The Goulston Street Apron

[Errata]

Hello Errata,

Yes indeed I have picked hops - hurt my delicate little hands lol, but, with an abundance of sacking, they would have foolish not to have made use of it for aprons - and they did. Wasn't that easy to wash anything in the hop fields, so white aprons would be protected, if worn at all.

Regards,
C4

PS Must confess that I can't envisage Kate being able to walk easily with her apron wound round and round her body to fit. One size fits all?

Not exactly one size fits all, but there's an art to it. I've used a bunch of different styles of aprons for various costumes. And I can easily make any length or width apron fit, but I honestly can't tell you how. It involves folding, tucking, and cinching, but I just do it automatically. I can't really describe the process any more than I can describe the process of donning a toga. It's just a skill I lack. But it's not wrapped tightly like a towel, so mobility isn't really an issue. It's a little like belting a skirt that is way too big. Or tying a sack shut. Yeah. I'm really no good at describing this.

I'm also not entirely sure she actually made it to the hops picking part. There was some statement about not getting along and just going home, and then they had no money when they got back to town which seems odd if they'd just had a job... She may have dressed for the work, but she may not have actually done the work. If it matters.

[curious4]

Kate hopping

Hello Errata,

It was a bad year for hopping, but she still managed to buy herself a new jacket in Maidstone and Kelly got new boots, so they must have done some, at least.

Best wishes,
C4

[Chava]

The author may not have liked Jews, but he hated one. Someone in that building. That message was for that man, not the community at large. It's on the inside wall. It wasn't a public message. It was a private one.

I absolutely agree with this and I think it has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. By the way, Errata, whereabouts is your synagogue that it gets hit like that once or twice a year? I'm just trying to find out so I can avoid going there with my yarmulke-wearing husband! No reason to make ourselves that much of a target!

But I want to back up a little. Let's just remind ourselves that this is a guy so unworried about being caught that he killed in bottle-neck situations where, if he was discovered, he would have been either apprehended or lynched. And even though he had a nice sharp knife, there were a lot of people in the streets at all hours who would have come running with their own handy knives etc if someone set up a cry of 'The Ripper!!!!!' He doesn't consider that he will get caught. So why is he going through elaborate complicated machinations to write graffiti and leave clear evidence to point to the Jews? And if he does intend to implicate the Jews, why does he not write something so equivocal? Why does he not write 'I seen the killer and he was one of them Juwes!' Or 'I will kill every whore in creation signed The Hebrew Hammer of God'.

The apron is the only piece of real hard evidence here. The graffito won't get us anywhere but the apron will. And I seriously doubt he did anything but chuck it. It was cumbersome, bloody and no longer needed. And it will kill him if he's found with it. He ditches it at the first convenient moment and then moves along.

Also don't forget the East End was teaming with Jews at this time. The Goulston Street tenements were not the only place to find them. I agree with Errata, if he'd wanted to yell at all the Jews he would have gone for a kosher butcher or a synagogue. There were plenty of both all over the place!

[Abby Normal]

I absolutely agree with this and I think it has nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. By the way, Errata, whereabouts is your synagogue that it gets hit like that once or twice a year? I'm just trying to find out so I can avoid going there with my yarmulke-wearing husband! No reason to make ourselves that much of a target!

But I want to back up a little. Let's just remind ourselves that this is a guy so unworried about being caught that he killed in bottle-neck situations where, if he was discovered, he would have been either apprehended or lynched. And even though he had a nice sharp knife, there were a lot of people in the streets at all hours who would have come running with their own handy knives etc if someone set up a cry of 'The Ripper!!!!!' He doesn't consider that he will get caught. So why is he going through elaborate complicated machinations to write graffiti and leave clear evidence to point to the Jews? And if he does intend to implicate the Jews, why does he not write something so equivocal? Why does he not write 'I seen the killer and he was one of them Juwes!' Or 'I will kill every whore in creation signed The Hebrew Hammer of God'.

The apron is the only piece of real hard evidence here. The graffito won't get us anywhere but the apron will. And I seriously doubt he did anything but chuck it. It was cumbersome, bloody and no longer needed. And it will kill him if he's found with it. He ditches it at the first convenient moment and then moves along.

Also don't forget the East End was teaming with Jews at this time. The Goulston Street tenements were not the only place to find them. I agree with Errata, if he'd wanted to yell at all the Jews he would have gone for a kosher butcher or a synagogue. There were plenty of both all over the place!

If it was meant for one man only, why does it say "Jews" and "the men". And If it was personal or for someone specific, why didn't the writer just write something like "cohen is a swindler" or "dont buy from Levi" or " Sam koski is an evil jew'?

You cant use the apparent ambiguousness of the message as pointing it not being from the killer because you can make the same argument if it was not from the killer. Why would anyone write graffiti ambigous? why would anyone write grafitti small?

However,As i said before, if there were more deep seated reasons why the killer wrote it like that-as in he was pissed off at being interupted by jews that night and/or disliked jews in general and/or wanted to blame them than that may be why it appears ambiguousness to us now, but of course could have made perfect sense to the killer at the time.

To me it seems you have to do more logistical cartwheels to disassociate the apron from the grafitti than vice versus.

-A large(and easily visable) portion of apron is found DIRECTLY below the writing
-The killer had been disturbed by jews that night and the writing references jews
-The writing and apron was not there the first time the PC walked past, meaning the time frame supports the idea the killer took sometime to cleanup, drop off the knife and trophies and get some chalk.
-Many police at the time and afterwards beleived it was written by the killer
-the grafitti being written on the doorway of a new building inhabited mainly by jews support the idea that the grafitti had never seen the light of day as someone living there would have surely wiped it off-meaning the grafitti was probably written that night.
-no other mention of other grafitti in the immediate area(or rags for that matter) is mentioned by any one-meaning the coincidence of finding said apron/writing together as just random makes it more improbable
-History has taught us that serial killers exhibit just this sort of behavior
-The "riskiness" of leaving the apron and writing the grafitti is nothing compared to what the killer was used to getting away with.

[Chava]

You cant use the apparent ambiguousness of the message as pointing it not being from the killer because you can make the same argument if it was not from the killer. Why would anyone write graffiti ambigous? why would anyone write grafitti small?

That's why I say the graffito gets us nowhere. Maybe he wrote it. Maybe someone else wrote it. Maybe he was down on Jews and wanted to blame them. Actually if this was the case, he must have lived close by the GST because otherwise there were tons of other places he could have chalked that graffito. So maybe that's its evidentiary value. But the apron isn't ambiguous at all. That is one serious piece of evidence. The only piece of evidence in the entire bloody case!

[Abby Normal]

That's why I say the graffito gets us nowhere. Maybe he wrote it. Maybe someone else wrote it. Maybe he was down on Jews and wanted to blame them. Actually if this was the case, he must have lived close by the GST because otherwise there were tons of other places he could have chalked that graffito. So maybe that's its evidentiary value. But the apron isn't ambiguous at all. That is one serious piece of evidence. The only piece of evidence in the entire bloody case!

I disagree that the graffitti "gets us nowhere".
I would rather say that the grafitti is a potential clue and should be regarded as such.

[curious4]

"Like"

If it was meant for one man only, why does it say "Jews" and "the men". And If it was personal or for someone specific, why didn't the writer just write something like "cohen is a swindler" or "dont buy from Levi" or " Sam koski is an evil jew'?

You cant use the apparent ambiguousness of the message as pointing it not being from the killer because you can make the same argument if it was not from the killer. Why would anyone write graffiti ambigous? why would anyone write grafitti small?

However,As i said before, if there were more deep seated reasons why the killer wrote it like that-as in he was pissed off at being interupted by jews that night and/or disliked jews in general and/or wanted to blame them than that may be why it appears ambiguousness to us now, but of course could have made perfect sense to the killer at the time.

To me it seems you have to do more logistical cartwheels to disassociate the apron from the grafitti than vice versus.

-A large(and easily visable) portion of apron is found DIRECTLY below the writing
-The killer had been disturbed by jews that night and the writing references jews
-The writing and apron was not there the first time the PC walked past, meaning the time frame supports the idea the killer took sometime to cleanup, drop off the knife and trophies and get some chalk.
-Many police at the time and afterwards beleived it was written by the killer
-the grafitti being written on the doorway of a new building inhabited mainly by jews support the idea that the grafitti had never seen the light of day as someone living there would have surely wiped it off-meaning the grafitti was probably written that night.
-no other mention of other grafitti in the immediate area(or rags for that matter) is mentioned by any one-meaning the coincidence of finding said apron/writing together as just random makes it more improbable
-History has taught us that serial killers exhibit just this sort of behavior
-The "riskiness" of leaving the apron and writing the grafitti is nothing compared to what the killer was used to getting away with.

Hello Abby,

"Like"

C4

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

What useful evidence as to the identity of the Mitre Square murderer could the LVP cops have hoped to glean from the graffiti and apron piece found in Goulston Street?

Regards,

Simon

[Errata]

If it was meant for one man only, why does it say "Jews" and "the men". And If it was personal or for someone specific, why didn't the writer just write something like "cohen is a swindler" or "dont buy from Levi" or " Sam koski is an evil jew'?


-A large(and easily visable) portion of apron is found DIRECTLY below the writing
-The killer had been disturbed by jews that night and the writing references jews
-The writing and apron was not there the first time the PC walked past, meaning the time frame supports the idea the killer took sometime to cleanup, drop off the knife and trophies and get some chalk.
-Many police at the time and afterwards beleived it was written by the killer
-the grafitti being written on the doorway of a new building inhabited mainly by jews support the idea that the grafitti had never seen the light of day as someone living there would have surely wiped it off-meaning the grafitti was probably written that night.
-no other mention of other grafitti in the immediate area(or rags for that matter) is mentioned by any one-meaning the coincidence of finding said apron/writing together as just random makes it more improbable
-History has taught us that serial killers exhibit just this sort of behavior
-The "riskiness" of leaving the apron and writing the grafitti is nothing compared to what the killer was used to getting away with.

As to the first part, quite frankly ambiguous is a lot scarier than specific. And most graffiti other than that which adorns bathroom walls is ambiguous. The swastika is still one of the most prominent icons in graffiti, and while it's meaning is perfectly clear it is not specific. I had "Jew Bitch" scratched into my car when I was 16, but it didn't address me by name, nor was it signed. And there was an ad taken out in the paper when I was a teenager lecturing about the dangers of mongrelizing the races, but it was directed at a very specific couple. Vague is pretty ordinary.

As to the rest, I pretty much have to order it the way you did, so
1: We don't know that. Surely it was found within a couple of feet of the writing, but I would only trust an arrow drawn pointing down to the apron to know for sure it was a purposeful arrangement.
2:We don't know that the killer was disrupted by Jews. We don't know if he killed Stride, whether he didn't mutilate her for a reason, if he was interrupted, and if so by whom?
3: They may have been there. I can think of a dozen ways he doesn't see it. Also, 1/3 of London is chalk, so half the rocks out there are chalk. It doesn't take long to find.
4:They did. They also thought masturbation caused insanity, so just because they thought it doesn't make it so.
5: It was the Sabbath, so while it might not have been there for a week, it could have been there as early as sundown Friday and still have been there.
6: It could just as easily be that no other graffiti was mentioned because graffiti isn't remarkable. And even the text of this graffiti would seem to be unremarkable except that it had a Ripper victim's apron near it.
7: There is nothing common to all serial killers. Not even psychopathy. Most serial killers have zero contact with the public as a whole. Those who do leave some kind of message range from a signed confession to messages so complicated and inexplicable we still don't know what they mean. There is nothing typical about serial killer warnings. And the presence of other serial killer warnings has no bearing on whether or not another killer will leave one.
8. True.

[Errata]

By the way Chava, Pulaski, Tn. So it's not really surprising once you know the history of the town, and who invades to march one or twice a year. I'm actually ridiculously pleased it doesn't happen more often, all things considered.

[RivkahChaya]

Not exactly one size fits all, but there's an art to it. I've used a bunch of different styles of aprons for various costumes. And I can easily make any length or width apron fit, but I honestly can't tell you how.

Well, wait, did Eddowes walk into Walmart-UK, and buy an apron, or did she make it herself? if she made it herself, then we can be pretty sure it fit, and probably used the minimum of fabric required to make it "stylish," or whatever (albeit stylish back when it was new, which doubtfully was recent), to save money.

Let's just remind ourselves that this is a guy so unworried about being caught that he killed in bottle-neck situations where, if he was discovered, he would have been either apprehended or lynched.

His demeanor may have changed before and after the killings. He could have been like a hungry person who doesn't think much about stealing food, but then after he eats it, and isn't hungry anymore, starts to worry about less immediate problems, like getting caught.

[RivkahChaya]

If it was meant for one man only, why does it say "Jews" and "the men". And If it was personal or for someone specific, why didn't the writer just write something like "cohen is a swindler" or "dont buy from Levi" or " Sam koski is an evil jew'?

If it's part of a longer exchange, it makes sense; it could mean something like "typical Jew," if it's a response to something like "Cohen swindled me, and won't admit it even after I went back and confronted him with evidence."

Although, I'm not sure that's exactly what it is addressing. "Not for nothing" is an expression I hear a lot, because it's the English version of "Nisht garnisht," and it's not a simple double negative. What it means is "With good reason."

The Jews will be blamed "not for nothing," means that the Jews will be blamed "with good reason." The transposition of the "not" makes me think that it was written by a gentile who was making fun of a Yiddish accent and didn't get the expression quite right, not that he was using the double negative that was (and is, I think) used in the East End. That double negative is used for emphasis, and ends up meaning "The Jews won't be blamed."

Anyway, we have two parts of the phrase: "The Jews are the men," and "not be blamed for nothing."

The first part is a reiteration of the subject for emphasis, which is another characteristic of Yiddish. If it's in response to something, it could, as I said, mean something like "The guy you just mentioned is a typical Jew," but we don't know. The second part, I'm pretty confident, means "blamed with good reason."

So, what I'm getting at, is that if someone had previously written something like "Cohen swindled me. Don't buy from him." Then someone else wrote "I never buy from Jews, they're all cheats," and finally someone else, in an attempt to mock a Yiddish accent, wrote what essentially means "Typical Jew-- there's a reason no one trusts them."

[Errata]

Well, wait, did Eddowes walk into Walmart-UK, and buy an apron, or did she make it herself? if she made it herself, then we can be pretty sure it fit, and probably used the minimum of fabric required to make it "stylish," or whatever (albeit stylish back when it was new, which doubtfully was recent), to save money.

Neither. It would have been second hand. Maybe third or fourth. The only way someone of her means gets white apron is either through entering into service and then stealing the apron when she left, or secondhand, through a charity or a used clothes stall.

Making it implies that she could afford white cloth, which she couldn't. Nor could she have afforded to buy it new. Everything else she wore was secondhand, I bet the apron was as well. And she wouldn't have altered it, because without the extra material she wouldn't be able to patch it with any finesse.

[RivkahChaya]

Neither. It would have been second hand. Maybe third or fourth. The only way someone of her means gets white apron is either through entering into service and then stealing the apron when she left, or secondhand, through a charity or a used clothes stall.

Making it implies that she could afford white cloth, which she couldn't. Nor could she have afforded to buy it new. Everything else she wore was secondhand, I bet the apron was as well. And she wouldn't have altered it, because without the extra material she wouldn't be able to patch it with any finesse.

I was thinking should would have made it from a torn bed sheet, or something, not from, as the expression goes, "whole cloth," but I guess acquiring it second hand would be easier. Treadle operated sewing machines had been around for a while, so a mass produced apron was probably something that could be bought rather cheaply to begin with, because there were shops that sold uniforms for domestics, and those were off-the-rack.

As far as Eddowes being short, though, I don't know that she was terribly short for her time and place. The mean height for women in the US when I was around 30 (1997) was 5'4, and the median and mode were both 5'5, or one may have been 5'5 1/2. I'm 5'5, and I always thought of myself as short, because I'm short among the women in my family, which is why it's so memorable.

So even by modern standards, while Eddowes wouldn't be tall, she wouldn't be unusually short. I know quite a few women who are 5-even. The mean height in a poverty-stricken area 125 years ago was surely less than it is now. So what height would a woman's apron be made to fit? Or maybe they were sold unhemmed.

[Abby Normal]

Hello Abby,

"Like"

C4

Hi c4
Thanks!