Dr Barnardo is the killer...?

[Bob Hinton]

Transportation

Dear Suzi,

I understand what you are saying about the transportation system and why such a method should bring such feelings to the front. However it is very difficult for us today to understand fully the conditions that those people were living in. It wasn’t just a matter of being poor; it was living in a system devoid of any hope at all.

Today we still do this. Celebrities travel to foreign countries and adopt babies to take them out of the awful mess they find themselves in. Pictures of starving, ragged children are flashed on our TV screens with the intention of tugging at our heartstrings to donate money to alleviate their suffering. Imagine if instead of TV pictures you were actually there in person. Could you honestly stop yourself from picking one up and wanting to take it away to give it a better life?

Don’t forget with the mortality rate amongst children Barnardo was faced not with a choice of life in Canada or a poverty-stricken life, but the chance of a good life in Canada and no life at all.

We may look back on Barnardo and curse him for what he did, but be honest when we hear of parents torturing their children to death, starving them, leaving them alone when they go on holiday don’t many of us yell out in anger “Those parents are not fit to have children – they should be taken away from them”.

Well that’s what Barnardo did.

PS For one example at least why we should be grateful to Barnardo. Without him there might not have been Leslie Thomas!

[Suzi]

Good points Bob!....and yes...a world without Leslie Thomas would undoubtedly be a much poorer place!

[alex]

Hi Bob

I’m sure you must realise that I cannot let your last post to me and your quip to “posters” go unchallenged. However, we are arguing here over the very precise meaning of one particular sentence and I’m sure the other frequenters of this forum are as weary of our rants as I am.

I have explained the point clearly on several occasions on this forum and have no wish to take up further space with more repetition. So I respectfully suggest that you dispassionately and rigorously reread my posts and your responses, where I fervently hope that you, as a published author and respected Ripperologist, will understand your error.

If that is not the case and I receive a similar response to your last then, I’m afraid, I will have no option but to point out once more in detail how you continue to, either intentionally or otherwise, misinterpreted my words. I’m sure this will be much to the chagrin of all the good people who frequent this forum but, I fear, it might be the only way to set the record straight.

Best wishes
alex chisholm

[Robert]

Hey, welcome back Alex.

"In any case, Alex Chisholm is "the goods" (despite his long hiatus)"

When is the operation?

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Indeed, welcome back, Alex.

All the best

[Bob Hinton]

Set the record straight

Hi Bob



If that is not the case and I receive a similar response to your last then, I’m afraid, I will have no option but to point out once more in detail how you continue to, either intentionally or otherwise, misinterpreted my words. I’m sure this will be much to the chagrin of all the good people who frequent this forum but, I fear, it might be the only way to set the record straight.

Best wishes
alex chisholm

Please do so!

However since you have already admitted that the description of Barnardo is simply the way you see him I cannot see how the record can get much straighter. It is this that I object to. The way you have taken it upon yourself to give someone a label without clarifying why you think the label is deserved.

What exactly needs to be straightened?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

I don't post very often anymore but I thought I would add my voice and say good to see you back, Alex. You've been missed.

Wolf.

[alex]

Evening Folks

Despite my post yesterday, on reflection, I feel certain that everyone has had more than enough of this foolishness. I have already said all I need to say about this dispute. Therefore, in the unlikely event that anyone is even remotely interested they can review the exchanges between Bob and I on this forum and draw their own conclusions.

Bob, if you really want me to clarify the point again for you, please feel free to email me.

Many thanks to Dan, Don, Robert, Glenn and Wolf for the welcome back.

Best wishes
alex chisholm

[Bob Hinton]

Not again!

Evening Folks





Bob, if you really want me to clarify the point again for you, please feel free to email me.


Best wishes
alex chisholm

Alex listen to me. I've already said nothing needs to be straightened. I understand your point perfectly. You reserve the right to make slanderous remarks about anyone you feel like without backing them up. I get it - I understand. What I cannot understand is why you fail to realise that is what I find offensive. You keep protesting you've had enough of this argument, and yet you keep coming back on the boards to say "I've had enough of this".

Then leave it or send me a PM either is fine with me. Methinks you do protest too much!

[The Good Michael]

This discussion of Dr. Barnardo makes me think about the Orphan Train movement of ca. 1854-1929 where many orphans from the east coast of the U.S. and Canada were shipped, via rail to the midwest and western Canada for mostly agricultural purposes. Most of them had decent homes, but were worked pretty hard. I wonder if Dr. Barnardo is somehow connected to that movement. There was an interesting musical done in Minnesota called: Orphan Train a few years back. It told true stories of these children and indeed, some still live today. Most were orphans, but some were simply removed 'for their own good', something that I am not completely against.

Cheers,

Mike

[Johnr]

Greetings All,

I feel some of the posters on this thread have been overharsh with some of the people wanting to examine Dr Barnardo as a Ripper suspect.
He is not a sacred cow. Please, put him back on the Suspect List.
I know some people have sought to accuse Barnardo whilst not providing chapter and verse on these threads.
I think the emotive shouting down of Barnardo-as-Ripper posters is counter-productive.
Excluding the Bob Hinton/Alex spat which has dragged on distractingly, I think there could be a decent debate.
JOHN RUFFELS.

[Limehouse]

You may well have a point John, but how can there be a decent debate when the person who started the thread tries to link Barnardo, JtR and the death of Diana and Dodi?

How can there be a decent debate when the evidence put forward revolves round the points that:

Barnardo was a doctor
He lived in London at the time
He took photographs of children
He spoke to prostitutes and wrote to the newspapers about it

I am all for a decent debate but I want it to stem from some sensible evidence and not from people's dislike of Barnardo's adoption policies.

[Robert]

Hi John

If it's suggested that Barnardo killed because of some psychological mania, then that's one thing.

But if the idea is that he acted from a calculated plan to draw attention to conditions in the east end, and believed that the end (the physical and spiritual salvation of children) justified the means (murder) then it seems to me that a strange thing happens : the blacker Barnardo is painted, the more ruthlessness is imputed to him, then the less likely he looks as JTR. Surely a much more effective way to pull at Victorian heart-strings, achieve publicity and accomplish his objectives would have been - I'm afraid - to kill children?

[Bob Hinton]

Announcement

I'm sure all of you will be glad to hear that Alex and I have settled our differences and are now getting married!

[Johnr]

Congratulations Bob and Alex.

Yes, Limehouse,
I can see your point. And unless A.J. Prophet is holding back on the clinchers from his book, it does look like a lame set of arguments.
Early on in this thread I made a few points which were designed to show how Dr Barnardo - because of the area he moved in and the people he mixed with- should have been on the Ripper suspects list.But I also cautioned that these could have been merely coincidences.

Hello Robert,
A point well made. Killing children would have been a bigger " winner" in the battle for charity funds.Rightly or wrongly, the children were awarded more pity by the churches and the media.Whereas in reality, each group deserved a greater effort to rescue them from poverty.
For the record, I do not think Dr Barnardo was Jack the Ripper.
JOHN RUFFELS.