Why Cross Was Almost Certainly Innocent

[drstrange169]

>>I thought Neil was referring to the light at the other end of Bucks Row<<

You are certainly not alone in that thought!

However, Neil said,

"... it was dark at the time, though there was a street lamp at the end of the row. I want across, and found ..."

Clearly, he is referring to the lamp he had just passed seconds before finding the body, not the lamp right up the other end that had no effect on the murder site.

Your nocturnal wanderings are quite interesting. Do you turn your head and look sideways? I'm told the rod cells, the ones that your eye uses for night vision, work better on the side than looking front on. Is that true?

[JeffHamm]

Did another test again tonight, Jeff. It was even darker than last night. 30% cloud cover. No moon. Couldn't see my light coloured dog 20 yards away.

So basically, the darker one suggests it is with regards to how close Cross would have to get to see Nichols, the more and more impossible it becomes for Paul to see Cross, making the notion that Cross couldn't flee less and less tenable. And conversely, more one requires that Cross doesn't flee because Paul could see him, requiring more light to be present (say from the gas lamp), then the further from the body Cross would have to be to see it but also the more likely Paul is to have seen him move away from the body to get to the middle of the street in the first place!

In my opinion, the Cross/Lechmere theory tends to be filled with arguments that result in these sorts of self-contradictions.

- Jeff

[chubbs]

And have gas lamps in the same locations (which we're not sure of), and get used to a world where artificial light is less intense, and also be familiar with what is supposed to "be there", and other things I'm overlooking I'm sure!

Also, you need to vary each of those things separately, and then in every combination, etc. And after all that work, you know what? I suspect you would find some combinations show things could have happened, while other combinations show things could not have. And if so, which would you choose? (and if you would choose, why bother doing all that work in the first place?) Such is the world of JtR.

- Jeff

Did another test again tonight, Jeff. It was even darker than last night. 30% cloud cover. No moon. Couldn't see my light coloured dog 20 yards away.

[chubbs]

And have gas lamps in the same locations (which we're not sure of), and get used to a world where artificial light is less intense, and also be familiar with what is supposed to "be there", and other things I'm overlooking I'm sure!

Also, you need to vary each of those things separately, and then in every combination, etc. And after all that work, you know what? I suspect you would find some combinations show things could have happened, while other combinations show things could not have. And if so, which would you choose? (and if you would choose, why bother doing all that work in the first place?) Such is the world of JtR.

- Jeff

Yes you are - it needs to be dark

[JeffHamm]

Yes, you're absolutely right. I need to repeat the experiment under various conditions.
Ideally I'd need to find a place where the conditions are as close to Bucks Row, August 1888 as possible (a 24ft-wide roadway with paths and brick buildings on both sides and a crescent moon in the SE at 39 degrees, with 30-50% cloud cover), but I think I'd have to be a bit more of an obsessive to do that.

And have gas lamps in the same locations (which we're not sure of), and get used to a world where artificial light is less intense, and also be familiar with what is supposed to "be there", and other things I'm overlooking I'm sure!

Also, you need to vary each of those things separately, and then in every combination, etc. And after all that work, you know what? I suspect you would find some combinations show things could have happened, while other combinations show things could not have. And if so, which would you choose? (and if you would choose, why bother doing all that work in the first place?) Such is the world of JtR.

- Jeff

[chubbs]

Honestly, while my instinct as an experimental researcher (my day job) is to raise points like "but you don't know the conditions of the event, if your conditions were worse ... etc", but at the same time I cringe against such complaints. Sure, we don't know, but deep down it is clearly better to make attempts, to gather data, to put together the "results" from a number of independent attempts to actually test things. Some will be done well, some will not, but knowing what people did, what they observed, is surely better than everyone guessing the answer that best fits their theory?

Or do I not understand what better means?

- Jeff

Yes, you're absolutely right. I need to repeat the experiment under various conditions.
Ideally I'd need to find a place where the conditions are as close to Bucks Row, August 1888 as possible (a 24ft-wide roadway with paths and brick buildings on both sides and a crescent moon in the SE at 39 degrees, with 30-50% cloud cover), but I think I'd have to be a bit more of an obsessive to do that.

[chubbs]

>> I COULD NOT SEE THEM AND I COULD NOT HEAR THEM<<

Christer contends that the two men were wearing hob nail boots which would have "sounded like hammers on the cobblestones". Like most of his theories this is self defeating.

A. There is no evidence that they were wearing hobnail boots. Quite the contrary, the evidence available suggests they weren't. Nobody who lived in the street who claimed to either have been awake or light sleeper heard the "sound of hammers". Neither did Paul.

B. If they did wear hob nailed boots, an innocent Cross didn't walk on the cobblestones. He and Paul both walked on the pavement towards Mrs Nichols.
A Guilty Cross would have had to walk on the cobblestones to distance himself from Mrs Nichols, ergo Paul should have heard him according to Christers claim.

C. Just to really things up, Mrs Nichols had steel tips on her boots and still nobody heard her!

The other claim Christer has made is more interesting.
We know the street light, more or less opposite the board school, was working as Neil mentions it in his testimony. According to Christer, Paul should have see the silhouette of Cross in that light. I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I haven't tested it, so I wouldn't swear to it.

Ah, Mr Holmgren. I seem to have read and listened to him quite a lot.

I mentioned a few days ago that I am a mountain walking leader.
Years ago, when I did my initial training, to it was essential to learn 'micro-navigation'. When you're in clouds (or even when you're not) in the most bleak, subtly-featured mountain terrain wilderness, your only navigation aids are a compass and an OS Map. Good micro-navigation skills can save your life and a lack of them can lead you towards peril.
Put simply, Micro navigation involves looking really closely, really carefully and really accurately at your map and compass, and connecting your findings to any known feature or features in front of you, to identify where you are and to plot the next point you need to get to.
There have been occasions in the bleak terrain where I have been convinced that I was heading slowly and carefully in the correct direction, taking a new decision every 100m, having analysed my position really carefully, only to find myself in completely the wrong place, due to the tiniest of mistakes 20 minutes previously. Sometimes I've suddenly found myself, quite unexpectedly, on the edge of a sheer drop! What do you do at this point? You admit you got it wrong, you carefully retrace your steps and you start again, hopefully getting it right this time.

Investigating the Ripper murders can involve a great deal of micro navigation - and quite rightly, Christer uses it all the time.
My problem with following his very calm and confident lead is that, although his guidance is often perfect, he occasionally seems to misread his Rippermap just very slightly and he takes you off in very slightly the wrong direction. Then he compounds the issue (he's very good at convincing people that he's right) by leading you further down his slightly incorrect path, further away from the correct direction, until eventually, totally lost, you're left standing at the edge of a sheer drop, where he has erected a signpost - and his sign says, 'Lechmere Did It - Please Walk This Way, if You Wish'. Lots of people seem to have thought, "Yes, I'll do that.", and dropped into the Lechmere Abyss.

That said, I have an immense amount of sympathy for him. He has tried really hard over the years and we're all human.

[JeffHamm]

RESULTS OF THE WALKING EXPERIMENT
8pm and I've just got back from my night-time countryside walk. Tonight I did an experiment. I hung back about 40 yards from my wife & son, then followed on. I COULD NOT SEE THEM AND I COULD NOT HEAR THEM. I have 20/20 vision (told this by the optician at Specsavers 2 days ago!) and my hearing is good. We were all wearing heavy walking boots and the surface was concrete.

There is absolutely no reason , neither visual nor auditory, for Robert Paul to have been aware of Charles Cross if both were walking along Bucks Row, 40+ yards apart. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.

So all those people who have invented the theory that Paul would have been aware of Cross can pipe down now, can't they?

Honestly, while my instinct as an experimental researcher (my day job) is to raise points like "but you don't know the conditions of the event, if your conditions were worse ... etc", but at the same time I cringe against such complaints. Sure, we don't know, but deep down it is clearly better to make attempts, to gather data, to put together the "results" from a number of independent attempts to actually test things. Some will be done well, some will not, but knowing what people did, what they observed, is surely better than everyone guessing the answer that best fits their theory?

Or do I not understand what better means?

- Jeff

[chubbs]

>> I COULD NOT SEE THEM AND I COULD NOT HEAR THEM<<
The other claim Christer has made is more interesting.
We know the street light, more or less opposite the board school, was working as Neil mentions it in his testimony. According to Christer, Paul should have see the silhouette of Cross in that light. I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I haven't tested it, so I wouldn't swear to it.

Really?
I thought Neil was referring to the light at the other end of Bucks Row, not the Board School end? The Brady Street end, yeah? Or am I misinformed?

[drstrange169]

No explanation necessary, I got it!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, but it was A Man’s World in those days Dusty.

(sorry, couldn’t resist it. I’ve been waiting years to do a James Brown joke)

[drstrange169]

>>The business did not appear in the 1888 Post Office Directory<<

The business premises were across the road in Essex Wharf. The stable was just that, a stable for across the road.

[drstrange169]

>> I COULD NOT SEE THEM AND I COULD NOT HEAR THEM<<

Christer contends that the two men were wearing hob nail boots which would have "sounded like hammers on the cobblestones". Like most of his theories this is self defeating.

A. There is no evidence that they were wearing hobnail boots. Quite the contrary, the evidence available suggests they weren't. Nobody who lived in the street who claimed to either have been awake or light sleeper heard the "sound of hammers". Neither did Paul.

B. If they did wear hob nailed boots, an innocent Cross didn't walk on the cobblestones. He and Paul both walked on the pavement towards Mrs Nichols.
A Guilty Cross would have had to walk on the cobblestones to distance himself from Mrs Nichols, ergo Paul should have heard him according to Christers claim.

C. Just to really things up, Mrs Nichols had steel tips on her boots and still nobody heard her!

The other claim Christer has made is more interesting.
We know the street light, more or less opposite the board school, was working as Neil mentions it in his testimony. According to Christer, Paul should have see the silhouette of Cross in that light. I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I haven't tested it, so I wouldn't swear to it.

[Mark J D]

The business did not appear in the 1888 Post Office Directory, so it would appear that the business could have been defunct at the time of Polly's murder.

George, old bean: if the stable yard was closed down when Polly was murdered, how was the boy Green working there?

Bests,

Mark D.

[chubbs]

RESULTS OF THE WALKING EXPERIMENT
8pm and I've just got back from my night-time countryside walk. Tonight I did an experiment. I hung back about 40 yards from my wife & son, then followed on. I COULD NOT SEE THEM AND I COULD NOT HEAR THEM. I have 20/20 vision (told this by the optician at Specsavers 2 days ago!) and my hearing is good. We were all wearing heavy walking boots and the surface was concrete.

There is absolutely no reason , neither visual nor auditory, for Robert Paul to have been aware of Charles Cross if both were walking along Bucks Row, 40+ yards apart. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.

So all those people who have invented the theory that Paul would have been aware of Cross can pipe down now, can't they?