The Statement of George Hutchinson

[Ben]

Hi Fish,

I'm not expressing any personal opinion as to the likelihood of Abberline being responsible for the ammendment. It just occured to be that the inward-bending H's that were evident in his handwriting may have been a by-product of style ornamentation of the type that needed to be "downgraded" or dispensed with altogether if the writing had to be particularly small. I could be way off, however, and the observation concerning the Queen's Head could have nothing to do with the "H".

Hope your fishing trip was an enjoyable one.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Itīs the darndest thing, Ben - but no options can be excluded. Therefore, Abberline MAY have been in the habit of switching from clockwise to anti-ditto when minimizing his letters. But I think it would be a lot more logical option to chance that he did not do so. The smaller space afforded to him was not the result of a retraction of the space to the right of his letters only, and so the more reasonable thing to do would be to write smaller letters with the same general leaning and the same clockwise turning of them.

The reverse, though (in a doubled meaning) can not be excluded. Only very strongly questioned.

Fisherman

[Crystal]

You're right Ben. It has nothing to do with the 'H'. For once. Another round of speculation, anyone? Er.. This IS the 1911 thread...isn't it?

[Ally]

Well then Crystal, then what precisely does it have to do with. I mean I am sure we are all just dying to hear what your so-called EXPERT opinion is? Or do you have nothing further to add and are just hanging around to say nothing whatsoever? You did indicate you were leaving forever right? If you aren't going to actually add anything productive, why don't you stick to that?

[Christine]

The u is different. The Abberline u has left arm higher. Queen's Head u has both arms the same height.

Queen's Head n has an open downstroke--it looks like a v with an extra stroke, or a w missing the last stroke. Abberline n has matched vertical downstroke and upstroke that curves away exactly halfway up.

Aberline s is convex on the right side. Queen's Head s is shaped like an s on the right. (This sort of cursive s was originally a regular zig-zag s with a connecting stroke from the left, but many people were taught to write it so it looks almost like an o.)

Abberline a is entered from the top and is an almond shaped loop. Queen's Head a is open at the top, resembling u.

Abberline d is very distinctive. It's upstroke to a midpoint, small almost closed loop to the same midpoint, upstroke to make the ascender, then trace upstroke back to the midpoint. It looks like a five way intersection. Queen's head d is also distinctive, but not at all the same.

[Ben]

The u is different. The Abberline u has left arm higher. Queen's Head u has both arms the same height.

If you ever get an opportunity to consult Abberline's original endorsement appended to the back of the statement, Christine, you'll notice that his "u"s varied considerably with regard to the height of his left and right stems. For example, when he wrote the word "Hutchinson" the right stem was higher than the left.

Abberline n has matched vertical downstroke and upstroke that curves away exactly halfway up

This is an interesting one. Abberline's "n" tails are skyward-pointing, just like Toppy's. When Abberline wrote the words "Hutchinson" and "Description", the final n-tails both had a conspicuously northerly inclination. Whenever an "n" was included in mid-sentence, however, they tended to have the appearance of a "w missing the last stroke" as you describe it. The first lower-case n of Abberline's "Hutchinson" provides a good example of this.

As for Abberline's "s", check out Bob Hinton's attachment. Compare the "s" at the end of "Queens" with the "s" at the end of the word "constables" in Abberline's report.

You make the observation that the "a" of "Queen's Head" is open at the top, which is a sound one, but then Abberline's "a"s were very much open-topped when he wrote the sentence "Description of a man seen with Marie Jeanette Kelly...". In both cases, the bold-highlighted "a"s were open-topped and strongly resembled "u"s.

All the best,
Ben

[Christine]

Hi Ben.

The s at the end of "Queens" does not look like the s at the end of "Constables." All of Abberline's s are round, and could be mistaken for the letter o (although like most people, Abberline wrote his o counterclockwise and his s clockwise). The s at the end of Queens is a zig-zag s with a leading stroke--it looks sort of like an ampersand, written backwards.

I don't claim to know how significant this is, but these are the sorts of markers that do not usually change, even if a person switches pens, or gets older. I'm certainly not a document examiner, just someone who has more than a passing interest in handwriting. I haven't seen the other statement, though, so I can't comment on that. Anyhow, I doubt if you can get much out of ten letters, but it really doesn't look like Abberline to me.

[Ben]

Hi Christine,

The s at the end of "Queens" does not look like the s at the end of "Constables."

I'd have to disagree. They resemble eachother pretty strongly, both exhibiting the same rather dumpy circular traits which, as you note, make them difficult to distinguish from "o"s. I don't see anything remotely zig-zagging about the last letter of "Queen's". If you ever get an opportunity to see Abberline's statement endorsement, you'll notice that most of the traits you referred to as being absent or different from the "Queens Head" are present in that report, perhaps most notably the open topped "a"s you referred to earlier.

This thread has a perilous chance of resembling another "1911"!

All the best,
Ben

[The Good Michael]

Ben,

Why do you want them to resemble each other when they don't. If it is going to become 1911, it's because you can't let go of Hutch, when he's only hanging on by his baby finger. Drop him.

Mike

[Ally]

I agree with Christine. The "s" in Queens shows a distinct point and a line on the left side, whereas Abberline's "s's" tend to be rounded, without a distinct point at the top.

Not a match.

[Ben]

Why do you want them to resemble each other when they don't. If it is going to become 1911, it's because you can't let go of Hutch, when he's only hanging on by his baby finger

It makes no difference to me whether they resemble eachother or not. I'm just pointing out that some of the traits being referred to as indicative of "difference" are nothing of the sort when we examine the statement endorsement written by Abberline. If I come across a good reason to "let go of Hutch", I'll do so. So far, nothing on this thread had prompted me to do that, and I'm afraid document examiners behaving badly in serial killer message board chatrooms don't make a character from 1888 any less suspicious.

But if people want to keep endlessly arguing with me about it, bring it on.

Clearly I'm not going anyhere.

If people want another posting war resembling the 1911 thread, by all means join me and I'll see you on page 1,000,000.

[Ally]

Which is of course your way of hoping people will be scared off and you have a defacto win.

But that's okay, I for one and completely comfortable also sticking around and pointing out how your reason and eyesight tend to fail completely in this matter.

As often as it takes.

[Ben]

Wonderful.

No, I'm not hoping you'll go anywhere. If I'm supposed to be the Hutchinson zealot in this equation, I guess the logic goes that I utterly thrive on the prospect of interminable debates on the topic of Hutchinson. But glad to have hypnotized another one. We're almost on 4000 posts.

Stick around,

Ben

[The Good Michael]

Ben,

Serious question: What do you lose by not posting on this thread? What compels you to stand in there with Hutch/Toppy in leg-irons, as if by not posting, you will cease to exist? Fisherman took time off and it all stayed right where it was. Why is this a battle you must win?

Mike

[Ben]

Mike,

I'm genuinely not interested in battles, and for the record, I have never started a Hutchinson thread in my life. All I've done is address the points raised, and where the arguments and counter-points have been expecially vocal, I've been tenacious. If there were no contributions to the Hutchinson threads, I can guarantee you I would not have started a fight for no reason. I've reacted, that's all.

All the best,
Ben