Whistling on Berner Street

[MrBarnett]

Daily News, Oct 1:

Abraham Heshburg, a young fellow, living at 28, Berner-street, said:

Does that help?

It does indeed. There was no one living there in 1891, but there was a tailor in residence in 1887.

Was 20 your typo or a press error?

[MrBarnett]

The 1887 Booth survey shows a clear distinction between 40, Berner Street proper and the ‘house beyond the gates’ which it describes as a ‘Socialist Club “Jews”’

There were 3 households living at 40, BS, which was a 3-storied premises, and 1 in the club building. The club premises housed its caretaker (supposed to be a tailor) and his family, and attracted the comments ‘a dirty lot’ and ‘a regular hell’.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Was anyone living at 20, Berner Street in 1888? There wasn’t in 1881, 1887 or 1891 - it was the site of the old Board School.

Daily News, Oct 1:

Abraham Heshburg, a young fellow, living at 28, Berner-street, said:

Does that help?

[MrBarnett]

Was anyone living at 20, Berner Street in 1888? There wasn’t in 1881, 1887 or 1891 - it was the site of the old Board School.

Why couldn’t Hershberg have lived at 40 Berner Street but not been a member of the club?

[MrBarnett]

Was anyone living at 20, Berner Street in 1888? There wasn’t in 1881, 1887 or 1891 - it was the site of the old Board School.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

>>Coroner: Would you have heard a cry of distress? Wess: If it had been the cry of a woman for help, or of "Murder," I think we should have heard it, even although there was singing and dancing in the club.
If only those three screams had not been so soft, I should think they would have been able to come to her aid.<<

Surely Baxter was asking Wess if cries from the murder site would be heard. The Schwartz cries happened in the street outside the gates. Hardly comparable.

Surely for the sake of Israel Schwartz, we should believe that those extra 3 yards would have made all the difference.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The use of the word ‘there’ as opposed to ‘here’ is dependent on where he was when he was interviewed. If he was interviewed at home then why would he have said ‘here?’

This is a rather amusing statement, coming from someone who complains of "your stating of an opinion as a fact, again". If he wasn't at his home, your whole argument collapses, and so by insisting that Herschburg was in the club at the time, and that he referred to 'there', from home, it is you who are stating opinion as fact.

So where was Herschburg at the time of the interview? The reporter who interviewed him and others, was on the street ...

In order to inquire further into these matters, the reporter next visited the club referred to , a rather low class little building covered with posters, most of them in the Hebrew language. Mrs Lewis, wife of the steward, as she explained, was standing at the door in the centre of a host of people, but she declined to call on her husband, who had been up all night, and had only just gone to bed. Pressed to speak as to the character of the club, Mrs Lewis was inclined to be retired, but a young man in the crowd volunteered an explanation of the institution. "You see," he explained, "the members are bad Jews - Jews who do not heed their religion, and they annoy those who do in order to show contempt for the religion. In the Black Fast a week or two ago, for instance, they had a banquet, and ostentatiously ate and drank, while we might do neither. They hold concerts there till early in the morning, and women and girls are brought there." "Were they here last night?" asked the reporter. "No" said Mrs Lewis, "there was only a concert and discussion on last night."

The very next line reads ...

The young fellow who had previously spoken gave some further details at some length on the finding of the body by Lewis, but he could give no further facts that those given in the above statements.

So there is Abraham Herschburg, standing right outside the club, adding details to his previous statement. When he refers to 'there' and 'they', he is indicating that he is not one of them.

Apparently at this point, he was still not aware of the steward's name. It would also seem that the locals (probably the English ones), knew of Mr Diemschitz as Mr Lewis. So who were the friends of the steward that told a reporter that 'Lewis' had returned at about 12:45? These friends seem to have told Mrs Artisan/Mortimer, similar details (either that, or she was an interview dwelling busybody). A terrifying possibility (for some) is that the friends were club members.

The point about Koster could simply have meant that he’d heard the story about Koster and knew that it was untrue and that the body had been discovered by the steward of the club.

If he'd only been told the name Koster, as opposed to the whole story, then how would he know that that was not the name of the man with the pony and cart? He wouldn't, of course, and so he must have heard the story as well. So when did hear the story? When he was inside the club? When he went home perhaps? Or was it when he was being interviewed on the street? Why would someone in the club be telling the Koster story, unless it was true? So I guess you're wrong about him being interviewed at home (twice), unless his father told him the Koster story.

If a man is a member of a club it doesn’t follow that he knows the name of every single member. Especially someone like Diemschitz who had a job away from the club which would have meant that he wasn’t there all of the time.

We also can’t know how long Hoschberg had been visiting the club? He might have only visited a few times.

So Herschburg had encyclopedic knowledge of everything to do with the club, the yard, the workers, the discovery, and the state of the victim, but the one thing this supposed member did not know, was the name of the man who discovered the body, who was also the steward! Even after (supposedly) being locked in the yard for hours, he still didn't manage to find out. Right.

Can we state that only members visited the club or is that another assumption? There are clubs all over the country where people can visit regularly without ever becoming an actual member so how can we know that Hoschberg wasn’t just an occasional visitor?

Well lets' see ...

AH: [I] came down to see what was the matter in the gateway. Two or three people had collected, and when I got there I saw a short dark young woman lying on the ground ...

Arbeter Fraint: “Don’t you know that a murdered woman is lying in the yard?” Gilyarovsky breathlessly called out. At first the two comrades did not want to believe him. “What, don’t you believe me?” Gilyarovsky quickly asked: “I saw blood.” Yaffa and Krants immediately ran out and went over to the gate. The gate was open and it was very dark near the gate. A black object was barely discernable near the brick building. Once they got very close, they could notice that it was the shape of a woman that was lying with its face to the wall, with its head toward the yard and with its feet pointing to the gate. Comrades Morris Eygel, Fridenthal and Gilyarovsky were standing around the body.

Any non-members mentioned there? Anyone named Herschburg?

Why does he only “suppose” that it’s a Socialist club? Well firstly the name of the club doesn’t include the word Socialist so it wasn’t a given. Secondly, at that time Socialist was considered by the establishment to have been almost synonymous with Republican or Revolutionary, Anarchist or even potential terrorist. So it’s understandable that he might have been reluctant to admit that he might have had socialist sympathies too.

Then why not just a call it a workingmen's club, which does match part of the name?

By the way, this is what the reporter said about the club ...

... No. 40 Berner street, which is occupied by the International Workingmen's Education Society - a club of Jewish Socialists, mostly of foreign extraction who, judging from statements made this morning in the neighbourhood, are not in very good odour with their orthodox co-religionists.

Apparently, the nature of the club was no secret.

”Came down” implies that he was upstairs of course even though you’ll deny this.

In the course of an interview with a witness shortly after 6 o'clock this morning Abraham Heshberg, a young fellow, living at 20 Berner street, said- "I was one of those who first saw the murdered woman. It was about a quarter to 1 o'clock, I should think, when I heard a policeman's whistle blown, and came down to see what was the matter in the gateway.

The reporter is implying that he came down from 20 Berner street. No mention at all is made of him being at the club, or having any association with it.

Then we have Wess saying:

“…the bulk of the people present then left the premises by the street door entrance, while between 20 and 30 members remained behind in the large room, and about a dozen were downstairs.”

Clearly meaning that some were upstairs.

And Morris Eagle:

“As soon as I entered the club I went to see a friend, who was in the upstairs room, and who was singing a song in the Russian language.”

…..

I'm quite aware that people were upstairs. These people were interacting - singing, dancing, talking politics. The idea that one of them alone would hear a whistle, seemingly not mention it to anyone else, and then go downstairs alone, is totally ludicrous.

[GBinOz]

Yes but in that context with the use of the word ‘about’ he was clearly uncertain. If he’d just checked a clock why would he have said this? You’ve accepted clocks can be out. Although it can’t state it as a proven fact George I tend to think that he’d probably checked the club clock at perhaps around 12.00ish and just estimated the time gap between then and the moment that he first heard that a body had been discovered. Obviously he’d have had no reason to log the time as he’d dashed to see the body. It’s not impossible that he was unaware of the time that he’d gone downstairs and so asked the question when talking to another club member. If that member was Kozebrodski who estimated 12.40 then he might have just said to the Police “about 12.45” because Koz had already been in the yard when he got there and Koz?

Whatever the explanation George I’m absolutely convinced that there was nothing sinister going on. Just understandable errors, especially under the circumstances.

Hi Herlock,

I'm not seeing anything sinister either. Herschburg and Kozebrodski were quoting times from the club clock which was not in sync with the clock used by the police or the doctor. They were not lying or wrong, they just had a clock that had a sync error. They may have been estimating times from that clock, but so was nearly everyone else, just from different clocks.

I think that Herschburg was upstairs in the club at the time. I'm sure that I read a statement to that effect but I can't find it at present.

Cheers, George

[drstrange169]

>>Coroner: Would you have heard a cry of distress? Wess: If it had been the cry of a woman for help, or of "Murder," I think we should have heard it, even although there was singing and dancing in the club.
If only those three screams had not been so soft, I should think they would have been able to come to her aid.<<

Surely Baxter was asking Wess if cries from the murder site would be heard. The Schwartz cries happened in the street outside the gates. Hardly comparable.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Definition of I should/would think
1—used to say that one believes that something is true, that a particular situation exists, that something will happen, etc."Is she still in college?" "Well, yes. I should/would think so."
2—used to express one's opinion that something should exist or happenI should/would think he would apologize.

Here's an example similar to 2:

Coroner: Would you have heard a cry of distress?
Wess: If it had been the cry of a woman for help, or of "Murder," I think we should have heard it, even although there was singing and dancing in the club.

Poor Liz Stride. If only those three screams had not been so soft, I should think they would have been able to come to her aid. For some reason she kept her voice down when being assaulted, while two other men fled the scene in terror. Or so the story goes.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That is quite ironic, coming from a Schwartzist.

The Star: In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story. They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts. If every man should be arrested who was known to have been seen in company with an abandoned woman in that locality on last Saturday night, the police-stations would not hold them.

The Police very obviously didn’t see everything and everyone as being evidence of a plot. In fact the Police who interviewed everyone face to face and knew far more than we did and were in a position to check times/alibis etc saw nothing suspicious.

Do you think that not one single officer said “hold on, these two blokes Hoschberg and Kozebrodski say they were in the yard with the body before Diemschitz said that he’d got back.” You don’t think that they might have looked into it a little closer than we’re able to? Don’t you think that’s it’s possible (or even likely) that they did and came to the clear conclusion that these two were out in their estimations?

This is one of the problems in looking at certain aspects of the case. While we have to accept the limitations of police knowledge at the time it doesn’t mean that Officers (especially one’s like Abberline) were complete bunglers who couldn’t see a possible issue when it stared them in the face.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It's time this "Herschburg was in the club" nonsense, was put to bed. He clearly speaks as an outsider ...

"I was one of those who first saw the murdered woman. It was about a quarter to 1 o'clock, I should think, when I heard a policeman's whistle blown, and came down to see what was the matter in the gateway. Two or three people had collected, and when I got there I saw a short dark young woman lying on the ground, with a gash between 4 and 5 inches long in her throat. I should think she was 25 to 28 years of age. Her head was towards the north wall, against which she was lying. She had a black dress on, with a bunch of flowers pinned on the breast. In her hand there was a little piece of paper containing five or six cachous. The body was not found by Koster, but by a man whose name I do not know, a man who goes out with a pony and barrow, and lives up the archway where he was going, I believe, to put up his barrow on coming home from market. He thought it was his wife at first, but when he found her safe at home he got a candle and found this woman. He never touched it till the doctor had been sent for. The little gate is always open, or at all events unfastened, but I don't think the yard is one which is used by loose women. There are some stables in there - Messrs Duncan, Woollatt, and Cade I believe - and there is a place to which a lot of girls take home sacks which they have been engaged in making. None of these would be there though after about 1 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. None of us recognised the woman. I don't think she belongs to this neighbourhood. She was dressed very respectably. There seemed to be no wounds on the body About the club? Oh, yes, it would be open till 2 or 3 this morning. I suppose it is a Socialist club, and there are generally rows there. Both men and women go there. They have demonstrations up there, and concerts, for which they have a stage and plane. There was a row there last Sunday night. It went on till about 2 in the morning, and in the end two people were arrested."

If he'd been in the club, he wouldn't be saying 'there', he would be saying 'here'. That alone tells us that he wasn't there at the time of the discovery.

His reference to Koster is also a very big hint. He appears to know of this man by name - some random who was walking along Berner street at around the time of the discovery - but somehow he doesn't know the name of the club steward, who lives at the club with his wife. Rather strange for a man who has all that knowledge and information to offer, yet he doesn't know the name 'Louis Diemschitz'.

He also supposes it is a Socialist Club. How could not know for sure, if he'd been in the club and therefore presumably a member?

Wess: It is a Socialist club. Nobody who is elected as a member is supposed to be an anything but a Socialist, and it is understood that no member is proposed who does not conform to Socialistic principles.

A club member would be unlikely to volunteer information about rows at the club, that led to arrests.

Last but not least, no one from the club is on record as saying they were upstairs or anywhere else at the time, and heard a whistle before the police arrived.

Herschburg was not in club at the time of the discovery, and he was not a member.




Define 'sinister', for this context.

The use of the word ‘there’ as opposed to ‘here’ is dependent on where he was when he was interviewed. If he was interviewed at home then why would he have said ‘here?’

The point about Koster could simply have meant that he’d heard the story about Koster and knew that it was untrue and that the body had been discovered by the steward of the club.

If a man is a member of a club it doesn’t follow that he knows the name of every single member. Especially someone like Diemschitz who had a job away from the club which would have meant that he wasn’t there all of the time.

We also can’t know how long Hoschberg had been visiting the club? He might have only visited a few times.

Can we state that only members visited the club or is that another assumption? There are clubs all over the country where people can visit regularly without ever becoming an actual member so how can we know that Hoschberg wasn’t just an occasional visitor?

Why does he only “suppose” that it’s a Socialist club? Well firstly the name of the club doesn’t include the word Socialist so it wasn’t a given. Secondly, at that time Socialist was considered by the establishment to have been almost synonymous with Republican or Revolutionary, Anarchist or even potential terrorist. So it’s understandable that he might have been reluctant to admit that he might have had socialist sympathies too.


”Came down” implies that he was upstairs of course even though you’ll deny this.

Then we have Wess saying:

“…the bulk of the people present then left the premises by the street door entrance, while between 20 and 30 members remained behind in the large room, and about a dozen were downstairs.”

Clearly meaning that some were upstairs.

And Morris Eagle:

“As soon as I entered the club I went to see a friend, who was in the upstairs room, and who was singing a song in the Russian language.”

…..

Glad to have been able to ‘put to bed’ your stating of an opinion as a fact, again.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

If the Police took up your methods there wouldn’t be enough cells in the country.

That is quite ironic, coming from a Schwartzist.

The Star: In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story. They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts. If every man should be arrested who was known to have been seen in company with an abandoned woman in that locality on last Saturday night, the police-stations would not hold them.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Yes but in that context with the use of the word ‘about’ he was clearly uncertain. If he’d just checked a clock why would he have said this? You’ve accepted clocks can be out. Although it can’t state it as a proven fact George I tend to think that he’d probably checked the club clock at perhaps around 12.00ish and just estimated the time gap between then and the moment that he first heard that a body had been discovered. Obviously he’d have had no reason to log the time as he’d dashed to see the body. It’s not impossible that he was unaware of the time that he’d gone downstairs and so asked the question when talking to another club member. If that member was Kozebrodski who estimated 12.40 then he might have just said to the Police “about 12.45” because Koz had already been in the yard when he got there and Koz?

It's time this "Herschburg was in the club" nonsense, was put to bed. He clearly speaks as an outsider ...

"I was one of those who first saw the murdered woman. It was about a quarter to 1 o'clock, I should think, when I heard a policeman's whistle blown, and came down to see what was the matter in the gateway. Two or three people had collected, and when I got there I saw a short dark young woman lying on the ground, with a gash between 4 and 5 inches long in her throat. I should think she was 25 to 28 years of age. Her head was towards the north wall, against which she was lying. She had a black dress on, with a bunch of flowers pinned on the breast. In her hand there was a little piece of paper containing five or six cachous. The body was not found by Koster, but by a man whose name I do not know, a man who goes out with a pony and barrow, and lives up the archway where he was going, I believe, to put up his barrow on coming home from market. He thought it was his wife at first, but when he found her safe at home he got a candle and found this woman. He never touched it till the doctor had been sent for. The little gate is always open, or at all events unfastened, but I don't think the yard is one which is used by loose women. There are some stables in there - Messrs Duncan, Woollatt, and Cade I believe - and there is a place to which a lot of girls take home sacks which they have been engaged in making. None of these would be there though after about 1 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. None of us recognised the woman. I don't think she belongs to this neighbourhood. She was dressed very respectably. There seemed to be no wounds on the body About the club? Oh, yes, it would be open till 2 or 3 this morning. I suppose it is a Socialist club, and there are generally rows there. Both men and women go there. They [not 'we'] have demonstrations up there, and concerts, for which they [not 'we'] have a stage and plane. There was a row there last Sunday night. It went on till about 2 in the morning, and in the end two people were arrested."

If he'd been in the club, he wouldn't be saying 'there', he would be saying 'here'. That alone tells us that he wasn't there at the time of the discovery.

His reference to Koster is also a very big hint. He appears to know of this man by name - some random who was walking along Berner street at around the time of the discovery - but somehow he doesn't know the name of the club steward, who lives at the club with his wife. Rather strange for a man who has all that knowledge and information to offer, yet he doesn't know the name 'Louis Diemschitz'.

He also supposes it is a Socialist Club. How could not know for sure, if he'd been in the club and therefore presumably a member?

Wess: It is a Socialist club. Nobody who is elected as a member is supposed to be an anything but a Socialist, and it is understood that no member is proposed who does not conform to Socialistic principles.

A club member would be unlikely to volunteer information about rows at the club, that led to arrests.

Last but not least, no one from the club is on record as saying they were upstairs or anywhere else at the time, and heard a whistle before the police arrived.

Herschburg was not in club at the time of the discovery, and he was not a member.

Whatever the explanation George I’m absolutely convinced that there was nothing sinister going on. Just understandable errors, especially under the circumstances.

Define 'sinister', for this context.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is that 01:00 GMT, or 01:00 Very Reasonable Margin of Error Time?



Do you mean 12:45 GMT was wrong, or 12:45 Very Reasonable Margin of Error Time, was wrong?

It seems to me that your assignment of Very Reasonable Margins of Error, is Very Selective.

How am I being selective? Your the one who appears to be averse to applying a reasonable margin for error. Just like certain posters on the Lechmere thread who need to narrow down to exact times to make a point.