The Grisly

[Fisherman]

Bridewell:

"I've just realised that I'm in agreement with Fisherman on this thread. "

I´ll deal with it, Bridewell, strange as it is.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

" I'm sorry to say that you're not playing fair at all."

No - you´re HAPPY to say it, Tom.

"We have no reason to suspect that Walter Dew, writing 50 YEARS after the fact, had any clue as to Charles Cross' age."

Unless working the case was such a reason, I´d say you are probably right. Then again ...

" Dew was working from memory and newspaper reports and likely concluded he was middle aged from the statements that he'd worked for the same company for 20 years."

You ARE serious, yes? Walter Dew was working from memory, yes - that´s what happens when fifty years have passed. But it does not change the fact that he WAS working the case, and well accustomed with it´s details.

"In fact, I thought Cross was a good 10 years older than the 38 you claim, but I'll defer to your superior knowledge of Cross."

Wise move, Tom! Please also observe that Lechmere was rather typical for the average East-ender. At 38 years of age, he had a large swarm of kids, had travelled the East End streets with his horse and cart for more than twenty years, and was a very seasoned carman. Do you propose to tell me that he would have passed for a young man, being in his thirties? Me oh my ...!

"As for the Frederick News, are you serious?"

Yep.

"You think the guy who wrote that article had any clue as to Emma Smith's real age?"

Since he felt at ease to place her age-wise in the "past middle-age" category, I´d say it´s a pretty fair bet.

"And Packer's statement...That's really hitting below the belt, because as you know, in one of his other variations, he's describing a 'young man' of '30 years'."

Making his claim of a middle-aged man a lie? I would not think so. As you could see from the source I mentioned, speaking of people born 1920 and reaching middle age in 1950, 30-something WAS middle age in the Victorian era. I could of course go on producing more evidence, but the truth of the matter is that neither you nor I want to do it. Right?

"So, returning to my point...a 30 year old is a 'young man'. A 45 year old or old is certainly middle-aged."

... and returning to MY - and the Victorians´- point: Middle-aged at that time would have varied somewhere in the range of around 30 to around 45 (in spite of the Smith clipping). After that, you were old.

People stay childish longer today. Don´t fall into that trap.

The best,
Fisherman

[mklhawley]

Hi All,

This is no more than a thought.

At the time of Polly Nichols' murder Commercial Street was a day-and-night hive of activity as gangs of navvies toiled to complete the tramway which would eventually link Bloomsbury with Poplar. It was opened on 15th November 1888.

If Polly was in search of a punter and a quick fourpence, then Commercial Street was a potential Puntersville. Why, then, did she stagger all the way to the relatively quiet and secluded Bucks Row?

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

Was there not competition for the choice locations? Somewhere I had read that unfortunates were quite territorial. Also, Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road were also main thoroughfares, so was there not activity going on there, as well? Might she not have been picked up outside of Grave Maurice Tavern on the other side of the London Hospital?

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jon,

Such questions. I really have no idea.

Why would anyone be interested in a knee-trembler with a mid-forties alcoholic?

But if Nichols was a prostitute desperate for fourpence, do you not think she'd have gravitated to the most likely source of revenue?

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Hi All,

This is no more than a thought.

At the time of Polly Nichols' murder Commercial Street was a day-and-night hive of activity as gangs of navvies toiled to complete the tramway which would eventually link Bloomsbury with Poplar. It was opened on 15th November 1888.

If Polly was in search of a punter and a quick fourpence, then Commercial Street was a potential Puntersville. Why, then, did she stagger all the way to the relatively quiet and secluded Bucks Row?

Regards,

Simon

1- Why would you think they'd be interested?
2 - Do you think night-shift workers were unsupervised?

Regards, Jon S.

[Tom_Wescott]

Roy,

Your Hasta La Vista post was hilarious. Thanks for the up lift.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lechmere]

Frau retro are you saying that you are really 70? My maths isn't so good.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

This is no more than a thought.

At the time of Polly Nichols' murder Commercial Street was a day-and-night hive of activity as gangs of navvies toiled to complete the tramway which would eventually link Bloomsbury with Poplar. It was opened on 15th November 1888.

If Polly was in search of a punter and a quick fourpence, then Commercial Street was a potential Puntersville. Why, then, did she stagger all the way to the relatively quiet and secluded Bucks Row?

Regards,

Simon

[Bridewell]

As far as I am concerned the only relevance of the victims' prostitute status is were they soliciting when they were murdered. This would tell us something about the circumstances in which they met their death and how the perpetrator may have carried out the murders.
It really doesn't matter if the night on question was their first night on the game or whether they did it occasionally or every single day.
In my opinion it is without doubt that the first four of the c5 were soliciting immediately prior to their deaths. There can be more doubt about Kelly as she was indoors and a case could be made that someone effected an entry and killed her in her sleep - or something similar. In my opinion she almost certainly was also soliciting and met her demise in the same way essentially as the others.
If you want to write a biography of the victims then discovering how often they acted as a prostitute may be if interest, but that's about it.
It seems to me some of these 'prove it' arguments are along the same lines as 'prove titanic even existed' or prove 'man has landed on the moon'.

Absolutely agree with your thoughts on this, Lechmere. The key issue is, as you say, whether or not they were soliciting when they met their killer.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Lechmere]

Simon
Are we permitted to ask just what that alternative might be?
If you are after firm evidence about anything in the case abd want to disregard police and newspaper reports as not being firm evidence then we ate left with very little but idle speculation. I like to speculate as much as the next man (if that next man is madam retro) but there are limits.

Lynn
Are you haggling? Make it the first three.

[lynn cates]

compromise

Hello Lechmere.

"As far as I am concerned the only relevance of the victims' prostitute status is were they soliciting when they were murdered."

Completely agree.

"In my opinion it is without doubt that the first four of the C5 were soliciting immediately prior to their deaths."

In my opinion, I'll go half--first two, yes.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Dr. Philips' pormortem report on MacKenzie

Hunter/Cris, pertaining to your post #209, might I inquire where you've got Dr. Phillips' post-mortem report on Alice McKenzie? (Which is not transcribed in The Ultimate.) Do you have the original source? There are some things I'd very much like to ask you about further coroners reports, but it has time.

PS.: Many thanks to Dave O. for his post #204.

[lynn cates]

views

Hello Roy. Thanks. Now, I almost understand your post.

I had not realised that the police were the subject here.

Next to the medical professionals, I want to know what the police thought. Does that make it correct? No, but I prefer the added weight of inductive evidence lent from that quarter.

I believe I posted above that the Home Office reports listed Polly and Annie as prostitutes. I also noted that the neighbourhood police in St. Georges-in-the-east thought Liz soliciting. They referred to her get up.

I have found no analogous Home Office report for Kate; of course, her report was not written up by Donald Swanson--City turf.

Please be aware that, although I consider both Phil and Simon good friends, we all three (I think) have varied views about what happened in Whitechapel in the autumn of terror. And that is how it should be.

Cheers.
LC

[Rubyretro]

As far as I'm concerned :

-all the C5 + Tabram (I don't know enough about the other murder victims to be able to comment..although I think that some of them were surely Jack's)
were prostitutes.

This is borne out by official paperwork, description in the papers, and behaviour on the nights of their deaths. I'm quite willing to believe that some of them were only part time prostitutes.

Unfortunately I have lent out my Neal Sheldon 'The victims of Jack the Ripper' book, and can't cite it here - but I'm pretty sure that Liz Stride had been up before the beak in London for prostitution, and it also says that her usual patch was more toward the docks.

If John Kelly didn't want to say that Kate was a prostitute it was probably by
love and guilt -I should think that she just lied to him when she got a bit of money (such as saying that she'd got it from her daughter), and it was convenient for him to turn a blind eye and profit from the proceeds whilst she was alive, but he didn't want to blacken her name after her death.

I think that Joe Barnett obviously loved MJK (or at least retained a fondness)
and didn't want to speak ill of the dead either -but it seems clear that it was a bone of contention between them.

The fact that none of these women had a VD listed at their autopsies would probably be because there is more than one way to skin a cat .

-That they were all alcoholics, to varying degrees, seems sure to me. Everything points to it.

-That people were considered 'middle aged' at thirty seems equally certain.
It doesn't make any difference if some people lived to 80 or 90...they didn't have all that cosmetic 'help' available to them in LVP. They had a different mindset and just let themselves go with something that appeared to be a fatality. It could be that some people were 'middle aged' for 2 thirds of their lives.

(I wonder if one reason that we can't find MJK is that she just lied incredibly about her age? Maybe she was over 30 ? I have a mate like that - It's luck and good genes and not entirely healthy living. She told me that she always lies about it.

Pity that I'm not into old blokes...otherwise I'd just take the tip and and lie and tell them that I am 60...I'd drop 10 years instantly at no cost...but I digress...just musing)

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lechmere,

I have no problem with Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes possibly having been prostitutes—either full or part-time—but at the moment there appears to be only various anecdotal evidence in support of the idea.

And just in case anyone's wondering, I don't have an alternative theory up my sleeve for their presence on the streets.

Regards,

Simon