The meaning of the GSG wording

[Beowulf]

Still would like to see them use luminol on the gsg area. I recently saw where they used it in the Lizzie Borden house, admittedly an untouched area (they used it in the basement) but if I could, would just like to see if anything showed up.

Also, I do think likely the writing was written by JTR. I realize many don't but I do. I find the apron just below it, on a likely route away from the crime scene and the message itself being cryptic and bizarre to be enough for me to think so.

[RivkahChaya]

Still would like to see them use luminol on the gsg area. I recently saw where they used it in the Lizzie Borden house, admittedly an untouched area (they used it in the basement) but if I could, would just like to see if anything showed up.

What would you expect to see in the GSG area from luminol? The odds that someone at some time in the intervening 124 years left blood there are pretty good, and luminol doesn't give you dates. You might collect 124 samples of blood. If you get any DNA samples, what will you try and match them to? Does Catherine Eddowes have living descendants?

If we had a single sample, like something from the Lusk letter, or if we still had Eddowes apron, and found male DNA on it, suggesting the killer had cut himself, then I suppose, if it were permitted, some kind of kinship analysis could be done, assuming that the UK has a DNA bank like the US does. You could cross-check the Y-chromosome, and mDNA with incarcerated people, people in the military, and anyone else in the DNA bank for a match, and then look at that person's ancestors. It wouldn't need to be a direct ancestor. It could be a great-grandparent's brother, who had not children himself, but it would mean disrupting the lives of people to learn about their backgrounds. Some people might not mind, but it's not worth even asking for a random sample found near the site of the graffito. It needs to be more definite than that, I think.

I saw the Borden piece on TV, and was kind of "whoop-de-****" about it. They found a big reactive spot right under the place where Mrs. Borden had lain, bleeding, for several hours. The floor was wood. Not terribly shocking. Then they found a metal pan which well could have been iron, and it glowed around the edges, but not the basin. It looked to me like it had been painted, but the paint had worn away around the edges. In that case, the luminol probably simply reacted with the iron of the pan. Luminol reacts with copper as well, so it could have been a copper pan.

And then, whoever murdered the Bordens probably did wash up somewhere on the premises, whether it was Lizzie or not, and the police did handle the case sloppily, so their not finding the basin, and having it as evidence for the DA to suggest a scenario where Lizzie could wash up quickly with ready water, between murders, and after the second one, is not surprising.

[Beowulf]

Because the wall is still there, once it is gone, it can't be done, ever, at all. Maybe and likely would show nothing, but plenty of times something is done and something happens and someone says, 'oh look', didn't expect that.

If he wrote, he had blood on his hands, so therefore blood would or should be on the wall.

If not, there would be none. I'd not bother with dna. I'm sure it can interact with iron, and anything else, the results would mean not much, but then again, would be interesting to see absolutely NO reactions. I'd feel a little more like, well, hmm. Nothing, hmm.

Would like it to actually be done, while the building still exists.

Felt the same as you did about Borden, but then again, I have no doubt about the Borden thing, I can't imagine anyone did it but Lizzie. Evidence permitting I would believe otherwise, but man, she was it, far as I'm concerned.

I still found it interesting they used the luminol and had results. Good info on the possible reasoning why, though.

[curious]

If he wrote, he had blood on his hands, so therefore blood would or should be on the wall.

Morning, Beowulf,
I'm with you about using whatever procedures are available while the property is still available. We never know when the chance will be gone forever -- not just in this instance but in any others that suggest themselves.

Of course, everything takes money . . .

I'm not positive that Eddowes' killer would still have blood on his hands at the time the apron and writing appeared. We don't really know how long the time was between the murder and the appearance of the apron and graffiti, but if the longest time is correct, then the killer had time to go somewhere, clean up and then leave the apron.

I don't have this figured out in my head, so I'm not sure what we're looking at here.

curious

[Michael W Richards]

Nor should you be.

So its not exclusively.

And you base this 90% on?

Monty

Hi Monty,

I believe demographic numbers were published in around 1900 that reported the number of Jewish Occupants of those dwellings was somewhere between 95 and 100% Jewish, at that time of its release of course.

Cheers

[Monty]

Hi Monty,

I believe demographic numbers were published in around 1900 that reported the number of Jewish Occupants of those dwellings was somewhere between 95 and 100% Jewish, at that time of its release of course.

Cheers

Hi Michael,

What demographic publication exactly?

And what is your definition of 'exclusive'?

The bottom line is that the dwellings were not a Jewish Housing project. That suggests it was a Jewish building built specifically for Jews.

The Dwellings were built for workers, for all of that class.

Monty

[Roy Corduroy]

Monty, quoting the article here on Casebook (click to link) which in Part II under your name, Neil you wrote and I quote:

"The Wentworth Model Dwellings in Goulston Street were largely inhabited by Jews. Since they were in a Jewish neighbourhood, next to a Jewish market, this is hardly surprising."

So I don't understand why you're ragging Michael for what he said. I thought he had it right the first time.

Or ... am I losin' it

Roy

[Monty]

I'm not 'ragging' Michael, Roy,

Michael stated the dwellings were an Exclusive Jewish housing project.

Firstly we have no evidence it was exclusively Jewish, however we do have evidence it was predominantly Jewish. A small difference granted yet still a difference.

Secondly it was not a Jewish housing project. It was built as a result of the Cross act. It was not built specifically for Jews.

I'm merely trying to instill a little fact here. However if the concensus is to misinform then be my guests.

Who am I to get in the way of juicy theorising? A Jewish building built by Jews for Jews and entirely inhabited by Jews. There, incorrect but hey, who cares?

Monty

[sleekviper]

No, if others are not being denied entrance, then it is not exclusive. One can walk into a bar, and it can be 100% males there at the time, it does not make it an exclusively male establishment, it makes it entirely male at that instance.

[RivkahChaya]

The bottom line is that the dwellings were not a Jewish Housing project. That suggests it was a Jewish building built specifically for Jews.

This is certainly what it sounded like Michael was saying. Other than shtetls, which were built for segregating Jews, I can't think of anything I would call a "Jewish housing project."

However, something worth mentioning, is that when a neighborhood is largely Orthodox, the residents will often string up an eruv, which is a wire, usually using existing utility poles in the US. In the past, the were sort of false wooden lintels that connected buildings, and they always include the nearest synagogue. The purpose is to create a fiction of a single dwelling. There is a rule about carrying things on Shabbes. You can carry from room to room, within a building, including up an downstairs, and across a courtyard, but not from building to building, because that constitutes "work." So by connecting the buildings, you can carry things from house to house, or to the synagogue. It's used mostly to allow people to carry food, but it lets people with small children carry diaper bags, and soforth.

Anyway, if this building was connected by an eruv to other building, or Goulston St. was within an eruv, that may have caused people to think of the building or area as somehow having been "claimed" by Jews. It means no such things, but sometimes it's misunderstood. When Jews put up an eruv, it isn't an indication that they don't want non-Jews living within the area, or that they are trying to reserve the area in any way, but but people do misunderstand, and there's really no way gentiles should be expected to understand without it being explained. If you have Jews moving into the area from E. Europe, who have lived only in segregated towns before, it might not occur to them that there would be misunderstandings, though.

It would be interesting to know whether, and if so, where, there were eruvs in the East End.

[Roy Corduroy]

Good point Sleek.

Monty the problem is what you today call a council estate, we in the western hemisphere call a housing project. That's all. Mike just used an incorrect term, but he meant what you said in your article.

I'm not losing it after all.

Some of these threads are deja vu all over again. Like we've done this. Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

[RivkahChaya]

Hmm. I grew up in New York, and I think of "the projects" as a Chicago term. People there talk about living in "the projects" the way people in other places talk about living in "the ghetto," "the slums," or "the barrio." There have been housing projects in New York, but they were never called anything special; in New York, you live in a neighborhood, whether you live in a subsidized, or government-backed built or renovated housing. Anyway, "housing projects," inside Chicago and out were mostly built in the 50s and 60s, and many of the became notorious for being substandard, quickly decrepit, and also crime-ridden-- it was a vicious circle: police didn't like to patrol, so criminals conducted business out in the open, so they became even more difficult to patrol. Another problem was illegal occupancy-- the legal residents might be a family of four in a two bedroom apartment, but they might sublet a bedroom, or have relatives move in with them. Caused all sorts of plumbing, as well as weight-bearing problems, since the building capacity left no spare room.

I don't know much about "council houses," but I didn't think that they tended to be just a step above a roach-infested tenement, which is what "projects" in the US usually are.

When I read "Jewish housing project," I thought Michael was either mistaken, or that it might be a private project, since in the US, established immigrants sometimes did things to help out new immigrants.

I still don't know exactly what the building was, but "housing project," to me, isn't a neutral term. It's a sort of "too little, too late," effort, that usually fails. It's a big country, and things don't mean the same thing from state to state. Even if you like your iced tea with a little sugar, don't order "sweet tea" south of the Mason-Dixon line. It's syrup with a slight tea-flavor, and a sprig of mint. Order hot tea, a glass of ice, and do it with your Brooklyn-Queens accent.

[RivkahChaya]

Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

You'd probably have to find some very specific source, like "The Jewish East End, 1860-1901," or an actual synagogue record. For any posters in London, the local synagogues might know, because the eruvs might not have been moved much, and there might be records of each time they were moved or repaired.

[Monty]

Good point Sleek.

Monty the problem is what you today call a council estate, we in the western hemisphere call a housing project. That's all. Mike just used an incorrect term, but he meant what you said in your article.

I'm not losing it after all.

Some of these threads are deja vu all over again. Like we've done this. Then a new person comes in with an eruv and its a wake-up call. Haven't come across an eruv in what I've read about the East End, Rivkah. Doesn't mean people didn't have them.

Roy

Yes Roy,

I suspect that is what Michael meant also.

However what was stated is misleading. As we have seen.

Monty

[sleekviper]

Riv, you don't call Queensbridge a housing project?