Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Sally]

Hi Lechmere

I'm pleased to see you back on this thread - have fun! I have to say that I don't have much to add at the moment - funny what a diference a day can make, isn't it? Even funnier how a person's perspective can change so much according to their state of knowledge.

See you later

[Fisherman]

Lechmere:

"In my opinion it is absolutely obvious that Dew thought Maxwell confused the person and that Hutchinson was out by a day."

This you have claimed before. And by now it is beginning to sink in, Lechmere. I have reread the passage a number of times, and yes, you may well be right here.
Since Dew spoke of time differences after having asserted that Maxwell MUST have been wrong, I was convinced that the time factor pointed to a mixing up of days on her behalf. The whole linguistical construction also made me think that when he spoke of his experience of people sometimes getting things wrong, not necessarily as to person but instead to date, also had me believing that "people" pointed to Dew speaking of a group in this case too. But now I realize that it may just as well be the way you think! Both interpretations would be in line with Dew´s words, but once I managed to read it your way, I also think that the suggestion is the perhaps better one.

So thanks for not giving up on pointing it out - and congratulations on a very good post!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally!

I don´t think that there is much in your point-by-point answer that brings new things to the table. When, for exemple, you write that Hutchinson´s walking the streets all night may have amounted to as little as one hour, we are dealing with a suggestion on your behalf that is somewhat strange. When we know that Hutchinson SAID that he walked the streets "all night" - why would we opt for a version in which his exploits were restricted to one hour?
And why one hour, for that matter? Why not opt for half an hour? Or fifteen minutes? If you allow yourself to cut short what Hutch himself said that he did, why not go all the way and boldly claim that what he meant by saying "all night" was in fact just a fraction of a minute?

Some of the arguments that are put forward in order to try and save Hutchinson as the killer are a lot more interesting than credible, I have to say. And to think that you spend time telling me that I should not have had to elaborate on possible developments if I had had a strong and useful theory ...?

Hutchinson SAID that he left Dorset Street at 3 AM. He SAID he walked the streets all night. It rained hard at 3 AM. The inescapable conclusion is that the man claimed to have left a street with rainsecured archways in it, in favour of going walking in soaking conditions on the London streets. And even if he DID just walk in that fashion for a full hour, it would have been a ludicrous thing to do. What are you suggesting happened then? Did he say to himself "Hang on a second - it´s raining! I´d better get some shelter over my head"? Was it at the second when the rain had travelled through his overcoat and he felt his shirt getting wet, that he finally reacted?

One thing you write is useful, though:

"He makes no mention of the couple seen by Lewis"

No. He does not. And if that young couple did pass through Dorset street, then it makes it even more obvious that it was extremely fishy (!) that he omitted to mention them too, as he spoke to the Daily News. He nails the PC and the lodger, but when Dorset Street suddenly is relatively crowded with THREE people, he sees nothing.

What, Sally, if he was not THERE at the time? Would that not solve this particular problem?

The best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Fisherman,
Hutchinson states he followed Kelly and companion into Dorset Street.Nothing about standing on the corner of Dorset street and watching from there.There is no mention in Hutchinson's statement of Kelly speaking in a loud voice,none at all,and the distance from the court to the intersection with Commercial street is 50+yards.Those are not interpretations,they are facts.Stop trying to bolster your arguements with falsehoods.It will not work.Although I do not believe Kelly and companion to have whispered,their close proximity to each other did not need other than a moderate low tone.Therefor for Hutchinson to have heard spoken words,he must have been in the near vicinity of the court.How near?I would say less than 30feet,and this is not pure speculation,but the result of testing,such as anyone can carry out.So outside of Crossinghams as the place Hutchinson stood,would not be a bad guess.

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"Hutchinson states he followed Kelly and companion into Dorset Street.Nothing about standing on the corner of Dorset street and watching from there."

No? How about the Daily News:

"I walked on to the corner of Fashion street, near the public house. As they came by me his arm was still on her shoulder. He had a soft felt hat on, and this was drawn down somewhat over his eyes. I put down my head to look him in the face, and he turned and looked at me very sternly, and they walked across the road to Dorset street. I followed them across and stood at the corner of Dorset street. They stood at the corner of Miller's court for about three minutes."

"There is no mention in Hutchinson's statement of Kelly speaking in a loud voice"

Not in the police statement, no. In it, he says nothing about the volume. But in his statement to the press, he said:

"Kelly spoke to the man in a loud voice, saying, "I have lost my handkerchief.""

"the distance from the court to the intersection with Commercial street is 50+yards."

Aha. Well, I worked from the link Ben provided (http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...37&postcount=9), where Colin very clearly has marked Millers Court and the corner. Using that map, I make the distance around 35-36 meters to the northern corner and slightly more to the southern ditto. This works from the presumption that the archway leading up to the courts was around 20 feet, something that hes been stated by for example Matters, and that is, I believe, more or less generally accepted. After that, I doublechecked with the 1894 Ordinance Map of Whitechapel Division here on Casebook, and instead came up with a distance of around 28 meters to the northern corner.

Another map, on http://photos.casebook.org/displayim...?album=6&pos=3 also opts for less than 30 meters.

... which is why i VERY strongly recommend that you refrain from wordings like "Stop trying to bolster your arguements with falsehoods.It will not work." It makes for a very deplorable tone, and that would not be in any way improved if you are wrong yourself, would it? On the contrary, I should say!

If you can provide evidence that the distance WAS 50 yards plus, I would like to see it, but up to that point it may just be wise not to call me a liar, Harry.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Fish-

QUOTE] that would mean that he was on the street with no pecuniar means to pay for a bed. And in such cases, when there is a friend with a private room at hand ... well, there you are: I actually find it very logical to try and sneak in and snuggle up at that friend´s place in such cases. But that´s just me![/QUOTE]"

Sorry that I'm a little behind with this answer....I flew back to france this morning.

Let us examine this 'friendship' thing :

Hutchinson said that he had known Mary for about 3 years and had given her
money in the past. Well, what a charitable man he was ! Especially since
he earned money so precariously, had to sleep in a common lodging house, and was liable to find himself on the streets
on a rainy night if he couldn't find work for a few days. He had to eat -and lots- to have the muscle and strength to do physical work. With no telly, cinema, access/ability to literature, I would imagine that men like him would want money to socialise, and be entertained, in the pubs in the area (just imagine the boredom !) I should think that he couldn't afford altruistic gestures.

Mary, on the other hand, was a young woman (look at the ages of the other prostitutes), attractive and accomplished (according to witness accounts), with an outgoing personality (she sung for people, she 'paraded' round the district with girl friends) and she
was apparently well nourished and and had a private room with a fire. She was selling sex in an area that had a vast population of single men, filled with normal needs and desires, and I should say that her earning capacity out weighed Hutch's (If she was in debt then it was because her spending was greater than her earnings).

She had also been living with men who were earning, when she wasn't living as a prostitute.

Why would Hutch give her money for nothing ?

The answer is clear that he was inferring that he had been a former client (true or not).

Is it believable that a prostitute would let clients sleep in her room for free ? Sound like asking for trouble to me...I absolutely don't think that she would.
It would be like a restaurant letting starving people in after it closing time.

[Rubyretro]

"He makes no mention of the couple seen by Lewis"

No. He does not. And if that young couple did pass through Dorset street, then it makes it even more obvious that it was extremely fishy (!) that he omitted to mention them too, as he spoke to the Daily News. He nails the PC and the lodger, but when Dorset Street suddenly is relatively crowded with THREE people, he sees nothing.

What, Sally, if he was not THERE at the time? Would that not solve this particular problem?

The best,
Fisherman

I visited Whitechapel twice with my sister when I was in England, and she had a very interesting idea on this scenario :

She said that a very human thing to do when waiting in the cold and rain for a time (Mary to go to sleep), would be to occasionally take a walk round the block, and then come back to see if a candle was still burning in Mary's room (sneaking up to the window). This sounds good to me. So maybe he WASN'T there ?

[Sally]

No..

why would we opt for a version in which his exploits were restricted to one hour?
And why one hour, for that matter? Why not opt for half an hour? Or fifteen minutes? If you allow yourself to cut short what Hutch himself said that he did, why not go all the way and boldly claim that what he meant by saying "all night" was in fact just a fraction of a minute?

No, Fish. Again you misunderstand. The lodging house kitchen would have opened at 4am for the Dock and Market workers. If Hutchinson had been a 'resident' then he probably could have gained access when the kitchen opened. Logical - nothing at all to do with cutting short anybody's time on a random basis.

[Lechmere]

Sally
I think we can say that the lodging house kitchen may have opened at 4 am and the doors could have been open to allow him to get in.
I presume you are making an assumption that he had a weekly ticket for the Victoria Home? A fair assumption in my opinion.
He wouldn’t be able to just walk in to any old lodging house and pitch up in the kitchen.
If he had such a weekly ticket, I take it you are in agreement that the normal weekly metal bed ticket did not allow him access after the 12.30/1.00 am curfew? In other words he needed one of those elusive ‘special passes’ in order to get in late?
This implies that he must have neglected to apply for one on this occasion, for whatever reason and there are many perfectly mundane reasons for such an omission (e.g. he was later back from Romford than he expected).
However, although the kitchens at the Victoria Home may have opened at 4.00 am (we don’t actually know they did, even if others did) would curfew breakers have been able to get in at that time? In other words, I am sure inmates could exit to get to work early, but it is far less clear that they could get in to the Victoria Home early.
Of course as I have pointed out, because of its curfew rules, the Victoria Home made a poor base for a night stalking serial killer...

[Sally]

Sally
I think we can say that the lodging house kitchen may have opened at 4 am and the doors could have been open to allow him to get in.
I presume you are making an assumption that he had a weekly ticket for the Victoria Home? A fair assumption in my opinion.
He wouldn’t be able to just walk in to any old lodging house and pitch up in the kitchen.
If he had such a weekly ticket, I take it you are in agreement that the normal weekly metal bed ticket did not allow him access after the 12.30/1.00 am curfew? In other words he needed one of those elusive ‘special passes’ in order to get in late?
This implies that he must have neglected to apply for one on this occasion, for whatever reason and there are many perfectly mundane reasons for such an omission (e.g. he was later back from Romford than he expected).
However, although the kitchens at the Victoria Home may have opened at 4.00 am (we don’t actually know they did, even if others did) would curfew breakers have been able to get in at that time? In other words, I am sure inmates could exit to get to work early, but it is far less clear that they could get in to the Victoria Home early.
Of course as I have pointed out, because of its curfew rules, the Victoria Home made a poor base for a night stalking serial killer...

Lechmere, I think we do know that lodging house kitchens opened at 4am, but it being Friday night, I really can't be bothered to go and look for the reference right now.

Instead, look at it this way - if they didn't, you are suggesting that all those dockers and market workers who lived there were obliged to go to work without their breakfast. Hardly fair. I should think most, if not all of them would have employed this policy - including the Victoria Home -otherwise, the hungry dockers and porters would have gone off to find a better deal - like a lodging house that could offer them the chance of breakfast before a hard day's work.

Your other points we've been over before, so I won't bother with them. Except to say that you are making a set of assumptions about Hutchinson that are no longer relevant as far as I'm concerned.

And also! You still don't grasp the East End lodging house situation at all. Not a whit.

Bye.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Why would Hutch give her money for nothing ?
The answer is clear that he was inferring that he had been a former client (true or not)."

Maybe. Maybe not. The suggestion is not bad, but we may firstly keep in mind that if Hutchinson was Toppy, then he would have come from rather better circumstances than he was in now, and secondly that we have very little idea about what Mary Kelly´s circumstances had been throughout them three years. Luck changes, as you will know.

"Is it believable that a prostitute would let clients sleep in her room for free?"

Maybe. And maybe not. And it was not as if it was put to the test, was it. So the question you SHOUL ask is "Is it believeable that Hutchinson may have nourished a hope to sleep in Miller´s Court. And that, my friend, is another question altogether.

"It would be like a restaurant letting starving people in after it closing time."

...and not giving them food!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I visited Whitechapel twice with my sister when I was in England, and she had a very interesting idea on this scenario :
She said that a very human thing to do when waiting in the cold and rain for a time (Mary to go to sleep), would be to occasionally take a walk round the block, and then come back to see if a candle was still burning in Mary's room (sneaking up to the window). This sounds good to me. So maybe he WASN'T there ?"

I went to the court and stood there for three quarters of an hour. That is what he said. I cannot prove that he did not go rollerscating to the Tower instead. But I CAN prove that he did not say so.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"No, Fish. Again you misunderstand. The lodging house kitchen would have opened at 4am for the Dock and Market workers. If Hutchinson had been a 'resident' then he probably could have gained access when the kitchen opened. Logical - nothing at all to do with cutting short anybody's time on a random basis."

Incredibly logical, Sally - to make Hutchinsons assertion that he walked the streets all night into a one hour wait outside that kitchen. And of course he would not say "I walked the streets for an hour until I could get into the kitchen", but instead "I walked the streets all night". And how did he word it? "After I left the court I walked about all night, as the place where I usually sleep was closed. I came in as soon as it opened in the morning."

Very, very logical indeed! He slept in the kitchen! And if he did, he would not have minded a one-hour walk in the hard rain.
Or have I misunderstood you again?

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Sally I have closely read the three contemporary pieces on the Victoria Home which I am sure you saw that I posted on the ‘Victoria Working Men's Home, Commercial St East’ thread, (as an lodging house specialist I am sure you were already very familiar with them). In these texts I can only see unambiguous confirmation of my interpretation of how the Victoria Home operated. But never mind, I know that for Hutchinson to be the killer this absolutely must be denied.

I accept your logic that the kitchens probably opened at 4.00 am but not that this in any way implies that Hutchinson could therefore gain entry at that time (without the elusive ‘special pass’).

[Fisherman]

First and foremost, people who say that they do something "all night" do not speak of an hour´s occupation ...!

The best,
Fisherman