Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[DVV]

Still laughing, David?
Fisherman

More than ever, Fish.
You are still missing Debs point.
See her last post.
Or keep chasing giants all over UK.

Cheers

[Abby Normal]

I was trying my hand at sarcasm, Abby. Apparently, you missed this.

All the best,
Fisherman

Hi fish
Yes I missed the sarcasm. Sorry for my harsh come back.

[Fisherman]

Hi fish
Yes I missed the sarcasm. Sorry for my harsh come back.

That´s just fine, Abby - Maybe I was a bit heavyhanded - good that it´s sorted out, anyway!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Fisherman-The reported height was extraordinary enough for the Yorkshire papers to think he must be the tallest man-that's how common it was. That was my point. Not many men strolling around of that height or close.

Yet there was seemingly a good supply of cheap clothing readily available for a modest earning drinking dock labourer that he could fit into! He wasn't lacking in any clothing compared to accounts we read daily of East End working men who went without shirts and wore their jackets buttoned up all the time to hide the fact, had no socks, some no boots.
That's all I'm saying.
I was asked by GM to comment on whether I thought the record was accurate or not and why. I've done that. My conclusion has nothing to do with whether Fleming was the Ripper,whether he was 'the other Joe' or whether or not people would have commented on his height.

We assume this was MJK's Fleming, I don't think we can be 100 % certain on that can we? The other Joseph Fleming that I detailed the workhouse life of on JTRforums was the one who definitely lived on the Bethnal Green Rd as MJK's Joe supposedly did at one time..

You may have noticed, Debra, that your 6 ft 6 man was NOT the talles man in England in 1891. There was in fact another Yorkshireman who stood 7 ft 6 inches tall; Harry Cooper. He was thus more than thirty centimeters taller than your man! He was also something of a celebrity, and this man WAS hired by a cirkus.
I´m asking myself: what would a 6 ft 6 man be doing at a cirkus? WHo´d come to see him, when so very much taller men were to be seen?
Moreover, would not a Yorkshire paper be familiar with "the Yorkshire Giant"? I find that odd in the extreme.

Suggestion: What if THIS record was wrong, and your man actually was 7 ft 6? If so, there would be uncertainty as to whether he or Cooper was the talles man in England, and the cirkus offers would stand to much more reason.

I can of course see the irony of my suggestion, but there is a measure of pedagogics involved: In this case, we know very well that there was another Yorkshireman who was very weel known and who stood 7 ft 6, meaning that it would be ridiculous to suggest your man at Englands tallest. There is therefore this time some substantiation behind a suggestion that he was misrecorded in the newspaper article. This I feel would be further strenghtened if we were to find out that 6 ft 6 men were not all that unusual and absolutely not cirkus material.

At the end of the day, whether the paper was just ill-informed and ignorant of Coopers existence or whether they did get the height wrong is of course somewhat immaterial. But there IS a useful hint that the latter may well have applied.
In the Fleming/Evans case, the only "substantiation" we have is that tall people were more unusual than normal people and that Fleming/Evans was a bit on the thin side.

Interesting comparison, don´t you think?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

ah but the paper could have made an error. he may have been 7' 6" or 6.66 feet tall. Errors happen.

Mike

Once again you beat me to it, Mike!

The best,
Fisherman

[Roy Corduroy]

Fish, you wrote an article on Fleming. I read it. Now you're here making a spectacle.

I don't get it

Roy

[Fisherman]

More than ever, Fish.
You are still missing Debs point.
See her last post.
Or keep chasing giants all over UK.

Cheers

I don´t have to chasse giants anymore. The point has been made. The Yorkshire man written about was not even in contention to be tallest in England. Nor should he be, at a mere 198 centimeters. In THIS case, we may have what you have been trying to establish for Fleming - a misreporting. Nota bene, I say "may"; that´s how I do things.

Good to hear you havent lost your sense of humour, by the way; you are going to need it.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Fish, you wrote an article on Fleming. I read it. Now you're here making a spectacle.

I don't get it

Roy

Tell me what it is you don´t get, and I will explain it to you. I hope you don´t think I married myself to the idea that Fleming must have been the Ripper by suggesting he may have been. Plus, at the time I wrote, the knowledge that Fleming/Evans was 6 ft 7 was not about, and that is what is debated here, not whether Fleming may have been the killer or not.

All the best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

I don´t have to chasse giants anymore. The point has been made. The Yorkshire man written about was not even in contention to be tallest in England.
Fisherman

Fish,

you're completely off-topic with your giants.
Because Debs point is valid, and clearly so to everybody.
You can shout as loud as you want : ripper or not, Joseph Fleming was not 6'7 tall.

Cheers

[DVV]

Fish, you wrote an article on Fleming. I read it. Now you're here making a spectacle.

I don't get it

Roy

Neither do I, Roy.

That blind and furious faith in what is most probably is ridiculous.

What are the arguments ?

6'7 ? not so tall ! I've found a taller guy !

11 stone ? Not so thin ! I've found a thinner girl !

Cheers

[Debra A]

ah but the paper could have made an error. he may have been 7' 6" or 6.66 feet tall. Errors happen.

Mike

He was in actual fact 6.6 inches and exhibited as a human gnat, not giant.

[Debra A]

He was also something of a celebrity, and this man WAS hired by a cirkus.

Handy for him-he could have borrowed the clown's shoes. No such luck for Fleming being a pretender to the throne, he'd have to make do cutting the toes off the size nines he found on sale in Petticoat lane and squeezing his size 12's+ into them.

[Lechmere]

Common sense should tell us that being 6 foot 7 inches tall in 1888 was unusual but not without the bounds of possibility.
Common sense should tell us that also being 11 stone and 8 pounds in weight would mean that the individual was thin but not emaciated.
Common sense should tell us that records are sometimes wrong.
Common sense should tell us that errors in some types of record are more likely to be noticed and corrected than others.

Common sense should tell us that unusually tall working class people would have been able to obtain clothing and footwear.

Common sense should tell us that it is possible that Kelly did not in fact have a boyfriend called Joseph Fleming.
However it is also possible that she did.
It is possible that the Joseph Fleming who ended up in the asylum was Kelly’s ex – no matter how tall he was.
However there was another Joseph Flemming from Bethnal Green who could have been Kelly’s ex.
Or she may have told Barnett a false name. Or she may have made the whole thing up. Or she may have made parts of her story up. Or she may have conflated different people or changed names – the possibilities are endless.

Barnett says he was a mason’s plasterer. The asylum Fleming was a plasterer in 1881, but a dock labourer in 1889.

I don’t know how tall he was, but Aaron Kosminski weighed less than 7 stone 9 pounds in May 1915. In February 1915 his bodily health as described as fair by Leavesden Asylum. In February 1916 his bodily health was good.
By February 1919 his weight had gone down to 6 stone 12 pounds.
The first time any reference is made to his eating habits is the day before he died on 24th March 1919. No reference was ever made to how skinny he (presumably) was.
There is no reason to think that Fleming’s weight or height would have been commented on in his asylum records.

A case that depends upon a record being wrong is clearly weak.

[Fisherman]

That blind and furious faith in what is most probably is ridiculous.

Oh, the irony!!! Breathtaking!

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Common sense should tell us that being 6 foot 7 inches tall in 1888 was unusual but not without the bounds of possibility.
Common sense should tell us that also being 11 stone and 8 pounds in weight would mean that the individual was thin but not emaciated.
Common sense should tell us that records are sometimes wrong.
Common sense should tell us that errors in some types of record are more likely to be noticed and corrected than others.

Common sense should tell us that unusually tall working class people would have been able to obtain clothing and footwear.

Common sense should tell us that it is possible that Kelly did not in fact have a boyfriend called Joseph Fleming.

... and common sense should tell you that common sense is very uncommon in certain camps.

The best,
Fisherman