Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[Wickerman]

Somewhere along the line comparisons have been made between Sarah Lewis's pre-inquest statement and he Inquest testimony.

I think it should be born in mind that the Inquest testimony is the result of questions from both the police & Coroner intended to extract all pertaining details.

Whereas Lewis's pre-inquest statement is a brief summary of what she witnessed. It may also be noticed that most of her pre-inquest statement is given in the first-person, "I came", "I cannot", "I only heard", etc.
At the end of her statement a note is added in the third-person, and in paraphrase only briefly mentioning the Bethnal Green incident.

This is likely not the fault of Lewis, rather we may infer that if Abberline made the note himself, he demoted this incident as of little consequence.

Maybe it's just me but I find it singularly unique that two similarly dressed (suited-up) individuals are seen on the same night about the same time on the same street, and yet there exists an absolute refusal to believe they could have been the same man - astonishing!

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

Wickerman, which of these statements don't you agree with ?

Hi Ruby.
Lewis didn't pass Hutch, he was on the other side of the street.

If you choose to ask questions about what Lewis saw & did I will be more than happy to respond.
I (we) have no idea what Lewis was thinking, yet your questions are laced with assumptions that suggest you do.

When you also suggest Lewis was frightened of Hutch, but she said no such thing, yet she does specifically say she was frightened of the Bethnal Green man, then I think it is necessary to point this out, just incase you overlooked a fact in your enthusiasm to make a point.

Regards, Jon S.

[Rubyretro]

Wickerman -first of all, Mrs Lewis states that she saw the man looking
towards the Court, as if waiting for someone to come out, and then she walked into that very Court, so she had to have approached the immediate vicinity that he was standing in. She passed into the passage in front of him.
and could not fail to attract his attention.

Whilst it is true that Mrs Lewis was particularly afraid of BG Man, enough to say so (doubtless because he corresponded more to her idea of the Ripper),
that doesn't mean that she wouldn't be 'frightened' (I'll amend that to nervous, if you prefer) of walking down a dark street, in the early hours of the morning, where a lone man was loitering. It is human nature.

Mrs Lewis was a lone woman, but I will bet that if you (I presume a man), walked into a friend's road in the early hours of the morning -in an area that you knew well- and saw from afar a lone man loitering, then you too would feel nervous. Afterall, you might be attacked by a thief or a loony, mighten you ? -there are stories on the news every day. I am pretty certain that you too would be looking to try and tell from the man's attitude if he had a reason for being there, and would feel reassured if his body language gave the impression that he was waiting for someone to come out of a house.
I bet that you'd automatically steer clear of him when you drew close, too.
The whole scenario would be so short and uneventful, that it wouldn't be worth mentioning -certainly looking back 'fear' wouldn't be something you remembered about it (nothing had happened !) when you realised that a crime had been committed.

I keep fixing on this point, because the whole Mrs Lewis account pans out for me as human and logical (whilst nothing in Hutch's account of A Man does).

There is nothing that pans out in a scenario that Blotchy was the loiterer either. Nothing in the descriptions beyond two males in east end garb, and no reason for Blotchy to leave the victim's warm room to hang about in the cold and rain (couldn't he just knock on the door, and pretext that something must have fallen from his pocket, and he wanted to search for it ?).

[Fisherman]

Frank:

"I have a slight feeling that we aren’t going to agree on this interesting aspect any time soon."

As long as we both benefit from the discussion, who complains?

"In posts to others you’ve stated that the police must have pressed Lewis for any possible details, that she must have been quizzed intensely."

Yes - and that still very much stands. What is your own feeling about this? Would the police be interested in a man that stood less than twenty yards from the place where a Ripper victim was killed, at the approximate time of the murder, or would they not? Of course, no time of death was established as Lewis gave her police testimony, but it would be a sure bet that the police did not exclude the possibility that the Ripper stuck with his habit of employing the small hours for his work.

"If we would follow your reasoning, with which basically is nothing wrong, then why is there, other than the mention of a black bag, no description in her police statement of the ‘suspicious man’ who accosted her and another female at Bethnal Green? He surely seems interesting, he is even characterized as 'suspicious'. Why is there only one sentence her police statement about this whole incident, while in her inquest statement about it is so much fuller?"

Because, I´d guess, this man was observed on Wednesday, and thus not connected to the murder morning. Since I am working from memory here, I am not sure whether Lewis police report mentions the man´s second appearance, that on Friday morning, or not? I´ll look at that as soon as possible.

"Reading Lewis’ account, I must say that the thought has never crossed my mind that it was Mr. Blotchy that she described at the inquest. Lewis’ description remains too vague for that"

It crossed MY mind, Frank. And the possibility of a match is not ruled out because of vagueness. Of course, there is too little in it to reach any certainty, but what there is, is spot on, down to the make and colour of the hat.
Let´s also keep in mind that if I am correct on this, the match as such is not one between two real people - it is a match between Cox´s man and a very much embellished and from the ground fabricated likeness awarded to a man that Lewis had professed to not being able to describe.
For it is not as if she simply FORGOT to describe him, is it? It is not as if we need to concern ourselves with the belief that she could describe him, but simply omitted to do so. The phrasing that she COULD NOT describe the man tells us that she made an effort to do so - in all probability on request from the police - and had to admit that she had nothing at all to offer. She was asked! It is and remains extremely telling to my mind.

"that can’t disputed is that Lewis did state at the inquest that she saw a man standing opposite the entrance to the court looking as if waiting for someone to come out, and that this is corroborated by Hutchinson’s account. I can’t see this as just a coincidence or something Lewis and Hutchinson cooked up together."

Then again, Frank, in order to reach the position from which you cannot see it as a coincidence, you have to fully accept that Lewis was on the money at the inquest. You have to set aside the original statement in favour for a SECOND statement that totally flies in the face of what Lewis professed to be able to say about the man as she was questioned by the police. You have to choose, in other words. Only the one option supports your thinking - and it is not the original one.

One interesting factor in all of this is the eternally repeated assertion that Hutchinson´s testimony is corroborated by Lewis´ditto. And I´m fine with that - it seems a very obvious possibility and a totally sound reflection at first glance.
What I find a bit harder to swallow is that this identification seemingly also works the other way around: Hutchinsons testimony is used to corroborate Lewis´description too! It is said that we must accept that Lewis was truthful since Hutchinson steps forward and corroborates her.

But take a closer look at the different sides involved in the discussion! On the one hand, we have those who claim that Hutchinson was a liar. We can divide these posters into subgroups. One such group will say that Hutchinson lied about it all since he was an attentionseeker, trying to make a buck or two. To this group, it is perfectly possible that Hutch had gotten wind of Lewis´ testimony, and subsequently cooked up a story about being at the murder spot on Friday - which he was not at all. The other subgroup points to the possibility that he actually WAS there, and that he was the killer who felt an urge to deceive the police and save his own behind. So to THEIR minds, he WAS there - but he cooked up the rest of his story. A third fraction can be outlined too, one that thinks he WAS there, but as an unguilty man. He somehow felt, though, that his presence at the spot could have gotten him suspected by the police, so he cooked up his story to avoid this.

These are the three groups we may identify who call Hutchinson a liar. Notice that the two latter ones both work from the premise that he MUST have been there, since his story is corroborated by Lewis. We may all see, however, that he "must" nothing of the sort - he may just as well have used a potential knowledge of Lewis´ story to make up a tall tale in order to either gain attention or make money - or both.

Now, let´s look at Lewis! In her case, we have two groupings to consider: one who buys her inquest testimony without asking any questions, and one - me - that says that she was quite probability making up the inquest description from thin air.

Where does all of this leave us? I will tell you, Frank! It leaves us with one fraction that says that Hutchinson was a liar whereas Lewis was truthful, and another that says that Hutchinson was truthful whereas Lewis was a liar. And the interesting thing about THAT is that it leaves us with an unconsidered possibility, supported - to the best of my knowledge - by nobody, but nevertheless a quite viable proposition: that BOTH Lewis and Hutch lied! There has never been any shortage of proposals of signs of Hutchinson´s readiness to lie, and the very fact that Lewis changed her testimony totally between police report and inquest must be taken as a very obvious hint of a flair for inventing descriptions on her behalf - not least if we combine it with the picture painted of her in the Daily News!

So, ladies and gentlemen, let´s realize that the almighty corroboration that is always spoken of in the Dorset Street case may not have been there. It may have been a case of George Hutchinson picking up on a lie served by Lewis at the inquest, and using it for trying to deceive the authorities and making a buck! Maybe NONE of the two actually spoke of a "loiterer" with any true substance!!

I would propose that it is not until we realize this possibility - not in any fashion a very improbable one! - that we can reach a full understanding of the parameters involved.

My own stance is that since Sarah Lewis claimed, unaware of any established time of death on behalf of Kelly, to have made an observation of a man outside Crossingham´s, the best bet is that she DID see a man there. It is a not very controversial suggestion, and as longs as we don´t look at Lewis´inquest testimony, the soundest deduction is that he was a common lodger standing outside his doss house.

As for Hutchinson, you know that my bid is that he was out on the dates, as witnessed about by the open coat of Astrakhan man, the walk in the streets all night in what would have been pouring rain and hard winds, the omission to mention a woman that we know was there (the police would have had her information in this respect confirmed by the Keylers) and the telling information offered by Walter Dew.

... and I can´t help but to ask why these very viable and quite obvious takes on Lewis´ and Hutchinsons respective roles has not before been employed!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben!

I will direct you to my post to Frank. It will have to serve as an answer to you as well. Only one thing will I touch on from your post:

"It cannot have escaped your notice that I am clearly not alone in this view"

"You can do whatever you like, but don’t expect it ever to receive mainstream support. I suspect I speak for the vast majority"

I would like to take the opportunity to point out to you, Ben, that much as you seemingly take comfort in your perception that you are safely resting at the bosom of a "vast majority", I am not very interested in such things myself. When I draw a deduction, I do not first put a wet finger in hte air to see where the wind is coming from. This has been done for 123 years in the Ripper case, and to no avail.

My thinking is somewhat new, if nothing else in the combination of the views on Hutchinson and Lewis. Therefore it would be strange in the extreme if I found that everyboy agred on it - if they did, it would not be any new thinking, would it?

So let´s try and stay away from the "a million flies can´t be wrong" thinking. It will never do justice to the ones who do not adjust to the traditional thinking, and there is every reason to suspect that this traditional thinking is wrong in this case.

So don´t sulk, Ben - make a true effort to understand what I´m talking about instead.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"So hang on a minute - are we to understand that:

A) Sarah Lewis was unlikely to have been able to observe the minute detail of a black hat;

whilst at the same time:

B) Hutchinson was likely to have been able to observe Astrakhan's spats, horseshoe pin, massive gold chain, red seal stone. Colour of eyelashes?

Red Hanky (Red again, hmm..)

How does that work then?"

It does not work at all, Sally! It´s a very bad suggestion, in the way you present it.

The again, that is not how I look upon it.

My take is that Sarah Lewis did not look at her man for anything but the shortest of moments - just a fleeing glimpse out of the corner of her eye would have been it, just about.

When you work from that presumption, it suddenly becomes very easy to accept that she didn´t see much, is it not?

Hutchinson, on the other hand, did all he could to get a good look at his man, and he had many a minute to do so.

People who take only a casual look for a fleeting second are not likely to pick up on as much as people who look intently and with a fixed focus for a long period of time.

If you, say, take a look at the page of a book with no interest to read that page, and then turn away from it after one second, and if I take the time to study that page and read it carefully for ten minutes, Sally, I think it would be a reasonable thing to suggest that I would pick up on what the book was about, what was written on the page and so on. I could also add the approximate size of the letters, the state of the page (torn, smudged etc), whereas you could not.

Now, if the two of us were to tell the police afterwards what we had seen, the reasonable outcome would be that you would say that you saw the page of a book for a fleeeting second, but that your eally could not tell what kind of a book it was. Just a book, that´s all.
I, on the other hand, could have said that it was a page from "Alice in Wonderland", and I could have expanded on the description of the white rabbit with the clock and Alice´s picture of him.

Makes sense, does it not?

If, however, you was to approach the police two days after and say that you had suddenly remembered what it said on the page, and if that testimony tallied with mine, made public the day before, I don´t think that much credence ought to have been awarded to your efforts.

THAT is how it works. And yes, I am slightly amazed to have to explain it, but there you are ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Wickerman:

"Lewis's pre-inquest statement is a brief summary of what she witnessed."

I would like to direct you to my post to Frank, Jon, in order to show my thoughts on all of this. But on the sentence I quote above, I must add that the VERY strange thing is that it conclusively states that Lewis COULD NOT describe the man she saw.
If she had had any information to offer in this context, it would have been there, just as it was in the case of the other witnesses, like Cox for example. If it had simply been the choice of the police to disregard her description and leave it up t the inquest, we would not have had it pointed out to us that Lewis COULD NOT describe the man.

It is all very simple, I think!

"Lewis didn't pass Hutch, he was on the other side of the street."

Lewis did not pass THE LOITERER, he was on the other side of the street ...!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Just a little point, led on by my going through the archives:

Ben says, in his latest post, on my suggestion that Lewis would have been quizzed about the appearance of the man she saw:

"There is no need for you to “say again” what you’ve said before, especially when it’s yet another zero-evidence assertion of the “must have” variety. No, there is not the slightest indication that any particular pressure was exerted on Lewis to expand on her sighting of the wideawake man."

... and then I found this snippet, also authored by Ben, on the "Who did Sarah see"- thread:

"Lewis' references to the clothing and headgear of the people she saw that night constitutes evidence that she was questioned along these lines ... In her case, those questions were asked, which is why we have answers to them. "

I find these posts rather hard to reconcile, but I´m sure there´s an explanation to be had! As it stands, it seems that maybe the police asked about the clothing of all the people Sarah Lewis saw that night - but for the loiterer...?

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

White Rabbit??

Yes, Fisherman, but you seem to have missed the point. Your argument is based only on your personal set of assumptions. That's all they are.

You assume that Sarah Lewis only looked at 'her' man for a moment and quite casually at that.

You assume that Hutchinson looked for longer and with more care at 'his' man.

That's one big house of cards you got there.

None of the above is certain.

What we have are two people, at the same time, in the same place, on the same night*. The conditions in which they claim to have seen their respective men were the same.

So why is it harder to accept that Lewis remembered a black hat - a fairly common thing to observe, one would think - most hats were probably black; than it is to accept that the frankly incredible degree of detail in Hutchinson's account is inaccurate?

Put it another way - how is it that Hutchinson's minute observations should be accepted as true and real; but Lewis's far less minute oberservations should not?

It's illogical. There is nothing underpinning your argument.

[Rubyretro]

Hi -well, I think it's useful to test the believability of statements by imagining a scenario trying to bring the things to life..

Here is A Man's Story :

Mr Algenon Mann stopped to admire himself in the mirror - his white linen shirt collar his dark jacket, Light waistcoat, dark trousers, dark felt hat turned down in the middle. Button boots and gaiters with white buttons on his feet.

Defiently...or maybe insouciently ...he put on his gold horseshoe pin and best solid gold watchchain with its flashy and distinctive red stone. After all, he was only intending to visit some of the worst streets in London, trawling for a desperately poor prostitute in the early hours of the morning, so why not goad the poor buggers with a pointless display of his wealth, what ? For a moment he indulged himself with the (purely hypothetical) question, as to whether anyone would recognise him from his jewellery should he have wanted to commit (heavens forbid !) a crime.'No' he decided.. I mean didn't every man who wore a gold horseshoe tie pin also own a gold watchchain with a red stone ? And didn't everyone who owned just such a watchchain, surely complete the ostentatious ensemble with just exactly such a tie pin ?
Besides -all the many people that he came into contact with daily were far too thick to notice any gentleman's distinctive finery..not even if you circulated his description or offered a reward, he'd wager !

Algie gave a dastardly twirl of his upturned moustache ! (it was fitting that the name Algenon mean't mustachioed in french, he thought). Oh, well ! if ever they needed
a man to play Dick Turpin or someone, in a fairground sideshow, he would be just the ticket !

But not quite..he slipped on his astrakhan trimmed overcoat. Then he picked up THE BAG -sure to come in handy when picking up prostitutes.

It was raining outside -or was it ? Heck, Algenon didn't even know what day it was as he made his way over to Commercial Street.! His long coat flapped around him
(well it was always balmy at 2am, in November in London, even when the rain held off), and he was encumbered by THE BAG. He forgot all that though, when he saw what he was looking for -a passably attractive drunken young woman , who was clearly a prostitute, walking towards Thrawl Street. Quickly he tapped her on the shoulder..

.." Would a nice girl like you fancy going home alone with a surly gentleman like me, who matches the sort of description circulating of that Jack the Ripper, even down to the mysterious bag that I'm carrying -which would be perfect for carrying knives ?' Algie asked the tall red head.

She laughed, and he laughed with her. " Good job that you never passed any of them coppers, vigilantes, or do-gooding honest citizens looking for that Ripper.." she guffawed" they'd have been sure to stick their noses in your business. 'ere - what's in the bag boyo, me little leprechaun- ?"

"Oh, pots of money.." replied Algie, tears of mirth rolling down his face

"alright" she said

"you will be alright, for what I have told you' He said, creasing up. . It never ceased to amaze him that such supposedly streetwise creatures never asked to look in the bag to check what he was carrying ! Neither did they seem to suspect him of being the Ripper, despite circulating descriptions. Well, it wasn't suprising really ; the fellow Jewish man had seen him and described him as a ruffian sailor type..I mean how blind can you be?

Algenon put his arm around the woman's shoulder, clutching his bag tighter, and let himself be guided by her. .A man was leaning against a lampost, outside the Queen's Head Public House, staring at him intently. Algenon pulled his hat down further -that way the man wouldn't notice the jewellery or the bag ! (he resisted the impulse to protect what he had of value on him automatically, and hid his face instead). The man was very aggressive though -he bent down and invaded Algenon's body space without uttering a word. Algie shot him a surly look, as both had the time to gaze at each other.

The stranger was a weird fish -on one hand he looked like an ex-army man (and everyone knew that army men had a terrible reputation for violence). He was certainly acting in a threatening way..although he didn't utter a word. He looked like a rough, labouring type -the sort that lived in doss houses in the area.
At the same time he appeared to be only a concerned member of the public interfering. Algenon waited for the woman to address the man -reassure him that all was well..or something..

Mary (for that was her name) was silent..

She didn't look back, she didn't defuse the situation, she set off with Algie to Dorset Street, where she inexplicably stopped outside the building where she lived
and wasted time. The strange man followed hot on their heels (although Mary gave no sign of knowing the man, was she waiting for him to witness something ?)..Algie felt that the stranger was almost breathing down his neck. He was certainly close enough to hear every word.

Never had three whole minutes seemed so long ! Once the introduction was over (not even a minute) Mary didn't even want to be paid up front.all she wanted
was..a handkerchief. Algie felt his desire ebbing.. Never mind the clap -a 'common' cold was very unseductive. Suddenly, Algie felt very forlorn. What was he doing at 2 am in Dorset street with a snuffling contagious drunk and a horribly curious little poor man trying to overhear every utterance? It all seemed very bleak and no fun anymore.

Finally, Mary led him down the passage to her room. It was small, cold, and grim; She was drunk and her laughter long gone.

"give ush the money, now, darling " she said

"um" said Algenon, stalling for time" isn't that nosey little man hanging about outside ? You don't think that he'd try and spy on us through those windows do you ??
I mean I'm not sure that I could..you know..with him loitering there..Could I just sit here for a while..until he's got fed up..?...? Shouldn't take more than 3/4 of an hour..he looked as if he'd had a long tiring day..."

"Suit yourself dearie.." said Mary, "just make sure that you lock the door..I don't trust that one.."

.




.

[Sally]

Ruby..

Bravo!

I now realise that Astrakhan Man was indeed Jack the Ripper and that George was as honest as the day was long*. It was THE BAG that convinced me. Thank you for showing me the way.







*in early November

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"Yes, Fisherman, but you seem to have missed the point. Your argument is based only on your personal set of assumptions. That's all they are.
You assume that Sarah Lewis only looked at 'her' man for a moment and quite casually at that.
You assume that Hutchinson looked for longer and with more care at 'his' man.
That's one big house of cards you got there.
None of the above is certain."

Before, Sally, we get too philosophical, it deserves to be added that no matter what suggestion any of us come up with regarding the span of time during which Sarah Lewis observed the man outside Crossinghams, that assessment will be "personal assumption" and nothing else.

Since we do not have that time span at hand, we can only work from the information we DO have, and that information tells us that the observation Sarah Lewis made enabled her to remember nothing at all regarding apparition and behavior of her "loiterer". Experience tells us that witnesses who can accurately describe other persons in very much detail are people who have had a very good look at the person they describe, and they have also had considerable time to take in the details and remember them.
Therefore, it stands to reason to argue that Sarah Lewis did NOT get a god look at her man. In fact, it would seem that she only got a very BAD look at him, either for reasons of time or low visibility - or a combination of both.

Similarly, the detailed description Hutchinson gives tells us that he would have gotten a real good look at HIS man, pointing to a longer period of observation under useful circumstances of visibility.

This is something that it completely obvious and no sensible person would argue about it. People without sense or with an agenda of some sort would, however, do just that. Enough said.

"What we have are two people, at the same time, in the same place, on the same night. The conditions in which they claim to have seen their respective men were the same."

Eh - no. What we have are two people who were there on consecutive nights, if I am correct. And the conditions may have differed wildly - Hutchinson said that he saw his man as he stood against a lamppost, for example. Lampposts provide light, remember? The loiterer may or may not have been standing in a spot where some light was provided, but making the haphazard assumption that the conditions would or even must have been the same for Lewis´sighting and Hutchinson´s is something you gave an apt name in your initial wording: a house of cards.

"So why is it harder to accept that Lewis remembered a black hat - a fairly common thing to observe, one would think - most hats were probably black; than it is to accept that the frankly incredible degree of detail in Hutchinson's account is inaccurate?"

Surely you could not have missed my point totally? Or could you? Any which way, here it is again:
There is nothing strange about being able to make out the shape and colour of a hat, at least not if the conditions under which you make the observation are tolerable. You know this and I know this. It is as evident as the law of gravity.

Therefore, you must look elsewhere for an explanation to why I find it strange that Lewis mentioned a black wideawake hat. And where do we find the answer...? Corrrect! We find it in the fact that Sarah Lewis had before professed to not being able to describe a single feature of the loiterer as she spoke to the police on the day of the murder! She worded it in that exact fashion: "I cannot describe him".

Now, two days later, that had all taken a VERY dramatic turn. Sarah Lewis WAS now able to describe the man! And when this sudden change comes about, I get very, very suspicious. Now, if she had said : "I have been thinking about it a lot, and I seem to remeber that he was on the short side, but that´s all I can offer", I could have bought it. If she had stated "I felt intimidated, so in retrospective, I seem to remember that it was rather a big bloke", then fine - I may buy that too.
...but when she comes up with an assertion that the man wore a black wideawake, we suddenly have a detailed description of the headgear of a man she had professed not to be able to describe at all, and at that stage I call a halt - for this is something that is very much out of the ordinary!
Likewise, when she says that the man stood and looked intently up the court, as if waiting for somebody to come out, it´s not a Hallelujah experience for me, but instead a remark that is screamingly different from what she had told the police of the man - that is: nothing.
To begin with, I would say that unless the man had a wristwatch that he repeatedly looked at, inbetween his glances up the court, there is NO WAY that he could have given the impression to be waiting for somebody! If Lewis was of the meaning that people who glance up courts are necessarily always in wait for someone to come out from that court, then fine - but most of us know that people may look up courts for a number of OTHER reasons! And most importantly, if Lewis recorded the arguably relatively complex actions of a man who intently stared up a court "as if in wait for somebody to come out" - then why did she not tell the police this??
The answer is every bit as obvious as the answer to the question why she first told the police that she could not describe a single detail of her man, whereas she two days later discussed hat fashions and colours in an exact manner: she simply cooked it up!

We have an excellent testimony on Lewis´behalf, taken down by the police after questioning her about the man´s looks, his actions, what Lewis had noticed during her night in the court and who else she had seen about. That is her first version, and it should be treated as the version of events that is likeliest to depict her experiences. After that, we enter fairytale land, and Lewis puts herself on par with the many people who have paraded through criminal history as witnesses who have changed their stories and thus proven themselves completely unreliable.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Frank!

I have now taken a new look at Sarah Lewis´ police report, and found that it says:
Sarah Lewis further said that when in company with another female on Wednesday evening last at Bethnal Green, a suspicious man accosted her, he carried a black bag."

Not a word, thus, about Lewis seeing him again on Friday morning! So at that stage, the police did NOT have that man connected to the murder morning, and therefore they would reasonably take a very diminished interest in him.

Add to this that the same story about the sinister man was served by a Mrs Paumier, a Mrs Kennedy and a Sarah Roney, and we may reflect somewhat over the veracity of it all. To me, it sounds very much like something the Grimm brothers could have authored. Of course, it has been suggested that Mrs Kennedy may have been Lewis under the wrong name, but I believe that Mrs Kennedy claimed to have visited not the Keylers but her parents. And Sarah Roney has ALSO been proposed as an alter ego of Lewis. The strange thing is that both Kennedy and Roney figure in the same articles though (for example in the St James Gazette).
All in all, the whole Lewis affair reeks of a very rich fantasy and I see little reason to afford her inquest testimony anything but an amused smile and a wink of the eye.

The best, Frank!
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Wickerman -first of all, Mrs Lewis states that she saw the man looking towards the Court, as if waiting for someone to come out, and then she walked into that very Court, so she had to have approached the immediate vicinity that he was standing in. She passed into the passage in front of him. and could not fail to attract his attention.

Ruby.
I understand Lewis passed by, presumably on the northern side of Dorset St., while the 'Loiterer' (for Fisherman), was standing across the street on the south side.
Dorset St. was not very wide, something in the order of 30 feet if I recall correctly. I don't doubt Lewis could see the man, but it was dark, no street lighting close by that I am aware of, and she had no reason to pay particular attention to his appearance.
Hutch walked directly passed Astrachan so he was able to give a better description, whereas Lewis was on the opposite side of the road to the man she was describing - thats the comparison I was making.

Whilst it is true that Mrs Lewis was particularly afraid of BG Man, enough to say so (doubtless because he corresponded more to her idea of the Ripper),
that doesn't mean that she wouldn't be 'frightened' (I'll amend that to nervous, if you prefer) of walking down a dark street, in the early hours of the morning, where a lone man was loitering. It is human nature.

Mrs Lewis was a lone woman, but I will bet that if you (I presume a man), walked into a friend's road in the early hours of the morning -in an area that you knew well- and saw from afar a lone man loitering, then you too would feel nervous.

It has been stated that Lewis was a lone woman, in an empty street with a loiterer standing watching the Court.
Dorset St. was more like Picadilly, hundreds of dossers coming and going, the street was a haven for crime. Police refused to patrol Dorset St. unless in pairs. We have had a variety of sources describing the constant activity in Dorset St. & Flower & Dean St. These streets had much the same reputation and similar round the clock activity.
Your image of an empty Dorset St. with a lone loiterer paused to pounce doesn't ring true somehow.

Because the loiterer was standing alone does not mean the street was empty, only that no-one was with him.

I keep fixing on this point, because the whole Mrs Lewis account pans out for me as human and logical (whilst nothing in Hutch's account of A Man does).

I understand that, but I believe both Lewis & Hutch and see no need to discredited either of them

There is nothing that pans out in a scenario that Blotchy was the loiterer either. Nothing in the descriptions beyond two males in east end garb, and no reason for Blotchy to leave the victim's warm room to hang about in the cold and rain (couldn't he just knock on the door, and pretext that something must have fallen from his pocket, and he wanted to search for it ?).

Agreed, Blotchy will not have been the loiterer. Although, if Mary had to earn money I do not see her taking one customer for the whole night. Like Mary cox, MJK will have needed to entertain a hand ful of customers through the night. So, she kicked Blotchy out and took to the streets again, at least thats the only way she's going to make any money.
Given Blotchy's description, do you seriously think he could pay for a whole night when the normal liason took approx 30 mins?

Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

Yes, Sally and Beebs, I think you’ve hit the nail most admirably on the head here.

“I find these posts rather hard to reconcile”

I really don’t see why, Fisherman. My observation on the “Who did Sarah See?” thread was simply an acknowledgement that the police asked questions as to the appearance of both the Bethnal Green man and the loiterer. My most post to this thread barring this one, however, emphasised that no “particular pressure was exerted on Lewis to expand on her sighting of the wideawake man”. In other words, Lewis’ inability to describe the loitering man in any detail at the time of her police statement (which I suggest was largely attributable to her fear of, and apparent preoccupation with, the man conversing with a woman near the Britannia) was unlikely to have been challenged with any vigour.

The suggestion that Hutchinson wasn’t there at all but merely “borrowed” Lewis’ account has been suggested before. It’s not amongst the very worst suggestions for Hutchinson’s behaviour, but still unlikely to my mind. I doubt very much that Hutchinson noticed that a witness account had described a potential suspect, pretended that he was the individual described and claimed also to have been just a witness himself. The important thing to consider here - and indeed in any aspect of the ripper case - is historical precedent: comparisons with other serial and murder cases. Certainly, I’ve never encountered any comparable example of such behaviour in other criminal investigations. In contrast, there have been cases in which the offenders have recognised themselves in witness accounts, and who subsequently came forward with false excuses for their presence there, whether they were identified by name or not.

It’s also unlikely that he would expose himself to such risk if he wasn't the man seen by Lewis, especially if he didn’t even take the precaution of providing his genuine whereabouts for the time encompassing the “murder” cry. If he really wasn’t there, the “walking about all night” alibi-less excuse was a very strange one to resort to, whereas it makes perfect sense for a person who, for whatever reason, needed to provide a convincing excuse for the absence of an alibi for the murder period.

It is clear that the timing and congruity between the Lewis and Hutchinson accounts casts the latter less in the mould of a publicity-seeker and more in the direction of a bacon-saver, because he realised he'd been seen.

Please don’t suppose for one moment that I don’t see your problem. You wish to play down the obvious and inescapable reality Hutchinson was Lewis' man because it pinpoints him at that location on the night of Kelly’s murder, and thus militates very against your very recently conceived and highly controversial opinion that Hutchinson confused the day. As it stands, though, I’m not in the least bit surprised that you’re struggling so hard to find any support for your attempt to demolish Lewis whilst depicting Hutchinson as a “pillar of society”. It just looks ridiculous to argue that the addition of three extremely mundane non-specific details in Lewis’ account are somehow problematic, whereas the embellishments, contradictions and unutterably implausible details in Hutchinson’s thoroughly discredited three-day late story are fine and dandy.

Try and find another way “in”, I would, if your intention is to convince your intended audience of the imagined validity of Walter’s different day, because the Lewis angle just isn’t working. Clearly nobody has any problem with the minor discrepancies between her police statement and inquest evidence. Clearly nobody has any problem with her impression of the man’s interest in the court. Clearly, nobody considers a black hat a “detailed description”, and so on. You’ve missed my point about the majority of opinion. I’ve never suggested that they have monopoly on theoretical rightness, and as you may recall, I got very cross in the past with people who kept listing other people who agreed with their theories on Toppy as some sort of imaginary trump card for their arguments. When I do find myself in the conspicuous minority of opinion, however, I don’t go around labelling everyone else “unrealistic”, nor do I suggest they haven’t “thought things through”.

I’m amazed that people are still getting the wrong idea about Mrs. Kennedy, Sarah Roney. These were not aliases of Sarah Lewis. These were other women who had heard Lewis’ account and sought publicity by passing it off as their own experience. A reporter from the Star observed that: “half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience”. Come the inquest, however, it is clear that the genuine source for the genuine story – Lewis herself – had been successfully located. To claim that this original source is also bogus is to make a pronouncement with no evidential backing of any description.

“All in all, the whole Lewis affair reeks of a very rich fantasy and I see little reason to afford her inquest testimony anything but an amused smile and a wink of the eye.”

Along with reams and reams of long, argumentative posts apparently! An “amused smile and a wink of the eye” might be a more appropriate reaction to some of your Lewis-related suggestions.

Regards,
Ben