Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Rubyretro]

As you're curious, Fish..

A/ Somebody peeing in an alleyway off Dorset Street

B/
The suggestion by senor Lechmere was that the peeing was done by 'lurker's' mate. So that makes two people, in noisy boots, who probably exchanged a few words.

Somebody coughing or snoring INSIDE Crossinghams

C/
There were hundreds of people asleep in Crossinghams, with no double glazing, so no doubt there would not be just one cougher or snorer but lots, audible outside.

One (1) dosser who had a restless night and decided to get a breath of air outside a dosshouse

Unlikely to pay for a bed and not to sleep in it -says Lechmere.

How would the Streets be more crowded ? -now we have Mrs Lewis, Hutchinson, the lurker, the lurker's mate, and wasn't there a drunken couple somewhere..? Dorset Street is filling up !

[Rubyretro]

[

I don’t put much store in Lewis’s suggestion that the little stout fellow was staring down Miller’s Court like he was waiting for someone, as she can only have given him a fleeting glance and that will only have told her of his posture for the duration of that brief glance.

I'm not terribly suprised that YOU don't 'put much store by it'.

Mrs Lewis seemed rather sure of what the man was doing, and I suggest that my idea -is a more logical idea -that, being 'nervous' about approaching a lone man at 2am in a quiet street in spitalfields at the height of the Ripper scare made her look quite intentionally at the man to see exactly why he was lurking, when afar, and made her hurry past without looking as she got closer.

[Fisherman]

I´m sorry to interfere, Ruby, but could you please tell me how much noise would be disturbing the silence in Dorset Street if it was produced by:

A/ Somebody peeing in an alleyway off Dorset Street
B/ Somebody coughing or snoring INSIDE Crossinghams
C/ One (1) dosser who had a restless night and decided to get a breath of air outside a dosshouse

After that, please tell me how it would crowd Dorset Street if:

A/ Somebody had a pee in an alleyway off Dorset Street
B/ Somebody coughed and snored INSIDE Crossinghams
C/ One (1) dosser had a restless night and took a breath of air outside Crossinghams

I think, Ruby, that this post of yours was very unconsidered. In fact, no noise at all need have been added by these things, and no further person would be added than the one we have outside Crossinghams. So why try your luck at irony when you have nothing to show for it?

Just curious.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

a friend maybe who was having a pee in an alleyway while they were on their way home, someone who couldn’t sleep in Crossinghams and wanted some fresh air, he may have been one of those people who had to get to work early and he was waiting for his work mate to meet him so they could walk together. Maybe he wanted some time to ponder some private thoughts away from the coughing and snoring in CrossinghamsHow many

people lived down Dorset Street ? It isn’t unlikely that one would have had a restless night.

...such a short time ago that we had deserted streets and no background noise to interfer with hearing..ah, yes, I remember it well..

[Rubyretro]

he may have been one of those people who had to get to work early and he was waiting for his work mate to meet him so they could walk together.

It seems like such a short time ago that day work was day work, and night work was night work, and never the twain might meet..

Lets hope his 'friends' didn't report him as being the Ripper for asking for a 'night pass' which suspiciously fell on the night of a murder, eh ?

[Lechmere]

Sally – I reposted it as Mr Wroe seemed to have missed it and it was buried somewhere.
I am consciously trying to avoid repeating my arguments – and pass on when the same rebuttal is put back. I think it is obvious who is the main ‘offender’ in making long repeated posts.
Patience Sally, patience. The plumbing thing will be along soon enough.

Hatchett
There is a bit of a mystery within the mystery (well in the Ripper case there are loads of them) – why did the police dismiss his evidence. The reason is lost. All that can replace it is speculation.

Frau Retro
I would suggest the piece you quoted from Casebook is the opinion of who wrote it.
There are lots of ‘accepted facts’ about the Ripper case that aren’t facts.
Hav e you ever read this...
‘many "facts" are actually opinions by the various writers who have written about the case during the past century. Many aspects of the case are therefore contested’

The person that Lewis saw, could have been someone who was waiting for someone else – a friend maybe who was having a pee in an alleyway while they were on their way home, someone who couldn’t sleep in Crossinghams and wanted some fresh air, he may have been one of those people who had to get to work early and he was waiting for his work mate to meet him so they could walk together. Maybe he wanted some time to ponder some private thoughts away from the coughing and snoring in Crossinghams.

How many people lived down Dorset Street ? It isn’t unlikely that one would have had a restless night.
If you went down a street at night and stopped every person who was seemingly standing aimlessly then you would get a wide variety of answers.
I don’t put much store in Lewis’s suggestion that the little stout fellow was staring down Miller’s Court like he was waiting for someone, as she can only have given him a fleeting glance and that will only have told her of his posture for the duration of that brief glance.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"If I were to quote that journalist from the Star who saw Hutch as a possible future suspect and suggest that, although he was the only journalist to write
down his suspicions, other journalists were also thinking this (although they gave not the slightest indication to us that they did), and the Star journalist only just presented his thoughts as his own but was really reflecting prevailing journalistic thoughts -and they'd all be right, because they all thought the same thing at the same time...

this would be acceptable reasoning to you, would it ?"

Whoa there! I´m not quite sure what you are after, Ruby. And I am even less sure in what way it relates to Dew!

To begin with, it was not the Star we are used to, but the Washington Star, methinks. To continue, I have no idea to what extent the journalist would have been correct in his suspicion that other journalists were also suspicious about Hutchinson. Thirdly, why would they all be right for thinking the same thing at the same time....??? What if they made up 12 per cent of the total amount of journalists? Would that implicate that they were right or wrong? No, it would not - the truth lies not in how many followers an idea has.

But speaking of time AND returning to the true issue here - Dew and the police and what they thought - it deserves to be mentioned that the stage at which Dew worded himself "I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong" was a stage that was fifty years AFTER the killings. Let us realize that most of the men that investigated the case were dead and gone by then; Abberline, Anderson, Monro, Swanson, Warren ... Even people who had taken these men´s places, like Macnaghten, were dead. Dew had had a phenomenal career, topped off by finishing as a freelancing agent.
When he wrote his book, why would he write about an "us" that had not been around for decades? Why would he pass himself off as a policeman, something he had not been for nigh on three decades? At the stage of writing, he was pretty much a retired agent with a long since passed history of policing. Therefore, what he offered was his stance, filtered down to a personal view. But that does not mean that he did not use knowledge aquired back in 1888. And at that stage, there would have been information circulating inbetween the policemen and detectives telling the story about why Hutchinson was dropped. And to work from the premise that Dew´s stance in 1938 would not have been coloured by his experiences of the case and his cooperation and discussions with his colleagues at the time is not a very viable thing to do.

How hard can this be to understand?

One more thing: Walter Dew became something of a celebrity during his career. Reasonably, his audience expected to hear the great crimesolver´s OWN view, and it stands to reason that he would express things the way he did: "I am of the opinion..." etcetera. What does NOT stand to reason is to believe that he would somehow change a view that corresponded with the general police view from 1888 just for the purpose of presenting a "Dew view" - speculating that he DID share the 1888 police view throughout.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

since you do not pick up on what I say.

Sadly, I can't quite seize it, it all seems a little too slippery and tricky to me.

If I were to quote that journalist from the Star who saw Hutch as a possible future suspect and suggest that, although he was the only journalist to write
down his suspicions, other journalists were also thinking this (although they gave not the slightest indication to us that they did), and the Star journalist only just presented his thoughts as his own but was really reflecting prevailing journalistic thoughts -and they'd all be right, because they all thought the same thing at the same time...

this would be acceptable reasoning to you, would it ?

[Fisherman]

Once again, if he could not see any other explanation, then he could not see any other explanation. It is a statement that alludes to himself only, and as such, it tells us nothing about what he believed Jenny Lindström, William Pitt or his milkman thought about it. In no way whatsoever does it go to show that the police generally would have been of another meaning.

The people on my round earth don´t fall off it, in spite of the fact that the New Zealanders stand feet up and head down on it´s surface when I do the polar opposite. And believe it or not, I can see no other explanation to this than the force of gravity.

There, Ruby: Does this convey that gravity is something I thought up myself, or that I am the only one who ascribe to my stance? Or am I simply confessing to a stance that billions of people agree on - some of them policemen?

Do I have to do this much longer? It seems a rather unrewarding exercise to me, since you do not pick up on what I say.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Linguistics are slippery, Ruby.

Yours certainly are:

"And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.” if you prefer.

It is entirely personal speculation, made a long time after the case.

There is never any hint of an allusion that the Police collectively ever thought any such thing.

[Fisherman]

Thing is, Ruby, that Dew never says "I can only conclude" anywhere in his book, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, if I say that I am of the firm belief that the world is round and not flat, it does not mean that I claim this as my own idea. It means that this is what I think.

Oh, and one more thing. I think most of us agree that there seemingly never was any total agreement that Hutchinson WAS wrong, only a convicement on behalf of the police that made them confidently drop Hutchinson. So in that context, if Dew HAD said "I can only conclude" it would more sort of point to a confirmation of this stance on behalf of the police than anything else: They thought so, and after having pondered it for half a century, Dew could only conclude that the police were correct.

Linguistics are slippery, Ruby. What seem like a life buoy may turn out to be a cast iron noose.


The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Just a thought, Fisherman...

Dew's wording as to the theory of mixing up the times or dates, makes it clear that it is his own personal idea "I can only conclude..".

Had this been the reason that the Police threw out Hutchinson as a witness,
and Dew knew about it (as you once suggested to me), then Dew would clearly have said so.

Looked at 'the other way round', we can conclude that the theory of "'the wrong night'" had not occurred to the Police -or else Dew wouldn't have been speculating over it years later.

[Fisherman]

Hatchett:

"The objections to Hutchinson getting the date wrong always, to my mind, comes back to the same point. Why on earth should he have got the date wrong."

Why is it that people ask for some sort of detailed reason? When you muddle up the dates yourself, Hatchett, as I take it you sometimes do - can you afterwards conclude that it was due to poor quality of your morning tea, electric distrubances in the middle layers of air in the street you live in or an excessive amount of Hungarian bats sleeping in your attick? Is it not instead so that we can never give any exact reason for the occurence of things like a muddled-up date?

In a broader perspective, there WILL be things that have an influence, like sleep deprivation (something Hutchinson DID experience in close proximity to both his sighting and his giving testimony. The only reasonable thing to see here is that people DO muddle up the days. It is in fact so common, according to an attorney I quoted months ago, that he found it relevant to say that it happens all the time.

"We know that Abberline came away from the interview believing the Hutchinson was telling the truth and was a substantial witness. This would not have been the case if Abberline had any doubt as to Hutchinson mixing up the night."

... which is why I conclude that Abberline had no such suspicions at that remove in time. But we ALSO know that Hutch was a star witness who was suddenly disbelieved, so something happened that made Abberline a lot less enhusiastic about him. This too belongs to the picture, Hatchett - very much so, in fact. Ommitt that information and you get a skewed, half-baked view.

"There is a danger here of creating a mystery within a mystery that is not a myster at all."

In a sense yes: we may free ourselves from the very mysterious and enterprising notion that Hutchinson was a serial killer, who on top of that was trying to con the police, and swop it for a quite common, everyday story of a man who muddles up the dates. From a speculative mystery to a tedious mistake, thus. Agreed!

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Herr Lechmere,

Miss Retro
“I'm curious...what do you think that this man was waiting FOR at 2.30am on a rainy November night?
“Enjoying the view ? Basking in the feel of the cold droplets dripping down his neck ? Talking to himself?”
It is fruitless speculating – people do hang around for all sorts of reasons. They don’t usually hang around because they are about to murder someone – although very rarely this does happen. Even given the fact that a murder did take place nearby, that still does not mean increase the likelihood that the lurker was the culprit by very much.

It is not fruitless speculating on this subject, as it demonstrates that there are not "all sorts of reasons" that the man would be watching the entrance to the court in the circumstances. Please enlarge on some of these "all sorts of reasons" (and make them plausible).

I am glad that you admit that "very rarely" it does happen that someone hangs about a place because they are about to commit a murder. Murder's like Kelly's are very rare. I am astonished that you think even 'given the fact that a murder did take place
nearby (not only 'nearby' Letch, in the place that the man was watching !), that still doesn't increase the likelihood that the lurker was the culprit by very much.

How much is 'very much' ? (are you going to use the same maths as when calculating the number of Hutch's 'friends' ?).

I think that you will agree that Casebook is a serious Research Site, and impartial when it comes to the info given, outside the Message Boards. This is what they have published under Kelly Murder/Witnesses/George Hutchinson :

It is highly likely that he was the man Sarah Lewis saw standing outside the lodging house opposite Miller's Court (Commercial Street Chambers, 15-20 Dorset Street) between 2.00 and 3.00am on the morning of the murder

I only wanted to suggest that IF George Hutchinson was lying to the Police about his motives for being in Dorset Street watching the Court, he could not think of any plausible innocent reasons for being there unconnected to the murder(and he appears to have been a man with no shortage of imagination).

[Hatchett]

Hi Everyone,

The objections to Hutchinson getting the date wrong always, to my mind, comes back to the same point. Why or earth should he have got the date wrong. It was not that long in the past, the date was the eve or early morning of the Lord Mayor's show, it was the night/early morning of the murder of a friend of his, there had been an inquest earlier that was well reported, the murder itself was part of a notorious series of murders, this one being the most savage and barbaric, and well recorded both by the press and word of mouth. It was also the night he had walked back all the way from Romford and had no where to sleep.

There is every reason why he should definately have been well able to pin point that night.

Also Abberline as a senior and well experianced Police officer would have been well aware when he interviewed Hutchinson that a mistake on the night in question in Hutchinson's memory would have been a vital point to clear up.

We know that Abberline came away from the interview believing the Hutchinson was telling the truth and was a substantial witness. This would not have been the case if Abberline had any doubt as to Hutchinson mixing up the night.

If he had harboured any suspicions of that then obviously Hutchinson would not have been a witness at all.

If it was good enough for Abberline, who was there on the spot and conducted the interview, it should be good enough for us.

There is a danger here of creating a mystery within a mystery that is not a myster at all.

Best wishes to you all.

Hatchett.