Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[Fisherman]

Sam as part of my job i look at documents and signed paperwork and have to make sure sigs match.

As people age there sigs get more idiosyncratic, with more flourish and or get lazier.

They dont get more basic and school boy.

And the the first initial is the last to change, and in these two its one of the most different.

I think your thrown off by the “ basicness” of the two sigs, but they are very different.

And besides, with all three of the original sigs so different its useless to try and compare with a later sig.

And please keep your arse out of it.

Avoiding, as best as I can, to poke MY arse in this business, it needs to be said that Swedens foremost criminal specialist on signatures, Frank Leander, disagreed with you, Abby. And he had a lifetime of doing these comparisons behind him when he concluded that he would be surprised if the signatures were not from the same man, and added that he expected any forthcoming new evidence to further seal the deal.

That is all I am going to say about it this time over, since Leanders garcious and helpful contribution was not received in a very balanced manner when it arrived some years ago.
That, however, does not change what he said.

Over and out.

[Abby Normal]

Look at those two signatures, Abby.

"Not even close", my arse.

Sam as part of my job i look at documents and signed paperwork and have to make sure sigs match.

As people age there sigs get more idiosyncratic, with more flourish and or get lazier.

They dont get more basic and school boy.

And the the first initial is the last to change, and in these two its one of the most different.

I think your thrown off by the “ basicness” of the two sigs, but they are very different.

And besides, with all three of the original sigs so different its useless to try and compare with a later sig.

And please keep your arse out of it.

[Sam Flynn]

Not even close

Look at those two signatures, Abby.

"Not even close", my arse.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam.
I do not have theories , I have stated facts that the number 39 has significance in Black Magic and masonic.
I have tongue -in-cheek, suggested that 39 appear a lot in this series .
As for Topping himself telling us he was the witness , he was dead and buried long before radio broadcast/Ripper and the Royals was around.
Reg admitted he knew nothing personally about the murders, and indeed borrowed a book on the subject from a younger member of the family.
Where did all this come from if not from his father, including the rare mention of a payment?
Regards Richard.

Let's not confuse the straightforward (and to my mind conclusive) idenfication of the Miller's Court witness with numerological theories or the Royal Family/Masonic/Churchill stuff, because it only gives anti-Topping theorists an excuse to deflect attention away from the important point - namely, that we've found our man.

[Abby Normal]

Here's a touch of realism:

[ATTACH]18781[/ATTACH]

... is that coffee I smell?

Not even close

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

It hasn’t been terribly clear to me that your tongue was embedded in your cheek when you presented your “number 39” thesis, but I’m relieved to hear it was, and I’m grateful for the clarification.

Where did all this come from if not from his father, including the rare mention of a payment?

Probably from an active imagination and aided (or rather unaided) by the very poor interviewing techniques employed by messrs Fairclough and Sickert.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

I’m afraid these continued references to peaked caps and the Daily Chronicle amount to little more than obfuscation. The fact remains that Abberline mentioned nothing about Hutchinson or his account in the 1903 PMG article, despite the golden opportunity Klosowski presented for him to do so. It defies sanity to infer ludicrously tenuous parallels with peaked cap-wearing men when there was an opportunity to wheel in the star witness for a potentially compelling facial comparison.

As Abby has observed, Abberline had already complied a “case” against Klosowski for intended submission to Melville Macnaghten, and it would logically have included the very same eyewitness-related observations he shared with the PMG reporter - the ones that were conspicuous in their absence or any reference to Hutchinson or Astrakhan.

Sorry, but the idea that he was tailoring his Klosowski-related observations to address the trivial specifics of an article he wasn’t even familiar with (while saving the really juicy stuff for later!?) simply won’t wash. He was presenting the entire case against Klosowski, such as it was, and he gave not the slightest hint that he was deliberately withholding information - especially not eyewitness evidence that might have enhanced it considerably.

H.L. Adam obtained Hutchinson’s description from the contemporary newspapers for use in his 1914 piece, then regurgitated it again in 1930 after “discovering” Klosowski. We know this because only press versions of his evidence described the man’s complexion as dark. Adam certainly didn’t have any contact with Abberline prior to his initial 1914 reference to the description, or else he would have been familiar with the latter’s pro-Klosowski stance, which the author was later to adopt.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Thanks, RJ. Glad to hear the Victoria Home information was of interest.

Are you saying every deckhand on the R.M.S. Ormuz had to be living in London at the time of the 1881 UK census?

Not at all.

I’m saying that the deckhands of the Ormuz probably all had London as their nearest port, otherwise they would have embarked from one of the many other British ports that facilitated passage to Australia.

Sailors, by their nature, come from all over the place and move from port to port

But he wasn’t a real sailor, as we’ve already established. He was a “bodge” sailor who secured passage because of the paucity of genuine professionals, many of whom were taking strike action at the time. This is obvious from the fact that his prison records described him as a labourer or a “tinsmith”. In addition to which - and as Senise’s research makes very clear - the Ormuz had a reputation for employing a bodge crew.

By far the most likely group of people to take up the roles of faux sailors were those living in close proximity to the docks themselves, who were ideally situated to learn through the local grapevine of the opportunities presented by the strike for securing potential work, making up the numbers vacated by actual sailors.

All the best,
Ben

[rjpalmer]

Abby - I don't want to come across like I was snubbing your response. I am well aware that in the 1903 interview, Abberline states that he was oblivious to the Daily Chronicle piece, but the reasons that Helena Wojtczac concludes that he WAS aware of it (at least by the time the PMG piece was published) are quite convincing. The "elephant in the room" is that Abberline was rooming with a PMG journalist in the 1901 census and that this is probably the same chap that became the interviewer. It was two old chums discussing the Chapman/Klosowski theory, the latter turning it into an "interview," and during the course of their conversation, they discussed the Daily Chronicle piece. The icing on the cake is that Abberline uses precisely the same arguments that had appeared the Daily Chronicle story, even mentioning the mythical murders in Jersey City, U.S.A., even though Abberline's source was supposedly Sir Edward Carson who never said anything about Jersey City or any American murders.

None of this will make sense to you, of course, but that is the argument. Hence Abberline's obsession with the "peaked cap" being a reflection of the Daily Chronicle piece. Either way, there is utterly nothing he states that even remotely suggests that he believed Hutchinson was discredited, that's just standard "Ripperological" bosh from people wishing to plump for their suspect. And depending how much faith one wants to put in H.L. Adam, it's even theoretically possible that Abberline was the later the source for the Hutchinson/Klosowski comparison in the introduction to his book. Adam claims that Abberline was still plumping for Klosowski in the years after 1903 and even chased down Lucy Baderska and interviewed her. Regardless of what Adam used to suggest the Hutchinson connection, this doesn't diminish the fact that it was the "peaked cap" that is what caught Abberline's attention in 1903 and Astrakhan did not wear a peaked cap.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Sam.
I do not have theories , I have stated facts that the number 39 has significance in Black Magic and masonic.
I have tongue -in-cheek, suggested that 39 appear a lot in this series .
As for Topping himself telling us he was the witness , he was dead and buried long before radio broadcast/Ripper and the Royals was around.
Reg admitted he knew nothing personally about the murders, and indeed borrowed a book on the subject from a younger member of the family.
Where did all this come from if not from his father, including the rare mention of a payment?
Regards Richard.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ben - I have a touch of insomnia, and thought I'd drop in. So I can give you an immediate response. Sorry, but I don't buy it. Are you saying every deckhand on the R.M.S. Ormuz had to be living in London at the time of the 1881 UK census? It sound non-sensical to me. Sailors, by their nature, come from all over the place and move from port to port. My aged father, to give but one example, was once stationed on a ship in San Diego, California, but came from Central Montana in the middle of the Great Plains. As Edward Stow pointed out, there is no evidence in the Australian records that the Aussie "Flasher" George Hutchinson was a Londoner. He could have been, but there's no documentation of it that I've seen mentioned anywhere.


Perhaps Senise has since altered his theories--I don't know--but he originally had Bob Hinton's "Shadwell" Hutchinson as the Aussie Sailor. As Stow demonstrated, this guy was living in Camberwell in 1901. They aren't the same man. Or, rather, let's just say that the possibility that they are the same man is so remarkably remote that it's really not even worth considering. P.S. A belated thanks for your source information on the Victoria Home. Much appreciated. All the best.

[Ben]

Hi RJ,

Why can't this able seaman be from Glasgow or Plymouth or somewhere else?

Because these places were either major established ports already or had access to much closer ones than London. An able seaman (or a labourer faking the credentials of same) living in Plymouth would obviously have embarked from that port city.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Varqm,

I don’t disagree with your observations at all, quite the contrary. I suspect, however, that Hutchinson deliberately avoided any mention of Lewis to prevent or delay the recognition that he came forward as a direct result of her evidence.

As surprising as it may seem today, it appears that no connection was ever made between Lewis and Hutchinson, not even in the press who had ample opportunity to notice it. The wideawake=Hutchinson connection appears not to have been made by anyone, in print at least, until at least 100 years after the murders.

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

The Echo said nothing about Hutchinson or his account being “investigated” on the 19th, Jon. They observed that some of the authorities continued to wonder if his account might be valid despite its recent discrediting. This is perfectly understandable in the absence of proof that he lied, but there’s no evidence that the Hutchinson supporters influenced the direction of the investigation.

Can I repeat a recent response I received from you, by asking for a quote from this source at the police station - if you deem it so reliable?

I can demonstrate that their report was based on a proven communication with the police, but we’ve discussed the issue many times, and it would be rather tedious to have to go through it all again. I’m quite sure nobody would thank me for copy-and-pasting whole swathes of old discussion.

So tell me, why does only 50 George Hutchinson's (there's more than 50 in the press), make the random selection of just one as our witness any more reliable?

I suggest you obtain yourself a copy of Stephen Senise’s “False Flag”, in which the relevant details of the proposed identification are provided.

However, Abberline had resources available to him.
Just because we cannot know how he arrived at that decision does not mean his decision was flawed

What “resources” were “available” to Abberline that enabled him to confirm aspects of Hutchinson’s account before he sent his report that evening? Unless they included a crystal ball, I’m very sceptical.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Topping is the only man with the name Hutchinson, who has ever presented himself as the witness

Where’s the evidence that Toppy “presented himself”, Richard?

I know that a man named Reginald Hutchinson “presented” his father in a discredited royal conspiracy book, but I’m not aware of any proactive efforts on the part of Toppy himself.

Maybe we should try and be more realistic in our approaches.

You mean more along the lines of your recently proposed masonic conspiracy theory, in which the number 39 holds such vast significance for the killer that he made sure to stab Martha Tabram precisely that many times?

Anyway, is there any chance we can avoid the trap of turning this into a Toppy thread? There are quite a number of those already.