Before it's too late

[sdreid]

And the Ripper was.... That's sort of what happened when Inspector Keaton (1870-1970) made that audio tape in 1970.

[Doctor X]

Well, you would think if such actually knew they would say something before the icy hand of death

[sdreid]

Hi Michael,

I have heard that some old Old Bailey transcripts are supposed to be released later this year so who knows?

[perrymason]

Well, you would think if such actually knew they would say something before the icy hand of death

Well ya never know for sure....Ruby didnt.

Cheers.

[Graham]

Michael,

As we all know, the Littlechild Letter is the result of an assumed random purchase from a bookshop, so yes, I agree that there is a possibility that other relevant information could one day be forthcoming.

As to your comment regarding cross-referencing, you obviously speak as a child of the computer generation. Let me assure you that pre-computers, the police, the civil service, local government, business, etc., etc., etc., were and had to be extremely efficient in cross-referencing. I just watched 'The Day Of the Jackal' - not a computer in sight in 1963, but they got the information they wanted via their card-indices and so forth. Maybe it just took a little longer then.

Graham.

[Graham]

Well ya never know for sure....Ruby didnt.

Cheers.

Neither did Hauptmann.

Cheers,

Graham

[Graham]

Well, you would think if such actually knew they would say something before the icy hand of death

Doctor,

My own personal spiritual adviser tells me that the hand of death, far from being icy, is actually quite warm, tactile and rather arousing, so long as its fingernails have been trimmed.

Graham

[perrymason]

Hi Graham,

Im sure my perceptions of what effective cross referencing should be is skewed by the advent of technologies somewhat....but Im 50 in about 3 weeks, so you can be sure I didnt start with keyboards. Heck... more like Dewey's brilliant Manual System of Cataloging for me.

But I added with pencils, not an abacus.

Cheers Graham.

[Doctor X]

My own personal spiritual adviser tells me that the hand of death, far from being icy, is actually quite warm, tactile and rather arousing, so long as its fingernails have been trimmed.

So . . . we can expect a happy ending?

--J.D.

[Graham]

Hi Graham,

Im sure my perceptions of what effective cross referencing should be is skewed by the advent of technologies somewhat....but Im 50 in about 3 weeks, so you can be sure I didnt start with keyboards. Heck... more like Dewey's brilliant Manual System of Cataloging for me.

But I added with pencils, not an abacus.

Cheers Graham.

Well, all right, Michael....

But if you know your Sherlock Holmes, you'll be aware that brother Myford's speciality was cross-referencing. Maybe in those days it was more of an art than a science.

Cheers,

Graham

[Graham]

So . . . we can expect a happy ending?

--J.D.

Ooooooh, yeeeeesss!

Mmmm.

[Graham]

Hi Michael,

I have heard that some old Old Bailey transcripts are supposed to be released later this year so who knows?

Stan,

Can you tell us more? In the UK, the written records of criminal proceedings and trials are in the public domain anyway...so what can the Old Bailey release that hasn't been in the public domain since the year dot? I believe the only exceptions concern trials regarding state security - in which case, as far as the UK goes, they probably will never be released.

Cheers,

Graham

[sdreid]

Hi Graham,

I believe it was How who said something about this. Maybe I misread or misunderstood it.

[Chava]

My late mother-in-law was born in the East End in 1909. She died just before her 97th birthday, but she was still in possession of all her faculties. She lived in Mulberry St and left in the early '30s. She had extremely clear memories of the East End and since she was an artist, she drew us maps and everything. She clearly remembered Itchy Park, and that was what she called it. She used to walk through on Saturday afternoon walks in the summer. I asked her if she ever ran into anyone who had any recollection of Jack the Ripper--I figured there must have been hundreds of people she'd meet when she was a kid who were around in 1888. But she said she didn't. She'd heard of Jack the Ripper, but wasn't clear that he'd been operating round the corner from where she grew up. I think that he'd become a kind of supernatural bogeyman. People by then had managed to forget the horrors of real events and moved on. No one really talked about it, she said. I assume because the victims were all prostitutes and so they weren't talked about by 'decent people'.

My friend's late father was born in 1916 in Whyte's Row. He remembered it pretty well, and even remembered Duval St which he says was always referred to as 'Dossit St' 'because of all the doss-houses'. Interesting that, the name was remembered along with a 'reason' why. But, again, no info on the Ripper. He just wasn't talked about apparently.

So I guess that's how information can go astray. People who remembered didn't discuss it because of the nature of the victims.

[sdreid]

Thanks Chava.

I do remember when Michael Caine was interviewed, while he was making the 1988 movie, he said that, when he was a kid in London in the 1940s, he and his friends feared that JtR might still be alive and living in their midst.