Was the Artist Henri de Toulouse Lautrec Implicated in the Killings?

[galexander]

Hi Nemo

And yet you hear the argument time and time again that the graffito was just a coincidental scrap of writing that happened to be on that wall and thus was unconnected to the apron and the Whitechapel murders. Your argument would seem to be there was indeed something special about it.

Best regards

Chris

I think the important point rather is that even though the graffito could just have been "a coincidental scrap of writing that happened to be on that wall and thus was unconnected to the apron and the Whitechapel murders" as you say, there still is just the smallest possibility at the very least that the Ripper HAD actually written it himself.

And that is why the police of today would have photographed the message before it was erased.

[galexander]

Here's the Met copy of the layout of the graffito.

Question.

Is this how the graffito looked on the wall or on the policeman's notepad?

The two could be completely different.

[galexander]

Yeah, I've seen that. But I haven't been able to figure out if that is the layout, or the meter. In other words, did he copy the line breaks, or did he assign the line breaks based on how the meter sounded in his head?

And I know I am way overthinking it, but if you've never had to grade papers on Shakespeare, you have no idea how many ways people alter word order to suit their inner poet.

Which is why a photo really wouldn't have killed a guy.

I doubt very much a cockney author would have added meter in the manner of poetry to any graffito he happened to scrawl on a wall.

I doubt also that he would have added capital letters at the beginning of each line again in the manner of poetry.

Also the lines (assuming there are three of them) are of unequal length and lack any rhythm.

[ChrisGeorge]

Question.

Is this how the graffito looked on the wall or on the policeman's notepad?

The two could be completely different.

Although, lacking a photograph of the graffito, we might never know for sure, my presumption is that the layout is meant to reflect the way the actual graffito looked. Why else write it that way?

Chris

[galexander]

Hi Nemo

It's not in meter... or, at least, it's not poetry as such. My bet is that is exactly the way it looked on the wall, because why else copy it that way?

Chris

The layout of the graffito differs between the various transcribers as has been discussed previously on the Casebook. I think you have shown Swanson's rendition.

Here are Long's and Halse's renditions respectively:

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello galexander

I think the two versions you show are taken from the policemen's notebooks and are meant more to reflect what the wording said rather than the layout.

Chris

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

How could three policemen—a PC, DS and Commissioner—be at such odds about the wording/layout/location of the GSG?

Recording it in their respective notebooks wasn't exactly rocket science.

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

Rocket Science

Hi All,

How could three policemen—a PC, DS and Commissioner—be at such odds about the wording/layout/location of the GSG?

Recording it in their respective notebooks wasn't exactly rocket science.

Regards,

Simon

Nor was photography. Sir Charles Warren is a good example of the folly of putting soldiers in command of police forces, over the heads of experienced investigators.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Bridwell,

Sorry, I'm missing your point.

Why were three cops, present at the scene, at such odds in recording the GSG?

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

Sorry

Hi Bridwell,

Sorry, I'm missing your point.

Why were three cops, present at the scene, at such odds in recording the GSG?

Regards,

Simon

Apologies, Simon. I don't think I addressed your point. I was simply voicing my frustration at the failure to remove ambiguity by the simple expedient of taking a photograph. In belated answer to your question, I would speculate as follows:

Pc Long was more concerned with covering his own back having (I suspect) failed to check the stairwell on his earlier visit.

Warren was more concerned with erasing the GSG than with recording it, having already (supposedly) decided that it was unrelated to the Eddowes murder - which rather begs the question: 'Why did you bother to note the content at all, Commissioner, if you were certain of its irrelevance?'

Dc Halse a detective, was (rightly) of the opinion that the GSG should not be erased until it had been photographed. As he was of that view, I would conclude that he, of the three of them, would be the most careful to ensure that the details were accurately recorded by other means.

Warren was not, by instinct & training, a police officer. He thought only of the possibility of disorder. Halse, however, showed a true policing instinct by recognising that the preservation of possible evidence should have been prioritised - and wasn't. The content of the GSG was publicly revealed anyway, at the Eddowes inquest with no discernible effect on racial harmony, so its hasty erasure was high-handed, ultimately pointless and wrong.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Errata]

Anyone else wonder why a PC was carrying a pen? I mean, Detectives totally need a pen... but for the guy who walks a beat and occasionally runs while shouting at someone, a fountain pen seems a bit of an extravagance. I would have assumed a scrap of pencil.

[galexander]

Anyone else wonder why a PC was carrying a pen? I mean, Detectives totally need a pen... but for the guy who walks a beat and occasionally runs while shouting at someone, a fountain pen seems a bit of an extravagance. I would have assumed a scrap of pencil.

I agree.

Although I don't know for a fact I am sure a pencil would have been a standard issue before the invention of ballpoint pens.





Also the style of the hand doesn't exactly look like something which has been jotted on a notepad.

I wonder what happened to the originals?

[galexander]

For what it's worth, this is an observation I made in 2010:

Apologies if this has been pointed out before.

In my view, DC Halse's rendering of the graffito should be seen as more reliable than that of Long. Firstly as, according to this site, Long's original spelling of "Jewes" was corrected to "Juwes" and secondly as Halse has used inverted commas to denote 'new paragraph but still part of the quotation'. Thus he has been careful to record the message line by line. This being the case, I believe we should trust him as to exact wording and spelling.

Best wishes,
Steve.

However, the Met copy as posted by Chris G. (which I now believe to be in Sir Charles Warren's hand) agrees with Long. Confusing.

S.

Steven Russell makes a very good point that many of us may have missed.

According to the punctuation offered by Halse the message may have taken the following form on the wall:

The Juwes are
not the men that will be blamed for
nothing

This is from the following:

[miss marple]

Why would 'not a PC have a fountain pen? Victorians were taught to write forming individual letters using pens, every desk had inkwells.Pens were standard writing instruments. The fountain pen was patented by Waterman's in 1884 but Parker had invented one in the 1830s which was not so reliable.
Perhaps it was a present on becoming a police officer.
When I was at school in 1960s you had to write with a fountain pen,no biros, pencils or other signs of decadence, sloppy writing leads to sloppy thinking!

Miss Marple

[Bridewell]

Pens

Why would 'not a PC have a fountain pen? Victorians were taught to write forming individual letters using pens, every desk had inkwells.Pens were standard writing instruments. The fountain pen was patented by Waterman's in 1884 but Parker had invented one in the 1830s which was not so reliable.
Perhaps it was a present on becoming a police officer.
When I was at school in 1960s you had to write with a fountain pen,no biros, pencils or other signs of decadence, sloppy writing leads to sloppy thinking!

Miss Marple

The same was true at the school I attended. I got into trouble for taking a ballpoint to school, even though I had told my father (probably at the last minute!) that it had to be a fountain pen. When I joined the police the use of a pencil in your pocket book was an absolute no-no; you could be accused of rubbing something out! I, too, see nothing unusual in a Pc having a pen.

Regards, Bridewell.