the Rent arrears

[Sam Flynn]

However, we need at least a shared event to use this example's lesson in Millers Court, and in this case, the only shared event is not seeing Mary after 11:45pm

To extend the analogy... our two minutes of paying close attention was up by then, the bingo machine was still running, but the strobe was flashing more sporadically - usually with only one observer in a position to watch the perspex hole at any given time.

Remember - we don't have the equivalent of the slow-mo infrared camera in reality, so we can't make any strong assertions about the sequence of events at the best of times. As it is, we must treat each individual observer (Prater, Cox, Hutch, Lewis, Mrs Pickett) with due caution, to say nothing of the long periods of darkness between each brief flash of the strobe.

Sam,

Nice little analogy, but I'm not sure I agree with the names assigned. This Don, at least, is too sensible as to make a judgement about the sequences observed on such limited data. Maybe next time make it Dan or Cuthbert.

And Michael, what makes you so sure that Cox is a reliable witness? Blotchy Face is no more "real" than Astrakahn Man is he?

Don.

And thats one of the reasons we dont see eye to eye here Don. Mary Ann's credibility is not questioned in any documentation that we have seen, nor was there any attempt to paint her testimony in that manner by the authorities. Her suspect Blotchy Faced Man is the suspect that replaces Hutchinsons, and so is therefore, to-date, the suspect of record. He was believed by the authorities to be the last man seen with Mary Kelly alive...based on Mary Ann's sworn word alone.

They openly questioned Maxwell, and investigated and discarded Hutchinsons version of events, they werent even sure what to do with Sarah Lewis beyond the Wideawake and the cry at 3:45am....but Mary Ann's account, pretty well to the letter, is still the official recorded position today.

Thats what I was getting at when I suggested that there were relevant pre-events that can be considered here....with Mary Ann, we are given no reason to doubt her credibility or honesty leading up to those remarks, so she is accepted as honest and trustworthy. My feeling is that was good judgement on their part, she seems without false pretense.

I believe this witness to be vetted in terms of her viability.

When the same rules are applied to what we know of Mary Kelly, that night and in circumstances that pre-date that night, we can say with some authority that she has not shown herself to be someone who demonstrates any concern or voices any struggles related to her mounting debts. She has through inaction and irresponsibility, lost residences before.

All the best Don.

[Sam Flynn]

I'm not sure I agree with the names assigned. This Don, at least, is too sensible as to make a judgement about the sequences observed on such limited data.

...it was a different Don, Don - as well as a different Chava and Mike I should have made that clearer

[Supe]

Sam,

Nice little analogy, but I'm not sure I agree with the names assigned. This Don, at least, is too sensible as to make a judgement about the sequences observed on such limited data. Maybe next time make it Dan or Cuthbert.

And Michael, what makes you so sure that Cox is a reliable witness? Blotchy Face is no more "real" than Astrakahn Man is he?

Don.

I definately enjoyed your example Sam, its interesting and does hightlight the gaps that the various perspectives might have. Well placed.

However, we need at least a shared event to use this example's lesson in Millers Court, and in this case, the only shared event is not seeing Mary after 11:45pm, and not hearing her by 1:30am...when her room is dark. Which then becomes the baseline that any further data must be weighed against,...including some speculation that she left unseen or unheard by court residents,... we would need a sighting of her that is credible outside the room, by someone other than a court resident, after 11:45pm, to even entertain that idea.

We dont have one.

I still applaud the example though.

All the best.

[Sam Flynn]

How does a jury decide what the truth is, when they only have the people in front of them and the evidence submitted to base their conclusions on? They dont know the character of any person, other than by the historical data available...

...data that have been meticulously researched, are legally admissible, and are complete enough for them to reach a verdict.

We aren't in such a position here, Mike. Take my "bingo-ball by strobe light" analogy:

Imagine a bingo machine with a case that's opaque, apart from a circle of perspex that's roughly the diameter of one of ten bingo balls inside. The machine is switched on, and a strobe light flickers onto the "window" in the side of the machine. You, Don and Chava are tasked with looking at the perspex circle for two minutes, and must remember which numbers you see as they flit into view.

You observe the sequence "1, 2, 3, 4, 6". Chava sees "2, 8, 3, 4, 5". Don sees one more number at the start than either you or Chava, and sees "6, 4, 1, 2, 3", in that order. Results:

Mike - 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
Don - 6, 4, 1, 2, 3
Chava - 2, 8, 3, 4, 5

Now, because Don sees more numbers from your sequence than he does of Chava's, he tends to agree more with you than with Chava, even though Don saw the numbers in a different sequence than you. To put it another way, the "6-event" Don saw wasn't the same "6-event" that you saw - his "6" might even have been a "9" upside-down. However, because you and Don have a view that broadly tallies (you both claim to have seen numbers 1-6, with 5 missing, after all) decide that the sequence is irrelevant, or at least a tolerable difference of opinion.

You and Don then make the bald statement that the sequence of numbers appearing at the perspex hole was some combination of the numbers 1-6, with the number 5 missing. Chava is adamant, however, that there was an 8 in there somewhere - and no 6 - which both you and Don hotly deny.

There is much civilised debate about this, until I come along and try to spoil matters by saying that, unbeknownst to you, I've had a slow-mo infrared camera trained on the aperture in the bingo machine for the full 2 minutes, and that the actual sequence was:

"7, 3, 9, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 8, 9, 3, 2, 7, 3, 2, 4, 1, 8, 5, 6, 9, 3, 2, 2, 7, 8, 1, 6, 6".

This sequence encompasses all those made by the human observers, but also includes numbers which popped into view either when the humans were blinking, or when the strobe-light was off, or that remained at the window for too brief a time for the human eye to register. It also includes "double-events" comprising two consecutive appearances by the numbers "2" and "6" - who'd have predicted that? Furthermore, some of the "invisible" balls appeared before Don registered seeing his first one, and continued until after you'd all registered your last number. BTW: sorry, Don, that really was an upside-down "9" you saw at the start, but well done for spotting anything in the first place!

To tie this analogy back to the world of Miller's Court, the events of that fateful night and/or any attempt to construct a behavioural profile for the protagonists... we just don't have that slow-mo, infrared camera, we just have the flickering strobe-light of a handful of witnesses, some of them tired and drunk. Any sequence of events - even those on which we are all broadly agreed - will almost certainly be incomplete or compromised in some way. Indeed, to take the "upside-down 9" scenario into account (and to invoke "Pratergate"), we can't always be sure that what we, and perhaps many others, firmly believe to have been the case was actually true at all.

In short, because of the patchy and unreliable nature of the records at our disposal, we really cannot make any firm assertions about what happened in between, before, or afterwards.

Michael,

Read again what Sam wrote: Our window on their lives is firmly based on their reported movements at sporadic intervals, in the space of a handful of hours on one particular night.

Do you dispute Sam's contention that what we have is much too little upon which to make any judgements about about the work habits of those involved?

Don.

I dont dispute that the events of that night alone are'nt enough to warrant a preliminary conclusion Don, I do dispute that we only have that data to use. I think there is relevant background information as to the general disposition of at least the main character that night, and that the events of that night, including the trusted witnesses, when factored with that historical data reveal a portrait that one element alone might not.

Essentially in thread terms, there is nothing upon which to base an assumption that Marys rent arrears caused any actions or reactions from her. There is however evidence that she may have been accepting money from two lovers simulataeneously, I would assume on the basis of their boyfriend-girlfriend relationship,...and that not one red cent is mentioned as repayment of a substantial debt to McCarthy. And we can say fairly safely that on Friday morning, had she been alive when Bowyer arrived, she would have not a penny to give him, yet she got hammered the night before.

Its revealing....thats all. Im just tying it up as I see it.

Best regards Don.

[Supe]

Michael,

Read again what Sam wrote: Our window on their lives is firmly based on their reported movements at sporadic intervals, in the space of a handful of hours on one particular night.

Do you dispute Sam's contention that what we have is much too little upon which to make any judgements about about the work habits of those involved?

Don.

How does a jury decide what the truth is, when they only have the people in front of them and the evidence submitted to base their conclusions on? They dont know the character of any person, other than by the historical data available, and they certainly cant entertain any possible scenario that can be imagined without cause to do so.

How does a salesman find out why his potential client wants to buy something, so he can successfully meet the buyers perhaps unstated goals?

How do investigators proceed to the next investigative step without making some conclusions based only on what is known to that point?

How do we as Ripperologists expect to ever get any answers if we continue to factor in things that are unknown, not likely, but still barely within the realm of possibility?

The ability to read people by what they do, or dont do, is not a science, but it is a learned skill.....and although I may not match the breadth and depth of knowledge of "all things" as some have here, I do humbly suggest that after thousands of interviews of people of all walks of life in my job as a Salesman for 25 years, I did learn something of what can be gleaned from actions, reactions and preceeding data.

A doctor should be accepted as having a valid medical opinion, someone who has spent a generation attempting to read individual character and traits from thousands of different individuals, from information that is not always verbal, should be extended some credibilty in their observations as well I believe.

Ive met "Mary's" that didnt whore, and Ive met street whores that didnt care who or what they had to do to make money. Mary Kelly is much closer to the first kind I believe. If she had been gifted money for just being attractive and pleasant to be around, I dont think she would ever have whored. Maybe she might reward the ones she liked with sex, but thats not a traditional street whore-client mentality at all. All get sex, and the street whores get nothing until they give that up. But a call girl might get dinner too, drinks, maybe a night out....without the cost of their encounter being of interest until the copulation is to begin. I think Mary Kelly believed herself better than the average street whore, I think she shows that in her dress by the fact she is known to wear clean aprons, and by wearing her hair out to show it off, and she enjoyed much of the same opportunities that a call girl, not a street whore, would as a result.

Like getting drunk without lifting a finger or a skirt.

Best regards

[Chava]

But her work ethic or lack of it isn't important to me. It's what she did on the night she died that is important to me. Because it makes Hutchinson's evidence either more or less believable. And if Hutchinson's evidence is at all believable, then he saw the Ripper pick up his final victim.

I'm not going to go over the facts again, we've chewed them to death. But given the statements of Cox and Prater, I find it less rather than more likely that Kelly went out whoring any time that evening or night.

In fact I'll go further. We know that Kelly was friendly with prostitutes. We know that by her own account she spent time as a prostitute in the West End. Is there any evidence at all that Mary Jane Kelly prostituted herself while she lived in the East End? All we know about her comes from Barnett's account. He says she lived in a house of the Ratcliffe Highway, but does not say she was whoring then. Doesn't mean she wasn't, but it doesn't mean she was. She moved from there to another house kept by 'Mrs Carthy' and from there moved in with a man Morganstone. After she left him she moved in with a man Fleming. There was also a costermonger called Joe who gave her money from time to time. Then there was Barnett who does say if he had not left her she wouldn't have gone back to her old life. But he never actually says she was whoring herself, even though she was friendly with prostitutes and, he says, that's why he left her.

I don't think Kelly would have been upset if her man friends offered her money. I think she would have expected that. But it doesn't sound to me as if Kelly was a full-time streetwalker. And that's all I care about. Because as I said above, if she wasn't, then it kind of makes a nonsense of Hutchinson's evidence where he clearly states that she was out in the small hours soliciting clients.

Lets try another tact,... using only known data about Mary Kelly provided by those closest to her, prove or disprove the following statements....

1. Mary Kelly worked regularly so she could pay down her debts.
2. Mary Kelly was in fear of being evicted
3. Mary Kelly sold herself for money on November 8th or early on the 9th.
4. Mary Kelly had no pattern of eviction from rental rooms for non-payment.
5. Mary Kelly paid for her own drink the night she is killed.
6. Mary Kelly ever entertained clients in room 13.
7. Mary Kelly spoke of her work with other than disdain.
8. McCarthy received as little a tuppenence from the money given to her by Joe Barnett after he had left
9. Mary Kelly knew that rent would be collected on Friday morning, and acted accordingly Thursday night, based on her debt.
10. Mary Kelly provided any service of any kind in order to get drunk.

I could cite a bunch more, but I think if youre honest, the answers to the above questions do not portray her as conscientious about her work, paying her debts, or doing without booze based on her lack of money.

Best regards folks.

....and in that few hours, using witnesses that are not deemed unreliable, that being Mary Ann Cox and Elizabeth Prater, we are given no reason to suggest that Mary ever left her room that night,..and we know another street whore in the court that did multiple times. And we have no reason to suggest she was in arrears at all.

Being on the wrong side of "agreement" for me is about as troubling as rent arrears evidently are to Mary Kelly.

You state that the assertion cannot be made based on what is not known about that evening Sam,...which is full of your maybe's and perhaps's. My contention is that based only on what is in evidence.....Mary had been evicted for arrears a few times before, she did not bring what appears to be a client into her room that night that was seen by credible witnesses, a woman in her same line of work does attempt a few times to work in the rain, there is no evidence Mary did even once.

I think its a bit weak to state that someone is incorrect based on what may have happened that we dont know about, or based on behaviours that conflict with the historical patterns of the individual involved, when the foundation for the remark is clearly supported by some additional information we are given for behaviours prior to that night. Mary was in debt, but didnt pay anything towards it, and isnt whoring the night before rent is to be collected, that we can see in evidence anyway. Even with some money coming in, she apparently pays nothing. That speaks volumes about a work ethic, and a general character.....especially considering that her age and looks afforded her ample opportunity to find clients likely on any night.

Best regards Sam, Don.


edit: Had Mary Kelly been someone with a good work ethic and an alcohol addiction, then we would see that she is getting money for whoring that she herself spends on booze instead...but since we dont see that in evidence, it cannot be assumed.

[Supe]

Sam,

Our window on their lives is firmly based on their reported movements at sporadic intervals, in the space of a handful of hours on one particular night.

Amen! The same sort of response has been nagging at me to make, but as some whould have Mary a "lazy prostitute," I am assuredly a lazy poster.

I would also suggest that not only is our data spotty, but it tends also to be viewed through a modernist prism. That is, too often what little evidence we have is analyzed through 21st century personal experience.

And as an aside, I would suggest that when Prater said she was waiting for a man "I lived with" she meant "I HAD lived with." (unscrambling tenses used conversationally can be difficult) else why was she waiting for him on the street? For that matter, a fear that he might show up later could have been the reason she barricaded her door.

Anyway, fine point Sam.

Don,

[Sam Flynn]

Ill address your points within your quote...

I've told you before that the practice of "answering within quotes" makes it very difficult for people to quote back in any response, Mike, so forgive me for not responding specifically.

In general terms, however, I disagreed with most of what you said. Neither you nor I know ANYTHING about Cox or Kelly's history. Reasonable speculation based on the general behaviour of streetwalkers and unfortunates is therefore the best we can manage - neither of us can say that either woman would have done X or wouldn't have done Y; neither of us can say, based on the paltry evidence at our disposal, that Kelly wouldn't have behaved like Cox or vice versa. Evidence of behaviour on one night is nowhere near enough to extrapolate a "behavioural profile" for either woman.

And - again - we must not overlook the fact that we aren't even talking about the events of one night; we are talking about a few sporadic episodes over a span of a few hours, recounted by less than a handful of (sometimes unreliable and/or inconsistent) witnesses. Our few perceptions of that evening are like watching the balls in a bingo-machine under strobe lighting.

[Sam Flynn]

Gareth, I'm not making 'assumptions about work ethics'

You're not - Mike was making clear assertions about them, and you've agreed with him.

I'm saying that we cannot make such assertions as "we can easily see that Kelly had a different work ethic from Cox", from what little we know about those women. Our window on their lives is firmly based on their reported movements at sporadic intervals, in the space of a handful of hours on one particular night.