Occupation and Chalk

[joesheehan]

I know that there is some doubt as to whether the 'Juwes' graffiti was actually the work of the Ripper but if it was, has the significance of it being written in chalk been considered before? Was chalk commonly carried in the East End at the time? If not, might it point towards what type of employment the writer might be in if he was carrying chalk in his pocket?
Also, does the theory that because the murders occured at weekends the Ripper was a working man give us a hint as to his social class? Im not 100% on this but were nt most working class people required to work weekends in Victorian times? Most of the witnesses seem to have been on their way to work when discovering the bodies, etc.Was the concept of time off work unknown to the working classes until the turn of the century? So if he was killing at the weekends due to his employment, does this indicate that he might have had a job of decent status? Combine a job with weekends off and the use of chalk... could he have been a teacher?!!

[m_w_r]

Combine a job with weekends off and the use of chalk... could he have been a teacher?!!

1. I can assure you that most teachers are too tired at weekends to go out murdering people (although the spirit may well be willing).

2. Some teachers, so I understand, actually leave their chalk at work, and don't carry it around with them in case there is the opportunity to explain simultaneous equations or iambic tetrameter to the people they bump into at weekends.

3. So it's Monty. Hmm...

Regards,

Mark

[Ben]

Hi Joe,

I think a costermonger is a better bet for our chalk-fiend than a teacher. A costermonger is likely to have chalk secreted about his person at all times in order to advertise his wares, whereas a teacher is more likely to have stored his "teaching" equipment in the classroom. Not all the murders were committed at weekends, and some coincided with bank holidays, which would have effected all social classes. Some of the witnesses were indeed on their way to work when the bodies were discovered, but that was potentially true of the killer too.

In addition to the local streets and markets, an East End costermonger could gain additional income from embarking on a "country round" where he would travel as far as Romford and Brentwood to hawk his wares. "If the country enterprise be a failure, the men sometimes abandon it in "a pet," sell their goods at any loss, and walk home, generally getting drunk as the first step to their return."

More here:

http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/mayhew1-1.htm

Best regards,
Ben

[coral]

Tailors and leather-workers would also use chalk.

Coral

[Sam Flynn]

I think a costermonger is a better bet for our chalk-fiend than a teacher. A costermonger is likely to have chalk secreted about his person at all times in order to advertise his wares

...any stall-holder, in fact, Ben. Goulston Street would have been thronging with them on the day prior to the murders, and odds are that there'd have been plenty of chalk lying around waiting to be picked up by any would-be graffiti artist, assuming the artist wasn't a stall-holder himself (unlikely, given the nature of the message, but it's possible).

Apart from stall-holders, we should add market traders (of many descriptions), publicans, shop-keepers, hairdressers, tailors, anyone attending school (not just teachers, but pupils too), hopscotch-playing children and darts players. The list goes on and on, simply because chalk was used for so many purposes and by so many people in 1888, as it was right up until the latter decades of the 20th Century.

Now, if the GSG had been daubed in oil-paint, we might be looking at an entirely different proposition. However, as it was written with such a universal substance, it's a pretty useless indicator of who its author might have been.

[Ben]

Apart from stall-holders, we should add market traders (of many descriptions), publicans, shop-keepers, hairdressers, tailors, anyone attending school (not just teachers, but pupils too), hopscotch-playing children...

...homicidal bearded sawdust merchants etc...

[Vigilantee]

Hopscotch fanatics?

[revpetero]

Hopscotch fanatics?

You'd be surprised. Hopscotch is a pretty cutthroat pass time. Those girls can turn nasty

[caz]

1. I can assure you that most teachers are too tired at weekends to go out murdering people (although the spirit may well be willing).

2. Some teachers, so I understand, actually leave their chalk at work, and don't carry it around with them in case there is the opportunity to explain simultaneous equations or iambic tetrameter to the people they bump into at weekends.

3. So it's Monty. Hmm...

Regards,

Mark

Hi Mark,

A teacher’s lot was not much happier than a policeman’s then.

Hi Joe,

I think a costermonger is a better bet for our chalk-fiend than a teacher. A costermonger is likely to have chalk secreted about his person at all times in order to advertise his wares, whereas a teacher is more likely to have stored his "teaching" equipment in the classroom. Not all the murders were committed at weekends, and some coincided with bank holidays, which would have effected all social classes. Some of the witnesses were indeed on their way to work when the bodies were discovered, but that was potentially true of the killer too.

In addition to the local streets and markets, an East End costermonger could gain additional income from embarking on a "country round" where he would travel as far as Romford and Brentwood to hawk his wares…

Hi Ben,

1. I can assure you that most teachers are too tired to bother with this, but I’m not a tired teacher. For your homework, learn the difference between ‘effected’ and ‘affected’ and then compose a sentence using each one correctly and write it out 50 times in chalk. (Humour me - it's just one of those things that makes me wince. )

2. So it’s Hutchinson. Yawn…

3. Learn Sam’s post by heart.

Hi Joe,

If the killer was in regular work of any kind, it's possible that he waited until he had just been paid, so he could tempt his victims with much more than they could usually expect, while having no intention of leaving a penny piece on them. This possibility would tell us little about his social class, but it could offer one explanation for his timing.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Now that was disappointing.

1. I'm perfectly familiar with the difference between "affected" and "effected". It was a casual error of the order that we all make from time to time. Sometimes I'd even write "you're" when - shock horror! - I really mean "your" minus the apostrophe, but that doesn't mean I don't know the difference, and the same is true of everyone else who makes similar casual errors that also aren't remotely reflective of ignorance. I'd bet everything I hold dear in this world, including the lives of my nearest and dearest, that your spelling, vocabulary and grammatical ability is in no way superior to mine (in fact, from what I've seen, I could even hazard a naughty little guess that the reverse is true).

But I guess if you're all out of arguments, it's a feasible last resort to try to mutate an obvious casual error or typo into something that's somehow supposed to reflect ignorance. Too bad you picked the wrong opponent.

2. I never said anything about Hutchinson. You've brought him into three separate threads for no reason beyond the fact that I happen to be participating in them.

3. I wholeheartedly accept and endorse Gareth's observation, so there's no need.

Sorry if you were expecting me to see the funny side of all this.

I didn't.

Please don't do it again.

So....bak to da orijanul premiss of da thred.

[The Grave Maurice]

Hey! Knock it off, you two! Don't make me come up there!

We've talked about this before. If chalk was involved, then Jack was an Olympic gymnast. End of story. Now let's get back to the original thread....

[MrRippel]

From: "A Piece of Apron, Some Chalk Graffiti and a Lost Hour
by Jon Smyth"

"At the Eddowes Inquest, Detective Halse said '...the writing had the appearance of being recently written...', then in The Daily Telegraph, Oct 12, in response to a question of "why did you say it seemed to have been recently written?" Halse responded, "it looked fresh, and if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out by the people passing..."

"Lawende actually said it was raining at 1.30am(...)"

Just a question from a newbie: Would the rain have done something to the chalk?

[MrRippel]

chalk

Was chalk commonly carried in the East End at the time? If not, might it point towards what type of employment the writer might be in if he was carrying chalk in his pocket?

could he have been a teacher?!!

Looking at a map, there is a school between Goulston street and Old castle street. If the killer was the one to place the piece of apron in Goulston street, and considering that it appeared some time after the murder, could the killer have been hiding inside that school..? Just a thought...