The International Working Mens Club and the GSG.

[claire]

Stride's being killed within the gates of a well-known and popular Jewish radical club is one thing, Eddowes being found a hundred metres from a discreet and short-lived gentlemen's social club is quite another. The comparison does not stand up to scrutiny - anymore than does the notion of a Ripper who puts off killing his victim until he knows there's a building with a menorah in the window within sprinting-range.

Ah, finally, a voice of reason The logical conclusion to the attempts to link the attacks with anti-semitic intent is that JtR was killing primarily with anti-semitism in mind, and he was so controlled about this that he refrained from killing Jewish women and set everything up to pin the murders on some unnamed Jew. It's as untenable as the idea that he kills two women, eviscerates one, then coolly wipes his foul hands on a piece of apron, and ditches it before wandering a few more steps rummaging for a piece of chalk that he just happened to have on his person, and carefully scribing an utterly cryptic message on a wall

[DVV]

Hello Sam,
100 yards is, after all, a short distance (Usayn Bolt could run from the club to Mitre Square in less than 9 seconds, I guess... ), and the fact that, from the Club to Mitre Square, you have to take Church Passage, is quite significant.
Our best witnesses for Eddowes' murder are 3 Jews who were coming from the Imperial Club, and that did not happen by sheer accident. At least, your maps show that there were no Jewish clubs at every street corner.

Hello all,
for those who haven't read it, an extract from The Star, 14 Sept, about the Berner Street's Jewish Club:

The "Worker's Friend", the Hebrew Socialist paper, of this week, announces that as a protest against the Jewish religion and the Day of Atonement, the Jewish Socialists and Freethinkers have organized a banquet for tomorrow, which will take place at the International Working Men's Club, 40 Berner-Street, Commercial Road. Speeches will be delivered in various languages. The announcement has caused much excitement amongst the Orthodox Jews, and it is rumored that a disturbance may take place at the banquet. If so, the members of the International Working Men's Club state that they are prepared, and the aid of the police will not be called in to assist in quelling it. This banquet is unprecedented in Jewish history.

Amitiés,
David

[perrymason]

Hello all,

The officer who found the cloth felt the message was related to the apron piece, which was almost certainly left by the man they were calling "Jack"...the man who killed in Mitre Square that night, this is the only one of the Canonicals that has Jewish East End residents figuring prominently in not just one but two murders...the first at a site populated by Jewish anarchists with only Jewish witnesses relevant, the second near the Great Synagogue and the Imperial club, with only Jewish witnesses relevant...the members of the International Club were known by Police as anarchists, and the "benign" men from the club like Diemshutz are arrested in a few months from that date for assaulting policemen with clubs.

The message is only cryptic if you choose to suggest that the killer would have intended to leave a clear and concise message for police or other individuals...who said he wrote it for anything but to vent his own frustration?...that he is being used by the members of the club to exonerate themselves from complicity.

The arguments against the two being linked ignore all the relevant data of that particular evening, or the fact that the killer was mad, and might leave odd messages.. if at all. The fact that the model homes were 95% Jewish, and accessed via that same laneway, and perhaps housed individuals known by the killer to be members of that club, makes that positioning a creative and logical choice to leave an accusatory note.

Time to start addressing that particular night, the fact the Ripper never kills two on one night.... except for this alledged double, that the first victim shows nothing of the trademark carving this killer is known to do post mortem, and that the Jews at the International Club were to some degree lawless and violent,....as shown by their later actions and the police opinion of them pre-Double event.

The message and the cloth are very likely related...unless someone heres opinion is superior to PC Longs....the man who found them,....and argued for the message to be preserved as evidence.

Best regards all.

[DVV]

Ah, finally, a voice of reason The logical conclusion to the attempts to link the attacks with anti-semitic intent is that JtR was killing primarily with anti-semitism in mind, and he was so controlled about this that he refrained from killing Jewish women and set everything up to pin the murders on some unnamed Jew. It's as untenable as the idea that he kills two women, eviscerates one, then coolly wipes his foul hands on a piece of apron, and ditches it before wandering a few more steps rummaging for a piece of chalk that he just happened to have on his person, and carefully scribing an utterly cryptic message on a wall

Hi Claire,
I personnaly am not sure of anything about Stride's murder.
What I know, is that Schartz and Lawende could have seen the same man.
If you are certain that Stride is not a Ripper victim, good for you.
As to the adjective "untenable", it applies also to the (too) many coincidences about the Jews, in two murders that occured within the same night.
You certainly can call Sam Flynn a "voice of reason" (agreed, indeed), but those who try to explore alternative scenarii are not necessarily ready for the loony-bin.

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Dave,

100 yards is, after all, a short distance (Usayn Bolt could run from the club to Mitre Square in less than 9 seconds, I guess...

But it was not within "close proximity" to the corpse - a few inches or feet away would be. Five to ten yards - I'd call that "nearby", although one might at a stretch call it "reasonably close proximity". But several tens of yards and two thoroughfares away is emphatically NOT "close proximity", and it is wrong to pretend that it is.

Usain Bolt's competitors weren't anywhere near to being in "close proximity" to him - they were well out of it, despite only trailing by a couple of metres or so.

Our best witnesses for Eddowes' murder are 3 Jews who were coming from the Imperial Club, and that did not happen by sheer accident.

They just happened to be out at that time, and they just happened to be Jews. If they'd stayed in the club for a few minutes longer, or left a few minutes earlier, they'd probably not have seen anything. There's no mystery in that.

At least, your maps show that there were no Jewish clubs at every street corner.

Indeed, but the club in question was fully two corners away from where Eddowes was killed.

[DVV]

They just happened to be out at that time, and they just happened to be Jews.

Absolutely, Sam.
They were out at the time after having spent the evening at the Imperial Club, and they frequented this club because they were Jews...
But don't get me wrong: of course, they saw what they saw by chance - a matter of minutes... This said, the Club was not far, and then there is nothing too surprizing that the witnesses were Jews leaving it.

Amitiés,
David

[Ben]

This is usually the part when I become testy. We'll see.

Ah, finally, a voice of reason

I don't appreciate the insinuation here, Claire; that other posters here are not speaking from a "reasonable" perspective. Just to clarify, I'm not angling necessarily for an anti-semitic ripper. I'm suggesting that a reasonable case can be made for a killer who sought to take easy advantage of the fact that the Jews had already become the generic scapegoat, just as Reg Christie made a single scapegoat out of Evans when he perceived an obvious advantage in so doing. Anyone seriously arguing that the killer would not have done something similar is arguing for a pretty churlish and not very opportunistic offender indeed.

The argument that the The Imperial Club isn't "close" to where Eddowes was found murdererd is, I'm afraid, completely untenable in my view. It is certainly close, and would be considered so to anyone familiar with walking the district. Indeed, I could walk it in twenty seconds. It certainly isn't a hundred yards - it's appreciably shorter as anyone will discover from visiting the district. If I'm wrong, I'll never post here again. Ripper's corner" was the most viable secluded enclave to the club.

Just to off-set some of the insinuations that it's just me advancing some minority-endorsed view, Philip Sugden observes:

"...Martin Friedland's suggestion that the murders were carefully contrived to throw as much suspicion as possible on the Jewish community deserves better than it has received by modern commentators. The murder of Elizabeth Stride next to the International Working Men's Education Club, the apparent hailing of an accomplice by the name "Lipski", the murder of Kate Eddowes close to another club (The Imperial) frequented by Jews, and the message "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" chalked in the entry of a house of Jewish tenements - these signify little by themselves but, taken together, begin to a make a persuasive case"

Best regards,
Ben

[seecomber]

In view of Elizebeth Long`s testimony at Chapman`s inquest it is tempting to wonder if the killer was not seeking Elizebeth Long and got `Long Liz' in error. If this was the case the description provided by Long must have been accurate, as far as it went,to make the risk worthwhile.

[DVV]

Very good clarifications, Ben,
Begg estimates the distance between the club and the entrance of Church Passage at 9 or 10 yards.
So if the scale of Sam's map is correct, the distance between the club and where the corpse was found definitely can't be 100 yards.
You can keep posting here...

Amitiés,
David

[Stephen Thomas]

For those on the lookout for Jewish connections here's another (slight) one from the Booth Poverty Map notebooks in 1898:

At the entrance to the street by the Board School took place the first Whitechapel murder. In front of the Board School between the warehouses and the underground railway is a wide open space, well paved with cobbles, where the Jews assemble on Sundays and speechify.

[Ben]

Interesting stuff, Stephen! Thanks for sharing.

And David, thanks for that reminder of the distances involved in the Mitre Square murder. 9 or 10 yards sounds about right from the club to the Church Passage entrance, and it certainly isn't another 80 yards to get from that entrance to the Southern corner of the square!

[Sam Flynn]

For those on the lookout for Jewish connections here's another (slight) one from the Booth Poverty Map notebooks in 1898

I'm glad you mentioned that, Stephen, because it's very apparent from the Booth notebooks just how densely-populated with Jews that area was. Here's a section of the Jewish population, surveyed in the late 1890s, showing (green blobs, clockwise from left) the murder-sites of Eddowes, Kelly and Stride:



The areas in blue had between 75-90% Jewish residents, whilst those in the darkest blue between 90 and 100%. The large areas in grey - including the City - weren't surveyed, but one would be safe in assuming that the same broad pattern applied. Any cursory sample of the census returns of 1881-1891 will confirm as much.

In short, a series of arrows fired east, northeast, or southeast from Mitre Square would have stood a very high chance of thudding into the doorway of a dwelling with a significant Jewish connection. Ditto any arrows fired from the heart of Spitalfields in almost any direction one could mention.

[Ben]

Thanks, Gareth.

It would be interesting to know how many clubs (i.e. anywhere where largish numbers of Jews were known to keep late hours) were littered about the locality. Note the unusually high concentration of dark splodges around Northern Goulston Street.

What does the colour red signifiy on that map, out of interest?

Cheers,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

So if the scale of Sam's map is correct, the distance between the club and where the corpse was found definitely can't be 100 yards.

Whatever it was, David, it wasn't in "close proximity", I'm afraid.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Ben,

What does the colour red signifiy on that map, out of interest?

Pink = 25-50% Jewish
Red = 5-25% Jewish
Dark Red = Less than 5%