Help On Some Details

[c.d.]

"I'm interested in him saying in his statement that Mary asked him for a sixpence. If Mary had already had client in Blotchy, why would she be asking Hutchinson for money?"

Hello Cat,

I don't think I have addressed you before so welcome to the boards.

I don't find that statement strange at all. Why not ask Hutchinson for money? More money is always better and it is not like the money from one client could have tided her over for months.

c.d.

[Busy Beaver]

What time did McCarthey's chandlers shop shut up for the night and who was behind the counter on the night of the 8/11 and into the early morning of the 9/11?

[Curious Cat]

"I'm interested in him saying in his statement that Mary asked him for a sixpence. If Mary had already had client in Blotchy, why would she be asking Hutchinson for money?"

Hello Cat,

I don't think I have addressed you before so welcome to the boards.

I don't find that statement strange at all. Why not ask Hutchinson for money? More money is always better and it is not like the money from one client could have tided her over for months.

c.d.

Hello C.D.

My interest lies in where the money she receives goes. Mary appears to be getting money from Barnett, possibly more from going back on the streets, but none of it is going towards paying the rent, which was in arrears by 3 weeks at this point.

It wasn't paid the week before Barnett left, the week he did leave and obviously the week Bowyer went to collect it but found a mutilated body instead. What caused the rent not to be paid the previous two collections? Why no partial payment? Where was Barnett's scrapped together spare changegiven to her on his daily visits going?

It's sparked an idea in my mind. Was it not a hat and shawl that was found to have been burnt in the fireplace? It could be that Barnett found out that she had spent the money he had given her on a new hat/shawl rather than putting it towards the rent money. He may have been angered by this and so threw the hat/shawl onto the fire. She was seen out later that night without a hat, despite it being cod and raining. Could this because it had already been burnt in the fireplace?

Alternatively, her hat and shawl had fallen onto the fire during the early hours and the call of, 'Oh murder!' was her discovering too late that they had been ruined.

[c.d.]

Hello Cat,

The question would seem to be how much money is she getting from Barnett and other sources (customers). I can't imagine that it could have been very much. She had to buy food and she was apparently fond of drink. That could have taken all of her money leaving none for rent. I can't speculate as to why she didn't offer McCarthy a small portion of the rent she owed.

c.d.

[Fisherman]

If the couple Sarah Lewis saw was Mary Kelly and another man, and as Hutchinson places himself as the man Sarah Lewis saw waiting opposite Miller's Court, it completely contradicts his statement as this means he was already ahead of them when all three pass by into the court.

Exactly. Far from being first there, he should have been last. It simply does not pan out no matter how we twist and turn it. The loiterer - whoever he was - was not George Hutchinson.

So what happened? Easy - just as Walter Dew suggests, Hutchinson was out on the days. He was not there on the murder night, but on the night before, and mistook the days.

It explains why he did not see Lewis.

It explains why he said he saw only a lodger and a PC in the distance - but not Lewis, nor anybody else.

It explains how he was able to walk the streets all night - the night before the murder night was one of fair weather.

It explains everything, once we manage to think the heretic thought that the loiterer was somebody else, in all probability a lodger in Crossinghams who looked out into the dreary weather before working up the courage to venture out in it.

People tell me that others could have mixed the days up, but NOT Hutchinson. I don´t invest much in that idea.

[Wickerman]

Ah,...and you were doing so well, Christer!

Then this...

I think that what Lewis did was do observe the man as she turned into the court: "When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake." It´s only after this that she in the same source (Daily News) says that she saw a couple walk up the court. If she was already in the court, then the loiterer must have been in place outside Crossinghams as she and the couple turned into the court, Lewis first and the couple afterwards, it would strangely seem.

I interpret Lewis walking down Dorset street some distance behind the couple.
Lewis saw the couple ahead of her turn into Millers Court.
She only noticed the loiterer as she reached the court.
"He was looking up the court as if he was waiting for some one. I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink pass up the court."

Lewis notices that when she then walks up the passage, the court was empty.
"There was nobody in the court."

Which to my mind suggests she is letting the inquest know that this couple whom she followed had not merely entered the court for a 'quicky'. Who ever they were they must have gone indoors. So one of them must live in the court.

The problem is that Hutchinson was nowhere near either the corner of the court or Crossinghams at this stage, as laid out in his interview in the same paper the day after:

"I followed them across and stood at the corner of Dorset street. They stood at the corner of Miller's court for about three minutes. Kelly spoke to the man in a loud voice, saying, "I have lost my handkerchief." He pulled a red handkerchief out of his pocket, and gave it to Kelly, and they both went up the court together. I went to look up the court to see if I could see them, but could not."

Ok, so if you are prepared to accept part of Hutchinson's story then you must also accept that he heard the conversation between them both.
And, to be in hearing distance he needs to be considerably nearer than 125+ feet away at the corner of the street.
Placing him across from the court at Crossinghams is still consistent with what Lewis said she saw.
Hutchinson didn't explicitly say he followed them, but he doesn't need to. He related their conversation as they stood outside the passage so his position is implied by his story, and clarified/confirmed by Lewis.

[Wickerman]

But on the night did he think he hadn't been spotted at all?

When he heard that 'a man' had been observed did he fear someone else would come forward who could identify him more clearly? Would this prompt him to suddenly come forward himself and give an account that he saw as explaining his presence while also throwing the police in another direction?

But how would he know?
The court was too small for him to be in there, and in full view of Abberline, who he is supposed to speak to just an hour or so later?

The only suspicious men identified at the inquest were Blotchy, by Cox. And, the man outside the Britannia, described in some detail by Lewis.
Unless you think Hutchinson was one of these two?

I'm interested in him saying in his statement that Mary asked him for a sixpence. If Mary had already had client in Blotchy, why would she be asking Hutchinson for money?

Because she had spent it already? We already know she ate fish & potatoes that night/morning, what we don't know is who bought them for her, or did she buy them herself?

[Fisherman]

Wickerman: Ah,...and you were doing so well, Christer!

I try. Honestly, I do!

Then this...

Then what?

I interpret Lewis walking down Dorset street some distance behind the couple.
Lewis saw the couple ahead of her turn into Millers Court.
She only noticed the loiterer as she reached the court.
"He was looking up the court as if he was waiting for some one. I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink pass up the court."

Notice, if you will, that Lewis does not place them chronologically before her entrance into the court but AFTER, Jon. And what on earth was Hutchinson doing, already in place outside Crossinghams? According to what he said himself, he was still at the corner of Dorset Street as Kelly and Astrakhan passed into Millers Court. And that sounds perfectly logical - he would not walk to the court alongside them.

Lewis notices that when she then walks up the passage, the court was empty.
"There was nobody in the court."

And I think that is perfectly true. The court was in all probability empty. But you think she followed the couple into the court, and that they had managed to get inside before she came into it?
I think the Daily News muddled it - I think that the couple went along down Dorset Street. Maybe Lewis said that a couple passed there as she walked into the court and the reporter got it wrong - he is the only one who makes this claim, right?

Which to my mind suggests she is letting the inquest know that this couple whom she followed had not merely entered the court for a 'quicky'. Who ever they were they must have gone indoors. So one of them must live in the court.

The order of things is wrong. Lewis says she saw the man outside Crossinghams as she was in the passage, and only thereafter does she spwak of the couple. It does not work: " 1/ In the doorway of the deceased's house I saw a man in a wideawake hat standing. He was not tall, but a stout-looking man. He was looking up the court as if he was waiting for some one. 2/ I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink pass up the court."
That´s not the way to tell a story like the one you propose.


Ok, so if you are prepared to accept part of Hutchinson's story then you must also accept that he heard the conversation between them both.

I do. He said he did. Why would I not believe it?

And, to be in hearing distance he needs to be considerably nearer than 125+ feet away at the corner of the street.

Not at all. It all hinges on the volume of the spoken words. On a silent night, sound can be carried for long distances. They need not have been yelling, they would be audible anyway.

Placing him across from the court at Crossinghams is still consistent with what Lewis said she saw.

But NOT with what Hutchinson said! He never said anything at all about Crossinghams, he only spoke of "the corner of the court". We must invent him crossing the street in order to make people´s ordinary view work.

Hutchinson didn't explicitly say he followed them, but he doesn't need to. He related their conversation as they stood outside the passage so his position is implied by his story, and clarified/confirmed by Lewis.

That is turning theory into facts retrospectively, Jon. He heard what he heard from the corner, there is nothing strange with that at all. And so whoever Lewis saw COULD NOT HAVE BEEN Hutchinson.

[Wickerman]

....
Sarah Lewis herself does not seem to associate the couple she saw in Dorset Street with Mary Kelly. On the contrary, she seems to seek to suggest she may have been picked up at the Ringers by the suspicious man Lewis had previously encountered in Bethnal Green.

Lewis did not know Mary Kelly, she said that in her police statement - " I did not know the deceased."
So in her mind this couple are just strangers to her; and the loiterer, another stranger, is unrelated to this couple.
There's no cause for her to think otherwise.

Lewis, and the coroner, were more interested in the weirdo accosting women, and him standing outside the Britannia around the critical time.

[Fisherman]

About sound and hearing:

A whisper is around 20 dB.

A heavy rain is around 50 dB.

Normal conversation is around 60 dB.

Can we hear a heavy rain falling 38 meters (125 feet) away? Yes, we can.

Keep in mind that the dB scale is logarithmic. That means that going from 50 to 60 dB is to increase the volume not by 20 per cent BUT TEN TIMES!

So we can easily hear a normal conversation from 125 feet.

It is also a question of weather. A sound in wintertime can travel as far as ten times the distance it would have done in summer. Oxygen and nitrogen molecules will vibrate very differently in different weather types, depending on things like temperature, moist and air pressure.

If there is nothing to disturb the sound of a normal conversation, it can certainly be heard from 125 feet away. Human ears pick up on human conversation better than it does on most things, since we depend on that to make our lives work. We can pick up sounds with a range spanning from 20 to 20 000 Hz. Human speech lies in the exact middle there, ranging from 100 to 8000 Hz.

Google. Got to love it!

[Curious Cat]

Hello Cat,

The question would seem to be how much money is she getting from Barnett and other sources (customers). I can't imagine that it could have been very much. She had to buy food and she was apparently fond of drink. That could have taken all of her money leaving none for rent. I can't speculate as to why she didn't offer McCarthy a small portion of the rent she owed.

c.d.

But how would he know?
The court was too small for him to be in there, and in full view of Abberline, who he is supposed to speak to just an hour or so later?

The only suspicious men identified at the inquest were Blotchy, by Cox. And, the man outside the Britannia, described in some detail by Lewis.
Unless you think Hutchinson was one of these two?



Because she had spent it already? We already know she ate fish & potatoes that night/morning, what we don't know is who bought them for her, or did she buy them herself?

I'm just after exploring each line to see what's probable, possible and plausible. Put the imagination to the test and see what can or can't be right.

Food and drink are obviously reasonable expenses, although money must've also been spent on these in the months before without falling behind on the rent. Would she have been in danger of eviction had she not been able to pay McCarthy the rent money for a third week running?

[Wickerman]

At 3.00 am Mary Ann Cox returned home. She did not report seeing George Hutchinson.

I accept it has become almost written in stone that Cox returned at 3:00 am.
But, we know from experience that many of the stated times are just rounded up.

There are three prominent newspaper accounts which might question this long held assumption.

"Witness went to her room and remained there about a quarter of an hour, and then went out. Deceased was still singing at that time. It was raining, and witness returned home at 3:10 a.m., and the light in deceased's room was then out and there was no noise."
Times, 13 Nov.

"I remained a quarter of an hour in my room. She was singing all the time. I went out, returned about one o'clock, and she was singing then. I went to my room to warm my hands a bit. It was raining hard; then I went out again and returned at 3.10 a.m. Then the light was out, and there was no noise."
Morning Advertiser, 13 Nov.

"I remained a quarter of an hour in my room, and then went out and returned about one o'clock. The deceased was singing then. I came in to warm my hands, as it was raining heavily, and went out again. I returned for the second time about three, and then all was quiet."
Daily News, 13 Nov.

It's far more likely to round a 3:10 up to 3:00, than to write 3:10 as an error for 3:00.
And, even less likely two unrelated newspapers would make the same mistake.
The Daily News then also suggests the time given was not precisely 3:00am.

That being the case then, Cox may not have seen Hutchinson standing in Dorset St.

At 3.00 am Bowyer was fetching water from the tap in Millers Court.

He did not report seeing Hutchinson; nor did he report seeing Mary Ann Cox.

Bowyer was in the court, Hutchinson was in Dorset street, out of sight of each other.

Mary Ann Cox did not report seeing Bowyer.

Perhaps she also missed Bowyer by the same ten minutes?

Also, the water tap Bowyer was using was within a few feet of the broken windows of Room 13, yet he did not report any sounds coming from Mary Kelly or her astrakhan-trimmed companion.

Bowyer did say he saw a man, "Early on Friday morning Bowyer saw a man, whose description tallies with that of the supposed murderer. Bowyer has, he says, described this man to Inspector Abberline and Inspector Reid."

This article was dated 14th, and the latest "supposed murderer" on that date, after Hutchinson had provided his story, was Astrachan.

So it seems Bowyer also saw Astrachan and provided a description.

Astrachan would have to leave about 3:00, and presumably Kelly shortly afterwards, for Mrs Kennedy to pass Kelly outside the Britannia "about 3:00".

[Wickerman]

What time did McCarthey's chandlers shop shut up for the night and who was behind the counter on the night of the 8/11 and into the early morning of the 9/11?

Bowyer tells us....

"Mr. Mccarthy's shop, which supplies the wants of a very poor and wretched locality, whose denziens are out at all hours, late and early, does not at times close until three o'clock in the morning,while occassionally it is open all night."
Echo, 14 Nov.


Mrs McCarthy was apparently on duty in the shop..

"Mrs McCarthy herself gives a slight clue as to a person who was seen in the court early on Friday morning, as one of her customers remarked to her – before the murder was known - “I saw such a funny man up the court this morning”. Mrs McCarthy says she has been so worried by the shocking affair that she cannot now remember the customer who thus spoke to her."
Echo, 14 Nov.

I suspect her customer was Sarah Lewis, she didn't live in the court so may not have been known to Mrs McCarthy.

[Curious Cat]

If Hutchinson was speaking of another night, does this not actually rule out Astrakhan as a suspect? It leaves the timeline of the early hours of the 9th November with a blank space.

Walking through the night for many hours back from Romford and connecting it to the same night as bumping into and talking with Mary Kelly in the early hours and then connecting it to the same morning Mary Kelly was found murdered seems a stretch to be mistaken altogether. Especially when his statement is based on a degree of precise information.

[Sam Flynn]

Mrs McCarthy herself gives a slight clue as to a person who was seen in the court early on Friday morning, as one of her customers remarked to her – before the murder was known - “I saw such a funny man up the court this morning”...

I suspect her customer was Sarah Lewis, she didn't live in the court so may not have been known to Mrs McCarthy.

Sadly, Lewis didn't see any man in the court, at least not on her arrival.