Hutchinson's Sunday Sighting

[Ben]

With all due respect to Fisherman and his interesting new slant on the Hutchinson affair, I hope it isn’t too much to ask that we confine the “wrong night” speculation to its relevant thread? It is quite clear that irrespective of people’s views on Hutchinson’s propensity to lie or kill anyone (or lack thereof), it is generally accepted that Hutchinson was the man in the wideawake seen by Lewis. Can it be stated as fact that he was? Of course not. But short of astonishing coincidence, it is the overwhelming probability.

Nobody is required to explain Hutchinson’s failure to “see” Lewis. I’m sure he did see her, and I’m equally sure that he avoided mentioning her on purpose in order to prevent it looking obvious that it was her evidence that spurred him into coming forward. And before anyone accuses me of advancing a “case”, he could have been thus motivated without having killed Kelly.

Hutchinson was by his own admission standing outside the entrance to Miller’s Court waiting for someone to come out. Sarah Lewis saw someone doing precisely that at the same time and the same location.

Here’s where it was all discussed last time:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=5262

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

We have to weigh the singular suggestion of no-one being around against other reports that indicate the backstreets were alive much of the night.

And yet none of these people who enlivened the backstreets noticed the extremely conspicuous Astrakhan man, Jon? Fascinating...

[Phil Carter]

Hello Ben,

I cannot help but think that PC L63 would have been called to the attention of higher officers, possible Abberline himself, twice,when he returned after his shift that night.

1) ...When the man returned following the newspaper reports from odd witness statements and their accounts.. to assure whomever that he had not seen Hutchinson, or if he had seen Hutchinson, and or the seeing other people saying what they saw at whatever time or not.

2).... After Hutchinson gave his statement to Abberline. Abberline would have wanted to reassure himself that Hutchinson had actually been seen or not, in order to partly corroberate Hutchinson's story.

As it is, the only person that could possibly do this at present would have been Lewis. Now if a policeman had seen Hutchinson, then the scenario is far more certain.

Which leads me to the inquest. Had PC L63 actually seen Hutchinson, or a person loitering opposite Millers Court, then as duty policeman in Dorset Street, he would certainly, surely, have been called as a witness at the inquest. As the inquest itself was cut somewhat surprisingly short, he may have been on the list anyway, so we do not know with certainty.

We can also consider a reason for him not being called, and that is that he had nothing to add.. however this is at odds with previous inquests of the policemen on duty around the area of each murder.

As to the question as to whether it would further the inquest objectives or nay, The Duty Sargeant at Bishopsgate Police Station added nothing to the cause of death either. I would have thought that PC L63's testimony of the surroundings, the people, the happenings and atmosphere of the street or nay and the immediate vicinity in question would have been very important.
I would welcome your thoughts on this?

Monty,

I have seen a previous post from Chris Scott on the subject of the article relating to the sketches on the page in question and he tells that not a mention of PC L63 is made. Therefore we do not need to see the article, pertaining to the sketches, which I asked for previously. Thank you.

Where the IPN got that quoted sentence from.. I am at a loss to understand as there is no reference to him or the quote.

By the way. Just one thing. I was an enthusiast and even researcher of this long before you. Let alone before you were "on the scene". It didn't all start with my online Casebook contributions. My interest started at about age 10 or 11, in 1968/69. From a family background in the East End. I traveled around the area and murder sites at this age, in the company of amongst others, my grandmother, who was born in the vicinity in 1888. I had hoped, as I wrote to SPE shortly before I believe, to go to the very first Conference, but was sadly unable to do so. I started "researching" in my teens, in libraries all over the place. So you don't "know me" either.

Phil

[Monty]

IPN got the quote from the PC, I suspect, the same way The Star got their Watkins quote.

He wouldn't have been called to Higher authorities attention that night as the murder wasn't discovered till after he came off duty. However he most surely would have been questioned at some stage.

As he obviously did not witness anything deemed important enough in the series of events leading to Kellys murder and aftermath then there seems to be no reason to call him. Whereas all the other Bobbies who appeared either witnessed the victim or were involved in the aftermath.

There were no Police witnesses called at Smiths inquest. Infact they were unaware of her death until the coroner informed them of the inquest 2 days later.

It doesn't seem that unusual.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

Monty,

I was referring to the C5 police witnesses.

I have previously also stated that he (PC L63) would be called the next day, returning for his next duty perhaps?

Phil

[Monty]

Apologies Philip,

I misunderstood.

Though I suspect he would have been spoken to a lot sooner.

And inquest rules would apply for every suspicious cause of death hearing, the C5 inquests woud not be an exception.

Monty

PS - By the way. Just one thing. I was an enthusiast and even researcher of this long before you. Let alone before you were "on the scene". It didn't all start with my online Casebook contributions. My interest started at about age 10 or 11, in 1968/69. From a family background in the East End. I traveled around the area and murder sites at this age, in the company of amongst others, my grandmother, who was born in the vicinity in 1888. I had hoped, as I wrote to SPE shortly before I believe, to go to the very first Conference, but was sadly unable to do so. I started "researching" in my teens, in libraries all over the place. So you don't "know me" either.

I don't pretend to nor wish to. Nor am I that concerned. The 'scene' I was referring to was here on Casebook, to which you are comparitively new.

And if your researching began waaaaay back when, surely you have your own resources to refer to rather than asking others to provide.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"With all due respect to Fisherman and his interesting new slant on the Hutchinson affair, I hope it isn’t too much to ask that we confine the “wrong night” speculation to its relevant thread?"

A wise idea when it comes to discussing it specifically - but I´m afraid that it is relevant to many threads relating to the Hutchinson affair. There is, for example, a "toff" thread, but I see nothing wrong in your discussing that issue here with Jon.

So therefore:

"it is generally accepted that Hutchinson was the man in the wideawake seen by Lewis. Can it be stated as fact that he was? Of course not. But short of astonishing coincidence, it is the overwhelming probability."

You may still have a point about the widespread acceptance, Ben. But my feeling is that this is because the Dew perspective has not been discussed over the years. From the moment that discussion got started, the group of same-man-disciples started to shrink. How much? Who knows? Let´s wait and see!

"But short of astonishing coincidence, it is the overwhelming probability."

I would word that: "Short of coincidence, it remains a clear possibilty"

"Nobody is required to explain Hutchinson’s failure to “see” Lewis. "

Then why do YOU do so? If it is a given thing that people who watch a court entrance and tell us that nobody entered them - in spite of this exact thing happening - then nobody has told me about it.
The omission to mention Lewis is and remains an absolute anomaly. I think you will agree with me that most people do not regard Hutchinson as the killer of Kelly, and that means that there are a lot of people out there scratching their heads in disbelief over this. I´m not one of them, since I have found what I believe to be a very plausible explanation. But don´t tell me that no explanation is required - it is!

"Hutchinson was by his own admission standing outside the entrance to Miller’s Court waiting for someone to come out. Sarah Lewis saw someone doing precisely that at the same time and the same location."

...and I would phrase that:

""Hutchinson was by his own admission standing outside the entrance to Miller’s Court waiting for someone to come out. Sarah Lewis claimed that the man SHE saw, stood on the other side of the street. She also claimed that she saw someone waiting for someone to come out only the SECOND time around she gave her testimony, whereas she specifically said that she could say nothing at all about her man at the previous, police governed interview - any waiting for somebody to come out included."

You treat it as a certain thing, Ben, that the two men stood at the same spot. It is not. The evidence tells us that Hutchinson went to the court, whereas NO evidence places him specifically outside the doss house. That means that we are dealing with uncertainties here.
It is therefore only if we accept that Hutchinson AND Lewis were correct in their timings, that we should deduct that the man was most probably one and the same.

The moment doubt arises over the timing issue, however, the whole thing changes totally. And since Dew stated that Hutchinson WAS out on the dates, as far as he could tell, that doubt is there, further fuelled by the omission to see Lewis, the PC:s omission to see Hutch, the weather implications, the nightly promenade etcetera.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Phil:

"Abberline would have wanted to reassure himself that Hutchinson had actually been seen or not, in order to partly corroberate Hutchinson's story. "

Of course. It goes without saying - if Abberline could find a clincher, he would be the happiest man in the world. But that clincher seemingly illuded him.
And we may reflect on the fact that when his contemporary colleague, Walter Dew, opted for a line in the Hutchinson affair, he did NOT work from the premise that Hutch must have been in place in Dorset Street at the time he said, since Lewis´testimony seemingly corroborated this - he instead said that he could see no other reason for Hutchinson failing to deliver the goods, than a mistaken day...

And ironically, the one person who could have put it all beyond reasonable doubt was Hutchinson himself. Any mentioning of a woman that entered Miller´s Court at around 2.30 would have represented the straw Abberline could clutch - but Hutchinson failed in this respect.

Hutchinson failed to pinpoint Lewis, and PC L63 failed to see that there was a man standing outside Crossinghams. All that blindness! Makes you wonder, right?

The best,
Fisherman

[FrankO]

Do you suppose that policemen on their beat – or returning to the station from their beat – were never accosted by passers-by with tales that they knew who the Ripper was or that they had some vital clue?

Do you think that if they were so accosted that they reported every incident?

Do you think that every policeman was efficient and reliable and that none were ever dismissed for drunkenness or for lack of attention to their duty?

Do you think that every policeman in Whitechapel and Spitalfields knew the area well and was keen to be there - and hadn’t been grudgingly seconded from a more salubrious area of London?

Hi Lechmere,

Do you have figures on negligence, inefficiency, unreliability, unwillingness, etc. among PC’s working in the streets in ‘Ripper territory’ during October/November 1888?

I mean, I'm not saying that it's impossible - nothing is impossible - but until someone produces some reliable figures that show that PC’s were in fact particularly negligent, etc. then & there, I think it would be fair to suggest that the majority of them just did their work as best as they could.

But even regardless of those figures, if a PC didn’t feel like bothering about people approaching them with stories of potential sightings, potential suspects and such, he could simply have advised them to go to the nearest police station. That wouldn’t have taken much effort, if any at all.

Plus, how is it that we should believe that the eagerness Hutchinson displayed early Friday morning after he’d met Kelly (presumably to help if help was needed) by Sunday had evaporated to such an extent that he let himself be buffed by a PC? That doesn’t make sense.

There are lots of people near the scenes of crime who didn’t come forward.
...
People often had good reason not to want to come forward.

You seem to forget that Hutchinson went out of his way to take in as much details as he could about Kelly and her punter in particular. Are you suggesting that, as soon as he got the chance of doing something with what he had so actively taken in, it was perfectly logical that he was reluctant to come forward? That wouldn’t make sense.

All the best,
Frank

[Phil Carter]

And if your researching began waaaaay back when, surely you have your own resources to refer to rather than asking others to provide.

Yes Monty, I have, but waaaaay back then, when I was a teenager, the researching was far more limited. For everybody. I it wasn't before I was 18 when Stephen Knight published what he did. Before that, only "certain" people were allowed to go into "certain" archives, and take "certain papers" home for the weekend, returning the stuff on the Monday.

And as for your petty comment (my opinion, note) about asking others to provide...

We all rely on each other to enhance each others knowledge..... for the good of the genre. We are all trying to gain a little more insight, all trying to sort out things here and there.. for the good of the genre.

Like I said, you do yourself an injustice by continually taking the p*ss too..
we can all do it.. even playing with silly name changes to see if it gets an effect.... "Montgomery"

In my opinion, of course.

Now. Please desist. Thank you.


kindly


Phil

[Monty]

Yes Monty, I have, but waaaaay back then, when I was a teenager, the researching was far more limited. For everybody. I it wasn't before I was 18 when Stephen Knight published what he did. Before that, only "certain" people were allowed to go into "certain" archives, and take "certain papers" home for the weekend, returning the stuff on the Monday.

And as for your petty comment (my opinion, note) about asking others to provide...

We all rely on each other to enhance each others knowledge..... for the good of the genre. We are all trying to gain a little more insight, all trying to sort out things here and there.. for the good of the genre.

Like I said, you do yourself an injustice by continually taking the p*ss too..
we can all do it.. even playing with silly name changes to see if it gets an effect.... "Montgomery"

In my opinion, of course.

Now. Please desist. Thank you.


kindly


Phil

Phillip,

Desist what exactly?

Yet again you have diverted a thread.

You managed to ascertain the IPN article, thus wasting my time in the process trying to obtain it for you, and with NO thanks I add.

As for your arrogant comment about the good of the genre, I have provided you with an image for your article, took photos of related sites, organised free tours of the more obscure yet connected Ripper sites, contributed articles expanding on the lives of various case related Bobbies, conducted experiments with regards the lighting situation in Mitre Square, spoke at the Woverhampton Conference at request, obtained and provided information to numerous other brilliant writers and even relatives of those connected to the case as well as recently passing on copies of PC Thompson warrant to Wiki for sharing.

I have also been fortunate to have received information too.

So please, don't preach to me about assistance.

As for your opinion, you are entitled to it, as hypocritical as it is.

Montgomery

[Fisherman]

Excuse me for butting in here, Frank, but I would like to comment on your suggestions!

You write:

" how is it that we should believe that the eagerness Hutchinson displayed early Friday morning after he’d met Kelly (presumably to help if help was needed) by Sunday had evaporated to such an extent that he let himself be buffed by a PC?"

I´m at a loss here languagewise, Frank, so you are going to have to help out: What does "buffed by" mean? Does it mean that he was put off by the PC, or something such?
What he said to the papers was: "I told one policeman on Sunday morning what I had seen, but did not go to the police station", and as far as I can make out, nothing at all is said about the policemans reactions. Where does the "buffing" come in?
At any rate, we don´t know how Hutchinson told his story, and we can´t tell how common it was for people to feed PC:s stories (maybe the PC:s had a tough task trying to sort things out in this context).
I fail to see why it would be in any way illogical to tell the story to a PC. It would seem that most people on this thread are of the meaning that any discerning PC would have acted upon it accordingly and immediately, and why Hutchinson would have been of another meaning escapes me!

"Are you suggesting that, as soon as he got the chance of doing something with what he had so actively taken in, it was perfectly logical that he was reluctant to come forward?"

But how soon was "as soon as"?
How do we know that he could have come forward earlier?
How do we establish the point of time when he knew what had happened to Kelly?
How can we be certain that he was in a position to come forward any earlier than he did?

I will not settle for any claim that he "must have known". Of course he must not - to deduct that would be to make a deduction for a specific person from what we suppose (logically!) to be true for the general public. And we can´t do that.
It is not and can never be a case of Hutchinson having had to have known because a certain - unestablishable - percentage of the population on the whole would have known.

The best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Hi Lechmere,

Do you have figures on negligence, inefficiency, unreliability, unwillingness, etc. among PC’s working in the streets in ‘Ripper territory’ during October/November 1888?

I mean, I'm not saying that it's impossible - nothing is impossible - but until someone produces some reliable figures that show that PC’s were in fact particularly negligent, etc. then & there, I think it would be fair to suggest that the majority of them just did their work as best as they could.

But even regardless of those figures, if a PC didn’t feel like bothering about people approaching them with stories of potential sightings, potential suspects and such, he could simply have advised them to go to the nearest police station. That wouldn’t have taken much effort, if any at all.

Plus, how is it that we should believe that the eagerness Hutchinson displayed early Friday morning after he’d met Kelly (presumably to help if help was needed) by Sunday had evaporated to such an extent that he let himself be buffed by a PC? That doesn’t make sense.

You seem to forget that Hutchinson went out of his way to take in as much details as he could about Kelly and her punter in particular. Are you suggesting that, as soon as he got the chance of doing something with what he had so actively taken in, it was perfectly logical that he was reluctant to come forward? That wouldn’t make sense.

All the best,
Frank

Hi Frank

Plus, how is it that we should believe that the eagerness Hutchinson displayed early Friday morning after he’d met Kelly (presumably to help if help was needed) by Sunday had evaporated to such an extent that he let himself be buffed by a PC? That doesn’t make sense.

You seem to forget that Hutchinson went out of his way to take in as much details as he could about Kelly and her punter in particular. Are you suggesting that, as soon as he got the chance of doing something with what he had so actively taken in, it was perfectly logical that he was reluctant to come forward? That wouldn’t make sense.

Exactly.

As i also pointed out earlier in the thread:

Hutchinson, went through the trouble of following Aman and MK, noting very many details about the man and his encounter with MK, said this man caught his attention, followed them back to her place, stood out side for 45 minutes.

Later he says he thought the man lived in the area, looked for him, thought he saw him again. He hears of the murder at least by Sunday where he says he then told a policeman. And then does-Nothing.

He took such an active interest in A-man and MK before he even hears of the murder, but after he hears of the murder all he does is casually mention it to a PC on the street? This does not seem to be the likely action (or non-action) of a man who got involved to such an extent before he even hears she was murdered.

And once he does come forward after missing the inquest once again he really gets involved-walks into the station, accompanies police on a search, goes to the newspapers. So lets not use the excuse that he did not want to "get involved".

The only logical reason why George Hutchinson was not at that inquest that I can think of is that he did not want to be there.


And i might add, that everything we hear from Hutch is from his mouth only after this inquest is held-right after actually. An odd "coincidence", i think.

[Fisherman]

Abby:

"The only logical reason why George Hutchinson was not at that inquest that I can think of is that he did not want to be there."

It is all a product of how we reason, Abby. If you cannot think of any other logical reason for Hutchinson not to have come forward than a reluctance to do so, then that is your view and you are welcome to it.

Thing is, it makes every other potential reason, no matter what - work, not being present in London etcetera - "illogical", and this is simply not true. If this was true, then every time somebody is not present at an inquest, it must per definition owe to"illogical" reasons.

This is what happens when we judge without evidence. When we decide in advance that whatever we are going to hear, we will not accept it, since we have already made our minds up, and passed the verdict accordingly.

Does that work for you? It does not for me.

"And i might add, that everything we hear from Hutch is from his mouth only after this inquest is held-right after actually. An odd "coincidence", i think."

Is it? Odd, I mean? Then why did Hutchinson do it? We are being told that Hutchnson is a very wary fellow, taking the precaution not to mention having seen Lewis, since this would give away that he only came forward because of his knowing about her testimony. So why is it that he would act so "oddly" here, and - arguably - give away that he only came forward since he had knowledge of what was said at the inquest?

Why does he deflect in one move what he embraces in another? If you are truly interested in "logical" explanations, where is the logic in this one?

The best,
Fisherman

[Phil Carter]

Monty,

Do excuse me if I don't bow, scrape and pay homage.
From down here on the ground amongst the plebs, as a non-person in Ripperology, unworthy of valid comment, I will not be getting upset and leave the boards either, like another valid commentator you crossed swords with in discussion this week.


To all others incl Ben, Fish, Abbey, Lechmere, Jon,

My sincerest apologies, ladies and gentlemen for any thread disruption. I will retire from the thread.

kindly and respectfully

Phil