Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[DVV]

Not necessarily, no. If she had recently spoken of this insanity with a family member or friend and given it some afterthought, she may well have arrived at a more specific than general figure, and if that figure was 160 years, then why would she give a rounder number when speaking to the asylum officials?

Things can be more simple and less sinister that we think they are.

All the best,
Fisherman

Agreed, Fish.

Insanity first showed up in this unfortunate family on July 2, 1730, quarter to 9. (pm)

Cheers

[Wickerman]

Not necessarily, no. If she had recently spoken of this insanity with a family member or friend and given it some afterthought, she may well have arrived at a more specific than general figure, and if that figure was 160 years, then why would she give a rounder number when speaking to the asylum officials?

Things can be more simple and less sinister that we think they are.

All the best,
Fisherman

Exactly so, 160 years is about the same as five generations. Without knowing the context of why that footnote was included we have no reason to question it either.
Rather than dismiss what we don't understand, we should try to make sense of it as it was written.
It could well be a reference to five generations of mental problems.

[Fisherman]

And there we are, one poster reflects rationally over my post while another desperately tries to make fun of it.

Why am I not surprised?

All the best,
Fisherman
off to bed

[DVV]

Dave Brubeck

Exactly so, 160 years is about the same as five generations.

Oh. Now Henrietta is a disciple of Lucien Febvre.

Take five and half, Jon.

Cheers

[DVV]

And there we are, one poster reflects rationally over my post while another desperately tries to make fun of it.

Why am I not surprised?

All the best,
Fisherman
off to bed

It's pretty clear that this poster has more to offer than "It has been written (once)".

For the record, you seem to think Giraffe-Joe was MJK ex-fiancé, while Lechmere has just created another Fleming.

And curiously, you agree on his (their) height.

Ah !

Is that so fun ?

Sleep well, Fish. Take food and work. Wish you good health. Don't be as thin as that poor Fleming. We need you in good shape.

All the best

[Ben]

What is it with this strange habit people have recently cultivated of dredging up age-old arguments? I don't know if it's the result of frustration that certain people didn't "get their way" last time they picked the fight, but it's extremely irritating. If you couldn't get your opponent to fold, or if the attempt to shout the pesky "Hutchinsonians" down didn't work last time, you're unlikely to have any better luck this time around. We've been through the Victoria Home business feck knows how many times, but off we go again for some fascinating reason.

Why?

Most of us with any familiarity with Fleming or Hutchinson discussions will know full well that the Victoria Home was considered superior, in some respects, to the entirely unsupervised lodging houses of the type found along Dorset Street and elsewhere (chiefly because the Victoria Home advertised itself as such), but it was still a grotty lodging house which catered for as many as 500 men per night. The conditions were still poor, the accommodation still degrading and the security still lax. The last mentioned is utterly beyond dispute, and despite Lechmere's wholly erroneous insinuation that the Victoria Home was virtually a ladder-wrung down from a hotel, the sheer numbers the place catered for rendered any sort of tight security operation impossible. The home would need multiple CCTV cameras and bouncer-like figures scattered throughout.

When Jack London visited the Home, he found the accommodation and “services” there wanting in the extreme.

It is preposterous to argue that the supposedly regular police checks would enable them to ascertain whether or not the murderer lived there. Firstly, we have absolutely no evidence that the Victoria Home was routinely given the once-over in search of the killer, and I've already mentioned the sheer number of men sleeping there of an average night. That's all most of them did, incidentally - slept there. There was no onus on any of them to make loads of friends, get chummy with the deputies, or use the luxurious five-star facilities on offer.

The man referred to in the press around the time of the McKenzie murder was known to the deputy for a number of years, yes, but that was only because the man himself facilitated the situation. Most lodgers, including Joseph Fleming, were not there for years (at least he wasn’t in 1888) and would have had no reason to become personally acquainted with the deputy or keeper. 500 men, remember – different men most nights, most probably. If you’re suggesting that the deputy was in a position to clear each and every one of them “of suspicion”, you are way off base.

The only major difference with other establishments, apart from catering to men only, was the fact that lodgers new to the home were obliged to register their details. That does not mean they re-registered their details every time they entered and exited the building. The Victoria Home also offered weekly passes as well as daily ones. These were the “special passes” referred to – a generic lump of metal, entirely impersonal and unspecific to any individual that was issued and re-issued to whoever needed one. It served as proof as purchase and thus entitlement to a bed for any lodger who returned there after 12:30am (or 1.00am as some sources say). So let's discard the nonsense, once and for all, that the Victoria Home was in any way ill-suited to a "night-stalker" type of killer. Even Edmund Reid, the likely true identity of "Inspector Harris" stated that he would not be surprised if the killer turned out to be a resident there.

Should any doubt linger over the Victoria Home’s unquestionable status as a crappy (but not quite as crappy as the really crappy lodging houses) crap-hole, I suggest you listen to Charles Booth, who described it has being home to “rough characters” and designated it dark blue to indicate “very poor” and “chronic want”.

Neither Hutchinson nor Fleming had to be well-known Victoria Homies if they didn’t want to be. If Hutchinson, for instance, kept himself to himself, he had no reason to become a “minor celebrity” at the home, and there’s absolutely no reason to conclude that Fleming – as a recent arrival there – made any waves at all. He was simply another face in the crowd; another “brief history” on a ledger that contained many thousands. No other lodger needed to “know him as Fleming” if he didn’t give his name to anyone he may have exchanged conversation with, or indeed if he did anything other than crash there late and night and get up and leave early in the morning.

[Ben]

But then we're straight back to this 6'7" business.

The entry is probably in error.

That is the most reasonable stance.

Just as Sir Robert Anderson's statement that the identification of Jack the Ripper was a "definitely ascertained fact" is probably in error.

Not "possibly" in error, probably.

Oh but...but...but...Ben! That's what it says, so we just have to accept it!

No we don't. That is nonsense. That is sticking our heads in the sand like an ostrich or a hobbyist. If an otherwise clear and unambiguous entry in the historical record seems vastly improbable, it's usually because it's wrong. We are then obliged to use our logic and common sense in order to explain and, if necessary, correct it.

The Fleming document is known to contain errors. It is generally accepted that the given age (37) is wrong because it ill-accords with more reliable information, such as census records, which all indicate that he must have been around five years younger than that in 1892. When another entry in the same form looks just as erroneous and improbable - in this case his reported height at 6'7" and a weight of just 11 stone - we should treat it with precisely the same caution and mistrust. Debs' suggested explanation that the entry was supposed to read 67 inches is appealing on two levels. Firstly, it is based on first-hand experience of archival documents of this nature, in which peoples' heights have been recorded in inches only, and secondly, it would mean Fleming's height was a far more mainstream, average, 5'7", which would make considerably better sense of both the recorded weight of 11 stone and the notation that his bodily health was "good" (which it wouldn't have been if he was freakishly tall and freakishly skinny).

We keep hearing these meaningless references to Peter Crouch as though the point has never been raised, but he is of widely noted extremes in terms of height and weight – more so than any other individual in the public eye in this country. What is more likely: that Fleming was even more extreme than this, or that he was rather closer the physical norm? Nobody's ever suggested that it is impossible for someone to be that tall and that skinny, but to be both those things and yet in "good" bodily health is horribly implausible.

Dave has raised the additional consideration that the claim attributed to Joseph's mother, Henrietta, that insanity had been in the family for 160 years is very unusual. Since "6" is not conventionally accepted as a significant figure for people to "round up/down" to, her estimate for the commencement of her family's alleged "insanity" seems very odd. 150 years would make more sense, just as 5'7" would make more sense for Fleming's height.

The Fleming mentioned in the report was most assuredly Kelly's Fleming. Of that there can be no doubt, or at least none of the "reasonable" variety. There were not two Joseph Fleming's from Bethnal Green, and who worked "in the building trade" as a mason's plasterer in 1888. With this reality in mind, it's impossible to accept that Kelly related nothing of her ex-boyfriends truly striking appearance to either Barnett or Julia Venturney.

Finally, if people want to start an argument about Hutchinson (another one), can they please confine their concerns to the relevant topics and avoid making continued, annoying references to "Hutchinsonians"? It's a term I coined, along with "Toppy", and I'm delighted to hear that both have taken off in terms of popular usage, but the idea that anyone who rejects the 6'7" purism only does so out of a desire to promote Hutchinson as a suspect is both a long way from way from reality and an insult to perfectly good researchers.

It is fascinating to observe that the only casebookers who post here, merely to say "6'7, he was that tall !" are those who fight against Ben in every Hutch thread.

Yes, fascinating "coincidence" that, Dave!

Always the same three.

And I lap up the attention - tart that I am.

If anyone's interested, there was a great article written in Ripperologist a few years back by Christer Holmgren. He argues that Fleming was the ripper, and that the Victoria Home was the probable ripper's lair. This is how Holmgren is recorded in the Jack the Ripper A-Z (Begg, Fido, Skinner), i.e. as a Fleming-as-Ripper theorist.

[Cogidubnus]

Thanks Ben

You've just restored my (diminished) faith in Ripperology...

All the best

Dave

[harry]

comfort

A 6'7" plasterer working in rooms that were 6' high in the main,must have felt as comfortable as a 'miner working the same height drift.Unless they worked sitting or kneeling.Reminds me,I never did see a miner of that height, although I did live for quite some time in a mining district.Never saw a 6'7"plasterer either.Such oddities would surely have attracted some mention,somewhere.

[Fisherman]

For the record, you seem to think Giraffe-Joe was MJK ex-fiancé, while Lechmere has just created another Fleming.

Do I?

And has he?

It would be more correct to say that I recognize that the asylum man may or may not have been Kellyīs beau.

And it would be more correct to say that Edward recognizes the exact same thing.

But who needs to be correct, eh?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben has taken the time to write a very long post, which was uncalled for. It really only boils down to very few things that need to be dealt with. Here is the first one:

What is more likely: that Fleming was even more extreme than this, or that he was rather closer the physical norm?

What Ben wants the answer to here is the question whether it is more likely that a victorian man was 6 ft 7 or 5 ft 7.
Somehow, he posits this question as some sort of solution to what height the asylum man was.

So letīs ask ourselves which of the two heights is the more common one! Not very surprisingly, 5 ft 7 is. Since 5 ft 7 was a more common height than 6 ft 7, Ben wants us to accept that the asylum man WAS 5 ft 7, and not 6 ft 7, as it says in the records.

If Ripperology was always that simple, we would know the Ripperīs name by now. Or names, to be more exact - thousands of them. And they would all be equally true.

Of course, itīs not just the height - Ben tells us that it the combination with the weight that does it:

Nobody's ever suggested that it is impossible for someone to be that tall and that skinny, but to be both those things and yet in "good" bodily health is horribly implausible.

Horribly ... "implausible"? Why yes; Peter Crouch is a freak of nature, right? Well, no, he is not - he is an athlete, and athletes (people who are extremely bodily able) very often have very low BMI values. The asylum man would have had a BMI ranging around 17, exactly as Crouch. And this is what it says about low BMI values on the net:

"If your BMI is below 20:
This indicates a lean BMI, which means you have a low amount of body fat. If you are an athlete, this can be desirable."

Oh! Desirable? Wow.

But of course, the asylum man was not an athlete, as far as we know. So maybe it was therefore undesirable to have low body fat on his behalf?

Letīs ask the World Healt Organization! What do they say about low BMI values and health? Here it is:

"According to the World Health Organization, normal weight is considered to be a BMI of 18.5 to 24.99. A BMI of 17 to 18.49 is consider to be mild thinness, 16 to 16.99 is considered to be moderate thinness, and less than 16 is considered to be severe thinness."

So Evans/Fleming was mildly thin, by the looks of things. And can mildly thin people be of good bodily health? The question answers itself; of course they can, and they generally are.

This is where Bens vociferous arguments meet with the truth. What he describes as "horribly implausible" is that a mildly thin man can be healthy.

Dave has raised the additional consideration that the claim attributed to Joseph's mother, Henrietta, that insanity had been in the family for 160 years is very unusual. Since "6" is not conventionally accepted as a significant figure for people to "round up/down" to, her estimate for the commencement of her family's alleged "insanity" seems very odd. 150 years would make more sense, just as 5'7" would make more sense for Fleming's height.

... and I have pointed out that the two entries were written by different men, so there is nothing pointing to a record writer that habitually changed all his fives for sixes. And maybe we should take things at face value instead of "rounding them off" conveniently, once we have them in black and white.

If anyone's interested, there was a great article written in Ripperologist a few years back by Christer Holmgren. He argues that Fleming was the ripper, and that the Victoria Home was the probable ripper's lair. This is how Holmgren is recorded in the Jack the Ripper A-Z (Begg, Fido, Skinner), i.e. as a Fleming-as-Ripper theorist.

Thanks for that, Ben! But I argued that Fleming COULD HAVE BEEN the Ripper - not that he was.
Why is it so hard for you to present things factually correct?

It still applies that Fleming could have been the Ripper, by the way. And if he was, my text offers a solution to how it may have worked.

It was, however, written before I found out that Fleming was a mildly thin man of 6 ft 7, though. And just as I have changed my mind on the Tabram issue and the Stride issue (do you need the references?), I have also changed my mind on the probability that Fleming was the killer. I find it less credible today then I did back then, quite simply.

Donīt you change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence telling you that you would have been wrong, Ben?

Well?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

A 6'7" plasterer working in rooms that were 6' high in the main,must have felt as comfortable as a 'miner working the same height drift.Unless they worked sitting or kneeling.Reminds me,I never did see a miner of that height, although I did live for quite some time in a mining district.Never saw a 6'7"plasterer either.Such oddities would surely have attracted some mention,somewhere.

My son is a furniture carpenter, specializing in boat interiors. He is 6 ft 6 and weighs 105 kilograms. He is also a very good and appreciated craftsman.

You really should not compare plasterers to miners, Harry. It leads us down the wrong path. Or are you saying that Evans/Fleming could only have had an occupation that kept him ootdoors? If so, plasterers DO work outdoors too, you know.

And of course somebody would have commented on his height. That carpenter son of mine has a companion who is 207 centimeters tall (and with a BMI lower than that of Evans/Fleming, but still fit as a fiddle), and he hears comments about his height all day long. That may well have been the case with Evans/Fleming too. But we donīt even know if the witnesses at the Kelly inquest ever saw him, do we? And even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would mention it, is there?

All the best,
Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

That may well have been the case with Evans/Fleming too. But we donīt even know if the witnesses at the Kelly inquest ever saw him, do we? And even if they did, there is no guarantee that they would mention it, is there?

Absolutely. No one saw him. They only knew his name and that isn't enough to judge a man's size upon...unless his name was Tiny.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Absolutely. No one saw him. They only knew his name and that isn't enough to judge a man's size upon...unless his name was Tiny.

Mike

Hi Mike!

Well, I am not exactly saying that no one saw him. I am saying that we cannot be sure that the witnesses at the Kelly inquest that mentioned him (if it was him they mentioned, which can be questioned; "Joe" does not exactly equal Joseph Fleming, does it?) actually had seen him.

Besides, the only Tiny I know of is Tiny Tim ... and he was not very tiny, was he?

All the best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Teratophilia

Oh yes.
A 6'7 skeleton used to visit Mary, and nobody noticed.
He sure was walking on his knees in Spitalfields.
That also explains why she was very fond of him.