Buck's Row Timings

[wigngown]

I'd need to stew on that one.

[Robert St Devil]

And now you have gone and started an idea that we were "saving seconds". Implying that we had a goal to do so.

But in "all fairness", Fish, you are asking us to 'fit' Mary Ann's murder into a very tight time frame regardless of a second here or there.

1. PC Mizen says he was approached for assistance by two men about 3:45a.
2. Robert Paul claims there was a 4 minute window from the time he discovered the woman until the time he saw the police.

~ So we are around 3:40a

3. Cross said he left about 3:30a, and the walk seems to be anywhere from 7 to 9 minutes.

~ Leaving us with a few minutes where Cross either: a) discovered her body, or b) murdered her.

- - - - - - - - - - -

There is some evidence I think keeps Cross in the running as a candidate. She was thought to have been killed within the half hour. Her lower body was still warm. And, Robert Paul thought she might still have been barely breathing.

Meaning, that she may have been murdered after 3:30a.

-- - - - - - - - -

The newest mystery for me are the "two men":

1. PC Neale states that:

"The first to arrive on the scene after I had discovered the body were two men who work at a slaughterhouse opposite."

However...

2. Henry Tomkins claims:

When he arrived at Buck's-row the doctor and two or three policemen were there. He believed that two other men, whom he did not know, were also there.


What are the possibilities that Henry Tomkins would not know his own coworkers? Was the slaughterhouse a large operation with many employees?

[Rosella]

Tompkins, Britton and Mumford were the three that were working late shift at the time of Polly's murder, all slaughtering and Mumford taking care of the boiler as well. An Echo reporter described the knackery in Winthrop St as spacious, and interviewed Mumford, who complained that graffito (chalk?) had been found on their gates stating that 'this was where the murder was done'.

http://www.casebook.org/witnesses/tomkins-mumford-brittain.html?printer=true

The Coroner grew very impatient with Tomkins' evidence at the inquest. He doesn't seem to have counted how many men were standing around looking at the murder site.

[David Orsam]

And now you have gone and started an idea that we were "saving seconds". Implying that we had a goal to do so.

No, Fisherman, you have got it wrong. That is not what I was implying and not what I meant. There was no suggestion from me that you were deliberately attempting to reduce the time of the walk. If it has come out like that it wasn't intended. It was meant to be no more than a statement of fact.

When I carried out my first walks they were from the same point you started at, in the street, in an attempt to replicate your walk, and keep all the walks consistent, but this time I decided to go from the front doors (partly because the houses all now appear to be unoccupied, hence no intrusion by doing so, and also because, this time, I wasn't trying to replicate your walk but was deliberately doing it more slowly to establish the maximum time of the walk only). I could equally have said that I extended the walk by a few seconds in starting from a different point. Why do you think a few seconds would even make any material difference? The difference would have changed your timing from no more than 7:07 to 7:10. Why would I even want to make a silly point like that? I was trying to clarify the exact route of my walk to allow comparisons, something you have not done.

Having said this, I don't know where you get the idea that the houses in 1888 were "more or less" at the street – and it strikes me that, if true, this is something you should have mentioned in your (never posted) methodology so that others could repeat the experiment – but it is hardly significant given that it is no more than a difference a few seconds of time.

As far as I'm concerned, your response is yet another way to avoid setting out the route of your walk. Your claim that you "actually stopped reading the thread there and then" strikes me as a way of pretending that you haven't seen the questions I asked you about your walk; perfectly reasonable questions which you appear to have no intention of answering

[Robert St Devil]

Tompkins, Britton and Mumford were the three that were working late shift at the time of Polly's murder...

Hi Ros. I don,t agree with the story. I believer by the time PC Thain goes to fetch his cape at 4:15a, he has already gone and alerted the doctor 20 minutes prior. I think he was on-site as late as 4:30a, awaiting direction or something similar. When PC Neale states that 2 men (the slaughterhouse men) were first to arrive, I believe he is talking about the public, not the doctor or constables (who are already there)


However... Tomkins doesn,t know them. Huh?

[Robert St Devil]

{It's Battle of Flowers here in San Antonio, and no one feels like working... least of all me. So, perusing the Internet while my boss nods off at his desk, I came across the following article regarding the Nicholls inquest. My apologies if this has been discussed here before, but it seemed to fit in the vein of the thread. I will transcribe the part that I feel are relevant since other aspects are already known to the case. Also, I don't know the legitimacy of the newspaper, but... anyways!}

Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser - Tuesday 04 September 1888

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER RESUMED INQUEST

Charles Allen Cross, a carman in the employ of Messrs. Pickford, said:

On Friday morning I left home at half-past three. I went down Parson-street, crossed Brady-street, and through Buck's-row. I was alone. As I got up Buck's-row I saw something lying on the north side in the gateway to a wool warehouse. It looked like a man's tarpaulin, but on going into the center of the road I saw it was the figure of a woman.

- - - - - - - - -

Jane oran said:

I live at 18, Thrawl-street, which is a common lodging house for single women. I have known the deceased for six weeks; she slept in the same bed as me. She has not been in the house for the last eight or ten days. I saw her about half-past two on the morning she was murdered in Whitechapel-road. I asked her where she was living, and she said that she was staying where men and women were allowed to sleep, and that she would come back to my house to her own room.
CORONER: Did she say where she was living?
WITNESS: I think she said Flower and Dean-street. I tried to persuade her to stay with me that night, but she was in drink, and refused. She never used to be that fond of the men, and I don't think she was a fast woman.
CORONER: Did she use to get the worse for drink often?
WITNESS: I have seen her the worse once or twice.

- - - - - --

In another report, Wm. Niccholls confirms that Mary Ann's missing teeth was "of old standing".

[Pcdunn]

"A man's tarpaulin" made me curious enough to do a little research and conclude that Lechmere means not a common tarp sheet for covering firewood or the open spaces at the rear of trucks/lorries (as we might interpret it today)-- but, rather a garment of some sort.
A glance at a dictionary definition told me tarpaulins were originally waterproofed with tar, and made of canvas.

And more searching on the web turned up this link to the Victorian song, "The Tarpaulin Jacket", supposedly the last words of a dying soldier.

http://www.contemplator.com/england/tarpaulin.html

(BTW, I think the lyrics inspired the western song about a dying cowboy, who does not want to be buried on "the lone prairie", but would like to be carried to his grave by six white horses. It certainly seems familiar, despite the change in locations.)

So... Why did Lechmere stop to look at the "tarpaulin"? A discarded man's tarpaulin coat could have been a prize for a cart driver who was normally out in all types of weather, day in and day out. I think poor people are always scavengers, and he was perhaps thinking of snatching it up. No wonder that, when he saw it was a murdered woman, he was loathe to "touch her".

[Pcdunn]

A Man's Tarpaulin

Deleted-- double posted, sorry.

[Joshua Rogan]

Thank you for that info Rob. If that's the case then 152 was on the opposite side of the road to where I started from and, it seems, much closer to Brady Street. So it should have taken about 2 minutes for Thain to have reached the doctor from the murder site.

Sorry to quote such an old post, but yes, it seems Dr Llewellyn's address of 152 Whitechapel Road was indeed on the North side, just two doors West from the Queen's head at the corner of Brady Street. The Goad map from 1899 shows it marked as a Surgery, and even confirms the change of numbers, 152 being crossed out and replaced by 313.

http://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/map/mkKiiDL542z6PwvUnmbdVA/201312230644-z5ozkA/visualize

[Billiou]

So... Why did Lechmere stop to look at the "tarpaulin"? A discarded man's tarpaulin coat could have been a prize for a cart driver who was normally out in all types of weather, day in and day out. I think poor people are always scavengers, and he was perhaps thinking of snatching it up. No wonder that, when he saw it was a murdered woman, he was loathe to "touch her".

Well, apart from touching her hand and maybe her face as well. And they didn't know it was a murdered woman at the time.....

[Fisherman]

No, Fisherman, you have got it wrong. That is not what I was implying and not what I meant. There was no suggestion from me that you were deliberately attempting to reduce the time of the walk. If it has come out like that it wasn't intended. It was meant to be no more than a statement of fact.

When I carried out my first walks they were from the same point you started at, in the street, in an attempt to replicate your walk, and keep all the walks consistent, but this time I decided to go from the front doors (partly because the houses all now appear to be unoccupied, hence no intrusion by doing so, and also because, this time, I wasn't trying to replicate your walk but was deliberately doing it more slowly to establish the maximum time of the walk only). I could equally have said that I extended the walk by a few seconds in starting from a different point. Why do you think a few seconds would even make any material difference? The difference would have changed your timing from no more than 7:07 to 7:10. Why would I even want to make a silly point like that? I was trying to clarify the exact route of my walk to allow comparisons, something you have not done.

Having said this, I don't know where you get the idea that the houses in 1888 were "more or less" at the street – and it strikes me that, if true, this is something you should have mentioned in your (never posted) methodology so that others could repeat the experiment – but it is hardly significant given that it is no more than a difference a few seconds of time.

As far as I'm concerned, your response is yet another way to avoid setting out the route of your walk. Your claim that you "actually stopped reading the thread there and then" strikes me as a way of pretending that you haven't seen the questions I asked you about your walk; perfectly reasonable questions which you appear to have no intention of answering

Oh, for heavenīs sake, David, why cannot you just admit that you were wrong about this? The houses in Doveton Street stood very close to the pavement back in 1888, and so we started from the correct point, Andy and I.

It really is no harder than that!

And you suggested that we were saving time when starting from that point. People who save time do so actively, and with an intention. Meaning that your post pointed to how we would have wished to slice of some little time in order to shorten the time of the whole trek.

You now write thaat it would be ridiculous, since it would involve a few seconds only, and I can only concur: ridiculous is the word.

It really is no harder than that!

Move on with your life, thatīs my advice. We all loose out at times.

[David Orsam]

Oh, for heavenīs sake, David, why cannot you just admit that you were wrong about this? The houses in Doveton Street stood very close to the pavement back in 1888, and so we started from the correct point, Andy and I.

It really is no harder than that!

And you suggested that we were saving time when starting from that point. People who save time do so actively, and with an intention. Meaning that your post pointed to how we would have wished to slice of some little time in order to shorten the time of the whole trek.

You now write thaat it would be ridiculous, since it would involve a few seconds only, and I can only concur: ridiculous is the word.

It really is no harder than that!

Move on with your life, thatīs my advice. We all loose out at times.

Are you actually reading my posts Fisherman or just guessing at their contents? You seem to think I am challenging your statement about the position of the houses when I'm not. I have no idea where the houses were positioned in 1888 and, having read your post, still have no idea because you haven't explained where you obtained your information from.

Here is what I actually said on the issue (with some bold for emphasis):

"I don't know where you get the idea that the houses in 1888 were "more or less" at the street – and it strikes me that, if true, this is something you should have mentioned in your (never posted) methodology so that others could repeat the experiment – but it is hardly significant given that it is no more than a difference a few seconds of time."

So I was making two points there:

1. If it was true, which it may well be (but I don't know) you should have said so from the outset.

2. It is nevertheless not significant in terms of the timing.

I don't therefore understand your question "why cannot you just admit that you were wrong about this?" What are you saying I am wrong about?

And when you answer that question would you mind setting out the exact route you took in your walk from Doveton Street to Durward Street with Andy Griffiths?

[Fisherman]

Are you actually reading my posts Fisherman or just guessing at their contents?

To be perfectly honest, I am spending less and less time on them. Thatīs not to say that I am guessing their content.
Could have, though, given how predictable they have become.

[David Orsam]

To be perfectly honest, I am spending less and less time on them.

Thank you for your honesty. It explains why you constantly and consistently misunderstand, misinterpret and misrepresent them.

[Fisherman]

Thank you for your honesty. It explains why you constantly and consistently misunderstand, misinterpret and misrepresent them.

Oops. Seems YOU forgot to read half of MY post.