All Roads Lead to Dorset St.,

[Batman]

You know the idea that Eddowes may have stayed in the room right next to Mary Kelly seems really hard for some to accept but at the same time who here thinks that Mary Kelly wasn't investigated given that Eddowes had a said her name was 'Mary Kelly' and on her persons a mustard tin containing two pawn tickets, One in the name of Emily Birrell, 52 White's Row, dated August 31, 9d for a man's flannel shirt. The other is in the name of Jane Kelly of 6 Dorset Street and dated September 28, 2S for a pair of men's boots. She was known as Kate Kelly. She gave her name to police as 'Mary Ann Kelly' of 6 Fashion Street. Using the #6 again from Dorset Street.

Yet are we to believe that not a single officer or investigator concerning themselves with these details didn't meet and question the very Mary Kelly who would become the very next victim of the same person that killed Stride?

This suggests inside knowledge. Someone working with LE investigating Eddowes discovered Mary Kelly through this investigation and targetted her. She may even have met him. Knew he was an officer. Felt safe going back to her room with one. Anyway, that's pure speculation, but how could they miss Mary Kelly in that investigation and fail to mention this in later reports (albeit they could be burned up and gone or stolen)?

[MrBarnett]

My guess is that McCarthy wouldn't waste such valuable space on junk and that the warehouse was really a 'penny hang'

If it was somewhere the costers left their barrows overnight, I would imagine they would have had to pay for the privilege. Unless they were all supplied with keys, or McCarthy and co were available 24/7, the door must have been left unlocked. In that scenario the place would have inevitably have been used by the homeless.

It has to be said, though, that door nos are something that are often wrong in press reports. The journalists at the time must have been real fish out of water in somewhere like Dorset street. On at least a couple of occasions they seem to have confused Miller's Court with Paternoster Row, and the fascinating 'Blood Alley' article of 1901 got Billy Mahers' name wrong (Myers) and attributed a murder to him that he hadn't committed.

[packers stem]

My guess is that McCarthy wouldn't waste such valuable space on junk and that the warehouse was really a 'penny hang'

[Batman]

"the first-floor front, facing Dorset-street, being over a shed or warehouse used for the storage of costers' barrows."

The article is telling the reader what the first-floor front was used for. So we know from this that it is used for storage and that the barrows are in there.

Kelly's room was 15ft. square feet (same article).

https://whitechapeljack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/millers_court_map.jpg

Notice that Prater's room is exactly located in this diagram.
Her room could have spanned across Mary's and the storage room.

You can easily guess that Mary's bed is a bit bigger than a barrow. How many barrows could one get into #26 Dorset St.? You could probably get at least eight in there. That's eight potential beds for the night.

McCarthy would know the women there because they would likely be the ones renting rooms from him when they had the money. Sometimes they couldn't pay so likely went there as he gave the room to someone else until they could pay again... or move on completely.

[Sam Flynn]

The very reference given to you by Wickerman from the DT of Nov 10th is the one where they identified this shed in question

No it doesn't. The report describes McCarthy's "shed" in an account of the Kelly murder, and doesn't in any way connect it with Eddowes.

There even tell you that it is a warehouse for the storage of costers' barrows.

The Eddowes story in the DT of 3rd Oct doesn't mention anything about that particular shed being used to store barrows, only 20 or so "houseless" unfortunates.

Even makes sense because coster's barrows are nice makeshift beds when not in use.

Good luck trying to fit 20 costermongers' barrows into the front room of a house, whose floor-space I guess would not be much bigger than that of Mary Kelly's room. The photograph you yourself posted should give you an idea of how logistically tricky, if not impossible, that would be.

And, as I said, I'd find it very hard to believe that McCarthy would leave his storeroom open so that penniless rough sleepers could use it as a drop-in centre. For one thing, that would make little economic sense and, for another, his stuff could have been nicked.

Rest assured, if Eddowes did indeed occasionally crash out in a "shed off Dorset Street", it almost certainly wasn't McCarthy's indoor barrow-depot.

Prater puts the shed under her, as Mary's room, but we think she didn't mean 'directly' under her. Just the floor below.

No, for the same reason as I wouldn't describe my own room as "above the garage" (see earlier). When Prater said that her room was "above the shed", she meant exactly that, which fits perfectly with the rest of her testimony. And independent sources of information, too; there's another report which tells of a couple occupying the room above Kelly.

[Sam Flynn]

For what it's worth, no. 6 is the only property mentioned above that was not apparently in the hands of Crossingham or McCarthy. It was a rather small building with a passageway through the ground floor to an open space at the rear. In the land tax records it is listed as a house and stables.

Interesting, Gary, not least because (a) stables are more spacious and decidedly more shed-like than McCarthy's front room; and (b) Eddowes used the "6 Dorset Street" address on one of her pawn tickets.

[MrBarnett]

Not in connection with the Eddowes murder, they didn't. Even in her case, the unidentified shed only seems to appear in one sentence, in one early report, in one newspaper. And the notion that the front room of #26 was the ONLY "shed" in Dorset Street - or "off" Dorset Street - is rather hard to believe.

For what it's worth, no. 6 is the only property mentioned above that was not apparently in the hands of Crossingham or McCarthy. It was a rather small building with a passageway through the ground floor to an open space at the rear. In the land tax records it is listed as a house and stables.

[Batman]

Not in connection with the Eddowes murder, they didn't. Even in her case, the unidentified shed only seems to appear in one sentence, in one early report, in one newspaper. And the notion that the front room of #26 was the ONLY "shed" in Dorset Street - or "off" Dorset Street - is rather hard to believe.

The very reference given to you by Wickerman from the DT of Nov 10th is the one where they identified this shed in question. There even tell you that it is a warehouse for the storage of costers' barrows.

Even makes sense because coster's barrows are nice makeshift beds when not in use.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/L/L02/L02452_10.jpg

Prater puts the shed under her, as Mary's room, but we think she didn't mean 'directly' under her. Just the floor below.

[Sam Flynn]

It's obviously the front room of 26 Dorset St., because the journalists at the time pretty much identified it as being that very place.

Not in connection with the Eddowes murder, they didn't. Even in her case, the unidentified shed only seems to appear in one sentence, in one early report, in one newspaper. And the notion that the front room of #26 was the ONLY "shed" in Dorset Street - or "off" Dorset Street - is rather hard to believe.

[Sam Flynn]

This shed is mentioned in the Daily Telegraph, in describing the layout of No.26.

"It has seven rooms, the first-floor front, facing Dorset-street, being over a shed or warehouse used for the storage of costers' barrows."
https://www.casebook.org/press_repor.../dt881110.html

Yes, but that's a description of McCarthy's place in connection with the Kelly murder. And good luck fitting 20 or so unfortunates in a front room containing costermongers barrows and God knows what else.

Also, I find it somewhat unlikely that a businessman like McCarthy would leave his stockroom, effectively his house, open as a "drop-in centre" for rough sleepers.

[Observer]

It would make sense as the last time he saw Stride was in Commercial Street, as he was returning from work. I wonder how long they had been in Dorset street?

[DJA]

Looks like my Tattslotto numbers for next week are .......

25 26 30 33 35 38 and 30 as supp.

[packers stem]

The Horn of plenty was on the corner of Crispin Street. No. 38 was McCarthy's, a shop on the ground floor and rooms above, next door but one to the Horn.

Thanks

[MrBarnett]

Definitely same side
Dorset street was numbered sequentially
So Chapman and Nichols at 35 were on the same side also .
Was the Horn of plenty in between McCarthy and 35 ?

The Horn of plenty was on the corner of Crispin Street. No. 38 was McCarthy's, a shop on the ground floor and rooms above, next door but one to the Horn.

[packers stem]

Crossinghams other Doss House, same side as Miller's Court?

Definitely same side
Dorset street was numbered sequentially
So Chapman and Nichols at 35 were on the same side also .
Was the Horn of plenty in between McCarthy and 35 ?