Any updates, or opinions on this witness.

[Ben]

Hi RJ,

I’m unclear as to what argument you believe I’ve undermined. I don’t remember every arguing (or, for that matter, reading John Douglas arguing) that serial killers have an “innate need” to come forward under false pretences. I’m quite sure they approached the police in such a fashion when they perceived a particular advantage in doing so, whether that be to derail an investigation with a false lead, to legitimise a potentially incriminating link to the crime, or simply to appraise themselves of police progress.

I don’t know what “core belief” you’ve been attributing to me, or for how long, but I can assure you that as far as I’m concerned, “circumstances” owe a good deal more to a serial killer’s decision to come forward than innate compulsion. Which isn’t to say that killers do not derive a thrill from fooling their law enforcement pursuers right under their noses.

I’m also not sure what “scientific method” I’m supposed to be eschewing here. In the absence of those “quantitative studies”, what are we left to work with besides easily accessible, well-documented, and proven examples of a phenomenon you erroneously insist is a myth?

I’m equally unclear on your position on the red hanky issue; in particular I would be interested in your evidence that red was one of the two most popular colours selected by hanky-fanciers in the late 1800s. Taking into account Simon’s correctly observed distance of 120 feet between the corner of Dorset Street and the entrance to Miller’s Court, coupled with the extremely poor lighting (and the fact that the very small object was exposed for only a fleeting moment), it does rather beggar belief that Hutchinson was able to discern the colour.

But now you’re suggesting that Hutchinson need only have recognised the “pattern” in order to conclude that it must have been red. If the lighting and distance factors prevented him, as they would have done, from making out the colour, what hope in hell did he have with the “pattern”? Impossible is the word that springs, with some considerable justification, to mind.

Enjoy your weekend, RJ.

[harry]

Jon,
In Hutchinon's case it is the amount of detail that is being argued.Over twenty different items were mentioned.In poor light,in a very short period of observation,by a person who had been out and about for many hours,who had just completed a walk of about 12 miles,and was recounting three days later.

Quite a different occurance from the cases you mention.

Do not know your experience of street gas lamps,but I experienced years of walking streets lit solely by gas lamps.I know that Hutchinson,if he is telling the truth.would have had seconds only to make his observations,which by his description,would have had to have been a frontal view. Why only seconds?Because of the small area of light projected by the gas lamps.

[Wickerman]

Jon,
In Hutchinon's case it is the amount of detail that is being argued.Over twenty different items were mentioned.

He made notes of Astrachan's description? Is that what you would do?

Do not know your experience of street gas lamps,but I experienced years of walking streets lit solely by gas lamps.

I'm not second-guessing the opinions of those who lived at the time. So I have no issue with what was identifiable under those lighting conditions.
I can readily accept that if Abberline, or even Badham thought the description was too detailed for the available lighting conditions his story would not have been so readily accepted.

[Abby Normal]

If there was a lamp outside Millers Court you also have to take into account the effect gaslight has on different colours. Would red still look red? If not, how would Hutchinson know it was a red handkercief?

Personally i think our good friend hutch left it in her place!

[rjpalmer]

Hi Simon. Roughly nine p.m. here. I did an experiment just now. I live out in the "sticks." It is literally pitch black outside other than the stars and the moonlight, and tonight it's somewhat overcast. I set a red and a white piece of cloth outside, with some moderate ambient light shining out into the darkness from a kitchen window. I then walked in complete darkness to the end of the drive; I'm guessing 30 yards. The colors were easily distinguishable.

I think the Hutchinson crowd has been codding you, dear boss. It doesn't matter a smidgeon how dark it was in Dorset Street; it only matters how close Kelly and Astrakhan were standing to that lamp. I am out in the blackness and can't see my own shoes or my own hand in front of my face, but I can see those hanky's from 90 feet away with just a wee bit of loitering light from a nearby window. If Kelly and J were standing anywhere near that light, the color of the hanky would be have been obvious. The argument is malarkey.

[rjpalmer]

Simon, just a sort of "p.s." please enjoy my favorite Ray Charles song, with my compliments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rggldf1c6c

[Wickerman]

Dorset street was described as "well lighted".

"Dorset street is a fairly wide thoroughfare, and at night, owing to the lamps in the windows and over the doors of the numerous lodging-houses, it may be described as well-lighted."

Crossingham's directly opposite is like-wise described the same.

"Opposite the court is a very large lodging-house, of a somewhat inferior character. This house is well lighted and people hang about it nearly all night."

Lamps are also mounted on the wall close to Millers court passage.

"......within a yard or two to the entrance to the court is a wall lamp, the light from which is thrown nearly on to the passage."
Irish Times, 10 Nov. 1888.

The wall-mounted lamps can be seen on the left side in this picture of Dorset st.



Also, the street according to Goads Plan is 25 ft wide. As Ben has already conceded that people stood in the street on opposite sides had to be closer than 25 feet. Then we can see Hutchinson's claim to have seen the red handkerchief, and heard parts of their discussion is very possible.

[c.d.]

I've often read that some women see things that some men don't.....
Have a great weekend Caz.

Yeah, like when you forget and leave the toilet seat up. Boy, do they notice that.

c.d.

[rjpalmer]

Wickerman - As an aside, although I am not a frequenter of prostitutes, I would imagine that if I was going to stand in one spot and look the lady over before retiring to her room, it would be in a well lighted spot near a lamp. This would have two advantages. The first would be simply cosmetic; to see how filthy she was and what sores she may have had about the eyes and mouth. The second advantage is that if you stand talking to a prostitute in a dark corner you are very likely to be sandbagged by her boyfriend or pimp. I actually saw this happen to a disagreeable fellow outside a pub in the U.S. roughly twenty years ago. The young lady in question entered the bar, chatted up a fellow, and when he went off outside with her he was promptly bashed over the head and robbed. There was a heck of a commotion and we went outside and found him in the back parking lot rolling around on the ground. Afterwards I decided to find a watering hole in a more respectable neighborhood. Cheers.

[Simon Wood]

Thank you, RJ,

Much appreciated.

Ripperology could use more musical interludes.

Regards,

Simon

[Sam Flynn]

Yeah, like when you forget and leave the toilet seat up. Boy, do they notice that.

I've never understood why. A toilet with its seat up looks more welcoming, somehow.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Simon, let me run an idea past you. Not that you suggested it, but if Hutchinson’s suspect was a made-up character, meant to implicate the Jews, is it really likely he would have chosen a wealthy assimilated Jew from the West End? ‘The Jews’ were not a homogeneous entity. The ones that were claimed to be a burden by anti-immigration gadflies (and Sir Bob Anderson!) were the impoverished Jews from Eastern Europe. The Jew of the ‘Lipski’ affair. To me, if a racist or general trouble-maker was going to try to implicate them, he would hardly have settled on the description of Astrakhan. The man would have been described as having a long beard, curly uncut sideburns, dirty clothes, and maybe even a kippah. In a modern context, if a man wanted to wrongly implicate the Mexicans in an unsolved street murder, he would have painted an image of the infamous “Mexican drug dealer/rapist’ with tattoos and bandanas that is so popular just now with a certain man in Washington, D.C.; he wouldn’t describe the suave ‘Mexican’ and the ‘most interesting man in the world’ from the Dos Equis advertisements. Estás de acuerdo?

[Simon Wood]

Hi RJ,

Hutchinson's Mr. A. was a portrait of a Jew of wealth and privilege, perhaps one of the Kosher Nostra. He had to be. Who would have believed that "Mary Kelly" found her salvation that morning in "one of the numerous foreigners by whom the East End is infested.” [Echo, 13th October].

Or was someone having a laugh?

Was the Mr. A description a pastiche of this man?



Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Wickerman - As an aside, although I am not a frequenter of prostitutes, I would imagine that if I was going to stand in one spot and look the lady over before retiring to her room, it would be in a well lighted spot near a lamp. This would have two advantages. The first would be simply cosmetic; to see how filthy she was and what sores she may have had about the eyes and mouth. The second advantage is that if you stand talking to a prostitute in a dark corner you are very likely to be sandbagged by her boyfriend or pimp. I actually saw this happen to a disagreeable fellow outside a pub in the U.S. roughly twenty years ago. The young lady in question entered the bar, chatted up a fellow, and when he went off outside with her he was promptly bashed over the head and robbed. There was a heck of a commotion and we went outside and found him in the back parking lot rolling around on the ground. Afterwards I decided to find a watering hole in a more respectable neighborhood. Cheers.

One detail not mentioned in these reports is McCarthy's shop which did not close until three o'clock. The door of which was directly beside the passage. There had to be a degree of light from the shop to add to the light cast by the wall lamp.

Also, on ruined buildings sometimes a pattern can be seen in the remaining bricks where signs, gas pipes or devices were once attached to the wall.
In this picture several feet above the passage a circle can be seen on the bricks.
Perhaps, a mount for a wall lamp?

[Sam Flynn]

In this picture several feet above the passage a circle can be seen on the bricks.

Could you indicate where the circle is, Jon? I can't quite make it out.