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

[Rubyretro]

PS.: Who's next as a JTR suspect? Degas, Manet? :-)

[/QUOTE]

c'mon Maria...MJK was a bit of a Picasso job...

[galexander]

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

Because ink tends to smudge without blotting paper making a bit of a mess.

What exactly have you got against pencils anyway........?

Can some historian please help out here? Did Victorian PC's use pencils or fountain pens when taking notes?

According "Answers" Victorian schoolchildren did not use fountain pens but used slates. Does this answer your question?

[Errata]

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

It's not like I don't think they wouldn't have had access or anything, I just think it's a bit impractical for a guy who walks a beat. I mean, they were pretty big, they leaked, they were tough to refill, they sputtered when writing at a weird angle... None of which is a problem for a guy at a desk, but it all would be a problem for a guy trying to take notes while standing in the freezing rain. I mean, they couldn't take spare ink with them and an eyedropper to refill the pen in some alley while taking a statement from someone. Fountain pens just weren't as portable as they would appear to be at first glance. For a cop who walks a beat, it would be a colossal nuisance.

[Bridewell]

Hi Errata,

I'll back-track a little on what I said earlier. I don't think it strange that a Pc carried a pen but, yes, it probably was unusual to use one on the street. I suspect that, in the LVP pocket book entries were made in pencil, for the reasons of practicality which you point out. Do we know that Pc Long's note was written in ink? Might it have been in dark pencil?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Robert]

Looking at worst case scenarios, I should think they carried a small knife or some other instrument which could act as a pencil sharpener. I can guarantee that if I'd been on the beat in 1888, my pencil would have broken.

[Steven Russell]

Unlike ballpoint ink, the ink used in nib pens runs if moistened even after the ink has neen on the page for a long time. If Victorian ink was similar to today's in this regard, this is another reason why pens would have been impractical on the beat - a few drops of rain and you're knackered.

My feeling is that pencil would be used in notebooks, then reports written up in ink back at the station ASAP. Anyone know if this is correct?

Best wishes,
Steve.

[galexander]

Hi Errata,

I'll back-track a little on what I said earlier. I don't think it strange that a Pc carried a pen but, yes, it probably was unusual to use one on the street. I suspect that, in the LVP pocket book entries were made in pencil, for the reasons of practicality which you point out. Do we know that Pc Long's note was written in ink? Might it have been in dark pencil?

Regards, Bridewell.

It doesn't look like dark pencil to me because the thickness of the line appears to vary noticeably.

If Victorian policemen had carried fountain pens they could have got another nickname, "Inkies"!

Any opinions anyone?

[Simon Wood]

Nosey Parkers, perhaps?

[Robert]

Nice one, Simon.

[Suzi]

Write it out a hundred times!!!!

[johns]

Hi galexander

Do you think that Lautrec was Jack the Ripper? I haven't been able to work out where you stand on this point from the various posts.

Regards
John

[galexander]

Hi galexander

Do you think that Lautrec was Jack the Ripper? I haven't been able to work out where you stand on this point from the various posts.

Regards
John

I've lost count how many times I've answered this point now.

If you had read my original post on this thread carefully enough it would have answered your question for you.

This is what I said:

Had one of Lautrec’s close relatives taken offence at this apparent insult to their son’s health who was handicapped and of a poor constitution anyway, and decided to punish the individual responsible? Had this avenger been none other than Lautrec’s own chaperone/doctor Henri Bourges who knew all about good hygiene in the case of people infected with syphilis? During the critical months in question Bourges had been absent from Lautrec’s side though it appears this had only been a temporary arrangement.

[johns]

So it's a "no" then.

[galexander]

So it's a "no" then.

Correct.

Toulouse-Lautrec was disabled and couldn't walk very far even with a walking stick.

Stephen Knight in his book "The Final Solution" alleged that the killer had used a horse and carriage to commit the killings in but this doesn't really fit the facts at all.

Can you imagine a horse and carriage trundling around Mitre Square? And there were no eye witness accounts of a horse and carriage anywhere near the crime scene. And what about bloody footprints leading to and from the carriage? This leaves far more questions than answers.

[galexander]

Concerning mysterious clues left in paintings, how about this one from Lautrec?





We see a mysterious red-head with her back to us and it isn't exactly clear who she is. A male figure, almost looking like a detective, peers over her shoulder.

The female in the foreground on the left has a strange green pallor to her face and she is looking with some concern at what is happening in the top right-hand corner of the picture. A gendarme is having words with a gentleman in a top hat.

Who is this figure in the top hat and what has he done wrong exactly?