The Unfortunates

[Sam Flynn]

Sam (and Robert)

If you don't have this book, may I recommend it.

A tenner cannot be better spent.

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I can well believe it, Stephen. Off to Amazon I go...

PS: Funniest names I've found in the Census were "Ebenezer Minge" and "Wallace Twatt". I kid you not.

Meanwhile, back at the thread...

[Robert]

HUGH ARSE Pedigree
Male


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Event(s):
Birth:
Christening: 11 NOV 1701 Saint Mary Steps, Exeter, Devon, England

Death:
Burial:

But no middle initial G.

Hi again,

Just a quick note for Caz.....I dont think you get me, but thats ok. It does bother me a bit when an altruistic gesture is seen as somehow asserting some perceived superiority...all I can say is that is not the case at all. It does bug me when I see the "all whores whore all the time" based arguments...particularly in Kelly's case. When at the bottom of the ladder, you do whats needed to stay on it at all, once you have a foothold on a rung, the perspective on life changes. When some of these women were desperate to have a place to sleep, or some booze to stave off the shakes, or some lukewarn soup somewhere, they did what the must do. Of all the women plying their trade in that manner during those years, how many would have resorted to the work had they a working husband or a job themselves.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, no doubt.... but when fed, and drunk if that be their thing, and with a dry warm place to lay down, they become regular, content people for a time. Thats my position on Mary Kelly that night.

And I find it difficult to suggest that without having someone "remind" me that she is after all, a "street whore".

On you and I....I have no inferiority or superiority issues...you can be a pain in the a** to me at times, and I to you. I still like you though, and enjoy your posts...for the most part.

Cheers Caz.

[m_w_r]

Hi Stephen -

I've seen this book in the shops and glanced through it, and, to be fair, it's one joke performed hundreds of times, but, on the other hand, I remember seeing on one page, a daughter born to the Teater family.

Ann Teater.

Which is worth a tenner on its own.

Regards,

Mark

[Stephen Thomas]

Plenty of women called "A. Tart", though...

Sam (and Robert)

If you don't have this book, may I recommend it.

A tenner cannot be better spent.

[Robert]

Gareth, at one of the schools near Valentine's, in either 81 or 91, some of the boys had got the enumerator to write down their nicknames - so you get things like "X the Terrible" or "Y the Awful".

[protohistorian]

Plenty of women called "A. Tart", though...

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(From 1881 Census)

That's funny, i don't care who you are!

[Sam Flynn]

In fact, the 81 census lists more prostitutes than unfortunates! NB I didn't search for "daughters of joy."

Plenty of women called "A. Tart", though...



(From 1881 Census)

[Peter F Young]

Hi Perry,

I wasn't taking offence, I can assure you. But you do come across as incredibly patronising when you keep trying to teach us that the victims were 'people' too, with 'lives and dreams and hopes and demons' and all the rest of it. Where there is any possibility that a victim was not actively soliciting when she encountered her killer, you can be found laying your cloak across the muddy puddle, gallantly offering her your benefit of the doubt. What would you do if you found out that she had let you down and had been soliciting after all? Whip your cloak away again and leave her in the dirt?

I'm afraid speculation is a two-way street, and just as you are free to believe that a certain victim was not soliciting, others are free to believe she probably was, or very well might have been. But again, it boils down to whether the killer assumed his victim was soliciting when he encountered her. He may not have cared either way, but whoever he was, and whatever the woman was doing, he most assuredly wanted her dead.

I really can't see how it materially affects your theories if Liz, Kate or Mary were up for a bit of business or not the least bit interested. Kate's killer presumably thought she was, if he was the same man Polly tempted with her bonnet and Annie accompanied to that unsavoury backyard.

As for Liz and Mary, anyone who knew them intimately knew what they did to survive when times were bad. So Kidney and Barnett, both having recently split up with their partners, would have had at least as much reason as Jack himself for assuming they were back on the game. Isn't that precisely what is typically offered as the motive by those who favour domestic murder in either case? The estranged lover who flips because he is convinced his woman won't stop whoring herself?

'Liz might have been waiting for a new man in her life since tossing Kidney...'
Probably already found herself a new married gigolo..."

She might equally have been trying to earn her doss money again after spending it.

'Kate may have been looking for someone...'

She may equally have been looking for anyone with money to spare.

Her killer still thought she was scum that deserved all she got.
Or wanted revenge...

'Mary might have been sleeping off booze.'
Or just tired...

She might equally have dozed off in Blotchy's company, with the help of his ale, leaving him to pinch any money she had put by for the rent man.

or he bored her to sleep...

X

Was she lulled into a false sense of security by a companion she trusted while she slept?

[Robert]

In fact, the 81 census lists more prostitutes than unfortunates! That might be skewed, however, by the apparent tendency of prisons to call women prostitutes rather than unfortunates.

NB I didn't search for "daughters of joy."

[Robert]

One does occasionally see "prostitute" given as an occupation in the census, mostly I think when the woman had little control over what was written about her, e.g. in a prison or lodging house.

[caz]

Hi Perry,

I wasn't taking offence, I can assure you. But you do come across as incredibly patronising when you keep trying to teach us that the victims were 'people' too, with 'lives and dreams and hopes and demons' and all the rest of it. Where there is any possibility that a victim was not actively soliciting when she encountered her killer, you can be found laying your cloak across the muddy puddle, gallantly offering her your benefit of the doubt. What would you do if you found out that she had let you down and had been soliciting after all? Whip your cloak away again and leave her in the dirt?

I'm afraid speculation is a two-way street, and just as you are free to believe that a certain victim was not soliciting, others are free to believe she probably was, or very well might have been. But again, it boils down to whether the killer assumed his victim was soliciting when he encountered her. He may not have cared either way, but whoever he was, and whatever the woman was doing, he most assuredly wanted her dead.

I really can't see how it materially affects your theories if Liz, Kate or Mary were up for a bit of business or not the least bit interested. Kate's killer presumably thought she was, if he was the same man Polly tempted with her bonnet and Annie accompanied to that unsavoury backyard.

As for Liz and Mary, anyone who knew them intimately knew what they did to survive when times were bad. So Kidney and Barnett, both having recently split up with their partners, would have had at least as much reason as Jack himself for assuming they were back on the game. Isn't that precisely what is typically offered as the motive by those who favour domestic murder in either case? The estranged lover who flips because he is convinced his woman won't stop whoring herself?

'Liz might have been waiting for a new man in her life since tossing Kidney...'

She might equally have been trying to earn her doss money again after spending it.

Her killer still thought she was scum that deserved what she got.

'Kate may have been looking for someone...'

She may equally have been looking for anyone with money to spare.

Her killer still thought she was scum that deserved all she got.

'Mary might have been sleeping off booze.'

She might equally have dozed off in Blotchy's company, with the help of his ale, leaving him to pinch any money she had put by for the rent man.

Her killer still thought she was scum that deserved everything she got.

Is your own speculation in any way superior, or ultimately any more useful, just because it involves fewer victims offering sexual services?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I can now see why some take such offense at what I say because of your post. In actual fact my intentions are not to denegrate the women at all, nor do I have any preoccupation with the way in which they earned to live. In fact my position as in evidence by creating this thread is that many assume soliciting when they read an Unfortunate is placed anywhere...(Liz, must have been "working", Kate...must have gone left to pick up a client on Mitre, no one saw Mary go out but she did anyway because she was in debt and thats how she earned money),...

What this thread was about, and many of my arguments here, is that many people in this study take it for granted that if these women were all Unfortunates then they must have been selling themselves constantly, negating the fact that all the women killed not just the Canonicals were people, not occupations....and had lives and dreams and hopes and demons.

Its clear from what we do know that women without a husband or job did what ever they could do to survive on their own.....it is not clear though that when we read of these womens activities on the nights in question that they were most certainly engaged in those activities. Its widely assumed though....by almost everyone.

I believe the study would have a far better chance of meaningful revelations if it was remembered the women had men in their lives, some had children, and before assuming that the women met their killers while working, perhaps allow for the possibility they were not working at that time. Like Liz. And Kate. And Mary. None of those 3 women can be said to have been overtly soliciting on the nights they are killed.. by what is known.

Liz might have been waiting for a new man in her life since tossing Kidney, Kate may have been looking for someone, and Mary might have been sleeping off booze.

Its often a litmus test for Ripper victims... whether or not they were soliciting at the time they meet their killer...and if so, I just named 3 Ripper victims whose circumstances that night may have had nothing to do with soliciting at all.

I hope that explains the position better.

Cheers Caz.

[caz]

Perry,

Why the obsession with what these murder victims were doing with their own bodies when they met their killer? I thought it was supposed to be Jack who had a thing about doing stuff with female bodies.

Surely the only thing that matters here is the killer's perception of his victim. That perception could have been spot on (Polly was so sure that her jolly new bonnet would help earn her a bed, for instance), or it could have become distorted in his twisted mind, as it did with the Yorkshire Ripper, who appeared to convince himself that students and building society clerks were only out alone at night for one reason, and that reason made them "bad".

To be fair, though, Jack may not have thought anything beyond the fact that his victims ended up alone with him in the middle of the night and in a position of total vulnerability.

But you can use a bit of common sense here, if you really think it's important to establish why individual victims left themselves that vulnerable.

Did Martha's murderer think she was out polishing soldiers' buttons to earn some brass?

Was Polly's killer wondering if she was on her way to the cat walk to model the latest bonnets?

Did Annie's assassin assume she did a bit of light gardening at the crack of dawn for a living?

Was Liz's knifeman under the impression that she was selling prayer books?

Did Kate's killer expect her to whip out her sewing kit and darn his socks?

Was Mary's murderer hoping she would boil wash and iron all his bed linen before he set to work on her?

I just don't get this need to 'grade' the victims by how virtuously they may or may not have been trying to earn their last crust on earth. What difference does it make if Mary was doing a bit of 'light whoring', selling sexual favours morning, noon and night, or running a sodding laundry when her killer struck? Even if we could pinpoint the most likely answer, what would it really tell us about her killer apart from the fact that he managed to get her alone in that room for as long as it took to take her apart and scarper?

Someone judged that she was ripe for it, either for what she was, what she did, or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone judged all the victims ripe for it. He is the one whose behaviour should be judged.

I don't think you realise you are doing it, but every time you try to compare a victim favourably to your generic 'street whore', you judge the behaviour and morals of all prostitutes, all unfortunates and all the Whitechapel victims, doing none of them any favours and leaving their killer alone.

'Street whore', matchgirl or bleedin' princess, the victims' respective place in your personal moral heap is irrelevant. The man at the bottom of the heap had to look a very long way up to set his sights on any of them.

Love,

Caz
X

To Don,

I had no ulterior motive for posting what I did or phrasing it the way I did, and was just defending myself on the premise you made that I was.

The thread premise I felt was under explored, and it seems clear that many of the old guard free associate "Unfortunate" and "Prostitute" quite often. I believe statistically there were some 80,000 women in East London that fell under the term Unfortunate, some 30-35,000 of which are referred to as prostitutes. By the way Don, I find the term Street Whore coarse myself, but there has to be a way to distinguish what Mary Ann Cox does and what Catherine Eddowes for example does to survive, and how they lived. They may both sell themselves, but is that what they are? As far as I can determine, in Mary Anns case, we have evidence she left her room to get clients, and came in to get warm or whatever when she had none. That seems to be consistent with Mary Kellys lifestyle as described, both women having a room in their name....not common, as the term Unfortunate was, and both seem to derive any income they have from soliciting on the streets. In Marys case, due to her age and looks, she likely even gets some assistance without providing an agreed service for it.

Since we know that Liz cleaned rooms and had been a maid, and we know Kate knits and sews and goes away to pick hops a few months a year, and that Maria Harvey is taking in laundry, along with what we assume are occasional clients, it seems to me that Unfortunates were human beings who differed in the way they managed to stay alive. For some, prostitution was the whole world,....to others, a resort only dealt with after all other possibles sources have been tapped. Like down to pawning clothing.

We do not know to what extent Prostitution dominated the existence of Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes or Mary Kelly. And whether Annie or Polly sought other means out.

Thats my whole point. I dont have a problem with you Don, if you want to act like you suggested from now on thats your prerogative.

Best regards all.