseph Raymond Gasquet; and in 1890 to the Manor House Asylum, Chiswick, where she would die from heart failure on 15 December that year. Mental instability seems to have been an inherited trait in the Druitt family: Ann's mother committed suicide whilst insane and her sister suffered a bout of mental illness.

We know the whereabouts of Montague Druitt around the time at which some of the murders were committed. At 11.00am on 8 September 1888, a few hours after the discovery of the body of Annie Chapman, he was playing cricket at Blackheath. Later in September he appears to have conducted the defence of a clerk named William Power, who was charged with malicious wounding and was found to be insane. On 1 October, only a few hours after the murder of Stride and Eddowes, he may have been active in court at an appeal in the West Country. On 19 November he was present at a board meeting of the cricket club, so only ten days after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly he was continuing to carry out his responsibilities. On 22 November he represented the family firm when the appeal was heard. On 21 December the minutes of the Blackheath Cricket, Football and Lawn Tennis Co. record: 'The Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. M.J. Druitt, having gone abroad, it was resolved that he be and he is hereby removed from the post of Honorary Secretary and Treasurer'. On 31 December his body was pulled from the Thames.

The most detailed account of the inquest into Montague Druitt's death was in the Acton, Chiswick and Turnham Green Gazette, 5 January 1889: FOUND DROWNED. Shortly after midday on Monday, a Waterman named Winslade, of Chiswick, found the body of a man, well-dressed, floating in the Thames off Thorneycroft's. He at once informed a constable, and without delay the body was conveyed on the ambulance to the mortuary. On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Diplock, coroner, held the inquest at the Lamb Tap, when the following evidence was adduced: William H. Druitt said he lived at Bournemouth, and that he was a solicitor. The deceased was his brother, who was 31 last birthday. He was a barrister-at-law, and an a.s.sistant master in a school at Blackheath. He had stayed with witness at Bournemouth for a night towards the end of October. Witness heard from a friend on the 11th December that deceased had not been heard of at his chambers for more than a week. Witness then went to London to make inquiries, and at Blackheath he found that deceased had got into serious trouble at the school, and had been dismissed. That was on 30 December. Witness had deceased's things searched where he resided, and found a paper addressed to him (produced). The coroner read this letter, which was to the effect: 'Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die'.

Witness continuing, said deceased had never made any attempt on his life before. His mother became insane in July last. He had no other relative. Henry Winslade was the next witness. He said that he lived at No. 4, Sh.o.r.e Street, Paxton Road, and that he was a waterman. About one o'clock on Monday he was on the river in a boat, when he saw the body floating. The tide was at half flood running up. He brought the body ash.o.r.e and gave information to the police. PC George Moulson, 216 T 131, said he searched the body, which was fully dressed, excepting the hat and collar. He found four large stones in each pocket in the top coat; 2.10s. in gold, 7s. in silver, 2d. in bronze, two cheques on the London and Provincial Bank (one for 50 and the other for 16), a first-cla.s.s season ticket from Blackheath to London (South Western Railway), a second-half return Hammersmith to Charing Cross (dated 1 December), a silver watch, gold chain with silver guinea attached, a pair of kid gloves, and a white handkerchief. There were no papers or letters of any kind. There were no marks of injury on the body, but it was rather decomposed. A verdict of suicide whilst in unsound mind was returned.

This report is deficient in certain areas and has the appearance of having been written by an inexperienced and probably a trainee journalist. It does not name Montague Druitt, the subject of the inquest, for example. Nor does it refer to any medical testimony which would have been legally required to establish the cause and probable time of death. It also contained several mistakes, not the least being the claim that 'no papers or letters of any kind [were] found on the body', whereas both the County of Middles.e.x Independent of 2 January 1889 and the West London Observer of 5 January 1889 say papers found on the body led the authorities to contact relatives in Bournemouth. There are a.s.sorted other problems. The first-cla.s.s season ticket from Blackheath to London would have been to Charing Cross the nearest railway station to the Inner Temple. The season ticket suggests that Druitt regularly visited his chambers, as indeed his noted absence from 11 December confirms. However, it was a journey provided by the South Eastern Railway, not South Western as the report states. At Charing Cross on Sat.u.r.day 1 December, Druitt bought a return ticket to Hammersmith, which is slightly odd because the letter found at his lodgings stating that since Friday he had felt that he was going to be like his mother suggests that Druitt had contemplated suicide, whereas the purchase of a return ticket suggests that he intended to return from the journey. But, since people contemplating suicide often do what in retrospect is irrational, not too much emphasis should be placed on this. What isn't clear from any surviving reports is when Druitt committed suicide. The report records that William Druitt visited the school and discovered that Montague had got into trouble and been fired. The large cheques found on his body suggest that he had very recently been paid off, but we don't know whether he had been dismissed and immediately vacated the premises or had served a period of notice. The newspaper says that William Druitt visited the school on 30 December and there is no real reason why we should doubt this, but it is just possible that the date relates to when Druitt was dismissed and is a mistake for 30 November, which was a Friday. If so, Druitt's letter basically meant that he had developed fears for his sanity since being dismissed. He therefore bought the return ticket to Hammersmith on 1 December, which would have been the day he killed himself.

What doesn't emerge from anything discovered about Druitt is a single clue as to why suspicion ever fell on him. And Macnaghten gives no real clues either. In addition to what he wrote about Druitt in the Memorandum, he gave some details in his autobiography, Days of My Years: Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to the conclusion, were not in possession of the police until some years after I became a detective officer.

There can be no doubt that in the room at Miller's Court the madman found ample scope for the opportunities he had all along been seeking, and the probability is that, after his awful glut on this occasion, his brain gave way altogether and he committed suicide; otherwise the murders would not have ceased.

I do not think there was anything of religious mania about the real 'Simon Pure' nor do I believe that he had ever been detained in an asylum, nor lived in lodgings. I incline to the belief that the individual who held up London in terror resided with his own people; that he absented himself from home at certain times, and that he committed suicide on or about the 10 November 1888, after he had knocked out a Commissioner of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one of Her Majesty's princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State.5 The real problem with Macnaghten's account of Druitt is that it contains so much incorrect biographical detail. He says that Druitt was 'said to be a doctor', when he was a barrister/teacher, and Druitt's occupation was made clear at the inquest. In his autobiography he says that Druitt 'resided with his own people' and 'absented himself at certain times'. Neither is true, as again was made clear at the inquest. Macnaghten says that 'Druitt disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder' and he is even more precise in his autobiography, saying that Druitt 'committed suicide on or about 10 of November 1888'. This seems to be an a.s.sumption, probably based on the length of time the body had been in the water and the theory that Druitt's mental stability completely collapsed after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly and that he committed suicide within days. Neither a.s.sumption is true. The dichotomy, however, is that this ignorance is marginally offset by his knowledge of some details, such as the season ticket from Blackheath to London found on Druitt's body. Macnaghten evidently had a source that preceded the inquest, but obviously followed the discovery of the body, and the most likely source in this case would have been PC George Moulson's report of the discovery of the body.

Apart from his claim that Druitt was, or was alleged to be, s.e.xually insane, Macnaghten gives no indication at all as to why Druitt should have been suspected by anyone of being the Ripper and no clues are provided in the detailed, albeit pretty general, account of his life that researchers have unearthed. The most d.a.m.ning evidence against Druitt is the suspicion or belief of the family that he was the Whitechapel murderer.

But Macnaghten did not know this for certain. In both versions of the Memorandum he wrote, 'I have little doubt but that his own family suspected/believed' Druitt to have been the murderer. Had his information been from a member of the family then he would probably have had no doubt at all about what they believed; more importantly, he would have had accurate biographical detail. On the other hand, the informant must have been close to the family even to have had any idea about what they thought.

It is often said that there is no evidence against Montague John Druitt and it is true that we don't have any evidence of the kind required in a court of law. But the court of history isn't quite so demanding of evidence. The fact that Sir Melville Macnaghten suspected him and favoured him above other suspects persisting in that belief for the rest of his life (as far as we know) suggests that he had a reason for doing so, and one must surely a.s.sume that it was rather more than simply because Druitt was found dead at a time coincident with the cessation of the crimes. The biggest objection to Druitt as the prime suspect, however, comes from a remark by Inspector Frederick Abberline in the Pall Mall Gazette on 31 March 1903 when he was asked about a recent newspaper article: Our representative called Mr. Abberline's attention to a statement made in a well-known Sunday paper, in which it was made out that the author was a young medical student who was found drowned in the Thames.

'Yes', said Mr. Abberline, 'I know all about that story. But what does it amount to? Simply this. Soon after the last murder in Whitechapel the body of a young doctor was found in the Thames, but there is nothing beyond the fact that he was found at that time to incriminate him. A report was made to the Home Office about the matter, but that it was "considered final and conclusive" is going altogether beyond the truth. Seeing that the same kind of murders began in America afterwards, there is much more reason to think the man emigrated. Then again, the fact that several months after December, 1888, when the student's body was found, the detectives were told still to hold themselves in readiness for further investigations seems to point to the conclusion that Scotland Yard did not in any way consider the evidence as final'.

In his autobiography Macnaghten states: 'Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November 1888, certain facts, pointing to the conclusion, were not in possession of the police until some years after I became a detective officer'. [my italics]

Sir Melville Macnaghten joined the Metropolitan Police in June 1889. Therefore the 'certain facts' indicating Druitt came into the possession of the police 'some years' after that date. Abberline, however, seems to think that the only evidence against Druitt a.s.suming his 'young doctor' was the same person as the well-known Sunday newspaper's 'young medical student', and a.s.suming that one or the other or both referred to 31-year-old barrister/teacher Montague John Druitt emerged at the time he was found drowned. Had the evidence emerged later than that then his comment about the detectives being told several months after December 1888 to prepare themselves for further investigations would have been completely irrelevant. The report to the Home Office therefore seems to have been a routine report prepared in the instance of any death in suspicious circ.u.mstances. There therefore seem to have been several years separating what Abberline knew about Druitt, a.s.suming he knew anything, and Macnaghten's information.

It might also be worth observing that it is often a.s.sumed that the 'certain facts' that came into the possession of the police several years after Macnaghten joined the Metropolitan Police are the same as the 'private information' Macnaghten had about the suspicions or beliefs of Druitt's family. There is no real reason for supposing that this was the case. Indeed, unless 'the police' was a reference to himself, it would seem that the two pieces of information were distinct and that Macnaghten's opinion was based on private information.

Kosminski A Polish Jew was also the suspect of Sir Robert Anderson, who made, or had attributed to him, a number of references to this suspect over the years.