The Grisly

[curious]

They wouldn't need money to feed their addiction if they were paid in drink.

I'm thinking about someone like a distillery carman. I've found one such who himself died of alcohol-related illness, had previously lived just south of Whitechapel High Street - and who originally trained as a butcher.

Regards, Bridewell.

Very, Very interesting. Are you in any position to share more at this time?

[curious]

.


I doubt that any woman but a prostitute would have gone with Jack to any of the spots where the women were found.

I should think that the reason that they needed to prostitute themselves was because they were drunks that needed money to feed their addiction.

Despite Annie walking as though she was drunk, the doctor said he did not think she had had any alcohol in quite some time but discovered great deprivation in her body.

Annie was very seriously ill, even dying, with no place to lay her head.

Since she seems not to have been forced to prostitute herself until after her husband's death and loss of income, I feel particularly compassionate toward her. Yes, I realize the daughter's testimony about her drinking. Still she was sick, dying and incredibly poor . . .

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"I'm not asking anyone to prove anything,but answer this.If there had been a person of a more respectable pastime who was willing to accompany the killer when he was seeking a victim, would he have declined to kill and mutilate?"

Quite possibly, yes, as far as I´m concerned. I favour Charles Lechmere as the killer, and Charles Lechmere hailed from a very rich family of landowners, archbishops and admirals. And that is why I think that if HE was the killer, then an element of societal revenge may have been at work. Sort of "what am I, a Lechmere, doing her in the East End with these low-lifes?"

I hope you see what I´m shooting at? If he thought that Fate had handed him a crappy place in society, then the ones most likely not to be subjected to his fury about it, would be the better-off people, the more educated, the richer with whom he could identify, whereas a drunken prostitute may well have topped the list of people he felt were better off dead.

"Of course none of us know the answer to that."

Of course - which is why we have to settle for guessing.

"What does seem obvious,to me at least,is that sex itself was not the motivating factor in seeking a victim,and that only time and circumstances dictated that a certain type of woman was more likely to be pacing Whitechapel in the early hours."

I´m not sure about the sex issue, to be fair. It may or may not have governed the killers actions to a smaller or lesser degree. And when it comes to the hours chosen, we cannot say what was hen and what was egg, can we? Maybe he killed what he could find at that stage, or maybe he chose to kill at that stage since he KNEW what he would find then. It´s either or, and both suggestions are viable.

"So what was his thinking when he approached or was approached by a victim.Was it,'this is a likely victim,or is this a prostitute'? How would he know before contact that she was a prostitute?"

The ones who asked "Looking for a good time, love?" were the prostitutes, whereas those who said that they would fetch their husbands if he did not get the hell out, were not. If he was actively looking for prostitutes, he could easily find out who fit the bill. There is no need to anticipate that he decided anything at all until he knew - or thought he knew.

The best, Harry!
Fisherman

[lynn cates]

a few points

Hello Lechmere. Thanks.

"I haven't seen a reference to women coming up to the open gates of their slaughter yard. Could you provide a link?
I think you are reading a lot into Tomkins's statements."

Try Evans and Skinner, "Ultimate Companion" p. 37. ("Place" not necessarily "gates.")

"So you think Eddowes was murdered by someone she bumped into by some sort of luck? Or bad luck rather."

Heavens, not a bit of it. I think someone wanted her dead.

"She could hardly have known when she would be released and nor could this other party have predicted where they would be able to find her at that hour."

The other party, knowing she was kept safe at Bishopsgate station, could predict that she would be released before morning. COL rule.

"I think she got blind drunk by selling herself. At best she did it by offering her company to a naive punter who plied her with drink in the hope of some afters, and she then did a runner but was too drunk and got arrested.'

Well, how many large glasses of gin @ 4d would this take? 3 or 4? So this "naive punter" spent a shilling on what he could have had for a mere 4d?

"It is much more likely frankly that she sold her body and promptly drank the proceeds just as Polly Nichols had done."

But why on Saturday and not previously? Recall that, in the standard story, when she left John on Saturday afternoon, they were desperate for money. So why not when they were less desperate, say, on Friday night when the boots were "popped"?

"She had been in what was clearly to her the too close restrictive company of her 'partner' John Kelly for some weeks and slipped the leash and went on the lash."

Where is there evidence that she was feeling restricted? And, outside of John's story, how do we know where they were after they had left F & D about a month before?

Cheers.
LC

[curious4]

Old man

Hello Fisherman etc,

Sorry, but "old man" has nothing to do with age. A friendly expression used to greet someone. Support for my posh Jack theory, I think, used mainly by the "upper classes", the inhabitants of Whitechapel would ptobably have used the expression "mate".

Best wishes,
C4

[Fisherman]

Curious:

"Sorry, but "old man" has nothing to do with age."

In Mulshaws case, "old man" would have been very adequate. He was sixty, an age at which you WERE regarded as anything but middle-aged back then.

As for the expression as such, I know that an "old chum" can be 30 as well as 50 or 70! But that does not change the fact that Mulshaw would have been regarded as old by his contemporaries.

The best!
Fisaherman

[curious4]

old man

Hello Fisherman,

A moot point, I can see your reasoning but still think he used the phrase as a greeting. Packer was also addressed as "old man" - and of course he was described as elderly, although he was I think in his fifties, but there again I think it was used as a greeting.

All the best,
C4

[Fisherman]

I´m not British (or American, for that matter), but I have always been under the impression that people calling each other "old boy", "old chum" and such, are people who KNOW each other. The man who called Mulshaw "watchman, old man" did not know him. Therefore I am more inclined to think that "old" would actually really mean "old" in this context.

But I fail to see how we can make any safe call either way!

The best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

old man

No, although your english is excellent! We'll agree to differ.

Best wishes,

C4

p.s. I am having trouble in Swedish with sin and sitt v hans/hennes. All the rules I learned years ago seem to have been thrown out of the window, shows how a language can change over the years, so you could be right - though I doubt it lol! (just realised how that first sentence will look to an english speaker, but never mind :-D)

[Fisherman]

Many Swedes are having trouble with them things too, Curious - not to worry!

The best,
Fisherman

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Red Grant called James Bond "old man" in FRWL. Meester Bond was not amused.

"Old man" was a non age-specific greeting popular amongst British upper middle class men who thought that using a person's name other than with friends was being over-familiar.

Regards,

Simon

[Fisherman]

Simon:

""Old man" was a non age-specific greeting popular amongst British upper middle class men..."

... which of course is the exact grouping we are dealing with here! Thanks for chipping in, Simon - I learn more abut the curious Brits every day.

All the best,
Fisherman

[curious4]

Hi All,

Red Grant called James Bond "old man" in FRWL. Meester Bond was not amused.

"Old man" was a non age-specific greeting popular amongst British upper middle class men who thought that using a person's name other than with friends was being over-familiar.

Regards,

Simon

I have seen the expression used in conjunction with a name, used as a term of affection or friendship.

Cheers,
C4

[Lechmere]

And red grant's over familiar usage of 'old man' to someone he had just been introduced to (bond) was enough for bond to know that red grant was not an English gentleman, and by definition must be an enemy agent.

[curious4]

Simon:

""Old man" was a non age-specific greeting popular amongst British upper middle class men..."

... which of course is the exact grouping we are dealing with here! Thanks for chipping in, Simon - I learn more abut the curious Brits every day.

All the best,
Fisherman

If Jack was "posh Jack" presumably he would have used a greeting he was accustomed to use? The man in Hanbury street addressed the man he found on the stairs as "guv'nor", a hint that he was upper class (man on the stairs, I mean).

C4