The Lusk Letter - Swanson's Transcription

[Chris]

Chris

If you assume that anything in Victorian handwriting that's not dotted can't be an 'i', then you are going to end up with some very funny misreadings!

Personally I have no doubt that the letter starts "Sir" in the way that letters usually did in 1888. The above is my explanation of why it looks like "Sor". Of course anyone who prefers to believe it really does say "Sor" - or even "Gov" - is free to do so. But I'm with Swanson.

[lynn cates]

compare

Hello Mr. George. Thanks. "Sor" seems overwhelmingly the most likely conjecture. Still, the likely uppercase "S" looks not terribly unlike my own cursive uppercase "G" when I am a bit tired and don't add sufficient vigour to get the second "hump/point" high enough.

Then, too, the likely lowercase "r" is not terribly unlike D'Onston's own "nu" when making the parenthetical remark on his wedding register.

2 quick observations. First, pity that the "Lusk letter" writer left no lowercase "v" against which to check.

Second, would I were a graphologist so that I might compare the "Lusk letter" to D'Onston's own hand.

Cheers.
LC

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Chris

It would appear to me that your examples can be taken to equally or maybe better support it being "Sor" and not "Sir".

If it is an "o" not an "i" in the word, the "o" is not closed which is exactly the way the "From" in your examples appears. And if that is a loop at the top of what I assume to be an "o" you show an example of the writer doing a loop at the top of an "o" in "women".

As I mentioned before in conversation with Lynn Cates (see posts 37 and 38 above) the writer seems to be punctilious in dotting his "i" every time but in the case of this assumed "i" it is the only "i" in which he misses the dot. Why is that? Could it be that it is not meant to be an "i"?

Best regards

Chris

[Chris]

I think there are two reasons for the mistaken "Sor" reading:

(1) The writer forms the letter 'r' in two different ways: usually similar to the character as it appears when typeset (as in the word 'longer'), but sometimes in an alternative form (as in the word 'prasarved').



(2) Often the writer terminates words with a curious upstroke, which can be seen after the 'm' of "From", the 'n' of "women" and the 'h' of "catch".



This spurious upstroke is what we see at the end of "Sor/Sir", and it is significant that Swanson omits it in his transcript.



If the final upstroke is omitted the ambiguity is eliminated, and we get something that can only be read as an 'i' followed by an 'r' similar to that in the word 'prasarved'.



For comparison, here's a small sample from the General Register Office index of births for the first quarter of 1857.

It was interesting that the Daily Telegraph of Saturday, 20 October,1888 carried a report from a Miss Emily Marsh concerning a visit to her shop at 218 Jubilee street, Mile-end -road, about a tall thin darkly dressed man of clerical appearance and "what was taken to be an Irish accent ". He was enquiring for the correct address of Mr Lusk of the Vigilance Committee.
interestingly, the Lusk letter's cover had no street number on the address. Miss Marsh thought that significant because she read it out of the newspaper for the visitor, who wrote it down. There was no street number quoted in that article. (The visitor was attracted by the reward poster in the window).
I am quoting this from Evans & Skinners " The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook " pages 210-211.

Hi John,

I find that account interesting myself, and some details that you didnt mention are particularly so.....the man was well dressed, wore gloves which he did not remove when he took the paper from her, and she thought he had an Irish accent or air about him,..... I cant recall which.

Best regards

[lynn cates]

T & D

Hello Mr. Evans. I must say that is rather convincing.

I recall that Tumblety was once identified as the possible writer. Still, it bears a similarity to some of D'Onston's. Have they been compared?

The best.
LC

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'for' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'prasarved' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'Sor' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'From' -

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Chris. Has it been 10 years already? Geesh. I remember being very struck by your D'Onston 'preserved' observation. That kinda set me off on researching D'Onston in conjunction with the Ripper letters. You might remember my essay on the matter was published in Ripperologist (I believe issue 50?). I should have that essay put here on the Casebook. While my suspicion of D'Onston has wained quite a bit over the years, I think it might still make for interesting reading.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Thanks, Tom. I'll have to look up your article again. As I say, D'Onston may not have been the Ripper but he certainly inserted himself into the case at various points and in various ways.

Chris

[Tom_Wescott]

I would say, as I thought then, that there is a good chance that it was D'Onston who wrote the Lusk and Openshaw letters and that he was jerking the police around. He was after all a drunk, a known meddler in the case, and, I think conceivably, a prankster. And moreover D'Onston was right there, a patient in the London Hospital, where the Openshaw letter was sent to! As a quasi-medical man, credentials still to be proven, he possibly had access to a piece of kidney too, even if he was not the Ripper.

Hi Chris. Has it been 10 years already? Geesh. I remember being very struck by your D'Onston 'preserved' observation. That kinda set me off on researching D'Onston in conjunction with the Ripper letters. You might remember my essay on the matter was published in Ripperologist (I believe issue 50?). I should have that essay put here on the Casebook. While my suspicion of D'Onston has wained quite a bit over the years, I think it might still make for interesting reading.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

handwriting

Hello Chris. Fascinating! I was looking at the last letter in "Sor" (or "Gov") and thinking how very like D'Onston's "nu" it looked. (Recall the little caper with his Greek spelling of a Latin word in his marriage register.)

Do we have any chaps about who are good at graphology and can compare the two?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

XY

Hello Tom. Thanks. No big deal

Incidentally, my chromosomal structure is XY; but, again, no big deal.

The best.
LC

[ChrisGeorge]

Thanks for posting that, Chris. You could be right now that I see it's the only supposed 'i' that's not dotted. If that's the case, then Thegaff's suggestion of it being 'Gov' isn't so strange and might hold currency. The capital 'S' is a bit different and just might be a 'G'.

Mascara,

I don't believe anyone has suggested it was written by a woman.

Regarding 'Prasarved', there's actually no identifiable 'v' that I can see and the 'r' differs from the others. Just an observation.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hello Tom

Nice to hear from you.

As for the prasarved, I would note again my observation of ten years ago in my talk at the April 2000 US convention that Roslyn D'Onston in his letter to the City of London Police of 16 October 1888 ended the body of the letter by saying, "May I request an acknowledgement that this letter has safely reached you, & that it be preserved until I am well enough to do myself the honour to call upon you personally." Since both letters were written on the same day, is it coincidence that the same word was used? (See also my "Letter from the Sickbed: Roslyn D'Onston writes to the Police" at http://www.casebook.org/dissertation...tonwrites.html)

I would say, as I thought then, that there is a good chance that it was D'Onston who wrote the Lusk and Openshaw letters and that he was jerking the police around. He was after all a drunk, a known meddler in the case, and, I think conceivably, a prankster. And moreover D'Onston was right there, a patient in the London Hospital, where the Openshaw letter was sent to! As a quasi-medical man, credentials still to be proven, he possibly had access to a piece of kidney too, even if he was not the Ripper.

Chris