Kłosowski's appearance

[Sam Flynn]

I don't know why you would want to fight this one. Anyone would think that you are afraid of him looking like a sailor because it matches some JtR witness descriptions.

I'm not fighting anything, and I'm not afraid of anything either. The fact of the matter is that, whilst Kłosowski may have acquired a boat and sailor's cap (etc) in the late 1890s, this coincides with his moving to the seaside. We have no evidence that he dressed like that nearly a decade earlier.

[Sam Flynn]

Clearly, if Chapman wasn't wearing bell-bottomed trousers (which we all know were mandatory for all merchant seamen) there is no way that anyone would have confused him with a sailor on a dark Whitechapel street.

My comments about bell-bottoms, and plimsolls for that matter, were somewhat tongue in cheek. My point is that a double-breasted suit and cap alone do not a sailor's costume make so, whilst it would be legitimate to say that he's reported as having worn a sailor's cap and jacket at his Police Court appearance, it was not the case that he "dressed like a sailor at his trial".

But that's just me being pedantic. The important thing is that we only know about Kłosowski wearing those (two) items described as naval in 1902, prior to which his maritime proclivities are only known in conjunction with his living by the seaside in the late 1890s. We have no idea about the kind of things he was wearing in 1888.

[Batman]

"Like" is not "As"

I said like a sailor, not as a sailor. It is subjective in part. It was based on the following...

Pressmen saw Chapman for the very first time. The Daily Mail said he appeared ‘haggard and distressed’, and that his fingers ‘clutched in agitation’ at his nautical pilot’s cap. The blue of his double-breasted, serge sailor’s suit ‘intensified his pallor, and he seemed to feel the full significance of the accusation’. - WOJTCZAK, HELENA. Jack the Ripper at Last? The Mysterious Murders of George Chapman. (Kindle Locations 2117-2118). Hastings Press. Kindle Edition.

I said this looks 'like' a sailor from this description.

In all likelihood, this is how he looked from a photograph on his boat ->https://i.imgur.com/gCtky1F.png

In that photo, he IS dressed as a sailor because he is sailing.

In the description, he is dressed LIKE a sailor, a subjective interpretation based on nautical caps and sailor's suits.

I don't know why you would want to fight this one. Anyone would think that you are afraid of him looking like a sailor because it matches some JtR witness descriptions. Your claim to 'accuracy' seems absolutely congruent with this.

[Jon Guy]

Yes, how misleading to say someone merely 'described as' wearing a sailor's suit and carrying a nautical cap was dressed like a sailor. That gives completely the wrong impression.

Indeed, Gary.
Wearing two items of sailors clothing does not constitute being dressed like a sailor ;-)

[MrBarnett]

Yes, how misleading to say someone merely 'described as' wearing a sailor's suit and carrying a nautical cap was dressed like a sailor. That gives completely the wrong impression.

Clearly, if Chapman wasn't wearing bell-bottomed trousers (which we all know were mandatory for all merchant seamen) there is no way that anyone would have confused him with a sailor on a dark Whitechapel street.

🤓

[Sam Flynn]

I'd just like to respond to something Batman recently posted on another board.

I know you might not like that [Kłosowski] is described as wearing a nautical cap and navy style clothing but it's a fact of the matter.

It's not a question of my "not liking" anything, but my insistence on accuracy. You said that he "dressed like a sailor at his trial", but there is no evidence of this. He may have carried (what was described as) a nautical cap and wore (what was described as) a serge double-breasted sailor's suit, but that's not exactly cosplay is it?

What about his trousers... were they bell-bottomed? What about his footwear... was he wearing plimsolls? What about his shirt, his necktie, his overcoat?

The fact is that only two items of his attire were described as naval by a journalist, but this does not constitute "dressing like a sailor". And, as I've pointed out more than once, the descriptions in question relate to his pre-trial Police Court appearance, not the trial itself.

He even bought a boat. The Mosquito. Donned his nautical suit and P&O cap and boasted that he one day cross the Boulogue.

That was after Kłosowski had moved to the seaside town of Hastings in the late 1890s. What he looked like at his trial or, more importantly, in 1888 are entirely different matters. In respect of the latter, we don't know how he dressed during the time of the Ripper murders. The nearest we get is a description of what he looked like in Tottenham in 1894, where Woolf Levisohn apparently described him as "la di da, all high hat and umbrella". Hardly sailor-like by any stretch of the imagination.

If you have read [Helena Wojtczak's] book then you are doing your best to miss all this.

I knew this before Helena's book came out, having conducted extensive research into Kłosowski myself, and gave a talk about him at the 2010 Ripper Conference. That aside, I'm not missing anything (deliberately or otherwise) but I am sticking carefully to the facts. This is important in general, of course, and certainly applies to the question of how Kłosowski dressed at the time of the Whitechapel Murders. How he dressed later is another matter entirely.