GEORGE HUTCHINSON

ear missing. However, ‘obliquely’ means diagonally, which presumably means that the ear was sliced off at an angle
from where the lobe attached to the head. Does a diagonal piece of ear constitute an attempt to slice off the whole ear?
As might be expected, Mr Robinson writes at length about the claim that ‘Dear Boss’ was penned by an ‘irresponsible
journalist’, who Mr Robinson confidently asserts did not exist. With this observation one begins to think that not only
didn’t Mr Robinson spend his £500,000 wisely, but that he sees only what he wants to see. For example, he writes: ‘It
was Sims, incidentally, who received one of those beguiling bum steers so beloved of Ripperology. Like ‘the Swanson
Marginalia’ and ‘the Macnaghten Memorandum’, it is reverentially referred to as ‘the Littlechild Letter’. The copper
who never caught the Whitechapel Fiend, and squandered no time trying to, is now thrashing away on his Underwood
with a solution. While his letter has charm as memorabilia, it’s worthless as anything else.’
Well, where to begin; we’re talking about a letter that was written by Littlechild and is unimaginatively and far from
reverentially called ‘the Littlechild letter’. I wonder what screenwriter Robinson would call it? Anyway, Littlechild didn’t
venture a solution, as even the most casual reading of the letter demonstrates. Needless to point out, Sims initiated the
exchange of letters by asking about a ‘Dr. D.’ Littlechild simply replied, saying he hadn’t heard about a ‘Dr. D.’ but had
heard of a Dr. T., who he goes on to suggest wasn’t the Ripper. How was Littlechild ‘thrashing’ out a solution?
As for Littlechild’s suggestion that ‘Tom Bullen’ penned ‘Dear Boss’, Mr Robinson gives us the benefit of his not so
well-informed opinion, ‘…to credit him with ‘Dear Boss’ is expecting a little too much servitude from ink,’ except that
in 1895 the American journalist Arthur Brisbane said pretty much the same thing. Was he wrong too? I wonder, was Mr
Robinson, coffers depleted by half a mill, unaware of Arthur Brisbane, or is he guilty of selective use of sources?
Turning to the theory that Jack the Ripper was Michael Maybrick, the idea is flatter than a cheap pizza. At the
beginning of The Diary of Jack the Ripper Shirley Harrison quotes part of a letter she received from Bruce Robinson: ‘If
this Diary is a modern forgery - which I am sure it is not - and if I were the forger, I would consider it to have been the
summit of my literary achievement.’
They All Love Jack doesn’t mention Shirley Harrison very much. Of the diary he writes, ‘I don’t want to get into this
document at all’.
Time passes. Minds change. On reflection Mr Robinson is perhaps inclined to place a higher price on his literary
achievements. That’s fine and almost certainly correct, but I am bemused by his reasons for dismissing James as Jack
the Ripper. It was because (a) he was an arsenic user and would have known if Florence was poisoning him with arsenic,
and (b) because ‘Jack the Ripper was in the business of murdering women, not being murdered by them’. I’m afraid I’m
not seeing something in this argument. Like rationality. But I don’t see why either of Robinson’s suggestions disqualify
James Maybrick from being the Ripper. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t for a moment think that James was the Whitechapel
murderer, but I can’t see why his ability to recognise arsenic if given it (assuming that argument is valid) precluded him
from killing East End women several months earlier. Anyway, by these means Mr Robinson removes James from the frame
and cuts and pastes Michael in his place. Michael is the author of the diary, Michael is Jack the Ripper, and it is Michael
who murdered surrogates for Florence.
Some Jack the Ripper correspondence is written with the distinctive and old fashioned ‘f’ for ’s’ - as in that delight of
young boys, ‘where the bee sucks there suck I’ - and this was an affectation also beloved of Michael. At first blush this
seems remarkably persuasive, albeit only showing that perhaps Michael, like, allegedly, Walter Sickert, wrote letters
to the police and press. However, it strikes me that Michael would have been plum stupid to have written with such a
distinctive hand. Otherwise, the idea that anyone could have committed such horrendous crimes as those committed by
Jack the Ripper, then retired to live in semi-seclusion on the Isle of Wight, offends my sense of plausibility.
This is not sufficient reason to dismiss Michael Maybrick. We must look at and consider him carefully, and we must
do the same about the Masonic symbolism at the crime scenes and the possibility that efforts were made to hide it,
albeit on a scale considerably smaller than Mr Robinson suggests. The possibility that Matthew Packer did sell grapes to
Elizabeth Stride; that ‘two farthings polished brightly’, as reported the Daily Telegraph, really were arranged with other
objects at the feet of Annie Chapman’; the ^^ under the eyes of Eddowes looking like Masonic compasses… we need to
consider these things, partly because I’d hate to see a display of Ripperological corporate thinking come into play, but
also because I think it is valuable to take a second look at the accepted facts. It doesn’t matter if the theory doesn’t
pan out, it’s the fresh look at what’s been accepted that could lead somewhere.
I could go on. And on. It’s a big book.
Ripperologist 146 October 2015 81