Artizan Dwellings writing photograph

[Fisherman]

Hi all!

The question why this chalk was photographed by the City police is probably best answered by the fact that the GSG was not.

The City police wanted to take a photo of the GSG, but Warren - having had it written on Met territory - decided against such a thing.

I think the whole brawl about it would have made the City decide to shoot ANY graffiti that could relate to the murder series, just in case. They were forensic photo pioneers, compared to the Met.

If this message was singled out among many others, and if it was not customary to take pics of all potentially Ripper-related chalked messages (and given the wording of the GSG, how would anybody know what was potentially Ripper-related and what was not ...?), then I think a very good guess will be that it was judged that the writing style of this new message closely resembled the style of the writing in Goulston Street.

Which begs the question: Is this new message written in a good, round schoolboy´s hand? And is there anything at all in the photo that may lend itself to an interpretation of how large the letters were?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Phil H]

That was then this is now.

You really haven't got a clue what I am thinking.

For some things I am profoundly grateful.

Phil H

[Monty]

However... what, Monty?

The City of London Police of that period disagreed.

Monty

[Rob Clack]

Rob - your thinking IS woolly - like a woolly mammoth in fact, it's so obvious.

Phil H

You really haven't got a clue what I am thinking.

[Phil H]

However... what, Monty?

[Monty]

Yes Phil,

You see no point, however....

Monty

[Phil H]

modern students would have one less act of omission about which to grouse and speculate.

No. In my weary experience just something to deny.

To my dismay I have seen newly discovered and fascinating period photographs rubbished by those for whom the image did not fit their preconceived views and theories. If a pic of the GSG emerged tomorrow - the same thing would happen.

I must be getting cynical... hey ho.

phil H

[Supe]

Phil,

I don't know the background to that 1912 investigation, but because I just came across it for a newspaper column I write I thought it should be mentioned. The town's police chief then (and for the next 40 years), Otto Schmidt, was a keen detective as proved by countless cases, so he may have had a hand.

As it is, I fervently wish they had photographed the GSG simply because it would have meant modern students would have one less act of omission about which to grouse and speculate.

Don.

[Phil H]

Don (if I may)

I heard from a teacher a couple of years ago, that a school was broken into one night and graffiti sprayed all over walls and furniture. They got the culprits because the idiots had used their "tags" and thus identified themselves.

I wonder how much the 1912 incident had to do with intuition among those who knew the pupils, as much as the style of writing.

So far as the usefulness of the GSG is concerned, I was responding to a remark that it was a pity it was not photographed.

The rest of you maybe lemmings, but I'll pause before I leap thank you. I reasser that, whatever the thinking of those on the ground in 188whatever, I see no point in photographing the writing. Taking an accurate account of ther wording - maybe. Also the police at the time had the hope that other similar graffiti might appear at or near murder scenes, or of finding examples of handwriting suitable for comparison. We can do neither.

Rob - your thinking IS woolly - like a woolly mammoth in fact, it's so obvious.

Phil H

[Supe]

Phil H.,


Are you seriously suggesting that you can compare chalk writing on a tile surface with someone's usual handwriting - written using a nib and ink? Get real.

I would tend to agree with you about the uselessness of the graffito in comparison wirh any Ripper letters, but I feel impelled to post a news item I came across from the New Canaan Advertiser of October 10, 1912: The Smith Ridge school was entered Saturday and the schoolroom shamefully damaged, the walls written on with chalk and the desks rifled. The wall writing was compared with copy books and one young boy came under suspicion. When questioned he confessed and implicated another youngster. They await punishment.

Don.

[Rob Clack]

Rob - the onus is on those who want to use the GSG in the case to demonstrate its relevance. Until then it remains nothing but an extraneous - perhaps interesting - irrelevance.

Not usual for you to engage in wooly thinking - but I'm afraid in this case I'm impressed by your response to my post.

Phil H

That's rubbish the police believed it relevant to the investigation and that's good enough for me. I've studied the location, the layout of the building and am satisfied that jack wrote it. Now I can't prove it and until we find out who wrote it nobody can disprove he wrote it.

Wooly thinking? Not really.

Rob

[Monty]

However Phil,

We now have a contemporary piece of wall writing which was photographed by the City of London Police force.

For some reason they felt the need to photograph it. Why?

Its not the writing, the words, the style, its why was it photographed.

If you are thinking this thread was set up to argue its validity, to support the Goulston street writing, then you are mistaken.

It was set up to explore this find and try and understand why the CoLP thought it important enough to photograph it.

I'm afraid your opinion on the writing itself is unimportant, as is mine. The Police obviously felt they had good reason to call a photographer out.

And we dont have this with any other piece of wall writing at this current moment.

Monty

[Phil H]

The GSG hardly constitutes a sentence.

The writer perhaps never left a single scrap of other writing. What do you do - line up all the bits of writing from East Enders we have to see what we think? Or just extant extracts from the work of potential suspects.

Please produce anything we have written by Kosminski?

An approach such as you suggest is neither forensically sound nor legally viable.

Any result would be utterly subjective.

Honestly, you'd get more mature judgement from a kindergarten class!

Phil H

[andy1867]

But you can compare the writing...the way the sentences are constructed....the vernacular..if any ..used?

[Phil H]

Perhaps to compare to the handwriting of suspects and other writings? Good grief.

Are you seriously suggesting that you can compare chalk writing on a tile surface with someone's usual handwriting - written using a nib and ink? Get real.

I couldn't have done it with my schoolmasters in the days of chalkboards and fountain pens and i saw their writing every day.

We really appear to churning up some dud thinking in this thread. but that's what happens I guess when you snatch at cobwebs.

Phil H