Book about the Ripper Arguing Victims Were Not Prostitutes

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Deb, your assertion that you doubt that "any of the five were prostituting themselves at the time of their deaths" seems to fly in the face of the facts.

Didn't Polly Nichols say that she was going to make her bed money for the night?

Didn't Catherine Eddowes take the man into a corner of Mitre Square -- why would she do that if she were merely begging?

Firstly,your detective skills cannot differentiate between Debra and myself.

Yep,Polly was after doss money.

There is no evidence that Eddowes took Jack into Mitre Square.
Damn stupid place to be soliciting.
That area was crawling with cops.In fact many from Jewry Street,etc lived very close by.
In fact testimony given says that Catherine did not prostitute herself at all.

This somehow qualifies these two as prostitutes!

Sorry. I thought you were Debra Arif. Although my post stands just the same.

I don't see how your objection to my saying Catherine Eddowes took "Jack" into a corner of Mitre Square makes sense. That corner of Mitre Square where she was slaughtered was certainly a more secluded location than where they evidently met, on Duke Street, outside the Great Synagogue. In other words, the sort of place a street walker might take a client to carry out an act of prostitution.

Best regards

Chris

[DJA]

Sorry. I thought you were Debra Arif. Although my post stands just the same.

Chris

If you saw a recent photo of me,an apology to Debra would be appropriate

Honestly doubt the woman you are referring to was Eddowes.

All the Best,
Dave.

PS. Um....no,not that other Dave

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Deb, your assertion that you doubt that "any of the five were prostituting themselves at the time of their deaths" seems to fly in the face of the facts.

Didn't Polly Nichols say that she was going to make her bed money for the night?

Didn't Catherine Eddowes take the man into a corner of Mitre Square -- why would she do that if she were merely begging?

Hi Chris,

On the above, according to the known data only 2 Canonicals admitted to their pursuits on the respective nights that they were killed, Catherine Eddowes was not one of them. It was Polly as you state above, and Annie.

Exactly how Catherine found herself in Mitre Square is far from answered and it remains possible that Sailor Man was not talking with Kate when seen by the Three Wisemen. The time allowed using that sighting, to get her into the square, kill her, mutilate her with some care as shown in the navel tracing and colon sectioning and the facial wounding, cutting her apron, and then exiting without being seen by either Watkins or Harvey, is very limited. From a sighting outside the square at 12:35ish to a discovery of the mutilated remains at 12:43-44 inside the dark square is a little to tight for my own sensibilities.

[miss marple]

Thanks for liking my post. To recap, looking at each victim, it seems they resorted to prostitution when they were desperate and there was no other choice. Polly had spend a lot of time in workhouses in the last years of her life and then got a domestic job in Wandsworth in May working for a respectable family. She left in July stealing clothes worth Ł3 .10 shillings and ended back in the East End. Polly had a drink problem and her life started to unravel. On the last night of her life she was last seen a 2.30 in the morning by Ellen Holland drunk, yet she had not her lodging money and went off to earn some more money down the Whitechapel rd. This suggests that she had earlier been drinking, so she was either brought drinks in a pub in return for sexual favours or she had been turning tricks and spent the money on drink not prudently saving fourpence for her lodging, so when she leaves Ellen Holland she hopes to get another client for her lodging money, instead meets the ripper.

Annie Chapman had been receiving an allowance of ten shillings a week from her estranged husband John Chapman until he died in dec 1886, This would have pushed her into pauperism. She survived 87 by borrowing off relatives and making artifical flowers. She had been living with a sieve maker who hopped it, when her allowance disappeared . So she cannot live by artifical flowers alone. In the last for months she was at Crossingham's lodging house 35 Dorset st she was regarded as quiet and inoffensive except on Saturday when she liked at drink and had a man friend Ted Stanley sleep over in a double bed cost 8 pence.So in the last year of her life to maintain her lodging and her drinking she would be on the streets. Drink was the only comfort these women had, She was involved in a fight with Eliza Cooper in Crossinghams over a piece of soap a week before she died. She sustained bruising and was not feeling very well. The post mortem discovered she was tuberculer. She had no money even for Crossinghams and was seen by her friend Amelia Palmer on thetuesday 4th of December. She was ill and hungry Amelia gave her tuppence to spend on tea not rum. She last saw her on the friday of her death. She said to Amelia'' I must pull myself together and get some money or I will get no lodgings''
So Annie's options are borrowing money or turning tricks. She goes to Vauxhall to see her sister [ quite a walk] borrows 5 pence returns to Crossinghams sits in the warm kitchen eats and sends out for beer, as a result she cannot afford her bed, so goes out to find a client and meets the ripper.

LIz Stride had been in a regular relationship with Michael Kidney for three years[ he gave her money] and she worked as a charwoman and had received assistance from the Swedish church and even though she had been a registered prostitute in her younger days in Sweden, in London she had various jobs. Her situation appeared not to be as desperate as that of Polly and Annie. She had quarrelled with Kidney and left the lodging house they shared. Llz also drank, but was neat, clean and good natured'; she had appeared at Thames Magistrate Court on charges of drunk and disorderly.So in the last week of her life without relying on Kidney she was soliciting to pay for her bed and possible drink. So she was picking up a punter on he night she met the ripper.

Catherine Eddows was in a relationship with Michael Kelly she worked as a charwoman, he was a casual labourer, they went hop picking. They supported each other, paid their lodgings. Sometimes they drank to excess, but Kate was not seen drunk.After coming back from Hopping they were destitute. The day before her death Kate had gone to the casual ward Kelly stayed at Cooneys. On the day of her death they pawned his boots for 2 shillings and sixpence, they had breakfast at Cooneys and seperated, Kelly going to seeif he could get any casual labour at the markets.
We next see Kate very drunk at 8.30 in the evening. I think she was probably drunk from some of the boot money, they could not have spend 2/6 on breakfast and tea and Kelly would have given her some, even if only to secure their beds for the night. Perhaps it was too much of a temptation. We know she was picked up by the police and placed in a cell to sleep it off. She was released abour 1 am and said she would get a 'dam good hiding then she got home' probably because she had spent the boot money. It was possibly this that in her still slightly drunken state of mind that she needed to make up the boot money so decided to try and turn a few tricks to make it up, so walked out to her death .

Mary Kelly we know had according to herself and others, had been a prostitute since the age of 16 first in Cardiff then in the West End then the East End. She had supposedly worked the docks, had a pitch at the Ten Bells where she possibly met Joe Barnett. While Joe was earning enough to keep her she stayed off the streets when they split up after he lost his job and had prostitute friends to stay in their room the she made the decistion to go back to business. She was in debt with the rent but her room was her asset. When she returned hanging out in pubs like the Brittania it would have got around quickly that Mary was back in business. Thirteen days after Joe left she was murdered in her room.
What we see from this are desperate lives,one cannot get judgemental because drink took priority over a bed for the night. The grinding misery of such existances needed a temporary solace, you live for the moment and can't make plans for the future because there is no future. Prostitution was a part of the jigsaw that was poverty, homelessness, ill health and alcoholism.

Miss Marp

[GUT]

Sums it up nicely in my opinion.

[Pcdunn]

I agree with GUT, -- your post is excellent, miss marple and very erudite.

[Joshua Rogan]

Barnett certainly wouldn't have, but as informant, I don't think coroner Macdonald would had such qualms, GUT. Macdonald would have taken the occupation of prostitute from the police paperwork.
Debs

East London Advertiser 17th Nov;

"About a fortnight ago she had a quarrel with Kelly, and, after blows had been exchanged, the man left the house, or rather room, and did not return. Since then the woman has supported herself as best she could, and the police have ascertained that she has been walking the streets."

[Madam Detective]

Just to point out a few things and throwing the cat amongst the pigeons - we have no absolute record of the inquests of Annie and Polly and if you read across all of the newspaper reports, the phrasing of many of the witnesses statements differs markedly. Which is the definitive version? None and all. Journalists embellished, they left things out and added things in. What did they add in? We'll never know. They wanted to sell newspapers. You'll also see that as time progresses and more murders are committed, the witness statements become more colourful, more people think they have seen things or knew the victims. These sorts of deposition statements are so woolly that they wouldn't stand up in a court today.

While I absolutely acknowledge that prostitution was something that was regularly engaged in in order to have food and a bed, the way in which we conceive of these women's lives is missing many pieces. These women were dismissed by the police and the newspapers without any real investigation into who they were. They came from failed marriages - and that was the first black mark against them in the eyes of Victorian society. They were 'whores' in the broadest sense before they even arrived in Whitechapel. The police were quick to jump to conclusions and if you look at the documentation filed by the police about the first two murders you'll see in the phrasing that it is assumed they were prostitutes because the bodies were found in secluded areas which may (or may not - as there is a measure of doubt in the police reports) have been places where street walkers took clients.

I don't believe Annie, Polly or Kate were street walkers - I think the evidence for this is extremely thin. Being out late at night probably has more to do with the fact that they didn't have their doss money and got chucked out rather than that they were trawling for trade. Each night, a lot of poor people had nowhere to sleep in Whitechapel - if you can't get into the casual ward at the workhouse (and Whitechapel casual was filled up quite often) and you didn't have your doss money, what did you do? There was a lot of homelessness. However, what I don't mean to imply was that they wouldn't have offered to share a bed with a man for the night so they could actually HAVE a bed (see Annie's relationship with Ted Stanley). This wasn't 'prostitution' as we imagine it - all sauntering along the street or leaning on gas lamps - but rather, meeting a man in the pub, engaging in some friendly chat with local men, asking someone if they could loan you a shilling (and seeing what sort of counter offer they made you). Read My Secret Life by Walter. It's 11 volumes worth of how prostitution on every level operated.

Also worth noting - Annie did other things to get her doss money - she crocheted, and did bits of sewing which she sold at Stratford Market. This would have been all important when it came to earning enough for a roof over her head, though as a severe alcoholic, she would have had trouble hanging onto what she earned. You also can't under-estimate the economy in begging and borrowing that went on in the East End. There was always some way of scrounging something - beggars even loaned money to other beggars.

Basically, what I'm saying is that we simply do not have the full picture of who these women were and what their circumstances were, and often we jump to a lot of conclusions which have never been completely examined or even challenged.

[Mr Lucky]

Brothels were not illegal until after Stead in 1885.

The statute used to form the indictment that brought about the 1885 prosecution was the 'Disorderly House Act' 1751, so brothels had actually been illegal since then, but previously nobody had bothered using the Act to bring about an attempt to prosecute.

The technical definition of a brothel was created around 10 years later in the case Singleton v Ellison 1895

[Mr Lucky]

we have no absolute record of the inquests of Annie and Polly

The inquest are public, the 'absolute record' is the one found in the press.

and if you read across all of the newspaper reports, the phrasing of many of the witnesses statements differs markedly.

That's because they have been written by different reporters

Which is the definitive version? None and all.

The legal profession generally use the Times by preference - though there is no real reason for this, after 1991 for a court report published in a newspaper to be admissible later in a court it had to have been written by some one with a recognised legal qualification but prior to this the reporter just had to be present at the time. So all the press Inquest reports from 1888 are valid legal evidences

Journalists embellished, they left things out and added things in.

They certainly left thing out, but they didn't add anything in and when they did they were found out.

What did they add in? We'll never know. They wanted to sell newspapers.

That's not true, they didn't add anything in at all. The only people wanting to sell anything are the owners/publishers of the newspapers. The journalist get paid a flat rate. But hey don't let reality stand in the way of disseminating well rehearsed ripperological facts.

[MrBarnett]

Actually, Polly Nichols just said she had moved to a lodging house which wasn't a single sex one - that could mean anything - you have to read how many times it's been altered in reporting, the words change on many occasions. She also says she made her doss money several times over - doing what? Why do we infer it was in the line of prostituting herself. She could have easily begged that money or pawned things or borrowed it. The truth is all of this stuff is circumstantial. Polly Nichols has been in workhouses for most of the time prior to coming to Whitechapel,and also in employment working for the Cowdrys. She'd barely been in Whitechapel for a month before she was murdered. Why do we assume she was a prostitute?

Because the women she lodged with said so?

If you ever write a book on the subject ‘Madam Detective’, don’t forget to include that.

[drstrange169]

Ouch!

[Losmandris]

Because the women she lodged with said so?

If you ever write a book on the subject ‘Madam Detective’, don’t forget to include that.

I think she already has! In which she went out of her way to omit that little fact!