Hutchinsons statement....

[harry]

Fisherman,It is yours and Dews' reluctance to offer supporting evidence of a memory malfunction of the kind Hutchinson is suppose to have suffered.It was not a trivial,as you suggest,forgetting an appointment,or going without your keys or wallet,ordinary everyday occurances,that are remembered. A whole day or part of a day,you don't say which,is what is supposed to have occurred,and not remembered. Which suggests Amnesia or'State of altered conciousness'.Which is it?

Did he remember correctly that Thursday was the day he went to Romford,that he was late back,that he saw Kelly and Aman,and that somewhere between then and Dorset Street become so confused in memory,that the next 45 minutes is replced by what happened 24 hours before?Because that is what Dew and you are suggesting.Or was the whole 24 hours wiped from his mind and replaced by another day's happenings.

So oh wise one,lets hear your horseshit.You can give abuse,you can't take it.

[Michael W Richards]

Perhaps someone else recalls this...but I remember seeing a press snippit from Dew in which he claims entrails were hanging in a "bulbous" fashion from the ceiling in room 13. He also relentlessly persecuted a man and became famous for it, and we know now that a key piece of his case against Crippen was a small section of skin, found under the floorboards I believe. That sample survived, and its been tested recently...it did not belong to the victim in question. He chased a man across the ocean based on assumptions about evidence that we now know was wrong.

Abberline backed Israels statement in the press, he also backed Hutchinson. 2 witnesses with fantastic stories that didnt appear in either of the respective Inquests. It seems quite possible he was incorrect in both cases.

Citing Abberlines belief as a quality marker is a flawed approach...he didnt catch anyone in connection with any of these cases, he was likely wrong about 2 key witnesses in 2 cases, and his last opinion on the matter years later was that Chapman did it. Not much of a surprise, since his specialty, the skill set that got him his promotion out of Whitechapel, was arresting Fenians, not murderers. As was Andersons area of expertise, and Monros, and most of the senior men attached to these cases.

Perhaps the background of these men is far more relevant to the real story here than any particular tidbit of physical evidence or witness account contents.

[Fisherman]

Sorry, Fish, I'm not going to engage with you further. Your hectoring and often ad hominem style is more than my (genuinely) delicate constitution can take these days.

Edit:

Sorry, Fish - What I wrote there was an over-reaction on my part, and I apologise. I'm a bit hypersensitive at the moment!

Like I said, Gareth, it is your prerogative to do whatever you want in an exchange between us - just as it is my prerogative to point out that saying that you have umpteen solutions to my question and then not supplying a single one of them makes for rather a meagre impression.
One would have thought that somebody, A, who proudly trumpets something out in an exchange with somebody else, B, would be doing so on account of a wish to make some sort of substantiable point.
But hey, maybe that´s just me.

We could of course try to do it the other way around: I say that the one and only viable suggestion I can find for the development that ensued is an honest mistake on Hutchinsons behalf. And I add that I cannot find any other possible such mistake than a mistaken day, but I am happy to have any other suggestion presented.
Then anybody - not necessarily you - could sneak in a suggestion, and the discussion would not go to waste totally.

Let´s try that!

[Fisherman]

How very generous of you, Fish. Besides, I don't need to "substantiate" a statement that I myself made. I said that there might be umpteen reasons why Hutchinson's story was largely/fully dismissed, and that's all there is to it. My trotting out half a dozen speculative scenarios isn't going to help the discussion one iota.

Largely dismissed - no, there cannot be umpteen reasons. And it WAS largely dismissed.

Fully dismissed - yes, there can be umpteen reasons. But just about all of them would make Dew call Hutchinson a liar. And it was not fully dismissed.

The problem is therefore a bit more complex than you seem to be willing to admit. And your trotting out any example would consequentially open up for a discussion that would help a lot.

[Fisherman]

harry: Fisherman,It is yours and Dews' reluctance to offer supporting evidence of a memory malfunction of the kind Hutchinson is suppose to have suffered.

There is no reluctance involved - Dew was never asked to, and so he cannot be blamed, and far from being reluctant, I have offered what Dew said (and which belongs to the evidence) - that he could se no other explanation than the suggestion he made.
I keep teloing you that the one lacking evidence is you, not me. I could do with more, you could do with any, that´s the position. Unless you disagree?

It was not a trivial,as you suggest,forgetting an appointment,or going without your keys or wallet,ordinary everyday occurances,that are remembered.

When did I suggest that it was trivial? When did I speak about appointments or keys? You are making this up, Harry. The one and only pertinent question is: Can people misremember days, even if the circumstances are less than trivial? The answer is: Yes, they can and they have and they will do so again.
Plus let´s not try to suggest that Hutchinson must have thought "Oh, look - that´s Jack the Ripper, I need to remember this date!" as he saw Astrakhan man. At that stage, it WAS all very trivial: a prostitute being picked up by a client is as trivial as it gets. It was not until a few days later that Hutch appeared at the cop shop, and it was only then that he knew that the meeting may have been less than trivial.

A whole day or part of a day,you don't say which,is what is supposed to have occurred,and not remembered. Which suggests Amnesia or'State of altered conciousness'.Which is it?

Once you can prove that people cannot mistake whole days or parts of them, you will have the best point ever. Up til that time arrives, you have no point at all but for the reoccurring: "Nah, he would not have gotten it wrong", possibly the silliest effort ever in a question like this. Try and google the phrase "confuse the days", Harry, and you will get 1 950 000 hits, exemplifying people who have done this in varying degrees of triviality. Wipe that fact out, and you are welcome back in the discussion.

Did he remember correctly that Thursday was the day he went to Romford,that he was late back,that he saw Kelly and Aman,and that somewhere between then and Dorset Street become so confused in memory,that the next 45 minutes is replced by what happened 24 hours before?Because that is what Dew and you are suggesting.Or was the whole 24 hours wiped from his mind and replaced by another day's happenings.

Let´s try this earthshattering, mindblowing suggestion: what if he did NOT remember correctly that Thursday was the day he went to Romford? Has that thought ever entered your mind? No? Could it be that someone who says "Let´s see here, I remember that Thursday was the day that I went to Romford, so..." is actually WRONG about it?

Do these things mean that whole days are erased from our minds, or do they mean that we muddle them up? Any guess?

You work from the assumption that he could not possibly have mistaken these things, but he actually could have, not least given that he lived the exact kind of life that lends itself best to making these kinds og errors - the vagrant´s life, with lost night sleep, ever changing workplaces and so on.

This you fail to see, and you suggest that an error on Hutchinsons behalf would be less likely that yourself ever getting the simplest of matters correct. And that is just not a fair comparison.

So oh wise one,lets hear your horseshit.You can give abuse,you can't take it.

If I can´t take it, then why am I here? I have been abused thousands of times out here, by you for example, and I am still around. Seems you were wrong again, eh, Harry?

[Varqm]

The only thing that matters is Hutchinson was not there at Dorset St.in the early morning of Kelly's death which Dew suggested.
Yes it could have been an honest mistake (also implied by Dew and possibly Fisherman's interpretation),for money and/or notoriety,or even a deliberate honest mistake for money.Or all of the above?

I think for money and/or notoriety.In my opinion,like in Chapman's case and later in the weekend in Dorset St.as reported in the papers,I don't believe that a crowd wouldn't have gathered in the afternoon on the day Kelly died.People who lived/hang out in or near the doss houses nearby would
not have missed the police officers going in/in Miller's court.
As soon as the residents were allowed to leave the court,Lewis at 5:00 PM, people would have asked questions - who died,how,what do you know about it,etc..I don't know or have read of any widespread practice by the police of not allowing witnesses to talk to people.Therefore Lewis's info would have been known.And/or even after the inquest.Let me conjecture,to Lewis,hey ma'am,hey beautiful what do you know about the murder.

I think it's much less probable that Hutch forgot after 4 days.

[Fisherman]

The only thing that matters is Hutchinson was not there at Dorset St.in the early morning of Kelly's death which Dew suggested.
Yes it could have been an honest mistake (also implied by Dew and possibly Fisherman's interpretation),for money and/or notoriety,or even a deliberate honest mistake for money.Or all of the above?

I think for money and/or notoriety.In my opinion,like in Chapman's case and later in the weekend in Dorset St.as reported in the papers,I don't believe that a crowd wouldn't have gathered in the afternoon on the day Kelly died.People who lived/hang out in or near the doss houses nearby would
not have missed the police officers going in/in Miller's court.
As soon as the residents were allowed to leave the court,Lewis at 5:00 PM, people would have asked questions - who died,how,what do you know about it,etc..I don't know or have read of any widespread practice by the police of not allowing witnesses to talk to people.Therefore Lewis's info would have been known.And/or even after the inquest.Let me conjecture,to Lewis,hey ma'am,hey beautiful what do you know about the murder.

I think it's much less probable that Hutch forgot after 4 days.

One thing that must be said in connection with the suggestion that Hutchinson was out on the days, is that it is always less probable that we will muddle the days than not.

It should go without saying - getting the days wrong are exceptions to the rule. As such, if we work from a perspective with no knowledge at all about the circumstances of the case, the better suggestion will always be that Hutchinson did not muddle the days.

But there IS information supporting the idea that he actually did get the days wrong, not least Dews book.
There is more, however - Hutchinson said that he only saw two people during his vigil, effectively forgetting about Lewis, who would have rubbed shoulders with him, more or less, entering the court.
There is the fact that Hutchinson says that he stood at the corner of the court, NOT outside Crossinghams, therefore. And he said he left from the corner of the court too.
Hutchinson said that he walked the streets all night afterwards - but the weather was abominable on the murder night. Not so on the night before, though.
Weighing it all up, no other scenario fits the details than a muddling of the days. Once we realize that, the scales tip over when it comes to the suggestion of Hutchinson having mistaken the days.

[harry]

Fisherman,
"I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs Maxwell and George Hutchinson were lying" That's what Dew wrote according to you.
Lying about what? He doesn't say, neither do you.Dew speaks of Hutchinson lying,not of having the day's mixed.That is your invention.The memory comments were a general statement directed at no particular or named individual,that is evident if read correctly.I might claim that Mrs Cox was lying,and had the day wrong.If I did you would be the first one jumping up and down demanding evidence.Yet her statement has no more merit or corrorboration than Maxwell or Hutchinson.
Whether Dew was asked to or not,a person of his experience should know that claims without supporting evidence have little merit.He was writing a book,not facing an inquisition.Why should he be asked? Such an infantile excuse.You serious?
Of course people forget,I do,but because that is a known fact does not justify claiming that Hutchinson forgot just because it was possible for him to do so.Aberline doesn't appear to think there was a memory problem.

What an earth shattering,mind blowing suggestion.Do I think his going to Romford on the Thursday was a memory something or other.I believe that over the years I have made it plain that I do not think he went to Romford on thursday or any other day that week.Satisfy you.? You read my posts?

Living the vagrants life a life of lost sleep?That another of your inventions.Hutchinson was a resident at the Victoria Home.He was unemployed,able to sleep whenever he liked.Wide awake when looking for victims no doubt.

[Fisherman]

harry: Fisherman,
"I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs Maxwell and George Hutchinson were lying" That's what Dew wrote according to you.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

There you are, Harry - the alphabet. Try again, you have it terribly, terribly wrong this time.

Lying about what? He doesn't say, neither do you.Dew speaks of Hutchinson lying,not of having the day's mixed.That is your invention.

Dew says not a iot about any lying on Hutchinsons behalf - he makes it his business to point out that he would not reflect on the man at all:
"And if Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchison erred also? This, without reflecting in any way on either witness, is my considered view."

Of course people forget,I do,but because that is a known fact does not justify claiming that Hutchinson forgot just because it was possible for him to do so.

Say what? When did I suggest he got it wrong because "it was possible for him to do so"? It sounds af it was a chosen matter on his behalf when you put it that way, "since I can do it, let´s!", sort of. The suggestion is absurd. I think Hutchinson always believed that he had the days right, but that he in fact had them wrong nevertheless - a very simple thing to do, and a mistake most people will experience multiple times in their lives.

Aberline doesn't appear to think there was a memory problem.

Abberline never commented on it in retrospect, so we don´t know. We only know that he did not recognize such a thing immediately.

What an earth shattering,mind blowing suggestion.Do I think his going to Romford on the Thursday was a memory something or other.I believe that over the years I have made it plain that I do not think he went to Romford on thursday or any other day that week.Satisfy you.? You read my posts?

With a blush of shame on my face I must admit I do. Don´t tell anybody, please!
Whether you think that he did not go to Romford at all or whether you think he did is completely immaterial to the issue of getting the days muddled up. 100 per cent so, actually. Has nothing at all to do with it.

Living the vagrants life a life of lost sleep?That another of your inventions.Hutchinson was a resident at the Victoria Home.He was unemployed,able to sleep whenever he liked.Wide awake when looking for victims no doubt.

So you have all this on record, his sleeping hours, his stay at the Victoria Home (where he seems NOT to have stayed regularly), his being able to sleep when he wanted? Great, that´s news to all of us, I´d say!
And let´s look away from how he spoke of trekking to working places, how he spoke of spending the murder night walking the streets until morning and all that - if Harry says that he was able to sleep whenever he wanted, then that´s the truth.
He was unemployed, he had no regular home, he took whatever work he could find, and that is the same as being a vagrant character.

And to think, Harry, you old rascal, that YOU call ME an inventor...?

[Sam Flynn]

A slightly confused memory can be accepted of Dew after about 50? years

Nobody is going to mis-remember an army pensioner as a bulging-eyed youth, no matter how long the interval of time has elapsed. Is it possible that Dew leafed through some newspaper cuttings, read that Bowyer was McCarthy's servant, and wrongly presumed that he must have been a pimply errand-boy?

Similarly, claiming to have slipped in the "awfulness on the floor" of 13 Miller's Court is about as believable as Major Smith's claim to have nearly caught the Ripper red-handed. Statements of this nature bear all the hallmarks of fictive self-aggrandisement.

[Sam Flynn]

Ok, I just thought I had listed them too many times already.

The commonalities are:
- Both Hutch and Lewis saw a couple, a man & woman walk up the court.
- Both Hutch and Lewis identify a man (Hutch - himself) watching Millers Court passage from Dorset Street.
- Both Hutch and Lewis make it clear this couple did not stay in the court, they went indoors.
- Hutch said Kelly was "a little bit spreeish", while Lewis said the woman was "the worse for drink".
- Lewis said the woman was hat-less, whereas Cox had said earlier that night that Kelly was out without her hat.
- Hutch implied the time at around 2:15 am, and Lewis said she was at the Keylers when the clock struck 2:30, after her sighting.

Sorry, Jon, but I won't respond to those points individually. Suffice to say that all of them could have been gleaned from a combination of the newspapers and a little imagination. The jungle grapevine was, as I've said, another perfectly realistic potential source.

[Fisherman]

Sam Flynn: Nobody is going to mis-remember an army pensioner as a bulging-eyed youth, no matter how long the interval of time has elapsed. Is it possible that Dew leafed through some newspaper cuttings, read that Bowyer was McCarthy's servant, and wrongly presumed that he must have been a pimply errand-boy?

No, I don´t find that a very viable suggestion at all. If you think that nobody would misremember an army pensioner for an errand boy, then we may have to weigh in the possibility that Dew realized as much. So why make up a specific character that stood all the chances in the world of being the wrong type? Besides, Dew had had fifty years to read up on the stuff, and he would not have missed that Indian Harry was McCarthys wing man. Neverthless he spoke of a youth with bulging eyes - perhaps because it WAS such a youth?
There is also the possibility that Dew mixed two memories up, and misremembered a youth from another case for Bowyer when writing fifty years on.
Bowyer himself said that he AND McCarthy went to the police, but he added that McCarthy first went to look at the scene. Maybe McCarthy sent an errand boy ahead at that stage, to do the stretch running in order to shorten the time as much as possible - hence the panting:
"a young fellow, his eyes bulging out of his head, came panting into the police station. The poor fellow was so frightened that for a time he was unable to utter a single intelligible word."
I don´t know that we can proclaim Dew a liar on account of this.

Similarly, claiming to have slipped in the "awfulness on the floor" of 13 Miller's Court is about as believable as Major Smith's claim to have nearly caught the Ripper red-handed. Statements of this nature bear all the hallmarks of fictive self-aggrandisement.

So you are saying that any person falling over in blood is into "fictive self-aggrandisement"? Earlier, you said the blood was under the bed, or something such, so that the blood by the door would supposedly be free from blood. But the table, with large parts of cut away body parts from Kelly, stood BY THE DOOR. I find it extremely resonable to suggest that blood would have dripped from that table onto the floor. And blood is by nature slippery.

I therefore find it quite possible that Dew DID slip and fall on the floor on account of blood on it. And I have all sorts of problems hearing you classifying him as engaging in "fictive self-aggrandisement". To me, that is the kind of thing a prosecutor would lower himself to in order to try and influence and bias a jury. I don´t like it one bit.
Besides, just how "self-aggrandising" is it to slip and fall...? Hm? I would have thought that was more of an embarrasing thing altogether....

[Sam Flynn]

Sam Flynn: Nobody is going to mis-remember an army pensioner as a bulging-eyed youth, no matter how long the interval of time has elapsed. Is it possible that Dew leafed through some newspaper cuttings, read that Bowyer was McCarthy's servant, and wrongly presumed that he must have been a pimply errand-boy?

No, I don´t find that a very viable suggestion at all.

It is a perfectly viable suggestion, but I wouldn't expect you to agree. I shan't bother responding to the rest of your post.

I retract my apology from yesterday; your hectoring style really, really grates, and it's impossible to have a sensible discussion with you.

[Fisherman]

It is a perfectly viable suggestion, but I wouldn't expect you to agree. I shan't bother responding to the rest of your post.

I retract my apology from yesterday; your hectoring style really, really grates, and it's impossible to have a sensible discussion with you.

No, it is not - anybody who really wishes a discussion will get it, and it will be very sensible.

What is LESS sensible is to call Dew"self-aggrandising" on account of how he said he fell in the blood, when we know perfectly well that there was a table full of bloodied flesh right over the place where you said there would be no blood.

What is LESS sensible is to suggest that Dew would have been fiddling with the truth about the messenger, when 50 years had passed as he wrote his memoirs and it would be extremely understandable if he got such a thing wrong.

I can only conclude that you are so embarrased by making such untenable suggestions and being found out - some people will leave a discussion for those reasons, and if you are one of them, fine. Just don´t blame me for it.

[Varqm]

One thing that must be said in connection with the suggestion that Hutchinson was out on the days, is that it is always less probable that we will muddle the days than not.

It should go without saying - getting the days wrong are exceptions to the rule. As such, if we work from a perspective with no knowledge at all about the circumstances of the case, the better suggestion will always be that Hutchinson did not muddle the days.

But there IS information supporting the idea that he actually did get the days wrong, not least Dews book.
There is more, however - Hutchinson said that he only saw two people during his vigil, effectively forgetting about Lewis, who would have rubbed shoulders with him, more or less, entering the court.
There is the fact that Hutchinson says that he stood at the corner of the court, NOT outside Crossinghams, therefore. And he said he left from the corner of the court too.
Hutchinson said that he walked the streets all night afterwards - but the weather was abominable on the murder night. Not so on the night before, though.
Weighing it all up, no other scenario fits the details than a muddling of the days. Once we realize that, the scales tip over when it comes to the suggestion of Hutchinson having mistaken the days.

Yeah I think Hutch missing to mention Lewis greatly changes him from an honest-to-goodness witness- to a questionable one.

For somebody who did not miss a lot of details of the couple he allegedly saw,I think he wouldn't have forgotten after 4 days or Lewis.

There would be a finality,perhaps only, if there is a report on the police's check of Hutchinson and/or his statement.I conjecture that whatever the result of that report was made them choose Lawende instead of Hutch.It's almost clear to me Hutchinson was not there where/when he said he was.I have not heard any good argument to the contrary.