Did Hutchinson get the night wrong?

[Rubyretro]

ps Fishy,

Surely the 'conjecture' is you saying that the witness got the wrong night,
or going off on a 'Toppy thought that.." or "Abberline must have.." spiel..

..not Mrs Lewis was 'nervous, saw what the loiterer was doing from afar, didn't get a good close up look etc' which is fairly deductable and uncontentious

??

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Surely the 'conjecture' is you saying that the witness got the wrong night"

Think about it, Ruby - is it just I who say so? No, it is not. I quote Walter Dew, who said so. And he was a detective researching the Ripper case. We cannot possibly know if it was conjecture back then. It may have been a very well underbuilt speculation.
If you ask me whether it was proven or not, I would say that it was most probably not proven beyond doubt. But it sure seems that the police had no qualms about dropping Hutchinson. They would thus have been pretty sure.

"Toppy thought that" IS conjecture if it is not coupled to something we know he thought. It is conjecture to say that Toppy thought that Kelly was beautiful, but not to say that he thought astrakhan man was someone like Randolph Churchill - we KNOW that this was Toppys stance. At least if we are to believe Reg Hutchinson. It can and should be argued that Reg makes the quotatio second hand material.
"Abberline must have" may or may not be conjecture. If we say he must have taken an intrest in the Ripper case, we are in the clear. If we say that he must have bathed twice a day we are not. Inbetween, there are lots of things that - depending on who makes the call - may be conjecture or not. A good example would be where I say that Abberline must have known that both Lewis and Hutchinson placed a man in Dorset Street at 2.30, it is nothing I can prove. But the overwhelming probability that he realized it or had it pointed out to him takes it away from conjecture country in my mind. But not in Bens, mind you!

At any rate, just like you say, much of our thinking must involve some sort of conjecture. It is the amount added, though, and the shape and form it takes, that decides whether we are on firm land or on loose sand - or way out at sea. Now, any jokes about fishermen spending most of their time out to sea are NOT welcome!

"Mrs Lewis was 'nervous, saw what the loiterer was doing from afar, didn't get a good close up look etc' which is fairly deductable and uncontentious"

Not so, I´m afraid. How could we possibly know that she was nervous? How can we possibly know that she looked at her man from afar? The suggestion that she never got a good close look is better, since it tallies with the poor/nonexistant descriptions she gave. As for the rest, it remains pure conjecture.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

PPS Fish -I suddenly realised why you were much more encouraging when I mooted an idea about the Ripper's MO changing because of the rain..

You would much rather argue on nebulous things like that - how much background noise there might be, what distance a non existant conversation might have been heard at etc, because you are on marshy ground with the
man standing watching the Court..

You would have him doing anything but that, because you know very well that your 'cup of tea' is too weak an argument..

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"you are on marshy ground with the man standing watching the Court.."

Actually, Ruby, we are ALL on marshy ground with that, though some have chosen to disregard it and claim that they know the exact movements of the two men, that they know that Lewis had a key to understanding how a man who waits for somebody to come out acts physically, that Hutchinson MUST have been on the south side of the street etcetera. Such things would seem to confirm that these posters are not on marshy ground, but make no mistake about it - their assertions are pure guesswork. We have very little information that we try to make very much from, and that - understandably - makes for a lot of wobbly conclusions.

My main concern is that it has been regarded as established, more or less, that the loiterer and Hutchinson were one and the same, and that knot must be untied in order to open up for a broader understanding of the case. Most researchers have missed out - Ben will tell you that they have chosen to disregard a silly suggestion - on this. I think Tom Wescott´s reaction goes to tell what I am talking about - he asked himself why he had never realized the opportunity I am speaking of. Many, many others will have been of the same mind, and the less you know of the case, the likelier it will be that you have never pondered the possibility of a mistaken day. Many if not most of the known authors write that Hutch and the loiterer were probably one and the same. This, to my mind, is not because they have pondered the possibility of a muddling of dates, but instead because they choose to believe that Hutchinson was honest and fail to see any other possibility than an identification with the loiterer. I am very confident that this will not be the case in times to come, though.

"You would have him doing anything but that, because you know very well that your 'cup of tea' is too weak an argument.."

Two objections:

1. I would not have him do "anything", Ruby. I would have him in Dorset Street on Thursday morning, observing Kelly with a well-dressed man.

2. My argument is anything but weak. We count 1459 posts on this thread, and so far I am holding my ground easily.

The best,
Fisherman

[Garry Wroe]

"[Dew] leaves no room for doubting his belief that Carrie Maxwell was mistaken over the date, as witness, ‘[i]f the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.’"

That´s how I read it before too, Garry. But the implication that she must have been wrong on the dates is actually NOT there.

Oh, but it is, Fish. And demonstrably so: ‘I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.’ (My emphasis.)

The implication is unambiguous. Dew thought it unlikely that Maxwell had misidentified Kelly and thus concluded that she must have confused either the date or time. At no point in his text does Dew even hint at a misidentification on Maxwell’s part. The emphasis is consistently on ‘date and time’.

"if the medicos were unable to specify a precise time of death, there was no possibility that Hutchinson’s alleged 2:00am encounter with Kelly was discounted on the basis of the available forensic evidence. No possibility whatsoever. Accordingly, we are left with but one alternative – Dew believed Hutchinson to have been mistaken over the timing of the Kelly encounter, not the date."

Not agreed, I´m afraid! The failure to mention Lewis speaks a very clear language here, as does the walking the streets all night in spite of the hard rain. And other things too may and would have been dug up that made the police realize that Hutch was off on the days.

The only thing that need concern us here, Fish, is what Dew actually wrote. Since he made no mention of Sarah Lewis, the prevailing weather conditions, nor indeed Hutchinson’s nocturnal peregrinations, such issues are irrelevant under the present discussion. The fact is that Dew believed both Maxwell and Hutchinson to have been mistaken over either the time or date. In the case of Maxwell, the forensic evidence was sufficient to exclude any possibility of a daylight sighting. Thus Dew clearly concluded that Maxwell had confused the date on which her Kelly encounter had occurred.

With Hutchinson, however, no such inference could be made. His alleged 2:00am sighting of Kelly was certainly not incompatible with the medical evidence, and couldn’t, therefore, have been called into question on the basis of date-confusion. Hence, trusting to the criteria laid down by Dew himself, it must have been assumed that Hutchinson had made a timing error.

It must be emphasised that Dew regarded Hutchinson as a sincere but mistaken witness. In Dew’s mind, there was no question that Hutchinson had met Kelly. The problem for Dew was the timing of that encounter:-

Was the man in the billycock hat Jack the Ripper?

In spite of contradictory evidence which came to light later, and in spite of a departure from his method of swift and sudden attack, I think he was, always providing Mary Cox was correct in what she said.

A little later, more than one neighbour heard Marie singing blithely, if a little unsteadily. The singing continued for fully an hour.

Then came silence, a silence which synchronized, if my theory is correct, with the transformation of the quiet-looking bearded man who had mysteriously won the girl's confidence, into the inhuman devil his previous deeds had shown him to be.

The implications of this passage are unequivocal. Under Dew’s surmise, Blotchy was Kelly’s killer and the murder took place at one o’clock or thereabouts – meaning that Kelly had already been dead for an hour when Hutchinson claimed she was parading about Commercial Street in search of clientele. Since one or the other condition must have been untrue, Dew concluded that Hutchinson must have been mistaken with regard to his timings and revised his ‘theory’ accordingly. But this was mere speculation on Dew’s part. Indeed, few if any of Dew’s conclusions are evidentially based. There is no corroboration for a one o’clock time of death, for example, and the notion that Carrie Maxwell could have succumbed to date-confusion is laughable in view of the fact that her final exchange with ‘Kelly’ occurred just an hour or two before she learned of Kelly’s death. So whilst Dew’s Ripper-related writings are undoubtedly interesting, they are all but worthless from an evidential perspective, as witness the following:-

[I]f Mrs. Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchison erred also?

If Mrs Maxwell was mistaken, is it not probable that George Hutchi(n)son erred also?

‘If’ … ‘is it not probable’ … This is mere surmise – supplicatory speculation lacking any semblance of evidential corroboration. It provides no confirmation whatever that Hutchinson confused the date or time relating to his alleged Kelly encounter, and no indication as to why Hutchinson came to be viewed as a discredited witness. Indeed, just about all it does tell us is that one should never set about writing up one’s experiences of fifty years earlier without recourse notes.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

Ruby:

"Surely the 'conjecture' is you saying that the witness got the wrong night"

Think about it, Ruby - is it just I who say so? No, it is not. I quote Walter Dew, who said so. And he was a detective researching the Ripper case. We cannot possibly know if it was conjecture back then. It may have been a very well underbuilt speculation.

Since Dew was making his very personal comments a long time after the events, and since those comments have long time been regarded as dubious, I think looking at Mrs Lewis's inquest statement, made while her memory was fresh, is better. Any comments regarding Dew and conjecture are superflous.

If you ask me whether it was proven or not, I would say that it was most probably not proven beyond doubt. But it sure seems that the police had no qualms about dropping Hutchinson. They would thus have been pretty sure.

But were they right ? We cannot judge because we don't know the reasons that Hutchinson was dropped. We can judge the general efficacity of the Police at the time, and if we judge them by their track record in catching murderers , we can form the justified opinion that they could easily have been wrong in their assessment of Hutchinson.

"Toppy thought that" IS conjecture if it is not coupled to something we know he thought. It is conjecture to say that Toppy thought that Kelly was beautiful, but not to say that he thought astrakhan man was someone like Randolph Churchill - we KNOW that this was Toppys stance. At least if we are to believe Reg Hutchinson. It can and should be argued that Reg makes the quotatio second hand material.

It is pure conjecture that Toppy even said what Reg quoted him as saying, let alone whether he was lying or not. For the time being, it remains conjecture that even Reg said what he was quoted as saying.

"Abberline must have" may or may not be conjecture. If we say he must have taken an intrest in the Ripper case, we are in the clear. If we say that he must have bathed twice a day we are not. Inbetween, there are lots of things that - depending on who makes the call - may be conjecture or not. A good example would be where I say that Abberline must have known that both Lewis and Hutchinson placed a man in Dorset Street at 2.30, it is nothing I can prove. But the overwhelming probability that he realized it or had it pointed out to him takes it away from conjecture country in my mind. But not in Bens, mind you!

It neverless remains total conjecture as to what Abberline thought/could have or would have checked out.

"

Mrs Lewis was 'nervous, saw what the loiterer was doing from afar, didn't get a good close up look etc' which is fairly deductable and uncontentious"

Not so, I´m afraid. How could we possibly know that she was nervous? How can we possibly know that she looked at her man from afar? The suggestion that she never got a good close look is better, since it tallies with the poor/nonexistant descriptions she gave. As for the rest, it remains pure conjecture.

We know that she was a woman in the street at 2am with a murderer at loose. It would follow that the majority of women would be nervous but we know that, in addition, Mrs Lewis had been frightened a short time before, because she recounted the fact to the coroner at the inquest. We know that she witnessed what the 'loiterer' was doing (enough to swear to it) but she didn't
look at him close up.

There is very little need for conjecture (unlike your scenarios), as the testimony of of Mrs Lewis makes her actions plain.

[curious4]

Did Hutchinson......?

I think it very unlikely that Hutchinson got the day wrong. When something earth-shattering happens people tend to remember what they did around that time more clearly,
as in "What were you doing when JFK was assassinated?" or in Sweden "When Olof Palme was shot" or "When the Estonia sank". What happened to Mary Kelly must have been one of those shocking things which make the day stick in people´s minds.

Regards,

C4

(Sorry if this has been said before - not up to reading all 100-odd posts)

[Fisherman]

Garry:

"The implication is unambiguous."

I thought so too, Garry. But I was wrong. Look at it again, please:

"‘I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong.’ "

One may think, as I used to, that Dew points away from the person error and instead opts for the time error in both cases. But let´s take in the whole context:

"Then followed other information which further shook the police reconstruction of the crime.
The informant this time was a young man name d George Hutchison, who declared that he had seen Kelly at 2 a.m. in Dorset Street. She had been drinking. He spoke to her, and she confessed that she was " broke ".

A few minutes later he saw her again. This time she was in the company of a man, and the two were walking in the direction of Miller's Court.

This man had no billycock hat and no beard. He was in fact the exact opposite in appearance of the man seen by Mrs. Cox.
Hutchison described him as well-dressed, wearing a felt hat, a long, dark astrakhan collared coat and dark spats. A turned-up black moustache gave him a foreign appearance.
But I know from my experience that many people, with the best of intentions, are often mistaken, not necessarily as to a person, but as to date and time. And I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong."

So the text leading up to the sentences you quoted tells us that Dew is discussing Hutchinson. He did so after having discussed Maxwell in the paragraphs before. And that is why he states that people with the best of intentions (meaning Maxwell AND Hutchinson, I gather) may be mistaken, not necessarily at to person (like Maxwell) but instead to time and date (like Hutchinson).
One may choose a preferred version of course, and I am not 100 Per cent sure which is the correct one - but I do think that the one with the witnesses portraying different reasons for erring is the better one. 70-30, if you ask me! At any rate, surely you can see that it is a viable solution to the wording?

In the light od this, you will understand that I very much chalenge the rest of your elaborations in this field. The fact that Maxwell would have been wrong on a daylight sighting does ni no way mean that Dew could not have had her wrong on person. It is all very easy: If she could not have seen Mary Kelly at eight in the morning, she was mistaken EITHER on the day or on the person! There is nothing in Dew´s text that clinches it either way, althoug, as I say, I think the latter suggestion is the better.

"With Hutchinson, however, no such inference could be made. His alleged 2:00am sighting of Kelly was certainly not incompatible with the medical evidence, and couldn’t, therefore, have been called into question on the basis of date-confusion."

Of course it could! He saw Kelly alive, not dead, and Kelly WAS alive on the 8:th, the 7:th, the 6:th ... Of course he could have muddled the dates!

"It must be emphasised that Dew regarded Hutchinson as a sincere but mistaken witness. In Dew’s mind, there was no question that Hutchinson had met Kelly."

That´s my take on it too - although I think even Dew must have had some doubts at times. But he very obviously optd for a truthful story on Hutch´s account in that particular respect.

"Under Dew’s surmise, Blotchy was Kelly’s killer and the murder took place at one o’clock or thereabouts – meaning that Kelly had already been dead for an hour when Hutchinson claimed she was parading about Commercial Street"

I would not be too certain about the exact timings, but they are not of any greater importance here - the main thing is that Dew would have thought that Blotchy killed Kelly before Hutch claimed he saw her. Agreed.

"Since one or the other condition must have been untrue, Dew concluded that Hutchinson must have been mistaken with regard to his timings and revised his ‘theory’ accordingly."

If we are speaking of a muddling up of the dates - yes. If we are speaking of merely a muddling up of three hours - emphatically no. I outlined a numner of problems in that respect in my former post to you - the pubs were still open at the time you are suggesting that Dew believed Hutch saw Kelly, the streets would still have been full with pubcrawlers, vendors, merrymakers ... there is no realistic way that Hutch would have mistaken 11PM for 2 AM. He aslo said that the clock struck 2 as he came into Whitechapel, and 3 as he left. Would he have mistaken eleven strokes for two and twelve for three? I think not. That suggestion does not stand up for a second, Garry, and I suspect you know this too.

"But this was mere speculation on Dew’s part."

Sounds to loose to me - I think it was something that was the general meaning of the police at the time. But both of us will find it hard to prove our respective views, althoug I agree that Dew seemingly was not 100 per cent sure that Hutch was off on the dates/timing. But I have elaborated before on possible explanations to this.

"‘If’ … ‘is it not probable’ … This is mere surmise – supplicatory speculation lacking any semblance of evidential corroboration."

So it is - but we need to add that you forgot to add that he also wrote that "I can see no other explanation in this case than that Mrs. Maxwell and George Hutchison were wrong." He would have felt personally sure, apparently, but he would not have had the proof to go with it. Not did the police at the time - or else, we would not have dew wording this the way he did. And no matter how you choose to look upon it, I still say that this is very valuable and useful information that in all probability holds the key to the Hutchinson enigma.
Plus I noted that you were very pessimistic about me having a case from the outset - and yet here we are, closing in on 1500 posts on the subject, ans nobody has put forward a scintilla of evidence that goes to disprove me. The best shot so far is an anchorless suggestion that people don´t muddle days in weeks with significant occasions - and that is really as faint as it is unsubstantiated.
Clearly my suggestion has something going for it!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Curious4:

"I think it very unlikely that Hutchinson got the day wrong. When something earth-shattering happens people tend to remember what they did around that time more clearly,
as in "What were you doing when JFK was assassinated?" or in Sweden "When Olof Palme was shot" or "When the Estonia sank".

Please keep in mind that Hutchs meeting with Kelly was - if I am correct - on Thursday morning, and not on the day she died. People who remember what they did when Palme was shot, remember that they were in a restaurant, that they were playing cards, that they were singing karaoke when the news reached them. But if you had asked them three days after on what day they did not have their morning paper delivered, they may well have missed the answer. Unless you sugges that they would go "Let´s see, Palme was shot on the 26:th, that means that I got the paper on the day before, and the day before that - aha - it must have been the 23:d!

THIS is what you are looking at - not Hutch´s ability to say exactly what he did as the news of the murder reached him. A major event does not clear peoples skulls and make them immune against muddling dates. If so, the investigators of murders would not tell us that muddled dates is one of the more common mistakes made by witnesses, would they?


The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ruby!

You shall have to wait - but I will try and find time for you later this evening.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Ruby!

You shall have to wait - but I will try and find time for you later this evening.

The best,
Fisherman

Hey everyone ! -I think I've pulled !! (..can someone lend me some lippy ?..)

[Ben]

Fisherman!

“So if Dew WAS correct, it becomes obvious that he was not correct? Could you elaborate?”

This is not what I said. You asked me what I thought was "obvious", and I answered: that Dew was not correct, as acknowledged for decades, which is why nobody tried to revive his theory as the correct explanation until late 2010.

“I regard it utterly unproven that this was what the loiterer did.”

“Utterly” unproven, but also “utterly” likely given Hutchinson’s claim that he also watched and waited for someone to emerge from Miller’s Court at the same time and same location as the wideawake loiterer observed by Lewis. Hence, we can be almost certain that her impression was correct.

“Please explain to me what one does to convey the impression that one is waiting for someone to exit an archway”

Peering intently into the court, craning the heck in that direction. Many different ways really. You just have to use some imagination. Certainly, no jury member or police official raised any objection to this impression when she imparted her evidence at the inquest, probably because they too were capable of using their imagination.

“If he said that he saw a woman entering the archway, the police would immediately start looking upon him as somebody who had overheard the inquest...?”

No, you’ve very bizarrely misunderstood. If he “said that he saw a woman entering the archway”, he might have been fearful – with considerable justification – that the police would put two and two together and register a link between the release of Sarah Lewis’ inquest information regarding the wideawake man and Hutchinson’s decision to come forward just a short time thereafter. Why don’t you wait for the clarification you seek next time before condemning me as “silly”?

“Do you actually suggest that they would never have seen the correspondance in time here? That they would not have used Lewis testimony for confirmation of Hutch´s ditto? Do you?”

I’ve asked you politely on a number of occasions not to “echo” like that when you ask me questions. It’s very rude and looks very ridiculous. Just ask me once and wait for the answer. I’ve made my position on this subject very clear numerous times. There is no evidence that any connection was ever made between Hutchinson and the wideawake man mentioned by Lewis. Had the connection been made, it is inconceivable that the press would not have latched onto it, especially given their demonstrated willingness to pass their own commentary on eyewitness evidence. It is extremely likely that the other man mentioned in Lewis’ testimony very quickly became the focus of her account, and thus a suspicious person of interest. The wideawake man was consequently overlooked in terms of potential significance, apparently.

Clearly, therefore, Hutchinson’s deliberate omission with regard to the presence of Sarah Lewis appears to have paid off. It wouldn’t have been a case of outright denial of having seen her, since it is unlikely that the police ever asked him about her, but one in which she simply wasn't alluded to by either party. Abberline had almost certainly come up from Leman Street police station when he caught wind of Hutchinson’s account, and was thus unlikely to have been in any strong position, at the time of the initial interview, to cross-reference his emerging claims with those of previous witnesses. It’s laughably absurd for you to accuse me of “farfetched speculation” when you are prepared to conjure up a whole set of “must haves” (such as the putative Lewis cross-referencing on the part of the police) for which not the tiniest scrap of evidence exists.

“I would very much like to see any parallel case where A/ a killer approaching the police purposefully omitted to mention knowledge of evidence that could tie him to the case since he thought it would make it too obvious to the police why he came forward”

This is preposterous expectation, and strictly not to be taken remotely seriously. This is akin to arguing that unless someone can come up with a “parallel case” in which a serial killer had a large moustache, a white horse, and a set of herbal remedies, Tumblety can’t be the killer. In other words, the degree of specificity you’re demanding in a “parallel case” is both unrealistic and irrational. In any case, we don’t need examples in this case because the extent evidence tells its own story, which is to the effect that no Lewis-Hutchinson cross-referencing ever occurred, and that Hutchinson didn’t mention Lewis despite having been monitoring the court when she entered it. That’s the actual evidence. “Parallel cases” are only necessary when speculative scenarios are deduced from the evidence, such as the inference that Hutchinson lied about his reasons for monitoring the court after realising he had been seen because he was the killer and wanted to legitimize his presence, pre-empt a later identification, and avoid possible suspicion.

“How about fifty years?”

No, I meant according to sources worth taking seriously, not Dew, who you cautioned me back in October of last year not to listen to. Don’t you want me to take that advice anymore?

“Yes, Ben, I´ve done the math, so I know that.”

Excellent, so the whole “lecturing me about my own language” thing didn’t pan out very successfully, did it?

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Ruby,

I can't understand why you keep being accused of "conjecture". Indeed, I find such an accusation very difficult to sustain when offered from the perspective of someone who thinks Hutchinson got the night wrong. It is certainly hypocritical. And how does the fact that we're on 1500 posts on the subject remotely increase the likelihood of the "different day" speculation being correct, as Fisherman has just suggested? "Look at me! I'm still posting!". Great. And? How does this enhance the probability of date-confusion? And what do lots of posts actually communicate other than a willingness to continue arguing with people? This doesn't mean Fisherman has "held his ground" necessarily. It could just as easily mean that he is continuing to post in spite of failing to "hold his ground".

This is not an attack, but a reminder that arguments are neither won nor sustained through sheer quantity of posts. Most of the 1500 posts in question haven't been concerned with the wrong day hypothesis anyway. They've been more concerned with the Victoria Home guidelines, the nature of Hutchinson's discrediting, and even more frequently, the issue of whether or not Hutchinson lied or killed anyone. An entirely generic Hutchinson debate, in other words, of the type I was having in 2006.

Walter Dew's theories have been known about for decades, including his take on Hutchinson, and yet despite this knowledge, the vast majority of commentators on the subject have chosen to identity Hutchinson as the man seen by Lewis, not because they hold any particular conviction with regard to Hutchinson's "honesty" or lack thereof, but because they are simply capable of registering the striking similarity between the two accounts with regard the movements and behaviour of Hutchinson and Lewis loiterer at the same time and the same location on the same night. A strictly general observation (and anyone can apply it to me if they feel I'm guilty of it), but be very wary of anyone purporting to be the instigator of a permanent change in decades-long mainstream thinking on a particular subject, as they tend to have very large and undeserved egos. "For years you all assumed X to be true, but that was until I came along, and now everyone will hereafter believe Y, all thanks to me!" Yeah. Right.

This holds true for the "ripper community" as much as anywhere else.

Hi C4,

Welcome to the discussion!

"I think it very unlikely that Hutchinson got the day wrong. When something earth-shattering happens people tend to remember what they did around that time more clearly"

I agree 100%.

In this case, there was even more reason for the 9th to be remembered, rather than confused with another date. In addition to the earth-shattering news that was the murder of Mary Kelly, who he claimed to have known "very well" for three years, he had returned 13 miles all the way from Romford that night, according to his own account, and the Lord Mayor's Show coincided with both these memorable occasions. The three events occurring on the same date strike me as more than sufficient reason to discount "date confusion" in this case.

All the best,
Ben

[Lechmere]

Been a bit busy later, so please forgive me for going back over some points:

Ben
“I said the number of people legitimately on the streets in the small hours would have been two great for anyone to home in on any particular individual to the extent of recording their movements for every murder. The ripper was clearly one such person and he was never caught.”
Clearly the streets were fairly empty in the small hours of the morning, but that is to miss the point. The point of contention is that very few inmates at the Victoria Home would have had special passes to grant them access between 12.30-1.00 am and the normal opening hours.
Very few will have paid for their beds and not bothered to go back there to sleep.
If Jack the Ripper (whether that person was Hutchinson or not) lived at the Victoria Home the combination of the rules and the social nature of such establishments for long term inmates, would probably have made his absence or late entry noticeable.
Also it is abundantly clear that the police took extra notice of lodging houses inmates.
These factors make the Victoria Home a less than likely home for the ripper.
The general busyness of the nocturnal streets is only really related to this because you claim people would be coming and going all night long almost as if it were daytime.

I would also like to leap to your defence over the use of Maths in preference to Math. Just to show that I am not biased against everything you say. However I am aware that the younger generation of educators are using the revolting Americanism ‘Math’ more and more frequently, which demonstrates the decline in teaching standards in this country. If only we could get back to how things were in the Victorian times, just like in Oliver.

This is a strange claim:
“But the author’s "agenda" didn’t enter into the equation when it came to quotes directly attributed to Toppy by Reg, and I’m surprised to see you keep missing this distinction.”
Of course it did – the author’s agenda informed Reg. This is rather obvious.

I would argue that it is very weak putting any emphasis on Lewis’s suggestion that the wide-awake man (of non-military bearing) was there purposefully staring down Miller’s Court. She only had a quick glimpse at him. The evidential correlation is meagre. You say there are compelling reasons to think that Abberline didn’t make the connection yet also say that it is futile to argue that there isn’t a connection. That Abberline was some species of idiot, wasn’t he? And all the journalists around at the time were idiots also.
The sensible conclusion is that there is a piece of missing evidence that ‘unconnected’ them. One of those convenient missing documents.

It is also weak to always rely on the 'it has always been thought that such and such is so, therefore it must be', or the similar 'I was discussing this in 2006, therefore I must be right' line.

“It is even less likely that Dew was ever familiar with the Victoria Home entry guidelines”
Keep consistent Mr Ben, you don’t think there were any guidelines, do you?

On your last point about date confusion on the occurrence such a significant event. It looks like various witnesses were confused about when they saw Kelly given the variety of statements about when and where she was seen. Unless they were all telling the truth or gratuitously lying.

Mr Wroe
[I]“He (Dew) leaves no room for doubting his belief that Carrie Maxwell was mistaken over the date, as witness, ‘f the medical evidence is accepted, Mrs. Maxwell could not have been right. The doctors were unable, because of the terrible mutilations, to say with any certainty just when death took place, but they were very emphatic that the girl could not have been alive at eight o'clock that morning.’”
I believe that the Dew text if read in its full context (I won’t cut and paste it again) actually implies that he thought Maxwell was confused about the person, not the date. At the very least it is ambiguous. I also think you have misread Dew in affirming that he suggested that Hutchinson was out by time rather than date.

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.

I can agree with this virtually word for word...
“I think that Mary became a victim that night BECAUSE it was raining, and there were a lot less streetwalkers about, and very many less people outside in Dorset street -which allowed the Ripper to moniter the Court and sneak in unseen.
“Besides which he wanted to get out of the rain like everyone else.”
I think that the victims took him to his murder scenes though and Kelly took him there, possibly because she always took her customers there, possibly just because it was raining. The ‘monitoring’ was I suspect mobile monitoring – i.e. while walking with his victim or just before picking them up he would have been very observant.
However I don’t think the non private washing facilities at the Victoria Home nor the prospect of giving up any incriminating items of property to the deputy’s care would have been beneficial to a killer.

Also Mrs Retro, contrary to Mr Ben’s oft repeated assertions, you drew attention to the fact that Lewis was actually a competent describer of persons.
“a gentleman passed us. He followed us and spoke to us, and wanted us to follow him into an entry. He had a shiny leather bag with him.... He was short, pale-faced, with a black moustache”

“Murderers are the ultimate 'control-freaks', they take control over whether some other human being should live or die. Serial killers are all control-freaks whatever else they may or may not have in common.”
Can’t agree with this generalisation.

[Sally]

Lechmere..

I thought you were going to enlighten us regarding the plumbing trade?

Did you do that already? I must have missed it.