Chalk users

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Steven, yes they might pick some phrases up from the locals over the course of time, but speaking it and writing it are two very different things. Chris is quite right in what he says.

Bear in mind that if the English dialect on its own was difficult enough for a foreign immigrant to grasp, some immigrants would come from countries which didn't even use the same alphabet!

That it was written, supposedly, in "good schoolboy handwriting" is also a tick in favour of a local writing it, in my opinion - a foreigner who was struggling with the language might make errors in the writing. Yet there's no suggestion that the writing was anything other than fluent, as well as neat - and the uncertainty between Jewes/Juwes, etc aside, the message, while not "good English", was at least spelt correctly throughout.

So it is a reasonable conclusion that if one surmises the GSG was indeed written by the killer, then the killer must be an Englishman who was literate and who carried chalk. If, however, one supports an alternative view to that, as I think most of us do here, it's a bit of a red herring as all possibilities are still open, it doesn't really narrow down the field of suspects.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Beowulf]

I have mentioned this before but I think it is quite significant. Apparently the GSG was written very small. In fact so small I cannot believe that it would be very easy with chalk. I think it was somthing like one and a half inches high. Get a rule and have a look. Anyone excited by the murder and pumping oxygen round there blood would surely have written in large letters. As another thought I know that taylors chalk has a very thin edge for detailed marking of clothes for cutting. If the GSG was very neat then perhaps this type of chalk was used. It certainly could not have been rough playground chalk.

Ok. I was up till after midnight last night with what probably looked like a crazy look on my face.

For years I have said, 'yeah, right, who walks about at night with chalk' for the Goulston street message to be written so conveniently by it's intended wackocat author?

But after reading a couple of chapters of House's book pointing out all these trails that lead to Kosminski, eg; geographical profiling (the methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence), his living in Whitechapel the whole time, his family being all tailors, he lived with all these tailors...suddenly it came to me...TAILORS, tailors use chalk!!!
What a revelation!

Now I'm sure there will be some who will refute this 'evidence' I have stumbled upon, maybe not forever but right now...I'm convinced it was old crazy Kos.

[DVV]

I was born in Bow and agree completely with Adam and Chris. The Jews are the men that would not have written no GSG.

[PhiltheBear]

Given that:

a) Chalk was used
b) It was written in a 'round, school-boy hand'
c) It was under 4ft from the ground
d) 'Juwes' was an incorrect spelling
e) The grammar was nonsensical

isn't the obvious conclusion it was written by a schoolboy?

[P.C]

Given that:

a) Chalk was used
b) It was written in a 'round, school-boy hand'
c) It was under 4ft from the ground
d) 'Juwes' was an incorrect spelling
e) The grammar was nonsensical

isn't the obvious conclusion it was written by a schoolboy?

Hi Phil,

Maybe maybe not,

a) I'm guessing chalk was readily available anywhere and at little cost or could even be stolen
b) Or an older semi-literate person?
c) Could have been written by someone crouching in hiding to avoid being spotted or a dwarf forget the last part
d) Maybe this spelling is correct and is an Eastern European term, please see that thread I made yesterday

A lot of it does logically point to a schoolboy though as you say,
could the author have done that deliberatley though to throw people off the scent? very cunning if this is the case but for what motive?

[Cogidubnus]

Welcome to the boards PC...

It always amazes me that as such a relatively peripheral phenomenon, the GSG seems to weigh so unduly heavily on many Ripperologists thoughts...(and I'm guilty of it myself on occasion)...it's my belief that whether JtR wrote it or not, it tells us very little about him, his modus operandi or his motivations...in short, like Dear Boss, it's the perfect scarlet fish on the floor....

At very best (as if the apron doesn't already do so) it may help us better understand the chosen route between Mitre Square and JtRs Whitechapel home...always assuming, of course, the apron piece wasn't deliberately placed where it was to deliberately mislead anyway...

When I stop and reflect on it, I just can't get THAT excited about the GSG and in the absence of anything more likely I'd quite happily settle for it being a schoolboy effort...(now watch the sparks fly)

Best wishes

Dave

[The Grave Maurice]

a) Chalk was used
b) It was written in a 'round, school-boy hand'
c) It was under 4ft from the ground
d) 'Juwes' was an incorrect spelling
e) The grammar was nonsensical

isn't the obvious conclusion it was written by a schoolboy?

No wonder outsiders believe that Ripperologists are dizzy: we spend so much time running in (chalk) circles.

[Monty]

Morning Guys,

Please, for my own peace of mind, and cos I'm being lazy, can someone just cite where it states the writing was under 4ft?

Many thanks for this.

Cheers
Monty

[Fisherman]

Monty!

I donīt think that it has been established that the writing was at four feet. The black bricks, however, reached a height of around five feet, and the writing, as Iīve understood things, was on them.
It was also said that the writing was in shoulder heigth.
An average male in those days would have been around 5 ft 6.
The shoulders of a man who is 5 ft 6, are situated at a height of about 4 ft 1, 4 ft 2 inches, roughly.
...and thatīs as far as I have come on the matter. But as far as I can tell, it is not recorded as such that the text was at four feet!

The best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

The writing was at minimum 18 inches from the ground and at maximum 6 and 1/2 feet. If Fleming wrote it, it could have been at 7 feet-ish. It's a silly thing to argue about because anyone could have written it while sitting, squatting, or standing. The main thing is that the writer was trying to convey a message. It wasn't hastily scrawled. Could it have been done by a child? Yes, but little children wouldn't write such a message. Could it have been done by a dwarf? Sure, and dwarfs have been known to be anti-semetic and pro Jew, but mostly they are known to have hated Elves and to have been important circus performers. It is also possible that we can look at Tom's Idea of the IUWES and see if there were perhaps some sort of circus performance for socialists at Berner Street about the time of the writing.

Realism should take a back seat to fantasy, however, and I'm guessing the The Juwes were an Elfish family that cheated dwarfs out of gold.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Mike:

"Realism should take a back seat to fantasy, however, and I'm guessing the The Juwes were an Elfish family that cheated dwarfs out of gold."

And here were Simon and I on an adjacent thread, courteously congratulating each other for thinking outside the box ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Jon Guy]

Do all Jewish dwarves hate Elvis, Mike?

[PhiltheBear]

Morning Guys,

Please, for my own peace of mind, and cos I'm being lazy, can someone just cite where it states the writing was under 4ft?

Many thanks for this.

Cheers
Monty

Come on Monty - the writing was on the Dado of the wall and the Dado was 4ft high (it's all in the evidence). Look up GSG in the Begg, Fido & Skinner A to Z.

Not like you to miss that!

Phil

[PhiltheBear]

Monty!

I donīt think that it has been established that the writing was at four feet. The black bricks, however, reached a height of around five feet, and the writing, as Iīve understood things, was on them.
It was also said that the writing was in shoulder heigth.
An average male in those days would have been around 5 ft 6.
The shoulders of a man who is 5 ft 6, are situated at a height of about 4 ft 1, 4 ft 2 inches, roughly.
...and thatīs as far as I have come on the matter. But as far as I can tell, it is not recorded as such that the text was at four feet!

The best,
Fisherman

The Dado was 4ft high - the writing was on it. The shoulder height thing seems to have come from the idea that the blurriness could be caused by someone's shoulder brushing past it.

Could it have been done by a child? Yes, but little children wouldn't write such a message.


Realism should take a back seat to fantasy, however, and I'm guessing the The Juwes were an Elfish family that cheated dwarfs out of gold.

Mike

Didn't have to be a little child (e.g. very young) could have been a young teenager.

But I'm inclined to agree about the Elvish family.

[The Good Michael]

And here were Simon and I on an adjacent thread, courteously congratulating each other for thinking outside the box ...

Yeah, but my thinking is IN the box. I mean this ain't no namby-pamby Scandinavian Nisse family of elves we're talking about. The Juwes clan were the real deal.

Mike