Ripper Victim?

[Fisherman]

Tom asks:

"Ron Jeremy?"

No, Tom. Not quite the same ****, definitely different story type of thing...

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Good one, Tom. It might take some "splainin" for those across the pond.

Ron Jeremy? Wasn't he that nice, rather hairy gentleman on (British) Celebrity Big Brother a while back? I can't quite remember what he was famous for, though - was he Super Mario's stunt double, or something?

[Fisherman]

Glenn writes:

"Yes, that sounds plausible to me."

Post number 1226 strongly recommended, Glenn! No plausibility around at all in the suggestion, I´m afraid. Not temperamentwise, and even less considering that the clothes were not high enough on her body to even allow for the speculation.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Let´s just say, Sam, that part of Ron Jeremy is famous. Won´t venture into which part, though...

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

And I agree wholeheartedly that Tabram would not voluntarily have gone down on her back on that landing.

Why ever not? What else was she to do: stand facing the corner like a naughty child... put her palms on one step, her heels three steps lower, and arch her back... or hold onto the rail with one hand and brace herself against the wall with the other? There was a flat, relatively dry and solid surface available... why not use it?

[c.d.]

Let´s just say, Sam, that part of Ron Jeremy is famous. Won´t venture into which part, though...

The best,
Fisherman

Yeah, he promotes some pills that are supposed to help lengthen and strengthen your...uh...well, you know. Guess that's how Tom knows him.

c.d.

[Fisherman]

Sam asks:

"There was a flat, relatively dry and solid surface available... why not use it?"

Because, Sam, it would in all probability have been a very dirty surface, perhaps pissed on and slimy with spit. Being made of concrete it would also have been incredibly uncomfy. And it was so dark that Tabram would have had no chance to assess just how dirty the landing was!

Do you seriously suggest that Nichols went down on her back in Buck´s Row for sex? Chapman in the Hanbury Street backyard? Eddowes in Mitre Square? Those, I feel, would be just as viable suggestions - but I have never seen it suggested. And they were just as flat and solid surfaces, Sam. And just as grimy too, in all probability.

I don´t think that suggestion has any merit at all, but perhaps for the one of lending some sort of very distant credibility to the suggestion that Tabram did the skirtlifting herself. I think a suggestion that Tabram would have avoided the floor, offering sex against a wall or leaning against the gallery railing, is an infinitely much more safe bet.

The best, Sam!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

"There was a flat, relatively dry and solid surface available... why not use it?"

Because, Sam, it would in all probability have been a very dirty surface, perhaps pissed on and slimy with spit. Being made of concrete it would also have been incredibly uncomfy.

I don't see those as insurmountable barriers, Fish - assuming it were true, which is by no means certain.

An interesting thing to note about "Model Dwellings" in this context was that they usually had rather stringent rules about keeping the passageways clean. Furthermore, the people who occupied them, having ostensibly a place they could "call their own", would tend to be more house-proud than yer average slum dweller. This was the experience of the tenants of Rothschild buildings in Flowery Dean, and numerous sociological studies since have shown the positive effect that a sense of "belonging" has on the morale and good conduct of tenants under similar circumstances.

The landings at George Yard Buildings might well have been cleaner than one might think.

[Sam Flynn]

Do you seriously suggest that Nichols went down on her back in Buck´s Row for sex? Chapman in the Hanbury Street backyard? Eddowes in Mitre Square?

No, I don't believe that either, Fish - but it's not impossible, I suppose.

I should point out that the above argument only works if you assume that Jack killed those women as well as Tabram. If one looks at the "face-value" proposition that Tabram was just a jobbing prostitute, then the idea of her lying down on a public landing and lifting her skirt (or having it lifted by her last client) isn't controversial at all. The same sort of thing apparently happened on the first-floor landing of 29 Hanbury Street, so why not GYB, too?

And they were just as flat and solid surfaces, Sam. And just as grimy too, in all probability.

...infinitely more grimy.

[Fisherman]

Sam writes:

"I don't see those as insurmountable barriers, Fish"

And indeed, Sam, they are not. But quite enough of a barrier to keep Tabram on her feet, I should say.

"The same sort of thing apparently happened on the first-floor landing of 29 Hanbury Street, so why not GYB"

Do we have recordings of prostitutes accomodating their customers, missionary-style, on that address, Sam? If so, I think you have found a good example of the old truth that there will always be exceptions to the rules.

On balance, though, Tabram would not have lain down on that landing. The possibility that she did so remains at best quite a remote one.

The best,
Fisherman
who´s off to bed. A nice, soft, clean one - the kind you happily lay down on

[Tom_Wescott]

While I think it likely Tabram's killer turned up her skirt, I personally have no problem with the idea of her laying on the floor. How many nights might she have spent lying on the dirty ground of Itchy Park?

The neighbors said people would lie down and sleep in that very spot all the time. If not them, then why not Martha? She certainly wasn't any better.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Sam Flynn]

Do we have recordings of prostitutes accomodating their customers, missionary-style, on that address, Sam? If so, I think you have found a good example of the old truth that there will always be exceptions to the rules.

If you could supply the "rule" that says that Victorian prostitutes would never lie down in a stairwell I might meet you halfway, Fish.

BTW, I'm not too hung up on the notion of the "tuppenny upright". Just because it gets mentioned in some Ripper books, I have no reason to believe that it was the only position in the Whitechapel prossies' Kama Sutra.

[Jeff Leahy]

While I think it likely Tabram's killer turned up her skirt, I personally have no problem with the idea of her laying on the floor. How many nights might she have spent lying on the dirty ground of Itchy Park?

The neighbors said people would lie down and sleep in that very spot all the time. If not them, then why not Martha? She certainly wasn't any better.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Yes, Tom has a fair point, getting to hung up about Martha’s cleanliness is silly. She needed somewhere to crash for the night and this was a spot, dry and out of the wind. She was a bag lady not a prostitute, as we would know today.

She slept rough out of necessity. That said, if she had sex it was probably standing up not laying down. Again I say probability is: Martha took jack to that spot for sex. She was strangled, like the others..lowered to the ground and stabbed through her clothing.

The frenzy stopped. The skirt was raised and she was Slashed to the abdomen.

Pirate

[Jez]

Of course, there is no indication that Jack had intercourse with any of the victims. But whether he persuaded them to get into a suitable position is another matter. A London prostitute's Kama Sutra would have been a very slim volume. Voluminous underclothing and the risk of being disturbed would surely have ruled out almost every position apart from a very swift Tuppenny or Fourpenny Upright.

[Sam Flynn]

The skirt was raised and she was Slashed to the abdomen.

Again, we don't know that her abdomen was "slashed", Jeff - in fact, it seems rather unlikely. The only fact we possess is that Tabram sustained a single, small, shallow wound to her abdomen - which may have been a cut or a stab. Whatever it was, it hardly qualifies as a slash or a rip.

This really isn't a semantic argument. Firstly, a purposely slashed abdominal wound would tend to be a bit more impressive than 3" in length. Secondly, unless he were standing upright and swinging his arm like a pendulum, it's tricky to see how the killer could have "slashed" the abdomen of a supine body. Thirdly, we have insufficient information to rule out the possibility that this wasn't just an elongated stab wound.