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

[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.

[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.

[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]

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 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

[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

[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]

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]

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.

[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]

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.

[ChrisGeorge]

And you are probably right. But everything has meter, poetry or not. It's simply the rhythm with which we speak.

So for example, when I read the graffiti the natural meter in my head would break it down thusly:

The JU-wes ARE the MEN (beat)
WHO will NOT be BLAMED (beat)
for NOTHing.

So I would write it with those line breaks.

The reason I suspect that the copy may not be faithful to the original (though it probably is) is the indentations. In the copy it is:

The Juwes are
The Men That
.....Will not
be Blamed
.....for nothing

But when on a wall, the most natural way to write (assuming one is right handed) is with a right alignment, so it should have been

The Juwes are
The Men That
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing

unless the spacing was significant. For example if the letter in a vertical line spelled out something else. But looking at the vertical letters in the notes format, it doesn't spell anything. And I'm hard put to find anything by shifting the spacing around.

So while I'm sure Warren's copy is faithful to the original document, there is a tiny shred of doubt as to whether or not the original document is faithful to the graffiti. Not because of evidence I have, but because it's odd given normal writing habits.

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

[Errata]

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

And you are probably right. But everything has meter, poetry or not. It's simply the rhythm with which we speak.

So for example, when I read the graffiti the natural meter in my head would break it down thusly:

The JU-wes ARE the MEN (beat)
WHO will NOT be BLAMED (beat)
for NOTHing.

So I would write it with those line breaks.

The reason I suspect that the copy may not be faithful to the original (though it probably is) is the indentations. In the copy it is:

The Juwes are
The Men That
.....Will not
be Blamed
.....for nothing

But when on a wall, the most natural way to write (assuming one is right handed) is with a right alignment, so it should have been

The Juwes are
The Men That
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing

unless the spacing was significant. For example if the letter in a vertical line spelled out something else. But looking at the vertical letters in the notes format, it doesn't spell anything. And I'm hard put to find anything by shifting the spacing around.

So while I'm sure Warren's copy is faithful to the original document, there is a tiny shred of doubt as to whether or not the original document is faithful to the graffiti. Not because of evidence I have, but because it's odd given normal writing habits.

[Steven Russell]

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.

[ChrisGeorge]

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.

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