Why Didn't the Police Have Schwartz and/or Lawende Take a Look at Hutchinson?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

I call the whole George Hutchinson/Mr. Astrakhan scenario BS.

It must be my suspicious nature.

Here's a chart that might be useful.



Regards,

Simon

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Lets face it-in all probability he was looking for his 15 minutes of fame and somehow to profit off it...

The New York Sun
18 November, 1888.
Front page.

LATEST NEWS FROM EUROPE.
Copyright, 1888, by THE SUN Printing and Publishing Association.

LONDON, Nov. 17. – …
Some clever individual having invented a detailed description of a man seen walking about with Mary Kelly just before she was murdered, has been hired at five times his usual salary to walk about with the police and try and see the man again. …

Wolf.

[c.d.]

When we decide what we find suspicious, we will judge that against our own backgrounds and patterns of behaviour. I think the idea that the police were inept rests against how we (or some of us, at least) believe it was a strange thing to do, to stay outside Kellys room for 3/4 of an hour.

But what if it was NOT strange or unusual back then? We know that the victorians treated women in another manner than we do today, basing it on ideas of chivalry and courtesy and so on.

What I am thinking is that if Abberline believed in Hutchinson, that may well owe to how he himself could have done the exact same thing if he had seen a woman he knew enter a house with a man that he didn´t know and perhaps thought seemed a possibly sinister character.

It is only when a thing like this is regarded as odd by the surrounding society that the police becomes inept for not recognizing it. If it was NOT regarded as odd by the surrounding society, the rules of the game change.

Personally I don´t think it a very odd thing at all - then again, I may be a tad oldfashioned.

Hello Fish,

You seemed to have overlooked the fact that the woman in question was found the next day brutally murdered.

c.d.

[Abby Normal]

The New York Sun
18 November, 1888.
Front page.

LATEST NEWS FROM EUROPE.
Copyright, 1888, by THE SUN Printing and Publishing Association.

LONDON, Nov. 17. – …
Some clever individual having invented a detailed description of a man seen walking about with Mary Kelly just before she was murdered, has been hired at five times his usual salary to walk about with the police and try and see the man again. …

Wolf.

Thanks for posting this wolf.

[MrBarnett]

Thanks for posting this wolf.

What was Hutch’s usual ‘salary’, I wonder?

The New York Sun obviously knew.

[Wickerman]

Sorry, Jon, I still don't buy this. It strikes me that it would have been perfectly natural - and usefully corroborative - for Hutchinson to have reported seeing a woman approach and enter Miller's Court whilst he was on his watch.

Yes Gareth, if he was expected to corroborate his story, but he wasn't.

He walked in to the police station to give them a story of meeting Kelly that morning. He was only telling them a story, not having to account for every detail he made reference to. Hutch was not in the witness box.

He may have mentioned the woman alone (Lewis) to Abberline while being interrogated, but we have no record of that.

[Wickerman]

The answer here is because he realizes he has been seen and wants to explain himself now. We are almost guaranteed that there are plenty of other characters who are not JtR who were never found.

The answer is, prior to the inquest Kelly was believed to have been murdered after 9:00am Friday morning. It was only after the inquest when it was published that Cox had seen the killer.
Hutchinson knew this was not true, so he came forward to set the record straight.
The character seen by Cox couldn't have been the killer.

Why would Hutchinson make up such a character when all he had to copy was what was said in the papers about JtR's description?

Precisely.

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi everyone, correct me if I'm wrong, but no one posting on this thread is arguing that George Hutchinson was Jack the Ripper. Page after page, day after day on a Suspect thread in the Suspects > Hutchinson, George section. On a Jack the Ripper website. But nobody is advocating that George Hutchinson was the Ripper.

Reminds me of - a summer evening and you are outdoors when a man in athletic gear comes jogging down the road carrying a lighted torch.

It being summer, it gives you a thrill for a minute because you blurt out to him "Sir, are you carrying the Olympic torch for the games in Mexico City?"

He replies "No, I'm just out chasing lightning bugs."

Roy

[rjpalmer]

What was Hutch’s usual ‘salary’, I wonder?

The New York Sun obviously knew.

It is highly doubtful they knew anything.

What Wolf V. may not know is that in 1888 the London correspondent for the New York Sun was Arthur Brisbane, later called the “father of American yellow journalism.” It wasn’t meant as a compliment. Brisbane was not long out of college, brash, ironic, humorous, a heavy drinker, and a raconteur of no mean skill. The same article that makes this brief, mocking allusion to Hutchinson is a long, gossipy piece about the various goings on in London, and includes a number of obvious ironies, exaggerations, and jokes.

Although this claim that Hutchinson received ‘five times his usual salary’ has cropped up from time to time in an effort to discredit him, I think it is fairly obvious that Brisbane is having a bit of fun at the expense of the Metropolitan Police. In the book, The Yellow Journalism: The Press and America’s Emergence as a World Power, the authors Judith and David Spencer write: “Brisbane devoted himself to the Ripper tale, sending back tales so exaggerated and colorful that his New York editors found them to be stomach-turning.” Take from that what you will.

Personally, I’d trust Hutchinson before I’d trust Brisbane, though I'd undoubtedly rather drink a pint with the latter. AB's account is no more trustworthy than something flowing from the pen of Donald McCormick.

[MrBarnett]

A heavy-drinking journalist who made stuff up? Surely not.

[Joshua Rogan]

Personally, I’d trust Hutchinson before I’d trust Brisbane

So, apparently, would the Morning Advertiser 14th Nov;
"The person who has had an opportunity of being within speaking distance of the supposed assassin is an individual whose veracity is not doubted for a moment."

[Batman]

The answer is, prior to the inquest Kelly was believed to have been murdered after 9:00am Friday morning. It was only after the inquest when it was published that Cox had seen the killer.
Hutchinson knew this was not true, so he came forward to set the record straight.

The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, November 13, published the inquest findings from the day before, Nov 12.

Yet At 6.00pm on 12th November 1888, the day before the inquest findings were published, Hutchinson had already gone to Commercial Street Police Station to give his statement.

So how did Hutchinson know about the claims made by Cox?

[Fisherman]

Hello Fish,

You seemed to have overlooked the fact that the woman in question was found the next day brutally murdered.

c.d.

No, C D, I didn´t overlook that at all. What I´m after is how Abberline, far from accepting a story he believed was dodgy, instead never entertained any such ideas at all.

That has nothing at all to do with how Kelly was murdered on the night. But it has everything to do with how we today may interpret actions and scenarios as suspicious whereas the victorians would have disagreed totally.

Generally speaking, an action does not grow suspicious on account of how a murder is linked to it.

[Fisherman]

Yes Gareth, if he was expected to corroborate his story, but he wasn't.

He walked in to the police station to give them a story of meeting Kelly that morning. He was only telling them a story, not having to account for every detail he made reference to. Hutch was not in the witness box.

He may have mentioned the woman alone (Lewis) to Abberline while being interrogated, but we have no record of that.

That´s the whole point. We have no record of him mentioning Lewis. We can always say "maybe he did do that", but until we can verify it, it has very little value. It is not as if he MUST have been in place in Dorset Street at the time Lewis passed into the court, quite likely stepping where he would have had his feet - IF he was there.

What remains is that Hutchinson said he saw a PC in the distance, a lodger in Dorset Street AND NO-ONE ELSE.

It equals saying "there was no woman walking down Dorset Street and entering Millers Court", any way we look upon it.

If he hadn´t made the addition "and no-one else", a slightly better case could be made for him having omitted Lewis in spite of having seen her, but as it stands, that possibility goes away.

What remains is that he could have seen her and actively chosen not to mention her - which would be as inexplicable as it would be bonkers.
Or that he could have seen her and simply forgotten about it - which sounds very unlikely to my ears.

The evidence is therefore stacked against him having seen Sarah Lewis on the night of Kelly´s murder.

[Abby Normal]

So, apparently, would the Morning Advertiser 14th Nov;
"The person who has had an opportunity of being within speaking distance of the supposed assassin is an individual whose veracity is not doubted for a moment."

Nov 15 Star:

Another story now discredited is that of the man Hutchinson, who said that on Friday morning last he saw Kelly with a dark-complexioned, middle-aged, foreign-looking, bushy-eyebrowed gentleman, with the dark moustache turned up at the ends, who wore the soft felt hat, the long dark coat, trimmed with astrachan, the black necktie, with horseshoe pin, and the button boots, and displayed a massive gold watch-chain, with large seal and a red stone attached.

London Echo 13 November:-
From latest inquiries it appears that a very reduced importance seems to be now - in the light of later investigation - attached to a statement made by a person last night that he saw a man with the deceased on the night of the murder. Of course, such a statement should have been made at the inquest, where the evidence, taken on oath, could have been compared with the supposed description of the murderer given by the witnesses. Why, ask the authorities, did not the informant come forward before?