A present for Scotland Yard

[GUT]

Please forgive my ignorance ..... I don't know a lot about life in this period.

How could the killer have moved body parts around the city ?

What was a "carman" ? I gather it was someone with a horse and cart transporting goods ?? So would there have been many of these people in London city.

Then was the other alternative someone who had their own horse and carriage. Would this be more of someone from a wealthy class ? Would someone from what we would now call middle class be able to afford a horse and carriage ?

I'm trying to visualise how someone would move body parts around London ?

Craig

A carman drove a horse and cart for delivering goods, the term could, I believe, also apply to his "off-sider" and that is often overlooked, these men usually worked in teams, so to be honest I'm not sure that being a carman has any impact in ability to commit these murders

see

http://www.gander-name.info/misc/carmen.shtml

Literally there were in the LVP 1000's of them, you'll note in the article above some 33,500 in 1891..

[GUT]

As for how else, the frist that springs to mind are Hawkers and Barrow boys with barrows for moving their wares around.

[Craig H]

Thanks GUT for reply and the link. It was a different world.

So how would it work if our suspect wasn't a carman or barrow boy ?

Would your average person have a horse or a barrow they would use ?

I'm assuming our suspect wasn't lower class, so trying to visualise what they would do.

All the best
Craig

[GUT]

Thanks GUT for reply and the link. It was a different world.

So how would it work if our suspect wasn't a carman or barrow boy ?

Would your average person have a horse or a barrow they would use ?

I'm assuming our suspect wasn't lower class, so trying to visualise what they would do.

All the best
Craig

I don't think that someone carting around a parcel wrapped in say hessian or a tarp would attract a lot of attention.

[Pcdunn]

Transportation in the LVP

Thanks GUT for reply and the link. It was a different world.

So how would it work if our suspect wasn't a carman or barrow boy ?

Would your average person have a horse or a barrow they would use ?

I'm assuming our suspect wasn't lower class, so trying to visualise what they would do.

All the best
Craig

Carriages and cabs would be available for hire, of course, and the drivers of these vehicles might have access to the stables and horses. Some cabbies owned their own horses (cf. Black Beauty), which were worked six days out of seven. Riding horses might also be available for hire.

There were horse-drawn omnibuses, also, and the trains for additional transport, as well as boats, but many people would have simply walked.

"Carmen" seem to be what we're familiar with as "teamsters", and worked for large delivery company stables. I gather they worked in pairs or trios of a driver and one or two others to unload the delivery vans.

A walker would have used barrows, such as the large coster-monger barrows mentioned in the folk song "Molly Malone", or smaller hand carts for moving belongings from residence to residence.

[Craig H]

Thanks GUT and Pat

[drstrange169]

Hello Craig,


>>What was a "carman" ? I gather it was someone with a horse and cart transporting goods ?? So would there have been many of these people in London city.<<

Hundreds if not thousands. Although it would be extremely unlikely that carman working for large firms would have access to the carts for private use.



>>... someone who had their own horse and carriage. Would this be more of someone from a wealthy class ? <<

Louis Deimshitz, from the Berner Street club, had a pony and cart, so while the very poor may not have access, plenty of working people did. There were little stables all around the area where horses/ponies could be kept for small fees.

[GUT]

Must have been no lack of horse ......

So with some ideas being thrown around at the moment nothing much has changed.

[Fisherman]

So with some ideas being thrown around at the moment nothing much has changed.

Funny you should say that. My take on things is that a whole lot has changed over the last weeks.

What has probably not changed is the overall unwillingness to see the relevance of new arguments put forward. Then again, I donŽt see that changing at all any time soon.

[GUT]

Funny you should say that. My take on things is that a whole lot has changed over the last weeks.

What has probably not changed is the unnwillingness to see the relevance of new arguments put forward. Then again, I donŽt see that changing at all any time soon.

I'm yet to see a new argument.

Some "hypothesis" not a word of what it's based on that stands 2 seconds scrutiny.

A door into a room, that only one person believes was an access point.

A claim t was a copper, think that one's been around forever.

Maybe when we see some new evidence, hey what about that confession Pierre has for a starter, maybe there'll be some willingness to accept.

[Fisherman]

I'm yet to see a new argument.

Some "hypothesis" not a word of what it's based on that stands 2 seconds scrutiny.

A door into a room, that only one person believes was an access point.

A claim t was a copper, think that one's been around forever.

Maybe when we see some new evidence, hey what about that confession Pierre has for a starter, maybe there'll be some willingness to accept.

Actually, I was talking more about matters knit to this thread as such; the possible ties between the Ripper and the torso killer.
When it comes to that illusive door and the whole the-Ripper-was-a-PC business, I tend to agree with you. I donŽt know if you have the proverb about preparing soup on a nail, but if you do, youŽll know what I am talking about.

[John G]

Hi John
It should be pointed out that Dr Biggs made comments on the four cases 87-89 based on brief notes of the main points, provided by me. He did not have all the information available from the notes Bond and Hebbert provided on the cases for the 1894 Medical Jurisprudence textbook or Hebbert's Lectures on forensic medicine for the Westminster Hospital.
Also, I do feel Hebbert and Bond maybe had a point in the comments they made about doctors and surgeons not being as much practiced in joint disarticulation as a butcher or slaughterer may be in as much as it seems to be rare that surgeons make limb amputations at the actual joint.

Hi Debra,

Thanks for this, it's much appreciated. It does, however, seem that Dr Biggs considered that the Victorian autopsies were less thorough than would be the case today. In fact, referring to the inquest reports in the Eddowes case he comments, "there's actually very little detail of use in the text", and "much of the description is vague and potentially ambiguous" (Marriott, 2015). He also made an interesting comment on the Rainham case, "It's worth noting that comments relating to "anatomical knowledge" or "surgical skill" should be taken with a pinch of salt in these sort of cases. I have seen surgeons and pathologists make a right mess of human anatomy, and I have seen "amateurs" making a pretty good job of cutting up a body at their first attempt...and I find their assumption that a surgeon or anatomist couldn't not have done such a good job because they are not cutting as regularly as a hunter or a butcher quite bizarre."(Marriott, 2015.)

[John G]

That is not much of a case comment, though, is it? It sounds more as if he is uncertain about to what extent he could rely on his predecessors.
If you read his overall comments, you will see that he seems uninformed about the cases, presuming that they will be similar to the ones he has seen himself!

Anybody is welcome to his own take on all of this. I just think that the similarities outweigh the perceived dissimilarities, and I am tired of the age-old perception that the cases don't compare. Finding dead women with ripped abdomens and missing inner organs was not that common!

Many thanks for the exchange - I need my beauty sleep now...

Thanks Fish, many thanks to you too. It's been an interesting exchange of views, as always

[GUT]

Actually, I was talking more about matters knit to this thread as such; the possible ties between the Ripper and the torso killer.
When it comes to that illusive door and the whole the-Ripper-was-a-PC business, I tend to agree with you. I donŽt know if you have the proverb about preparing soup on a nail, but if you do, youŽll know what I am talking about.

Nope don't know that one, but I'll try and track it down. But I think I get the gist anyway

[Fisherman]

Hi Debra,

Thanks for this, it's much appreciated. It does, however, seem that Dr Biggs considered that the Victorian autopsies were less thorough than would be the case today. In fact, referring to the inquest reports in the Eddowes case he comments, "there's actually very little detail of use in the text", and "much of the description is vague and potentially ambiguous" (Marriott, 2015). He also made an interesting comment on the Rainham case, "It's worth noting that comments relating to "anatomical knowledge" or "surgical skill" should be taken with a pinch of salt in these sort of cases. I have seen surgeons and pathologists make a right mess of human anatomy, and I have seen "amateurs" making a pretty good job of cutting up a body at their first attempt...and I find their assumption that a surgeon or anatomist couldn't not have done such a good job because they are not cutting as regularly as a hunter or a butcher quite bizarre."(Marriott, 2015.)

I think it is important to keep in mind that the medicos did not think they were dealing with a colleague surgeon - that was not the skill they acknowledged. The torso killer knew how to disarticulate limbs, which vertebrae to make divisions between - and he was an extremely clean cutter. Like Debra points out, the disarticulation of limbs made by a surgeon are not disarticulations made at the joints, but this was where the torso man knew how to remove limbs - at the joints.
Biggs seems to labour under the misapprehension that the torso man was pointed out as a surgeon. He was not. He was described as a very skilled cutter and disarticulator.