Miller's Court after Kelly...........

[Michael W Richards]

A comparatively thin partition that leaked light would also have leaked the sound of a scream, particularly if Kelly's head was close to the partition (i.e. on the bed) when she cried out; more so than if she'd uttered the scream at her door. With only a stairwell and her bedroom door in the way, Prater would have had a good chance of hearing such a scream from her room at the front of the house.

Im beginning to think Sam that simply rebutting is the point here, it doesn't seem to need any merit. Its just being contrary. Elizabeth heard the noise " as if from the court", not as if from the stairs, or as if from inside the house, nor was it as if from below my room. Sarah heard it as "if at her door', confirming the notion that the courtyard was the originating source. The sound would be amplified by the high stone walls encasing that courtyard.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Couldn't agree more. It's a thick heavy book crammed with photos and stories about the East End, with several pages devoted exclusively to Jack the Ripper. I have a copy in mint condition I plan to auction off on Ebay soon. Keep an eye open!

Dr. John

Snap it up if you haven’t got it guys.

You can always trust Sholmes and Watson of course.

PS. I’ve waited ages to share a post with you just so that I could say that.

[Sam Flynn]

Im beginning to think Sam that simply rebutting is the point here, it doesn't seem to need any merit. Its just being contrary. Elizabeth heard the noise " as if from the court", not as if from the stairs, or as if from inside the house, nor was it as if from below my room. Sarah heard it as "if at her door', confirming the notion that the courtyard was the originating source. The sound would be amplified by the high stone walls encasing that courtyard.

And... pass through those walls to the inside of the house and through to Prater's room? Not impossible, but it's much easier for sound to travel through a thin, light-and-sound-leaking partition than a stone wall. And what better to "amplify" the sound than the enclosed inner walls of a hallway and a stairwell?

What I'm suggesting doesn't in the least bit contradict what Prater said. Any sound coming from "behind" Prater's room would sound "as if" it came from the court. It doesn't contradict what Lewis said either - "as if" at her door is not the same as "at" her door and, unless she was a bat, it's hard to know how Lewis could have been more precise. Furthermore, any scream coming from inside Kelly's room is going to emerge (again, not through the bricks) via the thinner, gappy, wooden door and/or the broken window located a couple of feet around the corner from it.

BTW, I don't do "just being contrary" - I never have, and I certainly was not being contrary in this instance. Thank you.

[Michael W Richards]

And... pass through those walls to the inside of the house and through to Prater's room? Not impossible, but it's much easier for sound to travel through a thin, light-and-sound-leaking partition than a stone wall. And what better to "amplify" the sound than the enclosed inner walls of a hallway and a stairwell?

What I'm suggesting doesn't in the least bit contradict what Prater said. Any sound coming from "behind" Prater's room would sound "as if" it came from the court. It doesn't contradict what Lewis said either - "as if" at her door is not the same as "at" her door and, unless she was a bat, it's hard to know how Lewis could have been more precise. Furthermore, any scream coming from inside Kelly's room is going to emerge (again, not through the bricks) via the thinner, gappy, wooden door and/or the broken window located a couple of feet around the corner from it.

BTW, I don't do "just being contrary" - I never have, and I certainly was not being contrary in this instance. Thank you.

On the first point, I believe that Prater had window access to the sounds emanating...not from Kellys room,...but from the courtyard. I don't believe the evidence supports a conclusion that the cry came from room 13, but that the courtyard was the source. Which is why my ages old suggestion that Mary made that cry when opening her door to the courtyard holds water. I have seen a picture with an upper window to the back of the house, above Marys windows...was that to a small hallway or an individual room? The small window in the arch over the passageway...did that feed into the rear corner of Praters room? There are possibilities which would explain exactly why Elizabeth and Sarah reported the cry the way they did.

The quotes are pretty clear indications that there was no cry from within a room, in fact Elizabeth, who reported being able to hear "when Mary moved about" in her room, was the best source for that kind of statement, she had prior experiences with noises from that room....and she didn't relate the cry she heard from "the court" as being from that same source.

My contrary comment Sam was a result of a post/comment you made on another thread in the last few days too.

[Sam Flynn]

"As if from the court" does not mean "from the court". A sound coming from inside Kelly's room would have sounded as if it came from the court, because Kelly's room lay directly between Prater's room and the court itself. Besides, like Sarah Lewis, Prater wasn't a bat either

Furthermore, there is no evidence that Prater had a window overlooking the court, otherwise why does she elsewhere refer to hearing sounds on other occasions "from the back of the lodging-house, where the windows [plural] look into Miller's Court"? If she'd actually had her own window, why didn't she say "from MY window that overlooks Miller's Court"?

PS: I don't care which post/comment you were referring to, I don't do "contrary". I might be jokey on occasion, but I don't write things just to be awkward, and I don't write things without having thought them through.

The quotes are pretty clear indications that there was no cry from within a room, in fact Elizabeth, who reported being able to hear "when Mary moved about" in her room

Read the evidence again. Carefully.

[Michael W Richards]

You just posted a snippet that has Elizabeth quoting that there were upper windows facing the courtyard, which is one of 2 scenarios I just posted. There is no evidence that those windows were not in a hallway which would have allowed Elizabeth to hear the sounds as she described. There is also no evidence that suggests Elizabeths room configuration at that point in time, which leaves open the possibility of the arch window as being in the rear of her room. There is evidence that Elizabeth had heard sounds from Marys room while she was in that same room on prior occasions, and there is no evidence that her statement about the source of the cry she heard that night was similar, or likely from the same source, to those prior incidents.

Suggesting I re-read evidence that says "as if from the court" or as "as if at my door" is simply put, insulting,... since the evidence clearly indicates where the only 2 witnesses to the cry believed the sound originated from.

You've re-set the stage many times to make your arguments, might I suggest that the historical documentation is not subject to exploratory revision when it disagrees with your own point of view, or perceptions. "As if from the court" means she believed the sound to originate from that location...to suggest as your first line does, that it doesn't mean "from the court" is pedantic, it surely means she thought it did. Maybe your argument is with the facts. Or maybe she knew better than you do where it came from.

[Dr. John Watson]

Snap it up if you haven’t got it guys.

You can always trust Sholmes and Watson of course.

PS. I’ve waited ages to share a post with you just so that I could say that.

Perfectly alright, old fellow, always happy to assist the greatest detective of all time, even though I seldom took any credit for helping you solve all those fascinating cases - all that is except this one!

John

[Harry D]

I DID NOT WRITE THAT! It was in the post from 2009 that I quoted.
Read it again!!!!!!! Its on the third page of the 2009 Casebook archives that I gave a link for.

A poster called WARSPITE wrote that in 2009!

Keep your wig on. I was only having fun

[Leanne]

What was Dorset/Duval Street has been completely demolished now (in 2015/16 I think). The road has been built over with a new building (97 Commercial Road). Shame. Gone too, is the corner where the Britannia pub used to be. That's development for you.

Back in 2014 when I lived in London, I used to popover there once in a while, the road was always fenced off but you could see the the curb stone, where miller's court was allegedly located.

What was Dorset Street became the Fruit and Wool Exchange. When it was demolished the local population protested about the history of the area being destroyed.

[Leanne]

Above is a page from the local paper showing a local historian arguing that 'Spitalfields has always retained it's identity, The fruit exchange development is too big."

https://spitalfieldscommunityaction.wordpress.com/tag/london-fruit-and-wool-exchange/

They obviously lost!
What if they had unearthed something from before the Fruit and Wool Exchange......deeper! Would they have let everyone know?

[Leanne]

ONE LOCAL WROTE THIS:


Save The London Fruit and Wool Exchange permalink

October 11, 2012


Mr Wheeler is incorrect. Dorset Street was not a “service access road” from 1929. It was a street, laid out 1672 with houses – on both sides. The houses and businesses on the south side were not demolished until 1963. If it was a service access road how could there have been houses and businesses there? The Corporation bought the householders and businesses out from 1960 onwards to demolish that side and down to White’s Row for a car park.
Also don’t know why you think the single “important business” responsible for displacing 61 small businesses should be welcome in our backyard. It may bring benefits to you, but that is not the majority feeling. And why don’t they move into the existing business space of 21,000 sq. m.? Perhaps because it is the City traders ICAP plc and they require trading floors – hence demolition of heritage that belongs to all of Tower Hamlets? Besides killing off Spitalfields Market. Thank goodness most of the real tenants of the 61 small businesses of the Exchange are not like you – just a shame you all have notices to quit for this one important financial business and while you are selflessly cherishing yours, they are desperately unhappy. There are also many, many other real small businesses in this area who will be devastated by this office block for ICAP plc – and residents who won’t be making anything out of the City suits.

[Abby Normal]

"As if from the court" does not mean "from the court". A sound coming from inside Kelly's room would have sounded as if it came from the court, because Kelly's room lay directly between Prater's room and the court itself. Besides, like Sarah Lewis, Prater wasn't a bat either

Furthermore, there is no evidence that Prater had a window overlooking the court, otherwise why does she elsewhere refer to hearing sounds on other occasions "from the back of the lodging-house, where the windows [plural] look into Miller's Court"? If she'd actually had her own window, why didn't she say "from MY window that overlooks Miller's Court"?

PS: I don't care which post/comment you were referring to, I don't do "contrary". I might be jokey on occasion, but I don't write things just to be awkward, and I don't write things without having thought them through.

Read the evidence again. Carefully.

quite right sam
the fact that two women corraberate the scream of murder from a woman at around the same time, coming from the (at least-one of them actually says as if from her room)close vicinity of the room that someone was in fact murdered in(at a time that jibes with all the evidence) and its a pretty safe bet they heard the last desperate cries from Mary before she was silenced.

[Cogidubnus]

Regarding the call, "as if from the court" I posted this some years back (can't recall exactly where) but nobody seems to have picked up on it...The woman's allegedly Irish, so perhaps someone Irish is calling on her...

https://forvo.com/word/m%C3%A1ire/

Interesting?

Dave

[Sam Flynn]

Interesting, Dave, but isn't it the case that using the Irish form of a name only become truly popular with the advent of serious Irish nationalism? That's was the case in Wales; you won't find too many Dafydds in Victorian censuses, but there will be tons of men called David. My great-grandfather, for example, a fluent Welsh speaker in a Welsh-speaking household, was named David.

[Cogidubnus]

Interesting, Dave, but isn't it the case that using the Irish form of a name only become truly popular with the advent of serious Irish nationalism? That's was the case in Wales; you won't find too many Dafydds in Victorian censuses, but there will be tons of men called David. My great-grandfather, for example, a fluent Welsh speaker in a Welsh-speaking household, was named David.

Hi Gareth

Yes but there again I believe the Welsh language came far nearer extinction earlier than was the case with the Irish tongue in, for example, the Gaeltacht areas...which seem actually to have shrunk more since independence...the An Ghaeltacht areas declared in 1926 stretched far further than they do now, and the city of Limerick stood smack at the head of one of these....