The GSG. What Does It Mean??

[Ben]

Ooh, I'm not sure, Observer.

The "not for nothing" originated as a cockney affectation, and was unlikely to be used by very recent immigrants. The addition of "the men that/who" smacks more of unnecessary and simplistic verbosity of the order than one might expect from a semi-literate author.

Best regards,
Ben

[Observer]

Hi Ben

I can envisage a cockney writing "not for nothing,"

But "The Juewes are the men" seems to me to betray foreign overtones.

Of course I could be wrong what do other's think I wonder?

all the best

Observer

[Johnr]

Who can say what the GSG means?
It was written near the street entrance to a predominantly Jewish-occupied dwelling.It was written in chalk. And the patrolling policeman avers that he hadn't noticed it there earlier in the night.
Regardless of what Investigator thinks ( and his theory is very remarkable), it looks like the gaggle of policemen who forgathered, took it to mean something anti-Semitic. Therefore, needing to be immediately expunged.
For graffitti to be effectual, it must be written where its target audience can see it.
Secondly, it must be intelligible to that target audience.
It doesn't appear to have occurred to the investigating police to ask any local Jewish comminity leaders what the GSG might have meant to them.
If Investigator's explanation is correct, would it be necessary to leave a blood-soaked piece of apron with faecal matter on it, slightly further inside the entrance? JOHN RUFFELS.

[claire]

I can envisage a cockney writing "not for nothing,"

But "The Juewes are the men" seems to me to betray foreign overtones.

Of course I could be wrong what do other's think I wonder?

It could betray foreign overtones. But what if you mentally italicize 'Juwes'? In this way, it reads more like, 'They're the ones who won't be blamed for nothing (not us, who have to take the blame for everything).' For example, it might be a reference to an aggrieved feeling that everyone else has to get their just desserts but the Jews get away with anything (chiselling cash, for example).

Of course, the one possible confounder of this is the use of the word, 'men.' But is this gender specific or is it just a sort of unwitting use of that word instead of writing 'ones?' (For example, we might now say, 'those [fill in collective noun of choice] are the guys that give this place a bad name...')

[Observer]

Hi Clare

It could betray foreign overtones. But what if you mentally italicize 'Juwes'? In this way, it reads more like, 'They're the ones who won't be blamed for nothing (not us, who have to take the blame for everything).' For example, it might be a reference to an aggrieved feeling that everyone else has to get their just desserts but the Jews get away with anything (chiselling cash, for example).

Of course, the one possible confounder of this is the use of the word, 'men.' But is this gender specific or is it just a sort of unwitting use of that word instead of writing 'ones?' (For example, we might now say, 'those [fill in collective noun of choice] are the guys that give this place a bad name...')

There are a few ways to interpret the GSG, one is, as you say an irate gentile who maintains that the Jews will not take responsibility for their actions.

Another way you could interpret the GSG revolves around a more than irate Jew who threatens that if they are blamed for some sleight that they are not guilty of, then he, the author of the GSG will take matters into his hands, and do something that they can be blamed for.

I'd plump for the latter, the GSG has threatening overtones in my opinion.

all the best

Observer

[claire]

Another way you could interpret the GSG revolves around a more than irate Jew who threatens that if they are blamed for some sleight that they are not guilty of, then he, the author of the GSG will take matters into his hands, and do something that they can be blamed for.

I'd plump for the latter, the GSG has threatening overtones in my opinion.

Hi Observer,

Hmm. I'm not sure if that isn't stretching interpretation just a wee bit. I could buy the idea that it was a Jew who wrote the message, and I can certainly buy that it was written by someone a little ticked off about something. But the idea of its being threatening depends upon that double negative being grammatically correct (we will not be blamed for nothing); if it is grammatically correct, that's quite a sophisticated sentence structure which a) I would not imagine would tally with the misspelling of 'Jews,' and b) would be less likely to be written in a 'neat schoolboy hand.' Further, if you wish to tie your interpretation of the message's implicit threat with the killings, then isn't a threat a little bit like shutting the stable door after the cliche has bolted?

Just my opinion, though. Short of someone finding some lost CCTV footage of Goulston Street from that night, I guess opinion is all we can work with

[KatBradshaw]

I have to say I have never read anything in to the meaning of the GSG other than 'No one will blame the Jews for anything'.
The use of the double negative is common in the London coloquial speach. My Dad is a Londoner and my Nan an East Ender and its a very common way of speaking.

[Stephen Thomas]

I have to say I have never read anything in to the meaning of the GSG other than 'No one will blame the Jews for anything'.
The use of the double negative is common in the London coloquial speach. My Dad is a Londoner and my Nan an East Ender and its a very common way of speaking.

Well said Kat,

Succinct and to the point.

STEPHEN

(living not a million miles from Goulston Street)

[KatBradshaw]

Thank you Stephen.

[Graham]

For what it's worth (not much, actually...), my interpretation of the GSG is:

The Jews are not the kind of people who will calmly accept criticism simply because they are Jews

In other words, don't you Goyim push your luck too far with the Jews. Which, given the general atmosphere of the times, I think is rather apposite.

Oy-veh.

Graham

[DVV]

Charles Warren stated in an October report that the message "was evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews". Donald Swanson, in direct charge of the ripper investigation, believed that it was written "to throw the blame upon the Jews", while Henry Smith opined that the intent of the message was to "throw the police off the scent, to divert suspicion from the Gentiles and throw it upon the Jews", a belief he enforces in his later attack on Anderson.

Hope this helps, and that all is well with you!

Ben

To my mind it helps...
And it should help everybody to understand that the way they now interpret the GSG, though of interest, hasn't more value than contemporary views on the subject.

Amitiés,
David

[Investigator]

Hi All, sorry to be so erratic, still sailing up the East coast before heading out into the Pacific.
Yes Mike, he is a Jew addressing Jews at one level with the meaning embedded in the mezuzah position, and at Gentiles on the open level in English. The Leather apron and Ritter publicity was too close for comfort, his safety was threatened and he felt compelled to deflect the focus away from a Jewish connection. At the Jewish level he is accusing them of committing sins against G-d that have led him to make atonement by obliterating an expendable source (destitute women) of temptation. Like the Yorkshire Ripper – he was just “cleaning the streets” and washing his own guilt away. Murder is not about logic or reasonable thinking it is about acting out an uncontrolled, obsessive rage then rationalising the emotional turmoil afterwards.
Yiddish is a Germanic language developed mainly in the Slavic, Eastern European ghettos’ and is distinctly different from Hebrew. Much of Yiddish grammar is distinctly different from German and it is not mutually interchangeable for communication. The same applies to Hebrew even though Yiddish uses the Hebrew script (with some modifications). See http://www.jewish-languages.org/yiddish.html
Hebrew is the language of Judaic religion to which children are intensely exposed all their life, it is riddled with double negatives, but they are grammatically correct. On the other hand Cockney slang was not only un-grammatical but also phonetically truncated – if they ever put it on a written surface.
Yiddish prevailed in London and America principally because of the massive influx of second wave migrants fleeing Eastern Europe from the persecutions of the early 1880’s.
Before then, the first wave Jews came from the Netherlands & Germany (1848-ish) and looked down on Yiddish as the language of the peasant. Being Jewish does not mean Yiddish was a “national” language. Many immigrants to London attended classes to learn Yiddish because it was an “exile” language. That the message was in English was diversionary and possibly the writer may not have been fluent enough in Yiddish. It may also be an added quip at the Jewish residents who had taken up anglicized habits and morals.
The Chief Rabbi of the Dukes Place Synagogue, Nathen Adler issued a plea to East European rabbis: “I implore every rabbi of a community kindly to preach in the synagogue and house of study, to publicise the evil which is befalling our brethren who have come here, and to warn them not to come to the land of Britain, for such ascent is a descent." Quite clearly the ways of British Gentiles rubbed off on Jewish migrants and eroded religious orthodoxy.
That the GSG writer would pose his message in a religious context and pointedly direct it at male Jews suggests to me that there are both ideological and moral issues in question. They may be different facets of the same point being made. Who wrote it? At a guess, a first wave Germanic Jewish migrant who came to London with his parents as a child; a mature male now who is consumed with rage at the second wave Jews for aggravating the rise of anti-Semitism and taking up Gentile morals.
Mike you are suggesting that the writing was put onto the Wentworth building door jamb before the double murders, do you have some basis for that idea? I know Howard Brown proposed a daylight job, but I don’t think that holds too much water. You may have another view on this.
There are better reasons for seeing the writing connected to the apron, than any proposals so far put forward. As said before, what if it was Eddowes body in the doorway instead of the desktop shortcut? I think the apron is simply the signature of authenticity just like the Lusk kidney. It is the simpler and more probable explanation than the “coincidence” and “game” theories proposed.
I’m beginning to think it would have been easier to have written a dissertation rather than his bit-by-bit episode and the frustration of internet connections. This will have to be my last post for some time, so I wish you all well in your debates, DG .

[DrB]

Hi all,
The whole issue of the Sept 1888 double murder is a pivotal point in the whole mystery. Why 2 murders in one night? Why walk or cart for a mile with a knife, some organs and a blood stained "rag" in the thick of east end mayhem? Why not write above the dead body if message was to be delivered to police? Why write in an obscure stairwell and leave the "rag" - was this a message for someone in the flats ? a kind of boast? What fortune a pc comes along - finds the rag in the stairway among all the other rubbish probably around at the time and links this with a funny message on the wall and a murder only a few hours earlier a mile or so away - so did this pc find something not meant to be found or was he the real inspiration for sherlock holmes?? Who lived in those flats where the message was left and were they interviewed? Then Warren legs down town and rubs the message off pronto ! why? he could not have broken a coded message that quick.

DrB

[Observer]

Hi Claire

Hi Observer,

Hmm. I'm not sure if that isn't stretching interpretation just a wee bit.

I'd agree with you but for one thing, this message was found with a bloodied portion of apron belonging to Kate Eddowes in very very close proximity to it. And the fact that both Lawende and Mr's Long alluded to a Jew being in the company of two of the victims shortly before their death.

I could buy the idea that it was a Jew who wrote the message, and I can certainly buy that it was written by someone a little ticked off about something. But the idea of its being threatening depends upon that double negative being grammatically correct (we will not be blamed for nothing); if it is grammatically correct, that's quite a sophisticated sentence structure which a) I would not imagine would tally with the misspelling of 'Jews,' and b) would be less likely to be written in a 'neat schoolboy hand.'

I don't think it's grammatically correct though. As has been pointed out it is not out of synch with the Cockney way of speaking. I'd also say though that a foreigner would also Slaughter (pardon the pun) the English language in a similar way. And what is a neat schoolboy hand, who gave the message this description, are we to go on one mans interpretion of the messages appearance? And even if the description was accurate, a Jew who was nearing the age of thirty (see Lawendes description) was once a schoolboy, and his method of writing might nor have progressed much since his schoolboy days.

Further if you wish to tie your interpretation of the message's implicit threat with the killings, then isn't a threat a little bit like shutting the stable door after the cliche has bolted?

Could have been a boast, or even something he wanted the authorities to know, he wanted to get it off his chest.


all the best

Observer

[Sam Flynn]

Hi all,
The whole issue of the Sept 1888 double murder is a pivotal point in the whole mystery.

Hi Dr B

We know the answers, or at least one can provide some reasoned responses, to most of the questions you asked:

1. Why 2 murders in one night? -- a vexed subject on which there are many different opinions - and "Double Event" threads on which to discuss them.

2. Why walk or cart for a mile with a knife, some organs and a blood stained "rag" -- he didn't. The distance from Mitre Square to Goulston Street is rather less than a third of a mile, and may be walked in a few minutes.

3. in the thick of east end mayhem? -- from what we can tell of police accounts, the area around Goulston and Wentworth Streets doesn't seem to have been too busy that night, which is understandable given the hour and the wet weather.

4. What fortune a pc comes along - finds the rag in the stairway among all the other rubbish -- it's debatable whether the entrance would have had much other rubbish in it. Not for nothing were these places called "model" dwellings - there were strict codes of decorum that residents had to observe, or face eviction. Good management of rubbish and litter were among them, if the rule book of the contemporary Rothschild Dwellings in nearby Flower & Dean Street was anything to go by.

5. and links this with a funny message on the wall and a murder only a few hours earlier a mile away -- well, the apron and the message were found in the same entrance-way, and the distances are less than one might imagine - neither of the night's murders were a mile away (Berner Street was the furthest from Goulston Street, but then only approximately a half mile).

6. was [PC Long] the real inspiration for sherlock holmes?? -- Conan Doyle wrote his first Holmes book in 1887, so sadly not. I'm not so sure Sherlock would have been flattered by the comparison either!

7. Who lived in those flats where the message was left and were they interviewed? -- mostly Jewish immigrants and their families. And, yes, it seems that all of the residents were subsequently questioned by the police.

8. Then Warren legs down town and rubs the message off pronto ! why? -- he made it clear that the apparent anti-semitic tone of the message, and its proximity to an undoubted Ripper clue (the apron) might have caused a breach of the peace. In short, Warren ordered it to be erased because he feared an anti-semitic riot, which was unsurprising given the racial tensions in that area generally, which had arguably become heightened by the Leather Apron scare.

9. he could not have broken a coded message that quick. -- he didn't have to. He believed it to be overtly anti-semitic, or at least he didn't wait to agonise over whether it was or wasn't.

10. Why not write above the dead body if message was to be delivered to police? Why write in an obscure stairwell and leave the "rag" - was this a message for someone in the flats ? a kind of boast? -- we've yet to have "closure" on those particular questions. Hence this thread