Photo of Mary Kelly?

[The Good Michael]

The Mary Kelly as Romantic Heroine thing just never gets old!

Oh no! It GETS old. It just doesn't die .

Mike

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Maybe the following thing happened with MJK faster than with Christine Keeler;

What a girl she was by outlook in the 1960s (yes, that makes me feel sorry to have been born in 1963! )

But when I have seen a photo of her as an old ***!

Remember this folks; she has been described as buxom and stout.

So, maybe she was "just" buxom, while entering the East End. And after some drink... oh, well... partying there she had become stout!

All the best
Jukka

[The Good Michael]

In those days 'buxom' meant 'plump'. It was considered very attractive to be 'buxom' or 'plump'. It meant that one was well-fed, and therefore, healthy. Today our standards are different. Kelly may have been very attractive in her day. Today, not many of us would give her a second glance, in my opinion. I think Stride would have been considered more attractive today in, at least U.S. standards than Kelly.

Mike

[CitizenX]

Wasn't that photo of Dorset Street first published in Jack Londons "people Of The Abyss" in 1902?

Kevin

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hello you all!

Maybe the following thing happened with MJK faster than with Christine Keeler;

What a girl she was by outlook in the 1960s (yes, that makes me feel sorry to have been born in 1963! )

But when I have seen a photo of her as an old ***!

Remember this folks; she has been described as buxom and stout.

So, maybe she was "just" buxom, while entering the East End. And after some drink... oh, well... partying there she had become stout!

All the best
Jukka

The strange thing is, that the crime scene photo does not really show a stout or buxom woman. Kelly actually appears quite slender, judging by the width of the arms, the thighs and the oval shape of the face. So this has always been a mystery to me.
And no (before anyone jumps in) - I don't support the theory that the person on the bed was another woman than Kelly.

All the best

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Glenn!

All right, this sounds Gothic;

Yes, you are right. But all we see are pieces of her!

Not the whole woman!

All the best
Jukka

[Sam Flynn]

The strange thing is, that the crime scene photo does not really show a stout or buxom woman. Kelly actually appears quite slender, judging by the width of the arms, the thighs and the oval shape of the face.

I'm not so sure, Glenn. Kelly appears to have had moderately "chunky" calves - certainly in comparison with Catherine Eddowes' rather slender ones - and the depth of the wound above her right knee, as well as the cuts to her left forearm and arm, suggest that she was carrying a reasonable thickness of flesh around the bone. Not "fat", by any means, just "well-insulated".

[j.r-ahde]

Hello Sam!

Well, to my knowledge MJK was known to have been good in self-defence. So, she must have been rather strongly-built!

But then, that doesn't necessarily mean, that she wouldn't have been good-looking!

Maybe she was an amazon-warrior type, like Xena or something!

All the best
Jukka

[blaaah]

Wasn't that photo of Dorset Street first published in Jack Londons "people Of The Abyss" in 1902?

Kevin

Not sure about first published, but yes, that photo appears in People Of The Abyss

Regards,

K

[CitizenX]

The strange thing is, that the crime scene photo does not really show a stout or buxom woman. Kelly actually appears quite slender, judging by the width of the arms, the thighs and the oval shape of the face. So this has always been a mystery to me.
And no (before anyone jumps in) - I don't support the theory that the person on the bed was another woman than Kelly.

All the best

Hehehe careful what you say there if you dont want this thread to go off on a mad tangent!! lol

I do agree with you though, I always thought that from the crime scene photo, her left hand and forearm looked to be of a tall slender woman. She had quite pretty slender hands....

kevin

[George Hutchinson]

Wasn't that photo of Dorset Street first published in Jack Londons "people Of The Abyss" in 1902?

Kevin

Hi Kevin

I used to think the same - because so many of the illustrations in the text of the Jack London were clearly obtained specifically for the book, I felt that all the images were bespoke. It turns out they're not. The Dorset Street image in the Jack London is a little sharper in some respects (because of the printing process used, more grainy but better defined edges) but it has poor contrast and the edges are cropped from the image (I always thought it was a bigger one, but Rob pointed out it wasn't).

Like a great many of the images we see in books and bandy about on the boards, it was indeed first used by George R Sims in LIVING LONDON, published the previous year. It's the Sims image we used in TLoJtRTaN. Maybe we should refer to it as DS1 and DS2 to annoy the uninitiated?

PHILIP

[Mitch Rowe]

I read in the Press as described by a Witness:
MJK was frequently seen walking the streets in the company of more than one man and sometimes more than two.

I tend to believe this. I think MJK was more of a risk taker than the others because she could get away with it. Even with average looks of todays standards she must have been hot stuff.

MJK was young and must have been more naive than the old ones.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

I'm not so sure, Glenn. Kelly appears to have had moderately "chunky" calves - certainly in comparison with Catherine Eddowes' rather slender ones - and the depth of the wound above her right knee, as well as the cuts to her left forearm and arm, suggest that she was carrying a reasonable thickness of flesh around the bone. Not "fat", by any means, just "well-insulated".

I don't know, Sam. I kind of disagree with that. Based on her hands, arms and several other parameters (which I find more important in this context than the cuts), I see a quite slender woman. I spent 20 years painting people and portraits and I don't see any kind of evidence of a woman "well insulated". Nor do I agree about the calves, but even if that was the case, you can actually have "chunky" calves and still being slender.
Furthermore, if I may, I don't think a comparison with Eddowes is in order, since Eddowes - poor woman - was practically little more than skin and bone and extremely thin, even though she also was very short.

All the best

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hello Glenn!

All right, this sounds Gothic;

Yes, you are right. But all we see are pieces of her!

Not the whole woman!

All the best
Jukka

True Jukka, but in my experience you don't need to see the 'whole woman' in order to establish her general physical constitution.

All the best

[Celesta]

I agree with Glenn as to MJK's build, but I also see Sam's point about her calves. From what we can see from the crime scene photo, MJK does not look that heavy. Her wrist looks gracile and her arms appear to be on the slim to normal size. By normal, I mean not overly fleshy or flabby. As Sam points out, her calves look a little heavy compared to what you might think they would by looking at her wrists, Of course a lot of trim women can have large calves and thighs. Also her calf is lying at an odd angle and probably looks larger than if her leg were lying out straight. She may have had a large-boned build but was not a flabby woman.

As for romanticizing this woman, I don't believe that that was Observer's intention. He/she pointed out at the start that the post was to be taken "with a grain of salt."