New Solution

[DVV]

Possibly, yes...
Why did Baxter complain about the post-mortem that he "should have orderered"? Was she already buried on Saturday 12, or was it simply too late to proceed to a post-mortem...?

Amitiés,
David

[Debra A]

I suspect someone more qualified will come and answer that for you David.

[Rob Clack]

Great find Debs.

Rob

[Natalie Severn]

An important find too Debs.The Whitechapel Murder file opened on the death of Emily Smith and yet more similar cases have been unearthed,prior to her death and in same area.Motives?

[John Savage]

Hi David,

It was up to the coroner to decide if a post mortem was needed, and in cases of violent death he would usually do so. I think in this case the coroner presumed he was holding an inquest into a death caused by peritonitis [or similar] and only became aware of the violence as the inquest proceeded.

The system in those days was that the coroner would pay the doctor to perform the inquest and then reclaim his expenses later from the local magistrates. These magistrates very often were more interested in keeping down costs as the burden fell upon rate payers, and it was quite common for magistrates to refuse to reimburse a coroner an expense they deemed unwarranted.

It was the law that the corpse be examined by the inquest jurors at the begining of the inquest, so of course, she would have not have been buried until afterwards. If the coroner had stopped the inquest to order a post mortem, this would have added not only the cost of the post mortem but also the cost of re convening the jury; as well as inconvenience to the jurors.

Hope this helps.

Rgds
John

[DVV]

Thanks John,
that's a substantial post. Neither Baxter nor the police did take too much pain on Emily Horsnail's case - this is true for all non-canonicals, except Tabram (to some extent).

Amitiés,
David

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Some very interesting posts here.
Personally, I have never understood why people are trying to turn Emma Smith into yet another Ripper victim. Those were harsh neighbourhods, just like they are today and the cases of Margaret Hayes/Hames and Emily Horsenail (thanks for putting our attention to this, Debra) shows that gangs of men existed in the East End. The death at the lodging house of poor Emily Horsenail surely reminiscences Emma Smith; Smith was on her way to the logdning house herself after the attack and - like Horsenail - didn't have the intention to turn to a hospital in spite of her injuries.
And why should such attacks by a gang of men not have existed? In our day and age such attacks by a group of men occur in much better environments than this. Just because Emma Smith's story doesn't hold up on some details doesn't mean that part wasn't true.

All the best

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Something like that seems as if Police of the time would be able to solve. They knew who were gangsters. Yet none were caught or charged.

Yeah, but convicting or proving someone's guilt was quite a different matter in those days.

All the best

[Roy Corduroy]

Debra, congratulations on your find in post #56 and thanks Sam for running the census.

The death at the lodging house of poor Emily Horsenail surely reminiscences Emma Smith;

Good point, Glenn.

Again, hats off to you Debs,

Roy

[Mike Covell]

Right, not sure if any of these are right but the names and dates tally,

1881 Census
Name: Emily Horsnell
Age: 20
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1861
Relation: Wife
Spouse's Name: Alfred
Gender: Female
Where born: Shoreditch, Middlesex, England
Civil Parish: Bethnal Green
County/Island: London
Country: England
Street address: 4 Edward St
Condition as to marriage: Married
Registration district: Bethnal Green
Sub registration district: Bethnal Church

Notes,
They have a daughter called Emily about 3 months old!
Alfred is a cabinet maker.

Source Citation: Class: RG11; Piece: 425; Folio: 115; Page: 29; Line: ; GSU roll: 1341092.

I tried Emily Atkins and got quite far but it appears the one I tracked wasn't married!

[sdreid]

Ah, but was Smith's attack really similar to this one or did she just use the story because she'd heard the scenario before?

[Dan Norder]

Ooh, interesting idea there, Stan. The injuries at least bear some similarities, though.

I'm really going to have to start taking notes on these other victims when they come up, because I'm already having trouble remembering what happened to these two and what times and if one of them was the one AP Wolf brought up on JTRForums.com a few weeks back.

Certainly filling in the details on other street crimes and murders that have previously fallen through the cracks is a good way to try to gauge how likely people like Smith, Tabram, McKenzie and Coles were to have been by the Ripper or by someone else.

[Debra A]

Thanks all, I think finding another 'gang' attack victim does show something was going on in the area, they could all have been covering for one man, and seeing as Horsnell, Hames and Smith were from the same street it could have been someone connected to there...or there was a gang in the area, which seems like the simple answer to me.

Dan, the case AP highlighted recently was one concerning Emma Jacques, from 1881.

that should be Agnes Jacques.

[Dan Norder]

Ah, OK, so that's at least three new ones to consider...

[Debra A]

As an aside but connected to something Robert mentioned earlier in the thread, I did notice a couple of cases in the local courts where prostitutes had taken individual men to court who had inflicted violence on them. The women in these cases seemed to have no qualms about admitting they were prostitutes and getting justice done against these men.

One 1881 case involved a resident of George Street itself, he had taken a shine to a prostitute living in Miller's Court and had followed her around, hounding her to live with him (some Victorian 'pimping' seems to have involved one man procuring one prostitute to live with and work for him, and a few procured by violent means). After her refusals he burst into her room and attacked her. He received a sentence 2 months hard labour.