The Lusk Letter - Swanson's Transcription

[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

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'From' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'Sor' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'prasarved' -

[Stewart P Evans]

Lusk Letter

The Lusk letter, 'for' -

[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

[perrymason]

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

[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.

[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

[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

[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.

[ChrisGeorge]

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.

But it's not a straightforward letter. It's a letter from a guy who spells "preserved" as "prasarved", "knife" as "knif", and "Mister" as "Mishter". So why should the expectancy be that the writer would write the salutation as "Sir" in which, as you say, letters usually did in 1888?

For the opening to be the mock Irish "Sor" would be entirely consistent with "Mishter".

Best regards

Chris

[Chris]

Chris

I just start from the position that if a handwritten word can reasonably read in one of two ways, one of which would be absolutely standard in that context, while the other would be a bizarre misspelling, then the first reading is to be preferred.

After all, why should the closing phrase be read as "Catch me when you can", rather than "Catch me whew you caw"? It certainly looks like "Catch me whew you caw", but a modicum of common sense tells us that's not what it says.

But, as I said, if you prefer to believe it really does say "Sor", that's entirely up to you. I think it would be fruitless to get into a lengthy debate about it.

[Sam Flynn]

After all, why should the closing phrase be read as "Catch me when you can", rather than "Catch me whew you caw"?

Because the use of "caw" instead of "can" isn't suggestive of an attempt to use stage Oirish - unlike "mishter", "tother" and "prasarved".

[Chris]

Because the use of "caw" instead of "can" isn't suggestive of an attempt to use stage Oirish - unlike "mishter", "tother" and "prasarved".

Isn't there a severe danger of circular reasoning here? Would the stage Irish theory have been suggested in the first place if the word hadn't been read as "Sor"?

In any case, once people start preferring intrinsically unlikely readings on the basis of a theory such as that, in effect they're no longer transcribing the document, but altering its text fit in with their theory. Remember Stephen Knight misreading "all your tecs" as "all your Lees"?

But really people will have to make up their own minds. As I said, the post above was simply intended to explain how the peculiarities of the handwriting could result in "Sir" looking like "Sor".