Sweet violets

[Elamarna]

If you read about closet dramas you will see that they usually are not performed on stage and therefore are not theatrical entertainment.

I did not say theatrical entertainment in my op i said an entertainment,which literature by definition is.

Having claimed it was a "Mystery Play", you now change that,when challenged to a "closet play", moving the goal posts all the time.

But all of that does not matter.

Agreed

The important thing is Zillah. My task now is simply to see now if anyone can find out the function of Zillah in Cain - A Mystery.

Have you not found it then?
If not, how can you even suggest it is significant?

For a hypothesis about the reference of Sweet Violets to the press having been an information from the killer, the lyrics must have an important substantial significance for the killer. If it doesn´t, the correlation is spurious.

Can one ask where this idea comes from? What suggests it to you?

Are you suggesting the killer got her to sing this specific lyric?

Are you suggesting the victim knew this lyric had significance for the killer?

Or are you suggesting the person who reported hearing the song, knew it had a significance and was attempting to lead the authorities?

Are you suggesting the killer made sure this was passed on?

Most interested in your response to those suggestions.

So Zillah must have a meaning, the flowers must have a meaning and the actions described in the lyrics must have a meaning.

Why must it have a meaning other than a name in a song?
There appears to be nothing to suggest it is anything more or do you have hard evidence, you know, historical sources to say otherwise?

I would like to dismiss all that - but when I construct a hypothesis I go all the way with it to test it. Therefore I must at first assume that this is what he did.

No you would not, you say the same every time you go off on one of the beyond science trips.

As Jeff and Pat say, entertaining but not going to lead anywhere or prove anything.
Sorry if i sound less understanding than normal, however this is not scientific at all.
Why not just come to London to get the last piece of information you need as you told me sometime ago you intended to do.

we must understand his world, and then we must understand a bit about 19th Century literature. (I believe that you know a lot about this, and I know very little).

How could we understand a killer in 1888 if we do not understand the cultural world he lived in?

But it was not the cultural world he lived IN.

The Play was published 60 years before and according to you to a limited audience.

Culture moves on, it changes constantly and always has.
In Britain in the 19th century we had the full development of the British Empire, bring great cultural change.
More importantly we had the full blown industrial revolution, changing both life style and culture of the population.
And while major works of literature do stand the test of time, a minor work written in the 1820's has little bearing on the cultural life in the 1880's.

Your failure to understand or at least take this into account fails to demonstrate the historical methods you so often tell us about.

I can only assume, once again that you are desperate to tie in another literary link to your man, whom I assume you can prove knew this work well.


Sorry Pierre


Steve

[David Orsam]

And that is one of the reasons why I am discussing it with you. Perhaps you will make some point to help me realize that all the connections I have found from external data to "Sweet Violets" are spurious.

Well, at least it is worth a try.

Oh yes, "all the connections" you have found from "external data". I must have missed all those connections you found from the external data and only noted a single tenuous and clearly imaginary one.

But okay, well, the first point is that the Times reported that the person who said (on 9 November) that they heard Sweet Violets being sung at 1am lived opposite Kelly. The second point is that the woman who supposedly heard the song being sung at 1am had informed McCarthy of this at some point during 9 November, so McCarthy knew who the woman was. The third point is that Kelly singing at 1am is consistent with Cox's evidence that Kelly was singing continuously for about an hour from midnight.

Given those points, the notion that the killer planted the story in the press is really dead in the water. That's your first problem.

Then we have the fact that there is no obvious reason (and, indeed, no reason at all) for anyone reading the lyrics of Sweet Violets to think of a long forgotten play that had been published nearly 70 years earlier simply because the singer was singing about a woman called Zillah, especially bearing in mind that Zillah was a biblical name (and there weren't many more popular books than the bible!) which was also the name of many women living in England at the time.

Then we have the fact that clearly no-one did make the connection between Sweet Violets and Byron's play which supports my contention that there was no reason for anyone to do so.

But if anyone had thought to themselves "Oh, there's a character called Zillah in Byron's play 'Cain - A Mystery' who discovers the murder of Abel by Cain" they would surely not have thought anything of it because to even begin to consider that there is some sort of connection with Kelly's murder they would have had to have to believed that a woman had discovered the murder of Kelly but, even if that was their interpretation of "oh murder", they would only have thought it was a weak coincidence at best because they would have believed from the newspaper that Kelly sung the song at 1am - and she is hardly likely to have been able to predict that an unknown woman would discover her own murder and cry out "oh murder".

My final point is that for the killer to go to such trouble to insert into the newspapers a puzzle that not only was no-one going to solve but no-one was going to even recognize as a puzzle just does not seem to be in accord with how human beings, even serial killers, behave.

But really Pierre it shouldn't be for me or anyone to explain to you why this is a complete and utter nonsense. It should be for you to convince us that there is some plausibility in what you are suggesting.

[Pierre]

Let's put it this way Pierre. I'm suggesting that the mention of Sweet Violets in the press terrified absolutely no-one.

If you are able to identify a single person who was terrified by it then here's your opportunity.

Thanks for the opportunity. I will get back to it when the hypothesis is disproved.

And now I have work to do.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;390351]

Pierre, you haven't responded to my query about the period of reflection.

OK. Yesterday my wife asked a question about the case, which I thought I had not answered. It turned up I had. And then I realized I didn´t need time for reflection. But I don´t see why that should be of any interest for you.

It seems to me that what has happened in this thread is that, at the start, you thought that the first appearance of the mention of Sweet Violets was in the Pall Mall Gazette during the afternoon/evening of 10 November. Given that the only information in that newspaper was of "a woman" having heard this song, you evidently thought that the killer had (for reasons which remain obscure) manipulated a woman to falsely inform a reporter that she had heard Kelly singing this song.

You were unaware, however, that there were two mentions of Sweet Violets in the Times earlier that day. The first saying that the woman who heard it lived opposite Kelly, something that would in itself cause you difficulty in explaining how the killer pulled that off. But even worse, it turns out that McCarthy was the source of the PMG's information that "a woman" had heard the song being sung. How was the killer going to gull McCarthy into first thinking that the woman was a local resident and secondly into informing the press of this?

As you realize, the sources are problematic from the perspective of reliability. This is something we must always take into consideration when we hypothesize about the past. Therefore, it is not always possible to establish the provenience of the different types of statements in the papers. I am satisfyed to think that the provenience of the statement of the song can not be well established as to who said it to different papers.

The consequence of the problems I mention is that we can not say who told the papers about the song and from were it first came. That is something, in the case of "Sweet Violets" we have to accept, and it is often a problem in establishing historical facts.

And that is why I tell you, David, that I have a hypothesis.

It was for this reason that you quickly decided to change the subject and move onto a point that you've obviously been dying to mention all along, namely that Sweet Violets refers to a woman called Zillah and that there is a character called Zillah in a Byron play who discovered a murder. For you, and I think for you alone, this has some kind of significance.

No. I understand that you are suspicious since you write in a forum about suspects but I am not one of them.

Does it worry you at all that you are not convincing anyone else?

If I wanted to convince anyone, I would have used the approach of ripperologists.

[David Orsam]

How do you know what terrified who, David?

Let's put it this way Pierre. I'm suggesting that the mention of Sweet Violets in the press terrified absolutely no-one.

If you are able to identify a single person who was terrified by it then here's your opportunity.

[David Orsam]

Byron´s Zillah was popular, since she was in a play by Byron, who was popular.

Do you have any evidence at all to show that Byron's 1821 play "Cain - A Mystery" was "popular" in the 1880s and had not been completely forgotten?

[David Orsam]

Pierre, you haven't responded to my query about the period of reflection.

It seems to me that what has happened in this thread is that, at the start, you thought that the first appearance of the mention of Sweet Violets was in the Pall Mall Gazette during the afternoon/evening of 10 November. Given that the only information in that newspaper was of "a woman" having heard this song, you evidently thought that the killer had (for reasons which remain obscure) manipulated a woman to falsely inform a reporter that she had heard Kelly singing this song.

You were unaware, however, that there were two mentions of Sweet Violets in the Times earlier that day. The first saying that the woman who heard it lived opposite Kelly, something that would in itself cause you difficulty in explaining how the killer pulled that off. But even worse, it turns out that McCarthy was the source of the PMG's information that "a woman" had heard the song being sung. How was the killer going to gull McCarthy into first thinking that the woman was a local resident and secondly into informing the press of this?

It was for this reason that you quickly decided to change the subject and move onto a point that you've obviously been dying to mention all along, namely that Sweet Violets refers to a woman called Zillah and that there is a character called Zillah in a Byron play who discovered a murder. For you, and I think for you alone, this has some kind of significance.

Does it worry you at all that you are not convincing anyone else?

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;390347]

What I'm trying to find Pierre is some form of objective test to confirm that your linking of Sweet Violets to Byron's play and then Byron's play to the murder is correct. A link to a play in which the words "Oh murder" were said by a character called Zillah would at least have connected to the murder of Kelly.

You need more data if you want to find some type of objective test. I can not help you with this now.

Are you not at all worried that the links exist only in your imagination?

I wish they did.

And that is one of the reasons why I am discussing it with you. Perhaps you will make some point to help me realize that all the connections I have found from external data to "Sweet Violets" are spurious.

Well, at least it is worth a try.

[Pierre]

Well he achieved that by the act of murdering and mutilating Kelly.

He did not do it by a reference to Sweet Violets in the press which terrified absolutely no-one.

How do you know what terrified who, David?

[Pierre]

What do you mean by saying "some Zillahs were more popular than others" and that they were "not normal"?

Byron´s Zillah was popular, since she was in a play by Byron, who was popular. Byron´s Zillah was not "normal", since she found the world´s first murder victim.

[David Orsam]

And Hitler did not manage to win the war.

You are being unhistoric, David. You can not sit and reflect on what has not happened and suggest that the past was something it wasn´t.

And of course, you are ignoring the event that Zillah experienced.

What I'm trying to find Pierre is some form of objective test to confirm that your linking of Sweet Violets to Byron's play and then Byron's play to the murder is correct. A link to a play in which the words "Oh murder" were said by a character called Zillah would at least have connected to the murder of Kelly.

Are you not at all worried that the links exist only in your imagination?

[David Orsam]

Terror.

Well he achieved that by the act of murdering and mutilating Kelly.

He did not do it by a reference to Sweet Violets in the press which terrified absolutely no-one.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=David Orsam;390342]

So what was the killer hoping to achieve?

Terror.

[Pierre]

Well Pierre, without being rude, I mean anyone other than you.

No-one else has ever noticed a link between Sweet Violets and Byron's play and then between Byron's play and the murder. So what was the killer hoping to achieve?

Was he, in 1888, sending you a personal message for you to read in 2016?

Well, David. I can certainly not be held responsible for what others have not done.

[Pierre]

I don't think you've quite understood. I'm saying that had the killer inserted into the press on 10 November a reference to a character in a play who said "Oh Murder" (knowing that this had been said on 9 November) that would have been impressive. But he didn't manage it.

And Hitler did not manage to win the war.

You are being unhistoric, David. You can not sit and reflect on what has not happened and suggest that the past was something it wasn´t.

And of course, you are ignoring the event that Zillah experienced.