The GSG - Did Jack write it? POLL

[Batman]

The reality is, until the police found out who wrote the graffiti and when it was written, it is of no more use to them as evidence than a common street sign would be.

That was what you suggested Wickerman. In the above quote you propose that it can't be evidence until they found out who wrote the graffiti and when it was written. You gave 2 constricting factors over what criteria you think evidence should have.

Abby has a valid point for you to still address. 'No' won't help.

[Wickerman]

That was what you suggested Wickerman. In the above quote you propose that it can't be evidence until they found out who wrote the graffiti and when it was written. You gave 2 constricting factors over what criteria you think evidence should have.

Abby has a valid point for you to still address. 'No' won't help.

Where do I say anything about the killer being caught?

Really, in the past two weeks alone I have identified three posters who suffer from a distinct lack of attention to detail.

The known time the graffiti was written is the deciding factor as to whether it is regarded as evidence, regardless who wrote it.

The time was not established, so it was not evidence. At this point it was nothing more than an item of interest.

Just in case you were wondering. Items used as "Evidence" are items which have an established connection to the crime, crime scene, or to a person involved in the crime.
The key word being, "established".

[Batman]

The time was not established, so it was not evidence.

Nonsense. Your modern interpretation relegates law enforcement on the scene to borderline incompetence so you can ignore them for your own interpretation. You really should try your own criticisms in the mirror.

2:20am - Halse saw nothing there. He later went on to say it had been done after he had checked the entrance.

2:55am - Long finds the apron and graffiti.

Established time of graffiti: 2:20am to 2:55am

Did the investigators change this or something? No. They didn't.

[Wickerman]

Nonsense. Your modern interpretation relegates law enforcement on the scene to borderline incompetence so you can ignore them for your own interpretation. You really should try your own criticisms in the mirror.

2:20am - Halse saw nothing there. He later went on to say it had been done after he had checked the entrance.

2:55am - Long finds the apron and graffiti.

Established time of graffiti: 2:20am to 2:55am

Did the investigators change this or something? No. They didn't.

No, you did.
Due to the graffiti being so small, PC Long only noticed it while searching for spots of blood with his lamp on.
It was the apron which caught his attention.

Halse was not asked about seeing the graffiti, only the apron.

"About 20 past 2 I passed over the spot where the piece of Apron was found I did not notice anything."
Det. Halse.

Attention to detail!

[Batman]

"About 20 past 2 I passed over the spot where the piece of Apron was found I did not notice anything."
Det. Halse.

Attention to detail!

Show me where the question is specific to the apron alone as you suggest?

Following Halse saying there was nothing there when he inspected the place at 2:20am he is then asked the following question...

[Coroner] Did the writing have the appearance of having been recently done?
[Halse] Yes. It was written with white chalk on a black facia.....
[Halse].... It looked fresh, and if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out by the people passing.

This is the guy who gives us the size of the writing. His attention to detail is good enough for me and his claim not to have seen anything at 2:20am only makes sense given it was raining the night before and nobody has shown that this so-called other common graffiti was even at that place at the time (as if the investigators there hadn't thought of it).

[Wickerman]

Show me where the question is specific to the apron alone as you suggest?

Tutorial 101.

Daily Telegraph:
"At twenty minutes past two o'clock I passed over the spot where the piece of apron was found, but did not notice anything then. I should not necessarily have seen the piece of apron."

Times:
"At about 20 minutes after 2 he passed over the spot where the piece of apron was found. If it was there then he would not necessarily have seen it, for it was in the building."

The subject is, seeing the apron.
No charge for this, by the way.

Following Halse saying there was nothing there when he inspected the place at 2:20am he is then asked the following question...

Halse never said "nothing was there", and he never said he, "inspected the place".
If you read his ACTUAL words, he passed through the street at 2:20, nothing more.

[Coroner] Did the writing have the appearance of having been recently done?
[Halse] Yes. It was written with white chalk on a black facia.....
[Halse].... It looked fresh, and if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out by the people passing.

Having lost this battle, it appears we are now moving on to the never ending question of, "what does fresh mean?"

Tell me then, 2 hours, 2 days, or something in between?
Go on then, tell everybody what time limit is applied to the word "fresh".

This is the guy who gives us the size of the writing. His attention to detail is good enough for me .....

I don't think so.
If Halse's words were good enough for you, you wouldn't be trying to change them.

[Batman]

Halse was not asked about seeing the graffiti, only the apron.

"About 20 past 2 I passed over the spot where the piece of Apron was found I did not notice anything."
Det. Halse.

I asked you to show where Halse was asked about seeing only the apron (your words). You have not shown he was asked this question either by the inquest or the newspapers who reported it. All you are trying to show is a context now, not the question.

http://www.casebook.org/official_documents/inquests/inquest_eddowes.html

What we read in the inquest is that he begins his testimony with a brief synopsis on events. No question is put to him. He then continues through Mr. Crawford by saying.
By Mr. Crawford: At twenty minutes past two o'clock I passed over the spot where the piece of apron was found, but did not notice anything then. I should not necessarily have seen the piece of apron. He is saying he did not notice anything. Anything at all. He then follows it up by saying he thinks the graffiti was fresh in answer to a question put to him about it. He then continues to give additional explanations why he thinks its fresh.

... if it had been done long before it would have been rubbed out by the people passing.

I found this same conclusion in Jakubowski, Maxim and Nathan Braund, eds., The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper (Robinson, 1999), p.42

[Batman]

To throw blame upon the Jews for what exactly?

The Old Jewry believed it to be deliberate subterfuge designed to incriminate Jews.

This was the view of Scotland Yard.

Warren - [could not understand the crimes] ‘being done by a Socialist because the last murders were evidently done by someone desiring to bring discredit on the Jews & Socialists or Jewish Socialists’

Warren - ‘evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews’

Swanson - ‘to throw blame upon the Jews’

Smith - The writing on the wall may have been written - and, I think, probably was written - to throw the police off the scent, to divert suspicion from the Gentiles and throw it upon the Jews. It may have been written by the murderer, or it may not. To obliterate the words that might have given us a most valuable clue, more especially after I had sent a man to stand over them till they were photographed, was not only indiscreet, but unwarrantable.

This means they concluded whoever wrote it, did so with the foresight to divert suspicion from the gentiles.

Suspicion of what? Not providing a good enough trade service in the clothing industry as some would have us believe it meant.

There is no alternative to the above but to accept they believed JtR did it to try and cause problems for the Jews.


References: Chief Inspector Swanson and Sir Charles Warren, 6 November 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C/8c; minute of Sir Charles Warren, 13 October 1888, HO 144/221/A49301D/1; Smith, From Constable to Commissioner, pp. 161–2. http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.constable.html

[Wickerman]

By Mr. Crawford: At twenty minutes past two o'clock I passed over the spot where the piece of apron was found, but did not notice anything then. I should not necessarily have seen the piece of apron. He is saying he did not notice anything. Anything at all. He then follows it up by saying he thinks the graffiti was fresh in answer to a question put to him about it. He then continues to give additional explanations why he thinks its fresh.

To your point in bold.

No, he does not, and "anything at all" are your words (again).
The subject is changed from questions about the apron, to questions about the graffiti.

Directly after Halse replied with, ".....I should not necessarily have seen the piece of apron.", the Coroner then changes the subject to questions about the graffiti:
"[Coroner] As to the writing on the wall, did you hear anybody suggest that the word "Jews" should be rubbed out and the other words left?

There you have it, and the change in subject is as clear as day.
First Halse is asked about seeing the apron, then he is asked about the graffiti - two separate questions.

Lets not try to cast Halse as being evasive simply to rescue your theory.

[Batman]

To your point in bold.
The subject is changed from questions about the apron, to questions about the graffiti.

Show me the question put to him about the apron at the inquest with respect to the quote. You can't because no such question exists there and then. So that quote, by default, is not an answer to any question put to him. It is just a statement that he makes after his synopsis of events.

Scroll to Daniel Halse -> http://www.casebook.org/official_doc...t_eddowes.html

The very first question put to him is AFTER he makes this statement not before and the question he is asked is about the writing. That was the question on the Coroner's mind.

[Coroner] As to the writing on the wall, did you hear anybody suggest that the word "Jews" should be rubbed out and the other words left? - I did. The fear on the part of the Metropolitan police that the writing might cause riot was the sole reason why it was rubbed out. I took a copy of it, and what I wrote down was as follows: "The Juwes are not the men who will be blamed for nothing."
[Coroner] Did the writing have the appearance of having been recently done? - Yes. It was written with white chalk on a black facia.

Beyond his thoughts on it being fresh and his statement he didn't see anything, you have the fact the senior investigators are telling you they thought it was done to throw them off track. How much more insight into what they where thinking can you get than that!

[Bridewell]

They should have photographed it regardless, in order to analyze it later to see if it held any clue.
Whether it held a clue or not could not be determined in the dark that morning.

The mistake you are making is in assuming the police already determined it was a clue, this is not true.

That's my view too.

[Wickerman]

Show me the question put to him about the apron at the inquest with respect to the quote. You can't because no such question exists there and then. So that quote, by default, is not an answer to any question put to him. It is just a statement that he makes after his synopsis of events.

No, absolutely not.
Show me where the Coroner asked Halse to provide a synopsis.

The witness only speaks when he is spoken to. The witness responds to questions. In no case is the witness permitted to give a synopsis of his own free will, he is there to answer specific questions.
Every statement given by a witness is in direct response to a question, though the question is not always provided. This is demonstrated in both the Court versions of the Eddowes inquest and the Kelly inquest.

[GUT]

No, absolutely not.
Show me where the Coroner asked Halse to provide a synopsis.

The witness only speaks when he is spoken to. The witness responds to questions. In no case is the witness permitted to give a synopsis of his own free will, he is there to answer specific questions.
Every statement given by a witness is in direct response to a question, though the question is not always provided. This is demonstrated in both the Court versions of the Eddowes inquest and the Kelly inquest.

And that is so frustrating, so often we have an answer without context and I can tell you often the question tells you more than the answer.

[Wickerman]

And that is so frustrating, so often we have an answer without context and I can tell you often the question tells you more than the answer.

Indeed it is, and it is quite common to read court extracts in many books where the witness statement is presented as a continuous narrative, which is completely misleading.
I'm sure you've noticed how in the court records separate replies are often, but not always, separated by a dash "--". Modern books often leave out the dashes as if they are not important.
We've had similar misunderstandings over the testimony of Sarah Lewis for this very same reason.

[GUT]

Indeed it is, and it is quite common to read court extracts in many books where the witness statement is presented as a continuous narrative, which is completely misleading.
I'm sure you've noticed how in the court records separate replies are often, but not always, separated by a dash "--". Modern books often leave out the dashes as if they are not important.
We've had similar misunderstandings over the testimony of Sarah Lewis for this very same reason.

I have read literally 100s of transcripts of trials and if you read nothing but the answers you will as often as not get a radically different view of the case than if you read the lot.

Many times I think, re JtR, if only I had the full transcript it would make a lot more sense.

also get the feeling that many of the news reports are nowhere near transcripts of the words witnesses used but the reporters interpretation of the Q and A.