If There Were Multiple Killers Wouldn't We Expect to See More Killings?

[RavenDarkendale]

Perhaps. But correct me if I'm wrong, I'm strictly Southern American but I watch a lot of BBC and read a lot of British literature, but doesn't not the average Englishman refer to his superior as "Governor"? Would it likely read: "I was not codding, Gov, "?

[caz]

At the time of the Chapman murder, I think the police theorized a series of at least three by one hand: Tabram, Nichols and Chapman. It's not such a stretch of the imagination that someone who has killed three people in a fairly short time span will kill again...

Well that was kind of my point, Rivkah. And of course there were more murders, pretty much on cue, to help the whole thing along.

And yet today's 'wisdom' is that nobody in mid-September 1888 would have known what the hell serial murder was, and what they had on their hands wasn't it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Which BTW, has anyone compared any letters of Michael Barrett with the so called Maybrick diary to check on this very thing? Just wondering...

Yes.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I believe in his confession, he said he dictated it to his wife. Don't quote me on that, though.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mike said a lot of things about the diary - mostly contradictory - and very few turned out to be true unfortunately.

Love,

Caz
X

[RivkahChaya]

Perhaps. But correct me if I'm wrong, I'm strictly Southern American but I watch a lot of BBC and read a lot of British literature, but doesn't not the average Englishman refer to his superior as "Governor"? Would it likely read: "I was not codding, Gov, "?

Whatever a Brit, Englishman, person who had lived in London a long time, whatever, would actually use isn't really the point.

I am an American, but when I have been in England, I have not used words I thought people would not understand. I've read enough books, and I went to embassy school when I was 10, with lots of British kids, and a teacher who was English, that I know that if I want French fries in a restaurant, I need to order "chips." If I persist in using the wrong term, I'm either going to look like an ass (sorry, arse), or just not get what I want.

If the Ripper were an American, he didn't just get off the boat the day before the Polly Nichols murder, or he wouldn't know where he was going, what the "Central News Office" was (surely, someone asked around the post offices if someone with a US accent wanted to know who was in charge of the newspapers, if the police we so convinced that this "Americanism" was all that significant), or a host of other things we can be pretty sure the killer knew.

So, unless whoever was in charge of the Central News Office, was by some quirk of preference, known as "Boss," then the word sounds like an affectation meant to make the letter enigmatic. Also, the word couldn't have been such an Americanism as to have been entirely obscure, or it would have looked like gibberish.

TRIVIA: the Zodiac signed one of his letters written in December "Happy Christmas," probably using a "Britishism" is reference to "Boss."

Well that was kind of my point, Rivkah. And of course there were more murders, pretty much on cue, to help the whole thing along.

And yet today's 'wisdom' is that nobody in mid-September 1888 would have known what the hell serial murder was, and what they had on their hands wasn't it.

I don't think anyone has said that no one knew what the hell serial murder was to the point of being unable to recognize that the same person could kill more than one victim. People have correctly noted that the term "serial killer" wasn't in use, and that people's (not necessarily the police, just the general public) idea of a repeat murderer who wasn't making financial gain would be that of some sort of fiend, foaming at the mouth, and just so obvious from a distance that he was a monster, that it was a mystery that no one had found him yet.*

That doesn't mean there were not some people whose thinking was slightly ahead of its time.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mike said a lot of things about the diary - mostly contradictory - and very few turned out to be true unfortunately.

I meant, don't cite me when you publish your book. Mike Barret seems to have some sort of color-blindness when it comes to shades of truth.


*There was actually a scientific theory taken very seriously about the "born criminal." Some criminals, it went, were "made," as in the person who steals food to feed his family, but some people were "atavistic"; they exhibited traits of animals earlier in our evolutionary descent, and could not control their behavior, so they had to be locked away for the good of society. Supposedly, there were identifying physical attributes of the "criminal type," which the justice system could use to distinguish people who deserved leniency from those who should be put away forever.

When Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, he lifted his physical description of the title character almost word for word from a treatise on the "criminal type."

[caz]

I meant, don't cite me when you publish your book. Mike Barret seems to have some sort of color-blindness when it comes to shades of truth.

Er, the book was published ten years ago, Rivkah.

All Mike Barrett's 'confessions of a master forger' remain provable fantasy. Or palpable rot, if you prefer.

He was a very poor conman, but his strength was in other people's desire to believe him.

Love,

Caz
X

[RivkahChaya]

Er, the book was published ten years ago, Rivkah.

The "don't quote (cite) me" was for the room. It was just a disclaimer that you shouldn't be too gleeful if you discover I made a mistake, because I was relying on memory, and didn't bother to look it up. The gist was what mattered. Maybe Barrett dictated it to his wife, or maybe he wrote it himself. It didn't really matter, because handwriting comparisons aren't really that valuable in trying to prove who a forger is, because you can assume that a forger is going to try to disguise his writing. When you are looking to prove (or disprove) a forgery, the only comparison of value is a comparison between the document in question, and known exemplars of the alleged writer of the questioned document. In this case, that would be examples of Maybrick's writing with well-documented and uninterrupted provenance.

[Wickerman]

Perhaps. But correct me if I'm wrong, I'm strictly Southern American but I watch a lot of BBC and read a lot of British literature, but doesn't not the average Englishman refer to his superior as "Governor"? Would it likely read: "I was not codding, Gov, "?

"Guv, Guv'ner" is/was common in the south, primarily London. Outside London you might get, Boss or Gaffer.

[RivkahChaya]

"Gaffer" is some kind of contraction of "grandfather" isn't it?

In the US, it's only use is the head electrician on a film set, sometimes the person who designed the lighting. They used to call the rods they hung lights from "gaffs," which I think has a separate etymology, but "gaffer" came to mean just the head electrician because of the other meaning. The "best boy" is the gaffer's chief assistant, I think still billed that way, even if it's a woman. The head of the non-electrician set workers is the Key Grip, with the exception of the person specifically responsible for the dolly that the camera is mounted to, who is the "dolly grip," and answers directly to the director and cinematographer. Oh, and the person in charge of sound that is recorded directly during filming, is the "boom operator." I first noticed there was a "boom operator" in the credits in a TV series about a WWI bomb disposal squad (Danger, UXB), and I thought it had something to do with the actual bomb sound effects. The guy in charge of sounds that are added later is the "Foley artist."

My brother works in the film industry. Those terms crack me up.

[Wickerman]

"Gaffer" is some kind of contraction of "grandfather" isn't it?

The etymology is uncertain, there maybe more than one origin. But "Gaffer" was a colloquial term long before the movie picture industry came about.

I first noticed there was a "boom operator" in the credits in a TV series about a WWI bomb disposal squad (Danger, UXB), and I thought it had something to do with the actual bomb sound effects.

Now that's funny
I did like that series, I sometimes catch it on the net.
P.S. it was WW II

[Errata]

The etymology is uncertain, there maybe more than one origin. But "Gaffer" was a colloquial term long before the movie picture industry came about.

A Gaffer is also a glassblower, a type of fisherman who uses a hooked pole, and a person who operates a specific type of sailboat. It could also be a seal hunter, or the guy who rigs anything on a scaffold type structure. From AV equipment, to pulleys and ropes, to well, people. In a hangman kind of way, a gaffer is the guy who puts new rope up on an existing hangman's scaffold, and maintains the trapdoor. Or so said my old theater history textbook. Thus the guy who hung lights and maintained the trapdoor in a theater was a gaffer, thus the lighting guy in movies is a gaffer. And this is literally the first time that piece of information has ever been useful to me. I can now purge it to make room for newer factoids with a clean conscience.

[RivkahChaya]

Now that's funny
I did like that series, I sometimes catch it on the net.
P.S. it was WW II

I know it was WWII. That was a typo. It was a great show.

A Gaffer is ... the guy who rigs anything on a scaffold type structure. From AV equipment, to pulleys and ropes, to well, people.

Well, yeah, and a "gaff," is something fake, and used to be a synonym for a "humbug," or a phony sideshow exhibit, but now it's spelled "gaffe," and is used mostly for mistakes by politicians that can cost elections, and need major spin-doctoring.

I think it's interesting when etymologies converge, like "gaffer" as someone who gangs lights, and "gaffer" as a supervisor, to mean the head electrician.

[caz]

The "don't quote (cite) me" was for the room. It was just a disclaimer that you shouldn't be too gleeful if you discover I made a mistake, because I was relying on memory, and didn't bother to look it up.

Yeah, I know, hence the

The gist was what mattered. Maybe Barrett dictated it to his wife, or maybe he wrote it himself. It didn't really matter...

Neither is a viable option, so the gist of what you are saying is that it doesn't really matter who you accuse of what, because the thing isn't in Maybrick's hand anyway.

That's like saying maybe the murders were done by Lewis Carroll or maybe there were multiple killers, but it doesn't matter which because it clearly wasn't Ostrog.

A novel way of solving a mystery. Maybe you should write one.

Love,

Caz
X

[RivkahChaya]

That's like saying maybe the murders were done by Lewis Carroll or maybe there were multiple killers, but it doesn't matter which because it clearly wasn't Ostrog.

A novel way of solving a mystery. Maybe you should write one.

1) it was just a hypothetical, not a real-life example.

2) stupider statements are made when the diary is discussed.

3) no matter how stupid that last statement looks out of context, if it's a response to someone who has made some assertion like this: "The murderer clearly wasn't literate in English, and we know it wasn't a gang, and since that rules out two of the only three suspects I consider viable, Lewis Carroll, and the Gang Leader Tookie Bedford Forrest, then it must be the third suspect, Ostrog. I will be opening champagne tomorrow at noon, GMT, if you want to join me," well, don't tell me statements like that have not occasionally popped up. Sometimes they're trolls, and we don't bother answering.

4) what I said wasn't quite that stupid, but in any event, it was meant to be ridiculous, because remember, I was pointing out that comparisons between a forged document and the suspect forger don't mean much, since you can assume he was trying to disguise his writing, so, maybe the intellectual author actually wrote it down himself, or maybe he had someone else do it; it doesn't matter. Whoever wrote it is, presumably, going to try to make the handwriting look like the individual being forged, and that's from whom you need exemplars for comparison.

[Cogidubnus]

"Gaffer" is some kind of contraction of "grandfather" isn't it?

In the US, it's only use is the head electrician on a film set, sometimes the person who designed the lighting. They used to call the rods they hung lights from "gaffs," which I think has a separate etymology, but "gaffer" came to mean just the head electrician because of the other meaning. The "best boy" is the gaffer's chief assistant, I think still billed that way, even if it's a woman. The head of the non-electrician set workers is the Key Grip, with the exception of the person specifically responsible for the dolly that the camera is mounted to, who is the "dolly grip," and answers directly to the director and cinematographer. Oh, and the person in charge of sound that is recorded directly during filming, is the "boom operator." I first noticed there was a "boom operator" in the credits in a TV series about a WWI bomb disposal squad (Danger, UXB), and I thought it had something to do with the actual bomb sound effects. The guy in charge of sounds that are added later is the "Foley artist."

My brother works in the film industry. Those terms crack me up.

Hi Rivkah

Off topic I know, but the film credit that really cracked me up was at the end of "Silence of the Lambs"..."Moth Wrangler"

All the best

Dave