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Originally posted by rjpalmer
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Wolf has a major problem with his line of argument. Actually, he has several, but let me point out just one. And you don't need access to any other documentation to appreciate it.
In 1888 it was reported in the press that Tumilty (my name for him) could not be held for the Whitechapel Murders, but, instead, was to be charged with certain laws passed after the "Maiden Tribute" exposures.
That's it.
That is all that was ever reported about those specific charges, and all the focus instead shifted to his supposed connection to the WC murder case.
But note: the Maiden Tribute actually had to do with sex with an underaged girl.
After Stead's exposure in the Pall Mall Gazette the ensuing outrage eventually led to the Crimes Against the Persons Act, which famously, or infamously, dealt not only with the age of consent but also included statutes prohibiting all sexual acts other than sodomy between two consenting males.
Consent being the key word.
Anyone reading that 1888 blurb might assume, as did nearly all historians of the WC murder case, that Tumilty had been arrested for consensual sexual acts with rent boys.
Let that sink in, because--again--the relevant point is that the exact nature of these 1888 offenses were not known until the late 1990s.
People seem to be forgetting that point: the 1990s.
That is when the appropriate court calendar was rediscovered after the publication of Evans & Gainey's book.
And what turned up in those papers? O, nothing much, beyond the bald fact that Scotland Yard and the Treasury had four young men willing to swear under oath that Tumilty had sexually assaulted them with "FORCE OF ARMS."
Force of Arms: with the use of a weapon.
Doughty, Fisher, Brice, and Crowley.
So here, precisely, is where Wolf's argument starts to crumble.
Despite the fact that the relevant information was locked up in the bowels of the Old Bailey, here, in 1904, Norris is telling basically the same story as Doughty, Fisher, Brice, and Crowley.
He has been sexually assaulted by Tumilty with force of arms: specifically, a knife.
Yet, according to Wolf's theories, speculations, musings, what ever you wish to call them, Norris is a liar.
So how did Norris know?
Lucky guess?
Just a wild coincidence that 90 years later documents revealing that Tumilty had indeed sexually assaulted four men "with force of arms" in the 1880s would turn up to help confirm his story?
Or is it just possible that Norris is telling the truth and this was Tumilty's actual behavior in the 1880s?
A more reasonable conclusion is that Norris (as he admits) knew Tumilty over a several year period, and is simply bad with dates and is now garbling together three or four different events that happened at different times 15-20 years previously.
And it seems obvious to me that that is what is happening, because Norris refers to different heads of the NOLA police, sometimes referring to 1881 and at other times to 1891. It doesn't help that the lawyer is a lousy interviewer and his questions are all over the map. There is no reason to latch on to Wolf's sinister explanation.
It's always easy to call the victim of a sexual assault a liar. Norris, we are told, is lying. But there are four other young men in the UK stating that Tumilty sexually assaulted them, and I can name three others in the US that stated the same thing.
At what point do their stories become credible? A rather topical question here in the USA, I would think.
For make no mistake about it. Wolf dearly wants this to go away because it not only puts a knife in the hand of a police suspect in the Whitechapel Murder case, it strong suggests that he had a similar knife in London in the autumn of 1888.
Unless anyone wants to argue that the "force of arms" was a toothbrush.
In 1888 it was reported in the press that Tumilty (my name for him) could not be held for the Whitechapel Murders, but, instead, was to be charged with certain laws passed after the "Maiden Tribute" exposures.
That's it.
That is all that was ever reported about those specific charges, and all the focus instead shifted to his supposed connection to the WC murder case.
But note: the Maiden Tribute actually had to do with sex with an underaged girl.
After Stead's exposure in the Pall Mall Gazette the ensuing outrage eventually led to the Crimes Against the Persons Act, which famously, or infamously, dealt not only with the age of consent but also included statutes prohibiting all sexual acts other than sodomy between two consenting males.
Consent being the key word.
Anyone reading that 1888 blurb might assume, as did nearly all historians of the WC murder case, that Tumilty had been arrested for consensual sexual acts with rent boys.
Let that sink in, because--again--the relevant point is that the exact nature of these 1888 offenses were not known until the late 1990s.
People seem to be forgetting that point: the 1990s.
That is when the appropriate court calendar was rediscovered after the publication of Evans & Gainey's book.
And what turned up in those papers? O, nothing much, beyond the bald fact that Scotland Yard and the Treasury had four young men willing to swear under oath that Tumilty had sexually assaulted them with "FORCE OF ARMS."
Force of Arms: with the use of a weapon.
Doughty, Fisher, Brice, and Crowley.
So here, precisely, is where Wolf's argument starts to crumble.
Despite the fact that the relevant information was locked up in the bowels of the Old Bailey, here, in 1904, Norris is telling basically the same story as Doughty, Fisher, Brice, and Crowley.
He has been sexually assaulted by Tumilty with force of arms: specifically, a knife.
Yet, according to Wolf's theories, speculations, musings, what ever you wish to call them, Norris is a liar.
So how did Norris know?
Lucky guess?
Just a wild coincidence that 90 years later documents revealing that Tumilty had indeed sexually assaulted four men "with force of arms" in the 1880s would turn up to help confirm his story?
Or is it just possible that Norris is telling the truth and this was Tumilty's actual behavior in the 1880s?
A more reasonable conclusion is that Norris (as he admits) knew Tumilty over a several year period, and is simply bad with dates and is now garbling together three or four different events that happened at different times 15-20 years previously.
And it seems obvious to me that that is what is happening, because Norris refers to different heads of the NOLA police, sometimes referring to 1881 and at other times to 1891. It doesn't help that the lawyer is a lousy interviewer and his questions are all over the map. There is no reason to latch on to Wolf's sinister explanation.
It's always easy to call the victim of a sexual assault a liar. Norris, we are told, is lying. But there are four other young men in the UK stating that Tumilty sexually assaulted them, and I can name three others in the US that stated the same thing.
At what point do their stories become credible? A rather topical question here in the USA, I would think.
For make no mistake about it. Wolf dearly wants this to go away because it not only puts a knife in the hand of a police suspect in the Whitechapel Murder case, it strong suggests that he had a similar knife in London in the autumn of 1888.
Unless anyone wants to argue that the "force of arms" was a toothbrush.
a snake oil salesmen wouldn't have a knife because its against his (false/lying) advertising claims. hahaha, that one made me laugh.
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