A present for Scotland Yard

[Craig H]

Thanks GUT and Pat

[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.

[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.

[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]

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

[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..

[Craig H]

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

[Debra A]

Dr Biggs did consider four of the Torso cases. For example, in respect of Liz Jackson he remarked, "Can they reliably comment on anatomical knowledge/surgical skill?"

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.

[Fisherman]

Yes, of course you're correct about the Battersea case. I also agree that murder is by far the most likely cause of death for the Torso victims. In fact, the connection with the Thames might also be significant-not only because body parts were found in the river, but the fact that the Scotland Yard building was on the embankment and Liz Jackson had been sleeping rough on the embankment.

Dr Biggs did consider four of the Torso cases. For example, in respect of Liz Jackson he remarked, "Can they reliably comment on anatomical knowledge/surgical skill?"

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...

[John G]

John G: With respect, I believe you are placing far too much faith in the opinions of 19th GPs. They were not forensic experts and, anyway, medical science has moved on somewhat since the Victorian age!

They had seen a LOT of cuts produced in criminal cases, and they recognized when the blade was held by a skilled cutter. They knew what was hard to achieve and what was easy to achieve. I find it far too convenient to rule their professionalism out when it goes against our beliefs.

As for the achievements of the Torso perpetrator, I'll cite Dr Biggs again: " I think 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." (Marriott, 2015).

Once again, Biggs comments not on the specific torso cases, but instead om cases he has seen himself; sloppy affairs with no cutting skills involved. The torso killer was on another ilk. Dr Kempster, on the Jackson case:
"The arm had been severed from the body in a very skilled manner and the person who cut it off must have had a very considerable knowledge of anatomy."
You see, the Victorian doctors had also seen typical dismemberment cases (and reports of them), and they would normally have been just like the cases Biggs has seen: sloppy, rough, unplanned, messy, flappy...all the things the Thames Torso cases were not.


You say that the Torso perpetrator "produced no jagged wounds". Well, looks like we can rule Nichols and Eddowes out of the series then, as they both had jagged incisions inflicted upon them!

The torso cases and the Ripper cases are very different in many respects, nobody is contesting that. And the Ripper cases are sloppier. But they were carried out under time pressure on public streets and in squares and yards with no lighting available. The torso man had all the time he wanted in all probability, he could probably place his victims on a table, he had a sharp, accurate saw at hand, and he could probably use as much light as he wanted to. The Ripper had none of that.

And what is your proof that any of the Torso victims were murdered? Or that he "procured" organs for that matter.

Both the Pinchin Street case and the Jackson case, ended in verdicts of "wilful murder", and the police were in little doubt that this was the real verdict applying to the other cases too.
In the 1873 Battersea case, there were blows to the temple that would have been sufficient to kill, according to the medicos. This was further strengthened by how there were no blood clots in the vessels; the blood had been drained away before any clots could form.

As for "procuring" organs, I think we need to reformulate that somewhat: the killer took out organs from the bodies. I donīt think he necessarily felt an urge to do it for keeping.
Jacksons uterus was cut out and parcelled up and floated down the Thames. Similarly, the medicos reported that the lungs and heart had been "removed" - that is to say, purposefully taken out. In the part found in Battersea park, there remained intestines and kidneys (if memory serves me), whereas the chest cavity ABOVE had been emptied. It should also be said that this was to be expected in many a way, since Jackson did not have her abdomen opened only as far as up to the coastal arch - the sternum had also been sawed through, opening her up totally in the front.

Yes, of course you're correct about the Battersea case. I also agree that murder is by far the most likely cause of death for the Torso victims. In fact, the connection with the Thames might also be significant-not only because body parts were found in the river, but the fact that the Scotland Yard building was on the embankment and Liz Jackson had been sleeping rough on the embankment.

Dr Biggs did consider four of the Torso cases. For example, in respect of Liz Jackson he remarked, "Can they reliably comment on anatomical knowledge/surgical skill?"

[John G]

Hi JohnG,

The Whitehall torso most likely pre-dates all of the C5 victims as her estimated death was suggested to have been 6 to 8 weeks prior to the discovery of her body on October 2nd.

It's interesting to note that her torso was deposited in the vault sometime after September 29th. The double event was the early morning hours of September 30th.

Thanks Jerry,you're absolutely correct, I'd forgotten this point.

[Elamarna]

Actually he is still arguing with me that he did not mislead us on that.

he also said he has not seen a picture of the person, only one of a relative. although he believed there could be one somewhere he was not sure.
On the other hand if we could all stop responding to him, which i know would not be easy, a new thread every few days, he would have to say more and more. then when he finally gives name, it can be looked at and either accepted as a good contender or rejected.

elamarna

[Fisherman]

Fisherman,

I fear he will not give you any dates, but am sure you expect that

Elamarna

Let, s see - he can use any span of time he wishes to, so maybe...

[jerryd]

Jerryd
Are you remembering that he has told us they lived part of their life in a mansion. the one he showed was i think near Kensington Palace.
so either he was wealth or his family worked in service I assume.

Elamarna

He also said it was not a policeman at one point, so I took a shot in the dark.

[Elamarna]

Christer,

Just a wild guess, and I know Pierre won't admit if I hit the nail on the head, but I say his suspect is either Sgt. Edward Badham or PC Henry Hoare.

Jerryd
Are you remembering that he has told us they lived part of their life in a mansion. the one he showed was i think near Kensington Palace.
so either he was wealth or his family worked in service I assume.

Elamarna