Was Lech known as Cross at Pickfords??

[Fisherman]

Mr Lucky:

"it's not an opinion, that's what the Star printed."

Lucky, then, that they did NOT print that they had heard Lechmere give his address! And EXTREMELY unlucky that none of the others heard it if he did.

Which he of course did not.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Especially for Caz, I will quote Mei Trow from his book "The Thames Torso Murders" (Pen & Sword Books, 2011), on the matter of what impact the studies of frenology had back in 1888. It should prove a useful experience to somebody who boldly claims that I spread myths instead of facts.

"By the decade of the torso murders, professor Rudolf Virchow of the Berlin Pathological Institute was making some interesting discoveries. His notes for guidance on autopsies became a bible across Europe. Drs Bond and Hebbert, who worked on both the torso and the Ripper victims, shared their faith in this man along with the more enlightened of the Metīs police surgeons. Virchow studied some 6000 criminals over a twenty-year-period, making careful measurements of their skulls in particular and came to the conclusion that criminal heads tended to the prehistoric, with relatively small crania and pronounced eyebrow ridges and muzzles.
Cesare Lombroso took up his torch with alacrity...His "eureka moment" came when carying out a post-mortem of an executed thief: "At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see, all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal - an atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals."
Three years after the torso killer first struck, Lombroso was made professor of forensic medicine ...His..."Criminal Anthropology", 1895, led to very specific identifications of criminal types. Pickpockets had long hands ... but they were also tall and had black hair and thin beards. Arsonists were light with small heads; rapists had short hands and narrow foreheads ... Assassins had wide cheekbones, thick hair and prominent jaws."

There were others, like Lacassagne, who did not fall into the trap of frenology, but instead saw crime as a manifestation of social problems and shortcomings, but the truth of the matter is that frenology was very much at work and would have had a large impact during the Ripper scare. Bond, as we have seen, was very impressed with these ideas, and you may rest assured that they would to a significant extent have governed what type of killer the police would look for, when hunting for Jack.

I would actually say that we have not even been able to rid ourselves of the impact of frenology to this very day. Why do you think that the heroes in movies are always the good-looking guys, whereas the bad guy roles are awarded actors with less good looks? It is an easy explanation and it puts us to rest somewhat, to know that we may always rely on our ability to tell a crook from a good guy ... something that is of course utter rubbish, but there you are, Caz.

In my country, Sweden, we had an Institute for racial biology in Uppsala all the way up to the 1940:s, and we were still performing abortions by bid of the law on certain "types" of women, unfit to raise children by their breed, all the way up to the 1960:s. I suspect that this was not a Swedish trait only, but instead a picture that was common throughout the "civilized" western civilization to a larger or smaller degree.

Given all of this, are you still of the meaning that it is a good idea to claim that I serve myths to bolster my reasoning...? Just asking.

The best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

Very interesting post , Fishy -I'm very interested in this subject. you can see it at work in disney Cartoons ( so that 'the Beast' in 'Beauty and the Beast', actually has the physical traits of a baby, for example), and Japanese manga uses it as 'shorthand' all the time.

I was shocked and rather fascinated by the number of women journalists pointing out, after 9/11 that Osama Bin Laden was rather sexy...it's quite a horrifying idea that such an evil mass murderer might have been quite a charmer to his nearest and dearest...

I would say that the most dangerous people in Society are those that have what are judged to be ( by intuition ? education ?) benign pleasant morphologies, but have hidden warped psychologies..

[Fisherman]

Yes, Ruby - those are the leftovers of frenology. I know that a painter like Théodore Géricault (who painted for example "The raft of the Medusa") actually made a living of painting criminal physionomies to be used by the French police in their search for the lowlifes and villains of society. And that would have been in the first half of the 19:th century; Géricault dies somewhere in the 1830:s, I believe, and he died very young, before his 40:th birthday. Just think! They handed him a canvas and colours and asked him to paint typical rapist, killer and thief physionomies, and then they hit the streets with a pretty good idea what kind of people to look for...! Amazing - but anything but myth.

It makes it thoroughly understandable that the people of London expected a drooling, wildeyed monster with a one-inch forehead, long, hairy arms and a flat backhead. It also makes it very understandable why they looked for deranged people, and why men like Kosminski and Issenschmidt fit the bill so very well.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Rubyretro]

double post -can't delete

[Rubyretro]

Of Course, Fish.;

The most important aspect of a 'serial killer' is that they got away with murder 'serially'.

Obviously if they were walking down the street saddled with what was considered a criminal/murderous physique, then they would have bit of a job
convincing potential serial victims to become corpses, and a fair hard time bypassing policemen.

Serial killers owe most of their success to appearing harmless to the rest of their Society.

[Fisherman]

Exactly so, Ruby - exactly so.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Normal Humans are preconditioned to think that everyone else is like them - thinks like them.
Those that do not must be obviously abnormal or deformed in some way.
Hence a criminal will be obviously criminal or look overtly criminal - conforming to whatever sterotype is in vogue. This prejudice is very much alive and kicking today - in modern police work - and in two forms still dominates 'Ripperology'.
The two forms that dominate in 'Ripperology' are the hunt for the looney killer, and the middle class man with a conscience so beloved by middle class crime writers. This class of 'super criminal' displays the same crisis of conscience that a 'normal' human would which makes the crimes more understandable. It is however a wholly unrealistic exanation for the grim reality of serial killing.

[Fisherman]

Yes, Edward, it is all about trying to make the unimaginable understandable. Once we understand, we can identify and disarm the dangermen - or so we hope.
An almost touching example of how all this works is "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", a play that was contemporary with the Ripper scare. In it, our worst nightmares come true, when a decent, undeformed, society-serving doctor proves to be a killer and a monster.
Luckily, though, we may always rely on him having to transform before he is able to go through with his unspeakably evil deeds. Why? Because no normal-looking, gently-behaved man with an occupation shaped to help others will set about killing. He has to turn into a monster - not least physically! - before being able to do so. The deformations and deviations must be there, otherwise he is no true killer.
And back in the 19:th century, these lines of thought were even promoted to "science" - frenology.

Since there is a thread discussing whether Jack read Sherlock Holmes stories, it deserves to be pointed out how Conan Doyle emphasised in his short stories how Holmesīhead was a very noble and majestic one - there is even a story (I canīt remember which) in which a medical man states that it is the most nobly shaped cranium that he has ever come across.
Doyle too was thus influenced and taken in by the "advances" of frenology!

Today, no country is proud of having cheered the frenologists on, not least because of what the nazis did fifty years after the Ripper killings - but back in 1888, it was much the order of the day. This, I believe, is important to understand when discussing the lines along which the police seeked to find the Whitechapel killer. Normal-looking, modest-sounding, socially established people with families and steady jobs were not the breed looked for, and that would arguably have helped Charles Lechmere a lot.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

To be fair, the police then as now were quite good at solving normal crime - and most 'normal' crime is committed by persons who could be regarded as the 'usual suspects'. But serial killing is not 'normal crime'.
You often get people saying that a serial killer should have a 'normal' criminal record - some do, some don't.
The most common denominator when it comes to serial killers is their banality.
The 'exotics' are almost instantly discountable. I would have to say that were I to be conducting a realm investigation I would not discount an exotic JUST because they are exotic (eg Tumblety) but there would have to be a very good reason to waste resources on looking too closely at them.

[Cogidubnus]

I think it's lovely the old folks have got somewhere they can keep warm and talk to each other

[Sally]

I think it's lovely the old folks have got somewhere they can keep warm and talk to each other

Why, whatever do you mean Dave?

[Lechmere]

Have thread, will comment, tied to keyboard

[Sally]

Not me. I'm just having a quick peruse while I have a cup of tea, then I'm off

[Lechmere]

Whatever made you think I was referring to you dear Sal?
While wandering through the avenues and alleyways of the East End one day, I spied two down and out drunks - they were accusing some occasional drinkers of being alcoholics. It was not a very uplifting sight. I wish I had my instamatic with me to capture the scene for posterity.