Pc Long and the piece of rag.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

DC Halse didn't notice there was a piece of apron missing until Eddowes' body had reached the mortuary [3.15-3.20 am].

PC Long, showing remarkable perspicacity, found the piece of apron which nobody knew was missing, at 2.55 am.

It ain't rocket science.

Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

DC Halse didn't notice there was a piece of apron missing until Eddowes' body had reached the mortuary [3.15-3.20 am].

PC Long, showing remarkable perspicacity, found the piece of apron which nobody knew was missing, at 2.55 am.

It ain't rocket science.

It may not be rocket science, Simon, but I must confess I don't understand the point you are making.

PC Long found a bloodstained apron in a passage and then about 20 minutes later it was noted at the mortuary that a portion of Eddowes' apron was missing. What significant fact am I missing here?

And why do you say that PC Long showed "remarkable perspicacity" in finding a bloodstained apron on his beat? A decent find certainly but why was it either remarkable or perspicacious?

I note that in your book, 'Deconstructing Jack', you say that PC Long showed "commendable perspicacity" in finding the apron. Should I be reading any significance here in the substitution of "commendable" for "remarkable"?

[Simon Wood]

Hi David,

Imagine you are PC Long. It is 2.55 am in Goulston Street. This is your first night [alone] on the beat in this unfamiliar district. You may or may not know at this time that two murders have taken place. You happen upon a piece of bloodstained material. You do not know if it is part of an apron, a crude sanitary device or, as this is a busy market street, perhaps a discarded piece of cloth used by a butcher to wipe down his barrow.

And yet, you display remarkable [commendable] perspicacity, and with this piece of unknown bloodstained material clutched like the holy grail to your breast, you head straight for Commercial Street police station, where you arrive at five or ten minutes past three, at which moment DC Halse has yet to notice that a piece of Eddowes' apron is missing. An Inspector exclaims, "Gadzooks, PC Long, you're really onto something," and you both rush off to Goulston Street to view a barely discernible piece of graffiti [three lines of writing in a good schoolboy's round hand, the size of the capital letters being about 3/4 in, with the other letters in proportion]. From there you go onto Leman Street police station, where you hand your treasured scrap of bloodstained material to Dr. Phillips, who eventually hands it to Dr. Brown, who, lo and behold, matches it to Eddowes' apron.

If you believe this story, I have a bridge to sell you.

Regards,

Simon

[David Orsam]

Hi David,

Imagine you are PC Long. It is 2.55 am in Goulston Street. This is your first night [alone] on the beat in this unfamiliar district. You may or may not know at this time that two murders have taken place. You happen upon a piece of bloodstained material. You do not know if it is part of an apron, a crude sanitary device or, as this is a busy market street, perhaps a discarded piece of cloth used by a butcher to wipe down his barrow.

And yet, you display remarkable [commendable] perspicacity, and with this piece of unknown bloodstained material clutched like the holy grail to your breast, you head straight for Commercial Street police station, where you arrive at five or ten minutes past three, at which moment DC Halse has yet to notice that a piece of Eddowes' apron is missing. An Inspector exclaims, "Gadzooks, PC Long, you're really onto something," and you both rush off to Goulston Street to view a barely discernible piece of graffiti [three lines of writing in a good schoolboy's round hand, the size of the capital letters being about 3/4 in, with the other letters in proportion]. From there you go onto Leman Street police station, where you hand your treasured scrap of bloodstained material to Dr. Phillips, who eventually hands it to Dr. Brown, who matches it to Eddowes' apron.

If you believe this story, I have a bridge to sell you.

I certainly don't believe that story Simon because it is evidently a work of fiction, with imaginative phrases such as "clutched like the holy grail to [his] breast" - which is something I'm sure PC Long never said he did - nor is any inspector recorded as saying "Gadzooks, PC Long, you're really onto something". And for some reason you have incorporated a visit with the inspector to view the writing on the wall before, you say, handing the apron to Dr Phillips at Leman Street Police Station, when, on my reading of Long's evidence, he clearly took the apron immediately upon discovery to Commercial Street Police Station and reported it to the inspector on duty.

Try and spin it as much as you like but all we have here is a constable finding a bloodstained piece of female clothing in a dark passage on his beat during a period of heightened alarm during the Jack the Ripper murders. "Seeing the blood there, I thought that the murder had been committed, and that the body might be placed in the building" said Long, hence the need to report his find to immediately to a senior officer.

To me, it's certainly not rocket science and requires no further explanation but I always do enjoy reading your little fantasies Simon.

[DirectorDave]

I've always considered the possibility that Jack used the rag to "sign" the Graffiti...

He stops to clean the knife or his hands, spots the graffiti and with a rye smile thinks "yeah I'm nicking that!" then drops the bloody rag.

[Simon Wood]

Hi David,

PC Long wrote on 6th November 1888—

"I arrived at the Station [Commercial Street] about five or ten minutes past three, and reported to the Inspector on duty finding the apron and writing.

"The Inspector at once proceeded to Goulston Street and inspected the writing.

"From there we proceeded to Leman St., and the apron was handed by the Inspector to a gentleman I have since learnt is Dr. Phillips.

"I then returned back on duty to Goulston Street at about 5."

Regards,

Simon

[Abby Normal]

Hi David,

Imagine you are PC Long. It is 2.55 am in Goulston Street. This is your first night [alone] on the beat in this unfamiliar district. You may or may not know at this time that two murders have taken place. You happen upon a piece of bloodstained material. You do not know if it is part of an apron, a crude sanitary device or, as this is a busy market street, perhaps a discarded piece of cloth used by a butcher to wipe down his barrow.

And yet, you display remarkable [commendable] perspicacity, and with this piece of unknown bloodstained material clutched like the holy grail to your breast, you head straight for Commercial Street police station, where you arrive at five or ten minutes past three, at which moment DC Halse has yet to notice that a piece of Eddowes' apron is missing. An Inspector exclaims, "Gadzooks, PC Long, you're really onto something," and you both rush off to Goulston Street to view a barely discernible piece of graffiti [three lines of writing in a good schoolboy's round hand, the size of the capital letters being about 3/4 in, with the other letters in proportion]. From there you go onto Leman Street police station, where you hand your treasured scrap of bloodstained material to Dr. Phillips, who eventually hands it to Dr. Brown, who, lo and behold, matches it to Eddowes' apron.

If you believe this story, I have a bridge to sell you.

Regards,

Simon

Or perhaps a copper found a blood stained piece of clothing where it shouldn't have been and brought it back to the station?

Nah. Tooooo far fetched.

[Robert St Devil]

London or Brooklyn? Hello, Simon.

Kinda damned if you don/don,t... if he treats the apron as rubbish, then he,s on the hook for negligence. PC Long may have valued duty over curiousity, and proceeded in the way he did.

But i can take away the ultimate question posed in your post: what alarmed PC Long that this was a piece of evidence connected with the murders?

In Orsam,s post, PC Long is saying ,,the murder,, and not ,,a murder,,. Was he under the belief that he may have found another murder? We have to consider that the PCs on duty that night shouldn,t have known how many dead women they were going to find.

[harry]

Long was not performing regular duties.He had been drafted in ,together with others,for a special purpose.Their duty,surveilance of the general area, with a view to investigate suspicious actions of males and females which might give a lead to the Ripper.So primarily,prostitutes and customers,plus lone males whose actions might be considered suspicious. People!
Of course evidence of other kinds would not be overlooked.
long would familiarise himself with the area on his fist round,and it's doubtful 2.20 w as his first,and as Monty e xplains,unless there was some special reason for entering Wentworth building,just pass on other occasions.
So the question that should have been asked was,'How can you be sure' (that the apron was not there at 2.20) It wasn't asked,and Long didn't volunteer a reason.So no,accepting that Long told the truth,is far from a good starting point.

[Fisherman]

Long was not performing regular duties.He had been drafted in ,together with others,for a special purpose.Their duty,surveilance of the general area, with a view to investigate suspicious actions of males and females which might give a lead to the Ripper.So primarily,prostitutes and customers,plus lone males whose actions might be considered suspicious. People!
Of course evidence of other kinds would not be overlooked.
long would familiarise himself with the area on his fist round,and it's doubtful 2.20 w as his first,and as Monty e xplains,unless there was some special reason for entering Wentworth building,just pass on other occasions.
So the question that should have been asked was,'How can you be sure' (that the apron was not there at 2.20) It wasn't asked,and Long didn't volunteer a reason.So no,accepting that Long told the truth,is far from a good starting point.

Aha - so the better starting point is that Long lied about the apron?

I see.

And you ground this on precisely what?

Your assertion that Long was drafted in to look closer on people is somewhat odd. He was given a beat to walk, and unless another policeman took care of the regular duties, walking alongside Long and checking doors and windows and such, I would propose that Long was the one responsible for these duties.

Of course, the fact that there had been murders perpetrated would not have been an unknown factor within the police, and extra men WERE drafted into the area. But given the factor that Long was given a regular beat to walk, I would think that the ones who did the people surveillance were perhaps ones who were liberated from their ordinary beat routines by men like Alfred Long - we have Henry Smiths colourful description of men who mixed with the Eastenders, smoking pipes and anc chatting people up. Clearly, Long was not one of those men, but instead dealt a beat to walk along the business as usual lines.

Long would of course have been aware of the murders, and it will be safe to say that every policeman walking the East End streets would have kept an extra eye open for the prostitutes and the plying of their trade. However, I don`t think it would have absolved Long from the regular beatwalking procedures.

I see now that you once more are asking for more details about the finding of the rag. You would have wanted the coroner to ask exactly how Long was able to spot the rag.
Haven´t I already told you, Harry, that we already know this: Because he checked the spot where it was found. Otherwise, he would not have been able to find it. How much checking he needed to do is written in the stars. If the rag was clearly visible from the street, then all he needed to do was to look at the doorway as he passed. If the rag was hidden inside the doorway, then he needed to pass into the doorway and check. Whichever option applies, we know that he did what it took to find the rag at 2.55, and so there is nothing at all odd to suggest that he did the same thing at 2.20.

But you are of a different meaning. You say that "accepting that Long told the truth is far from a good starting point". So you promote the idea that we would be better off accepting that he lied. And I once again ask you: What is the evidence that he lied? Which are the inplications that he lied? What makes it the better guess that he lied?

He found the rag at 2.55. That proves that he checked the area at that stage. There is no lie baked into it - he checked, he found. When he by his answer to the coroner clearly implicates that he had done a check at 2.20 also, you say that it would not be sound to work from the assumption that he had checked the doorway on this occasion too - it would be better to accept that he lied about it, THAT is the more sane starting point.

Can you see where it goes very awry, Harry?

[Fisherman]

Hi David,

PC Long wrote on 6th November 1888—

"I arrived at the Station [Commercial Street] about five or ten minutes past three, and reported to the Inspector on duty finding the apron and writing.

"The Inspector at once proceeded to Goulston Street and inspected the writing.

"From there we proceeded to Leman St., and the apron was handed by the Inspector to a gentleman I have since learnt is Dr. Phillips.

"I then returned back on duty to Goulston Street at about 5."

Regards,

Simon

Exactly what is it that bothers you about this, Simon? Is it that Long uses the word "apron" about a rag he could not at the time have known WAS a part of an apron? If so, this information was given - as you point out - on the 6:th of November, when it was very clear that the rag WAS part of Eddowes´ apron. On the murder night, reasonably what Long had to report was that he had found a piece of cloth with lots of fresh blood on it, together with faeces, and that there had been a written message above it on the wall of the doorway. In the midst of a murder hunt, I would have thought that was something that needed to be reported to his superiors, just like he did, not least since Long was aware that at least one murder had been perpetrated on the same night.

Or is it something else that bothers you, something that in such a case illudes me? If so, please let me know what it is.

[Trevor Marriott]

Exactly what is it that bothers you about this, Simon? Is it that Long uses the word "apron" about a rag he could not at the time have known WAS a part of an apron? If so, this information was given - as you point out - on the 6:th of November, when it was very clear that the rag WAS part of Eddowes´ apron. On the murder night, reasonably what Long had to report was that he had found a piece of cloth with lots of fresh blood on it, together with faeces, and that there had been a written message above it on the wall of the doorway. In the midst of a murder hunt, I would have thought that was something that needed to be reported to his superiors, just like he did, not least since Long was aware that at least one murder had been perpetrated on the same night.

Or is it something else that bothers you, something that in such a case illudes me? If so, please let me know what it is.

Simon is right to raise these points Longs actions and his testimony are less than clear.

When he finds the rag it appears he is not aware of any murder, yet he says "When I found the piece of apron I at once searched the staircase leading to the buildings" Is this correct? so why on the strength of finding a screwed up piece of rag did he decide to do that?

He then says before proceeding to the police station I had heard of a murder, not two murders, a single murder, which murder was that I wonder, and how did he hear?

The we have another police officer Pc190 who it seems appeared at Goulston Street, how did he get there and at what point did he get there?

If we are to be politically correct as far as evidence is concerned

Longs evidence was retrospective what he should have said was "I found a screwed up piece of rag. I examined it and found that it was spotted with blood, wet and contained traces of what appeared to be faecal matter. I took it to the police station"

Technically he cant say it was a portion of the woman's apron because he didn't match it and only found out later it was. So any reference he made to the rag as an apron piece and the victim would be hearsay.

That being said I am sure the rules of evidence were very rarely applied to inquests.

But every day around the world witnesses are giving evidence before juries. These juries will listen to the evidence from witnesses and accept or reject that persons testimony. You are suggesting that we accept outright Longs testimony as being correct, on the basis he was a police officer, and would never embellish the facts. Other members of the ripperolgy jury on here seem to disagree, so I would suggest that it is rejection on a majority verdict

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

Simon is right to raise these points Longs actions and his testimony are less than clear.

When he finds the rag it appears he is not aware of any murder, yet he says "When I found the piece of apron I at once searched the staircase leading to the buildings" Is this correct? so why on the strength of finding a screwed up piece of rag did he decide to do that?

He then says before proceeding to the police station I had heard of a murder, not two murders, a single murder, which murder was that I wonder, and how did he hear?

The we have another police officer Pc190 who it seems appeared at Goulston Street, how did he get there and at what point did he get there?

If we are to be politically correct as far as evidence is concerned

Longs evidence was retrospective what he should have said was "I found a screwed up piece of rag. I examined it and found that it was spotted with blood, wet and contained traces of what appeared to be faecal matter. I took it to the police station"

Technically he cant say it was a portion of the woman's apron because he didn't match it and only found out later it was. So any reference he made to the rag as an apron piece and the victim would be hearsay.

That being said I am sure the rules of evidence were very rarely applied to inquests.

But every day around the world witnesses are giving evidence before juries. These juries will listen to the evidence from witnesses and accept or reject that persons testimony. You are suggesting that we accept outright Longs testimony as being correct, on the basis he was a police officer, and would never embellish the facts. Other members of the ripperolgy jury on here seem to disagree, so I would suggest that it is rejection on a majority verdict

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No, Trevor, I am not saying that we should accept Long testimony as correct - I am saying that we should accept it as PROBABLY being correct. I have, time and time again, said that we cannot know for certain either way. Maybe you missed that? A dozen times? But we DO know that Long said that he was able to tell that the rag was not there at 2.20, and it therefore applies that he is more likely to have been correct than not.
If he was NOT correct, he either misremembered or lied. Although both things may apply, they remain less likely options. And the fact that he was a PC has no bearing on the matter. If another witness had passed the spot at 2.20 and 2.55 and adamantly stated that the rag was there at 2.55 but not at 2.20, it would have belonged to the evidence just the same, and it would have carried the same sort of weight. However, such a witness who was not a PC is extremely unlikely to come forward. A resident of the house would be the only option, more or less, and if such a person said that he/she passed the spot at these two hours and that the rag was not there 2.20 while it was at 2.55, then that would be every bit as good a witness as Long.

Oh, and I think that it is generally accepted that Long knew about one murder and had heard rumours of another one as he found the rag. It was only when Long said that he returned to the station with the rag that he was asked by the coroner "Before going did you hear that a murder had been committed?"
Long answered that question a bit oddly by saying: "Yes. It is common knowledge that two murders have been perpetrated."
The coroner, demanding further clarity, asked: "Which did you hear of?", whereupon Long said "I heard of the murder in the City. There were rumours of another, but not certain."
The City murder was the one on Eddowes, so that will have been the one Long had been informed about. How and by whom remains open to question, but we know for a fact that 35 minutes before the rag was found, a policeman (Halse) who knew about the killing had passed through Goulston Street, so there is no reason to rule out that the news could have reached Long as he walked his beat. He was never very far away from Mitre Square.

[Trevor Marriott]

Oh, and I think that it is generally accepted that Long knew about one murder and had heard rumours of another one as he found the rag. It was only when Long said that he returned to the station with the rag that he was asked by the coroner "Before going did you hear that a murder had been committed?"
Long answered that question a bit oddly by saying: "Yes. It is common knowledge that two murders have been perpetrated." .

Generally accepted by whom? How could he have found out he doesn't say that he ever met anyone else before findning the rag. He doesn't say how he knew in advance about any murder, and you are right the answer is odd, and leads me to think that he was speaking in the present tense and not in the past tense as you might expect "Yes it was common knowledge that two murders had been perpetrated"

He was a met officer and therefore I would have expected him to know of the Stride murder as that was on Met territory but he says he knows of the city murder and then found out that there might have been another.

Me thinks he is confused and not a very good witness, and his testimony is therefore unsafe.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Joshua Rogan]

Oh, and I think that it is generally accepted that Long knew about one murder and had heard rumours of another one as he found the rag. It was only when Long said that he returned to the station with the rag that he was asked by the coroner "Before going did you hear that a murder had been committed?"
Long answered that question a bit oddly by saying: "Yes. It is common knowledge that two murders have been perpetrated."
The coroner, demanding further clarity, asked: "Which did you hear of?", whereupon Long said "I heard of the murder in the City. There were rumours of another, but not certain".

Some newspaper accounts have Long replying simply "yes" to the first question, and the coroner then saying "It is common knowledge that two murders have been perpetrated. Which did you hear of?". Which makes a lot more sense.