the Rent arrears

[ianincleveland]

I find it extraordinary that Mary was allowed to run up arrears to the extent she had.there was no way with her lifestyle shed ever have been able to pay them off yet Mc Carthy let her stay there in an age when people could be just evicted on the spot.

Was mcCarthy ,probably unbeknown to his wife,pimping his prostitute tenants??? And in reality earning far more off of them than their rent money???

Arthur Harding a well known villain of the late 19th/early 20th century claimed McCarthy was a pimp.Now whether we should go on the word of a villain is one thing but the rent owed was really quite a sum for the East End of 1888.

Perhaps Mc Carthy isnt as innocent as he liked to make out.Could he have killed her in a row over the rent??? or a row over "pimping money"???.then sent his rent collector round for some arrears to discover Mary.

Anyone else any thoughts on this???

[The Grave Maurice]

Of course, we have only McCarthy's word that MJK owed him any money at all. His statement to the press that she was behind in the rent may simply have been an attempt to show the world what a good guy he was. If she were, in fact, in arrears, McCarthy may have assumed that Barnett might soon find a new job, return to MJK, and set things right. Or, knowing what line of work she was in, and that she was a "looker", he might have assumed that she would, eventually, clear the debt. I suspect, however, that when McCarthy sent Bowyer over to her room on that fateful morning, it was the first step in the process of tossing her out on the street.

[Chava]

Now me, I always thought there was a chance she was blackmailing him to save the rent. I couldn't otherwise explain that large amount of money owed. Of course that would give him a motive to murder her...

Which is why I started looking at generous Mr McCarthy as a suspect lo these many years ago.

[Howard Brown]

Dear Ian:

Nikaner Benelius, the 27 year old Swede who was arrested in regard to the Stride murder ( see page 309 of "The Facts" by Paul Begg) resided in a lodging house run by a German gentleman ( ain't we all?)....and was said to have been 25 shillings in arrears. So,its not that much of a stretch for Kelly to have been in arrears for that amount claimed. I know a lot of people think she may have been "working it off" or perhaps,never in arrears. Nonetheless,Clevelander...it seems it may not have been that uncommon.

[Pinkerton]

Arthur Harding was not the only person who claimed McCarthy was a pimp. None other than Charles Booth also claimed McCarthy was a prostitute's "bully". However for some reason he seemed to be in good with the police. He even got a character witness from P.C. Thick (aka "Johnny Upright") when he was once arrested for holding an illegal boxing match.

However I recently came across a newspaper article that leads me to believe that McCarthy was NOT a pimp, though Miller's Court certainly had it's share of prostitutes. I'll post it when I get the chance.

[perrymason]

Hello all,

I think Howards perspective is likely correct, and the money owed was never said to be for consecutive non-payment, so she may well have accrued the arrears over some weeks or even months.

McCarthy is asked about the arrears, and he said "they were got as best one could", perhaps acknowledging that even partial payments were better than nothing.

There is zero discussion by anyone though that she is to be evicted as a result.

McCarthy just did what a modern slum landlord would do...he was in no rush to fix her broken window..2 panes, in November, and he was in no hurry to replace the lost key or have a new lock installed in addition to the spring latch.

Best regards all, Howard.

[Fisherman]

Chava writes:

"Now me, I always thought there was a chance she was blackmailing him to save the rent. I couldn't otherwise explain that large amount of money owed. Of course that would give him a motive to murder her..."

Perhaps, Chava. But would it give him a motive to rip her up, cut all her organs out and turn the room into slaughterhouse? We must keep in mind that what was done to Kelly would have taken some time to do, and why would McCarthy expose himself to the risks involved? Even if he did come up with the idea to disguise the murder as a Ripper-ditto, one would have thought that a cut throat and an opened abdomen would have done the trick. In fact, the Stride killing shows us that you even could afford to leave the abdomen untouched and still succeed to pass it all off as Jack´s work.

The only way I can see my way through to a logical explanation to your suggestion would be if you favoured McCarthy for Jacks role altogether, but you don´t, do you?

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Allowing Kelly to stay might at least have allowed a certain amount of rent money to trickle in, even if it were only a shilling a week. Evicting her from the room, and facing the prospect of its being untenanted for months on end, would not have been a particularly smart move on McCarthy's part.

Census returns certainly suggest that not all the rooms would have been let at any given time, and that doesn't surprise me. This was a desperately poor part of town, and there were few people who'd have been in a position to stump up the 4s 6d rent in one lump. Especially, perhaps, during the autumn/winter when the local economy might well have been at a low ebb.

It's worth remembering that Kelly was not the only tenant to be in rental arrears, and that Miller's Court did not have a perpetual "No Vacancies" sign outside it.

[Chava]

Chava writes:

"Now me, I always thought there was a chance she was blackmailing him to save the rent. I couldn't otherwise explain that large amount of money owed. Of course that would give him a motive to murder her..."

Perhaps, Chava. But would it give him a motive to rip her up, cut all her organs out and turn the room into slaughterhouse? We must keep in mind that what was done to Kelly would have taken some time to do, and why would McCarthy expose himself to the risks involved? Even if he did come up with the idea to disguise the murder as a Ripper-ditto, one would have thought that a cut throat and an opened abdomen would have done the trick. In fact, the Stride killing shows us that you even could afford to leave the abdomen untouched and still succeed to pass it all off as Jack´s work.

The only way I can see my way through to a logical explanation to your suggestion would be if you favoured McCarthy for Jacks role altogether, but you don´t, do you?

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fisherman,

I don't discount that possibility. I would be a fool if I did. We have no idea who the Ripper was, so we can't arbitrarily discount anyone. And I have always thought there was a kind of a personal feel about that killing. Evidence against that theory is that McCarthy lived a long and by all-accounts happy life for years after the murders, and I don't think the Ripper would have stopped unless he was stopped by death or prison or complete incapacitation.

Best,
Chava

[Fisherman]

Chava writes:

"I don't discount that possibility. I would be a fool if I did."

You MAY be a fool to do so - but the probability that you would be very wise in doing so is infinitely larger, I feel. But cautiosness is never wrong in these cases, and I see what you are talking about.

"Evidence against that theory is that McCarthy lived a long and by all-accounts happy life for years after the murders, and I don't think the Ripper would have stopped unless he was stopped by death or prison or complete incapacitation."

Good points, especially about McCarthy´s long and happy life. Seems as totally wrong to me as it does to you. On the second point, I think that there is not necessarily any need to see the Ripper dead or imprisoned, Chava. Sure enough, SOMETHING seems to have come along that stopped him, but incapacitation can arrive in many shapes.

All the best,
Fisherman

[c.d.]

[QUOTE=Sam Flynn;57568]Allowing Kelly to stay might at least have allowed a certain amount of rent money to trickle in, even if it were only a shilling a week. Evicting her from the room, and facing the prospect of its being untenanted for months on end, would not have been a particularly smart move on McCarthy's part.

Hi Sam,

That's true and it was probably the case. On the other hand, it might have been a smart move on McCarthy's part to make an example out of Mary hoping that other tenants who were in arrears would suddenly find the rent money that they claimed they didn't have. If this was the case, and he had made it clear to Mary, he might not have wanted to admit that he was in the process of evicting a woman that had just been brutally murdered.

c.d.

[c.d.]

Mary was known to be argumentative when in her cups. Perhaps McCarthy approached her one day for the rent money when she had been drinking and she told him to stick it or did something else to make him angry towards her. So, there could have been a personal reason for him wanting to get rid of her (by eviction I mean, not killing).

c.d.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello c.d.!

And while sober, MJK could have been "not at home" somewhere under the bed, while McCarthy came around. Despite being a tall woman...

All the best
Jukka

[Sam Flynn]

Hello CD

On the other hand, it might have been a smart move on McCarthy's part to make an example out of Mary hoping that other tenants who were in arrears would suddenly find the rent money that they claimed they didn't have.

(a) They probably didn't have the money anyway; (b) Such a tactic might not have "washed" with tough East Enders - if so, McCarthy would have realised its futility; (c) Threatening an individual with eviction was possibly more likely to yield a result than scapegoating an individual; and (d) The clientele typical of those parts would doubtless have witnessed, indeed personally endured, many evictions without batting an eyelid.

[Supe]

This matter keeps coming up every six months or so and with that in mind it may be worthwhile to again make the observation that the 29s arrears was likely cumulativer and not the result of suddenly not paying anything for a month and a half or whatever. Probably starting with Barnett's losing his fish porter job he and Kelly began to be a little short ech week. But, they were fairly stable tenants and there may have been a possibility (which did eventuate) for Barnett to regain his better-paying position at the fish market, so they were kept on.

It was only shortly before Kelly's murder that things began to change in terms of the tenantcy because McCarthy was getting more than a bit worried about the debt. This is all discussed at Time is on My Side in the dissertations section.

Don.