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Who is the eyewitness?
Hello, S. Brett!
Hm, I'll need to read up on the Cox investigation and get back to you on that. For instance, are we certain he was watching a Ripper suspect?
Meanwhile, re a witness who got a "good view" of the man:
Are they talking about Cox or Detective White?
This is from another poster in the Francis Thompson area of the Suspects board:
"Here is Sergeant Stephen White’s description of his encounter with Jack the Ripper, and possibly Francis Thompson."
‘For five nights we had been watching a certain alleyway just behind the Whitechapel road. It could only be entered from where we had two men posted in hiding, and persons entering the ally were under observation by the two men. It was a bitter cold night when I arrived at the scene to take the report of the two men in hiding. I was turning away when I saw a man coming out of the alley. He was walking quickly but noiselessly, apparently wearing rubber shoes which were rather rare in those days. I stood aside to let the man pass, and as he came under the wall lamp I got a good look at him. He was about 5 feet 10 inches in height, and was dressed rather shabbily though it was obvious that the material of his clothes was good. Evidently a man who had seen better days, I thought but men who have seen better days are common enough down east, and that of itself was not sufficient to justify me in stopping him. His face was long and thin, nostrils rather delicate and his hair was jet black. His complexion was inclined to be sallow, and altogether the man was foreign in appearance. The most striking thing about him, however, was the extraordinary appearance of his eyes. They looked like two luminous glow worms coming through the darkness. The man was slightly bent at the shoulders, though he was obviously quite young – about 33 at the most – and gave one the idea of having been a student or professional man. His hands were snow white, and the fingers long and tapering. As he passed me at the lamp I had an uneasy feeling that there was something more than usually sinister about him, and I was strongly moved to find some pretext for detaining him; but the more I thought it over, the more I was forced to the conclusion that it was not in keeping with British police methods that I should do so. My only excuse for interfering with the passage of this man would have been his association with the man we were looking for, and I had no grounds for connecting him with the murder. It is true that I had a sort of intuition that the man was not quite right. Still, if one acted on intuition in the police force, there would be more frequent outcries about interference with the liberty of the subject, and at that time the police were criticized enough to make it undesirable to take risks. The man stumbled a few feet away from me, and I made that an excuse for engaging him in conversation. He turned sharply at the sound of my voice, and scowled at me in surly fashion, but he said ‘Goodnight’ and agreed with me that it was cold. His voice was a surprise to me. It was soft and musical, with just a tinge of melancholy in it, and it was the voice of a man of culture- a voice altogether out of keeping with the squalid surroundings of the East End. As he turned away, one of the police officers came out of the house he had been in, and walked a few paces into the darkness of the alley. ‘Hello! What is this?’ he cried, and then called in startled tones for me to come along. In the East End we are used to shocking sights but the sight I saw made the blood in my veins turn to ice. At the end of the cul-de-sac huddled against the wall, there was the body of a woman, and a pool of blood was streaming along the gutter from her body. It was clearly another of those terrible murders. I remembered the man I had seen, and I started after him as fast as I could run, but he was lost to sight in the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets.’
Why were the police watching that alleyway in the first place?
It has been noted that the man's appearance not only resembles Thompson, but also Druitt.
Can White be trusted, or is he making up a good story "to dine out on"? Apparently he wasn't called to the inquest, though he seems to have discovered a body-- what's that about?
Originally posted by S.Brett
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Hm, I'll need to read up on the Cox investigation and get back to you on that. For instance, are we certain he was watching a Ripper suspect?
Meanwhile, re a witness who got a "good view" of the man:
Are they talking about Cox or Detective White?
This is from another poster in the Francis Thompson area of the Suspects board:
"Here is Sergeant Stephen White’s description of his encounter with Jack the Ripper, and possibly Francis Thompson."
‘For five nights we had been watching a certain alleyway just behind the Whitechapel road. It could only be entered from where we had two men posted in hiding, and persons entering the ally were under observation by the two men. It was a bitter cold night when I arrived at the scene to take the report of the two men in hiding. I was turning away when I saw a man coming out of the alley. He was walking quickly but noiselessly, apparently wearing rubber shoes which were rather rare in those days. I stood aside to let the man pass, and as he came under the wall lamp I got a good look at him. He was about 5 feet 10 inches in height, and was dressed rather shabbily though it was obvious that the material of his clothes was good. Evidently a man who had seen better days, I thought but men who have seen better days are common enough down east, and that of itself was not sufficient to justify me in stopping him. His face was long and thin, nostrils rather delicate and his hair was jet black. His complexion was inclined to be sallow, and altogether the man was foreign in appearance. The most striking thing about him, however, was the extraordinary appearance of his eyes. They looked like two luminous glow worms coming through the darkness. The man was slightly bent at the shoulders, though he was obviously quite young – about 33 at the most – and gave one the idea of having been a student or professional man. His hands were snow white, and the fingers long and tapering. As he passed me at the lamp I had an uneasy feeling that there was something more than usually sinister about him, and I was strongly moved to find some pretext for detaining him; but the more I thought it over, the more I was forced to the conclusion that it was not in keeping with British police methods that I should do so. My only excuse for interfering with the passage of this man would have been his association with the man we were looking for, and I had no grounds for connecting him with the murder. It is true that I had a sort of intuition that the man was not quite right. Still, if one acted on intuition in the police force, there would be more frequent outcries about interference with the liberty of the subject, and at that time the police were criticized enough to make it undesirable to take risks. The man stumbled a few feet away from me, and I made that an excuse for engaging him in conversation. He turned sharply at the sound of my voice, and scowled at me in surly fashion, but he said ‘Goodnight’ and agreed with me that it was cold. His voice was a surprise to me. It was soft and musical, with just a tinge of melancholy in it, and it was the voice of a man of culture- a voice altogether out of keeping with the squalid surroundings of the East End. As he turned away, one of the police officers came out of the house he had been in, and walked a few paces into the darkness of the alley. ‘Hello! What is this?’ he cried, and then called in startled tones for me to come along. In the East End we are used to shocking sights but the sight I saw made the blood in my veins turn to ice. At the end of the cul-de-sac huddled against the wall, there was the body of a woman, and a pool of blood was streaming along the gutter from her body. It was clearly another of those terrible murders. I remembered the man I had seen, and I started after him as fast as I could run, but he was lost to sight in the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets.’
Why were the police watching that alleyway in the first place?
It has been noted that the man's appearance not only resembles Thompson, but also Druitt.
Can White be trusted, or is he making up a good story "to dine out on"? Apparently he wasn't called to the inquest, though he seems to have discovered a body-- what's that about?
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