Bond, Hebbert and methodology

[Abby Normal]

I don´t care all that much about the objections raised about proper historical analysis, Debra - I work with what I have and I try to apply common sense instead of a set of rules concocted in a stuffy study somewhere.

"Proper historical analysis" has been applied for a century and more, and to little avail. I am convinced that if the case could be solved using this tool, it would have been made long ago.

My feeling is that what can get us further is to use (shudder, historians!) intuition. If we get a feel for something, we should pursue that feeling and try to - as objectively as possible - look at whether we may be right or wrong. If the idea yields useful results, the material should be whiskered as far away from the historians as possible, and work should be done to get as far as we can.
Then, after that, the historians can have a look, and they can whine about how we have used the wrong paths to reach our goals. Once the goals are reached, I could not care less.

Equally, hard work can do the trick - if somebody wants to follow up on something that seems uninteresting and unimportant, that can also work. The thing to remember is that IF there is an opening, then it will not be obvious. It takes intuition, luck, dogged work, something like that to get the break. Not a will to bow to historians demands.

About the eyelid thing: I think it would be slightly unfortunate if the term eyelid came to govern the debate. What I am after is instead that it seems that both killers performed very delicate work when dealing with the eye area. I think the eyes were something the killer wanted to stay intact, and that he was willing to take great care not to damage them. The overall carnage represented by Kellys face but leaving the eyes fully or reasonably intact is one such matter, the carefully cut death mask from 1873 is another and the holes cut through Eddowe´s eyelids with no known damage to the underlying eyes is a third one.
It´s a tenuous enough link, but to my mind, it is completely legal to point to anyway, not least in combination with the very solid links represented by the abdominal flaps and the colons.

Hi Fish
glad your moving away from specifically the eye lid thing and more to careful work around the eyes. for what its worth I do see a similarity (although somewhat tenuous) between the cutting of the face mask of the 1873 torso and the nicks to eddowes eyelids and the gashing of the face but leaving the eyes untouched on MK-all seemingly careful work around the eyes to leave them intact. As mentioned before if the killer in the torso case wanted a faceless head with the eyes intact-that is even stronger to Kelly case IMHO.

[Debra A]

In addition, it really is presumed speculation if H included Eddowes in the equation or nay..by seeing photographs or not. We simply dont know..but logically, if one does talk of "The Whitechapel Murders".. Eddowes would certainly be included. Does one therefore assume..I hate that word.. that he may, for example, have simply written 6 by mistake, and not 7?

My point is this. Unless we can produce a 2nd example of his writings that also refers to the quantity of 6 "Whitechapel murder" victims only, there is no believable certainty of any quantative accuracy.

Just playing devils advocate. ☺


Phil

Phil, of course the discussion about whether or not Hebbert included Eddowes was speculative. It was a discussion about which were the six mutilated Whitechapel victims Hebbert was referring to of those we know he could have 'seen'

[Fisherman]

Phil, in case it isn't obvious...I'm being a little bit sarcastic about the historical analysis stuff myself. Steve was saying I might have a hard time showing that Hebbert thought there was a link between the torsos and the Whitechapel cases but that very thing was reported. I am not saying it is right or wrong what he said, just that he said it.

Of course I still think the notes on the heart not being in the room in a Sytstem of Legal Medicine adds to Bond's Post Mortem note that the heart was absent from the pericardium and had been taken by the killer! So, therefore I must regard it as a reliable source for extra information myself, as many well known and respected authors do too, so, personally I've no reason to be calling Fish out for using the sources in a similar way himself.

What has amazed me is how it has been claimed that the better guess is that Hebbert was wrong on the eyelid matter, not because Bond was of another meaning, but simply because it was not mentioned in the part of the report we have by Bonds hand.
That goes well beyond any sensible reasoning, and now that we have Stephen Ryans assertion that the report is not a full one, there is so much more reason to accept Hebberts words.

Instead of accepting and welcoming the fact that we have the words of BOTH doctors on this issue, the fact that Bond was in charge and that he made his report in the line of duty back in 1888, has been used not only to argue for how his is the more important source - it has also been used as an excuse to paint Hebberts book out as more or less useless and unreliable.

That is where logic has left the matter. The book is, just like you say, a reliable and useful extra resource. Far from contradicting Bond, it is by and large corroborating him, and when it adds to the information given by Bond, we really should accept that this information is much more likely to be correct than wrong.

[jerryd]

Hopefully Mr. Ryan does not mind me re-posting his response to a question casebook member "Erin" asked in 2005. The highlighted portion was done by me. His reasoning in the "see below" paragraph is interesting to read. I did not highlight that portion, although, I think it's important.



Erin- First of all, is the information from Dr. Hebbert contained in this publication that which is thought to be missing from Dr. Bond's report? What is it has led anyone to believe that Dr. Bond's report was incomplete--simply the publication of additional details in the newspapers? Furthermore, when I looked at the entries for Ryan and Stead (alas, there is nothing for Hebbert) in the A-Z I found mention of evidence of Kelly's having been sodomized by her killer. I see nothing in the passage here indicating this. Is this the complete text of Dr. Hebbert's recollections of the Kelly murder, or are there sections missing from his notes as well? Forgive me if it seems that I'm being overly or deliberately obtuse on this matter, I don't have access to the Criminologist and I find this topic to be a very fascinating and promising one indeed.

Stephen Ryan- To Erin: Regarding my entry in the 'Jack the Ripper A To Z', the words used in it were3 not my own, but those of the book's authors (or one of them, anyway), and has led to your confusion. At the time when I let Martin Fido know about the pages missing from the end of Bond's report on Kelly (MEPO 3/3153, ff. 10-18) my article, 'Mary Kelly's Heart; A Very 'Curious' Item', had not yet appeared in the 19907 issue of 'the Criminologist', so I gave him a precis of its contents. He (or they0 rightly stated in the entry under my 'nom de plume' that I wasarguing in that article that the report is missing at least one page, probably more, from its end. The comments in brackets in the entry, however, in reference to Kelly's alleged pregnancy or the allegation that she had been sodomised, are not my own, but, unfortunately, convey the IMPRESSION that they ARE part of the missing information. (It is remarkable that nowhere in the report as extant is there any mention of semen having been found either in or on Kelly's ual organs, or anywhere else...) In fact, in my follow-up article, 'Another look At Mary kelly's Heart', published in 'The Criminologist' in 1998, and now revised and published on-line, I wrote: 'Kelly probably was neither pregnant nor sodomised, despite ing rumours and claims, or Hebbert, I feel, would have mentioned these salient, heinous aspects in his description of the crime. true, he may have been sticking to facts pertaining strictly to the theme of identification, or Harris may have edited his remarks, but there is no mention of a foetus' presence in or absence from the abstracted uterus and surely such a pertinent, potentially identifying, fact would not have been omitted. Hebbert averre3d that only the HEART was missing. Clearly, the uterus could have shown no sign of being, or having recently been, gravid.' All the same, it is quite likely that the forensic facts contained in the material forwarded by Hebbert to the American doctor Francis A. Harris were not ALL the facts which had once been on the pages long-missing from the Bond report. Hebbert may have chosen to send only those facts, or Harris may have chosen to use only those facts out of those that Hebbert had sent him. they certainly PROVE, however, that there were once further pages to the end of the report, probably contained in a section headed 'Comments', with which both Dr. Bond and Dr. Hebbert were in the habit of closing p.m. reports. (See below.) My two on-line articles prove, beyond dispute, that Dr. Hebbert's material is authentic and derives from the missing pages.

The reason why it is definite that pages are missing from the end of the Bond report may be summarised as follows: 1) there is no signature, no credentials, and no date, at the conclusion of the report as extant, which things one was not allowed to omit from a valid p.m. report; 2) there is no statement of the one cause of at the report's conclusion, which was also mandatory; 3) various forensic details are missing from the report which could scarcely have been left out by so eminent and experienced an expert as Dr. Bond, eg. her ual condition and her gynaecological condition.
Further, in my on-line article, 'Another Look At Mary Kelly's Heart - Part II: Further Revelations', I show conclusively: 1) that Dr. Hebbert was present at the examination of Kelly's remains at the scene of the3 crime and at the later examination at the mortuary; 2) that the Bond report is NOT in Bond's handwriting but in HEBBERT'S - i.e. that Bond had dictated his findings to his colleague, who therefore was perfe3ctly placed to know what were the true forensic facts in the Kelly case, and had no need to invent them (unlike others); 3) that Hebbert is known to have had his own notes on the cases on which he collaborated with his superior, Bond, and may well have even had his own copy of the report on Kelly. And 4) that both Bond and Hebbert routinely ended their reports with a 'Comments' section, in keeping with the contemporary professional injunction that the conclusions drawn from the facts should be kept separate from the body of the report itself whichthose facts. As I say, I believe that this 'Comments' section was on the now-missing pages and that they were in fact detached by Ch. Insp. Swanson himself, for the reason that they were far more useful to the police than wading through great masses of detail on organ size, weight, condition etc., and that they never got put back with the report (perhaps deliberately, perhaps due to an oversight) when Swanson sent the report to be filed at the Met. Police Registry on the 23rd April 1889. (This is shown by the fact that the 'last' page of the report as extant (folio 18) bears that very date stamped on its otherwise blank reverse, as well as on the inside front of the file cover - put there by either the Registrar or his clerk.) I further contend that Dr. Bond probably referre3d to 6the mode of abstracting the heart in that 'Comments' section, in describing the skill or otherwise of Kelly's er, and that his seemingly bald remark 'Heart Absent' only seems cryptic or ambiguous to us because the further information in the 'Comments' section is missing. Thus, I believe that the sum of all the information contained in my various articles on the subje3ct put entirely beyond dispute my firm conviction that pages are indeed missing from the end of Bond's report on Kelly as extant, as anyone who cares to read the two on-line articles will undoubtedly be able to see for themselves.
Those who wish to know just what sort of forensic information might have appeared in the missing pages should examine the reports by Bond on 3 of the c4 victims of the Thames Torso er. the 4th one was made by Hebbert himself. They all have a 'Comments' section at the end. All but the 4th report - on the Pinchin street Torso - are missing from the National archives, but Hebbert, with bond's approval, sent copies of all 4 reports to Dr. Harris for inclusion in the textbook 'A System Of Legal Medecine' and they can therefore be found therein. Thus, Dr. hebbert was, all unknowingly, responsible for the 3 now-missing reports on the Torso victims having been handed down to posterity as well... I might add that I once wrote 2 lengthy articles on the Hebbert Information on the Thames torso er's victims, entitled 'Various Matters Forensic: the 'Thames Torso mysteries' - PARTS i AND ii, as well as a third one in which I make a very cogent case against a particular (unsuspected) butcher who at the very least would have been a 'Person Of Interest' if not a 'prime suspect' to the police, if they had known at the time what I have myself uncovered about him. these articles have never been submitted for publication because they are way beyond the usual 4000-word limit (due to the large amount of 'new' material) and because I have long had a project in mind of publishing my own true-crime journal,. entitled 'Studies In Black', as an 'occasional papers' type of journal, which I still hope to do at sometime in the future....

[Elamarna]

Dear Jerry and Debra

forgive my genuine ignorance but who is Stephen Ryan ?

And secondly why is his opinion apparently held so highly.

regards

steve

[Trevor Marriott]

Hopefully Mr. Ryan does not mind me re-posting his response to a question casebook member "Erin" asked in 2005. The highlighted portion was done by me. His reasoning in the "see below" paragraph is interesting to read. I did not highlight that portion, although, I think it's important.



Erin- First of all, is the information from Dr. Hebbert contained in this publication that which is thought to be missing from Dr. Bond's report? What is it has led anyone to believe that Dr. Bond's report was incomplete--simply the publication of additional details in the newspapers? Furthermore, when I looked at the entries for Ryan and Stead (alas, there is nothing for Hebbert) in the A-Z I found mention of evidence of Kelly's having been sodomized by her killer. I see nothing in the passage here indicating this. Is this the complete text of Dr. Hebbert's recollections of the Kelly murder, or are there sections missing from his notes as well? Forgive me if it seems that I'm being overly or deliberately obtuse on this matter, I don't have access to the Criminologist and I find this topic to be a very fascinating and promising one indeed.

Stephen Ryan- To Erin: Regarding my entry in the 'Jack the Ripper A To Z', the words used in it were3 not my own, but those of the book's authors (or one of them, anyway), and has led to your confusion. At the time when I let Martin Fido know about the pages missing from the end of Bond's report on Kelly (MEPO 3/3153, ff. 10-18) my article, 'Mary Kelly's Heart; A Very 'Curious' Item', had not yet appeared in the 19907 issue of 'the Criminologist', so I gave him a precis of its contents. He (or they0 rightly stated in the entry under my 'nom de plume' that I wasarguing in that article that the report is missing at least one page, probably more, from its end. The comments in brackets in the entry, however, in reference to Kelly's alleged pregnancy or the allegation that she had been sodomised, are not my own, but, unfortunately, convey the IMPRESSION that they ARE part of the missing information. (It is remarkable that nowhere in the report as extant is there any mention of semen having been found either in or on Kelly's ual organs, or anywhere else...) In fact, in my follow-up article, 'Another look At Mary kelly's Heart', published in 'The Criminologist' in 1998, and now revised and published on-line, I wrote: 'Kelly probably was neither pregnant nor sodomised, despite ing rumours and claims, or Hebbert, I feel, would have mentioned these salient, heinous aspects in his description of the crime. true, he may have been sticking to facts pertaining strictly to the theme of identification, or Harris may have edited his remarks, but there is no mention of a foetus' presence in or absence from the abstracted uterus and surely such a pertinent, potentially identifying, fact would not have been omitted. Hebbert averre3d that only the HEART was missing. Clearly, the uterus could have shown no sign of being, or having recently been, gravid.' All the same, it is quite likely that the forensic facts contained in the material forwarded by Hebbert to the American doctor Francis A. Harris were not ALL the facts which had once been on the pages long-missing from the Bond report. Hebbert may have chosen to send only those facts, or Harris may have chosen to use only those facts out of those that Hebbert had sent him. they certainly PROVE, however, that there were once further pages to the end of the report, probably contained in a section headed 'Comments', with which both Dr. Bond and Dr. Hebbert were in the habit of closing p.m. reports. (See below.) My two on-line articles prove, beyond dispute, that Dr. Hebbert's material is authentic and derives from the missing pages.

The reason why it is definite that pages are missing from the end of the Bond report may be summarised as follows: 1) there is no signature, no credentials, and no date, at the conclusion of the report as extant, which things one was not allowed to omit from a valid p.m. report; 2) there is no statement of the one cause of at the report's conclusion, which was also mandatory; 3) various forensic details are missing from the report which could scarcely have been left out by so eminent and experienced an expert as Dr. Bond, eg. her ual condition and her gynaecological condition.
Further, in my on-line article, 'Another Look At Mary Kelly's Heart - Part II: Further Revelations', I show conclusively: 1) that Dr. Hebbert was present at the examination of Kelly's remains at the scene of the3 crime and at the later examination at the mortuary; 2) that the Bond report is NOT in Bond's handwriting but in HEBBERT'S - i.e. that Bond had dictated his findings to his colleague, who therefore was perfe3ctly placed to know what were the true forensic facts in the Kelly case, and had no need to invent them (unlike others); 3) that Hebbert is known to have had his own notes on the cases on which he collaborated with his superior, Bond, and may well have even had his own copy of the report on Kelly. And 4) that both Bond and Hebbert routinely ended their reports with a 'Comments' section, in keeping with the contemporary professional injunction that the conclusions drawn from the facts should be kept separate from the body of the report itself whichthose facts. As I say, I believe that this 'Comments' section was on the now-missing pages and that they were in fact detached by Ch. Insp. Swanson himself, for the reason that they were far more useful to the police than wading through great masses of detail on organ size, weight, condition etc., and that they never got put back with the report (perhaps deliberately, perhaps due to an oversight) when Swanson sent the report to be filed at the Met. Police Registry on the 23rd April 1889. (This is shown by the fact that the 'last' page of the report as extant (folio 18) bears that very date stamped on its otherwise blank reverse, as well as on the inside front of the file cover - put there by either the Registrar or his clerk.) I further contend that Dr. Bond probably referre3d to 6the mode of abstracting the heart in that 'Comments' section, in describing the skill or otherwise of Kelly's er, and that his seemingly bald remark 'Heart Absent' only seems cryptic or ambiguous to us because the further information in the 'Comments' section is missing. Thus, I believe that the sum of all the information contained in my various articles on the subje3ct put entirely beyond dispute my firm conviction that pages are indeed missing from the end of Bond's report on Kelly as extant, as anyone who cares to read the two on-line articles will undoubtedly be able to see for themselves.
Those who wish to know just what sort of forensic information might have appeared in the missing pages should examine the reports by Bond on 3 of the c4 victims of the Thames Torso er. the 4th one was made by Hebbert himself. They all have a 'Comments' section at the end. All but the 4th report - on the Pinchin street Torso - are missing from the National archives, but Hebbert, with bond's approval, sent copies of all 4 reports to Dr. Harris for inclusion in the textbook 'A System Of Legal Medecine' and they can therefore be found therein. Thus, Dr. hebbert was, all unknowingly, responsible for the 3 now-missing reports on the Torso victims having been handed down to posterity as well... I might add that I once wrote 2 lengthy articles on the Hebbert Information on the Thames torso er's victims, entitled 'Various Matters Forensic: the 'Thames Torso mysteries' - PARTS i AND ii, as well as a third one in which I make a very cogent case against a particular (unsuspected) butcher who at the very least would have been a 'Person Of Interest' if not a 'prime suspect' to the police, if they had known at the time what I have myself uncovered about him. these articles have never been submitted for publication because they are way beyond the usual 4000-word limit (due to the large amount of 'new' material) and because I have long had a project in mind of publishing my own true-crime journal,. entitled 'Studies In Black', as an 'occasional papers' type of journal, which I still hope to do at sometime in the future....

What you have highlighted is nothing more than conjecture on the part of Mr Ryan.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

What you have highlighted is nothing more than conjecture on the part of Mr Ryan.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

"My two on-line articles prove, beyond dispute, that Dr. Hebbert's material is authentic and derives from the missing pages."

That does not sound like conjecture to me. Things proven beyond dispute rarely are.

[Trevor Marriott]

"My two on-line articles prove, beyond dispute, that Dr. Hebbert's material is authentic and derives from the missing pages."

That does not sound like conjecture to me. Things proven beyond dispute rarely are.

Well it wouldn't would it? because if its conjecture it kicks into touch another part of your misguided theory.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

Well it wouldn't would it? because if its conjecture it kicks into touch another part of your misguided theory.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The idea that it is a misguided theory, Trevor - THAT is mere and utter conjecture!

[David Orsam]

What I've never understood is why everyone, including Stephan Ryan, refers to Dr Bond's "report" as if it was a formal post-mortem report. This supposed report is clearly headed "Notes of examination of body...." and is written on what appears to be some form of index card (or cut down paper) rather than proper paper that one would normally expect a report to be written on.

Now, I'm quite sure I've called it a "report" myself but only in the loosest possible sense. I've never believed it to be a formal post-mortem report. That would surely have been prepared by Dr Phillips.

If Bond's notes did not comprise a formal report then that would surely explain why it was not signed and dated etc. which would in turn suggest that no pages are, in fact, missing.

[Debra A]

Dear Jerry and Debra

forgive my genuine ignorance but who is Stephen Ryan ?

And secondly why is his opinion apparently held so highly.

regards

steve

He is an author, Steve.
I certainly don't agree with all his conclusions but he was the first to discover the SOLM source material and write articles on Bond and Hebbert's roles in the MJK post mortem based on them. I respect his views but I don't claim he is provably correct but he wrote on the source at a time when it was unknown so gets that acknowledgment.
I personally don't think the torso chapters in the SOLM can be used as a yardstick to measure what Bond would have included in his notes that is missing because their peurpose was also for use in a publication in 1889 intended as lectures on forensics. It's thanks to Hebbert's interests and researching in to identification of the dead that we have the torso case notes today.

[Elamarna]

Thank you Debra,

I was not aware of him, so that puts it into perspective for me.

very many thanks

Steve

[Debra A]

What I've never understood is why everyone, including Stephan Ryan, refers to Dr Bond's "report" as if it was a formal post-mortem report. This supposed report is clearly headed "Notes of examination of body...." and is written on what appears to be some form of index card (or cut down paper) rather than proper paper that one would normally expect a report to be written on.

Now, I'm quite sure I've called it a "report" myself but only in the loosest possible sense. I've never believed it to be a formal post-mortem report. That would surely have been prepared by Dr Phillips.

If Bond's notes did not comprise a formal report then that would surely explain why it was not signed and dated etc. which would in turn suggest that no pages are, in fact, missing.

I agree. I said 'notes' in my last post which crossed yours.

[Elamarna]

What I've never understood is why everyone, including Stephan Ryan, refers to Dr Bond's "report" as if it was a formal post-mortem report. This supposed report is clearly headed "Notes of examination of body...." and is written on what appears to be some form of index card (or cut down paper) rather than proper paper that one would normally expect a report to be written on.

Now, I'm quite sure I've called it a "report" myself but only in the loosest possible sense. I've never believed it to be a formal post-mortem report. That would surely have been prepared by Dr Phillips.

If Bond's notes did not comprise a formal report then that would surely explain why it was not signed and dated etc. which would in turn suggest that no pages are, in fact, missing.

David

thank you for point that out, I am sure its a mistake we all make, I try and call it "his post mortem report" but I am sure if you go back over all the posts in the last 48hrs there will be many times when I have not said that.

This of course all results from not having the post mortem report does it not?


regards

steve

[Fisherman]

So what was the purpose of Bonds effort? Why did he see to it that these notes were taken down? Was it on account of Andersons wish?
Any ideas?