Let there be light!

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Henry Flower;385856]

Pierre, she had no possibility to give a reliable statement on this? That's garbage. Because she hadn't kept a detailed statistical diary of the exact times and dates when such cries were heard, and by how many other residents, you think you can state she had NO POSSIBILITY of reliably stating that it was a fairly common thing to hear? Rubbish. By those idiotic standards we are entitled to dismiss half the testimony given at any inquest. She was speaking for herself, from her own experience, she has no need to back up her testimony with a statistical analysis of 50 other residents. Do you apply that same standard to ALL witnesses at the inquests? No, you don't. Only when it suits you.

The two Prater-sources (police investigation, inquest) can only be used for writing idiographic history. Not nomothetic history. The Prater-sources give the impressions of one single individual. Not the impressions of 50 people or more.

I apply the right method to the sources in this matter, since it is the only one possible by historical and sociological standards.

She lived in Spitalfields. In the autumn of 1888. You did not.

You are not a bird. Does this mean that you are not able to study birds and draw conclusion about birds? And how about studying dinosaurs?

She stated it was not uncommon to hear such cries. You can call her a liar (if you have evidence to back it up with) but what you can't do is simply dismiss her claim because she is an individual human with ears, rather than a statistical analysis.

No one says that Prater was a liar. There is no evidence for that. If there is any tendency in the source, it might be that she was afraid. What do I base this on? That she was barricading the door with two tables. If it is an historical fact that she was afraid when she heard "Oh, murder!" and did not want to go down the stairs to see if there was anything to be afraid of, she did not tell the court this. Why? Did she think she could have saved Kelly? All this, marked in blue, are pure speculations. But they are more reliable than the statement that such a cry was common and we know it was because Prater said it.

You have a habit of cherry-picking when to apply your self-lauded rigorous statistical/analytical standards.

No, that is not the habit. The habit is to question everything I think and everything everybody else is thinking.

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

The Prater-sources give the impressions of one single individual. Not the impressions of 50 people or more.

Pierre, of course Prater can only speak for herself but if she frequently heard the cry of "Murder" during the night then it was a common occurrence wasn't it?

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Without wishing to be obtuse I don't really know what you mean by "the product of his own opinion". I have no doubt whatsoever that he was expressing his own opinion in his report. In reaching that opinion, he might have had discussions with others, so that one could say his opinion was the product of those discussions, but I'm quite sure Bond did not express any opinions in his report which he did not agree with.

Hello David.

Being familiar with Bond's report I'm sure you can guess what I am alluding to, this account in the press:

"Dr. Phillips has only vaguely indicated to the local police the result of his investigations, but a report on the question has, it has been asserted, been jointly made by him and Dr. Bond, and submitted to Sir Charles Warren."
Echo, 10th Nov.

Dr. Bond's report, though written by Bond, was apparently the product of both Phillips and Bond, according to the press.
Given that the responsibility for the autopsy lay with Phillips, it is perhaps only to be expected that what Bond writes does not severely contradict any opinions held by the leading physician, Dr. Phillips. Though on the other hand Dr. Bond does have a tendency to contradict his peers on occasion.

With all this in mind I have assumed the conclusions expressed by Bond were the result of more information than he makes reference to in his report.
Any experienced physician knows he cannot use digestion as a 'stop-watch' to estimate time of death without having some indication of when that last meal was taken.

That being the case, I think we need to consider whether it is necessary for Dr. Bond to explain every consideration which led to that conclusion in a report to his superior - I think not.
Neither Anderson nor Warren were medical professionals so Bond has no need to provide all considerations that led him/them to consider 1:0-2:00 as the time of death.
We can see for ourselves that neither Lividity, Rigidity, nor body temperature were suitable methods to help determine ToD. In fact he dismissed both rigor mortis and algor mortis before he mentioned digestion - from this we can take it that digestion was the only remaining means. Which can hardly have been a point of contention between himself and Phillips.

At an autopsy, when food is discovered in the stomach nothing can be deduced from that without informing the investigators (Abberline) so the police can make every enquiry to find out when she last ate.

I appreciate that this boils down to a matter of belief for anyone in our day, but I doubt that a physician would attempt to draw such an important conclusion from incomplete data. Not only would that have been unprofessional, it would imply both Phillips and Bond were being unprofessional, or put Bond in direct contradiction of Phillips in the official autopsy report.

So I am inclined to give Bond the benefit of any doubt, that he and Phillips had likely been informed, presumably via the police, when they believed Kelly had last ate.

[David Orsam]

So I am inclined to give Bond the benefit of any doubt, that he and Phillips had likely been informed, presumably via the police, when they believed Kelly had last ate.

If the police had a "belief" as to when Kelly last ate food then that directly affects the time of death. Such belief must have had some evidential basis and, in fact, would be a crucial piece of evidence. I would say it is incredible if that piece of evidence existed as at 10 November but was not produced at the inquest two days later. For that reason, Jon, I cannot agree with you at all and believe that Bond (and Phillips if you like) simply estimated the most likely time that Kelly ate her evening meal and worked from that basis.

[Wickerman]

Pierre, of course Prater can only speak for herself but if she frequently heard the cry of "Murder" during the night then it was a common occurrence wasn't it?

There is another source that mentions the habit people had of crying "murder", as a call for help, not necessarily a case of life and death though. I can't recall whether it was in Fishman's East End 1888, or Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor, or a similar source.

[Wickerman]

If the police had a "belief" as to when Kelly last ate food then that directly affects the time of death. Such belief must have had some evidential basis and, in fact, would be a crucial piece of evidence. I would say it is incredible if that piece of evidence existed as at 10 November but was not produced at the inquest two days later. For that reason, Jon, I cannot agree with you at all and believe that Bond (and Phillips if you like) simply estimated the most likely time that Kelly ate her evening meal and worked from that basis.

I would say the same about an official time of death being offered at the conclusion of the inquest. This was part of the Coroner's duty yet incredibly, none was given.
One of the complication with this inquest, in my view is, the Coroner is not normally included in the medical investigation, Macdonald was a physician himself.
In this case Macdonald was very much involved at Millers Court and, in my view, already knew what much of the medical evidence suggested.
So, he either knew what Bond and Phillips had concluded so just needed to fast-track the rest of the evidence, or knew that no time of death had been established, so knew that admitting the medical evidence would not help that determination.

I see this as a mistake on his part, it left the police with an untenable window of opportunity for the murder to have taken place, anywhere from 1:00 am to 9:00 in the morning.

[Pierre]

Pierre, of course Prater can only speak for herself but if she frequently heard the cry of "Murder" during the night then it was a common occurrence wasn't it?

Hi David,

Thank you for a relevant and very good question! The discussion about the cry might just have concealed more important questions.

Yes, Prater could "only speak for herself". So it was not a common occurrence according to a lot of people but a common occurrence only according to Prater. Or was it? Let´s not get sloppy with the sources, so what did Prater say? In the police investigation she said:

"I did not take much notice of the cries as I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging-house where the windows look inte Millers Court."

Problems with the source ("problems" = discussable issues):

1. She wanted to explain (since this is what she did) why she did not take much notice. Why would she have wanted to do that?

2. She used the expression "frequently". What did Prater mean by that? We can not draw any conclusions from our own experiences. What is the validity of the concept "frequently" in this old source?

3. Was she telling the truth? Or do we see a tendency in the source, given that a murder occurred in Miller´s Court on the same night?

4. She also gave a wider, a more detailed, explanation for her not taking much notice, giving a statement about a specific location: "...as I frequently hear such cries from the back of the lodging-house where the windows look into Millers Court".

So what did Prater say at the inquest? Did she stick to her evidence? Did she use other expressions? How do we know which expressions are the "most accurate", if any?

At the inquest Prater stated that:

"...the voice was in a faint voice - the noise seemed to come from close by - It is nothing uncommon to hear cries of murder so I took no notice...".

Problems:

1. "Nothing uncommon" is different expression compared to "frequently". Uncommon can be the opposite to common but if you use binary concepts you loose the possibility of the scale: Since it was nothing uncommon, does this mean that it was common? Is it just an expression with low validity? What is the motive for giving that statement?

2. "I took no notice". In the investigation she said she did not take much notice. So going from not taking much notice - the opposite being a little notice or no notice? - to taking no notice. Is it a contradiction? Or is it just an expression with low validity? What is the motive for giving that statement?

So the conclusion is that

1. Prater told Abberline and the court about her experience.
2. She wanted to explain why she did not take much notice and then why she took no notice.
3. She first stated that her experience was frequent, then she said it was not uncommon.
4. She specifically pointed out an area as the location for the frequency of the scream "Oh, murder!" and that location was in and around a small area where Kelly lived. Why did she do that? Was Kelly "frequently" screaming "Oh, murder!"?

Or is there a reason to think that the sources have a tendency connected to Prater´s statements about the scream?

Is Prater trying to "normalize" the scream she heard?

Is there a reason to think that the experience described by Prater is not true?

Regards, Pierre

[David Orsam]

I see this as a mistake on his part, it left the police with an untenable window of opportunity for the murder to have taken place, anywhere from midnight to 9:00 in the morning.

Yes that is true. And that should have been the range for time of death: sometime between midnight and 9 (or 10)am.

I would just add from my last post that there is no way the police could have known when MJK had her "last meal" unless they knew what time she was murdered. Even if there was evidence that she ate dinner at 10pm (which there wasn't) the police could only have known this was her last meal if they knew she never ate any food in the morning (because she was dead). A circular argument in other words. Thus, whatever way you want to look at it, and not forgetting that different people have different rates of digestion, Bond could not properly have formed an estimate of time of death from the stomach contents.

[David Orsam]

it was not a common occurrence according to a lot of people but a common occurrence only according to Prater.

That is an inaccurate summary of the evidence Pierre.

Yes it was a common occurrence according to Prater but you cannot say it was not a common occurrence "according to a lot of people" because no-one else has expressed a view.

In short, the only evidence we have is the evidence of Prater who said it was a common occurrence based on her own experience.

[David Orsam]

The problem, Pierre, with your idiosyncratic approach of looking for "tendencies" - for which you have never provided an example of any actual historian doing such a thing - is that you never factor in the possibility of the witness telling the truth.

If Prater frequently heard a cry of murder from the back of the lodging house then there was no "tendency" in her evidence was there? She was simply telling the truth.

So how do you know Prater was not telling the truth?

[Columbo]

The problem, Pierre, with your idiosyncratic approach of looking for "tendencies" - for which you have never provided an example of any actual historian doing such a thing - is that you never factor in the possibility of the witness telling the truth.

If Prater frequently heard a cry of murder from the back of the lodging house then there was no "tendency" in her evidence was there? She was simply telling the truth.

So how do you know Prater was not telling the truth?

Didn't Prater say "such cries were not un-common"? That doesn't necessarily mean it had to be cries of "murder" does it?

Which is very interesting to me is that after several murders of prostitutes, and the police patrols, civilian patrols etc, and the fact everyone was emotionally charged about the murders, no one went to investigate this cry of "murder".

Columbo

[Henry Flower]

The problem, Pierre, with your idiosyncratic approach of looking for "tendencies" - for which you have never provided an example of any actual historian doing such a thing - is that you never factor in the possibility of the witness telling the truth.

If Prater frequently heard a cry of murder from the back of the lodging house then there was no "tendency" in her evidence was there? She was simply telling the truth.

So how do you know Prater was not telling the truth?

Precisely. Pierre's reasoning (let's be generous) is entirely circular. There are two possibilities:

1: Prater heard a cry of murder but took little notice because such cries were not uncommon in one of the meanest, most chaotic, violent, alcoholic, deprived streets in London

Or

2: Prater heard a cry of murder, did nothing about it, and invented a story about it being a frequent occurrence in order to justify her failure to do anything. In other words, a tendency.

Pierre has no source, no evidence suggesting that 2 is more likely than 1. Pierre offers no evidence whatsoever to back up his preference. And that's all this is, Pierre, your preference, whatever technical historical jargon you introduce in an effort to give yourself an entirely unearned authority.

[David Orsam]

Didn't Prater say "such cries were not un-common"? That doesn't necessarily mean it had to be cries of "murder" does it?

I think the answer has to be yes. That's what "such cries" means.

[Henry Flower]

The two Prater-sources (police investigation, inquest) can only be used for writing idiographic history. Not nomothetic history. The Prater-sources give the impressions of one single individual. Not the impressions of 50 people or more.

Congratulations on the jargon, you must be so smart! Did anyone suggest that Prater was doing anything other than giving her own impressions? No. The question you are being asked, and I'll say this slowly since you seem to be having trouble grasping this, is: do you have any evidence that she was not being honest? A "tendency" is one explanation for her testimony, another is that she was telling the truth. What do you have, beyond an unsupported suspicion, that the former is true?

I apply the right method to the sources in this matter, since it is the only one possible by historical and sociological standards.

Bollocks. Assuming without evidence that people are lying in their sworn testimony simply because it suits your hypothesis to do so is never the "only possible" method by historical standards. Stop pretending to be a scientist/sociologist/historian.

You are not a bird. Does this mean that you are not able to study birds and draw conclusion about birds? And how about studying dinosaurs?

No, it means that when studying birds and dinosaurs I don't assume without evidence that someone who lived in Spitalfields in 1888 must have been lying about what was not uncommon in Spitalfields in 1888. D'uh!

No one says that Prater was a liar. There is no evidence for that. If there is any tendency in the source, it might be that she was afraid. What do I base this on? That she was barricading the door with two tables.

Barricading her door? In Spitalfields? At the height of a vicious murder spree targeting women? No ****! That proves that females were living in fear. It absolutely doesn't provide evidence that she lied on oath.

f it is an historical fact that she was afraid when she heard "Oh, murder!" and did not want to go down the stairs to see if there was anything to be afraid of, she did not tell the court this. Why?

Because it's an unsupported assumption you're making.

Did she think she could have saved Kelly? All this, marked in blue, are pure speculations. But they are more reliable than the statement that such a cry was common and we know it was because Prater said it.

Oh of course, pure speculation and invention are far more reliable than her sworn testimony. Pierre, simply asserting it doesn't make it true. For this to be a "tendency" we have to assume she would have a reason to lie, we have to assume that some social opprobrium would attach to a female who did not risk her life by going out at 4am in Spitalfields to see if Jack the Ripper might be murdering someone downstairs. It just doesn't add up on any level.

No, that is not the habit. The habit is to question everything I think and everything everybody else is thinking.

Strange then that is seems almost impossible for you to concede even the possibility that you are wrong, that the simplest explanation for Prater's testimony might be that she was telling the truth. No, instead you absurdly demand the corroborating statistical testimony of fifty others. Do you have any sworn testimony contradicting her claim? Any at all?

You're exhibiting a tendency Pierre.

Regards, Pierre[/QUOTE]

[Wickerman]

I would just add from my last post that there is no way the police could have known when MJK had her "last meal" unless they knew what time she was murdered. Even if there was evidence that she ate dinner at 10pm (which there wasn't) the police could only have known this was her last meal if they knew she never ate any food in the morning (because she was dead).

We do know that enquiries were made to establish whether Cox's story could be corroborated. That if Cox was telling the truth someone should have seen Kelly with a red-headed, rough-looking character in a pub or elsewhere, up to midnight or thereabouts.
No such confirmation was found.

The police would certainly conduct investigations at all the local late-night eatery's, as a result of the finding of abdominal contents, to see if anyone remembers serving Kelly, with or without a male companion.
Whether they were successful in that pursuit or not, the press were certainly not informed, so we do not know.

I just cannot see Dr. Bond (and Phillips?), provide a conclusion as to ToD based on the last known time she ate unless that information was obtained somehow.

Incidentally, I'm not at all suggesting the ToD given by Bond was correct - that is a separate issue entirely. In fact I think it was wrong, but right or wrong is not my issue here. I am only debating how Dr. bond arrived at that conclusion.