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I am currently reading Dostoyevskys "Crime and Punishment", for those who dont know it or have not read it, it basically involves a young student who commits a random murder.....which he is neither remorseful or regretful about at the beginning ( though his conscience does begin to eat away at him ). In a particular chapter is the following passage:
'Hey, you – German hatter!' and began to bellow at him at the top of his voice, pointing at him – the young man suddenly stopped and grabbed convulsively at his hat. This hat had been one of those tall, round affairs from Zimmerman's, but was now completely worn out and faded, covered in holes and stains and missing its brim, so that it cocked over to one side at a most outlandish angle. It was not shame that had assailed him, however, but an emotion of quite a different kind, one more akin to terror.
'I might have known it!' he muttered in confusion. 'I thought as much! This is worse than any of it! It is exactly this sort of nonsense, some vulgar little trivial detail, that could ruin the whole plan! Yes, a hat that's too conspicuous . . . It's absurd, and that's why it's conspicuous . . . What I need to go with my rags is a peaked cap – any old flat-top will do, but not this museum-piece. Nobody wears things like this, it would be spotted a mile off, people would remember it . . . the main thing is that it would be remembered afterwards, and bang! – they'd have their evidence. In this sort of business you have to be as inconspicuous as possible . . . The details, it's the details that matter more than anything else! . . . It's that sort of detail that always ruins everything. . .'
At this point he had not committed a crime however he was planning one ( though not murder as yet ).
Anyway, it got me thinking...this book was written 40 years or so before the WM. Would an outsider have thought this way in Whitechapel with the crimes he was planning and would he have done likewise ? is it possible that he had even read this book ? ( we will never know !! )....if he were Russian it may well be plausible that he had ! I just thought i would share this little snippet of the book with you because it seems so uncannily fitting for the Whitechapel murders when considering an outsider as a suspect.
'Hey, you – German hatter!' and began to bellow at him at the top of his voice, pointing at him – the young man suddenly stopped and grabbed convulsively at his hat. This hat had been one of those tall, round affairs from Zimmerman's, but was now completely worn out and faded, covered in holes and stains and missing its brim, so that it cocked over to one side at a most outlandish angle. It was not shame that had assailed him, however, but an emotion of quite a different kind, one more akin to terror.
'I might have known it!' he muttered in confusion. 'I thought as much! This is worse than any of it! It is exactly this sort of nonsense, some vulgar little trivial detail, that could ruin the whole plan! Yes, a hat that's too conspicuous . . . It's absurd, and that's why it's conspicuous . . . What I need to go with my rags is a peaked cap – any old flat-top will do, but not this museum-piece. Nobody wears things like this, it would be spotted a mile off, people would remember it . . . the main thing is that it would be remembered afterwards, and bang! – they'd have their evidence. In this sort of business you have to be as inconspicuous as possible . . . The details, it's the details that matter more than anything else! . . . It's that sort of detail that always ruins everything. . .'
At this point he had not committed a crime however he was planning one ( though not murder as yet ).
Anyway, it got me thinking...this book was written 40 years or so before the WM. Would an outsider have thought this way in Whitechapel with the crimes he was planning and would he have done likewise ? is it possible that he had even read this book ? ( we will never know !! )....if he were Russian it may well be plausible that he had ! I just thought i would share this little snippet of the book with you because it seems so uncannily fitting for the Whitechapel murders when considering an outsider as a suspect.
.....the funny thing about this post is when i located the book in my small house library, it was sandwiched in between my JTR books .....
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