Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[Ben]

With respect, Mike, it is very clear that Astrakhan and the Bethnal Green botherer could not have been the same person, even if Hutchinson was telling the truth. Both Lewis and Hutchinson claimed to have recorded the time from church clocks that were unlikely to have been in error, and at 2:30am, Hutchinson was already waiting for the Astrakhan man to come out of Miller's Court. Not so coincidentally, Lewis saw someone "waiting for someone to come out" of Miller's Court at the same time.

Lewis saw her first man, the Bethnal Green Botherer at the same time (2.30) when the latter was stationed outside the Britannia, near the market on Commercial Street.

Put simply, these three things happened more or less simultaneously.

1 - Hutchinson was waiting for Astrakhan to emerge from Miller's Court.
2 - Lewis' wideawake man was apparently waiting to emerge from Miller's Court.
3 - Bethnal Green botherer was on Commercial Street.

BGB and Astrakhan must therefore have been separate entities, the recognition of which does not exclude the possibility that Hutchinson borrowed details from Lewis' BGB description for incorporation into a bogus account and description, nor does it negate the suggestion that Abberline might initially have endorsed Hutchinson's account because of the superficial similarity between Astrakhan and BGB.

But as we know, this endorsement was not to last.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

"Your opinion is ''Unless you[ myself] can prove that Topping was the witness Hutchinson, shut up and be quiet''

I don’t demand proof, Richard, just evidence. Unfortunately, you haven’t even done that. A radio show that may or may not have existed, and which may or may not have featured Toppy fails spectacularly to qualify as anything vaguely resembling “evidence”, especially when we only have your word for it that existed, let alone featured Toppy.

A possibly non-existent, zero-provenance radio show from the 1970s doesn’t help “The Ripper and the Royals” in lending weight to the Toppy theory, nor does it assist the disastrously nonsensical Wheeling Register “gossip” column.

“Thats enough of me , how about introducing to us the real George Hutchinson? so we can compare..”

I would suggest the Hutch-comparison website off the telly might help:

Go compare!
Go compare!
Let’s find that chap
Who spouted crap
At Go Compare.

It wasn’t Toppy
But don’t get stroppy.

Just say thank you, Ben, for suggesting Go Compare!

Or failing that there’s always census research.

All joking aside, though, I don’t need to find a “rival” candidate of my own to demonstrate that Toppy is a misfit for a role of the real witness, anymore that the Maybrick diary detractors need to find a “rival” candidate to Maybrick in order to demonstrate that the document was forged.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

“I also think it is not a very nice thing to do - to try and implement the ppicture that a poster that opposes you do not do so out of rational decisions tied to the material of the case, but instead because of some sort of strange obsession."

Well then just say “I agree” when it comes to aspects of the case where we do happen to agree, such as the likelihood that Kelly was not up and about in sobered up "spreeish" fashion at 2.00am that night. We already have enough to disagree over without creating additional unnecessary discord.

“What stands to reason is that he WOULD have seen her IF HE WAS THERE. If he was NOT there, we should be very forgiving that he didnīt.”

But the chances of him not being there are astronomically slim, in my opinion, especially when we considere Lewis’ evidence. The chances of him not having seen Lewis, therefore, are to be considered equally remote.

“Mine is supported by a policeman from the time, yours is not.”

That would be Walter Dew, who you told me got things “terribly wrong”, and whose memoirs you told me are “riddled with mistakes”. You personally urged me not to listen to him.

“Mine has the evidence that Lewis was not mentioned speaking for it, yours do not have this advantage.”

This is irritating nonsense. “Mine” has the advantage of Sarah Lewis’ evidence miraculously coinciding, with near exactitude, with Hutchinson’s account of his location and movements at a certain time on the night of Kelly’s murder. Hutchinson probably deliberately avoided mentioning Sarah Lewis to avoid making it obvious that it was her evidence, and particularly her sighting of him, that forced his hand.

“But that, Ben, would not have prevented them from asking the very obvious questions about how Kelly was dressed and how he knew her”

Bu there’s no evidence that Hutchinson was ever asked any such question. There’s no reference to it in the statement, the police report, or any press version of his account. This tells me – and should tell everyone else – that absence of evidence almost certainly equated to evidence of absence in this, unlike other loose ends that were clarified in Abberline’s report.

“The police report, Ben: "About 2 am 9th I was coming...”

No.

That’s not the police report. That’s the actual statement. The police report was the document appended to the statement in which Abberline outlined his views on Abberline and fleshed out certain aspects of his statement (aspects that did not include Kelly’s clothing).

"Oh, but of course, we’re all fainting ‘neath the impenetrably logical arguments of Fisherman and Fetchbeer, with support from Mike"

Irony? Yes?”

You are astonishingly perceptive.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Letchington,

I love the fact that you recognised that I would argue that this matter “until the cows come home” but still decided to plug away at it anyway.

“The reason I raised the toper issue was to counter your confident assertion that someone who appeared drunk at 11.45 pm, couldn’t possibly appear to be merely speeish by 2.15am”

I didn’t say it was impossible. I said it was very unlikely, although I would tend to endorse Garry’s observation that “it would further appear to be a physiological impossibility”. You have presented no evidence to suggest that Kelly had ever been a “toper” as you understand the expression (i.e. not very well, in my opinion), and the witness evidence from the inquest would tend to suggest instead that she was an occasional heavy drinker. If she was concerned about the rent and “had a need” to go out again, why did she get incredibly sloshed before hand when she knew it would only a provide a disincentive, if not a very strong impediment, to venturing out again into a cold night in miserable weather than there were previous few clients around?

The idea that Blotchy didn’t share his booze amounts to a rather nonsensical resistance to the glaringly obvious likelihood that he did. If he wasn’t a client, it was only natural for Blotchy to have shared his pail if he had any intention of remaining in the room, and if he was a client, it is reasonable to assume that the pail contents pay have contributed towards the payment for her services. As for street soliciting, it is clear that Mary Cox was doing precisely that on the night of Kelly’s death rather than going to and from the court, and the rain would hardly have been a deterrent given the proliferation of covered passages in and around the district.

“Oh – so you are qualified to tell us that Victorian murder victims shouted out ‘murder’ are you?”

No, I’m saying that you are most assuredly NOT qualified to assert that a Victorian murder victim would not shout out “murder” just because you think it seems a bit weird from your modern perspective. Nobody ever said that cries of “murder” were common in the district; only that cries in general were not unusual. If you think this remotely enervates the “coincidence” factor between a cry of murder coming from the court, and someone getting murdered later that morning in the same court, I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken. But then again, you’ve already dismissed several glaringly obvious evidential links as having no connection.

“I haven’t suggested he lied about living at the Victoria Home in November 1889. I have suggested that it is unlikely that he lived there for the full fourteen months preceding”

But you have no reason to suggest any such thing, Lechmere, so why bother?

Sally has disabused of you of some of your misconceptions now, anyway.

Since when did Fleming enter into a discussion about “Topping Hutchinson”?

“Archaic didn't really provide any meaningful information on the meaning of 'military appearance'.”

Ah, that’s nice.

The source doesn’t mesh up too cleverly with Lechmere’s conclusions, so Lechmere rejects the source.

Archaic provided an unambiguous source that informed us exactly what “military appearance” meant in the late 19th century, so any protestations to contrary are hereafter to be considered worthless.

[The Good Michael]

David, well I LOOK that's for sure.

Mike

[DVV]

Lol....you look a desperate desperate detective, my dear.

[The Good Michael]

What you call "similarity" is far too vague to identify the A-Man and the "gentleman" noticed by Lewis, that's all.

Not by intelligent detectives looking for a killer. By you, Ok.

Mike

[DVV]

Nope, and the problem is rather about what you are looking for.
What you call "similarity" is far too vague to identify the A-Man and the "gentleman" noticed by Lewis, that's all.
Not to mention the timing.

[The Good Michael]

That's only because Hawaii was not yet a state, and the marketeers hadn't come in yet to exploit floral patterns. Is that kind of what you were looking for?

Mike

[DVV]

David, aren't the ages of 35 and 40 similar? Isn't a dark jacket and a dark short coat similar? Isn't small and 5'6" similar? Isn't Black mustache and slight mustache (probabaly black) similar? Surly and frightenling are similar as well.

That's right, Mike, but as you very well know, Hawaian shirts were not as common as moustaches in 1888, and many people are said to have frightened women during the ripper scare.

[DVV]

Once again, my guess is that the police tried their best.

Hutch said he saw the A-Man at about 2.00, and Lewis said she saw "a gentleman" at about 2.30.

In my opinion that's not enough to assume they were one and the same person. It's barely a very vague possibility (for those who believe in Hutch's statement).

[The Good Michael]

David,

Nobody saw her there at 2 AM. Did anybody mention seeing Hutchinson? How about Lewis? Nobody saw anybody because no one cared and most of the people were sh!t-faced. What about at 2:30? Was anyone asked about 2:30 specifically?

Mike

David, aren't the ages of 35 and 40 similar? Isn't a dark jacket and a dark short coat similar? Isn't small and 5'6" similar? Isn't Black mustache and slight mustache (probabaly black) similar? Surly and frightenling are similar as well.

[DVV]

I don't follow that logic.

I'm sure you could.

Lewis saw a man

Ok.

and Toppy saw a similar man

No, not a "similar" man, just a "Gentleman" about 40, whereas Hutch's Astrakhan Man looks more like the villain in a cheap novel.

Lewis may have seen Kelly, but how would she know?

Of course she wouldn't know, and you did make no mistake about that. But once again, nobody has seen Kelly there that night, although the police did their best to ascertain her whereabouts.

All in all, your hypothesis is possible, yes, but very remotely possible.

[The Good Michael]

David,

I don't follow that logic. Lewis saw a man and Toppy saw a similar man, with some variation of clothing. Toppy saw Kelly and Lewis saw a hatless prostitute type. Lewis may have seen Kelly, but how would she know?

[DVV]

To david: Of course Lewis didn't know Kelly or she'd have said, "Kelly was with the creepy guy I saw at 2:30." Duh.

Mike

Don't get me wrong, Mike : I know that you know that Lewis didn't know Kelly.
My point is : it makes the identification of the man seen by Lewis with Astrakhan Man even more flimsy.