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Does anyone know what the median age of "unfortunates" was in the east end at the time of the killings? The relative youthfulness of Mary Kelly is so marked next to the rest of the C5 victims.
What spurred this question was watching episodes 2-4 of the "Barlow & Watt Investigate JtR" series yesterday; I thought the recreations were excellent(given their budget especially, which can't have been too much), and how novel it was to see the victims represented as their actual ages, rather than the Hammer/Hollywood versions one usually sees.
There was one scene in the Ten Bells where one of the witnesses was enacting her press interview about Mary Kelly; the witness was shown as yet another blowsy old dame, and I found myself wondering how many of the Ten Bell's patrons were young(er) than she, if many-or any. I realize that obviously not all pubgoers were prostitutes...but the hardcore drinkers seemed to have often got into a situation (via drink) where the odd pickup became a necessity for their survival.
As to that pub sequence again: it also makes me wonder-given the equalizer of such extreme poverty, would a casual "unfortunate" be at all shunned by an equally poor woman of more respectable lifestyle in Whitechapel-i.e., say, a coffee-shop operator's wife(as Stride was at one point)? Or would the need for trade and "getting along to get along" mean that there was a fellowship of sorts amongst the various women? Generally speaking, of course?
Just craving some more contemporary context and with my head full of seemingly very nonjudgemental witnesses in those inquest reports...
-JennyL
What spurred this question was watching episodes 2-4 of the "Barlow & Watt Investigate JtR" series yesterday; I thought the recreations were excellent(given their budget especially, which can't have been too much), and how novel it was to see the victims represented as their actual ages, rather than the Hammer/Hollywood versions one usually sees.
There was one scene in the Ten Bells where one of the witnesses was enacting her press interview about Mary Kelly; the witness was shown as yet another blowsy old dame, and I found myself wondering how many of the Ten Bell's patrons were young(er) than she, if many-or any. I realize that obviously not all pubgoers were prostitutes...but the hardcore drinkers seemed to have often got into a situation (via drink) where the odd pickup became a necessity for their survival.
As to that pub sequence again: it also makes me wonder-given the equalizer of such extreme poverty, would a casual "unfortunate" be at all shunned by an equally poor woman of more respectable lifestyle in Whitechapel-i.e., say, a coffee-shop operator's wife(as Stride was at one point)? Or would the need for trade and "getting along to get along" mean that there was a fellowship of sorts amongst the various women? Generally speaking, of course?
Just craving some more contemporary context and with my head full of seemingly very nonjudgemental witnesses in those inquest reports...
-JennyL
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