Two things that don't make sense!

[anna]

Hi Mike,
You talk of McCarthy like he was doing them all a bit of a favour,helping them along....

Listen,they earn't so little and he had so much....simple!....I stand by my opinion of him.

He could have got into trouble,if the police caught him renting to these ladies.
Another thing I've seen written about him......He could have got into trouble just as easily,in other ventures he was no doubt involved it.

IF he was,of course doing as suggested.

On the subject of Fiona.....she remains quiet on the subject.As yet,no sign of this lady who was so eager to furnish us with facts in the beginning.

ANNA.

[Sam Flynn]

Let's be fair. Fiona never said Mcarthy was totally nefarious. It seems he was about making a buck wherever he could...

Indeed he did, Mike - and by more-or-less "legitimate" means, too, for he rented out a number of rooms; not just in Miller's Court. In fact, Sarah Lewis might have been one of his tenants, as I seem to recall that he had property in Great Pearl Street, well north of Dorset Street itself. Then there was his chandler's shop - with its honest and (possibly) hooky income streams to keep him going. Would such a man really be worried if one or two of his tenants went a few weeks in arrears on occasion?

[Sam Flynn]

On the subject of Fiona.....she remains quiet on the subject.As yet,no sign of this lady who was so eager to furnish us with facts in the beginning.

I doubt that day-to-day economics contributed much to the family stories passed down over the years, Anna.

[The Good Michael]

Would such a man really be worried if one or two of his tenants went a few weeks in arrears on occasion?

Gareth,

Perhaps that was rhetorical, but I do think a man coming from nothing as Fiona suggests (not Kendall, the believable Fiona), would be scrupulous about knowing where every penny was going, and this seems to me a reason why he would NOT allow someone to be in arrears unless they were bringing in a different kind of income and were good at it, and why I think Bowyer may have been just collecting for the evening. This is of course, if there is any truth to what Mcarthy was saying. We don't know anything, do we? Maybe Blotchy was a man that paid a decent amount to Mcarthy to spend an entire night with Kelly, and that's why he concocted a story about rent. Saying, "I pimped her to a friend and he got too frisky," may not be so smart.

You know, the more we speculate the more this stuff cannot be pinned down. I'm even thinking about Mcarthy and his Brother In-Law?(Cros-singham's?) supplying party girls to the Club periodically. Young radicals need some entertainment. There could be a huge cover-up going on by many parties, all connected through a few prostitutes and bullies.

Who knows. This exhausts me.

Cheers,

Mike

[claire]

Yes, you're right, Mike, there are one heck of a lot of possibilities. When you think about the sorts of people who are 'friendly' with coppers in dodgy areas, we're not talking about savoury characters (or savoury police officers). There's always been (and will be) police who'll take a few bob and/or a girl or two to keep shtum about illegal goings on; for my part, if I found a murdered woman in a property I was letting out, I would just want the police there pronto. McCarthy specified what police officer he wanted: yes, he knew him, but why? Why would he need to know the responding officer?

As you said, I doubt this was a guy who gave a flying euphemism about his lodgers' financial difficulties...either they'd front up with the cash in one form or other or he'd shift someone else in.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Mike,

It's not just Kelly, though. Prater or Cox were, I believe, recorded as stating that they, too, were behind on the rent. As neither of them strikes one as being particularly toothsome, McCarthy's "stable" - if such it was - seems to have been part knacker's-yard.

Of course, our view of Miller's Court is somewhat skewed by the dramatis personæ who came forward at the time of Kelly's murder, and only a minority of those appear to have been street-walkers. That we know of them at all must have something to do with the fact they were the ones likely to be up and about at night-time, and thus better placed than most of the residents to act as witnesses to Kelly's final hours.

We actually know very few of the residents - whether directly named or alluded to in witness testimony - to wit:

Elizabeth Prater *
Mary Ann Cox *
Mrs Keyler
Mr Keyler
Mrs Pickett
Mr Pickett
Julia Venturney *
Mary Jane Kelly *
Joe Barnett

I make that nine more-or-less permanent tenants of Miller's Court of whom we're aware. Of those, only four (asterisked) were, or might have been been, "unfortunates". There were assuredly more tenants than these, but we don't know their names. Going on the previous and succeeding censuses, however, there were roughly 30+ tenants in the Court, and the overwhelming majority of them were couples and/or families.

[The Good Michael]

Gareth,

I was only half-heartedly suggesting such a thing as a stable. Of course the majority of the people were just simple folks trying to make a go of things, and that is pretty much the reality of most slums. The criminal or unsavory elements draw attention, but we forget the regular folks. I'm sure Mcarthy was glad to have the normal Joes as a constant source of revenue, and the Kelly types were probably a source of headache as much as money.

Cheers,

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

I doubt this was a guy who gave a flying euphemism about his lodgers' financial difficulties...either they'd front up with the cash in one form or other or he'd shift someone else in.

The problem with that, Claire, is that McCarthy had a somewhat expensive deal to offer. Whereas many of the unfortunate class might have found it comparatively easy to find 3d or 4d per night for a doss-house bunk, it would be more difficult for them to find the requisite 4s 6d in one lump required for a "luxury" room such as Kelly's, unless they had a partner earning a decent enough wage to afford such a sum. At least when Kelly moved in with Barnett, she belonged to that category - not everyone in Spitalfields was that lucky, however.

When so many men were earning only 15 or 16 shillings per week, 4/6 constituted around a third of their expendable weekly income - a not inconsiderable percentage under the circumstances. I'm not sure whether the likes of McCarthy would require a week's rent as a deposit, but if so, a total of 9 shillings "up-front" would have been even more of a struggle to find. It's small wonder that most of the residents of Miller's Court appear to have been couples or families, as having more than one income would have helped meet the weekly rental charges.

Faced with this, and in light of a seasonal slump in the local economy (it was practically Winter when Kelly died, after all) it might not have made much difference to McCarthy whether Kelly left or stayed. With her still there, he'd have had a chance of at least some income, if not the entire arrears - which is more than he could have expected from a comparatively expensive, empty, room.

[claire]

Oh, for sure, Gareth (although I'd imagine that rent in the area now quite happily takes up at least a third of many residents' incomes!), and I'm sure what you're saying is the more likely of the two scenarios. But McC. would have had to have been aware of her potential 'sources' of income, not just to give him a reason to let her stay, but also to have sent Mr Bowyer round for an early morning knock-up, so to speak.

[Supe]

I think it important that we consider just what sort of man John McCarthy seems to have been before we give way to flights of fancy. He was a sharp, overly sharp some might say, businessman who was increasingly successful on several different fronts. To suspect that he would imperil his growing business empire by getting too closely involved with prostitution strains credulity. Hence his "Casablanca"-worthy exclamations of shock at hearing Mary Jane Kelly was so engaged.

In most instances i would think he kept well away from any leagal shoals, while keeping a weather eye on things. After all, as pointed out, the shop--front and back--provided ideal vantages for giaging how busy some tenants, particularly Kelly, may have been. Moreover, the long chat with McCarthy that Liz Prater mentioned was likely about more than the weather.Those who were on the game knew very well how the competition was faring and such chats could well have kept McCarthy up to date on what "extras" he might be able to charge.

Kelly, as I suggested in my article, might have been a slightly different deal. One does not have to believe Paley's rather excessive estimates of Joe Barnett's wages at Billingsgate to believe that he and Kelly were able to afford the rent when they took the room. This, of course, changed when he lost that position, but most likely the shortfall each week (even if it eventually came to 29s) was not great and there was always an expectation Barnett would regain work as a fish porter.

Moreover, Kelly was by all reports, more attractive than the usual Whitechapel unfortunate and as such could be something of a "cash cow" (all things being relative). That is why, as the debt and weekly shortfall grew, I suggested in my article that a special arrangement was agreed to in her case by the usually cautious McCarthy (necessitating his entering the room after Bowyer hied off to the cop shop). I even speculated the sharing of the room with other prostitutes may have been a try at some sort of "Box and Cox" arrangement to increase the take from Number 13. Certainly the complaints by some residents that there were comings and goings by men all night suggesta that some of rooms in the court were early examples of "hot-pillow" motels.

Nonetheless, to return to the point of this post, I would think that in every instance, except possibly that of Kelly, John McCarthy provided a sufficient amount of plausible deniabilty to protect himself. Whatever else he may have been, he was not ordinarily a fool.

Don.

[celee]

Brad,

but we don't know that they were behind in the rent. We only have Mcarthy's statement that that was the reason Bowyer was sent 'round. My belief is that she was behind on Mcarthy's share of her evening's take.

Cheers,

Mike

Hi Mike,

That good be a very good guess. I never thougt about that possibility.

Your friend, Brad

[caz]

Hi All,

Why did McCarthy 'allow' Mary to get behind with her rent?

Drawing on all the suggestions put forward so far, I wonder if McCarthy himself put a bit of pressure on Mary when Joe lost his job and the full rent money was no longer there when Bowyer or whoever came to call. The room was rented in her name and McCarthy obviously wasn't too fussy about how she got the money together as long as nobody could prove he was running a brothel for profit.

This might be the explanation for other women being introduced into the room (to help with the rent - a problem shared being a problem halved) causing the jobless Joe (who didn't have the earning equipment the ladies had) to move out. Mary may have made the excuse to Joe that she was just being kind-hearted, but I always thought there was more to it than that. While there could have been an element of inviting women to stay because she was tiring of Joe but wanted it to be his decision to go, rather than telling him straight, I suspect the reality may have been that McCarthy wanted Joe squeezed out so the squeeze could be put on Mary to start earning something, and if it wasn't enough she could get her 'sisters' in on the rent act.

Once McCarthy was satisfied that the room's inhabitants were bringing in some money again one way or another, he sent Bowyer round to collect. You have to wonder how much had been earned since the previous rent payment, but was spent on booze or ended up lining Jack's pocket - assuming not a penny was found in the room.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hutchy, Twitchy & Blotchy

Why did George Hutchinson stand around outside MC in the pouring rain and cold weather?

The question for me is why come forward and admit to standing around for that long - three-quarters of an hour - if the longer Hutch lingered close to the scene of this horrific crime, the less credible his tale would sound that he was simply curious to see this unusually ‘cut above’ client of Mary’s again?

By extension, why claim to have stood around for that long if he did nothing of the sort? Or why not just say he couldn’t be sure how long he waited, but pushed off as soon as he suspected that this well-heeled customer had paid enough to cover his bed as well as his broad?

I still wonder if Hutch was being paid by a twitchy customer (who may or may not have been the real killer, but could have been seen with Mary that night - Blotchy springs to mind) to give the police a man who was alone with Mary in her room at a later hour, and for substantially longer than an act of sex in exchange for payment would normally take - hence the lengthy vigil part of the story.

In short, Hutch is paid to claim he saw it all: he sees Mary pick up the Jew at two and take him back for a screw, then stays around until three, conveniently confirming that this was one hell of a screw. Bob’s your uncle, Hutchy's made a few bob and Twitchy Blotchy's in the clear.

Hutch can't produce the Jewish goods, but if his story unravels he will be the only one answering questions. He can't drop his paymaster in it without completely changing his story and proving himself to be Aldridge Prior, Hopeless Liar. But according to Ben, Hutch would not have too much to fear in any case, since the police would have little on him that could be made to stick. Of course, if he is just a lying witness on the make, there is nothing else on him. So whether his story is told for money or self-preservation, he evidently considers it worth the risk of putting himself near the murder scene for nearly an hour and making himself the last but one man to see the victim alive.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Good Michael]

Caz,

The Blotchy-as-Hutch-benefactor idea is quite good. In fact, I really like it.

Remember the fellow who was a contemporary of Kelly, who lived in the court, that Chris posted about before the crash? He had some sort of run-in with the law as I recall. I've always wanted to give him a bit of blotch. His name escapes me however.

Cheers,

Mike

[Steve F]

Nice 'n clear

Hi Caz
Nice and clear thinking.I wonder if you are right
Steve