Mile End Vigilance Committee

[Fisherman]

Maria:

"it looks like I'll attend a conference on “Music and Nature“ in Reykjavik in late May."

Just saw this! And since I know that you like fish, I must reccommend - or rather emplore - a visit to the slightly eccentric "Sægreifinn" (Sea Baron) restaurant in the harbour. Skewered redfish and lobster soup to die for, for no money at all, all served in VERY "fishy" surroundings ...

The best,
Fisherman

[mariab]

Wow, thank you so much for the recommandation, Fish. I'll most certainly note it down. As it happens, last night I've just re-read Jules Verne's Voyage au centre de la terre, which discusses all those places I hope to visit in Iceland. (Plus I've just submitted my Rossini French article to the editor, after working on it FOREVER, and I also sent it to poor Eduardo Zina, who sent me a recept for cannelloni à la Rossini.)

[YankeeSergeant]

Dutch

This is the ONLY way it would make sense.
By the by, I'm researching Schwartz in French spy reports on Whitechapel anarchist activity and coming up with conflicting evidence, possibly due to entry mistakes, but I'm trying to clear this out. Not sure if I'll manage it all during this trip, as there are still 10 boxes of spy reports to go through, and only 3 days left. There's also a limit of boxes to order per day at the Paris Archives Nationales, sometimes only 3 per day. :-(


Yes, but the Dutch say “mynherr“, I think.
Fisherman, might I PM you (in a couple days) pertaining to a book I'm looking for about Danish diplomats in the 18th/19th century? Also, in case you have any contacts with Danish journalists?


I used to speak a bit of Swedish in my last year of high school, but not much has remained in memory.
By the by, it looks like I'll attend a conference on “Music and Nature“ in Reykjavik in late May. The conference people just secured a sponsor (paying for our flight tickets, yesss!), plus I got Nikita clothing to sponsor me for a little stay to (hopefully) ride/ice climb the Snaeffels glacier, where Jules Verne located his Journey to the center of the earth. In my paper I'm gonna talk about Glaciers and arctic landscapes in 19th century lit and opera as a metaphor for the end of human civilization (referring to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Cherubini's Eliza, or the glacier of Mount St. Bernard, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Berlioz' Damnation of Faust, Edgar Poe's The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and Verne's The ice Sphinx). Actually it's a gig I've already done at another environmental conference in Milwaukee. Ripperology it ain't, but it features some degree of violence.

Maria, They do and I believe it is spelled "Mijnherr" Hope all is well with your work in Paris. Neil

[Chris]

In the hope of clearing up a possible misconception in the discussion that's going on at jtrforums.com -

I did not "discover a new article" about Mortimer. I simply quoted from the Casebook press section a well-known one that had her standing at her door for only ten minutes. I did this because I assumed, from the fact that Adam had kept asking Tom for a source for such a statement, that Adam wasn't aware of it. But he now says he knew about it all the time, and was just making a point about Tom not citing his sources. C'est la vie.

[mariab]

Chris (if I may),
I was intending to ask you about this, hopefully without bothering you. When I said “discovered“, I meant that you re-discovered it in the casebook press section. So far, noone appears to have been aware of this Daily News report, or at least to have discussed it publicly.
Might I perhaps inquire what is your view on its mentioning Ms. Mortimer in a double, contrasting quote?

The Daily News from October 1, 1888:
http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18881001.html
1) A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there for ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact.
2) Mrs. Mortimer, living at 36, Berner-street, four doors from the scene of the tragedy, says: I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this (Sunday) morning, and did not notice anything unusual.

[Chris]

Might I perhaps inquire what is your view on its mentioning Ms. Mortimer in a double, contrasting quote?

The Daily News from October 1, 1888:
http://www.casebook.org/press_report.../18881001.html
1) A woman who lives two doors from the club has made an important statement. It appears that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured, heavy tramp of a policeman passing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street-door, with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there for ten minutes before she did so. During the ten minutes she saw no one enter or leave the neighbouring yard, and she feels sure that had any one done so she could not have overlooked the fact.
2) Mrs. Mortimer, living at 36, Berner-street, four doors from the scene of the tragedy, says: I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this (Sunday) morning, and did not notice anything unusual.

These two extracts are from different articles in the same newspaper, and evidently came from different sources. Given the difference in the timing, it wouldn't have been evident in any case that they related to the same person.

I don't see why the differences between them should be grounds for rejecting version (1) out of hand. Incidentally, the "two doors" versus "four doors" contradiction is easy to explain - it would have been four doors if the houses had been numbered up one side and down the other, but two doors if evens were on one side and odds on the other. For what it's worth, version (1) is correct in this respect, and version (2) is wrong.

[mariab]

These two extracts are from different articles in the same newspaper, and evidently came from different sources. Given the difference in the timing, it wouldn't have been evident in any case that they related to the same person. (...) Incidentally, the "two doors" versus "four doors" contradiction is easy to explain - it would have been four doors if the houses had been numbered up one side and down the other, but two doors if evens were on one side and odds on the other.

Thank you for explaining about the numbering of the houses on Berner Street.
I'm assuming both quotes refer to Mortimer, as (at least in my impression and without yet having attempted a “comprehensive“ newspaper search) it appears to me that Ms. Mortimer promoted her story quite a bit with the press. I was even wondering, would witnesses talking to the press receive a fee in Victorian England? But probably not.

I don't see why the differences between them should be grounds for rejecting version (1) out of hand. (...) For what it's worth, version (1) is correct in this respect, and version (2) is wrong.

It can be also be conjectured that Ms. Mortimer spent 10' min. at her door but left her house door open for half an hour, for airing purposes (as described by Jane Coram that this was a ventilation practice pretty frequent in Victorian Whitechapel). I can totally imagine Mortimer starting talking to the press about the 10' min. spent at her door (as in the 1st quote), then, enjoying the attention, exaggerating the time spent at her doorstep to half an hour (as in the 2ond quote).
It's also noticeable that the 1st quote is presented as indirect information, while the 2ond quote was clearly backed up by an interview (unless it was taken from another newspaper).

[Adam Went]

Chris:

I've got no intention of carrying on the exact same debate on two different forums, so i'll keep this brief. As I quoted from that Daily News report in my original article, obviously I was aware of it. Indeed it may have slipped my mind in the duration of the last 15 months or so since the article was written, but I was aware of it existence. Tom indeed didn't quote it as a source - nor any other source for that matter.

My illustration of the point about 2-doors/4-doors was to show how contradictory press reports can be, which is why if anything we must trust in the majority if there is nothing else to trust, and the majority as I illustrated elsewhere before speak of the "almost the entire time between 12.30 and 1 am" scenario. The 10 minute gap, as far as i'm concerned, for a variety of reasons makes neither common sense nor factual sense.

I welcome any fresh debate with new material but this really is just flogging the proverbial dead horse now.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Chris]

Adam

My only intention in posting above was to clarify possible confusion. I have no wish to pursue this further, and in fact I wish I hadn't tried to help in the first place.

Obviously I had no way of knowing what you were aware of - but didn't mention - when you wrote your article (the fact that you quoted from a different report printed in the same issue of the newspaper doesn't tell us much in that respect). As I said, I assumed you weren't aware of it because you kept asking Tom for a source for the ten minute version.

Anyhow, the report is there and it obviously differs from the one that says "almost the entire time." We can all draw our own conclusions about the relative merits of the two versions.

[Adam Went]

Hi Chris,

I thank you for your clarification and apologise for any confusion which had been caused. As i've stated, my request for sources has primarily been directed at Tom all along - he is aware of this other report now as well (if he wasn't before) and whether or not he has other information regarding Mortimer which he will present at some point is of course up to him.

I welcome any fresh discussion re Mortimer or Berner Street if and when there is fresh information to discuss but at this stage, like yourself, i'm quite happy to leave it be.

Cheers,
Adam.