Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Sally]

Look! There are people looking out of first floor windows! I bet everyone had already noticed that, hadn't they...

A few of the buildings have overhangs, and are quite narrow. Perhaps some of them were the original 17th century buildings with more recent facades.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"Articulation isn’t measured in “volume”, Fisherman."

Well, I know that, Ben; but it seemed you didnīt.

"I’m not suggesting anything was wrong with Kelly or Astrakhan’s ability to articulate anything."

Fine! Thatīs that, then!

"I’m only pointing out that actual words were very unlikely to have been distinguished over a distance of 30 metres."

Apparently not ...(sigh). Listen carefully, Ben: You-are-wrong. The-acoustics-expert-was-right. Articulation-has-nothing-silch-nada-to-do-with-it.

Normal conversation is held at 60 dB, aboutish. When such normal conversation travels to a corridor-resembling street like Dorset Street, it diminishes by 3 dB per doubled unit of distance. Therefore, it will reach the ears of the listener as the EXACT SAME conversation, only at a lower volume, and in the case at hand around 45 dB. And as it travels through the street, the words will not be "blurred" - the only blurred thing around here is your erroneous reasoning.

If we may for one split second discuss this without dragging in any suggestions of sudden crowdings or bustling choirs rehearsing Handelsī "Messiah", and likewise without the misconception that low volume conversation is somehow articulated in another fashion than the same conversation at high volumes, this is what we have to go by.

On the articulation bit, Ben, find yourself a CD record with a nice song on it. Listen to that song at 70 dB. Then lower the volume to 60 dB, 50 dB, 40 dB and so on. What happens? Well, the volume goes down, obviously. Does it make the words of the song harder to make out? Yes, it does, according to a falling scale. And precisely why is it harder to make out the words? Because the articulation of the artist suddenly changes? Because it becomes "blurred"? Not at all - the ONLY reason lies in the lowered volume.

From this insight, take it one step further: At what volume can you make out the words? Well, we know that if the volume is 30 dB, you will have the audibility of a whisper. And you CAN make that out, right? To reach 45 dB, you first double the 30 dB sound. Then you add 50 per cent MORE sound, and you are there. After that, sit down and listen. Can you hear what is sung? Oh yes, you can. And - Heureka! - so could Hutchinson, if the conversation was held in normal conversation tone.
If it WAS, we do not know, just as we do not know any surrounding specifics about the sounds at hand there and then, which is why we look at the underlying scientific facts. Dot. End. Full stop. Finito.

Now, try and keep "articulation" out of this discussion from now on. It does not belong to it.

"a sound sample in a quiet library is considered to be the equivalent of 40 decibels. Obviously this sound would have encompassed hushed voices, footsteps, the moving of newspapers, books etc. And your contact tells us that conversation heard from 32 metres away in equivalent to just 5 decibels higher than this. Interesting."

Yes, and it becomes even MORE interesting when we realize that 5 dB added to 40 dB increases the sound not by a mere 12 per cent, but instead by 50! And it becomes really, really interesting when we consider that normal conversation is held at 60-65 dB, meaning that we may be looking at not 45 dB, but 50 dB, meaning a DOUBLED library volume. Whew, Ben!
And you know what? The words Hutch made out were spoken in a loud voice, and a loud voice lies around a whopping 80 dB. That would mean that the sound that reached Hutchinson from that particular raised voice may have been recorded at 65 dB, two and a half times as loud as the library!

Letīs not be stupid here, Ben. What the acoustics expert did was to work from 60 dB since he had to work from somewhere. That, unfortunately for you reasoning, does not in any way prove that the couple DID actually speak at exactly 60 dB.
It could have been 45.
It could have been 50.
It could have been 55.
It could have been ... well, you get the drift, donīt you?

Suggestion: Do not try and create some sort of allowed space or some artifically concocted accoustic surrounding for Dorset Street of 1888. It remains unknown. But it remains proven and well known that normal conversation under undisturbed circumstances travels 30 meters with ease, and it also provides a listener standing them 30 meters away with all he or she needs to hear and make out what is said.

Do you want to go over this again, or are we done? Of course weīre not...!

"Exactly, which is why I slightly question the wisdom of contacting an “acoustics” based on a lack of adequate knowledge as to the existing weather conditions."

And who would you have contacted? Who would provide more useful information? None, thatīs who.

"I’m glad to see you acknowledge that the street would have been “quiet” in the small hours of the night, as distinct from your earlier “silent”, which is obviously wrong."

Ever heard of silent streets, Ben? Ever heard somebody say "It was a silent night"? Of course, they are not totally silent. They are quiet. But the bottom line would be easy to make out...?

"It is obviously only reasonable to conclude that the crowded lodging houses that lined Dorset Street must have generated some degree of noise in addition to the wind and possibly rain."

It is nothing of the sort. I hear nothing from inside the houses in my street, unless the windows are open. Otherwise, nope. And in November, the lodging house windows of Dorset Street WOULD have been closed. Firmly!

"Remember that both Lewis and Prater observed that cries were not uncommon in the district."

But that would not equate to a constant ambient noise, does it, Ben? Surely you can understand that? "Not uncommon" means that it occured every now and then. But that does not guarantee that the "now and then" was a certain "then", does it?

"The idea of every lodger in every lodging house being tucked up in bed and asleep at the time is ludicrously unrealistic."

Actually, it is not all THAT unrealistic. It is anything but ludicrous. I would, though, say that it is quite reasonable to assume that SOME lodgers were awake in the lodging houses. But it is equally reasonable to assume that they were behind closed windows, and therefore they would not produce any sound that disturbed the street unless they were partying big time, or trying to beat one another up. And why would we assume that they were so, at 2.15 in the night? Why would it be in any way less reasonable to assume that the ones who were awake may have been chatting, humming a song, drinking tea, visiting the toilet ... and how much noise would that add? Nothing at all if the windows were closed. Itīs non-starter, Ben.

"colder temperatures affect sound travel, and therefore sound detection."

That could have had a big influence here if the wax in Hutchīs ears froze. Otherwise, no.

"He clearly didn’t say anything of the sort when speaking to the police"

Eh, thatīs wrong. It clearly was not TAKEN DOWN if he said it. THAT`S correct! And Hutchinson did not know that a bunch of pretentious morons like us would make a big fuss of it 123 years down the line, did he? If he had, he may have been more careful to point it out. As it stands, he said it to the papers, and thatīs fine by me. Nothing even remotely "suspicious" about that!

"Gosh, fancy bringing this up again."

Yeah - itīs a god thing YOU never bring things up again. To think where that would have brought us; Brrrrrrr!!!

"You’re confusing emphasis with volume, Fisherman. "

Sorry. No. I am poiting to the fact that people use different volume levels when they speak, as a means to emphasize. Same ****, different story, kind of.
Listen to Churchillīs and Hitlerīs speeches, Ben. These two gentlemen spoke either to a crowd or to a radio microphone. Thus there was no need at all to raise or lower their voices. They could have kept it all at the same level throughout.

But do they, Ben? Really? Or do they use the whole scale, in order to emphasize? And if so, what does that tell us? That Astrakhan man was Hitler and Kelly was Churchill?

“Come along, my dear, you will be comfortable” was not reported anywhere to have been spoken in a loud voice either in the press or police versions of his account."

Iīll let you in on a secret, Ben: I estimated! See, I thought to myself: "You know, Fisherman, it would seem that Hutch could not make out much of that three-minute conversation. It was only the bit about the hanky and the come-along-part. And in the papers he said that Kelly spoke with a loud voice about the hanky... Oh-oh! Wait! Could it be ...? Could she have ... used a loud voice when saying the come-along-part too...? Me oh my, I may be on to something here!" Simple though it may sound, that was all there was to it in my case.
And thatīs how I read it. You read it with a red alert: SUSPICIOUS!!! KILLER-ON-THE-PROWL!!

"No, given the circumstances of the alleged overhearing, the suggestion is, hmmmm, well: right as I’ve just hmmmm, well: demonstrated."

You tried. It, hmmmmm - failed.

"Fisherman’s bedroom versus a crowded lodging house bedroom in 1888 Dorset Street. I wonder which one was more crowded?2

Depends on the respective sizes of the rooms.

My words:

"It was nighttime"

Your words:

"Again, this is when you occasionally arm those who would disagree with you with fuel for their suspicions that you’re just not as informed as you should be on certain obvious realities..."

It was not nighttime...?

"This is unimaginative in the extreme."

Yeah, yeah, youīre the more imaginative of us, Iīll give you that.

"As usual, it just depends who’s up for a repetitive stamina war I guess."

No need for that. The matter is settled.

"The “trap” I referred to was the assumption that a claim must be true because it hasn’t been disproved as physically impossible."

Oh, agreed! And if you listen carefully and read aptly, you will see that Fisherman does not tell you that it is proven that Hutch DID hear the conversation. But Fisherman DOES tell you that it is proven that in a street like Dorset Street, if no much disturbances were around, the conversation COULD have been picked up and made out. See, Ben, I know full well that we cannot make a call in the SPECIFIC case of Kelly, Hutch and Astrakhan. But we CAN make a general call relating to the surroundings afforded by Dorset Street under no or low disturbances.

But I could swear I had pointed this out to you before?

"Oh, of course, I’ve just remembered you even accept the description of Astrakhan man with his dark eyelashes, linen collar, horseshoe tie-pins and gaiters. Well, again, I cannot extort commonsense out of people. I can only urge it."

When a boy was snatched some years ago and abducted in a car, the boyīs friend had the fewest of seconds to observe the car and itīs features. He told the police that it was a white Nissan car, with a camping roof and Missouri plates, that the car had rust on one wheelhouse (he described the shape of the rust patch), that there were no wheelhubs. Then he described dents on the car and he added that it had a trailer hitch.

The police did not believe him initially (they never had him down as the killer, though) since the description sounded too goo to be true. And, like I said, he recorded it all over a matter of seconds only.

Hutch, on the other hand, observed his man first at a street corner. Then he saw him speak to Kelly. Then he stooped down real close to get a look at his face. Then he followed the couple. There is reason to believe that he made his observations over a period of many minutes. He also added that he believed that the man lived in the neighborhood, opening up for the possibility that he had seen the guy before.

Per second, Hutc took in much, much LESS detail than the boy who described the Nissan car, down to the dents and the shape of a rust patch! And you know, Ben, that boy was correct - his observations led to the capture of the abductor.
You are the one that speak of common sense here. But once again, common sense is perhaps not all that common, is it?

"So different that they don’t bounce sound off walls?"

So different that they bounce sound of walls DIFFERENTLY, Ben. If there is any sound around, that is...

"The distance that has not changed, of course"

No, but the width of the street has, and so has the material on the facades and the number of windows etc. If you want to get the feel of Dorset Street in 1888, you need to go to a straight street with the same approximate width and the same general type of facades. Not that todays street will not be useful to confirm the accoustic experts information - it will.

"let’s keep getting really bogged down in this issue"

Letīs not. We have proof that normal conversation can be made out from 30 meters away, if we do not add too much ambient noise (of course, YOUR test failed for some reason). And since we do not know what levels of ambient there was back when it happened, thatīs as good as it gets.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"I don't know if that was intentional, or not - or whether it always looked like this, with women standing on corners and sitting on the pavements."

I would think that under useful weather conditions, the street would very often have women like these standing about. People did that much more before the age of television, computers and comfy homes. There is a thesis written by a ethnologist that points to these changes; we used to do the laundry together, now everybody has his own laundy machine. We used to hang the laundry out to dry, now we have tumble-dryers. We used to go to the movies, now we have enormous tv:s at home. The things we invent, we invent to secure ever more private time, away from our fellow citizens.

Sad, sort of.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Sally:

"I don't know if that was intentional, or not - or whether it always looked like this, with women standing on corners and sitting on the pavements."

I would think that under useful weather conditions, the street would very often have women like these standing about. People did that much more before the age of television, computers and comfy homes. There is a thesis written by a ethnologist that points to these changes; we used to do the laundry together, now everybody has his own laundy machine. We used to hang the laundry out to dry, now we have tumble-dryers. We used to go to the movies, now we have enormous tv:s at home. The things we invent, we invent to secure ever more private time, away from our fellow citizens.

Sad, sort of.

The best,
Fisherman

Fish, don't get me started! I think the lack of community in modern society is a great lack. On the other hand, modern technology allows us to talk to each other via the internet, which our ancestors could hardly have dreamed of - different, I'm not sure better.

Thinking about Dorset Street though, perhaps not all of Mary Kelly's neighbours knew her, even though people were packed in together very closely. I don't know know what we infer from that. Perhaps people value privacy in direct correlation with the amount of personal space they have - the less they have, the more they value it?

Something like that, anyway.

Best regards

Sally

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"Thinking about Dorset Street though, perhaps not all of Mary Kelly's neighbours knew her, even though people were packed in together very closely. I don't know know what we infer from that. Perhaps people value privacy in direct correlation with the amount of personal space they have - the less they have, the more they value it?"

Basically, yes, I think that is about right, at least nowadays. But I also think that back then, it was much different. Most people would have associated freely since that was simply what you did. Privacy in Dorset Street would have been a very rare commodity indeed, unheard of more or less. Of course, the sheer amount of people in Dorset Street would have meant that Kelly hardly knew them all - or even very many of them.

Another thing that would have contributed to the intercommunication would, I guess, have been the need for information. The neighbourhood news would have been mostly mouth-to-mouth business, whereas we today know very little about OUR neighbours. We tend to be much better informed about Hosni Mubarak than about mr and mrs Watson next door.

It is another world altogether, in a sense, and yet the same: the basic needs remain the same, but the technical development provides an other outlook on the world. And that is not always for the better, I believe, journalist though I am...

Best get back on track, though!

The best,
Fisherman

[Hunter]

As far as I know, neither of those authors have expressed any firm opinion to the effect that Hutchinson reported the unembellished truth about every particular of the Astrakhan description.

Hi Ben,

Acually, in SYI, Evans and Rumbelow offered a detailed thesis on the value of Hutchison's description of AM and concluded that it was not extraordinary. That's about as firm an opinion as one would get from gentlemen that were viewing this from an objective standpoint and from their own experience as investigative police officers themselves.

[Lechmere]

Ben
As I have said several times, Packer and Violenia were both given rigorous checks before being dismissed. I would presume Packer would have never been considered as a potential suspect as his wife was effectively an alibi. It is possible Violenia was suspected briefly.
Neither of these two put themselves right at the crime scene at the time of death. Neither were talked up by a senior policeman at the time as important witnesses - at least so far as we know (in Hutchinson’s case by Abberline. Neither featured prominently in the press. Neither were given an explanation as to their dismissal by a policeman involved in the case in their memoirs.
Hence I don’t think using Packer and Violenia as an example gets as far with regard to how the police may have treated Hutchinson, save for saying the police are likely to have looked at him with a more enquiring eye, due to his more prominent role.

“You first conclude that he was considered a suspect without a shred of evidence, and then use that to make the two-fold assumption that he must have been exonerated as one.”

You seem to have mistaken what I said so I will run through it again.
Hutchinson was clearly considered to be an important witness who had placed himself at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder and was subsequently dismissed. This is what we know for sure.
We do not know why he was dismissed.
Option 1 – the police may have found out something about his story that destroyed his credibility, but in such a way as it did not imply his involvement in the crime. I have given possible examples of this which I won’t repeat.
I would suggest that in this instance some rudimentary checks would have been preformed as to his story – some he will probably have ‘passed’, others ‘failed’ – hence his rejection.
Option 2 – Hutchinson’s story was discounted for some other reason that implied he was lying. This could be because he was a fantasist or because he was on the make or he was the culprit.
I would suggest that given that he had placed himself at the crime scene at the time it was committed, then even though the police force was in its infancy, the police would have wondered whether he was responsible and given him closer attention. If the newspapers worked this possibility out (as they did) then I am sure the flatfooted coppers would have also.
I would suggest that if the rudimentary checks were not completed to the police’s satisfaction then he would have been promoted as a proper suspect. This clearly did not happen.
My conclusion is that unless the police did not have grounds to suspect him then they would have checked him out.
There is no evidence for his beyond common sense... oh... and the example of how they treated Packer and Violenia. And Robert Paul. And the horse slaughterers on Winthrop Street.

“They are inferential probabilities based on the existing evidence”... in other words, to cut the verbage ... ‘must haves’.

Just as... of all the “unknown local nobodies”, it must have been him? Well excuse me there were about 100,000 males of the right age range living within walking distance of the crimes. Hutchinson has the great advantage that he came within the maw of the police and walked. Nearly all the others didn’t come under any scrutiny. That puts the 100,000 in a much firmer position as possible culprit.
Hutchinson isn’t unknown. He became very well known for his 15 minutes worth.

Which leads me to why he stopped. Was it because he was implicated and got the frights. Hold on a second, he deliberately inserted himself in the investigation, so that doesn’t add up. If he ‘lost his bottle’ he could have gone elsewhere – if he didn’t want to get a kick out of inserting himself of course.

[Ben]

There are people looking out of first floor windows!

Open windows on Dorset Street, Sally?!

But they'll let all the "ambient noise" out surely?

[Ben]

Hi Lechmere,

I still think you're missing the significance of the Packer and Violenia comparisons. These men, among others, had reinforced an established precedent with regard the type of person most likely to supply false information to the investigating police force - typically a time-waster, money or publicity seeker. It would have been a very simple and logical move for the 1888 police to have concluded that Hutchinson was just another one of these. Despite their claims to have been in close proximity to the crime scene at a time relevant to a ripper-attributed murder, neither Packer nor Violenia were considered potential suspects.

Yes, they were subjected to rigorous checks, but only insofar as their witness statements were scrutinized and chewed over in detail, and certainly not to the extent that they were investigated as suspects. It's also a grave misunderstanding to assume that Hutchinson received more of a prominent role than Packer. The latter could at least be proven to have been near the crime scene when he claimed to have been, and was even interviewed by Charles Warren. Neither can be said of Hutchinson.

“Option 1 – the police may have found out something about his story that destroyed his credibility, but in such a way as it did not imply his involvement in the crime. I have given possible examples of this which I won’t repeat.
I would suggest that in this instance some rudimentary checks would have been preformed as to his story – some he will probably have ‘passed’, others ‘failed’ – hence his rejection.”

Option 1 is a very sensible option, and very much in accordance with the police treatment of other false witnesses. I would endorse it wholeheartedly.

“Option 2 – Hutchinson’s story was discounted for some other reason that implied he was lying. This could be because he was a fantasist or because he was on the make or he was the culprit.”

This is also reasonable as far as it goes, but it’s when we look at some of the assumptions that branch off from Option #2 that we often encounter problems.

The first is this idea that an unfulfilled suspicion on the part of the police would propel Hutchinson to "major suspect" status. This is very unlikely for reasons I have already expounded. The police clearly had certain suspect types that they prioritized over others, and they included foreigners, madmen, butchers and doctors, but rarely local gentile types with no external menace and no recorded history of violence or insanity. This would have worked immeasurably in Hutchinson’s favour if he really had murdered any of the victims, as would the lack of familiarity the police had in those days with serial offenders who pretend to be cooperative voluntary witnesses.

“Just as... of all the “unknown local nobodies”, it must have been him? Well excuse me there were about 100,000 males of the right age range living within walking distance of the crimes.”

But of all those 100,000 males, there is only a compelling circumstantial case for one of them having lied about his reasons for loitering fixatedly outside a murder scene shortly before that murder’s commission. That puts him in a much "firmer" position as a possible culprit than the others, not weaker.

“Which leads me to why he stopped.”

As Ruby has pointed out, it has been observed by criminologists that serials have ceased on account of the offender’s recent communication with the police and an attendant fear that he may be close to capture, the magnitude of which might not have fully dawned upon Hutchinson when he came forward. Not that a serial offender “stopping” really requires much of an explanation, given that they can and do stop for no other reason that personal choice. I’m compelled to point out that the killer may well have claimed other victims after Kelly.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Hunter,

The diminishing amount of credence invested in Hutchinson's account over the years seems to be to be directly proportional to the equally diminishing popularity of the celebrity or well-to-do suspects that were for a long time the preference. Occasionally, you'll encounter just the odd example of people adhering to previously accepted truisms for no other reason than that they have been accepted for decades. I'm afraid people like Stephen Knight have a good deal to answer for when accounting for the uncritical approach towards Hutchinson's statement that has characterized mainstream thinking on the subject until relatively recently.

It's also worth bearing in mind the revelation that Hutchinson was discredited very shortly after his account, which also seems to have happened relatively recently. No longer can "Abberline believed him!" be used as a protest against those who would argue very rationally that Hutchinson probably lied in at least some aspects of his account.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

“Apparently not ...(sigh). Listen carefully, Ben: You-are-wrong. The-acoustics-expert-was-right. Articulation-has-nothing-silch-nada-to-do-with-it.”

This is the nonsense I’ve already challenged, Fisherman.

Repeating it again in antagonistic language and using lots of pointless synonyms of the word “nothing” does nothing to enhance its already very tenuous credibility.

It appears I’m not the first to have problems with the nature of your communication with the acoustics expert, who you did not appear to have acquainted with the specific elements in place at the time of the alleged overhearing of an implausible hanky-related exchange. I’ve already demonstrated that wind adversely affects a listener’s ability to hear a conversation, as does cooler temperatures, and Hutchinson would have borne the brunt of an eastern, creating precisely the sort of turbulence that we’re informed affects people’s sound detecting ability, especially from 30 metres away. When wind is channelled down a “corridor”, to borrow your characterization of Dorset Street, that turbulence is obviously increased.

It is outlandish nonsense to claim that normal or loud conversation can be discerned just as easily as much quieter conversation. It is astoundingly obvious, or should be considered so, that the latter is far more vulnerable to “competition” from other sounds from other sources. It stands to reason that the louder the sound, the more likely it is to rise above other background noises of the type that most assuredly existed in Dorset Street in 1888, as opposed to becoming “blurred”, to borrow from your crass terminology that you use to characterize my reasoning on this topic.

Your CD-playing comparison is strictly to be dismissed as nonsense too, because again, you fail to factor in other sounds that might compete with and “blur” the sound of the CD when played at a low volume, such as were present in Dorset Street. Then you make an even worse “whispering” comparison that also assumes that no other background noises would have been present.

“If it WAS, we do not know, just as we do not know any surrounding specifics about the sounds at hand there and then, which is why we look at the underlying scientific facts. Dot. End. Full stop. Finito.”

But if it we lack specific knowledge regarding the “sounds at hand there and then”, the worse thing we can possibly do is purport to use “underlying scientific facts” and apply them to the Dorset Street episode on the assumption that there weren’t any “sounds at hand there and then”, as you appear to have done when contacting your acoustics man. Dot. End. Finis. Boom. Curtain call. Exeunt. The Grey Havens. Huge great yawning black hole of utter finality.

“Now, try and keep "articulation" out of this discussion from now on. It does not belong to it.”

Yes, I’ll follow your lead.

I’ll embrace that suggestion.

So no more “articulation” talk after this.

Unless…

“Yes, and it becomes even MORE interesting when we realize that 5 dB added to 40 dB increases the sound not by a mere 12 per cent, but instead by 50!”

Really? How fascinating!

Back to that sound chart I provided then, and we’ll have a look at what 50 decibels is considered to be equivalent to. Here it is: an average home. So according to your fascinating information, 45 decibels is considered 50% percent quieter than a sound sample taken from an average home. Sounds about right, really. About level with twice the volume of a quiet library. Not a normal library – and all libraries are considered pretty quiet – but specifically a quiet one. Yep, about what I imagined to be the case really. Thanks for that.

I reject the “loud voice” because it did not appear in his original police statement, but only in press versions of his account, which not so coincidentally appeared for public consumption very shortly before he was discredited. Obviously, if you’re sticking with the “loud voice” as the correct version, it’s only fair and consistent that you accept all the other juicy goodies he kept from the police but only told the journalists, such as the Astrakhan’s polar opposite complexion and his polar opposite moustache from the versions he gave the police, to say nothing of “white buttons over button boots”, and a red stone seal dangling tantalizingly from his curiously exposed “thick gold chain”.

“Suggestion: Do not try and create some sort of allowed space or some artifically concocted accoustic surrounding for Dorset Street of 1888.”

I haven’t “concocted” anything, artificially or otherwise. I’ve only drawn legitimate attention to the obvious reality that there would have been background noise in Dorset Street. Reciprocal suggestion: don’t assume that there would not have been any background noise of any description, and then use that terribly bad assumption to conduct what you wrongly consider to be a scientific study. It is very clear that we’re not dealing with “undisturbed circumstances” so why inform an expert that you were and then expect accurate and relevant feedback?

“Do you want to go over this again, or are we done? Of course weīre not...!”

You can be “done” whenever you like, mate. If you want to go over this again, I’ll just refute it all over again, and what repetitive fun we’ll have. It just depends if you’re up for it. Yeah, you’re up for it.

“And who would you have contacted?”

Lund University, of course.

First choice every time.

Nothing and nobody compares.

“Ever heard of silent streets, Ben? Ever heard somebody say "It was a silent night"?”

Yes, and they're generally people who really mean "silent", and who are not referring to the crowded streets of the East End in the Late Victorian period, with their reputation for their busy lodging houses and their well-documented "vicious and semi-criminal" element.

“It is nothing of the sort. I hear nothing from inside the houses in my street, unless the windows are open”

Here we go again.

Fisherman’s house in Sweden versus a crowded East End street full of lodging houses and prostitutes.

Which one is likely to generate more noise at night-time.

Exactly.

The cries that Lewis and Prater referred to as having been “non uncommon” (or whatever the precise terminology was) would have contributed to the “constant ambient noise” that would have existed in the street, courtesy of the hundreds of impoverished dossers who lived there, and who worked at all hours of the night. I’m afraid if you think for one moment that the entire occupancy of Dorset Street would have been tucked up in bed by 2:15am, I can only urge a lot more reading and understanding of the topic. Prostitutes frequented these lodgings, Fisherman. Just read the evidence from the Chapman inquest of people sitting around in the kitchen into the small hours. Workmen were coming and going at all hours. And what’s this business about windows shutting being an obstacle to noise? Good heavens, no. We’re not talking about double glazing here, but the windows of some of the worst lodging houses around.

“Eh, thatīs wrong. It clearly was not TAKEN DOWN if he said it. THAT`S correct!”

According to who?

You?

Then you must provide your evidence that Hutchinson made a statement about Kelly’s “loud voice” when speaking to the police, or else retract your accusation that I’m wrong. It doesn’t make any sense at all for the police to have failed to take note of a “loud voice” reference if Hutchinson really made one, only for the presumably more thorough (?) press bods to have found the better sense to include it.

“I am poiting to the fact that people use different volume levels when they speak, as a means to emphasize.”

Yes, but what you don’t seem to be acknowledging, to my confused surprise, is that it is far more common to use vocal intonation to convey “emphasis” than mere volume. Is this how you usually emphasise words? By speaking the words you wish to emphasise in a conspicuously louder voice? I certainly don’t, and I don’t know very many people who do either.

“Listen to Churchillīs and Hitlerīs speeches, Ben. These two gentlemen..”

I don’t think you really meant to say that Hitler was a "gentleman", Fisherman!

Yes, he was gratingly voluminous in his style of oratory, and was infamous for it. Bear in mind, though, that the subject matter included the new world order, the persecution of Jewry, and a grand ambition to make Rhineland a fine land once more. He hadn’t just lost his handkerchief.

The phrase “come along my dear, you will be comfortable” does not appear in any press version of Hutchinson’s account. It only appears in his police statement. With the “loud” voice, the reverse is true – it appears in the press account, but not the police statement. So unfortunately and unenviably for you, in order to retain any semblance of consistency with regard to your Hutchinson related claims, it becomes necessary for you to endorse everything from both police and press accounts as truthful. For example, you chose to believe both “come along my dear” (police only) and “loud voice” (press only) but you’re really going to struggle when it comes to the Astrakhan description where you’re compelled to accept that Astrakhan had both a pale and a dark complexion, and both a slight and a heavy moustache. Good luck with that one.

“You tried. It, hmmmmm - failed.”

That’s according to, hmmmmm – you, whose opinion on such matters I, hmmmmm – reject.

“But Fisherman DOES tell you that it is proven that in a street like Dorset Street, if no much disturbances were around, the conversation COULD have been picked up and made out. But I could swear I had pointed this out to you before?”

But since it is so obvious that there would have been disturbances and background ambient noise in the street and the immediate locality, it is unlikely in the extreme that conversation could have been picked up and made out. Yes, you did point this out to me before, and I disputed it when you did so, and now you’re bringing it up again and I’m disputing it again. Shall we call it a day and agree to disagree, or are we destined for round three?

“When a boy was snatched some years ago and abducted in a car, the boyīs friend had the fewest of seconds to observe the car and itīs features.”

I don’t know the details, but I’m absolutely certain in my prediction that it doesn’t compare in the slightest to the sheer level of detail that Hutchinson claimed to have both noticed and memorized in his police statement and press account, and you endorse both as truthful, giving us a wonderfully entertaining total list that reads as follows:

Age about 34 or 35.
Height 5ft6
Complexion pale
Dark complexion
Dark eyes
Dark eye lashes
Slight moustache, curled up each end
Dark Moustache
No side whiskers, and cleanshaven chin
Hair dark
Very surley looking
Long dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed astracan.
Dark jacket under.
Light waistcoat
Dark trousers
Dark felt hat turned down in the middle.
Button boots and gaiters with white buttons.
Very thick gold chain
Big seal, with a red stone hanging from it
White linen collar.
Black tie
Horse shoe pin.
Respectable appearance
Walked very sharp.
Walked very softly.
Jewish appearance
a pair of brown kid gloves
red handkerchief
Carried a small parcel in his hand about eight inches long, and it had a strap around it. He had it tightly grasped in his left hand. It looked as though it was covered with dark American cloth.

And we’re expected to believe that Hutchinson noticed and memorized all of this in darkness and miserable conditions at 2:15 in the morning in Victorian London, when the only chance he had to scrutinize the man’s more minute particulars was when he passed under a gas lamp, and when he was only paying attention to the man’s face during that fleeting second?

If people have no problem with any of this, even today, that’s their choice, but I think if certain people tried to look past the idea of naughty opinionated Ben and his fellow “Hutchinsonians” supposedly accusing him of murder, they might at least recognise the futility of arguing that discredited Hutchinson told the squeaky clean unembellished truth about his spooky, pantomime villain suspect. All this nonsense about Hutchinson noticing Astrakhan and incrementally memorizing different bits of clothing and bling at different times such as at Thrawl Street (no light) and when he was allegedly following the couple (no view of Astrakhan apart from his coat) is just resistance to the glaringly obvious.

But if we’re up for a discussion on the specifics of the Astrakhan man description, off we go, of course…

“No, but the width of the street has”

But not to the length of the street from the Dorset Street corner to the Miller’s Court entrance. Obviously, as you point out, the street in those days was more likely to channel the background noise that certainly existed at the time.

“We have proof that normal conversation can be made out from 30 meters away, if we do not add too much ambient noise”

If we don't add any ambient noise, Fisherman, and this is the problem. You appear to have contacted this person without expecting him to factor in any "ambient noise", despite it being so obvious that both background noise from Dorset Street and the immediate locality affected the area at the time, as did a "turbulent" wind. If these aren't incorporated into these experiments or communications with acoustics experts, their "scientific" applicability is dubious at best.

But you say you don’t want to get bogged down.

Okay. Let’s not then.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sally]

Brief Observations

A couple of observations:-

The height of the buildings in Dorset Street (some appear to be 4 storeys) would have increased the 'wind tunnel' effect. If the wind was blowing in the right direction(s) it would have been very windy in street. That would have affected sound in the street.

This isn't said to antagonise - just that it should be factored in to any attempts at calculating how far sound would have travelled. Do we know, or can we find out, the prevailing wind direction on the night of the 9th? Just a thought.

Secondly, as to Hutchinson's 'discrediting'. The article in the Echo of the 13th November hints very strongly that Hutchinson is an unreliable witness - its opening line being:

The police are embarrassed with two definite descriptions of the man suspected of the murder

In other words, both of them couldn't be correct - one of them didn't fit - and the article makes it quite clear whose version it considers should be believed - Cox, not Hutchinson. This press article suggests to me, at least, that Hutchinson was already viewed in some quarters as yet another time waster - one of over 50 who had come forward since Kelly's death. Its a simple explanation. There's no suggestion that Hutchinson was considered suspicious beyond that.

[Fisherman]

Ben!

You were right! You have more stamina than I! My own interest lies not in repeating arguments in absurdum, but instead in producing correct information and, when it is called for, aquire corroboration from experts in different fields. This is how I do things. It has resulted in a number of posts on my behalf where I have presented facts and empirical research provided by handwriting experts, meteorologists, linguistic experts, accoustics experts ...
Throughout this work of mine, you have never once employed ANY expert of your own. You simply claim that you use "common knowledge" and that you point to the "bloody obvious". For example, before I spoke to Erling Nilsson, it was very obvious that the sound of a conversation could not travel 30 meters.
You somehow seem to think, Ben, that you can challenge the experts in their own fields of expertise and come out on top. I sincerely wish my own confidence never takes on this shape.

The latest deplorable example of this is of course your decision that conversation could not be made out from a distance of 30 meters. Erling Nilsson, who has spent many, many years working in the field of accoustics, formerly at university level and now at a company in the accoustics line of business, says:

"... at a distance of 32 meters the sound level of the conversation is around 45 dB, which is fully audible. What is said in a conversation at that distance kan easily be made out. As a comparison, it can be added that a whisper lies at around 30 dB."

Anybody more than me that thinks this is totally decisive?

But Ben says no. Expert Ben knows better. Expert Ben REFUTES and asserts that he will KEEP REFUTING for as long as it takes. He has STAMINA, mind you!

I made a test in my home street under bad accoustic conditions, with just a few houses lining the street and reflecting the sounds, and a noisy wind going through the treetops. In them conditions, I found - by putting it to the test - that normal conversation could be made out from 30 meters, and that loud conversation could be made out from 50 meters.

Benīs response was that he refuted it - and that he wished not to say why, since he feared I would report him to the administrators of the boards if he gave his true reason. To me, that is just a very unsubtle way of saying that he accused me of providing false material or straight out lying.

Therefore, I contacted Erling Nilsson. He corroborated my test, and confirmed that the kind of conversation we are speaking of could EASILY be made out from 30 meters.
But Ben of course refutes this too. And adds that his stamina will win the battle. That is understandable - the facts involved will not battle on his side.

Human blood is red. Anybody who has bled will know this. Any expert on the subject will confirm it. But of course, if somebody chooses to say that human blood is green, nothing much can be done about it. The one who does so will be deplorably ignorant and completely wrong, but it is everybodyīs right to be deplorably ignorant and completely wrong. It is also everybodyīs right not to realize that experts know things better than the average (and below-average) layman; if we wish to uphold such a misconception, we are free to do so! I we feel a need, for some reason, to refute what expertīs say, in spite of existing tests proving that they are correct and in spite of all empirical research confirming this, it is our privilege to go ahead and tell the world that we know better OURSELVES, and that we will keep claiming this for as long as it takes.
That is how stamina works - we refuse to let ourselves be worn out. If we, for example, claim that human blood is green, all we have to do to win the stamina battle, is to never give in and keep claiming that green is the true colour of human blood. And if we get the last word in, we win the stamina battle. Hooray!

Personally, I prefer to win the factual and intellectual battles, the battles of having procured corroborating evidence from the expertise and the battles of being first to realize when itīs time to call it a day.

Screw the stamina battles, I say.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"The height of the buildings in Dorset Street (some appear to be 4 storeys) would have increased the 'wind tunnel' effect. If the wind was blowing in the right direction(s) it would have been very windy in street. That would have affected sound in the street."

It would also have created a far better possibility to hear, Sally. Take away the houses, and the sound has nowhere to bounce. The corridor effect is powerful.
Of course, the more facades there were, the more material for the wind to create distubing sounds against - that also stands. But the thing that MAINLY causes sounds is when objects are moved by the wind; rustling leaves, flapping tarpaulins, sand being moved over a beach and such. And facades do not move! So they would not create much of a disturbance as the wind passed them.

"This isn't said to antagonise - just that it should be factored in to any attempts at calculating how far sound would have travelled."

It should. Of course. But how much was it?

"Do we know, or can we find out, the prevailing wind direction on the night of the 9th? Just a thought."

...AND the 8:th, if you please! That was when Hutch was there, methinks!

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

I’m afraid it is grossly misleading to claim that I ever challenged the expert’s opinion or set myself up as a “substitute” expert. As I’ve already made clear, I don’t dispute Nilsson’s information any more than I dispute the sound charts that inform us that 40 decibels was equal to a quiet library. What I have trouble with is your apparent failure to acquaint him properly with the fact that there were conditions Dorset Street at the time that would certainly have had an affect on Hutchinson's ability to hear conversation from 32 metres away, as the sources I provided clearly attest to. It is impossible to hear conversation from that distance at the location today precisely because of background noise, even very late at night. This noise would not have been as great in 1888, for obvious reasons, it would still have been an obstacle to the discernment of actual words.

This is best illustrated by the evidence of Joseph Levy, who despite having observed Eddowes and her neckerchief man from about ten feet away, stated at the inquest that he “did not hear a word that he uttered to the woman.”

Not didn’t just not “listen”. He didn’t hear.

It is not remotely the case that Ben says X, while Expert says Y.

The reason I didn’t contact my own “experts” was because they either clearly weren’t needed, or because I was already aware of a perfectly good expert opinion with which I was already more than satisfied. In any case, since the majority of your experts were not in any particular disagreement with what I was arguing, I saw no need to introduce a “rival” expert of my own. But I’d rather not dredge up these past “battles”, if you don’t mind. That’s just a thread derailment waiting to happen.

I’d also caution very strongly against the fallacy that the more emails we send to “experts” and the more reconstructions we carry out, the greater chance we have of winning arguments or shoring up our theories. It is difficult to trump Paul Feldman, for example, in terms of experts recruited and contacts made, but hardly anyone endorses his particular theory these days.

If you’re going to contact experts, you have to give an accurate background history of what it is you’re attempting to ascertain, and if you neglect to mention background noises, a strong wind and possibly rain that were clearly present at the time, for example, you’re just inviting inapplicable responses which are then susceptible to legitimate challenges from others. This is not remotely the same as the expert being "wrong".

I make light hearted-references to “stamina wars” chiefly to mitigate the heatedness and intensity of the exchange, but I will also make them on occasions when I sense that people are using “wear ‘em out” tactics and verbosity to exhaust their perceived opponents into a state of unwillingness to participate any longer, and I just like to remind those people that such a debating strategy in unlikely to succeed against me. I’m not saying this is necessarily applicable in your case, but it’s worth mentioning in case you misinterpreted my reference to “stamina”.

Hi Sally,

You’re quite right. The height of the buildings would have increased the “wind tunnel effect”. The wind would have created “turbulence” around any listener’s ears and would have affected hearing ability.

Good point about Hutchinson versus Cox!

Best regards,
Ben