Let's narrow down some Ripper 'facts'

[Sally]

5 is the magic number..

So.. Lewis saw no less than 5 people on her way to Miller's Court that night, late at night (or early in the morning) and in inclement weather.

This almost certainly has no particular significance at all and could have been repeated on any given night in an overstuffed district in Whitechapel where vice was rife - in fact, on a fine night there would've undoubtedly been yet more people for her to see.

And yet curiously, Honest Geo. sees nobody except Kelly, Astroman and a stray copper. Hmm..

As for him having seen and been inspired by the other bogey-parcel-carrying-bloke... all he had to do was read the papers, with which the Victoria Home was well stocked. Or listen to the word on the street. Either would've sufficed.

[Malcolm X]

thank God we've got Ben and Garry here, i just cant be bothered with answering all of that rubbish any more, 5 years ago maybe, Wickerman's theory is confusing to read too.

[lynn cates]

one in a Millen

Hello Abby.

"Where do you think Hutch got his "model" or inspiration for A-man?"

From looking dead on at Gen. Francis Millen.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Special Branch

Hello Simon. Perhaps a lad from Special Branch tipped them off.

Cheers.
LC

[Malcolm X]

Hello Abby.

"Where do you think Hutch got his "model" or inspiration for A-man?"

From looking dead on at Gen. Francis Millen.

Cheers.
LC

try the tabloid newspapers instead, or even Jekyll and Hyde, bogeyman like that were also in Penny Dreadful.

finally, i expect his types were indeed seen in Petticoat Lane, but definitely not dressed like that AFTER commiting murder

[lynn cates]

murder

Hello Malcolm. Fie! Never read that rot. (heh-heh)

Seriously, not sure what poor old Millen had to do with murder. Trying to prevent one, like as not.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

Nobody would have been going out at all except in desperation, ...

Desperation was their lot in life Rya, they lived in desperation from waking to sleeping every day.

For example, it is quite unlikely that Mary would have removed all her clothing to go to sleep in those conditions, ....

That is a fair point, and applies to all those unfortunates, yes including Prater.
Most of these women wore all the clothes they owned, they didn't have a closet/wardrobe with spare clothes. Those rooms came furnished so they owned nothing and dare not leave anything in their rooms while out because of the risk of theft.
What I was meaning with Prater was that if some of her clothes were wet I would expect her to take those outer garments off while she slept.
But I don't think it was raining while Prater stood waiting or she would have said so.

Also, I would like very much to know why everyone in the discussion of the Kelly murder takes the mythical cry of "murder" at circa 4 am so seriously. Two witnesses claimed to hear it, two other witnesses didn't. Perhaps the police should have taken a poll of everyone in the court. Oddly, more of them seemed to have heard the poor girl singing ballades a few hours earlier.

And that fact has not gone unnoticed, you might want to check Praters first statement to the press on 10 Nov. she originally said she heard nothing through the night.

"Elizabeth Prater, the occupant of the first floor front room, was one of those who saw the body through the window. She affirms that she spoke to the deceased on Thursday. She knew that Kelly had been living with a man, and that they had quarrelled about ten days since. It was a common thing for the women living in these tenements to bring men home with them. They could do so as they pleased. She had heard nothing during the night, and was out betimes in the morning, and her attention was not attracted to any circumstances of an unusual character."
Daily Telegraph, 10 Nov.

Interesting...

Regards, Jon S.

[Hunter]

Hi Hunter,
Thank you.
Do you have a link to this particular Echo article?
Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon,

Yes, here is the relevant sections with a link to the full article below.
From the Echo, Nov. 14, 1888:

'What is said to be a full and accurate description of the man last seen with Kelly is asserted to be in the possession of the authorities. That description was given them the other night by George Hutchinson, a groom by trade, but now working as a labourer. The importance of that description lies (so say the morning papers) in the fact that it agrees with that furnished to the police yesterday, but which was considerably discounted because the statement of the informant had not been made at the inquest and in a more official manner. There is not, so it is declared, the slightest reason for doubting Hutchinson's veracity.

...Unfortunately for the theories of our morning contemporaries, we learned on inquiry at the Commercial-street Police Station today that the elaborate description given above is virtually the same as previously published. It is a little fuller, that is all. But it proceeds from the same source (my emphasis)...'

http://www.jtrforums.com/showpost.php?p=133863&postcount=2

[Simon Wood]

Hi Hunter,

Thank you. I'm much obliged.

It clears up something which has been niggling me.

Regards,

Simon

[Malcolm X]

he also sais, ``no policeman came up dorset st and i saw a man going into lodging house in Dorset st....... but i saw no one else!``..... very odd, he did not see the woman that said she saw him !

how did he miss seeing SL, but managed to see a copper at the end of the road, in near pitch darkness and also that man entering a lodging house

[Ben]

Many thanks, Abby and Greg.

And Greg, I agree, there may well have been a few non-murderous weirdos in the district who derived some sort of a kick from playing the bogeyman. One of the things that struck me in particular about the Bethnal Green man is the sheer unlikelihood that he had anything to do with the Whitechapel murders. Is it likely, after all, that the real JTR would approach two women (as per Lewis' account), request the company of one of them in order to dispatch her, ripper-style, while leaving the other one hovering nearby as a witness? Nah. I'd say Lewis' man simply picked an inopportune moment in the district's history to pick up a prostitute.

Hi Simon,

Welcome back. The "talking to a female" detail is something of a mystery. My suspicion is that Badham simply became confused at the various men and women that featured in Lewis' account (which befuddles people even today, as witness the forgoing exchange!). Lewis had just mentioned that a young man with a female had passed along Dorset Street, and it is possible that Badham confused the young man with this other individual who was stationed opposite the court.

Great to see you back here too, Sally!

All the best,
Ben

[Malcolm X]

that thread over there is really good, Bowyer kept going to the water pump and saw the odd/funny man before 3am, but not at 3am..

did he see GH lurking around outside her room earlier on, because he did say that he went down the court as well, but Bowyer supposedly saw the same guy that GH did..... LA DE DA.

Bowyer doesn't mention if Kelly's light was on... he was right outside her room and more than once !

but there's something very crucial here, Hutchinson doesn't mention seeing Bowyer going down the court, and he maybe went down there twice or more, he also as said, doesn't mention seeing SL either, so one of these two looks like he's lieing

what do you think Ben ?

[Wickerman]

A very good point about a question and answer period not mirroring a real life narrative.

Hi Greg.
In most versions of an Inquest we do not see the questions posed, only who asked the question.
Witness responses are generally preceeded by a "-" in the original. Modern authors tend to remove those "-" marks and present the answers as a continuous narrative, which gives a false impression of the flow of the discussion.

Perhaps it was the same man but Hutch merely embellished his appearance for whatever reason.

I think he did embellish this mans appearance, for whatever reason can only be guessed at.
However, there are two seperate accounts which place Kelly outside Millers Court with a "well-dressed man" after midnight.

The Evening News (10 Nov) wrote:
"Mrs. Kennedy is confident that the man whom she noticed speaking to the woman Kelly at three o'clock on Friday morning is identical with the person who accosted her on the previous Wednesday."

But interestingly, earlier the same day the Daily News (10 Nov) implied the same situation. Their account is broken up across a few paragraphs but we can piece it together.

The story opens with an account of the coat found in Kelly's room and the question of to whom it belonged, then the line continues...

Even were this not so, the coat would not tally with the description of the man in whose company the unfortunate woman Kelly was last seen - a well dressed man with a long overcoat over an ordinary coat.

This description obviously is not Blotchy, and Hutchinson had not come forward yet. The account is once again from Mrs Kennedy, who stated that:

She noticed three persons at the corner of the street near the Britannia public house. There was a young man, respectably dressed, and with a dark moustache, talking to a woman whom she did not know, and also a woman poorly clad, without any headgear.

The woman without any headgear must be Kelly. Then Kennedy gives that description of the man:

On Wednesday evening about eight o'clock she and her sister were in the neighbourhood of Bethnal green road, when they were accosted by a very suspicious looking man, about forty years of age. He wore a short jacket, over which he had a long top coat. He had a black moustache and wore a billycock hat.

There then we have two newspapers giving the story that Kennedy saw Kelly with a well-dressed man in a long overcoat, over a short coat/jacket.

Certainly the former could have copied the latter, but in cases where this does occur the sentence structure normally remains unchanged or very little changed.
The Daily News account and the Evening News story are presented radically different as if they each may have independently spoke to Mrs Kennedy.

I cannot see two well-dressed men being in the same area, within feet of each other, though why Hutchinson would dress his version up more than he was is a mystery.
Regardless, the description given by Hutchinson is immaterial, the man existed that is what is important, and he was seen with Kelly.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

Which is precisely the opposite of what you argued last year, Jon, when insisting that press reports (especially those emanating from The Star) ought to be treated as unreliable. Your contention back then was that information that had emerged from police interviews and inquest hearings should always take precedence.

Garry.
If you are referring to the 'Hutchinson Discredit' debate we were not talking about Witness Statements.

The Star was claiming to be sharing privileged information from authorized sources, yet at the same time complained that the police refuse to share information with them.
They cannot have it both ways, if the police are not talking to them, where are they getting their sources?

At the time I provided a quote from the Star where they said that because the police will not share information the Star will resort to "making it up as they go".
You cannot get any clearer message than that, of course the reports published by the Star professing to be sharing "police opinion" are untrustworthy, they made that clear themselves.
The subject was "police opinion" on the Hutchinson statement.

This is not the same as publishing statements by witnesses & members of the public, here they are providing sources.
All statements to the press by the public should be treated with caution, no question there. What we do not do is treat them all as "rubbish", ignoring them because they were not sworn.
Because some of these stories may not make sense does not mean they are wrong, we actually "know" very little about these murders.

Public statements to the press should be compared with what other information we have, and judge them accordingly.
I don't believe you would disagree with that, this is common sense.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

Hi Wicker
Thanks for the explanation. Very interesting, but frankly I find this version of how BG man and Aman could be one in the same rather convoluted. Better to just say that after seeing BG man and the woman that SL tarried somewhere nearby (not at McCarthys shop)long enough for BG/Aman, MK and Hutch to get "in front" of her. Would be more probable and simpler dont you think?

Hi Abby.
Where could she tarry?, there was only the shop, nothing else.
When Prater was standing there at 1:00 am, she also said she stepped into the shop and spoke with Mrs McCarthy.
What is so 'convoluted' about that?

Regards, Jon S.