Originally posted by JeffHamm
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I think it was just the way in which (smaller) streets were notated/indicated back then. In various newspaper accounts we see "Buck's Row, Thomas Street", as in, for instance, the Woodford Times of 7 September: "As the constable was walking through Buck's-row, Thomas-street, Whitechapel,...". Or the Weekly Herald of the same date, which also includes: "Bucks Row is a narrow passage running out of Thomas Street, and contains…" The reason why they put it like that and not as "Buck's Row, Baker's Row" is that the stretch between Baker's Row and Thomas Street wasn't called Buck's Row (but White's Row) until a number of years before 1888, as the map below shows.
Before I read the beat as given in the Echo of 21 September, I thought that Neil and the carmen didn't see each other because Neil came up through (the southern part of) Thomas Street from Whitechapel Road while the carmen had already passed it, but now knowing the beat as it was given in the Echo, I'm quite convinced he came from the northern side of Buck's Row and, because of what I've written above, have come to think he was either in Elizabeth Place or a little north of it in Queen Ann Street and was directly (i.e. without returning to Thomas Street) going down to Buck's Row from there when Lechmere and Paul passed Queen Ann Street. That would allow Neil to arrive at the crime spot well before Mizen could (and Thain to have come & gone).
All the best,
Frank
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