The Grisly

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil,

Perfidious Albion, the Colonies, the Antipodes and the rest of the known world received wholly different variations on the story at wholly different times.

We have been bequeathed a mystery which not only beggars belief but also insults the intelligence of otherwise smart people.

Regards,

Simon

Hello Simon,

Thank you for the reply.
You are indeed correct about the difference of the version at 'home' vis a vis the rest of the world. A prime example is the almost non-existance of Tumblety in UK papers, yet spread all over the USA. Now with this example in mind, if we are to take the Tumblety stories as serious, we must also consider with equal strength reports from other areas too.
Example no.2 is an interview with a top policeman in a French newspaper ( MM?) that David provided a few years ago, which raised totally differing viewpoints to the ones known 'at home'.

I have also checked sources in Norwegian and Swedish newspapers who had their OWN people in London, sending reports back to their countries. So it is reasonble to see that these reporters had their own investigative line of enquiries, as did smaller local and provincial newspapers in London and the UK. The Western Mail for example with Farquaharsons story.

What I am trying to say is that we cannot simply rule out because we dont KNOW whether agencies are involved or not, and the true story may well have been quashed for home readers.

This story has nothing to do with coach use a la Sickert/Knight. But it does remind me of a story of a trail of blood from an adjoining street, from the East London Advertiser (please correct me if I am wrong with this source).

The question of what newspaper is reliable or nay applies equally to well known London based natiomal daily newspapers too. The Times made errors too.

Best wishes

Phil

[Archaic]

Slaughtermen

Hi Simon. I’m a bit confused at your response to my question.

Hi Simon. I don't happen to agree with the writer of the article, but he's entitled to his opinion. Do you happen to believe that other C5 victims were "moved" from their place of murder?

What I think has got nothing to with anything. Please concentrate on the story.

- Sorry, Simon; I just thought that since the thread’s title is ‘Grisly’ (as in 'Award') and its enthusiastic intro are based upon your personal opinion regarding the murders, you wouldn’t mind answering that question. After all, your thread starts out:

If I had to present some sort of award for "Ripperology"—you know, something akin to the Oscar, Nobel, Pulitzer or Tony but perhaps called something like the Grisly—I would award it to the unknown author of this article which appeared on 22nd October 1888.

But that’s OK; no big deal. You also wrote:

Hi Archaic, As Ripperologists are all too fond of saying, the writer was there in 1888 and you weren't.

Well, apparently the writer was in New Zealand in 1888. I’m not sure that was much of an advantage compared to the wealth of resources available to researchers today.

I’ve looked at many articles from the excellent ‘Papers Past’ archive of New Zealand press reports, and if their correspondent was in London when writing the article they trumpet the fact with a heading like: “From Our London Correspondent” or “By Electric Telegraph From London”, or they give the name of the London newspaper or Press Association where their article originated. The article has none of these, so it appears to have been written by a member of the Timaru Herald.

As anyone who has studied them knows, the overseas news articles about the WCM are a very mixed bag. They’re so full of errors and garbling of the London reports that I considered posted an entire thread of them, but many are already listed on the Casebook Press Reports archive. Even basic facts got garbled… thus we get victim’s names like “Minnie Chapman” and sites like “Berness Street”. (As you pointed out, this author got the date wrong, and as Ken pointed out he misspelled Nichols.)

But if its the writer's "story" that's important, the author of this article seems to suspect slaughter-house men of doing the foul deed. He remarks that "their trade is killing", they have knives, but they have no facilities for hiding a dead body... so I guess he thinks they then carried it out into the street? Slaughtermen (though usually a single slaughterman, alternatively a butcher) is an old theory; guess it’s up to the individual to decide if it's compelling or not.

Thanks for posting the article. I think it's interesting to see how the news of the Whitechapel Murders was disseminated around the world.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Tom_Wescott]

I see the article ends with a question regarding the character of the men who worked at the slaughter house. Again a question thoroughly looked into by the police. I believe it was PC Neil who knew the men well enough to leave his personal belongings at their place and trust them not to say anything. It's quite possible he could have provided them an alibi if need be (at the expense of his career), though thankfully it did not come to that. No doubt Simon will also applaud the 'outside the box' thinkers who harrassed the slaughterman and wrote 'the murderer is in here' outside their door (the first graffiti in the case).

I love Simon and enjoy his work, but on this one we'll have to agree. There is absolutely no honor in being different just for the sake of difference if it is to no better end.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cogidubnus]

I'd say be glad, be very glad! you wouldn't want those ugly genes coursing through your mind

Oh I dunno...I've always had this fascination for knives...

Dave

[DGB]

I may be wrong and don't want to speak for Simon in any way.

But I don't believe his post was designed to present an alternative theory, and definitely not one he believes in. After all while this theory could work for the first murder, it's rendered useless by the later crimes.

I think the goal of the post was to highlight a piece of 'out-of-the-box' thinking. Regardless of its actual merits as a credible theory.

It was mentioned earlier that ripperologists don't react well to out-of-the-box thinking, I believe some of the responses in this thread prove just that.

[Simon Wood]

Hi DGB,

Spot-on.

Regards,

Simon

[Monty]

I may be wrong and don't want to speak for Simon in any way.

But I don't believe his post was designed to present an alternative theory, and definitely not one he believes in. After all while this theory could work for the first murder, it's rendered useless by the later crimes.

I think the goal of the post was to highlight a piece of 'out-of-the-box' thinking. Regardless of its actual merits as a credible theory.

It was mentioned earlier that ripperologists don't react well to out-of-the-box thinking, I believe some of the responses in this thread prove just that.

Ripperologists do not react well to out of the box thinking because time and time again it fails to produce anything of any worth, as in this case.

Again, as Tom states, its for the sake of rather than being productive.

Therefore your comment and Simons reasons are unfair and loaded.

Monty

[Roy Corduroy]

Good morning DGB,

Oh I like out-of-the-box thinking, too. But in this case, we have the Ultimate Companion (or Sourcebook) where it shows police detectives questioned the three slaughtermen from Winthrop Street. Separately one by one.

So yeah, we could pretend Stewart Evans didn't write any books. But isn't that like camping in the rough? You know, where you spend the night in the woods with nothing but a pocket knife, a roll of toilet paper, and a coupla Hershey Bars.

Roy

[Fisherman]

Roy Corduroy:

" But isn't that like camping in the rough? You know, where you spend the night in the woods with nothing but a pocket knife, a roll of toilet paper, and a coupla Hershey Bars."

That´s not all that bad. You could eat the toilet paper and wipe your behind with the Hershey Bars (I prefer Swedish, French and Swiss chocolate).

The best,
Fisherman

[DGB]

I didn't mean to be unfair or critical, if it came across as that way then I apologise.

I firmly sit in the camp that any information surrounding the case is of interest, regardless of whether it supports or furthers a particular theory or not.

A case in point is Chris Scott's recent post about an engraving of Miller Court. Finding out the engraver's name did not further the investigation of the crimes, however it was a hugely interesting thread and an example of some exceptional research. (I mentioned so at the time).

I believe Simon's post is interesting because it shows that people were engaging in out-of-the-box thinking, even at the time.

Despite the fact that most accept it as a flawed theory due to more recent research done by the likes of Stewart Evans, the responses focused on disproving the theory rather than acknowledging Simon's initial reason for posting.

[Roy Corduroy]

Oh no, DGB, I didn't take it in a critical way, what you said. And I would like to welcome you to the Casebook discussion group.

Roy

ps Fisherman no smorgasbord

[Monty]

DGB,

No, your post was fine. Please don't think you've caused offence.

I'm not stating Simons approach is all wrong. That would be unfair of me and its untrue.

I'm just saying horses for courses, as and when required, as Roy points out far better than I can.

Monty

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi DGB. Actually, you have caused offense by suggesting I can't or won't think outside the box. But I'll let you off this time because you say you don't know Simon. First of all, his intentions were not misinterpreted by me. I was pointing out that it is irresponsible to hold any writer, then or now, up for a hip hip hooray simply because he had the balls to call the police idiots and incompetent. EVERYONE back then called them that, so it's nothing special. Entire newspapers, such as the Star, were devoted to calling the police idiots. It's even worse when it turns out the police were correct, as in the case of Nichols, and the writer was wrong. The person who wrote this article is deserving of no recognition whatsoever, whereas many, many nameless ones are. The ones who fill the press reports section and our articles and books and get somewhat taken for granted.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

" . . . it turns out the police were correct, as in the case of Nichols"?

So why couldn't they come up with a coherent story?

Discuss.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

What is 'incoherent' about the police story? The evidence showed that she was killed where she was found. That's pretty coherent. Dr. Llewellyn was a lame duck, but he wasn't a cop.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott