How are we so certain the victims were all prostitutes?

[Varqm]

I don't know of evidence to PROVE it either way.

Not looking for proof,just a reason.It's an old case.I know how it works.

Ripper case: No evidence/ very tenuous interpretation of facts = guilty
OJ Simpson case: Loads of evidence = not guity

[Robert]

Hi Dark Passenger

I've never heard of the hand on chest thing - except obviously with Eddowes.

Of course, if Hutchinson is to be believed, it was Mr A who approached MJK by tapping her on the shoulder. If Mary was looking for a client, Mr A must have been pretty quick with his shoulder tap before Mary got her chest touch in.

[GUT]

Originally Posted by Wickerman View Post
Right, he didn't kill them because they were prostitutes (ie; he didn't hate prostitutes).
His victims were prostitutes because they were plentyful, available, and willing to go somewhere secluded. Which, presumably other women out late at night like; a midwife, a maid, a nurse or housewife would not.


Is there anything to tip the balance towards this argument as opposed to
the killer hating prostitutes? Or both?

I don't know of evidence to PROVE it either way.

[Varqm]

Originally Posted by Wickerman View Post
Right, he didn't kill them because they were prostitutes (ie; he didn't hate prostitutes).
His victims were prostitutes because they were plentyful, available, and willing to go somewhere secluded. Which, presumably other women out late at night like; a midwife, a maid, a nurse or housewife would not.


Is there anything to tip the balance towards this argument as opposed to
the killer hating prostitutes? Or both?

[GUT]

Right, he didn't kill them because they were prostitutes (ie; he didn't hate prostitutes).
His victims were prostitutes because they were plentyful, available, and willing to go somewhere secluded. Which, presumably other women out late at night like; a midwife, a maid, a nurse or housewife would not.

Sums up my opinion pretty well.

[Scott Nelson]

Possibly, they may have been out at night. After all, I've just seen the new documentary series on Queen Victoria and it shows that on occasion midwives, maids and nurses were out and about at all hours of the night.

[Wickerman]

Now that's a different question.

I think they may have been killed because they were prostitutes in that prostitutes were an easy target, ie the most likely females to go with a stranger to a private place in the middle of the night. As opposed to the killer had a set on prostitutes.

Right, he didn't kill them because they were prostitutes (ie; he didn't hate prostitutes).
His victims were prostitutes because they were plentyful, available, and willing to go somewhere secluded. Which, presumably other women out late at night like; a midwife, a maid, a nurse or housewife would not.

[GUT]

If they were prostitutes, were they killed because they were prostitutes?

For that there is no evidence whatsoever that I can think of other than the "Dear Boss" letter - which almost everybody thinks was a journalistic hoax - and therefore not evidence of any kind about the killer's motives.

Now that's a different question.

I think they may have been killed because they were prostitutes in that prostitutes were an easy target, ie the most likely females to go with a stranger to a private place in the middle of the night. As opposed to the killer had a set on prostitutes.

[Bridewell]

If they were prostitutes, were they killed because they were prostitutes?

For that there is no evidence whatsoever that I can think of other than the "Dear Boss" letter - which almost everybody thinks was a journalistic hoax - and therefore not evidence of any kind about the killer's motives.

[Michael W Richards]

This has occurred to me on several occasions. Aside from Mary Jane Kelly, it seems to me that the other victims may have just been rough sleepers who weren't able to find their doss money for the night and bedded down in a door way or a quiet corner. How are we so certain they were prostitutes? There is no suggestion that they had sexual intercourse with the ripper, there was no money found on the bodies. On the police reports the word 'prostitute' was written into the section marked 'occupation' - but might this have just been a guess by the police that a woman walking the streets at night was a prostitute? In fact, it seems to me that most of the victims had been beggars.

Based on existing known evidence, 2 of the Five Canonicals stated to friends that they were out to earn money for their bed that night. In the middle of the night. Safe to conclude it was soliciting. Unfortunate and Prostitute are both used to describe the women, though I would think that Mary is the only one of the Five who had been doing this exclusively for a living for some years. We know of no other way she made money......other than "from the kindness of strangers". We have evidence that Liz cleaned rooms and was regularly employed doing that up until her murder, Polly and Kate knitted and sewed. Kate also went hops picking in the summer, and had John to assist her with money.

[DarkPassenger]

Quick question...

I read somewhere that prostitutes in the period of Jack proactively approached their potential customers and placed a hand on their chest. Is this right?

[drstrange169]

Hello Madame Detective,

Point well made.

"Prostitute" is a word loaded with connotations, many of which may well not apply in these cases.

[Errata]

To be strictly fair, few serial killers target prostitutes BECAUSE they are prostitutes. They target prostitutes because prostitutes are not super safety conscious, are vulnerable, they go off with strange men, and are less likely to be missed. So any women who also fit those criteria even if they are not selling sex are also likely to be targets. Homeless women for example.

[Madam Detective]

To be honest, I think it's questionable whether any of them were actually prostitutes, but rather, I think it's a case of how society construed them - women who had sex outside of marriage were seen as fallen. It was as black and white as that. However, a great many poor people's marriages fell apart or their spouses died and they took up with someone else - or a succession of other people, much as we would today. Unfortunately, women needed to rely on men in the Victorian era - being footloose and fancy free wasn't a state to which any woman would aspire for social and practical reasons. The canonical five were branded as prostitutes by the police because they were down-and-outs - they were degraded in every way - poor, alcoholic and shacking up with someone to whom they weren't legally married was part and parcel of what made them reviled by the newspaper reading public. I don't feel there is any real substantial evidence to make a case for them being called prostitutes. The witness statements are all extremely woolly - so much so that they are constant source of dispute on this forum. Can we believe anything anyone said? I have a hard time believing that anyone could recognise anyone's face at night on the streets of pitch black Whitechapel. And in the case of Elizabeth Stride and MJK, who we know were prostitutes - does having been one once mean that you are forever tarred with that brush? That's pretty damning.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I wouldn't think they were prostitutes in the traditional sense. Only when times got tough. Eddowes went hopping, Chapman was reported to selling sewn trinkets of sorts. I don't know about Nichols and Stride if they did anything of the sort.

Kelly was probably the only prostitute by trade and most likely a maneater based on Barnett's testimony. She apparently only went out on the streets when she didn't have a man taking care of her.

Columbo

I disagree, only Eddowes seem to evade all allusion of prostitution, even casual.

Tabram was known to rely on the trade when times were rough.
Nichols was indeed solliciting for her doss money the very night she was killed.
Chapman was known to bring a man back to the doss house.
Stride had several convinction for prostitution in Sweden.
Eddowes, like I said, I can't find anything that points into prostitution.
Kelly was at one point a high end prostitute in a west end bordello.