Garry!
Thanks for the snippet on the Victoria Home! Quite interesting! Was it printed in 1889?
It is fascinating how the characters in it are described as men with a former greatness - it says nothing about vagabonds, half-criminals and such but only speaks of lawyers, officers, clergymen ... Not exactly grooms and such.
One would like to know when the home lost it´s status as a charitable institution? Was that before it became a lodging house on the whole? Do you know? The article as such is of course not in accordance with the other material we have on the home, which paints it out in a much brighter light, which is intriguing. Did it have a good rumour that followed it in spite of a deterioration? Was Harris not correct? The article raises questions.
The fact that the home was situated in a place that would have made it a very reasonable starting point for the Ripper´s escapades is unquestionable. This has never been challenged from a geographical point of wiew, I think.
Thanks also for posting the picture of Hutchinson. Ben erroneously referred to it as a photo earlier, and stated that it seems to show that Hutchinson could not have been the 22 year old Toppy. But i´ll be damned if I can make out any age from that crude sketch. The clothing of the man does not look like clothing a 22 year old man would wear today - but in 1888, any jobless and pennyless man who could lay is hands on an overcoat and a bowler would gladly do so, I suspect. Reasonably, many people also walked in clothing that had been handed down to them from earlier generations. So fashionwise, we cannot establish the age of that man. And physically? No way - it is a crude sketch, the eyes are shadowed, and all we can make out is that he had a nose, a moustache, a right ear and a mouth. That is not useful to establish any age. Judging from the drawing, I would say that he was probably somewhere between 16 and 50.
The best,
Fisherman
Thanks for the snippet on the Victoria Home! Quite interesting! Was it printed in 1889?
It is fascinating how the characters in it are described as men with a former greatness - it says nothing about vagabonds, half-criminals and such but only speaks of lawyers, officers, clergymen ... Not exactly grooms and such.
One would like to know when the home lost it´s status as a charitable institution? Was that before it became a lodging house on the whole? Do you know? The article as such is of course not in accordance with the other material we have on the home, which paints it out in a much brighter light, which is intriguing. Did it have a good rumour that followed it in spite of a deterioration? Was Harris not correct? The article raises questions.
The fact that the home was situated in a place that would have made it a very reasonable starting point for the Ripper´s escapades is unquestionable. This has never been challenged from a geographical point of wiew, I think.
Thanks also for posting the picture of Hutchinson. Ben erroneously referred to it as a photo earlier, and stated that it seems to show that Hutchinson could not have been the 22 year old Toppy. But i´ll be damned if I can make out any age from that crude sketch. The clothing of the man does not look like clothing a 22 year old man would wear today - but in 1888, any jobless and pennyless man who could lay is hands on an overcoat and a bowler would gladly do so, I suspect. Reasonably, many people also walked in clothing that had been handed down to them from earlier generations. So fashionwise, we cannot establish the age of that man. And physically? No way - it is a crude sketch, the eyes are shadowed, and all we can make out is that he had a nose, a moustache, a right ear and a mouth. That is not useful to establish any age. Judging from the drawing, I would say that he was probably somewhere between 16 and 50.
The best,
Fisherman
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