The Lechmere/Cross sources

[David Orsam]

Hello David,

I agree with Wigngown. Moreover, Pierre's accusations made against you, that you might be spreading rumours against him, are shocking and totally lacking in foundation. He should unreservedly apologize and withdraw his post.

Thank you John, I agree but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

[David Orsam]

But if you read, for instance, our discussion here in the forum about the descriptions of the statements of Morris Lewis you will see one example of the problem with newspapers.

I don't know what Pierre thinks the statements of Morris Lewis show to be the problem with newspapers, bearing in mind they could simply show the problem with Morris Lewis, but it's obvious that no-one in their right mind would believe everything that was published in the newspapers in 1888, especially in circumstances immediately following a murder, where rumours abounded and official information was scarce, but to reject ALL reports in newspapers because some reports were inaccurate is perverse and means the researcher denies himself or herself access to a potentially very valuable source of information.

[Elamarna]

The question should be: Should I, Steve, and everyone else on this forum, believe Pierre?

Believe what?

I do not even believe myself.

So what is the problem?

There are a lot of people here writing directly from there imagination, perhaps with the support of a few sources. Are they a problem, are they being asked "Should we believe you?". So why do you ask me this question.

I know why you ask the question. But you will have to wait and see.

I am honest but that doesn´t help. My honesty does not mean that I am right.

Regards, Pierre

Pierre

Sorry with the greatest of respect you do not say what the question should be when you are asked a question.

I agree with you Pierre, you have told us nothing, absolutely nothing!

How can anyone disbelieve nothing.

The question you propose is therefore meaningless.


You were asked a question which you so obviously do not wish to answer.

"I respectfully therefore ask, using the information from the site you quoted, how do you think we should view your reliability?"


Do you really think, people are all hanging with baited breath on your pronouncement, which may or may not ever come?
Yes there is a degree of "I wonder who?" but any real interest in the name died long ago.

The assumption that once the name is made public, the World of Ripperology will be destroyed is both comic and arrogant at the same time.

It will be just one more name on a long, long list; The only question is will it be a plausible name.

Of far more interest to most here are the new findings on Tumblety, and ongoing work on Bury, Kosminski, Lechmere and others.

We may never be able to prove who the killer was, and for many that is not the reason they are here, however of course for some it will be.
Ripperology as you like to refer to it, is as they say a Broad Church, of which you are a part my friend

regards

[Elamarna]

David

Can I just add my views on the comments last night, for some reason they were about you; but said to me.

I am not aware of anyone spreading rumours about Pierre, and his threat to report you for apparently challenging his views, was somewhat bizzare.

Steve

[GUT]

David

Can I just add my views on the comments last night, for some reason they were about you; but said to me.

I am not aware of anyone spreading rumours about Pierre, and his threat to report you for apparently challenging his views, was somewhat bizzare.

Steve

But much of what Pierre posts is bizarre.

[GUT]

I have to say that the suggestion that I might be "spreading rumors" about Pierre, or anyone, is absolutely outrageous and should never have been posted on this forum.

In fact, the entire response is incomprehensible. This is a thread about sources in which Pierre made a post containing multiple references to sources with "tendencies". I have been trying to get to the bottom of whether this is an expression used by academic historians when analyzing documentary sources. Why my inquiries have prompted the above response is utterly baffling.

I think David that anyone with a brain will see the lie in the claim you are spreading rumours about Pierre.

So don't stress too much about what a Troll like him claims.

[Errata]

David

Can I just add my views on the comments last night, for some reason they were about you; but said to me.

I am not aware of anyone spreading rumours about Pierre, and his threat to report you for apparently challenging his views, was somewhat bizzare.

Steve

I'll spread rumors about Pierre....

I hear Pierre is 5'11, and is a brunette. But don't tell anyone I said that.

[Pcdunn]

Sandy mustache?

I'll spread rumors about Pierre....

I hear Pierre is 5'11, and is a brunette. But don't tell anyone I said that.

Does Pierre wear a peaked cap and have broad shoulders, do you think?

I think this paranoia about David is new.

[Errata]

Does Pierre wear a peaked cap and have broad shoulders, do you think?

I think this paranoia about David is new.

Maybe not. I'm paranoid about him all the time. Constant furtive glancing on my part. It's embarrassing.

[wigngown]

IMHO, Pierre exhibits all the signs of stress. He's been perhaps the most proloific poster on these boards for some time and I think it may be starting to take its toll. It's a very high output to maintain and when one considers that for every post he authors, it will invariably generate even more posts. I sometimes wonder if he has time for anything else. I've nothing against Pierre, I'm sure he's a decent person, but I think he needs to step back for a while.

Best regards.

[Templarkommando]

[QUOTE=Pierre;377256][QUOTE=Templarkommando;377223]

Hi Templarcommando,

I see, and sure, if one would like to use the kind of logic that people use every day, that is not a scientific logic at all. But I can not use this type of thinking when I research the ripper case. It will not be useful.

Pierre,
There is no distinction between every day logic and scientific logic.

Robert Paul Churchill, in his book "Logic-an Introduction" states, "Logic is, in large part, the study of arguments and, in particular, a study of the conditions under which we are justified believing a conclusion."

So, let's suppose you make the claim that since newspapers of the time are unreliable then we cannot depend on the report of the inquest. If you make that claim then you are using logic. You have made a claim--that newspapers of the time are unreliable. This claim is also known as a premise. It's a premise because you are, theoretically, using it as a justification for believing something. There is a second claim--that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest, also known as the conclusion. In the background is a third, implicit, claim that the first claim is justification for believing the second claim. That's logic--one or more premises, a rule of inference, and a conclusion. Do you see that it doesn't matter whether we're talking about history? Or chemistry? Or mathematics? Or the tax code?

Well, the past it not simple and it is not true or false, so I can´t use this type of thinking. The past has left us some sources and we are the historians. So we need historical thinking.

I suspect that what I'm understanding is not what you're meaning. Let me tell you what occurs to me when you say that, and then ask you to explain how what I hear is not what you mean. You've made a claim--that newspapers of the time are unreliable. You've also made the claim that the past, and this claim is a claim about the past, is not true. Therefore, I conclude that it's not true that the newspapers of the time are unreliable, or, in other words, the newspapers of the time are reliable. You've also made the claim that the past is not false. Therefore I conclude that it's not false that the newspapers of the time are unreliable, or, in other words, newspapers of the time are unreliable. You've made two contradictory claims (that aren't the consequents of any assumptions), therefore I'm justified in rejecting your reasoning. I guess I need to ask what you mean when you say that the past is not true or false. Do you simply mean that we have no premises known with absolute certainty? Because if you do there is no problem using logic to justify shades of confidence.

We don´t use premises in history, instead, we establish facts from data. The facts can be more or less well established and the establishment of facts requires us to use source criticism.

You must use premises. You just call them something else. A fact becomes a premise when it's use to justify some conclusion. Data become premises when they are used to justify some conclusions.

What fun! Let me try this!

Premise A: All serial killers kill more than one victim.

Premise B: Jack the Ripper killed more than one victim.

Conclusion: Jack the Ripper was a serial killer.

But this is just a theoretical model. It is not connected to empirical sources. So how does it help us with the case?

"Theory" is just a complicated word meaning a collection of acceptable statements. "Theorem" is just a complicated word meaning a statement we accept as being true (to some level of conficence.) "Jack the Ripper" is the name given to the man who killed five particular women in the East End and the Metropolitan Area of London in 1888" is just a theorem in one of numerous theories describing the deaths of women in the late nineteenth century. How does it help us with the case? Well, if you and I both accept that newspapers of the time are unreliable, and if we agree that unreliable newspapers allow us to justify the conclusion that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest, then we must both agree that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest (to some level of confidence). That's useful, isn't it?

No, I have not analysed this newspaper in particular so I do not know how reliable it is. And newspapers is not my speciality. But if you read, for instance, our discussion here in the forum about the descriptions of the statements of Morris Lewis you will see one example of the problem with newspapers. You may find these useful:

http://guides.osu.edu/newspapers/evaluating

http://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/guides/periodicals

See, in my mind, a study is when an expert on a topic partakes in some experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis. So in the case of our particular disagreement, it might look something like this:

"We don't have the direct inquest report for the Nichols murder, but we do have the Daily Telegraph's report on it. We need to find out if the Daily Telegraph's article is trustworthy. Let's examine a few inquest reports that the Telegraph did that we also have the direct inquest minutes from that are from around 1888 and see if they generally agree with one another. If they agree with one another then they are reliable, if they disagree they are unreliable and if their level of agreement is somewhere in between they posses a degree of reliability that is not complete."

Then the report would describe the various artifacts that they examined - both from the Telegraph and from contemporary inquests, and they might cite their sources in some sort of footnote system so that inquisitive minds could also look at the same things that they were testing. It would likely include the names of prominent researchers for the project and the universities with which they were associated.

Let's back up for a second. Earlier, I asked you to provide a way for me to peruse the studies you were referencing in addition to what they said. You gave me a couple of links - one to Ohio State University's page, and another to the University of Illinois' library page. The Illinois University Library page is a link to a tutorial on how to label the various parts of a newspaper. Admittedly, it does talk briefly about reliability, and it even mentions Jack the Ripper, but I don't - at this point - see what it has to do with our specific discussion about the reliability of the Nichols Inquest Report from the Telegraph. Could you point me to a particular objection that this tutorial raises about our specific discussion?

Now, let's look at the Ohio State University's page. This link was to a very monotone nine and a half minute youtube video about recognizing bias. There were a couple of points that I think are germaine to our discussion. Let me list those points here:

- Bias is neither good or bad.

- Understand the purpose of a source. Is the source known to be partisan?

- What is the difference between fact and opinion?

- Sources should be cited when facts presented are not common knowledge.

- What quality are the sources used? Are they scholarly journals? News articles? Editorials?

- Is the source of information one-sided? Does the author include or ignore other points of view?

- Consider the author's background. Authors are considered credible when their educational background matches the topic at hand.

- Is the publication partisan?

I have a couple of difficulties with the video. First, the information presented may be correct, but it doesn't cite any sources. Second, and perhaps more importantly, I don't see any reason why the Telegraph article ought to be discarded based on the video. Even if the telegraph did have a reason to publish partisan inquest reports (I don't think that it did) it would likely be political in nature. I don't see anything like that in this report - it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Marquess of Salisbury's Government or even local London-centric politics. It seems to me that at the time of publication, the Telegraph's article would have been subject to great scrutiny if it had published non-factual information in its covering of legal proceedings like inquests - since there was a public record available at the time. In addition, other newspapers would have a lot to gain by casting aspersions on the Telegraph's credibility. Admittedly, the author isn't named in the article, but the source citation is clear - they were attempting to accurately copy the actual inquest report. If they weren't accurately reporting this, someone (likely another news paper) would have said something.

Finally, do you think that I missed anything from these sources that would add to this discussion? I like to think that I'm thorough, but I'll admit that I'm willing to hear what you have to say, and if I've missed the point, I'd really like to be corrected.


Many thanks,
Templarkommando

[Elamarna]

Templarkommando

Can I congratulate you on a very interesting post.

some very fine points made

regards


Steve

[David Orsam]

Templarkommando

Can I congratulate you on a very interesting post.

some very fine points made

Seconded.

And I must say I was intrigued by Pierre's claim that "We don´t use premises in history, instead, we establish facts from data".

One of the books recommended by Pierre was 'On "What Is History?": From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White' by Keith Jenkins who is a former professor of historical theory at the University of Chichester, and someone who read Medieval and Modern History at the University of Nottingham. In his book, on page 15, Jenkins says:

"My approach has four parts….I start from the premise that there is a radical distinction to be drawn between ‘the past’ and ‘history’."

Someone should probably tell him that historians don't use premises.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Templarkommando;377377][QUOTE=Pierre;377256][QUOTE=Templarkommando;377223]

Pierre,
There is no distinction between every day logic and scientific logic.

Hi,

How come you don´t know the differences between "every day logic" and scientific logic?

Might I ask if you have been studying at a university and if you have, what have you been studying?

Robert Paul Churchill, in his book "Logic-an Introduction" states, "Logic is, in large part, the study of arguments and, in particular, a study of the conditions under which we are justified believing a conclusion."

You think that "scientific logic" equals "every day logic" - so why do you give a reference to a philosopher to support your idea? You might as well use a non academic as reference, since you state there is no distinction between every day logic and scientific logic.

So, let's suppose you make the claim that since newspapers of the time are unreliable then we cannot depend on the report of the inquest. If you make that claim then you are using logic.

No. I have tried to explain to you that I am an empirical sociologist and historian. Do you know what this means? It means that I do not start from the top but at the bottom, using statistical methods or, for history, primary sources. I have no picture in my head that I start off with, no "logic", but I go where the sources take me. Empirical work. So I do not start with a common picture of Jack the Ripper being a "doctor" for example, just because that would seem "logical". No. That is not the way to do it.

You have made a claim--that newspapers of the time are unreliable. This claim is also known as a premise.

The claim is based on results of analysing sources from 1888. But as I do this research in my spare time, I have to restrict myself to small studies when they are necessary. So if I am looking for an answer in the sources from 1888, I must compare statements between sources. And if I would use newspapers, that would be problematical since from what I have seen, these secondary sources are full of mistakes. And also, secondary sources are never to be understood as reliable from the point of view of an historian. We want primary sources. So I do not use "premises" / "models" / "logical models and so on and so forth, but primary sources from 1888.

It's a premise because you are, theoretically, using it as a justification for believing something.

I NEVER justify anything "for believing". I do not even want to believe anything. I want to reject hypotheses and try to do it. Often, that is difficult. For example, you try to exclude sources with tendencies. And you try to use independent sources. But the material has problems. So rejecting or confirming hypotheses are difficult but it can be done. But it can NEVER be done through "justifying". Just by empirical work.

There is a second claim--that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest, also known as the conclusion.

Is this the newspaper article you are talking about? "Report" is not a good word, it blurres the distinction between police investigations and newspaper articles.

In the background is a third, implicit, claim that the first claim is justification for believing the second claim. That's logic--one or more premises, a rule of inference, and a conclusion. Do you see that it doesn't matter whether we're talking about history? Or chemistry? Or mathematics? Or the tax code?

If you can not even make a distinction between mathematicians and historians, how could you understand the books you are reading about Jack the Ripper? I begin to see now why ripperology is constructed the way it is. It is like the "Do-as-you-please-Street". Anything goes, written by anyone, since the consumers do not know how to judge the material.

I suspect that what I'm understanding is not what you're meaning. Let me tell you what occurs to me when you say that, and then ask you to explain how what I hear is not what you mean. You've made a claim--that newspapers of the time are unreliable.

You've also made the claim that the past, and this claim is a claim about the past, is not true.

What? "The past is not true"? What is that?

Therefore, I conclude that it's not true

Therefore? Based on what?

that the newspapers of the time are unreliable, or, in other words, the newspapers of the time are reliable. You've also made the claim that the past is not false.

The past is not "true" or "false". The past is past. It is not within reach - if you do not have sources!

Therefore I conclude that it's not false that the newspapers of the time are unreliable, or, in other words, newspapers of the time are unreliable.

The past and the newspapers are two different things. The past is past but has left newspapers for us. Elephants get babies. They can be healthy or sick.

You've made two contradictory claims (that aren't the consequents of any assumptions), therefore I'm justified in rejecting your reasoning. I guess I need to ask what you mean when you say that the past is not true or false. Do you simply mean that we have no premises known with absolute certainty? Because if you do there is no problem using logic to justify shades of confidence.

Elephants are not "true" or "false". The are being born, they eat, breed and die. They leave things after themselves. Those things are what we have if we should study elephants and they were since long extinct.

What you have then, with absolute certainty, are things left to us by the elephants. Bones, places where they lived, rests of the lives of elephants. Items for interpretation.

You must use premises. You just call them something else. A fact becomes a premise when it's use to justify some conclusion. Data become premises when they are used to justify some conclusions.

No. "Premises" is a concept from theoretical logic within the field of philosophy. The elephants do not live within philosophy. They live in the world. They are empirical. They leave items. The items are empirical.

BUT: Our measurement instrument are theoretical AND empirical. So if we use mathematics, we get calculations, if we use history, we get source criticism. They are NOT the same methods.

"Theory" is just a complicated word meaning a collection of acceptable statements.

"Rocket" is just a complicated word meaning a collection of crews and nuts.

"Theorem" is just a complicated word meaning a statement we accept as being true (to some level of conficence.)

"Rocket science" is just a complicated word meaning screws and nuts flying in space.

"Jack the Ripper" is the name given to the man who killed five particular women in the East End and the Metropolitan Area of London in 1888" is just a theorem in one of numerous theories describing the deaths of women in the late nineteenth century.

"Jack the Ripper" is a name - or a theorem? You are being unclear. I say:

"Jack the Ripper" is a social construction and an historical concept. But that operationalisation is on concept level, which is never enough. You must go down to definition level and make descriptions. And if they are made up of "every day logic" - you get ripperology!

How does it help us with the case? Well, if you and I both accept that newspapers of the time are unreliable,

No. I do not accept that. It is a hypothesis and it must be used empirically.

and if we agree that unreliable newspapers allow us to justify the conclusion that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest, then we must both agree that we cannot depend on the report of the inquest (to some level of confidence). That's useful, isn't it?

Now you give me 0 / 1 thinking, that is, binary thinking. But reality doesn´t often present itself in such dichotomies. Newspaper articles are collections of statements and must be analysed on many levels.

See, in my mind, a study is when an expert on a topic partakes in some experiment to prove or disprove a hypothesis. So in the case of our particular disagreement, it might look something like this:

"In your mind" - but sociologists do hypothesis testing. And historians try to sort out reliable sources and valid statements. So the version you describe is not used by me.

"We don't have the direct inquest report for the Nichols murder, but we do have the Daily Telegraph's report on it. We need to find out if the Daily Telegraph's article is trustworthy. Let's examine a few inquest reports that the Telegraph did that we also have the direct inquest minutes from that are from around 1888 and see if they generally agree with one another. If they agree with one another then they are reliable, if they disagree they are unreliable and if their level of agreement is somewhere in between they posses a degree of reliability that is not complete."

Then the report would describe the various artifacts that they examined - both from the Telegraph and from contemporary inquests, and they might cite their sources in some sort of footnote system so that inquisitive minds could also look at the same things that they were testing. It would likely include the names of prominent researchers for the project and the universities with which they were associated.

There is a study for you.

Let's back up for a second. Earlier, I asked you to provide a way for me to peruse the studies you were referencing in addition to what they said. You gave me a couple of links - one to Ohio State University's page, and another to the University of Illinois' library page. The Illinois University Library page is a link to a tutorial on how to label the various parts of a newspaper. Admittedly, it does talk briefly about reliability, and it even mentions Jack the Ripper, but I don't - at this point - see what it has to do with our specific discussion about the reliability of the Nichols Inquest Report from the Telegraph. Could you point me to a particular objection that this tutorial raises about our specific discussion?

No. I do not use those tutorials. But if you have questions about the contents, what you should do is contact the universities who provide them.

Now, let's look at the Ohio State University's page. This link was to a very monotone nine and a half minute youtube video about recognizing bias. There were a couple of points that I think are germaine to our discussion. Let me list those points here:

- Bias is neither good or bad.

- Understand the purpose of a source. Is the source known to be partisan?

- What is the difference between fact and opinion?

- Sources should be cited when facts presented are not common knowledge.

- What quality are the sources used? Are they scholarly journals? News articles? Editorials?

- Is the source of information one-sided? Does the author include or ignore other points of view?

- Consider the author's background. Authors are considered credible when their educational background matches the topic at hand.

- Is the publication partisan?

I have a couple of difficulties with the video. First, the information presented may be correct, but it doesn't cite any sources.

E-mail the university.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I don't see any reason why the Telegraph article ought to be discarded based on the video.

No one has made such a statement. You must use source criticism and analyse the article first.

Even if the telegraph did have a reason to publish partisan inquest reports (I don't think that it did) it would likely be political in nature. I don't see anything like that in this report - it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Marquess of Salisbury's Government or even local London-centric politics. It seems to me that at the time of publication, the Telegraph's article would have been subject to great scrutiny if it had published non-factual information in its covering of legal proceedings like inquests - since there was a public record available at the time. In addition, other newspapers would have a lot to gain by casting aspersions on the Telegraph's credibility. Admittedly, the author isn't named in the article, but the source citation is clear - they were attempting to accurately copy the actual inquest report. If they weren't accurately reporting this, someone (likely another news paper) would have said something.

To summarize: You believe in that source. And I understand what your interest is, now. And you write:

"...they were attempting to accurately copy the actual inquest report."

How could you know that? We do not HAVE the actual inquest!

Here is a suggestion for you: do some comparisons between the Kelly inquest and the newspaper articles about it and you will find many problems.

Finally, do you think that I missed anything from these sources that would add to this discussion? I like to think that I'm thorough, but I'll admit that I'm willing to hear what you have to say, and if I've missed the point, I'd really like to be corrected.

You happened to miss this question: What quality are the sources used? Or "Are the sources primary sources, or are they secondary sources?

Many thanks,
Templarkommando

Thanks Templarkommando.

Kind regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

Hi Templarkommando and everyone,

I made a short analysis where I compared The Daily Telegraph and The Times for the inquest of Polly Nichols. There are many differences. I have not made a complete analysis since I have no time for that right now. But consider it a pilot study. Anyone can continue from here. I just selected The Times since that is the used by Evans & Skinner in "The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook). It could be any source, but these two are close in time. Here are the differences (underlined):

The Daily Telegraph:

Edward Walker deposed: I live at 15, Maidwell-street, Albany-road, Camberwell,...
The Times:

Edward Walker deposed: I live at 16, Maidswood-Road, Camberwell,...

The Daily Telegraph:

Inspector Jos. Helson deposed

The Times:

Inspector Helston...

The Daily Telegraph:

Police-constable Mizen said that at a quarter to four o'clock on Friday morning he was at the crossing, Hanbury-street, Baker's-row, when a carman who passed in company with another man informed him that he was wanted by a policeman in Buck's-row,

The Times:

Constable G. Mizen, 56 H, stated the at a quarter past 4 on Friday morning he was in Hanbury Street, Baker´s Row, and a man passing said ”You are wanted in Baker´s Row”.

The Daily Telegraph:

Inspector John Spratling,...A watchman of the Great Eastern Railway, whose box was fifty or sixty yards from the spot where the body was discovered, heard nothing particular on the night of the murder.

The Times:

A constable was on duty at the at the gate of the Great Eastern Railway yard, which was about 50 yards from the spot where the body was found.

The Daily Telegraph:

Chas. Andrew Cross, carman, said he had been in the employment of Messrs. Pickford and Co. for over twenty years. About half-past three on Friday he left his home to go to work, and he passed through Buck's-row

The Times:

George Cross, a carman, stated that he left home on Friday morning at 20 minutes past 3,...

There are more differences between the two newspapers as to the statements of Inspector Spratling, for example, but for others as well.

There are also many differences as to the dispositions of the texts in the two newspapers.

The Daily Telegraph uses the dialog between coroner and witness, but not all the time, and The Times does not use the dialogue.

Some details are missing in one article and some in the other.

Regards, Pierre