Hutchinson's Sunday Sighting

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

I will offer one more case to show why Sarah Lewis

would certainly have been doubted after the inquest

.

Just mere supposition with nothing to support the assertion.

So, what have we got here? Exactly - we have a man that ends up in a very stressed situation and gets a quick glance at his assailants, just like Lewis did, albeit she was not attacked.

She wasn't attacked and that's primordial. I agree that she would have felt stress -like any woman walking along a dark dodgy street and seeing a lone man lurking, especially with murders having been committed in the area. It's not at all the same level of stress.

. [QUOTE]

Once again, we see the parallel:[/QUOTE

You see a parallel -I don't.

And Lewis? Equally correct: Since she did the exact same thing - experienced a magical recollection of her man,

No she didn't. She never claimed to be able to identify him again.

she was in all probability also buried six feet deep as a witness.

Just your opinion, because it happens to help your theories. Nothing to substantiate it.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Just mere supposition with nothing to support the assertion."

It may have passed you by unnoticed, Ruby - I think it MUST have - but I have listed legal writings, Swanson´s wordings and a legal case parallel to Lewis´. That actually was what I used to support my assertion. If you are too blind or - shall we say - unperceptive, to realize this, then you may need to look for another hobby.

By the bye - is not Avignon that town where the bridge never reaches to the other side of the river...? Thought so!

"You see a parallel -I don't."

I´m sad to hear that. But not in any fashion surprised. It was to be expected.

I mean, after all, why would a scared person, who initially only got a quick glance at somebody and admitted to not being able to describe the person/s seen, only to thereafter change course and furnish a nice description, in ANY fashion be ANY sort of parallel to Lewis?
I mean, it´s preposterous to even suggest such a thing, is it not?

Ruby, get out as fast as you can - all you do is to very clearly show that you are totally ignorant of these matters and that you can tell a turkey from it´s twin by claiming that they are not even the same kind of animal.

"No she didn't. She never claimed to be able to identify him again."

Let´s be honest, Ruby - that was not what I said, was it? So why try and make it look like that? It is not a very decent thing to do. I SAID that Lewis - just like Casey Reynolds - experienced a magical recollection of somebody she had formerly been totally unable to describe. That IS the same thing, whether you like it or not -and whether you change the subject or not.

"Just your opinion, because it happens to help your theories. Nothing to substantiate it."

Casey Reynolds - remember? Donald Sutherland - remember? The law book - remember? All the cases where people have been thrown out of court for changing their testimony - remember?
This, Ruby, is how research is conducted. We do not have any records about what happened to Lewis after the inquest or how her testimony was received. But that does not mean that we are at a loss to understand it! What we CAN do, even in cities where the bridges do not reach the other side, is to take a look at the normal procedure surrounding similar cases.
And guess what, Ruby? We immediately find that people who change their testimony are looked upon as potential dangers to justice, either mistaken or liars, as it were!

Can you believe that?

Or, let´s make it even simpler: Do you understand and acknowledge this? Has it come across yet? Or do you claim the opposite - that the legal system do not regard changed testimonies as in any respect doubtful or suspicious?

Is this what you think? Is that the depths from which I must haul you up? I pray not!

I actually think that you - and a couple of other posters - have realized that this is how it goes: Changed testimony - damaged credibility. Changed - damaged. Click-clack. Easy mechanism, impossible to miss.

So! When acknowledging this, you are of course immediately faced with the risk of having to admit that Lewis was a completely worthless witness.

Dear me, what to do? Wait a second ... Of course! We can always claim - in spite of the fact that Sarah Lewis changed seven out of nine parameters in her testimony, adding seven ingredients that were not even THERE from the outset - we can ( and in fact, we MUST) claim that Sarah Lewis´ testimony was not changed at all in any significant manner, that the changes that were made were ridiculously diminutive, so small that it takes a magnifying glass to spot them!

Well, Ruby - the very best of luck with that! But the bridge, you know, the bridge ... it will never reach the other side.

Then again, why would YOU care? Sur le pont, d´Avignon, on y danse, on y danse ...

Fisherman

PS: "Moreover, witnesses who change their testimony from the time of discovery to the time of trial almost always damage their credibility, unless there is a very compelling reason for the change.”
”Dispute resolution and expert evidence”, chapter 14, page 156."

Goodnight, Ruby ...

[Ben]

Certain people really need to condense their unnecessarily long-winded posts for which they have recently been ridiculed even by people who pretend to be their mates.

Ruby was just subjected to what I regard as insufferably rude and obnoxious posts, in which she was accused of being intellectually and morally blind, that her place of residence was somehow associated with a propensity towards baseless speculation, and that her post was destined to be “laughed off the boards”. Let's see if this frosty-spirited little prediction comes true, shall we? This loathsome accusation came from a poster who tends to cry like a baby and bleat to the moderators whenever he feels he is subjected to that sort of venom himself. Fortunately, I know that Ruby is not the type to be intimidated by the filibustering, ponderous, bumptious sorts.

It is ludicrous in the unacceptable extreme for anyone to single out Sarah Lewis for supposed “damaged credibility” as a result of changed testimony, especially when we know for an irrefutable fact that Hutchinson changed his testimony to a far more appreciable extent in his three-day late, discredited testimony than Lewis did. Anyone advancing the claim that Hutchinson is more credible than Lewis on that basis is a despicable fraud and a sham. But nobody’s seriously arguing that here are they? Phew! So no despicable fraudulent shams about.

Clearly nobody has any problem with the minor discrepancies between her police statement and inquest evidence. Clearly nobody has any problem with her impression of the man’s interest in the court. Clearly, nobody considers a black hat a “detailed description”, and so on. If anything, an earlier witness statement is likely to be less reliable than a later inquest testimony, especially if s/he was an unwitting or unwilling participant in an extremely traumatic affair such as Lewis would have been in the morning of 9th November, after a harrowing discovery and a sleepless night.

Again, nobody rejected Lewis’ testimony, then or now, nor has anyone asserted – until Fisherman showed up– that her police statement invalidates her inquest testimony. She did not provide an “estimation of height and body structure”. She stated “not tall, but stout”. Hardly very detailed. She did not mention hat "fashions" either, but rather a common type of headgear and the most common colour for hats and coats around: black.

It is a fact that Hutchinson changed his testimony to a considerably greater extent than Lewis changed hers.

It is a fact that Lewis was a sworn-in inquest witness, unlike Hutchinson.

In it is a fact that Hutchinson was discredited, unlike Lewis.

It is a fact that Lewis continued to be taken seriously after the inquest.

But you get the occasional shabby, nauseating shambles of an argument that asserts that despite these facts, Lewis must be doubted, and not Hutchinson. At least all of us can sleep well tonight in the full and certain knowledge that such depraved and criminally insane nonsense will never, ever into mainstream “ripperology”. Swanson’s comments were acutely specific to Packer, who was discredited along with Hutchinson. There is not the flimsiest scrap of evidence to suggest that he ever doubted Lewis’ evidence, and the same may be said of all his colleagues and subordinates amongst the 1888 police. Anyone claiming that the police discarded Lewis' testimony had better provide some sort of evidence for this claim that everyone else rejects with a chuckle. The historical record has nothing remotely negative to say about Lewis or her evidence.

The recently presented “legal parallel” with Casey Reylonds is an embarrassing, offensive joke. It perpetuates the fallacy that the wideawake man was the primary focus of Lewis' inquest testimony, which we know full well it wasn’t. It also fails miserably as a comparison because Reynolds was the actual victim of a crime, which doesn’t compare in the slightest to Lewis. Lewis never stated that she would be able to recognise the man again, as Ruby points out. The Kelly inquest was not a trial, and nobody was going to be sent to jail at the end of it.

We know for certain that Lewis was taken seriously by the police at least a week after her sworn-evidence was provided at the inquest. It was compared to the appearance of a Birmingham suspect, thus proving that she was taken seriously as a witness thereafter. Anyone who disputes this is delusional, lying, or both. The idea that Lewis was a bad witness was only dreamed up a few weeks ago once it was recognised by a few distinctly pro-Hutchinson theorists that to discredit her evidence would ensure that the obvious correlation between her wideawake man and Hutchinson is enervated. Hideous luck for the proponents of that abominable trash, but very fortunate for the truth.

Suffice to say, this mission has been an abysmal, catastrophic failure, since her description of the wideawake man’s activities correlate so closely with those of Hutchinson at the same time and same location. In other words, Hutchinson was the man seen by Lewis, thus cementing the former to the very location he alleged to be standing at 2:30am on 9th November, and for the very same reason.

If people want examples of “witnesses” who were discredited for divergent and suspiciously altering testimony, they can look no further than George Hutchinson. This is the most disgusting aspect to this anti-Lewis agenda (which, thank phuck, is being peddled by just one person - yep, the usual one!). All these crap, hastily googled examples from other cases that involve altered testimony can be leveled with far more justification at Hutchinson and his three-day late, non-inquest, discredited account. In attempting to demolish Lewis, all the hapless Lewis-bashers are doing is drawing even more attention to the problems associated with Hutchinson's testimony, which makes Lewis' appear positively squeaky clean.

[Fisherman]

Ben is at it again! Let´s see what he tries to sell this time!

"It is a fact that Hutchinson changed his testimony to a considerably greater extent than Lewis changed hers."

Of course not - this is blatantly untrue. Lewis changed her testimony on seven points out of nine, ending up with a score of 78 per cent of changes. Hutchinson changed little of HIS story, so little that many authors are quite impressed by it and regard it as a good sign that he was truthful. Stewart Evans, for example, is one such author.

"It is a fact that Lewis was a sworn-in inquest witness, unlike Hutchinson."

Yes, it is! But that does not mean that Hutchinson would not have been subjected to the consequences of obstructing police work, if the police had been of that meaning. Apparently they were not. They were instead, judging by Dew (who worked the case as a detective, including the Kelly killing), quite impressed with Hutchinson´s honesty.

"In it is a fact that Hutchinson was discredited, unlike Lewis."

Two wrongs out of two. Well, you choose to deviously put your sentence in a manner that can be "interpreted" (much your game, is it not?) in more than one way, so this may SEEM to have some truth to it. So let´s clear the smokescreens away, shall we?

Hutchinson as a person was not discredited at all. Nobody had a derogatory word - not one! - to say about George Hutchinson. His story, though, was discredited. And as you full well know, if somebody testifies with a good intention but gets things wrong unintentionally - like, for example the dates - the police will not castigate that witness and call him or her a timewaster/liar/publicity seeker. They instead say "thank you so much for your effort, we are very grateful for the good will you show by trying to help out - but we have found that you are unfortunately mistaken".

We have NO evidence that ANYTHING but the story was discredited. None. And you are aware of that, fully and clearly. Still, you repeatedly and apparently intentionally choose to misrepresent it.
You are welcome to say that you SUSPECT that Hutchinson was discredited and give the reasons why you think so, but until you can prove it, you need to stay with the evidence. And that allows for an appreciated effort on Hutchinson´s behalf, albeit an honestly mistaken one. If we had KNOWN and had it PROVEN that Hutchinson was discredited as a person, this possibility would not have been open to us. But is is. And that means that your claim that Hutchinson was discredited is demonstrably false as it stands. It´s called logic and consequence, honesty and fair play, Ben. And you should aquaint yourself with it before it is too late.

As fot Lewis, yes it is true that it is not a proven fact that she WAS discredited. Then again, it is ALSO a fact that she MAY have been. We don´t know, and both possibilities are open. So much for the "facts" - and what we can make of them, using our fantasy.

"It is a fact that Lewis continued to be taken seriously after the inquest."

No, it is not. The article you refer to describes a man that was seen in Kellys company and that acted in a gentlemanly manner. It is a FACT that this description only tallies with one person in the investigation, and that person is astrakhan man. It is also a FACT that the information does NOT tally with the man Lewis saw. It must therefore be regarded as highly improbable that the man described in the papers was actually described at the inquest by anybody. For at the inquest, NO man answering to the description in the papers was mentioned, as far as we can tell. If there was, it is not in the files left to us.
Ergo, it is a clear and unshakable fact that the papers got one or more parameters wrong, and that is the only fact we have at hand. No fact thus exists that tells us that Sarah Lewis was believed after the inquest.

But this, Ben, is the usual deplorable quality of your argument, is it not? Twisting, "interpreting" and adjusting to find as much of a fit with your theory as possible is the ordinary way for you to go about things.

I have proven that people that change their testimony are normally regarded as bad eggs by the legal system, unless they have good reason to change it. This is beyond doubt. It is a clear thing. Proven. End of story.

I have proven that Sarah Lewis changed 78 per cent of her original police report when it was time for the inquest. It is equally clear. Seven parameters out of nine. Proven. End of story.

I have proven that the spider in the net of the Riper investigation, Swanson, was of the meaning that changed testimony equalled useless testimony, more or less. We have it on record in his own words. Proven. End of story.

I have even provided a parallel case, showing that this is how the legal system works!

I can do all of this. ANYBODY can do all of this. It is a piece of cake. And when that is done, it is also proven that there is every reason to believe and accept that Sarah Lewis was doubted and regarded as a witness of little use after the inquest. That is not to say that we should work from the premise that she never even saw a man outside Crossingham´s, since that detail WAS included in her police report. Therefore, it is possible that the police attached some weight to this particular detail even after the inquest - but chances are that this thing TOO was affected by the dwindling trust the police would have held about Lewis! If a witness fails to come clear in one respect, the immediate suspicion arises that this may hold true for the rest of the parameters too. It is an easy thing to understand. You don´t by a second car from a guy that has conned you at the former car investment on your behalf, do you?

Like I say, I - and potentially 7 billion people - can do all of this and prove that Lewis would have been distrusted if the ordinary police thinking was in place back in 1888.

The only thing I cannot do, the one thing I have never been able to do, and the only thing I will probably never be able to do, is to make you admit it.

But that owes to other things, not belonging to the category of facts. And there is little reason to attach much importance to it, since everybody can refuse to admit the obvious.

"The earth is round."

"No."

"Water is wet."

"No."

"Ants are smaller than elephants."

"No."

Anybody can do that. But nobody can support it, least of all you. The one thing that is very frustrating is that you somehow believe that your flawed reasoning and faulty presentation of what you call facts, allows you to call other peoples suggestions, mine included, derogatory names.

That´s arrogance and ignorance in a very unflattering combination, and it really does not belong here.

Now, Ben, I leave the field open for you to once again spread your unsubstantiated propaganda and "interpretations". I do not have your stamina, and so I must settle for telling the truth and leaving it at that. There is little more that I can do to prove my case, and there arguably should be no further need at all to realize this intellectually on behalf of anybody.

Proven. End of story.

Fisherman

[Ben]

They would even point to the fact that she hadn't learn't her story off by heart.

A very good point there, Ruby, and one I'd overlooked.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

“Of course not - this is blatantly untrue. Lewis changed her testimony on seven points out of nine, ending up with a score of 78 per cent of changes.”

I don’t think so, somehow. I think this is just you misapplying faulty mathematics in a highly eccentric fashion again. Obviously “78 percent of changes” is a complete nonsense, as is “out of nine”. Nobody seriously wants to argue that Lewis’ entire testimony is comprised of only nine points, which we know for certain it wasn’t. The description of the loiterer comprises a very small part of her overall testimony and police statement. It is an irrefutable fact that Hutchinson changed his testimony to a far greater extent than Lewis did, and it is also an irrefutable fact that considerably more authors and researchers have criticised Hutchinson’s account than they have Lewis’. The idea of prioritizing three-day late, discredited, non-inquest Hutchinson over Lewis who attended the inquest, and about whom nobody had anything negative to say, is a horrific fantasy nightmare of an idea. I’m just so relieved it’s emanating from only one highly dubious source and no other.

I’m not aware of many authors who are “quite impressed” by Hutchinson’s “honesty”. In fact there are more suspect books on Hutchinson than there are books that particularly commend his discredited evidence. The exceptions to this are suspect books that attempt to draw very bad parallels between their suspect and the Astrakhan man.

Of course Hutchinson would not have been “subjected to the consequences of obstructing police work", any more than other discredited witnesses such as Packer and Violenia would have been. If the police decided to penalise Hutchinson for lying, all Hutchinson had to say was “Really? Prove it” and walk away. In the absence of any final proof that he lied, they had only their collective wisdom at their disposal with which to discredit his account, which was precisely what happened.

“Hutchinson as a person was not discredited at all. Nobody had a derogatory word - not one! - to say about George Hutchinson. His story, though, was discredited.”

As I’ve explained before – it makes no sense whatsoever to dislocate a bogus story from its source like that. It’s akin to claiming that Jack the Ripper was innocent, but his knife deserved to be executed for its terrible crimes. We know full well that the reason for Hutchinson’s discrediting was directly linked to doubts over his credibility. It was stated in the Echo, following direct communication with the police, that Hutchinson’s statement had been “considerably discounted” because of his failure to come forward earlier and present his evidence “on oath”. No sane individual is remotely likely cite this reason for Hutchinson’s discrediting and then argue “date-confusion” as the ensuing conclusion. There is no logic or rationale in observing: “Hutchinson only came forward after the inquest, so therefore he must be a decent, honest, charmingly befuddled idiot”. No, the likelihood is that after contemplating his absence from the inquest, they came to the conclusion that he was a two-a-penny fabricator.

“Then again, it is ALSO a fact that she MAY have been.”

It is a fact that she wasn’t.

The mere suggestion that she was discredited, or even mildly doubted, is just a hideous concoction on your part that enjoys next to no support, courtesy of its transparent absurdity.

“The article you refer to describes a man that was seen in Kellys company and that acted in a gentlemanly manner. It is a FACT that this description only tallies with one person in the investigation, and that person is astrakhan man.”

Please don’t delude yourself to such an embarrassing extent. It’s not becoming. The description in question does not relate to Astrakhan – FACT. It relates directly to the inquest testimony of Sarah Lewis who was the only witness to describe a “gentleman” - FACT. Moreover, the description in question originated from the inquest, which the Echo knew full well Hutchinson did not attend. The description tallies perfectly well with Lewis’ description of a “gentleman” and no other suspect – certainly not Astratwat, who was not described as a gentleman, and whose creator was already safely discredited by then.

It is a fact, therefore, that the description of a Birmingham suspect on 19th November, as published in the Echo, was compared to Lewis’ evidence, thus demonstrating to the discerning and sane that it was still being taken seriously a week after the inquest.

“I have proven that people that change their testimony are normally regarded as bad eggs by the legal system, unless they have good reason to change it.”

You waste your own time as usual in a misguided and fruitless exercise. All witnesses change their testimony to greater or lesser extents. In Hutchinson’s case, that change was positively gargantuan in scale. In Lewis’ case, it was scarcely worth commenting on, which is why mainstream rational thinking will continue to endorse Lewis as a credible witness well after you’ve gone the way of the dodo.

“I have proven that Sarah Lewis changed 78 per cent of her original police report when it was time for the inquest. It is equally clear. Seven parameters out of nine”

You haven’t done any such thing, and it is ridiculous to pretend you have. I can’t believe anyone can be so silly as to claim than Lewis’ testimony is comprised of “nine parameters”.

“I have proven that the spider in the net of the Riper investigation, Swanson, was of the meaning that changed testimony equalled useless testimony, more or less.”

He was of no such “meaning”. You are once again pretending that Swanson’s comments were generalized, as though he were outlining general police procedure when it came to assessing eyewitness evidence, when in fact, he was talking specifically about Packer, who doesn’t compare in the slightest to Lewis.

There is not the slightest evidence to suggest that either Lewis or her evidence was doubted by anyone at the time, and fortunately, it appears that practically everyone but you realises this. There was a recently conducted poll entitled “Did Sarah Lewis Lie”, and last time I checked, of the 15 total posters, 14 voted no, and one 1 voted yes. I wonder who that single voter was? You provide not the slightest scrap of evidence suggesting that any doubt was accorded to her evidence, just a lot of “must haves” based on extremely faulty reasoning. Even when evidence is provided that demonstrates conclusively that she was taken seriously a week after the inquest, you come up with predictably bad excuses for rejecting it. Speaking of predictability…

“I do not have your stamina, and so I must settle for telling the truth and leaving it at that.”

You say that, but I very much predict that you’ll do your usual, and not stick to that intention. I know exactly what’ll happen. You’ll see this post, succumb to temptation to respond at length, and defend it on the basis that “Oh I wasn’t going to post, but I had no idea you were going to say all that!”

Regular as clockwork. Just watch…

[Fisherman]

Hi all!

An interesting piece of information needs to be attached to this thread. It concerns the assertions that no police constable would ommitt to report information concerning the murder. This, it is said, would ensure that Hutchinson did NOT approach a PC on Sunday, as he claimed.

Of course, since we have no records of what happened after Hutchinsons alledged meeting with the PC, it can be either way! But the misconception that policemen would not disregard any evidence purportedly relating to the Ripper deeds must be adjusted.

From the Echo, 10 November 1888:

"One of the usual and very natural effects of these hideous crimes is that the police, shortly after their committal, are deluged with descriptions of persons supposed to be the murderer, and with reference to individuals whose movements are looked upon as suspicious. During the night and this morning several people have called at Leman-street Police-station and communicated to the police tit-bits of information which they imagine will have some bearing, important or otherwise upon the movements of the miscreant. "We don't pay much attention to some of these," candidly confessed a young officer this morning to an Echo reporter. "Some of these people only make their statements for the express purpose of getting what they can. For instance, one woman came up to me about five o'clock this morning. 'Sergeant,' she said, 'I've got a little bit of news for you.' Of course I asked her what it was in the usual way, and she went on to tell me, with an air of peculiar mystery, that she lived in Mansell-street, just off Aldgate. She had a lodger, a tall, dark foreigner. He was out all Thursday night, but he returned yesterday morning about nine o'clock. He appeared to be 'hurried,' paid for his room, and left immediately. She had not seen him since, and had no idea where he went. He left a small bag behind, and she, anticipating a prize, burst it open during the day, to find it contained - nothing."

This shows us quite clearly that the police did leave a number of statements unattended to. Therefore, we must accept that the very same thing may well have happened to the statement offered by George Hutchinson on Sunday

""We don't pay much attention to some of these," is what the young PC interviewed by the Echo states, and one has to wonder where the line was drawn. Certainly, the story that exemplifies a statement that was dropped by the police, does not contain any fantastic or unbelievable elements as far as I can see. And still, it was dropped. Therefore, it appears that Hutchinsons story of Astrakhan man could just as well have joined the score of dropped information.

... and that means that we need to treat Hutchinson´s assertion that he DID speak to a PC on Sunday morning as a totally feasible thing, as far as I can see.

The best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

Hi all!

An interesting piece of information needs to be attached to this thread. It concerns the assertions that no police constable would ommitt to report information concerning the murder. This, it is said, would ensure that Hutchinson did NOT approach a PC on Sunday, as he claimed.

That was another one of those Straw-man arguments. Insist that any policeman would report his meeting with Hutchinson, and because there is no record that the P.C. did, then the story must be false.
It's a tired old manipulative means of swaying the reader. Make something appear to be extraordinary, and when it is not, something must be suspicious.

Velikovsky used that ploy, Von Daniken also used the same principal.

The truth of the matter is, as your story indicates, the police were overwhelmed with 'stories' so it is not at all suspicious that the P.C. did not follow up on his Sunday morning meeting with Hutchinson.

A number of amateur enthusiasts tend to think along similar lines.
Analyze a story, where we have insufficient data, supply speculation. From the self-supplied speculation, they make assumptions. From these assumptions they draw conclusions.
To the gullable, these conclusions are delivered as facts.

It's a well worn theme in historical revisionism

Regardless, good point Fisherman.
Jon S.

[Fisherman]

Thanks, Jon! It´s good to have this particular "obstacle" cleared away with useful evidence. I particularly appreciate that the paper that supplies this information is a paper about which it has been argued that they had extensive police contacts and informants ... They would have known, yes?

Needless to say, I very much agree with you about the underlying mechanisms governing a lot of the - so called - thinking out here.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

During the night and this morning several people have called at Leman-street Police-station and communicated to the police

It shows that people who think that they some information, have the natural instinct to call at a Police-station.

.

"We don't pay much attention to some of these," candidly confessed a young officer

not "much" attention, is not the same as no attention at all.

this morning to an Echo reporter. "Some of these people only make their statements for the express purpose of getting what they can. For instance, one woman came up to me about five o'clock this morning. 'Sergeant,' she said, 'I've got a little bit of news for you.' Of course I asked her what it was in the usual way, and she went on to tell me, with an air of peculiar mystery, that she lived in Mansell-street, just off Aldgate. She had a lodger, a tall, dark foreigner. He was out all Thursday night, but he returned yesterday morning about nine o'clock. He appeared to be 'hurried,' paid for his room, and left immediately. She had not seen him since, and had no idea where he went. He left a small bag behind, and she, anticipating a prize, burst it open during the day, to find it contained - nothing."

[/QUOTE]
For the Policeman to be telling this -detailed- story to a reporter, must mean that he had done his duty and reported it to his superiors (I can't believe that it was left to lowly coppers the right to decide what information was important or not).
Since the story is remembered in such detail, it suggests that it was written down anyway, whatever the policeman personally thought of the value of the information.

[claire]

It shows that people who think that they some information, have the natural instinct to call at a Police-station.

Quite. Look at Elizabeth Phoenix. Never did a person move so fast, and she didn't have anything to offer regarding the time of the murder itself.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"It shows that people who think that they some information, have the natural instinct to call at a Police-station."

Regardless of what YOU think are natural instincts, we KNOW that Hutchinson claimed to have approached a PC, and I think we can safely conclude that BOTH police stations and PC:s on their beats were approached by lots and lots of people telling them stories. So I´m afraid this is an irrelevant remark as regards Hutchinson personally. We know what he said he did, end of story.

"not "much" attention, is not the same as no attention at all."

Aha. Are you suggesting that the poliecmen told their superiors 11 per cent of the statements? That they took down ALL stories, only in differing degrees? The simple and obvious truth is that the police dropped some material. And if this was in practice at Leman Street police station, where many colleagues worked at the same time, one may only imagine how a single PC on a beat could have made his calls in this department without being potentially bothered by any fellow policemen.

The one and only thing here that you need to keep in mind, Ruby, is that the Echo tells us extremely clearly that the police did NOT take all information seriously. Some material - unclear how much, but it would land in the region between 0,1 per cent and 99,9 per cent - was dropped. Add to this that no young PC would happily admit that they dropped 95 per cent of the statements (if this was the case, which I do NOT believe), but instead he would probably limit both the damage done to the force he represented and his own future career.

"For the Policeman to be telling this -detailed- story to a reporter, must mean that he had done his duty and reported it to his superiors "

I am afraid you forgot to read the article, Ruby. It says, quite clearly: ""We don't pay much attention to some of these," candidly confessed a young officer this morning to an Echo reporter. "Some of these people only make their statements for the express purpose of getting what they can. For instance, one woman ...", giving away that the PC used this exact story as an example of stories that were given very scant interest or totally dropped, this time for the explicitly worded reason that the PC thought that it was a story that had been concocted for the sole purpose of "getting what they can".

You are doing the best you can of a hopeless task, Ruby, I´ll give you that. But the fact remains that we have evidence telling us that the police were deluged by stories relating to the Ripper case, and that they payed very scant attention to parts of it. Full stop. And when you do not pay attention, things go unnoticed. Full stop. And this means, no matter how much agenda-ridden drivel somebody chooses to pour over it, that we are looking at a very distinct possibility when it comes to explain why the Sunday morning PC did PERHAPS not report Hutchinson´s story: because he may not have payed much attention to it, as per the Leman Street PC. And it´s only PERHAPS, mind you!

This is and remains the bottom line in this discussion, and until you find material that proves that either Hutchinsons report specifically or all reports generally WERE given appropriate attention, it stands.

Out of interest, can I ask you why you reacted with your spine instead of simply acknowledging the factual contents of the article? Why did you not say "Gee, this means that Hutchinsons statement could have gone lost this way, and that he could have been truthful about approaching the Sunday morning PC"?
I think that is what most people would conclude from this snippet - but not you.

Why? Please explain.

Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

The simple truth is that the police dropped some stories. And if this was in practice at Leman Street police station, where many colleagues worked at the same time, one may only imagine how a single PC on a beat could have made his calls in this department without being potentially bothered by any fellow policemen

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I think that they took some stories "with a pinch of salt" but duly reported them anyway, because they didn't have the aurority to make personal 'calls'.

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Some material - unclear how much, but it land in the region between 0,1 per cent and 99,9 per cent - was dropped

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Dropped by the policemen with the aurority to assess and drop 'witnesses'.

I am afraid you forgot to read the article, Ruby

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I read it with interest.

Out o interest, can I ask you why you reacted with your spine instead of simply acknowledging the factual contents of the article? Why did you not say "Gee, this means that Hutchinsons statement could have gone lost this way, and that he could have been truthful about approaching the Sunday morning PC"? I think that is what most people would conclude from this snippet - but not you
Why? Please explain.

I concluded that whereas alot of people went to the Police-station to give a
'witness' account, were politely listened to but were not taken seriously, Hutchinson was initially taken very seriously indeed. The copper on the front desk must informed his superiors that here was a 'witness' with a very important story, because Hutchinson was interviewed by Abberline himself, who believed him at that point. His story was taken so seriously that Hutchinson was sent to accompany Police officers around the area, and the Press were reporting on him.

I conclude, therefore, that the calibre of Hutchinson's story -and his convincing manner- was vastly different from other people approaching the Police with 'witness accounts' (whether at the Police-station or in the street).

[Monty]

This is and remains the bottom line in this discussion, and until you find material that proves that either Hutchinsons report specifically or all reports generally WERE given appropriate attention, it stands

- Fisherman - Today 10:37 AM

An important statement has been made by a man named George Hutchinson which I forward herewith. I have interrogated him this evening and I am of opinion his statement is true. He informed me that he had occasionally given the deceased a few shillings, and that he had known her about 3 years. Also that he was surprised to see a man so well dressed in her company which caused him to watch them. He can identify the man and arrangement was at once made for two officers to accompany him round the district for a few hours tonight with a view of finding the man if possible.

-Report by Inspector Abberline - 12th November 1888 (MEPO 3/140)

That appropriate enough attention?

Monty

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"I think that they took some stories "with a pinch of salt" but duly reported them anyway, because they didn't have the aurority to make personal 'calls'."

And I think that you are wrong. Already when the PC tells you that the police did not pay much attention to some of the stories, he HAS made a personal call. And you may rest assured that the people at the top would have been very happy to have things sifted along the way. There would have been no physical possibility that they were able to afford all material interest.

"Dropped by the policemen with the aurority to assess and drop 'witnesses'."

No - awarded scant interest by the policemen working at Leman Street station - and, reasonably, any other station too.

"I concluded that whereas alot of people went to the Police-station to give a
'witness' account, were politely listened to but were not taken seriously, Hutchinson was initially taken very seriously indeed."

Is that not a tad strange? You know, the family of Hutchinsonians have sort of painted themselves into a corner here, since they fervently claim that Hutchinson´s story about Astrakhan man is ridiculously unbelieveable, correct? It is a story that nobody with a functioning brain would ever buy into, right?
Would you not say that such a story - if the Hutchinsonians are correct, of course, not else - would have been the first one not to have been payed much attention to? The first one, as it were, that the discerning policemen on lower levels would ditch as being a clumsy lie?

You see, this is an instance where your stance works very much against you. If the police dropped preposterous stories and if Hutchinson´s story WAS preposterous ... well, you DO see the implications, don´t you?

Then again, Hutchinson WAS - just like you say - taken very seriously indeed at senior level from the outset.

Now, why was it that senior officers - who ought to be the best judges of things like these - did this? I mean if the story WAS preposterous, then surely, even if the lesser qualified policemen at ground level had been fooled by it - in spite of it so very obviously being a laughable fabrication - then reasonably, the senior officers should have put an end to the spectacle and thrown Hutchinson out swiftly. I mean, you yourself are of the meaning that stories WERE dropped and ditched, and I am quoting here: "by the policemen with the aurority to assess and drop 'witnesses'."

How very strange!

"I conclude, therefore, that the calibre of Hutchinson's story ... was vastly different from other people approaching the Police with 'witness accounts'."

But this is not what you normally say, is it? The quality of Hutchinson´s story was such that a kid could have revealed him for a liar, right? Astrakhan man was a total fiction that could not possibly have been real, right? It was agonizingly clear that Hutchinson could not have made the observations he claimed to have made under the circumstances, right?

I fail to see how these parameters could have made up a story of such a "calibre" as you will have it, as to convince Frederick Abberline that it was true? I also fail to see why you use the former arguments when you argue that we should not believe in what must be a concocted story, ridiculously easy to reveal as a falsary, whereas you argue that the calibre of Hutchinson´s story was so immense that it would make the copper on the front desk inform his superiors that he had a witness with a very important story, and that this calibre would have Abberline convinced that it was true.

Which is it, Ruby? Was Hutchinson´s story an embarrasingly easily revealed lie, or a completely compelling story of great calibre?

Or was it both? Please help me out, for I am having some trouble to see what you are arguing here.

The best,
Fisherman