The Lechmere/Cross "name issue"

[Fisherman]

I think my point is simply this: If there are two consecutive years of electoral register when the details don't change, it is double counting to count them as 'separate signings' bearing in mind that the details might simply have been transferred from one year to another without any involvement by Lechmere.

But the wider point is that if you include 40-50 electoral register entries into the total of 100 'signatures' it makes the 100+ total pretty meaningless because if he gives his surname as Lechmere the first time he is entered onto the electoral register he's not very likely to change it at any subsequent point in the future.

Equally if he gives his surname on Lechmere on one of his children's birth certificates he's likely to do so on all the rest and all of the other birth, marriage and death certificates.

So, if it was me, the way I would argue the point is to say that Cross/Lechmere is recorded under the name of Lechmere (or, if you prefer, uses the name Lechmere) on every known form of official document. That's it. The numbers don't help advance the issue any further. 100, 1,000, 10,000, what does it matter if they are all official documents?

If we don't have information as to what he called himself at work, or to his friends or in various other circumstances it just doesn't add anything.

Yes, letīs throw it away. How would such a collection have any impact at all on the issue of what he called himself? Basically, it is nothing but a compilation of what he called himself. So how could it help?

[Fisherman]

illogical and stupid.

Self-declaration time again.

[Fisherman]

ridiculous

...again...

[Fisherman]

...consists of bullshit.

...and again! Know thyself!

[Fisherman]

Dusty, I am not inclined to answer a heap of lame thinking, ignorant babble and false accusations.

Sorry about that.

You probably caught me out again, yeah?

[Fisherman]

Lechmere/Cross' mother married Thomas Cross in 1858, when Charles would have been 9 years old. Now, as he was referred to as Charles Cross on the 1861 electoral register I think it likely that his surname would have been changed, at least for everyday purposes, from the time of his mother's marriage to Thomas. Thomas I believe died on 1869, by which time Charles would have been 20, so at that point he could have been known as Charles Cross for 11 years and well into adulthood.

It would therefore be completely natural for him to retain the name Charles Cross, at least for everyday purposes, considering the alternative would have been to go round all of his friends, family, associates, neighbours, work colleagues, and announce, "I've changed my name. I'm no longer Charles Cross, I'm now Charles Lechmere." And after 11 years it seems to me that would have been an odd thing to do.

And now, all you have to do is to prove it.

[Fisherman]

caz: No I wasn't.

However, his attendance is entirely consistent with him being innocent. It certainly cannot be suspicious or every witness who ever attends an inquest is in trouble.

How good , then, that nobody suggested such a thing. Or?


Except that the last bit is all yours, not mine. A circular argument is one where you start from your desired conclusion - guilty as sin - then move round in a circle to arrive back at exactly the same point via silly observations like he was never suspected so he must have been successful at hiding his guilt!

I would merely observe that from a neutral starting point, the fact he was never suspected cannot possibly be held against him. He may or may not have been guilty, but you don't know he had any nefarious reason to divert suspicion away from himself, nor that he had anything sinister to do with the complete lack of interest in him by the authorities aside from his role as witness.

And you cannot know the opposite. It is therefore up to anybody to draw his or her own conclusions, and tell you that you are probably wrong.

[Fisherman]

Good point, GUT.

"Sensational 'orrible murder in Buck's Row! Pickfords carman Charles Cross first at the scene."

The 'bosses' would have been wise to make it their urgent business to know the ins and outs of a cat's arse on reading that!

Love,

Caz
X

Now all you have to do is to find the paper with that headline.

[Fisherman]

One for Dusty, so as to show how he reasons:

My post:
... you speak of how very relevant it is if Lechmere started work at Pickfords when Thomas Cross was alive. Okay, thatīs correct.
But it is an answer to a question that was never asked.


Dustyīs post:
So you are telling us in order to believe Xmere was the killer we should not ask questions or look at ALL the available evidence? Certainly explains your approach, but the rest of us have higher standards of research.

Here, Dusty tries to elevate himself to a high standard of research, and to tarnish me for trying to keep chosen pieces of evidence out of the loop.

Is either of these things true?

Of course not!

Dusty is a mediocre researcher, to begin with. And the idea that I should have tried to keep evidence out of the loop is silly.

Letīs scrutinize the question!

I wrote a long list of things that COULD have exonerated the carman, wholly or partly. One point on the list was to point out that if there had been any evidence at all that he ever called himself Cross, officially or unofficially (apart from the inquest business), then there would be no further need to discuss the name issue - it would have been resolved in favour of him having used the name Cross actively in other situations than the inquest situation.
Sadly, there is no such evidence, wherefore my point is 100 per cent relevant: He could have been cleared, but he is not.

In answer, Dusty posted this:

Does any of this “official material” Ed has, relate to the police or Pickfords?
Was Xmere put down as “Cross” in the census whilst Thomas Cross was alive?
Is that “official Material”?
Did he start work at Pickfords when Thomas Cross was alive?
Is the notion that he might be called Cross at Pickfords illogical or outlandish to any unbiased observer?

Much as all of these points have a potential bearing on the matter as such, none of them comes even remotely close to provide a scintilla of evidence that the name Cross was ever otherwise used by the carman, apart from in combination with the Nichols murder.
So very clearly, my point stands - it remains unproven, and it remains a point where the carman could have been exonerated, but was not. Just as I said.

I accordingly answered Dusty:

"No obfuscating takes away from what I stated - if Lechmere had had help from somewhere in any of the instances I named, he would have been off the hook to a smaller or larger degree.
Asking, for example, "did he start work at Pickfords when Thomas Cross was alive?" is completely irrelevant in this context. It nevertheless remains that if we had had records of the carman using the name Cross, it would have absolved him on that note."

Dusty had simply answered a question that was never asked. He went on about what reasons there could be behind how the carman swapped names, and did not comment on the issue of how the carman could not be cleared on the point as yet - which was what was under discussion.
Charmingly, he now posted this:

That is the problem that dogs the Xmere debate. You don’t have the courage to admit mistakes and simply move on.

It is odd to debate with a person who is seemingly illiterate enough to misunderstand the simplest of topics. It is equally odd to find that this person has the audacity to get it all asswards himself, and then claim that it is his opponent - in this case me - who is to blame for the exact same thing.

Now, Dusty, here is your chance to put things right. Nobody is saying that your many ideas and suggestions about how there may have been a reason for the carman to use the Cross name are irrelevant to the case as such. There are many like you, merrily conjuring up dozens of more or less exotic suggestions, so you are in good company. However, to the exact issue we were discussing - that the carman could have been cleared by any evidence of him having used the name Cross other than in combination with the murder - these suggestions have no impact at all. It is what it is.

In essence, all you needed to say was:

Yes, that is correct, we do not have a scintilla of evidence that the carman used the name Cross other than in combination with the Nichols murder.

And then you could have added:

But letīs not forget that there may well have been reasons for him to use that name anyhow.

That would have been fair, and it would show that you can actually read and understand basic text.

Instead, you chose to call me a liar and yourself an accomplished researcher.

You made a farce out of a serious topic, therefore. And that is not what a serious researcher does, Iīm afraid.

I will not spend this much time on you fortwith. It would, I fear, largely be throwing pearls for pigs, as the old saying goes. But I wanted to clarify how you reason, and the dangers connected with such "research".

Til the next time, Dusty. May it be a long time away.

[MrBarnett]

And now, all you have to do is to prove it.

In 1859, whie Maria was still living with Thomas Cross, her two children were Christened with the name Lechmere. If the family had been passing themselves off as Cross at that time that would surely demonstrate an appreciation of the distinction between an informally adopted name and an officially recorded one.

[Fisherman]

In 1859, whie Maria was still living with Thomas Cross, her two children were Christened with the name Lechmere. If the family had been passing themselves off as Cross at that time that would surely demonstrate an appreciation of the distinction between an informally adopted name and an officially recorded one.

Indeed it would! I have heard the idea of the carman passing himself off as Cross so many times now that I am beginning to develop an idea that it actually happened. Then again, I think the suggestion is taking on epidemic proportions amongst a good lot of people. Or a bad lot, I donīt know which is the more proper categorization.

To think, there is not a scrap of evidence at all suggesting that he ever used the name Cross - and STILL it is suggested as a near certainty, more or less. And when you point out that it would be nice with some sort of evidence to support the idea, the boards go bananas, and I am thrown in the liarīs role, the deludedīs role, the charlatanīs role and any other unflattering role you can think of.

I saw your answers - measured and wise - to David Orsam. Little did it help. If it is any comfort, a deluded charlatan and liar near you is of the meaning that they were sound, sober and well suited posts.

[David Orsam]

according to David Orsam on a different topic, one can only 'announce' something publicly, not to an individual.

No, that wasn't said by me, but I do recall pasting the dictionary definition of the word 'announce' in another thread.

[David Orsam]

It is teeming with examples of how the act is suggested - 34 700 hits on "I signed his name", for example.

I have to assume (in fairness to you) that you never looked at a single one of those hits.

Let's look at the first page of hits on google together shall we?

The first hit comes from evidence in a forgery case where someone has been illegally signing other peoples' names.

The second and third hits (from an English to Polish translation site) say "I signed his name, and I let you think it was from him." So a case of forgery/fraud.

The fourth hit is evidence from a criminal trial at the Old Bailey where a witness who had been renting out a house is saying that he signed a rent book in his father-in-law's name, his father-in-law having put him in possession of the house (the implication in the questioning being there was something odd about it).

The fifth hit is a poem entitled "He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded". The relevant lines say:

"I've been telling lies
to a boy who cried because his favorite detective
hadn't come with us; I said he had sent his love
and, no, I didn't think he'd mind if I signed his name" .

A mild case of forgery in other words.

The sixth hit is a criminal law website asking the question "My ex-boyfriend is saying I signed his name on a school loan that took place over 6 years ago". An allegation of fraud in other words.

The seventh hit is another poem and another case of dodgy signing with reference to a 'crime':

"I trawl the bookshops searching for his name,
gold embossed letters lighting up a spine,
five hundred pages full of guilt and shame.
But naught in there comes equal to my crime:
I signed his name, betrayed, in black and white,
my son, the writer. No, pet, he’ll not write."

The eighth hit is the wording of a certification for someone who has signed a legal document before a notary public on behalf of "An Individual Who Cannot Write His or Her Name."

The ninth hit is from an internet forum post entitled "Can you forge someone's signature with their permission?". I don't need to say any more about that one.

The tenth hit is an example of a grantors' signature on a legal document: the example being: "Grant Ore, being unable to write, made his mark in my presence, and I signed his name at his request and in his presence.”

That takes us to the end of the first page of google results. Looking at the second page from the view function they all seem to be exactly the same type of things. From this, it should now be crystal clear to you that one does not normally sign someone else's name unless they are incapable of doing so themselves or you are forging their signature or committing the crime of fraud.

[David Orsam]

But that is all uninteresting. All that matters is that the large collection of official papers relating to the carman all have the name Lechmere on them.

In view of the fact that the google hits you mentioned do not support your argument it does not surprise me that you find them "uninteresting".

But yes while it is perfectly correct and proper to say that there is a large collection of official papers with the name Lechmere on them, it is also fair to say that there is a very small (perhaps non-existent?) collection of unofficial papers, including papers relating to his private employment, which have the name Lechmere on them.

[David Orsam]

I do not have the documents, Edward has, and I trust him completely. I have discussed them with him on occasion, and I am satisfied that the collection is completely relevant.

Well my question to which you were purportedly responding was: "Do you have any evidence that he or anyone else signed the electoral register every year?"

The fact that Edward has the documents and that you have discussed them with him does not even begin to answer my question.

Unless you are saying that the electoral register is not included in the 100+ documents (are you saying that?) then I fail to see the relevance of that post.