Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[Batman]

I think I remember this reference.

I think I read it in a JTR book (sorry I can't remember which one) and that it refers to a police operation at the time of the murders when police tried to seal off an area of Whitechapel hoping to catch the murderer in the act.

Yeah it's from a book I think.

Have you read "Scotland Yard Investigates" by Rumbelow & Evans?
Paul Begg's JtR:The Facts?

[barnflatwyngarde]

Yep, I've read them both

Ifbi wasn't sitting here with a cold beer in my hand watching "Killing Eve", I would be seriously tempted to go check them out and try and trace the reference.

Maybe tomorrow

[Batman]

I am mixing up some things. The experiment is real. Pinkertons was the agency Anderson joined. Was it Dr. Baxter who did early Ripper tours and some American detective was there and then had the people to do the experiment?

[barnflatwyngarde]

I am mixing up some things. The experiment is real. Pinkertons was the agency Anderson joined. Was it Dr. Baxter who did early Ripper tours and some American detective was there and then had the people to do the experiment?

Thanks for this Batman.

As per my earlier post, I do remember reading something similar somewhere.

Anyway, I think that it's highly probable that locals in Whitechapel had a whole series of shortcuts and rat runs all through the area.

[Batman]

Found it.

https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/pall_mall_gazette/18891104.html

Inspector Moore led the journalist through the network of narrow passageways as dark and loathsome as the great network of sewers that stretches underneath them a few feet below. "The chief of police from Austin, Texas, came to see me," said the inspector, "and offered me a great deal of advice. But when I showed him this place (Castle-alley) and the courts around it he took off his hat and said: `I apologise. I never saw anything like it before. We've nothing like it in all America.' He said that at home an officer could stand on a street corner and look down four different streets and see all that went on in them for a quarter of a mile off. Now, you know, I might put two regiments of police in this half-mile of district and half of them would be as completely out of sight and hearing of the others as though they were in separate cells of a prison. To give you an idea of it, my men formed a circle around the spot where one of the murders took place, guarding they thought, every entrance and approach, and within a few minutes they found fifty people inside the lines. They had come in through two passageways which my men could not find. And then, you know these people never lock their doors, and the murderer has only to lift the latch of the nearest house and walk through it and out the back way." In the course of their perambulations, the inspector tells the correspondent that they call Whitechapel the "three F's district, fried fish and fights. " After they had passed through a well-known lodging house, the correspondent asked the inspector if he did not feel nervous and he handed him his cane for an answer. It was a trivial-looking thing, painted to represent maple, but Mr. Davis found it was made of iron. "And then they wouldn't attack me," Mr. Moore said, "It's only those who don't know me that I carry the cane for."

That goes to show how easy it would be for someone knowledgeable about the area to make an escape without anyone seeing them.

[Wickerman]

......Yes, but they were all mentioning witnesses, regardless of what unofficial rule they may or may not have been breaking. It wasn’t as though they were using the witnesses’ names.

Not sure what you mean by "all mentioning witnesses". It would help if you could throw in a few quotes with sources to support your argument. As comments like this look more like you just relying on memory which may or may not be accurate.
Abberline didn't choose to mention the witness, thats all.

It can never be “purely” an issue of time. If Packer offered various different times, that inevitably invited suspicion that he was lying,....

Poor memory is not lying.

......which in turn invited equally inevitable suspicion that he didn’t see any man with Stride in his shop that night.

Purely by coincidence then, he managed to place the man & Stride at the same spot on the street, at the same time (12:30), as PC Smith saw a man with Stride.

It wasn’t merely his times that were at variance; he initially reported that he had shut up shop for the night, without any man and women entering it. It was because his entire stories were contradictory that he came to be discarded.

That was the time we are talking about - he shut up shop at 12:30, but for some reason Ass. Comm. Bruce made notes indicating different times (11:30), which may be the basis for Swanson's negative opinion of Packer.

You try to revive him as a genuine witness now for the same reason you try to revive Hutchinson’s - he described a well-dressed man, and you’re desperate for that sort of man to have been the ripper. We’ll figure out why one day, I’m sure.

Packer was a witness, there never was a concern that he invented the grape-man. The first mention of grapes was by Diemschutz & Kozebrodsky, not Packer, but anyway this is a Hutchinson thread so we can leave Packer for another day.

There are more respectably dressed suspects in this case than shabby dossers.

[Wickerman]

I couldn’t agree more.

But he knew “the killer was there” because the mutilated corpse in room #13 attested unambiguously to it.

Good grief Ben, Bowyer didn't know the man he saw at 3:00 was the killer because no-one had reported a murder at 3:00.

I’m asking why the quote itself doesn’t mention seeing any man, or more importantly, any description. If there was an opportunity to quote Bowyer personally, why not capture the most important words; the ones actually involving the appearance of the 3.00am stranger?

Who are you going to ask, seeing as everyone is dead who might know?

But there were “new revelations”; they took the form of “later investigations”, conducted by the police and alluded to by the Echo, which evidently cast doubt on Hutchinson’s credibility.

The Echo wrote, "it appears", which shows they were guessing.
Where is the direct quote from a police source?

You are looking for a direct quote from Bowyer, but, in your typical double-standard approach you ignore the fact your preferred source - the Echo, does not provide direct quotes for their stories.
Yet you try promote them as facts.

The “treatment” I refer to was one of discrediting, and much the same was meted out to Packer and Violenia when their stories were ultimately deemed wanting.

Show us all where the police state Hutchinson was discredited.

[Wickerman]

I am mixing up some things. The experiment is real. Pinkertons was the agency Anderson joined. Was it Dr. Baxter who did early Ripper tours and some American detective was there and then had the people to do the experiment?

I thought something didn't sound right.
It was Abberline who joined the Pinkertons, and I never heard of Baxter's Ripper Tours.

[Wickerman]

and those are the incorrect facts in a nut shell.

Abberline had already-as I have pointed out repeatedly-written down pages of his thoughts about it before the reporter ever showed up.

One page, and a half. That is all he wrote.
The folder he had with him contained documents and newspaper cuttings.
Documents is what the police use, it doesn't mean he wrote pages and pages of details.
As is often the case you are exaggerating the facts, he only wrote one and a half pages, and we have no idea whether he named witnesses. Likely not if anything.

And all the major witnesses, either directly named or indirecty alluded to, were commented on/written about by police officials after 1888-including Long, lawende, schwartz, even minor one like maxwell.
And when the witnesses are spoken of generally we get statements like-they only saw his back.

At some point I have read all those memoirs by retired officials. I don't recall any names of witnesses, there may be some. If you are so sure maybe you can provide some quotes.

...the ONLY mention of Hutch was from Dew-who thinks he was mistaken-glowing review that.

If Hutchinson had been discredited, wouldn't Dew have made that clear?
Being discredited means they 'know' you lied, Dew only thinks he was mistaken as to the day.
How does that support your argument?

.....the silence on Hutch, who should have been witness extrordinaire-is deafening and you know it.

Tell us which witnesses, aside from Lawende, were mentioned by police officials long after the murders?

[Sam Flynn]

I am mixing up some things. The experiment is real. Pinkertons was the agency Anderson joined. Was it Dr. Baxter who did early Ripper tours and some American detective was there and then had the people to do the experiment?

Not sure, but Baxter wasn't a doctor and I think it was Abberline who joined Pinkertons.

[Ben]

Not sure what you mean by "all mentioning witnesses". It would help if you could throw in a few quotes with sources to support your argument.

I’ve provided them so many times it is starting to become tedious. For what I hope may be the last time, I am referring to comments made over the years subsequent to the murders on the subject of witnesses by serving and former senior police officials associated with the ripper investigation.

Purely by coincidence then, he managed to place the man & Stride at the same spot on the street, at the same time (12:30), as PC Smith saw a man with Stride.

He didn’t.

He informed both Sergeant White and Assistant Commissioner Bruce that he had seen the couple at 11pm, an hour and a half prior to PC Smith’s sighting, whereas previously he had told the police he hadn’t seen anything at all.

That was the time we are talking about - he shut up shop at 12:30, but for some reason Ass. Comm. Bruce made notes indicating different times

So it’s all Bruce’s fault that Packer provided wildly different times and wildly different stories? Yes, the report probably was the basis - or part of it - for Swanson’s negative opinion of Packer, and it’s a bloody good “basis”.

Packer was a witness, there never was a concern that he invented the grape-man

Don’t be ridiculous.

There have always been very grave suspicions that he invented the grape man, and a very strong likelihood of same.

But yes, best to leave Packer for the relevant threads.

There are more respectably dressed suspects in this case than shabby dossers.

Nothing could be more remote from the truth. The above only holds true if you want to revive every morsel of press dreck that did the rounds at the time.

[Ben]

Good grief Ben, Bowyer didn't know the man he saw at 3:00 was the killer because no-one had reported a murder at 3:00.

Not true, I’m afraid.

By the evening of the 14th, there was a great deal of press speculation that the murder occurred around that time. An unscrupulous journalist (or more likely an opportunist falsely claiming insight into Bowyer’s movements) could even have latched on to Hutchinson’s story, published in the press that morning.

Who are you going to ask, seeing as everyone is dead who might know?

My question was a rhetorical one, the purpose of which was illustrate that the article is obviously nonsense.

The Echo wrote, "it appears", which shows they were guessing.
Where is the direct quote from a police source?

No, it shows they were drawing an inference, one that was confirmed “upon enquiry at the Commercial Street police station” the following day.

The Echo were hardly at liberty to provide direct quotes from senior police officials. As you once spent pages of posts arguing, divulging such information to the press was officially contra-protocol (despite the reality that it happens all the time), and quoting individuals would have necessitated the naming of a source.

No such impediment for Bowyer who, incidentally, clearly never met the author of the article.

So you don’t agree with RJ then, when he speculates that Abberline’s pages of notes intended for Macnaghten probably contained a glowing mention of non-discredited Hutchinson?

Nobody mentioned the witnesses by name, not even Lawende; I think we’ve established that by now. Who else received an honourable mention? Well, Abberline referenced peaked caps, so that might include Lawende, Schwartz and a handful of others. He also mentioned witnesses describing rear views of men over 35 indicating Long and possibly Cox too. Macnaghten mentioned a City PC, which might be a conflation of Lawende’s and PC Smith’s men.

Guess whose description doesn’t get so much as a look-in?

“Discredited”, for the trillionth time, does not mean “proven false”. It means strongly suspected of being so.

All the best,
Ben

[Batman]

Not sure, but Baxter wasn't a doctor and I think it was Abberline who joined Pinkertons.

https://www.casebook.org/press_repor.../18891104.html

It was Inspector Moore who described doing the experiment.

Which demonstrates even LE didn't know about the routes to and from an area.

[Abby Normal]

One page, and a half. That is all he wrote.
The folder he had with him contained documents and newspaper cuttings.
Documents is what the police use, it doesn't mean he wrote pages and pages of details.
As is often the case you are exaggerating the facts, he only wrote one and a half pages, and we have no idea whether he named witnesses. Likely not if anything.



At some point I have read all those memoirs by retired officials. I don't recall any names of witnesses, there may be some. If you are so sure maybe you can provide some quotes.



If Hutchinson had been discredited, wouldn't Dew have made that clear?
Being discredited means they 'know' you lied, Dew only thinks he was mistaken as to the day.
How does that support your argument?



Tell us which witnesses, aside from Lawende, were mentioned by police officials long after the murders?

Ive been around to long to know your game wicky... i just named them in the post above.
Either you and rj are losing your memory or are intentionally being obstinate.

Either way im out.

[rjpalmer]

So you don’t agree with RJ then, when he speculates that Abberline’s pages of notes intended for Macnaghten probably contained a glowing mention of non-discredited Hutchinson?

No, Ben, I was not seriously suggesting Abberline gave a glowing mention of anyone; there is no evidence this mythical letter was ever sent, nor, if sent, has it survived. It's just bluff and bluster.

The point was that it is utterly ridiculous for the Hutchinson doubters to claim they know what Abberline would have written and thus the mere act of writing somehow suggests Hutchinson was discredited.

It was a transparently bad argument, and still is.

Other than the Macnaghten Memo ("no one saw the murderer"), Anderson and Swanson's comments on the supposed identification of Kosminski, and the thoughts of Walter Dew (who doesn't make a peep about Hutch having lied) you've yet to name a single "subsequent report" by a police source mentioning witnesses.

Is that all you have? Or is there another source you have in mind?

If you can't name your sources, then I can only conclude you don't have any other than the four mentioned.

Frankly, I suspect you and Abby, for all the talk of bad memories, have simply formed a wrong impression based on internal police discussions of Schwartz and other witnesses that PRE-DATED Hutchinson coming forward.

After November, 1888, there is no literally no discussion of the major police witnesses we heard so much about during the reign of terror. These reports you keep mentioning do not exist. With all good wishes, RP