The Absence Of Evidence

[FrankO]

Hi Frank,

Tower Bridge was still under construction in 1888 and not finished until 1894. So I think Louis D would have needed to use London Bridge, further west, but no doubt I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for that, Caz!

[erobitha]

No, not at all. All we have is the Star report and Swanson's later report. Anything else is speculation.

So if Swanson had not referenced Schwartz at a later date, how reliable a witness would people on here make him?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Did anyone ever find conclusive proof Israel Schwartz lived at the addresses claimed by Swanson? I am unaware we can even safely declare him as Hungarian

No, not at all. All we have is the Star report and Swanson's later report. Anything else is speculation.

[erobitha]

Most rooms came furnished back then, if you move house you're typically carrying your clothes that's about it.

Are we questioning where Swanson got this info from?
"12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen (Ellen) street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at that hour."..etc.

Did anyone ever find conclusive proof Israel Schwartz lived at the addresses claimed by Swanson? I am unaware we can even safely declare him as Hungarian

[Herlock Sholmes]

Right. How open was it? All we can go on is what Sarah (Mrs D) said:

The door had been, and still was, half open, and through the aperture the light from the gas jets in the kitchen was streaming out into the yard.

She appears to have been cooking up a storm at one in the morning.
I think we can infer that the door had been open for at least this period...

When my husband examined the body he found that life, so far as he could tell, was quite extinct. He at once sent for a policeman. He is positive that before entering the yard he did not see any man about the street. It was just one o'clock when my husband came home. Some twenty minutes previously a member of the club had entered by the side door, but he states that he did not then notice anybody lying prostrate in the yard. It was, however, very dark at the time, and he might, in consequence, have failed to see any such object on the ground.



It doesn't seem from the above quotes that any of these would have been the case. On the other hand, the passageway ran right through the club (inside that is, not the laneway), so there seems to have been a backdoor. So three doors in total. Who might have used the backdoor, unknown to Sarah?
Note that in the previous quote, the member referred to is Eagle. Why doesn't she see Lave?
I think Eagle left though the front door, which is why he tried that door on his return.



Someone going to the loo, like the little boy in the Irish Times report...?

About five minutes to one o'clock this morning a youth about twenty years of age named Joseph Koster was accosted by a little boy who came running up to him as he was passing on the opposite side of 40 Berner street, used by the International Socialist Club, and told him that a woman was lying in the gateway next to the club, with her throat cut. Koster immediately ran across the road and saw a woman lying on her side in the gateway leading into Dutfield's stabling and van premises.

The report would make some sense if the little boy had lived in one of the tenements, but PC Lamb tells us that these people did not appear to know what had happened.
Thus we would seem to have a someone giving a bullshit discovery story.

Isn’t it reasonable to infer that the side door must have been closed at 12.45 when Mortis Eagle returned as he commented how dark the yard was therefor the door must have been opened between 12.45 and 1.00. Sarah D only mentions someone returning at 12.45 (which we can assume to have been Eagle.) Maybe she didn’t see anyone pass the kitchen to go to the back door after Eagle had returned. Or, as I said before, maybe she just opened the door herself for air. There’s no way of getting any further with this of course.

How do you get to 3 doors as opposed to 2?

[Wickerman]

Most rooms came furnished back then, if you move house you're typically carrying your clothes that's about it.

Are we questioning where Swanson got this info from?
"12.45 a.m. 30th. Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen (Ellen) street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at that hour."..etc.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Maybe my eyesight is failing me. I do not see the name of Israel Schwartz anywhere here. We have a report in one paper by one journalist claiming to describe what a witness apparently saw. By the 19th October we have a name and Swanson endorsing it. No police report. No physical appearance at the inquest.

I imagine journalists placing fake news in papers in order to get the 'scoop' never happened back then. Still, he became quite a convenient witness that never was from the police perspective.

I too, have wondered about the true identity of 'The Hungarian'.

I'm not alone ...

Did Israel Schwartz actually exist?

Did men not partake in moving lodgings back then?

Good question

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I only meant to add my own objections to the idea that he was 'having a lark'. I didn't accuse you of subscribing to it.

Sorry, I misunderstood. It's around Mitre Square time, where I live.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

PC Smith: "At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of 'Police'. When I got there I saw Constables 12 H. R and 252 H. I then saw the deceased..."

I take it you agree with me that there is nothing to see here?

Well I can't see a man on a pony-drawn cart, because he arrived about 15 minutes prior. Is that what you mean?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I'm not sure she was cooking anything. I assume she was referring to the gas jets that provided the lighting in the kitchen, where she had been making beverages for people.

That makes sense. So the lighting seems to have been for the benefit of both people in the kitchen, and people in the yard, for whatever reason they are there (presumably with one exception).

If that was the door to the outside lavatories, there must have been more comings and goings than appear on the record.

At least in Hanbury Street, we only know of one resident taken short around the time Chapman's body was discovered.

So what do you suppose are the chances of no one being in the yard (bar murderer and victim), for 20 minutes?
Yet we still need to get murderer and victim into the yard, and murderer out, in that 20 minutes, unseen by anyone.
That would seem to preclude the man with the parcel wrapped in newspaper, unless he enters with Stride before Fanny goes outside. But then where does he go immediately after the murder, unnoticed?

Whether Stride's killer was the ripper or not, he must have come pretty close to an inconvenient encounter with anyone using the conveniences.

Maybe he hid in one of the loos when Diemschitz went inside?

[caz]

You're quoting me out of context.
I go on to say "that explanation would seem to not cut the mustard".
I do not suppose Schwartz was having a lark, but some have proposed it.

I only meant to add my own objections to the idea that he was 'having a lark'. I didn't accuse you of subscribing to it.

[caz]

PC Smith: "At 1 o'clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round. I saw a crowd of people outside the gates of No. 40. I did not hear any cries of 'Police'. When I got there I saw Constables 12 H. R and 252 H. I then saw the deceased..."

I take it you agree with me that there is nothing to see here?

[c.d.]

Who among us hasn't had a lark at one time or another by going to a mortuary and pretending to identify a dead body?

c.d.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Yeah, must have been a real lark, putting himself that close to the crime scene at 12.45, then claiming to have been a right old cowardy custard, taking off in a blue funk and leaving this same poor woman in the deadly clutches of not one, but seemingly two Jewish thugs in cahoots.

You're quoting me out of context.
I go on to say "that explanation would seem to not cut the mustard".
I do not suppose Schwartz was having a lark, but some have proposed it.

[erobitha]

The original police report no longer exists.
Presumably you're familiar with the Star report, Oct 1...?

INFORMATION WHICH MAY BE IMPORTANT was given to the Leman-street police late yesterday afternoon by an Hungarian concerning this murder. This foreigner was well dressed, and had the appearance of being in the theatrical line. He could not speak a word of English, but came to the police-station accompanied by a friend, who acted as an interpreter. He gave his name and address, but the police have not disclosed them. A Star man, however, got wind of his call, and ran him to earth in Backchurch-lane. The reporter's Hungarian was quite as imperfect as the foreigner's English, but an interpreter was at hand, and the man's story was retold just as he had given it to the police. It is, in fact, to the effect that he SAW THE WHOLE THING.

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner-street to others in Backchurch-lane. When he came homewards about a quarter before one he first walked down Berner-street to see if his wife had moved. As he turned the corner from Commercial-road he noticed some distance in front of him a man walking as if partially intoxicated. He walked on behind him, and presently he noticed a woman standing in the entrance to the alley way where the body was afterwards found. The half-tipsy man halted and spoke to her. The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the passage, but, feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street. Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter, but just as he stepped from the kerb A SECOND MAN CAME OUT of the doorway of the public-house a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in this second man's hand, but he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently, to his new lodgings.

He described THE MAN WITH THE WOMAN as about 30 years of age, rather stoutly built, and wearing a brown moustache. He was dressed respectably in dark clothes and felt hat. The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other, but not so stout, and that his moustaches were red. Both men seem to belong to the same grade of society. The police have arrested one man answering the description the Hungarian furnishes. This prisoner has not been charged, but is held for inquiries to be made. The truth of the man's statement is not wholly accepted.

And the follow up mention the following day...

In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story. They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts.

Maybe my eyesight is failing me. I do not see the name of Israel Schwartz anywhere here. We have a report in one paper by one journalist claiming to describe what a witness apparently saw. By the 19th October we have a name and Swanson endorsing it. No police report. No physical appearance at the inquest.

I imagine journalists placing fake news in papers in order to get the 'scoop' never happened back then. Still, he became quite a convenient witness that never was from the police perspective.

Did men not partake in moving lodgings back then?