The Surly Man

[richardnunweek]

Hi all,
We are all guilty of behaving like headless chickens , just because Hutchinson did not [ as far as we know ] engulf all the London police intrests for a long period of time, does not mean that his story was discredited, simply using the real mcCoys[ Toppings] alleged words ' Nothing came of it ' should explain.
A search occured which resulted in Nothing, no sightings / no arrest.
That hardly makes the witness a fraudster, a Liar,stalker, pimp., or a maniac.
But that list is pointed Towards the witness, known as Hutchinson, without even identifying him...
Question,
Does anyone on Casebook believe Reg hutchinsons father GWTH, was any of the above descriptions?
He is the only one to have labled himself, as THAT man, since the crimes were commmited, so please let common sense prevail.
I feel my beliefs fall on rocky ground.. why do I have so much faith?
Because for the reasons that are well versed on Casebook.
Regards Richard.

[Rubyretro]

Ive been wondering another thing, after the discussion on the 'eddowes...direction of death ?' thread.

What if the Police, after deciding that A Man was a fiction, came to the conclusion that their most credible witness to date was Lawende ? If Hutch did not correspond to Lawende's discription at all, that might have been enough to stop them checking out Hutch as rigorously as they should have.

[caz]

Hi All,

Catching up with this thread, it suddenly gave me an idea. Yes, Ben, a 'what-if', to add to your perpetual 'what if... Hutch's motivation to come forward was all tied up with being guilty of MJK's murder?'

So - what if we are looking at this the wrong way round, and when Hutch first hears about this latest murder he is actually still down in Romford trying to earn himself a few bob and not doing too well? He wonders to himself if there is some way he might make himself more useful back in Whitechapel, where it's all kicking off again, possibly even get some paid work as a result. So a rough plan of action begins to form in his mind, and by late afternoon on the Monday he is all set to make himself very useful indeed, as an enterprising witness.

Abberline and co only had to learn from one person during the subsequent enquiries that Hutch was in Romford until a day or two after the murder, or had only checked into the Victoria Home, say, on the Saturday night, after an absence of two or three nights accounted for by his job-hunting trip to Essex, and his Surly Man would bite the dust. If Hutch then found himself in trouble, would we necessarily know about it?

One thing's for sure - if the police still thought Hutch could have been hanging round that court until three o'clock on the Friday morning, but no longer believed that Surly Man was there too, they would not simply have sent their former star 'witness' packing with an "Oh well, boys will be boys".

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Aha. Well, since I do not know what you write about, I of course am not in the position to say for sure that we do not write about the same thing. It´s that thing about possibilities again, sod it! Let´s just say that I would be very, very surprised if we are both dealing with "my" topic!

Hmmm, you´ve got me quite curious now!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Thanks for that, Fish.

Just to clarify, my thoughts regarding "Ripper-related Jew-castigation" are only briefly touched upon in my article.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben asks:

"Before you go, I feel compelled to ask – and I really am only asking – did you read my posts mentioning that I had a Hutchinson-related article in the pipeline and then decide to write a “counter” article in response to arguments you guess I’ll be making?
Not a criticism or an accusation in the slightest (since it wouldn't be a "bad" thing).
Just interested."

No problems, Ben. I´m happy to answer you! No, my article has nothing at all to do with yours. This is it: some weeks back, I made a mistake at my computer, causing my copies of the Examiner to get lost. And so I wrote to Don Souden and asked him if he could send them over again. He generously agreed to do that, and added that I owed him one, and that he would not mind if I payed my debt in the shape of an article. I then replied that I was very much tied up, and had no useful idea for an article at that stage, which was a good description of things.
Then, a fortnight after that or so, I was reading through the Hutchinson material (I had just ordered and received a couple of books) for the umpteenth time, when something caught my eye. And it is that something that forms the ground on which the article is built.

As for your article, I have not strayed very far into the land of Ripper-related Jew-castigation, and you will be far ahead of me. That part is not my angle - it is not even touched upon in my article.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

The suggestion that Hutch wouldn't have been aware of the murder until Sunday morning is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Amitiés all

edit : more than my pitiful English !

[Ben]

Fisherman,

Before you go, I feel compelled to ask – and I really am only asking – did you read my posts mentioning that I had a Hutchinson-related article in the pipeline and then decide to write a “counter” article in response to arguments you guess I’ll be making?

Not a criticism or an accusation in the slightest (since it wouldn't be a "bad" thing).

Just interested.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"But this takes us straight back to “If my Auntie had bollocks, she’d be my uncle” territory, which is an fun analogy that illustrates perfectly the dangers of trying to support an outlandish conclusion on the basis that X or Y equally outlandish factors must first be true to get to that conclusion."

Us?

"We need only observe that Hutchinson would almost certainly have..."

ALMOST certainly. Again. When will you realize that almost certainly means "not certain"?

"yes, we’ve exhausted this avenue enough now."

We have, Ben.

"unless we posit the imaginary existence of a mysterious, fill-in-the-blank, lost to history “alibi”, the above is obviously not true. "

Wrong. Until we find the "alibi" you speak of it is unprovable, not untrue.

"If you want to drop Hutchinson from the list of possible suspects, then you must try harder than “maybe this zero-evidence event happened?”

I have. It´s in the article - if Don takes pity on me and publishes it. Hold your breath, Ben.

"here’s just a few too many “outside possibilities”, “what ifs” and “maybes” going on around here lately."

Myself, I am more concerned about the "outlandishes", the "implausibles" and the "ALMOST certainlies". I find they stand in the way of a better understanding of what happened to George Hutchinson.

As for now, I will give my posting a rest. We are going round in circles (in Avignon, even!), and I have no further wish to reiterate the same points over and over again. So bear with me if you ask for an answer from my side and are temporarily deprived of it!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

“For it IS a fact that it is not until we work from the premise that he did not know of Kellys death until Sunday morning that Hutchinsons actions become a logical sequence.”

But this takes us straight back to “If my Auntie had bollocks, she’d be my uncle” territory, which is an fun analogy that illustrates perfectly the dangers of trying to support an outlandish conclusion on the basis that X or Y equally outlandish factors must first be true to get to that conclusion.

“We must not surmise that people read the papers aloud to him, Ben.”

We don’t need to surmise any such thing. We need only observe that Hutchinson would almost certainly have woken up to discussion of the Dorset Street murder before he could realistically have travelled any great distance, and that even in the vastly implausible scenario that he did manage to avoid it, it’s further inconceivable that he failed to make any further inquiries into the matter when he obtained news of another East End murder in whatever travelling destination you want him to have ventured to. But yes, we’ve exhausted this avenue enough now. I’m surprised that you can give some of these suggestions any credence, but we must agree to disagree.

“Though you are of course correct that he would never have been much of a suspect, since the police at an early stage found that he would reasonably have been innocent of any such accusation.”

Well, this is rather off-topic and was discussed in extensive detail on the other thread, but unless we posit the imaginary existence of a mysterious, fill-in-the-blank, lost to history “alibi”, the above is obviously not true. The reality of the situation is that Hutchinson was either never suspected, or was briefly suspected but nothing came of it in the absence of proof either way.

If you want to drop Hutchinson from the list of possible suspects, then you must try harder than “maybe this zero-evidence event happened?”

That this really was discussed very recently elsewhere.

“Tell me why it follows from this that he FIRST spoke to the PC...?”

I’m not suggesting it did, necessarily. Whatever order you accept, the suggestion is implausible, as I sought to demonstrate in my terrifically funny invented dialogues. But, of course, the implausibility value for both claims pale in comparison to the suggestion that Hutchinson found himself in Petticoat Lane, on Sunday 11th November, still oblivious to the Kelly murder.

There’s just a few too many “outside possibilities”, “what ifs” and “maybes” going on around here lately.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"We know some FACTS"

Careful with the F word, Ruby, least you want to have Ben straightening you out.

"We know that Hutch lived in a city with a vast ant like population."

I would have thought they looked mostly like we do, Ruby.

"We know that wherever Hutch went between Friday and Sunday, he would have come into contact with some of those people."

So, Ruby, you are saying that he could not possibly have gotten beyond the city boundaries? I know that Avignon is the city where the bridge does not reach all the way to the other side of the water, but please ...!

"We know that people were all talking about Mary Kelly's murder."

Eh - no. But we can reasonably speculate that most of the people were talking a lot of the Dorset street murder.

"We know that the popular press were selling lots of extra copies about the murders."

Point scored, Ruby. At last!

"We know that some people bought and read the papers, and the news in them was then relayed by word of mouth."

...which could spell disaster for your thinking, yes.

"We know that most of the facts relayed by the papers were correct, even if a few weren't."

Aha? And we know that Hutch read the papers? And we know that he got the relevant ones?

Incidentally, you forgot to mention that Hutch gave his address as the Victoria Home, which would have placed him extremely close to the actual murder site, further enhancing his possibilities to hear about Mary. Not that it makes any difference, though, since, and I quote:

"...the whole and only point that applies in this discussion is that we are presenting scenarios since we have not access to the real thing. We do not know what situation Georg Hutchinson was in between Friday morning and Sunday morning. Ergo - like it or not - we can not tell to what extent he was able to take part of the news from Millers Court. End of story."

Of course, you can prolong the story by adding other things that can´t prove that he knew about Mary, and you can add the odd "preposterous" and "highly unlikely", and in that respect, it would take things beyond the "end of story" I recommend you accept. Either way, it will make no difference.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

NO! not end of story', Fish

We know some FACTS :
We know that Hutch lived in a city with a vast ant like population.
We know that wherever Hutch went between Friday and Sunday, he would have come into contact with some of those people.
We know that people were all talking about Mary Kelly's murder.
We know that the popular press were selling lots of extra copies about the murders.
We know that some people bought and read the papers, and the news in them was then relayed by word of mouth.
We know that most of the facts relayed by the papers were correct, even if a few weren't.

Where could Hutch have possibly been, in the time given, not to have known ?

[Fisherman]

Ruby, the whole and only point that applies in this discussion is that we are presenting scenarios since we have not access to the real thing. We do not know what situation Georg Hutchinson was in between Friday morning and Sunday morning. Ergo - like it or not - we can not tell to what extent he was able to take part of the news from Millers Court. End of story.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Sorry, Fish...I thought that my second scenario illustrated your 'theory' -a Hutch away working out of Whitechapel, not affording or reading a paper,
not discussing the murder with anyone, and hearing that the victim had a child -and so discounting her as the Mary he knew.

I tried to make it as plausible as possible in your sense, but obviously, in a city teeming with people, and with vast amounts of extra newspapers coming off the presses (so by inference, some people who could read them), I couldn't believably include a Hutch that wouldn't come up against some news of a murder in Whitechapel..even if he actually took pains to avoid it.

[Fisherman]

I think, Ruby, that most of us always realized that Hutch could have picked up on the news about Kelly. As far as I can tell, nobody has at least claimed that this could not have happened.

The notion that he may not have been aware of it, due to reasons unknown to us, is more controversial, and since it has been thrown forward that it is an impossible suggestion, I have provided theoretical scenarios to show it is nothing of the sort.

Surely you can see the difference?

The best,
Fisherman