Rating The Suspects.

[Richard Patterson]

Absolutely staggering. Your whole theory insults the intelligence of everyone.

You keep trying to con everyone in to believing that words equate to actual physical violence. They don’t. Poems aren’t violence. Novels aren’t violence. Essays aren’t violence.

You call Thompson an arsonist and pyromaniac when he, 1) Spilt some charcoal embers in a piece of childhood misbehaviour, 2) He accidentally knocked over an oil lamp, hardly surprising for a drug addict who had once ‘seen’ Chatterton’s ghost in Covent Garden! 3) He absent-mindedly left a still lit pipe in his coat pocket (I’ve done it, am I an arsonist?). And for that you label him a proven arsonist. Don’t get on your moral high horse when you are quite prepared to stoop to this kind of thing.

I’ve shown that 2 of your 4 ‘criteria’ in regard to Smith are categorically not ‘points.’ They are both obvious non-matches.

Ive asked you 2 or 3 times why Rupert Street is relevant to Thompson but you appear reluctant to answer. Why?

You claim what is 100% untrue, that Thompson was living within 100 yards of the murder sites. You haven’t provide one single piece of evidence, not one. All that you have is that Thompson might have stayed at Providence Row at some unknown point in time. And that’s certainly a no more than might have. Stop blathering and prove what you claim as a fact. PROVE that he ever lived within 100 yard of any murder site. You won’t, because there is no evidence. And yet you also falsely claim this as a fact.

Herlock,

Same old pattern: you misstate what I wrote, you move the goal-posts, then you congratulate yourself for debunking a position I never took. Let’s tidy up your latest round — and your repeated mid-thread misquotes — in one place.

1) “Words aren’t violence.”

No one said “poems = murders.” I’ve said (repeatedly) that Thompson’s writings supply motive and mindset when read alongside his opportunity and means. He doesn’t just dabble in gothic mood; he fixates on prostitutes as pollution and redemption-by-blade. See Nightmare of the Witch Babies (the “lusty knight” stalking and disembowelling), and his Tancred piece in Merry England (1891): “the girls harlots in the mother’s womb … for better your children were cast from the bridges of London … Here, too, has the Assassin left us a weapon.” He also called vice districts “putrid ulcers” to be lanced. That is not normal piety; it’s surgical moralism. You keep blanking this because it’s devastating to your “gentle poet” image.

2) Fire-setting

I’ve cited a pattern of fire incidents in his circle, not a single boyish mishap. You try to launder three separate episodes into “oopsies,” then accuse me of the label. Call it “fire fascination” if the word arson upsets you; the behavioural relevance (risk, control, thrill) doesn’t change.

3) “Two of your four Smith ‘traits’ are non-matches”

Only by rewriting them.

• Institutional care: You play word-games with “asylum.” Thompson had a documented nervous breakdown while a medical student, then institutional care (private hospital for six weeks at the end of 1888; then the Priory in 1889). You keep pretending that if the front door didn’t literally say “Asylum,” the box can’t be ticked. Victorian usage was loose; the biographical pattern is what matters and it matches.
• Coins: I have never written “Thompson was found with polished farthings.” Smith’s Rupert Street suspect is tied to that trick in Smith’s own account. Separately, Thompson’s coin episode (Walsh) shows an unusual coin lore orbiting him during his homeless period. I’ve been explicit that it’s a convergent theme, not the same anecdote. You keep “correcting” a claim I didn’t make because it’s easier to knock down.

4) Rupert Street / Haymarket

You ask why Rupert Street is relevant, while pretending not to know London. Thompson’s documented base in the West End at this time (Panton Street / Charing Cross postal, i.e., right off the Haymarket) places him inside Smith’s hunting ground and movement corridor. That’s why it’s in the probability model: you have a suspect whose real-world geography sits on the very grid Smith patrolled and described. Calling that “made up” is another example of your selective amnesia.

5) “Within 100 yards of the murder sites”

You’re tilting at a number. My claim has been — and remains — that Thompson spent nights in East End refuges (Providence Row; his own later account of it) during the relevant window and was a habitual night-walker, which places him within minutes of several sites when he was in Whitechapel. If at any point I used “100 metres” as shorthand in a fast exchange, take this as a precision upgrade: walking reach from Providence Row to Dorset Street is trivially close; the factual point stands either way. Your “100 yards or bust” routine is just you trying to create a gotcha out of a radius.

6) The “alibi therefore innocence” crutch

You keep leaning on Smith’s line that his Rupert Street man “proved an alibi.” Two things can be true:

• the man fit Smith’s tight profile;
• he produced an alibi for a specific window that Smith accepted at the time.

That doesn’t retroactively erase the profile, nor does it settle whether Smith’s composite description maps best to Puckridge (partial fit + claimed alibi) or Thompson (full biographical convergence on med training, institutionalisation, prostitutes, coin lore, and the Haymarket/Rupert Street nexus). Your take — “alibi once = end of inquiry forever” — is naïve policing, and historically wrong.

You’ve done this throughout the thread:

• Turn “institutional care/breakdown” into “never an asylum; therefore zero match.”
• Turn “coin convergence (Smith) + coin episode (Walsh)” into “Richard says Thompson passed farthings.”
• Turn “Haymarket-Rupert nexus” into “made up.”
• Turn “East End nights / Providence Row proximity” into a fake quote about “100 yards.”

It’s the same habit you’ve had in earlier mid-threads: mis-term, mis-quote, and then sneer. If you want to debate like an adult, quote me accurately and argue the substance:

• Thompson’s six years of hands-on anatomy and dissection;
• His own testimony that his poems function as a “poetic diary”;
• His violent, blade-centric moralism toward “fallen women”;
• His night-walking and documented East/West End footprint;
• His scalpel and medical instrument familiarity;
• His post-Kelly collapse into six weeks of care, then removal from London.

You can roll your eyes at any single strand. What you haven’t done — because you can’t — is explain away the convergence. Until you engage that, your posts are just another round of strawmen and bravado.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock,

I’ll be blunt. You have a habit of rephrasing what I’ve actually written into something easier for you to knock down. That isn’t honest debate, it’s distortion. Let me clear the record on three of your claims:

No Richard…what certainly is distortion

1. The coin issue.

I’ve never written that Thompson was literally “found with polished farthings.” What I’ve consistently said is that Major Henry Smith records his Rupert Street suspect as being associated with that coin trick, and that Thompson’s own biography (Walsh, Strange Harp, Strange Symphony) contains a separate coin anecdote — finding two sovereigns in the street, initially mistaking one for a halfpenny. The point is not that the two stories are identical in wording, but that Thompson’s life is threaded with unusual coin lore, which converges with Smith’s detail. To present my words as if I had said “Smith’s polished farthings = Thompson’s sovereigns” is simply misquoting me.

More flannel. Firstly, there is no such concept as ‘coin lore’ you have invented it to justify making things up. “Bilking prostitutes with polished farthings” and finding to sovereigns in the street cannot be connected in any way. This isn’t a match.

And while we are on this point - how is it that you’ve made the above ‘explanation when elsewhere you said this (which I’ve only just noticed) - “Thompson’s asylum files note that he once attempted to pass false coinage. Though minor in itself, this act is part of the exact suite of traits listed by Smith”

Walsh makes no mention of this as far as I can recall so could you provide us with the evidence of this please and you might tells why you have distanced yourself from it by not mentioning it in the above post?

2. The “asylum” point.

Again, you rewrite what I’ve said. Victorian terminology was not neat: “asylum,” “priory,” “hospital,” and “institutional care” were overlapping in use. Thompson’s uncle stated Francis suffered a nervous breakdown before leaving Manchester in 1882 and “never fully recovered.” We know he was absent from Owens’ summer session, then placed in the Priory at Storrington later that year. Whether you stamp “asylum” or “priory” on the door, it still fits the biographical pattern Smith noted. To say “he was never in an asylum” is a word game, not a rebuttal.

More flannel. You’ve made that up. Thompson was never in a hospital. I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. This is another fail.

Ive just noticed further proof. Smith actually said: “…LUNATIC ASYLUM.” This cannot be confused with a normal hospital.

3. Rupert Street / Haymarket.

You say “no connection.” The record says otherwise. Thompson gave Charing Cross as his postal address, lodged with the Meynells off the Haymarket, and Panton Street is a two-minute walk from Rupert Street itself. When Smith describes his suspect as connected to Rupert Street, that geographical overlap matters. Pretending I’ve invented this “nexus” is another example of you altering my words.

Smith told Warren about the medical student just after the Chapman murder. Up until that point Thompson had been living with the woman in Chelsea. Smith would have had absolutely no reason to send a man to find this man SPECIFICALLY in Rupert Street and that it was Thompson. Rupert Street is in Soho, Thompson was living around couple of miles away in Chelsea.

Another fail.

You’re free to disagree with me on the significance of these convergences. But misquoting my phrases (“coin trickery” into “farthings in hand,” “asylum” into “never in asylum,” “Rupert nexus” into “making it up”) crosses the line from fair debate into rewriting.

Stick to what I actually write, not to caricatures of it.

Richard

There’s only one person here sticking to evidence and it’s certainly not you.

[Richard Patterson]

There’s only one person here sticking to evidence and it’s certainly not you.

Herlock,

Once again you’re trying to win points by caricature rather than by evidence. Let me address your latest flurry:

1. Coins.

You keep insisting that unless the word “farthings” and “sovereigns” appear in the same sentence, there is no link. But Smith’s memoir gives a Rupert Street suspect associated with coin fraud (“polished farthings”), and Thompson’s biography records his own coin episode. Both are unusual enough details to merit comparison. That isn’t “making things up” — it’s weighing convergences. As for your claim that I “invented” the asylum note about false coinage, you may want to revisit the archival material before dismissing so readily. You’ll find I don’t throw in phrases without a trail.

2. Asylum.

Here’s where your black-and-white thinking fails you. In the 1880s, “lunatic asylum” could mean a range of institutions, from county asylums to private religious retreats. Thompson’s uncle, James, stated he had a breakdown in 1882 and was institutionalised at Storrington Priory. Owens’ records show his absence. Call it Priory, call it asylum, call it what you like — contemporaries used the words loosely and interchangeably. You can stamp your foot and insist “never in an asylum,” but the evidence of breakdown and confinement is there in the sources.

3. Rupert Street.

This is where your geography lets you down. Thompson gave Charing Cross as his postal address, lodged with the Meynells in Panton Street, and lived on the Haymarket fringe — literally steps from Rupert Street. To write that off because he had also lived with a woman in Chelsea earlier in the year is disingenuous. Suspects move. What matters is that when Smith spoke of Rupert Street, Thompson was demonstrably embedded in that neighbourhood. That is a fact, not a flourish.

The pattern here is clear: instead of engaging with the documented record, you keep reaching for absolute denials (“no asylum,” “no coin link,” “no Rupert Street”). That may make you feel like the last man standing, but it doesn’t impress anyone who has actually opened Walsh, Boardman, or Smith.

Richard

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock,

Once again you’re trying to win points by caricature rather than by evidence. Let me address your latest flurry:

1. Coins.

You keep insisting that unless the word “farthings” and “sovereigns” appear in the same sentence, there is no link. But Smith’s memoir gives a Rupert Street suspect associated with coin fraud (“polished farthings”), and Thompson’s biography records his own coin episode. Both are unusual enough details to merit comparison. That isn’t “making things up” — it’s weighing convergences. As for your claim that I “invented” the asylum note about false coinage, you may want to revisit the archival material before dismissing so readily. You’ll find I don’t throw in phrases without a trail.

When you make a claim, the onus is on you to provide the proof. Could you provide it please? I’ve already said that naturally I’ll accept the point if I see the proof.

2. Asylum.

Here’s where your black-and-white thinking fails you. In the 1880s, “lunatic asylum” could mean a range of institutions, from county asylums to private religious retreats. Thompson’s uncle, James, stated he had a breakdown in 1882 and was institutionalised at Storrington Priory. Owens’ records show his absence. Call it Priory, call it asylum, call it what you like — contemporaries used the words loosely and interchangeably. You can stamp your foot and insist “never in an asylum,” but the evidence of breakdown and confinement is there in the sources.

This is untrue. Everyone knows it. You are quite deliberately stretching the evidence beyond breaking point to make a fake point.

3. Rupert Street.

This is where your geography lets you down. Thompson gave Charing Cross as his postal address, lodged with the Meynells in Panton Street, and lived on the Haymarket fringe — literally steps from Rupert Street. To write that off because he had also lived with a woman in Chelsea earlier in the year is disingenuous. Suspects move. What matters is that when Smith spoke of Rupert Street, Thompson was demonstrably embedded in that neighbourhood. That is a fact, not a flourish.

I know all of that. I’ve mentioned those facts on another thread. Smith didn’t send a man to wander around the west end. He sent him SPECIFICALLY to Rupert Street. Thompson…hold on I’ll just try and be as clear as I can…..never, ever, ever, ever, ever, lived or stayed in Rupert Street. This is no more a link than if someone had said “the suspect lives in Berner Street,” and someone said “John Richardson, that’s a match, he lived in the area, it’s close enough.”

The pattern here is clear: instead of engaging with the documented record, you keep reaching for absolute denials (“no asylum,” “no coin link,” “no Rupert Street”). That may make you feel like the last man standing, but it doesn’t impress anyone who has actually opened Walsh, Boardman, or Smith.

Richard

You are making links that don’t exist.

[Richard Patterson]

You are making links that don’t exist.

Dear Herlock,

Just a line to say I keep seeing you clip the links that actually tie, and it makes me chuckle. I’ll try a new pen for you—red ink (ink, mind you, not blood)—so the points don’t smudge.

About the coins.

You keep shouting “no link” as if a phrase must read ‘polished farthings = Thompson’ in the same breath or it doesn’t count. Smith’s Rupert Street suspect is explicitly tagged with a coin-bilking trick; Thompson’s biography carries its own odd coin episode from his street years. No one says the anecdotes are identical; the point is convergence of an unusual motif around a man who otherwise matches the medical and geographic profile. You asked for sourcing on the “asylum note” re false coinage—fair ask. If that specific line can’t be documented to an archival page, I’ll drop that sub-point without blinking; the probability stack never relied on it. But don’t pretend the coin strand vanishes just because you insist on a single magic sentence.

About “asylum.”

You keep treating Victorian labels as if they were ICD codes. In practice, “lunatic asylum,” “private hospital,” “priory,” and “institutional care” were sloshed together in contemporary usage. Thompson’s uncle testified to a breakdown in the early 1880s; we have his late-1888 six-week institutionalization and then Storrington soon after. You can stomp your foot and say “never in an asylum,” but contemporaries didn’t police the doorplates the way you do. The fact pattern—documented breakdown + confinement under care—is the piece that matters against Smith’s trait list.

About Rupert Street.

You keep saying “never, ever, ever lived in Rupert Street,” as if Smith’s line requires a tenancy agreement. His five-point note says seen on Rupert Street and operating out of the Haymarket grid. Thompson’s addresses cluster right there (Panton Street / Charing Cross postal, the Haymarket fringe). That’s the nexus. We both know City CID tailed Puckridge to Rupert Street and accepted an alibi for that window—fine. Two things can be true: Smith’s team chased one man that week and cleared him; the same five-trait schema still fits Thompson unusually well, without the alibi that retired Puckridge. That’s why the match retains probative weight.

You keep breaking links by insisting they must be identical twins; I’m showing they’re fraternal—distinct, but unmistakably related. That’s how historical inference works when we’re not handed a signed confession.

Yours truly,

“Red Ink, not red hands”

—Richard