Did Astrakhan Man exist?

[Fisherman]

Richard:

"Fisherman.
Please give the investigating police some credit, they were not fools, they were present in the area in 1888, with people living in 1888, we were obviously not, so how can we judge?"

I give the investigating police a lot of credit, Richard. I think they did very well, considering what they were dealing with and the means at their disposal.

One of the policemen I give credit is Dew. Of him, you write that he was "braindead". I fail to see why you say so. I would say that the general picture of Dew was that his book is quite an accomplishment, giving a generally fari picture of his carreer, including the Whitechapel murders.

On my suggestion of a mistaken day on Hutchinson´s part, I can only say - once more - that we have it on record that his story was discredited, just as we have on record that Hutchinson was a man of some stature, who gave a very credible impression. So when the story was discredited, it must have been so either because it contained elements that made it useless in the investigation. Either it was a lie, or it was honest but mistaken (in all probability as to date).

Either way, Hutchinson was dropped from the investigation, and that tells us that the police did their job. I have never stated anything else.

In the case with Mrs Lewis, we have a glaring discrepancy inbetween police report and inquest testimony. I think that it points very much to the good Mrs Lewis telling porkies. But that does not mean that I somehow accuse the police of anything at all - as Lewis stepped into the inquest room, the police would reasonably have anticipated her to tell the coroner the exact same thing that she had told them. She didn´t, though. But that is not something that we can blame the police for, is it? Nor do I do so.
Did this discrepancy mean that the police put less trust in Lewis afterwards? Yes, it must have, although we do not have it on record. What the police thought of Lewis for changing her testimony is something we know nothing of. No verdict has been passed down to us. But to speculate that the police did not notice it would be futile. THAT would be to regard them as very bad professionals. Of course they noticed. And if it came as a surprise to them - and reasonably, it did - then they must have reassessed Lewis´testimony. And that would have lead them to either a decision that the discrepancy meant nothing, and that it was totally uncontroversial to suddenly present a description of a man you had professed emphatically to not being able to describe at all, including headgear and all and including his actions. Or they would have thought these additions very strange and unexpected, and decided that Lewis´inquest testimony must be treated with the greatest of care.
And in my world, and since I put much faith in the police, contrary to what you seem to suggest, the latter would apply. Analogically, I think that those who say that the police would not have cared about Lewis´ inquest revelations being totally different from her police report testimony, are the ones that paint the police out as utterly ignorant and uninterested in doing their job.

So you can put a lot of faith in my putting a lot of faith in the police, Richard. Likewise, just like the police did, I put much faith in Hutchinson. Lewis, though - no. And I don´t see the police doing so either.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

In the case with Mrs Lewis, we have a glaring discrepancy inbetween police report and inquest testimony. I think that it points very much to the good Mrs Lewis telling porkies.

We don't have a glaring discrepancy at all. The description that Mrs Lewis gave at the inquest remains very general, and is probably the result of questioning.

There is nothing whatsoever to indicate that Mrs Lewis was telling 'porkies'.
Her description of her experience makes perfect logical sense in terms of human behaviour, and she has added no 'exciting' or fanciful details to the original police report to arouse suspicion.

Discrediting Mrs Lewis remains wishful thinking on your part.

[Sally]

Sarah Lewises...

Garry -

The little Sarah Lewis was born c.1885 in London. Her sister, Leah, was born in 1888. They were the children of Philip and Minnie Lewis, who originated from Poland/Russia. The family is listed at 22 Great Pearl Street in the 1891 Census.

In the 1881 Census, another (branch?) of the Lewis family were living at the same address, when it was operating as a general shop.

The other Sarah Lewis (all these Lewises!) is listed at 13 Great Pearl Street in the 1881 Census, aged 15, placing her date of birth in 1866. As so often with the census, however, this may be slightly out. If my identification of her in other records is correct, she may have been born in 1868, which would have made her 13 in 1881.

In any case, she would have been aged between 20 and 22 in 1888.

It appears that this Sarah Lewis was a Polish Jew. The sudden influx of Lewises between the 1861 and 1871 Census; many of whom have similar, and unusual family personal names; does make me wonder if many of them were related.

Which makes me wonder if Sarah Lewis was related to Morris (Maurice) Lewis, another Polish Jew. I haven't got that far with the research yet though.

One other thought is that if this Sarah Lewis was the witness Sarah Lewis, and a Polish Jew; she may have been reluctant to get involved, given the prevailing view at the time that a Jew was involved with the Whitechapel Murders. Perhaps this accounts for her initial statement to the police.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"My reference to the apparent lack of support for your anti-Lewis stance was merely an effort to temper the bulldozer-like insistence that often accompanies it."

You don´t have to temper anything, Ben. And I fail to see how claiming that I am alone in the world in my thoughts WOULD temper it? I think you must rely on my ability to make my own calls and leave all speculations about potential support and/or disagreement aside, especially since we know nothing about it.

"“Dew poo” was a funny little rhyme and wasn’t intended as a discourtesy to you personally."

Well, since I am not Walter Dew, I fail to see how it could have been? But since you get very upset when I say that there is good reason to believe that Lewis lied, you may want to think twice before you concoct funny little rhymes in this business yourself?
Not that I care about it as such - it makes for a good understanding of how you sometimes reason and weigh things.

"In order:

1 – Paumier, Roney, Kennedy, Bowyer’s peculiar-eyed man, Kelly’s “little boy”, silk top hats and other bits and bobs that appeared in the papers around the 10th November
2 – The police, assuming they had any contact with some of the above mentioned.
3 – Because they were very obviously nonsense."

On point 1, I don´t thing that Kellys little boy or a single silk hat spoke of having met bogey man. And that was what we were discussing. On point 2 and 3, it´s guesswork on your behalf.

"“Dreams up” is just a negative assumption on your part with no supportive evidence, and the addition of such details as “not tall” and “stout” is most assuredly “not sensational”."

My assumption is fuelled by a glaring discrepancy in Lewis two testimonies. And "not tall" and "stout" are in themselves not sensational traits. Nor are blue-eyed, long-haired, hat-wearing or intently watching a court. The sensation lies in the addition to a former admittance of not being able to furnish a single thing about the man. That´s when it becomes sensational.

Imagine that David Milliband is shot on the open street in London, Ben. There is only one witness at hand, a guy who the police can confirm was in place at the crime scene. Further imagine that this guy says that Yeah, there was this man shooting but I cannot describe him. I just can´t. It was dark and it all went down so fast.
This is what the papers report on the murder day and two days after. Then, on day three, the witness makes contact with the press and says that he suddenly remembers that the man who shot was a tall, thin guy with a green baseball cap, and that he had stared at the prime minister as if he had hated him very much personally.

Of course, this would never have made the papers. Who would care? Nothing sensational about such a thing, is there? No, the papers may have mentioned it in passing but most people would not pick up on it. Of course, it would have gone down as the offical version of events, and the police would immediately accept it as the true version of events, not for a second questioning it.
And when it was later discovered that the witness lived in a surrounding where people almost made it a sport to parrott things and lie in order to gain attention, that would not affect the impression of total honesty on behalf of that witness either. He first forgot and then remembered and that was all there was to it, right?

Does this seem like a very credible chain of events to you, Ben? To me, it sounds like something nobody with a head on their shoulders would ever contemplate believing in.

"For some unfathomable reason, however, you are anxious to assert that Lewis was the liar and that someone other than Lewis was the originator of Lewis’ account"

No. You misunderstand me. I am anxious to assert that Lewis MAY WELL have been a liar, given her complete turnover and the addition of bogey man in Dorset Street, and I am anxious to point out that she MAY HAVE heard the Bethnal Green bogey man story from somebody else. I am anxious to press that we DO NOT rule out possibilities that are readily at hand. My own guess - for that is all it is - is that Lewis DID see the Bethnal Green man on Wednesday, but I am rather inclined to believe that she may have exaggerated what happened. I am not in any way sure that there was much of a conversation between her and the man. But I think that there is a fair chance that she had heard others telling similar stories of a gentleman making slippery and potentially very dangerous offers to the women of the East end. Many women may have been speaking of this man, and some of them may have seen him. And if there was a plethora of bogey man stories doing the rounds on the streets, one must realize that the police would have been in no possession at all to make any call about how reliable Lewis´version was in this context. The only way in which they could have felt a reason to offer an increase in belief in the story would have been if they had reason to believe that this person existed, either from having noticed him themselves or by means of weighing together testimony from independent sources.
So on it´s own merits, Lewis´bogey man story would have no legs at all to stand on evidencewise, whereas a confirmed existance of the man she spoke of would add immensely to her credibility - but without in any way making sure that she WAS truthful. What you only hear of you may claim as your own. Everybody knows that.

"Nobody said anything negative about Sarah Lewis at any stage, unless you think it’s bad to be petite, mournful and “negress” in appearance."

The article on the whole was scornful and it was said that the evidence Lewis gave was perhaps not to be trusted or something to that effect. Full stop.

"Hutchinson, on the other hand, was discredited because his failure to come forward earlier adversely affected his credibility."

Not a bad word is said about Hutchinson. His STORY is discredited though. But you seem to miss out on admitting that he was called unshakable, straightforward, a man with the best of intentions and a guy on whom Dew would not reflect - all of these judgements being extremely positive.

I don´t hear this applying to Lewis. And why should it? How could it?

"The Star were not themselves the authors of this “wrong” detail.

But papers make their own decisions about what to print, Ben. And if the Star was in possession of police informants, why would they rely on sources not "in the know" instead of asking the police?

"The observation the Echo was making was that the man who caused Kennedy some alarm the previous night looked like Blotchy, and that she would be able to recognise him again."

Not in a million years, Ben. This is untrue. The paper tells us that "Mrs Kennedy asserts that the man whom she saw on Friday morning with the woman at the corner of Dorset-street resembled very closely the individual who caused such alarm on the previous night". And how could Kennedy assert that bogey man resembled a man she had never seen? Reasonably, she could only have done so if she had been given the description of Blotchy. And what did that description speak of? It spoke of a man with a CARROTTY moustace and a blotchy face. So why would Kennedy be of the meaning that a fellow with a BLACK moustache answered to Blotchy´s description in every detail? Why would she speak of a top coat over a short coat - something nobody said Blotchy wore? If Kennedy had been handed Blotchys description and if she claimed that the man she saw answered against it in every detail - why does it not do so?
Does the same apply here as with Lewis testimony? "Minor descripancies", nothing to care about?
The TYPE Cox describes is a type that one can easily imagine - the kind of guy who has trouble with strong sun, the skin flaking at times, the reddish hair, the pale complexion - this is a man you cannot imagine having dark brown eyes, is it not? No, watery pale blue eyes would fit the bill much better.
But no, Kennedy speaks of a man with a BLACK moustache, and black would be the colour LEAST comparable with Blotchy´s apparition. Blond would be no problems and any shade of brown would fit reasonably too. But black does NOT. So no, Ben, and no again - Kennedy was NOT speaking confidently about a total correlation inbetween the features of a man she had never even seen and the bogey man.

"There is no evidence that Lewis told “porkies”.

... or that she didn´t.

"There is no evidence that anyone at the time thought she told “porkies.”

... or that somebody did - apart from the gentlemen on the Daily News, that is.

There is no logical motive for Sarah Lewis to have told “porkies.”"

... but for a thirst for fifteen minutes of fame.

"“Invented” is just a horrible assumption on your part"

Assumption, yes. Horrible - that depends on it´s relation to truth. I find it a lot more "horrible" to suggest that George Hutchinson killed Kelly in the grimmest of fashions - if THAT is untrue. And my best guess is that it is. But just as my suggestion is "heartless and insensitive" I take it YOURS is caring, considerate and loving? Yes?

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

The other Sarah Lewis (all these Lewises!) is listed at 13 Great Pearl Street in the 1881 Census, aged 15, placing her date of birth in 1866. As so often with the census, however, this may be slightly out. If my identification of her in other records is correct, she may have been born in 1868, which would have made her 13 in 1881.

Much appreciated, Sally. This, in actual fact, was the Sarah Lewis to whom I referred in previous posts – the one I cited as having a sister two years her junior. Since your research demonstrates that this was not the case, the passage of time has clearly led me to conflate a number of unconnected Lewis-related elements.

One other thought is that if this Sarah Lewis was the witness Sarah Lewis, and a Polish Jew; she may have been reluctant to get involved, given the prevailing view at the time that a Jew was involved with the Whitechapel Murders. Perhaps this accounts for her initial statement to the police.

Dorset Street was notoriously anti-Semitic, Sally, a reality which I have long thought must have increased Sarah’s sense of vulnerability as she walked past Wideawake on the night under scrutiny. I also believe that too little consideration has been accorded to her sleep-deprived state when questioned by police. She was walking the streets at 2:30am and spent the rest of the night perched upon what was presumably a hard wooden chair. Small wonder that her immediate memory of the Wideawake encounter was somewhat imprecise. And the fact that she ‘recovered’ certain elements of detail several days later is precisely what would be expected of a sleep-deprived witness nowadays. Indeed, this process accounts for the remarkable efficacy of the modern cognitive interview, a technique developed by psychologists and used by all of the more sophisticated police forces for the purpose of eliciting additional and often crucial eyewitness information.

There again, I don’t want to spoil the ‘Lewis-as-liar’ argument with the introduction of robust empirical evidence, so I’ll leave it there.

Thanks once again.

[Fisherman]

Garry Wroe:

" I also believe that too little consideration has been accorded to her sleep-deprived state when questioned by police. She was walking the streets at 2:30am and spent the rest of the night perched upon what was presumably a hard wooden chair. Small wonder that her immediate memory of the Wideawake encounter was somewhat imprecise. And the fact that she ‘recovered’ certain elements of detail several days later is precisely what would be expected of a sleep-deprived witness nowadays."

An interesting aside here is that sleep deprivation is a key factor behind mixing up days too, Garry - but for some reason Hutchinson´s missing out on a full nights sleep - at the very least - is not looked upon by the Hutchinsonians as something that may have played a role.

Now, why would that be? Any thoughts?

"I don’t want to spoil the ‘Lewis-as-liar’ argument with the introduction of robust empirical evidence"

Of course you want to. But I´m not equally sure that you can pull it off. For as you know, Cox stated "I was upset. I did not undress at all. I did not sleep at all. " - and SHE seemed to have no problems at all nailing HER testimony at the hour of her police interview. Moreover, she - and not Lewis - actually testifies to having been upset, something that may well affect the ability to take things in and remember them. And she - and not Lewis - asserts that she had no sleep at all.

Of course, not all people are alike. Take, for instance, you and me. But I still think that we may need to accept that the discrepancy inbetween Lewis´report and her inquest testimony WAS very much out of the ordinary. And if she took in what she said she took in about the loiterers actions and purpose, in a fleeting second, then her powers of observation were ALSO out of the ordinary.

In conclusion, Garry, you can let go of any suspicions of having empirically evidenced that Sarah Lewis would not have been lying. Don´t blame yourself for that!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Many thanks for the background information on Sarah Lewis, Sally and Garry. I hope your important research isn't obscured by all this "Lying Lewis" rubble!

Fisherman,

You’re now showing signs of entrenching yourself once again in a repetitive stamina war. As usual, it isn’t a successful or sustainable debating strategy, at least not against me, and as usual, you will not be permitted to have that last word that you seem intent on achieving.

I do admittedly “get very upset” with the offensively ludicrous claim that Sarah Lewis lied in her account, because it is completely irrational and entirely lacking in evidential support. Moreover, it is a hastily conceived idea on your part, resorted to no doubt out of a sense of desperation to clutch at any straw that might support the Dew spew from 1938, which was also hastily conceived and in contrast to your earlier negative views on Dew.

“The sensation lies in the addition to a former admittance of not being able to furnish a single thing about the man. That´s when it becomes sensational.”

According to just you.

Everyone else knows full well that the description offered at the inquest amounts to a minor and trivial deviation from her police statement, and that it was probably the result of the harrowing realization of the events that transpired a few feet away from her as she slept, coupled with the fear she experienced on account of the Wednesday encounter. Garry has also raised the issue of sleep deprivation, and observed that: “the fact that she ‘recovered’ certain elements of detail several days later is precisely what would be expected of a sleep-deprived witness nowadays”. This is the death knell for your illogical, unimaginative and soulless attack on Lewis’ credibility. Everyone but you, it seems, is capable of taking a rational and sensitive approach to this issue, and all recognise that the “sensational change”, “glaring discrepancies” and indications of lying are simply not there in Lewis’ case.

You’re now trying to ram it down other people’s throats in a futile effort to recruit them to your errant cause:

“Did this discrepancy mean that the police put less trust in Lewis afterwards? Yes, it must have, although we do not have it on record.”

Hideous rubbish.

And here you are again in “must have” territory, relying on the imaginary insistence of lost reports that must have said what you want them to have said once upon a time. If the police noticed the piffling little difference, the evidence is that they were sympathetic to Lewis and made allowances for her situation based on the revolting nature of the crime and her unwitting association with it. Only an unimaginative, contemptible disgrace of a police official would impugn her honesty because of this.

You’re convincing nobody, and this should have been a cue for you to take the lead in agreeing to disagree, rather than continued unsuccessful appeals to people to revise their views, which invariably take the form of filibustering, rambling posts. What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this repetition of thoroughly rejected proposals, just out of interest? Your invented comparison with David Milliband (who is not, incidentally, the Prime Minister) is worthless and irrelevant because it fails to take into account the various factors, outlined above, that could easily have affected Lewis’ ability to recall to memory certain details so soon after the murder.

Sarah Lewis was the originator of the account involving an encounter with a man on the Bethnal Green Road, and I’m pleased to see you acknowledge this. Other woman copied HER account, and not the other way round. This is made clear in the Star report (10th November) discussed earlier that stated that the account of a female witness had been parroted by “half a dozen women” who sought to retail it as their own experience. As Sugden points out, the female witness in question who provided the “true anecdote” was certainly Sarah Lewis, and Mrs. Kennedy was obviously one of the “half a dozen” women who copied it. I agree with you that there were a “plethora of bogey man stories doing the rounds on the streets” but it is clear that a lot of these were Chinese-Whispered versions of Lewis’ account. Yes, there is a lack of corroboration for the encounter, just as there is a lack of corroboration for Schwartz’s account, and PC Smith’s, and Elizabeth Long’s, but there is no reason for doubting the veracity of the account, and no reason to suspect that anyone at the time doubted it either.

What I find so incredible is that you take an entirely uncritical approach to Paumier et al, whilst saving all your “lying” accusations for Lewis.

“The article on the whole was scornful and it was said that the evidence Lewis gave was perhaps not to be trusted or something to that effect.”

No, the article was not scornful. Not remotely.

I say again – and again and again and again if necessary, Hutchinson was discredited by the police because of the late arrival of his evidence and his non-attendance at the inquest “under oath”; because they felt this impacted negatively on his credibility. I reject the Dew spew as strictly personal speculations with no support from any other police source. Lewis was not discredited, she appeared at the inquest under oath, and we have evidence that her account was taken seriously at least a week after the inquest. To champion Hutchinson over Lewis would be to espouse reckless and shamelessly irresponsible nonsense, and yet that’s exactly what you did in your ridiculous post to Richard where you had the audacity to claim that the police placed faith in Hutchinson and not in Lewis. Don’t make me chunder.

“And if the Star was in possession of police informants, why would they rely on sources not "in the know" instead of asking the police?”

There was nothing to prevent the Star using both police informants and information obtained from press agencies, as well as conducting their own personal investigations, as they did with Schwartz. On this occasion, they relied on material supplied to them by a press agency and which, unfortunately, contained an error.

“The paper tells us that "Mrs Kennedy asserts that the man whom she saw on Friday morning with the woman at the corner of Dorset-street resembled very closely the individual who caused such alarm on the previous night".”

Yes, the previous night meaning Wednesday, when she claimed to have encountered a man. Mrs. Kennedy was saying that the man she saw on Wednesday "resembled very closely" the man she saw on Friday. The Echo observed that this man (from Wednesday and Friday) resembled Blotchy, and we can see the obvious points of congruity between the two in terms of age, dress and headgear. There is, of course, the discrepancy with the colour of the man’s moustache, but as I’ve already pointed out, the Echo were clearly under the impression that Mrs. Cox was mistaken as to the colour of the man’s moustache, and reported as much on 14th November. Now you’re suggesting that a man with ginger hair and bad skin can’t have brown eyes! What an tremendous muddle you seem to have got yourself into here.

The Daily News did not suggest that Lewis told porkies. On the contrary, they observed that her evidence supported that of Prater. Lewis would have received fifteen minutes of fame by virtue of her physical proximity to a crime scene. If fame was what she was after, she could have gone to the press like Kennedy, Paumier and the other bogus, discredited witnesses who copied her account, and whose evidence you consider more reliable than Lewis’ for some impossible-to-justify reason.

I think I need a stiff drink after the fringe-endorsed utter madness I’ve just dealt with.

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

“Therefore, the idea that the killer might "appear out of the ordinary" had been fed to the public, it had not originated with the public.”

Regardless of the theory's origin, it is clearly based on ignorance of serial crime and its perpetrators. This is not meant in criticism of any 1888 investigator of theorist; they couldn’t help the fact that they lived in an era before any substantial knowledge on the subject could be garnered. If there is any criticism to be levelled, it is at those who comment on the subject in these considerably more enlightened days and still think that serial killers “appear out of the ordinary”.

“The witnesses are summonsed to appear to answer specific questions. They are not asked to tell everything that happened to them over the past few nights.”

True enough, but we know that in Bowyer’s case, he was specifically asked when he had last seen Kelly, and he responded:

“On Wednesday afternoon, in the court, when I spoke to her. McCarthy's shop is at the corner of Miller's-court”

Flatly contradicting the press account attributed to him regarding a sighting of Kelly on Wednesday night in the company of the man with the “peculiar eyes”.

“Sarah Lewis appeared at the inquest, Mrs Kennedy spoke to the press - they were the same woman.”

No.

Almost certainly not.

The Star reported on the 10th that the account of a female witness – clearly Sarah Lewis – had been “retailed” by other women who tried to pass it off as their own experience

Mrs. Kennedy went to the press with a strikingly similar account to Lewis, although she did not appear at the inquest.

The logical, and frankly inescapable, inference must be that Mrs. Kennedy was one of the “retailers” described, and that she was revealed as such prior to the inquest.

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

An interesting aside here is that sleep deprivation is a key factor behind mixing up days too, Garry - but for some reason Hutchinson´s missing out on a full nights sleep - at the very least - is not looked upon by the Hutchinsonians as something that may have played a role … Now, why would that be? Any thoughts?

Plenty, Fish, but this isn’t the appropriate thread so I’ll resist the temptation to elaborate on the lack of evidence for your ‘wrong night’ argument.

By the bye, since you appear to be classifying me as a ‘Hutchinsonian’, perhaps you’d care to provide an example of any instance when I have expressed it as my belief that George Hutchinson was the Whitechapel Murderer.

"I don’t want to spoil the ‘Lewis-as-liar’ argument with the introduction of robust empirical evidence"

Of course you want to.

No, trust me, Fish, I don’t. I really don’t. It’s a tedious issue which seems to have been inspired by a desire to provide an element of gravitas to the ‘wrong night’ argument. And it’s failing. Miserably.

But I still think that we may need to accept that the discrepancy inbetween Lewis´report and her inquest testimony WAS very much out of the ordinary.

Then you have a great deal to learn about human psychology and the history of crime, Fish.

In conclusion, Garry, you can let go of any suspicions of having empirically evidenced that Sarah Lewis would not have been lying. Don´t blame yourself for that!

Like I said, Fish, this is all so very, very tedious.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Many thanks for the background information on Sarah Lewis, Sally and Garry. I hope your important research isn't obscured by all this "Lying Lewis" rubble!"

... and I hope that Sally´s and Garry´s efforts does not stop anybody from researching other avenues - like the one about Srah Lewis. For my life, I cannot see why my work in that field should "obscure" theirs...? I always thought that what you sert your mind to do is what you focus on.

"You’re now showing signs of entrenching yourself once again in a repetitive stamina war."

You know, the exact same thing could be said about you. I am only waiting for your obligatory remarks about how it is impossible to win over you in such a war.
Perhaps you should get it overwith, so we can move on to more interesting matters, like exploring caserelated issues?

"I do admittedly “get very upset” with the offensively ludicrous claim that Sarah Lewis lied in her account, because it is completely irrational and entirely lacking in evidential support."

Why should you? Why get upset because somebody does not share your opinions? Is that not a very common thing in a 123 year old murdercase with no convicted killer?
Would it not be better to accept that people who are faced with two completely different sets of evidence, authored by the same person and attaching to the same issue, are sometimes people who question the value of the witness involved? It is all very simple and should not upset anybody.
It is not as if Sarah Lewis was your great great aunt, is it? And you have no trouble calling Hutchinson a liar and probable killer. Do you expect that people will be terribly upset on his behalf too?
I fail to see the logic here, Ben, I really do.

"According to just you."

Come on, Ben. Have a look here: The earth is round. There, I said it. Now let´s see how many people chime in to say that I´m correct. The question here is: If nobody does - does that mean I am wrong?

Once again, my theory on Hutchinson the good guy and Lewis the bad witness is a new one to a great extent. And the ones listening in are people who are not very eager to attach themselves to anything that they have perhaps not themselves delved into. That is understandable.But just as you don´t have them cheering me on, you don´t have them disagreeing either!

Add to all of this the dimension of the risk involved in engaging in this discussion - one may be called embarrasing and bordering on lunacy. Some will avoid that, Ben. They will feel intimidated by the prospect.

At the end of the day, I still say let the arguments decide the value of the afterthought behind them. Don´t speak of dreamt-up hoards of people that boo me and cheer you: They are not there.


I will exemplify what I mean. Or rather, YOU will:
"all recognise that the “sensational change”, “glaring discrepancies” and indications of lying are simply not there in Lewis’ case."

Now, Ben, who are these "all" that you speak of? Could you list them for me, from A to Z? We are hundreds out here, so it will be a long list. But either you can do it, or you are not keeping to the truth.

"Everyone else knows ..."

LIST THEM!

"You’re convincing nobody"

THE LIST, PLEASE!!

You are not hearing voices, are you? Inside your head? No? Good! Then don´t act as if you did.

"Garry has also raised the issue of sleep deprivation"

So have I, in another context - you cared little for it then, I must say! I have also exemplified by using Cox, why I don´t think we need to worry to much about Lewis in this context - though I am ruling nothing out, as such.

"Hideous rubbish."

That a police force that has a testimony changed totally becomes wary of a possible lie? Wake up, Ben! Go have a look in the courtroom documents. Go ask the police: If somebody says A in a police report and B at the following inquest, does that at times make you suspicious? Ask them, Ben, and find out how "hideous" my suggestion is! I can not give you any better advice - go to the sources and dig!

" ... the piffling little difference ..."

White - Black. High - Low. Truth - Lie. There´s the scale for you.

"What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this"

An understanding - for those who are interested - in the existance of an up til now seldom explored avenue of research, in the first place. Secondly, I hope for work along this line that opens up for an evidence-based realization that George Hutchinson was not the killer. A lot has already arrived, like the signatures, for example. That convinced a good deal of merited Riperologists, as youwill recall. Not you, of course - others.

Out of interest, what did YOU think I was hoping for ...?

"What I find so incredible is that you take an entirely uncritical approach to Paumier et al, whilst saving all your “lying” accusations for Lewis."

Calm down, Ben. I cannot assess how truthful Paumier was. What is said of her in the press gives no reason to mistrust her, but of course she MAY have been less than honest.
No matter who of us creates a scenario, we must work from a number of assumptions. That applies here too. It is a case of having a main ore to follow, and checking if the surrounding details MAY fit in without too much tension. And it does so here, the way I see things.
On the whole, though, Sarah Lewis MAY have seen exactly what she said she saw (or thought she saw - the bit about waiting for somebody to come out is an interpretation at best), and Paumier may have lied about it all. I just reserve the right to be of an opposing meaning. And I can build what I believe to be the best possible and fullest scenario involving the Kelly witnesses on it!

I believe in what I do, Ben, quite simply, and that´s a powerful force.

"I reject the Dew spew ..."

Another "funny little rhyme"? Like "Ben´s dense"? I see. Well, I don´t reject it. I always thought that highly merited policemen ought to have something valuable to say about the cases they worked.

"There was nothing to prevent the Star using both police informants and information obtained from press agencies"

Of course there was not! But it may lack some sense not to make use of police informants if you have them at your disposal, does it not? But just like you say, any paper is free to refrain forn using the sources they have and print ncertain material instead! Of course!

"Mrs. Kennedy was saying that the man she saw on Wednesday "resembled very closely" the man she saw on Friday."

Yes! This is the only way we can accept Kennedy´s words - she would not have spoken of exact likenesses inbetween a man she HAD seen and one that she hadn´t.

"The Echo observed that this man (from Wednesday and Friday) resembled Blotchy"

No! They did no such thing. They spoke of a man that "caused much alarm" - and BOGEY MAN sure did, harassing women. Blotchy caused no alarm at all.

"Yes, the previous night meaning Wednesday"

No. Wednesday was previous to THURSDAY. And the paper we discuss came out on Saturday - making FRIDAY the previous day. Wednesday was "three days previous". One, two, three, four ... come on, you can do it!

"There is, of course, the discrepancy with the colour of the man’s moustache"

The COLOSSAL discrepancy of the moustace, you mean! And wahddoyouknow - bogey man HAD a black moustache! And he HAD a top coat over another coat, something Blotchy did NOT have. And the description tallies just as well with HIS age and appearance as it does with Blotchy´s, with the difference that nothing is said by Kennedy about any stoutness.

So every single detail tallies with bogey man, whereas two details are wrong in a comparison with Blotchy. One guy fits the bill - the other does not.

Read.

Think.

Deduct.

It is all there.

" Now you’re suggesting that a man with ginger hair and bad skin can’t have brown eyes! "

Am I? What a rot! But that is sooo stupendeously wrong

Are you sure that I not just said that one can´t imagine redhaired, blotchy men of pale complexion having DARK brown eyes? Are you really, really sure? Have you ever seen a redhaired, blotchy man with a pale complexion - and with DARK brown eyes, Ben? I know I have not.

Why is it that you won´t quote me fully and correctly?
Why is it that you claim things on my behalf that were never there?
Why do you resort to this?
Please answer it - if you don´t, I will ask again. Fair´s fair, Ben - acknowledge that and live by it!

Others are in fact very annoyed with you for resorting to things like these. Everyboy else, in fact, all over the world! The Chinese, the Senegalese and the people from the outskirts of Ulan Bator in Mongolia are particularly displeased.

No, wait a minute - I cannot possibly know this, can I ...? I have no idea who thinks you are debating fairly or not, do I?
Thus I should refrain from throwing forward such a suggestion and stick with what I DO know. Of course! I should NOT generalize out of thin air and say that nobody agrees with you, should I?

Do you see what I am after here, Ben? Do you? Please tell me that you do - and live by it fortwith! I am dead tired of having to respond to unsubstantiated accusations, you see.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben (in a post to Wickerman):

"we know that in Bowyer’s case, he was specifically asked when he had last seen Kelly, and he responded:
“On Wednesday afternoon, in the court, when I spoke to her. McCarthy's shop is at the corner of Miller's-court”
Flatly contradicting the press account attributed to him regarding a sighting of Kelly on Wednesday night in the company of the man with the “peculiar eyes”.

So, Ben, you think that Bowyer is not to believed since he said one thing first and then changed it? You thin - perhaps - that this points to him not being truthful?

The inference is there, I admit. People who change their testinmonies are very hard to put faith in - are they not?
But don´t you think that Bowyer - who SAW Kellys cut up body and who MUST have been severely shocked - may have forgotten about his sighting for some time? It would seem that this can happen to folks that go through horrific experiences like the one Bowyer dealt with.

This is odd. This reminds me of something, but I can´t remember what. Oh, well - once I compose myself, it will come to me, no doubt.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"
Plenty, Fish, but this isn’t the appropriate thread so I’ll resist the temptation to elaborate on the lack of evidence for your ‘wrong night’ argument."

You don´t HAVE to elaborate on it. We all know that you refuted the suggestion last time over!

"By the bye, since you appear to be classifying me as a ‘Hutchinsonian’, perhaps you’d care to provide an example of any instance when I have expressed it as my belief that George Hutchinson was the Whitechapel Murderer."

And YOU may perhaps care to provide an example where I said that only those who believe that Hutchinson was the killer are to be classified as Hutchinsonians ...?

Anyway, I seem to remember a fictionalized story authored by your own good self where Hutch did all of the killing...? And - likewise anyway - what I mean by a Hutchinsonian is a person who steadfastly claims his role as a very possible killer in spite of other evidence pointing very much away from it. And I´m afraid I count you into that cadre of posters by now.

In all of this I must admit that my take on you in this context rests on subjective assessments of mine. Others will have to make their own calls, and they may come up with an assertion that they think you are completely truthful and honest to the evidence involved. That is not for me to say.
I know, at any rate, that the first time I encountered you on these threads, you gave the impression of a very knowledgeable and true to the material-researcher. The Hutchinson debates have not added to this impression, though. Still, it is abundantly evident that you make the same call on my behalf!

Which raises the question whether two rational people can end up so far apart when assessing the same material in what they both believe to be a fair way? Can they?

"No, trust me, Fish, I don’t. I really don’t."

Oh, come on, Garry - don´t tell me that the original remark you made was made with your tongue well away from your cheeks!

"It’s a tedious issue which seems to have been inspired by a desire to provide an element of gravitas to the ‘wrong night’ argument."

THIS is interesting - here I think you make the wrong call by speaking of a "desire" as such. If there is a desire involved, then that desire is to follow the "wrong day track" and find out what happens to the elements lining the road. As such, I do not "want" a special result or outcome. But I DO want to test if there is anything standing in the way for the theory, evidencewise.

"And it’s failing. Miserably."

You see, Garry, you are now speaking of a skewed perspective on my behalf, leading me to see things that are not there.
But try and see it the way I see it. I see your claim that it failed miserably as a result of YOUR skewed thinking and inability to recognize what the evidence tells us!

Let´s just take the changed testimony on Lewis´behalf as an example. What YOU do, is to rush to Lewis´assistance, and start theorizing about her deprivation of sleep being the reason behind her inability to remember what she had seen at the police report.

You even theorize that Lewis would have sat perched on a hard, uncomfortable wooden chair! But we don´t know what that chair looked like, do we? It would be a good assumption to make that the Keylers offered Lewis the BEST chair the household could offer, since she was their friend, would it not? An that could have been a polstered, rather comfy chair, right?

So why is it that you do your absolute worst when making your guess?"

Anyway, that was not where I was headed. I was headed towards the question about changed testimonies. In Lewis´case, she stated firmly in the police report that she COULD NOT describe her man. At the inquest, she could tell not only that he was shortish and stoutish, but also that he wore a black wideawake hat and watched the court "as if waiting for someone to come out".

A semantical war has - of course - started about how much of a change there was inbetween police report and inquest files. But let´s put that aside for a short moment and ask ourselves: Is it more common that the police doubt witnesses that change their testimony than it is that they doubt those who don´t?

Incedibly, none of the people I refer to as Hutchinsonians have had anything to say about this. The only thing that emerges from that camp is a claim that the two testimonies are not unlike each other. A "piffling little difference" was what Ben called it.

But what is YOUR OWN VIEW, Garry? Do you agree with me that what the police do when they interrogate people time after time, is to look for discrepancies? They need to find out if the people they interrogate say one thing at one occasion and another on another, is that not true?
And is it not equally true that they become suspicious when the different versions given by those interrogated do not correlate?

So why would they not question an initial assertion that Lewis could not describe her man, coupled with a description about apparitions, actions and intents arriving three days later? Please tell me, if you think you have the answer. But don´t tell me that you cannot understand my argument intellectually, Garry!

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Did Sarah Lewis Lie?

Perhaps we should have a Poll?

[Lechmere]

But I thought you had established that Lewis was a Pole

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"Perhaps we should have a Poll?"

Yes, do. And make the alternatives:

A/ It is more probable that people who change their testimonies inbetween their recordings are untruthful than those who don´t.

B/ It is not more probable that people who change their testimonies inbetween their recordings are untruthful than those who don´t.

... for THAT is the subject we are discussing here.

The best,
Fisherman