Help On Some Details

[seanr]

Was it this one from the Morning Advertiser 10 Nov. Jon?

"Mrs. M'Carthy, the landlady, might easily have seen the murderer as he passed out of the court, but she observes a strict reticence, having apparently been cautioned by the police."

I wonder if this might in fact mean 'caution' in the legal sense of the term, rather than advice. As in Mrs McCarthy had received a police caution.

[Sunny Delight]

Hi Jon
The link was that Mrs Paumier's mother was first married to a man named Kennedy and had a family with him. Still progressing the research...slowly.

I am also the guilty party in questioning Chris Scott's Sarah Lewis identification I'm afraid. Despite the descendants claiming a link, the family that Chris Scott researched had no known links to Spitalfields and that Sarah Lewis had in fact recently given birth to a child at the family home in Mile End. The descendants got those details wrong as Robert Linford showed.

The Sarah Lewis I stumbled across was married in an apparent 'clean-up' operation by City Missionaries in the lodging houses of Spitalfields, highlighted by poster 'San Fran'. She was a Spitalfields regular doss house resident named Sarah Pike who married George Lewis in 1888, a short time before the murder in Miller's Court. I thought she somehow fitted better but I can't prove she is the right woman.

Sarah Lewis claimed she had a row with her husband on the night of the murder that caused her to go to Miller's Court in the early hours.

Sorry to interject but yes it was your fabulous research that I had remembered. Extremely interesting that Mrs Paumier has a Kennedy connection. Of course research still has a bit to go but extremely interesting nonetheless and there may be a real possibility Paumier is using the Kennedy name. It makes sense. In regards Sarah Lewis I am unaware of the research she was identified in the past? I am new to the case as it were(being only 31 I am a relative baby). The Sarah Lewis you mention there sounds very promising. I am an historian myself although specialising in Social history. The fact that Lewis had fought with her husband and that at the height of the Ripper scare he had let her leave and walk to her friends across city. Alone. That always annoyed me. If the marriage was part of a 'clean up' operstion and was quite recent then the distinct lack of concern or care by the husband begins to sort of take a bit of shape.........

[Wickerman]

Some really interesting perspectives and ideas here. So Brittania man actually may have felt he was being 'hustled' by the women.

According to Kennedy, it would seem so.
Ever since the Chapman case the police had been cautioning prostitutes to walk around in pairs.

As far back as Sept. 10th, we read:
"The unfortunates who are the objects of the man-monster's malignity should be shadowed by one or two of the amateur patrols. They should be cautioned to walk in couples."

Even before that, Tabram & Pearly Poll stuck together, which didn't work out too well either.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon
The link was that Mrs Paumier's mother was first married to a man named Kennedy and had a family with him. Still progressing the research...slowly.

I am also the guilty party in questioning Chris Scott's Sarah Lewis identification I'm afraid. Despite the descendants claiming a link, the family that Chris Scott researched had no known links to Spitalfields and that Sarah Lewis had in fact recently given birth to a child at the family home in Mile End. The descendants got those details wrong as Robert Linford showed.

The Sarah Lewis I stumbled across was married in an apparent 'clean-up' operation by City Missionaries in the lodging houses of Spitalfields, highlighted by poster 'San Fran'. She was a Spitalfields regular doss house resident named Sarah Pike who married George Lewis in 1888, a short time before the murder in Miller's Court. I thought she somehow fitted better but I can't prove she is the right woman.

Ah, terrific Debs, thankyou for the update.
I couldn't find your posts mentioning the details I vaguely recalled, so was treading gently

[Wickerman]

I'm happy to believe sister could have been used in the close friend sense. Less comfortable accepting that a married woman would be described as a widow, even if she'd lost a previous husband.

Yes, Mrs Kennedy described her friend Lewis as a "widow".
Yet Lewis herself indicates she had a husband.

We both know people who lived together often claimed to be married, we even read that with Kelly, and she was a widow too (assuming her story was true).
It all depends who is telling the story.
Legally speaking Kelly would have been a widow, regardless of her current claims.

The Sarah Lewis located by Chris Scott only claimed to be married to Joseph Gotheimer, yet they lived common-law until 1914, when they finally did get married.
I don't remember Chris mentioning if he looked for a marriage certificate for Sarah Lewis prior to 1888.

[Debra A]

If I'm not mistaken that association (a relative?) was posted by Debs, though in what context I can't remember.

Hi Jon
The link was that Mrs Paumier's mother was first married to a man named Kennedy and had a family with him. Still progressing the research...slowly.

I am also the guilty party in questioning Chris Scott's Sarah Lewis identification I'm afraid. Despite the descendants claiming a link, the family that Chris Scott researched had no known links to Spitalfields and that Sarah Lewis had in fact recently given birth to a child at the family home in Mile End. The descendants got those details wrong as Robert Linford showed.

The Sarah Lewis I stumbled across was married in an apparent 'clean-up' operation by City Missionaries in the lodging houses of Spitalfields, highlighted by poster 'San Fran'. She was a Spitalfields regular doss house resident named Sarah Pike who married George Lewis in 1888, a short time before the murder in Miller's Court. I thought she somehow fitted better but I can't prove she is the right woman.

Sarah Lewis claimed she had a row with her husband on the night of the murder that caused her to go to Miller's Court in the early hours.

[Wickerman]

I am nearly certain I read somewhere on another forum that Mrs. Paumier actually had relatives by the name Kennedy. What if Mrs Paumier is really Mrs Kennedy?

If I'm not mistaken that association (a relative?) was posted by Debs, though in what context I can't remember.

[Wickerman]

There's a whole host of possible explanations for the discrepancies. My guess is that Kennedy was a bullshitter who picked up Lewis's story 2nd or 3rd hand and passed it off as her own......

Indeed there are a host of possibilities, though you seem to be intent on avoiding the more reasonable conclusions.

Copying, or parroting the story of someone else we will agree is not uncommon, and both the press & police were on the lookout for these deceptions.
The Wednesday story was not about one woman, it was about two.

If one woman told a story about being accosted, then another woman told a similar story. Clearly someone is lying, or parroting, because there was only one woman involved.
But there were two women involved!
So that assumption doesn't fly.

Several woman claimed to hear that cry of murder, the fake claims were exposed by the press, which was easy to do they couldn't even get the time right.

All that aside, you still have the problem of Mrs Kennedy being the first to talk to the press.
No story from Lewis was published before the inquest. And, as we can appreciate just how hungry reporters were for any juicy rumors. It isn't conceivable that these stories would go ignored by the London press, especially when we have such wayward rumors as Kelly being murdered upstairs, or her having a child, or her being murdered late in the morning.

Mrs Kennedy, speaking to the press on Saturday, had no story to copy, no story to learn. So you have to now invent a source out of thin air for which there is no factual basis. Then build your theory on that.

If the press can get wind of several claims of a cry of murder, how can they completely miss any equally false claims about a Wednesday & Friday morning encounter with a suspicious man?
The press even say there was only one source for this encounter, yet several for the cry of murder.
So they did have their ears to the ground.

Yet, rather than accept Kennedy was the 2nd woman, you choose to invent an unknown source for Kennedy to 'parrot' to the press?

Arn't we supposed to follow the evidence, not make up our own?

[Joshua Rogan]

Yes, that difference has always been a point of contention. Yet, in 19th century terminology a close female friend was referred to as "sister", according to a 19th century dictionary.

I'm happy to believe sister could have been used in the close friend sense. Less comfortable accepting that a married woman would be described as a widow, even if she'd lost a previous husband.

The description given by Paumier is similar to the Britannia-man.

Quite. He was a busy chap apparently.

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi Joshua.

Actually it was this:

"The news of the tragedy spread like wildfire, and soon every street was blocked near the locality - Wentworth-street Middlesex-street, and White's-row-street - were excited groups of bystanders living in the immediate vicinity could not for sometime form the faintest conjecture as to who the victim was, for the police gave peremptory instructions to everyone not to allude to the circumstances in the faintest way."
Echo, 9 Nov.

Thank you! I was sure I'd seen something more than the Mrs M'Carthy one, but couldn't locate it again. Should have looked in my out-tray.

[Sunny Delight]

Yes, that difference has always been a point of contention. Yet, in 19th century terminology a close female friend was referred to as "sister", according to a 19th century dictionary.



Very unnatural to us in our day, but there are several examples of words having different applications a century ago.
Most people today would not refer to 8:30-9:00pm as being the "afternoon", but the Victorians did. Evening & Afternoon were synonymous.



The description given by Paumier is similar to the Britannia-man.

I am nearly certain I read somewhere on another forum that Mrs. Paumier actually had relatives by the name Kennedy. What if Mrs Paumier is really Mrs Kennedy?

[Wickerman]

Well, Lewis says they were friends, Mrs Kennedy says she was with her sister, a widow.

Yes, that difference has always been a point of contention. Yet, in 19th century terminology a close female friend was referred to as "sister", according to a 19th century dictionary.



Very unnatural to us in our day, but there are several examples of words having different applications a century ago.
Most people today would not refer to 8:30-9:00pm as being the "afternoon", but the Victorians did. Evening & Afternoon were synonymous.

There's also the similar story told by Mrs Paumier and Sarah Roney, involving three women;

"Mrs. Paumier stated further that the same man accosted three women whom she knows on Thursday night, and that they chaffed him and asked what he had in the bag, and he replied, "Something that the ladies don't like." Mrs. Paumier told her story with every appearance of truthfulness. One of the three young women she named, Sarah Roney, a girl about 20 years of age, corroborates her statement."

The description given by Paumier is similar to the Britannia-man.

[Wickerman]

Was it this one from the Morning Advertiser 10 Nov. Jon?

"Mrs. M'Carthy, the landlady, might easily have seen the murderer as he passed out of the court, but she observes a strict reticence, having apparently been cautioned by the police."

Hi Joshua.

Actually it was this:

"The news of the tragedy spread like wildfire, and soon every street was blocked near the locality - Wentworth-street Middlesex-street, and White's-row-street - were excited groups of bystanders living in the immediate vicinity could not for sometime form the faintest conjecture as to who the victim was, for the police gave peremptory instructions to everyone not to allude to the circumstances in the faintest way."
Echo, 9 Nov.

[Sunny Delight]

Some really interesting perspectives and ideas here. So Brittania man actually may have felt he was being 'hustled' by the women. Isn't there a report that the man was apprehended by a passer by as well? To be back on the street two nights later apparantly accosting females again is important. It didn't put him off. Also there seems to be confusion as Lewis states she was with a friend whilst Mrs Kennedy was with her sister- a widow. We will never know if they were different women- Wickerman makes a good case they are. For me I don't think so though nothing can be discounted. However if Kennedy did exist- and what she saw was the truth then Brittania man has been criminally under valued as a key suspect in the case. I am trying to come up with a scenario where Brittania man is the Ripper and murdered Kelly.

[Joshua Rogan]

Given their Wednesday evening stories, at least that told by Kennedy, they seem to be acting like casual prostitutes (the man refused to stand them a drink?).

That was my thought too Jon, about that line. He also "refused to leave his bag in the possession of one of the women" in one version, but another says he put it down and Mrs Kennedy picked it up. It's only at this point - after they'd accompanied him down a dark alley - that they noticed the "unnatural glare" in his eyes. It's possible he was rightly fearful that the pair were trying to hustle him.

...dismiss any potential reason for two women, professed friends, to meet up one night.

Well, Lewis says they were friends, Mrs Kennedy says she was with her sister, a widow.

It's not like there are several women all coming forward making the same claim. It's a story involving two women, and we have two women telling their story.

There's also the similar story told by Mrs Paumier and Sarah Roney, involving three women;

"Mrs. Paumier stated further that the same man accosted three women whom she knows on Thursday night, and that they chaffed him and asked what he had in the bag, and he replied, "Something that the ladies don't like." Mrs. Paumier told her story with every appearance of truthfulness. One of the three young women she named, Sarah Roney, a girl about 20 years of age, corroborates her statement."