Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes
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From the Daily Telegraph report of Stride's Inquest:
Morris Eagle After the discussion, between half-past eleven and a quarter to twelve o'clock, I left the club to take my young lady home, going out through the front door. I returned about twenty minutes to one.......I had been there twenty minutes when a member named Gidleman came upstairs, and said "there is a woman dead in the yard".
Here we have Eagle guessing what time he left the club and estimating the time he took to return and then estimating again how long he was there before being informed of the murder. You would have us believe that all the errors in these guesses and estimates cancelled each other out and he arrived at a correct time of 1AM, nearly an hour and a half after his starting guess. The same applies to the guesses and estimates of Spooner and Brown, yet you contually use these three to challenge the short estimates of Lamb. You seem to be presenting the reports from the inquest as Lamb giving different times. Lamb made only one statement. Some reporters chose to give an accurate time, which is the most likely to accurately reflect what Lamb actually said (particularly when they agree), others give a general time and some neglect to quote a time at all. The same applies with Johnson.
Kozebrodski worked with Diemshitz and it would be reasonable to assume that he looked at the clock in the club when he arrived for work at 11:30 to check that he was on time for work. We know there was a clock in the club because Eagle specifically stated that he didn't look at it. An estimate of 10 minutes is minimal compare to the long multiple estimates of Eagle, Spooner and Brown. I repeat my inconvenient question: When did these three last see a clock?
However accurate Kozebrodski's estimate may have been, it was still subject to error due to that clock not being synched. I really can't see your basis for challenging Hoschberg's estimate. He used the phrase "I should think" which was victorian speak for "I believe this to be true" and you have no justification for doubting his estimate in favour of those of your three men. What reason had Hoschberg to lie?
I am a little confused about your comment "Like Fanny Mortimer, who I wouldn’t have trusted to tell me what day it was.". I have seen your posts in the past where you were proposing that if FM's times were calibrated by Smith's footsteps between 12:30 and 12:35, then she would have just missed Stride when she came to her door and just missed Schwartz because she went inside just before he arrived. I noted at the time of your posts you conveniently left out the part of her story involving Diemshitz arriving some 4 minutes after she went inside.
I agree with your assertion that police constables often did not carry pocket watches. However, according to Monty, it was imperitive that they knew the time. The police of that era had their times co-ordinated to that of Big Ben (GMT) by means of telegraph and telephone. The beats of the PCs were overseen by a Sergeant so perhaps he carried a pocket watch and provided corrections for the local clocks at the start of the beats? Smith and Lamb were on their regular beats and the tobacconist clock was on both those beats. They would have had a very good grasp on accurate times. To propose that the short time estimates, from when they last saw a clock, are less accurate than the long multiple estimates based on dubios starting points employed by Eagle, Spooner and Brown defies both logic and reason.
I am aware that we both stand in wonder at what we each see as the other's inability to grasp the "bleeding obvious". I guess we need to look at the “The irresistible force meeting the immovable object” and decide into which category we fall. I don't wish to be involved with the flame war between yourself and Michael Richards. I have independently arrived at some conclusion that happen to coincide with Michael's, and others which do not, but it appears that it is his alleged conspiracy theory in which I have in the past been suspected to be involved. That is not the case.
Cheers, George
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