Kate's Last Half Hour

[Leanne]

SUNDAY MORNING ON PETTICOAT LANE

In the core of the City, on a Sunday morning, there are streets as silent as sepulchres. When you disturb their bush with your echoing footfall, you do not see another human being, except, perhaps, some weary watchman or housekeeper looking down with lack-lustre eyes on the bare pavement of the deserted close-shuttered thoroughfares, or into a disused churchless churchyard, walled in, like the bottom of a well, with towering warehouses.
It is startling to cross from that drowsy calm into the BRAWLING BUSTLE OF THE ALDGATE AND WHITECHAPEL JEWS' QUARTER.
In and about Houndsditch SHOPS ARE OPEN and watchmakers at work, heedless of the chaff upon their screwed-up eyes shouted in at them by filthy young roughs hanging before their windows. Every now and then some one passes with a garment or hat in his hand, or a CLOTHES BAG ON HIS BACK. Phil's Buildings and Cutler Street are choked with buyers and sellers of OLD CLOTHES male and female, pouring in and out of the old-clothes exchanges like very dirty bees at the entrances of very dingy hives. The atmosphere of those densely-thronged marts does not remind one of "spicy breezes [-171-] blowing soft from Ceylon's isle "-it is redolent of oleaginous malodours, of a general dusty musty, fustiness. And yet what energetic bargaining is going on over the old garments!

STUDY THAT!

'

[Sam Flynn]

as I indicated, these men might well be connected to Kates past..and her time in Irish social circles. Irish Army men in London would know Irish self rule factions in London

If you mean Thomas Conway, then he'd left the army (to which he'd enlisted to fight for the British) some 30 years previously, because of chronic health problems. He spent many years in the English Midlands, where he sold poems, hooked up with Eddowes and started a family. Moving to London in the late 1860s or 1870s, they separated in 1880.

None of this suggests that Conway was ever a Fenian activist or even a sympathiser, still less that Eddowes herself had anything to do with Irish political activists.

[Leanne]

SUNDAY MORNING ON PETICOAT LANE:

https://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/lifein-11.htm

Petticoat Lane was Middlesex Street and Wentworth Street.

[Leanne]

I've been studying the Victorian poor for nearly two decades, so I'm probably more aware than most. I'm also aware that there would have been nowhere open at that time on a Sunday morning for her to sell a knackered old apron.

LISTEN
I am not saying that there was somewhere open that morning!!!!!!!!
I believe she would have walked around until somewhere opened!....UNDERSTAND??????….she was waiting

THAT'S WHY SHE STILL HAD THE APRON IN HER POSSESSIONS FOR JACK TO CUT....UNDERSTAND?

[Sam Flynn]

But we're talking about these events unfolding in barely a day, Michael. I might (ever so slightly) be more sympathetic if she'd been threatening them for weeks or months, but for all this to happen within 2 days of her return from Kent is highly unlikely.

As to the nose cuts... what about the wounds to the eyes, cheeks - not just the "V"s, but the massive gash down the right side of her face - the lip/gum, mouth, chin and ear? Why take off just the tip of the nose, and not a more extensive wound, to signify a "snitch"?

[Michael W Richards]

But how do two almost-tramps get into a position where they're moving in the right circles to get the necessary inside info? Even if they had such info, they've basically got just over a day to make their blackmail threats known, for their enemies to decide to silence them and to actually carry out the "hit". And then they only bump off Kate, so why not John as well?

The "right circle" Sam are criminals.

And

John

wasnt making threats...as I indicated, these men might well be connected to Kates past..and her time in Irish social circles. Irish Army men in London would know Irish self rule factions in London, hell, they might have been neighbors back home. What makes a terrorist? A cause, anyone can become militant with the right provocation. That's doesn't excuse the fact they choose violence and murder as acceptable tools of change. Kate may well have been exposed to bad dudes during those years and some may have turned out to be very bad dudes after a few years. Maybe that's why she would feel she could pull this off...she knew the men, maybe old acquaintances might allow her though this safely. That's why the nose cuts...she was from their own circle, and as such, even more to be spurned for even considering snitching.

Somethings amiss in this story, and it might be a result of the local underworlds involvement in crimes in London at that time. Who knew what might be a pivotal issue.

[Sam Flynn]

Does Kate spend a small advance of her hush money Saturday evening?

It must have been an extremely small advance if she was able to fritter it away on booze.

[Sam Flynn]

How long could someone last in London in October 1888 in barefeet

If you look at contemporary East End photographs, you'll find a lot of kids going around barefoot, and I daresay some adults would have done so from time to time.

[Sam Flynn]

2 simple impoverished people believing they might have stumbled on a get rich quick scheme, that's real life right there.

But how do two almost-tramps get into a position where they're moving in the right circles to get the necessary inside info? Even if they had such info, they've basically got just over a day to make their blackmail threats known, for their enemies to decide to silence them and to actually carry out the "hit". And then they only bump off Kate, so why not John as well?

[Michael W Richards]

Ok, so Kelly pawns his boots Friday night, did he have other shoes? Does he mention any? How long could someone last in London in October 1888 in barefeet..the mud, horse dung...does his willingness to pawn these indicate he had a belief he would be able to get them back out of hock soon? Like with the shirt ticket? Did he feel some money was imminent, and worth waiting for by pawning his only boots for a little bit?

Does Kate spend a small advance of her hush money Saturday evening?

[Michael W Richards]

But you were the one questioning the ID. If you want me to give a definitive answer, on what I know, and how i interpret the facts, then I would say it was Eddowes !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Even Lawende questioned his own ability to ID anyone within 2 weeks Trevor, and he didn't get a great look. The timing of Lawende would have to be wrong for me to buy that it was Kate there.

[Michael W Richards]

John Kelly was an odd-jobber who had been working for a fruit-seller quite steadily for a number of years, but was never well-off and was desperately poor when he first steps into our spotlight. For up to two days before Kate's death, he and she had been trying to scrape together some money by going hopping in Kent, crashing out in a barn. This hopping expedition was hardly a financial success, to the extent that Kelly was forced to pawn his boots on returning to London. Given this background, neither he nor Eddowes strike me as the kind of people to have been involved in any conspiracies, in any capacity.

With all due respect Sam, its the down and out that resort to get rich quick schemes, they understand that they have nothing to lose by trying. Neither was a financial mind, and likely both drank, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't recognize an opportunity to cash in, selling something they knew rather than their clothes. I find this entirely plausible as a storyline, and I think maybe that the reason Kelly stayed out of it is because the person Kate thought she knew was the killer was from her Irish social circle days with Conway. And the Irish Self rule factions were, during that period in time, planning to kill Lord Balfour. The need to silence any potential canaries would be obvious.

2 simple impoverished people believing they might have stumbled on a get rich quick scheme, that's real life right there.

[FISHY1118]

Good, then your all for the 6 minute kill and mutilate scenario ?

But you were the one questioning the ID. If you want me to give a definitive answer, on what I know, and how i interpret the facts, then I would say it was Eddowes !

[Sam Flynn]

DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

She had to wait and that's why she took a better offer from Jack!
………who probably wasn't the person she suspected!

Nobody's going to wait several hours for the shops to open, especially when all they've got to sell is a tatty old apron that probably wouldn't fetch a farthing as "scrap".

[Trevor Marriott]

I dont think probability comes into it Trevor, it either was or wasn't Eddowes, we cant or nor should we suggest what others did or didn't see.

And as i dont subscribe to the 1.37am to 1.43am time frame murder and mutilation of Eddows its my opinion it wasnt

But you were the one questioning the ID. If you want me to give a definitive answer, on what I know, and how i interpret the facts, then I would say it was Eddowes !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk