the Goulston St Graffiti

[Jason]

The wording of the graffiti itself is odd, looking at it from a perspective of over a century later. However, If the same writing appeared today, wouldnt it have said something like: "the juwes are the men who wont be blamed for anything"...now that appears far less cryptic to me and also pretty obvious who it is aimed at. Maybe its relation to the crimes is non existant. I think the writing is an example of 1888 xenophobia, probably written by someone who had heard a similar comment from a father or other. It wouldnt have been rare surely in the east end to hear hatred or disdain for jews or irishmen.

Another question is how accessible chalk would have been to the average joe ?

[mariab]

Monty wrote:
Graffiti was found near Hanbury Street and we have photographic evidence, albeit some years later, of graffiti in both Berner Street and Hanbury Street.
Monty,
would you inform us on what precisely did the graffiti in Berner Street and Hanbury Street say, and where I could further read about this?
By the by, we recectly located a (sadly, much less ancient) graffito on the alleged wall of the White House. (Not the American White House, the one in Whitechapel.)
Thank you.

[lynn cates]

try this

Hello Sunflower. I was neutral for a long time concerning the GSG. I thought it a virtually meaningless coincidence. Here was my problem.

I assumed a cunning and stealthy sexual serial killer. I thought he had killed Liz and, before he could mutilate her, he was interrupted. Being led on by his uncontrollable blood lust, he found himself at Mitre sq finally obtaining satisfaction by killing and mutilating Kate. But the GSG did not fit my scenario. Why would he hold onto the apron for near on two hours, possibly hovering near the scene of the crime, and, just happening to have a piece of chalk, write a message when time was of the essence?

I am no longer neutral. If we can exorcise the notion of this sexual serial killer and look at the “Double Event” in isolation, a different scenario may unfold. Consider:

1. A woman is killed just outside a Jewish Anarchist club. Why?

2. A woman’s bloody apron is found near a predominantly Jewish housing development? Why?

3. The GSG can be read as implicating Jews (and perhaps the same club, if Tom Wescott’s idea is correct). Why?

Now consider the following facts from Butterworth’s book:

1. The Paris branch of the Okhrana, under Pyotr Rachkovsky, become concerned about Russian Jewish Anarchist émigrés congregating in London.

2. He comes to London in 1888 to open a branch office.

3. He hires Wladyslaw Milevski to run the office.

4. Milevski, in turn, hires a friend—a retired Scotland Yard man who in turn recommends more locals.

Add to this

5. Okhrana has a long standing habit of hiring local private investigating agencies to help them out.

6. A local private investigating agency tampered with a witness and possibly evidence connected to the “Double Event.”

But why kill 2 women and implicate the Socialist Jews? Because, if successful, popular sentiment would turn strongly anti-Jewish and lead, possibly, to London’s no longer being a safe haven for these Jewish Anarchist Russian exiles.

Now, do the math.

Cheers.
LC

[Defective Detective]

I am entirely unsure of the graffito's authorship. There's simply no way at this removed time we will ever really know who wrote it. It's plausible the killer wrote it, for whatever reason; it's plausible he had nothing to do with it.

I will say this much: if the Ripper wrote it, then it would shore up in my mind that Elizabeth Stride was a Ripper victim. Given that one of the victims that night was murdered near a predominantly Jewish institution, and the apron of the other left next to a piece of doggerel mentioning the Jews, it's almost too easy to imagine that, for instance, the killer was trying to frame the constituents of the International Working Men's Educational Club.

In fact, it would explain a few things about the event involving Israel Schwartz to me. If the man he saw quarreling with Stride was the Ripper, and if that man yelled out an apparently antisemitic epithet like "Lipski" (here apparently referring to Israel Lipski the murderer), he may well have been trying to suggest that Israel Schwartz himself was the Ripper. Leaving Eddowes' apron next to the graffito would in that case merely be an attempt to reinforce that suggestion.

This, however, is all just speculation, contingent on the Ripper being the author of the Goulston Street Graffito, and if he did not have a hand in it the idea falls apart entirely and strains my own credulity posing it. However, so does the idea that everything in the Ripper case is just a massive, indefinable and unknowable coincidence.

To summarize my opinion: if Eddowes' killer wrote it, he also killed Stride and the 'Double Event' is confirmed. If he did not write it, then it's all up in the air.

But why kill 2 women and implicate the Socialist Jews? Because, if successful, popular sentiment would turn strongly anti-Jewish and lead, possibly, to London’s no longer being a safe haven for these Jewish Anarchist Russian exiles.

Now, do the math.

We must be careful to apply the principle of parsimony in this as in all things. While I agree with you that it's entirely possible that the graffito was part of an attempt by the Whitechapel murderer to frame the socialists of the Working Mens' Educational Club (though I don't think it's proven), there's no need to posit a conspiratorial motive behind such an act. Any killer with a modicum of intelligence is going to take whatever opportunity he can to shift suspicion away from himself. I can easily believe that the killer happened on Stride by the Club by accident and took her there, and then, after reflection some time later, decided to write the graffito and plant the apron to cast aspersions upon the innocent socialists. He needn't have been a spymaster to do that, bent on interfering with the domestic policies of the British Empire; all he'd need was the will for self-preservation and a bit of understanding about the passions and prejudices of the English masses in his age.

In fact, as I think on it, the Ripper needn't even have written the graffito himself to have such a motive. If he came across it while fleeing the scene of the Eddowes murder and there was light enough for him to have read it, he could easily have dropped her apron there anyway. All that I believe to have been required for this thought to flicker through his darkened mind is that he also be the killer of Elizabeth Stride.

[mariab]

Lynn,
up to point 3 of your numbered considerations, I've been reflecting on all this myself for some time, and finding it fascinating that the night of the “double event“ bears such definite (dare I say it?!) anti-semitic insinuations. Pertaining to this, and since (as a newbie) I'm lacking basic information, I'd like to ask: Were there ANY parts of Victorian Whitechapel which were NOT predominantly inhabited by Jewish immigrant population? (In other words, could this all be a simple coincidence?)
On the other side, what you are proposing about the Okhrana is both fascinating and outrageously far-fetched. (Brutally murdering 2 innocent women for anti-semitic/anti-socialist provocatory purposes? Come on!) If I understand you correctly, you're prepared to go as far as to imply that Le Grand “detective“ agency might have been involved with the Okhrana!! Without wasting time discussing this, let me make a pragmatic proposition: In about a week I'll be working in Paris again. I had it in mind anyway to research the criminal records of Le Grand's criminal associates in Paris, starting with the fonds publics at the Archives Nationales (where they also feature fonds de notaires, with an entire archive about notaries, but I can see no criminal archives from their internet page. Naturally, I'll ask.). I can easily research Pyotr Rachkovsky in the inventaries of the entire Paris Nationales in less than a couple hours. In case any letters by him are held there (if NOT in Russian, as I can't read Russian), I can easily go through them in a day or two. (Depending on how often there are ongoing strikes, as the Paris Archives Nationales typically function in a “1-day-open-/1-day-striking“ deal.) And by the way, any news from the Okhrana collection at Stanford? When is the person to go through the letters supposed to start his activity?
Oh, and if I find any Russian letters by Rachkovsky in Paris, depending on the amount of them, I can either xerox them and send them over to my Russian-translator friend at Oxford, or you can arrange for someone reading Russian visiting Paris to take care of this.
Lynn Cates wrote:
Okhrana has a long standing habit of hiring local private investigating agencies to help them out.
Where did you get evidence for that? Butterworth and Fishman? If you need me to, I can even try contacting Prof. Fishman, but I'd suggest doing this after having started conducting research in Paris, and only if I encounter difficulties. I wasn't able to find William Fishman's email address (it's not even listed on the alumni page of his Queen Mary's College at the University of London), but I think The Grave Maurice might have it.
If you have any tips or suggestions, I'd be most grateful to hear them.
Thank you.

[lynn cates]

agree

Hello DD.

"In fact, as I think on it, the Ripper needn't even have written the graffito himself to have such a motive."

I agree. The GSG, in my humble opinion, was not written by Stride's killer, nor by Eddowes's killer.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

To Detective Detective:
Very reasonable, sharp post, if I may comment on this. If interested, you should stick around in the different Stride/Eddowes threads here on casebook, as several people are currently conducting research, trying to clear up things pertaining to all this.

[Defective Detective]

Hello DD.

"In fact, as I think on it, the Ripper needn't even have written the graffito himself to have such a motive."

I agree. The GSG, in my humble opinion, was not written by Stride's killer, nor by Eddowes's killer.

Cheers.
LC

But Eddowes' apron was dropped there by him. Regardless of whether he did or did not author the graffito, if the placement of the apron next to it was intentional, then the only conclusion that can logically be drawn from it is that the killer of Stride and Eddows was one and the same. Some other things can be extrapolated from such a deduction - that the reason for its placement was to point back to the International Working Men's Educational Club as a way of throwing investigators off the track - but cannot be proved beyond any reasonable doubt.

[lynn cates]

respondeo quod

Hello Maria. Thanks for the proposed research.

Yes Butterworth. But a new source is Ben Fischer's book on the Okhrana. I am now reading Quail's, "The Slow Burning Fuse." It's very helpful.

Brutal murders? No problem for the Okhrana. Don't forget that Rachkovsky was introduced to brutality by anarchists when they butchered his mentor, Colonel Sudeikin.

The research at Stanford is ongoing. By the way, my assistant informs me that there are 2 other parties at the archives with my same research goal. Whoa ho! I'm being scooped!

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

deductive inference

Hello DD.

"if the placement of the apron next to it was intentional, then the only conclusion that can logically be drawn from it is that the killer of Stride and Eddows was one and the same."

Really? Just out of curiosity, which deductive rule are you using here? I don't recognize this one from my Copi logic text.

Cheers.
LC

[protohistorian]

Hello Maria, The map is from 1899. Dave

[Defective Detective]

lynn,

Moving away from the Okhrana angle for a moment (I am not qualified at all to comment on the subject), if the GSG and the placement of the apron was an attempt at a red herring by our man, what implications do you think that has for the psychology of our killer assuming your theory is incorrect?

I've mostly been averse to theories that Jack was a member of the upper class; it stinks of conspiratorialism to me, of violations of Occam's Razor. However, presuming, as I think is plausible - though, again, not proven - that the strange occurrences surrounding the 'Double Event' were an attempt to frame the lower-class Jews of Whitechapel, I may have to rethink my position.

A local killer isn't going to care about framing the socialists, because, in the period in question, he's likely to sympathize at least to an extent with their political approach (these being the days before what I call the right-wingification of the lower classes in the West). However, a 'toff' or slummer might still very well hold to the traditional nostrums of his class; he might himself want to engage in the sort of thing you lay at the feet of the Okhrana.

It's something you might want to consider.

Hello DD.

"if the placement of the apron next to it was intentional, then the only conclusion that can logically be drawn from it is that the killer of Stride and Eddows was one and the same."

Really? Just out of curiosity, which deductive rule are you using here? I don't recognize this one from my Copi logic text.

Note the bit about "if the placement next to it ('it' here being the graffito) was intentional", in other words designed to call attention to the graffito and its message. If the killer either wrote the graffito, or saw it already on the wall and decided to lay the apron near to it on purpose, then it follows that the reference to the 'Juwes' in the graffito likely has some connection to the murder of Stride next to the predominantly Jewish Working Men's Club. Again, this is only valid provided that whoever dropped the apron wanted the graffito to be read. That's where what we can deduce and reasonably call a fact ends and informed speculation must begin.

Jack the Ripper could very well have nothing to do with the graffito, and the fact that Eddowes' apron was on the same street as it could very well have been a coincidence. But, provided that he noticed it and wanted it seen for whatever reason, then a few inferences can be drawn that, provided they don't conflict with other established facts, stand until disproven.

[lynn cates]

psych

Hello DD. the psychology of the killer/s seems obvious--a cold blooded assassin/s.

I think the apron bearer/graffito writer was as clumsy as he was inept. I could think of much better messages to have gotten the job done.

By the way, Ockham's Razor contains a clause that is easily overlooked--"sine necessitate." So, if cutting down on one's ontological commitments precludes finding a successful conclusion, then add that extra entity!

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn,
I assume that Ben Fischer is not the same as the notorious Bill (William) Fisher?
Brutal murders I have no problem associating with the Okhrana, but in the Whitechapel case it doesn't really fit, as there's a most “natural“ (actually completely unnatural, but I'm conversing in killer-psychospeak here) progression from Martha Tabram to Mary Kelly. (And I know that you don't consider the C5 as having all been killed by the Ripper, but I'm definitely not with you on this.) How would you explain Mary Kelly in your reasoning? As a domestic killing, inspired by the newspaper reports? (Come on!)
At any rate, I'll most definitely conduct a search in Paris, without really hoping for results pertaining to that certain Strand detective agency we're both thinking of. But at least then we can be sure that we've checked it. And I could find more sources on Rachkovsky. Would you have any idea about any specific archives for criminal records in Paris? But I'll ask around, both in Paris and among Ripperologists.
And my boss, who's in Lyon right now, promised to ask around about the Lacassagne family (as I've located the name locally in a recent census search).
Do you have any suspicions that the other 2 parties “scooping you out“ at Stanford are Ripperologists? I most seriously doubt this!

[lynn cates]

Kelly

Hello Maria! I don't think MJ had anything to do with the Okhrana.

You see, we're always trying to explain one of the C5 in terms of the other 4. When that happens, we inevitably try pounding square pegs into round holes.

Cheers.
LC