Was Mitre Square being watched that Double Event night?

[Joshua Rogan]

I assuming you mean George Morris, the nightwatchman at the tea company based in Mitre Square? His door was open apparently and he heard nothing. Funny that earlier that week he suggested that if the Ripper were to show up where he was he'd give it to him. He challenged the killer.

"It was only on that night that he remarked to some policeman that he wished the "butcher" would come round Mitre square, and he would give him a doing; yet the "butcher" had come, and he was perfectly ignorant of it."

Are you suggesting that the killer was that very policeman?

Edit: From the Times "His door had not been on the jar more than two or three minutes before Watkins called him"

[APerno]

That apron section....there were Police at both scenes that night, Mitre and Goulston, it always troubles me. The ambiguity in the recollections of the time it was placed there, the specific way the message was written, the spelling of the word Jews for example. The inference of the location suggesting a return from the city to the East End.

That apron section could have been discreetly disposed of very easily by whomever took it. No-one need ever find it. And by the evidence, it could have been placed there within about an hour of the murder, not just within minutes as the killer fled...which again raises the question of whether this is strategically placed evidence.

If I may, you are saying that its tardy appearance at Goulston Street argues a deliberate placement (not merely being discarded) therefore giving the graffito currency?

OK, I will say this is the best logic I have heard arguing that the graffito isn't incidental. In giving credence to the missive it in turn explains the apron's tardy appearance. Why not?

I have always been an advocate of the belief that PC Long didn't make his 2:20 round and at 2:55 he needed to claim the apron wasn't earlier there. By claiming the graffito was also new served two purposes: it helped make his observation skills sound keen, and it served as the perfect distraction, with no one thinking to question the apron's (very bizarre) tardy appearance.

I think the Ockham's razor here is that: PC Long got away with being incompetent, but accepting the graffito makes the apron's tardy appearance reasonable.

If PC Long is telling the truth of it, then your argument is sound, there really is no other reason to go back to Goulston except to leave a message.

This does then necessitate that this guy walked back (or remained) close to the murder site with the bloody apron on his person for at least 20 minutes after Kate is found; your Ripper has big ones.


P.S. How come the Casebook Police Official's page doesn't include a short bio of PC Alfred Long? I would think his discovery (and all that goes with it) would warrant an inclusion.

[Michael W Richards]

"It was only on that night that he remarked to some policeman that he wished the "butcher" would come round Mitre square, and he would give him a doing; yet the "butcher" had come, and he was perfectly ignorant of it."

Are you suggesting that the killer was that very policeman?

Edit: From the Times "His door had not been on the jar more than two or three minutes before Watkins called him"

No. Im not. Im suggesting the irony of him saying that and then having the Ripper kill someone almost right under his nose without his being aware of it.

[Michael W Richards]

If I may, you are saying that its tardy appearance at Goulston Street argues a deliberate placement (not merely being discarded) therefore giving the graffito currency?

OK, I will say this is the best logic I have heard arguing that the graffito isn't incidental. In giving credence to the missive it in turn explains the apron's tardy appearance. Why not?

I have always been an advocate of the belief that PC Long didn't make his 2:20 round and at 2:55 he needed to claim the apron wasn't earlier there. By claiming the graffito was also new served two purposes: it helped make his observation skills sound keen, and it served as the perfect distraction, with no one thinking to question the apron's (very bizarre) tardy appearance.

I think the Ockham's razor here is that: PC Long got away with being incompetent, but accepting the graffito makes the apron's tardy appearance reasonable.

If PC Long is telling the truth of it, then your argument is sound, there really is no other reason to go back to Goulston except to leave a message.

This does then necessitate that this guy walked back (or remained) close to the murder site with the bloody apron on his person for at least 20 minutes after Kate is found; your Ripper has big ones.


P.S. How come the Casebook Police Official's page doesn't include a short bio of PC Alfred Long? I would think his discovery (and all that goes with it) would warrant an inclusion.

PC Long said "It was not there" at his earlier pass, that's not ambiguous. If he was lying to cover his lack of attention, or his not actually making that pass, he is doing so with emphasis. I think he told the truth. In which case, as you note, there is good reason to presume it was left intentionally there. To marry with the GSG? Or did he also add the GSG?

[Busy Beaver]

I wonder who else Morris told about wanting to come face to face with the killer - to do him? Just coincidence or a bit more?

[Sam Flynn]

I wonder who else Morris told about wanting to come face to face with the killer?

Possibly nobody at all. What Morris is said to have said has more than a whiff of post-hoc bragging about it.

[Joshua Rogan]

Possibly nobody at all. What Morris is said to have said has more than a whiff of post-hoc bragging about it.

Possibly, though I find it quite plausible that Morris might have made such a remark. But how many other men in London made similar statements, yet their words were never recorded or remembered because the Ripper never came anywhere near them?

[Sam Flynn]

But how many other men in London made similar statements, yet their words were never recorded or remembered because the Ripper never came anywhere near them?

Indeed. Similarly, how many people said "I think I know who [the Ripper] is" as Catherine Eddowes is supposed to have done?

[Joshua Rogan]

Indeed. Similarly, how many people said "I think I know who [the Ripper] is" as Catherine Eddowes is supposed to have done?

Exactly. Subsequent events can give some remarks a significance they may not otherwise merit.

[Michael W Richards]

Indeed. Similarly, how many people said "I think I know who [the Ripper] is" as Catherine Eddowes is supposed to have done?

The numbers wouldn't negate the possibility one or more of them was correct Sam, and I don't see a plethora of street women lining up at the station to see if they can claim any reward. Kate apparently did claim just that and the intention of claiming the reward, I would imagine if the person or persons she had in mind caught wind of this little betrayal, and were the bad dudes she imagined, they might want her shut up. Maybe even mark her face for others to see what happens when you stick your nose into other peoples business.

[Sam Flynn]

The numbers wouldn't negate the possibility one or more of them was correct Sam.

You're assuming that Kate actually said it, and that it wasn't made up by the Casual Ward's superintendent in order to secure their own 5 minutes of fame, or invented by the East London Observer to add a dash of late-Victorian sentimental tragedy to its article.

[Michael W Richards]

Yeah. I am assuming that the landlady accurately reflected what Kate said to her. What you say is possible, sure, but I believe that Kates last 24 hours in particular were misrepresented by Kelly and that we don't really know what she was up to. That Saturday afternoon....getting falling down drunk before 8:30 on what we know is just about zero money. Who paid for the drinks, and why. Not like these women to be out soliciting late afternoon. So why buy her drinks?

There are some real puzzlers about this murder I believe, and I also believe the differing skills noticed by Phillips is interesting too.

[c.d.]

I think she was just talking s***.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

For what its worth, the lamp & the posts in this newspaper sketch did exist. They were noted by Foster on his drawings of Mitre Square.



Foster wrote:

Posts & a lamp
at the end of this
passage in
Duke St.

[APerno]

The passage is quite long; I was not aware it was that separated from the street corner. I suppose the lamp would not have illuminated any part of the square.