Only in the Rippersphere

[Tom_Wescott]

Batty street lodger
Squibby
Jolly bonnet
carrotty mustache
high rip gang (still dont know what it means)
"codding"
char woman

Yes! Many of the professions of the time were new to me. I'm still stumbling across new ones. Also the various kinds of hats (wideawake? billycock?).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Abby Normal]

Yes! Many of the professions of the time were new to me. I'm still stumbling across new ones. Also the various kinds of hats (wideawake? billycock?).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

lol. yup... the hats threw me off too and def the professions. I thought knacker was a slur, like wanker.
and cats meat . of course i thought that meant meat from a cat.

But then again Im just a dumb Yanker.

[Pcdunn]

Yes! Many of the professions of the time were new to me. I'm still stumbling across new ones. Also the various kinds of hats (wideawake? billycock?).

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

A billycock hat is just a variant name for a bowler hat (derby to Americans).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wideawake_hat

A slouch hat, sometimes with one side of the brim pinned up, or wide brimmed like a cowboy's hat.

[PaulB]

thank you Mr Begg.

If I may add a follow up question...but why were they called "high rip"? what does high rip mean?

I'm afraid that I have no idea. Sorry. It's a question I have often asked myself and never managed to find an answer. May a newspaper search might tell us...

[Tani]

I was 13 when I began Ripper studies, so I came across a lot. I learned what an ordnance survey is - those have been very useful since!

I learned that blood 'goes thick like glue.'

I learned 'graffito' (sg) / 'graffiti' (pl)

'Shabby genteel.'

'Cat's meat.'

'Codding.'

'Ten more and up goes the sponge.'

'A violet I plucked from my mother's grave.'

'Knocking up' (alarm).

'Dosshouse/dossing/doss money.'

'Shell' (ambulance).

'Astrakhan coat.'

'Rookery' (slum).

[Tani]

Hello Paul, it’s good to see you posting. It’s been a while.

It’s possible that no one will agree with me but I’ve often thought it the case that we appear to be more open to believing that certain high ranking police officers were liars (or just told a lie or lies) and yet we are resistant to the suggestion that a lower ranking officer (like a Constable on the beat) might also have lied. And when I say ‘we’ I of course just mean a percentage of ripperologists.

I definitely think all the officers+ in this case not only lied but worked very hard to make themselves look more accomplished in this investigation than they were. It's the only reason I can make sense of the Buck's Row fiasco. Lechmere/Paul make sense, but the police, press and inquests seem quite confused. I'm sure there's an officer there trying to make suspicion go away owing to his not being at the body fast enough or someone having seen it and thought the same as Paul (drunk) and just having ignored her. There's a lot the petty officers did that would be considered damnable now; esp. the man drinking on the job (eventually fired) who maybe missed the bloody apron piece. These little fiascos go on and on. There's a lot of police deception by way of little lies and mistruths.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I definitely think all the officers+ in this case not only lied but worked very hard to make themselves look more accomplished in this investigation than they were. It's the only reason I can make sense of the Buck's Row fiasco. Lechmere/Paul make sense, but the police, press and inquests seem quite confused. I'm sure there's an officer there trying to make suspicion go away owing to his not being at the body fast enough or someone having seen it and thought the same as Paul (drunk) and just having ignored her. There's a lot the petty officers did that would be considered damnable now; esp. the man drinking on the job (eventually fired) who maybe missed the bloody apron piece. These little fiascos go on and on. There's a lot of police deception by way of little lies and mistruths.

Hi Tani,

It could have been the case that Mizen just misheard or misunderstood what the two men told him but I agree that it has to be at least a possibility that he was covering his own backside. Paul had been critical of him in the Lloyd’s article so Mizen might have wanted to dispel any suggestion that he didn’t immediately go to assist in Buck’s Row or that he was being less than attentive when the two men told him about what they had seen there.

[Lewis C]

I was 13 when I began Ripper studies, so I came across a lot. I learned what an ordnance survey is - those have been very useful since!

I learned that blood 'goes thick like glue.'

I learned 'graffito' (sg) / 'graffiti' (pl)

'Shabby genteel.'

'Cat's meat.'

'Codding.'

'Ten more and up goes the sponge.'

'A violet I plucked from my mother's grave.'

'Knocking up' (alarm).

'Dosshouse/dossing/doss money.'

'Shell' (ambulance).

'Astrakhan coat.'

'Rookery' (slum).

Hi Tani,

There are some on that list that I hadn't heard used before the Ripper case: Shabby gentile, Knocking up, doss, and Astrakhan.