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Exonerating Michael Kidney - A Fresh Look at Old Myths

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Lechmere
    Tom,
    I think the weakest aspect is your conclusion that Le Grand must have delivered Kidney to Leman Street in a cab. As if Le Grand had a monopoly on hansom cabs? We also have no way of knowing whether or not Kidney could have afforded a short cab ride. I would suggest the cost of such a ride would not have been exorbitant.
    Also Le Grand would not have ‘possessed’ a cab – he would have hailed one when necessary.
    Did I say that Le Grand owned one or was in possession? I haven’t read this article in a long time. I can say that he was out in one every Sunday and used then for his work when necessary, as well as having hailed them. He did not own a cab and horse, though, but would rent them. As for Kidney, he was drunk and pissed and I don’t think he could have afforded a cab, nor would he have spent his beer money on one if he could. I based my conclusion that Le Grand took him to the police because I can place both men at the same place at the same time (viewing of the body) on that very day and Le Grand is the only person I’m aware of who was picking up people close to the Stride murder and ushering them to the police in a hansom cab to cause trouble. I feel I reached a pretty fair conclusion based on the evidence. However, it clearly is not a central point of my thesis, just another new nugget for people to consider.

    Originally posted by Lechmere
    You also claim that Kidney went to the police station, in a cab supplied by Le Grand, to ask the police to provide him with a strange (unknown) detective in order to cross examine Le Grand. Because Le Grand didn’t want to divulge certain information to Kidney.
    That doesn’t quite work.
    Is this what I said or just one possibility I offered? I think I was clear at that point that I was speculating, which unfortunately, is sometimes necessary.

    Originally posted by Lechmere
    Having said that the notion that Stride wasn’t a Ripper victim is very weak – a middle aged prostitute with a drink problem murdered and left in the open late at night with a cut throat. Not mutilated but there’s an obvious reason for this (being disturbed) and a second murder the same night with a time frame that exactly fits.
    It is stretching credibility to think there were two murderers about that night – and on no other.
    On this you and I obviously agree. Thanks for your thoughts, and if you have ideas on what or who was behind Kidney’s theory that I didn’t think of, I’d be very grateful if you shared them.

    Yours truly,

    Tom Wescott

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by mariab
      Very astute observation. For what it's worth, Swedish is not so much a guttural language as Danish is. Is there anybody else out there thinking, like me, that it's kind of interesting if a Dane pimp were the one who killed a Swedish prostitute?
      Neither my essay nor this thread is about Le Grand as a murder suspect. He figures in my essay only because I believe the evidence points to him as the man who took Kidney to the police.

      Yours truly,

      Tom Wescott

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
        about Le Grand as a murder suspect. He figures in my essay only because I believe the evidence points to him as the man who took Kidney to the police.
        I know. My joke about a Danish having possibly killed a Swede does not completely obfuscate the possibility that Le Grand might have known Stride on the street, nevertheless.

        Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
        Like the rest of us, newbies (and oldies) came from having read the books, and as I exposed in my article, they are ALL wrong in their treatments of the Stride case. That's not to be critical, it's just a fact.
        I'd be interested to know in which of his books Bob Hinton “stood out“ in offering the most talk and thought pertaining to the murder of Stride, Schwartz, “and other areas usually brushed over by authors“. Is that in From Hell (which I've only partly perused, online)?
        Best regards,
        Maria

        Comment


        • #34
          Le Grand is documented to have picked up Packer in a hired cab with Batchelor

          Yes but that doesn't make Le Grand responsible for every cab ride in the East End.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Lechmere
            Le Grand is documented to have picked up Packer in a hired cab with Batchelor

            Yes but that doesn't make Le Grand responsible for every cab ride in the East End.
            No, but if two Berner Street witnesses were taken to the police in a cab, then it does make Le Grand responsible for AT LEAST 50% of them, and since Le Grand was hanging around the mortuary talking to the witnesses, one of whom was Kidney, then it argues pretty well that Le Grand was the likely guy to have taken him to the station. The other alternatives are, as you suggested, that a low class drunkard of not much means hailed a hansom, or there was someone else besides Le Grand whisking away witnesses to the police. If you don't want it to have been Le Grand, that's fine. My essay makes a pretty good argument for it having been him, and anything I have to say on this point is in there for you to agree or disagree with.

            Yours truly,

            Tom Wescott

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by mariab
              I'd be interested to know in which of his books Bob Hinton “stood out“ in offering the most talk and thought pertaining to the murder of Stride, Schwartz, “and other areas usually brushed over by authors“. Is that in From Hell (which I've only partly perused, online)?
              I believe the title was Big Sexy Mess of a Man, the Bob Hinton Autobiography.

              Yours truly,

              Tom Wescott

              Comment


              • #37
                Tom
                I agreed with pretty much all your article apart from the speculation about Le Grand being involved in the Kidney cab ride. You did use the word ‘possession’ though!

                “It goes without saying that a hansom cab is beyond the means and wants of a broke, drunken waterside laborer. However, one was certainly in the possession of Charles Le Grand and his colleague, J.H. Batchelor.”

                When one gets a cab, you hire it for a journey and it then tends to go off to find another fare. I very much doubt Le Grand would have kept one handy on retainer.
                Do we know where Kidney picked up his cab from?

                The bit that really doesn’t work isn’t so much that Le Grand provided the cab ride, more that the purpose of the ride was to take Kidney to the police station in order to get a policeman to interrogate Le Grand.
                Last edited by Lechmere; 09-15-2011, 03:45 AM.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Tom_Wescott View Post
                  I believe the title was Big Sexy Mess of a Man, the Bob Hinton Autobiography.
                  And I thought it was the one called They erased my message off the mud with their boot, and took away my stick. (Courtesy of Marc Ripper.)
                  Best regards,
                  Maria

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Lechmere
                    Tom
                    I agreed with pretty much all your article apart from the speculation about Le Grand being involved in the Kidney cab ride. You did use the word ‘possession’ though!

                    “It goes without saying that a hansom cab is beyond the means and wants of a broke, drunken waterside laborer. However, one was certainly in the possession of Charles Le Grand and his colleague, J.H. Batchelor.”

                    When one gets a cab, you hire it for a journey and it then tends to go off to find another fare. I very much doubt Le Grand would have kept one handy on retainer.
                    Do we know where Kidney picked up his cab from?
                    Actually, as I mentioned before, Le Grand and his lady would take a cab around every Sunday, and he was a private investigator with people in his employ who could drive him. This as opposed to having a man he’d never met before be within earshot of whatever he was up to. I’m guessing, but could be wrong, that on the day of the body viewing, when he clearly had intentions of getting witnesses alone, that he would have rented a cab. He could afford it. Nevertheless, by ‘possession’ I meant only that he had access to a cab that day, whether hailing or rental, though I had rental in mind.

                    Originally posted by Lechmere
                    The bit that really doesn’t work isn’t so much that Le Grand provided the cab ride, more that the purpose of the ride was to take Kidney to the police station in order to get a policeman to interrogate Le Grand.
                    Oh Lord, I don’t think that Le Grand intended for Kidney to go sick the cops on HIM. I think he fed Kidney the theory, but only so much, in hopes he would send the police off in that direction, and suggested that the ‘strange detective’ was Kidney’s idea to find out more about what Le Grand knew. But it could just as well have been to investigate the people Kidney were told might be the murders. This somewhat ties in with the report from the papers of a Vigilance Committee man holding a theory that numerous men were involved together in the murders.

                    Yours truly,

                    Tom Wescott

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      James Tully

                      Hello,

                      Coincidentally I have just finished re-reading James Tully´s book (as mentioned by Tom) and reappraised it as one of the best books I have read on JTR. I think I let myself be put off by the fact that I don´t agree with his theory (that James Kelly was JTR), and that it was one of the first books I read. Re-reading it I can appreciate the attention to detail and how well-researched it is, and also how well-written. I particularly enjoyed his suggestions as to the meaning of Matfelon - I must say I agree with him on that!

                      If you haven´t read this book, please do - it is definitely one of the best, even if you don´t agree with him.

                      Best regards
                      C4

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by mariab View Post
                        Oops, didn't notice this. As I didn't (need to) read the “dissertation“.

                        Might I inquire which article you're referring to Don, if it doesn't highjack too much from the thread?


                        Her understanding Yiddish would automatically occur through her Swedish anyway. Even I understand (spoken) Yiddish and can read Danish from my German. (Reading Hebrew would have been another matter altogether, which I wish I could, for Lynn to spare his money with the AF project!)
                        Sorry Maria, was going to let this pass but swedish is NOTHING like yiddish! There may be some borrowed words from german, but just as many from french and english. Can´t you just accept that Liz, though unfortunate in every sense of the word, was a bright girl, bright enough to pick up another language besides english. After losing her job, giving birth to an illegitimate child and having no registered place to live (registration is and has always been paramount in Sweden), she would automatically have been branded a prostitute - a self-fulfilling prophesy, as nothing else would have been open to her. The fact that she took her mother´s legacy and moved to England for a fresh start shows her strong desire for a "normal" life - otherwise she would presumably have drunk up her legacy and carried on as she was. And for a while she seems to have succeeded.

                        C4

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Curious,
                          Swedish is VERY different from Yiddish, but all Nordic and Germanic languages are to some extent related, and it's very easy to understand the rest of them if one speaks another one of these languages. Otherwise, neither I nor Lynn Cates would have been able to understand (spoken) Yiddish up to a point through our familiarity with German.
                          This without wishing to steal away any of Stride's clearly existing linguistic capabilities (which is very typical for a Scandinavian). As she was evidently fluid with English and to an undocumented point with Yiddish. She definitely possessed some creative and sociable intelligence, visible also in her capacity to lie so well. :-)
                          Best regards,
                          Maria

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Yiddish

                            Dear Maria,

                            Yes, all nordic languages are related to some extent, but to say that a swede could understand yiddish simply because she had swedish as her mother tongue is an enormous leap. German, yes, the languages are similar, but swedish, no, sorry. Perhaps we could ask the opinion of another swedish speaker, I am willing to be proved wrong. Fisherman, are you out there?

                            Incidentally, I am impressed by your valiant attempts to decipher danish using german, but wouldn´t a danish dictionary be of more use?

                            All good wishes,
                            C4

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              I basically understand Swedish through my German too,Curious, and Yiddish is definitely easier than Swedish.
                              Best regards,
                              Maria

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                I want to thank Lechmere for his thoughts. Has anyone else read the essay and found something they disagreed with or didn't understand?

                                Yours truly,

                                Tom Wescott

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