ripper lore

[Tom_Wescott]

Stewart Evans has not agreed to work with 'Pirate Jack' on his next 'Ripper' publication!

I should think not. PJ already has to split his royalties with Keith Skinner and Martin Fido.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom and Graham,

Doctor John Rees Gabe, one of the seven medicos at Millers Court, was "surgeon to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Young Children" [Times, 29th March 1888]. He went on to become a Divisional Police Surgeon.

Sam Flynn insists he was rubbernecking—you know, just popped in out of professional curiosity—but he viewed the body and was interviewed afterwards.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Simon,

But he was there in his capacity as a surgeon. Had a child been there, they wouldn't have called a surgeon, they would have called a matron. It seems you're making mountains out of molehills here.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Stephen Thomas]

Tom, baby

You seem to be 'losing it' in front of an international audience.

Get smart.

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom, baby

You seem to be 'losing it' in front of an international audience.

Get smart.

Excuse me?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Any one of dozens upon dozens of surgeons could have been called to Millers Court.

Why him? Why Gabe? Why a surgeon from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Young Children?

We dismiss the Kelly child story because . . . ? Because we don't know a tenth of what was really going on in Millers Court. We only pretend we do.

Regards,

Simon

[Stephen Thomas]

*Eddowes is not known to have been arrested while impersonating a fire engine. This is a later myth.
* Albert Bachert was never informed that the Ripper had drowned himself in the Thames.
* Abberline did not think the Ripper was one of the 'highest in the land', as reported by Nigel Morland of the old Criminologist journal. Abberline thought Jack was George Chapman the poisoner.
* Mary Kelly did not have a kid.
* AP Wolf is not a woman.
* Jack the Ripper was not left-handed.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Sort of that sort of thing

Had a coupla beers didya?

[DaveMc]

* Albert Bachert was never informed that the Ripper had drowned himself in the Thames.

* Jack the Ripper was not left-handed.

There you go, Tom.
I know it puts you in the awful position of proving a negative,
but just suffice with explaining what those two are based on.

How do we say what Bachert was or was not told?

The same for left hand, right hand. How would we know?

Most of the ones you're pulling out are great. Especially Catherine imitating a fire engine. In a way, I wish that one were true.

[Tom_Wescott]

Stephen Thomas has me dead to rights. I'm afraid I cannot prove that AP Wolf is not a woman. However, the medical evidence alone rules out the Ripper as having been left handed. The only reason that myth got started is because of Dr. Llewellen in Buck's Row, who eventually admitted he was wrong.

The Bachert story is patently false because the newspaper report that was it's supposed source does not exist, and also because Bachert himself continued to offer theories and hunt the Ripper for YEARS after he was allegedly told the tale.

If I'm out of my head on this stuff, then so is literally every other poster but you guys, cuz this stuff I'm posting is common knowledge.

Simon,

Who said they asked him to come? I mean, seven doctors. Come on. Every surgeon wanted to be involved in a Ripper murder.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Extending your argument, we have to ask why there weren't fifty seven doctors in Millers Court, all there out of professional curiosity. Gabe lived in Mecklenburgh Square and worked out of 7 Harpur Street, both addresses in Bloomsbury. How did Gabe learn about the murder in time to get there around 2.00 pm? What made him drop everything and head for Whitechapel? And if there wasn't a child involved, what special expertise could he have brought to the proceedings?

If what we know about Millers Court is all there is to know, then I might agree with you. But it ain't. Nowhere near. We've only guessed at the scenario based on the shakiest of timings and testimony from a selected group of witness.

In fact, the biggest and most bogus piece of Ripper lore is that the C5 Whitechapel murders played out in exactly the way we have been told.

Regards,

Simon

[Roy Corduroy]

Sam Flynn insists he was rubbernecking—

Ah, so that's where Sam has been. Thank you.

Roy

[DaveMc]

The Bachert story is patently false because the newspaper report that was it's supposed source does not exist, and also because Bachert himself continued to offer theories and hunt the Ripper for YEARS after he was allegedly told the tale.

I would expect Bachert to forward more theories since he's not said to have believed what he was told.

Are you doubting that McCormick ever read Dutton's writing and that McCormick just invented it's existence?

[kensei]

When it comes to false "lore," the biggest one of all has got to be the popular notion that the Ripper dressed in a tophat and cape and carried a gladstone bag. Also--

In addition to not having a child living with her, Mary Kelly was not pregnant.

Prince Edward Albert Victor was not a suspect at the time of the murders- it was years later that he was named as one.

Frederick Abberline was not a drunk of a drug addict.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Simon,
I am in entire agreement with you, I have never understood how we can disregard the possibility that a child may have been staying with Mary at least during that week.
We have folk law which has a boy being taken to a neighbours on the evening of the 8th.
We also have the well known quote allegedly spoken by Mjk ' I cant see my boy starving' .
We also have a quote from Barnett 'She had a boy six or seven staying with her'.
But alas rather like the accounts from Mrs Maxwell , and Maurice Lewis, they have all been taken as mistaken identity.
I do not go with that, infact I would say that if a boy was present, his identity would have been protected at all costs.
Rather like the youth at millers court interviewed by Inspector Dew... oops sorry Indian harry.. a man that looked many years younger then he was obviously?
Regards Richard.

[Graham]

What I would say regarding the possible presence of a child living at 13 Millers Court, is that in those far-off days children were not placed on a pedestal as objects of worship as they are these days, and that had there been such a child then the chances are that the authorities wouldn't have been all that concerned one way or the other. I would honestly doubt if a doctor specialising in the welfare of children would have been specifically called out to the scene, particularly as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Young Children had been formed only a couple of years previously, and very likely wouldn't have figured in the modus operandii of your average copper.

I would also suggest that had there been a child at 13 Millers Court, then the tabloid press of the day would have at least mentioned it in passing.

Graham