Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[Fisherman]

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.

Mmmm - but what are the odds that the Yorkshire paper you quoted from had never heard of him? A local man?

All the best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

What are the odds on that Yorkshire journalist not being very good at his job?
far be it for me to denigrate members of that profession.

[DVV]

Quibbles vs common-sense.

Fairplay isn't your priority, is it, gentlemen ?

I know, it hurts...

Somebody shorter than Fleming exhibited as a giant and weighting 5 stones more.

Cheers

[Wickerman]

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

Mike

No, the story originated in Lincolnshire. I'll tell you what the problem is - Lincolnshire is well known for midgets.

- The Stamford Museum has a muddle of displays on the town's history, including models of circus-performing midget Charles Stretton (aka Tom Thumb)

- Midget are a pop-rock band from Stamford, Lincolnshire who formed in 1996.

- Looking to buy a used Mg Midget in Lincolnshire (South Humberside)?

- Gainsborough, Marshall’s tractor factory.... Where once stood an 11-acre building employing thousands of men making .....midget submarines.

Lincolnshire, where anything over waist height is gigantic..

[DVV]

Oh, the irony!!! Breathtaking!

Fisherman

If it comes to irony, I wouldn't dare to challenge you, Fish.

I've never told the Ripperologists readers Fleming was the Ripper.

Cheers

[DVV]

No, the story originated in Lincolnshire. I'll tell you what the problem is - Lincolnshire is well known for midgets.

- The Stamford Museum has a muddle of displays on the town's history, including models of circus-performing midget Charles Stretton (aka Tom Thumb)

- Midget are a pop-rock band from Stamford, Lincolnshire who formed in 1996.

- Looking to buy a used Mg Midget in Lincolnshire (South Humberside)?

- Gainsborough, Marshall’s tractor factory.... Where once stood an 11-acre building employing thousands of men making .....midget submarines.

Lincolnshire, where anything over waist height is gigantic..

Jon, please reserve such elevated (= 4 ft) comments for the thread called : "The Press, what they knew about dwarves and how they knew it".

Thanks

[Debra A]

Barnett says he was a mason’s plasterer. The asylum Fleming was a plasterer in 1881....

Was he?
The two Joseph's were the same age and both born in Bethnal Green. How do you know this single, lodger, plasterer was the asylum Fleming?

[Fisherman]

If it comes to irony, I wouldn't dare to challenge you, Fish.

I've never told the Ripperologists readers Fleming was the Ripper.

Cheers

Great, David - then that makes two of us. Since you olabour under the misapprehension that I "told the Ripperologists readers" that Fleming was the Ripper, I can help you out and tell you that I wrote that Fleming may have been the Ripper (see - once again we differ in that respect!) and I offered a scenario for how this could have worked.
All I wrote still stands - Fleming could have been the Ripper, and if he was, the model I presented was one that would work psychologically. This was strenghtened by a precedent case that I wrote about.

Right, now that I´ve once again have caught you misrepresenting me, what´s the next spin you are going to try?

Just asking,
Fisherman
tired of stupid arguments and misrepresentations and thus aiming for bed

[Wickerman]

Jon, please reserve such elevated (= 4 ft) comments for the thread called : "The Press, what they knew about dwarves and how they knew it".

Thanks

Thats a good point Dave but, if I posted about dwarves, someone will tell me they were invented by the press, or that Tom Thumb's height was due to diminution, and he changed his name because he was discredited.


Off on a tangent here....

[DVV]

Sorry, Fish.
I forgot the sun was still shining in Sweden.
But don't be ashamed.
Your article isn't bad.
Except that Fleming killed Stride, no matter Glenn may say.
But I noticed he killed Tabram.
No scavenger, no bayonet.
Waow. How come ?
Poor me, I used to trust Fish and Killeen so much.

Cheers

[DVV]

Thats a good point Dave but, if I posted about dwarves, someone will tell me they were invented by the press, or that Tom Thumb's height was due to diminution, and he changed his name because he was discredited.


Off on a tangent here....

Okay Jon, I will not interfere anyway. I'm busy reading Fisherman and have little time for the London press.

Cheers

[Wickerman]

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..

The two Joseph's were the same age and both born in Bethnal Green. How do you know this single, lodger, plasterer was the asylum Fleming?

Putting aside the comedy for a moment, Debs makes two good points.

Is there a paper trail that confirms which Fleming is Mary's ex lover?

[DVV]

from B

Jon, stop dreaming.
I've read all the relevant threads on JTRF (thanks Debs) today, and I can tell you JF born 17 March 1859 is our man.
Evans/Fleming IS the only plasterer from Bethnal Green, then MJK's ex.
Stop et fin.

Cheers

[Ben]

We don’t need any more “summations” of the purist 6’7” theory, if you don’t mind, Lechmere. We’ve done all that. Your argument basically amounts to an unnecessary reminder that it is “common sense” not to dismiss outlandish and improbable scenarios as impossible. But nobody’s doing any such thing. It is possible that Fleming was unusually tall – taller than someone who was described in 1891 as the tallest man in England – but it isn’t probable. It is possible that Fleming had a freakishly low weight for his freakishly great height, but it isn’t probable. It is possible that nobody would have remarked on such and extreme physique, but not probable. And so on and so forth.

And we really do stray into “barely possible” territory when we try to argue that Kelly never even had a boyfriend called Joseph Fleming; that either Barnett or Kelly were confused or perhaps lying about the detail. This is not possible, in my opinion, because there is simply no way that a lie conjured up by either party would accidentally coincide with the details of a real person. Barnett spoke of a Joseph Fleming from Bethnal Green who worked as a plasterer, and – shock horror – we now know from the records that there really was a Joseph Fleming from Bethnal Green who worked as a plasterer; the one we’re discussing now; the one who ended up at Stone and Claybury Asylums.

The corollary (or rather the impossible-to-escape conclusion) is that they referred to the same person. Mary Kelly’s ex-boyfriend ended up in a mental hospital, and was reported by Julia Venturney (who was also evidently describing the same person) to have “ill-used” her for cohabiting with Barnett. He also lived in the heart of the murder district, in the Victoria Home. In other words, he only person suspected to have physically assaulted the most brutally murdered victim in the “Jack the Ripper” series, lived bang in the murder zone and ended up insane.

This is more than can be said for many suspects.

Not that anyone’s been making “a case” until you reignited the argument for some reason many pages back, when all we were discussing was his height.

Without knowing how tall Kosminski was, he cannot be compared to Fleming. For all we know, his height and weight were more or less within “normal” proportions. There is certainly no reason to conclude he was ever as skinny as Fleming, as per the 6’7” interpretation.

[Ben]

Hi Debs,

A great many thanks for chiming in and clarifying your position on the issue, which, after reading again, I'm frankly even more persuaded by than I was before. I was previously under the impression that whoever wrote 6 ft 7 inches had done so unthinkingly and in haste, when he meant to write 67 inches. I now understand your suggestion to imply that entry was written down elsewhere as 67 inches and then hastily copied into the "feet" and "inches" section. Or, as you put it:

It was merely a suggestion that his height may have been initially recorded in inches and then copied into the records in feet and inches format

I also take on board your observation regarding Fleming's apparently easy access to clothing, which he'd have experienced considerably more trouble with if he was as tall as 6' 7". How he managed to obtain these specially fitting clothes while working as a docker or costermonger and pissing away his money on booze is a "mystery" which, once again, is perfectly accounted for if we accept he was the far more normal 5'7".

Finally, I'm very grateful for that article regarding a man of 6'6" who was descried as being probably the tallest man in England in 1891. Rather than accept the implication of the article, which is that such a lofty height was unusual in the extreme for the period, we've instead seen a Googling frenzy and reams and reams of aggressive, obstreperous posts attempting to naysay the observation. And they haven't worked. They haven't even successfully challenged the claim that the 6'6" man was the tallest man in England at the time. All we've had is a load of Googled-up names of men that there either dead or in another country in 1891 - specifically, two in Scotland, one in Ireland, one dead, and Harry Cooper, who was very clearly in America or Canada in 1891.

Thus, the claim that the Lincolnshire man, James Bradshaw, was probably the tallest man in England in 1891 remains unchallenged, and it is noteworthy that his height was reported as being one inch shorter that what is being proposed of Joseph Fleming. Whether the article is true or not - and on current evidence there is no reason to doubt it - it underscores the fact that such extremes of height would have been exceptionally unusual in those days, so much so that they attracted the attention of travelling circus types.

Either Fleming really was this exceptional height, and nobody commented on it - taller than England's tallest man according to the evidence presented - or he wasn't. I vote wasn't, based on how unutterably improbable and outlandish a blind acceptance of the alternative is.

All the best,
Ben