Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Sally]

Who is this 'Mr Ben'? Off chasing Dr Mopp, presumably, who was quite obviously Mr Astrakhan...



Is that a parcel in his left hand??

[Lechmere]

Sally – I presume he was temporarily unemployed, probably momentarily between jobs. My guess is he turned up late to the police station on the Monday as he had been working. However I also would guess that earning a few bob from the police would have gone down well with him instead of having to do real work.

Mr Ben
The evidence that the police regarded lodging houses as a likely location for the Ripper isn’t in my opinion really Reid incognito, it is the fact that they routinely started making detailed enquiries at lodging houses. The fact that this drew a blank might explain Abberline’s later remark.

It isn’t criminal psychology that tells us that culprits often feature in investigations. It is merely a blindingly obvious outcome. The culprit is likely to be someone who had something to do with the crime, the crime scene, profiting from the crime, knowing the victim or whatever.

I would suggest that this is less true of serial killers as the police usually have nothing really to go on.

I didn’t provide a comprehensive list of why I think Hutchinson didn’t do it (although I have before).

There is changing his MO in so many different ways just for the Kelly case - stalking, attacking a known victim, inserting himself in the case. I know serial killers sometimes change their MO drastically. But these features are radical departures just for this case. The Kelly case has a different MO anyway – much worst mutilations and it was carried out indoors. All in all, if the Hutchinson culprit MO changes are added, it becomes implausible to me. Particularly when added to the other ‘why not Hutchinson’ reasons.

I don’t believe it is at all likely that he would have heard about Lewis’s testimony so quickly
I believe (as often said) that the police would have given him a thorough check over to satisfy themselves that he was innocent.
I believe living in the Victoria Home, of all lodging houses, would make it difficult for him. The lack of privacy at a lodging house makes it unlikely to me that the culprit lived in one anyway.
I think it is likely he was Toppy and that he lived a normal, well adjusted life after this little drama.

[Rubyretro]

Hi lechemere,
I enjoyed your posts this evening -and I'm not being sarcastic.

[QUOTE]

Rubyretro – on this business of mixing up days. If you confuse yourself as to what you did on one day, for example believing what you did on Friday you actually did on Thursday, this does not imply that there is a missing day from you memory. It just very simply means that you got muddled up. The same person could quite easily have exact recall for what they did on Saturday and Sunday.

Well, as I already replied to Fish, although you might very well forget what day you had 'pea soup' or 'rode a bike' is all very well -it's pretty risible to imagine that you would forget what day a very remarkable event happened
-a day that happened to coincide with other memorable events.

I will agree with you that he seemed a rather chatty, outwardgoing type when talking to the Press, and living in proximity to so many other people,
it is ridiculous that he didn't hear about the murder, hear about the Lord Mayor's show, notice the crowds and Police flooding into the area, know what day he had had a long walk, and be able to fix his memory.

I am not a devout follower of the day out theory by the way. I can see both strengths and weaknesses in the argument, but it is certainly in my opinion a valid theory.

I'm glad that you're 'not a devout follower of the theory'. In my opinion it is certainly not a 'valid theory'.
[QUOTE]

I see no problem in Fisherman proposing various or even contradictory theories. It actually shows an open mind

I enjoy Fish proposing different theories -although I suspect that they are often the result of enjoying arguing something totally outrageous rather than
actually believing what he's arguing. I think that he offers 'contradictory theories' simply because he's losing on one tack so tries another !

I can even accept (as I have said several times) that Hutchinson makes a better culprit than nearly all other proposed culprits.

Good for you ! I once was a fervent Toppy-ite until I saw that it just didn't make sense.

However I would wager my brass door knocker on them being more than familiar with day time choruses of ‘Oh, come, all ye faithful’.
After all we know:
“Adjoining the house is a lecture hall, containing chairs, a raised platform, and a small organ. This is used for temperance meetings”.

This is really interesting to me ! I didn't know that ! I'm sure that I read somewhere that there were prayer meetings in the rooms above the house in Hanbury Street, where Annie was murdered ? Is this just another red herring (Religious Mania ?).

I once made a joke about Hutch reading the bible every night -maybe he did !

I forgot to mention that I don't think at all that the Ripper would have bloody clothing and bloody clothes to give for 'safekeeping' at the Victoria (a knife for work, and minimal blood spatter on clothing). But you must admit that this
facility of keeping things safe from prying eyes , sounds very handy.

So what do you think if the Ripper was a compulsive cleaner (military spick and span' appearance), temperate, and a bible basher ? -would he be allowed into the Victoria home then ? Would he pass Abberline's checks ?

I'm not saying that I believe this at all -but I'd like to know what you think ?

And why is it 'Mr Wroe' and 'Mr Ben' ? I want to be 'Miss Ruby' !! (sounds rather Tennessee Williams -please write it with an accent !)

[Sally]

Unemployment

Much seems to be made of Hutchinson's unemployment and how it would have appeared suspicious to the police. Almost certainly, he was not unemployed. It looks very much as if less than 5% of the residency of the Victoria Home were unemployed.

He was not in regular employment, according to himself. All that means is that he didn't have a stable, permanent job. He clearly did have regular work, however, because he would not have been a 'resident' at the Victoria Home if he didn't.

In being able to obtain regular if not permanent work, he was probably very similar to many of the other residents of the Victoria Home. Not very suspicious, actually, from a police perspective. Run of the mill.

[Ben]

Hi Lechmere,

There is no compelling evidence that the police as a collective believed that the killer lived in a lodging house. There was clearly a divergence of opinion on the subject, with Edmund Reid incognito arguing that the Victoria Home made a likely base for the killer, whereas Abberline stated in an 1892 interview (if I recall correctly) that the murderer was unlikely to be found in a dossser’s kitchen. The Victoria Home was not unsuitable as a base for the killer. It was shaded dark blue on Booth’s poverty map indicating chronic want. It lay at the heart of the murder district, and the location of the GSG lay directly en route between the Victoria Home and Mitre Square. The rules were such that it enabled men to come and go at all hours of the night by flashing a metal cheque that they had purchased in advance. You continue to misunderstand these rules, however, and what you describe as my "over-exaggeration technique" is really my exasperation at having to disbuse you of this confusion so many times.

There is no evidence that the contemporary police ever suspected Hutchinson of murder. There are only indications that they suspected him of being a bogus witness, and bogus witnesses were not an unusual phenomenon in the investigation. It would have been a case of safety in numbers to add him to the list of false witnesses who lied for attention, or for financial gain. There is no evidence that the police were ever in the habit of investigating the work routines and past employers of witnesses, even bogus ones, so the chances are that this procedure was never carried out in Hutchinson’s case. Even if we accept the very slim chance that it happened, I can’t see what it would have achieved. What if the employers confirmed that Hutchinson was honest and hard working? Would this have reduced the likelihood of him being the killer? No, because similar observations have been made about other known serial killers.

“It does however make him a less likely suspect than someone who did not come anywhere near the police”

No, this doesn’t follow at all.

It has been observed by those well-versed in criminal psychology that it is often more likely than not that the real offender will be someone who came under police scrutiny at some point during the course of the investigation. Laura Richard reiterated this observation during a recent ripper documentary.

“Sutcliffe wasn’t on a suspect list. He was on a list of leads.”

Bit like Hutchinson then, according to the evidence. Hutchinson was on the “list of leads”, but there was no evidence that he was “on the suspect list". Of course, in the Yorkshire Ripper case, one of these “leads” turned out to be the real offender. I’m merely suggesting that something similar occurred in the Whitechapel investigation, albeit with less successful results.

“The weight that was given to misleading evidence would be Hutchinson’s evidence. This further boosts the likelihood that the police will have checked Hutchinson out”

I’m strongly disinclined to think so, Lechmere. We know what happened when it was realised that too much weight was accorded to “misleading evidence”. He was named and shamed in an article that appeared in the Star that carried the headline “Worthless stories lead the police astray”. The fact that Matthew Packer appeared in the same article should tell us all we need to know regarding the mould Hutchinson had been cast in by the police at that time.

“You were all too willing to accept Hutchinson’s fixing of the time by the clock on St Mary’s. Where did this information come from? A press report.”

I don’t accept it at all, Lechmere.

I don’t think Hutchinson passed any clock at 2.00am.

I think he lied about it, and was accordingly discredited as a witness by the police.

Remember?

“You blatantly pick out and use facts here and there and ignore others from the smorgasbord available. If there is a whole aspect which you are uncomfortable with then you push the whole thing away”

Here it comes…

Naughty nasty Ben with his nefarious agenda.

Considering the possibility of a "nugget" of truth in Reginald's Ripper and the Royals interview is all very well, but why go straight the most bogus sources around in pursuit of truthful nuggets? We have so many reputable sources to work from, so why settle for the dregs? As I've mentioned before, other reputable authors and historians had access to Reginald during his lifetime, but they chose not to pursue it, given the nature of what was being asserted. Are they all to be chastised for failing to spot the gold nuggest amidst the nonsense?

But now we have you also pouncing on the "possibility" - if it can even be termed as such - that Toppy was accused of date-befuddling by the police, and then speculated that they were merely using this as a smokescreen excuse to conceal their secret knowledge of a specific Ripper-Toff. There have been many outlandish suggestions made by people attempting to cast Toppy in the role of the real Hutchinson, but this one just about takes the biscuit.

“I have previously listed why Hutchinson is a bad culprit”

But what have you come up with in an effort to demonstrate this?

Your misunderstanding of the Victoria Home rules.

Your insistence that Hutchinson was investigated as a suspect, despite the total lack of evidence in this regard.

A “shrieking” Mary Kelly in Dorset Street, as recorded in the press and not the police statement. (Remember, that if you combine all elements from both, you’re left with a dark complexioned, pale complexioned Astrakhan, along with other amusing amalgamations).

The Ripper and the Royals.

Toppy.

You’re more than welcome to consider these weakness to my case, but I can assure you they are nothing of the sort.

Best regards,
Ben

[Lechmere]

Rubyretro – I’m beginning to wish I’d never done that test...

I think Hutchinson was probably Toppy. I think he over embellished the A-man story - indeed his whole story. To the extent that he may not even have been wearing Astrakhan! That would make things a whole lot simpler – particularly if he had been wearing a donkey jacket.
It isn't that important to dissect which bits were and which bits weren't true.

I don’t think that the A-man did it – not least because I don’t think the A-man existed as described.
He may have seen her with someone. He may not even have seen her with anyone. The whole thing may have been no more than a speculative money making venture. I happen to believe that the police would have paid people, particularly people they thought were key witnesses. Hutchinson convinced them for a period that he was a key witness. There were not many key witnesses that the police seemingly took to their hearts, for however brief a period, in this case. By the time of the Kelly murder the police were jittery and desperate for a lead. It makes perfect sense that they would have paid him to traipse about looking for the A-man.
My conclusion is that Hutchinson probably vaguely knew Kelly and wanted to involve himself in the notoriety of the case, so over embellished whatever scant information he had about the night (or nights) in question – and earned a few easy bob.

I don’t particularly chose to believe or disbelieve any individual aspect of Hutchinson’s statement. The bit I find most unbelievable (for reasons I have stated before) is that he knew her for three years. I suppose even there he could have briefly met her three years before.

As for Fisherman’s interpretation, that is for him to say really, but I don’t think he said:
“Toppy was convinced that A-man was a Pillar of Society, Lord Randolph Churchill or someone like him, or to do with the Royal Family, and believed that the Police protected this important man.”

The possibility is that when Toppy was dismissed by the police (possibly because they believed he was out by a day) Toppy refused to accept this as the real reason for his dismissal, but instead believed the police were trying to cover up for the real culprit being a toff of some sort. There is a possibility that Toppy saw Kelly with a well dressed toff.

It would seem that Abberline originally thought the A-man was a likely culprit. I have the advantage of knowing that it would also seem that he came to reject that notion. I am happy to go along with Abberline on that. After all “he was far more experienced than you and I”. Wasn’t he?

I am ambivalent about whether Hutchinson was out by a day. It is a credible theory.
I have previously stated that Hutchinson may well have been a bit of a sordid peeping tom – hence his lurking around.
I have never said Hutchinson was morally uplifted. You seem to confuse one of the avowed purposes of the Victoria Home, with the likely outcome that would have on its inmates. Mr Ben’s techniques seem to be rubbing off.

I would suggest that pickings for street walking prostitutes from around 2am to say 4 am would be meagre. There would be potential customers but they would take more finding.
Accordingly if Kelly had gone out looking for a new customer after the alleged A-man incident she could have found someone. If Hutchinson wasn’t lying that would be after 3 am.
However I am sceptical that Hutchinson was there that long or as I have said that he saw her with the A-man.

Who do I think did it?
I think Jack the Ripper did it.
I don’t think the A-man or Hutchinson are Jack the Ripper.

[Lechmere]

Rubyretro – on this business of mixing up days. If you confuse yourself as to what you did on one day, for example believing what you did on Friday you actually did on Thursday, this does not imply that there is a missing day from you memory. It just very simply means that you got muddled up. The same person could quite easily have exact recall for what they did on Saturday and Sunday.
This is so unremarkable as to surely not need explaining.
I am not a devout follower of the day out theory by the way. I can see both strengths and weaknesses in the argument, but it is certainly in my opinion a valid theory. I see no problem in Fisherman proposing various or even contradictory theories. It actually shows an open mind.
I can even accept (as I have said several times) that Hutchinson makes a better culprit than nearly all other proposed culprits.

“in the Victoria they were evidently kicking up a racket with Kum-bay-ya”
Oh no – rules is rules...
(2) No swearing or obscene language will be tolerated. Order and decorum are insisted on in the kitchen; silence in the bedrooms.
Also I have to inform you that Kumbaya seems to have originated in the 1920s.
However I would wager my brass door knocker on them being more than familiar with day time choruses of ‘Oh, come, all ye faithful’.
After all we know:
“Adjoining the house is a lecture hall, containing chairs, a raised platform, and a small organ. This is used for temperance meetings”.

Mr Ben, the reason why I said...
“Sally (just in case you haven't gone completely)”
is because Sally had said this...
“And now, I think I'll leave you to it. The new Examiner has reached my mailbox - time for something new.”
I most certainly was not, as you rather strangely put it...
“rejoicing in the erroneous assumption that a perceived "opponent" has capitulated”.
Not least because I do not see Sally as an opponent. She is someone who posts on here – sometimes I agree with what she has to say, sometimes I do not.

By the same token I have agreed with you on some issues (e.g. that Britannia argument about what side of the road they were on) and disagree with Fisherman on others (e.g. I would go with the Met Office report on the weather on the Thursday night/Friday morning, being more or less constant light rain).
I have no problem with Fisherman believing that the Victoria Home made for a convenient base for the Ripper, even though I would argue that it was probably one of the most unsuitable ones in the district, and indeed I think that the police were wrong in thinking that the culprit probably lived in a lodging house. In fact I think most of the police’s assumptions were wrong – including their prejudice against the unemployed and their belief that if someone was in full time employment then they must be up right citizens and so not a likely culprit. But that is to digress far too much even for this thread.

“I’m rather confused by your observations regarding the suggested contacting of previous employers and what you expect this would achieved with regard to determining the guilt or innocence of a particular suspect.
“What exonerating result are you hoping for here? Let’s say his previous employers recalled that he was indeed a hard-working groom and labourer – what are you hoping for here in terms of suspect investigation, let alone suspect exoneration?”

Oh dear you are confused, still.
It is not what I would expect Mr Ben, it is what the police in 1888 would expect. The fact is that they did want to know employer details and they did tend to discount people with stable work backgrounds.
The current or previous employer could confirm or deny the persons’ reliability, trustworthiness or stability for example.
The police in 1888 put great store in these things. In the absence of any other information it is certainly better than nothing, so I do not think the police in 1888 were totally wrong.
Of course, and as I have been at great pains to point out on countless occasions, a glowing reference from an employer would not necessarily, really rule someone out from being the culprit. We know this now. The police tended to place more reliance on a good work reference in 1888 than we would now. This however is totally irrelevant.
The relevance is...
What sort of basic checks did the police perform?
One was certainly workplace (in Hutchinson’s case it would be previous workplaces).
Are they likely to have actually checked Hutchinson’s previous workplaces?
I would suggest that unless they had other good reason to dismiss him (i.e. he passed other checks in a way that tended to exonerate him), they would have (amongst other checks).
Does this exonerate him completely?
Obviously not. It does however make him a less likely suspect than someone who did not come anywhere near the police and as a result there would be zero prospect of the police checking them in any way whatsoever.

And that Mr Ben was my point.

Abberline’s initial acceptance of Hutchinson despite his unemployed lodging house dwelling status is not remarkable. It is fairly clear that at that very early stage there was nothing to disprove Hutchinson’s story and on face value it must have seemed credible and must have stood up to Abberline’s initial interrogation.
It is only once that dissolved – for whatever reason – that the other questions will have arisen. That should be fairly understandable.
Frankly the police were not averse to taking and believing witness statements from prostitutes were they (eg Pearly Poll or Mary Ann Cox)? I would suggest that in normal circumstances the police disbelieved prostitutes.

I won’t bother going over the Victoria Home’s passes again – I will leave you to your stubborn interpretations. Ditto your unshakable belief that Jack London stayed there.

Sutcliffe wasn’t on a suspect list. He was on a list of leads. That is quite different. However you make the interesting observation that Sutcliffe was “someone who had received scant investigative attention on account of the weight accorded to other potentially misleading evidence”.

I would suggest to you that the equivalent of the Geordie tape was Hutchinson’s testimony. The weight that was given to misleading evidence would be Hutchinson’s evidence. This further boosts the likelihood that the police will have checked Hutchinson out, and satisfied themselves to the best of their abilities in 1888 and that he was in the clear (and I will re-emphasise for the umpteenth time that this exoneration could conceivably have been mistaken).

As for what evidence to believe (eg press reports or police statements)...
You were all too willing to accept Hutchinson’s fixing of the time by the clock on St Mary’s. Where did this information come from? A press report. Yet here I find you saying that we shouldn’t pay attention to the press reports (for Kelly loud speaking).
My approach is to look at all the evidence from all sources and weigh it up and see if it all fits together somehow. In general official sources are to be preferred. You would have to add in common sense and likely outcomes. ‘Must have’s’, if you like. You seem to pretend that you do not do this yourself. Let me tell you that you do all the time.
Perhaps you can't recognise it in your own work.
You blatantly pick out and use facts here and there and ignore others from the smorgasbord available.
If there is a whole aspect which you are uncomfortable with then you push the whole thing away, particularly if it tends to undermine your theory, rather than try and see if there is a nugget of truth contained within (the Reg Hutchinson story is a perfect example of this).

I have previously listed why Hutchinson is a bad culprit (despite most others being infinitely worse). For example your inability to deal in a straight forward manner with the Victoria Home’s rules; about the likelihood of the police checking him; your refusal to accept that there need be no comparison between not hearing a potential conversation in Duke Street to hearing a remark possibly shrieked in Dorset Street; even your total and absolutist dismissal of Toppy; to which I might add the over exaggeration technique - all point to an unwillingness to address the weaknesses in your case.

[Ben]

I have not “misrepresented” you, Fisherman. I know exactly what you meant, and I’m afraid it still amounts to using elements from a discredited royal conspiracy theory book in attempt to bolster Dew’s idea about Hutchinson being mistaken as to time and date. In this particular instance, you want to cast Toppy, very controversially, in the role of the real George Hutchinson, but you’re understandably unhappy with both the royal connections and the comments attributed to Toppy concerning the royal family and Lord Randolph Churchill. Your solution to this is to somehow use the most nonsensical elements from the Toppy interview to argue a case for the real Hutchinson being disgruntled enough about being accused of date-related addle-mindedness to infer that the police must have been protecting the Astrakhan man.

I’m suggesting that this is just as outlandish as any suggestion that appeared in the Ripper and the Royals, and it once again begs the question; why, if Toppy harboured this long-lasting suspicion against the police, did he neglect to mention this to his son? This would have been the most pivotal observation of all to impart to his son if he really believed it to be true – that, as far as he was concerned, the police deliberately protected Jack the Ripper on account of his lofty social status. Clearly, the fact that this was never mentioned is a sure indicator that Toppy said nothing of this to his son.

It’s a courageous attempt to reconcile two long discarded claims – Dew’s wrong day, and Toppy’s royal-talk – and claim that a combination of the two leaves us with the correct answer, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t work. It’s radio shows and Wheeling Registers all over again, by the looks of things.

“Aha. So I´m not supposed to point to well-reputed Ripperologists´views to make my points. Are there any others that you feel I should not "drag into" the discussion? Evans? Skinner? Fido?”

Hmm, yes I very much appreciated Fido’s observations on the Reginald/signature issues last year, but that aside (aside, I said!), there are obvious problems associated with dragging other posters in who may not wish to participate. If for example, you wheel in a poster whose views you know I disagree with, you’re only encouraging me to offer a dissenting view to that poster which you would then probably interpret as unduly critical, and then in no time we’d have that person’s name being bounced around this interminable thread with irritating regularity, and I’m sure that the other posters and authors would not appreciate that.

“If there is a chance that the street was silent enough at the time we are speaking of, the inescapable conclusion is that there is also a chance that Hutch heard and made out the conversation."

But this is yet another of those, “If my auntie had bollocks, she’d be my uncle” moments. If the streets were silent (not “silent enough” – you can’t get degrees of silence), then yes, both Lawende and Hutchinson may well have been able to hear conversation from the distances, but since it is so overwhelmingly likely that the streets were anything but silent, the observation that Hutchinson was unlikely to have overheard the conversation is very much sustained. Lawende and Levy couldn’t even hear conversation from ten feet away, and it is these witnesses that ought really to be considered our best gauges when addressing the subject. I never stated that the streets were a “very loud affair at 2-3am in the morning”, and if I’m to avoid the offense of misrepresenting your views, I would ask you kindly to extend me the same courtesy.

“That is my choice, Ben, and not yours. You may have noticed that Lechmere also has applied some irony and sarcasm.”

Yes, and he’s just as bad at it as you are, which is why I wouldn't make a habit of it.

“Even when people say this, there ARE sounds about - if nothing else, you can hear the blood flowing through your own inner ear.”

Well, it wouldn’t be “nothing else” though, because in this case, we’re talking about the crowded East End of 1888 when we know there would have been people on the streets in the small hours, including prostitutes, policeman, revellers, people hading to work, as well as people behind closed doors but who were nonetheless not silently slumbering. Again, all you need to do is consult the Chapman inquest for evidence of what sorts of people were up and about at that time, including Chapman herself. Of course we’re not talking about isolated shouts, but a general and consistent background murmur that clearly prevented the overhearing of conversation even from a short distance away. It’s not as though it’s very credible to argue that Duke’s Street generated more noise than Dorset Street, and yet despite the lack of noise around the former location, as observed by George Morris, there clearly were sounds. They were simply inaudible or impossible to discern on account of the background ambient murmour.

My reference to the vicious and semi-criminal element reported of Dorset Street was chiefly to illustrate how unlikely it was that such a street was all quiet and sleeping in the small hours of the morning. If it was a case of everyone being snugly tucked up in bed and asleep at 2:00am, why was it observed of the patrolling policeman that they avoided venturing there alone? And why was it observed of the very similar Flower and Dean Street that policeman were accustomed to patrolling it in pairs if all lodgers, good and bad, were in bed and asleep at night?

Your observations regarding closed doors being an impediment to the detection of sounds are scarcely worth dealing with, but these were the days before double-glazed windows. I think we can expect jam-packed buildings to have generated some sound. Indeed, I believe it was Elizabeth Prater who observed that she often heard cries coming from the lodging house.

“your view of a noisy and loud street is simply not a very sound one, I fear.”

Oh no!

You’re doing precisely what you accused me of doing, and misrepresenting my views!

Clearly, I never once suggested that the street was “noisy” or “loud” at the time in question.

“And what did I write in the beginning of that article? Exactly, I wrote that I had up til that time not been very keen on Fleming, but that I had reconsidered.”

You might have given me some credit for having contributed to that reconsideration, given that it was me who you were battling the issue out with as usual, but we won’t dwell on the past.

“Ever heard of irony, Ben?”

I think he was making a sincere suggestion, but don’t worry about it, since you're clearly not about to take it.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

"According to Fish, Toppy was convinced that A-man was a Pillar of Society, Lord Randolph Churchill or someone like him, or to do with the Royal Family, and believed that the Police protected this important man."

Actually no - according to Fisherman (who, incidentally does not like having his views tampered with) Hutchinson MAY have thought that the police shielded astrakhan man and therefore dumped himself as a consequence.

Get it right the next time, Ruby. Please?

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Glad that you did my quiz, Lechmere !

-Hutchinson was aged 22
Very probably

-Hutchinson was innocent
Almost certainly

I see that you're hedging your bets, but you think that the man standing outside Miller's Court probably was the almost certainly innocent young Toppy.

-Hutchinson had had a good look at A Man, and A man had seen Hutchinson
Possibly (on balance I think he drastically over exaggerated this encounter)

'This encounter' means that you DO think that Toppy saw A-man, then. In what way do you think that he exaggerated ?
What bits do you want to choose to be true or not ?
According to Fish, Toppy was convinced that A-man was a Pillar of Society, Lord Randolph Churchill or someone like him, or to do with the Royal Family, and believed that the Police protected this important man.
It strikes me that Hutch never went as far as that in his Statement or press interviews ! Do you think that it might be Fisherman who is exaggerating ?

[

B]-A man was ruthless and armed with a knife[/B]
Very unlikely

Interesting.

Abberline certainly thought that A Man was the number one suspect for Jack the Ripper when he first took down Hutch's statement -and he was far more experienced thn you and I -and the Press certainly thought that this man was ruthless and armed when they circulated his description. Hutch evidently gave a heavy hint that A Man was the Ripper
(he went into the room and didn't come out on the night of the murder. Heck, even Toppy thought that he was the murderer years later.
But you think it' very unlikely -why is that ?

-Hutchinson was standing alone outside the Court
[I]Probably at some point on one of those two days[/

I]
What point ? A 2.30am point ? Why ? What was he waiting for ? Do you think that Fish is right about mistaking the day or not ? -what is your opinion?

[

B]-Hutchinson lodged at the Victoria Home and only thoroughly checked out and respectable men were allowed to lodge there, and it was a vastly superior place to any other lodging house.[/B]
Several questions here. Let me dissect them.
I think he did live there for a period
The Victoria Home endeavoured to exclude bad characters , which does mean that they only allowed respectable characters to lodge there (I have a horrible feeling that Ben’s over exaggeration technique is proving to be contagious)
The Victoria Home had a stricter policy on late night entry than nearly all other lodging houses and tried to ‘morally uplift’ its inmates. To some this might make it ‘superior’. To others this might make it inferior.

So how come this respectable young man found himself loitering outside a prostitute's
room, in an infamous street, at 2.30am and then grossly exaggerated a signed statement to the Police ?
I'm afraid that he was one who had failed to be morally uplifted !
.

The streets were fairly empty and fairly quiet.

So clearly, Mary would have been an idiot to go out solliciting after A Man left.

-the only person that had seen A Man, and stood between him and possible arrest was Hutchinson.]I don’t think A-man did it, I don’t particularly think Hutchinson saw A-man as described, he may have seen someone similar and that may have been the day before anyway.[/

I]
So you don't agree with Fisherman's new theory then -A Man would have to be seriously flashy for Hutch to truly think that he was protected by the Police. As you think that it is possible that Hutch may have seen A man on the night that he did,
who do you think coud have killed Mary, if it wasn't A Man ?

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"he said 'regularity."

A-ha! Once every night? Once every hour? Once every two hours? Once every fifteen minutes? Or what "regularity" are we speaking of?

"If there were enough people to merit a shop being open until two"

There wasn´t . The shops were CLOSED at the hours encompassing two. That´s what Rule writes. we know that Prater said that McCarthys shop was still open some time after 1 Am that morning, but 2 Am was the slowest hour of the night by the looks of things. So I would say that 1-3 or thereabouts was slow. That, incidentally, tallies well with Hutch seeing two (2) people in 45 minutes, would you not say?

"he was a 'morally uplifted' young man who only wanted a cup of tea."

You be amazed to see how teadrinkers outnumber eviscerating killers, Ruby.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Now, sharpen your ears and listen, Ruby:

I'm all agog

pea soup

nice bike ride

Let's get this straight -you are comparing these examples with following a
man so unusual that Hutch believes him to be as important as 'Randolph Churchill' or 'The Royal Family' into infamous Dorset Street in the early hours of the morning, and sees him go into the house of a prostitute that he knows, who is found butchered by the Ripper the next morning ?

and he was a 'morally uplifted' young man who only wanted a cup of tea.

I should cocoa.

[Rubyretro]

confirmed the regularity with which violent incidents occurred:

he said 'regularity. read my lips Fisherman R-E-G-U-L-A-R-I-T-Y.

So -isolated incidents, occurring with regularity throughout the night.

That's in just ONE building of many. Unless they were concerted efforts, it is
reasonable to assume that when an 'isolated' incident stopped in one place,
another might occur somewhere else. That means as near or damn it continuous.

If there were enough people to merit a shop being open until two, and casual workers off to look for work at four -unless you can prove that everyone went straight to bed and fell asleep at 2.05am and got up at 3.55am- then it is reasonable to assume that, amongst the overcrowded people lodging in Dorset Street, many people would overlap.

It means that people were almost continuously awake in Dorset Street -and
lots of people crammed into a small space are not silent.

Are we on the clear with this now?

I think that is clear enough !

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Hoare slept in a room on the ground floor and confirmed the regularity with which violent incidents occurred: "Two or three times I was awoke by appalling shrieks of murder, and many times by fights in the next kitchen. One night I had only just gone to sleep when I was awoke by loud yells of "Help! Help!" followed by a shriek and a heavy fall."

Read my lips, Ruby: Isolated occurence. Once more and slowly: I-S-O-L-A-T-E-D O-C-C-U-R-E-N-C-E.

I am the first person here - since I am totally rational and very openminded and very much for finding the whole picture - to firmly state that YES, there WOULD occasionally have happened things at night that were noisy! It need not be violence, it could be a window that was broken, a meteorite that crashed down in the street (such things HAPPEN!), a copper kettle dropped on a tile floor or just about anything else. But the only thing we need to keep in mind here is that such things would have been I-S-O-L-A-T-E-D O-C-C-U-R-E-N-C-E-S and there is no rational reason to believe that they created an unbroken mass of sound throughout the night. It is much, much, much, much, much more credible that they were the very, very, very, very, very odd exceptions to the rule. The rule, that is, of relative silence.

Are we on the clear with this now?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I think that Harry's question is excellent. Answer it again.
In your logic, Friday would become Saturday and ...hang on..wasn't Hutch rather suprised to find that the Petticoat Lane market was held on the wrong day ? that should surely have put a flea in his ear ?
Was he not capable of counting backwards up to three ?
(you'd better get your story straight, because Lechmere won't know what to think anymore and end up letting your side down..)"

I think, Ruby, that you need not speak of Lechmere here - he manages very well on his own, and he makes infinitely more sense than the whole bunch of Hutchinsonians taken together if you ask me.
Let´s just hope he does not take that as an insult.

Now, sharpen your ears and listen, Ruby:

When we mix up days, we do not necessarily swop one whole day for another. What we instead do, is to mistake isolated events for belonging to one day when it in fact belongs to another. That´s why we sometimes ask ourselves:
"When did we have pea soup last week, was that on Tuesday or Wednesday?"
It is also why we sometimes are corrected by friends when we get things wrong:
"What a nice bike ride we had last Thursday!"
"No, that was not Thursday, that was Wednesday. It rained on Thursday, remember?"
"Did it? Oh, yes, now I remember".

It is no harder than this, unless, of course we WANT it desperately to be something very, very strange and unusual. And for all I know,there may the odd poster out here that really, really wants this to be the case. But as you may remember, speaking about this, I earlier quoted an attorney who said that "it happens all the time" that people mix up the days. Of course he could have been totally misinformed. Or lying. Or something.

The best,
Fisherman