Poll: does the evidence support the contention that Hutchinson mistook the day

[Fisherman]

Jane Coram:

"This really demonstrates why Dew can't be used as anything more than a bit of background colour to the case. Dew was taking a somewhat dubious press report, mixing it with the truth and getting it all arse upwards. Mr Reeves did not go down to investigate because his wife had been having the jitters, he went down because he was on his way to work and just happened to chance upon her. Although she claims after the event that she had the spooks, she did not tell her husband to go and find out what was causing it. Dew picked up on a press report, which has no firm basis in fact and stated it was fact. Not good."

Excuse me for asking, but how do we know that this was what happened? How do we know that Dew did not speak to Louise Reeves himself? Why must we surmise that this "somewhat dubious press report" was somewhat dubious? And if it WAS dubious, what is there to say that Dew did not get his picture from one of the Reeves´himself - or hear about it from a colleague? And maybe Mrs Reeves urged her husband to go down the stairs somewhat earlier than usual, since she had been spooked?

I think, Jane, that your proposition that we should take for granted that Dew messed up a press report instead of having had access to the true material from the outset, is one that is founded on the loosest of grounds. I am very sorry - and somewhat disappointed, to be perfectly honest.

I read your added comment:"I should have said, 'there is no supporting evidence that Mrs Reeves told her husband to go down and investigate, other than the press report.'

Have you pondered that there was in fact also a policeman, involved in the investigation that said the same...? Why must we conclude that HIS view was grounded on the Echo´s article? Did he read all newspapers, and opt for this one when confabulating? This, Jane, is a very thin ice you are trying to make a stance on, is it not?

And what is this: "The woman was lying to the left of the door and close to the fence. Her injuries, although these men didn't know it, were exact duplicates of those which had been suffered by Mary Nicholls."

Are we to accept that Dew meant that each and every cut to Chapman´s body was also present on Nicholls? Does he mean that Nicholls had the exact same amounts of flesh attached to a cut-away uterus as Chapman had? That there were the exact same amount of nicks to the vertebrae in both cases? Is that what he tries to say? That two frenzies with a knife had produced carbon copy wounds?
I am baffled by the very suggestion that this was Dew´s aim!

Why do we ascribe Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman to the same killer? Exactly: because they were killed by a man that inflicted damages that produced victims of a type that was more or less unique. Other women were killed horrificly too in that period, like the Thames Torso victims. But what tied the Ripper´s victims together was that they suffered the same type of damages: A cut throat and an eviscerated stomach. In THAT respect, they WERE exactly the same.
And is it not far more credible that this is what Dew says, than to suggest that he knew NOTHING about it and guessed - and guessed wrong? Really, Jane!

And look at what he says of Chapman: "The head had been almost severed from the body and, for some mysterious reason, was being kept in position by a tightly tied, coloured handkerchief."
He does NOT do the press mistake of saying that the head would have rooled away if it had not been for the handkerchief. He apparently knew that the head was only ALMOST severed!

I will look into your quotation about Cross and Paul, but not tonight - I´ve got too much to do right now. But a quick glance tells me that there may be contentious elements involved.

As for the rest of the so called mistakes, I invest nothing in them myself, I must say. I hope you can see my points about it.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jane Coram]

Hi Babybird,

I think (although I'm not sure) that there was a later report posted by Fisherman on this thread that's more comprehensive than that one. If I'm not misremembering, Fisherman wrote to get clarification on some points. I may be mistaken about the order in which they arrived though, so wouldn't like to say for sure. Perhaps Fisherman would like to confirm that is the report posted on this thread is the one we should be using?

I think the points you raised in your last post show why Fisherman thought a bit more information would be useful!

Much love,

Janie

xxxxxxx

[Fisherman]

Don´t do too much reading of that weather report, Babybird. It was replaced by more relevant stuff. Read the posts and you will see. Search for "Jebson".

We don´t want you to get the wrong picture, do we?

The best,
Fisherman

[babybird67]

but Fish

that's the weather report you based your article on wasn't it? Or am I mistaken?

Thanks for the head's up will have a look under that search criteria...is such a huge thread to trawl through with such a lot of repetitive posts to scan over.

[Fisherman]

"I'm not sure we need to put any more examples from Dew up. I think the ones that have gone up already make an adequate case."

So far, the only thing I have seen that can be referred to as a true mistake, is the wrongful dating of Chapman´s demise. That said, I have yet to look into the Cross/Paul business. But certainly, more examples would be very welcome.

At any rate, I think that there is no way that we can reduce the information offerd by a police officer who was actve on the case as nothing but a colourful background. To me, that sounds preposterous, quite frankly.

Now, the examples?

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Babybird:

"that's the weather report you based your article on wasn't it? Or am I mistaken?"

I think you are very often mistake, though not on this. But better and more exact material was added afterwards, changing the picture. Read the thread, and you will see. If you then decide to say that the meteorologist mut stick with his first report, that´s okay. People have used that approach before.

The best,
Fisherman

[babybird67]

thanks Fish

obviously I disgree that i "very often mistake" but then, i knew you wouldn't agree with that! I am glad I have got that right. I included it because I felt if it was the primary source for your wrong night/weather hypothesis it was important to include it. But of course the additional information will also be important so I will search for it and also put that up.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Fisherman,

Well, all I can say is that people will make up their own mind whether or not they think Dew is a totally reliable source. I'm not here to convince anyone of anything. They can make up their own minds.

Can I just clarify? Are you saying that Reeves perjured himself at the inquest and lied about finding Martha on his way to work? He also lied to the police in that case as well, and Ellison's report states that Reeves told the police that he was on his way to work, it nowhere mentions that his wife sent him down.
The official documents state that Reeves found Martha on his way to work. If someone would rather believe Dew, then that's their choice of course.

If that had been the only portion of Dew's book that was under question, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's not.

From my point of view, when an investigating officer who was working on the case at the time states that Polly Nichol's injuries were the exact duplicates of Annie Chapman's then I am going to be suspicious about everything he says that isn't confirmed by other sources.

He stated that Polly Nichols was 38. False

He stated that Emma Smith died two days after the attack without regaining consciousness. False

He stated again later in the book that Annie Chapman died 3 days before the double event. False.

And that's just the ones I picked up browsing through it.

Perhaps a poll on whether or not we think Dew is totally reliable as a source is on the cards? Lol.

Kind regards

Janie

[Jane Coram]

Hi Fisherman,

Am I correct in saying that the weather report you placed up earlier on the thread at my request is the one we should be using?

Do I have your permission to re-post it here so that it's easily visible to discuss? I think that it got buried in the rather comprehensive post.

Many thanks,

Kind regards

Janie

[Lechmere]

I would suggest that the mistakes of date and age that Dew made are perfectly understandable when he was writing so many years later without notes. The broader issues are likely to be true – the general feel of the case from a police investigators perspective.
On Robert Paul – he didn’t come forward – he was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night – so Dew half remembered that right. I would say that given the gap in time, his account of the discovery of Nichols is pretty good. It is better than I have seen in some much later factual books about Jack the Ripper!

[Fisherman]

And I can only second that, Lechmere. These are all minor flaws, and he prepared the audience for possible mistakes on smaller things like dates in his first lines of the text.
On my newspaper, we often get telephone calls from people who have spotted a bad spelling or some sort of other fault. Most of the callers are quite nice and want to help, but others can be quite aggressive and keep bickering about how bad an error it is to use just the one p in a word instead of two. We often tell such peole to spend an effort counting the spellings that came out correct. The same applies for Dew, I think - he seems to have gotten very much completely correct, and a few things wrong. Looking at the timespan of fifty years, itis a remarkable feat in my eyes, and I am of the meaning that he is a valuable source.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jane Coram:

"Am I correct in saying that the weather report you placed up earlier on the thread at my request is the one we should be using?

Do I have your permission to re-post it here so that it's easily visible to discuss?"

That is correct - the report I posted in answer to your request is the latest one. According to Steve Jebson, it is the best he can offer and the one that would be most true to the real picture. You are welcome to post it again as far as I´m concerned.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jane:

"all I can say is that people will make up their own mind whether or not they think Dew is a totally reliable source. "

Or a very reliable one. Or a markedly reliable one. Or a reasonably reliable one. Are there totally reliable sources in our bookshelves?

"Are you saying that Reeves perjured himself at the inquest and lied about finding Martha on his way to work? He also lied to the police in that case as well, and Ellison's report states that Reeves told the police that he was on his way to work, it nowhere mentions that his wife sent him down.
The official documents state that Reeves found Martha on his way to work. If someone would rather believe Dew, then that's their choice of course."

Why do we need to dismiss one possibility in favour of another? If mrs Reeves did feel that "premonition", why could she not have told her man to go and check? And why could he not have answered "Oh, alright, I´ll have a look since I´m off to job anyway"? Afterwards, he would not be a liar or perjure himself for saying he found Tabram whan leaving for his job, would he?

There is also another level to this discussion - if a colleague of Dew´s spoke to mrs Reeves about this, and was told about the premonition bit, and if mrs Reeves said that she had sent her husband to find out, omitting to mention that he did so on his way to work, then we may have a picture where that colleague later told Dew about this.
And what do we have then? A Walter Dew that tells porkies? A Walter Dew that has forgotten? Or a Walter Dew that reiterates the exact information he had gotten from a colleague? Can we assess to what extent the information from the Echo article was common knowledge amongst the policemen who worked the case? No, we cannot. Maybe it was and maybe it was not.

"From my point of view, when an investigating officer who was working on the case at the time states that Polly Nichol's injuries were the exact duplicates of Annie Chapman's then I am going to be suspicious about everything he says that isn't confirmed by other sources."

... unless, that is, we opt for an understanding that he spoke of a deep cut to the neck and a cut up belly, something that has had many, many Ripperologists speaking of very similar damages over the years. Or are you really of the meaning that Walter Dew did not KNOW what the damages looked like in each case? Keep in mind that he would NOT have used papers as a primary source for his knowledge, but instead information circulated within the police corpse.

"He stated that Polly Nichols was 38. False
He stated that Emma Smith died two days after the attack without regaining consciousness. False
He stated again later in the book that Annie Chapman died 3 days before the double event. False."

All small errors of the type he said may have crept in, just as I have said before. It does not affect the overall picture in my mind. I have always acknowledged that there are flaws, but they are not of a damning character as far as I can see.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jane!

On your point on Dew claiming the exact same wounds on Chapman as on Nicholls, it tallies poorly with what Dew says later on:

"Not even the rudiments of surgical skill were needed to cause the mutilations I saw.
But there was one thing about the mutilations which seems to have escaped general notice. They showed a graduating ferocity.
All of them were terrible, but the second was worse than the first and the third worse than the second, until the climax was reached in that terrible room in Miller's Court."

And there we are - Dew obviously did not think that the damages were exactly the same in any other capacity than in a general meaning: the cut throat and the opened up belly. As for the fact that they were all unalike inbetween themselves when it came to the specifics, Dew knew that full well, it would seem. A "graduating ferocity" with each victim in not reconcilable with exactly duplicated wounds. And why would we think he was of that meaning - it would be a ridiculous thing to suggest.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jane Coram]

Hi Fisherman,

I'm afraid Fish, that I would never agree to something that I knew to be wrong, just to keep someone's respect. If I did I'd lose respect for myself.

I think it's quite clear that no matter how many errors I find to post from Dew's memoirs you are not going to accept them, so posting more is simply a waste of time. I will however put more up if you want me to. You've obviously made up your mind on Dew's reliability and that's fine. They were posted for those who were undecided about which way to vote in the poll. They can decide for themselves whether or not your explanations satisfy them.

I must point out though, that this is not my opinion. Most serious researchers accept that Dew's memoirs are riddled with errors and not reliable enough to use as the sole source to build a theory on. I admire your confidence in Dew, but I'm afraid you might well be in a very minor minority.

Rather than me waffle on, here's Dew's entry in the original version of the A-Z which reflects my opinion exactly (I suspect it reflects the opinion of many serious researchers):

Despite some inaccuracies, the memoirs give a convincing first-hand account of police work on the ground. The frequent errors in the third of the book devoted to the Ripper case are of the kind one would expect from an honest man reminiscing without recourse to documents. He mis-spells a great many names. He makes several mistakes over Elizabeth Stride's murder. He wrongly believed that Robert Paul never came forward to corroborate Charle's Cross's evidence. He believed that Emma Smith and Martha Tabram were Ripper victims. In common with other policemen, he dismissed the 'Dear Boss' letter as a hoax; he also believed that Goulston Street graffito was not the Ripper's work. He believed the man seen by Matthew Packer was Elizabeth Stride's murderer.

The rest are just general observations of what was going on at the time, and are a very valuable source of information about general police practice.

To be fair, there are a good number of researchers that do think that Martha was a victim of Jack's. A few think that Emma might have been, but then we have to remember that Dew didn't know that Emma had regained consciousness and given a statement to the police to the effect that a gang of youths attacked her. He was working on wrong information.

He was also working on wrong information when he claimed that Mrs Mortimer saw Jack the Ripper, because he seems unaware that Mr Goldstein was identified and vindicated. He also seems unaware that Robert Paul testified at the inquest and was identified.

For an investigating officer so involved in the case, he seems unaware of a lot of evidence in the case, either that or his memory was just playing tricks on him. Either way, he got it wrong, no matter how it is dressed up with rhetoric, I'm afraid.

Perhaps we should move onto the weather report now.

Best wishes

Jane