Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Rubyretro]

Hey ! Lechmere !

Hutchinson was cited by Tom Cullen in 'Autumn of Terror' as having sometime worked as a Nightwatchman.

Here is Monty's answer to you on another thread :

It was part of a Beat Bobbies duty to liaise with Nightwatchmen to establish if anything untoward had happened in the area. The nightwtachman were the ears and eyes for the Bobbys. This was often done over a brew and whilst not strictly part of their duty, it was seen as good relations.

Imagine if the those Police checks were anything like the way that they issue British Passports, where they ask for a character reference from a policeman, teacher, civil servant etc :

"Have you any such person to vouch for your good character, Mr Hutchinson ?"

"Yes, Sir, I am well known to Constable X.."

"Constable X, can you vouch for the character of witness Mr H ?"

"Certainly , Sir ! He is well known to me -and a fine fellow...I remember how he raised the subject of these terrible murders in the most shocked fashion, and asked if there was anyway he could help us keep a watch out -and whether we had been issued with any particular description that he could help with..he is a stout and upright man, and rightly concerned about those immigrants roaming the streets nowadays..."

[Rubyretro]

Lechmere;164055]"Still apparently Hutch had no work when he said that he was looking for work in Romford."
No we don't

"no we dont" 'What' ?

We also have an account of the Victoria Home keeping their register books filled up.

..

what difference does it make ? I was being nice and playing to your own theory.

In your scenario, the 'pub landlord' covers up for Hutchinson for him to get away with it. Not a good storyline.

It was an off the cuff storyline where the pub landlord unwittingly covers for the Ripper. I should think people did unwittingly cover for the Ripper -as they do in murder cases today. I should think that murderers try and manipulate people into unwittingly covering for them.

Lot's of storylines are possible all leading to the same conclusion -that conclusion is that the Ripper could have committed the murders whilst living at the Victoria Home.

[Garry Wroe]

People´s conversation in a normal voice can be heard and made out from 32 meters away. We do not know the conditions of the morning Hutch was in Dorset Street; we do not even no WHICH morning it was. There was a margin in the material the accoustic expert supplied. He used 32 and not 30 meters, and since a normal whisper of 30 dB can be heard and made out, it stands to reason that a dB value of inbetween 45 and 48 dB is more than enough to provide hearing and making out of conversation.

Personally, Fish, whilst heartened by your newfound faith in science and scientific methodology, I'd be astonished if, even under laboratory conditions, a whisper 'can be heard and made out' at a distance of thirty-two metres. Those who whisper generally do so in order to prevent a conversation from being overheard. If, however, a whisper was perfectly audible at thirty plus metres, no-one other than the clinically insane would resort to whispering in the first place.

Sometimes, Fish, the better option is to stick with good old fashioned common sense.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"Personally, Fish, whilst heartened by your newfound faith in science and scientific methodology, I'd be astonished if, even under laboratory conditions, a whisper 'can be heard and made out' at a distance of thirty-two metres. Those who whisper generally do so in order to prevent a conversation from being overheard. If, however, a whisper was perfectly audible at thirty plus metres, no-one other than the clinically insane would resort to whispering in the first place.

Sometimes, Fish, the better option is to stick with good old fashioned common sense."

I could not agree more, Garry! And of course, I am not saying that a whisper can be heard from 30 meters away! What I AM saying is that since we now know that a normal conversation volume at 60 dB will diminish down to 45 dB over a distance of 32 meters, we must understand that it would have been able to pick up and make out on Hutchinsons behalf. And to prove that, I wrote that a whisper of a mere 30 dB can be heard and made out by the human ear - but that of course is at close distance, like a meter or so. And the volume of the conversation Hutch would have had access to, would be around 45 dB - and 45 dB is not 50 per cent louder than 30; it is much more than so. The dB scale does not follow a mathematical normal curve (a 10 dB increase means that the sound is doubled in strength, no matter if it comes at 10 dB or 110 dB).

If you had read all my posts carefully you would have noticed that I am saying that I am of the meaning that it would be very reasonable to surmise that the couple at the corner of the court spoke in a low key voice, and I make the assumption that such a low key voice (of around 40-45 dB) would NOT have been able to make out from where Hutchinson stood. It would have travelled down to 25-30 dB, and it would have been extremely hard to make out anything of it.
Therefore, I am saying that IF the couple spoke in a low key, and IF Kelly raised her voice when speaking about the handkerchief, then Hutchinsons information woud tally perfectly with what we now know of audibility over distance.

To suggest that he would have heard a 30 dB whisper over that distance, though - absolutely not. That would have been impossible, just like you say.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Just as an aside it can be added that conversation can travel about a kilometer over a water surface, and information on the net has it that conversation can also be heard over arctic ice for up to 1,8 miles. Sounds astonishing, but for the ones who have visited the whispering gallery in S:t Paul´s, it may be at least a little more credible than so. I cannot confirm or disconfirm it myself, at any rate.
Anyhow, no such optimal conditions would have been around in Dorset Street, though!

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

And that's the issue, Fish. Dorset Street and its surrounding environs would have been blustery on the night under scrutiny, thus affecting the audibility of Kelly's alleged exchange with Astrakhan. As for Kelly's supposed shouting, Hutchinson claimed that she was relatively sober at the time. Yet witness accounts state that Kelly was a very quiet woman when sober, an individual who only became loud when drunk. Is it likely, therefore, that a sober Mary Kelly would have risked upsetting her neighbours (to say nothing of her landlord) by becoming unnecessarily loud when in conversation with Astrakhan?

Whether you recognize it or not, Fish, you are doing an excellent job of reinforcing my longheld belief that Hutchinson's claimed encounter with Kelly and Asrakhan was pure fiction.

Keep up the good work!

Garry Wroe.

[Rubyretro]

What does any of it PROVE though, Fish ...if Hutch simply made the whole conversation up ?

This is what Sally posted about Doset Street in 1888, earlier :

The worst street I have seen so far, thieves, prostitutes, bullies, all common lodging houses...women, draggled, torn skirts, dirty, unkempt, square jaws, standing about in street or on doorsteps. The majority of the houses are owned by Jack McCarthy, keeper of a general shop on the North side of the street

The nearest that I could find today would be a council estate in Hackney (after Police reports on poverty and crime in 2010).

So, today (equivalent of A Man):

What are the chances of a bloke (stranger to the area as opposed to local drug dealer !) going over to a Hackney council estate, in the early hours of the morning, alone, (we can't count on Mary to protect him physically), overtly displaying a rolex, Gucci shoes, a suede coat and a Vuitton bag ?
a) it wouldn't happen and b) he would be remarked by everyone he passed !

I assume that Fish believes that MJK's murder was the work of the 'Ripper', and not a one off copy-cat killer? if that is the case, then how was this
Poor Man's Wet Dream able to sneak around the other murder sites, never being noticed ?

I think that it is evident that A Man didn't exist -and, as he didn't, all those 'sound levels' are just smoke clouding the main issue....

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"And that's the issue, Fish. Dorset Street and its surrounding environs would have been blustery on the night under scrutiny, thus affecting the audibility of Kelly's alleged exchange with Astrakhan."

That, Garry, would depend very much on which night we are speaking of. I think - and I think that the police thought - that the night in question was that of the 7:th. And that was rather a calm night.
But even if we theoretically engage in testing NEXT night, we cannot say to what extent the wind was blowing in the very minutes the couple spoke, can we? It would not have been blowing at the exact same force all the time. And it would not have had much to use for resonance in Dorset Street either - we are dealing with house facades only - not trees and such. So my guess is that it could have blown quite a lot, and STILL the audibility would have been there. But this is all theoretical reasoning - the one thing that matters is that we now know that the conversation may very well have been heard. That has been disputed before, but I hope we may move on from that, since it was not correct.

"As for Kelly's supposed shouting ..."

Oooopla, amigo! Who said anything at all about any shouting?? I know I didn´t and I know Hutchinson didn´t either. A "loud voice" was what was recorded, and a loud voice may perhaps have been around, say 70-75 dB.

"... Hutchinson claimed that she was relatively sober at the time. Yet witness accounts state that Kelly was a very quiet woman when sober, an individual who only became loud when drunk."

I suggest you look at that statment in a much more general wiew, Garry, unless you are proposing that she never once raised her voice when sober or relatively so? I should think that only the fewest of people have a totally even, low voice at all times when sober. I know I know a number of softspoken people, but they raise their voices once in a while nevertheless.

"Is it likely, therefore, that a sober Mary Kelly would have risked upsetting her neighbours (to say nothing of her landlord) by becoming unnecessarily loud when in conversation with Astrakhan"

Like I say, I think they spoke in a low key voice on the whole, interpunctuated only by a few louder words by Mary. And we do not know HOW loud. Since Hutch did not hear the rest, which he normally would have done if it was in a normal conversation volume, we may just be dealing with Kelly raising her voice to somewhere around 60-65 dB. In an empty night time street with echoing facades around it, it may have seemed loud enough. And if the rest was 45 dB, it would have seemed like a much louder voice. It involves a 2x10 dB increase, and each such increase doubles the sound. Nothing even remotely strange about such a thing.

"Whether you recognize it or not, Fish, you are doing an excellent job of reinforcing my longheld belief that Hutchinson's claimed encounter with Kelly and Asrakhan was pure fiction."

If evidence that proves that people´s normal conversation voices can be not only heard but also made out over a distance of 32 meters somehow reinforces your belief that Hutchinson was lying about it, then you are most welcome to draw that conclusion. Not that it tallies very well with your professed fondness of people who scientifically check the material in an issue, but it´s not for me to decide how you do your homework, is it?
Myself, I go the other way, since we have found out that what has long been suggested to be an obvious lie is now proven to be totally within the range of a very truthful statement.

That´s how I work, Garry. It is not likely to change.

Incidentally, you COULD have said that you were sorry to have misinterpreted my earlier post about the whisper... I used to think you were that kind of a man.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"What does any of it PROVE though, Fish ...if Hutch simply made the whole conversation up ?"

You mean you don´t know? It proves that the ones who have claimed that conversation cannot be heard and made out from a distance of 30 meters were wrong. That used to be one of the arguments for pointing George Hutchinson out as a liar. The poor fellow!

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Rubyretro
Sorry - I meant we do not know that Hutchinson went to Romford for work reasons.

In the absence of any other source backing up the notion that Hutchinson was a nightwatchman, I personally would not use Cullen as evidence I am afraid. He seems to have invented the story that Eddowes did a fire engine impression prior to her being taken to Bishopsgate Police Station.

I am all in favour of recreations to illustrate a point, even ones done on the fly, but I think the ‘pub landlord’ one illustrates the problems involved in making Hutchinson the culprit. It wouldn’t have given him a means if committing the other crimes as they were at a different hour.

These are the facts about him:
Hutchinson put himself at the scene of Kelly’s murder at the time of her murder.
He may have been seen there (wide-awake man).
He presented himself as a witness after the inquest.
He was taken out by the police on two occasions looking for the A-man.
His importance to the investigation seems to have been dropped.
He lived seemingly at the Victoria Home, a lodging house with stricter rules than most.
Goulston Street was on a direct route back to the Victoria Home from Mitre Square.
The Victoria Home was almost the exact epicentre of the crimes.

A pub job could have provided Hutchinson with opportunity for the double event, but not for the other crimes.
There is no evidence he knew Stride or knew the Berner Street area.
There is no evidence he worked as anything other than a groom, a labour and perhaps as a plumber.

I would suggest that a killer who struck out from the Victoria Home at victims in his immediate surroundings would be exhibiting classic disorganised tendencies (as much as one can generalise).
But the other traits given to Hutchinson (insertion in investigation etc) suggest he was organised.

Any Hutchinson theory has to be constructed around inventions as so little is known. In that sense he isn’t much different to Tumblety, or even Maybrick.

On a modern-day A-man in a Hackney Council Estate? You do get them, they are drug dealers or gang members.
What’s to say the A-man wasn’t cut from a similar cloth?

There is a bit of a contradiction about Dorset Street. It was supposed to be the worst street in London and the police patrolled it in pairs and so forth, with over a thousand people living in 150 yards and so on.
Yet on the night in question we have lone women coming and going on their own, and just the odd person or couple here or there. In many ways it sounds like a quite law abiding street. Unless the weather was bad enough to keep everyone in doors of course.
Even the next morning it seems not too crowded. I don’t get the impression from the accounts that it was a sprawling ant heap with dossers, washer women and unkempt kids clogging the narrow roadway.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE=Lechmere;164071]Rubyretro

Sorry - I meant we do not know that Hutchinson went to Romford for work reasons.

ah ha !-suddenly you think that the Police wouldn't have checked the very easiest things to check out ? Cherry picking are we ? I don't think that erstwhile witness George Hutchinson would have lied about everything easy to check out. Bob Hinton provides evidence in his book, of all the building work going on in Romford at the time. Good liers tend to mix fact (where it can be checked) to support their fictions.

Hutchinson was a nightwatchman, I personally would not use Cullen as evidence I am afraid. He seems to have invented the story that Eddowes did a fire engine impression prior to her being taken to Bishopsgate Police Station.

I would question any authors as 'fact'. Still Tom Cullen had a good reputation, and an advantage of doing research at a time when lots of witnesses were still living. Where did he get that 'nightwatchman' story from ? Sally pointed out that Hutch would surely have taken any job going,
and you yourself wish to point up the fact that the men in the Victoria Home were morally better than others!! (!). On what basis are you saying that
Tom Cullen invented this fact ?

I admit that I don't know that he lied about the fire engine impession and will investigate it.

I am all in favour of recreations to illustrate a point, even ones done on the fly, but I think the ‘pub landlord’ one illustrates the problems involved in making Hutchinson the culprit. It wouldn’t have given him a means if committing the other crimes as they were at a different hour.

I was not suggesting that he did the same jobs all the time, nor used the same excuses to be absent from the Victoria Home when a murder was committed.
(example : " Hello Mr Box-Ticker -I will tell you without you asking that I will need to be up and out terribly early tomorrow morning (Chapman's murder), since I need to try for work lugging things about at the markets and warehouses here abouts -please tick me out in your book as I've done the same thing perfectly innocently loads of times before)

These are the facts about him:

Hutchinson put himself at the scene of Kelly’s murder at the time of her murder.

Someone who is at a crime scene is suspicious -the last person to see the victim alive is surely worth pondering. When that person lies about their reasons for being so, even more so.

He may have been seen there (wide-awake man).

There is independant corroboration that someone of a similar description was indeed at the crime scene, engaged in the exact same activity as stated by the witness.

He presented himself as a witness after the inquest.

after the inquest being the operative words. He only presented himself once the independant witness came forward to state that she had seen someone answering to his own description.

He was taken out by the police on two occasions looking for the A-man.

And only two occasions; His story clearly being **** & bull.

His importance to the investigation seems to have been dropped.

Not suprisingly.

He lived seemingly at the Victoria Home, a lodging house with stricter rules than most.

A place that is well placed in the centre of the crimes, and houses a floating population of single men with irregular jobs.

Goulston Street was on a direct route back to the Victoria Home from Mitre Square.
The Victoria Home was almost the exact epicentre of the crimes.

Perfect and again perfect.

A pub job could have provided Hutchinson with opportunity for the double event, but not for the other crimes.

I'm very flattered that you seem convinced by the viability of my 'pub job story' !!!
That was just an un thought out flight of fancy...in truth any number of casual jobs could have provided Hutch with a reason to be out -even just 'job prospecting' (re: Romford).

There is no evidence he knew Stride or knew the Berner Street area.

I believe that it is documented that Liz lodged in Flower & Dean Street and drank in the Ten Bells ? She was a known prostitute but it is my conjecture that he knew her -nothing more. Little importance since she presumably shagged men that she didn't know.

I can't believe that Hutch wouldn't have trotted about 15 minutes down Commercial Road (he who walked to Romford !) looking for work towards the Docks. Of course he would know Berner Street !

There is no evidence he worked as anything other than a groom, a labour and perhaps as a plumber.

There's no evidence that he worked as a groom or a labourer either -but he said so, and "the Police would have checked him out". He -tellingly- didn't mention that he worked in such a skilled better paid job such as plumbing.

[QUOTE]

I would suggest that a killer who struck out from the Victoria Home at victims in his immediate surroundings would be exhibiting classic disorganised tendencies (as much as one can generalise).
But the other traits given to Hutchinson (insertion in investigation etc) suggest he was organised.[/QUOTE

aah, but one can't generalise about Serial Killers -can one...?

Any Hutchinson theory has to be constructed around inventions as so little is known. In that sense he isn’t much different to Tumblety, or even Maybrick.

No -Tumblety can't be placed at a crime scene and would have stood out. Maybrick's diary is an admitted forgery and the man lived in a different city, and can't be tied to a crime scene.

On a modern-day A-man in a Hackney Council Estate? You do get them, they are drug dealers or gang members.
What’s to say the A-man wasn’t cut from a similar cloth?

Because the Drug Dealers on the Estates are known by the locals, and go around with 'Protection' in tow..not alone.

There is a bit of a contradiction about Dorset Street. It was supposed to be the worst street in London and the police patrolled it in pairs and so forth, with over a thousand people living in 150 yards and so on.
Yet on the night in question we have lone women coming and going on their own, and just the odd person or couple here or there. In many ways it sounds like a quite law abiding street. Unless the weather was bad enough to keep everyone in doors of course.
Even the next morning it seems not too crowded. I don’t get the impression from the accounts that it was a sprawling ant heap with dossers, washer women and unkempt kids clogging the narrow roadway

Not just any 'lone woman' -a prostitute who lived there-an unremarkable woman for the street.
I should think that a wealthy looking stranger WOULD be remarked.

[Lechmere]

Rubyretro - Hold on, we don’t know that the police didn’t check out Hutchinson. Only a tiny amount of police paperwork relating to the case is still in existence. We don’t know if he was checked out (I have provided reasons why they may not have) and if he was we don’t know that he Romford aspect would have been – they may have been satisfied with whatever checks they did make, and if they did check the Romford aspect out we can by no means be sure he went there for employment reasons no matter how much building work was going on there at the time.
I would make no absolute claim on any of these things.

I tend to doubt that any witnesses were living when Tom Cullen researched his books. It was a good seventy years later.
Hutchinson may well have taken any job going. However with no source to back it up and no way of knowing where Cullen got his ‘source’ from, I would not personally give the nightwatchman lark any credence.

I haven’t said anywhere that inmates of the Victoria Home were morally better than anyone else. I have said (probably, I haven’t checked) that the founders wanted to provide a more morally uplifting living environment that the standard lodging house. That is quite a different thing.

“Someone who is at a crime scene is suspicious” – I agree which is why I am sure the police would have checked him unless they had good reason not to, the same goes for him attracting their attention if they decided his story was **** & bull

So he presented himself after the witness spoke at the inquest. After he had taken a valuable days work perhaps? Easy to come up with alternative reason for his late appearance so it is hardly a major incriminating factor.

As for who Hutchinson knew and what streets he knew – I have made this point before (as have others). The East End was extremely crowded. There were many more streets and turnings then compared to now. Considerably more people lived in the East End (by which I mean what is now Tower Hamlets) than in all of Liverpool now. In such conditions travelling half a mile took you through several different areas.

The evidence that he was a groom and casual labourer is in the various statements. Over 120 years later we can discount such statements if we wish, but it is better evidence than making up a profession for him off the top of our heads. If he is Toppy I would suggest that he took up plumbing after these events.

Tumbelty claimed to have visited Whitechapel at the time the murders were committed. It could be claimed that his putting himself within the general crime scene has similarities to Hutchinson’s account.

It isn’t true that dealers and such like always have protection in tow.

Quite a few lone women were in and out of Dorset Street that night, not all necessarily prostitutes, and seemingly courting couples were there as well. But no pimps I notice... unless...

[Hatchett]

Hi All,

Surelly the thing about Hutchinson is this. There were too many things that happened that day to make it implausible that he mistook the day. There is an extent note from Abberlline stating that he believed Hutchinson. The only extent information that the Police had lost interest in him or his story comes from the press. That could or not be true, but it could also be true that the Police did not want to discuss Hutchinson and his story with the press, particularly after he had given his interview with them, and so the lost interest could have been assumed or come about by frustration.

Best wishes

[Garry Wroe]

But if Hutchinson really was a stellar witness who was kept under police wraps, Hatchett, those investigators who in later years put pen to paper or gave newspaper interviews would have surely made mention of him. Instead, he was accorded barely a word. This, I would suggest, provides compelling inferential evidence that Hutchinson was dismissed as a reliable witness and thereafter came to be regarded as a Packer-like time waster. Try as I might, I cannot see any other viable explanation.

If evidence that proves that people´s normal conversation voices can be not only heard but also made out over a distance of 32 meters somehow reinforces your belief that Hutchinson was lying about it, then you are most welcome to draw that conclusion. Not that it tallies very well with your professed fondness of people who scientifically check the material in an issue, but it´s not for me to decide how you do your homework, is it?

Well, Fish, that’s where scientific training comes in useful. The fact is that a scientific model which fails to account for every contributory variable is no model at all. You can cite decibel levels until you’re blue in the face, but it counts for nothing unless wind interference and ambient noise levels are factored into the equation. Since we have no way of accurately determining either, we are left with mere guesswork. And one does not construct scientific models on guesswork.

Incidentally, you COULD have said that you were sorry to have misinterpreted my earlier post about the whisper... I used to think you were that kind of a man.

I am that kind of man, Fish. However, since I merely quoted and commented upon what you yourself had written, I fail to understand how I misinterpreted anything – unless, of course, you think that I should apologize for your failure to properly express your intended meaning.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Roy Corduroy]

But if Hutchinson really was a stellar witness who was kept under police wraps, Hatchett, those investigators who in later years put pen to paper or gave newspaper interviews would have surely made mention of him. Instead, he was accorded barely a word. This, I would suggest, provides compelling inferential evidence that Hutchinson was dismissed as a reliable witness and thereafter came to be regarded as a Packer-like time waster. Try as I might, I cannot see any other viable explanation.

Good evening Garry,

That is an interesting observation. But I can't recall the police mentioning any witness much in later years. Abberline, while on the tangent of Chapman, mentioned a little of an unnamed witness seeing a man's back only. Anderson alluded to a witness, as did Swanson. There is the Mitre Square PC reference. But, racking my brain, I can't recall a great deal of ink spent on witnesses by police sources. And not a single clear police reference to a witness we recognize by name. Please correct me if I'm wrong. And I mean that. I may learn something.

So if Hutchinson wasn't mentioned, I don't infer anything much at all from that.

Roy