Mr Astrachan = The Bethnal Green man

[Wickerman]

Description of Bethnal Green man by Sarah Lewis.

He was a short, pale-faced man with a black moustache. The man appeared to be about 40. His bag was not very large, about six or nine inches long. The hat he wore was a round hat, rather high - a stiff felt hat. He had a long overcoat on and a short black one underneath. His trousers were dark pepper and salt.


Description of Bethnal Green man by Mrs Kennedy.

He was about five feet seven inches high, wore a short jacket, over which he had a long top-coat. He had a black moustache, and wore a billycock hat.
He was very white in the face, and made every endeavor to prevent them looking him straight in the face. He carried a black bag.


Description of Bethnal Green man by Mrs Paumier.

...man had a black moustache, was about five feet six inches high, and wore a black silk hat, a black coat, and speckled trousers. He also carried a black shiny bag about a foot in depth and a foot and a half in length.


Description of Mr Astrachan by George Hutchinson.

....age about 34 or 35. height 5ft6 complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes slight moustache, curled up each end, and hair dark, very surley looking dress long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan. And a dark jacket under. Light waistcoat dark trousers dark felt hat turned down in the middle. Button boots and gaiters with white buttons. Wore a very thick gold chain white linen collar. Black tie with horse shoe pin. Respectable appearance walked very sharp.


So was this a, short man in a long dark coat, or a tall man in a short dark coat?

One mystery of less significant proportions is the presence of a well-dressed man in a long dark coat in the vicinity prior to the murder taking place.
A suggestion has been debated that the strange man accosting women in the vicinity of Bethnal Green Road may have been the same man described by Hutchinson on Friday morning in Commercial St. wearing a long dark coat trimmed with Astrachan.

One observation which might argue against this conclusion is that in her inquest testimony Sarah Lewis makes it clear that the Bethnal Green man seen on Wednesday was wearing a long brownish overcoat, with a short black coat underneath. Whereas, on Friday morning this same man, “had then no overcoat on”.

When comparing Lewis's testimony on this specific point to the statement given by Hutchinson to the police, we notice on Friday morning Hutchinson claims the man was wearing a, “...long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan. And a dark jacket under.”

As Lewis noticed the man had “no overcoat on”, but the man Hutchinson saw wore a “long dark coat” they could hardly be the same man – right?


With the above inconsistency in mind it might be well to read one Home Office record which deals with the a description of the man who Matthew Packer served just before Stride was murdered in Berner St.

Alexander Carmichael Bruce wrote down some specific details, he records the man as “about 5ft 7in with long black coat buttoned up”, yet at the very end of this same report he writes, “He had a Frock Coat on”.

This is interesting because a Frock Coat began as a calf-length coat but in the 1860's was shortened to knee-length, whereas a Long Coat is generally taken to mean an Overcoat which quite often is ankle-length.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frock_coat

When comparing descriptions given by both Lewis & Hutchinson, our dilemma is that we have no reference point. Naturally Hutchinson will describe the stranger as wearing a long coat because the stranger is also wearing a jacket underneath. But just how long is 'long', and 'long' compared to what?
The coat only needs to be longer than the jacket. Therefore a knee-length Frock Coat would suffice. Our assumption that Hutchinson meant an Overcoat is perhaps without foundation.

Then again Sarah Lewis was a Laundress, she worked with clothes. Typically a woman knows more about men's clothes & clothing styles than men do. Add to this that Sarah Lewis worked with clothes, washing & possibly also mending them suggests that she was speaking from a learned perspective.
When Lewis stated that the stranger had, “no overcoat on” she was being very specific, because this man had worn an Overcoat the previous time she saw him.

When we look at these two statements we can see our mistake come to light, that we have 'assumed', perhaps wrongly, that Hutchinson meant Overcoat, when actually he did not. Whereas Lewis actually said Overcoat.
That being the case we can remove one potential obsticle in comparing these two descriptions.



The second point is the man's height. Sarah Lewis stated in her inquest testimony that the man was, “..short & pale faced”. Interestingly Lewis also describes the loiterer in Dorset St., presumed by many to have been Hutchinson, as “..not tall ...but stout”.

Interestingly, Hutchinson approximated the height of this stranger to have been 5ft 6in, and that when the man approached Hutchinson his hat was pulled down over his eyes and that he tilted his head down making Hutchinson also tilt his head, or stoop to see the face of this man.
These actions tend to suggest that both the stranger and Hutchinson might have been approximately the same height. These actions hardly support the idea that Hutchinson was smaller than the stranger.

Once again we have the problem of not knowing what the point of reference was. When Lewis said, “short” or “not tall”, we must ask, compared to what?
How tall was Lewis herself?, was she comparing the height of both men to herself, or comparing their height to that of her husband?

The man described by Mrs Paumier, who approached her on the same Friday noon-time (9th) was about 5ft 6in tall. Mrs. Paumier's statement first hit the press on the morning of the 10th.
Likewise, whether you take Mrs Kennedy to actually be Sarah Lewis, or another woman who was with Lewis, Mrs Kennedy also gives the height of the stranger as about 5ft 7in. So the fact that Lewis described the stranger as “short” has no value as an inconsistency, the stranger and the man in an Astrachan coat were approx. the same height.

Therefore, as the evidence sits at present, there is no sound basis for arguing against these two men, the Bethnal Green man & Mr Astrachan, being one and the same.

Regards, Jon S.

[Rubyretro]

I think that the details in Hutchinson's description of A Man, concerning the spats, the astrakhan trimmings, the gold watch and chain and the linen collar and gold tie pin are obviously intended to denote someone of the upper classes -whereas there is no such suggestion in Mrs Lewis's description of Bethnal Green Man. I'm sure that we could find plenty of BGMs on the East End street in photographs of the time -not so A Man.

As you pointed out, Mrs Lewis was a launderess, and whether this means she
washed clothing or is simply a euphemism for a prostitute, I can't believe that
she wouldn't notice the huge class difference with herself and the ostentatious display of wealth. I imagine that that prostitutes are very good at summing up men's potential monetary value.

Nor is there any suggestion that BGM was jewish or 'foreign' , as with A Man.

The behaviour of Bethnal Green Man -drawing attention to himself and frightening women-plus clutching a bag, makes it highly unlikely that he was the murderer, nor could persuade women to go quietly to a quiet dark place with them and surprise them.

With his behaviour, the first policeman he met, would probably want to look in his bag !

BGM sounds like a harmless loony to me, who enjoyed giving the girls a fright
at the height of the Ripper 'spree' -as some men like childishly dangling
spiders in front of women who squeal.

[Sally]

If Sarah saw 'the same man' as she did on Wednesday on the Bethnal Green Road outside Ringers the next night I find that a bit curious. If she was correct, and it was the same man, it seems a bit too coincidental.

Sarah Lewis (assuming the Great Pearl Street Sarah in 1881 is the right one - seems likely) was listed as a tailoress. Her parents were tailors. I think she should have known about clothes, imo, if she had started her involvement with them so young - I think she was about 13 then.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I have a feeling that this is the start of a long thread.
Firstly, great post Wickerman, you make some valid points in identification , however I agree with Rubyretro, as to the harmless loony figure complete with a bag for show,
Whoever Jack was he certainly was not a man walking about with a black bag, or dressed in Astrachan IMHO.
If Mr A existed[ I think he did] then it is a real good bet that Mary Kelly knew him, albeit not dressed like that, hence the laughter initially.
Question . What woman in their right mind what allow a man dressed like that back to their room, complete with a thin parcel clutched in his hand, unless she knew he was a safe bet?
The intimate walk back to Dorset street, hand on shoulder, the kiss , and some ninety minutes elapsing since the cry was heard.
Question .
Does that seem like a bloodthirsty killer, does his attire sound like he was dressed for a bloodbath?.
Mary Kelly was by all accounts a bright woman, she was very much aware of the killers presence in the area, even the day before she had used the term''he is a concern is he not'' when talking to Mrs McCarthy.
She according to court residents, did not like to venture out alone.
So something put Mary off guard... what.?
Was she killed by someone she trusted without question, or was she foolish enough to allow a stranger back to her room , just because it was daylight, and was given a false sense of security?, if Maxwell is to be believed that could well have happened.
Sorry slightly off thread , I do however believe that Hutchinsons description is a accurate one, but that A was not the killer.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Sally:

2If Sarah saw 'the same man' as she did on Wednesday on the Bethnal Green Road outside Ringers the next night I find that a bit curious. If she was correct, and it was the same man, it seems a bit too coincidental."

How so? I´m not sure I follow you here, Sally. Please elaborate.
Of course, we know that Sarah Lewis did not mention the murder night encounter with the man as she spoke initially to the police!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

No.

Astrakhan man and Bethnal Green man are most emphatically not one and the same person, in my opinion, and there is no evidence that the police thought they were. I’m afraid that any protestations to the contrary are based on an uncritical acceptance of all “witness” reports, regardless of where they came from and whether or not they were discredited. The police discredited Hutchinson’s statement, and they clearly did not pursue his Astrakhan description as a plausible lead by which to capture the offender. If they thought otherwise, they would certainly not have used one of the Jewish witnesses (all of whom garnered considerably more fleeting sightings and far less detailed descriptions) in subsequent identity attempts with Grainger and possibly Kosminski.

Kennedy and Paumier fare even worse, arguably, in the credibility stakes. There is no evidence of any police contact in either case – certainly not with the latter. Kennedy herself was almost certainly one of the women reported by the Star to have copied Lewis’ account and attempted to pass it off as her own, and given the bogus-seeming nature of Paumier and Roney’s experience with silk top-hatted gentleman with shiny black bags, it is likely that they were two more Lewis-plagiarizers. Instead of investing belief in the idea that several independent women saw the same spooky weirdo, we should accept that one woman (Lewis) was responsible for a genuine black bag man sighting, and that other bogus female witnesses borrowed details from it to sell to the press.

The 10th November press accounts were notorious for nonsensical “eyewitness” accounts and demonstrably false rumours about the crime, such as Kelly having a little boy who had to be removed to a neighbour’s home when she brought her gentleman client home to conduct business. They sank without trace very shortly thereafter, for very good reason, and it would be a huge mistake to revive them now. It is no coincidence either that the more sober and unremarkable eyewitness descriptions of potential suspects emerged at the inquests, whereas the discredited and/or “press only” accounts invariably involved outlandish descriptions of sinister “gentleman” with shiny black bags. The police clearly filtered out the nonsense, and it would be a grave mistake to allow it to muddy the waters once again.

Even if we accept, for one very crazy moment, that the Astrakhan man existed, he still could not have been the black bag man. At 2:30am Hutchinson was installed opposite the court having already seen Kelly and Astrakhan man enter the passage. Sarah Lewis, who saw her loitering man (undoubtedly Hutchinson himself) at the same time (2:30am) had already passed the black bag man on Commercial Street a minute earlier. In other words, at 2:30am, Astrakhan man was inside room #13 Miller’s Court when the black bag man was on Commercial Street, near the market, outside Ringers. They could not, therefore, have been the same person. Consequently, the issue of “overcoats” assumes only a minor significance, except perhaps to reinforce the obvious reality that they can’t have been the same person. Black bag man had no overcoat on Friday, according to Lewis, whereas the Astrakhan coat on Hutchinson's man was irrefutably an overcoat, as subsequent press illustrations show.

All the best,
Ben

[Abby Normal]

Description of Bethnal Green man by Sarah Lewis.

He was a short, pale-faced man with a black moustache. The man appeared to be about 40. His bag was not very large, about six or nine inches long. The hat he wore was a round hat, rather high - a stiff felt hat. He had a long overcoat on and a short black one underneath. His trousers were dark pepper and salt.


Description of Bethnal Green man by Mrs Kennedy.

He was about five feet seven inches high, wore a short jacket, over which he had a long top-coat. He had a black moustache, and wore a billycock hat.
He was very white in the face, and made every endeavor to prevent them looking him straight in the face. He carried a black bag.


Description of Bethnal Green man by Mrs Paumier.

...man had a black moustache, was about five feet six inches high, and wore a black silk hat, a black coat, and speckled trousers. He also carried a black shiny bag about a foot in depth and a foot and a half in length.


Description of Mr Astrachan by George Hutchinson.

....age about 34 or 35. height 5ft6 complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes slight moustache, curled up each end, and hair dark, very surley looking dress long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan. And a dark jacket under. Light waistcoat dark trousers dark felt hat turned down in the middle. Button boots and gaiters with white buttons. Wore a very thick gold chain white linen collar. Black tie with horse shoe pin. Respectable appearance walked very sharp.


So was this a, short man in a long dark coat, or a tall man in a short dark coat?

One mystery of less significant proportions is the presence of a well-dressed man in a long dark coat in the vicinity prior to the murder taking place.
A suggestion has been debated that the strange man accosting women in the vicinity of Bethnal Green Road may have been the same man described by Hutchinson on Friday morning in Commercial St. wearing a long dark coat trimmed with Astrachan.

One observation which might argue against this conclusion is that in her inquest testimony Sarah Lewis makes it clear that the Bethnal Green man seen on Wednesday was wearing a long brownish overcoat, with a short black coat underneath. Whereas, on Friday morning this same man, “had then no overcoat on”.

When comparing Lewis's testimony on this specific point to the statement given by Hutchinson to the police, we notice on Friday morning Hutchinson claims the man was wearing a, “...long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan. And a dark jacket under.”

As Lewis noticed the man had “no overcoat on”, but the man Hutchinson saw wore a “long dark coat” they could hardly be the same man – right?


With the above inconsistency in mind it might be well to read one Home Office record which deals with the a description of the man who Matthew Packer served just before Stride was murdered in Berner St.

Alexander Carmichael Bruce wrote down some specific details, he records the man as “about 5ft 7in with long black coat buttoned up”, yet at the very end of this same report he writes, “He had a Frock Coat on”.

This is interesting because a Frock Coat began as a calf-length coat but in the 1860's was shortened to knee-length, whereas a Long Coat is generally taken to mean an Overcoat which quite often is ankle-length.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frock_coat

When comparing descriptions given by both Lewis & Hutchinson, our dilemma is that we have no reference point. Naturally Hutchinson will describe the stranger as wearing a long coat because the stranger is also wearing a jacket underneath. But just how long is 'long', and 'long' compared to what?
The coat only needs to be longer than the jacket. Therefore a knee-length Frock Coat would suffice. Our assumption that Hutchinson meant an Overcoat is perhaps without foundation.

Then again Sarah Lewis was a Laundress, she worked with clothes. Typically a woman knows more about men's clothes & clothing styles than men do. Add to this that Sarah Lewis worked with clothes, washing & possibly also mending them suggests that she was speaking from a learned perspective.
When Lewis stated that the stranger had, “no overcoat on” she was being very specific, because this man had worn an Overcoat the previous time she saw him.

When we look at these two statements we can see our mistake come to light, that we have 'assumed', perhaps wrongly, that Hutchinson meant Overcoat, when actually he did not. Whereas Lewis actually said Overcoat.
That being the case we can remove one potential obsticle in comparing these two descriptions.



The second point is the man's height. Sarah Lewis stated in her inquest testimony that the man was, “..short & pale faced”. Interestingly Lewis also describes the loiterer in Dorset St., presumed by many to have been Hutchinson, as “..not tall ...but stout”.

Interestingly, Hutchinson approximated the height of this stranger to have been 5ft 6in, and that when the man approached Hutchinson his hat was pulled down over his eyes and that he tilted his head down making Hutchinson also tilt his head, or stoop to see the face of this man.
These actions tend to suggest that both the stranger and Hutchinson might have been approximately the same height. These actions hardly support the idea that Hutchinson was smaller than the stranger.

Once again we have the problem of not knowing what the point of reference was. When Lewis said, “short” or “not tall”, we must ask, compared to what?
How tall was Lewis herself?, was she comparing the height of both men to herself, or comparing their height to that of her husband?

The man described by Mrs Paumier, who approached her on the same Friday noon-time (9th) was about 5ft 6in tall. Mrs. Paumier's statement first hit the press on the morning of the 10th.
Likewise, whether you take Mrs Kennedy to actually be Sarah Lewis, or another woman who was with Lewis, Mrs Kennedy also gives the height of the stranger as about 5ft 7in. So the fact that Lewis described the stranger as “short” has no value as an inconsistency, the stranger and the man in an Astrachan coat were approx. the same height.

Therefore, as the evidence sits at present, there is no sound basis for arguing against these two men, the Bethnal Green man & Mr Astrachan, being one and the same.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Wicker
good post.

When I first heard about Bethnal Green man I thought wow sounds alot like A-man. Maybe Hutch was telling the truth. But the timing is off. Sarah was on her way into the court when A-man was already in MK's place as Ben and others have pointed out. But if Sarah Lewis had stopped somewhere for a while after she saw BG man then its a possibility- except for it seems her sighting of him spooked her and she hurried straight to Millers court. Also, I still find Hutch's A-man story pretty unbeleiveable.

If anything, Hutch may have heard about Sarah Lewis's account of BG man (along with her sighting of him on his vigil) from the inquest and incorporated it into his A-man.


However, if Hutch was fibbing about everything that night except his vigil (which i think is a good possibility) then I think BG man is still in the running (although slight) as MK's killer and JtR. he could have met up with MK AFTER Sarah had gone into the court.



Also, can we all agree on a proper name for Sarah Lewis's Bethnel Green Man?
I have seen everything from bogeyman, to black bag man etc.

My vote is for BG-man (Bethnel Green man). Its simple, like A-man (Astracahn man).

[Fisherman]

I still say that the main objection people will have against regarding the two men as one and the same, lies in George Hutchinson placing his man in Kelly´s room at the same time BG man is still out on the street. And I still say that this problem goes away if we put faith in Dew.
What I don´t say, however, is that the two men were one and the same. They may have been, though.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Hmmm
A-man and BG-man cannot be the same as the police didn’t make the connection... but then neither did they make the connection between WA-man and Hutch...

If WA-man does not equal Hutch then of course Lewis could have seen the A-man on Commercial Street prior to going into Miller’s Court.

I suppose it is possible that the police could have been open minded enough to harbour suspicions against a variety of suspects and when presented with Grainger they would have been negligent indeed not to investigate further. Not a good argument against the A-man remaining a suspect. Same goes for Kosminski.

On the subject of press nonsense could be added the sole very early (far too early in my opinion to be credible) denunciation of Hutchinson.

Hutch giving A-man a too wealthy looking exterior? Maybe just embellishment to sell a story or attract a few shillings from the police as an ultra observant informant.

[richardnunweek]

Hi
We are all accusing Hutchinson as exaggerating , but what if the police asked him to assist them, by doing just that?
What would be the point of giving out a accurate description of the man he saw with Kelly , simply that person would alter his appearance, but if the description differed deliberately, it would give the killer a false sense of security, leaving apprehension more likely.
That would surely be the most sensible route.
Regards Richard.

[Lechmere]

Maybe but his description does seem over elaborate and flamboyant (but not genuinely Upper Class, maybe an ignorant man's vision of the upper crust).

[Fisherman]

Lechmere:

"If WA-man does not equal Hutch then of course Lewis could have seen the A-man on Commercial Street prior to going into Miller’s Court."

Bingo!

"Hutch giving A-man a too wealthy looking exterior? Maybe just embellishment to sell a story or attract a few shillings from the police as an ultra observant informant."

Or he was a man with a great gift for taking in many details. A man, perhaps, that would go on to become a plumber who did not have to take notes of the material he would need for a job - since he remembered it all anyway, detail by detail.

Who knows?

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

With excellent memory for detail, but who's other sort of memory is poor (the type that gets days mixed up)?

[Ben]

“If WA-man does not equal Hutch then of course Lewis could have seen the A-man on Commercial Street prior to going into Miller’s Court.”

Which is nothing short of impossible, unless people seriously wish to accept that that there were two entirely separate individuals monitoring the court as though waiting for someone to come out of Miller’s Court at the same location, at the same time on the same night. I’m personally very suspicious of people who claim that they are prepared to accept such fanciful ideas, and I refuse to accept that people can honestly be that resistant to the patently obvious.

My point about Grainger and Kosminski was that the witness who was called in to attempt to identify them was very obviously Lawende, and he provided a considerably weaker description than Hutchinson. Astrakhan man clearly did not remain a suspect for the simple reason that Hutchinson’s account was discredited. Irrespective of whether you think the “denunciation” of Hutchinson was too early, it was clearly precisely what happened. The Echo report to this effect was indisputably based on a direct communication with the police.

Hutchinson’s “great gift for taking in many details” fails to take into consideration the obvious truth that Hutchinson almost could not even have seen many of the details that he later claimed to have memorized. "Dark eyelashes", anyone? At 2:30am in Victorian London in poor weather conditions? That discussion, however, can be found in many other Hutchinson debates, and I would encourage interested parties to have a look through these rather than embarking upon yet another “Did Hutchinson lie” thread.

“Toppy” and “wrong dates” should also be confined to their relevant threads.

[Ben]

Hutchinson almost could not

Almost certainly could not, I meant.