The Surly Man

[caz]

Yes, but if we can all see the bleedin' obvious - that without Surly Man, Hutch's stated and signed reason for being there at all, never mind at that time on that night, falls apart, ceases to exist, dies a death and meets its maker - how could even the dimmest light bulb in the police force, never mind Abberline, not have seen it too and sought to ascertain a new reason for Hutch to have been there innocently, or failing that, to ascertain that he wasn't there as previously stated, and could be safely allowed to drop off their radar?

The very last possibility strikes me as being the one where Abberline and co merely assumed, without first looking closely at the alternatives, that Hutch was innocent and either mistaken or telling fibs about being there at all. One lie - concerning his curiosity about a surly man who wasn't there - would have been one too many for a police force hellbent on catching and stopping the man who was there in his tracks. One lie means not making any assumptions either way about anything else that Hutch claimed. It doesn't mean assuming everything else to be true, or that he lied about everything else and was therefore only a liar and no worse.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

These were precisely the kind of questions I began putting to established experts such as Robin Odell, Colin Wilson and Paul Begg in the Eighties, Abby, when Hutchinson was universally regarded as an honest and reliable witness. Now here we are, twenty-odd years later and still they are being asked. Had Hutchinson been a mere time-waster, he had sufficient information to have come forward on the Friday or Saturday. Had he been an attention-seeker, coming forward earlier would have benefitted him since he would have been accorded the publicity platform of the inquest hearing. This being so, I am at a loss to provide an innocent explanation as to why Hutchinson came forward when he did with what was clearly a fictitious account of Kelly’s movements in the hours leading up to her death.

Best wishes.

Garry Wroe.

I agree.

if God told me I could pick half a dozen suspects and if one of them was JtR he would tell me-George Hutchinson would definitely be on that list.

[Garry Wroe]

These were precisely the kind of questions I began putting to established experts such as Robin Odell, Colin Wilson and Paul Begg in the Eighties, Abby, when Hutchinson was universally regarded as an honest and reliable witness. Now here we are, twenty-odd years later and still they are being asked. Had Hutchinson been a mere time-waster, he had sufficient information to have come forward on the Friday or Saturday. Had he been an attention-seeker, coming forward earlier would have benefitted him since he would have been accorded the publicity platform of the inquest hearing. This being so, I am at a loss to provide an innocent explanation as to why Hutchinson came forward when he did with what was clearly a fictitious account of Kelly’s movements in the hours leading up to her death.

Best wishes.

Garry Wroe.

[Abby Normal]

That, of course, Richard, is a possibility, though it still requires that Hutchinson ignored Kelly's death all day Friday and Saturday before eventually speaking to a policeman on the Sunday morning. And this is assuming that Hutchinson did actually speak to a policeman on the Sunday, a claim that was neither mentioned in his police interview nor the covering report submitted by Abberline. Frankly, I'd be astounded if it did happen and the officer concerned effectively disregarded a witness of Hutchinson's potential importance. It would certainly have been construed as a gross dereliction of duty for which the PC would have been hauled over the coals, yet we have no record of any such disciplinary action. In short, it was almost certainly another figment of Hutchinson's imagination, and may well have been one of those factors which led to his rejection as a credible witness.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

Hi Garry
here is something else.

If Surly man is a figment of GH's imagination, then obviously MK never met him, had her flirtatious walk back to Millers court with him nor brought him into her room for a time. In that case, why was GH watching and waiting outside Millers court if there is no surly man? And Surly man's appearance is what GH says is the reason he took so much interest in him!

If there is no Surly man nor his attention getting (rich) appearance, then why is George Hutchinson standing watching and waiting outside Millers Court? Who is he waiting and watching for?

If he had only made his statement about Surly man but there was no watching and waiting involved, then i would still probably just beleive that he still invented him but was merely a police time waster/publicity seeker.
Its the lying about Surly man and then the watching/waiting which makes it much more dubious for me.

If George Hutchinson was not waiting for Surly man to come out of Mary Kelly's room-who was he waiting for? I would say he was waiting for someone else to leave her room or perhaps for her return.

Thoughts?

[Garry Wroe]

I have KNOW idea what you mean, Jen.

A happy new year to you too.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[babybird67]

thanks Garry and all

i suppose it just goes to show what we probably all knew already...that anything a journalist says has to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt!
happy new year to all

[Sally]

The Morning Advertiser

It occurred to me that perhaps the Morning Advertiser is still around today - it took me a while to catch on, since I suffer from intermittal dimness

In fact, the Morning Advertiser is still around - now published weekly. The Morning Advertiser is the weekly magazine of the pub trade today. It was first published in 1794, at 127 Fleet Street, and by the middle of the 19th Century had a circulation second only to the Times..

Much as it is today, it began as a daily trade paper for the licenced victualler trade. It was a subscription paper and mutually beneficial society, which supported members in times of need.

The readership of the Morning Advertiser would have been public houses, clubs, coffee houses, etc - anywhere which could describe itself as a 'licenced victualler'.

I think the above is worth remembering when encountering the press reports taken from the paper - I further think that the readership of the Morning Advertiser goes some way towards accounting for it's rather salacious style.

[Hatchett]

Hi Everyone.

Happy New Year.

I think a telling point in the article is that it doesn't say who would be imprudent if they revealed the reason for the delay. It doesn't say whether it would be Hurchinson himself or the writer of the article. Considering that there is nothing in Hutchinson's police statement that alludes to this particular imprudence, it is very likely that the writer of the article did not know the reason and was pehaps adding another touch of mystery to an already mysterious murder.

Best wishes.

[Garry Wroe]

That, of course, Richard, is a possibility, though it still requires that Hutchinson ignored Kelly's death all day Friday and Saturday before eventually speaking to a policeman on the Sunday morning. And this is assuming that Hutchinson did actually speak to a policeman on the Sunday, a claim that was neither mentioned in his police interview nor the covering report submitted by Abberline. Frankly, I'd be astounded if it did happen and the officer concerned effectively disregarded a witness of Hutchinson's potential importance. It would certainly have been construed as a gross dereliction of duty for which the PC would have been hauled over the coals, yet we have no record of any such disciplinary action. In short, it was almost certainly another figment of Hutchinson's imagination, and may well have been one of those factors which led to his rejection as a credible witness.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[richardnunweek]

Hello Garry,
What I was suggesting is, that Hutchinson by Sunday had realized that he should report his sighting from the friday morning, but possibly put off by the police officers attitude, was somewhat reluctant once more, until he confided in someone , who said he must report it regardless, which he did on the monday evening.
It also is quite possible, that he mentioned at that interview , that he approached a beat officer on the sunday, who sent him 'on his way', and its then also possible that he offered that as a reason why he was so long coming foreward, for fear of being classed as a time waster.
It goes without saying that the press would not be privy to a nonchalent PC.
Regards Richard.

[Garry Wroe]

Many thanks to Sally and Ben for providing the kind of examples indicative that The Morning Advertiser was hardly the most reliable of sources. As such, it would seem that its case-related assertions must be taken with a liberal dose of salt unless externally corroborated.

Thanks once again.

Garry Wroe.

[Sally]

Or how about this -

Another fearful murder was committed in Whitechapel yesterday morning. At 10:30 a woman, named Mary Jane Kelly, was found dead in her house in a court off Dorset-street, her body having been mutilated in a horrible manner. The deceased woman was seen alive at 8:30, and she was subsequently heard singing in her room.

Morning Advertiser 10th November 1888. (my emphasis)

Ahem...

Unreliable, at the least. I've also noticed that the paper favoured reported speech, and that it was quite often, shall we say, 'colourful'.

[Ben]

Hi all,

This is by no means the only example of the Morning Advertiser making claims and producing "evidence" not found elsewhere. Take their report of Julia Venturney's evidence, for example:

"I went to bed on Thursday night in Miller's-court about eight p.m. I did not sleep. Perhaps I dozed a bit. I heard a strange sound with some door, which was not like the way in which the deceased used to shut the door."

I've yet to find a single reference to this "strange sound with some door" in any other reproduction of Venturney's inquest evidence.

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

Thanks for the Wassili reference, Sally. But I still feel that we need evidence of exaggeration and invention as opposed to sensationalism if the claim regarding Hutchinson's failure to come forward is to be rejected as mere journalese.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Garry Wroe]

So why did Hutchinson delay his visit to the police?

That’s the million dollar question, Richard. Resolve this issue and we gain a far clearer insight into Hutchinson the man.

The most logical reason is fear of what the police might infer, by admitting he was near/at the murder site.

But then he claimed to have spoken to a policeman of the Kelly concatenation on the Sunday morning, Richard. This hardly reveals him to have been a man who was fearful of police contact.

The facts are eminently straightforward. He claimed to have seen Kelly in the company of the man likely to have been her killer, a man who by implication was responsible for a series of murders that had taken on global proportions. Kelly, according to Hutchinson, was not a stranger, but rather someone who was known to him. The rewards then on offer were truly astronomical to a man ‘in no regular employment’. And yet, even in the face of these moral and financial incentives, Hutchinson did nothing for three days. You are free to draw your own conclusions, Richard, but I cannot accept the premise that an innocent Hutchinson failed to come forward because of a fear of being falsely implicated in the Ripper crimes. It makes no sense. Even if he had fallen under suspicion, he only had to provide an alibi for one of the murders in order to exonerate himself. On this basis, therefore, I suspect that the true explanation for Hutchinson’s behaviour lies elsewhere.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.