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]

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!

Not at one o'clock in the morning. Even when the stalls were open, nobody would have been clamouring for a single manky, knackered, patched old apron - and nobody would have given much for it even as scrap, assuming they were mad enough to buy it.

[Michael W Richards]

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"?

Its not A day Sam, its over days, likely beginning when she told her ex-landlady about her plans...when was that, Wednesday? And who is to say she wasn't planning this on the way back from hopping?

That large gash that appears on the left side of her face in the drawing has part of the cut being across the bridge of her nose, so...a nose cut gone too deep and too long, and the rest from that sketch could have been the result of his being sloppy with a sharp knife while carving her face. And its carved, not slashed. In near darkness. Noses that were cut in prior cases weren't completely removed as I recall, its the symbolism that's the point..and its has less to do with Kate and more to do with people that will find out what happened to her. Its a warning, not a punishment.

I am used to you trying to downplay any posts anyone makes, in particular every one I make..but on Conway, I never said he was a sympathizer, Fenian or anything of the like. I suggested that Irish immigrants in London would know other Irish immigrants whether they shared political views on Self Rule or not. As I recall the terror incidents around town by Self Rule factions started around the time you say Conway came to London, so he would co-exist with the people Im describing. Jews gravitated towards other Jews when they arrived in London, so did all different nationalities and ethnicities. Kate would have met some through Conway.

[Michael W Richards]

Leanne, I asked you this simple question before....why on earth would she sell a dirty used apron worth nothing when she has a new jacket on?

[Sam Flynn]

Its not A day Sam, its over days, likely beginning when she told her ex-landlady about her plans...when was that, Wednesday? And who is to say she wasn't planning this on the way back from hopping?

What did her ex-landlady do, send a bat-signal to the Fenians?

You're missing all my main points, though - chief among them being the sheer unlikelihood of an impoverished little sparrow from Wolverhampton getting involved with Irish political terrorists. Her Irish ex-soldier "husband" - from whom she'd split 8 years before the Ripper murders - was a middle-aged pamphlet seller with a chronic illness, for which reason he'd had to leave the (British) Army decades earlier. Given that he'd also spent much of his British life in the Midlands, where he met and "married" an English girl, he also seems an unlikely candidate to have been mixing it with anti-English terrorists in London.

[DJA]

The thing I like about this thread is that it gives us pause to review the known and the hearsay again. By the accounts of several people Kate and John lived fairly quietly for the most part. They left London together to go hopping, and returned together. That's when this story gets tested, do we see them acting in the way described by others? Johns getting drunk Friday night...on what I imagine is the pawn money, and Kate is off on her own, only stopping in the next morning briefly before moving on. She gets drunk, so drunk, she is put in a cell to cool off. John hears of this later on. She is released at 1am and heads in the opposite direction of where John would be.

45 minutes later she is found "rippered" in Mitre Square. John doesn't go looking for her, asking about if anyone knows where she might be, and Tuesday morning he reads the paper and realizes its Kate. The couple that slept together nearly every night, and seemed to be quiet, spent Friday night through Monday night apart.

It appears as if Kate has business she is tending to, and John doesn't seem to be concerned about it. Or John knows better than to speak of what he knows, or who they knew. Its too late to save Kate but he can still save his own ass.

Friday night they had sixpence.4d for John's bed and Kate took 2d with her to Shoe Lane.

Eddowes was killed very early Sunday morning.

[DJA]

Its not A day Sam, its over days, likely beginning when she told her ex-landlady about her plans...when was that, Wednesday? And who is to say she wasn't planning this on the way back from hopping?

You are probably referring to the superintendent of the Shoe Lane casual ward on Friday night.

She returned seeking a reward for snitching on the Whitechapel murderer and was warned she might be murdered instead.

[Trevor Marriott]

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.

Why would it have to be wrong, Lawende and his two friends concur on the time they left the club 1.35am

So we can deduce that at 1.35am the couple had not entered the square, as to what time they did we can only speculate it could have been 1.36/37/38, and there lies the rub of the green. The later they left the entrance to walk into the square, the less time the killer had to do all that he is purported to have done.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Leanne]

Not at one o'clock in the morning. Even when the stalls were open, nobody would have been clamouring for a single manky, knackered, patched old apron - and nobody would have given much for it even as scrap, assuming they were mad enough to buy it.

READ MY LIPS:
She was waiting for it to open!!!!!!!!!
she didn't sell it because it was still amongst her possessions
They sold second hand rags
Aprons were very much needed items
She didn't need much to pay for a bed on fashion street!

[Leanne]

Leanne, I asked you this simple question before....why on earth would she sell a dirty used apron worth nothing when she has a new jacket on?

Because she wanted to keep her new jacket. And the apron could have been replaced (with the 12 pieces of rag?).
Why would you sell your new jacket before you sold your apron?

[Leanne]

….Why would she need 12 pieces of rag if the apron only had one patch?

[Leanne]

You are probably referring to the superintendent of the Shoe Lane casual ward on Friday night.

She returned seeking a reward for snitching on the Whitechapel murderer and was warned she might be murdered instead.

ShE THOUGHT she knew who the Ripper was. THOUGHT! She was in desperate need of money. How many no-hopers would have tried to pocket the reward offered?

[Leanne]

JACK: "No dear, you don't have to sell your apron at todays' rag-fair, (APRON lock that into my long-term memory). I have a better way you can earn money.

KATE: "I could claim the reward offered. I think I know who the killer is."

JACK: (She obviously doesn't know anything)

[DJA]

Guess I'll just take that lot in my Stride

[Sam Flynn]

READ MY LIPS:
She was waiting for it to open!!!!!!!!!
she didn't sell it because it was still amongst her possessions
They sold second hand rags
Aprons were very much needed items
She didn't need much to pay for a bed on fashion street!

You just don't listen, do you? Don't like shouting, but for one last time:

THERE WAS NOWHERE OPEN FOR HER TO SELL HER CRAPPY APRON AT THAT TIME OF THE MORNING.

It's a ridiculous idea.