Why Cross Was Almost Certainly Innocent

[Geddy2112]

Supervillains always have a lair Roger. I’m only surprised that he didn’t have a hunchbacked sidekick.

What did Robert Paul look like?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Ripper theorists are a strange breed. I see now that only Lechmere is allowed 'two bases'--his home in Doveton Street and his alleged 'lair' in Back Church Lane.

As for Hardiman--he was hopelessly chained to Corporation Row.

Supervillains always have a lair Roger. I’m only surprised that he didn’t have a hunchbacked sidekick.

[Geddy2112]

Lechmere Dunnit... the clues were there all along... how did Holmgren and Stow miss this... 100% proof he killed Polly Nichols. Geoprofiling does not lie...

[Geddy2112]

Ripper theorists are a strange breed. I see now that only Lechmere is allowed 'two bases'--his home in Doveton Street and his alleged 'lair' in Back Church Lane.

When did this revelation come about?

[rjpalmer]

Ripper theorists are a strange breed. I see now that only Lechmere is allowed 'two bases'--his home in Doveton Street and his alleged 'lair' in Back Church Lane.

As for Hardiman--he was hopelessly chained to Corporation Row.

[rjpalmer]

I've just read that the current UK standard for street lamps is 5000 lumens, which suggests to me that a gas lamp which produced up to 200 lumens will have been pretty useless, won't it?

The East London Observer for 20 November 1886 discusses the installation of additional streetlamps on Commerical Road and Whitechapel High Street. The contract demanded that the lamps burn "at a minimum light equal to sixteen candles." 16 candlepower is the equivalent of 202 lumens, so these lamps evidently had multiple flames.

To save money, these additional lamps would only burn between sundown and midnight, according to the article.

[chubbs]

The Baker Street website lists them at between 120-180 lumens.

There were both single flame lamps and multiple flame lamps in the 1880s, so they wouldn’t all have the same candlepower.

I've just read that the current UK standard for street lamps is 5000 lumens, which suggests to me that a gas lamp which produced up to 200 lumens will have been pretty useless, won't it?

[rjpalmer]

Awesome, watts is power so I wonder what the lumens value was. For an old fashioned electric bulb at 25 watts it could be 200 lumens, wonder what it was was gas.

The Baker Street website lists them at between 120-180 lumens.

There were both single flame lamps and multiple flame lamps in the 1880s, so they wouldn’t all have the same candlepower.

[Geddy2112]

Surely any 'main' street like Bucks Row could not have been completely pitch black or people would not be able to walk to work along there, they would be tripping up all over the place.

[Geddy2112]

A single flame, with a gas mantle, gave off about 50 watts. I'm guessing the ones in Bucks Row didn't have gas mantles so I'm guessing about 25 watts.

Awesome, watts is power so I wonder what the lumens value was. For an old fashioned electric bulb at 25 watts it could be 200 lumens, wonder what it was was gas.

[A P Tomlinson]

>> If we actually knew for a fact that the lamp at Schneider’s was working, then we wouldn’t have this discussion, Dusty.<<

Under police regulations, Neil was duty bound to report broken street lamps. Also, the Evening News sent a reporter to Bucks Row who confirmed the lights in the street were working.

I think we can be as sure as it's possible to be, that the light was working.

I suppose it depends on "broken" vs "barely working" when it comes to reporting them. Technically if there's a flame its "working" but with dirt on the outside and carbon build up on the inside, it's probably the case that a lot of functional street lamps in that neck of the woods weren't "working" in terms of providing any meaningful source of light other than as a faint beacon.
I've had several colleagues over the years who were technically functional but were rarely found to be "working".

[drstrange169]

Belief it or not, there are still working gaslights in various parts of London.



A single flame, with a gas mantle, gave off about 50 watts. I'm guessing the ones in Bucks Row didn't have gas mantles so I'm guessing about 25 watts.

[JeffHamm]

...

My inclination to think he was referring to a lamp further east along Buck's Row doesn't only have to do with how I read Neil's statement/with linguistics, if you will, but also with the notion that gas lamps back then & there were just beacons of dim light, meaning that the light they cast might not even have reached the base of the lamppost. I base this notion on something Bob Hinton wrote back in 2013 on JtRForums (see here: Polly by Gaslight - street lighting in Bucks Row - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century) and that I already knew from Neil Bell (poster Monty). If true, than neither of the lamps would have had any influence on the crime scene, other than when someone would pass right under it. So, even if the lamp at Schneider's was the functioning one, Neil would have been in darkness again within a few yards after having passed under that lamp.


I have to admit that I have no personal experience with the gas lamps they used back then, so I may very well be wrong. I agree that hearing other views than your own on a subject is a good thing and makes you think even harder about not only your own view, but also that of others.

...

Hi Frank,

That's an interesting thread, and indeed, adds another unknown to mix (as if we didn't have enough of those!). I also have very little personal experience with gas lamps, but even if there were one around where I could check it out, a city is very different today than it was in 1888 with regards to light. If we go with Bob Hinton's description, and I have nothing to suggest he's wrong, then someone walking at night, from lamp to lamp type thing, is going to have their vision night adapt, which in turn means their vision will be better than our own personal experience when we go outside and into a dark area to test what it would be like.

In a very dark environment, even the addition of very little light will greatly help our vision. I suppose that could be demonstrated by going into a windowless room, with no light source, and being in the pitch black. Light a candle, and one can see things at quite a distance, albeit not extremely well, but the distance at which one can discern that "something is there" is probably greater than most presume.

I do find it a bit difficult to accept the lamps were as completely ineffective as Bob suggests, though. We see comments about "poor lighting" in some areas, such as Mitre Square, where one lamp is described as not functioning well (although apparently fixed by the time of the inquest - I think that comes from the Eddowes' case, but which case doesn't really matter for current purposes). It strikes me that if the lamps barely made a difference in their immediate vicinity at the best of times, then it would not be something worth noting if one happened to be a bit worse than the norm (as in, even if it had been functioning properly, it still wouldn't have made any difference).

On the other hand, I do think we have to keep in mind that gas lamps of the era were not modern street lighting, and that the lighting in general was very poor by today's standards. Also, the amount of ambient light from the city in general was nothing like what we experience today. Of course, countering the lack of light is the fact that people of the time would be more dark adapted than we are in similar conditions, so our experience of what it is like to enter a dark street from a modern one is very different from someone who is in a poorly lit environment the whole time.

Anyway, none of that will settle the question of which gas lamp Neil's referring to, of course, but given nobody bats an eye at Cross/Lechmere's claim that he could see "something" from the Wool Warehouse gates does suggest that his statement didn't raise any red flags to anybody. And to be able to see something from there would require some light, and I can't see that coming from the lamp to the east, even if it was operating at double the brightness described by Bob Hinton!

Again, these are just my thoughts, and nobody else need take them up as their own.

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

>> If we actually knew for a fact that the lamp at Schneider’s was working, then we wouldn’t have this discussion, Dusty.<<

Under police regulations, Neil was duty bound to report broken street lamps. Also, the Evening News sent a reporter to Bucks Row who confirmed the lights in the street were working.

I think we can be as sure as it's possible to be, that the light was working.

[Geddy2112]

I reckon this lamp might be electric (someone will know)? If so, there'd be no 'supply' benefit from siting it where the old gas lamp was?

Bugger... yes that was the picture and yes it certainly looks electric. A gas lamp would have to be more upside down as I guess flames don't burn down over. Might have been in the same place though, who knows. Thanks.