The word JUWES

[Lechmere]

Warren had been a desk policeman for two years.
That gave him experience of what might happen on the streets of the East End?
Halse had served in this area, walking the streets (OK slightly to the west) for 25 years. In his opinion the graffiti could be photographed so I think the modern quibbles about whether a camera could be positioned to capture the image can be ruled out straight away.
Warren thought there might be riots. His actions made the issue more controversial and there were no riots. He clearly didn’t have a very good grasp of the realities on the ground. Not surprising given his lack of a police background.
To say - oh the police managed quite well before photography somewhat misses the point. The police managed before cars were invented, before radios, before stab proof vests.
They had the opportunity to photograph it and due to Warren they did not.
I don’t doubt that part of Warren’s motivation was also to spite the City Police.

Monty – you said...
“Photographing would have been of no benefit whatsoever.”

I said...
“I find it very odd for someone in this day and age to suggest that no benefit could have come from photographing the gsg.”

Then Monty says
“Never stated it shouldn't be recorded, stated no need to photograph it. Don't mislead the Readership”

Can you see Monty that I used your own words. The person who is being misleading here is I am afraid you.
The graffiti was possibly evidence in a case that was not exactly evidence rich.
As you have no idea who the culprit was you can have no idea whether this evidence could have provided a link.
I will file this away in the same folder along with the name swap.
'recording it' by hand involves human error as is seen by the different versions of it and the different accounts of where it was and what state it was in.

[Monty]

Hi Monty,

I'm not sure why it would worry you. I think that the GSG should have been photographed. You don't see the need. On a 'belt & braces' basis I think it should have been done, but that's my personal view. What I find inconsistent about Warren's stance is that he decided to erase the GSG because it had no relevance to the murders, but then recorded the content.
If it wasn't relevant to the murders - if Warren was really that sure - why note the content of an unrelated insignificant scribble?

I certainly don't want to fall out with you of all people. For the record I think it unlikely that the GSG was written by the killer. Even the unlikely possibility that it was relevant should have been catered for.

Regards, Bridewell.

I don't do falling out Colin, believe it or not. I do saying as I see it, that's all.

To clarify, Warren didn't erase it because he felt the killer didn't write it, he erased it upon the advice of Arnold who had, a few weeks previous, to deal with some anti semetic disturbances not long after Chapmans murder.

The logistics of photographing it wasn't simple back then as it was today. It was a fairly big op. The angles, lighting, kit, all difficult, would have takens some time to set up out in a public thoroughfare.

Its not a simple task.

Besides, before photography, how did the police note such finds? As you state, noted, as Warren did.

Phil,

Fair post.

I personally think Warren was making a point to the City force. My Gaff, my rules.

Monty

[Phil H]

The haste to destroy the GSG without thought of a photographic record, to me simply illustrates the priorities being balanced by the senior police figures involved.

They were there, we are not, but I think Warren was probably giving too much weight to the possibility of social unrest as a result of the GSG being seen and perceived as anti-semitic. No doubt the Leather Apron issues were in his mind, perhaps too the fact that Stride's body had been found adjacent to a Jewish socialist club.

After "Bloody Sunday", I do not know what warnings he had been given by the Home Office, or what other pressures may have been upon him. But I think Sir Charles panicked. Maybe he thought others were not seeing the "political" issues as clearly as he, and justified it that way.

Evidently, he felt he had little time and that a speedy decision was required.
Maybe a lack of "grip" among more junior officers, of the somewhat nebulous social aspects of this case, may have annoyed him and he took a decision to spite them. For all I know someone challenged his thinking and he pulled rank - gave a peremptory order that he later regretted.

It is all speculation, but somewhere there, given the personalities involved, I suspect the truth lies. People like warren don't always get things right - he certainly didn't later, as a general in the Boer War.

Phil H

[Bridewell]

That worries me Colin, greatly


Monty

Hi Monty,

I'm not sure why it would worry you. I think that the GSG should have been photographed. You don't see the need. On a 'belt & braces' basis I think it should have been done, but that's my personal view. What I find inconsistent about Warren's stance is that he decided to erase the GSG because it had no relevance to the murders, but then recorded the content.
If it wasn't relevant to the murders - if Warren was really that sure - why note the content of an unrelated insignificant scribble?

I certainly don't want to fall out with you of all people. For the record I think it unlikely that the GSG was written by the killer. Even the unlikely possibility that it was relevant should have been catered for.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Monty]

Hi Lechmere,

Very well put. Entirely agree, especially the last paragraph..

Regards, Bridewell.

That worries me Colin, greatly


Monty

[Bridewell]

I find it very odd for someone in this day and age to suggest that no benefit could have come from photographing the gsg - the city police even then were sure it should have been photographed.
A photograph would accurately show what it said.
It would show the context - how far from the street, on the left or right doorway, the exact height, whether it was blurred, the style if writing and so forth.
It is faintly ludicrous to suggest that there was no real need to record it, if only to eliminate it as valid evidence relating to the case.

Hi Lechmere,

Very well put. Entirely agree, especially the last paragraph..

Regards, Bridewell.

[Phil H]

it is altogether possible that [the GSG/graffito] had nothing to do with the apron piece.

IMHO, those immortal words should have to be appended (by law) to any post arguing that the Ripper wrote the GSG.

Phil H

[lynn cates]

Frenchman

Hello Barbara. Thanks. I doubt it was a Frenchman as well. And it is altogether possible that it had nothing to do with the apron piece.

Cheers.
LC

[Monty]

I find it very odd for someone in this day and age to suggest that no benefit could have come from photographing the gsg - the city police even then were sure it should have been photographed.
A photograph would accurately show what it said.
It would show the context - how far from the street, on the left or right doorway, the exact height, whether it was blurred, the style if writing and so forth.
It is faintly ludicrous to suggest that there was no real need to record it, if only to eliminate it as valid evidence relating to the case.

Never stated it shouldn't be recorded, stated no need to photograph it. Don't mislead the Readership Ed, they aren't all Telegraph readers.

All you have stated adds nothing to the investigation of the case, nor does it prove guilt.

Proving the killer wrote it would be difficult, establishing a direct connection the the murder, tennuous at best.

The only valid reason to photograph woud be for recording purposes as Colin states.

Monty

[Supe]

Neil is quite right about the difficulty involved with securing a photograph of the Goulston Street graffito. Almost assuredly, it would have been necessary to wait until it was quite light out and even then, depending on local conditions, it might well have been a delicate chore to get the lighting right to pick up the writing on the relatively slow-emulsion plates.

Moreover, the cameras were large and bulky and with tripod attached it would take up enough space to effectively block the entrance. And with such a great police presence on hand and the news spreading of a two murders the past night, the rumors that would be flying about what was going to be photographed can only be imagined with a shudder.

It's my opinion that no one who was not on the scene and didn't have a real sense of the various tensions in the East End that fall can possibly fault the decision to erase. Lament it, yes, but secure in the second decade of the 21st centrury and so far from the actual event we can not say Warren was necessarily wrong.

Don.

[Errata]

From the Pall Mall Gazette article, written by D'Onston:

"Juives

Therefore we place a dot above the third upstroke in the word Juwes, and we find it to be Juives, which is the French word for Jews. Strictly Juives and grammatically speaking, of course, it is the feminine form of Juifs and means 'Jewesses.' But in practice it will be found that (French*men being notoriously the worst linguists in the world) most Frenchmen who are not either litterateurs or men of science are very inaccurate as to their genders. And almost all the ouvrier and a large majority of the bourgeois class use the feminine where the word should be masculine. Even the Emperor Napoleon III was a great sinner in this respect, as his voluminous correspondence amply shows.

It's entirely possible that the person who wrote it was specifically referencing women. If it is an error and it was supposed to be Juifs, then it makes more sense for the graffiti to be unaligned with Jack the Ripper. If Juives was used intentionally, then it could be a reference to the Ripper murders, even if not written by the killer.

[Lechmere]

I find it very odd for someone in this day and age to suggest that no benefit could have come from photographing the gsg - the city police even then were sure it should have been photographed.
A photograph would accurately show what it said.
It would show the context - how far from the street, on the left or right doorway, the exact height, whether it was blurred, the style if writing and so forth.
It is faintly ludicrous to suggest that there was no real need to record it, if only to eliminate it as valid evidence relating to the case.

[Beowulf]

Hello Barbara. Only problem is that a Frenchman would not have made that mistake.

Would French as a second language do as well?

Cheers.
LC

So to answer your question, this theory poses English as the second language.

I'm not completely buying into it, but I think it's an interesting point. Just that there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence of any mad Frenchmen running about Whitechapel, 1888wise.

Oops, forgot Van Gogh! Oh, wait, he was Dutch, but he spoke French and lived in Arles...oh oh!

[Beowulf]

Hello Barbara. Only problem is that a Frenchman would not have made that mistake.

Would French as a second language do as well?

Cheers.
LC

Maybe I should've posted this from the same article:

"Why did the murderer spell the word Jews 'Juwes'? Was it that he was an uneducated Englishman who did not know how to spell the word; was he in reality an ignorant Jew, reckless of consequences and glorying in his deeds; or was he a foreigner, well accustomed to the English language, but who in the tremendous hurry of the moment unconsciously wrote the fatal word in his native tongue?"

[lynn cates]

French

Hello Barbara. Only problem is that a Frenchman would not have made that mistake.

Would French as a second language do as well?

Cheers.
LC