Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[Ben]

Hi Gut,

If today you read an inmate was 7ft 3in you would stop and say boy a big boy

Not if his weight was recorded as dangerously and painfully low for someone of that height, and yet his bodily health was described as being "good". You'd recognise the obvious anomaly - or rather the complete impossibility - and realise that a mistake in the record taking must have taken place. You might wish to familiarise yourself with the whole thread, and understand how a mistake could easily have been made.

Regards,
Ben

[GUT]

G'Day Caz and Ben

If today you read an inmate was 7ft 3in you would stop and say boy a big boy, you would not say Oh a mistake they must mean, 6 ft 1in or 73in.

The people making the records in the hospital for Joe took them down every day if 6ft 7 was wrong they would surely have noticed it when most people were 5ft 6 on ave!

GUT

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

If Dr. Patterson was in the habit of making a note of people's heights using the longer "_ft_in" description, while one of his colleagues preferred to record them in inches only, the former could easily have written "6 ft 7 in" in haste, and without giving it much (or any) thought. If Dr. White - or more likely, his registrar - recorded heights only in inches at the time of the initial measurement-takings, the number 6 would crop up more often than not (i.e. for anyone under 5.75 feet), so it wouldn't be unlikely for one of those frequently observed "6"s to end up in the wrong place.

If further research should prove that nobody working at that establishment recorded heights in inches, I will gladly revise my stance, but as things currently stand, virtually anything is preferable to accepting that Fleming was of such an extreme height-to-weight ratio (and an extreme height in anyone's book) and yet still in "good" bodily health.

However, I doubt we'll ever quite see eye to eye on this one (not least because I'm a trifle shy of 5 ft 2 myself ), so it's probably not worth continuing the height debate.

Agreed.

And I'm a lanky lad at 6'5".

All the best,
Ben

[caz]

Hi Ben,

I have only just noticed yours!

I take what you say about Fleming's weight on board, but that was not really my point.

My point was that the original entry that causes so much fuss (and which Chris Scott kindly posted back on page 12 of this thread - #113) reads:

6 ft 7 in

If it had been written as 6'7" (as many posters have rendered it) I would be more inclined to think it was a simple mistranscription of 67", by someone not paying enough attention to what they had actually written down.

But the very argument that says six foot seven would have been considered a totally extraordinary height for the period is what argues against anyone misreading 67" or 67 inches or 67in as a whacking great 6 ft 7 in in the first place, let alone recording it as such without question. The same applies with a mistranscription of 5 ft 7 in if 99% of the time the height was in the five foot something range, with six foot anything being a rarity.

If we question such a height today, how much more likely would it have been questioned back then, by someone whose job included faithfully recording the height of inmates? Yet apparently it was not questioned at all - which suggests to me one of two things: either the person writing 6 ft 7 in didn't consider this an impossible height, or they knew this particular inmate really was very tall.

However, I doubt we'll ever quite see eye to eye on this one (not least because I'm a trifle shy of 5 ft 2 myself ), so it's probably not worth continuing the height debate.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

So it seems unlikely that a mistake was made at that stage. Moving on, it's only slightly more likely in my view that if the height was recorded originally as 67 inches, or 5 foot 7 inches, or perhaps even 6 foot 1 inch, it was badly written and therefore mistranscribed later in Fleming's absence, by someone who apparently didn't think to question what they had copied down as 6 foot 7 inches, and didn't seek out this giant for a good old gawp.

Apologies for the late chiming in. I've been away and only just noticed your message.

The handwriting responsible for the "6 ft 7" entry is consistent with that of Dr. Arthur E. Patterson, who was the senior assistant medical officer at the newly opened asylum at Stone, working under his boss, Dr. Ernest W. White, whose handwriting also appears on the Fleming entries. Since the entries of White and Patterson alternated (with instances of both doctors writing on the same individual entries) it is more than possible that they were transcribing one another's notes, with the unlikely, borderline impossible 6'7" entry resulting from that. White may have taken the initial measurement as 67 inches, with Patterson mistranscribing. It would almost certainly have been a transcribing job, given how unlikely it is that the hefty log book itself was carted around on visits to individual patients. The entries were not made in short hand, and often went into extensive detail, as in the case of the "coconut-shying" story in which Patterson was mistaken by Fleming for the latter's old friend "Isaacs" from Mile End Road.

But that's strictly as a for instance. The broader point is that the asylum was brand new (the first patient was admitted in 1892, same as Fleming), with brand new medical staff and brand new log books. If slip-ups were to be made at any time during which the asylum was operative, it would have been at the very beginning, when everyone was still finding their feet.

Patterson wrote an article for the Journal of Mental Science in 1900 entitled An Analysis of One Thousand Admissions into the City of London Asylum, which detailed the various patient statistics from 1892 to 1899, and his observations on the patients' weights are noteworthy. He observed that the vast majority gained weight during that time, rather than lost it. Also that:

"Many of the people admitted here are in a thin feeble state,
and it is no uncommon thing for them to lay on weight, even
to the extent of two or three stones, during a residence of
a few months"

It is clear from this observation that the doctor equated extreme thinness with enfeeblement and poor health, and yet if Fleming was the dizzy height that some continue to accept he was, we'd have to accept that the same doctor continued to record a "good" bodily health for a patient whose already extreme and painfully low weight dropped by a further eight pounds.

All the best,
Ben

[curious]

I can't. I hope you can. It was an attempt to get into an alien mind that I can never...most of us can never understand. The madness must be very deep.

Mike

Hi, Mike,
Hate to point if out, but the mind I'm trying to get into is yours to figure out what you are seeing or sensing as a possible motive.

I don't really get what you're thinking.

I can see if the women somehow physically reminded the killer of his mother -- dark outfits, etc.

or perhaps smelled like dear old mum, but then when they didn't treat him like mom, he turned on them.

But you seem to be saying that his rummaging around inside the victims was because he was seeking something he remembered from childhood. All I can figure here is if his mother was horribly killed someway, he saw it and that was the last time he saw his mother. But this last does not appear to be where you're going.

I'm not understanding what you're saying.

curious

[The Good Michael]

Thanks, Mike.

Going to have to ponder this and see if I can make sense of it.

curious

I can't. I hope you can. It was an attempt to get into an alien mind that I can never...most of us can never understand. The madness must be very deep.

Mike

[curious]

Not exactly. I was getting at the mutilation as being connected to the search for something that was not surface related, and the killing being a necessity rather than a pleasureful thing.

Mike

Thanks, Mike.

Going to have to ponder this and see if I can make sense of it.

curious

[The Good Michael]

Thanks, Mike, I may be getting there . . . or maybe not.

So, the killer somehow got in the company of the victims hoping to recapture whatever it was . . .

Then, when they did not have "it" he was frustrated and overwhelmed, and killed them?

Is that anywhere close to what you're thinking?

curious

Not exactly. I was getting at the mutilation as being connected to the search for something that was not surface related, and the killing being a necessity rather than a pleasureful thing.

Mike

[curious]

Not Mom...nothing he could define, but a scent or a feeling, the vacancy of which overwhelmed him...but in a way, mom. The absolute need to have something back that was missing and a search for that.

Mike

Thanks, Mike, I may be getting there . . . or maybe not.

So, the killer somehow got in the company of the victims hoping to recapture whatever it was . . .

Then, when they did not have "it" he was frustrated and overwhelmed, and killed them?

Is that anywhere close to what you're thinking?

curious

[Phil H]

Oh, I thought you'd heard of sarcasm, caz.

[caz]

Have it your own way caz. It is clear that you can never be wrong? So why continue the discussion. You are right, I concede it, bow to your superior intellect, reasoning power and sheer goodness and quit the field leaving it you you as conqueror.

I remain your humble and obedient servant (and if you believe any of that you'll believe anything)

Phil

Blimey, you do work yourself up into a state, Phil.

I was only asking how you arrived at the idea that Kelly's killer is likely to have known her intimately and based her murder on what he had read in the papers about Eddowes et al. Nothing to do with me being right or wrong. I have absolutely no clue who did the deed or why.

You declined to explain your reasoning and went off on one instead.

Entirely your choice, old sport.

Have a relaxing weekend.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Good Michael]

Lechmere,

No chance.

Mike

[Lechmere]

Mike
You're not another Lechmere convert are you? It sounds like it!

[The Good Michael]

Not Mom...nothing he could define, but a scent or a feeling, the vacancy of which overwhelmed him...but in a way, mom. The absolute need to have something back that was missing and a search for that.

Mike