From Mitre Square to Goulston Street - Some thoughts.

[Tom_Wescott]

I brought it up myself the other day!

Here is what I wrote in # 205:

As I pointed out the other day, the writer of the GSG appears, on the meagre evidence we have, to have had a better grasp than Kosminski had, as the former made no mistakes - even the claim that he used an incorrect double negative being debatable - whereas Kosminski said I goes instead of I go.

So what are the chances of Kosminski's having been able to write the GSG with the only spelling mistake being in the one word he would surely have been able to spell?

When you write 'Kosminski' I assume you're referring to Aaron? That's fair, then, since many writers accept Aaron as Anderson's suspect. But I'm not one of them. Aaron is a bad Ripper suspect, so I'd like to think that Anderson and Swanson had someone better in mind.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

Yes that too. I reckon JtR already had some petty grievance (real or imagined) against the Jewish community (maybe along the lines of 'why are they doing better than me' in a racist context). Schwartz and Lawende reminded him of his prejudice.

Jews were the proverbial money-lender, christians across the city were in dept to Jews and many could not tolerate that.
Jews were often occupying influential positions in society, the christian public believed they influenced laws to profit other Jews.
There was much the English public had to complain about regarding Jews.

[Wickerman]

...

Yet Warren and Arnold were adamant that even in the absence of the bloodstained apron piece, to have left the writing in place would have risked a pogrom.
...

Doesn't that shoot down your argument?
Without the apron, there's no connection to the murder, so you are saying if Jews in general heard of some graffiti accusing the Jews of something (nothing specific being stated), they risk a riot?

[Wickerman]

That's a poor analogy though. How much modern graffiti has a piece of clothing from a murder victim dumped near it? The GSG is message that can be interpreted as connected to the lipski incident earlier that night.

It's a poor analogy in your view because you make assumptions that have not been verified. Your mind is partially made up to start with.
Your view doesn't work if the two are not related, and there's no proof they ever were.

I don't buy your theory of people today not being bothered either. No one is going to be bothered about graffiti saying something like 'wick woz ere '23', but something that could be taken as racist is another matter and most likely someone would clean it.

Racial graffiti is everywhere, especially in downtown areas, on railway carriages, factory walls, public toilets. Residential buildings are not so much targeted today, one reason might be no-one knows who are resident, but they are often well lighted anyway, but lets not go down a rabbit-hole...
No-one knows if the Jewish residents were sufficiently literate to know what the graffiti said, and no-one knows when it first appeared.
The City police were the ones who went door-to-door throughout the tenement speaking to the residents, only they knew if the police had answers to those questions.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

What pro-Anderson theorists sometimes miss is this: the fact that Anderson WAS certain the Ripper wrote it, and was also certain (in his mind) that his Polish Jew suspect wrote it, means that whoever his suspect was, that person could read and write in the English language. I'm aware this point is off topic, but it's worth bringing up from time to time.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I brought it up myself the other day!

Here is what I wrote in # 205:

As I pointed out the other day, the writer of the GSG appears, on the meagre evidence we have, to have had a better grasp than Kosminski had, as the former made no mistakes - even the claim that he used an incorrect double negative being debatable - whereas Kosminski said I goes instead of I go.

So what are the chances of Kosminski's having been able to write the GSG with the only spelling mistake being in the one word he would surely have been able to spell?

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom

The bodies were left where they were killed he had no control over where they were left its not as if he could pick them up and carry them to another location.

There is no evidence to point to who wrote the graffiti or when it was written. It is wild speculation to suggest the killer wrote it.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I think the truth of the matter lies somewhere between Anderson's claim that it's an obvious fact the Ripper wrote it and your claim that it's wild speculation. Truth is, we will never know. But the weight of the evidence does lean in the direction of the Ripper having written it. What pro-Anderson theorists sometimes miss is this: the fact that Anderson WAS certain the Ripper wrote it, and was also certain (in his mind) that his Polish Jew suspect wrote it, means that whoever his suspect was, that person could read and write in the English language. I'm aware this point is off topic, but it's worth bringing up from time to time.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing

(WHITECHAPEL MURDERER)


The Jews are to blame for each German soldier who falls in this war.

The Jews are the enemy's agents among us.

The Jews are responsible for the war.

(JOSEPH GOEBBELS)

Jews have always been blamed for the crucifixion.
Victorian society was more centered on religion, we might say bordering on the fanatical compared with today.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor, good to see you still kicking around. To answer your question, I'd say it was the same with the bodies he left around. He expected someone would find them and report them. And they did. Where but on a wall would you expect someone to write graffiti?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom

The bodies were left where they were killed he had no control over where they were left its not as if he could pick them up and carry them to another location.

There is no evidence to point to who wrote the graffiti or when it was written. It is wild speculation to suggest the killer wrote it.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Tom_Wescott]

Please see my replies below.

But what is he accusing the Jews of, if by writing the message and leaving the bloody apron he is confessing to being the killer himself? I see it the other way. He is telling the police that the men of the international Working Men's Club are not guilty because he (obviously) is.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my replies below.

But if only the killer could have left the apron, then how could he blame the Jews without himself being a Jew?


Do you mean, how could he blame the Jews if he himself was a Jew? ?



And in that case, why refer to the Jews in the third person? He didn't write 'We the Juwes are the men...'.


I made a similar point a few months ago.

I argued that had the message been pro-Jewish - that is to say, denying Jewish responsibility for something - and written by a Jew, it would have started something like:

We Jews ...

and that the actual wording, The Jews are the men ... is obviously accusatory.

I received the customary response that I was making a supposition.

[Curious Cat]

I agree also that he was lucky - especially on the night of the double murder.

Of course, he must have wanted to maintain the mystery, but he must also have wanted to survive!

There's a difference between survival instinct and wanting to maintain the mystery.

Had the killer been looking to maintain the mystery but was caught they would most likely have owned up straight away and hidden nothing from that point on. There would no longer be any reason to maintain the mystery.

Had the killer been going by survival instinct but was caught they would more likely continue to hide as much as they could and deny any involvement even to the point of being faced with the most obvious evidence. They would still believe there was a chance of getting out of the situation.

[Tom_Wescott]

The murderer was not seeking credit.

His sole purpose was to blame the Jews for the murders.

That is why he cut the apron in two, carried it such a long distance, and left a message blaming the Jews practically pointing to the apron piece, which had bloodstains from the latest victim.

But if only the killer could have left the apron, then how could he blame the Jews without himself being a Jew? And in that case, why refer to the Jews in the third person? He didn't write 'We the Juwes are the men...'.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Hello Tom,

I agree with Trevor on this. If the Ripper had any concerns about getting credit why go about it in such a half ass way? Why not something along the lines of "tonight it was two" or something specific about the crimes?

By the way, welcome back. Hope you intend to put in some time here. You and Sam back as well. The gods have smiled on us.

c.d.

C.D!!!! I could better answer that question if we had a photo of what was actually written. Instead, we have only an idea of what was written upon which to speculate. But Eddowes' apron under a message written claiming responsibility for the body next to the Jewish club is the most obvious explanation for the whole thing. I can speculate that he intended to write a message above Eddowes' corpose but opted instead to flee with the apron, but who knows. The location in Goulston Street makes sense as it provided him cover and was quiet as he knelt low and wrote his message close to the ground so that it WOULD be linked to the bloody apron. The writing - both the message and its location - make zero sense outside of its connection to the apron.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

No, it is correct. Anderson espoused that the GSG was, in fact, written by the Ripper. Though of course he couldn't know that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I agree with you that Anderson believed that the GSG was written by the murderer (and I agree with him on that point) and it is a very significant fact, because many years later he claimed that the murderer was Jewish, whereas the idea that the GSG had been written by a Jew had evidently never been seriously considered by him or his colleagues.

But his use of the words definitely ascertained fact had nothing to do with the GSG, but rather with the identity of the murderer:


In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Tom
But by leaving the apron and writing the graffiti in that off-road location how was he to know that they would ever be found, and more importantly linked to the Eddowes murder because for a start the graffiti bore no relevance to any murder past or present, and the apron piece was nothing more than a screwed up piece of rag.?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor, good to see you still kicking around. To answer your question, I'd say it was the same with the bodies he left around. He expected someone would find them and report them. And they did. Where but on a wall would you expect someone to write graffiti?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott