Time Factor

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Albert Cadosch said—"It was about two minutes after half-past five as I passed Spitalfields Church."

It was about 250 yards from 27 Hanbury Street [via the corner of Wilkes Street and Church Row] to Spitalfields Church. This would have taken Cadosch around two to three minutes at a regular walking pace, which means he left his house at around 5.30 am, just as Annie Chapman and her companion were standing on Hanbury Street and Mrs Elizabeth Long/Durrell hoved onto the scene.

Wynne Baxter should have dismissed Cadosh's evidence, for if Mrs Long was right in her assertion that Chapman was alive at 5.30 am, then what Cadosch heard from his back yard ten and then five minutes earlier could not have had anything to do with her murder.

However, Wynne Baxter attempted to square the evidential circle.

Wynne Baxter: "There is some conflict in the evidence about the time at which the deceased was despatched. It is not unusual to find inaccuracy in such details, but this variation is not very great or very important. She [Chapman] was talking outside the house at half-past five when Mrs. Long passed them . . . Cadosh says it was about 5.20 when he was in the backyard of the adjoining house, and heard a voice say "No," and three or four minutes afterwards [5.23-5.24 am] a fall against the fence . . ."

" . . . but if he [Cadosh] is out of his reckoning but a quarter of an hour, the discrepancy in the evidence of fact vanishes, and he may be mistaken, for he admits that he did not get up till a quarter past five, and that it was after the half-hour when he passed Spitalfields clock."

All of which is absolute gobbledegook given that Wynne Baxter's fixed point in Cadosch's evidence was his getting up at 5.15 am.

"But a quarter of an hour" earlier put the time of Cadosch's backyard encounter at around 5.05 am—twenty five minutes before Chapman was seen alive by Mrs Long—and "but a quarter of an hour" later put his backyard encounter at 5.35 am—three minutes after he passed Spitalfields Church.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

battle of the witnesses

Hello Simon. Thanks.

My difficulty lies not with Cadosch--it is with Long. Baxter tries to reconcile by tweaking him, I'd tweak her. His fixing of time required seeing the clock face, hers, hearing a strike.

When he left for work, he should have seen the purported triumvirate--he did not.

Cheers.
LC

[Steve S]

Tend to agree with Lynn........

[Simon Wood]

Hi Steve,

I also tend to agree with Lynn that 5.15 am makes more sense.

The problem is that in Mrs Long's initial statement to the police [the original handwritten document has survived], made a week before her inquest appearance, it quite clearly states the time of her encounter as 5.30 am.

We should really be addressing Wynne Baxter's tortuous logic. He was the one who forced all the pieces to fit.

Regards,

Simon

[Steve S]

Yet another of those irritating contradictions that probably has a very simple answer..............

[lynn cates]

Long standing situation

Hello Simon. I am firmly convinced that Mrs. Long believed the time to be 5.30.

Of course, as a wee lad I had a terrible row with my younger brother over some Hammer actors. I took Christopher Lee for Peter Cushing and he, conversely. Turns out I was wrong. But I was "certain" I was right.

Yes, WB (not Warner Brothers, but they do have something in common--Looney Tunes) did his "fix" in a not atypical zany way.

Cheers.
LC

[Chava]

I'm sure Mrs Long thought it was 5.30 am by the clock. But she would only have known that by the clock striking the quarter. If she for whatever reason misheard the stroke she may have mistaken the time. We don't know how the clock struck the quarters so we don't know how easy it would be to make a mistake. I still think that Cadosche's clock was probably wrong and he didn't realize it...

RivkahChayah, 'gonoph' in Bleak House was definitely Yiddish and was remarked on at the time. It's in the specific London dialect I talked about earlier in which 'Shabbas' becomes 'Shobbos' and 'matzah' becomes 'motzo'. As far as I know there was no such thing as German Yiddish as the German Jews all spoke German and looked down on Yiddish as a'jargon' or debased patois. And the Yiddish in the north of England where the Jews came from further east in Lithuania, Belarus and so on sounded very different to the London version.

As for what a Jew looked like to the average East Ender, I imagine something foreign with a dark complexion would do it. But maybe not, because at this time there were so many Jews in the East End that the locals would be very familiar indeed with their appearance and would be likely to be accurate when they described someone as looking Jewish.

[moonbegger]

Hi Lynn , and all ,

When he left for work, he should have seen the purported triumvirate--he did not.

He said he did not see the couple , but would he have even noticed them if they were there ? According to Long ..

They were standing only a few yards nearer Brick-lane from 29, Hanbury-street. I saw the woman's face.

If by saying "few yards nearer Brick-lane from 29" she is actually referring to the house "29" , A few yards could actually put the couple outside number 31, putting about 9 or 10 yards between Cadosh and the couple on his left , as he (cadosh) turns right from his front door . What reason would he have to look left ? I think Cadosh was directed to believe that the couple were standing just outside the entrance to 29 . Even if Long was trundling up the street towards them all , what reason would Cadosh, who's total focus is all to his right , have to peer left ?

Having said that , i still dont think Long saw Annie & killer .

cheers

moonbegger

[RivkahChaya]

As far as I know there was no such thing as German Yiddish as the German Jews all spoke German and looked down on Yiddish as a'jargon' or debased patois. And the Yiddish in the north of England where the Jews came from further east in Lithuania, Belarus and so on sounded very different to the London version.

What do you mean? Do you mean German Jews in England? Some German Jews from Germany absolutely spoke Yiddish, because my aunt speaks it, and her whole family spoke it.

She speaks a very different dialect from Polish or Russian Yiddish, though-- she uses a declension frequently that other people don't tend to use in the same situation, so I suppose it's possible that what she speaks come across to Germans as dialectic German, but I don't know. She can definitely converse just fine with other Yiddish speakers from other countries, but then, she's been here since she was a child, so her Yiddish is probably influenced by what she heard in New York when she was growing up.

[Wickerman]

Actually, I always thought the confusion for us rested more on "where" she was.

The Times has Mrs Long claiming she was passing No. 29, but the Daily Telegraph has Long claiming she was still in Brick Lane, she had not turned into Hanbury St. yet.

Daily T:
"... I heard the brewer's clock strike half-past five just before I got to the street."

Times:
"...She was certain of the time, as the brewers' clock had just struck that time when she passed 29, Hanbury-street."

The problem is that in Mrs Long's initial statement to the police [the original handwritten document has survived], made a week before her inquest appearance, it quite clearly states the time of her encounter as 5.30 am.

Ok, Simon, help us out here, "where" does that document place Mrs Long at the time the clock struck?

Regards, Jon S.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

"5.30 am, 8th September, Mrs Long of 32 Church Street stated that she saw a man and woman talking near to No. 29 Hanbury Street . . ." etc etc.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

witness

Hello MB. Thanks.

Then his testimony was wrong. Should have been, there was no one about--that he saw; and, he didn't look very hard.

And when he heard the row out back . . . ?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Germanised Yiddish

Hello Rivkah. That is correct. Professor Turtletaub pointed out to me that the "Arbeter Fraint" material was HIGHLY Germanised Yiddish--as opposed to the other varieties with which she was more familiar.

Cheers.
LC

[Chava]

I'm editing this post! Whether German Jews spoke Yiddish or not, I doubt it has any effect on the Ripper!

[Bridewell]

Rigor Mortis

The thing is , Cold temp would slow down the process of rigor , not speed it up . Just the same as Eddows discovery?

From www.Chemistry.about.com: (my emphasis)

Rigor mortis can be used to help estimate time of death. The onset of rigor mortis may range from 10 minutes to several hours, depending on factors including temperature (rapid cooling of a body can inhibit rigor mortis, but it occurs upon thawing).

"Rapid cooling of a body can inhibit rigor mortis, but it occurs upon thawing."

This is a reference to deep-freezing, is it not, rather than an acceleration of the natural process as a result of disembowelling?

This from www.sharecare.com: (my emphasis)

It does not provide a precise time of death, but rigor mortar provides useful clues. It is like an alarm clock that is set to go off and stop ringing with a specific time span. A number of variables affect the progression of rigor mortis and investigators consider these when estimating when death occurred.

These variables include:

Temperature: Warm conditions speed up both the onset and pace of rigor mortis because warmth provides a welcoming environment for the bacteria and processes that result in decay. Cold conditions, on the other hand, slow down those processes. Rigor mortis can last for days if someone dies in freezing temperatures. In a case that like that, investigators might forego using rigor mortis as a tool to help establish a time of death.

Physical exertion just before death: When someone dies while engaged in something strenuous, such as exercising or attempting not to drown, rigor mortis can set in at once. This instant onset is sometimes called cadaveric spasm. It happens because at the time of death, the person's muscles were out of oxygen energy and ATP. This explains why a victim of a violent attack may still be clutching a piece of clothing, or the attacker's hair.

(Elizabeth Stride?)

Fat: Because fat acts as insulation, rigor mortis develops more slowly.

Illness or age: Rigor mortis progresses more quickly in people who have low muscle mass, such as the elderly and children, or in people with a debilitating disease or fever

.

Annie Chapman. Terminally ill. Effect on the onset time of rigor? Strenuous exertion immediately prior to death. Effect on the onset time of rigor? Disembowelled? Effect on the onset of rigor?

The ambient temperature (which wouldn't have been that cold on an early September morning) is not the only determining influence at work here.