Sweet violets

[Wickerman]

Indirectly, there is an account published in, The Ripper File, Jones & Lloyd, 1975, p.65.

"I heard her singing Friday morning about half past twelve. she was singing 'I plucked a violet from my mother's grave', rest her soul in Heaven, poor dear......"
There's a whole paragraph, I just gave the first two lines. The source appears to be the Daily Chronicle, Nov. 10th, 1888.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Hi,

No, I am suggesting that Kelly never sung the song. That is all.

Regards, Pierre

Catherine Pickett

Witness (though not called to Mary Jane Kelly's inquest).

Flower seller living in Miller's Court with her husband David. Although not widely quoted in the press, Pickett apparently heard Mary Kelly singing from her room at about 12.30am, 9th November 1888. The singing began to irritate Catherine who decided to go and complain, however she was stoppped by her husband.

"If it hadn't been for my Dave - that's my old man you must know - I should have come out of my room and caught the whitelivered villain! But Dave says to me , you just leave the woman alone so I stopped where I was - worst luck for the poor dear soul! - and goes to bed..."[1]

Later that morning, at about 7.30am, Pickett got up to go to the market; as it was raining and cold, she decided to borrow a shawl off Mary Kelly and knocked at her room, but there was no reply. Assuming Kelly to be asleep, she went on her way.[2]


Apparently, the song Kelly was singing was 'A Violet from Mother's Grave' which was also heard by Mary Ann Cox; it has contributed to the legends of Mary Kelly's last night.

[miss marple]

25 pages about a song Mary sang. Is it worth investing so much time on something so trivial? The song has no bearing on her death except as to timings that she was still alive.
Pierre wanders down strange avenues of conspiracy theory that involves so much smoke and mirrors that nothing is clear.

Miss Marple

[GUT]

But was it an anagram???

[Caligo Umbrator]

Hi, Pierre.


From the information you have so far been willing to supply, it is unclear what led you to suppose that Byron's book, published in 1821, had any distinct and vital connection to the 1888 murders or the issuance, in the Pall Mall Gazette that same year, of the lyrics to 'Sweet Violets', other than the one name these two works share: 'Zillah'.

Q.1, Is it something contained within Byron's book that led you to the discovery of the later song publication or did the song lead you to the book?

Q.2, It seems clear from your statements on this matter that you believe there is, included within the book, something which echoes or confirms another source you have. What is that correlative information?

Q.3, On many of the threads you have started or engaged in, you state you have an 'external source' which you are trying to resolve or verify with other information. When you talk about this source, is it a single document that you are referring to or do you have multiple and separate sources that you have brought together and which are unknown to other researchers?

Yours, Caligo

[Joshua Rogan]

But was it an anagram???

"We vse toilets"?

[Kattrup]

Apparently, the song Kelly was singing was 'A Violet from Mother's Grave' which was also heard by Mary Ann Cox; it has contributed to the legends of Mary Kelly's last night.

There are many many posts confirming that MJK sang "a violet from mother's grave"

I do not believe that anyone is disputing that she sang it.

Pierre is not interested in that song. Pierre is trying to ascertain who got the idea that the song was Sweet Violets, and subsequently who told the press.

That, at least, is my understanding. Just wondering why people keep focusing on the other song. This thread is about Sweet Violets being mentioned in the papers.

[Elamarna]

Kattrup
You are right.
Howe've it seems clear that Pierre is suggesting that the killer was the motivating to force behind the story ein released.
The possible conclusion is the woman giving the story was the same Pierre claims was the first discoverer of the Kelly body. Of course he has not provided a name for this person but has certainly suggested they existed.

One is left with the idea that this person must be closely connected to the killer.
No other ideas at present.

Steve

[David Orsam]

Indirectly, there is an account published in, The Ripper File, Jones & Lloyd, 1975, p.65.

"I heard her singing Friday morning about half past twelve. she was singing 'I plucked a violet from my mother's grave', rest her soul in Heaven, poor dear......"
There's a whole paragraph, I just gave the first two lines. The source appears to be the Daily Chronicle, Nov. 10th, 1888.

I have a copy of the Daily Chronicle report of 10 Nov 1888 on the Kelly murder and neither Pickett nor the song "Violet From Mother's Grave" is mentioned.

[David Orsam]

There are many many posts confirming that MJK sang "a violet from mother's grave"

I do not believe that anyone is disputing that she sang it.

Pierre is!

His theory is that Cox read the report about "Sweet Violets" and, for some unknown reason (perhaps out of confusion) decided that she had heard Kelly singing a song about violets (when she had not) but somehow managed to tell the inquest it was "A Violet From Mother's Grave" rather than "Sweet Violets".

The reason why Pierre doesn't like Cox's evidence is because he does not think that Kelly was singing ANY songs about violets. If Cox's evidence is true it puts him in a difficult position because it's a little bit too much of a coincidence that Kelly was singing a song about violets on the night of her murder when his argument is that idea of her singing "Sweet Violets" was a total fabrication by the killer in order to spread terror (or whatever) by ensuring the lyrics to the song were published in the press.

I know (before you tell me) that it makes no sense whatsoever but that's what he's basically saying.

The other reason why "A Violet From Mother's Grave" has been mentioned a lot is because the lyrics are very similar to the lyrics of "Sweet Violets" which creates the obvious possibility that anyone who thought they heard her singing "Sweet Violets" was actually confused about the correct song title or they knew the title but it became garbled when the press published the details.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;390403]

Oh dear Pierre. If you had been paying attention you would have seen that I explained earlier in this thread that the sentence "I woman heard Kelly singing "Sweet Violets" at 1 o'clock this morning" is a transcription error by the person who transcribed the text on Casebook. In the Times itself, the statement reads "A woman heard Kelly singing "Sweet Violets" at 1 o'clock this morning." So whatever mumbo jumbo you were concluding from this error is false.

Oh dear David. If you had been paying attention you would have seen that I explained earlier in this thread that The Times is not in the British Newspaper Archive. It is no problem for me if there is an "a" instead of an "I".

The sources, as I have told you before, are problematic and you are the only one who gets excited over nothing. No one knows who "a woman" was. If McCarthy talked about "a woman", which is very unclear, he talked about "Sweet Violets" and not about the song later mentioned by Cox. So you still have the same old problem. The question is what you do with this problem. And you, David, can do nothing, since you know nothing. So all you can do is to be rude and make mistakes.

Furthermore, your claim that one reference is earlier than another is ridiculous. Both references appeared in the Times on the same day. The order in which they appeared in the newspaper columns was an editorial decision. It's not possible to say whether McCarthy's statement was made earlier than the statement of the individual who informed the Times about "a person" having heard the singing.

You see, David, it is earlier in the text. Text has a chronology as well as articles. But you do not know this, and therefore you donīt understand it. If you read some research about the New Testament it will be very obvious even to you. But since this is not the NT but a simple article in a newspaper, we can do nothing more on a micro level for the provenance of the idea of Sweet Violets in this paper than to state that the "person" is the earliest reference.

And still, this does not mean anything at all, since you have two different songs. Whether McCarthy or Barnett or Bowyer or Harvey or anyone else is believed to have said it, it does not matter for my hypothesis. Why is that, David? Do you think you can answer that question?

I really have no idea what point you want to make about McCarthy's use of the pronoun "I". In respect of Sweet Violets he obviously wasn't talking about himself. He was talking about a woman who had given him this information.

We do not know what he talked about. And it does not matter. Do you understand why it does not matter? If you donīt, try your own initial idea for why there are two different songs in the papers on the statement from "McCarthy".

The short point is that the reports in the Times are not consistent with your strange theory that the killer planted the story about Sweet Violets in the press.

I do not have one, as I said, but you failed to understand this, although I have explained it to you. I did tell you that I work with hypotheses and also, I did explain to you what an hypothesis is, but you failed entirely to understand this, and therefore you make mistakes.

There are strong reasons for the hypothesis. And my purpose is to disprove the hypothesis about Sweet Violets.

You have not been of any help with that purpose. You only take time. The problem remains.

Let me tell you David: I would like to disprove the hypothesis that "a woman" told the press about "Sweet Violets". If we have another person talking about it as well, we have two different types of sources for the statement. It makes it worse. Not only must I now disprove that "a woman" told the press that Kelly sang Sweet Violets, I must also disprove that "a woman" told McCarthy the same.

[Pierre]

I don't follow your Hitler parallel I'm afraid. What I was saying was that there is no rational train of thought by which anyone reading the lyrics of Sweet Violets in 1888 would have thought that there could be a connection with an obscure play from nearly 70 years earlier let alone that the obscure play from nearly 70 years earlier could have any connection with the murder of Kelly.

You wanted a "sanity test" Pierre and you've got it.

No, you donīt understand it. The problem with your ideas is that 1. you postulate "would have" things and 2. that is unhistorical.

[Pierre]

If we follow Pierre's thinking on this issue then Samuel Miller, an umbrella maker who was born in Bethnal Green in circa 1852 and who in 1881 was living in Shoreditch and in 1891 was living in Hackney, has as much if not more chance of being Jack the Ripper than his own shady suspect.

Why?

Because his wife was called Zillah.

Yes, Zillah Miller! Fantastic.

Perhaps his wife was the woman who cried "oh murder!" and cheeky Samuel planted the story about Sweet Violets in the press as a way of taunting the police knowing that someone would surely make the lyrical connection with Byron's famous, sorry obscure, play in which Zillah discovers the brutal murder and mutilation of a woman, sorry, murder of Abel by Cain. It's just so obvious when you think of it....ooops, Pierre doesn't like me using the word "obvious", sorry again.

There are no sources for Samuel Miller being the Whitechapel murderer.

[David Orsam]

Oh dear David. If you had been paying attention you would have seen that I explained earlier in this thread that The Times is not in the British Newspaper Archive. It is no problem for me if there is an "a" instead of an "I".

I'm fully aware of the fact that the Times, like a large number of British newspapers, is not in the British Newspaper Archive, but so what? Does that excuse your error? No, it does not. I had already posted in this thread that the transcription on this site contains a mistake and that the Times got it right. So there was no need for you to repeat that mistake.

Do try to concentrate on the posts in your own thread Pierre because it will help you to avoid making basic errors and then drawing mumbo jumbo conclusions from those errors.

[Pierre]

There are many many posts confirming that MJK sang "a violet from mother's grave"

I do not believe that anyone is disputing that she sang it.

Pierre is not interested in that song. Pierre is trying to ascertain who got the idea that the song was Sweet Violets, and subsequently who told the press.

That, at least, is my understanding. Just wondering why people keep focusing on the other song. This thread is about Sweet Violets being mentioned in the papers.

Thank you, Kattrup.