Proof of identity

[Ben]

Hi Gareth,

I really can't see that "Man in East End gets fiver" would ripple throughout London, Ben.

One wouldn't have thought so, but since it merited inclusion in the "Gossip" column of the Wheeling Register, it must have circulated somewhat. Unless the paper had an extraordinarily well-informed and sagacious "networker" amongst its journalists who picked up on details curiously and conspicuously overlooked by all British newspapers, it seems a safe bet that the gossip wasn't of the best quality, and was quickly dismissed for its all-round "wrongness". The trouble I have with the "had to be there" premise is that other journalists clearly were "there", and either missed these rumours completely, or flatly contradicted them as was the case with the "furiously drunk" revelation.

The thrust of the "payment" story wasn't that an East End man was paid a fiver, but that a man invented a suspect description in order to obtain a fiver. If this was true, it would have been a fairly big story, especially in light of the initial enthusiam for "Hunt Astrakhan" on 13th and 14th November.

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Ben,

The police were extremely unlikely to have paid off a witness to the tune of such a large sum

Three things: One, what is the precedent that would allow us to assert that the police wouldn't have parted with a fiver, especially if they thought they were onto something good? Two, was £5 such a large sum anyway? Three, if it was Hutchinson himself exaggerating the amount and originating the gossip, then how come Toppy gets to hear of the sum if he wasn't living comparatively locally at the time and/or wasn't one and the same person?

[Ben]

The East End working class - skilled and unskilled alike - were likely to have experienced fallow periods of employment at this time.

Not if you've got a dad in the biz who can apprentice you, Gareth, and even if he did experience a dry spell in 1888, that would have made him a "plumber by trade, now working as a labourer" not a "groom, now working as a labourer". Why would plumbing work be seasonal? Surely loos can go wrong at any time of year?

[Sam Flynn]

The trouble I have with the "had to be there" premise is that other journalists clearly were "there", and either missed these rumours completely, or flatly contradicted them as was the case with the "furiously drunk" revelation.

The "furiously drunk" story applied to Barnett, as I'm sure you know, Ben (just thought I'd clarify that for the sake of others).

As to the rest - I'm not suggesting that the Wheeling Register was right about any of this, or that its correspondent "was there". It's easy enough to pull together a mish-mash of a column based on press agency reports that other papers may have rejected, and this is what may well have happened in this case.

However, that still leaves us lacking an explanation as to where this story of "Hutchinson's windfall" came from, and it still remains for us to explain how Toppy arrives at broadly the same story - unless he was there to hear the same story that the other local newspapers decided not to print. If he was, then either we have two George Hutchinsons in the "gossip zone" at the same time, or we have only one. If the latter is true, then it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Toppy was indeed the same George Hutchinson who came up with the Astrakhan story.

[Ben]

Hi Gareth,

In order, then:

One, what is the precedent that would allow us to assert that the police wouldn't have parted with a fiver, especially if they thought they were onto something good?

Hutchinson had no choice in the matter. It wouldn't have been a case of "Oh, come with us...please, we'll pay you!", but rather, "We need you to do this, and you'll be obstructing police business if you say no". If they wanted him, he'd have to jump to it. If they paid him, and that payment ever became public, it would attract all kinds of dubious witnesses all turning up with new "sightings" all eager to be paid off.

Two, was £5 such a large sum anyway?

Five times a normal salary would have paid for more than just a new wideawake and a tot of rum, methinks.

Three, if it was Hutchinson himself exaggerating the amount and originating the gossip, then how come Toppy gets to hear of the sum if he wasn't living comparatively locally at the time and/or wasn't one and the same person?

Toppy probably didn't hear of it at all. More likely he came up with the roundest figure possible in an effort to fuel the notion that dear old dad was paid off to keep quiet about Churchillstrakhan the Ripper, with a few leading remarks from Fairclough and Sickert, no doubt. I'm sorry, but what a trio, and what a book!

[Sam Flynn]

Why would plumbing work be seasonal? Surely loos can go wrong at any time of year?

...pipes burst more often in the Winter, as we know. It must have been even more true back then when most bogs were in the back yard

[Ben]

However, that still leaves us lacking an explanation as to where this story of "Hutchinson's windfall" came from

Two highly dubious sources, Gareth. And as I'm sure you know, two dubious sources attesting to the same thing don't equal "interesting coincidence", especially if the payment detail is incredibly unlikely and the occupations and signatures don't match etc.

pipes burst more often in the Winter

Aha! So plenty of plumbing work in cold November then.

[Observer]

Hi

The general consensus regarding Hutchinson here in this forum seems to imply that Hutchinson was a fantasist. I am therefore amazed that the detractors to his 9th Nov sighting take his assertion that he was a groom at face value. If he was lying about the well-dressed man he saw with Kelly, who’s to say he wasn’t in actual fact a plumber?

Observer

[Ben]

If he was lying about the well-dressed man he saw with Kelly, who’s to say he wasn’t in actual fact a plumber?

A) Why would he lie about that?

B) If Toppy was lying about everything, he was not, as his son claimed, an honest-to-goodness gent who "never embellished anything"

C) How could the police have paid him at "five times his normal salary" without knowing what his occupation was?

[The Good Michael]

Jumping on the bandwagon: As I said, the thought of a payoff to someone for information has a ring of credibility to it. This happens all the time today, and especially in large cities. I suggest that there had to have been cash around for such purposes, and especially when there was such desperation. There was nothing but lousy leads and then there is a man who can describe in detail the killer, but needs a bit of remuneration for his efforts and time.

This is highly plausible, and the only real reason to doubt it is because one may want to look at Hutchinson as a killer, and we don't think of a vicious murderer necessarily as someone who would turn around and make a profit from it in this way.

I'm not saying that Hutchinson wasn't colorful on his description, just that it is very plausible that a poor ex-groom, living in the Victorian Home, and without any money, may have sought a way to get some.

Cheers,

Mike

[Ben]

I'm not saying that Hutchinson wasn't colorful on his description, just that it is very plausible that a poor ex-groom, living in the Victorian Home, and without any money, may have sought a way to get some.

Absolutely, Mike, and that holds true irrespective of whether or not he was a killer. But even if he did have hopes of being paid off, he certainly wouldn't have received any dough from the cops unless his description led to the miscreant's capture. Pay-offs occur, but no so much with witnesses because they'd be deluged with liars and money-grabbers that way. If they wanted Hutchinson to accompanty them, he'd be forced to agree. They could conceivably pay a witness expenses for assistance, but five times a normal salary is fantastically unlikely.

Cheers,
Ben

[Observer]

A) Why would he lie about that?

B) If Toppy was lying about everything, he was not, as his son claimed, an honest-to-goodness gent who "never embellished anything"

C) How could the police have paid him at "five times his normal salary" without knowing what his occupation was?

A. Because he was a liar. Also see (C)



B. Come on Ben, his son was hardly likely to have called his father a liar on live radio.



C. Because he was aware that he was to receive five times his weekly wage. Had he worked as a groom on a casual basis at some time or other. Was a groom paid more per week that a plumber? If so then it would make sense to tell the authorities he was a groom

Observer

[Ben]

Unlike many aspects of Hutchinson's account, his employment details weren't beyond the realms of "checkability", and it if transpired that he'd lied about his occupation, he certainly wouldn't have been paid off. At the time he related his statement, he wasn't "aware that he was to receive five times his weekly wage". That was alleged only in connection with his wandering the streets on an Astrakhan-hunt.

And if Reg knew that Toppy was a liar...but odd to go public about it in 1992? Especially it served the purpose of adding an even more ludicrous element to an aleady ludicrous account.

[Observer]

Hi

Are you trying to tell me that the police would have doubted his given occupation as that of a groom? Why would they assume that he was telling lies regarding his occupation? At what point did it become apparent to Hutchinson that he was to recieve five times his salary? You say

That was alleged only in connection with his wandering the streets on an Astrakhan-hunt.

Who's to know, it could well be that he was aware of this arangement before he even entered the police station. It could well be that he was on the make from the word go.

Observer

[Sam Flynn]

They could conceivably pay a witness expenses for assistance, but five times a normal salary is fantastically unlikely.

£5 was a nice little earner, for sure - but "fantastically unlikely"? Even if it were, we're not debating the accuracy of the amount, or anything else pertaining to this or Hutchinson's story. The interesting thing about this discussion is that it appears that somebody got wind of the story and printed it in a single obscure American paper, and the fact that the newspaper article has intriguing parallels to a tale which was told by Reg Hutchinson some 80 years later.