Whistling on Berner Street

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Al,

I'm with you on the intepretation of "previously", but how do we get around one sighting of Goldstein going down Berner St from Commercial Road and turning at the Board School, and another of him heading up Berner St, possibly from the Club? There can be no doubt about the direction of the first sighting. Where can she have been standing for the second description to make these the same sighting? I would have thought that if FM had made both sightings she would have referred to that in one of her interviews? That, and the fact that FM's husband was not an artisan, makes me suspect a second woman, but I would welcome any alternative explanations.

Cheers, George

“A well-to-do artisan.”

Can we really imagine anyone ‘well-to-do’ electing to live in Berner Street George. I reckon Fanny might have just indulged in a bit of Hyacinth Bouquet type exaggeration.

Just in case Hyacinth never reached Oz…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_Up_Appearances

[Herlock Sholmes]

Regards the FM statement, I feel she's using the "heard a commotion" as the reference point, the statement revolves around that moment, it being the critical piece of information and the point at which she becomes involved.

She's saying that she was on her doorstep at some point prior to "the commotion" but had gone back inside before again coming out upon hearing said commotion.

I take the "previously" to mean previous to "the commotion", as in FM is saying the only person she noticed in her time on the doorstep was the man with the bag, and this was before 1. I don't read it as she saw the same man twice. I also think FM and Mrs Artisan are the same.

Might 'ha he been coming from the Socialist Club? That's an odd statement itself and leaves more questions than answers.

That’s how I see it Al.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Arguably, she did say she had seen him twice, at least implicitly. Consider her words again...

I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside, and immediately ran out, thinking that there was another row at the Socialists' Club close by. ... It was just after one o'clock when I went out, and the only man whom I had seen pass through the street previously was a young man carrying a black shiny bag, who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial-road.

As I've said several times in the past, the word 'previously' is redundant, if she only goes to her doorstep on one occasion. Yet the the phrase "I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning...", suggests she went out, in, and out again, at least once. This hints at what she is getting at, by the use of the word 'previously'. So what I think Fanny actually said was more like this...

It was just after one o'clock when I went out, and the only man whom I had seen who had passed through the street previously was a young man carrying a black shiny bag, who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial-road.

If the reporter who had taken Mortimer's statement had left out these couple of small but crucial words, then Fanny's intended meaning could have been lost or made ambiguous. However, the addition of these possibly lost words has the result the word 'previously' suddenly makes sense. It means she had seen him just before she had gone indoors, and she had also seen him previously.

I think that is a reasonable interpretation of the evidence, and it is not a matter me being unable to let go of this. Rather, it is a matter of nearly everyone else being unable to cope with this evidence. It is apparently just too confronting. Yet as George said, the FM reports are there to be explained. They cannot simply be ignored. If Ripperology wants to be taken seriously by the wider world, it cannot just ignore evidence it doesn't care to acknowledge.

It’s nothing to do with coping with evidence. It’s a question of how far we go in making suggestions or assumptions especially on something as fragile as language. If everyone spoke uniformly precise language then perhaps we could make some deductions but they don’t and then we have to add the fact that these ‘words’ were written up by a reporter. So we have 2 layers of doubt. This isn’t too ‘confronting.’ It’s not a case of “you can’t handle the truth.” Its a case of being cautious enough not to see what’s not there. If someone took the time I’m absolutely certain that they could wring alternate meanings out of most statements in this case based on wording. Either a word which someone finds to be ‘redundant’ or a variant from one report to another. I just suggest caution. I’d ask why FM didn’t say in any of these reports that she saw this man who she’d also seen earlier? Wouldn’t the police have been interested to have heard this news?

Fanny clearly means “previous to my going onto the doorstep just after 1.00 the only man that I’d seen was….”

PS. We note the “just after 1.00,” of course. Discovery time at 1.00.

[Herlock Sholmes]

All three interviews/reports are here:

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/evening_news/18881001.html

If FM saw Goldstein only once, then Mrs Artisan saw him once going in the opposite direction? The two reports are there in black and white, can't be denied, have to be explained.

I was expecting to see that you had opened a thread on The Ashes. What in the world are your selectors thinking leaving out both Anderson and Broad?

Cheers, George

Mrs Artisan was obviously FM.

I’ll be amazed if England don’t lose 5-0 George with such a fragile batting line up. Then just to emphasise things the selectors decided to drop our 2 best bowlers! They might as well tell Root that he has to bat left handed for the rest of the series.

[GBinOz]

Regards the FM statement, I feel she's using the "heard a commotion" as the reference point, the statement revolves around that moment, it being the critical piece of information and the point at which she becomes involved.

She's saying that she was on her doorstep at some point prior to "the commotion" but had gone back inside before again coming out upon hearing said commotion.

I take the "previously" to mean previous to "the commotion", as in FM is saying the only person she noticed in her time on the doorstep was the man with the bag, and this was before 1. I don't read it as she saw the same man twice. I also think FM and Mrs Artisan are the same.

Might 'ha he been coming from the Socialist Club? That's an odd statement itself and leaves more questions than answers.

Hi Al,

I'm with you on the intepretation of "previously", but how do we get around one sighting of Goldstein going down Berner St from Commercial Road and turning at the Board School, and another of him heading up Berner St, possibly from the Club? There can be no doubt about the direction of the first sighting. Where can she have been standing for the second description to make these the same sighting? I would have thought that if FM had made both sightings she would have referred to that in one of her interviews? That, and the fact that FM's husband was not an artisan, makes me suspect a second woman, but I would welcome any alternative explanations.

Cheers, George

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Regards the FM statement, I feel she's using the "heard a commotion" as the reference point, the statement revolves around that moment, it being the critical piece of information and the point at which she becomes involved.

She's saying that she was on her doorstep at some point prior to "the commotion" but had gone back inside before again coming out upon hearing said commotion.

I take the "previously" to mean previous to "the commotion", as in FM is saying the only person she noticed in her time on the doorstep was the man with the bag, and this was before 1. I don't read it as she saw the same man twice. I also think FM and Mrs Artisan are the same.

Might 'ha he been coming from the Socialist Club? That's an odd statement itself and leaves more questions than answers.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

You won’t let this one go will you? She saw Goldstein once. If she’d seen him twice she would have said that she’d seen him twice.

Arguably, she did say she had seen him twice, at least implicitly. Consider her words again...

I had just gone indoors, and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a commotion outside, and immediately ran out, thinking that there was another row at the Socialists' Club close by. ... It was just after one o'clock when I went out, and the only man whom I had seen pass through the street previously was a young man carrying a black shiny bag, who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial-road.

As I've said several times in the past, the word 'previously' is redundant, if she only goes to her doorstep on one occasion. Yet the the phrase "I was standing at the door of my house nearly the whole time between half-past twelve and one o'clock this morning...", suggests she went out, in, and out again, at least once. This hints at what she is getting at, by the use of the word 'previously'. So what I think Fanny actually said was more like this...

It was just after one o'clock when I went out, and the only man whom I had seen who had passed through the street previously was a young man carrying a black shiny bag, who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial-road.

If the reporter who had taken Mortimer's statement had left out these couple of small but crucial words, then Fanny's intended meaning could have been lost or made ambiguous. However, the addition of these possibly lost words has the result the word 'previously' suddenly makes sense. It means she had seen him just before she had gone indoors, and she had also seen him previously.

I think that is a reasonable interpretation of the evidence, and it is not a matter me being unable to let go of this. Rather, it is a matter of nearly everyone else being unable to cope with this evidence. It is apparently just too confronting. Yet as George said, the FM reports are there to be explained. They cannot simply be ignored. If Ripperology wants to be taken seriously by the wider world, it cannot just ignore evidence it doesn't care to acknowledge.

[GBinOz]

All three interviews/reports are here:

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/evening_news/18881001.html

If FM saw Goldstein only once, then Mrs Artisan saw him once going in the opposite direction? The two reports are there in black and white, can't be denied, have to be explained.

I was expecting to see that you had opened a thread on The Ashes. What in the world are your selectors thinking leaving out both Anderson and Broad?

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

On this occasion, the man does not pass through the street, but appears to have exited the club or yard. It seems Fanny Mortimer saw Leon Goldstein, twice.

.

You won’t let this one go will you? She saw Goldstein once. If she’d seen him twice she would have said that she’d seen him twice.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The first one says - quiet and deserted - talking about the street.
The second one says - there was hardly anyone in the street and the only sound was from the club.

It’s just wording.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

There was activity inside the club but the street itself was quiet. It seems pretty clear what she meant.

It is clear. There were a few people on the street, and there was noise coming from the club. So the street was neither completely quiet, nor deserted. So the unquoted report gets that wrong, and evidently the man with the black bag was not the only man she witnessed. Perhaps she witnessed the board school couple, perhaps others, or others as well. Perhaps those others were in the near vicinity of the club. It is also pretty clear that the man with the black bag seemed to have just walked out of the club or yard, and was heading north.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That report also makes some dubious claims. For example "The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time." So the street was unusually quiet and deserted? So why when the on-street interviewer asks Mortimer "Was the street quiet at the time?", does she reply...?

Yes, there was hardly anybody moving about, except at the club. There was music and dancing going on there at the very time that that poor creature was being murdered at their very door, as one may say.

There was activity inside the club but the street itself was quiet. It seems pretty clear what she meant.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

The next report is buried within a long account where Mortimer's observations are given in the third-person. "Two doors from the club", is the same as "three doors from the gateway".
"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 ten minutes before she did so".....etc.

In my view this may be a copied story, and as I do a search I find this same account has been copied from the Daily News of the same date.

Sure it's copied from the DN (which I already knew), but that doesn't say anything as to why the woman in this report is unnamed and unquoted, in spite of her supposedly making an 'important statement'.

That report also makes some dubious claims. For example "The quiet and deserted character of the street appears even to have struck her at the time." So the street was unusually quiet and deserted? So why when the on-street interviewer asks Mortimer "Was the street quiet at the time?", does she reply...?

Yes, there was hardly anybody moving about, except at the club. There was music and dancing going on there at the very time that that poor creature was being murdered at their very door, as one may say.

This contradicts the unquoted report, even before mention is made of the man with the black bag. One might assume that the 'important statement' would include a mention of this man, but the report says nothing about him.

As you know I speculated that the source of the unquoted report may have been a detective from the vigilance committee. It's interesting to contrast a part of that report with the EN's Oct 4 report on Packer.

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.

What they (Grand and Batchelor) go to establish is that the perpetrator of the Berner street crime was seen and spoken to whilst in the company of his victim, within forty minutes of the commission of the crime and only passed from the sight of a witness TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE MURDER and within ten yards of the scene of the awful deed.

I wonder if these references to 10 minutes, refer to the same 10 minutes, and the supposed perpetrator of the crime is the man with the black bag?

[JeffHamm]

Hello Wick,

Without re-reading the actual quote (because I can’t find it) couldn’t it be that when Fanny came onto her doorstep Goldstein had already passed her door and was at the gates when she first saw him walking towards Fairclough Street leading to the suggestion that he might just have left the club?

Alternatively could a Press error be possible? If Fanny said something like “he might have been from the club,” she might have meant that his Jewish appearance might have led her to suspect that he might have been a member? The Reporter might have written this as if he actually came from the club at the to] time that she saw him?

I was wondering something similar as it sounds like she's answering a question from the reporter. The "he might have come from the club" could just mean earlier in the evening, but she didn't see him come from there (since he had to have come from somewhere he might have come from the club, but she doesn't know). Herlock's suggestion is good too, and her statement may be more indicating he might have been a club member, as opposed to having just exited the club.

Given how she describes his position it is hard to understand how she would suggest he had just come out of the club, which is what makes me think she's been prompted by the reporter on that point.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi George.

Yes, and that is the only point I feel doesn't fit.
Mortimer appears to have thought Goldstein came from Comm. Rd. but looked up at the club as he passed, whereas Mrs Artisan feels he might have come from the club. Always assuming the reporter gave an accurate retelling of her story.
Perhaps that is where the inconsistency lies, because all the other details match reasonably well.

Hello Wick,

Without re-reading the actual quote (because I can’t find it) couldn’t it be that when Fanny came onto her doorstep Goldstein had already passed her door and was at the gates when she first saw him walking towards Fairclough Street leading to the suggestion that he might just have left the club?

Alternatively could a Press error be possible? If Fanny said something like “he might have been from the club,” she might have meant that his Jewish appearance might have led her to suspect that he might have been a member? The Reporter might have written this as if he actually came from the club at the to] time that she saw him?