Let there be light!

[David Orsam]

According to which newspaper(s)?

With your inability to use the quote function properly, Pierre, it's sometimes hard to know what you are responding to but if you are asking me which newspaper said that Mrs Maxwell was a respectable woman I am referring to the fact that she was the wife of a lodging house deputy, Henry Maxwell, as per her statement to the police which is, I believe, an official source.

[Fisherman]

Hello Fisherman.

Claiming to hear ,,oh murder!" adds an extra dimension to Prater,s and Lewis, stories. Prater states that she had spoke to Mary Jane earlier in the evening plus heard the outcry. Lewis sees the lurking man plus hears the sxream of ,,murder,,. It could be that none of the other residents had any interaction with Mary Jane that evening/early morning, only hearing ,,oh murder!,, somewhere in the middle of the night. The police could have reasoned Prater and Lewis were their best witnesses, and the other residents were merely supplemental statements establishing what they had gathered from the two ladies but adding no additional dimension to the case.

Very true, Mr Devil! But it remains that we cannot know whether these two women were the real McCoy or not. I have my doubts.

[David Orsam]

He didn´t.

By whom? Poor destitute people without teeth in their mouths?

I'm afraid I have no idea what this means Pierre. While I appreciate that you would have no problem with a witness testifying that they spoke to a woman at 8:00am followed by a doctor saying that the same woman was murdered some six or seven hours earlier, I think most people - by which I mean most normal people who are not advanced academic historians with the ability to conduct brilliant source criticisms and extract tendencies from evidence - would conclude, and would have concluded in 1888, that there was something not right about it.

[David Orsam]

He just wanted to get out of it quickly.

And your source for saying that coroner wanted to get out of the inquest quickly is please Pierre?

[David Orsam]

He didn´t.

Again, I don't know what this means. Wickerman did say that it was part of the Coroner's duty to offer a time of death at the conclusion of the inquest, if that is what you are challenging.

[David Orsam]

Pierre, I am very willing to learn and want to develop a "historical education" and I don't wish to be rude but you are, of course, just a name ("Pierre") on a screen and could be a schoolboy, or schoolgirl, posting unrelenting garbage.

So in order to assist me to develop my historical education, could you kindly direct me to some published historians who have written about murder investigations and who, in doing so, have discussed the "tendency" of sources in the way you have done so on this forum?

Given that you tell us your approach is the proper historical method I assume you must be able to provide me with loads of examples. Because I am sure you are not conducting a radical and groundbreaking approach to history on this forum which has never been done before by any published historian.

I look forward to your reply with a list of examples of murder investigating historians I can read to educate myself.

Pierre, you haven't provided a list of examples as requested above.

Does this mean that I should conclude that what you are doing in this forum with your source criticism and your "tendencies" has never been done by any historian ever before?

[Wickerman]

In this context, it may be added that Prater and Lewis were not the only ones who spoke of somebody crying out "Murder!". There is an article somewhere - although I am not certain where - stating that there were a handful (or even more) Millers Court witnesses who spoke of such an outcry, but as I remember it, the police decided that many of these witnesses came forward out of a wish for some little limelight...

Fisherman, would it be too cheeky to propose that the police dismissed those other claims of hearing a cry of "murder" because.......

No, that is the supposed conclusion of the author of a supposed article whose name you cannot, apparently, recall. But what is the evidence on which such a conclusion was based?

Gentlemen, Christer, Henry & David.
I think the article under debate was a paragraph in the Star of 10th Nov.

"One woman (as reported below) who lives in the court stated that at about two o'clock she heard a cry of "Murder." This story soon became popular, until at last half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience. Each story contradicted the others with respect to the time at which the cry was heard. A Star reporter who inquired into the matter extracted from one of the women the confession that the story was, as far as she was concerned, a fabrication; and he came to the conclusion that it was to be disregarded."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s881110.html

The "One woman" turns out to be Mrs Prater, but the time given (two o'clock) is wrong. There is no indication the police dismissed anyone, the article seems to be referring to press investigations not police investigations.

[Wickerman]

Just to pick up on this.

I don't really see how the doctor, giving his evidence after Mrs Maxwell (a respectable woman who insisted she saw MJK alive at 8am), could have stood in the witness box at the inquest and estimated a time of death of 1-2am without the possibility of the medical profession being held up to ridicule and mockery. Nor do I see how it was possible for the Coroner to come to a definitive conclusion based on the evidence before him.

Can I ask though, Jon, what is your basis for saying it was part of the Coroner's duty to offer a time of death at the conclusion of the inquest? The Coroner's Act simply says he has to inquire as to "where and when the deceased died" and who last saw the deceased alive. His duty is to sum up the evidence at the conclusion of the case but it is for the jury to give their verdict "setting forth, so far as such particulars have been proved to them...when, and where the deceased came by his death."

So I don't see what you say as part of the duty of the Coroner and, indeed, how could the Coroner always state the time of death in every case?

Hi David.
In the case at hand we have a murder which could have occurred anywhere between 1:00 through to about 9:00 am. The police need an estimated time of death to enable them to focus on one particular suspect.
Should they pursue "Blotchy" (associated with 1:00), or "Astrachan" (3:00), or "unknown" (about 9:00)?
The police need a time of death, even estimated is better than nothing.

There is little point in the police putting all their efforts into finding Blotchy, if Kelly was still alive after he left. An estimated ToD is essential.

I understood the estimated time was covered by the "when", (ie; where & when the deceased died) under the duties of the Coroner.

[Columbo]

I think I know what Alice must have felt like in Wonderland. Having posted extracts from the Coroners Act (of 1887), which was the relevant legislation under which the Kelly inquest was conducted, someone comes back at me with a Wikipedia entry for modern inquests citing rules for inquests in Australia and the USA in the process!!!!

I wouldn't mind but I already made clear that one purpose of an inquest in 1888 was to inquire as to "where and when the deceased died" and that it was for the jury to give their verdict "setting forth, so far as such particulars have been proved to them...when, and where the deceased came by his death."

I already said this!!!

For those who can't read or comprehend, I was responding to Wickerman's statement that it was part of the Coroner's duty to offer an official time of death at the conclusion of the inquest.

I know, I just thought it was interesting.

Columbo

[Columbo]

Hi David.
In the case at hand we have a murder which could have occurred anywhere between 1:00 through to about 9:00 am. The police need an estimated time of death to enable them to focus on one particular suspect.
Should they pursue "Blotchy" (associated with 1:00), or "Astrachan" (3:00), or "unknown" (about 9:00)?
The police need a time of death, even estimated is better than nothing.

There is little point in the police putting all their efforts into finding Blotchy, if Kelly was still alive after he left. An estimated ToD is essential.

I understood the estimated time was covered by the "when", (ie; where & when the deceased died) under the duties of the Coroner.

It is under the duties of the Coroner to give a time of death, you're absolutely right.

Columbo

[Pierre]

Pierre, you haven't provided a list of examples as requested above.

Does this mean that I should conclude that what you are doing in this forum with your source criticism and your "tendencies" has never been done by any historian ever before?

Use the list I gave you, find the literature and read it.

All historians use source criticism. There is no historical research without external and internal source criticism.

You know nothing about this and your question above is a result of your ignorance.

[Pierre]

With your inability to use the quote function properly, Pierre, it's sometimes hard to know what you are responding to but if you are asking me which newspaper said that Mrs Maxwell was a respectable woman I am referring to the fact that she was the wife of a lodging house deputy, Henry Maxwell, as per her statement to the police which is, I believe, an official source.

What could ever have been "respectable" about being a wife of a lodging house deputy in Spitalfields?

[Henry Flower]

What could ever have been "respectable" about being a wife of a lodging house deputy in Spitalfields?

It's more respectable than lying about being a historian when you're nothing more than a student, so that you can attempt to belittle or dismiss researchers who actually know more about this than you do, and whose reasoning makes infinitely more sense than your constant circular crap and appeals to your own authority.

Take your regards, and stuff em.

[Fisherman]

Gentlemen, Christer, Henry & David.
I think the article under debate was a paragraph in the Star of 10th Nov.

"One woman (as reported below) who lives in the court stated that at about two o'clock she heard a cry of "Murder." This story soon became popular, until at last half a dozen women were retailing it as their own personal experience. Each story contradicted the others with respect to the time at which the cry was heard. A Star reporter who inquired into the matter extracted from one of the women the confession that the story was, as far as she was concerned, a fabrication; and he came to the conclusion that it was to be disregarded."

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/star/s881110.html

The "One woman" turns out to be Mrs Prater, but the time given (two o'clock) is wrong. There is no indication the police dismissed anyone, the article seems to be referring to press investigations not police investigations.

I know who Christer, Henry and David are - but who are the gentlemen you refer to...?

Anyway, yes, Jon, this is the article I was speaking of. Thanks for posting it. I would like to stress once more that if at least half a dozen women were willing to speak of the "Murder!" outcry without having heard it, there is very little to guarantee us that Prater or Lewis heard it either.
The witness evidence is a very risky source in many a case.

[Albert]

What could ever have been "respectable" about being a wife of a lodging house deputy in Spitalfields?

Pierre, I think it is time you did some research into the meaning of 'respectable' in the Victorian period.
Regards
Albert