Was it mary kelly?

[Observer]

ask Soothsayer over on the Maybrick thread Claire

all the best

Observer

[miss marple]

Here we go again.The dropping of the h is characteristic of cockney and also in victorian times the addition of an unwanted h.T The reporters would have ignored the accent and transcribed into queen's english .There is no reason an editor would have picked up the ear/hair.
For those newbies,Joe was born in Whitechapel of irish parents, he was brought up in streets filled with irish dockworkers, He would probably have had a cockney accent overlaid with an irish l burr, add the irish burr and that makes air sound even more like ear.
Had he meant ears he would have used the plural.The fact is her ears, were unrecognisable due to the cutting and the bleeding.
Several of the friends who knew Mary well commented on her hair.
Caroline Maxwell's description is so at odds with everyone else, that she appears to be describing a different person. Perhaps she is, she did not know Mary that well.
Cockney are famous for their gift of the gab,as are the irish. Why deny Joe his articulacy?
The difference between cockney then and now is that the cockney in victorian times articulated clearly. Just listen to Marie Lloyd and other music hall stars. Being cockney dis'nt mean bad speech, its a distinctive accent.Today with careless speech and gottal stops and the increase of careless estury english those nicities are gone.

[The Good Michael]

There is no reason an editor would have picked up the ear/hair.

This is absolutely untrue. A good editor, or even a good journalist working on the most important story of the day, should have picked up on this if it were a mistake. Maybe an idiot wouldn't.

The fact is, the only record says, "ear". Assuming Barnett wasn't intoxicated, and neither was the journalist, 'ear' and 'air' sound totally different. As I said, if Kelly was known for her hair, and there was some possibility of mishearing, why weren't questions asked? I say they may have been, but we don't know. Why was this the only mishearing that anyone detects? Perhaps he pronounced Raymond Luxury Yachts as Mangrove Throatwarbler, but no one is ever concerned with that.

Cheers,

Mike

[Supe]

Mike,

With all due respect, I think you have an idealistic opinion of the standards of newspaper copy-editing, then and now. As it is, the newspaper stories of the day were rife with the sort of errors suggested here.

One example close to mind at the moment was what happened to Dr. Robert Killeen, who was called to view Martha Tabram's body in George Yard and later performed the autopsy. In the initial newspaper articles his name was spelled correctly. However, in later reports on his inquest testimony I counted at least four different phonetic renderings of Killeen among the various newspapers. Obviously none of the many copy-editors bothered to check the spelling--if the copy was edited closely at all.

This hardly proves that "hair" became "ear" to the ears of the court reporters but it does suggest the possibility. Of course, and here is where the simple written record is andequate, Barnett may well have gestured toward his ear when he said it.

Rather reminds me of the long ago court case when a Scot was asked by a Sassenach judge to define "doof" and the witness launched into a long speech on the various degrees of severity of blows that might be struck in a punchup, all of which was incomprehensible to the judge.

Don.

[Dan Norder]

Everybody knows the newspapers made errors, but there's absolutely no reason to assume they made an error in this case. It's not like we have different papers all reporting different things; they all said it was "ear." It's not like they were trying to figure out how a name was spelled out of the many valid possibilities either. And the people covering the Ripper murders certainly had experience interviewing people with Cockney accents, especially by November of 1888. The only reason to believe it was "hair" is to insist that nobody could ever identify the ear of a lover, which doesn't make any sense.

[The Good Michael]

Don,

I understand your point, yet this was, as I said, the most important story of the day. The public, including the reporters and editors had a few days to hear everything that there was to hear about Kelly, anecdotal, fabrication, or otherwise. Surely the stories of her long, red, or golden tresses were circulating, and everybody had put a face and a look to this mutilated, young woman. They went to the inquest to clear up the mystery of who could have done it, and possibly with an inkling of amateur sleuthdom in their heads. They heard Barnett say, "Eyes and ear." and they didn't ask questions of at least each other, or of the court transcriber? The only account we have happens to be the one that says, "ear", rather than "hair"? I'm with everyone on this when they suggest that the hair was more recognizable, and probably because of the publicity that MJK received upon being murdered. I just think the coincidence that allows the only extant account to be mistaken is pretty great. Again, why only this word in several pages of testimony? One word. This is a bit different than Killeen because it is a totally different word. All this being said, I think it is unimportant in the scheme of things and I'm only arguing the point because I'm stubborn, and because I'm afraid folks might take the Eyes and Hair thing and do some more Kelly romanticizing that we don't need. How? I don't know.

Cheers,

Mike

[Mitch Rowe]

Its plausable that Barnett was only giving a sort of excuse as to how he identified her. Ive seen this before in the inquests with other witnesses. The witnesses seem to only give as much as needed. Sometimes it seems as if they fudge the timings to agree with other witnesses. Its like they dont realize how important it is to tell the complete honest truth. Like if they mess up with their story they themselves might be accused of the crimes.
Im sure Barnett was mighty scared when Police contacted him and told him Mary was found dead and mutilated and that they believed the Ripper did it and he is under suspicion because he is/was her SO.

Gee...He did most everything right as a witness and still today he is accused of being the Ripper. He must have been absolutely petrified at the time.
All his senses must have been acute just from the sheer terror of it all.

Then theres the question of when and where Barnett views Marys body.
Phillips said he sewed it all back together and no parts were missing. Ive looked at the MJK1/MJK2 photos and to me Marys face looks as if its just been slashed in many places but I doubt if its more than ten slashings.
Im pretty sure Phillips was able to make her face look somewhat like her in the end.

Im sure if Barnett would have had any doubts that the body was Marys he would have thought. "Well this is not Mary. But this is a Ripper killing. So wheres Mary? Maybe the ripper kidnapped her? Those f--ng coppers better find my Mary soon before the Ripper kills her!"

[Debra A]

Everybody knows the newspapers made errors, but there's absolutely no reason to assume they made an error in this case. It's not like we have different papers all reporting different things; they all said it was "ear." It's not like they were trying to figure out how a name was spelled out of the many valid possibilities either. And the people covering the Ripper murders certainly had experience interviewing people with Cockney accents, especially by November of 1888. The only reason to believe it was "hair" is to insist that nobody could ever identify the ear of a lover, which doesn't make any sense.

Dan,
There were actually three different versions of reporting of the identification doing a quick skim throught the inquest press reports in regional and London papers I have access to.

Hair and eyes came out top with 6 reports
Ears and eyes got 5 reportings
Ear and eyes got two

There were also a great number who just reported Barnett positively identified Kelly but don't say how. And I agree with an earlier post of Sam's, whe he says that's the important thing. The man who'd lived with Kelly for all those months and knew her best, positively identified her.

[Chava]

Let me tell you about an incident from my own family. In 1901, the only member of my family that lived in the UK was my father's mother. When the census went online I looked for her and found her. I paid to get at the original handwritten form that had been prepared by the census taker who had gone door-to-door. My grandmother's occupation was described thusly: 'sheetmaker/shirtmaker'. Clearly the census taker hadn't understood what she'd said and had written down both possibilities. But if he'd been less punctilious, he might have written down one. And it might have been the wrong one. My grandmother was born in the UK, so her English was pretty good...

[Stewart P Evans]

Ear

Dan,
There were actually three different versions of reporting of the identification doing a quick skim throught the inquest press reports in regional and London papers I have access to.
Hair and eyes came out top with 6 reports
Ears and eyes got 5 reportings
Ear and eyes got two
There were also a great number who just reported Barnett positively identified Kelly but don't say how. And I agree with an earlier post of Sam's, whe he says that's the important thing. The man who'd lived with Kelly for all those months and knew her best, positively identified her.

This is an old debate and has been addressed many times in the past. The written inquest statements have survived in the case of Kelly and should take precedence over the newspaper reports. Barnett's written statement clearly refers to 'the ear and the eyes'. Also Tom Robinson was present at the inquest and his account of Barnett's evidence states that he identified her 'by the peculiar shape of the ears and the colour of the eyes...' -

[Debra A]

Thanks for that Strewart, I was responding to Dan's statement that all the papers wrote 'ear' though. But that is the first time I have seen the 'peculiar shape of the ears' comment, so thank you.
I don't think it matters anyhow, he identified her is what counts.

[Stewart P Evans]

Identified

Thanks for that Strewart, I was responding to Dan's statement that all the papers wrote 'ear' though. But that is the first time I have seen the 'peculiar shape of the ears' comment, so thank you.
I don't think it matters anyhow, he identified her is what counts.

Yes, and she was also identified by McCarthy and, almost certainly, Hutchinson.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

If there was - at least - some blood on her hair, so...

It must have been her ear!

But again- if she really was 5'7" (about 170 centimeters) - she was tall to be a woman of her time...

All the best
Jukka

[Graham]

To Dan Norder

Having read Stewart's post I would like to take this opportunity to offer my immediate and sincere apologies to Dan Norder. This is the first time I have seen the reference to 'peculiar shape of the ears' - I'm sure I'm not the only person who understood that when Barnett was reported as saying 'ear' he meant 'hair' but his accent and bad pronunciation led to misreporting. The key words here are peculiar shape of which obviously could not refer to 'hair'.

Dan, please assure me that you were aware of the statement reproduced in Stewart's post.

Again, sorry I was such an ****!

Cheers,

Graham

[Sam Flynn]

The key words here are peculiar shape of which obviously could not refer to 'hair'.

I think Emo Philips and Johnny Rotten might disagree with you on that specific detail, Graham - even if your logic, and what you conclude from it, is spot-on.