The GSG - Did Jack write it? POLL

[Sam Flynn]

The issue isnt really with the spelling...or the grammar...or the location ...its when it got there.---P.Mason

Can't find fault with that Mike

The spelling and the grammar, i.e. the means by which the meaning of the message was to be conveyed, is fundamental to the issue as I see it. If the meaning of the message has nothing to do with the murders but everything to do with generic anti-semitism, and the spelling/grammar indicates an averagely-educated local, then chances are we're looking at an averagely-educated local writing generic anti-semitic graffiti.

Those who believe in the "pro-Jewish" interpretation of the GSG can exchange it for "anti-semitic" in the foregoing, if they wish. It wouldn't alter the main thrust of my contention that "content is key". Whilst I share Mike's aspirations to find out when the graffito got there, it's quite impossible for us to know. At least with the spelling and grammar we have something tangible to go on - however damnably obscure.

[Monty]

How,

Not as perplexed as I.

Re the front. That photo is new to me. I stand corrected. I always thought the dwellings were uniform, as the Goads indicates. My apologies.

The rear exits, may I get back to you on that one? My research is contradicting and would rather get it right than misinform any further.

Monty

[Rob Clack]

The photo How posted earlier was taken in the 1970s and there was considerable changes made to the ground floor fronts since 1888. The shop fronts either side of 108 to 119 were added at a much later date. My personal opinion is the whole ground floor of the building looked like the end portion. I.E a railing around each portion of the front of the building covering the basement. I believe, as Neil said a railing was by the opening of 108-119. The 1890s Goads backs this up, as well as the large scale O.S maps from the period.
As for a rear exit. There may have been a rear exit but I don't think you could reach it from the front entrance.

Rob

[perrymason]

Being asked to pound a beat and being asked to peer into every nook and cranny en route aren't the same, Mike. There's no reason why Long should have automatically looked into that doorway, and it's hardly remarkable that he missed a discarded piece of rag the first time round. He was a police officer, after all, not a litter-warden.

All viable points Sam, yet we do have specific wording that suggests he, retrospectively, did not see the apron there when he passed by and looked into the doorway.

"He was walking his beat in Goulston Street at 2.55am, 30th September 1888, whereupon he found a portion of woman's apron (produced at the inquest) lying in the entrance of the staircase to 108-19 Wentworth Dwellings. There were bloodstains on it and one portion was wet. Above it on the wall of the passage was a message written in chalk. At the inquest, PC Long gave the wording as "The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing". The apron piece had not been there when he had passed the spot earlier at 2.20am, though he could not say if the writing had been there also."

Cheers Sam

[Howard Brown]

Dear Rob Clack:

Correct me if I am wrong....is it possible that the photograph of the front of the Wentworth that is in...as an example... Letters From Hell by SPE/KS, taken by Richard W-E years ago is not the same as the building appeared in 1888? Thank you.

Sam:

With all due respect to your views on the G and written content, I place less emphasis on the message itself rather considering the condition of the G more important in terms of its relation to the apron. Almost all non-political graffiti is written with either a sexual ( Sam Flynn does it...for 5 shillings), ethnic ( Monty is a boorish Cossack and cheats at cards ) or singularly negative connotation ( The Linford clan all have hair on the roof of their mouth )...so its unlikely the G was written by a person with or in a positive gesture. I can reasonably assume its a negative swipe at the Jewish people....do not know what it means it relation to the murders that evening or anything prior,because a twisted mind wrote it...but do know that no one ever came forward and made even a false claim of seeing the message or any claim to having seen it period and I do know that the actions of some the police departments involved represent their immediate belief that it was relative to the apron.

Its hard to move one another from our convictions, Sam, and frankly I sort of dig that. Nothing yet has persuaded me to consider that that message existed prior to that evening... following a day when several people at least would have entered that building and seen the G and at some point one of them mentioning seeing it to someone else. Think about that Sam...for quite some time after the events of the 30th, people in that building discussing the hoopla and not one of them coming forward and claiming to have seen it there.

Whataboutthem odds, buddy?

[Rob Clack]

Dear Rob Clack:

Correct me if I am wrong....is it possible that the photograph of the front of the Wentworth that is in...as an example... Letters From Hell by SPE/KS, taken by Richard W-E years ago is not the same as the building appeared in 1888? Thank you.

Hi Howard,

That's the right building in 'Letters from Hell'. The photograph was taken by Leonard Knight.

Rob

[Howard Brown]

Thanks for that Rob.

Let me simply add that on page 24 of LFH, it says "Photograph courtesy of R W-E", which I thought meant he took the photo. My mistake.

[Rob Clack]

Thanks for that Rob.

Let me simply add that on page 24 of LFH, it says "Photograph courtesy of R W-E", which I thought meant he took the photo. My mistake.

That's okay Howard, the photos belong to Richard Whittington-Egan now. One of the other ones Leonard took is in mine and Philip's book.

Rob

[Monty]

Rob,

Many thanks....so Im not going mad.

Monty

[perrymason]

Just a quick 2 cents on Howards comments to Sam regarding the evidentiary importance of the timing vs the location/spelling/grammar......which I agreed with....but....

....I should have said that the importance of the timing is critical to the question of the writings potential association and intention. In court...the spelling, grammar and syntax and the rest of the message itself would certainly be of critical importance, since it would be used to attempt to match to a suspect on trial.

If the message did not precede the apron section...a case which Howard makes some good arguments for....and the apron did not arrive until after 2:20am, something which on the existing books is supported....then the potential for them to be from the same source is high.

As I said long ago, if you accept that Strides death should have been initially suspected as being committed by someone onsite at the Club and was instead re-directed by them,... and then supported by a second murder immediately attributed to the nutbar at large who seems to kill anyone who dies by knife at night,...(save James Brown on the very same "Double Event night"....another James Brown, not Berners St Brown), then the message itself has some reasonable interpretations.

Cheers all

[Howard Brown]

Mike:

Sometimes during our study of the Case of certain aspects & events, we often put our shoes on before our socks. The Pearly Poll Affair is a case in point, at least to me, because there's no corroborative evidence that what she said went down on the night of Tabram's murder actually occurred as she said it did...yet many take the events of that evening as described by Connally as gospel. More people as of late,at least I think so, take Reid's missive to Inspector West 6 weeks later as a good measure of the value or valuelessness of her initial claims, if not directly stating she was full of baloney,then pretty close to it.

The same situation with the G is present at times and I'm not being rude or critical of those who dismiss it as being irrelevant to the apron or that evening in question . Thats entirely up to the naysayer to hold their opinion on how they percieve the G...and I of course respect that.

My feeling is that if there was no pre-apron awareness of that message by residents of the building, considering that this event ( Eddowes' apron being found in front of their hacienda...or Stride's murder which only heightened the drama in the neighborhood ) was not typical in any sense of the word...and in addition, no prevaricator came forward, as some are known to do in situations such as this and claimed that he or she had seen the message...nor did anyone use a conduit to approach the police to make the claim that they had seen it but been afraid to speak up, out of fear, out of concern for their neighbors or their kinsmen...then the G would have a greater chance of having been placed that same day prior to the apron deposit or with the apron.

The odds are fairly high that a fresh graffiti appeared on the same day on an area with no other messages on it with the accompanying apron piece. In fact, if the graffiti's "fresh" condition as often counterpointed by Neil Bell, had occurred at an earlier time, the chances or odds naturally increase that someone within that building would have seen it at an earlier time....but again no one stepped forward to affirm this.

Neil makes this observation fairly regularly and he's right in his way,no mistake about it, that if the message was "fresh" there's really no precise way to gauge how long the message was there...fresh could mean two days...three days, etc. Yet, Neil's argument actually bolsters my position that the message, if there for a greater period of time than pro-GSGers claim, would naturally have been visible for a greater period of time.

I think some folks seem to skim over this fact that the message, if fresh in any sort of sense of the word as described by Halse or re-considered astutely 120 years later by the eminent Neil Bell, would have also been just as fresh for anyone to see prior to the murder that evening.

And my dear Monty...no one apparently did. And I think its safe to say that over the course of the early part of October '88, that hundreds, if not a thousand or so men and women in the area, would have known exactly what was being erased, if not by virtue of the Times on the 4th, then by the local scuttlebutt.

Later..

[Pettifogger]

As someone afflicted with a functional psychosis, I don't rule out that JtR was responsible for the GSG.

What it said and what it really meant to JtR are two entirely different things as far as I'm concerned.

There's a method to the entire Ripper madness but I've never been able to completely connect the dots.

[Monty]

How,

You constantly point out that there are no surviving reports of someone noting the writing prior to Long.

Just as there are no reports of someone stating it certainly wasnt there prior to Long.

Monty

[perrymason]

How,

You constantly point out that there are no surviving reports of someone noting the writing prior to Long.

Just as there are no reports of someone stating it certainly wasnt there prior to Long.

Monty

Even if unheard Monty, a tree falling in the forest makes sounds. We dont have to see or hear why they didnt see the apron or the writing on those earlier passes, we just know that at least one of the 2 men that passed the area on his beat stated that the apron "was not there" at 2:20am. That would lead to a conclusion that at least the apron wasnt there until after 2:20am.

I think youre a better man than me Howard, because you seem able to stay the course until something incontrovertible shows up...if it ever will. I tend to look at some of these issues, like this one, as unsolvable unless one takes a stand on one side of the issue.

I liken it to Mary Kellys whereabouts after 1:30am....from all I can see and read, she was still in her room with her candle bit out and not singing......although I know full well that arguments can be made against that with GH and CM as examples....or based on her occupation which suggests she solicits clients at night on the streets and on that night she should have been doing just that.....I dont see reasons within the accepted evidence that night to entertain those notions. If I take a stand on that point, I think something can be learned from the existing data.

Cheers gents.

[Howard Brown]

How,

You constantly point out that there are no surviving reports of someone noting the writing prior to Long.

Monty,

Thats because I feel, and I could be alone on this, I don't know, that it is remarkable that no one did remember it. If it was at shoulder height as has been claimed, thats not as if it was obstructed or in an out of the way place.

***************
Just as there are no reports of someone stating it certainly wasnt there prior to Long.

Monty:

That condition would require that someone, anyone, remembered whether that particular space on the door jamb had something, anything on it. This condition would include those people who didn't remember something written there or definitely remembered nothing being written there....again, bolstering my side of the argument. No one did either.

Maybe I'm not reading your intent here correctly,Neil. I think the main thing here is that no one remembered it being there,period.

In most or nearly all circumstances, as you well know Neil, its incumbent on someone to prove this or that if they make a declaration...such as Druitt was a pedophile or Stephenson practiced black magic or any number of a host of things . Well, my position is not a biased,agenda based declaration, but rather a factual observation without agenda. I don't care if the G is legit, only that the arguments against it be compared to the observations I bring up. I want to know why no one remembered a graffiti that was so important at that time, even when it was reproduced in the newspaper and without question from mouth to ear throughout the area with the problematic usage of the word "Jew" in an area largely inhabited by the very people the message seemed to be directed towards, even if it had no bearing on anything at all and was, as many think, unrelated.

With all due respect, I don't think some people are placing themselves in the shoes of the people in the surrounding area or in the Wentworth when it comes to the G. I've never seen anyone place themselves in the position of the folks in that building and consider that the G's content had to have been known to them if it was there prior to the day of the Eddowes apron drop. If they were all of one ethnicity or close to it,how long would it take for word to spread in that edifice? Even if they weren't of the same ethnic background , word would have gotten out....unless of course we are going to assume that the inhabitants were zombies or automatons with no interest, across the board, in an event relative to and within the skein of murders occurring in front of their individual flats.



Mike:

It sure is a puzzle and even if I, or anyone else who felt the G was an accompaniment to the apron, was "right"....so what? We can't decipher it. We won't know what it means any time soon. All it represents, bottom line, is that it may have been one extra act on the part of the Ripper, instead of the lone apron piece dropped on Goulston Street.



Later....