From Mitre Square to Goulston Street - Some thoughts.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Also, I'm not sure that "not be blamed for nothing" isn't a double-negative, certainly cockney speakers have always claimed it is.
On what basis would anyone claim it isn't?

I have always thought that the message had about the same meaning as: it is not for nothing that the Jews will be held responsible.

[Wickerman]

Sorry to digress, Jon, but, as you probably know, I was involved soon after I started posting comments here in a discussion about whether Kosminski could speak English.

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?

I am aware Kozminski could speak English, I'm not sure he could read English - are you?

I would agree the writer of the GSG was more capable at forming a sentence than Kozminski appeared to be, but I'm not sure where that gets us. I have not suggested Kozminski wrote the GSG.

Also, I'm not sure that "not be blamed for nothing" isn't a double-negative, certainly cockney speakers have always claimed it is.
On what basis would anyone claim it isn't?

[Wickerman]

Hi Abby.

hey wick
first of all the jews in that building were probably not in the lowest economic class meaning they probably had a modicum of education and intelligence and could read English....

And, you think that because?

...secondly, of course jews had endured much worse, but that dosnt mean they would just leave disparaging graffitti there.
thirdly, it would have taken nothing to simply rub it off once seen. whether it had anything to say about jews or not. why leave ANY graffiti there?

that grafitti never saw the light of day.

Disparaging graffiti is found all over London today, no-one goes ballistic over it today any more than they would back then.
If you let petty scribble bother you it becomes a sign of weakness - that is as true today as it has always been.

[c.d.]

How long do you think anti-Jewish graffito chalked on the entrance to a building inhabited by Jews would have remained intact?

But how do we know the message was anti-Jewish? No one can be certain about that. And a pro-Jewish interpretation is by no means unreasonable.

c.d.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Much of your objection rests on an answer to the question - how many Jews could read English?
Literacy in Whitechapel was nothing like as high as today, sure everyone had to learn to speak English, but the ability to read was another question.

Of all peoples, Jews, world-wide, have had to tolerate more injustice than many other peoples, why on earth should a few lines of juvenile scribble cause them any concern.

No point in trying to make an issue seem more important than it was. Jews had tolerated much worse.

Sorry to digress, Jon, but, as you probably know, I was involved soon after I started posting comments here in a discussion about whether Kosminski could speak English.

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?

[Aethelwulf]

hey wick
first of all the jews in that building were probably not in the lowest economic class meaning they probably had a modicum of education and intelligence and could read English.
secondly, of course jews had endured much worse, but that dosnt mean they would just leave disparaging graffitti there.
thirdly, it would have taken nothing to simply rub it off once seen. whether it had anything to say about jews or not. why leave ANY graffiti there?

that grafitti never saw the light of day.

Yes agree. I've never been convinced by any of the arguments the ripper didn't write the GSG. If Long managed to notice it in the middle of the night, someone would have seen it and probably removed it if it'd been there already (e.g. written the day(s) before). The other alternative is that someone wrote it that night and the ripper just happened to pick that spot to drop the apron, and that just sounds too far fetched. Given Schwartz and the Lipski comment, I just can't see GSG and apron as unrelated.

[Abby Normal]

Much of your objection rests on an answer to the question - how many Jews could read English?
Literacy in Whitechapel was nothing like as high as today, sure everyone had to learn to speak English, but the ability to read was another question.

Of all peoples, Jews, world-wide, have had to tolerate more injustice than many other peoples, why on earth should a few lines of juvenile scribble cause them any concern.

No point in trying to make an issue seem more important than it was. Jews had tolerated much worse.

hey wick
first of all the jews in that building were probably not in the lowest economic class meaning they probably had a modicum of education and intelligence and could read English.
secondly, of course jews had endured much worse, but that dosnt mean they would just leave disparaging graffitti there.
thirdly, it would have taken nothing to simply rub it off once seen. whether it had anything to say about jews or not. why leave ANY graffiti there?

that grafitti never saw the light of day.

[Sunny Delight]

How long do you think anti-Jewish graffito chalked on the entrance to a building inhabited by Jews would have remained intact?

Where is the evidence that such graffiti were ever tolerated by Jewish residents of the area?

How long do you think the graffito had been there?

The apron must have been left there between about 1.50 and 2.50 a.m.

Do you think the residents went to bed and decided to leave a nice message about them on their front door overnight?

- I don't know. The first thing would be to try to discern how many in the building could read English fluently. Then you would have to discern how big the writing was. Was it very noticeable? Not too mention it is quite long- how many could be bothered to read it? We do not know the answers.

- Where is the evidence such graffitti was NOT tolerated by residents of the area? Plus see my previous answer.

- Agreed. My own opinion is that it was around 1:50-1:55am.

- Sorry I don't follow this last point. What are you referring too?

[Wickerman]

How long do you think anti-Jewish graffito chalked on the entrance to a building inhabited by Jews would have remained intact?

Where is the evidence that such graffiti were ever tolerated by Jewish residents of the area?

How long do you think the graffito had been there?

The apron must have been left there between about 1.50 and 2.50 a.m.

Do you think the residents went to bed and decided to leave a nice message about them on their front door overnight?

Much of your objection rests on an answer to the question - how many Jews could read English?
Literacy in Whitechapel was nothing like as high as today, sure everyone had to learn to speak English, but the ability to read was another question.

Of all peoples, Jews, world-wide, have had to tolerate more injustice than many other peoples, why on earth should a few lines of juvenile scribble cause them any concern.

No point in trying to make an issue seem more important than it was. Jews had tolerated much worse.

[DJA]

We have all the information/evidence we require.
Just a matter of joining the dots.
Hope to have the time to do so,again,this coming week.

[JeffHamm]

Suspect based theories are in my opinion travelling down the rabbit hole. The evidence becomes twisted to ensure it can be affiliated with said suspect. Small details are determined to be huge issues. For me it is clear now that the case cannot be solved unless a treasure trove of documents are miraculously discovered. Even then we may only find suspects who are interesting. Too much time has passed now, too many documents are missing for us as it stands.

We can say some things based on all probability:

- The killer was in all probability employed in a stable job.

- The killer in all probability had his own lodgings.

- The killer in a probability lived in Whitechapel.

- The killer in all probability was a local man.

That is about the height of what we can say with a degree of certainty. The pattern of the killings around bank holidays and weekends suggest a stable job. The fact the killer had a stable job likely offered the killer security to take his own lodgings. Also the killer returning to Lodging houses after the murders appears implausible. The direction of travel from Mitre Square to Goulston Street suggests the killer was heading home into the heart of Whitechapel. The fact that the killer struck in different areas of Whitechapel and managed to escape undetected suggests that he knew the area and was comfortable operating there. Also if we accept Israel Scwhartz evidence the racial slur suggests a local.

And that is it for me. That's all we can take. How one can begin to build a case against a suspect based on that is not feasible.

Hi,

I also believe there is insufficient information to identify JtR. I think the best we can do is work out the details of the events, as best we can, and even that is difficult. It's impossible, for example, to completely rule out any of the exits from Mitre Square, although I think one can order them in terms of probability. We can't rule out entirely the apron being dropped as JtR left the scene vs he came back later, though again we can try and order them in terms of which seems the more supported idea (and that gets tricky as to do so involves a lot of subjective calls, which lead to preferring different options). If we can't narrow down the details of what happened, we're not going to be able to make all the steps necessary to connect the dots to who JtR was.

And of course, we can't collect new information, to answer the questions we think of when exploring the testimonies.

As you say, without an influx of genuinely new information, suspect theories are often more about fitting the evidence to the suspect than following the evidence to a suspect.

- Jeff

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my alternative suggestions below.

We can say some things based on all probability:

- The killer was in all probability employed in a stable job.

Someone who spends his nights stalking streetwalkers does not seem to me to be the kind of person who would be in a stable job.

- The killer in all probability had his own lodgings.

He must have lived alone.

- the killer in a probability lived in whitechapel.

The killer in all probability lived in Spitalfields.

- The killer in all probability was a local man.

How can we even be sure that he was British?

That is about the height of what we can say with a degree of certainty. The pattern of the killings around bank holidays and weekends suggest a stable job.

What bank holidays?

Why would a person with a stable job tend to commit murders on Friday mornings?


The fact the killer had a stable job likely offered the killer security to take his own lodgings. Also the killer returning to Lodging houses after the murders appears implausible. The direction of travel from Mitre Square to Goulston Street suggests the killer was heading home into the heart of Whitechapel.

Again: Spitalfields, not Whitechapel!

The fact that the killer struck in different areas of Whitechapel and managed to escape undetected suggests that he knew the area and was comfortable operating there. Also if we accept Israel Scwhartz evidence the racial slur suggests a local.

Israel Schwartz's evidence suggests a gentile assailant, but Schwartz did not see the murderer.


And that is it for me. That's all we can take. How one can begin to build a case against a suspect based on that is not feasible.

[Sunny Delight]

Hi Sunny Delight,

I lean towards the same idea, that he dropped it while leaving. I can't completely dismiss the idea he may have first gone home and then came back out to discard the apron as PC Long is quite definite in his statement that it wasn't there. However, if he missed it, he would think that it wasn't there and so could have quite a strong, if mistaken, belief. There's just no way to really tease apart those two possibilities. Given PC Long was doing his first night of patrol on that beat, and didn't know about the backyard of the buildings due to that unfamiliarity, I think there is good reason to consider that he was mistaken. Also, DO Halse stated he passed by the location around the same time PC Long would have (when he missed it), and said he didn't notice the apron at that time but acknowledge he would not necessarily have seen it if it was there. His testimony, of course, fits both with the idea that PC Long missed it and with it not being there at that time. As always, we're left with options.

I'm also not convinced the graffiti was written by JtR, though of course it could have been. To me, though, I'm not sure any theory really falls apart simply due to which of those is true. Any theory which begins with the graffiti having been written by JtR, and then proceeds to build upon that is, in my view, on very shaky ground as the foundation is something that is not reliable. Beyond those, however, any suspect-based theory can easily deal with either situation because a suspect theory can equally handle saying their suspect wrote the graffiti or that they didn't, neither is going to result in any meaningful change in the evaluation of that suspect.

- Jeff

Suspect based theories are in my opinion travelling down the rabbit hole. The evidence becomes twisted to ensure it can be affiliated with said suspect. Small details are determined to be huge issues. For me it is clear now that the case cannot be solved unless a treasure trove of documents are miraculously discovered. Even then we may only find suspects who are interesting. Too much time has passed now, too many documents are missing for us as it stands.

We can say some things based on all probability:

- The killer was in all probability employed in a stable job.

- The killer in all probability had his own lodgings.

- The killer in a probability lived in Whitechapel.

- The killer in all probability was a local man.

That is about the height of what we can say with a degree of certainty. The pattern of the killings around bank holidays and weekends suggest a stable job. The fact the killer had a stable job likely offered the killer security to take his own lodgings. Also the killer returning to Lodging houses after the murders appears implausible. The direction of travel from Mitre Square to Goulston Street suggests the killer was heading home into the heart of Whitechapel. The fact that the killer struck in different areas of Whitechapel and managed to escape undetected suggests that he knew the area and was comfortable operating there. Also if we accept Israel Scwhartz evidence the racial slur suggests a local.

And that is it for me. That's all we can take. How one can begin to build a case against a suspect based on that is not feasible.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Agreed. It's a red herring. Over the years it has taken on a significance it should never have had. Warren had the right idea in having it scrubbed out. But it will forever remain a bone of contention I am sure because one way or another we can't prove whether or not it was written by the killer.

How long do you think anti-Jewish graffito chalked on the entrance to a building inhabited by Jews would have remained intact?

Where is the evidence that such graffiti were ever tolerated by Jewish residents of the area?

How long do you think the graffito had been there?

The apron must have been left there between about 1.50 and 2.50 a.m.

Do you think the residents went to bed and decided to leave a nice message about them on their front door overnight?

[JeffHamm]

I believe the likeliest explanation is that the killer discarded the apron in Goulston Street whilst fleeing and Long did not see it first time around. That does not mean I see Long as a liar as he testified under oath just that he was genuinely mistaken. That is just my opinion. There could be a myriad of scenarios we could go through in regards the Apron and graffitti and they are plausible too. There are things we can say for certain though- the killer took part of Eddowes apron and discarded it in Goulston Street. Why he took it and why he discarded it in Goulston Street and at what time we just do not know. We can speculate and we can choose our favoured scenario but only the killer knows these answers.

I see the Apron as the only real genuine clue in the whole Ripper series. For me the killer is going home, discards the Apron and continues on the journey. That tells us that this is in all probability a Whitechapel local. Not much to go on mind you.

Hi Sunny Delight,

I lean towards the same idea, that he dropped it while leaving. I can't completely dismiss the idea he may have first gone home and then came back out to discard the apron as PC Long is quite definite in his statement that it wasn't there. However, if he missed it, he would think that it wasn't there and so could have quite a strong, if mistaken, belief. There's just no way to really tease apart those two possibilities. Given PC Long was doing his first night of patrol on that beat, and didn't know about the backyard of the buildings due to that unfamiliarity, I think there is good reason to consider that he was mistaken. Also, DO Halse stated he passed by the location around the same time PC Long would have (when he missed it), and said he didn't notice the apron at that time but acknowledge he would not necessarily have seen it if it was there. His testimony, of course, fits both with the idea that PC Long missed it and with it not being there at that time. As always, we're left with options.

I'm also not convinced the graffiti was written by JtR, though of course it could have been. To me, though, I'm not sure any theory really falls apart simply due to which of those is true. Any theory which begins with the graffiti having been written by JtR, and then proceeds to build upon that is, in my view, on very shaky ground as the foundation is something that is not reliable. Beyond those, however, any suspect-based theory can easily deal with either situation because a suspect theory can equally handle saying their suspect wrote the graffiti or that they didn't, neither is going to result in any meaningful change in the evaluation of that suspect.

- Jeff