Was Lech known as Cross at Pickfords??

[Fisherman]

David:

"Lechmere's candidacy IS interesting and shrewdly built."

Itīs SOUNDLY built. Different matter.

"I can live with that..."

Touché!

"Oh, but you've already (unsatisfactorily) answered, my friend !"

Aha. Well, then!

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

David:

"unsatisfactorily in my opinion"

I can live with that - it was not exactly unexpected.

Well, Lechmere's candidacy IS interesting and shrewdly built. Not on my top-list, though, but I wouldn't mock it.

I dislike the "several points mumble.

I can live with that...

Speak out, and thy questions shalt be answered!

Oh, but you've already (unsatisfactorily) answered, my friend !

[Fisherman]

David:

"unsatisfactorily in my opinion"

I can live with that - it was not exactly unexpected.

I dislike the "several points" mumble. Speak out, and thy questions shalt be answered!

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

David:

"Excellent objections have been made by Mr Lucky and Abby Normal, for example, and are still unanswered."

Well, we canīt have that, can we? Which "excellent points" are we talking about? Tell me, and I will see to it.

The best,
Fisherman

Lechmere did not reply, but you did - as you always do : no retreat, no surrender, that I grant you heartily-, though unsatisfactorily in my opinion.
Several points, here and there... just ask them if they're convinced...

[Fisherman]

Already taken care of, Sally.

Fisherman

[Sally]

Sally:

"By then, I expect we'll all have something else to say about Hutchinson. "

Agreed!

The best,
Fisherman

Make sure you know what your'e agreeing to first Fish. That'd be my advice.

[Sally]

Wow, doesn't funny ol' Fetchbeer get personal when his ideas are challenged, and so soon after bemoaning the "adversarial" nature of message board discussions? To echo David's point, if you think there are only three people challenging your Cross theory, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken.

I know a poll about that...

[Fisherman]

David:

"Excellent objections have been made by Mr Lucky and Abby Normal, for example, and are still unanswered."

Well, we canīt have that, can we? Which "excellent points" are we talking about? Tell me, and I will see to it.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"...then how do you account for Dew's opinion..."

No matter WHAT opinion we speak of, I account for the misses as slips of his mind. But that does not change the overall picture that people writing their memoirs actually will give useful pictures of the contexts they are speaking of.

Most memoirs will contain someting that can be questioned - but as dar as I can tell, that has not led to an overall impression that we should regard them generally as bad pictures of the working lifes they describe. End of story. Unless you are going to claim that biopgraphies on the whole cannot be said to represent the lifes of those who wrote them and giver a generally truthful picture of things? Or that we should not treat Dewīs memoirs like we treat all other memoirs? Itīs a free world, Ben.

... and you take full advantage of it, I see! Did you see what you wrote? You wrote that we should not regard Dewīs memoirs as "in any way representative" of the views of the police at the time. Thatīs amazing, Ben. Letīs look at a few sentences:

"One of the greatest problems of the police in the bad old days were organized gangs."

Bogus, huh - that was something Dew thought up himself. The police could not care less.

"It is true that the first assumption of the police was that the woman had been attacked by one of the Whitechapel blackmailing gangs"

Nah - not true. Dewīs sentiments only.

"Police efforts were not relaxed. The reverse was the case. Realizing now something of the enormity of the problem by which they were faced, the authorities drafted a large number of extra detectives from Scotland Yard and various Divisions to the East End."

Balderdash.

"What was the motive? This was the question we were always up against. There seemed to be none, unless the killer was wreaking his vengeance against a class."

What would Dew know about that? He probably makes this up.

"I knew Dr. Phillips well."

Braggard!

"Speaking from my own experience, I can only say that I always found both the detective and uniformed branches of the City police ready and willing to help."

Donīt believe him! He makes it up as he goes along.

"The first information led the police to believe the girl was last seen alive, except by her slayer, at midnight, when she was seen by a neighbour, Mary Cox, walking in the direction of her home."

No, no, no, no ... guesswork!

Really, Ben. You canīt go to any lengths in cases like these. Dewīs memoirs are memoirs shaped by the context in which he worked. As such, they give invaluable insights into the beliefs and methods of the police.

"If you don't want Cross to have been "checked out" by the police, you should at the very least dispose of the argument that Paul was investigated as a suspect."

Knowing that Dew painted him out as a very suspicious character and knowing that he was dragged out of his bed by the police and questioned, give me one good reason for doing that. It would be ludicrous.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Caz - I would caution against joining in as a threesome with Ben and sal

Wow, doesn't funny ol' Fetchbeer get personal when his ideas are challenged, and so soon after bemoaning the "adversarial" nature of message board discussions? To echo David's point, if you think there are only three people challenging your Cross theory, I'm afraid you're sorely mistaken.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

If you with "this" mean Dewīs text, I beg to disagree. When retired policemen speak of their experiences, what they say will reasonably be coloured by the thoughts shared with the working comrades from their service time. Nothing strange with that

But then how do you account for Dew's opinion that the GSG was unrelated to the murders, when it completely contradicted the views of his police superiors as expressed at the time of the murders? If we didn't have the latter on record, I suppose you'd be arguing that Dew's comments prove that the "the police" as a collective believed that the killer did not chalk the message, and of course you'd be totally wrong. Dew's opinion is utterly at odds with the police on this matter.

This is why it's so essential not to treat Dew's thoughts as being in any way representative of the views of the police at the time. His memory is demonstrably hazy on a number of issues, and had he remembered that Paul arrived on the scene later than Cross, he'd give no credence at all to the proposal that he was the killer because, as Caz points out, the idea of the killer returning to the crime scene and walking past the body's discoverer is just ludicrous.

If you don't want Cross to have been "checked out" by the police, you should at the very least dispose of the argument that Paul was investigated as a suspect. Had the latter occurred, it is utterly inconceivable that Cross would not have been looked into as a possible suspect or accomplice.

All the best,
Ben

[DVV]

Caz - I would caution against joining in as a threesome with Ben and sal - you need to feel for bumps on your scalp I think.

Hi Lechmere
I've enjoyed following the thread and I'm afraid there is more than a threesome in front of Lechmere-the-Ripper.
Excellent objections have been made by Mr Lucky and Abby Normal, for example, and are still unanswered.

[Lechmere]

Yes the simple truth is that there is nothing whatsoever to suggest the police looked at all deeply at Charles Lechmere - even as a witness possibly against Paul - who they do seem to have suspected and who is the best fit for the 'bucks Row suspect'.
The police should have but they made repeated mistakes throughout the investigation.
In any case - Paul was himself soon cleared - had he not been for some reason, then Charles Lechmere may have had something to fear.

Or is Ben suggesting perhaps that Paul wasn't a suspect for a period? I am so silly that sOmetimes I can't tell what he is going on about.

Caz - I would caution against joining in as a threesome with Ben and sal - you need to feel for bumps on your scalp I think.

[Fisherman]

Caz:

"The police only had Paul's word for it that Cross was first at the scene; they only had Cross's word for it that Cross was first at the scene."

Me and I are the only one (or is it two) that understand this. Or not. Wanna rephrase yourself?

"If they had any suspicion that Paul was involved in the murder, they could not have done anything about it without going deeper into Cross's account and trying to establish where the truth lay. "

Thatīs wishful thinking, Caz. Apparently they DID suspect Paul of potentially foul play; Dew confirms it and the actions of the police, dragging Paul out of bed in the middle of the night speaks the exact same language. And in spite of this, they did not check "Cross" - or they would have called him Lechmere.

So, just like Ben, you have a logical point - that is chewed up and spat out by the evidence.

What anybody who says that Lechmere MUST have been checked - in spite of the blatant fact that his name remained undiscovered - needs to think about, is that the police knew in "Cross" case that he had sought out a copper instead of avoiding them on the murder night, just as he had gone to the police himself in a sitúation where they had embarrasingly missed to jot down his name. The man must have been regarded as the epitome on honesty. Twice he contacted the police! To even imagine that such a guy could be the killer must have seemed outright ridiculous to them.
Then again, they did not know that Paulīs appearance on the scene had called for this very thing - to speak to the police. Therefore, they did not realize the implications of the Mizen scam, Iīd suggest - a man that is as good a citizen as Lechmere would not suddenly set about fooling PC:s, would he? And sure enough, he only had to say "No, sir!" when asked if this had happened, and they troubled him no more.

"any case against Paul would have included the terribly unlikely proposition that he had returned to the scene, despite seeing that there was a man now standing by the body of his victim."

Yes - if he could indeed see that man in the darkness, which is hard to tell. But no matter how strange YOU think this is, the police, Dew included, apparently did NOT think so. Dew suspected him, and the contemporary police raided him, so they were anything but satisfied that he was in the clear. Unless you disagree, Caz?

And do you know what? This is ANOTHER point where you have a logical point - but where the evidence laughs you straight in the face.

"Of course it all becomes clear if they were using phrenology to judge which one was the dodgier looking character of the two."

Donīt even go there, Caz - history will laugh at you, not me. Thatīs the backside of ignorance.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"By then, I expect we'll all have something else to say about Hutchinson. "

Agreed!

The best,
Fisherman