So would he have run?

[Fisherman]

Lots more recorded crime than, say, a council estate in Tottenham, but probably less scary to walk down in the early hours .
MrB

It is not the criminals that scare at these hours; itīs the emptyness of the street, the total silence, the darkness ...

Emptyness has always been scary. Just saying.

the best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

Don't forget to mention that the carman was a mummy's boy and absolutely anal about filling in official documentation. It sort of bolsters the idea of his windiness.

Oh, and perhaps leave out the bit about Whitechapel High Street being more dangerous than OM Street - it was simply one of the busiest and most policed streets in the East End, so not surprising that there were more apprehended criminals there. Bit like Oxford Street today, I would suggest. Lots more recorded crime than, say, a council estate in Tottenham, but probably less scary to walk through in the early hours .

Hope that helps, but please don't feel obliged to send a complimentary copy.

MrB

[Fisherman]

Wow! Is this the first chapter of the Magnum Opus???

Yes - but not Edwards.

Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

Wow! Is this the first chapter of the Magnum Opus???

[Lechmere]

One can but marvel at the dilemma faced by windy carman Lechmere.
What route to take to work?
It’s one thing girding his loins to traverse the inky gloom of Bucks’ Row – that haunt of gangs.
But whither next?
Hanbury Street – the scene of many a crime, of which he may be the next victim?
The broad boulevard of Whitechapel Road, where even more crime took place despite the relative profusion of gas lamps?
Or the fearsome Old Montague Street route that would take him past the house of death, the undistinguished shed that doubled as Whitechapel’s public mortuary? And once this dread scene was negotiated more horrors awaited as Old Montague became Wentworth and the black hand of Booth fell upon the lodging houses of the flowery dean as they spilled upon the northern shore of that benighted street. Those one hundred yards of danger could only safely be passed at a sprint lest the honest worker be relieved of his sacking apron.
In the end we must judge that the windy carman eschewed the shorter Old Montague route for the known haunt of Hanbury. That must be the case and anything else is just piffle.

No such route worries would trouble the unsung hero of Whitechapel. Bold Mulshaw was his name. He sat by his Winthrop Street brazier unperturbed by the High Rips and their pale imitators. Like a later day Hector he strode into the inquest and with a rare display of sang froid gave his real name and address. If need be he would face the gangs down should they turn up at his night watch. He would not be troubled nor deflected. He would give his evidence, look the coroner in the eye and be true to the bold and illustrious name of Mulshaw.
Quite unlike the knave Lechmere. The windy carman hid behind his mother’s petticoats and adopted his long dead step father’s name in a desperate attempt to throw the High Rip’s off his scent. Never mind that his testimony gave no suggestion of High Rip involvement and did not so much as hint at identifying the perpetrator (although he sometimes used the term perp in deference to his long dead ex-policeman step father).
But in his trepidation the windy carman slipped up and gave his real address and workplace! Oh dear, those High Rips might splice and dice him after all. He might become fodder for the worst street roughs of the East.
How he managed to escape this fate history does not tell us. But it is very obvious that this is what happened.

[Fisherman]

No worries Fish. I realise as well as you do that a local man on his way to work, as long as he stuck to the main thoroughfares wouldn't have gave a fig which route he took

Regards

Observer

Going by how much space this absolute non-issue has been awarded, it has something to say for how many good arguments there are against Lechmereīs candidacy...!

In reality, I should be pleased. Three years have passed and the best theyīve been able to throw at me is that an eviscerating killer could have been intimidated by the thought of using a street where we donīt even know about one single violent crime in the period we are looking at, and that he could have been known as Cross colloquially, albeit he never used that name when signing papers in communications with authorities.

I think thatīs a good rating as anybody could hope for!

All the best, Observer. Good to hear you didnīt take offense!!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Observer]

No worries Fish. I realise as well as you do that a local man on his way to work, as long as he stuck to the main thoroughfares wouldn't have gave a fig which route he took

Regards

Observer

[Observer]

Decide for yourselves folks the area to the South Western end is actually coloured dark blue, very poor, casual. As said Old Montague Street itself, is shaded pink, mixed, some comfortable, some poor.

http://www.umich.edu/~risotto/

You'll have to navigate to Old Montague Street using the links folks couldn't get a straight link to the OMS section

Old Montague Street finishes at Osbourne Street, if you travel west you enter Wentworth Street, there is a very small section of black shading as you enter Wentworth Street. I'm reliably told that workers on their way to work donned a crash helmet, and ran along this section, for fear of being robbed, once they cleared this section they were safe to continue.

[Fisherman]

I notice Mr B that in the 1898/99 map the vast number of buildings in Old Montague Street are are shaded pink.

Observer

The whole of Whitechapel Road is "innocently" coloured - but it nevertheless harboured seven times as much criminality as Old Montague Street, going by the Old Bailey Records.

Can we please let go of the idea that poverty equalled crime and danger? Please?

And can we please admit that the whole issue is a meta discussion? The idea of street criminality most probably never entered the killerīs head, so letīs not pretend it must have.

(Iīm not shooting you down, Observer, I am making a general remark about a weird discussion)

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

You're now saying that if Cross was a psychopathic serial killer, then of course he walked down Old Montague Street.

Am I? When did I say that?

I think you once more got it factually wrong. Youīre like clockwork in that respect, so itīs little surprise.

I never said that he would "of course" use Old Montague Street if he was the killer.

I said that if he was the killer, then we may not need to worry about him getting scared by the unpleasant rumours that we still have no evidence of.

Your argument, remember, was that Cross would have used that route to work had he been innocent.

No, it was not. My argument was that Cross may have used that route AND/OR the Hanbury Street route, no matter if he was innocent or not.

So you got it factually wrong again!

You then went on to claim that he deliberately took the longer Hanbury Street route to work, and that, wow, isn’t that terribly suspicious, and that he must have done it to pin the blame on Robert Paul (the scheming rogue), and that he cunningly avoided Old Montague Street in order to conceal that road's "link" to Tabram, and all that stuff that nobody found convincing.

No, that was Edward claiming that. I however concurred that it is strange if a late worker with extensive knowledge about the street patters would choose a longer route over a shorter one.

So you got it factually wrong again!

That was your argument.

No, it was Edwards argument, that I to a very large extent embrace. I am a little less convinced about Lechmere pinning the blame on Paul than Edward is, for example. But donīt take that as having proved that I am totally against the suggestion - no facts ā la Ben, please!

According to you, it’s deeply suspicious that Cross didn’t use Old Montague Street on the morning of the Nichols murder, as an innocent Carmen would have done…according to you.

No, according to me it is not deeply suspicious, just rather odd. If he was innocent, he may have liked the thought of getting company, and so he could have chosen the Hanbury Street path for that reason.

I am not the fundamentalist here. And you got it factually wrong. Again.

Since those accusations were made, however, we’ve discovered that OMS was not the quickest route, and that there were good reasons for avoiding it even if it was.

You have discovered neither thing, Ben. But the rest of us have discovered how you produce facts where there are none, or even in direct conflict with other evidence.

You ignore my point about the futility of determining street dodginess according to Old Bailey records.

I ignore a lot more than so when it comes from you, Ben. And wisely so.

the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

The entire south-western end is surrounded by black. Yes, there are a few yards of grey between the mass of black and the street itself, and this must have proven an impenetrable barrier to any poor criminal struggling to access the street itself. Same story across the road - plenty of black shading over what is now the Flower and Dean estate.

[Observer]

I notice Mr B that in the 1898/99 map the vast number of buildings in Old Montague Street are are shaded pink.

Observer

[Observer]

So far I have been working on the digitised version of the revised 1898/9 poverty map on the LSE website.

But the website also provides a link to a version of the first, 1889, edition of the map, digitised by the University of Michigan. This shows no black in Old Montague Street, the vast majority of it is a sort of grey colour used to denote 'mixed'.

Perhaps fish could extend his (scientific enough for me) Old Bailey research forward a decade to see whether the area had deteriorated significantly.

MrB

Hi again Mr B

Ah yes, more of the smoke and mirrors pervading ole Casebook. I too looked at the 1889 edition of the map, and guess what, you're correct, there are no black segments in Old Montague Street. Some posters seem to think there are. I wonder what's going on.

Regards

Observer

[Ben]

Fisherman,

Do you not understand about circular arguments?

You must stop resorting to them if you intend to make headway with this suspect theory of yours.

You're now saying that if Cross was a psychopathic serial killer, then of course he walked down Old Montague Street.

Great.

If my auntie had bollocks, then of course she'd be my uncle.

Problem is, you seem to have forgotten the entire rationale for trying to tie Cross to Old Montague Street in the first place. Your argument, remember, was that Cross would have used that route to work had he been innocent. You then went on to claim that he deliberately took the longer Hanbury Street route to work, and that, wow, isn’t that terribly suspicious, and that he must have done it to pin the blame on Robert Paul (the scheming rogue), and that he cunningly avoided Old Montague Street in order to conceal that road's "link" to Tabram, and all that stuff that nobody found convincing.

That was your argument.

According to you, it’s deeply suspicious that Cross didn’t use Old Montague Street on the morning of the Nichols murder, as an innocent Carmen would have done…according to you.

Since those accusations were made, however, we’ve discovered that OMS was not the quickest route, and that there were good reasons for avoiding it even if it was. The route he actually took was a very quick, safe, and direct route, and there is no reason at all to assume he used any other since his recent arrival in Doveton Esplanade. As far as Old Montague Street being dangerous is concerned, yes, Charles Booth’s evidence tells us so. A “vicious” and “semi-criminal” district is irrefutably a dangerous one, and Charles Booth’s contemporary characterization of the street and its inhabitants counts for immeasurably more than a modern theorist’s biased naysaying. You ignore my point about the futility of determining street dodginess according to Old Bailey records. They only apply to instances in which the offender has been apprehended. This would not have occurred in the overwhelmingly vast number of occasions where a crime – robbery, assault, whatever – went unsolved or, even more likely, unreported.

Regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

MrBarnett: Hi Fish,

It was a simple question: does it necessarily follow that Lech as Jack must have been totally fearless.

No, thatīs not a simple question. Simple questions are questions where we all have the answers.

When we cannot possibly have the answers, then the questions are not simple.

The only way to answer that question would be if we could get into the head of the killer, and we canīt.

He could have been totally fearless, and he was perhaps not. Thatīs all we can say at the present stage.

There is only one answer to that - NO. So both innocent Lech and Jack Lech may have factored personal safety into their route. In which case there is a third route that should be considered: along the Whitechapel Road.

Iīm afraid the possibility will always remain that Lech and Jack Lech may not have factored in personal safety.

What you do here is to ask "does it NECESSARILY follow that...?", and once you have answered that, you say that the killer MAY have factored it in.

Itīs a game of semantics, nothing else. It does not take us one step closer to what the killer actually thought. It only tells us that we cannot be sure either way.

That would have become apparent if you had instead asked "does it necessarily follow that Jack or Lech Jack WOULD have factored in personal safety?"

You would have to answer that question with a "no" too! And thatīs when we know it is all a very futile exercise.

... and you should read up on the criminal offences commited in Whitechapel Road. Itīs appalling, to say the least.

As for the relative proximity of OM and H streets, I think I have already explained my doubts in that respect, but to rephrase them in your favoured 'Scilly Isles' style:
'Because I live London, does it necessarily follow that I am more familiar with Middlesborough than Crete?'

Thereīs the "does it necessarily follow" question again! The better and more fruitful question is whether it is more likely that you will know about surroundings in your own country than in others, all other parameters excluded.

... and in Lechmereīs case, we were speaking about walking distances, which is another issue entirely.

Does it necessarily follow that you will continue this debate?

Of course not.

But letīs see what happens, shall we?

The best,
Fisherman