Where does Joseph Fleming fit into the equation?

[Sally]

Absolute nonsense. He was only 7'6" when Toulouse Lautrec was riding on his shoulders. They split up by the way to do the double murders. It was supposed to have been a simultaneous double deed, but Lautrec's little legs failed to get him to Mitre Square on time.

Mike

Ah - so it's true then? There was more than one hand in the Whitechapel Murders?

To be honest, I was always doubtful that Killeen could've done all that knee-walking by himself.

I hope that you've consulted all the surviving letters of Lautrec in order to demonstrate that he could have travelled to England on the dates in question before you publish your book?

[The Good Michael]

I hope that you've consulted all the surviving letters of Lautrec in order to demonstrate that he could have travelled to England on the dates in question before you publish your book?

He had an identical double...a Hungarian that spoke little English. No one ever talks about this.

Mike

[Cogidubnus]

E' did it with 'is palette knife guvnor

You sure that's the right artist Michael...To me his work lacks the essential symbolism...I thought it was this one (Impression d'automne) with it's symbolic six-leaved vines symbolising Martha Tabram and the C5...

http://www.desinformations.com/fonds.php?view=10

All the best

Dave

PS it's available in 6 ft 7 in lengths

[Sally]

'Full force and brilliance of imagination fall is summarized in this sonata dessinnée to the glory of the season following the summer so beautifully' ??

Yes, only a murdering artist could've written that description of a portrait of leaves....

I think you've cracked it Dave!

[Cogidubnus]

The double event

I think you've cracked it Dave!

Yep and there are 78 leaf clusters in every 6 ft 7 in legth, which as everyone knows is twice 39...

Dave

[DVV]

Now now jung man...Freud was born in 1856, so not so anachronistic!

Dave

Indeed, Dave.

Our scholarly skilled friend made a Freudian-slip-kangourou, this time.

If I'm allowed pathetic bilingual puns...

Cheers

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

These limericks of yours are definitely getting there. I hope you have plenty more!

There once was a fellow named Christer
From Googling, his fingers did blister.
Teamed up with Ed Stow
Over Lechmere, and lo!
He’s the ultimate logic-resistor.

Remember young Toppy the plumber?
Never once a Commercial Street slummer.
Nor was he that witness
Of Astrakhan sh!tness
Crossmerians say “What a bummer!”

We might all recall Frank Leander.
Thanks to Fisherman, did he meander?
Oh continue to dream
Swedish Handwriting Team
But Sue’s expertise is the grander.

All in good sport, Fishster.

Meanwhile, and rather reluctantly back on topic, I see I still owe you a response from many pages ago. You still seem inordinately focussed on the height stuff. I notice your BMI expert finally got back to you with the (disappointing?) reminder that a person’s health cannot be determined according to BMI alone. Thing is, we don’t have “only” his BMI. We also have the fact that he was a lunatic pauper who was taken off the streets apparently unable to take care of himself, as opposed to one of those pampered celebrities you keep Googling. It is only when we take this known fact in conjunction with a BMI of 17.3 that we begin to spot a problem. An exceptionally low BMI (in this case occasioned by an alleged dizzy height of 6’7” and a weight of just 11 stone) PLUS the known facts of Fleming’s circumstances PLUS a reportedly “good” bodily health EQUALS an obvious problem with the record. The purist “that’s what is says, so that’s what it is” approach, while applicable in some cases, just doesn’t work here.

The probable explanation, albeit not definite, is that the entry is in error. This is a reality acknowledged by many, not just those who fancy Fleming as a ripper suspect. That doesn’t mean we should dismiss the entry altogether – indeed I don’t – but it would be extreme, unimaginative, absolutist folly to argue that it is LIKELY to be correct.

As for your suggestion that there were “reasonably” a number of people as tall as, and taller than Fleming in the 1888 East End, I think you’ve probably misunderstood the observations of Colin, Garry and others, who all agree that these would have been in the tiny, tiny minority. Rather than lessening the oddity factor, they’ve drawn particular attention to just how exceptional a height of 6’7” would have been. So far, this has only been countered by those with a demonstrably weak understanding of statistics, and I’m sure you don’t want to throw your hat into that ring anytime soon.

Thanks for contacting yet another Swedish expert whose response hasn’t challenged or invalidated anything I’ve said at any stage. He has, conversely, reinforced that which I already expected to be true. You must stop this habit of always claiming, falsely, that every expert opinion you seek and receive vindicates you and the conclusion you jumped to from the outset. You don’t learn anything new that way. “I’m off to contact an expert! Oh look, the expert responded! And oh look, the expert says what I’ve been saying all along!” Mmmm, no he didn’t. I find reality works better, for me at least.

Interesting that you didn’t reproduce the entire emailed response, as you have with other expert feedback.

You accuse me of cherry-picking from the work of Francis Galton, and since this implies that I endorse some aspects of his work whilst rejecting others, I’d be grateful if you enlightened me as to which aspects I’m rejecting? Galton’s findings established that any height above 5’9” was “unusually tall”, and consider for a moment just how much shorter this already “unusually tall” height is than 6’7”. He also claimed that there should statistically have been one hundred in one million men 6’5” or taller, and since the vast majority of this envisaged number of 100 would reasonably have been between 6’5” and 6’7”, we have a truly tiny number of men who were 6’7” and plus. A two figure number in 1,000,000 is really rather low, by the way! So do us a favour please, and stop saying that there “would have been” hundreds of people as tall as 6’7” in 1888 London, since it’s utterly baseless, obviously wrong, and certainly not borne out by anything Francis Galton ever wrote.

Fleming was very unlikely to have had a BMI of 17.3, been a lunatic pauper and recent asylum inmate and been in good bodily health, so the record is very unlikely to be correct, as I’m prepared to repeat for as long as you and others keep insisting to the contrary. But life’s too short for you to do that, surely? It ought to be, at any rate. It’s also exceptionally bad form to accuse David of dismissing the height entry as probably inaccurate purely because he’s a “Hutchinsonian”. I suppose Debs, Phil, Roy and others are all Hutchinsonians too? You also accuse him of shifting the “goalposts” in order to accommodate a suspect theory, but you’d do well to remember that after years of arguing that Stride was not a ripper victim, you changed your mind purely on the basis that a suspect you’d recently latched onto had a mother who lived hear Berner Street. You even admitted that this was the reason for your U-turn, and shockingly, you still don’t think there’s anything wrong with reasoning like that. “Changing your mind” is all well and good, but you’ve done it on the Stride issue purely to accommodate your new favourite suspect.

All the best,
Ben

[Phil H]

I suppose Debs, Phil, Roy and others are all Hutchinsonians too?

If the "Phil" referred to is me... I don't even know what a Hutchinsonian is, or implies!

Phil

[Ben]

Fear not, Phil, I only mentioned you as an example of someone with sense enough to question the 6'7" entry and caution wisely against treating it as gospel (which does not, of course, mean dismissing it altogether). The implication, recently, has been anyone who subscribes to this view must be a suspect theorist, which is obviously nonsense.

All the best,
Ben

[Sally]

Anybody who doesn't subscribe to the belief that Toppy was Hutchinson was a plumber is a Hutchinsonian. That includes anybody who disputes the absolute right of another suspect to be defined as Jack the Ripper.

I know how it works...

[The Good Michael]

Anybody who doesn't subscribe to the belief that Toppy was Hutchinson was a plumber is a Hutchinsonian. That includes anybody who disputes the absolute right of another suspect to be defined as Jack the Ripper.

Not true, a Hutchinsonian is one who tries to refute all things that would normalize Hutchinson because they have blindly if unconsciously adhered to such a non-viable suspect, all the while creating viability as a bolster. Don;t know who these people might be however.

Mike

[Sally]

How is it possible to unconsciously adhere to a suspect Mike? You either suspect a person of being a suspect - or you don't. Or you don't even have a view on it, really.

Besides, nobody gets to be 'normalised' around here. Men who we know went on to have long, boring, and utterly stable lives containing jobs, wives and children can still be put up as the Ripper apparently. Baffling - but true.

Anybody's game these days.

[Ben]

Hutchinson is an irrefutably viable suspect.

He doesn't have to be your bezzie fave suspect, but anyone who doesn't consider him at least viable is simply not very well versed in either history or criminology. Fortunately, there are only four vocally anti-Hutchinson posters these days, and they seem to be motivated more by ongoing personality clashes and "rival" suspects than anything they find genuinely problematic about Hutchinson's candidacy.

Pick on a weaker suspect, if "picking" is your game.

[Phil H]

Men who we know went on to have long, boring, and utterly stable lives containing jobs, wives and children can still be put up as the Ripper apparently. Baffling - but true.

if you are referring to my views on Barnett (as a possible suspect) - then I have never signed up to believing that "Jack" went on to have a stable life.

But there must be many men who kill a wife, girlfriend, partner whatever, get away with it and do just that. I do not see why Barnett may not have killed MJK ONLY, and never killed again.

Phil

[Wickerman]

Hutchinson is an irrefutably viable suspect.

To the modern reader yes, who can only access his role out of ignorance, but not to the police at the time.