Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[Lechmere]

Earlier in the case Abberline seems to have taken the lead role in the Piggott line of enquiry.
Piggott was a relatively normal man in some respects but he drew attention to himself by his behaviour.

The police as an institution certainly profiled the population and focused on those segments which it regarded as being of a criminal persuasion (rather like Booth).
The police saw the Ripper murders in terms of ordinary crime - when they were not swayed by the idea that the culprit was an exotic of some sort - perhaps a madman, a foreigner , a homosexual or a Jekyll and Hyde type doctor.
Besides the exotics, the police tended to focus on sweeping the lodging houses, and we have ample records to back this up. As Abberline was effectively running the investigation on the ground, and as his experience of East End crime almost certainly would have led him to see the lodging houses as the resorts of criminals, one has to presume that he agreed with this policy.

[Fisherman]

With pleasure, Fish.
And that's what I've been doing.
My take is that he was inclined to believe Hutch because he already had his own theory ("theories ! theories !"), that owed a lot to Phillips. A well dressed-man at that time in that street ? That was what Abberline was already dreaming of. The murderer couldn't be a local nobody - indeed, Abberline was supposed to know them all.

I agree that Abberline - or the police on the whole - were disinterested in local nobodys. At least so longs as they were British and had steady jobs.

I don´t think that Abberline was dreaming of any well-dressed men as suspects. I am much more inclined to think that he and his colleagues sought after a maniac, preferably a foreign one.

... and nobody could know all people in a transient crowd of thousands and thousands.

Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Actually Ben witnesses didn't always give the address they were living at on the night in question – see Pearly Poll.
As Hutchinson didn’t testify we cannot say what address he would have given.

Hutchinson may well have been interrogated? Yes or Abberline may have been making it up to please his guvnor – that’s the kind of theorising I appreciate!
Such as your certainty – against a son claiming his father – that Toppy was a plumber in 1888 and not in the East End. Magnificent!

But wait! Can I believe you wrote this stuff and nonsense…

There were no other lodging houses in the district that closed early, and which denied entry even to those with money to pay, so unless you wish to wheel in yet another one of those extraordinary “coincidences”, the detail that the lodgings had closed points unquestionably to the Victoria Home – the only lodging house mentioned in connection with Hutchinson. Garry raises an extremely important point… The problem for you is that none of the dodgy places off Commercial Street make sense of Hutchinson’s claim that the lodgings were closed, which only the Victoria Home does

So long as he had his ordinary bed ticket the Victoria Home would allow a resident in at any hour.
That’s what I’ve been told. Very vociferously.
The rules that state that a special pass was required are at best wrong or at worst being woefully misinterpreted by a malignant personages who understand plain English.
This cannot be tolerated as the vast majority of Casebook users will testify. On this issue they will line up four square behind me and the legions of Ripperologists who have gone before.

Who is this Garry that you now take orders from on the vexed issue of the Victoria Home opening hours?

[DVV]

This thread is about why Abberline believed Hutchinson, nothing else. Let´s try to stick to that.
Fisherman

With pleasure, Fish.
And that's what I've been doing.
My take is that he was inclined to believe Hutch because he already had his own theory ("theories ! theories !"), that owed a lot to Phillips. A well dressed-man at that time in that street ? That was what Abberline was already dreaming of. The murderer couldn't be a local nobody - indeed, Abberline was supposed to know them all.

[Fisherman]

Hence that innocent friendly post.

I am always friendly to those who are friendly to me. No exceptions, David - not a single one.

I prefer to discuss the case. I have a distaste for empty clowning, headless mocking and a desire to inflame.

If I can ask you to go back and view your last fifty posts, David? Go through them - it is a mirror of what you have brought to the table here on Casebook the last few days.

Where is the substance?

This thread is about why Abberline believed Hutchinson, nothing else. Let´s try to stick to that.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Toppy never slept there at all, Lechers. He was working hard as a plumber at the time, and almost certainly not in the east end.

Ben, my friend, get real and shut up.
Lechmere-the-poster is so eager to earn a buck with his little harmless carman that nothing can disgust him.
Hutch was Toppy.
Toppy was a horse-loving plumber from the West-East End.
Fleming was 6'7.
The 6'7 Fleming wasn't Mary's ex, but anyway Mary's ex was too long.
Crossmere didn't run because he was too cunning.
He didn't run because he was mad.
He ran, but slowly so.
He called himself after his step-father's name not to be traced.
He enjoyed walking the longest short routes. Indeed, they allowed him to take his time to kill quickly.

[DVV]

Or should that be familar with the preferences?
I can´t tell either way.

All I know is that I don´t like people getting personal.

Fisherman

Hence that innocent friendly post.

[Fisherman]

P.S. Fisherman, on the subject of "getting personal", unless you're unfamiliar with the comedy references in Lechmere's post #263, you'll note that he's basically calling me gay. Nice!

Unless I am unfamiliar with the references...? Or should that be familar with the preferences?
I can´t tell either way.

All I know is that I don´t like people getting personal.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Now I want a longie from you in reply to this, Fisherman.

When you have something new and/or mildly interesting to say, then I will accomodate you on that score, Ben.

Fisherman

[Ben]

Toppy never slept there at all, Lechers. He was working hard as a plumber at the time, and almost certainly not in the east end.

The VH was a grotspot in isolation, but undoubtedly superior to the worst places off Commercial Street.

Hutchinson may well have been interrogated, like all witnesses.

It's not a fact that Lewis saw Hutchinson, but rather an overwhelmingly strong likelihood.

P.S. Fisherman, on the subject of "getting personal", unless you're unfamiliar with the comedy references in Lechmere's post #263, you'll note that he's basically calling me gay. Nice!

[Lechmere]

Of course there is no interpretation in the Hutchinson case - it is a fact that he was non interrogated and it is a fact that Lewis saw him and a fact that the Victoria Home was an anonymous doss house of the worst order with no curfew (although I was most amused to see some Flutchinsonite revisionism on the quality of the Victoria Home and it's curfew policy on another thread, in the face of suggestions that Toppy may not have stayed there exclusively).

[Ben]

You need to use the quote feature, Fisherman. It makes your posts easier to read. I’m sure you would prefer it if people read your posts thoroughly as opposed to skimming cursorily through them?

“The fact that we have no other lodging mentioned visavi Hutchinson is of little weight”

It is of tremendous weight, because it means that adherents to this brand new theory of Jon’s need to conjure up an alternative lodging house entirely from the ether, and then have a devil of a time trying to account for the astonishing failure on the part of both police and press to make any record of it. No, Badham’s report is not the only “active evidence” of Hutchinson’s lodgings being the Victoria Home. There was also the route he claimed to have taken home, coupled with his assertion that his lodgings had closed. Boris has reminded us that a doss house on Flower and Dean Street – also in the very heart of the murder district – officially closed at 2:30 or 3.00am, giving Hutchinson plenty of time to go there if his “usual” lodgings had closed.

As far as I’m aware, in every recorded witness statement associated with the case, the witness’s residence on the night of the murder was recorded; and this holds especially true for statements in which the witnesses' homes were relevant to their experience, as was the case with Hutchinson. These addresses were not secretly squirrelled away in conveniently bombed and destroyed interrogation records, but at the top of the statements themselves, as occurred with Hutchinson (again). Moreover, and as I will no doubt find occasion to repeat “ad nauseam”, Abberline made a record in his accompanying report of any pertinent detail NOT included in the body itself. It any other lodging house came into the equation, it would have appeared in at least one of these documents, but we see nothing.

“The Daily News being among them and being the source available to us on these boards”

Along with several others, yes.

“Let me remind you that Hutchinson came in from Romford, and as far as I can tell he could have found out that the place where he usually slept was closed long before he arrived in Commercial Road for all we know. He could also have KNOWN that the establishment was closed beforehand, and skipped going there due to this knowledge”

But he gave the closure of this “usual place” (obviously the Victoria Home) as the very reason for being compelled to “walk about all night”. Are you seriously suggesting that Hutchinson walked 13 hours in the cold and wet, in the small hours, all the way back from Romford, with the full expectation that he’d be doing yet more walking the rest of the night? Are you seriously suggesting that this was preferable to dossing down in Romford and then leaving for Whitechapel early the next morning? Are you seriously suggesting that Hutchinson was oblivious to the existence of alternative lodging houses in London which would not have closed by the time he arrived back in the district? Are you seriously suggesting that a groom-turned-labourer had the funds for any other type of accommodation than a lodging house? If you answer yes to any of the above, then I’m afraid an equally serious re-think is in order.

Incidentally, if his intended lodgings were far from Commercial Street, he would have taken a very different route to the one he claimed to have taken.

“Yes, absolutely. I think you can even come up with how he dictated the American constitution in retrospect to the reporter, if you only make a little changes here (and there).”

No change is necessary. We don’t know where the interview took place, but either the Victoria Home or a nearby pub would make sense from the point of view of a reporter finding a suitable location in which to conduct an interview. In neither case would the word “here” make any different to the identity of the place where Hutchinson usually slept, which will continue to be recorded by history – in spite of a few uninfluential hobbyists – as the Victoria Home. Shockingly enough, lodgers from the same home can meet up in other places, pubs being the most obvious.

“That´s not a bad start. Don´t ruin it by trying to get personal.”

I’m not getting personal. I get regularly annoyed by what I perceive as hypocrisy and double-standards employed by proponents of the not-going-down-very-well Crossmere theory, and I think anyone seeking to promote a witness-turned-suspect should keep very quiet on the subject of Hutchinson, on whose coat-tails all other “suspects” fitting that model ride. That doesn’t mean I have any disdain for anyone personally, and I’m more than entitled to observe a contradiction between your observation that a fellow theorist’s arguments are "excellent" and your non-agreement with those arguments.

Now I want a longie from you in reply to this, Fisherman.

I want to cement the fact that we're done with the brief Crossmere hoo-haa, and we're back on the Hutch.

(No, that's not a personal attack either, but rather a simple request that genuinely reflects what I actually want to see happen).

[Sally]

You really should not compare the Hutchinson bid to the Lechmere bid, Sally - but I can see why you do so.

Fisherman

Oh, on that score you are quite wrong, Fisherman.

[Fisherman]

I'm sure it was, Fish. After all, it was Team Lechmere's 'Mediocre Hilarity' that led me to mine to begin with

You really should not compare the Hutchinson bid to the Lechmere bid, Sally - but I can see why you do so.

Fisherman

[Sally]

In reality "Carry on up the Carman" was a rather silly selection wasn't it?

You really should have chosen "Carry on Carman". That would have made a lot more sense.

Yeah, but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.