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  • Fish and Chips

    After posting about this in the Night She Died thread, and reading Wolf's post in the Mary Kelly Seen At Lord Mayor's Parade thread, I did a bit of research because I thought the fish supper needed closer scrutiny. And boy am I glad I did!

    A very helpful friend of mine works with a number of American medical examiners and she checked with a couple of them. They came up with 1-3 hours for food to leave the stomach and move into the intestines. According to Bond, partially digested food was found in the intestines and the stomach. So it sounds like she was in the middle of the process of digestion when she was killed.

    Now let's look at the possible times:

    - If we believe Hutchinson, he saw her at 2.00 am. She picked up Mr A around 2.05/10 am, and went into the court with him around 2.15 am. She had been heard singing in her room at around 1.10 am. And Lizzie Prater says she stood outside the court from 1.00 to 1.20 am and didn't see her leave. So, giving Prater the benefit of being a couple of minutes early in her estimation, which I assume was based on hearing a clock chiming, let's say Kelly leaves on the stroke of 1.20 am. She then goes to a fish and chip stall, buys her food or has it bought for her, eats it and then starts walking away from Dorset St towards where Hutchinson stands at Flower & Dean St and Commercial St. The earliest she could finish eating the fish and chips would be around 1.40 am. That means that the earliest she could have been killed would be 2.40 am. But that would mean Mr A keeping her alive for 25 minutes unnecessarily. So it looks like Kelly ate those chips earlier.

    - Now let's look at Cox's evidence. She sees Kelly drunk, with Blotchy Face, at 11.45 am. Kelly remains in her room singing and waking the people upstairs until 1.10 am and doesn't leave for at least another 10 minutes after that. (If she goes anywhere at all.) Cox does not mention seeing any fish and chips but she did mention seeing the pot of ale. So I assume she didn't see the food--she would have smelt it as well--because it had already been consumed. Let's posit that Kelly shared a fish supper with Blotchy around 11.30-40 am. Now let's count forward. We've got a window of 1-3 hours where the food leaves the stomach, with it basically being gone by the 3 hour mark. This takes us to 2.30 am. Which means that Mr A could have picked her up, brought her back in and killed her. But that is working on the outside of the time limit, and Bond states that the remains of the food were 'in the stomach and scattered around the intestines'. So there is still a fair amount of food in the stomach. I think it's likely that we have to pull back from 3 hours to 2-21/2 hours and maybe even earlier than that. If we turn back 21/2 hours, we get to 2.00 am on the nose. Which is when Hutchinson claims to have seen Kelly in the street. 2 hours takes us to 1.30 am which is when Kelly is somewhere, maybe in her room, maybe not. But quiet as a mouse, after singing her head off.

    - Maxwell claims to have seen Kelly in the morning. It's possible that she could have, and that Kelly had eaten those fish and chips first thing for breakfast. Except that Maxwell claims that Kelly said she wasn't feeling good, and told the press Kelly said she had the 'horrors of drink' on her. In those circumstances, I don't see her prancing out for a nice greasy fry-up. Hangover sufferers on the board could tell me if I'm right or wrong...

    To sum up, the fish and chips suggest to me that Kelly was killed earlier in the evening than has been previously suggested. That she died between 1.30 and 2.00 am. And if this is the case, I doubt she left her room after entering it with Blotchy Face.

  • #2
    Originally posted by Chava View Post
    Maxwell claims to have seen Kelly in the morning. It's possible that she could have, and that Kelly had eaten those fish and chips first thing for breakfast. Except that Maxwell claims that Kelly said she wasn't feeling good, and told the press Kelly said she had the 'horrors of drink' on her. In those circumstances, I don't see her prancing out for a nice greasy fry-up. Hangover sufferers on the board could tell me if I'm right or wrong....
    As a woman who's experienced a fair amount of hangovers in her time, this is what normally happens with me and a lot of my friends.

    With a really bad hangover, you can't face a bite of food, whatever it is. With this hangover I am more likely to vomit the next morning and will take to my bed all day.

    With a moderate hangover you usually crave greasy carb laden food and can go about your normal business, albeit feeling a bit tired.

    The fact she was sick makes me think she had the really bad type of hangover and would have been incapable of soliciting for a trick at that time in the morning. All she'd have wanted was her bed. In fact, she'd already gone and had the hair of the dog and vomited that up, had she not?

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    • #3
      Excellent Chava

      If Mary died at the time she may have called out "Oh, murder", then she would have eaten with Blotchy or soon after he left.

      Incidentally, I don't think the one mention of it being a pot of ale makes it a pot of ale. The pots apparently were very common and in the poor quarter I should imagine the pots were put to many uses.

      I would imagine the pot had a lid and could well have contained a helping of fish and potatoes.

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      • #4
        Hello Nemo!

        It could really have been just "common knowledge", that the pot contained ale!

        But like you have probably heard too; common knowledge is just common, not knowledge!

        All the best
        Jukka
        "When I know all about everything, I am old. And it's a very, very long way to go!"

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        • #5
          How long is a quart pot of ale? Long enough to hold a large battered cod?

          Did customers take their own pots to takeaway food shops or did shops 'rent' them a pot, plate redeeemable when they returned it?

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          • #6
            Also...

            ...our witness in the morning - Mrs. Maxwell - saw Mary with the "horrors" and per Evans and Gainey saw the results of Mary's hangover "in the road". So consequently - if Maxwell HAD seen Kelly that morning and not the previous, how could Mary have thrown up the contents of her stomach and also had said contents in her stomach for our dear doctor? Maxwell saw her the morning before and was probably drunk herself.

            Yeah, I went there.

            Blues

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            • #7
              Originally posted by BillieHoliday View Post
              How long is a quart pot of ale? Long enough to hold a large battered cod?

              Did customers take their own pots to takeaway food shops or did shops 'rent' them a pot, plate redeeemable when they returned it?
              Fish and chips come wrapped in newspaper. You add salt and vinegar and eat while walking around and looking at all the stuff going on in the street. Me being from the North, I'd add mushy peas as well. Yummy! But you'd never put said fish and chips into an ale pot!
              Last edited by Chava; 02-10-2009, 08:54 PM.

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              • #8
                Does alcohol not slow down the digestive process though?? I am just asking from experience. I know that food I have eaten whilest on a drinking mission ends up still being there the next morning. Won't go in to detail how I know this. (I am sure you can guess.)
                In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Chava View Post
                  Fish and chips come wrapped in newspaper. You add salt and vinegar and eat while walking around and looking at all the stuff going on in the street. Me being from the North, I'd add mushy peas as well. Yummy! But you'd never put said fish and chips into an ale pot!

                  Were newspapers used for F&C in 1888? Weren't newspapers very expensive and re-used for something more important?

                  Mushy peas are the Devil's snot.

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                  • #10
                    The newspaper was often used as an insulator not to have the chips on which came in white paper.

                    I totally agree with you views on Mushy Peas. They used to make me gip when I had to serve them from the 'Pie and Peas' stall at Main Road. I had a theory about how they were made which included babies and a conveyor belt.
                    In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

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                    • #11
                      Effete Southerners. You guys just don't understand good wholesome food.

                      (mmmmmmm...mushy peas!!)

                      Newsprint was cheap and used to wrap all sorts of stuff. An obvious way to avoid overhead was to use yesterday's paper for wrapping food, goods etc. Fish and chips were always wrapped in newspaper.

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                      • #12
                        I imagine the fish and potatoes to be as in a stew type meal - not battered cod and chips wrapped in newspaper...

                        Anyway, If the Ripper had provided the meal it would be much more likely to have been a steak & kidney pie

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                        • #13
                          The were having fried fish and chips as early as the 1790s. First big fish and chip shop opened by a Whitechaple man in the 1890s. It was being served at places before this though.
                          In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

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                          • #14
                            It was brought in by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved into the area in the eighteenth century. Apparently the Portuguese learned about this kind of frying from the Japanese, with whom they had established trade relations a hundreds years earlier. I have a book called 'Jewish Cooking' by Claudia Roden which goes into detail about this. So fish 'n' chips =tempura!

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                            • #15
                              God bless them!! I LOVE fish and chips. Just the smell makes me think of friday nights after swimming.
                              In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

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