Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[Lechmere]

Go on then Monty.
(are you going to say the police were responsible for checking that lodging houses abided by their statutory requirements - if so that is a little different to the regular shake downs of the local lodging houses that we read about during this case).

(DVV - check again, I said 'character')

[Monty]

Go on then Monty.
(are you going to say the police were responsible for checking that lodging houses abided by their statutory requirements - if so that is a little different to the regular shake downs of the local lodging houses that we read about during this case).

(DVV - check again, I said 'character')

Nope.

Monty

[Sam Flynn]

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

You really should have chosen "Carry on Carman".

What about "Carry on, follow that goose"?

[Wickerman]

....
There were no other lodging houses in the district that closed early, and which denied entry even to those with money to pay, .....

If true, and I can't imagine for one minute you have exhausted all possibilities, you are now resigned to conclude Hutchinson was telling the truth.

All of a sudden, the great liar is now the great truther, because your theory NOW depends on him telling the truth!


Oh, how we like to change horses every time the wind changes...
Somehow, I find it hard to imagine Ben as the new defender of Hutchinson's veracity, but welcome aboard anyhow.

Badham recorded him as being "of" the Victoria Home, and it would have been an act of extraordinary incompetence of the part of police and press to have failed to record the name of Hutchinson's residence on the night of his alleged experience, if different form the Victoria Home.

Wrong!
Hutchinson never told Badham what happened after he left Dorset St. the subject never came up.

[Wickerman]

Hi all,

there is an interesting piece of info in the transcript of the Eddowes inquest where the deputy of the Flower & Dean-street lodginghouse Frederick William Wilkinson was interviewed. During his second testimony, the following was mentioned by a juryman (taken from Sourcebook, p. 246):

"It was usual for the place to be open at 2 o'clock in the morning. They generally closed at 2:30 or 3."

To me, this seems like the Victoria Home was not the only lodginghouse that closed down for the night.

Maybe they all did (or at least pretended to do so) in light of laws that prohibited to keep a common lodginghouse open 24/7?

Best wishes,

Boris

Hi Boris.
The laws required all the registered Common Lodging Houses to shut down to enable the Kitchens and common areas to be cleaned.

Whether a lodging house could stay open to admit lodgers while being cleaned would all depend on the layout or floor plan.
They would not want lodgers walking through areas where they were trying to wash, mop & generally clean down.

The assumption that the V.H. was the only one to shut down is very wrong.

[Wickerman]

Hi Boris.
The laws required all the registered Common Lodging Houses to shut down to enable the Kitchens and common areas to be cleaned.

Somehow, I find it hard to imagine anyone who knows about the rules pertaining to the V.H. not being familiar with this line which explicitly tells us that other lodging-houses closed, when and why.

"There are establishments which comply with every requisition of the police, where the beds are made regularly at a certain hour, and the kitchen closed from two a.m. to four a.m., and where uncleanliness is not tolerated, but which, nevertheless, perpetuate the old system of the doss-house, with many of its most glaring evils."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/daily_telegraph/dt880921.html?printer=true

The Kitchen being the common meeting area where lodgers cook, eat, chat, play games, gamble, and generally communicate with each other.
This is the area that must be shut down for cleaning.

The rooms upstairs where lodgers sleep are cleaned during the day when the beds are empty (Mrs Tanner mentions Stride cleaning for her during the day).
The Kitchen & common meeting areas are cleaned over night.

[harry]

Lodging houses of the size of the Victoria home,would be nigh impossible to lock down.There would always be movement of individuals for various reasons.Pretty much the same as large hotels today.They are not prisons,nor are the residents prisoners.Again,it is only Hutchinson's word,that he could not gain admittance,and to be fair to Aberline,it was a claim that was not easy to dismiss given the time interval.That the sergeant and Aberline would have conferred at some length on what was told them,seems logical,and as seems likely they may have needed to contact Hutchinson again,an address was needed,and that address was given as the Victoria Home.

[DVV]

I donīt 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.

Bondīs 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

I agree, Fish, except that we can't take the police as a whole in this respect.
In broad outline, I'd distinguish two clans : Abberline/Phillips on the one hand, Moore/Bond on the other.
And I interpret Moore's words in 1889 as a straightforward criticism of his predecessor.

Cheers

[Fisherman]

I agree, Fish, except that we can't take the police as a whole in this respect.
In broad outline, I'd distinguish two clans : Abberline/Phillips on the one hand, Moore/Bond on the other.
And I interpret Moore's words in 1889 as a straightforward criticism of his predecessor.

Cheers

As I said, I have no doubt that different officials had different ideas about the killer - that is very apparent, is it not?
Are you referring to the Moore piece where he claimed that Mary Kellys flesh had been hung on nails throughout the room in Millerīs Court? If so, I think that article has itīs flaws.
Personally, I donīt identify two markedly polar opposite clans amongst the police, least of all during the autumn of terror. I note that you say "in broad outline", though.
Kosminski and Druitt bear witness, I think, to the fact that the police always bought into a little insanity ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Observer]

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

True Sally, very true.

[Observer]

What about "Carry on, follow that goose"?

Haha. Moreover,whose goose is cooked as a Jack The Ripper suspect Sam?

[DVV]

Are you referring to the Moore piece where he claimed that Mary Kellys flesh had been hung on nails throughout the room in Millerīs Court? If so, I think that article has itīs flaws.

No Fish, I'm referring to his long interview published in Le Gaulois in which he makes it clear that, in his opinion, the killer was lying low in a large common lodging house - "where people are just numbers".

Personally, I donīt identify two markedly polar opposite clans amongst the police, least of all during the autumn of terror.

Some must have followed Phillips, some must have agreed with Bond (still in broad outline). The fact that Bond has been called as soon as another murder occurred (and that was quite a snub for the experienced police surgeon) indicates that his views must have been hotly debated since the double event.

Cheers

[Fisherman]

DVV:

No Fish, I'm referring to his long interview published in Le Gaulois in which he makes it clear that, in his opinion, the killer was lying low in a large common lodging house - "where people are just numbers".

And some of them foreign, mad numbers, Iīd expect. Maybe Moore meant that a low-key person could hide out in a lodging-house, but I think it also applies that a less than sane person of a foreign extraction could do so.

Hereīs the relevant part of that Gaulois article:

"The most extraordinary feature of these murders, according to Mr. Moore, is that the perpetrator leaves not the slightest trace of his presence and no explanation is forthcoming as to how he carries his grim burdens.
"We cannot," Mr. Moore told us, "get more than the slightest of information from the managers of these common lodging houses in front of which you are now standing; their residents are to them just numbers that they don't even want to know."
Some of these lodging houses accommodate up to 500 person per night, paying 8 pence (80 centimes) in advance. The first couple to arrive find themselves a quiet haven for the night. Anyway, it is in these lodging houses that Mr. Moore expects to find the elusive criminal.
"Nothing new?" he asks the managers who greet him.
"Nothing new," they reply and we leave.
"100 police constables went," he tells us, "for three months, searching night and day - especially at night - in the Whitechapel district and, to quote an English expression, we left no stone unturned. But, we must not forget, we are looking for a needle in a haystack."
At this point we left Mr. Moore, who suggested that we return in the evening. We thanked him for his offer but declined. We were shattered; we had walked for three hours and we had not covered three kilometres as the crow files."


So there is nothing much at all to reveal what type of person Moore would have liked to look for in the lodging-houses.
And earlier in the article, Moore acknowledges that the police used to have their mind set on a Jewish killer.
There is the odd fault built into the article also, like for example the George Yard murder being placed in Brick Lane, but overall it is a good and well informed article, I think.

Have you got more on Moore (excuse the pun!) that you think points to him holding a view that the killer was some sort of low-key man, perhaps hiding out in a lodging-house?

Some must have followed Phillips, some must have agreed with Bond (still in broad outline). The fact that Bond has been called as soon as another murder occurred (and that was quite a snub for the experienced police surgeon) indicates that his views must have been hotly debated since the double event.

Well, Bond was Andersons favoured man! And he did play a role in the torso investigations, so it would have been unavoidable that he was called in. And I think BOTH menīs views were debated; Phillips and the TOD in the Chapman case is something we should not forget.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

Fish, who do you think he was expecting to find in such lodging houses of the East End where people were mere numbers ?
More significantly (in the current discussion), in that rather extensive interview, Moore said nothing about a possible Dr Jack.

So yes, he seemed to favour at that time a poor local nobody in 1889.

Cheers

[Fisherman]

Fish, who do you think he was expecting to find in such lodging houses of the East End where people were mere numbers ?
More significantly (in the current discussion), in that rather extensive interview, Moore said nothing about a possible Dr Jack.

So yes, he seemed to favour at that time a poor local nobody in 1889.

Cheers

Perhaps so - but could a poor local nobody not be of foreign extraction and mad?
That is what I am asking.

The best,
Fisherman