Height of GSG a Clue?

[The Good Michael]

Gareth,

My general observations were that females were more likely, in my test group, to write at chin level or above. In fact, all of the vict...er subjects who wrote at forehead and above were women.

As for chest level, it was fairly random between lower, upper, and center of chest which is what I would have expected given different arm lengths.

Cheers,

Mike

[Barnaby]

Interesting thread. My two cents:

There is a debate about whether the message was significantly below shoulder level as to impair legibility. Even if it was, if Jack was kneeling down with the purpose of writing the message as close to the cloth as possible, this is no longer an issue. Kinda funny: By explicitly trying to connect message and bloody cloth via proximity, he has convinced those on his trail 120 years later that a boy most have written the message.

Why not write the message on the red brick? Well perhaps he wanted to be out of the street (not as visible) when he wrote it.

I find it too much of a coincidence that (a) Stride was killed outside a Jewish club and (b) on the same night a bloody cloth from Eddowes was found directly under a message that references "Juwes" to simply conclude that it was just graffiti from a schoolboy. That's not to say that Stride was necessarily a Ripper victim. Perhaps Jack was ticked off that the buzz on the streets was that another Ripper victim had been found on Berner Street. An antisemitic Jack might have been complaining that they never will blame the Jews for anything.

[Sam Flynn]

Gareth,

But to get back on track to the thread, I posted the results of my test. They were somewhat inconclusive.

Blimey - that was fast! Well done, Mike, and thanks. As to whatever conclusion may be drawn (or scribbled, LOL!), note that more subjects - 15 as opposed to 13 - aimed for neck height or above, against those who wrote at chest level. However, a simple Binomial Test (based on the hypothesis that there'd be a 50:50 split between "High-Jacks" and "Low-Jacks") shows that, for this experiment at least, the difference between the two populations ("High/Low") wasn't statistically significant. In other words, the 15:13 ratio falls within the bounds of chance.

Out of interest, Mike - did you keep separate data for either sex?

[diana]

This just in: The test results of the GSG simulation show all lab rats would begin their writing at chest level or higher. The experiment was done on a blackboard with chalk. The surface area began at as far above head level as I could reach, down to lower abdomen, beneath the naval. I created a pattern of rectangles that resembled brick work. The students were in line, in the hall and were told to write the words, "I am Michael, and I am crazy." The instructions were to come in and begin their writing, in neat letters that would fit on the bricks, and in their most natural position. The room was unlit and the window curtains were pulled together. The room wasn't dark, but it wasn't well lit either, and I imagine it had the quality of light at about dusk. I used white chalk.

The results:

High overhead beginning: 2

Forehead to top of head: 5

Nose to eye level: 6

Neck to chin: 2

Chest: 13

Nothing can really be gleaned from this except that JTR was not a child in all probability, unless he/she was reaching up a lot to write, or was standing on a crate.

Cheers,

Mike

I think you can get some very good points from this experiment. The regions must be equally divided however.

I grouped the results into three areas, two of which are equal in size and I adjusted statistically for the third region which was larger. I made some assumptions which I'm sure are in some instances incorrect, and if Mike can correct them my conclusions can be tweaked (or tossed out as the case may be).

Assumption 1) The area above the subject's heads was on average 10 inches. In this area two people wrote.

Assumption 2) The distance from the base of the neck to the top of the head is about 10 inches (I measured me at 9 but I am female.) 13 people wrote in this area.

Assumption 3) From the base of the neck to the navel is about 15 inches. To compare the score in a statistically correct manner with the other two areas which are 10 inches the score of 7 writers must be diminished by 1/3 since the chest area is larger giving 4.62 writers.

These numbers add up to 19.62 writers (adjusted). 13 of them wrote in the region of the head. That's 66.2589% or roughly 2/3. I'm willing to bet that most of the chest people were in the upper chest area.

[The Good Michael]

Gareth,

But to get back on track to the thread, I posted the results of my test. They were somewhat inconclusive.

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

if nothing else because the question to be answered would be: why it was mispelled in such a way.

It could simply have come about due to the chalk being thrown off course when it passed over a gap, indentation or bump in the brickwork. It may simply have been a curlicue (or "squiggle") on one or other of the letters that introduced what looked like a spurious "u" or "e". It's perhaps significant in this context to consider that the witnesses interpreted the writing differently: one man's "Jewes" was another man's "Juwes" or even "Jews". If the stimulus was ambiguous, it might explain why some seem to have perceived it differently than others.

[Chris]

Thanks to two authors who wrote about it in a totally independent way some years ago (in a book not even by far related to the JtR saga) we know that the information given on that point by Stephen Knight in his often criticized (many times rightly so) book on the subject was right.

If you could provide some evidence (from 1888 or before, of course), that "Juwes" meant what Knight claimed it did, that would be interesting. But of course this question has been discussed many times here and - while a number of people have repeated Knight's claim - no evidence in support of it has been forthcoming.

[The Good Michael]

I do not want to be rude here but this is one of the greatest nonsense ever expressed about the graffito.

You believe Knight then? Who is spouting nonsense? Not I.

Mike

[Canucco dei Mergi]

The spelling doesn't matter, anyway. It might matter that it was misspelled, but not how it was misspelled.

I do not want to be rude here but this is one of the greatest nonsense ever expressed about the graffito.

If it might matter that it was mispelled, if it was mispelled, the spelling must matter if nothing else because the question to be answered would be: why it was mispelled in such a way.

There is no reason of course to even think it was mispelled because we have not the least clue that it could have been.
Indeed everything points to the opposite feeling.

The author wrote well, it is to say in a well educated handwriting (what we are told by people who saw the graffito) and didn't commit any other mistake in any of the other words.
For the ones who think that he mispelled the word "Jews" suffice to say that this same word was used at the time at least tens of times in the local newspapers daily.

The thinking of the mispelling came out at the time as a bold hypothesis because (at the time) there was no generally known significance of such a word (for the common people at least).

Thanks to two authors who wrote about it in a totally independent way some years ago (in a book not even by far related to the JtR saga) we know that the information given on that point by Stephen Knight in his often criticized (many times rightly so) book on the subject was right.

'Ripperologues' know it and try to avoid discussing the point.

That such a tiny winny little detail put in danger their theories of 'Jack the serial' says a lot.
But it says also a lot about their moral integrity.

Canucco dei Mergi.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Canucco dei Mergi,

As a matter of interest, what exactly is your interpretation of the Ripper phenomenon?

Regards,

Simon

[The Good Michael]

All other versions given by police officials or the press are irrelevant except for classical 'Ripperologues' who use them to purposedly confuse people mind and keeping doubts and ignorance around.

The spelling doesn't matter, anyway. It might matter that it was misspelled, but not how it was misspelled. Juives, Juwes, Jewes, or Juews, seems unimportant.

Cheers,

Mike

[Canucco dei Mergi]

Apparently!



Lets just look at the Times of Oct. 12th.

The Coroner ask's PC Long how he spells Jews, Long responds "J-e-w-s", but then the Coroner ask's an odd question, "was it not J-u-w-e-s?".

My question is this, "where did the Coroner get this alternate spelling from?"

Long was the first witness as to the existence of the GSG, the testimony of Halse has not been given yet, so why is the Coroner questioning the spelling by offering an alternate?

Because the Coroner had been furnished before the Inquest opened with the police depositions of all the witnesses that the City police would think to send before him.

In our case Coroner Langham with all likelyhood had thus already come to the knowledge of the two different versions of the word "Jews/Juwes" given respectively by Long and Halse.

Letting a Corner reading the different witnesses deposition before the opening of the inquest is standard practice to let him know which witness will say what and to interrogate them for the best purpose/speed of such an insitution.

It doesn't matter if Halse had yet to speak at the inquest.
Langham knew already that Long's version of the word was not the same as Halse's one.
Since they were the only two witnesses brought before him that saw the graffito, this was certainly a discrepance that had to be solved.
Contrary to the place of the word 'not', it was solved, Long admitting his mistake.

The word was thus 'Juwes'.
Charles Warren (who also saw the graffito and transcribed it by his own hand)backed that version up.
All other versions given by police officials or the press are irrelevant except for classical 'Ripperologues' who use them to purposedly confuse people mind and keeping doubts and ignorance around.
Concepts on which they have based the ludicrous serial killer conception of the case.

Canucco dei Mergi.

[The Good Michael]

This just in: The test results of the GSG simulation show all lab rats would begin their writing at chest level or higher. The experiment was done on a blackboard with chalk. The surface area began at as far above head level as I could reach, down to lower abdomen, beneath the naval. I created a pattern of rectangles that resembled brick work. The students were in line, in the hall and were told to write the words, "I am Michael, and I am crazy." The instructions were to come in and begin their writing, in neat letters that would fit on the bricks, and in their most natural position. The room was unlit and the window curtains were pulled together. The room wasn't dark, but it wasn't well lit either, and I imagine it had the quality of light at about dusk. I used white chalk.

The results:

High overhead beginning: 2

Forehead to top of head: 5

Nose to eye level: 6

Neck to chin: 2

Chest: 13

Nothing can really be gleaned from this except that JTR was not a child in all probability, unless he/she was reaching up a lot to write, or was standing on a crate.

Cheers,

Mike

[Wickerman]

Well I guess if I had just used Stewarts Letters from Hell, I'd have got there a bit sooner.
Yes now I can see "Juws" or "Juwes" in the loop.
"The Juws/Juwes are not the men To be blamed for nothing"

This then could well be the source of Langham's question to PC Long.
But who wrote it on the plan?

[Wickerman]

Here is a close-up of the GSG section with what I believe is just readable printed below each word. The word Juwes/Jews is inside the loop and barely readable. Someone else may be able to improve on this.