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

[Batman]

Fried fish and potatoes was a cheap and popular meal for East End residents, and readily available from chandlers' shops until the small hours of the morning.

Wouldn't you expect such a service to have been remembered by the shop keeper much like Packer and his grapes?

Yet no record of Mary purchasing fish and potatoes seems to be around.

[Sam Flynn]

I don´t think that Dew implies that Maxwell´s mistake was what made Hutchinson err, Gary. He simply says that if one honest and benevolent witness an be wrong, then certainly two can be wrong too.

Dew included - albeit honesty and benevolence might not apply when trying to make one's biography more interesting.

[Sam Flynn]

Which to me suggests that fish porter Mr. Joseph Barnett may have been the supplier.

Fried fish and potatoes was a cheap and popular meal for East End residents, and readily available from various outlets until the small hours of the morning. We know from the Tabram case that fish'n'chips could be bought from a chandlers' shop in Thrawl Street until well past 1AM, for example.

[Fisherman]

But I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.

Indeed, if the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.

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. I believe that the man of the billycock hat and beard was the last person to enter Marie Kelly's room that night and was her killer. Always assuming that Mrs. Cox ever had seen her with a man.

Why would Maxwell’s mistake make it ‘probable’ that Hutch was also wrong? What was the connection?

Hutch sees an intoxicated Mary and Maxwell sees a hung-over Mary. And since Mary rarely drank, those two sightings were probably on the same morning. Is that his logic?

If not, what else might it be?

I don´t think that Dew implies that Maxwell´s mistake was what made Hutchinson err, Gary. He simply says that if one honest and benevolent witness an be wrong, then certainly two can be wrong too.

And I don´t think that his logic is that Kelly could or would not have been drunk two days in a row.

His logic is - if I am correct - that both witnesses were wrong, although such a thing should not be expected, statistically speaking.

In a way, we are dealing with the same kind of problem in the Chapman case, where not one or two but THREE witnesses will quite possibly have been wrong (or reporting unrelated events). We all know how this is something many people will not accept as a possibility, although it always must be, not least since we have a medico testifying against the idea that they were correct.

That is what I think Dew is saying: "Believe it or not, but it would seem BOTH of these sound and honest witnesses were actually wrong. How unlucky was that?"

[Batman]

Maxwell's claim is falsified by stomach content analysis.

Partially digested fish and potatoes.

This suggests MJK did not bring up any of that.

So unless she had a fish and potato breakfast, we can dismiss she was losing her stomach content because of the horrors of the drink.

Now unless I am wrong, the fact she had fish points at her obtaining fish.

Which to me suggests that fish porter Mr. Joseph Barnett may have been the supplier.

[MrBarnett]

But I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.

Indeed, if the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.

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. I believe that the man of the billycock hat and beard was the last person to enter Marie Kelly's room that night and was her killer. Always assuming that Mrs. Cox ever had seen her with a man.

Why would Maxwell’s mistake make it ‘probable’ that Hutch was also wrong? What was the connection?

Hutch sees an intoxicated Mary and Maxwell sees a hung-over Mary. And since Mary rarely drank, those two sightings were probably on the same morning. Is that his logic?

If not, what else might it be?

[Joshua Rogan]

Mrs Maxwell's police statement has Kelly admitting "I have the horrors of drink upon me, as I have been drinking for some days past".
So whether or not Hutchinson was mistaken about the day of his sighting, Kelly could still have been drinking, even if she was generally of sober habits.

[Fisherman]

OK - "definitely", then.

Wrong again. That often happens when we allow a burning wish to be right turn into an established fact.

[Fisherman]

This is Dew giving us his suspect based on a misunderstanding of Kelly’s drinking habits. Mere lapses of memory pale into insignificance in comparison.

He is at great pains to impress upon his readers how close he was to Ripper case. He tells us us that even though he was a junior officer, his superiors held him in such high regard that he was privy to all the details of the case.

Oh, and just for good measure, he assures us, his memory is excellent.

But what if he knew Kelly well, and she had told him - and he had accepted - that she did not drink other than occasionally and far between? In that case, he may have had another impression of her, that would likely be wrong, but it would nevertheless mean that he gave an honest picture of what he had been told.
We really must not jump to conclusions before we have all cards on hand, and I feel we are at risk to do so.

What is it Dew says? That she was more or less unused to alcohol, or that she was not in the habit of drinking very often? If we look at Barnett´s testimony:

"When she was with me I found her of sober habits, but she has been drunk several times in my presence."

... where does that leave us? Could it be that he had seen her drunk on five occasions and that she was otherwise always sober? And could such a thing match what Dew says?

[Sam Flynn]

There is no "surely" about it at all, I´m afraid.

OK - "definitely", then.

[Fisherman]

Indeed they do. But, seen alongside the other examples we've cited, this is surely another instance of Dew claiming to be more central to, and knowledgeable about, this world-famous case than he really was. Why should Dew be any different in this regard than many of his contemporaries whose memoirs and reminiscences clearly "big-up" their involvement in events.

There is no "surely" about it at all, I´m afraid.

[Fisherman]

I think we can safely interpret ‘spreeish’ as meaning excitedly intoxicated?

Perhaps so - you are the Brit. But what was said was "Kelly did not seem to me to be drunk, but was a little spreeish."

So not "spreeish" but "a little spreeish", and she did not seem drunk.

My understanding of it - as a Swede speaking another language than English - was that Kelly seemed to be in a high mood. I don´t exclude that Hutchinson left it open to questioning whether she had drunk alcohol at all, but that he certainly allowed for it.

[Fisherman]

I think we can safely interpret ‘spreeish’ as meaning excitedly intoxicated?

Here’s what others said about MJK:

Barnett:

When she was with me I found her of sober habits, but she has been drunk several times in my presence.


John McCarthy:

I frequently saw the deceased the worse for drink. When sober she was an exceptionally quiet woman, but when in drink she had more to say. She was able to walk about, and was not helpless.


Mary Ann Cox:

I have often seen the woman the worse for drink.


Julia Vanturney:

Deceased often got drunk.


Mrs Phoenix:

Very quarrelsome and abusive when intoxicated, but one of the most decent and nice girls you could meet when sober.


It seems that those who knew her best felt her drinking habits were noteworthy. And given that people are generally reluctant to ‘speak ill of the dead’ I think we can safely assume that Kelly was a bit of a boozer.

But according to Dew, she was not used to drinking, and that was the reason she was hung over when Maxwell saw her. (Incidentally there is at least one report where Kelly tells Maxwell she has the ‘horrors’ of drink, which sounds a lot more serious than a simple hangover.)

My reading of Dew’s rationale for dismissing Hutch’s sighting as being on the wrong day is that someone so unused to drinking is unlikely to have done so on two consecutive days, and since Maxwell clearly got her days wrong, so must Hutch.

Hm. I haven´t looked at it like that, Gary.
To begin with, if BOTH were out on the dates, then the likeliest thing would be if BOTH mistook Thursday for Friday, in which case Kelly would only be drunk on that one day.

But if we look closer at what Dew says, another possibility opens up:

"I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.

Indeed, if the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning."

So he speaks of being wrong about either person or time, and he says that if the doctors were right, then Maxwell CANNOT have been correct about person - IF she spoke to somebody on Friday morning, thinking it was Kelly.

Dew hands Maxwell the same clean bill as he provides Hutchinson with, and will not cast doubt on either witness.

Either way, we seem to be left with Kelly likely being affected by alcohol on just the one day. I don´t read Dew as claiming that Kelly could not possibly have drunk two days in a row, and indeed, it would not be a very useful assumption to make.

[MrBarnett]

Indeed they do. But, seen alongside the other examples we've cited, this is surely another instance of Dew claiming to be more central to, and knowledgeable about, this world-famous case than he really was. Why should Dew be any different in this regard than many of his contemporaries whose memoirs and reminiscences clearly "big-up" their involvement in events.

This is Dew giving us his suspect based on a misunderstanding of Kelly’s drinking habits. Mere lapses of memory pale into insignificance in comparison.

He is at great pains to impress upon his readers how close he was to Ripper case. He tells us us that even though he was a junior officer, his superiors held him in such high regard that he was privy to all the details of the case.

Oh, and just for good measure, he assures us, his memory is excellent.

[Fisherman]

If he had mixed up the days - which I don't believe for one minute - then we must accept that Hutchinson had witnessed Kelly's encounter with an unusually dressed and sinister-looking customer clutching a dodgy parcel in the small hours of another morning shortly before her death - how likely is that? Assuming Hutchinson didn't make it up, of course - if he had, why approach the police with an invented story that didn't take place on the morning of the murder? Neither option makes sense.

Because, Gareth, he THOUGHT that it was the morning of the murder. And running into unusually dressed and sinister-looking (?) customers with parcels in their hands is not more likely to happen of Fridays than on Thursdays. Or any other day.