Piece of Apron and the 'Juwes'

[BillS]

I did look at the (very long) thread re: the apron but didn't find anything regarding times; apologies if I missed it. I understand the timing there is a period of between about 40 mins and 75 mins between when Catherine Eddowes body is found and the earliest time the fragment of her apron could have been dumped (since it had not been there on the policeman's earlier round). Mitre Sq and Wentworth Model Buildings aren't that far apart, is there any thread that discusses what happened during those missing minutes?

In another thread about the victims knowing each other, it was stated that 'Juwes' is/was not a masonic term - if you look it up on Google you do get the story of the assassins of Hiram etc. As a new member of this forum, is there a thread anyone can point me to that explains what 'Juwes' does or doesn't mean (assuming it isn't just 'Jews' mis-spelled). Also, I believe there is controversy over whether the chalked text relates to Jack at all or is a red herring.

Bill S

[Jon Guy]

Dissertations menu - left of screen

Hello Bill

The best advice I can offer is to check out the dissertation menu, on the left of your screen. Most topics are covered, and there are a number on the Goulston Street affair.

there is some excellent reading in there !!!

[ChrisGeorge]

I did look at the (very long) thread re: the apron but didn't find anything regarding times; apologies if I missed it. I understand the timing there is a period of between about 40 mins and 75 mins between when Catherine Eddowes body is found and the earliest time the fragment of her apron could have been dumped (since it had not been there on the policeman's earlier round). Mitre Sq and Wentworth Model Buildings aren't that far apart, is there any thread that discusses what happened during those missing minutes?

In another thread about the victims knowing each other, it was stated that 'Juwes' is/was not a masonic term - if you look it up on Google you do get the story of the assassins of Hiram etc. As a new member of this forum, is there a thread anyone can point me to that explains what 'Juwes' does or doesn't mean (assuming it isn't just 'Jews' mis-spelled). Also, I believe there is controversy over whether the chalked text relates to Jack at all or is a red herring.

Bill S

You ought to look especially at Jon Smyth’s dissertation "A Piece of Apron, Some Chalk Graffiti, and a Lost Hour."

Chris

[perrymason]

We can answer one aspect of the grafitto quickly for you though...."Juwes" or "Juewes" has no meaning in Yiddish or Hebrew, according to the Rabbi of The Great Synagogue if memory serves correctly...if not, a high ranking Jewish Rabbi of the period and place.

It was unintentionally or intentionally spelled one of those two ways.

Cheers.

[Monty]

Bill S,

I understand the timing there is a period of between about 40 mins and 75 mins between when Catherine Eddowes body is found and the earliest time the fragment of her apron could have been dumped (since it had not been there on the policeman's earlier round).

Just a few points, and my take on events.

1. The earliest time the apron could have been dumped was around 1.50am. It would take around 5 mins to get from the Square to Goulston Street.

2. It may have been there when both Halse and Long made there pass at around 2.20am. Long does indeed state it wasnt there but what must be remembered is that his duty was to the Queens highways and buildings, not private dwellings unless specifically requested, at 2.20am he was not aware of any murder so was not as vigilant as he was to become within the next hour, and imagine the implications if he admitted it was there at 2.20am but did not take any action. Of course, it may have been there and Long just didnt register it. I see no reason why he should

3. Halse stated quite clearly that if the apron had been there he would not necessarily have seen it.

4. I think its unreasonable to think that the killer would return to an area 45 mins later where the Police are becoming increasingly aware.

I could go on, but like the other posters, I suggest you read the dissertations.

Monty

[DVV]

To be honest, the dissertation is brightly developped, but also unconvincing. Maybe my feelings are biaised because I can't think the matter without reminding the Jewish club of Stride's murder site.
A strideist'disease, so.

[perrymason]

To me...."I should not have noticed it" does'nt lead to a conclusion that he didnt notice what was not there. With due respect Monty, he may well have thought he should have seen it when looking retrospectively back at the 2:20am pass....but he might have not looked at that very spot and missed seeing it just as easily.

Its not like the Goulston St address was adjacent to Berner St or anything, its North West of Commercial and Whitechapel High St,..which is North West of Dutfields Yard. If he was to walk home from Mitre to towards Dorset for example...he might nort have encountered any street hullabaloo regarding Liz Stride. So why not hold onto the apron piece until he's at home...or why not stuff it in a trash bin?

To assume that the killer who left no unintentional clues at any crime scene, just casually discards anything he takes away, seems an out of character assessment, and flies in the face of the facts at the murder scenes. He was evidently a more careful fellow than to just discard a clue to himself on his way home...like a breadcrumb trail. He left no clues as to where he lived, so the direction from Mitre Square home might have been due West, North, or South for all we know.

To assume he was on his way home directly I think discredits any evidence that suggests he was careful not to leave clues, to assume that he went SE towards Berner means that the apron piece is left after altering his course home, or he goes back out to leave the apron in a direction away from his home, and if he lived further West, it again leaves both a re-direction on the way home, and a return outside later as options. If he was headed due East, again, the same two options as SE, W, and East.

Did the man who didnt leave as much as a cufflink or visible bloody bootprint at any site casually throw away something he just took from a murder victim on his way directly home? Not likely.

So we have an hour lapse still very possible.

[Christine]

I once found a good Freemason site that discussed the whole "Juwes" thing, but now I can't find it. Anyhow, there is an allegorical story in Freemasonry about "The Three Ruffians," Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum who murder a mason. The claim is that these three were collectively referred to as "Juwes." No one has ever been able to find the term "Juwes" in any actual Masonic literature. On the other hand, "Juwes" for "Jews" is found all over 19th century England.

[perrymason]

I once found a good Freemason site that discussed the whole "Juwes" thing, but now I can't find it. Anyhow, there is an allegorical story in Freemasonry about "The Three Ruffians," Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum who murder a mason. The claim is that these three were collectively referred to as "Juwes." No one has ever been able to find the term "Juwes" in any actual Masonic literature. On the other hand, "Juwes" for "Jews" is found all over 19th century England.

Hi Christine,

But was the spelling "Juwes" something you would see in an almost entirely Jewish enclave like the Model Dwellings off Goulston? The Mason theory is tied closely with the Royal Conspiracy,..I wouldnt put all your eggs in that basket, as Im sure you know.

I think we are looking at an intentionally mispelled word, or one that was spelled incorrectly by accident, ...but the reported "neat schoolboy" handwriting leans towards at least a semi-literate author.

My personal thought is that the message and apron section arrived there at the same time, and the author was a semi-literate Gentile referring to the murder that night of a woman on the grounds of a Jewish Socialists club. I think the location choice is due to the high concentration of Jews in that immediate vicinity, and the local knowledge of that fact.

He cant very well go scrawl something on the gates to Dutfields, so he goes where Immigrant Jews live instead.

There are three potentially important clues allegedly tied with the Whitechapel Murderer and the night of Sept 30th...the apron piece, the grafitto, and a few weeks later, a section of kidney that the killer supposedly took from Kate in Mitre Square.

How many murders on Sept 30th are potentially linked with any of those three clues? 1. Kates. If the grafitto was written by the killer, I would guess it should be referring to the other murder that night in some way. If he killed both, why not own up to both?

Cheers Chris.

[Christine]

Hi Michael.

I think the whole Masonic theory is silly. There's no Freemasonry ritual that would involve murdering women, and there's nothing in the Jubelo/Jubela/Jubelum story that would point to that either. Plus it appears that the whole story was obscure enough so that even if the grafitto had said "Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" that most Masons would not have understood it anyhow. And that's not even dealing with the fact that something like "Benedict Arnold will not be blamed for anything" doesn't exactly work either. (I'm using a US idiom here. I can't think of anything better.)

However, I can't find a good source that deals with the Freemasonry story. I found one a while back, but now I can't dredge it up. Most links turn out to be religious sites on the theme of "Freemasonry is demonic" and state outright that it is proved that Jack was a Mason killing according to Masonic ritual practice.

I can only guess whether the misspelling was intentional or not. The message is so garbled that you can interpret it as a dumb joke, or a deranged anti-Semite, or a even a Jewish Ripper complaining that the prevailing anti-Semitic prejudices concerning the Ripper were misguided.

[Sam Flynn]

On the other hand, "Juwes" for "Jews" is found all over 19th century England.

...Nineteenth century, Christine? The only place one finds this spelling used with any frequency appears to be in Middle English texts, and would have died out some four hundred years before the Whitechapel Murders.

[Christine]

...Nineteenth century, Christine? The only place one finds this spelling used with any frequency appears to be in Middle English texts, and would have died out some four hundred years before the Whitechapel Murders.

Didn't somebody have a long list of distinguished people using "Juwes?" All were technically misspellings, but people misspell all the time. I could be confusing a Middle English list, but I don't think so.

[joelhall]

just food for thought (i like to help people out ). it seems these same reasonings keep spinning around and around, so heres some questions to get you thinking (as these threads create more questions than they answer)...

1. why do people insist on focusing on one word rather than the whole phrase? does it seem to have been written by an englishman?

2. does not the whole phrase sound as if its in defence of the 'juwes'?

3. much has been said of the area being jewish, but what of their nationality?

4. if this was anything to do with the freemasons (which however exciting seems to be guess work at best) why such an obvious clue?

5. why is it assumed that the word was written down correctly? would an average policeman of the time recognise, say, a polish or russian word?

6. why would a freemason write this in any case?

7. why would a 'neat schoolboy' have such a bad grasp of grammar?

8. for that matter if 'neat schoolboy' was literally taken to mean someone who still had the hand of a child, where would he learn such an obscure spelling such as 'juwes'?

9. there seem to be more questions surrounding why it was written than who wrote it and its meaning. its a curious order of words... would a fleeing killer bother to think up some riddle-like double negetive?

just a few pondering points

[Sam Flynn]

3. much has been said of the area being jewish, but what of their nationality?

They were overwhelmingly of Polish (or Polish/Russian¹) origin, Joel.

¹ At that time, a large part of Poland was under Russian control.

[joelhall]

They were overwhelmingly of Polish (or Polish/Russian¹) origin, Joel.

¹ At that time, a large part of Poland was under Russian control.

precisely

doesnt anyone think that may have played a larger part in the social cohesion than religion? the language barrier can become quite a hurdle.