where do you stand?

[Lechmere]

Phil
Druitt could best be descriubed as being of upper middle class background, Maybrick, being a middle middle class tradesman.
Maybrick was a northerner and would have been totally out of his comfort zone in the East End.
I just can't imagine Druitt ever going into the East End (don't forget he was effete - boy's shool teacher, cricket player, say no more).

[Phil H]

I understand what you are saying, ben.

But I don't think either Druitt or Maybrick (as just two examples) could accurately be described as either "upper" or ruling class in Victorian terminology.

Both were "middle class" or lower middle-class even, in a society that was rigidly structured andtook such things very seriously indeed.

Of course, in RELATIVE terms they were from a class well above the "great unwashed" of the East End - most of whom could not even have been properly described as "working class".

Phil

[Ben]

The East End is still an intimidating place for outsiders to venue into yet it is considerably more ‘gentrified’ and yuppified than at any time in its history.
When I went to Queen Mary College (some years ago I will add) most students did not stray from Mile End Road – quickly walking to the college from the underground station.
The murderer must have felt at ease in Buck’s Row, Hanbury Street, Berner Street, George Yard and Dorset Street – and in the alleys, yards and courts off these less than salubrious thoroughfares.

Agreed entirely, Lechmere.

And I like "yuppified". I may steal it!

Hi Curious4,

I imagine a great many people took a dim view of lowly prostitutes and prostitution, not just the "ruling classes". The problem with the idea of the killer as someone who inflicted sadistic violence on those he held snooty contempt for is that he showed all the hallmarks of a sado-sexual offender, and the fact that he engaged in extensive post-mortem mutilation suggests that his needs extended beyond inflicting pain. There was a disturbed, exploratory element to the mutilations and eviscerations, and it points decidedly away from a "Throw another peasant on the fire, Lord Bastard!" type.

Also, almost all other post-mortem mutilators have NOT come from the ruling/upper classes.

Regards,
Ben

[Phil H]

Why a kosher butcher, BTW? didn't all butchers slit the throats of animals back then?

Odell was seeking to do something original for the 60s, he was trying to isolate a type who might have been "Jack" and to explain his ability to go around bloodstained and perhaps with a weapon.

I cannot recall the precise arguments - they were as I recall detailed, but he believed that a shochet had training and knives and might have passed relatively unnoticed.

Odell published before I was able to afford to buy all the Ripper books I would have liked, it is one of the few not on my shelves. I read it years ago in a library.Don Rumbelow has a precis (pages 269 on in the UK pback edition of 2004 which I have in my hand). Part of the argument - Rumbelow's tone is sceptical -appears to be that a shochet would be trained to let the blood drain from an animal. Second that having killed the animal, the shochet would carry out a post-mortem of the animals internal organs. Odell may also have been seeking to tie in the religious mania elements of the case.

Rumbelow does not agree with Odell that the shochet ALONE meets all the criteria and reports that the City police gave a set of shochet knives to a surgeon. They were ruled out as "Jack's" weapon because they have curved ends.

I should point out that I am neither an adherent of, or an apologist for Robin Odell. I simply pointed out that his book covered the idea that the culprit might have been a particular kind of slaughterman.

Phil

[Phil H]

Fair enough, Phil, but you have to admit, your sample of locations is very tiny, and for all you know the killer may have crossed to the 'other side' to commit most of his murders where there was less chance of being recognised. It's happened before and it'll happen again. I'm not sure he would have been spooked by any such invisible barrier, given the risks he took to rip in the open, but you never know.

I don't have to admit anything, caz. I am not trying to persuade you, simply to explain my view.

Of the likely Ripper murders, Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, Kelly, (plus if you like, Tabram) and Mckenzie are north of Whitechapel High Street.

For all i know many things are possible, and I am certainly not (check my wording) arguing north side only as an absolute. But I think it a possible and credible factor. Disagree if you will, I anticipate no less.

And was "Jack" a risk-taker? - I suggest that is only an assumption.

Phil

[RivkahChaya]

If I'm allowed one more it would be an anonymous kosher butcher or someone who lived close enough to a kosher abattoir to spend a lot of time watching what went on there.

Are you aware of Robin Odell's non-specific candidate - the Jewish shochet, put forward in his excellent 1965 book?

Why a kosher butcher, BTW? didn't all butchers slit the throats of animals back then?

For an animal to remain kosher-- or, for the meat to remain kosher, and salable, it was necessary not to open the intestines; if the intestines or bowels were nicked, and any contents spilled on the meat, it became treyf, which is to say, not kosher. I don't see anything especially Jewish about the way the women were killed, in relation to the way an animal is shected. Now, if they were found covered in course salt, or hanging by their ankles, that'd be different.

lo and behold, there was whisky in Myletts stomach, all of a sudden!

How did these forensic tests work? I'm not being skeptical, I just really don't understand. How did alcohol in her stomach prove she was intoxicated? I know that alcohol can be absorbed from the stomach pretty quickly, especially in the absence of food, but was alcohol in the stomach a sure sign of drunkenness in the last moments of life, or just a good indication? also, how did they know it was whiskey, specifically?

Beyond that we cannot know a thing about his actual status in society, where he came from, when and why he stopped, because nobody saw him in the act of murder.

For what it's worth, certain characteristics can imply others, although, we don't know any about JTR, so we can't make any assumptions. It would be nice to have just one fact to work with. *sigh* But what I mean is, a relatively young man almost certainly does not just stop, so if we could pin down JTR's age to a range with an upper end of, say 32, they we could be pretty certain that he died, moved, or was incarcerated. Serial killers who have "retired" have been older (I don't know, but I can speculate they experienced age-related low testosterone, and it affected their desire to kill for pleasure), so if we had a lower age limit for JTR of, say, 40, then the possibility that he actually did just stop, a la Gary Ridgway, would be there.

Some who suffer sever trauma as kids become monsters, others rise above the mess and become productive citizens.

I have been searching for an article I read in print about 10 years ago, in a journal, which I cannot now remember the name of, but it was by a psychiatrist, who had been in private practice, and had also worked with inmates.

He had worked privately with a few people who had been abused as children, and expressed fear that they would abuse their own children, because the common wisdom at the time was that it just somehow worked that way. He assured them that statistically, that was not the case, and just being aware of the problem would make a huge difference for them.

But later, when he was looking over some data from the days when he was doing research in prison, he saw that a high proportion of prisoners did report experiencing physical abuse. Not all prisoners, though.

He tried to reconcile the information, and concentrated on people who had committed (and were doing time for) very violent crimes: felony child abuse, manslaughter, murder, attempted murder, felony assault, mayhem, rape 1, etc. He found that a much larger number of the prisoners reported having been physically abused as children that the general population either of prisoners, or the public at large, albeit, there were some violent offenders who had not been abused.

So he did some research, and found that these prisoners had been pretty egregiously abused, and some had been removed from their parents' care, but what was significant to the psychiatrist was that a huge number of them had had closed head injuries (been punched in the head, had their heads slammed into a wall, soforth), and many had been knocked unconscious.

Then, what was really an eye-opener, was that the violent offenders who did not report abuse, very often reported some other sort of closed head injury, such as falling out of a tree, or having a bicycle accident.

I really want to find that article again.

Makes want to put my son in a helmet until his bar mitzvah.

[caz]

I see Whitechapel High Street as possibly (no absolutism here) that sort of invisible barrier for "Jack" - a wide street with a different street pattern on the other side.

Phil

Fair enough, Phil, but you have to admit, your sample of locations is very tiny, and for all you know the killer may have crossed to the 'other side' to commit most of his murders where there was less chance of being recognised. It's happened before and it'll happen again. I'm not sure he would have been spooked by any such invisible barrier, given the risks he took to rip in the open, but you never know.

Love,

Caz
X

[curious4]

Toffs

Addendum to my above post, I'd also take issue with the suggestion that local working class suspects are targetted because of "snobbery". They're not. They're targeted because expert opinion, historical precedent and criminological insights indicates that they make the most likely suspects. It could be far more persuasively argued that some of those who choose an upper-class suspect do so because they can't bear the idea of a "boring" solution to the crimes.

Hello Ben,

I would take issue with you on this. I think you are not taking into consideration the way the ruling classes viewed the poor and working classes. They were often regarded as inferior beings, without the sensibilities of the upper classes - more as savages. I have read an article written by a frenchman some years earlier (middle of the 19th century) on slummers. Their "fun" consisted of making the women they met very drunk and then pouring their drinks over them while they lay on the floor or forcing them to drink mustard and water until they vomited.

I can imagine some of the worst of them believing that it was less of a crime to kill homeless prostitutes and they were possibly encouraged in this by such comments from these poor women as "It's Jack or the river for me", sadly.

Best wishes,
C4

[Lechmere]

I find myself in agreement with Ben.
The East End is still an intimidating place for outsiders to venue into yet it is considerably more ‘gentrified’ and yuppified than at any time in its history.
When I went to Queen Mary College (some years ago I will add) most students did not stray from Mile End Road – quickly walking to the college from the underground station.
The murderer must have felt at ease in Buck’s Row, Hanbury Street, Berner Street, George Yard and Dorset Street – and in the alleys, yards and courts off these less than salubrious thoroughfares.

As Phil says, the main arteries, Whitechapel Road, Commercial Road, Commercial Street and the railway lines with associated viaducts and bridges would have acted as psychological barriers. Also the shopping streets would have acted as focal points.
The East End was and is made up of numerous sub districts with different centres of gravity.

[caz]

Addendum to my above post, I'd also take issue with the suggestion that local working class suspects are targetted because of "snobbery". They're not. They're targeted because expert opinion, historical precedent and criminological insights indicates that they make the most likely suspects. It could be far more persuasively argued that some of those who choose an upper-class suspect do so because they can't bear the idea of a "boring" solution to the crimes.

Hi Ben,

Have you done a comparison between known serial killers and the rest of the population, on a percentage basis, to see if it is accurate to say that a working class man is actually any more likely than any other 'type' to commit serial murder? How do you know that if x% of men in the general population are working class (I presume the vast majority), there will not be the same x% of serial killers that are working class - in which case it would simply be a matter of numbers dictating the likelihood of the ripper being working class, and nothing to do with class itself?

Can I presume you have nothing against the basic idea of a higher class killer, and can acknowledge that it must be equally possible, physically and biologically, on a one-to-one basis, but you just think it is statistically far less likely because higher class men make up a far tinier proportion of the population as a whole? You don't think there is anything about a working class man that makes him more likely to offend repeatedly than a higher class man - do you?

Love,

Caz
X

[Phil H]

Town planners have a conventional wisdom that certain structures or buildings can have an impact on who people behave in their environment.

So lets say you have a shopping street with a bridge half way down. Shoppers may well walk along until the bridge and then turn around. they won't cross the bridge even if they know there are shops on the other side.

In medieval towns, an arch or gateway spanning a street can create a "rain shadow" on the opposite side. It is as though the building becomes a psychological barrier - the territory on the other side unknown.

in London (leaving aside the west End as a free zone) the Thames acts as that sort of a barrier - I have known people from SE London who have never, or rarely, been to North London and think, if they do go, that it feels different.

I see Whitechapel High Street as possibly (no absolutism here) that sort of invisible barrier for "Jack" - a wide street with a different street pattern on the other side.

Phil

[caz]

2) which victims were"Jacks" work?

My prime "model at the moment would be: Polly; Annie and (maybe) Kate with Mckenzie as a later possibility.

Liz Stride I still think died by a different hand (possibly Kidney) based on the very public location; lack of mutilation; the fact that she almost certainly was not soliciting (she was on a date) and the site - off "Jack's" usual beat.

Hi Phil,

I'm having a bit of trouble working out what you mean by "Jack's" usual beat, considering you only have Buck's Row (Aug 31) and Hanbury St (Sept 8) down as definites, followed by Mitre Square (Sept 30) and Castle Alley (July 17 1889) as possibles!

How do you figure that Berner St was too far from this tiny sample of locations for him to have wandered, or that he could have had no reason to ever go there? You don't even know where he started out from, or where else in the area he frequented.

Berner St was the kind of 'very public' location where the killer could have seen Stride, presumed she was soliciting and tried to persuade her to go with him somewhere that wasn't 'very public'. That's probably just how it had worked with Nichols and Chapman, who would have been in public places where they could expect to find customers, then moved on somewhere more private to conduct business. He was hardly going to try mutilating them at the pick-up point. So if you are right about Stride not soliciting, her killer could soon have realised his mistake and made her pay for it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Addendum to my above post, I'd also take issue with the suggestion that local working class suspects are targetted because of "snobbery". They're not. They're targeted because expert opinion, historical precedent and criminological insights indicates that they make the most likely suspects. It could be far more persuasively argued that some of those who choose an upper-class suspect do so because they can't bear the idea of a "boring" solution to the crimes.

[curious4]

Slouch hats

Very true, Mike. You never know, I might even come round to your way of thinking eventually. Not yet, though, we all have our own favourites!

Best wishes,
C4/Gwyneth

[mklhawley]

Hello all,

While on the subject of toffs, can we spare a thought for little Sir George Arthur. Arrested while chatting up a known prostitute, a "slummer", dressed in shooting jacket, presumably with handy game pocket (oiled silk, waterproof) for the convenient transport of various body parts, actor, could perhaps play many roles to calm nervous ladies of the night. He was between wars in 1888 and fits the description given by many witnesses, right age and was arrested as a suspect. He was NOT proved innocent, merely to be who he said he was. I wonder if he was even searched? .

That was the case with Sir George Arthur of the Price of Wales set. He put on an old shooting coat and a slouch hat and went to Whitechapel for a little fun -San Francisco Chronicle, November 18, 1888.

Hi Curious,

Sir George Arthur was picked up for suspicious behavior on the streets of Whitechapel -a lone male giving unfortunates a hard time- and because he fit a Ripper description of wearing an american slouch hat. This is exactly the case for Francis Tumblety, and coincidentally, this particular article was the very first time people heard of Tumblety (Kumblety) as a Ripper suspect. Since the two were picked up (by constables most likely) around the same time for the same reason, we can see a general directive to constables was given to be on the lookout for lone males in slouch hats. Recall that Tumblety claimed he was only arrested for wearing a slouch hat.

Sincerely,
Mike