Toffs in Spitalfields

[Ben]

Now there is nothing whatsoever wrong with his statement in my view and I think some of the questions were phrased to give a chosen answer.

Well, yours is a conspicuous minority view for bloody good reason. Really, you can't champion Abberline as some police deductive genius, disparaging all his superiors in the process because it suits your argument, and then claim that he was so astonishingly incompetent that he phrased his questions in such a fashion as to garner the desired answer, for the same reason. What sort of question could he possibly have been asked in order to lead Hutchinson to horshoe tie pins, white buttons over button boots and dark eyelashes? And if he was asking leading questions, isn't it a bit weird that the press must have asked precisely the same "leading questions" in the same order?

please dont come back with the newspaper report quoting Hutchinson.This is what he gave to the Police.

I didn't, but then it is rather siginificant if his police and newspaper accounts differ in key particulars.

The gaiters were a common fashion feature

For morning wear, yes. At 2.00am in the evening...nah.

A horse shoe pin was also a VERY COMMON brooch style

Whether that was true of not, it was still utterly beyond the realms of even vague possibility to notice the shape of a tie pin in darkness and miserable weather conditions in Victorian London, within the space of a fleeting second, in addition to noticing lots and lots of other equally minute details of his appearance elsewhere on his person, let alone memorize all of it.

white buttons would have shown up-even in lamplight as they would go all the way down each side of the leg like a white stripe.

No, they wouldn't have done.

Up his leg?? What type of boots do you think he was wearing? Biker boots? They would have needed to stand out considerably to be noticed in those conditions, and if you're focussing on that aspect of his attire within the apace of a fleeting moment, your eyes and brain have not the capability to also notice other aspects of his appearance.

nothing unusual that could not be part of the usual pattern of fashionable male dress

Well, again, no, there's no evidnence that Mr. Astrakhan embodied the usual dress for upper class men at all, and there's certainly no evidence that such attire was popular in Liverpool Street. Certainly no evidence that such men would swan into what was well-advertised as the worst slum in London when there was a serial killer on the loose.

Dont get me wrong,Booth did some brilliant research but he could clearly be biased and was not above accepting such statemnts as the one I gave above without presenting actual evidence or doing scientific fair testing.

Irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion, I'm afraid, since it has been demonstrated beyond any shadow of a lingering doubt that census information has proven Booth's findings to be absolutely correct in his observations about Fournier Street, which was exclusively working class.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Natalie,

Actually there were just such people in the East End, as documented in The Fox and the Flies. And that is my dog in this hunt, simply that not all males who ever set foot in the EE looked, dressed and behaved with exact uniformity.

Roy

Yes,a fair point .
Norma

[Roy Corduroy]

"The East End Observer",which ,at this time, was running a series of articles accusing "the alien Jew" of being" pimps,white slave traders and prostitutes".

Hi Natalie,

Actually there were just such people in the East End, as documented in The Fox and the Flies. And that is my dog in this hunt, simply that not all males who ever set foot in the EE looked, dressed and behaved with exact uniformity.

Roy

[Ben]

I cant accept this census information---sorry.

Oh, for crying out loud.

You are wrong, Norma. You have been proven 100% unambiguously, irrefutably wrong. Fact. End of story. Census information and Booth's surveys have demonstrated conclusively that the street was occupied exclusively by working class man and women with ordinary wages in 1891. That's the truth of the matter. No toffs, nobody remotely wealthy, just census information with tallies precisely with the findings of Charles Booth. It is simply infuriating - and the product of your own personal wish-fulfilllment - to hear you claiming that Booth's research and indisputible census records must be wrong because there are none of the toffs you wanted to be there.

What are the chances of the original census records missing the occupants of the more conspicuous buildings in the district? Impossible. The census information leaves us with the inescapable inference that the buildings you referred to were not used as private homes at the time of the murders. Indeed, we know that the building you were initially highlighing as evidence of toffery was actually used as a school for boys.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter how much longer you argue over this issue. Fournier Street was home to working class folk only in 1891.

[Natalie Severn]

Your apparent prejudice against Booth's apparent prejudice doesn't change the occupations of Spitalfields residents recorded in the census returns, Nats.
Did the writer reporting that seriously think that Booth was being absolutely literal? That he took a roll-call of every occupant in every room in every street he visited? That he had memorised the detail in every single report that he or his researchers might have compiled?

Anne J Kershen needs a reality-check: Booth was saying little different than one might say on visiting a rough housing-estate today, and pronouncing "no human being could live in a place like this". He was simply drawing attention to the unutterable squalor in which the Jewish immigrants lived.

Oh no---too easy Sam-its you needs the reality check!Booth"s work simply CAN NOT be termed

"IMPARTIAL" scientific evidence

when he admits he did not SEE this DIRT of he states about JEWS nor does he give a single reference for it .He is making what are known as" VALUE JUDGMENTS" and you know that damn well.Ditto regarding PREJUDICE.
GEORGE SIMS went to some lengths in his book of 1883 to refute such allegations of dirtiness and instead describe the "cleanliness" he found among the recently arrived Immigrant Jews in Whitechapel ---that those sections of the press were running a campaign against.
Dont get me wrong,Booth did some brilliant research but he could clearly be biased and was not above accepting such statemnts as the one I gave above without presenting actual evidence or doing scientific fair testing ---or claim,as you have done,that he was right about what he said or did and everybody else was wrong.

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=Ben;61487]Hi Norma,



Ah, but can you imagine him asking the questions:

What colour were the man's eyelashes?
What colour were the buttons on the man's button boots?
What shape was his tie pin?

You see where I'm going with this? The specificity and detail of Hutchinson's observations strongly point away from the notion that he was subjected to leading questions.



Now Ben,naughty!

Inspector Abberline did not need to ask the sort of stuff you are inventing to prompt the responses he needed at all.

Lets look at THE POLICE DESCRIPTION shall we?

Description age about 34 or 35.height 5ft 6 complexion pale,dark eyes and eye lashes [dark deleted] slight moustache,curled up each end,and hair dark,very surley looking dress long coat,collar and cuffs trimmed astracan,and a dark jacket under.light waistcoat dark trousers dark felt hat turned down in the middle.button boots and gaiters with white buttons.wore a very thick gold chain white linen collar.black tie with horse shoe pin.respectable appearance walked very sharp.Jewish appearance.can be identified.

George Hutchinson
E,Badham
Segt E.Ellison
Insp T Arnold Supdt
submitted FG Abberline Inspr


please dont come back with the newspaper report quoting Hutchinson.This is what he gave to the Police.


Now there is nothing whatsoever wrong with his statement in my view and I think some of the questions were phrased to give a chosen answer.The gaiters were a common fashion feature and white buttons would have shown up-even in lamplight as they would go all the way down each side of the leg like a white stripe.
A horse shoe pin was also a VERY COMMON brooch style-read through some of the fashions- mens,on Victorian dress ,so was a black tie with a white shirt---- astrakhan collar and cuffs etc-----nothing unusual that could not be part of the usual pattern of fashionable male dress seen at the time in the environs of Liverpool Street station every single day in 1888 as male city workers commuted out of town.

[Sam Flynn]

Booth was given to numbers of such partial "value judgments" during his supposed "objective research"....and I intend digging out some of the other stuff I skimmed through earlier ,in due course.

Your apparent prejudice against Booth's apparent prejudice doesn't change the occupations of Spitalfields residents recorded in the census returns, Nats.

"No Gentile could live in the same house as these poor foreign Jews---even as neighbours they are unpleasant. The crowding that results is very great,and the dirt reported is indescribable".

The writer reporting this comments that "Booth IGNORES the evidence of the census and his own researches which showed clearly that gentiles DID live in the same houses as Jews"

-Anne J Kershen: JtR and The East End

Did the writer reporting that seriously think that Booth was being absolutely literal? That he took a roll-call of every occupant in every room in every street he visited? That he had memorised the detail in every single report that he or his researchers might have compiled?

Anne J Kershen needs a reality-check: Booth was saying little different than one might say on visiting a rough housing-estate today, and pronouncing "no human being could live in a place like this". He was simply drawing attention to the unutterable squalor in which the Jewish immigrants lived.

[Natalie Severn]

Ben and Miss marple,

The gentleman who showed me this beautiful house,believed it was quite unique in London with its interior gas lighting,Silk wall hangings, original chandeliers,priceless 300 year old wooden carvings on the staircase and in the hallway,above the doors on the panelling in the hall all part of the structure of the house.If this house really was let out in the 1880"s, then those who lived in it could have made a fortune out of any of these items so I cant accept this census information---sorry.
I also know the type of people these census people are----believe me.We once lived in a cottage in the 1990"s that had been converted from a forge
and we remember a very old lady of 90 and her daughter of 52 telling us exactly who had been their neighbours there in one of the censuses that was done in the 1931,anyway before the second world war.Not only had they completely got the landlord wrong of an adjacent house----it still then belonging to the Church of England,but they also had a family of six living there down as only three people with a name and a title of two other cottage dwellers down wrong as well.One,still part of the forge, was down as "unoccupied",when the lessee of the garage as it had then been converted into ,had it as his small flat at that time.

Not everything in a census is correct.

[Natalie Severn]

re BOOTH and his OBJECTIVE RESEARCH.

Life and Labour of The People in London---1889 ---Charles Booth

"No Gentile could live in the same house as these poor foreign Jews---even as neighbours they are unpleasant -this with regard to the area in and around Middlesex Street.The crowding that results is very great,and the dirt reported is indescribable". The writer reporting this comments that "Booth IGNORES the evidence of the census and his own researches which showed clearly that gentiles DID live in the same houses as Jews-Anne J Kershen-JtR and The East End

This is just one example of Booth"s fanning flames about immigrant Jews.,madeall the more worrying because he seemed to be taking the side of "The East End Observer",which ,at this time, was running a series of articles accusing "the alien Jew" of being" pimps,white slave traders and prostitutes".Equally the "alien Jew" was accused of being involved with crime though in fact "alien" criminality was mostly to do with illicit financial dealings,or the opening of workshops beyond permitted hours.

Booth was given to numbers of such partial "value judgments" during his supposed "objective research"....and I intend digging out some of the other stuff I skimmed through earlier ,in due course.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Ben, How reassuring to know that Charles Booth has been vindicated by Sam Flynn.

He was vindicated by the census, Simon, at least in respect of Fournier Street. I merely found the info online and supplied the link to it.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Ben,

How reassuring to know that Charles Booth has been vindicated by Sam Flynn.

Regards,

Simon

[miss marple]

Spitalfields Silk

Norma,
Do you know the number of the house in Fournier St and is it a museum or privately owned?
Last night I dug out my video of House Detectives with Dan Cruikshank and Judith Miller, filmed 2000, of the weavers house in Spitalfields.
The house is in Princelet St and was being restored by a posh couple.
Dan himself lives in a grand house in Fournier St which he helped save in 1977 when they were all going to be demolished.
The Princelet St house shows its grand beginnings, slow decline, then restoration in late 1990s
Built 1718 owned by a wealthy Huegenout weaver,Nicholous Pilon who had fabulous possessions, by 1810 it belonged to another weaver John Edger who married in 1812, had had the windows of the house remodelled in a late Georgian style.[ inset rather than flush] and had grand painted decoration applied to the drawing room. But it was no good, the spitalfields silk industry was in total decline due to the cheaper imports from India and china [ how history repeats itself] and he had left by 1822. After that the area went into rapid decline and by 1881 the house was in mult occupation and a fruit salesman lived there. A large banana storing shed was built in the back yard and in 1891 the house was occupied by a family of Russian Jewish tailors. So the decline continued until the houses were rescued in the 1970s and later, to be again the homes of new money, or posh arty types.
The film showed a couple of the magnificent 18th century Spitalfields silk dresses in the V&A collection, I remember they used to be on display in the costume court. Vivid colours, silver thread and naturalistic flower designs.
Miss Marple

[Ben]

Hi Norma,

What I said was that the people who lived at the sort house in Fournier Street that I visited ,which has its original features all intact including its gas lit Gilt Chandeliers , pure silk tapestry wall hangings and dozens of beautiful decorative wood carved features such as door heads ,carved banisters ,lovely hand painted ceilings etc etc was never a "slum" and whoever lived in it---or part of it because it is huge,could have been dressed like Mr Astrakhan was in November 1888.

But it had been conclusively proven that the entire population of Fournier Street was home to exclusively working class man and women with ordinary-to-poor jobs. Hardly surprising, considering that Booth made precisely the same observation when he drew up his Poverty Map. It's wonderful to see things dovetail so nicely, Gareth's census findings have utterly vindicated Booth's observations.

Case closed on that one, I'm afraid.

No toffs on that street in 1891, nobody even close. Fact. The chances of any one of those residents being in a position to dress like Mr. Astrakhan was slim to non-existent. We've learned what became of the nice houses you mentioned; they became schools for working boys. Either way, they cannot possible have been used to house wealthy men and women - we know for certain that that wasn't the case around the time of the murders.

Cheers,
Ben

[Natalie Severn]

There is no evidence that John McCarthy's knew Marie Lloyd as early as 1888. In 1888 she was 18. McCarthy's son Steve[ who had a theatrical career] was 14 in 1888 and did not marry the music hall star Marie Kendall till 1895. From previous threads on the subject, it was said Steve did not meet Marie Lloyd till the 1890s, she was a friend of Kendall's, and any acquaintance with John Mccarthy was well after the ripper murders.
Miss Marple
Norma,Its irrelevent whether the inhabitants of Hanbury St were respectable or not, I'm sure many of them were, but they were still poor, not toffs.

Yes,I repeat, I am sure they were mostly poor---but respectable.I didnt ever say the inhabitants of Hanbury Street were toffs.What I said was that the people who lived at the sort house in Fournier Street that I visited ,which has its original features all intact including its gas lit Gilt Chandeliers , pure silk tapestry wall hangings and dozens of beautiful decorative wood carved features such as door heads ,carved banisters ,lovely hand painted ceilings etc etc was never a "slum" and whoever lived in it---or part of it because it is huge,could have been dressed like Mr Astrakhan was in November 1888.
No problems over Marie Lloyd,either.Dan Leno though WAS in operation at the Cambridge Music Hall that Autumn-see my previous posts,and Marie Lloyd also performed at the Cambridge Music Hall in Commercial Street at some point in the late 1880"s.

I am wanting to address other stuff now Miss Marple ,but I will post those pics when I have time.
Cheers
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats, Astrakhan man was walking up towards Kelly from the Aldgate direction. He wasn't waiting for her.
With respect, a Ripper "who hid in the shadows" is a little bit last year. It is more likely that the Ripper was somebody personable enough to convince Chapman and Eddowes, for instance, that he was "safe" enough for them to accompany them to a dark place. Rather than a man who jumped out of the shadows, it is more than likely that he would have been seen with some of the victims.

I think of Robert Napper, currently detained for life in Broadmoor secure hospital on several charges of different types of murders,the original being more than similar to Mary Kelly"s murder/mutilation also his recent sentence for the Wimbledon Common murder nineteen years ago.He was a stalker,a stabber ,a "virgin " rapist-[according to police],and a murderer and mutilator.He was not someone who approached the women he killed using charm and persuasion,but rather sudden,frenzied attack-having stalked them and planned the killings.
So I believe the Ripper could well have been a similarly mentally disturbed man.
Best
Norma