Annie's last meal

[Ms Diddles]

Hi Helen,

Annie was reported as having a meal of potatoes - plural. Baked jacket potatoes were popular at the time, being sold by street vendors and in pubs for one penny each. Potato is easily digested, the jackets not so much. Leaving the examination of stomach contents aside, if you ate two or more baked potatoes shortly before 2AM, would you be looking for more food or a place to sleep? My wife strongly assures me that it would be the later.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

I noticed that whilst Tim Donovan merely states that Annie was eating potatoes, a couple of contemporary newspaper reports (including the Telegraph IIRC) state that she was eating baked potatoes.

This seems to have filtered down and the potatoes are described as baked by some authors.

TBH I had always taken it for granted that the potatoes were baked, until FM pointed out that the type of potato is not specified in Donovan's statement.

Anyway, it's not definite but if contemporary news reports went with baked tatties, and we know that they were cheap and accessible at that time, that gets my bet.

(I've been doing a no carbs in the pm thing since lockdown, so am probably obsessing a little on this whole baked potato subject. I've been craving one ever since this topic came up! God, I'd kill for one. With cheese. And coleslaw. And loads of butter ...........!!!!)

[DJA]

Latter.

[GBinOz]

Hi FM, I was not infering that the eating of potatoes, or at what time, where etc where guesses, that was my bad phraseology. I meant that estimation of TOD will vary depending on numerous factors some of which I can only guess at, perhaps "assume" is a less antagonistic word. For instance in the lack of any contrawise evidence I have to assume nothing else was eaten after the potatoes, however that doesn't mean she couldn't have eaten later just we have no evidence of it. As such without knowing the actual contents of Annie's stomach, ie what it consisted of, how much remained of it and at what point in the digestive process the contents were before digestion ceased then using them to establish TOD offers (imo) a too wider timeframe to assist in pinpointing when she was killed. All I can assume is that Annie was killed some time after ingestion of her last food and before full digestion was completed.

Helen x

Hi Helen,

Annie was reported as having a meal of potatoes - plural. Baked jacket potatoes were popular at the time, being sold by street vendors and in pubs for one penny each. Potato is easily digested, the jackets not so much. Leaving the examination of stomach contents aside, if you ate two or more baked potatoes shortly before 2AM, would you be looking for more food or a place to sleep? My wife strongly assures me that it would be the later.

Cheers, George

[Fleetwood Mac]

All I can assume is that Annie was killed some time after ingestion of her last food and before full digestion was completed.

Helen x

Hi Helen,

No bother.

I'd only be repeating myself regarding the evidence and so we've probably exhausted the evidence issue.

[Parisi North Humber]

Hi FM, I was not infering that the eating of potatoes, or at what time, where etc where guesses, that was my bad phraseology. I meant that estimation of TOD will vary depending on numerous factors some of which I can only guess at, perhaps "assume" is a less antagonistic word. For instance in the lack of any contrawise evidence I have to assume nothing else was eaten after the potatoes, however that doesn't mean she couldn't have eaten later just we have no evidence of it. As such without knowing the actual contents of Annie's stomach, ie what it consisted of, how much remained of it and at what point in the digestive process the contents were before digestion ceased then using them to establish TOD offers (imo) a too wider timeframe to assist in pinpointing when she was killed. All I can assume is that Annie was killed some time after ingestion of her last food and before full digestion was completed.

Helen x

[Fleetwood Mac]

Without knowing exactly what was found in Annie's stomach then the best we can guesstimate is she ate potatoes earlier that evening/early morning and POSSIBLY some other food stuff after.

Helen x

That's one reasoning, Helen.

Mine is this: we have evidence Annie ate at 1.45am and no evidence that she ate later in the morning. A 'guesstimate' demands a guess that she ate later. My reasoning is not a 'guesstimate'.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Now why do people go in kitchens ?

Annie didn't get the food from the lodging house kitchen. She left the lodging house for a period of around half an hour and then returned with potatoes.

The fact Annie had to leave the kitchen to get some food should tell us there was no food on offer for her in the kitchen.

These common lodging houses were the bare bones of accommodation. Do you imagine there was food lying around at half one in the morning?

Thus spending the last of her money on food, which you argue against.

You're missing a pertinent point: Annie had eaten at 1.45am. Given that fact, she had need of a bed far more than food.

how do you know

As I've been saying, I don't. Where's the evidence though? In fact, where's the reason in it never mind the evidence? Annie told the lodging house to keep her bed and wasn't planning on being long. She'd eaten, she'd had beer, the one thing she needed when she was thrown out of the lodging house was a bed.

[Parisi North Humber]

Without knowing exactly what was found in Annie's stomach then the best we can guesstimate is she ate potatoes earlier that evening/early morning and POSSIBLY some other food stuff after. However I dont know if the way the potato was prepared has been taken into consideration. I ask this as although the inside of a potato is quickly digested (within an hour or so in a healthy and average gut transit system) their skins take longer to digest. I'm trying to find a consensus on roughly how much longer but it may go towards explaining her somach contents.

Helen x

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Annie asked Donovan to hold her bed, and was very confident that it would not take her long to attract a customer. Her confidence was likely based on experience. My opinion is that the proceeds of her first engagement would have been put towards sleeping rather than eating, so if her experience proved valid, then probably Jack was her first customer. I would like to think of this as considered speculation.....but still speculation never the less.

Best regards, George

Hi George,

Sure, but Polly did the same thing, and when she went out and found a customer she didn't then get her bed but spent all her money on drink. Moreover, Annie's request to hold her bed may very well reflect "hope" as well as "confidence". And even if she was confident, that doesn't mean she had to find a customer, only that she might have believed she would. We often believe things that end up not being true. Jack may very well have been her first customer, what we don't know is when that meeting took place. You've suggested she may have slept rough, explaining the lack of sightings, and I think that is worth considering. That too is speculation, in fact, anything at all we suggest for those missing hours is, by definition, speculation because once she leaves Donovan, it's a void into which we have no evidence to guide us. To say she did, or did not, do something is to try and fill in that void. In fact, to say she didn't do something is to speculate about the entire missing time frame.

Maybe she did find another customer, and being hungry, and feeling like it might be a good night, had something more to eat and then set out to find another, only to have her good fortune go sour? That too is speculation, and I just made it up now as an example. We are so free from the tethers of evidence that we can make up anything we want, and if we're not careful, we will convince ourselves that our story is somehow the right one.

- Jeff

[Darryl Kenyon]

The evidence suggests that none of the victims were squirreling away potatoes for a rainy day. None of the victims were found with bits of food in their pockets.

I suppose you could argue that they were squirrelled away but eaten just before they were murdered, but you're stretching the boundaries of credibility here.

I am not suggesting food hoarding FM but the fact is Annie was allowed in the kitchen at 11:30 . Now why do people go in kitchens ? I am not suggesting Annie pilfered everything she could lay her hands on. But we know she hadn't eaten all day [ until Amelia Palmer saw her ] , three days earlier and felt unwell. Annie could have put a piece of bread or cheese etc in her pocket to eat later. Survival was the name of the game for these poor souls .
Now let me ask you a question FM . Where do you think that Annie got the baked potato from she was eating at 1:45 in the morning ?
Did she spend the last of her doss money on it ? Thus spending the last of her money on food, which you argue against.
Or did she take it from the kitchen ? And if you think that is an option, how do you know she didn't take something else as well to eat later .
Perhaps somebody felt sorry for her, or she found it half eaten and decided to eat the rest. Again if you favour one of these options how do you know that a comparable thing didn't happen at say 2:30 in the morning with another item of food ?

Regards Darryl

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don’t think that Darryl was suggesting that food hoarding was a trait of ripper victims. Just because no one else had done it how can it mean that Annie hadn’t done it? Annie was desperately poor like the rest of these women and wasn’t in a position to refuse food.

By the time she left the lodging house it was near 2am. Annie might have sounded confident but she didn’t want her bed let in case she did get her doss money so clearly she wanted Donovan to feel confident enough to keep her bed for her. Could any prostitute be certain of a customer after 2am? As we can’t know where she went or what she did we certainly can’t say what she did do but we can’t say what she didn’t do either. She could have had some food on her and eaten it on the street. She could have met up with a friend who offered to share a bit of food with her.

We don’t even know what food Phillips found in her stomach. We have a gap of time that was a complete blank. We can’t make any positive or negative deductions.

[Fleetwood Mac]

On the night of her murder we know that Annie at 11:30 asked for permission to go into the kitchen.
We also know that the Tuesday before her death Amelia Palmer sees Annie who tells her that she has not eaten all day
Food would be a necessity to someone like Annie who was unwell and living a day to day existence. Who would blame her if she put small items of food, whether that was a baked potato, some chestnuts , a piece of cheese or whatever in her pocket whilst in the kitchen to be consumed later.

Much has been made on Annie spending her last penny on a bed rather than food. But here is a woman who is unwell and undernourished, and besides if she didn't take the baked potato or given it by a customer there is always the chance that she did indeed spend her last penny on food.

We know Annie said to Donovan to not let her bed as she will have the money soon. But Polly said the same thing " See what a jolly bonnet I have ".
Seems to me it would be a general thing for women like Polly or Annie to say. Perhaps a bit of bravado but also they are highly unlikely to say the opposite
" Well I don't think I will get a customer tonight , so you may as well let my bed while I sleep on a park bench "

One last point Spitalfields market was just down the road from where Annie was murdered. Is it possible that Annie picked up , say an Apple which a Costermonger had dropped off his handcart the day before and Annie saw during the night in her wanderings and ate ?

Regards Darryl

The evidence suggests that none of the victims were squirreling away potatoes for a rainy day. None of the victims were found with bits of food in their pockets.

I suppose you could argue that they were squirrelled away but eaten just before they were murdered, but you're stretching the boundaries of credibility here.

[Darryl Kenyon]

On the night of her murder we know that Annie at 11:30 asked for permission to go into the kitchen.
We also know that the Tuesday before her death Amelia Palmer sees Annie who tells her that she has not eaten all day
Food would be a necessity to someone like Annie who was unwell and living a day to day existence. Who would blame her if she put small items of food, whether that was a baked potato, some chestnuts , a piece of cheese or whatever in her pocket whilst in the kitchen to be consumed later.

Much has been made on Annie spending her last penny on a bed rather than food. But here is a woman who is unwell and undernourished, and besides if she didn't take the baked potato or given it by a customer there is always the chance that she did indeed spend her last penny on food.

We know Annie said to Donovan to not let her bed as she will have the money soon. But Polly said the same thing " See what a jolly bonnet I have ".
Seems to me it would be a general thing for women like Polly or Annie to say. Perhaps a bit of bravado but also they are highly unlikely to say the opposite
" Well I don't think I will get a customer tonight , so you may as well let my bed while I sleep on a park bench "

One last point Spitalfields market was just down the road from where Annie was murdered. Is it possible that Annie picked up , say an Apple which a Costermonger had dropped off his handcart the day before and Annie saw during the night in her wanderings and ate ?

Regards Darryl

[GBinOz]

when one has no evidence, no conclusion is possible, all suggestions are speculation).

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Annie asked Donovan to hold her bed, and was very confident that it would not take her long to attract a customer. Her confidence was likely based on experience. My opinion is that the proceeds of her first engagement would have been put towards sleeping rather than eating, so if her experience proved valid, then probably Jack was her first customer. I would like to think of this as considered speculation.....but still speculation never the less.

Best regards, George

[JeffHamm]

We don't agree.

Oh, but we most certainly do based upon your post.

We have evidence of Annie eating once between the period at 1.30am and 5.30am. The reasoning is based on this evidence.

And we agree on this. We have evidence, in the form of a witness statement, that Annie ate at 1:45. And, given we do not know what she did after that until she was found murdered (around 6:00), we have no evidence with regards to her eating between roughly 1:45 and 6:00. Therefore, we have evidence for at least one episode of eating, on that we do agree.

To suggest Annie ate some other time is purely speculative given there is no supporting evidence.

Which is entirely in agreement with what I have said, so again, we agree on this.

And, using that same logic, you would have to agree that to suggest she did not eat between 1:45 and 5:30 is also purely speculative because we do not have any supporting evidence - because we have no evidence at all, until perhaps we get to Long's potential sighting and Cadoche's hearing of activity.

But what we certainly do at this point, is agree to disagree. The alternative is not particularly appealing from my side.

I assume you mean on your first point, because so far everything you've stated is entirely in agreement with what I have said. In addition, speculation is the only description the suggestion that she did not eat that is logically consistent with your 2nd point, and so therefore we must agree on that too (or you adopt an irrational stance and suggest that having no supporting evidence for A is speculation but having no supporting evidence for ~A is not; when one has no evidence, no conclusion is possible, all suggestions are speculation).

- Jeff