Originally posted by NotBlamedForNothing
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It's Saturday. It's the end of the week, and it's also the end of the month. That's when people normally move if they are paying rent on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis. They don't want to get stuck paying extra.
The obviously implication is that the Schwartz's were moving at the end of the week/month, but there were complications. Maybe the house they were moving into hadn't been vacated yet, or there was some other hold-up.
Either way, Schwartz still had work or had other important business to attend to, away from the area, and couldn't be in contact with his wife on Saturday. So, away all day, he didn't know whether she had been able to make the move or not. Nothing at all unusual in that. People worked long hours.
Now it's 1 a.m. and Schwartz is walking down Commercial Road, wanting to go home...but he doesn't know where home is. Did his wife make the move or not? He doesn't know.
Despite the common wisdom, I strongly suspect that Schwartz's "new" lodgings were a good distance away. Aldgate? Or was it the other direction Limehouse? Or Mile-End?
Again, we don't know, but not wanting to walk all that way unnecessarily, Schwartz decides to first stop by his "old" lodgings in case his wife hadn't been able to make the move.
These were at 22 Ellen Street. Yes, he turned onto Berner Street, but that was only to get from Commerical Road to Ellen Street, which was just south of Berner.
But, of course, he ran into Jack the Ripper and the rest is history.
In any event, the proposed move was evidently delayed. That's why Swanson still lists Schwartz's address as 22 Helen Street [Ellen Street] at the time of his interview on Sunday night. He was still at his old lodgings.
It's even possible that Schwartz then moved away, and was lost in the bureaucratic shuffle. "**** happens," as they say, and the best witness the Met had was AWOL.
P.S. You mentioned "Sarah Schwartz" of 22 Back Church Lane. Unfortunately, she was almost certainly not related to Israel Schwartz. She came to the UK alone, was headed to America, and had no friends or relatives in London. I am fairly certain she sailed to America a few months after her horrific ordeal, though I still need to confirm it. The 22 Back Church Lane address was long gone by 1888, so it could not be associated with Schwartz.
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