A Modern Day BS Man/Liz Encounter

[c.d.]

Hi Maria,

I guess I have to plead quilty since I am the one who started this thread. I just thought it interesting that I had witnessed something so close to Liz and the BS man. I only wanted to show how hard it would be to understand what took place if one didn't understand the language being spoken. In retrospect, I probably should have known that the thread would degenerate into a did Jack kill Liz thread and as you point out all the old dead horses would be trotted out. For some reason, this question tends to get people jacked up like no other. Such is the life of a Ripperologist.

Thanks Maria for calling me the voice of reason but as I have said before it is a sad day when the voice of reason has to be me.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Hi Mac,

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. A breath freshener seems like a good investment. A flower, probably a luxury.

c.d.

[Hunter]

I am sorry CD, as it wasn't the intent of your thread, but this has to be answered.

Swanson's report names her as a prostitute.

The Thames Magistrate Court records show she was arrested for soliciting.

Thomas Bates and the woman from Tiger Bay suggested that she resorted to soliciting. ' She took up with a labourer, said the woman, and "lived indoors with him," but he beat her and so ill-used her that she was forced to turn out in the streets. She took to drink, and seemed to grow reckless and desperate.'

There were countless news articles about the 'victims and their class'. These were all contemporary sources. But believing them wouldn't fit some alternate theory of someone who thinks they know better 122 years after the fact.

All of the other witnesses aside, she was seen by a PC talking to a man in the street after the pubs had closed in front of the IWMEC. She wasn't going to do any charin' at that hour.

If your waiting for the video of her performing her acts to prove what she was doing... it ain't gonna happen.

[mariab]

Fleetwood Mac wrote:
Were they not luxuries? Did she need those luxuries to attract clients? Given a choice...would she have spent that money on alcohol before accessories?
Possibly....possibly in a moment of optimism and self-control she chose self esteem over alcohol.
We could keep analyzing it until the end of time and still get none the wiser, as this will all remain PURE conjecture. She might have onwed the cachous (they were only about 6 or 7) from better days, as she owned the green piece of velvet. The flower could very possibly be a gift by some john. Or maybe she stole it from somewhere. I strongly doubt that she payed for it. I wouldn't have!
And it's not hard at all to understand prostitutes. (Esp. in this economy!!)

[c.d.]

Hi Hunter,

I think maybe you directed your thread to the wrong person as I have always assumed that she was a prostitute if only occasionally.

My knowledge of prostitutes is limited never having had to pay for sex. Of course I am not counting money spent on drinks, dinners, flowers, movie tickets, theater tickets, cab rides etc.

c.d.

[mariab]

There is no doubt whatsoever that at (hard) times Stride was soliciting in the streets, as the inquest, the press releases, and the police report corroborate.

C.D., what you witnessed in the street in D.C. with the fighting couple is eeringly reminiscent of the BS-Stride quarrel, and it's a great idea that you posted it here. Can you imagine if the BS-Stride was something like that, with Stride insistingly asking BS for money (as she habitually did, to all kinds of people), and he simply pushed her off to get rid of her? Not the most probable possibility, but I'm just saying...
Obviously Schwarz' testimony is everything but making sense, and it contradicts Mortimer, bla bla bla, round and round...
It's a rare occurrence when one is the voice of reason. I would embrace it if I were you, for as long as it lasts! ;-)

[lynn cates]

location, location, location

Hello CD. If what you say is true, Liz would have have the business acumen of a stove salesperson in hell. If she had planned to solicit, Whitechapel high st was excellent as was Commercial rd.

But perhaps her location was not planned? Fine. So what WAS she doing on Berner st?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Diemshitz

Hello Maria. Lewis Diemshitz, club steward.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi Mac,

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. A breath freshener seems like a good investment. A flower, probably a luxury.

c.d.

Spoken like a businessman......speculate to accumulate.....although does alcoholism override rational self interest?

[Hunter]

Hello CD.
My comment was not directed at you and because this thread was concerning a similar incident that you witnessed, I was hesitant to post something that wasn't relevant to its original purpose. Other posts prompted me to do so.

Why was Liz on Berner Street?

Its true that street prostitutes worked the main avenues when the pubs were open. But after they closed they began to filter into the side streets to pick up stragglers on their way home. Tiger Bay, nearby is a good example. The docks and the quarters nearby, were to the south, where many labourors and seamen would be headed after hours.

It may be as simple that Liz felt safe in front of a place where there was still some activity... There had been a little talk of a murderer going 'round at the time.

Also, Liz left the lodging house with 6d. She was found dead, with no money and her pockets had not been rifled.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

The North Metropolitan Tramways Act, 1887, (50 Victoria. CH X 1 1) received the Royal Assent on 29th March 1888 and authorised the company "To lay down and maintain a new tramway in Commercial Street."

As hundreds of navvies were working day and night to construct the new tramway, for prostitutes Commercial Street might potentially have been the most profitable thoroughfare in Whitechapel. Work continued until opening day on 15th November 1888.

It's a wonder none of the C5 thought to avail themselves of its business potential, preferring instead quiet side streets and squares where they could get murdered without disturbing the neighbours.

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

To Lynn:
OK, Lewis as a first name! I didn't figure it out. So you're obviously referring to the incident when Diemshitz got arrested in March 1889 during a riot at the International Working Men's Club and was charged with assaulting a police officer. Apparently he was sentenced to 3 months' imprisonment with hard labour, as well as paying £40 plus two sureties of £20 each, to be forfeited if he failed to be of good behaviour for 12 months. I'll read up the rest in The Times and in the East London Advertiser, to see what his “pack of lies“ was. I also see that he's additionally documented as having spoken at a club in Manchester about the Paris Commune!
In my book, this is cool, and he sounds like a commited socialist. It makes it even harder to conjecture that he was involved in a cover-up of a murder of a destitute woman with Schwartz's testimony. WERE there had been a cover-up anyway, it most probably would have happened later in the night, and not planned in a chaotic debate between the entire members of the IWMC in the immediate 15`minutes after the discovery of Stride's body.

[c.d.]

Hi Lynn,

I still don't get your point. It was a club full of men, i.e., potential customers. Perhaps she didn't know that it was a poor place to do business. Better places also have more competition. I have no idea what she was doing on Berner Street. Perhaps she was there to meet someone in the club. Maybe he failed to come out to meet her at the appointed time and she felt like she had been stood up. Good time to end a bad evening with a drink but no money to do so. Hmmm. Now what could she do to get the price of a drink?

Hi Mac,

Alcoholism requires alcohol which requires money which requires customers. There was competition for customers. Fresh breath is better than bad breath. And it's not like cachous were a major investment.

I have to go now.

c.d.

[c.d.]

One last post and then I do have to go. Better places also meant more competition and probably more gangs or individuals robbing or shaking down the prostitutes.

c.d.

[mariab]

Simon Wood wrote:
It's a wonder none of the C5 thought to avail themselves of its business potential, preferring instead quiet side streets and squares where they could get murdered without disturbing the neighbours.
One of the police officials (was it Monro, or Swanson?) accused the C5 of precisely this fatal business strategy, in some police report! I have to look it up, I wish I remembered which report it was...

Also, might I remind you that Stride spoke Yiddish? Perhaps not the wrong place to be for her, in front of of the IWMC. The Club members claimed not to have known her, but this might be an untruth. (Which doesn't mean that I'd go as far as to accept Lynn Cate's entire cover-up theory.)

C.D. wrote:
Alcoholism requires alcohol which requires money which requires customers. There was competition for customers. Fresh breath is better than bad breath. And it's not like cachous were a major investment.
I was just about to post the same... And she had just a few cachous, 6 or 7, not an entire box.