Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[The Good Michael]

As long as a person does not say that he went deep into the woods, where there was nobody to be seen, any suggestion of having visited heavily inhabited areas - such as Romford - carries with it many potential angles to perform a checkout. In that context, I don´t think Romford would be any better than having visited the Oxford Street area. You could just as well claim that it´s only poor luck if not a single street vendor remembers you from there.

You are responding to something you didn't understand. I was conjecturing that perhaps 'going to Romford' was a regular excuse used by the labor class when they didn't have an alibi. It was speculation of a concept and not necessarily about Hutch. It would be like saying, 'I was fishing' and there would be no way to check it out. If Romford was constantly a sort of overflow place for laborers who walked there, hitched rides on carts, or whatever, it would be impossible for police to check it out unless the person being checked upon had found employment. Who else could be asked?

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

If they tracked down Toppy’s father, he’d wonder why the hell his son was living in an east end shyte hole, spending his entire career as a labouring former groom, instead of following dear old dad into the trade

Because life's like that, Ben. Especially in times of unstable employment, as was certainly the case in the era we're talking about. And, don't forget, there's many a successful person who started his/her life in an East End "shyte hole".

[Fisherman]

So you demonstrate that my "arguments deserve no answer" by...answering?

Yes. Misrepresent me and I WILL put it right. Claim falsities and I will put it right. Lie and I will put it right. These are principles of mine that I will not stray from and that may or may not cause me to react to posts of yours. It´s all up to you.

I am not interested in discussing as such with you, though. I will happily leave you to Hutchinson, yesterdays suspect if you will, as long as you don´t cross these lines.

This time over you fail on one point - you claim that Lechmere would have been subjected to the same type of interrogation and investigation as Hutchinson, but we know that only the latter was described as having been interrogated, just as we have a good pointer (the name) that this never happened to Lechmere.

I am glad that you realize that you could well be wrong about the date confusion and Romford. Of course, denying it would only be ridiculous.

Claiming that Abberline would not have worked up til midnight on a track that promised to present him with the killer is however not a very good suggestion. And presenting it by saying "You can forget ..." is displaced confidence.

You´ve had your say, I have had mine. Let´s leave it at that, shall we? Answer if you must, but stay away from misrepresentations and - if it is in your power - sad jokes about winkers.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

I can also choose to use any of your posts in a pedagogical manner, to show how and why your arguments deserve no answer

So you demonstrate that my "arguments deserve no answer" by...answering?

Gosh, that makes tons of sense, Fisherman!

Abberline could have checked with XXX people who were in the vicinity whether Hutchinson was known as a truthful character or not

Like they would have done with Cross. Good. Excellent. But it would have counted for very little. Hutchinson could well have been known to family (whatever that extended to) and friends as a truthful enough character, but that doesn't mean he didn't lie on this particular occasion. It depends what motivated him into coming forward in the first place. If he was a known dodgy geezarr, the chances favoured him being yet another publicity-seeker Violenian type, but if he was a murderer injecting himself into the investigation in order to deflect suspicion away from himself, he may have had presented a good impression away from his crimes. But that’s straying slightly from the point, which is that checking the truthfulness of his character with the people most likely to back him up would not have been the most productive investigative move.

“ And then it would be curtains for Hutchinson´s story - but not for Hutchinson himself. And the news would somehow seep down to the Echo, who wrote about the doubts the same evening.”

Indeed they did, bud did they report the detail that Hutchinson (who definitely wasn’t Toppy) had inexplicably made a balls-up with the date of such a memorably long trek back from Romford? No, they didn’t, they stated that his failure to present his evidence until three days after the murder was the chief reason behind the “very reduced importance” attached to his account. In fact, thinking on, so unlikely is the date-confusion-Romford scenario that if it mythically transpired that Hutchinson had been in Romford, but not when he claimed, the more plausible explanation is that he lied about returning there on the morning of the 9th. That would be a safer and more likely explanation; that he used a trip he’d made in reality to form the basis of a concocted story. Either way, it wouldn’t be a point in favour of his credibility.

You can forget the idea that Abberline had six hours in which to investigate Hutchinson before he submitted his report. He was likely to have sent it later in the evening, rather than at midnight. If you wish to argue that Abberline spent the evening fruitlessly canvassing opinions about Hutchinson’s character from hoped-for contacts such as parents, who would likely support him whatever, and fellow lodgers, who probably knew very little about him, fine, but don't expect it to shed much light on the likelihood of Hutchinson telling the truth or not. Abberline wouldn't have, unless he was a defective detective. Don’t forget that if Hutchinson lied, he wasn’t likely to supply Abberline with an address book of contacts. He could have pretended that he kept himself to himself, and that he knew very few people in the neighbourhood. If he knew people lived nearby who could provide a character reference, was worried that they might provide a bad one, all he had to do was NOT mention them.

You can certainly stop derailing the thread with that Toppy nonsense unless you fancy some repetition from earlier threads, which I can relocate in an instant. If they tracked down Toppy’s father, he’d wonder why the hell his son was living in an east end shyte hole, spending his entire career as a labouring former groom, instead of following dear old dad into the trade (which is that the real Toppy, who had nothing to do with the witness Hutchinson, unquestionably did).

Toppy fight, anyway?

Just show me where to sign up for one.

Regards,
Ben

[Sally]

Hello Sally,



if Hutchinson really went to Romford to get a job but couldn't find one, he might have gone back to London in the middle of the night in order to be there at a time when jobs for the day were given out.

Best wishes,

Boris

Hi Boris,

Yes - if Hutchinson had given that as an explanation it would've been plausible enough. I can think of a few explanations that he might have given for his walk from Romford.

Competition was fierce for a day's work; so unless he had a special arrangement, he'd have been queueing up with dozens [if not more] of other General Labourers to secure that work. Hutchinson belonged to the most common of men in the East End - the Single General Labourer. They were ubiquitous, reflecting the semi-itinerant character of the local populace. Whether in Romford or London, it's doubtful that anybody would've remembered a face in the crowd - assuming, of course, that he went off to Romford for work purposes, or even at all.

[bolo]

Hello Sally,

The only point for explanation there as far as I can see is why he chose to set off for London in the middle of the night – but that could have been accounted for easily enough.

if Hutchinson really went to Romford to get a job but couldn't find one, he might have gone back to London in the middle of the night in order to be there at a time when jobs for the day were given out.

Best wishes,

Boris

[Ben]

Even Phillips only suggested "indications of knowledge", ie: "There were indications of anatomical knowledge, which were only less indicated in consequence of haste."
And, "...some anatomical knowledge."

None of which amounts to "expert surgeon".

Take your problem up with the spectre of Abberline, then - he used those words, not me, and he was evidently basing them on the findings of the Chapman inquest, which he also referenced in the 1903 article. Phillips himself was an expert surgeon, but claimed that even he could not perform them in the conditions and time available, indicating a man with more ability than himself.

“And, as I already pointed out, Dr Bond scuttled the idea of "skill" once and for all.”

But not for Abberline, who in 1903 betrayed none of the senility and scattiness of mind that you’d need him to have in order for him to change his opinion from “unskilled” in 1888 to “expert surgeon” in 1903. If you want to make Abberline look dappy, keep arguing. I’m defending his consistency of opinion.

“He was called in because of a murder, NOT to suggest the police were still actively looking for his suspect, which is what we are talking about here.
Try again, "How long after the witness descriptions were published are the police still looking for the Lawende suspect?”

What are you talking about?

Lawende was called in because the police considered his suspect to have been the actual ripper – ergo they were still looking for his suspect, and thought that they might be able to find him in the form of Grainger, or Sadler, and possibly Kosminski. (See? I can do bold too). Why on earth would they call in Lawende to look over new suspects for comparison with his own 1888 sighting unless the police still valued his evidence and were still interested in ascertaining the identity of his suspect? These are facts, by the way - unless you're suggesting that the viewing of Sadler and Grainger were all lies concocted by Anderson?

Isaacs had been found, arrested & interrogated, and from that point on (Dec 6th), we have certainly no more mention of the Hutchinson suspect.

Oh, here he comes!

Isaacs!

It was only a matter of time before you wheeled him in. No, Isaacs could not possibly have been Astrakhan man, and no, he had absolutely nothing to do with Anderson's non-use of Hutchinson in subsequent identity parades, and those are facts.

Hutchinson will be asked for the name & address of the person he visited.

Who said he "visited" anyone? Just you, without any evidence. Hutchinson could easily have invented a street name, and made out that he'd heard of some work being offered there, and not being able to locate the address, went hope after a fruitless search. It's a completely baseless assumption of yours that Hutchinson spent his alleged time at Romford in company. If he was on his own for the duration, there was nothing to check, and nothing to prove him a liar, even if he was one.

The problem with conjuring up a heap of tenuous and improbably points of references that the police could supposedly check is that had they been conducted, and had they supported Hutchinson's story, there is no possibility of it being "considerably discounted" on the grounds of late presentation of his evidence and no-show at the inquest. The "very reduced importance" attached to his account tells us that whatever checks or "later investigations" were conducted, they did NOT pan out in favour of Hutchinson's credibility.

[Fisherman]

I can also choose to use any of your posts in a pedagogical manner, to show how and why your arguments deserve no answer.

Like this, for example:

"Have you completely given up on "date confusion", by the way? If you're now insisting - on the basis of absolutely no evidence - that his Romford ramblings were checked out and shown to be correct, that's your theory gone to bollocks, surely?"

Yes, that´s correct. But only if it was checked and found to be correct. What you totally forget is that it could equally have been checked out - and found to have been incorrect.

Shall I explain further? Okay, for the sake of clarity and in order to provide each and every one of us with the chance to understand:

Abberline could have checked with XXX people who were in the vicinity whether Hutchinson was known as a truthful character or not (and believe it or not, the police usually DO speak to the suspects parents too. You may be amazed what that parents tell the police at times! Look at what Dahmers parents said, for example). He may have gotten a good conduct clearance thus far, on Hutchinson´s behalf.

He may therefore have gone to bed on the 12:th, having informed his superiors about his feeling that Hutchinson was a truthful man.
Then, on the morning of the 13:th, Abberline could have wired his colleagues in Romford, who went out and spoke to the place where Hutchinson claimed to have stayed. And they may have confirmed that Hutch DID stay with them, only to realize that the police were speaking of the night leading up to the 9:th - at which stage they said: "Oh, no, officer - he was here the night BEFORE that!".
And then it would be curtains for Hutchinson´s story - but not for Hutchinson himself. And the news would somehow seep down to the Echo, who wrote about the doubts the same evening.

So, you see, Ben, you are factually wrong once again - the Romford story would not in any way speak against my scenario. On the contrary - it may well have been what revealed that Toppy had gotten the days wrong.

There are other points in your post that are equally uninformed and misleading (I never said that the police got it wrong with Packer and Violenia, for example), but I think this will serve the purpose of underlining the reason for my reluctance to exchange with you.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I know you said you weren’t going to respond to my posts

Factually wrong, as always.

I said that I would be less inclined to respond to you, since you do not produce arguments of a quality that deserves any answer.

Once you DO produce quality arguments, I reserve the right to answer.

So here´s my answer to your last post:



The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

It's simple logic, Fish.

You need to realize the difference inbetween simple and simplistic, Sally.

There simply wouldn't have been time to perform the sort of comprehensive check that you appear to envisage between Hutchinson giving his statement and Abberline writing his report.

Hutch appeared at 6 PM. That left six hours of the day. We don´t know at what exact time Abberlines report was finished, saying that Hutch was to be believed.

Six hours, Sally - that is a lot of time. Of course, you now move the goalpoasts by claiming that we are discussing "comprehensive" checks, whereas no such thing has ever been mentioned. I am speaking of a quick check to see if people had him down as a good or a bad guy - a liar or a truthful man.

Your list of possibilities is irrelevant because we cannot demonstrate either that any of them applied or that they didn't. We can only go with what we have - not what we don't.

And do you "have" any information telling you that none of the persons I mentioned in my post above did not live close enough to run a check? No you don´t! So let´s not go with what we DON´T have.
Incidentally, Toppys father and mother lived in Lenham road (in 1891, at least), ten kilometres from the Victoria home, as the crow flies. Six hours would be quite, quite sufficient to speak to them.
So don´t you speak of irrelevance, Sally, when you have nothing at all to show for it.

That aside, I think you missed the point of my post, which was not actually concerned with whether Abberline magically performed a total check on Hutchinson or not - but rather with the context of walking from Romford to London.

I choose my own points. And this time I picked up on something that was falsely presented as a fact. I often do. And it very often comes from the exact same very few sources.

It won´t do.

Now, how many checks can a healthy swarm of effective police officers run in six hours? Hm? None, eh?

Dear me...

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

Why would we not think that Abberline reasoned along the lines of: "Hmmm, we´ve had Violenia and we´ve had Packer and we´ve had all sorts of funny people who have served us lies and concoctions of no value at all, so I´d better be very cautious about this one. We don´t want to get it wrong this time

But they didn't "get it wrong" with Packer or Violenia. Both of them were suspected of being publicity-seekers because they did not perform well under "interrogation". There is no reason at all to assume they were any less thorough with witnesses who were very quickly exposed as probable liars - in fact, they were probably more so, considering that it took them longer, in Hutchinson's case, to arrive at the conclusion that all was not well with his account.

Have you completely given up on "date confusion", by the way? If you're now insisting - on the basis of absolutely no evidence - that his Romford ramblings were checked out and shown to be correct, that's your theory gone to bollocks, surely? If it was established that he was in Romford and left when he said he left, the date would therefore be cemented as the correct one, and "date confusion" would cease to be a possibility.

But all that nonsense aside, the fact remains is that if the Romford tale was checked out, he would not have been dismissed as a publicity-seeking non-genuine witness, which is irrefutably what happened (copy and pastes at the ready for any dissenters who want to drag that issue out again). The reality, therefore, is that if any checking occurred, Hutchinson evidently failed those “checks”, and suffered a “very reduced importance” accordingly. This reduction of importance, we’re reliably informed, occurred as a result of “later investigations”. This was the “checking” you refer to, and it obviously didn’t pan out in Hutchinson’s favour.

So that’s the “he told the truth about Romford” squarely dealt with – it could not have happened, or else he would not have been discredited.

So now let’s explore the alternative scenario – how would he have dealt with the threat of having his alleged Romford ramble “checked out” if he was lying about it? The answer: very easily indeed. All he had to say was that he was looking for a particular location, and went home when he couldn’t find it. The police were not about to check non-existent CCTV cameras in Romford and hope to spot Hutchinson buying onions from a market stalls, so he could have lied about it all with impunity. The idea that it would be easy to perform a check-out in the absence of these is completely ludicrous.

“My own take on matters is that Abberline would have checked out as much as he could on as many points as he could, and potentially, there would have been a great many points to check.”

Your own take on matters is unimaginative, and grossly misunderstands the likely extent of checking powers the police had at their disposal in 1888. Had the police been in possession of such powers, and had they been as dedicated to using them as you’re envisaging, Cross wouldn’t have stood a chance of pulling the wool over the eyes of the police had he been the ripper. Unless of course you wish to apply ghastly double standards of the type that I’m not prepared to tolerate here.

“Did Hutchinson´s mother and father live nearby?
Did any of his siblings live nearby?
Did any of his part time employers live nearby?
Did he have any friends nearby?
Did he have any other relatives nearby?”

Ah, you mean like Cross who lived nearby. According to you, the police tracked down people’s relatives in order to ascertain their truthfulness. Your “logic” would insist the police tracked down Mrs. Lechmere and been surprised that she was called, well, Mrs. Lechmere, and not Mrs. Cross. Realistically though, a visit to Hutchinson’s possible relatives would have communicated sod all about his propensity to lie or kill people. His mummy wasn't exactly going to say, “Ah yes, my son George – dodgy little phucker. He’s probably lying and killing prostitutes again. I’ve told him..!”

“Shall we agree that it is NOT a fact, and be done with it? Or do you persist?”

Can’t speak for Sally, but I wish to persist, Fisherman - and persist I will until eternity, if necessary.

“Of course, once we admit that Hutchinson was George William Topping Hutchinson, we CAN run a check on this, to some extent.”

We can laugh that one out of town too.

I know you said you weren’t going to respond to my posts, but since I know for a fact that you’re going to renege on that, I look forward to your response.

[Sally]

It's simple logic, Fish. There simply wouldn't have been time to perform the sort of comprehensive check that you appear to envisage between Hutchinson giving his statement and Abberline writing his report.

Your list of possibilities is irrelevant because we cannot demonstrate either that any of them applied or that they didn't. We can only go with what we have - not what we don't.

That aside, I think you missed the point of my post, which was not actually concerned with whether Abberline magically performed a total check on Hutchinson or not - but rather with the context of walking from Romford to London.

[Fisherman]

As Ben says, there wasn’t time for Hutchinson to have been ‘checked out’ between his official statement and Abberline’s report – other than perhaps to ascertain that he was resident at the Victoria Home.

That´s just your guess, Sally.
Did Hutchinson´s mother and father live nearby?
Did any of his siblings live nearby?
Did any of his part time employers live nearby?
Did he have any friends nearby?
Did he have any other relatives nearby?
Did he visit somebody in Romford? Could that person or persons have come to London afterwards, perhaps living nearby?

Keep in mind that very many families lived in very small areas of the East End; fathers, mothers, siblings, relatives often lived in flats in the same street even.

The possibilitites are therefore countless. But they do not match what you want them to be, do they?
So you lay down - as a fact - that Abberline could ONLY have spoken to the people in the Victoria Home in the time period offered. And that´s only a "perhaps".

Shall we agree that it is NOT a fact, and be done with it? Or do you persist?

And please, PLEASE don´t come crawling with any "near certainties"! The truth of the matter is that we don´t know how many people of interest for assessing Hutchinson lived in the vicinity.
Of course, once we admit that Hutchinson was George William Topping Hutchinson, we CAN run a check on this, to some extent. But I have a feeling that it won´t suit you any more than the insight that your fact is anything but a fact.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Jon,

Yes. Many assumptions about Hutchinson. If you'll recall, I was talking about the possibility of 'Going Down to Romford' as being some sort of catch-all excuse in existence at the time that police couldn't check out very well. It wasn't applied to Hutch alone, but as some sort of excuse anyone could use without fear of being caught out. For what it's worth, I believe Hutch in no way, shape, or form could be the killer.

Mike

As long as a person does not say that he went deep into the woods, where there was nobody to be seen, any suggestion of having visited heavily inhabited areas - such as Romford - carries with it many potential angles to perform a checkout. In that context, I don´t think Romford would be any better than having visited the Oxford Street area. You could just as well claim that it´s only poor luck if not a single street vendor remembers you from there.

My own take on matters is that Abberline would have checked out as much as he could on as many points as he could, and potentially, there would have been a great many points to check. Saying that there was nothing that could be checked - as has been said on this thread, sadly - is something that is a far cry from being any fact. And the fact (this time it IS a fact!) that Abberline stated that he believed Hutchinson spoke the truth actually points to the police having been able to confirm Hutchinsons story on at least some level.

I went to Gränna (a small town in Sweden) over midsummer, and there will be a good number of people that could confirm this, from the ones I rented a cottage from, to the ferryman on lake Vättern, the ice-cream seller in Visingsborg and the people that sold me and my family and my two boys´girlfriends food and the ones who served it.
Actually, come to think of it, I was kind of spent out too, returning from my excursion ...

If I had wanted to hide my whereabouts, I could easily have claimed that I towed my boat to lake Vättern, launched it at a shore with no people around, put my tent up and went fishing for four days - I often do that exact thing. Among the many boats trolling for char, it would be easy to say that my boat did perhaps not attract any attention.

Romford is not a very useful destination for somebody who wants to lie, thus. Not to my mind, it isn´t.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

As Ben says, there wasn’t time for Hutchinson to have been ‘checked out’ between his official statement and Abberline’s report – other than perhaps to ascertain that he was resident at the Victoria Home.

Hutchinson’s walk from Romford, much discussed in respect of his honesty or otherwise, would have been the least of Abberline’s concerns in any case. It often appears in discussions on this site as though it was remarkable – in itself, it wasn’t. Contemporary records suggest that it was normal for people to walk for distances that we would consider unusual today. Local infirmary records, for example [including the Whitechapel Infirmary records] contain several admission entries for people who had walked considerable distances to London – from places such as Guildford and St Albans, for example, which are much further away than Romford.

In the years from 87-89 there are probably half a dozen admissions to the Whitechapel Infirmary who had walked from Romford; some in the horse trade, some not, which, all things considered, tells us that if not exactly commonplace, it wasn’t unusual either. It’s about 15 miles – a fair hike, but not that far. The only point for explanation there as far as I can see is why he chose to set off for London in the middle of the night – but that could have been accounted for easily enough.

As for the idea that his route was somehow ‘checkable’ – no. On his way from Romford he’d have seen some sheep, no doubt, and perhaps a few cows, but little else. Apart from passing through Ilford, most of his route was open countryside until he reached London.

Incidentally, there is a nice picture of Romford Market in 1904 here:

http://pubhistory.co.uk/Romford/HistoryofRomford.shtml

And a link to other pictures of the locale.