Romford to Millers court

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

Apologies if this has been mentioned before here, but I believe I have read somewhere that it had been raining all day too...If so, that fellow would have been slowed down considerably, and that notwithstanding, would have been soaked to the skin...

best wishes

Phil

[Rubyretro]

the biggest assumption here is that Hutchinson did the things he said he did.All without knowing his state of health and mind.

[/QUOTE]

I think that there are some things that we can assume though, Harry..

We can assume that the Police would have checked out the story of a man
lurking at the scene of a crime by his own admission. It has got to be suspicious, and I can't believe that they would've have just taken his word on everything and not verified what was possible to verify.

People must have been able to confirm the Romford story. He can't have been invisible looking for work, or working, or trekking along a busy main road.

Hutchinson was placing himself under the spotlight by coming forward as a
witness. It is very difficult to prove Astrakhan
Man existed (I think that he made it up) and it was nearly impossible to verify that (although the police seem to have rapidly discounted it).

I just can't believe that he lied about everything -he would surely have been arrested in the circumstances if EVERYTHING that he said was quickly shown to be a tissue of lies.

He could have just said that he had no money for a doss that night -he didn't need to elaborate on Romford.

If he worked as a labourer, or humping barrels in a pub (and given the sketch in the papers), we can assume that he was in good health -even muscle bound.

I've said before -personally, of all the witnesses, Hutch is the one that I believe the most.
I think that he was JtR, and I don't believe that he'd risk being hung by being caught out in a lie on an unimportant and verifiable detail. I think that he would only lie where it was necessary.

[Fisherman]

Rubyretro writes:

"I'm not a Rambler or anything, but I've already pointed out that I've lived
in rural areas without a car & got used to doing very long distances on foot.
I know people that walk these sort of distances for pleasure. It doesn't seem a miraculously long distance to me.

Besides -he could have hitched parts of the way on a passing wagon
(I imagine that it was a busy road, and people would have picked up a working man)."

Good to hear we agree on the main point here. As for the hitching, we actually know that Hutch stated to the papers that he walked all the way.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

. As for the hitching, we actually know that Hutch stated to the papers that he walked all the way.

It's boring nitpicking -but if he had walked but hitched , say 4 miles, it probably wasn't worth mentioning. Yet it would knock time and fatigue off the trip.

Still, I don't think that it's important & only speculation.

[Fisherman]

Hi Rubyretro!

Of course one would think that he may have hitched at least some stretch, but all we have to go by is his own words. In the Pall Mall Gazette of November 14, it is worded:
"On Thursday I had been to Romford, and I returned from there about two o'clock on Friday morning, having walked all the way."

...and so that is what we are stuck with. He apparently brought the subject up on his own (or in answer to a question by the reporter), and I think we need to accept it as a fact. The possibility of course remains that you may be right, and if so, the journey would have been an even easier one to undertake, but since we have it in record that he did walk all the way ... well, you know!

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

I don't get the problem with Hutch's walk back from Romford. He would have had a rough idea of how long it had taken him to get there, and therefore a rough idea of how long it would take to get back if he had no luck getting work there. If he spent the whole time looking and not finding anything, he could well have been reluctant to admit defeat and call it a day, with the result that he misjudged the time he would need to get back to a bed at the Victoria Home. Setting out fresh and hopeful in the morning, in reasonable weather and spirits, would have been very different from trudging home again after sundown, money all spent and nothing to show for it, wet and weary in the rain. It's not hard to see how that would have added an hour or two to his return plod.

I just don't see why he needed to introduce Romford at all if it was a lie. Why risk the cops saying what today's couch potato tecs say: "Pull the other one, you deeply suspicious character. Nobody walks that far, so tell us what you were really doing", if his actual movements during the day on Thursday had been far more credible but just as irrelevant to the murder in Miller's Court? Mary was dead so she couldn't contradict anything he said about their alleged conversation. He wasn't obliged to tell this woman why he didn't have sixpence to spare for her, so this bit of his statement always smacked of a raw honesty to me. There would have been no point using such a line on the street-wise Mary if Romford was such an obviously tall tale, and if Hutch knew it, he could have expected Abberline and co to know it too.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Spot on, Caz!

The best,
Fisherman

[Robert]

It's difficult at this remove to know what was going on. For instance : suppose the police found a man's red handkerchief in Kelly's room? That would lend credence to GH's story. If Atrakhan was a punter, I don't suppose he'd want his hanky back after Kelly used it. If he was JTR, he still might not want it back. After all, a hanky in those days wasn't too much of a clue.

[Rubyretro]

[? That would lend credence to GH's story

.

I don't see why a 'red hanky' would lend credence to Hutch's story -it might have been his own hanky.

I think a witness -was it Lawende ?- mentioned a red hanky, and I read that they were common attire in the East End at that time.

Personally, I think it likely that it was Hutch that had a red hanky, and the scene that he described with Mary and the hanky may have been true, but involved himself : we'll never know.

[tellybelly]

Garry - Yes i am entitled to my opinion and you to yours. But i make my point again and that is you have no better idea than me of Hutchinson's actions, movements, actions, life, lifestyle etc. So to call my opinion 'misplaced' seems to me to be a little bit arrogant and based on a historical knowledge that you simply do not have given the passage of time that has passed and lack of records we have about Hutchinson.

[Rubyretro]

Tellybelly -Garry was quietly and politely making an entirely logical point.

[Marc]

We can assume that the Police would have checked out the story of a man
lurking at the scene of a crime by his own admission.

They definitely (IMHO) should have, provided they didn't react like some fellow board members who say "if Hutch was JtR, he wouldn't have come forward" so this guy is innocent, let's take his story at face value, at worst, he is just an imaginative geek

Apology mode 'ON':

OK, guys, please take it easy, I don't want to poke fun at anyone I can understand the point around 'shy Jack', let's say this was just meant to get Ruby rolling again (she doesn't even need it BTW)

[Rubyretro]

[Ho ! Thought that you'd suggested for a moment that I didn't even need a BMW.

[Marc]

A modest and short update around the walking distance/time issue.

Sorry to resort again to family traditions , but they can offer, may be, some interesting anecdotes :

My paternal Grand-Father (born 1902) always told me about the balls he attended while at his parent's, covering the distance to and back on foot in the same night.
It sounded like it was some serious business, but too good to pass on.

I had remembered both place's name because I visited them once, but never had checked the actual distance.
Just have done so with Via Michelin : 6.5 miles, given at 2.38" on foot.

Thus my Grand-Father covered around 13 Miles in one night, just for the pleasure of dancing a few walz, at the prescribed distance of 3 feet from his partners of the 'tender sex'.
We modern gents have no idea of the effort men, particularly young men, would go through only to exchange glances and have a few dances with young ladies back in the days

At last, a personnal experience FWIW : having chosen to stay with other friends at a party while 'our' driver had called it a day, we ended up making the return trip on foot, walking along a country road :
- 9,4 miles
- rainy weather
- 3 hours

[Marc]

Thought that you'd suggested for a moment that I didn't even need a BMW.

Do you ?