Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[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

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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?

[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]

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.

[DVV]

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

Of course, nobody could know all people, but you know human nature. Abberline failed to catch any petty criminal that he was supposed to know so well as Jack the Ripper. So Jack had to be something else.

"He and his colleagues" ? No...he and some others, at best. It's quite significant that he was replaced by Moore, who held completely different views (ie : the killer was to be found in the VH, or some other large dossing house). Same is true with Bond : somebody called him, and I bet he wasn't Abberline's best friend.

Cheers

[DVV]

Piggott was a relatively normal man in some respects but he drew attention to himself by his behaviour.

The only word that matters is this sentence is "relatively".

[Lechmere]

The only word that matters is this sentence is "relatively".

The only character that is worth recording in this sentence is ".".

[DVV]

It's not a word. Shoot again.

[Fisherman]

"He and his colleagues" ? No...he and some others, at best. It's quite significant that he was replaced by Moore, who held completely different views (ie : the killer was to be found in the VH, or some other large dossing house).
Cheers

I don´t think that the police excluded the possibility to find a maniac of foreing extraction among the lodgers in a doss-house, David.

Of course, as the investigation was stretched into a good many months, and since no madman surfaced to clinch the ideas of the police, sooner or later it was inevitable that other ideas would surface. But the impression that people like Lechmere had very little to fear is inescapable.

Bond´s description of a possible low-key culprit is certainly interesting and insightful to a very large extent, but Bond was a medico and not a policeman.

The best,
Fisherman

[Scott Nelson]

...the vexed issue of the Victoria Home opening hours?

It's important to have Hutch there at the right time so he could read a free newspaper about the murder, firmly planting the notion in his head that he better contact the police giving his witness account.

[Monty]

"...he 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"

Actually, there is another reason for this.

Monty