MJK’s appearance

[The Good Michael]

This is not meant to sound disrespectful but I wonder how some of the reputedly poor people of the East End like Martha Tabram or Annie Chapman could gain so much weight.

Starches are usually the cheapest foods and the most fattening. I'm sure they were eating potatoes by the bushel. Often the fattest people are connected to bad diets rather than the amount of food they consume.

Mike

[GUT]

G'day Boris

Hello Sam, Debra, all,

thank you for re-posting the info on appearance/weight descriptions, greatly appreciated. Looks like Mary Kelly could have been stout then, given that the term referred to a person with healthy weight or some small amount of extra meat on their bones.

This is not meant to sound disrespectful but I wonder how some of the reputedly poor people of the East End like Martha Tabram or Annie Chapman could gain so much weight.

Best wishes,

Boris

Well it does appear that they ate a lot of what today we would call "Fast Food" fried fish and potatoes seem to have been very common, together with lots of beer.

[bolo]

Hi Mike and GUT,

I'm still under the impression of this document of victorianlondon.org about the food of the poor:

http://www.victorianlondon.org/food/foodofthepoor.htm

I wonder how Annie or Martha would fit into that picture. Maybe they could spend more on food and drink (relatively speaking) than the poor people mentioned in the text as they all had rent to pay and/or provide a family with food, clothing, etc. while most of the victims lived in lodginghouses?

Best wishes,

Boris

[Jon Guy]

This is not meant to sound disrespectful but I wonder how some of the reputedly poor people of the East End like Martha Tabram or Annie Chapman could gain so much weight.

Hi Bolo

According to Dr Phillips, Chapman showed signs of "great privation", and until 1888, Tabram was always supported by a working partner. In fact, she received a hefty allowance off her husband when they separated, which continued for a while even though she was living with a carpenter.

[MrBarnett]

Can I just throw one little spanner in the 'stout'. I'd always understood it as a euphemism for 'fat', a grown up version of 'chubby'. A chubby boy was a fat boy and a stout lady was a fat lady.

If someone's BMI was average, unremarkable, there would be no need for an epithet.

MrB

[Natasha]

Hi Debra

Thanks for the info, very insightful

Just to add another spin on the ‘stout’ thing. It is to my understanding that there were female searchers in prisons, so that being said it would be interesting to analyze the different interpretations of weight made by women and men.

[Sam Flynn]

Can I just throw one little spanner in the 'stout'. I'd always understood it as a euphemism for 'fat', a grown up version of 'chubby'. A chubby boy was a fat boy and a stout lady was a fat lady.

OK, so what was the euphemism for "stout"? Sometimes a word is a word is a word... to paraphrase Gertrude Stein

If someone's BMI was average, unremarkable, there would be no need for an epithet.

Whilst the Victorians didn't have such concepts as BMI, they still had to be able to tell thick from thin, with all gradations in between.

[Wickerman]

Just a brief section of the official Metropolitan Police suspect identification form, to be completed by witness/officer.

.
Height (tall, short, medium)........................................... .......
Build (stout, thin, erect, stooping)......................................... .
Head (any peculiarity, size of hat)...........................................
Hair (colour, quantity, parting, cut).........................................
.

It would appear 'stout' was opposite to 'thin' in the eyes of the police at the time.

[MrBarnett]

Fat, Thin, Neither, is all you really need. And 'stout' as a euphemism for fat is a Victorian nicety that was still in usage 'when I were a lad'

MrB

[Sam Flynn]

It would appear 'stout' was opposite to 'thin' in the eyes of the police at the time.

In they eyes of police, perhaps, although I daresay even they would use the adjective "fat" to distinguish mere stoutness from obesity. Besides, the way in which officials use terms are often different to the way in which they are used by laypeople, such as the ordinary folk who described Kelly.

Kelly had well-padded calves and arms, which - extrapolated to the rest of her - would surely be sufficient to explain why the label "stout" was used to describe her.

[Sam Flynn]

And 'stout' as a euphemism for fat is a Victorian nicety that was still in usage 'when I were a lad'

Maybe so, but adjectives don't have to be euphemisms all the time. Indeed, more often than not they mean precisely what they say.

[MrBarnett]

Gareth,

So the Met. didn't have a classification for fat people? Couldn't run fast so they were always caught, perhaps?

If stout and thin are the only two classifications, they must represent the extremes, surely.

MrB

[GUT]

Gareth,

So the Met. didn't have a classification for fat people?

If stout and thin are the only two classifications, they must represent the extremes, surely.

MrB

Well from the form Wickerman posted that's right.

[MrBarnett]

Hi GUT,

Getting on my soapbox, sorry. Not addressed to you, but through you.

If I were to suggest to you that G'day meant giddy or goody what would you say? I may be able to dig up a quote from Jane Austen where it appeared that an Australian cousin had meant it in that way, but g'day is g'day is g'day - in other words, 'hello, mate'. Just as stout is a nice way of saying fat, or on the fat side of normal (whatever that is). Mid-Victorian novelists may have characterised their heroes as 'stout fellows', but when a LVP slum dweller described someone as 'stout' they meant fat, or thereabouts. 'Big boned' may have done it, but the end result is a person who is larger than normal

MrB

[GUT]

G'day MrB

Hi GUT,

Getting on my soapbox, sorry. Not addressed to you, but through you.

If I were to suggest to you that G'day meant giddy or goody what would you say? I may be able to dig up a quote from Jane Austen where it appeared that an Australian cousin had meant it in that way, but g'day is g'day is g'day - in other words, 'hello, mate'. Just as stout is a nice way of saying fat, or on the fat side of normal (whatever that is). Mid-Victorian novelists may have characterised their heroes as 'stout fellows', but when a LVP slum dweller described someone as 'stout' they meant fat, or thereabouts.

MrB

G'day probably also means you're from down under.

But I was actually saying that from Wickerman's post the police had Stout or Thin, so in effect I am agreeing with you, though I do note the absence of average [for whatever that means].