Mary Kelly Gives Description of JTR?

[ChrisGeorge]

Thank you, Phil and Mike.

Cheers

Chris

[Phil Carter]

Here it is Phil.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...rds=Kelly+Mary

Hello Chris,

Mike has already done this.

best wishes

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

Greetings all,
I found a one-line news summary in The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), November 13, 1888, stating:

Mary Kelly gives a description of the supposed Whitechapel murderer to the London police.

Has anyone seen this report before? Did The Evening World later recant this statement?

Sincerely,

Mike

Could someone post the actual article or give us a URL to see the article in The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), November 13, 1888? Thanks in advance.

Don't forget that "Kelly" and "Mary Jane Kelly" were very common names so the description might not have been given by the murdered woman. Additionally, remember that Eddowes sometimes went by the name of Kelly, so there may be confusion about which victim was meant.

Chris

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jon,

It seems we are getting to the source of the Thames Magistrates' Court entry. In Philip Sugden's "The Complete Jack the Ripper" revised paperback, 2002, published by Robinson, on page 308 it states the following:-

" She was probably the "Mary Jane Kelley", aged twenty-two, who was fined 2s 6d at Thames Magistrates' Court on September 19th1888 for being drunk and disorderly."

The appendix reference given on page 514 states the following:-

Thames Magistrates' Court register, GLRO, PS/TH/A1/11

It is also noted that Sugden says "probably" where as the A-Z says "may be".

There is no reference in Sugden's book to any address given. Has anyone a copy of this entry by chance that they would be so kind as to provide? Many thanks.

best wishes

Phil

[Jonnieola]

Great link. Very interesting indeed. Thanks from me also.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Mike,

Many thanks sir. Very kind of you.

best wishes

Phil

[mklhawley]

Here it is Phil.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...rds=Kelly+Mary

[Phil Carter]

Hello Archaic, Mike, Errata,

Thanks for that. A very interesting angle indeed. I am inclined to agree with you about the newspaper.
Would you please be kind enough to put the whole of the article from which this apparent comment from Mary Kelly comes from if you have access to it?
Perhaps Mike has it?

Here's what I reckon. I think it could be a garbled mix up or even a reporter talking to a.n.other after the Kelly murder, and getting straight street gossip back. More outwardly, and more unlikely, that as Eddowes gave her name as Mary Ann Kelly, and was known to have supposedly spoken of "Jack" it is a reference to that. Without seeing the entire article it is impossible to judge in any way though.

Hello How,

Many thanks for this. It starts to make sense now.

Hello Jon,

Regarding the "Mary Ann Kelley fined 2/6", could this be a reference to another known ripper victim (Eddowes) who had given this name when arrested on the evening of her murder? She gave that name once.. why not once before on September 19th? Without any other details, address etc, it is hard to see any connection to "Miller's Court Mary". I am hoping someone will kindly provide the proof of this "Kelley" being prosecuted on the 19th September 1888, as I can still find no record of it in the newspapers.

Just a thought that is connected. Eddowes was apparently drunk and disorderly when picked up on the evening of her murder. Why wasn't she charged? She was drunk enough to be wheeled away to the police station...
Just a thought.


best wishes

Phil

[Howard Brown]

The article in the NY World appeared the day after George Hutchinson visited the local fuzz on the 12th.....
What it should have said was, "Man provides description of murderer of Mary Kelly". The appearance of the article coincides with Hutchinson's visit the previous day, thats all.

[Archaic]

A Closer Look At The 'New York World'

Sounds to me like they clearly got their facts wrong.

Well, I think that if Mary Kelly were alive and gave a description on the 13th, and the New York papers found out about it without the London papers finding out about it, it would make sense that the London papers would print similar stories once that paper came out. Since they didn't, and since the New York World was renowned for yellow journalism, my bet is that the headline was fabricated nonsense from two known names. Mary Kelly and Jack the Ripper.

Hi everyone. I have to agree with Mike, Errata, and Addy on this one. Ever since I started going through the papers published outside of London (with the exception of the New York Times), I've been amazed at how incredibly garbled the basic facts become. I have a file of WCM articles I intend to post in which the names of the victims & principal players become utterly confused, the facts undergo remarkable transformations, and the wildest rumors are printed as soon as they are heard. The results can be extraordinary to say the least. These papers are entirely unreliable as 'source' material, but extremely instructive if one wishes to understand how so many blatant errors came to be mixed in with the story of Jack the Ripper.

In addition to the many obvious reasons for this 'garbling effect', a perhaps not-so-obvious reason is that many stories were dispatched to far-flung newspapers by telegraph. Translating a story from a journalist's jotted notes into dots and dashes, transmitting it by wire over long distances, receiving the dots & dashes, interpreting them, transcribing them back into jotted notes, transforming the result into a written story, and handing it over to the printer who then arranges it into type-set columns, is a method naturally fraught with errors.

And as Erratta pointed out, the New York World is most well-known today for being a glaring example of 'Yellow Journalism'. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer was in a circulation-feud with Charles Dana, and each knew that 'Sensationalism' sold papers. As the news archive 'Chronicling America' puts it, "Such intense competition for readers led the two publishers to embrace "yellow journalism," and they competed over which evening paper would be the most strident, shrill, and loose with the facts. "

The New York World was only 1 year old at the time of the Whitechapel Murders, having been founded in October 1887. It was desperate to gain a toehold in the market.
The following link will give you a look at the front page of its first edition, published on Oct. 10, 1887. This should give you a pretty good idea of its tone.
The first four stories are Murder, Murder, Assault By Clubbing, and Counterfeiting, spiced up with political scandals and tragic accidents.

New York World, 1st Edition, Oct. 10, 1887: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...10/ed-1/seq-1/

Best regards,
Archaic

[Jonnieola]

Yup. Same old story Phil. What looks like an interesting lead with MJK turns into a blind alley. It seems to good a lead not to be followed up but will undoubtedly need someone to go to the PRO or the like.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jon, all,

Yes, I am aware of the mention here on Casebook, but as far as I can tell, it refers only to the "A-Z page 229", the latest of that page version being the 1996 paperback version. In the first paperback version, 4 years or so previously, the page it is mentioned on is page 221. It states..

"...She may well be the Mary Jane Kelley who was fined 2/6 (12.1/2p) for drunken disorderliness at Thames Magistrates Court on 19th September 1888."

In the latest version of the A-Z, 2010, hardback, it is on page 257.

So far, a cursory look through the newspapers has failed to pick up this item as reported. Perhaps somebody can put me on the right track?

best wishes

Phil

[Jonnieola]

Hello Jon.

Would you please tell me the provenance of this Sept 19th report?

best wishes

Phil

I have read it in various places but it is also given on this site in the history of MJK. I'll have to look at the source documents one day. Yet another thing to add to my "To do" list.

http://www.casebook.org/victims/mary_jane_kelly.html

[Addy]

Hi all,

Or they published a rumour they picked up about her after she was murdered.Her name would have been on everybodies lips and all sorts of stories would have started to circulate. It still happens today, if someone is murdered or a famous person dies, all sort of stories of what they said, did or intended to do had they not died start to circulate. The title of the article doesn't give any date for this supposed talk to the police (I'm rather sceptic too) so it could have been a rumour. Anyways, it took a while for news to reacht the US from England in those days, so if you look at it that way it doesn't seem surprising news like this would be published in the States some days after events happened in England.

Greetings,

Addy

[Errata]

Well, I think that if Mary Kelly were alive and gave a description on the 13th, and the New York papers found out about it without the London papers finding out about it, it would make sense that the London papers would print similar stories once that paper came out. Since they didn't, and since the New York World was renowned for yellow journalism, my bet is that the headline was fabricated nonsense from two known names. Mary Kelly and Jack the Ripper.