JtR's Accent........

[Rubyretro]

I really enjoyed the music, Lynn -no I'm not being ironic: I would fairly enjoy
cooking offal accompanied by bagpipes !

[lynn cates]

simply offal

Hello Danae. To see what some of us do with offal, go here.

http://www.oatmealsavage.com/

(Be sure to have your speakers on to hear the sweetest music this side of heaven.)

But I daresay "Jack's" accent was not this kind for a dirk may not emulate the exemplified wounds.

Cheers.
LC

[Rubyretro]

Danae -Offal (in cookery) is the internal edible organs -heart, liver, kidneys,
tongue, intestines (sweetbread), lungs etc. They are the cheapest cuts -and so were readily eaten by the poor.

Despite still being the cheapest cuts, they are also the bits which need the
best preparation -so ironically are now served in rather more expensive 'traditional' restaurants here in france. Whether they taste good is down to the skill of the chef !

Liver and kidneys probably need the least preparation (they could be quite lightly fried or grilled), and so I agree with Garry that they would have been a common sight in lodging houses at this time.

Obviously they didn't have hygiene obsessions & tupperware & plastic bags -so a piece of offal produced from a pocket, wrapped in newspaper or even a rag, would have been pretty unremarkable.

[claire]

Yes, there is a distinction to be made between medical knowledge and anatomical knowledge. There has been much discussion elsewhere regarding the contemporary extent, and transferability, of butchery/food prep skills to this sort of basic evisceration. The issue there (and we are way, way off the given topic of accents) arises largely because we don't know the killer's intention (if he intended to grab a kidney, for eg., actually getting one was impressive; if he just wanted something, then grabbing the kidney is less so).

And, still off the topic of accents, we don't know that MJK was illiterate: there are more accounts of her being educated ('quite the scholar') than of her being illiterate. JB read the paper to her, but that's a bit like listening to the radio; he mentioned nothing of any letters, however.

Just little points, though Otherwise, I'm in the not-at-the-bottom-of-the-pile-but-not-all-that-well-off camp too.

[DanaeChantel]

Please ignore my last statement as I was not sure what offal was.

[DanaeChantel]

On the contrary, Adam. The sadosexual serialist tends to target those with whom he comes into everyday noncriminal contact. Not only are these the individuals with whom he feels most confident and comfortable, but they are to be found in the type of locations which accord him a degree of ‘invisibility’. As they say, if you want to conceal a grain of sand, look for a beach.


The most reliable sighting of the Ripper, I would suggest, Adam, was that of Lawende. The man he observed standing with Kate Eddowes, however, was not heard to speak and was dressed in distinctly lower working-class garb.


This topic has been explored on a number of threads, Adam, so I won’t labour the point here. Suffice to say, though, that many late-Victorian East Enders worked what in the modern age would be construed as antisocial shift patterns. Consequently, most lodging houses absorbed and disgorged a steady stream of patrons at all hours of the night and day. As for the issue of human organs, patrons frequently cooked offal in lodging house kitchens, so the sight of someone producing a kidney or suchlike from a pocket was hardly a noteworthy occurrence.



Personally, Adam, I see nothing in the Ripper series to suggest a killer possessed of medical knowledge. This is an area I explored in some depth in my book. Since it’s available here on site, you might care to have a look at it.

Likewise, I’m unsure as to the source of your statistics, but my recollection of the various contemporaneous surveys is an illiteracy rate of something like six percent. Remember that the 1870 Elementary Education Act made the schooling of five to twelve year olds a statutory requirement. As such, the illiteracy rate of eighteen year olds and younger at the time of the Whitechapel Murders must have been somewhere close to zero. This alone, I would suggest, would render a two or three percent literacy rate as statistically impossible.

All the best.

Garry Wroe.

I'm sorry I know that I am still new here and don't have the same knowledge as some of the rest of you, however I was wondering why someone would cook offal? That sounds so disgusting. Did they eat it? I have never heard of such an abomination.

[Rubyretro]

Adam -this is quoting Dr Bond, who performed the autopsy on Kelly

"8. In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals".

So there was NOT a consensus amongst experts at the time.

However, since Jack managed to remove kidneys in the dark in a short time we can be sure that he HAD got some idea of what he was doing. This would fit well with being a rural person who has cut up animals before but has had no professional training as a surgeon or even a butcher.

[Rubyretro]

Adam -I think that it's a given that JtR had some practical knowledge of anatomy. I don't think that medical opinion at the time was unanimous that Jack must have been a doctor or surgeon.

I don't think that the explosion in the numbers of newspapers produced means that EVERYONE could read -but that literacy was becoming more widespread amongst the lower classes.

[Adam Went]

GM:

How, exactly, do we know any this, except that he must have had a rudimentary knowledge of English in order to approach the victims?

Considering there was multiple witnesses who described the man having some form of conversation with his victim, I would suggest his knowledge of English was a bit better than rudimentary. That certainly doesn't discount the possibility of him being a foreigner - infact, if anything, I lean towards that - but then his being a foreigner doesn't stop him from having a solid grasp on the English language either.

The rest is more or less where common sense and laws of probability need to apply. Can you honestly imagine a 70 year old man who was a paraplegic and came down from Scotland for a night each time he wanted to kill somebody? Likewise, can you honestly imagine a 10 year old kid taking the prostitutes round the back for their services - and having a moustache? Then killing and mutilating them?

We need to be realistic about things. It's the only way we'll ever get remotely close to a solution.

As for MJK - Joe Barnett used to read out of the paper to her about the JTR murders, presumably he (or somebody else she associated with who could read) read the letters to her as well.

Ruby:

I can assure you that the general concensus at the time was that the killer had some medical knowledge, the bulk of the debate was over the exact degree of this knowledge.

It's true that poor people bought newspapers, but doesn't mean they could necessarily read them well - again, I've read accounts of poor people buying them for the illustrations, or sat around in a circle enjoying one of their kind who could read, reading the news out to them.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Rubyretro]

I think that I read a surgeon's report somewhere saying that in his opinion
Jack didn't have any medical knowledge.

I absolutely agree that far more people were used to butchering animals then, then they are today, and anyone with a rural background who had
kept animals -or just hunted or poached -would know how to butcher an animal.

Now there's a thought -a poacher would need to eviscerate an animal in the dark or half light. You need to get the stomach & intestines out rapidly
because the animal starts going off very quickly...

The east end was full of itinerate workers in lodging houses, and rural areas
began far closer to the city than now.

Like Adam, I don't think that Jack was a local slaughterman, as those people were very much under suspicion, and collegues must have been looking at each other...but of course we can't discount that.

As for the literacy debate -the fact that there were so many newspapers
that came into being at that time, is an indication that there were more and more prospective customers. It's clear that a number of these papers were aimed at the lower classes.

I don't like to bang on too much about my Hutch/groom theory, because I accept totally that it is not a certitude that Hutch ever was a groom. Still it's worth noting that on a site devoted to the history of Studs in Yorkshire
(and I imagine that the details apply to the whole country) it is stated that the grooms were expected to be literate as they need to write things down for owners and buyers. (incidentally it is also noted that the grooms worked
at night in the stables -birthing foals -and they needed to be able to work in the dark and half light). They were poorly paid and definitely lower class, yet they were considered skilled workers and rubbed shoulders with the rich; pictures of grooms at that time, show them in jackets & billycock hats -shabby genteel ?

I presume that a groom used to dealing with people of a high class to himself would be able to ape their speech patterns if he wanted or needed to..he would also carry a sharp knife (for curing hoofs)

[The Grave Maurice]

Sorry, I was in the wrong time period. I should have said 4d.

[The Grave Maurice]

Fascinating discussion. I have a couple of questions though.

1.) He could speak English
2.) He was not physically disabled (i.e. missing limbs, etc)
3.) He lived in the East End
4.) He was not younger than 20 and not older than 50

How, exactly, do we know any this, except that he must have had a rudimentary knowledge of English in order to approach the victims?

but then on the other side of that, MJK was not.

Why then, I wonder, did people apparently send letters to her.

And let's remember that, during the period in question, the going price for the services of a prostitute was 4p. 4p! Even a man in occasional work could come up with that kind of coin. Then again, it seems JtR never actually parted with any cash. The same money could have been used for all the transactions.

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Jane:

Well I do agree with you in some of your points, but I also believe that for too long, researchers have simply looked at the case in the sense of "Who did it?" rather than "Who didn't do it?". We could learn a lot and narrow down the suspect field considerably by simply using the process of elimination, and a lot of the things we could eliminate people by are quite common sense. For example, some of them would be:

1.) He could speak English
2.) He was not physically disabled (i.e. missing limbs, etc)
3.) He lived in the East End
4.) He was not younger than 20 and not older than 50

And there you go, in 4 basic points, we've eliminated hundreds of thousands of potential suspects.

You mentioned that Polly Nichols was literate, which is a fair point, but then on the other side of that, MJK was not. It just depends on the person and the type of upbringing they had, but not many of the poorest class could read or write well, if at all. They had no need to - they worked on the streets and made their living there, with no need for the use, although from the accounts I've read, those who couldn't read or write wished that they could, and those who could read or write said it had been of little good to them.

Ruby:

Butcher or slaughterman is a strong possibility, but again, it runs the risk of being identified by fellow butchers and people who know you from the area, especially.

Everybody here knows, whether they want to admit it or not, that when you pull a sickie from work or back in the days of school, the number one rule is to not show your face anywhere remotely near the area where your colleagues are, as there's always the risk you will get spotted out and about when you're supposed to be too ill to be doing work, and then of course you find yourself in some trouble. Well, that's no different to JTR.....only that his motives were somewhat more sinister. A semi-intelligent lower class man (and they were intelligent and shrewd in some areas, even if they were illiterate), would have realised this before he went on a killing spree, that his colleagues might well spot him and ask questions later on.

On the other hand, somebody who doesn't belong to that class....perhaps somebody who works in a different area or works for himself, and is a bit of a loner, with few or no friends in the area, isn't going to be pulled up as easily, is he?

Caz:

No rich man, but no struggling pauper either - IMHO.

EXACTLY! THANK YOU!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Fleetwood Mac]

I know we have few instances of anyone hearing JtR....we have the
famous 'will you?' question, the 'Lipski' shout out and perhaps some
quiet talking heard by Mrs. Long and/or Lawende? Miller's court? The
'No' is presumably Annie Chapman seconds before her unfortunate demise..
....What I'm wondering is, did any of the witness interrogations mention
anything about the accent of what may have been JtR? Is a 'will you' heard
clearly, enough to distinguish an accent? I would think so. Certainly a Tumblety
would sound different than an East Ender or an Irishman or a recently immigrated Polish Jew!
Again, I know few words were ever heard but did anyone ever offer or were they asked this question? Curious...

Question 2 involves one of my favorite phrases 'Shabby Genteel'. My
take on this meaning is of a person dressed fairly well, with gentlemanly or
just short of gentelmanly attire but in a somewhat worn, perhaps slightly
ragged, mildly dirty state. Maybe the dress of someone 'putting on airs'
or trying to appear a bit above their station. My take. Do you all agree with this assessment?



Greg

On the clothing......I think the consensus is decent clothes that have seen better days. Interesting turn of phrase for a resident of Whitechapel though......not sure they would be aware of the phrase 'shabby genteel'...anyone else think this is contrived?

As for the accent.....it's a fair point.....people felt it necessary to say 'he looked like a foreigner'...but the suspects' voice passed by without a great deal of interest......unless of course it was how he sounded that influenced the word 'genteel'....power of suggestion and all that. Or....it was a familiar accent..hence nothing of note to report.

In terms of why he killed prostitutes in Whitechapel......I suppose you could argue that they afforded opportunity....but then why Whitechapel?....there were prostitutes knocking around in other areas. He must have been familiar with the area....but not necessarily lived in the area. I'd take a guess that he worked around that area rather than lived in that area.....just a hunch based on knowing your patch but giving yourself a bit of breathing space if spotted. Seeems reasonable to me.

[Marc]

As for his knowledge of anatomy-in-the dark : I have been a sheep farmer in my life, and have had to deal with various dead animals; I have cut them up to feed to my dogs before now. I love cooking and have lived in rural France,
and I have cut up rabbits, hares, boar, deer, sheep in the past. I'm pretty confident that, even in the dark, I coud lay my hands pretty quickly on the various organs (even if the stomach and intestines were intact) and not be too sqeamish.

Hi Ruby, while reading your post, it stroke me that many more people were then accustomed to butcher animals than we are today, because of their rural backgrounds. This is something that might be taken into account with JtR killings, even if some people (Dc. Philipps ?) hinted that observed mutilations required anatomical skills.
Would have Philipp's more 'upper class' backgrounds led him to ignore the 'rural background' factor ?

Beside, when looking at Whitechapel period maps, the number of various slaugtherhouses in the area is simply amazing (IMHO).
If JtR was an 'insider' to Whitechapel, the odds he could be or could have been a slaugtherman/butcher or closely related to one, are not especially high.
Not the least bit of hard evidence on my side of course, but I feel this guy was definitely swift to kill and then cut various organs with a knife...like a professional could be ?