Evidence of innocence

[MrBarnett]

Of course, the images are of the same yard, one looking east and one looking west. They are both correctly labelled I think.

[MrBarnett]

You may find this map helpful.

Foster Street: Top Left
Stables: Bottom Right

Bath Street was nowhere near the stables.

[MrBarnett]

I think I’ll leave it there because it seems you and RJ are having a competition to see who can post the most irrelevant image.

[drstrange169]

>>Where did you get the idea that the stables were by Bath Street?<<

Pages 380 and 381, being the wagon area, but I see now what you wrote makes more sense.

[drstrange169]

>>I think I’ll leave it there because it seems you and RJ are having a competition to see who can post the most irrelevant image.<<

That's a very Christer cop out.

Do you believe there was a clock visible to Paul in the brewery, if so how do you think it differed from the clock face in Whitechapel Road?

Do you believe Thain and Neil were wrong?

Careful, if you are just posting to criticise and correct without stating your theory, you will be labelled as mentally defective and just trying to get RJ's and my attention.

How can picture that shows no clock be irrelevant to the discussion by the way? Wasn't to you that was writing about how big the site was?

[GBinOz]

>>Hope this is of help Jeff.<<

Excellent bit of work George!

Some variables to throw in.

We don't know where the street lamp was and how much it altered the lighting of the murder site.

There is great debate as to where the lamp was. Some claim it was more or less opposite the murder site in front of Essex Wharf. Most seem to be of the opinion it was outside Schneider's hat factory a few metres further west of the murder site.

The other factors to take into consideration is that you know where your "body" was and what it is. Cross would not have known either.

Another factor is the dangerous nature of the street. Presumably, seeing something unusual would set the adrenalin flowing, altering his perception.

I've know idea how much any (if any) of this would alter your reconstuction.

Before my old dog died I'd do some less methodical tests, by walking through scrub land on the night walks. From those more meagre experiments, I know the unknown causes the brain to offer up some unexpected guesswork at what I might be looking at.

Either way your test is certainly valuable itself.

Hi Dusty,

Thank you for your kind words.

With regard to street lamps, I am not aware of discussion on the subject. I was going on Neil's testimony at the inquest "It was dark at the time, though there was a street lamp shining at the end of the row".

I was aware of the "knowing the answer in advance" limitation. As you might remember, prior to the latest re-creation I had some strong opinions regarding the tarpaulin and distances, all of which the exercise proved to be totally wrong, so I am confident that confirmation bias did not form part of the result.

The nature of the street, both in the danger aspect and the narrow street lined with tall buildings, are beyond my reconstructive abilities. The exercise could be improved with someone acting the part of Polly, or a mannequin, but I don't have access to either.

All in all I think that this re-creation is better than the previous.

I would value your opinion on the differences between the viewing conditions provided in Bucks Row on 31 Aug 1888 on a clear and bright night with 30% cloud cover (and a fire in the docklands area) compared to a starry night with no cloud in an Australian regional rural area.

Cheers, George

[drstrange169]

Here's the contentious lamppost.



Various illustrations move it slightly, away and closer to the murder site. It is at the end of the row as Neil described.

Brady street is reported as being well lit from the brewery lights. How far down that gave light I don't know.

Here are two electric lights, one of which would be in roughly the same position as the 1888 gas lamp.





Given the strength of a Victorian gas lamps neither was going to cast direct light on the murder site, but it might cause something on Mrs.Nichols to reflect, e.g.her bare legs.

In the end it's pure guesswork.

As to the night sky, the Australian ozone depleted, rural Australia sky is always going to be brighter than the industrial revolution's Victorian polluted London sky, I would have thought. On the plus side, providing they had good eyesight, Paul and Cross would probably be more used to dark on conditions than we are today.

Couple more thoughts.

Buck's Row would be in shadow from whatever light there was on both sides because of the tall buildings. The one break in the street was the gates of the wool warehouse. I'm assuming, (Gary will hate that, but Bob will be pleased I have an hyposis) that the warehouse would have lighting that would shine through the gates.

I'd have to check, but I think I read the gates were iron railing ones not solid wood. The watchman said he came out earlier that night to move on a couple of people who were hanging around, so he might have noticed them through the gates.

[drstrange169]

Oh and it just occurred to me, there may have been some ambient light coming up from the railway. Bugger it's complicated.

[drstrange169]

Here we see a young Deimshitz in the foreground, Lechmere and his cart behind him and Polly standing with some clients by the wall.

As you can see by the clock, the murder took place an hour earlier than any of the witnesses claimed!

[JeffHamm]

Hi George,

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for the invitation to review my re-creation. I only read this post this afternoon, but as it has turned out this evening has been perfect for experimentation. The 31st Aug 1888 at Bucks Row was bright and clear with 30% cloud cover. The moon was waning crescent, rose at around midnight, transited the meridian after sunrise and was 38% illuminated. This evening at Narooma the moon is waning gibbous just rising during the re-enactment but hidden by a small amount of cloud which gave only a soft glow in the eastern sky. There was zero other cloud in the sky and the stars were very bright. The moon was 93% illuminated so I decided to proceed with the re-enactment as I felt that a bright night in the east end of London in the late eighteenth century would not be as bright as that of a regional setting in Australia, and waiting for such a bright moon to clear the cloud would unduly prejudice the experiment. The were no lights on in my home or in the homes of the distant neighbours.

I had also decided to shift the re-enactment to my driveway which is a grey colour similar to that of cobblestones. I considered asking by 70 year old wife whether she would like to come and lie in our driveway in the middle of the night while I measured up some stuff, but then thought better of the idea. I used my full length Driza-Bone duster and padded it with towels to look like the shape of a woman. I used a white towel for the breast area to mimic Polly's white flannel chest cloth, and a light brown towel to shape the head and mimic Polly's hair colour. Total height of the body replica was about 5' 2". I laid this "body" on the south side of the drive with the head pointing east and laid out markers every 3 metres on the north side of the driveway, which is only 4 metres wide, so not quite authentic. My wife does not possess a bonnet so I substituted a black fedora.

Come 11PM I went to the garage and turned off the auto-light and used the time for eye adjustment to walk to our front gate, about 80 metres away. Our gatepost has the mail box on top which makes it about 5 feet high, and a little over a foot wide. I thought that, while the post is smaller than a man I would see how close I had to be to distinguish it's shape. At ten metres I could just make out the shape because I knew what I was looking for, and it is light grey in colour, but I would have serious doubts about being able to distinguish a man's shape standing any more than about 15 metres away in that light.

Back to Polly. At eighteen metres I couldn't discern anything. At fifteen metres I could just make out a dark shape contrasted against the light grey paving. This was both direct observation and the peripheral observation that would be available to a man watching were he was walking rather than the looking for an object in which I was engaged. I have to say that the shape did look like a tarpaulin on the ground. From fifteen metres I started walking straight at the shape. At twelve metres I started to see a faint white glow within the shape, with the glow being a little stronger at 9 metres and stronger again at six metres. At four metres I could just make out the light brown towel that represented Polly's hair and the arms started to take shape. I could not recognise the hat at all at this distance. At three metres I could see the shape of a person, but from this angle of approach I could not discern the shape of a dress until about two metres. With an angle of approach from the kerb directly opposite, I could see dress shape from about four metres.

If Lechmere noticed the shape at 15 metres and walked towards it, stopping in the middle of the road at between six and nine metres, I would be very hard to convince now that he could discern that the shape was a woman. Not so if he crossed from directly opposite, or two or three metres before he reached directly opposite.

Next I stood over and kneeled over the "body" at about body chest level, and I couldn't really argue about the fact that the carmen would have had difficulty seeing blood. I can't really comment on the visibility of a cut throat as Polly was described as having a dark complexion so I don't know what contrast there would have been between her skin and a throat wound.....and I don't even want to think about how I would do that re-creation.

Having repeated each re-creation six or seven times, I would offer the following conclusions for consideration:

. Lechmere's story of identifying the shape as a woman from the centre of the road is more believable the closer he gets to crossing opposite the body.

. Paul was no more than fifteen metres from Lechmere when he first saw him.

. Paul could not have seen Lechmere walking forty yards in front of him.

. The carmen's story of not seeing any blood or wounds due to the darkness is believable.

There is a marked difference in result between this re-creation and the previous due to, I believe, the contrasting colours. The barrow was red and was upturned on brick paving. The darker colour of the coat contrasting the grey paving increased visibility. Also, the original experiment was conducted on an overcast evening, the current on a starry starry night.

Hope this is of help Jeff.

Cheers, George

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Very helpful to everyone and a valuable contribution. Hats off to you.

- Jeff

[Herlock Sholmes]

Here we see a young Deimshitz in the foreground, Lechmere and his cart behind him and Polly standing with some clients by the wall.

As you can see by the clock, the murder took place an hour earlier than any of the witnesses claimed!

Young Diemschitz is striking a strangely coquettish pose Dusty. Are we certain about what kind of club it was.

[MrBarnett]

Here we see a young Deimshitz in the foreground, Lechmere and his cart behind him and Polly standing with some clients by the wall.

As you can see by the clock, the murder took place an hour earlier than any of the witnesses claimed!

That is an excellent photo, Dusty!

[GBinOz]

Here we see a young Deimshitz in the foreground, Lechmere and his cart behind him and Polly standing with some clients by the wall.

As you can see by the clock, the murder took place an hour earlier than any of the witnesses claimed!

Great photo Dusty, but I think that Polly is the woman with the three men in the foreground. The woman near the wall in the apron is obviously Cathy Eddows.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Great photo Dusty, but I think that Polly is the woman with the three men in the foreground. The woman near the wall in the apron is obviously Cathy Eddows.

Cheers, George

Cue Trevor on that one George.

[Dickere]

Here we see a young Deimshitz in the foreground, Lechmere and his cart behind him and Polly standing with some clients by the wall.

As you can see by the clock, the murder took place an hour earlier than any of the witnesses claimed!

Would you be able to read the time when Lech left home in the dark ?