What body mechanics did Jack the Ripper employ while deconstructing Mary Kelly?

[GUT]

G'Day Jon

When I was a nipper we had single beds 2'6" wide 3/4 beds between 3" and 3'6" wide,then doubles and the real well off had queen size.

But it seems that nowdays what we used to call a 3/4 size is now called a single. I only know because we recently had to buy a bed and the girl in the store recommended a single, and when I said no I thought a 3/4 was better she gave me the strangest look and had no idea what I was talking about.

I spent many a nice night n a 3/4 with the bride, years ago, she couldn't escape.

[Sunbury]

Short people ( and not the song

Just to muddy the waters a bit, weren't people much shorter back in the 19th Century, especially those living in poverty? A good diet is critical to growth, something that was always missing. A 3/4 size bed may be a poor man's double bed but equally it did the job.

[GUT]

G'day Sunbury

No doubts a 3/4 bed did the song, but remember that even though people were generally shorter Marie Jeanette Kelly was, purely from memory, about 5'7" so even today no shorty.

As I said I have had many a happy time in a 3/4 bed.

[GUT]

BTW what's wrong with the song, Randy rocks.

[Wickerman]

12th-14th century suits of armour fit today's adult male just as they did when originally made. There has been some studies that suggest people were slightly shorter during the 17th-18th century due to poor nutrition http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/how-tall-are-you/ but, do you think furniture manufacturers adjusted their product for the slight loss in height of the unhealthy poor of society?

[GUT]

G'day Jon

do you think furniture manufacturers adjusted their product for the slight loss in height of the unhealthy poor of society?

Simple answer..


NO!

[markmorey5]

Interesting that you should think that.
I showed that photo to my wife and she thought it could have been a three-quarter bed. In Millers Court these rooms were let out to couples or families, a single bed is too small for two adults but a three-quarter bed is about 1ft wider than a single.

A double bed would have been a luxury, but the three-quarter was regarded as the poor-mans double.
It is more than likely what would have been provided by a landlord renting a room to couples.

I know 3/4 beds and my wife and I spent our wedding night on one. The Millers Court bed seems to be the same width as our spare, genuine single bed, so it's quite narrow (assuming Mary Kelly's legs are similar dimensioned to mine). I am 5' 7" like her, so I think it's a single bed or at most the slightly wider 3/4.

As far as height goes, yes Medieval Knights were as tall as us and even the Saxons who went before. But the Industrial Revolution led to a stunting of growth through poor diet and various other factors, and by the late 19th Century in Britain the average height of men was only 5' 5" according to Pickard. This puts Mary Kelly's height in perspective and she would have been strikingly tall.

I don't think that furniture size was reduced, and in any case the problem would be from lack of width rather than lack of length. Vertical height of buildings was reduced and even though I am not tall, when I visit Britain I have to stoop in older buildings to clear door frames and sometimes ceiling beams.

[Errata]

12th-14th century suits of armour fit today's adult male just as they did when originally made. There has been some studies that suggest people were slightly shorter during the 17th-18th century due to poor nutrition http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/how-tall-are-you/ but, do you think furniture manufacturers adjusted their product for the slight loss in height of the unhealthy poor of society?

It's one of the great myths propagated by tourism that people were considerably shorter in the past. And it all has to do with door lintels. Go to any 16 or 17th century structure in the US, and even I at 5'9 occasionally have to duck through doorways. Someone on the tour invariably comments that people were shorter back then, and the tour guide agrees. And I believed it until I went to England, and noticed that in no stone structure was I having to duck. And many of these structures were far older than the ones in the US where I had to duck. Presumably people were shorter the farther back you go.

So I asked. I asked the resident Architect at Versailles back when my French was still moderately useful. And he laughed at me for a long time. Then he explained that a: ducking through a doorway was not considered a great enough imposition that people felt the need to make houses taller until the early 20th century when everyone changed scale. And b: wood and stone both settle, but only wood shrinks. Lead based paint shrinks wood down a somewhat ridiculous amount after awhile. It can lose as much as three inches along the grain. So I don't have to duck in most castles, but I have to duck in most homes. The difference? Stone vs. wood.

In reality, as far back as William the Conquerer, the different in human height has never been more than three inches or so. In the 11 Century, the average height of a male was 5'5. Now it's 5'8. And both now and then there are people seriously blowing the curve, because every guy I know is between 5'8 and 6'4, so there are clearly a bunch of 5'0 men out there lowering the average. But the same was true then. And while Henry VIII's armor might fit the average English guy, it would not fit the average American male, since evidently space=height. Men in the Victorian age were maybe two inches shorter than men now. The addition of better nutrition and more food doesn't produce height that quickly. Mostly it improves health, bone strength and muscle growth. It's why we have better teeth and live longer, but out height won't be affected significantly for another couple hundred years. And women will get it before men do.

[caz]

My relatives in London obtained soft copies of The London Standard which described the clothes as 'folded and placed on a chair near the bed' but didn't mention neatly. I used paraphrased reports from The Star (from Sugden's book) and from The London Standard for my novel.

Thanks Mark. Maybe people just assume 'neatly' automatically follows from 'folded', but I dislike additions of this sort because, before you know it, the 'neatly' takes over and produces all sorts of unwarranted speculation. We still cannot know for sure who did the folding - neatly or casually - or at what stage of the night's proceedings.

I reported the comments by two surgeons who were impressed with the level of anatomical skill displayed in some circumstances and who commented on a lesser degreee of anatomical skill in one other circumstance.

Sorry to be pedantic but, again, not even the best experts can determine from a 'lesser degree' of any skill displayed that this is the upper limit of skill possessed by the person responsible. One can only judge the minimum level of skill required to do what was done to any of the victims. We don't know if the killer in each case had been drinking, for instance, or how much. But we can safely say one man could kill a hundred times but he would effectively be a different person each time, influenced by a whole host of factors, internal and external, physical and mental, before, during and between his murders.

Finally, to all those who commented on changes in height over the centuries and different bed sizes, I'm not sure what one has to do with the other. As far as I am aware, singles, doubles and smaller doubles only differ in width, not length. I don't think beds became any longer to cater for the likes of Peter Crouch - or Joe Fleming.

Love,

Caz
X

[GUT]

Indeed I seem to recall that the somewhere had to have a bed especially made for a politician. Was it the White House for Honest Abe?

[markmorey5]

Sorry to be pedantic but, again, not even the best experts can determine from a 'lesser degree' of any skill displayed that this is the upper limit of skill possessed by the person responsible. One can only judge the minimum level of skill required to do what was done to any of the victims. We don't know if the killer in each case had been drinking, for instance, or how much. But we can safely say one man could kill a hundred times but he would effectively be a different person each time, influenced by a whole host of factors, internal and external, physical and mental, before, during and between his murders.

Love,

Caz
X

Caz,
You misunderstand. The surgeons did not say the killer of Mary Kelly was less skilled in terms of anatomical dissection, but that after reading the pathology reports they were of the opinion that the dissection of Mary Kelly was less skillful than two of the other dissections. That is all that we can determine from the evidence. The term used by my Dr Llewellyn was that Mary Kelly was 'rather crudely butchered'. Dr Llewellyn has the gorgeous, upper-class British accent which made all the women I worked with go weak at the knees when they heard him talk, by the way, so you can imagine 'rather crudely butchered' rolling off his tongue. We do not know if the killer of Mary Kelly was capable of a better dissection or not.

However one thing that is extremely unlikely is the Ripper was drunk at any time. The techniques employed by him so that the victim was unable to utter a sound and to stifle blood flows in the majority of instances, while within close proximimity to the usual late night East End street crowds and extra police and vigilantes was nothing short of astounding. Certainly not a drunken rampage.

Mary Kelly was murdered in her own room complete with broken window, and in very close proximity to the other inhabitants of Millers Court, although in this instance it was possible that she uttered a brief cry of 'murder'. It is also possible that someone came along later, perhaps someone sharing the room with Kelly, and looked through the window and exclaimed 'murder'. It is also possible that the cry of 'murder' had nothing to do with Kelly's murder. The murder and mutilation of Kelly with little or no sound does lead me to believe that the killer was not drunk at the time, although Kelly herself may have been somewhat drunk.

I consider two theories behind Mary Kelly's murder and I put both in my novel. One is that she was killed by someone else and her murder was made to superficially look like a Ripper murder, and there are enough differences for this to be a valid theory. The other theory is that it was a Ripper murder and her position on the bed made it difficult for the killer to employ the likely technique of the other victims (which is to cut the throat and tilt the head to stifle blood spray), while Kelly having her own room enabled a more thorough dissection than would be possible in the street or outdoors.

It is possible that Kelly was in bed asleep and the Ripper broke into her room, perhaps knowing the latch could be released through the broken window or perhaps in possession of the lost key, and this accounts for the unlikely scenario of the Ripper accompanying Kelly to her room and then waiting for her to undress and get into bed. Although breaking into Kelly's room supposes that Kelly didn't prop a table against the door as was the norm in Dorset (or Do as you Please) Street. Unless Mary Kelly was a complete idiot she would have known that her door was effectively unlocked, and even if the window hadn't been previously broken it could easily be smashed and the door released. We know that Prater immediately above went to her room, propped a table against her door and went to bed to sleep.

[Errata]

Indeed I seem to recall that the somewhere had to have a bed especially made for a politician. Was it the White House for Honest Abe?

I think it's an apocryphal story. I remember hearing this at some point in my education, but I think it was a joke he made after someone commented on his height. He would have fit in a regular bed, assuming of course that he wasn't wearing the hat.

Taft did have a special bed. It was one of the first metal frame ones, for the same reason he apparently installed indoor plumbing and a bathtub. Man had some mass to him.

[GUT]

G'day Errata

It may have been Taft I was thinking of, in the back of my head I couldn't remember if it was heght or weight that was the problem. Of course we didn't really study US Presidents.

[Hunter]

Lincoln was too tall for his deathbed and had to be placed across it diagonally.

[Errata]

Lincoln was too tall for his deathbed and had to be placed across it diagonally.

It could have been due to his height, it could also have been due to the fact that anyone ever placed on a bed by two people ends up diagonal. The guy with the feet can drop them center bed, while the guy at the head is pretty much limited to the edge of the bed. My friend did a paper on it for a journalism class. The mystery of why drunk people never pass out straight on a bed.