probably no significance but...

[richardnunweek]

Hello,
It was reported that Mrs McCarthy and her teenage son were collecting rents in the court, around the same time as McCarthy sent Bowyer to obtain some rent from Mary .
Question.
Why send his man to that room , when his wife and son were collecting from the other residents...
Did he make out that kelly had already paid up?
If so why?
Had he prior knowledge, what had occured in that room, and wished to spare his wife and son the shock?
Or was it because some of the court residents, ie Catherine P, had expressed concern of the silence in room 13 ..[ as reported in the press]
The latter makes sense, and it could well be that McCarthy thought she may well have done a bunk, or mayby had an uneasy feeling that she may have come to harm... note the oral history from Fiona Kendall, about the man that called on Mjk, demanding what she allegedly owed him, which resulted obviously in a scene, and McCarthy sending him packing.
Was he concerned.?
I believe a lot happened that morning that has been reported wrongly, for instance where was Dews 'Youth' that initially burst into Commercial street station with the words' McCarthy sent me', and who was interviewed further in the court itself, after the body was discovered.
Bowyer could never been described as a youth .
I am of the opinion that some one fleet of foot was initially sent ahead of the aging Bowyer.[ which would make sense ].
Intrsting thread.
Regards Richard.

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Well Dorset St. wasn't exactly known to be the classiest of spots at the time Mary was killed. McCarthy would have been well aware (or else he was unbelievably naive) that many of those he was renting out to were prostitutes, be that full time or casual. So I tend to agree with the view that he might have taken advantage of that position, knowing that the women would either comply with his wishes or be kicked out. It's sort of a bad view to take of the man, but when analysed, may well be the correct one.

Some very interesting thoughts being brought up on this thread!

Cheers,
Adam.

[The Good Michael]

I think the fact that many of the tenants of Miller's Court were not prostitutes, means that MCCarthy probably wasn't a pimp or a bully, but that he just wanted to fill vacancies. As any landlord knows, it is often less expensive to allow people to go behind in their rent, if they have had similar circumstances before and have been good for the money, than it is to clean out their stuff and repair things and find a new tenant.

Cheers,

Mike

[Rubyretro]

whoo hoo ! Mike -we agree !

[packers stem]

Hi,

I'm sorry to be a wet blanket here, but there never were any farthings at Annie's feet, it's a complete fallacy, perpetuated over the years in quite a few books. The evidence is overwhelming against them, but too much to post up here. If anyone would like it, I can email it to them, but it covers a few pages.

I just thought I'd better mention it as it makes a lot of difference to the discussion and might throw a spanner in the works otherwise.

Hugs

Janie

xxxx

Sorry Jane but i'm going with Inspector Reid as i'm presuming that as head of CID in whitechapel he didn't rely purely on the Pall Mall Gazette for his info and the authors of the A-Z who go for the coins 'almost certainly' being there.
If your evidence regards official reports i'm afraid i'm regarding many of them with larger and larger pinches of salt with every day that passes.
The Grave Maurice,i do feel this appropriate for the thread as the very first post asked if jack was a petty thief so consideration of the coins is surely central to that.

[Pinkerton]

The question of McCarthy has always been a controversial one. Like Anderson, McCarthy is a very polarizing figure.

Those that believe McCarthy was a "pimp" bring up the fact that there were known prostitutes staying in his place, the arrears of MJK that this thread brought up, the death of another prostitute years later in Miller's Court killed by a seaman, and the claim by Arthur Harding the well known East End gangster that McCarthy was indeed a "prostitute's bully".

Those who don't believe him to be a "pimp" would argue that though there were prostitutes staying in his lodging house, there were only a handful, which one would expect in a lodging house located in Spitalfields during this time. They also point out the character witness given by policeman William Thick that got McCarthy out of a scrape for holding an illegal boxing match (and Thick had a reputation for being very honest and "above board"). They would also point out that McCarthy was well known to donate money to charity (of course so did Al Capone, but it's still something that should be considered). And McCarthy died a very successful and somewhat wealthy person. He ended up owning several lodging houses throughout London.

There might be other arguments on both sides that I am missing.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Packer,

I suppose the mention of the farthings is pertinent to this discussion as it's about whether or not Jack took any money from the victims (especially Mary). If there were farthings left with Annie Chapman then it does put a different light on things, so perhaps everyone will forgive me if I do put up the evidence here. I've whittled it down as much as possible and of course you can just skip it, if it's of no interest.

I'll put it on the next post. Sorry if I'm butting in, but it would seem to be important. Of course, once reading the evidence some people might still feel that they could have been there, but I think the evidence does look pretty much against it.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[Jane Coram]

The Case of the Two Farthings

The farthings were reported as being present next to Annie’s body by the press on the same day as the murder, but if there were farthings there, not only were they not mentioned in any official document, it would have meant that Inspector Chandler gave false testimony at the inquest.

The Evening News, 8th September 1888, ran a story full of monumental errors. It gives the address of the murder site as No 18 Hanbury Street to begin with; it claims that Annie’s killer tied the handkerchief around Annie’s neck to keep her near decapitated head on, and the articles contradict one another even within the same edition. By the time we get to the mention of the farthings in the issue it is clear that not a word of these reports can really be trusted. They did get a few facts right, but that would seem to have been more luck than judgement.

Hardly surprising, then, that the following statement needs to be treated with a great deal of caution to say the least.

‘In the dress if the dead woman two farthings were found, so brightly polished as to lead to the belief that they were intended to be passed as half-sovereigns, and it is probable that they were given to her by the murderer as an inducement for her to accompany him.’

The Daily Telegraph, 10th September 1888, seems to have borrowed freely from the above report and perpetuates the story of the farthings:

‘There were also found two farthings polished brightly, and, according to some, these coins had been passed off as half-sovereigns upon the deceased by her murderer.’

How these reports came to be written is unclear, but newspapers at the time were notorious for getting facts wrong. The Pall Mall Gazette, for instance, reporting the same murder, stated that there was a message written in chalk by the murderer in the back yard of Hanbury Street, but this too proved to be completely untrue.

The myth was perpetuated by a newspaper article reporting on the death of Alice McKenzie, who was also murdered by having her throat cut in July, 1889. The Times was the only newspaper to have a story about McKenzie with a reference to farthings being found near Annie’ Chapman’s body, and it supposedly quoted from official sources... in this case Detective Inspector Edmund Reid. The newspaper reports the event thusly:

After the body [Alice McKenzie’s] had been examined by the doctor it was placed on the police ambulance, and underneath the body of the deceased was found the short clay pipe produced. The pipe was broken and there was blood on it, and in the bowl was some unburnt tobacco. I also found a bronze farthing underneath the clothes of the deceased. There was also blood on the farthing... In another instance of this kind—the Hanbury Street murder—two similar farthings were found.

(The Times, Friday, July 19th, 1889, Inspector Reid’s testimony at Alice McKenzie’s inquest.)

The problem is that Detective Inspector Reid was away on leave at the time of Annie’s murder, and therefore could only have been reporting hearsay evidence or using an inaccurate newspaper article for information. It has been suggested as a defence of that story that although Reid was on leave at the time of Annie Chapman’s murder, it wouldn’t necessarily exclude him from having detailed knowledge of that particular incident. He would have had as much access to the case files as any other official, which is probably a fair comment, but the official files say nothing of any farthings, which makes that option a non-starter.

The newspaper reports don’t say the coins were next to or underneath her body, either. Where they are specific, they say they were ‘in her pocket’, or ‘in her dress’ which is an entirely different matter altogether. Inspector Joseph Chandler of H Division attended the inquest of Annie Chapman, and his inquest report is in total contradiction to the newspaper report.

Chandler testified:

‘After the body had been taken away I examined the yard, and found a piece of coarse muslin, a small tooth comb, and a pocket hair comb in a case. They were lying near the feet of the woman. A portion of an envelope was found near her head, which contained two pills.’

The Daily Telegraph, Friday, September 14th, 1888, Page 3.

No mention whatsoever of farthings or coins lying near Annie's body.

He goes on to state that he examined Annie Chapman’s clothes in detail at the mortuary:

‘A large pocket was worn under the skirt (attached by strings), which I produce. It was torn down the front and also at the side, and it was empty.’

It might be prudent here to point out that dresses in those days didn’t always have pockets stitched into them and if that was the case, then the woman would wear a pocket tied around her waist to keep personal possessions in. This appears to have been the case with Annie, so when Inspector Chandler speaks about examining the pocket in Annie’s clothes, he is actually speaking about a separate pocket as described in the evidence he gave. It also explains why some of the newspapers use the term ‘in her
dress’, and some ‘in her pocket’, because the pocket was worn under the dress or skirt. Had there been any coins in the pocket or dress, then Chandler’s evidence would have actually been false, as he states it was empty quite categorically.

The full Police reports on the Annie Chapman murder are in the Public Record Office. They list all that was in the yard with Annie’s Chapman’s body. There is no mention whatsoever of any coins.

It seems that the myth of the farthings arose from a series of mounting elaborations by various Ripper authors over the years, each building on the exaggerations of the other until fable became established as fact. The first newspaper reports laid the foundation for the coins, and then Dr Phillips provided some extra padding when he said (speaking of the items he did find):

‘They had apparently been arranged there.’

Putting the two together we get coins/farthings arranged at Annie’s feet. The author Donald McCormick perpetuated this myth in his book in 1959 and then author Robin Odell compounded it in 1987 in his book with Colin Wilson, Jack The Ripper: Summing up and Verdict. On page 43 he wrote:

‘Close to the position of the feet lay two rings, removed from the fingers of the victim, together with some pennies and two new farthings.’

The myth had become complete.

Phillip Sugden, covers the canard of the farthings thoroughly in his Complete Jack the Ripper, Melvyn Harris also goes into it in some detail in relation to the Maybrick Diary, and his dissertations can be found here on Casebook. I think there is a bit in John Eddleston's book about it, but I'm not sure what other authors have covered it.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[packers stem]

Thanks Jane
I must say we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Although Reid was away at the time of the murder i'm in no doubt that on his return he, as the superior officer(please correct me if i'm wrong), is likely to have spoken to the detectives involved to find out what was known,as well as reading the official reports,we surely can't believe he testified at Mackenzies inquest on the back of newspaper reports can we?
It comes down to the word of Reid against that of Chandler does it not?
Remember Chandler was demoted 4 years later for drunkeness(presumably on duty).
Unfortunately i've taken to believing official reports less than i used to and i now look at them side by side with next day newspaper reports(not same day as they were rushed) and try to read between the lines.We do need to question some of the official reports.Think i may start a new thread about that though.

[claire]

No reason to suppose that McCarthy, for all his less-than-lovely characteristics, was unequivocally mercenary. As others have stated, he may well have considered that business would pick up for MJ soon enough. He would also have been very aware of the rather good reason women had for not going out soliciting over the preceding months. He wasn't reliant on the revenue from one or two rooms--he had plenty of income from various sources. Correspondingly, there is, surely, just the tiniest possibility that he would have been quite sensitive to the reasons MJ's income was reduced, and very cognisant of the possible consequences of turfing her out on the streets.

[Chava]

For years I was convinced that McCarthy killed MJK, and I still haven't completely taken him off the hook, although now my suspicions are firmly with Mr Blotchy. There seems to be an idea that MJK had a previous connection of sorts with McCarthy's family, so it may not have been politic to turf her out into the street quite so fast as he otherwise may have done.

[Jane Coram]

Hi Packer,

No worries, I believe Dew also speaks about the farthings being there somewhere, so yer pays yer money etc., I just seem to have a bit more faith in the official documents than you do. Lol.

One possibility is that the farthings were there initially, but by the time Chandler got on the scene, someone in the crowd had 'tidied them up' into their pockets. That would mean that Chandler and Reid were both telling the truth!

Hugs

Janie

[The Grave Maurice]

Some interesting points raised here. Ta.

Personally, I believe that the "polished farthings" myth was started by a City newspaper reporter who had no idea how much an East End lass charged for her services. If some punter had actually offered a sovereign to a Whitechapel unfortunate, she probably would have fainted, and then started planning her retirement.

[macknnc]

Oh Jane, Jane...<sigh> didn't you see "From Hell"..don't you know that not only the farthings were there, but also some other coins, carefully arranged into a Masonic symbol so Abberline could decipher the clues?

Seriously, in this case I do accept the official descriptions and don't think the farthings were there...

So was our friend Jack a pack rat, collecting souvieners from his victims?

[YankeeSergeant]

And the store?

And remember there is also the theory, put forth by better minds than mine, that McCarthy was running a stable of prostitutes, of whom Mary was one. He didn't object to her being 30/- in arrears since she was probably, to quote Arthur Daley, "a nice little earner".

That thought occured to me but a question comes up as well, was McCarthy the landlord the same McCarthy that Mary Jane Kelly bought the candle from a few days previously? If so he indeed had a tidy little buisness going rent, possibly pimping nad running a chandler's shop? Busy boy.