The GSG. What Does It Mean??

[Stewart P Evans]

Yes...

Thanks for that post Stewart.
Wouldnt a chalk message written on a damp brick surface, maybe not as a result of direct rain but condensation or damp air, blur rather quickly? It was raining earlier.
Best regards

Yes it would, but it may also be blurred if it had been there for some time. But all is speculation, and blurred writing, I would venture to say, could not be described as fresh anyway. I am not so sure that we can assume that the surface would have been wet or damp anyway. It can teem with rain and brick areas, especially ones that are not outward facing like this, still remain dry. As far as rain getting to the inscribed surface is concerned, a lot would depend on wind direction, assuming there was a signifucant wind in the first place. It had hardly been a raging storm that night, but it was unlikely that there would have been any condensation in such an open area.

[Stewart P Evans]

Insightful

Hi Paul,I'm arguing that the "pattern" of playfulness and subtlety is a largely modern perception, and that there's a danger that our view of his character may be distorted by looking at the case through modern eyes.
One of the biggest influences on our imagination was surely the "Joker" depicted in the "Maybrick" diary with its punning, badly-written "comic" rhymes and the tedious repetition of "funny little this" and "funny little that". Prior to this we had Steven Knight really laying it on thick, with his "Riddler" leaving convoluted clues wherever he could near the crime scenes. Added to which Knight regales us with the notion that the Riddler's buddy embedded similarly wacky messages in his paintings.
I've not read any popular books prior to those two that so heavily promoted the idea of Jack delighting in cryptic messages of one form or another. I'd wager that books such as these have had a huge influence on the way we've viewed the case in the past three decades or so.

A very insightful post Gareth. I have always argued that fanciful and romantic Ripperologists yearn for the correspondence to be genuine. It is the only way to imbue the totally unknown murderer with any sort of character or even black humour. This was exploited at great length by our old friend Donald McCormick in 1959 - and he has been hugely influential.

[perrymason]

Yes it would, but it may also be blurred if it had been there for some time. But all is speculation, and blurred writing, I would venture to say, could not be described as fresh anyway. I am not so sure that we can assume that the surface would have been wet or damp anyway. It can teem with rain and brick areas, especially ones that are not outward, facing like this still remain dry. As far as rain getting to the inscribed surface is concerned, a lot would depend on wind direction, assuming there was a signifucant wind in the first place. It had hardly been a raging storm that night, but it was unlikely that there would have been any condensation in such an open area.

Very fair points Stewart. I wonder though if the combination of rain with the cooler Fall air might provide more moisture in the air generally. But as you say, blurred does seem to be specific, could be due to age, and the comment cannot be dismissed.

My best regards Mr Evans.

[Celesta]

Hi Paul,I'm arguing that the "pattern" of playfulness and subtlety is a largely modern perception, and that there's a danger that our view of his character may be distorted by looking at the case through modern eyes.

Very well said, Gareth, and it applies to everything discussed on this site. We delude ourselves by judging the past through our later day standards.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

One interesting aspect [to me at least] of the Mitre Square murder/GSG incident is that Commissioner Warren, Chief Inspector Swanson, Superintendent Arnold and PC Long all wrote their reports on November 6th—five weeks after the event.

Is it usual for the police to wait so long before writing their reports?

Regards,

Simon

[paul emmett]

Hi Paul,I'm arguing that the "pattern" of playfulness and subtlety is a largely modern perception, and that there's a danger that our view of his character may be distorted by looking at the case through modern eyes.

Hello, Sam, Stewart, Celesta.

Sam, I think this quote pulls in two directions. One, only recently have we talked about playfulness and subtlety, and two, playfulness and subtlety are more of a modern thing. Wilde's quote from Stweart's post--and Shakespeare--suggest that the latter isn't true. And if the former is true, if we have only recently discussed the play of JTR, that certianly doesn't rule out playfulness.

As far as yearning for the correspondence to be genuine, perhaps there is a bit of that despite my longing to be objective. But might not there be an oppisite kind of prepatory set? Couldn't, "I certianly don't want to be fanciful or overread the evidence" lead to its own "biases"?

But let's be objective. I, say, think "Dear Boss" is real for various reasons, reasons certianly including internal evidence. Once I think that it is real, I, of course, think Jack named himself. And I agree with Wilde that a mask tells us more than a face, a name one selects certianly tells us more than one one is given.
So when I look at connotations of the name JTR and find them "playful"--and subtle--I don't think that has anything to do with past Ripper "scholars." And I hope it has nothing to do with my whimsy. For me, it's following the evidence--not following McCormick or the Riddler.

[Stewart P Evans]

Official Reports

Hi All,
One interesting aspect [to me at least] of the Mitre Square murder/GSG incident is that Commissioner Warren, Chief Inspector Swanson, Superintendent Arnold and PC Long all wrote their reports on November 6th—five weeks after the event.
Is it usual for the police to wait so long before writing their reports?
Regards,
Simon

All official reports must be looked at in the light of what they are. Swanson's overall report was just that, and these often followed a few weeks after the event when he was in a position to collate all his information and statements into a chronological and, as much as possible, complete account.

The reports of Warren, Arnold and Long appear to be the result of the controversy over the erasing of the chalked wall message by the Met after Fraser and his men complained of the action. You will see that at the end of October Matthews was asking for explanations all round from both the City and the Met Police and Fraser was going to be asked to attend the Home Office.

Long's statement for the inquest, however, would have been written at the beginning of October, prior to his appearance before Langham.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

Many thanks for the clarification.

Regards,

Simon

[Celesta]

Sorry, Paul. I was just referring to the latter part of Sam's post RE applying standards of our time to those of 1888, not trying to negate anyone's ideas. I should have been more specific.

[paul emmett]

Hi, Celesta. You were fine. No offense given and none taken. I'm just trying to defend what I see as an essential minority opinion, and I see wit and play as eternal--even Victorian.

[Dan Norder]

acronyms as common substitutions didn't come into play until the mid-20th century.

Really? So HRH had a group of PCs run off anyone who used abbreviations back in 1888 A.D.? OK...

I don't take what "don souden" says as gospel, I take what linguistic analysis says as gospel.

No, you take Don Souden at gospel for what he claims linguistic analysis says is gospel...

Linguistic analysis is as precise a field as forensics. Acronyms were not in common usage until the mid-20th century. That's just linguistic fact

So we're supposed to believe Eisenhower was completely radical when he came up with the WPA, TVA, CWA, FHA and so forth in the 1930s? Nearly every thing he did as president was discussed at the time as an acronym, and it wasn't because he invented the concept. Wherever Don got the info you accepted as gospel, the person making the claim was just plain ignorant.

It would be true to say that acronyms became more common past the mid 20th century, but they had been in common usage well before that. Crack open a book sometime and see for yourself.

[Tom_Wescott]

Without getting too deep in the hoopla over this ridiculous attempt to translate the GSG into an "alternative ripperological" interpretation....amazing how Wescott now sounds like Radka and D.Ogilvie Souden has to correct Wescott....it must be true that some of us become the thing we hate,eh,Wescott? What next? Kosminski,the unstable hairdresser... an actual anarchist?

Dude, for real. Do you see me talking about you? No. You have your own forum where you preach that no insulting will be allowed and where you ban people left and right for this stuff. Yet you feel the need to constantly pop up over here and insult Casebookers. What gives? Mitch asked for theories on the graffiti, I thought I'd toss mine up. I argued it's side, yes, but I promoted it as an 'alternative' to the Juwes theory. Yes, Don Souden corrected me and added to my store of knowledge. Is he not allowed to do that? That this somehow makes me Radka makes sense only in your warped mind.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[JSchmidt]

Just to pop in a short remark: Are you sure it would have to be an acronym and not just a plain old abbreviation? Because the graffiti does not seem to have included any phonetic markers, thus we would be reduced to morphology and we could only say that it were a misread abbreviation.

[Tom_Wescott]

Technically, what you're describing (and what I was describing) is initialism. However, it's generically referred to as an acronym by most.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Supe]

Dan,

So we're supposed to believe Eisenhower was completely radical when he came up with the WPA, TVA, CWA, FHA and so forth in the 1930s?

Eisenhower? WPA, TVA? 1930s. Now that is ignorance. Try, maybe, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Dealk.

Don.