Cross' Family Shenanigans

[rjpalmer]

For anyone who might be interested in the debate over the alleged alcoholism of PC Thomas Cross, I posted information about Cross's brother and sister-in-law's alcoholism over on JTR Forums:

Interesting Lechmere Trivia - Jack The Ripper Forums - Ripperology For The 21st Century

Jame Cross did die of alcoholism at the age of 47, as reported in the London Daily Chronicle of 14 August 1878.

INTEMPERANCE.—Last night Mr. Humphreys held an inquest at the Hope Tavern, Holly-street, Dalston, on the body of James Cross, aged 47, a cab driver, of 16A, Temple-street, Kingsland-road. Deceased, since the loss of his wife 18 months ago, had, according to the evidence of his housekeeper, hardly ever been sober. Deceased was found dead in bed on Friday morning. Dr. Cockle said death was due to effusion on the brain, caused by drink. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.

His wife had died from drink the previous year.

While some might wish to use this as indirect evidence that Thomas Cross was also an alcoholic, I don't see it that way.

It takes many years to destroy one's internal organs through alcohol abuse--even with constant drinking, James Cross lived to 47 and his wife, also a drunkard, lived into her late 50s. Modern statistics back up this trend.

PC Thomas Cross, by contrast, died of apparent kidney disease at the age of only 34.

Using statistics from modern United States (I've failed to find any from Victorian England), only about 4 people per 100,000 in PC Cross's age bracket die from alcohol-related organ failure per year. And when they do die, the organs that go first are the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and heart.

As such, death from alcohol-induced kidney failure at the young age of 34 must be very rare indeed and I find it an unlikely explanation for Cross's demise. There are more likely explanations.

Further, I doubt a raging alcoholic of that magnitude could have maintained a job as a beat constable for a decade.

[Fiver]

Again, trying to drag this into an on topic thread.

Here is a study provided by the Mayo clinic concerning the effects of regular or binge drinking on increasing one’s chances of getting chronic kidney disease.

Compared with non-drinking, regular and occasional binge drinking were associated with a 2.2-fold (95% CI, 1.38-3.46) and a 2.0-fold (95% CI, 1.33-2.98) higher risk of CKD progression, respectively. This association was particularly evident in patients who had decreased kidney function and proteinuria.

That is an inaccurate summary of the Mayo Clinic study. The study did not conclude that regular or binge drinking increased one’s chances of getting chronic kidney disease. The study did not deal with the causes of CKD at all, let alone claim that heavy drinking caused CKD.

"Conclusions - Heavy alcohol consumption was associated with faster progression of CKD."

[Fiver]

Thomas Cross most likely died from a form of kidney disease, not heart disease.

That he died from kidney failure seems irrefutable: uremia, if that designation is accurate, being the syndrome caused by the excessive buildup in blood toxins, where the kidneys are no longer able to function sufficiently to remove them. The symptoms of uremia are nausea, vomiting, weight loss, pruritus (skin conditions), seizures, convulsions, coma, etc …. Cross should have experienced some of these well before the final 3 days, which is probably when the worst of the symptoms kicked in.


What type of kidney disease did he die from? Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the gradual loss of kidney function over a long time and can result from several different conditions, like high blood pressure or diabetes, as opposed to a single specific event. Symptoms of the disease become manifest once the % of functioning kidneys drops below a threshold (25 %). You only need one functioning kidney to live, should it be healthy. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is where a single specific event leads to kidney damage, such as the ingestion of a toxin, or the incursion of an infectious disease. This form of kidney disease can lead to death, but is also often reversible. The diagnosis of fatty degeneration was the belief that the kidney disease had been developing for many years. My impression is that Cross died from chronic kidney disease …. so, what were the underlying conditions?

How about we look at what Mayo Clinic says about the actual causes of chronic kidney disease.

Diseases and conditions that cause chronic kidney disease include:

• Type 1 or type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Glomerulonephritis (gloe-mer-u-low-nuh-FRY-tis), an inflammation of the kidney's filtering units (glomeruli)
• Interstitial nephritis (in-tur-STISH-ul nuh-FRY-tis), an inflammation of the kidney's tubules and surrounding structures
• Polycystic kidney disease or other inherited kidney diseases
• Prolonged obstruction of the urinary tract, from conditions such as enlarged prostate, kidney stones and some cancers
• Vesicoureteral (ves-ih-koe-yoo-REE-tur-ul) reflux, a condition that causes urine to back up into your kidneys
• Recurrent kidney infection, also called pyelonephritis (pie-uh-low-nuh-FRY-tis)

Note complete absence of alcoholism from the list.

[John Wheat]

The Lechmereians are getting more and more desperate. The quest to frame Cross is ridiculous.

[curious]

Mary Jane, the Lechmere's second daughter, was living with her grandmother before she turned six. Her grandmother's third husband, Joseph Forsdike was 65 and appears to have still been well enough to work. I doubt a 5 year old would have been much help if his health had already been failing.

Still, it's more credible than the theory you favor.

Maybe it's about the mother not being able to cope with so many children, especially if Mary Jane and Elizabeth had a big sibling rivalry causing them to act out. Perhaps Grandma had a soft spot for Mary Jane and enjoyed having her around. Plus, Mary Jane spending time with Grandma meant a bit of peace at home and so helped the daughter-in-law. -- pure guess work on the family dynamics.

[curious]

Again, to sustain the ‘Cross was the killer’ fantasy, lies have to be told and this is what is occurring. Flat out dishonesty. Is there a barrel left in existence whose bottom hasn’t been thoroughly scraped in the effort to turn a clearly innocent man into a killer?

I know one! I know one! (jumping up and down excitedly).

The death of the Lechmere child.

The last I heard (many years ago), there was no knowledge of why the child died. If the cause of death was flu, a childhood illness or accident, the following has no basis. Even if the cause is unknown, the following is simply my wondering what if . . .

What if, after having several children, suddenly they produced a sick baby, one with physical deformities?

The baby was sickly, crying all the time, and life at home became pure hell. In addition, it seems that often the fathers of such babies don't believe their body produced that. From what I have read and heard, their male ego refuses to believe something deformed could come from their loins.

Which means the wife must have cheated, right? So, perhaps Charles Lechmere suspected his wife had cheated on him. They have a household filled with kids, one very ill and requiring all the family attention.

Plus the mental anguish of his wife either cheating OR his own body producing that. Or was it something in his wife's body?

Martha Tabrum was a fit of anger as Charles was finally driven to seek (or perhaps accept on the spur of the minute) the services of a prostitute. That was a huge mental leap for him. Which his body refused to follow and Martha laughed and taunted him. He reacted in sheer fury at her, at himself.

But, let's say he felt better afterward. Perhaps in reliving his actions he wondered what organs he had slashed?

In the meantime, as his fevered brain struggled to understand, he attended one of those anatomical displays that someone wrote about extensively several years ago. Apparently, in the Victorian era there was a "quest to uncover the secrets of the human body", quoting www.atmostfear-entertainment.com.

As I remember from those articles and discussion here in the forums, in those displays, a body was laid out and all the organs could be removed and were placed around the display body -- think Mary Jane Kelly here.

So, in a time of society being interested in discovering the secrets of the human body, Lechmere in particular needed to figure out what inside a woman created mal-formed babies. As he proceeded in his "stress release" method, he came to target the organs that might answer his questions.

When the older women didn't provide the answers, he decided that perhaps a younger, stronger woman would. Mary Jane Kelly having her own place gave him the time to methodically take her apart and examine each piece.

Don't the descriptions of that little room suggest curiosity? Probably, he learned nothing and realized he could not get his answer from the women. Or perhaps he did find something that led him to believe he had found something.

Either way, their child died. His stepfather died. Life returned to normal. The pressure and stress were gone -- or perhaps he simply dealt with life in another way once he had found or had not found an answer to what had created their ill child.

Perhaps, in a moment or two of stress later, he did allow himself to enact his fury, but his drive to discover the reason for his child's illness was gone.

Pure "what if" thinking, of course, but since this seems to be a fantasy thread, perhaps acceptable?