The Apron Again

[Steven Russell]

Bold!

Well it's bold, Lynn - I'll give you that!

Best wishes,
Steve.

[lynn cates]

OCD Jack

Hello Steven. Thanks. Also, I prefer it to the OCD Jack who wipes his hands for over 30 minutes (heh-heh) before heading back to "hot" territory to dispose of the cloth directly under a coincidental message.

Cheers.
LC

[Steven Russell]

Shame OCD wasn't his biggest problem.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[caz]

Hi All,

Don't forget that the Goulston St Model Dwellings were brand spanking new and shiny clean when that entrance was found to be polluted on double event night, not once but twice. Doubly polluted.

One might imagine a resentful soul (resentful for not having the means to live in a place like that, or resentful to think that immigrant Jews were handed such a place on a plate, while he had to work hard for a shabbier roof over his own head) passing by and tutting to himself, possibly the same man who carried the filthy, smelly, bloody piece of apron there, all the way from Mitre Square. "Not so shiny, new and clean now, where you righteous Jews live, is it?"

I do wonder how long it would have taken one of the building's proud residents to notice and react to any spoiling of their walls by graffiti of any nature or size, or as soon as any rubbish appeared in an otherwise clean and tidy entrance. Both gestures seem particularly malicious and anti-social to me, and smack of a bitter non-resident, non-Jewish individual with "issues" about their rather smart living conditions.

A double smack round the chops if you will. And unique to that night without evidence to the contrary.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi All,

Don't forget that the Goulston St Model Dwellings were brand spanking new and shiny clean when that entrance was found to be polluted on double event night, not once but twice. Doubly polluted.

One might imagine a resentful soul (resentful for not having the means to live in a place like that, or resentful to think that immigrant Jews were handed such a place on a plate, while he had to work hard for a shabbier roof over his own head) passing by and tutting to himself, possibly the same man who carried the filthy, smelly, bloody piece of apron there, all the way from Mitre Square. "Not so shiny, new and clean now, where you righteous Jews live, is it?"

I do wonder how long it would have taken one of the building's proud residents to notice and react to any spoiling of their walls by graffiti of any nature or size, or as soon as any rubbish appeared in an otherwise clean and tidy entrance. Both gestures seem particularly malicious and anti-social to me, and smack of a bitter non-resident, non-Jewish individual with "issues" about their rather smart living conditions.

A double smack round the chops if you will. And unique to that night without evidence to the contrary.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz

I do wonder how long it would have taken one of the building's proud residents to notice and react to any spoiling of their walls by graffiti of any nature or size, or as soon as any rubbish appeared in an otherwise clean and tidy entrance.

Not very long. I imagine that that graffiti never saw the light of day.

[Monty]

Hi Caz

I do wonder how long it would have taken one of the building's proud residents to notice and react to any spoiling of their walls by graffiti of any nature or size, or as soon as any rubbish appeared in an otherwise clean and tidy entrance.

Not very long. I imagine that that graffiti never saw the light of day.

And how did you draw this conclusion?

Monty

[Abby Normal]

And how did you draw this conclusion?

Monty

Hi Monty
By what Caz said and also:
-Any visible graffiti with anything that could possibly say something negative about jews(or even with the word in it) would have been wiped clean as soon as it was seen by a resident.
-A police officer said it looked new.
-The constable who found it did not see it the previous time around
-it is probable it was written the same time the apron was dropped there, which was that night.

Of course this is all just speculation and just my opinion.

[Rubyretro]

I just can't see anyone having enough light to write the graffito at that hour.
I don't know what the weather was like, but an autumn night in London probably saw the moon hidden. He was just inside a doorway, anyway.

If JTR wrote it, he would have had to have had a light source, almost certainly a candle.

Maybe a new candle -if he planned the graffito- but otherwise it could easily be a stubby candle.

The graffito was fairly long and complicated and it would have taken some
minutes to think about and write, and much more to someone who wasn't used to writing regularly.

So the Ripper would have had to have stood there, like a beacon in the doorway, drawing attention to himself from anyone walking down the street
for what would have felt like ages.

The graffito was low down, so if he held the candle low then he was illuminating his face.

If he was right handed, with the candle in his left hand, then he would be standing between the light source and the street and throwing shadows
that would surely attract anyone's gaze.

He would have had to have had a candle holder (he kept that in his pocket then ?). If he didn't have a candle holder then he would have quickly had burning wax falling on his hand, and a stubby candle would have made the heat unbearable (I would personally be swearing loudly by then).

If he lean't the candle away from himself, then there would have been hot wax on the floor....but there wasn't.

All this is supposedly from a man who was adept at sneaking around silently,
not drawing attention to himself, and not getting caught.

Caz has made some excellent points, and the graffito must have been extremely recent, also the 3 coincidences of the 2 jewish clubs + the writing , on the same night, seem too much to bear...so I think that he either wrote it earlier in the day, knew that it was there, or targetted the building
but did not write the graffito.

[Monty]

The writing wasn't low down Ruby, it was shoulder height according to reports.

Monty

[Wickerman]

Also, there was a light source close to the archway where the grafitti was found. Sadly the actual location is open to debate.

Jon Ogan kindly sent me his determination of the actual location of the nearest street-lamp to the south of the archway, unfortunately I think it is incorrect.
The spot is a fire-hydrant not a street-lamp.



Against this we have Fosters rough sketch identifying a lamp just north of the archway (between the O and U of Goulston). Alas this sketch is also not sufficiently accurate.



Regards, Jon S.

[Monty]

Jon,

Rob and I (with others) had this debate about lamps some years back, the general concensus was a lamp was either on the corner of New Goulston st as you state, or closer to Wentworth St. I think the conclusion was the corner of New Goulston st.

Later photos show lamps on the dwellings themselves however these look more electric.

One thing to note is that Fosters drawing initially contained errors. You can see his amendments, whether this includes the lamp we don't know.

Whichever location it is, the light from the lamp would have been dim.

Monty

[Wickerman]

Thankyou Neil.
Yes, its the 1873 Ordinance Survey map which shows the location of street lighting.
Below, ringed in purple are wall lamps.
Ringed in red are street-lamps, confirming your mention of one at the east end of New Goulston St. but across on Goulston St.



Contemporary photo's (below) are no help, the door almost direct centre is 108-119, and no lamp appears close by.



From what I remember Neil, any suggestion of a light source close enough to shed sufficient light was left undeterminable. Which raised the question what was Mr Foster (a surveyor) actually trying to indicate?

Regards, Jon S.

[Chava]

How deep is that entrance? There's not a whole lot of room there to write something that long, so I assume the line was broken and I can't remember if anyone took the words down exactly as they appeared.

But I'm gonna stick to my guns here. If the Ripper wanted to implicate the Jews I can't believe he would have written such an ambiguous line. And if it was 'shoulder height' how high was that? Again, was that ever recorded? because if the Ripper wrote it and if it was 'shoulder height' which would be about right for someone standing and writing on a vertical surface, that would give us a rough estimate of his height, wouldn't it? He's likely, in the dark, to write close to his eye level so that he can see what he's doing...

But to get back to the apron, the more I think about it the more it seems to me that he took that piece of apron before he started in on his victim's abdomen. The sketch clearly shows the skirts thrown back. He could have thrown the skirts back, done his work, drawn them over again to get at the apron and then thrown them back again. But given the existence of a petticoat and chemise as well as two other skirts I can't see why he would have done that. So was he indeed homing in on something obvious that he could use to drive the police away from his direction? And that was his first thought? The thing is, the graffito doesn't mean anything here or there. It's the apron that counts not the graffito because that leads directly to the murderer. He doesn't need to write anything on the wall. The Goulston Street tenements were entirely Jewish. Drop the apron there and it'll look like someone accidentally dropped it on the way back into the flats. In fact when you think about it, the graffito draws attention away from the flats. Did any copper spend much time interviewing the inhabitants of the tenement? Because it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the killer lived there and did accidentally drop the cloth in the haste of getting back home.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chava,

A thoughtful post, imho. Thank you.

Re the apron piece..is it possible that Eddowes herself had that apron piece in a pocket or somewhere on her, as a loose piece? Then it was picked up and taken away?
Is it also plausible that given the time from 1.00am to 1.42am, she could have been in Goulston Street and dumped the piece their herself before going on (perhaps) to Church Passage and Mitre Square?
You see, without knowing either way, I estimate that at a very conservative estimate it may take her a maximum of 15mins to walk from Bishopsgate Police Station to Goulston Street..a normal walk would be about 8mins I believe. If she is looking for a dark place to relieve herself, and additionally did have traces of her period, it would explain the use when wiping herself and the blood and faeces traces upon the apron piece. I do not in any way say this is true, but pose the possibility.

Why she then went towards Church passage, if that was indeed her that was correctly identified, or even direct to Mitre Square via another entrance of course is a mystery. Was she accompanied perhaps? Again, a walk to Mitre Square would be no more than 15 mins at the very outside. 8mins at a normal pace perhaps.

One other intruiging thought is that if she had have gone to Goulston Street and been there at around 01.15am.. would this have tallied with Long's patrol times, working backwards? It seems to have taken him around 35 mins..2.55, 2.20,..counting backwards then..1.45, 1.10.

Of course we will never know, like much else.

The 2nd question is about the writing. Is it possible that a Jew living in the vicinity wrote it perhaps earlier that night, ironically meant, as a complaint by way of "whatever happens, the Jews always get the blame, even it they do nothing wrong.." ? i.e. as graffiti that has nothing to do with the killing itself? Again, plausible?

best wishes

Phil

[Monty]

“From what I remember Neil, any suggestion of a light source close enough to shed sufficient light was left undeterminable. Which raised the question what was Mr Foster (a surveyor) actually trying to indicate?

Regards, Jon S.“

As a Surveyor I say he was doing what came naturally to him Jon.

There's also the possibility that the question of lighting arose, and they wanted to place the nearest lamp to the entrance.

Monty