Is Eddowes demise the key?

[Henry Flower]

And Lynn, thanks for keeping us all honest, making sure we don't lapse into lazy suppositions and flawed thinking without sufficient evidence.

While at the same time informing us it's a STRONG possibility that the Schwartz story was a "necessary fiction" contrived by Wolf Wess or Jacob Rombro to deflect police attention/blame from the IWMEC.

Can anyone play this game?

[lynn cates]

Copernicus

Hello Henry. Not a matter of being right. It's a matter of truth. Consider:


For several millennia it was just a given that the sun moved around the earth. It was presupposed by Ahkenaton in his hymn, the ancient Greeks accepted it as fact, and Aristotle—perhaps the first scientist—went so far as to try to explain the mechanism. He thought that there were a series of crystalline spheres circling the earth and the sun, moon, planets and stars occupied one sphere each.

Few, if any, questioned this. Why should one? After all, one can conduct a simple experiment to “verify” this. Go out of doors in the morning—just before sunup—and look in a roughly easterly direction. In a few moments the sun will appear. Look long enough (careful for the eyes!) and use a fixed object as reference point and it will be “clear” that the sun is moving around the earth. It’s common sense.

Late in antiquity, Ptolemy wrote his treatise “Almagest” in which he codified his knowledge of the heavens. Later, when anomalies were found, epicycles were posited to explain them away. Eventually, epicycles within epicycles were required to save the system.

Later on, Copernicus suggested that it may be simpler to think of the sun as at the centre and the earth as moving around it. This seemed to be nonsense and to defy reason. What could be more obvious than that the earth were at the centre?

Today, the Copernican model is hardly questioned. Its utility lies in the simplicity of its explanation—it requires NO epicycles to save it.

Now, substitute Ptolemy for the one killer/C5 view, Copernicus for the more than one killer view, epicycles with “Somehow Jack found a way to . . .”; “And then, he must have doubled back and . . .”; “Yes, the timing is off but that’s only because . . .” and you will get some idea where I and a few others are coming from.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

speaking of . . .

Hello (again) Henry. Us? Well, at least I'm addressing the spokesperson.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Errata. Do you think there is any possibility that the Schwartz story was a "necessary fiction" contrived by Wolf Wess or Jacob Rombro to deflect police attention/blame from the IWMEC?

Cheers.
LC

It's possible, but a: it's a pretty believable story, given the tenor of the times and b: it wasn't police blame they would have been worried about, and by the time of the "double event" there was at least anecdotal evidence of the police taking great care to not put the Jewish community in unnecessary danger. Ironically, the crackdowns on anti-semitic crimes instigated because of anti Jew sentiment and Jack the Ripper led to the greatest tolerance Jews had known in the country. Mr. Disraeli didn't hurt either. Whatever people thought of Jews, they stopped attacking them. So, that's a win. By the time WWI rolled around it was almost chic to be Jewish. Almost.

The Jewish community was in enough fear for their safety that they were pathetically grateful for the little the police did to stop mob mentality attacks. I believe there is a letter to either Abberline or Anderson from the Rabbis of London to that effect. My family came to the US through London. They fled the pogroms in Russia, came to London, and it was evidently so bad that when my great great uncle Michel grew up, he hauled his family BACK to Russia just in time to be conscripted into the Army for the Russo-Japanese War, where he was a POW for 6 years.(funny story though probably not so funny at the time) Now, it wasn't so bad in London that Michel didn't make a colossally idiotic decision, but it was bad enough he felt the need to escape, and the US wasn't an option for him at that time.

So anyway, it's possible. Personally, I would not have chosen someone who didn't speak English to deliver the story. Just a personal preference I guess. As a witness statement pertinent to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, of course it matters if it's true. As a statement about the Jewish condition in the Victorian London slums, it's a pretty accurate reflection, if it isn't true. In the end, the point is that anti-semitic statements were far from rare. In fact, about as common as the use of the word "******" in the US in the forties. (And specifically the 40s, because the 30s were just awful for African Americans, but the 50s was the birth of the civil rights movement, and people standing up to such treatment.) It's just the reality of the era. Whether or not anti-semitism is at the root of this case is for the individual to decide, but epithets and graffiti were nothing new, and nothing special. Had they been anti-Swiss, THAT would have been special.

[Monty]

Lynne, with all due respect - bravo for exposing the possibility of flawed thinking etc - but do you not see how far we've strayed yet again? Phil Carter suggests there were two throat-cutting gut-opening killers working Whitechapel during the autumn of 1888, that one killed Nichols and Chapman, another Eddowes and Kelly, and here we are stuck on Stride yet again. Ridiculous.

And as for flawed thinking, I know of very few people who insist that they know with absolute certainty that Stride was a Ripper victim. I certainly don't - but feel free to keep hammering away at it until everyone agrees that you're right.

"Oh, dear", as the truly patronising might say.

I'm liking you more with each post of yours I read Henry.

It has now come to the stage where I am obsolete (cue Mr Wood at this point). I think I shall retire.

Monty....sitting by the pool in Costa Del Reality.

[Henry Flower]

Monty, you're very kind to say that. However, your valuable contributions are in no way obsolete and I insist you continue to post here. In fact, take that as a threat: if you retire from the boards I'll send people to find you and hurt you.

Lynne, thank you for your grandiosity! It truly brought a smile to my face on an otherwise grey morning here in the East End of London. De Revolutionibus!

So I've read your potted history of astronomy, and if my tiny brain can grasp the point you're making, it is that because historically some ideas have been commonly held and yet proved eventually to be wrong, then some other commonly held ideas (such as the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper!) might also turn out to be wrong! Well blow me down, that had never occurred to me! Thank you for the gift of truth!

Because if you re-read my posts, my only argument all along has been that because the majority have believed Stride to be a Ripper victim for a majority of the time, then I am dogmatically wedded to her inclusion and view her exclusion as more or less a heresy. What a silly Ptolemy I've been!

So, returning to earth, Lynne, from the noble realms of your truth to the grubby reality of the suppositions and guesswork that must constitute Ripperology - anything to say regarding the rather odd coincidence proposed by Phil Carter?

[lynn cates]

Schwartz

Hello Errata.

"It's a pretty believable story, given the tenor of the times"

The assault of a woman? Of course. But, what does it mean to scream, but not loudly? And why is pipe man hanging about a pub that had closed? It's the minutiae that sparks my interest--and incredulity here.

"It wasn't police blame they would have been worried about, and by the time of the "double event" there was at least anecdotal evidence of the police taking great care to not put the Jewish community in unnecessary danger."

Yes, but remember, these were NOT any Jews, they were Anarchists.

"Personally, I would not have chosen someone who didn't speak English to deliver the story."

But that is PERFECT. As has been argued elsewhere, Schwartz could have been reciting his Aunt Rachel's recipe for knish, and the interpreter could interpolate any story he chose.

"As a witness statement pertinent to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, of course it matters if it's true."

Yes. And recall that "The Star" began to have doubts about it after their interview.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Phil

Hello Henry.

"historically some ideas have been commonly held and yet proved eventually to be wrong"

Actually, NOTHING has been proven. A proof is a deductive affair, science is inductive. It relies on sensory experience and, to this day, there is no extra sensory corroboration given for them.

Phil Carter is a good friend. I applaud his programme of study. His theory? I have no idea. I prefer to defer to his explanation of his theories.

Cheers.
LC

[Henry Flower]

Hi Lynn,

Thanks again! I think these boards would be more productive if everyone alternated between outright preachy condescension and dull semantic nit-picking. We'd have the Ripper nailed in no time at all.

Oh boy...

[Observer]

"Two prostitutes."

Oh, dear. No shred of evidence for this. A woman gets out of gaol, needs to wee wee, has serious hunger pangs and a headache, and needs a lie down, yet she goes to turn a trick to get money for her boy friend.

Sheesh.

Cheers.
LC

Dear me. No evidence? I forget the newpaper in question, but it did mention that there was a police constable who had looked at the body of Catherine Eddowes in the mortuary who expressed his opinion that he had seen the deceased walking several times in the vicinity of Aldgate High Street. And yes, by walking he did mean soliciting.

Furthermore

Eddowes gets out of jail at 1:00 a.m. Even if she did need a wee wee, nearest back lane, down there, does the business, a minutes later problem solved. She is still 30 + minutes from meeting with her killer.

Needs to "turn a trick" in order to get money for her boyfriend? No, no. Apparently she is hungry, and so decides to turn a trick in order to alleviate some of the hunger pangs she feels. Trick money provided, she retreats to one of the many all night tea stands in the area for a much needed cuppa, and a nice cheese sandwich.

And now she needs a lie down. No money, turn another trick for a doss (provided she can find one) or get her head down in the shed fronting 23 Dorset Street? You decide.

Of course Jack the Ripper, lone serial killer, prevents her from filling her stomach, or lying at rest.

It's fun speculating is it not? And believe me, that's all were ever going to be able to do to fill in the moments in time where the victims stray out of the grasps of known evidence. The thing is, to say the very least (heh heh) some of us have more vivid imaginations than others. All good fun. But that's all it is. Isn't it? Reality is a different beast altogether.

Regards

Observer

[Observer]

Hi Lynn,

Thanks again! I think these boards would be more productive if everyone alternated between outright preachy condescension and dull semantic nit-picking. We'd have the Ripper nailed in no time at all.

Oh boy...

I doubt it Henry. The bird has flown the roost.

[Sally]

No Proof

Nothing has been proven? Good Lord!

So, does this mean that without definitive proof of Darwin's theory, it would be theoretically possible to devolve from dinosaurs?

I'm confused. Speculatively, of course.

[lynn cates]

research

Hello Henry. I propose research, not invective. But each to his own.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

deduction

Hello Sally. Nothing EMPIRICAL. Things mathematical? Of course. They are deductive.

Cheers.
LC

[Henry Flower]

Sorry, dozed off there. Yeah, research, not invective. You propose it. Good stuff! An example to us all.

I propose we also drop sanctimony, but each to their own.