Kate's Apron

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Wick,
I was trying to say that as the two new witnesses had completely different stories from L and L, they had to be two other people. As their evidence was only of a sighting in the vicinity of Mitre Square, of a woman on her own, and at a time which seems to be a few minutes before L and L, then their evidence became of little or no value once L and L saw her later and in the company of a man. I would have thought that the coroner could see little point in calling them to the inquest.

[Wickerman]

There is something else too.
The Times article suggests the victim was alone.

"Two witnesses have also been found who state that they saw the deceased standing at the corner of Duke-street, Aldgate, a few minutes' walk from Mitre-square. This was as near as they can recollect about half-past 1 o'clock, and she was then alone. They recognized her on account of the white apron she was wearing"

We may recall when Lawende was questioned at the inquest Crawford, the Solicitor for the police, pleaded with the court that no description be given of the suspect.
"I do not think further particulars should be given as to the appearance of this man."

It is likely then that originally Lawende was cautioned not to say anything about this man, possibly Levy too.
The Times reporter cannot have interviewed Lawende due to the fact he had been sequestered by police. That only leaves Levy as the source. In order to comply with a likely caution, he made no mention of a suspect with the victim?

[Wickerman]

In Collard's evidence, given on the 4th Oct, he says that these two had already been found by house to house search and would be giving evidence later. So the report on 11th can't really refer to them, unless there's a major communication failure somewhere.

Yes, I see Collards remarks.
I don't see why there should be any conflict. Sheldon works for the Coroner, the City police had, sometime prior to the 4th discovered two witnesses.
Presumably, statements were obtained by the police at the time.
Those statements would be forwarded to Sheldon at the Coroner's office at some point, not necessarily the same day.
Once Sheldon reads their statements on the 4th or 5th?, they both become official witnesses.

With this sequence of events in mind, we read the Times article:

A good deal of fresh evidence will be given at the adjourned inquest, which will be held to-day at the City Coroner's Court, Golden-lane, upon the body of the Mitre-square victim. Since the adjournment, Shelton, the coroner's officer, has, with the assistance of the City police authorities, discovered several new witnesses, including the daughter of the deceased, who was found to be occupying a respectable situation as a domestic in the neighbourhood of Kensington.

It doesn't mean Sheldon accompanied the police on a house-to-house search. The police make the discovery, their statements are passed to the Coroners Office, and Sheldon makes out a summons for both to appear. The discovery is both Sheldon's & the police.

The Times article doesn't contest them being Lawende & Levy.

[JeffHamm]

Why would Brown be tasked with disrobing and checking.As I see it Brown was called to examine the body in the square.He next attended at the mortuary at 2pm that day to perform the autopsy.By that time the body had been disrobed and a list completed.How could he have taken anything from the body.Where is the evidence he (Brown) was at the mortuary anytime after leaving the square untill 2pm.It is stated that a Mortuary attendant removed,the clothing.Are you saying that is incorrect Jon,and it was Brown who removed the clothing?
Like you imply Jeff,these quotes from Wickerman do need investigation as to their origin.Such as his claim the court reporters didn't use shorthand.Some of them did.Of course it appears a better arguement to prove paper reporters the more talented,when the information discussed is from newspapers.

The quotes are very close to the inquest statements as recorded in the official inquest documents, and in the newspaper transcriptions as well. It's just the inclusion of the size portion that deviates. While it might be convenient to some of the arguments I've been making to grab on to that bit, I'm not interested in doing so because it's something that doesn't appear in the known contemporary sources. So until I know where it came from, and how it was obtained, I can't form an opinion as to whether or not it's "real", for lack of a better word. Just because it supports things I've said isn't the basis upon which I evaluate the source or truth of the evidence, despite what Trevor may think (he's wrong on that account, but continues to claim I'm determined to support the police of 1888 because it's his way of deflecting arguments he cannot counter with logic and evidence).

The rest appears to be more or less a transcription of actual testimony. It is possible, as Wickerman points out, that there is a newspaper that reports the statement as having included that bit of information, which would then provide us with the source for the book. If that does turn up, mystery solved, if not, either we've not tracked it down yet or it's an error introduced during the writing of the book (meaning, we are left not knowing for sure; one can't prove a negative, meaning not finding it doesn't mean it's not out there).

The newspapers record a lot more detail that the court recorders did. The papers often include the questions, who asked it, and also additional statements, often nearer the end of the testimony, that the court recorders did not. The inquest documents are written longhand, we have those, because people had to sign them, so even if they could do shorthand, they didn't. Newspapers didn't require signatures, and shorthand was a basic skill necessary to be a good reporter, so it would make sense they would use it. But, it may also be, the court recorders job didn't include documenting questions, just the witness statements, while the news wanted to cover all of it.

In either case, both are transcripts of what the witnesses said, and having those records for our examination is very useful. We shouldn't limit ourselves to only examining one or the other. However, as we all know, when it comes to newspapers and more paraphrased presentations (typical of when interviews were held), a lot more caution needs to be taken as the reporters don't record the questions they asked, nor do they present a transcription of the reply, leaving lots of room to fudge the actual information to sell a story. But for the inquest transcripts, we are very lucky that some papers chose to publish them more or less verbatim.

- Jeff

[Joshua Rogan]

Either your two witnesses were never called, or they had to be Lawende & Levy, in my opinion.

In Collard's evidence, given on the 4th Oct, he says that these two had already been found by house to house search and would be giving evidence later. So the report on 11th can't really refer to them, unless there's a major communication failure somewhere.

[harry]

Why would Brown be tasked with disrobing and checking.As I see it Brown was called to examine the body in the square.He next attended at the mortuary at 2pm that day to perform the autopsy.By that time the body had been disrobed and a list completed.How could he have taken anything from the body.Where is the evidence he (Brown) was at the mortuary anytime after leaving the square untill 2pm.It is stated that a Mortuary attendant removed,the clothing.Are you saying that is incorrect Jon,and it was Brown who removed the clothing?
Like you imply Jeff,these quotes from Wickerman do need investigation as to their origin.Such as his claim the court reporters didn't use shorthand.Some of them did.Of course it appears a better arguement to prove paper reporters the more talented,when the information discussed is from newspapers.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff.

The Ripper File tends to provide sources for the quotes used, it's unfortunate they didn't for that quote by Halse. I can see quotes being embellished by an author to provide a detail that supports his/her theory, I just didn't see why the authors would add "about half of it" to Halse's testimony, when referring to the apron, if it isn't what their source included. That detail has no bearing on the theory behind the book.

The newspapers do include details not captured by the court recorder, so I'm not worried on that score.
As I've pointed out scores of times, the press used shorthand & the court recorder did not. Which enables the press to record more of what is said.
I'm constantly monitoring the B.N.A. for a newspaper that could be the source used by the authors of that quote.

As for Smith, yes I've repeatedly warned against anyone using Memoirs to support a theory, but in this case Smith was present and the size of the piece of missing apron was never an issue before I pointed it out.
Aside from the quote above by Halse, Major Smith would be the only source who estimated a size for the G.S. piece, no-one else thought to do so. Which in itself does not automatically mean we should doubt the statement.

I am cautious when using Memoirs when I know what they say is not accurate, when what is written conflicts with other sources. In this case there is no conflict, except with Trevor, but not with any contemporary sources, which is the reason I used the quote.

Hi Wickerman,

Yah, I see what you're saying. I too think the newspaper transcriptions are things we're very fortunate to have, for the same reasons you mention. The newspaper summary presentations are less useful than the more verbatim reports of course, as by definition the reporters opinions of what was said will creep in, but the transcript versions, with questions included, are a luxury for us.

And indeed, if that quote can be tracked down to a contemporary source, that would be a great find. I could see that detail slipping in by the authors simply because it was a bit of information they had and it got included in his testimony during the preparation of the manuscript as an error of transcription. Those sorts of things happen, and creating a reliable transcription is a difficult task, with word choice, punctuation choice, and so forth, all creeping in as possible errors.

As for Smith's memoirs, I agree, they have to be checked against contemporary sources of information, but if they survive that check then to an extent they become redundant. Where they provide new statements of fact, like the size of the piece being 1/2, even when embedded in a section that appears otherwise corroborated, I still view them as "suspect". The "new" information may only be there because that's reflective of the types of errors memoirs have. But, we work with what we have, and from the sounds of all the other testimonies and events, it does tend to point towards the GS piece being a fairly substantial portion of the apron. I would just prefer to have something recorded at the time indicating it's dimensions. If we had that, it would have saved a lot of bandwidth - or maybe not.

- Jeff

[Wickerman]

Hi Wick,

I cannot believe that the new witnesses were Lawende and Levy because of the totally different stories - the white apron, and her being alone were specified. I don't have any actual firm information, but I assumed that once L and L appeared, the other two witnesses became of little value.

Let me just say this, all the witnesses gave their statements to the police. The Coroner receives all the statements from police, he reads them, and chooses who to call to his inquest.
Therefore, the Coroner already knew what Lawende, Levy & your two new witnesses had to say. This is why I very much doubt the reasoning you give above.
The Coroner already knew what they saw, so he couldn't be surprised by what they say. He is reading from their police statements to form the questions he puts to them.
Either your two witnesses were never called, or they had to be Lawende & Levy, in my opinion.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Wick,

I cannot believe that the new witnesses were Lawende and Levy because of the totally different stories - the white apron, and her being alone were specified. I don't have any actual firm information, but I assumed that once L and L appeared, the other two witnesses became of little value. They were only ever going to be able to say that a woman in a white apron, whom they believed was Eddowes, was seen very near where she died, minutes before she died - well of course she was there, she didn't drop in by parachute - and she was alone. Once Lawende and Levy appeared, they had a later sighting of her, and saw a potential killer.

Lawende said that he only saw her back, so I assume the clothes he identified were perhaps the bonnet and jacket which he specified. Presumably Levy saw only the same rear view from the same angle, but he was much more vague, saying he couldn't give a description.

[Wickerman]

Hi Wick,

I assumed that the witnesses couldn't be Lawende and Levy, because the new witnesses apparently specified that they recognized Eddowes by the white apron. Also they said she was alone. Lawende said he only saw her back. Levy could not give any detailed description of either of them. Both Lawende and Levy said she was with a man.

The new witnesses would perhaps have been of little value in the inquest, because they only put her near Mitre Square just before she was murdered, and obviously, she must have been there, and they saw her alone. So, assuming that Lawende and Levy did actually correctly identify Eddowes, the new witnesses probably saw her a couple of minutes earlier.

Hi, for some reason I keep thinking to call you Doctor Ed.


Anyhow, we know who appeared at the inquest, and more especially on 11th October, so if your two witnesses did appear, who else could they be?
I was initially interested because neither Lawende nor Levy made any special point about seeing an apron, but like many other details that could be simply that the court recorder didn't think to write it down.

We also have details like the size of the grafitti - the capitals being about 3/4 inch tall (or words to that effect), which we have debated over the years, yet none of that was captured by the court recorder either. We only read it in the press.
So, I'm not concerned that this specific detail (re: the apron) is missing, because both Lawende & Levy say they only recognised the victim by her clothes, which includes an apron.
They didn't see her face, which means they were not permitted to view the body at the mortuary.

[Wickerman]

Hi Wickerman,

Sadly, Smith's memoir's were written many years later, and as you say, are known to be inaccurate. I try and avoid those as sources to work with. In part because it is prone to selective reasoning. If what they say fits the evidence from the time period, we include it, but if what they say doesn't, we discard it. But we can't then say we have one more piece of evidence because we only have it because it already agrees! We wouldn't count it as a "strike against", so it biases the amount of evidence in favour of what one already has used to include it.

Same with newspapers. We have to make sure we don't count as "2 pieces of evidence" two newspapers simply printing the exact same text (meaning, the same story was reprinted). I can copy out a story 30 times, that doesn't mean I now have 30 pieces of evidence.

I don't know "The Ripper File", but the quote above looks like the inquest statement, but slightly modified. I don't recall seeing a quote to Halse where he says, for example, "About half of it."? But it also leaves out the bit where he says he went to the police station. Is that quote from a contemporary newspaper, or does it just appear in The Ripper File book, unsourced?

- Jeff

Hi Jeff.

The Ripper File tends to provide sources for the quotes used, it's unfortunate they didn't for that quote by Halse. I can see quotes being embellished by an author to provide a detail that supports his/her theory, I just didn't see why the authors would add "about half of it" to Halse's testimony, when referring to the apron, if it isn't what their source included. That detail has no bearing on the theory behind the book.

The newspapers do include details not captured by the court recorder, so I'm not worried on that score.
As I've pointed out scores of times, the press used shorthand & the court recorder did not. Which enables the press to record more of what is said.
I'm constantly monitoring the B.N.A. for a newspaper that could be the source used by the authors of that quote.

As for Smith, yes I've repeatedly warned against anyone using Memoirs to support a theory, but in this case Smith was present and the size of the piece of missing apron was never an issue before I pointed it out.
Aside from the quote above by Halse, Major Smith would be the only source who estimated a size for the G.S. piece, no-one else thought to do so. Which in itself does not automatically mean we should doubt the statement.

I am cautious when using Memoirs when I know what they say is not accurate, when what is written conflicts with other sources. In this case there is no conflict, except with Trevor, but not with any contemporary sources, which is the reason I used the quote.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Trevor,

I think the penny has dropped!

I think I actually get what you're saying now.

The 12 pieces of rag are the apron! The apron she was in possession of was cut into 12 (well 13 since one is in G.S.) pieces.

That's why you are now saying the piece is small, because it is just one of at least 13 pieces, maybe even more if she used some of the other pieces already.

- Jeff

Sorry, I got excited, that 2nd to last line should read:

The 12 pieces of rag are the apron! The apron she was in possession of was cut into 12 (well 13 since one is in G.S.) pieces. Or, if not the actual pieces of rag mentioned, are another collection of pieces of material and not one large piece (at the crime scene) and another piece of indeterminant size at G.S.

I forgot to say that what you're suggesting could mean the "or" part as well as the first possibility (presumably you would only mean one of those options).

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Does it no even occur to you that she was in possession of old pieces of white apron which had come from an old apron which at some time had been the subject of a repair. It would make sense because as you say would she want to walk around with an old tatty repaired apron

The more you keep posting the bigger hole you dig for yourself

www.trevormarriott.co.ik

Hi Trevor,

I think the penny has dropped!

I think I actually get what you're saying now.

The 12 pieces of rag are the apron! The apron she was in possession of was cut into 12 (well 13 since one is in G.S.) pieces.

That's why you are now saying the piece is small, because it is just one of at least 13 pieces, maybe even more if she used some of the other pieces already.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Indeed, Smith was at the mortuary, Smith & Halse gave an observation of the apron.

Halse is quoted to have said:

'When I saw the dead woman at the mortuary I noticed that a piece of her apron was missing. About half of it. It had been cut with a clean cut. When I got back to Mitre Square I heard that a piece of apron had been found in Goulston Street. I went there with Detective Hunt to the spot where the apron had been discovered. There I saw some chalk writing on the wall. I stayed there and I sent Hunt to find Mr McWilliam.'
- (Jones & Lloyd, The Ripper File - pg 126)

Also, Sir Henry Smith, though heavily critisized for being inaccurate in some statements, was at least known to be present for this report:

'By this time the stretcher had arrived, and when we got the body to the mortuary, the first discovery we made was that about one-half of the apron was missing. It had been severed by a clean cut'.
- (Sir Henry Smith, From Constable to Commissioner - pg 152)

https://www.casebook.org/dissertatio...-graffito.html

Hi Wickerman,

Sadly, Smith's memoir's were written many years later, and as you say, are known to be inaccurate. I try and avoid those as sources to work with. In part because it is prone to selective reasoning. If what they say fits the evidence from the time period, we include it, but if what they say doesn't, we discard it. But we can't then say we have one more piece of evidence because we only have it because it already agrees! We wouldn't count it as a "strike against", so it biases the amount of evidence in favour of what one already has used to include it.

Same with newspapers. We have to make sure we don't count as "2 pieces of evidence" two newspapers simply printing the exact same text (meaning, the same story was reprinted). I can copy out a story 30 times, that doesn't mean I now have 30 pieces of evidence.

I don't know "The Ripper File", but the quote above looks like the inquest statement, but slightly modified. I don't recall seeing a quote to Halse where he says, for example, "About half of it."? But it also leaves out the bit where he says he went to the police station. Is that quote from a contemporary newspaper, or does it just appear in The Ripper File book, unsourced?

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Almost every victorian woman wore a white apron,

Which is why Tabram wasn't, Nichols wasn't, Chapman wasn't, Stride wasn't, and Kelly wasn't.

Does it say it was a butter knife? no its says it was a table knife

Any knife can be sharpened to give it a bladed edge

Sure, any knife can be ground down and sharpened, but you're making that up. Nowhere does it say the knife had been artificially sharpened beyond it's norm, which it would have to be by your suggestion.

your clutching at straws like the rest.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

You're carting a whole wagon of straw.

- Jeff