How "safe" were the respective murder sites?

[John G]

After Diemschultz and cart approached do you think Jack made a quick retreat to the darkness near the privy block in the yard?

It would have had to have been somewhere where he could have seen what was going on. He could then have sneaked out while there was a crowd looking at the body. Certainly before the gates were ordered closed.

He could have made a quick run for it when Louis dashed inside to look for his wife, I suppose, though Mrs Mortimer saw no man running/walking away from the club.

I would certainly agree that the killer probably escaped from the yard when Louis entered the club to look for his wife. I don't see Mrs Mortimer being a problem with this scenario because, by her own evidence, she had already returned indoors, bolted the door and was preparing for bed some four minutes before she heard the approach of a pony a cart, presumably Diemshutz.

Best wishes,

John

[Rosella]

After Diemschultz and cart approached do you think Jack made a quick retreat to the darkness near the privy block in the yard?

It would have had to have been somewhere where he could have seen what was going on. He could then have sneaked out while there was a crowd looking at the body. Certainly before the gates were ordered closed.

He could have made a quick run for it when Louis dashed inside to look for his wife, I suppose, though Mrs Mortimer saw no man running/walking away from the club.

[Fisherman]

Hello Christer Thanks.

Let me put it this way. I am a logician. I seek truth. You're a journalist. You seek a story.

I have the truth; you have a story. We should BOTH be happy.

I CERTAINLY am.

Cheers.
LC

No, letīs not put it that way. I very much dislike having it hinted at that I would abandon truth for a story.

Letīs instead put it this way:

When looking for what Phillips said and meant, I turn to Phillips to find out. He is the original source and the only way we can be sure that we get it right.

When looking for a way to avoid having it known what Phillips said and meant, you turn to Baxters misinterpretation of it. Baxter is a secondary source, and offers a possibility to get it wrong.

Letīs put it like that instead, shall we? And leave it there.

Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

Sweat shops and all kinds of assembly and small manufacturing took place round the clock, people often working strange shifts.

Thank goodness for that. They were working and didn't congest the streets between 1 and 4 AM.

Mike

[c.d.]

Hello John G,

I think that even if technically the B.S. man assaulted or attacked Stride as you say even if a PC had intervened I think that if the B.S. man had a reasonably believable story, i.e., "I told her to move on and she started to mouth off to me so I gave her a little shove and I guess I might have pushed a little too hard", I think the PC would have simply said move on and don't let it happen again.

The moral of the story to me is to view the whole B.S. man in exactly the terms that Schwartz uses to describe it as opposed to giving it much more importance in light of what happened shortly after. That is why words like "attacked" and "assaulted" are so heavily loaded in this instance.

c.d.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Mr B,

I think you need to consider a completely different kind of London than the one you speak of. I don't contest that on any given night in London today 1am to 4am is generally the quietest in terms of street traffic, nor that it was any different on that basis in 1888, but when considering these cases and the actual geographical range that they took place within you see that they all were within the most overcrowded area in England at the time, let alone London. The homeless numbers were staggering due to the huge immigrant population and not enough work to go round. Sweat shops and all kinds of assembly and small manufacturing took place round the clock, people often working strange shifts.

This was an unusually impoverished area, and in those kinds of areas people mill about at all hours...good ones and bad ones.

Cheers

Michael,

Are you really suggesting that the early hours of the morning were not the quietest?

MrB

[c.d.]

Don't want to hijack the thread, but if I understand you correctly, there is a possibility that Stride suspected her assaillant of being JtR, so he killed her, not as one of his "fantaisie murder" but to silence her, because she's seen him? So Jack wasn't interrupted?

This is a very interesting angle, I must say.
Chapeau!

Now back to our regular programming.

Hello Sir John,

I am afraid you did not understand me correctly. The point that I was trying to make was that I think it is possible that Jack set out on some of the murder nights with the clear intention to kill some woman whomever it may be. But in the case of Stride, I think it possible that something she did or said made him want to kill her right there and then and if that was the case it might explain why it seems to us a bad venue for mutilation. The explanation being that his desire to kill HER overcame good judgment.

c.d.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Michael,

Shifts? Sounds like large-scale industry. Not much of that in Spitalfields.

Drunks? Lots after the pubs had turned out. But not all night.

Slaughtermen? Perhaps, there were a few small-scale slaughterhouses in the East End. But nothing compared to Islington, say, where it was on an industrial scale.

Drinking dens? No doubt there were some, but very few in comparison with the pubs.

Homeless? There are plenty of homeless people in London today, but they tend not to wander the streets all night long. They need sleep as much as anyone else and in the wee small hours are tucked up in doorways, parks etc as they would have been in 1888.

The hours between 1 and 4 were the quietest of any 24 hrs. The streets weren't empty, but they were at their most quiet .

MrB

Hi Mr B,

I think you need to consider a completely different kind of London than the one you speak of. I don't contest that on any given night in London today 1am to 4am is generally the quietest in terms of street traffic, nor that it was any different on that basis in 1888, but when considering these cases and the actual geographical range that they took place within you see that they all were within the most overcrowded area in England at the time, let alone London. The homeless numbers were staggering due to the huge immigrant population and not enough work to go round. Sweat shops and all kinds of assembly and small manufacturing took place round the clock, people often working strange shifts.

This was an unusually impoverished area, and in those kinds of areas people mill about at all hours...good ones and bad ones.

Cheers

[lynn cates]

truth

Hello Christer Thanks.

Let me put it this way. I am a logician. I seek truth. You're a journalist. You seek a story.

I have the truth; you have a story. We should BOTH be happy.

I CERTAINLY am.

Cheers.
LC

[MrBarnett]

Hi Michael,

Shifts? Sounds like large-scale industry. Not much of that in Spitalfields.

Drunks? Lots after the pubs had turned out. But not all night.

Slaughtermen? Perhaps, there were a few small-scale slaughterhouses in the East End. But nothing compared to Islington, say, where it was on an industrial scale.

Drinking dens? No doubt there were some, but very few in comparison with the pubs.

Homeless? There are plenty of homeless people in London today, but they tend not to wander the streets all night long. They need sleep as much as anyone else and in the wee small hours are tucked up in doorways, parks etc as they would have been in 1888.

The hours between 1 and 4 were the quietest of any 24 hrs. The streets weren't empty, but they were at their most quiet .

MrB

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Sir John,

Not sure where your data on East End sleep patterns comes from, but pubs closed around midnight and markets opened around 5am, in between there was not much commercial activity going on and therefore little reason for people to be out of doors.

MrB

The amount of truly homeless people, people working shifts, butchers readying their meat for the market, street prostitutes and vagrants and drunks suggest that there was indeed steady street foot traffic throughout the night on those streets. Plus there were what is now known as Booze Cans here in Canada active at that time....illegal pubs,.... and private clubs, who had no real restrictions as to when they had to stop serving booze.

There was at one time back then such a place in Mitre Square I believe.

Cheers

[MrBarnett]

Hi Sir John,

Not sure where your data on East End sleep patterns comes from, but pubs closed around midnight and markets opened around 5am, in between there was not much commercial activity going on and therefore little reason for people to be out of doors.

MrB

[Fisherman]

Like I said in several threads, sleep patterns were different in those days.
People would sleep two 4 hour per night, sometimes separated by as much as 3 hours of activities.

But you're right, after the murder of Chapman, one of the big effect of the Whitechapel Fiend was that most people stayed indoor past sunset . I guess that's a reason why he decided to strike earlier.

Take note, if you will, that the early murders were committed on a Saturday night - the working manīs day off. That tells them apart from the other ones, and the killer may have struck at the end of a night out.

They were followed by the Kelly murder that probably was a late night murder once again. So the sequence could well be one where the killer strikes in the late hours on working days but in the early ones on his day off.

And yes, I do have a suggestion who that pattern fits...

The best,
Fisherman

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Between 1am and 4am the streets would be at their quietest. That's when a kill in a dark corner of a street would be preferable, as the killer would have a constant view of his escape routes. Earlier or later, killing in a yard would provide the seclusion unavailable in the streets, but would carry its own risks when it came to escape. Do the timings of the murders bear that out? I think so.

Like I said in several threads, sleep patterns were different in those days.
People would sleep two 4 hour per night, sometimes separated by as much as 3 hours of activities.

But you're right, after the murder of Chapman, one of the big effect of the Whitechapel Fiend was that most people stayed indoor past sunset . I guess that's a reason why he decided to strike earlier.

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman,

At about 8:30 around 100 people attended a discussion at the Berner Street Club, however, at about 11:30pm the talk ended and most people left, leaving about 20 to 30 individuals who stayed behind.

Between 11:30pm and 1:00am, a period of one and half hours, Begg and Bennett (2012) identify just 7 individuals who either entered or left the club: Morris Eagle and his fiance Kate Kopelansky; William West, who was short-sighted, his brother and Louis Stansley; Joseph Lave, who wasn't short-sighted but found it so dark that he had trouble finding the door to get back in after leaving for a smoke; and, of course, Louis Diemschitz.

Now frankly if some people believe that this gives the impression of a busy club all I can say is that they really ought to get out more!

It's also worth considering Evans and Rumbelow (2006) who note that the police subsequently searched just 28 individuals from the club, which also doesn't exactly convey the impression of a busy establishment.

And, of course, Fanny Mortimer, who lived just 3 doors from the club, claimed to be standing outside of her house for nearly the whole time between 12:30 and 1:00am and saw no one apart from Leon Goldstein and his black bag.

I also think that the evidence of Edward Spooner is useful. He arrived at the club around 1:05am after he saw Diemshitz and Kozebrodsky running up the street shouting "murder" and "police". And what did he find when he got there? The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee fully mobilized and ready for action? A baying, riotous mob of locals who had just spilled out of the nearby pubs and were now screaming for blood? The local area, including the Yard, being extensively searched? No, what he found was just 15 people quietly milling about in the passage. I think that just about says it all really!

Best wishes,

John

Yes, John, too much has been said about the bustling club and how it would prevent people bent on murder to operate in the vicinity of it. All the material we have seems to point something totally different from clubmembers that took to the street unanimously - or even trickled out - at the time Stride was attacked and killed. Apparently, they stayed put in the clubhouse, and there is every reason to think that they would leave more or less together at a later stage.

All the best,
Fisherman