Where was Jack the Ripper's payment? How much did Mary Jane Kelly charge?

[Ben]

Agreed, Garry.

The above would also apply to the Star report from 15th November, which described Hutchinson's account as "another story now discredited". Pulling the plug on a story that still had plenty of journalistic mileage - and claiming falsely that the police had ditched it - made no sense whatsoever.

The same report also dismissed Packer as having peddled a "worthless story", but for some reason people don't "dismiss" that dismissal as they do with Hutchinson's. Strange, that!

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

Invention? I thought the police were supposed to have lied to the Echo, who then unwittingly published these lies and inflicted them on the public? Or were they were merely “speculating”, as you previously insisted?

As I've said on previous occasions, Ben, dismissing what at the time was considered to have been a stellar witness would have done nothing for the Echo's credibility or circulation. It makes no sense whatsoever. Had someone at the Echo sought to peddle misinformation it seems far more likely that this would have related to something that Hutchinson had purportedly seen or heard whilst watching Kelly and Astrakhan - in other words, something with the whiff of sensationalism about it. But to kill a story that potentially still had plenty of mileage left in it strikes me as beyond absurd.

[Ben]

Hi Observer,

I would have to include the only reliable press sketch of Hutchinson, which depicts a shortish, stoutish man wearing a billycock or wideawake hat - and is thus a good "match" for Lewis's description. It remains a possibility that she saw someone other than Hutchinson, but such is the striking similarity between her sighting and his "admitted" behaviour, that is must be considered an exceptionally remote one, in my opinion.

Jon'll back me up on this!

All the best,
Ben

[Observer]

Hi Ben

Other than Hutchinson's "admittance", for want of a better word, that it was he whom Sarah Lewis saw loitering in the vicinity of Millers Court at 2:30 a.m. on the morning of the 9th November what other evidence do we have that it was indeed him ?

Regards

Observer

[Ben]

“Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

Great advice, but you don’t seem very willing to take it on board.

Whenever you repeat the same nonsense over and over, I will counter-repeat, using the very same points that I used to extirpate the nonsense the first time. Sometimes I’ll word myself differently, but at other times I won’t bother; I’ll just visit the archives and copy-and-paste my original response. I don’t expect it to produce “different results” on you when I do this. I’m not trying to convince you of anything; I know all too well that you won’t allow yourself to be convinced by anything that doesn’t point towards an educated, well-dressed gentleman being Jack the Ripper. But I don’t enjoy the keyboard-warrior approach – in which the warrior repeats himself ad infinitum and hopes that his opponent gets bored enough or exhausted enough to stop responding – and it certainly won’t work against me.

“Well, Hutchinson had already done that, he had repeated the story to a Central News reporter that he saw the deceased in Comm. St with a man aged 34-35, etc. Which repeated the same details as the 'unnamed' source had provided thereby informing every reader that he was the unnamed source.
This story first appeared in the morning papers of the 14th so the public had known all day that both sources had come from the named individual, it was no revelation by the time the Echo went to print in the evening.
Like I keep telling you, it was public knowledge.”

No, it wasn’t.

A casual observer could easily have assumed that two separate people had seen the same individual, and that the two descriptions were “virtually” the same because the person being described was wearing the same clothes. The police would not have been anxious for it to become “public knowledge” that a description that they had been responsible for circulating had “proceeded from the same source” as an entirely unsanctioned press interview, which contained numerous embellishments. On the contrary, they would have sought to distance themselves from the 14th November account. The relevant point, which you keep trying to bury in more and more rubble, is that the police imparted accurate information to the Echo after receiving them at Commercial Street police station. Would they then publish lies about the reason for Hutchinson’s “very reduced importance”, knowing full well that the consequence of such action would have been an embargo on any future audiences with the police? The answer is absolutely no way.

...Like I keep telling you.

“Is this a juvenile inner self coming to the fore?”

Not at all. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have been honest and admitted that you had forgotten that Kennedy’s evidence appeared in the Evening News on the 10th, as opposed to pretending you knew all about it, but wanted to “see how I would handle it”.

"Although no evidence was produced at the inquest as to her having left her room after one o'clock, at which time she was heard singing, the police have obtained statements from several person's who reside in Millers Court that she was out of her house and in Dorset Street between two and three o'clock; and it appears almost certain that her life was taken about the last-named hour".
Source: The Press Association - 14th Nov. 1888.”

That whole article is nonsense, as we’ve discussed before. I always felt sorry for some of those further-away newspapers that had to rely on “telegrams” – essentially fag-ends from London which ranged from the distinctly unreliable to the provably false. Let’s see what else the article has to say: “It is conclusively proved that Kelly having spent the greater part of Friday evening in the Britannia Publichouse, at the corner of Dorset street, returned home about midnight with a strange an whose company she had previously been keeping.” – Do you agree with that? Exactly, it’s nonsense. Had there been any suggestion that “Mrs. Kennedy” knew Kelly personally and was the last person to see her alive, she would unquestionably have appeared at the inquest.

“Funny.... I could have sworn someone on here asserted till he was blue in the face that the Echo had a "special" relationship with the police.

Pff, I must'a been dreaming.”

I guess you must’a been.

Because I certainly never used the word “special” in the context of the Echo’s relationship with the police.

I’m pretty sure I only drew attention to the basic reality that sometimes the police supply some information to some journalists. The fact that the police were adopting a tight-lipped attitude at one stage of the investigation does mean that they would never discuss any case-related information at any stage thereafter, and nor does it preclude them from going back to tight-lipped again after that.

Complicated stuff, obviously.

You’ll notice that in neither of the articles you quoted were the Echo remotely critical of the police for not disclosing information at that stage.

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Jon.

“Ah, “in the fullness of time”, and “the faith placed in them by senior officials”. So not what the press indulged themselves with throughout the spate of the murders, and not official police documents penned at the time of the murders?”

I’m simply saying that the reported discounting of Hutchinson’s statement – which occurred shortly after his initial visit to the police station, as faithfully related in a source that makes clear the fact that they obtained their information from the police – correlates very well indeed with the absence of any reference to Hutchinson or his statement in the not-so-very-much-later documents written by senior police officials. I suggest, as many students have the case have argued before, that this was not a coincidence.

If you’re expecting an "official police document" to be written and shared with the public every time a self-proclaimed witness gets ditched, you’re not being very imaginative (again). Anyway, how do you know that wasn’t such a document that “unfortunately hasn’t survived”? How do you know it wasn’t one of those conveniently “lost reports” that you keep trying to invoke whenever you’re challenged to provide evidence for a document which you insist “must have” existed at some point?

Speaking of highly questionable invocations, you have made several claims regarding Hargrave Adam that I doubt you will be able to substantiate.

Where is the evidence that Adam was ever on “very friendly and personal terms” with Abberline? They can’t have been on any terms at all in 1914; otherwise the former would have made reference to Klosowski and the Pall Mall Gazette interview. He corresponded with Anderson at that time, and discussed his conflict with Henry Smith over the identity and ethnicity of the killer, but never once mentioned Abberline or his advocacy of Klosowski. Your suggestion, therefore, that he obtained the Hutchinson description from a “very friendly” Abberline prior to 1914 is impossible nonsense. He can’t have done, or else he would have known all about Kloswoski and enthused expansively on the subject, as he was years later to do.

I encourage anyone who might have been led astray by Jon’s inaccurate claims to read the relevant chapter from “Police Work From Within” (1914) in full here:

http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.policework.html

Adam demonstrably had no contact with Abberline on the subject of witness descriptions - and probably no contact at with him at all - in 1914. His inclusion of the Hutchinson description in his ripper chapter was neither suggested nor endorsed by Abberline. So what was it doing there? Well, I think we can guess. Adam tells us that the complexion of the man Hutchinson described was “dark”, which wouldn’t be true if he was using the actual police statementas his source, which described the complexion as "pale". Evidently therefore, he was using the only source for a "dark-complexioned" Astrakhan, which was Hutchinson’s press interview, available to anyone and everyone. Suffice to say, the quoted description was not accompanied by any suggestion from the author that it was endorsed by the police. Whose words are you using, by the way, when you describe Astrakhan man as the “final officially acknowledged description of the killer”? I can’t find it anywhere in any of the sources you referenced, and I have a disquieting suspicion that those words are yours only.

When Adam referred to Hutchinson’s description again in 1930, following the death of Abberline, he simply repeated what he had written in 1914, which was based not on police opinion, but a newspaper article from 1888. Your claim that the Klosowski-Astrakhan comparsion was “Abberline's theory, not the theory of the writer”, is thus utterly devoid of any substance.

“No fear of that, there never was a claim by police that Hutchinson had been discredited.
The privacy of all suspects is to be respected by the police until they are charged with something. Which includes dismissing certain journalists with lies and misinformation.”

…Which these “certain journalists” then feed to the public, accepting them to be true because they were obtained from the police? So, if a member of the public spots Astrakhan-the-ripper, but doesn’t alert the nearest policeman because he had just read in the papers that the police no longer sought Astrakhan types, what then? Astrakhan the ripper gets away, that’s what; his trail grows cold, and all thanks to the criminally stupid and absurdly illogical antics that you suggest the police adopted.

Or, OR, for slightly more sane explanation; the police felt comfortable informing the Echo that Astrakhan man had been discredited because it was true.

“Journalistic inventions like,..”Another story now discredited, etc.” you mean, or the statement that....”..was considerably discounted because the statement of the informant had not been made at the inquest”.”

Invention? I thought the police were supposed to have lied to the Echo, who then unwittingly published these lies and inflicted them on the public? Or were they were merely “speculating”, as you previously insisted? That’s three entirely different, but equally bad excuses for dismissing the Echo article. I do wish you would just pick one, and make up your mind. When people invent things, they generally do so for a good reason, but there was no reason – good or otherwise – for claiming falsely that yet another witness had been discarded. Nothing could be less juicy or less sensational, and it wouldn’t even have made the police look “bad”, if that was their motive. On the contrary, it would have highlighted their proactivity and unwillingness to accept a statement without proper “investigation”.

“It may not have dawned on you that the Central News was one of the preferred agencies used by Scotland Yard & the Met. to release official police communications to the media.”

And it may not have dawned on you – in fact I’m certain it hasn’t – that the relationship between the police and the Central News was actually rather fraught, with the latter often acting against the wishes of the former. This was especially true in the case of Hutchinson, where Central News published an interview with Hutchinson, clearly in conflict with the police’s intentions, and including lots of extra material that was absent from the original statement. You might also wish to visit the link Garry provided, where the Central News’s less-than-stellar reputation is alluded to.

You can persist for however long you wish in the obvious delusion that the police never exhibit a preferential treatment towards some newspapers or journalists over others, just as you can persist in the delusion that police indiscretions never occur, or that the press never receive case-related information, or that politicians never lie, or that your poo never stinks, but you would still be wrong on all counts.

[Ben]

I'm pretty sure both appear in the statement taken by Sgt Badham and counter-signed by Abberline.

Yep, just as Packer's name appears in his statement, and Violenia's in his.

[Wickerman]

The Echo complained about the police telling them nothing....

[I]..... since we know full well that they didn't complain after mid-November, after their appetite for police information had been satiated.

Well, lets take a look at the Echo from Dec 24th 1888.
The murder in Clark's Yard.

Inspector Wildey and detectives under his direction are making searching inquiries to-day respecting the mysterious crime committed at Clark's Yard, and certain evidence which the police will not divulge, tends to show.....etc.

(Re: evidence pointing to a sailor..) This fact, coupled with other incidents which have transpired, are considered by the authorities as of an important character, though the police are naturally reticent on the subject..."

In another paragraph they report having to obtain their information from witnesses in the immediate area of the crime.

Funny.... I could have sworn someone on here asserted till he was blue in the face that the Echo had a "special" relationship with the police.

Pff, I must'a been dreaming.

[Wickerman]

There's plenty of evidence, as I've just illustrated for the umpteeth time, and as I'm prepared to repeat for so much longer than you're capable of persisting, fruitlessly and boringly, to the contrary.

Until you learn what constitutes "evidence", I'm afraid you may very well resign yourself to repetition.

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

In other words, expecting your verbal repetition to suddenly sound convincing may fall under that definition.

They were reporting on what the "authorities" had told them - whether they were doing so truthfully or as part of some exercise in utterly pointless inventon is for you to decide, but "speculation" doesn't come into it.

I have no issue with the Echo approaching Commercial St. Stn. What the police did was merely confirm that both stories came from the same source.
Well, Hutchinson had already done that, he had repeated the story to a Central News reporter that he saw the deceased in Comm. St with a man aged 34-35, etc. Which repeated the same details as the 'unnamed' source had provided thereby informing every reader that he was the unnamed source.
This story first appeared in the morning papers of the 14th so the public had known all day that both sources had come from the named individual, it was no revelation by the time the Echo went to print in the evening.
Like I keep telling you, it was public knowledge.

Yeah right, Jon - 'course you did.

Is this a juvenile inner self coming to the fore?

In which case, thank you Mrs. Kennedy!

"Although no evidence was produced at the inquest as to her having left her room after one o'clock, at which time she was heard singing, the police have obtained statements from several person's who reside in Millers Court that she was out of her house and in Dorset Street between two and three o'clock; and it appears almost certain that her life was taken about the last-named hour".
Source: The Press Association - 14th Nov. 1888.

Consistent with what Mrs Kennedy told the press, only she apparently was not the only one who saw Kelly.

Yes Ben, you are indeed indebted to Mrs Kennedy.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,
I haven't written a single word about - less still invested any significance in - the presence or otherwise of witnesses' names "in the press every week". I have been discussing the treatment of those witnesses in the fullness of time; the faith ultimately placed in them by senior investigators, and the roles they played - if any - in attempting to identify suspects. Hutchinson's suspect, if real, could not possibly have provided an alibi. He was the most likely suspect in the Kelly murder, adjudged to be the work of the ripper, and yet neither Hutchinson's name nor his description appear in any document penned by a senior police official.

Hello Ben.

Ah, “in the fullness of time”, and “the faith placed in them by senior officials”. So not what the press indulged themselves with throughout the spate of the murders, and not official police documents penned at the time of the murders?
So you are still promoting the recollections and memoirs of those officials penned long after the murders had ended.
Recollections of the sort you criticized as “Dew spew”, at one time.

Remember Hargrave Lee Adam?,
Not a police official but a well respected crime historian who was on very friendly and personal terms with several police officials, namely Anderson, Warren and Macnaghten, and Fred. G. Abberline. So much so that he was able to put their experiences and beliefs in writing.
You have no doubt heard of his extremely informative, The Police Encyclopedia, and for the sake of this exchange, The Trial of George Chapman.

H. L. Adam when writing his, Police Work from Within, 1914, included the final officially acknowledged description of the killer:
“A description of a man with whom the deceased was seen early on the morning of the 9th was given by a man who knew Kelly well. The description was as follows " Respectable appearance. Height 5 ft. 6 in., age between thirty-four and thirty-five, dark complexion and moustache curled at ends ; wearing dark coat with astrachan trimmings, black necktie, horseshoe pin, dark gaiters, light buttons on boots ; massive gold chain."

A man in Adam's position was sufficiently connected with police officials to know whether the final description had been dismissed due to certain doubts harbored by police against the witness - Hutchinson.
No such doubts existed.

Then, sixteen years later when writing about Abberline's suspect for his book, The Trial of George Chapman, 1930, Adam's included the same final witness description:
“Here is his description of the man "Respectable appearance; height, 5 feet 6 inches, and age between 34 and 35; wearing dark coat with astrachan trimmings, - black necktie, horse-shoe pin, dark gaiters, light buttons on boots, and massive gold watch chain."

Within the same book, a chart of comparative details between Jack the Ripper and George Chapman were listed, we read:
“Description given of the man seen with the woman Kelly: "Height, 5 ft. 6in.; age, 34 or 35; dark complexion, with moustache curled at ends."

“This is a most faithful description of Chapman.”

This, once again is Abberline's theory, not the theory of the writer. Abberline had passed away in 1929, just one year before this book was published.

You've yet to explain the logic of the police supposedly "giving the reporters the brush-off in an attempt to steer them away from the Isaacs/Astrachan investigation"......
secondly, have you considered the potentially dire conaequences of employing such reckless and senseless subterfuge? What if the general public, lulled into a false sense of security by the “false” claim that Hutchinson’s story was discredited,..

No fear of that, there never was a claim by police that Hutchinson had been discredited.
The privacy of all suspects is to be respected by the police until they are charged with something. Which includes dismissing certain journalists with lies and misinformation.

It really amazes me how you can be so comfortable with elaborate, pointless ploys involving the police lying to the press,

It is well proven to be the case.

.....and yet can’t seem to get your head around the basic concept of journalistic invention and embellishment.

Journalistic inventions like,..”Another story now discredited, etc.” you mean, or the statement that....”..was considerably discounted because the statement of the informant had not been made at the inquest”.

Such basic journalistic inventions have been known to form the basis of theories promoted by those who sadly do not know any better.

Use your imagination....

No, I'm sorry Ben, you have cornered the market on imagination I'm afraid.

Why do some press sources receive preferential treatment over others? What was so special about Tom Bulling that he received more inside information than rival journalists? Because they had a better reputation, perhaps? Because they weren’t known for adopting a hostile stance towards the police’s efforts? Because some senior police figure felt he could rely on a particular press figure, because they were both members of the same ornithological society?

Who, at the Echo was the equivalent of Tom Bulling?

It may not have dawned on you that the Central News was one of the preferred agencies used by Scotland Yard & the Met. to release official police communications to the media.
In this respect the figure of Tom Bulling being given “preferential treatment” can be seen to be solely as part of his function in this business arrangement. Official communication from the authorities had to go through someone at the Central News, that figure was most likely Bulling given his position at the agency.

So I ask again, who (for goodness sakes) at the Echo could have been the equivalent of Tom Bulling..

All you need to appreciate is that it happens in real life all the time, and it certainly happened in this case.

And there's your imagination shifting into overdrive again...
YOU, say so, not exactly the voice of authority, and certainly not a reliable source.

[Bridewell]

and yet neither Hutchinson's name nor his description appear in any document penned by a senior police official.

I'm pretty sure both appear in the statement taken by Sgt Badham and counter-signed by Abberline.

[Ben]

All the best, Jon.

I get cross with the nonsense, but I still wish you the best.

But more importantly, congratulations to Scott on his 1000th post!

[Scott Nelson]

What happened to "All the best"?

[Ben]

It makes no difference how we speculate as to why Abberline mentioned the sighting by Mrs Long, we cannot possibly know the reason.

Yes, we can.

Abberline couldn't have made the "reason" any clearer; he was attempting to illustrate how well Klosowski's appearance corresponded to the known eyewitness evidence, and made reference to Elizabeth Long's foreign-looking man accordingly - not Hutchinson's. Why not? Why exclude the star witness of them all; the one who provided not only the "best" sighting in terms of detail and proximity, but the most favourable of all to the Klosowski theory - lightyears ahead of Long's?

You claim that Abberline neglected to "use" Lawende's sighting as "the reference" for any potential Kosowski-ripper comparison, forgetting perhaps that his reference to the killer wearing a "P&O" cap makes very clear the fact the he considered Lawende an important witness. The fact that he got the suspect's estimated age wrong is utterly trivial - it is perfectly understandable detail to forget. The same cannot be said of all details concerning the most important witness unearthed by the entire investigation, which Hutchinson unquestionably would have been, had he not been discredited.

We have the same question with Hutchinson, yet Abberline's mention of the age range between "35-40" is clearly influenced by Hutchinson's description. No other suspect described by either Lawende, Schwartz, PC Smith, or Mrs Long gave "35" as the age estimate - only Hutchinson.

Wrong.

Mrs. Cox estimated her suspect's age at 36, meeting Abberline's age criterion perfectly.

Abberline can't have been the slightest bit "influenced by Hutchinson's description" if he "forgot" that his dream witness had stared straight into his suspect's dark-moustachioed, Klosowski-resembling mug. You're suggesting he remembered the age, but not this?

As for your argument that Abberline did not use him as the reference because he came to disbelieve Hutchinson at some point, this only works if the doubt came immediately after Nov. 12th.

The police as a collective certainly harboured doubts at that stage. I can't speak for Abberline personally, but the authorities had already attached a "very reduced importance" to Hutchinson's story by the evening of the 13th. The Echo visited Commercial Street police station the following day and there ascertained two important details: a) that the 13th November unattributed press account "proceeds from the same source" as Hutchinson's 14th November press interview, and b) that the story had been "considerably discounted". Since confirmation of (a) was only obtainable from the police, it follows that the Echo could not have been lying about approaching the them directly, and that the police, in turn, were very unlikely to have lied about (b).

Is it a "coincidence" that the above would perfectly explain the absence of Hutchinson from any senior police interview, report or memoir after 1888? Is it a "coincidence" that it would perfectly explain the use of a Jewish witness in subsequent identity attempts? Is it a "coincidence" that it would perfectly explain the total lack of evidence of Astrakhan men being actively sought after mid-November?

In the absence of proof that Hutchinson lied, I don't doubt that "some of the authorities" may have wondered if it might have been premature to lump him in with Packer, Violenia et al. But in what respect did these intrepid "some" influence the direction of the investigation?

But this is a dead-end argument as there has never been any evidence of the police discrediting Hutchinson at any time - it remains where it began, purely as press conjecture.

There's plenty of evidence, as I've just illustrated for the umpteeth time, and as I'm prepared to repeat for so much longer than you're capable of persisting, fruitlessly and boringly, to the contrary. What irritates me is your mischaracterisation of the nature of the source. It's one thing to dream up crap excuses for dismissing the 13th November Echo article, but don't pretend the Echo themselves were "speculating", because they were doing nothing of the sort. They were reporting on what the "authorities" had told them - whether they were doing so truthfully or as part of some exercise in utterly pointless inventon is for you to decide, but "speculation" doesn't come into it.

The reality is, Abberline - if he harbored any doubts at all, could well have developed those doubts long after 1888.
After the arrest of Isaacs he was seemingly struck by the resemblance, but then as it turned out Isaacs had been in police custody over the night in question, then Abberline could easily have assumed Hutchinson was correct about the person, but incorrect about the date.
This was the conclusion mentioned by Dew, perhaps he got the idea from Abberline.

Please please reassure me that you're only foisting this lunacy onto Abberline and speculating that he might have subscribed to it, rather than you personally believing that Isaacs was Astrakhan, as observed by Hutchinson whose evidence was "incorrect about the date"? You still can't bear to relinquish "Isaacstrakhan", can you? Despite the fact that your own research finally confirmed what I had been arguing all along - that he was entirely unconnected to Kelly, Hutchinson or the murders. There is not the slightest shred of evidence that Abberline was ever, at any stage "struck by the resemblance" (that never was) between Isaacs and Astrakhan. There isn't even any indication that the utter rubbish attributed to Abberline in that single press article - "This is it, boys, we got 'im! OMG this is huge! Wow, this is mega! Mum's the word, eh? Don't let the press OVERHEAR US!!" - had anything to do with Astrakhan.

He was only 60 by 1903, but it is evident from his writings that his recollections were very selective, not too clear. As a result he makes for an unreliable source by this time.

So his actual recorded words are to be dismissed as "unreliable", whereas some air-headed, platitudinous guff that some journalist claimed to have overheard him say - that's to be treated as gospel, presumably? You call Abberline "selective", but don't explain why he didn't "select" the one piece of evidence that would have aided his cause better than any other.

Abberline wrote, "foreign-looking", not a "foreigner".

Right, so your explanation for Abberline making no reference at all to star witness Hutchinson, who had a face-to-face encounter with a foreign-looking man is...?

No, I intentionally left that door open for you to see how you handled it.

Yeah right, Jon - 'course you did.

You didn't simply forget the source yourself; no, you were laying a cunning trap to see if I would fall into it, like a mean old spider to a fly.

If you think Dorset St. was awash with rumors of a "scream of murder" then you only have Mrs Kennedy to thank for this.

In which case, thank you Mrs. Kennedy!

Thank you for doing a nice big poo on Jon's exceptionally poor and ill-conceived argument that hapless, gormless Bowyer gave a statement to the police that was based not on what he had actually seen, but rather on that which he had read in the papers - rumour, gossip, and hearsay. In this respect he was aided, or rather not aided, by Abberline's abysmal failure to ensure that witnesses provided their own timeline, rather than allowing their statements to be coloured by erroneous external factoids.

I'm particularly indebted to you, Mrs. Kennedy, for stating that the cry of "murder" occurred between 3.30 and 4.00. Obviously Bowyer, who trawled through the press to determine which pieces of his own evidence he ought to alert the police or inquest about (without any help or guidance from the police), would have read about your "scream" and realised the significance of his alleged 3.00am sighting.

Is there anything in the Evening News article that would have reassured Bowyer that the "scream" was either definitely nonsense or definitely heard prior to his sighting? No, there isn't, so the idea that a press-sifting Bowyer remained ignorant of the "scream" and its potential significance remains nonsense.

Typical of the vague nature of the evidence at that time

Yes, it's almost as if we shouldn't be reviving the very worst of it as gospel, isn't it?

[Wickerman]

But why was it "entirely aimed at Mrs Long"?

Why bother referencing "Mrs Long" at all when he had the opportunity to wheel out the Hutch-bombshell in "support" of Klososwki's candidacy?

It makes no difference how we speculate as to why Abberline mentioned the sighting by Mrs Long, we cannot possibly know the reason.

If Lawende was the "best" of the group (ref: his later involvement in I.D.'s) then Abberline should have used him as the reference, yet he didn't.
Lawende should have been Abberline's witness of choice, but he wasn't.

We have the same question with Hutchinson, yet Abberline's mention of the age range between "35-40" is clearly influenced by Hutchinson's description. No other suspect described by either Lawende, Schwartz, PC Smith, or Mrs Long gave "35" as the age estimate - only Hutchinson.

As for your argument that Abberline did not use him as the reference because he came to disbelieve Hutchinson at some point, this only works if the doubt came immediately after Nov. 12th.

The reality is, Abberline - if he harbored any doubts at all, could well have developed those doubts long after 1888.
After the arrest of Isaacs he was seemingly struck by the resemblance, but then as it turned out Isaacs had been in police custody over the night in question, then Abberline could easily have assumed Hutchinson was correct about the person, but incorrect about the date.
This was the conclusion mentioned by Dew, perhaps he got the idea from Abberline.

Regardless, Abberline "could" have developed doubts at any time between Dec 6th 1888 and 1903, your argument depends on Abberline having these doubts before Nov 15th 1888 - and for this there is no evidence whatsoever.
In fact the Echo is still promoting the idea that some "authorities" are still behind Hutchinson and his Astrachan suspect on Nov 19th. So clearly there had been no discrediting by police before that date.
But this is a dead-end argument as there has never been any evidence of the police discrediting Hutchinson at any time - it remains where it began, purely as press conjecture.

The division of the "authorities" into two camps alluded to by the Echo reflects the belief at the time that the City police and Met. police were divided in their pursuit of two different suspects. In reality, hardly likely at all.

Your brand new theory seems to be that Abberline was a forgetful old duffer by 1903;...

He was only 60 by 1903, but it is evident from his writings that his recollections were very selective, not too clear. As a result he makes for an unreliable source by this time.
As with all the police officials, better stay with their writings made at the time of the murders.

While it is true that he made no mention of the man having a foreign appearance, it is possible that the police concluded for other reasons that the ripper was "foreign".

Is it really?, perhaps you care to help us all understand how they could possibly have achieved this.

Indeed, if events occurred as Anderson related, Lawende may have identified Kosmisnki without realising he was a "Polish Jew".

Being a foreigner, and looking like a foreigner are not the same.
Abberline wrote, "foreign-looking", not a "foreigner".
The Lawende suspect was not "foreign looking", whether he was foreign or not is immaterial.

Why, your favourite "witness" Mrs. Kennedy, of course! Don't tell me you've forgotten all about her?

No, I intentionally left that door open for you to see how you handled it. If you think Dorset St. was awash with rumors of a "scream of murder" then you only have Mrs Kennedy to thank for this.

Only Mrs Kennedy mentioned 3:30-4:00 am, the other source indicates 2:00 am.

One woman (as reported below) who lives in the court stated that at about two o'clock she heard a cry of "Murder." This story soon became popular, until at last half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience. Each story contradicted the others with respect to the time at which the cry was heard.
Star 10 Nov.

The press made it quite clear that the stories told to them were to be dismissed, and Bowyer can be sure the man he saw appeared after those screams, but before the time given by Mrs Kennedy.
Typical of the vague nature of the evidence at that time. Screams continued to be heard from 2-4 o'clock, or at least that is how the press convey the situation, consequently the press dismissed the idea.
Nothing to arrest the suspicions of Bowyer, and in support of this we have Prater at the inquest saying she heard screams all the time, it didn't alarm her either.