Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[Sally]

Did Astroman Exist?

The prisoner, a well-dressed man of foreign aspect... was respectably dressed, and of gentlemanly appearance. His clothes were dark, and he had a round billycock hat lying by his side. He is a thick-set man, has a round face, and a dark moustache.

The Observer, 11th November 1888

Sunday Paper, anyone?

[Lechmere]

From ‘In Whitechapel’ regarding the Victoria Home...
‘Those lodgers who “use” the house regularly for six nights are taken in free on the seventh’
There are lots of references in this article to special aspects to Sundays so in the absence of a definitive statement that Sunday was the fee day and that no other day could be free instead, I would suggest that any seventh day could be free at the Victoria Home.

I assume that Hutchinson could have pre-purchased a weekly ticket but couldn’t get in on the night in question as, in ‘Later Leaves’:
‘No person will be admitted after one o'clock a.m. without a special pass.’
Some people claim that a weekly pass equalled a ‘special pass’.

Having said that, is there actually any real evidence that Hutchinson met journalists after his visit to Commercial Street Police Station specifically in the Victoria Home as is often stated?

However the ‘Daily Telegraph’ on 22nd September stated:
‘Tickets for beds are issued from five p.m. until 12.30 midnight, and after that hour if a man wants to get in he must have a pass.’
There is a discrepancy as to the time the curfew started (12.30 am against 1.00 am), but it says a ‘ticket’ is required for a bed and a ‘pass’ (surely a separate item) for late entry.

The difference between a bed ticket (weekly or nightly) and a late entry pass is reinforced by this reference from ‘In Whitechapel’:
‘near the entrance, is a little office, where are hanging the metal bed-tickets, one of which is given out to each occupier on entering’.
This also implies that the bed tickets were issued each night, rather than being given out for a full week and so someone outside the building and late, would not have a bed ticket in his possession.

How would the deputies know whether someone who presented themselves had pre-paid for a weekly ticket? 'In Whitechapel' tells us:
‘Here also (unlike ordinary lodging-houses) registers are kept. Every man’s name and occupation is entered in the books, and these records against the names are filled up and made brief histories’.

I would suggest that it isn’t appropriate to extrapolate from rules that applied to other lodging houses and assume they would also have applied of the Victoria Home – particularly as we have several contemporary articles to refer to specifically relating to the Victoria Home.
The ‘Daily Telegraph’ article referred to the Victoria Home as:
‘the only one of its sort in London’.
‘Later Leaves’ says:
‘Of course there are one or two lodging-houses- to which the description I have given does not apply. A conspicuous example is Victoria House.’

Interestingly the ‘In Whitechapel’ account provides uplifting examples of residents who use the Victoria Home as a step to rise out of the grinding poverty in the East End – a step that could have led to Warren Street perhaps?

[Ben]

“Having said that, is there actually any real evidence that Hutchinson met journalists after his visit to Commercial Street Police Station specifically in the Victoria Home as is often stated?”

Yes, Lechmere.

Garry provided it already.

From the Pall Mall Gazette, 14th November 1888:

“Last evening a man named George Hutchinson, a groom, who is now working as a labourer, made the following statement to a reporter”

From the St. James Gazette, 14th November 1888:

“Last evening a groom named George Hutchinson, who is now working as a labourer, made the following statement to the reporter of a news agency”

“I told one of the lodgers here about it on Monday, and he advised me to go to the police station”

This is irrefutable evidence that Hutchinson spoke to a reporter at the Victoria Home on 13th November.

As Garry and Sally have pointed out, it is very clear that it was Sunday that a lodger could have for free, and not any random day of the week.

A “ticket” and a “pass” referred to precisely the same thing, as I discussed on the “wrong night” thread, and if anyone insists on arguing the reverse (on a thread evidently unrelated to that topic), I will simply copy and paste from there. A weekly pass or ticket took the form of a lump of metal that could be issued to a lodger for a price. If the lodger paid for such a pass, he could flash his lump of metal at the Victoria Home doorman at any time of the night in order to gain entry. Once the week was up, he would surrender that metal lump for recirculation to other lodgers.

“How would the deputies know whether someone who presented themselves had pre-paid for a weekly ticket?”

Simply by issuing them at the beginning of the week, and relieving the lodgers of them at the end of the week. No names. No meticulously recorded details of individual transactions that later served as mythical alibis for any lodger requiring one. This was an East End doss house, not Fort Knox. There was clearly no question of the doormen issuing weekly passes on any day during the week, because the system would have been nigh on impossible to police if that were the case, to say nothing of the mountain of paperwork that would inevitably have resulted. I know some people seem to be envisaging these passes as little slips of paper with the lodger’s names on them, but I can assure everyone that this did not happen. Please try to envisage the sheer wastage of paper if this practice were adopted, and we're talking about 1888 here.

A similar degree of confusion tends to arise from time to time with the registers, Yes, registers were taken of new lodgers upon initial entry to the building, but not every time any lodger entered and exited the Home.

“a step that could have led to Warren Street perhaps?”

Gotta dream the dream!

No.

Meanwhile, back on topic…

Regards,
Ben

[Sally]

From ‘In Whitechapel’ regarding the Victoria Home...
‘Those lodgers who “use” the house regularly for six nights are taken in free on the seventh’

There are lots of references in this article to special aspects to Sundays so in the absence of a definitive statement that Sunday was the fee day and that no other day could be free instead, I would suggest that any seventh day could be free at the Victoria Home.

Yawn. Nope. Wrong. The Victoria Home issued free beds on Sundays. Categorically. In actual fact, I believe that the very great majority of their beds were free on a Sunday.

I assume that Hutchinson could have pre-purchased a weekly ticket but couldn’t get in on the night in question as, in ‘Later Leaves’:
‘No person will be admitted after one o'clock a.m. without a special pass.’

Why do you think this? It's incomprehensible. Do you seriously think that there were special people employed at the Victoria Home to issue a number of special kinds of tickets and passes?

Some people claim that a weekly pass equalled a ‘special pass’.

As far as I'm concerned, 'Some people' are right.

However the ‘Daily Telegraph’ on 22nd September stated:
‘Tickets for beds are issued from five p.m. until 12.30 midnight, and after that hour if a man wants to get in he must have a pass.’
There is a discrepancy as to the time the curfew started (12.30 am against 1.00 am), but it says a ‘ticket’ is required for a bed and a ‘pass’ (surely a separate item) for late entry.

And your point is?

The difference between a bed ticket (weekly or nightly) and a late entry pass is reinforced by this reference from ‘In Whitechapel’:
‘near the entrance, is a little office, where are hanging the metal bed-tickets, one of which is given out to each occupier on entering’.
This also implies that the bed tickets were issued each night, rather than being given out for a full week and so someone outside the building and late, would not have a bed ticket in his possession.

Yes, Lechmere, tickets were given out on a nightly basis. You needed one of those for entrance to the bedrooms, see. This does not mean that a lodger couldn't or didn't pay for a week and get a special pass! The bedrooms were closed during the day.

How would the deputies know whether someone who presented themselves had pre-paid for a weekly ticket? 'In Whitechapel' tells us:
‘Here also (unlike ordinary lodging-houses) registers are kept. Every man’s name and occupation is entered in the books, and these records against the names are filled up and made brief histories’.

Oh, not this again. Categorically, the Victoria Home took the names of the lodgers on first entry. That's it. No more than that. If you imagine for a moment that there was some sort of elaborate checking in and out procedure, or that anybody would have had the 'registers' available to check whether a particular lodger was in or out on any given night, then, sadly, you are quite wrong.

Interestingly the ‘In Whitechapel’ account provides uplifting examples of residents who use the Victoria Home as a step to rise out of the grinding poverty in the East End – a step that could have led to Warren Street perhaps?

Not even close.

[Sally]

Simply by issuing them at the beginning of the week, and reliving the lodgers of them at the end of the week. There was clearly no question of them issuing weekly passes on any day during the week because the system would have been nigh on impossible to police at such a time, and would have resulted in a mountain of paperwork. I know some people seem to be envisaging these passes as little slips of paper with the lodger’s names on them, but I can assure everyone that this did not happen. Please try to envisage the sheer wastage of paper if this practice were adopted, and we're talking about 1888 here.

A similar degree of confusion tends to arise from time to time with the registers, Yes, registers were taken of new lodgers upon initial entry to the building, but not every time any lodger entered and exited the Home.

Ben, are you following me or something? Sigh. Some People.

[Ben]

Sally,

You're a clearly a Hutchinsonian with an agenda.

Who are you to claim that Hutchinson was not a date-dithering, eyelash-spotting, plumbing hopeful who saw Mr. Astrakhan the ripper?

[Sally]

And?

Sally,

You're a clearly a Hutchinsonian with an agenda.

Who are you to claim that Hutchinson was not a date-dithering, eyelash-spotting, plumbing hopeful who saw Mr. Astrakhan the ripper?

Hah! Hello Mr. Pot, I'm Kettle, pleased to meet you!

Everyone knows that Mr. Astrokhan was an orang-utang these days. You just don't want to admit that your cotrary notions are entirely speculative. I've got your number.

[Garry Wroe]

Just to clarify, it was a legal requirement under the terms of the Lodging House Act that patrons provided certain details when purchasing a bed. Thus the lodger's name, age and the location of his/her previous night's stay were entered into a ledger - a record which could be checked at any time by police or official lodging house inspectors. Failure to maintain such records could in theory have been used as grounds to revoke the owner's operating licence.

Be this as it may, journalists noted that the night deputy at the Victoria Home operated in almost total darkness and barely gave patrons a second glance when issuing tokens. An inspection of the ledger also revealed that lodgers had provided names which in a modern context would be the equivalent of Micky Mouse or Dick Splash. As such, this was hardly the high-security establishment that some posters appear to imagine.

[Wickerman]

Yawn. Nope. Wrong. The Victoria Home issued free beds on Sundays. Categorically. In actual fact, I believe that the very great majority of their beds were free on a Sunday.

How do you mix "categorically" with "I believe"?
If something is "categorically" known then it is stated in writing. The response I received from Garry on this question was not close to "categorically" stated, it was nothing more than his belief, "because other establishments were known to make the same concession". Other,.... or all?

Is this another example of overstating going on here?

Regards, Jon S.

[Garry Wroe]

Although I cannot state it with absolute certainty, Jon, the 'free Sunday' arrangement appears to have had a religious connotation - Sunday being the Lord's day and so forth. Since the Victoria Home was apparently big on religion, the notion of not conducting business transactions on the Sabbath does make a good deal of sense.

[Wickerman]

Although I cannot state it with absolute certainty, Jon, the 'free Sunday' arrangement appears to have had a religious connotation - Sunday being the Lord's day and so forth. Since the Victoria Home was apparently big on religion, the notion of not conducting business transactions on the Sabbath does make a good deal of sense.

I fully understand the point you are making Garry. It is possible, but not certain. While I think it was Debra A. who wrote that "after six consecutive days, you get the seventh free" - that is pretty clear, not specific to the day but more concerned with the amount of use.
In other words, regardless of the day of the week, if you make repetative use of our facility we will reward you with a free night.

Of the resident quartet you are the most cautious when it comes to stating your case, while others are prone to far too much exaggeration & over stating.

Thankyou, Jon S.

[Sally]

How do you mix "categorically" with "I believe"?
If something is "categorically" known then it is stated in writing. The response I received from Garry on this question was not close to "categorically" stated, it was nothing more than his belief, "because other establishments were known to make the same concession". Other,.... or all?

Is this another example of overstating going on here?

Regards, Jon S.

Not really, Wickerman, no.

Papers in the Booth archive make it quite clear that the Victoria Home issued free beds on Sundays. No overstating here, I'm afraid. Perhaps you might be better informed yourself before you start accusing other people of 'exaggeration and over stating'.

[Wickerman]

Of the resident quartet you are the most cautious when it comes to stating your case, while others are prone to far too much exaggeration & over stating.

And I might add, a reluctance to provide quotations & link/reference to stated sources.

Jon
~~~~~~

Sally.
As issues go this is rather insignificant, but when offering something which you claim to be "categorically" stated, it might help if you support it with a direct quote, and an accurate reference, title, author, page number, etc, or if online, a link.
It can save everyone a lot of time.

Thankyou, Jon

[Sally]

As issues go this is rather insignificant

Absolutely. Let's leave it there.

[Rubyretro]

Lechmere -I LOVE YOU !

(oh, come on, we were only playing 'hard to get' before)

I suddenly agree with everything you say -but I will reply to you on the 'Hutch and the Hairdresser' thread, because that's where it belongs..

(xxxxx)