Originally posted by Mayerling
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Hi Pierre,
The reason I suggested "V" meant "Victoria" was slightly facetious, but possibly understandable due to a bit of my own "hobble - dee horse" (and this does not make my interest in this case a hobby, please think of that).
If you are not aware of it, in December 1887 the magazine "Beeton's Christmas Annual" published a story that made literary history. It was "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle, and it introduced Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. I've been a lifelong Doyle fan, and so I have sometimes overdone my fascination of the Holmes stories. Still I feel they mirror the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods, and may have details buried in them that show Conan Doyle's lifetime interest in crime and detection. Conan Doyle was one of the founders of the "Our Society" a.k.a. the "Crime Club" in London which meets several times a year and discusses old cases. He also was friendly to some of the Scotland Yard detectives, like his predecessor Charles Dickens had been in the 1840s and 1850s.
Also, in line with the chronology I prepared of cases showing the Yard bungling investigations or having committed crimes before the Whitechapel Murders, Conan Doyle's novella of 1887 demonstrated Holmes' superiority as an investigator to Scotland Yard's abilities demonstrated by the two inspectors from the Yard who are considered the best of the lot - Lestrade and Gregson. Conan Doyle did not actually dismiss the abilities of the police, but he certainly found some of their actions questionable.
"A Study in Scarlet" was the first of a series of Holmes novellas/novels and short stories. In the end there were sixty of these. In one of them, in describing the rooms Holmes and he shared at 221 B Baker Street, Watson mentions how Holmes once took a gun and shot a "V" into the wall of their sitting room in a spirit of patriotism (i.e., for Queen Victoria). Hence my suggestion about the "V" cuts.
That was a really good and enjoying story! Thanks for sharing it!
And of course it makes a clear contrast to the egocentric killer in Mitre Square who was only thinking about his own superiority over all the others and knowing that the were looking for him in Whitechapel. Because that is the point in time where the contrast becomes clear: cutting the police chevron into the face of his second victim, not to celebrate the queen but to celebrate himself. No patriotic shooting of a V for Victoria in the sitting room with good friends. Just the killer, alone in the cold night in Mitre Square with a dead woman, destroying her face to show the world that the police are fools and he is superior.
By the way, years ago a member of this website, "Whypers", also discussed the cuts and mutilations as symbols by the killer - but he thought they showed a similarity to somebody who used similar designed shapes when doing tailoring.
I am glad that you found my chronology of interest.
I did. Thanks again.
Jeff
The reason I suggested "V" meant "Victoria" was slightly facetious, but possibly understandable due to a bit of my own "hobble - dee horse" (and this does not make my interest in this case a hobby, please think of that).
If you are not aware of it, in December 1887 the magazine "Beeton's Christmas Annual" published a story that made literary history. It was "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle, and it introduced Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. I've been a lifelong Doyle fan, and so I have sometimes overdone my fascination of the Holmes stories. Still I feel they mirror the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods, and may have details buried in them that show Conan Doyle's lifetime interest in crime and detection. Conan Doyle was one of the founders of the "Our Society" a.k.a. the "Crime Club" in London which meets several times a year and discusses old cases. He also was friendly to some of the Scotland Yard detectives, like his predecessor Charles Dickens had been in the 1840s and 1850s.
Also, in line with the chronology I prepared of cases showing the Yard bungling investigations or having committed crimes before the Whitechapel Murders, Conan Doyle's novella of 1887 demonstrated Holmes' superiority as an investigator to Scotland Yard's abilities demonstrated by the two inspectors from the Yard who are considered the best of the lot - Lestrade and Gregson. Conan Doyle did not actually dismiss the abilities of the police, but he certainly found some of their actions questionable.
"A Study in Scarlet" was the first of a series of Holmes novellas/novels and short stories. In the end there were sixty of these. In one of them, in describing the rooms Holmes and he shared at 221 B Baker Street, Watson mentions how Holmes once took a gun and shot a "V" into the wall of their sitting room in a spirit of patriotism (i.e., for Queen Victoria). Hence my suggestion about the "V" cuts.
That was a really good and enjoying story! Thanks for sharing it!
And of course it makes a clear contrast to the egocentric killer in Mitre Square who was only thinking about his own superiority over all the others and knowing that the were looking for him in Whitechapel. Because that is the point in time where the contrast becomes clear: cutting the police chevron into the face of his second victim, not to celebrate the queen but to celebrate himself. No patriotic shooting of a V for Victoria in the sitting room with good friends. Just the killer, alone in the cold night in Mitre Square with a dead woman, destroying her face to show the world that the police are fools and he is superior.
By the way, years ago a member of this website, "Whypers", also discussed the cuts and mutilations as symbols by the killer - but he thought they showed a similarity to somebody who used similar designed shapes when doing tailoring.
I am glad that you found my chronology of interest.
I did. Thanks again.
Jeff
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