The Grisly

[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

[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]

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

[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.

[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.

[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

[Lechmere]

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

[Tom_Wescott]

Roy,

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

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[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.

[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

[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

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

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

No - youīre 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, Iīd 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 - thatīs what happens when fifty years have passed. But it does not change the fact that he WAS working the case, and well accustomed with itīs 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, Iīd say itīs 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 Victoriansī- 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. Donīt fall into that trap.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Bridewell:

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

Iīll deal with it, Bridewell, strange as it is.

Fisherman

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Fish. You're impossible to debate with because you're constantly moving the goalposts.

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 ...!

Watch it, buddy, I'm 38! I get called young man all the time by old people in their 50s and 60s. However, a 15 year old asked me two years ago if I had been a hippie in the 70's! To kids I'd be middle-aged, but to someone the age of William Marshall, I'd be a 'young man' or 'relatively young man'. If he called me middle-aged, he'd be calling himself old. Human nature, Fish. You and Bridewell aren't getting it.

There is very, very, very little difference in life expectancy from 1888 to now, if you made it past 5 years old. What's true now is true then in this respect.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Fisherman]

Tom W:

"You're impossible to debate with because you're constantly moving the goalposts. "

I am moving no goalposts at all, Tom, whereas the goalposts HAVE moved on the age issue over the years. Read this:

From the thesis "Stereotyping and prejudice against older persons":

"Research shows that these generally accepted guidelines are not far off base. When respondents have the opportunity to define age categories themselves, their perceptions are largely in agreement with researcherīs judgements. Zepelin, Sills and Heath (1986), for example, found that those between ages of 18 and 35 were considered young, those between 35 and 60 were considered middle-aged, and those between 60 and 80 were considered old."

So, Tom, we have here a quotation of a scientific measuring of how people judged ages in 1986, more or less exactly a hundred years AFTER the Ripper murders. Right? And what can we learn? Exactly: we can learn that in 1986, you were considered middle-aged by the man and woman in the street when you turned 35!

Now, please note that there would have been a different take on this a century earlier: Patrick Mulshaw, for example ("watchman, old man", you know) would still have been middle-aged in 1986. In 1888, he - just like the 54-year old Packer - were already old men.

"Watch it, buddy, I'm 38! I get called young man all the time by old people in their 50s and 60s."

I can call you a child, if youīd like me to, Tom But the truth of the matter is that we are both middle-aged, you and I!

"Human nature, Fish. You and Bridewell aren't getting it."

Iīd say that the thesis above LISTS what "human nature" had to say about being middle-aged in 1986 ... Itīs also, however, "human nature" not to give in to facts at times, so we are seeing a lot of human nature here, methinks ...

Case closed, Tom, unless you can produce statistical evidence telling us that the Victorians thought the thirties young age.

The best,
Fisherman