locals of the ten bells and other bars...

[chrismasonic]

i'm sure this has been brought up before but i've searched for a thread to no avail...so my aplogogies if this is flogging a dead horse

every district has a route...a chain of bars that people use...some people might stay in one bar for the night and some have a drink in one then move to the bar around the corner and so forth along the route...and most people use the same route to link these bars together based on proximity

i'm curious to debate if indeed the victims frequented the ten bells pub amongst others they would most certainly know each other or at the very,very least know each others names...locals know each other...locals in the same line of work are more likely to know each other...if you move in the same circles in the same area surely they would have come across each other...

[Sam Flynn]

There were many, many more pubs in Spitalfields than one might believe from popular accounts of the Ripper story, Chris - there were three in or near Dorset Street alone: the Horn of Plenty, the Blue Coat Boy and the Britannia (or "Ringer's"). To get an idea of what we're up against, you might like to read Adrian Phypers' splendid dissertation "The House Where Jack Swilled" here (http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-pubsv.html). There's a faint possibility that Mary Kelly might have known Annie Chapman, as they both lived in Dorset Street at the same time, but even there the odds aren't as good as one might imagine - Dorset Street alone was home to some 800 people, and Mary and Annie lived at either end of the street. They were also separated by some two decades in age.

Add to that the fact that most Victorian pubs weren't exactly large, and it becomes readily apparent that the chances of even those who lived in the same street being anything more than nodding acquaintances, still less drinking buddies, are rather remote.

Nothing could be further removed from the image of a cosy village "local" than the gin-joints of the overcrowded East End.

[anna]

I disagree with Sam on this point....


There is no reason at all,why these women wouldn't have known each other.(Doesn't matter how many people lived in a certain road..or area).

I have always felt that way about them,and always will do.

I was just thinking of Tabram and Pearly Poll on a pub crawl....and they were all in the same profession aswell....

As I say...no reason at all....even if just on nodding terms...but I think they knew each other better than this.

[Sam Flynn]

There you go, Chris.

It's your choice between my point about the huge population figures, the non-proximity of the victims' living quarters, the age gap between at least two of them, and the multiplicity of pubs in the area... versus Anna's "always feeling" that the victims knew each other.

Give me inferences based on hard statistics over conclusions based on faith any day, but I could well be wrong :)

[anna]

Yep...as Sam says......we stand on opposite sides of this one...


But I still think he's great!:2thumbsup:

[miss marple]

Tom Cullen who apparently interviewed an elderly retired marker porter called Dennis Barret in the 1960s when researching his book The autumn of Terror, has this story from Barrett, who apparently knew Dorset St and' Black Mary' when he was a boy.
I don't know if anyone has checked the veracity of Barrett's stories. Or is it just part of the mythology?
He says'' She was a handsome woman, tall and rather stout. She had her pitch outside the Ten Bells pub in Commercial St, and woe to any woman who tried to poach her territory- such a woman was likely to have he hair pulled out in fistfuls'
Barrett also mentioned other notorious characters,
''Mad Jack O 'Brien, an irishman with shoulders like a boxer. He never wore a shirt and would fight anyone. He would go from pub to pub and the owners would stand him free drinks just to get rid of him' Then there was Tommy no Legs and Mrs Flower of the Flock, Tommy who had two wooden stumps for legs, sold matches outside the Bank of England and when he got roaring drunk, as he frequently did, he would unstrap one of his wooden extremites and use it to smash up a pub '.
These are such great stories i would love it if they were true.
Miss MARPLE

[chrismasonic]

i know theres lots of bars around the area and lots of people too but i come from a pretty busy place too and it doesn't confuse me...

i havn't been in my local estate bar for well over 8 years now...but if i walk in right now i'll recognise people from my street and the locality...along with the lifetime users...i know peoples names that i've never spoken to in my life...and i know them because they drank in the same bar as me at some time

i use a bar across town...same again...the same old faces will be there old and young....most nights of the week

my friends used to live near the ten bells,that was one of there locals...it's very small...i've used most of the pubs around that area when i've travelled down to see friends...if you go there a few nights in a week you start to recognise the locals same as anywhere else

it has been said the mary used to stand outside the ten bells...i can't help but think that after passing a few times you'd get to know who she was...through sight or gossip...

i'm of the school that all of these women knew one another to a degree and most certainly had mutual friends,customers,lovers...which makes it even more likely

[Sam Flynn]

i'm of the school that all of these women... had mutual friends,customers,lovers
Chris,

Please check out the "timelines" (actually, quite useful mini-biographies) for each of them under the "Victims" link in the panel on the left. There you'll see that, not only did these women live in different parts of an exceptionally overcrowded part of London, but some of them (Kelly, Nichols, Stride) were relative newcomers to the immediate area. There were also differences in terms of age-group, "ethnicity" (if I can put it like that) and varying degrees of commitment to relationships among the victims. A number of the victims frequented different doss-houses, which in themselves were located in mean streets containing hundreds and hundreds of people.

Now, in order to cater for the huge, dissolute population of Spitalfields, many of them alcoholics, a large number of pubs would have been necessary - and so, it transpires, was the case. However, some still labour under the misapprehension that the Ten Bells was the only pub in town, presumably because it's become the romantic "victim's rendezvous" beloved of conspiracy theorists and film-makers.

[anna]

Well said,Chrismasonic!!....:2thumbsup:

[chrismasonic]

we're not just summising they may have encountered each other at the ten bells...or any of the other bars in the area...i know people don't just use one bar...they use many...but along with that you meet people in each one

if people hang out on your street corner...you'll see them...and if they hang out there regularly you'll get to know who they are...maybe become friends or enemies...but you'll remember faces at the very least

if you buy your veg from a stall on the high street you may recognise other customers from previous visits

these people have got all day and all night to come across each other

these are the nightime people...for all these hundreds of people that live in whitechapel mentioned...theres less about at night,it goes without saying and if you hang out in bars and streets in any town at night...you'll start seeing familiar faces and you'll meet others doing the same as you...

the landlord of the ten bells is gonna know the landlord of the next bar down the road...he's gonna know his customers be they gangsters,hardmen,working girls,policemen...all publicans have that knowledge

streetgirls would have a similar knowledge of the bars customers...and the people of the night...where you go and where you don't go and why and because of who...

these girls all have been reported to hang around the streets at night,i'm sure they're lives crisscrossed...

[Sam Flynn]

Even there, Chris, we're not dealing with a handful of professional prostitutes, but with thousands of casual streetwalkers - not to mention tens of thousands of casual customers, not all of them "regular". It's not as if they would necessarily have worked the same "beats", and one only has to look at a map showing the murder sites to see that the victims had evidently been "picked up" in different parts of town.

In addition, most of the victims had passed their prime long before Mary Kelly arrived in the East End. To suggest that the likes of Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes would have been in competition with, or "colleagues" of, Mary Kelly - or that they regularly worked the same "red light district" - is stretching definitions a little too far.

[chrismasonic]

i'm not suggesting that the women were rivals...merely that they knew each other to some degree...

i think the painting of tens of thousands of people hanging out on the streets of whitechapel in the small hours is wrong...
i live in newcastle and each weekend thousands upon thousands of people flood the city centre bars each weekend and i've walked through my city centre many times at 4 in the morning and you don't bump into many people at all...same goes for london...you see people at all hours but not that many

i know my comparison is modern day versus 1888 but times havn't changed that much.in regard to when people go to sleep..they'd be hundreds of people out of them streets that late at night at the very most

you got your daytime people and your nightime people...the guy riding a cart at 5am each morning isn't still in the pub at 1am...he went to bed long before

[Sam Flynn]

Chris,

I think you may have underestimated what "overcrowding" and "casual prostitution" meant in the East End of 1888.i think the painting of tens of thousands of people hanging out on the streets of whitechapel in the small hours is wrong.Nobody's trying to paint that picture. The point is that, at any one time, for every few women who were compelled to go out on the streets, there would have been tens of thousands who didn't. The next night, a different few women might have had to go out... and so forth.

In other words - the odds of a casual prostitute happening to be on the streets at the same time as another was quite low, given their unpredictable work patterns and the enormous number of women who might have resorted to prostitution when the need arose.

The same would have been true of the pubs, and for similar reasons.

The odds of a particular Dorset Street resident happening to be in the Ten Bells at the same time as another particular Dorset Street resident would have been quite low for starters, given that the pub would only have held - what? - 50 people, and nearly 900 people lived in Dorset Street.

The odds of a given Dorset Street resident (like Chapman) being in the Ten Bells at the same time as a particular Flower & Dean Street resident (like Nichols) would have been lower still.

The odds of a particular Dorset Street resident (like Kelly) actually striking up a friendship with a Devonshire Street, St George's East, resident (like Stride) would have been practically nil.

The same applies to just about any combination of victim you care to mention, in varying degrees of diminishing probability. When you combine those probabilities, the odds of ALL the victims - or even three or four of them - knowing one another is extremely small.

[chrismasonic]

i'm sure i know about as much about overcrowding as you...i'm not underestimating overcrowding factors...but i'm not calculating random facts

the odds against me and a guy who lives 8 miles away from me being in a bar 10 miles from both our homes who be very high indeed...but we both hung out there most nights the odds wouldn't be very high at all...

the landlords of these bars knew these women well...if there was tens of thousands of people out there each night they wouldn't know individuals as well...just faces in the crowd...plus these thousands wouldn't fit into these tiny bars...is that why mary was always stood outside the ten bells because it was too full?

[Sam Flynn]

the odds against me and a guy who lives 8 miles away from me being in a bar 10 miles from both our homes who be very high indeed...but we both hung out there most nights the odds wouldn't be very high at all...What if there were several tens of thousands of people crammed into a space of only 2 square miles? What if there were dozens and dozens of pubs dotted around the district? What if those pubs were quite small, and barely big enough to contain even one twentieth of the population of a single street at any one time? What if you could only afford one or two beers whenever you could scrape enough money together to buy them? What if you had to spend ages hanging around the streets hoping to find someone desperate enough to pay you for a grope, before you had enough money to buy another? What if the other guy was operating under similar constraints?

Sorry, Chris, but you really ought to understand the enormity of the overcrowding and poverty problems in the East End during the Late Victorian Period, as well as understanding what "casual prostitution" back then would have entailed. Our 21st Century experiences just do not compare.

[Sam Flynn]

the landlords of these bars knew these women well...We don't know that.

[chrismasonic]

I'm just going to disagree with you on the tens of thousands of people out there each night drinking and hanging out on the streets...you paint that picture...i say that by 3 o'clock the streets were quiet and only the randoms were out and about

We know there was many bars and we know that the woman were seen in bars on Commercial Street,Dorset Street,Brick Lane etc...

i know that area well and i've been on many a pub crawl from one bar to the next and don't see why drinkers of 1888 didn't do the same...anyone that goes to bars knows that the ones on the main streets are far more likely to be be happening...and that prostitutes would have most definatly went from bar to bar looking for trade...if your looking for people with money for a trick your not gonna go to the crappiest dive...your gonna head out to where people with money are likely to be...obvious

quoting the odds on percentages of people in a street going to bars doesn't mean anything...out of the 100 houses on my street,maybe 400 people...i could quite easily be the only resident in our local bar

but the odds on where a likely customer with money might be does effect the odds...

these woman didn't just walk around the streets "billy no mates" they had friends...they were known by people...there is nothing to say that they didn't know each other and only speculation that they might of...thats far better odds than you are offering

[Sam Flynn]

i know that area well and i've been on many a pub crawl from one bar to the next and don't see why drinkers of 1888 didn't do the same...
You might be able to enjoy to a cozy stroll around clubland with (presumably) reasonably-paid mates, and to do so in a town where folk have - on average - more than a few square feet in which to live, and pubs big enough to accommodate a hundred or so people quite comfortably. That's light-years away from the conditions in the East End in 1888, on every single dimension.quoting the odds on percentages of people in a street going to bars doesn't mean anythingWe live in a mathematical universe, and unfortunately we're stuck with it. Of course the odds mean something.

Anyway, I shan't waste any more of our time trying to explain why.

[chrismasonic]

Dorset Street was a side-street, a tributary of the better-lit (and better patronised) Commercial Street. It would have made more economic sense for a street-walker to have paraded back and forth along the latter, than to hide in the shadows of Dorset Street, Thrawl Street, White's Row (etc), waiting for custom to come to them. This is common practice among prostitutes today... or so I'm told
this sounds like what i'm saying doesn't it?
all i'm adding that the ladies might have come across each other whilst out and about...

i can't forcast how much money i might have for beer if i lived in 1888 whitechapel...but i'm sure i could walk the streets like any other...

but we're streets apart on our visions of whitechapel back then...

i wouldn't spend my money at your bookies...the odds are astronimical

[caz]

Hi Chris,

We don't have a single instance of any of the victims telling anyone "I knew one of the murdered women", let alone saying they knew more than one.

Even if a couple of them had been on nodding terms, they would still have needed to know a name, last known address or some other distinguishing detail in order to make any connection at all between the emerging information about a murder victim and a woman they had seen occasionally in a shop, a pub or just walking down the street. It's not like photos or film of the victims appeared on the six o'clock news!

Love,

Caz
X

[The English Gardener]

Then you must also assume that level of aquaintance to be with absolutely everybody who lived in the area. It's not nearly enough to make assumptions like this. They could have known each other, that's for certain. But "could" and "must have" are a long long way removed from each other. If their lives did indeed crisscross, then they also crisscrossed with thousands of others. And, as Sam has pointed out, The Ten Bells was only one of the many pubs and beer houses in the immediate area. Any directory will show how many you're looking at. You might also consult any OS map of the area- bearing in mund that only the pubs are shown. As Sam has already mentioned, Dorset Street alone had two pubs {The Blue Coat Boy and The Horn Of Plenty} and one beer house {The Britannia}. There is absolutely no evidence that any of the C5 knew each other, and the sheer weight of the odds against such intimacy mitigates against it. With no evidence to even imply aquaintance, and every reason to doubt aquaintance, I entirely fail to see why anyone would consider it even likely that any 2 of the 5 women we are talking about here knew each other. The odds are stacked hugely against it. And the odds against all 5 knowing each other are, correspondingly, vanishingly small.

[Monty]

Whilst the evidence is non exsistant that the C5 (I hate that term but cant think of another that would suffice), the probabilty that they were at least aware of each other, if only by sight, are quite high.

This based on the locations of lodging houses, murder sites, pubs, eatries etc.

Monty
:)

[The English Gardener]

Whilst the evidence is non exsistant that the C5 (I hate that term but cant think of another that would suffice), the probabilty that they were at least aware of each other, if only by sight, are quite high.

This based on the locations of lodging houses, murder sites, pubs, eatries etc.

Monty
:)

Why? There are only about 300 people in the village I live in. I'm certainly not aware of all of them, even "by site". Dorset Street alone had 2 and a half that many people living in it.You're not, I'm sure, prepared to claim that it's highly probable that MJK knew {at least "by sight"} all 800 of them? Lodging houses were numerous and densely populated, as were the pubs and beer houses.
I repeat;
There is no more evidence that the C5 knew each other than there is that the C5 knew everyone living in the area.

[Monty]

English,

Yes, I stated 'by sight'.

I never said they knew everyone.

I know most, by sight, living in my street. I know most, by sight, in my local pub. I know most, by sight, in the building I work in.

Seeing as, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly resided in the same streets at some point, reportedly drank in the same pubs, I still stand that the probabilty that they knew each other (though not all at the same time) by sight is high.

There is nothing to state they did, agreed, however the locale cannot dismiss it out of hand either.

Monty
:)

[The English Gardener]

English,

Yes, I stated 'by sight'.

I never said they knew everyone.

I know most, by sight, living in my street. I know most, by sight, in my local pub. I know most, by sight, in the building I work in.

Seeing as, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly resided in the same streets at some point, reportedly drank in the same pubs, I still stand that the probabilty that they knew each other (though not all at the same time) by sight is high.

There is nothing to state they did, agreed, however the locale cannot dismiss it out of hand either.

Monty
:)

But there's nothing... nothing to suggest that. All the points you make about why they might know each other could be equally applied to anyone else living in the area. If you're going to claim that it's likely that the five women in question knew each other then it follows, logically, that it's just as likely that they knew everyone else. And the actuality is that it's more- much more- likely that they didn't know each other at all.

[Steve S]

Different levels of 'know'......
There's know the face.....
Know to nod to.......
up to friends...........
Wouldn't be surprised if the lower end of the scale applied.........
Steve

[The English Gardener]

Different levels of 'know'......
There's know the face.....
Know to nod to.......
up to friends...........
Wouldn't be surprised if the lower end of the scale applied.........
Steve

Again, that would equally apply to everyone else in this hugley populated area.
Even at the lower end of the scale simply living on the same street as 800 other people sure adds up to an awful lot of nodding. I'm a long way off convinced. Statistically speaking the odds are so heavily stacked against any kind of aquaintance that- if it were anyone else under discussion- the assumption would automatically be "not aquainted". Why would they be? Living in the same area {along with god knows how many thousand others} is simply not even close to presenting likelihood.

[Steve S]

Likely?...maybe not,but my point is that even if they did vaguely recognise each other...It doesn't mean anything..completely immaterial.......
Steve

[The English Gardener]

Likely?...maybe not,but my point is that even if they did vaguely recognise each other...It doesn't mean anything..completely immaterial.......
Steve

Your point taken, sir, and conceeded.

[Monty]

But there's nothing... nothing to suggest that. All the points you make about why they might know each other could be equally applied to anyone else living in the area. If you're going to claim that it's likely that the five women in question knew each other then it follows, logically, that it's just as likely that they knew everyone else. And the actuality is that it's more- much more- likely that they didn't know each other at all.


All the points you make about why they might know each other could be equally applied to anyone else living in the area

True, and equally applicable to the four Ive named.

If you're going to claim that it's likely that the five women in question knew each other then it follows, logically, that it's just as likely that they knew everyone else. And the actuality is that it's more- much more- likely that they didn't know each other at all.

Again, I stated knew by sight, not knew casually or intimately. There is a difference.

The area is a small one. The fact that these locations of Lodgings, pubs etc, situated very close to each other, places the probability as high that they MAY have KNOWN EACH OTHER BY SIGHT. Doesn’t mean they knew them by name. A face they had seen before.

You seem to be protesting too much over, what is essentially, a slight difference in views.

Monty
:)

PS Steve has cleared my point up.

[caz]

My point was more that there would be little to connect a woman known only by sight with the emerging news about a murder victim - and no reason to do so unless it was someone you saw on a pretty regular basis or at the same locations and suddenly you stopped seeing her and the description of the victim matched in more than one distinctive detail.

For instance, for Carrie Maxwell to have been sure that the woman she claimed to talk to was the one later found murdered in her room, she'd have had to know more than just the very common name Mary Kelly, or the fact that she lived in the vicinity.

If anyone from just a few doors away from me, or anyone I regularly see on the bus or in the local shops, pubs or restaurants were mentioned by name in today's paper as a missing person or murder victim, but with only a basic description or less than accurate drawing, chances are I wouldn't have the foggiest if I knew the person concerned by sight or not.

Love,

Caz
X

[The English Gardener]

You seem to be protesting too much over, what is essentially, a slight difference in views.

Monty
:)

PS Steve has cleared my point up.

Monty-
Oh, I'm not actually protesting at all. My point was simply that it's wrong to assume aquaintance at any level. Your point that the area was {and still is} a small one is a valid one, and were the local population at the level it is now, it would be safe to assume that the C5 {and I share your dislike of that term, makes them sound like a French car collective} were aquainted. But things were different in 1888 when the streets, boarding houses, model and ordinary dwellings were absolutely stuffed with people. In such a densely packed area even your next door neighbour hardly knew you {as the Kelly case amply demonstrated}, so why would you be at all aquainted with someone who lived on the other side of Commercial Street? The aim of my remark about the likelihood of them knowing each other at all was the same as the likelihood of them knowing everyone else was, in escense, to demonstrate that that likelihood was virtually nil. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not being argumentative, neither am I point scoring. Please believe that I'm simply, in my rather wordy way, contributing. The idea that Kelly, Eddowes et al knew each other is a very comfortable and intriguing one, and it would - if true - open up a huge panorama of possibility. It's just not very likely, that's all.

[Monty]

Gardener,

The word acquainted is an incorrect one, certainly not what I am suggesting.

I agree that the population of the area was large and transient. And the fact that Kelly, Eddowes et al were relatively established compared to others only increases the chances of one being noted by the other, as there would he higher chance of recognising each other if seen more regular.

The likelihood of everyone knowing everyone is indeed nil, agreed. However the likelihood on someone knowing someone within that small area is somewhat higher than that, especially when you consider how close these locations were. For example, Crossinghams (Chapman) and Millers Court (Kelly) were virtually opposite each other. They were in the same small street at the same time. Kelly had been there since March or April, and Chapman had spent weekends there for the time running up to her death.

Basically if they came across each other then the chance that they recognised each other, by sight at least, increases.

Sure its intriguing, however we do not know they did know each other in anyway so this thread is rather moot and pointless.

Monty
:)

[Shelley]

i would have thought to a certain extent that some of the residents transient or not would call on each other for a bit of help from time to time, you know some sort of social networking, times were very hard and a lot of people at times would be glad of help as and when they may need it. Today you find a lot of people just have a small circle of thier own friends, or they are quite distant from one another and our poverty today is not exactly in the same league as it was then. So a name or a face might stick for a bit until they moved on perhaps. people also still found thier own entertainments as well, maybe perhaps the pub and a sing song?

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Shelley,

The fact remains that there were many pubs in the area, thousands of people crammed into a few streets, and we know of only two victims (Kelly and Chapman) who lived in the same road at the same time. Even those two were a generation apart, and lived at the opposite ends of a street which housed around 800 others.

[Shelley]

Hi Sam,
Fair enough Sam :reading:

[Monty]

Oooh, Gareth,

Hi Shelley,

The fact remains that there were many pubs in the area, thousands of people crammed into a few streets, and we know of only two victims (Kelly and Chapman) who lived in the same road at the same time. Even those two were a generation apart, and lived at the opposite ends of a street which housed around 800 others.

Gonna have to pull you up here Im afraid.

Whilst I agree with your statement, and Englishs point, about 1000s crammed into a few streets, the fact is Crossinghams (Chapmans temp abode) and Millers Court (Kellys) were far from opposite ends of the street, thats slightly misleading in my humblest opinion.

They were virtually situated opposite each other. And Im sure both women would have been aware of each others residence if not each other...if you follow.

Besides, Dorset street wasnt that long.

Monty
:)

[Sam Flynn]

Crossinghams (Chapmans temp abode) and Millers Court (Kellys) were far from opposite ends of the street, thats slightly misleading in my humblest opinion.

They were virtually situated opposite each other.I thought that Miller's Court was at the eastern end of Dorset Street, and #35 (where Chapman lived) was at the western end, Neil. Crossingham had a couple of properties in Dorset Street: the Crossingham's opposite Miller's Court was not the same Crossingham's as that occupied by Annie Chapman.Besides, Dorset street wasnt that long.True, but there'd have been quite a few hundred people occupying the space between Chapman's and Kelly's respective digs.

[Monty]

Gareth,

I stand corrected. You are quite right. I have confused New Court with Millers. Apologies mate.

However, whilst the populous of the street was high, there was still only one small street with 3 points of access.

Ive added Robs map as reference for those who havent seen it.

Monty
:)