Cross The Ripper?

[MrBarnett]

Good morning MrB,



That's what I thought too. But there is another equally good reason, that he gave the name Cross because he could. Just as the denizens of Buck's Row got their street name changed because they could. He used the name Cross to deflect attention away from himself and his loved ones. Because he could. Because no one cared. Because he didn't kill anyone. Because he was a carman who found the murdered woman on his way to work in the wee hours of the morning.

I voted Highly Unlikely

Roy

Good Afternoon, Roy.

First let me confess that I am one of the Magnificent 7 as far as the voting goes. My opinion is based entirely on hunch, the facts are too meagre for anything else. I would have preferred a poll that asked, 'Of all the suspects you have heard about, who do you feel is the most likely?' As it is, the choices seem weighted on the negative side, 'possible' surely covering the vast majority of the male population about whom we know nothing.

Actually, whatever way you slice it the name thing remains an anomaly. If he was innocent and was known as Cross at work and Lechmere elsewhere , why not just mention that to the police? I think perhaps the answer might lie in a hybrid of our two ideas. That he was known as Cross at work and that he used that conveniently to put a measure of distance between his family and the unpleasantness he got caught up in.

The trouble with that theory is that it would work whether he was innocent or guilty. Did he just want to avoid gossip, or was his wife already suspicious of his early morning activities (either ripping or just consorting)?

The facts can reasonably be interpreted either way.

MrB

[Roy Corduroy]

Good morning Fisherman,

I hadnīt thought of that - he used the name Cross because he could.

I may need to rethink the whole business now.

Yes I'm afraid it's time to hit the reset button.

Think of it in degrees, Fish. You suggest he was a serial killer because he could. I suggest he used the name Cross because he could. I ask you now, which goes down easier?

Roy

[Fisherman]

Good morning Fisherman,



Yes I'm afraid it's time to hit the reset button.

Think of it in degrees, Fish. You suggest he was a serial killer because he could. I suggest he used the name Cross because he could. I ask you now, which goes down easier?

Roy

You are wrong, Iīm afraid. I do not think of Lechmere as a serial killer just because he could do the deed.

John Richardson could too - and I donīt think of him as a serial killer.
Emma Greens son could too - and I donīt think of him as a serial killer.
Albert Cadoshe could too- and I donīt think of him as a serial killer.
Timothy Donovan could too- and I donīt think of him as a serial killer.
Patrick Mulshaw could too- and I donīt think of him as a serial killer.

So obviously, something is wrong with your assumption. In this case what you forgot is that there are many things that point to Lechmere as being the culprit. From the outset these things were not known to me, and I did not think of him as a serial killer. Then issues were added, one by one, and I finally reached the stage where I acknowledged that we were not dealing with coincidences anymore. Since then, I have been thinking of Lechmere as a serial killer. The implications are the reason, nothing else.

You are trying to compare uncomparable matters, thus. Itīs another total mismatch.

The best,
Fisherman

[Roy Corduroy]

Good Afternoon, Roy.

First let me confess that I am one of the Magnificent 7

Then I have a special treat for you today, MrB - (click)

Roy

[Monty]

Monty: The Cross theory is irrelevant to the point, your comment upon that is just a mere defensive jibe, due to fact the theory isn't as convincing as you desire it.

By high ranking, I assume you are referring to Divisional ranking as opposed to Chief Constable and above? The qualifications were little different from today, and examinations were undertaken.

The Met and City police also maintained a close working relationship with Le Surete and the Parisian force, one of the leading detective organisations at the time, where they exchanged ideas and advanced the use of science in investigative methods.

I am referring to the likes of for example Henry Smith, who worked as a book-keeper and who then, and I quote "The complete Jack the Ripper", went on to be commissioned in Suffolk Artillery Militia, first as a man-about-town in care of his mother, thereafter as a sporting country gentleman in Northumberland. In 1879, at the age of 44, he began casting about for employment, preferably in the senior ranks of the police. He failed to gain appointments in Scotland, Newcastle and Liverpool, but 1885, at the age of 50, he was appointed chief superintendent of the City of London police.

You may think that translates into a longish and thorough education on matters police. I donīt. The Victorian society was one where you could get very far on no other credentials than a wealthy family and good connections.

You seem to be quoting A-Z rather than Sugden.

It is interesting you chose Smith as an example, a man who had stepped into the City of London Police commissionership due to his boss's ill health, and therefore was, primarily, and assistant whose duties were to organise and structure, not to police and investigate. So lets look at just a handful of those who were undertaking the role of policing and detection during the murders.

Reid - 16 years service by 1888.
Helson - 19 years service by 1888.
Thick - 20 years service by 1888.
Swanson - 20 years service by 1888.
Abberline - 25 years service by 1888.
Arnold - 33 years service by 1888.

I suggest you refer to the relevant working policemen involved in the case.

And whilst Phrenology was looked at by Vidcoq in the mid 1800s, it was Bertillions scientific system of anthropometrics which was being used by 1888. So no, it was not a big factor of that era.

Quoting Dr John van Wyne at Cambridge university:

From Britain phrenology spread to America and France in the 1830s and in the1840s it was re-introduced to Germany. It became far more successful in America. Phrenology died away in Britain by the early 1850s but a new movement was re-introduced to Britain by the American "phrenological Fowlers" in the 1860s and 1870s. The Fowlers had begun lecturing and reading heads for fees in New York in the 1830s. Their phrenology was wholly borrowed from the British modifications of Gall's system. The Fowlers swept through Britain on a successful lecture tour before establishing various phrenological institutions, societies and publishing concerns. Less scientifically pretentious and more overtly entrepreneurial, it is largely this latter-day phrenology whose remnants are still seen today. A phrenological bust in an antique shop will almost invariably bear the label "L. N. Fowler". The latter phrenology movement was largley responsible for the A plaster bust by L.N. Fowler.anthropometric (head reading) craze of the latter 19th century and its well-known anthropological/racial concerns. The early phrenological movement was concerned more with providing practitioners with claims to epistemological certainty and intellectual authority than disscussing human races.
Phrenology evolved into wider and wider cultural space over time, beginning with Gall and the highest scientific and social and cultural elites, from Goethe to the king of Prussia, to the British and American scientifically pretentious middle-class phrenological societies of George Combe and finally to the disreputable practical "professors" of phrenology, reading heads for profit and the mass audiences of the Fowlers to the dawn of the 20th century. So-called "practical" phrenologists like the Fowlers, far outnmubered, in the long run, the interested medical men, the scientifically pretensious and theoretical phrenologists.

You are quite welcome to show me that Bertillon and his thoughts was the sole biometric method employed by British policemen. And in case you didnīt know, the Bertillonage was "a system for the identification of criminals making use of anthropometric measurements — including head size, arm span, scars, distinguishing features and the like." I trust you can see how this couples to phrenology?

Actually, you are incorrect, again.

Phrenology is the study of the external characteristics of a person's skull as an indicator of his or her personality, whereas Bertillon solely measured the head purely for identification.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Monty:

It is interesting you chose Smith as an example, a man who had stepped into the City of London Police commissionership due to his boss's ill health

It is quite adequate that I should do so, since he exemplifies the exact thing I was saying - that you could find yourself a high post in the police with no or very few qualifications.
Smith may have stepped into the commisionership due to his bossī ill health, but he was appointed chief superintendent years before that. On no or few qualifications.

That could not happen today, and that - basically - was what I was saying. I have little doubt that there were aptly educated men in the force too, but the fact of the matter is that what I postulated - that there were men in the top of the police who had very peculiar grounds for being there - holds true.

I suggest you refer to the relevant working policemen involved in the case.

Smith WAS involved in the case, of course - but I never said that what I referred to was just the men working the Ripper case. I said that these were times when you could reach high command within the police on peculiar grounds.

Phrenology is the study of the external characteristics of a person's skull as an indicator of his or her personality, whereas Bertillon solely measured the head purely for identification.

Bertillon studied pshysionomies of criminals and measured the skulls, limbs etcetera of them. Then he made so called Bertillonages - collections of photos of criminals that should enable the police in their identification work. As late as in the thirties, Al Capones Nemesis, Elliot Ness, actually looked for the "Mad butcher of Kingsbury run" with the help of a Bertillonage.

No matter what, if you once again return to my article, you will find that I did not say that the British police worked with phrenology as one of their means to catch criminals. Here is what the article actually said: "The police force had no experience of serial killings, it was led by men who in many instances had peculiar qualifications for police work and it carried out its duties in an era when racism abounded and phrenology..."

So I said that racism and phrenology was rife in the era. It WAS. And I am thankful that you did not claim that I had somehow said that the police were racists! But I did not say that they were phrenologs either.

The point I was making was that the police worked in a climate - scientific and otherwise - that entailed phrenology, and that this may/would have influenced their thinking.
Your statement that the police worked with Bertillonage methods means that you have very much made my point for me. The system was primarily used to identify criminals with a previous record, but it nevertheless was also used as a means to describe typically "criminal" physionomies, as shown by the Kingsbury Run case.

In any event, letīs keep in mind that what I said was neither that the police used phrenology OR Bertillonages - I said that it was an era of phrenological belief.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I thought this could be of interest to the Bertillon discussion. It is from the Crimino Corpus museums homepeage.

As early as 1883 in Amsterdam, Bertillon had designed the visual elements that were to be on display in numerous International and World Fairs – in Paris (1889 and 1900), Moscow (1891), Ličge (1905), Dresden (1909), and Brussels (1910) – or presented at international conferences on Penitentiary Science, Penal Law, or Criminal Anthropology. A police museum, founded in Paris in 1907, presented the various techniques used in France and many European countries as well as in the Americas, China, and Japan. Thanks to this novel visual repertoire, Bertillon established an observation strategy that was to radically alter the way police investigators looked at things. Stigmatized and medicalized by the anthropological identification grid, the criminal’s body was to be considered with regard to morphological deviations from the norm.
Hence, “bertillonnage” was very popular among italian criminal anthropologists of the time, who were trying to uncover morphological and physiological stigmata that typified*born-criminals*according to their theory. Simultaneously, the increasing influence of ethnical considerations and criteria such as race or skin color were contributing to the dissemination of the principles of racial anthropology within policing institutions.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Bertillons purpose was not always echoed by those who used his work. And in an era of phrenology and racism, that is totally understandable - anybody ran the risk of getting influenced, especially since there were so many others that spread the phrenological message.
Please observe that although Bertillon wanted to clear away the ”anthropological identification grid”, the criminals body was apparently to be considered ”with regard to morphological deviations from the norm”.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

The point I was making was that the police worked in a climate - scientific and otherwise - that entailed phrenology, and that this may/would have influenced their thinking.

Again,

phrenology


/frɪˈnɒlədʒi/


noun
historical

noun: phrenology

the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities.

Bertillon was not measuring the head in order to identify character and mental abilities, he was measuring the head simply for identification purposes. Likewise, Scotland Yard was not using phrenology, but adopting Bertillon's methods, simply put, phrenology was not in the equation, so it is incorrect to cite it.

You seem to have missed a bit off the end of your quote, as you actually stated that-

"The police force had no experience of serial killings, it was led by men who in many instances had peculiar qualifications for police work and it carried out its duties in an era when racism abounded and phrenology – the belief that criminality could be read into peopleīs differing physiognomies – was an accepted ”science"

And there is the issue, as phrenology was not an accepted science used by the police in 1888. It is not in the police codes preceding or succeeding 1888, nor is it in the City of London Police Regulation Book. It is in no police record I have studied for the period, and the ten years either side. Now wouldn't something so readily accepted by the police (which you were alluding to), be noted somewhere within the guidance and training books?


Monty

[MrBarnett]

Then I have a special treat for you today, MrB - (click)

Roy

Roy,

Almost missed this sandwiched between all the phrenology malarkey.

Great film. And while we're on the subject of phrenology, doesn't that nose put Karl Malden in the frame for JTR?

MrB

[Fisherman]

Once again, Monty, you are accusing me of having said that the police practiced or believed in phrenology as the order of the day. I never did that, as you may appreciate. I said that they carried out their duties in an era when racism abounded and phrenology was an accepted "science".

In the era we are speaking about, racism DID abound and phrenology WAS an accepted "science", just as I have exemplified with the material I have posted. What I am saying is not that phrenology was the ordered medicine in the police ranks or regulation books - but that phrenology nevertheless seeped into society on a very large scale, colouring how people looked upon criminals. And I am suggesting that much as they were perhaps not supposed to, many policemen would quite possibly make up their own minds and believe in the stuff - professors, doctors, politicians did, so I fail to see that the police were vaccinated to a hundred per cent.

THAT is what I am saying - and have been saying all along. I would appreciate if you worked from that angle instead of the "Fisherman claims the police were phrenologists"-angle.

On Bertillon, my reasoning is along the exact same lines. The post from the museum tells us that much as Bertillon recorded measures of criminals with the aim to be able to recognize those exact same criminals in the future, there was nevertheless a belief that the criminal morphology as such would deviate from the "innocent" morphologies, if you like.
This, I think, would be what Elliot Ness brought with him when he hunted for the Kingsbury Run murderer - a map of phsysionomies that were expected to represent a typical mad decapitating, eviscerating killer.

Just like the article says, phrenologs employed - or tried to employ - Bertillons work to establish that there was such a thing as criminal physionomies. This was the sentiment of the era, and I am saying in my article that working in such an era would in no way facilitate the job that the police was trying to do. If they were more on the alert for people with deviating physionomies, then it could be easily understood.

I hope that I have explained things to you now, so that we may move on with the thread without me having to face accusations of having said something I have NOT said!

All the best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Roy,

Almost missed this sandwiched between all the phrenology malarkey.

Great film. And while we're on the subject of phrenology, doesn't that nose put Karl Malden in the frame for JTR?

MrB

Karl Malden would have said that if somebody had stirred down at Browns Stable Yard, he would have smelled it as he entered Bucks Row. Provided he stood with his nose facing west.

the best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

Fish,

I think the police in the LVP thought they could identify a 'wrong 'un' just by the look of him, even the lowliest beat copper who had never heard of Bertillon. Racism came into it, certainly. But beyond gypsy is a Vadim Hinson instinct gay identifies those we feel wary of.

I've left that last sentence as my iPhone created it, because it seemed too funny to delete. What I meant to say was something about it being a basic human instinct to identify those whom we should be wary of.

And I don't think much has changed from then till now. It's human nature.

MrB

[Fisherman]

Fish,

I think the police in the LVP thought they could identify a 'wrong 'un' just by the look of him, even the lowliest beat copper who had never heard of Bertillon. Racism came into it, certainly. But beyond gypsy is a Vadim Hinson instinct gay identifies those we feel wary of.

I've left that last sentence as my iPhone created it, because it seemed too funny to delete. What I meant to say was something about it being a basic human instinct to identify those whom we should be wary of.

And I don't think much had changed from then till now. It's human nature.

MrB

I agree very much, Mr Barnett - thatīs why Tom Cruise gets to be the hero and Javier Bardem the villain when itīs movie time; we want to be able to recognize the inside by looking at the outside.

However, I think this was much more common back in 1888 than it is today. Today - much as we like our moviestars served in the right order - we actually know that we cannot recognize criminality from the outside. When we reach out for help in a murder case, we will be approached by DNA specialists, forensic specialists, ballistic specialists etcetera. When the 1888 copper reached out, he was met by renowned and celebrated "scientists" who told him that a protruding jaw and lean fingers equated a rapist.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

I've left that last sentence as my iPhone created it, because it seemed too funny to delete.
MrB

I-phones are funny things. I once texted my wife, saying that I had driven over to Bilbo to chill out.

Bilbo was a horse my kids used to groom and ride.

When I got home, my wife was a bit grumpy. It turned out the I-phone had changed Bilbo for bimbo.

The best,
Fisherman

[MrBarnett]

I-phones are funny things. I once texted my wife, saying that I had driven over to Bilbo to chill out.

Bilbo was a horse my kids used to groom and ride.

When I got home, my wife was a bit grumpy. It turned out the I-phone had changed Bilbo for bimbo.

The best,
Fisherman

And she believed you? Well done , Fish. You deserve the CAL Golden Blag award. It's like an Oscar, but wearing a wrinkled apron.