Blood on Charles Lechmere

[MrBarnett]

Hi Miss M
thank you for the info. I had forgotten about the union/trade assoc. angle.
of course my company/workers that I used as an example were not involved in that.

Some records of the London Carmens' Trade Union still exist.


http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb96-ms1195

[Abby Normal]

Abby NormaI
Charles Booth gives a quite detailed account of carman. 19th Working class men were often in unions or trade associations and there was quite strong demarcation on what you could and could not do. Men did not like other men muscling in in on their jobs. Apart from driving, the care of their horses was the most important part of their job and the descriptions of the constant hanging about waiting for goods does not suggest engagement with the lifting and moving of goods.Pickfords would not want their drivers wearing blood soaked clothes, thry would have to look respectible. The blood soaked clothes suggested by Fisherman seems to be very imaginative. Pickfords also moved furniture and other goods.

Miss Marple

Hi Miss M
thank you for the info. I had forgotten about the union/trade assoc. angle.
of course my company/workers that I used as an example were not involved in that.

[Sam Flynn]

The blood soaked clothes suggested by Fisherman seems to be very imaginative.

Indeed, tricky without being in contact with any real blood to speak of.

Pickfords also moved furniture and other goods.

Just because Pickford delivered furniture, would one expect a carman's clothes to be soaked in varnish?

(Thanks for the inspiration, Miss M )

[miss marple]

Abby NormaI
Charles Booth gives a quite detailed account of carman. 19th Working class men were often in unions or trade associations and there was quite strong demarcation on what you could and could not do. Men did not like other men muscling in in on their jobs. Apart from driving, the care of their horses was the most important part of their job and the descriptions of the constant hanging about waiting for goods does not suggest engagement with the lifting and moving of goods.Pickfords would not want their drivers wearing blood soaked clothes, thry would have to look respectible. The blood soaked clothes suggested by Fisherman seems to be very imaginative. Pickfords also moved furniture and other goods.

Miss Marple

[Fisherman]

I will be off the boards for some time now - I am going to watch Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his merry band of brothers lick Chelsea FC.

I hope...

[Fisherman]

Why should you have to defend the indefensible, Fish? Just ignore them!

Failing that, tell them that his job as a Pickfords carman couldn't have provided him with much of a "blood-alibi" anyway, because delivery-men wouldn't have got enough on them to begin with. At the very worst, they might get the odd patch of that wishy-washy, pinkish-brown liquid that leaks out of joints of meat, but that ain't going to pass for the "proper red stuff" in a million years, not even if it were on a white shirt.

Well, well - you used "the proper stuff" too. I just did, in a post to Gary. Anyway, Garteh, much as I love you and hold you high in regard, I am not willing to buy your take straight off. Sorry. I think there could have been many a reason for a carman delivering goods to butcheries to be smeared with blood. I do not, however, say that Lechmere must have been - I keep the possibility open.

If I may offer another line of thinking, it may well be that Lechmere was known at work as the bloodiest carman in the history of Pickfords, and that he had an explnation for this in how he helped out with the catīs meat business bis motgher engaged in.

Once again, I am not saying that this must have been so - I am saying that there may have been many a reason for him to be bloodied on very good grounds. And he may only have been one of many carmen with blood on his clothing - we donīt know what he looked like as he approached Mizen, but it may well be that he could have had blood on his clothing without Mizen thinking it in any way out of the ordinary.

We are wasting a lot of time over this, I feel. We can only speculate, and all speculation may be wrong. Even the one proposing that Charles Lechmere was the killer, believe it or not. Not, preferably.

[Fisherman]

This image of Smithfield porters gives some idea of the staining their overalls received. A sort of indeterminate brown smearing which shows up on white clothing but on clothing of a darker hue in poor light would be pretty much invisible.

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Even genuine blood, "the proper stuff", would be nigh on impossible to make out on dark clothing. Not least so in the relative darkness that will have prevailed on the morning treks.

We may do well to recognize the fact that smear- and stainwise, the victorian working class will have differed very much from what we see on the streets today. Being grimy, stained and speckled will have been the order of the day in very many occupations, and would not have raised an eyebrow.

[Sam Flynn]

Maybe so, Gareth - but the matter is constantly brought up and I am asked to explain it.

Why should you have to defend the indefensible, Fish? Just ignore them!

Failing that, tell them that his job as a Pickfords carman couldn't have provided him with much of a "blood-alibi" anyway, because delivery-men wouldn't have got enough on them to begin with. At the very worst, they might get the odd patch of that wishy-washy, pinkish-brown liquid that leaks out of joints of meat, but that ain't going to pass for the "proper red stuff" in a million years, not even if it were on a white shirt.

[MrBarnett]

This image of Smithfield porters gives some idea of the staining their overalls received. A sort of indeterminate brown smearing which shows up on white clothing but on clothing of a darker hue in poor light would be pretty much invisible.

[Abby Normal]

I know the feeling.

HAHA. Now that's funny fish. Hang in there, your suspects not that bad.

[Abby Normal]

Carman did not load frieght, that was not part of their job. They were drivers and a part of the job was spent hanging around waiting for their freight. Carman were also responsible for the care and feeding of their horses. So first thing in the morning would be attending to the horses.

Miss Marple

Hi Miss M and Sam

as someone who worked in the delivery goods business, I can assure you that the driver helped, even if it wasn't his explicit job, load and unload the goods. I was a sales rep, in business casual clothes,and even I helped, on almost a daily basis. and my truck drivers helped even more the loaders do their job. and they didn't have to either.

I am sure lech, even as driver, handled the goods in some capacity. probably on daily basis.

is there something even explicitly stating that drivers are not to handle the goods they deliver? I would imagine that loading and unloading would actually be part of there official job-especially back then. but even if not, Im sure they did-its just the way the world (and the delivery business works).

And re the idea that the consensus being that the killer did not neccesarily be covered in blood and thus this whole point of lech delivering meat and possibly having blood on him as a moot point-

I think the idea is obviously that even if he did get blood on him from the murders he could have explained it away as getting it from work.

[Patrick S]

And we donīt. Know.

The point is simple and it's the same TYPE of point that "Fisherman" has made with respect to this "theory" for years: He wins either way. You see....


Lechmere didn't have blood on him his person (even though he killed and mutilated Nichols and hid the knife in his clothing) because he "straddled her and used her dress as a shield". So, he felt perfectly comfortable walking up to and touching Paul to have him come take a look at his handiwork. But if he DID have blood on his person........

Lechmere need not have worried about that because he was a carman and carman get blood on themselves all the time. Nothing unusual about that!

[Fisherman]

Before we establish that carmen could have worn tuxedos, since they would not get a stain all day, letting others do the carrying for them, we may do well to contemplate the fact that Lechmere wore a sacking apron. I would propose that he wore it for protecting his clothes from getting stained. As such, I think the carmans job was dirty and grimy, and that we should not expect Lechmere to have exhibited a white parade uniform where any stain would have been seen from half a mile away.

Just saying...

[Fisherman]

It's not even a case of "fresh", Caz. He'd practically have to have been standing next to the slaughterman, ready to hoist a still-warm, pulsating slab of cow onto his shoulders.

(I say "cow", but he might have been delivering poultry, for all we know.)

And we donīt. Know.

[Fisherman]

So, no danger of being covered in blood, but there was a risk of getting covered in...

I know the feeling.