Some thoughts, after a year's study:

[moonbegger]

The human imagination is a powerful instrument. Beware of it.

O'contraire Rodney ! Embrace it whole heartedly .

[Graham]

1- The first portable rape kit

Perhaps BTCG would enlighten us as to what a 'portable rape kit' contained, and if such a thing existed or indeed still exists, how he knows that Sickert possessed the 'first one'. I'm dying to know.

Graham

[Graham]

Hello Graham

I don't believe it's ever been proven that Tumblety lodged in Batty Street even if he may have walked the streets of the East End and wore a Yankee "slouch hat" which brought him under suspicion as he semi-jokingly told a reporter in Brooklyn. No in all probability Tumblety was not the Batty Street lodger no more than Walter Sickert had a murder kit or a shrine to any of his supposed murder victims. The human imagination is a powerful instrument. Beware of it.

Best regards

Chris

Chris, I bow to your greater knowledge - I was only repeating what I'd read a long time ago. I never thought much of Tumblety as a Ripper suspect anyway.

In fact, now I think about it, I recall seeing a TV documentary (UK made) which proposed Tumblety as the Ripper, and I think stated pretty categorically that he lodged in Batty Street.

ATB,

Graham

[Limehouse]

[QUOTE=BTCG;258539]

It's my belief that not only is/was Sickert your first serial killer... but if he had actually been apprehended, his arrest would have revealed:

1- The first portable rape kit
QUOTE]

Where is the evidence that the victims were raped?

Most people can't work out how jack even had time to carry out the mutilations on victims such as Eddowes never mind having the time to rape them as well.

[Limehouse]

That wouldn't happen, by crazy coincidence, to be the same room rented by the woman who sat next to Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes at dinner, and mentioned that she rented a room to Jack the Ripper?

Incidentally, no one ever accused Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes of being Jack the Ripper, because she wrote The Lodger, even though that would make as much sense as using Jack the Ripper's Bedroom painting as evidence. Everyone I know accepts Mrs. B-L's anecdote as true-- that is, she really did hear the story from someone at a dinner party, whether the story is true or not-- so I don't see why we can't accept Sickert's story of having been told that the room was rented by someone the landlady suspected was Jack the Ripper.

Quite so Rivkah, and using Cornwell's logic, she could be a prime suspect in any number of serial murder cases dotted all over the world, simply because she writes a lot about murder and further more, writes about a woman who cuts up dead bodies for a living. It matters not whether Ms Cornwell was actually even in the relevant cities at the time of the murders. She must, after all, have had a method of coming and going without being seen. It stands to reason that if a woman writes about so much death and human misery, she must be a twisted and evil murderer!

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike

Well it was partly tongue-in-cheek if you prefer and a way to chivvy up the London police and to deflect from the actual reason for which he was arrested, those sexual acts with several men, deemed at the time to be "unnatural acts."

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,

Very true.

Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Chris,

True about Batty Street, but the 'semi-jokingly' thing most likely came from the idea that he read about Sir George Arthur's issue. The problem is, the British papers did not report this, so Tumblety would have had a difficult time hearing about this. One possiblility is that Tumblety was arrested at the same time as Sir George, and shared a cell with him, but regardless, there is no evidence that he was 'semi-joking'.

Sincerely,
Mike

Hi Mike

Well it was partly tongue-in-cheek if you prefer and a way to chivvy up the London police and to deflect from the actual reason for which he was arrested, those sexual acts with several men, deemed at the time to be "unnatural acts."

Best regards

Chris

[mklhawley]

Hello Graham

I don't believe it's ever been proven that Tumblety lodged in Batty Street even if he may have walked the streets of the East End and wore a Yankee "slouch hat" which brought him under suspicion as he semi-jokingly told a reporter in Brooklyn. No in all probability Tumblety was not the Batty Street lodger no more than Walter Sickert had a murder kit or a shrine to any of his supposed murder victims. The human imagination is a powerful instrument. Beware of it.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,

True about Batty Street, but the 'semi-jokingly' thing most likely came from the idea that he read about Sir George Arthur's issue. The problem is, the British papers did not report this, so Tumblety would have had a difficult time hearing about this. One possiblility is that Tumblety was arrested at the same time as Sir George, and shared a cell with him, but regardless, there is no evidence that he was 'semi-joking'.

Sincerely,
Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Check this out: http://www.casebook.org/suspects/lod...l?printer=true

It's interesting that Tumblety to an extent fits the story per 'The Lodger', as he lodged in a rooming-house in Batty Street and was apparently absent from time to time, etc.

'The Lodger' was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock.

Graham

Hello Graham

I don't believe it's ever been proven that Tumblety lodged in Batty Street even if he may have walked the streets of the East End and wore a Yankee "slouch hat" which brought him under suspicion as he semi-jokingly told a reporter in Brooklyn. No in all probability Tumblety was not the Batty Street lodger no more than Walter Sickert had a murder kit or a shrine to any of his supposed murder victims. The human imagination is a powerful instrument. Beware of it.

Best regards

Chris

[moonbegger]

BTCG

I started my journey over a year ago last February, and in my Ripper studies, I have read some 50-60 different books, slightly more blob/essays, and watched some 20-30 videos.

Well that's that then ! Thanks for clearing that one up for me ..
if you ever get a few weeks spare , could you please check out Horse racing form and history for me .. The 3.50 at Kempton park would be a good start

cheers,

moonbegger .

[Phil H]

I read once that, in later years Matters might have included his "theory" as a what if speculation - but the custom of his day was to dress it up as fact.

A shame really, because I think the factual half of his book remains one of the best books on the Ripper I know - with superb illustrations. He visted the sites when they were still almost intact. He spoke to people who had been alive in 1888. What would most of us give to be able to do that - for atmosphere if nothing else.

Phil

[Graham]

None more legendary than Leonard Matters and his 'Dr Stanley' story.

G

[RivkahChaya]

I'm sure a lot of people fit the description of "the lodger," not to mention, I don't think Belloc-Lowndes has ever recorded the name of her dinner companion, who for all we know made the whole thing up.

FWIW, it sounds like a FOAF story, a story that happened to a "friend of a friend," which never really happened-- an urban legend, in other words. Some people tell these stories in the first person, just to make them better stories, and a dinner party, where you meet people you may never see again is just the sort of place someone might do that.

I think that the Jack the Ripper story, in aggregate, is full of legendary elements. There's probably a whole book just in that.

[Graham]

The Lodger

Check this out: http://www.casebook.org/suspects/lod...l?printer=true

It's interesting that Tumblety to an extent fits the story per 'The Lodger', as he lodged in a rooming-house in Batty Street and was apparently absent from time to time, etc.

'The Lodger' was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock.

Graham

[RivkahChaya]

Considering Sickert came to art and painting relatively late in life, his out put was large. Only one of his paintings for sure concerned the JtR case, that that was 'Jack the Ripper's Bedroom' and even that was a re-naming of the painting.

That wouldn't happen, by crazy coincidence, to be the same room rented by the woman who sat next to Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes at dinner, and mentioned that she rented a room to Jack the Ripper?

Incidentally, no one ever accused Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes of being Jack the Ripper, because she wrote The Lodger, even though that would make as much sense as using Jack the Ripper's Bedroom painting as evidence. Everyone I know accepts Mrs. B-L's anecdote as true-- that is, she really did hear the story from someone at a dinner party, whether the story is true or not-- so I don't see why we can't accept Sickert's story of having been told that the room was rented by someone the landlady suspected was Jack the Ripper.