Crucial Information regarding a Ripperologist

[Ally]

Look the issue of deleting his posts is a non-starter. It's not going to happen so don't bother thinking about it. He has hundreds of posts on the active boards, and if they were deleted you'd have whole threads that suddenly made absolutely no sense whatsoever, with half the posts missing and people responding to posts that aren't there any more. He has hundreds of posts on the old boards that are frozen and can't be deleted as they are basically one big data chunk. So the whole issue of deleting his posts is going nowhere--it's not possible.

And frankly, let it serve as a reminder. As someone who recently got called all sorts of names and was screamed at and apologies demanded by persons incensed that I said I don't trust people when I've chatted with them twice a week for a whole 3 months, frankly, I think the wake up call was needed.

This is someone we've all known and chatted with for years. He's been to some of our houses, he's invited some of us to his. And still...

You never know. You just don't.

[The Good Michael]

Hey!

Bob suggested deleting this thread. No one suggested deleting Andy's posts. I think the idea is to move on from this particular case. I tend to agree with Bob on this.

Mike

[Steven Russell]

Researchers discovered that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, was guilty of certain activities that were similar in kind, but nobody has yet suggested that "Alice in Wonderland " should be banned.

Absolutely, Natalie. I do not believe we should ignore knowledge or discoveries because we have found their originator to be morally objectionable. For example, and on a much larger and more important scale, discoveries made by Nazi scientists cannot and should not be "undiscovered" however repugnant the politics and methods of the individuals concerned might have been.

Besides, deleting posts and articles would, I feel, be a very unwise precedent to set. It could even be seen as a cover-up by some. That's right, a genuine Ripper cover-up. It is clear that many people have been saddened and disillusioned by this whole sordid business but retrospective censorship is not the answer.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[The Good Michael]

Steven,

Your post is mentioning again a suggestion that never occurred.

Mike

[Steven Russell]

Steven,

Your post is mentioning again a suggestion that never occurred.

Mike

Mike,

You are right. Except for a question posed in post 8 and discussed further in posts 38, 41, 43, 44, 45,and 46.

Steve.

[Barnaby]

I neither want to defend this man nor denigrate his contributions to this site.

However, if a child sexual offender came forward with credible information about an unrelated serial killer, would you listen?

[tnb]

Steven is quite right, I did raise the issue of deleting posts in post 8, as I thought it was inevitable that it would come up. I still think it would have, had I not raised it as a discussion point. If you actually look at what I said, I clearly came down on the side of NOT doing so. In that way, I agree with everything Ally said in her recent post both about the concept of doing so and also the (im)practicalities. That is pretty clear when you look at my subsequent post shortly before hers. It is a discussion I feel we needed to have though. My whole point however was how would people feel about seeing his stuff, given as it will remain. That is a much more personal issue.

Barnaby - I think the issue here is one of trust, in that this man (if...) was posting on here, corresponding with people on here etc etc before anyone knew anything about his activities, which presumably were going on at the same time however. What this matter [I]has/I] shown, is that in many cases we simply wouldn't know whether the hypothetical person making the startling discovery would be a sex offender, a collector of questionable material, or whatever, and in that case of course The issue here is slightly different - one because we DO know (or at least we think so) and also because that trust, built up over some time, has therefore been broken. I think that, as well as obviously the crime itself, is what would make it so difficult for anyone to accept someone back in these circumstances.

For my part, this shall be my last post on this matter. I think the general consensus on here has been shown to be common to many and also pretty healthy, to be honest. In the absence of any new developments, let's hope we can all move on.

[Bob Hinton]

Well...

Bob,

Due to my personal correspondence with another fellow Ripperologist, I was able to confirm that our Aspallek and the one in the article are both, in fact, one and the same.

As long as you are satisfied that would stand up in a court of law if it all goes tit's up, fair enough.

[Hunter]

I believe what Ally said is enough... and the warning that the Adm. posted for new membership and relations between members as it pertains to... This is a site for discussion of a perceived serial killer and any correspondence beyond these boards should be considered with that context in mind. As far as I know the vast majority of membership as a whole has heeded that advice and acted as responsible adults should. We should be the least surprised if history and human nature has taught us anything.

As students of this case, we, above all, should be cognizent of certain people's ability to hide aboritions in one's character... even from their own family.

Let's take this lesson in reality and register it in our minds for safe keeping... and move on.

Right now, personally, I am thinking of this man's family and the innocent trust that was shaken by this event. Our thoughts and prayers should be with them. Our considerations as it relates to these boards and its impact is selfish and self-serving... and this matter - as far as our aspect is concerned - will take care of itself in due time.

[jason_c]

Researchers discovered that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, was guilty of certain activities that were similar in kind, but nobody has yet suggested that "Alice in Wonderland " should be banned.

Let's be clear here. Researchers have discovered nothing, they have suggested he was a paedophile.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Jason,
I am sorry but I disagree.If you google him ,you will see that he took very questionable photographs of young children.Photographs that I and many others would find totally objectionable and for which he would now be arrested..

[jason_c]

Hi Jason,
I am sorry but I disagree.If you google him ,you will see that he took very questionable photographs of young children.Photographs that I and many others would find totally objectionable and for which he would now be arrested..

Taken from wikipedia. It gives a different explanaition to the paedophile line. Either arguement can be true.

The 'Carroll Myth'

The accepted view of Dodgson's biography has been challenged recently by a group of scholars led by Hugues Lebailly and Karoline Leach and others, who argue that Dodgson's diaries and letters reveal him to have been very different in many key aspects from the traditional image. They established Contrariwise, the Association for new Lewis Carroll studies.[25] Leach's book, In the Shadow of the Dreamchild, in particular has raised a considerable amount of controversy.

Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron, made them as a matter of course. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th or 21st century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time.

Leach posed a new analysis of Dodgson's sexuality. She argues that the allegations of pedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea, fostered by Dodgson's various biographers, that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth".[26] She asserts his diaries show he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several scandalous (by the social standards of his time) relationships with them. In later life, many of those he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties.[27] She argues that suggestions of pedophilia evolved only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach traces the claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14 to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed,[28] who Leach claims intended to suggest from this that Dodgson was a "pure man" untainted by sexual desire.[29]

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Jason.
But how come that even table legs were covered in Victorian times in case they gave rise to unwanted attention from lascivious men?
I think the pair quoted above are just trying to justify something distinctly unsavoury which is in violation of a child"s right not to be exploited by dirty old men.

[Bob Hinton]

Very interesting but,

Thanks Jason.
But how come that even table legs were covered in Victorian times in case they gave rise to unwanted attention from lascivious men?
I think the pair quoted above are just trying to justify something distinctly unsavoury which is in violation of a child"s right not to be exploited by dirty old men.

The problem is Nats with todays over the top PC brigade you can be accused of anything. I recall looking through my photo albums some time ago and in there were several photos of my son ( age 13 months) in the bath tub having a great time splashing water all over the place.

Do you know I would be seriously worried sending a roll of film like that to the processors nowadays.

We live in an age of parents being prevented by police officers from taking photographs of their children in a school play, of children taking part in sports days not having their pictures taken by their mum and dad.

I despair.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Bob,
You are quite right ofcourse.It has become absurd with everybody constantly having to worry about even their photos of their babies!---I have one like that of my daughter enjoying herself as a baby splashing about! I suppose if I now sent it to Boots to be developed I would be up before the beak! Ridiculous.
Best
Norma