Jack's been busy

[Pierre]

We are making progress if Pierre is actually prepared to allow for the possibility of a newspaper report of inquest proceedings being accurate.

"We" are not - i.e. yourself - making anything.

I am not "prepared to allow" for anything.

And as usual, you can not read: "if we think the newspapers are reliable,..."

Do you not understand the word IF?

[David Orsam]

"We" are not - i.e. yourself - making anything.

I am not "prepared to allow" for anything.

And as usual, you can not read: "if we think the newspapers are reliable,..."

Do you not understand the word IF?

Yes of course I understand the word "if" in the sentence "if we think the newspapers are reliable". It means that you are prepared to allow for the possibility of a newspaper report of inquest proceedings being reliable, which is why I said what I did.

If you disagree, it means you don't actually understand what you have posted.

[Robert St Devil]

Hi MsWeatherwax

I believe she made the statement - "they say Jack,s been busy in this quarter lately" - to Lottie in October because she called him ,,Jack,,. Were her fears based on the fact that she may have been a streetwalker?

Mary may have believed that she was safe conducting her business in No. 13 because Jack had not set a precedent for home attacks.

Also. If Mary is supposedly educated, why does Joe have to read the newspaper to her?

[MysterySinger]

Hi MsWeatherwax

I believe she made the statement - "they say Jack,s been busy in this quarter lately" - to Lottie in October because she called him ,,Jack,,. Were her fears based on the fact that she may have been a streetwalker?

Mary may have believed that she was safe conducting her business in No. 13 because Jack had not set a precedent for home attacks.

Also. If Mary is supposedly educated, why does Joe have to read the newspaper to her?

Assuming that the statement "they say Jack,s been busy in this quarter lately" is true, then IMHO she's referring to quarter as a location rather than a time period - not both. I think that was the original poster's question?

I think we also only have Joe's say so that Kelly asked him to read the papers to her, but makes sense if she was busy doing other things at the time - washing clothes etc.

Seems quite something to think that today we probably have on-line access to the newspapers Barnett would have read to Kelly.

[Bridewell]

I think it sounds entirely made up. I actually think she heard something much worse, but didn't want to admit that she had heard it and did nothing to help.

My personal opinion is that in that area, at that time, people were used to turning a blind eye. Culturally, at the time (and for a long time afterwards) women taking a hiding from their partners wasn't something people talked about. Prostitutes today are still routinely raped and beaten by clients. People in that Court may have been aware that Mary's partner was opposed to her selling herself and assumed that the early stages of the attack were actually what we know now as a 'domestic incident'. They may have assumed that it was an assault by a client. I don't know.

'Oh, murder' just seems trite to me. If you could see the light through the gaps in the floorboards (correct me if I have that wrong), you could almost certainly hear everything that happened in that room. I don't think that there's a big conspiracy here, just ordinary people too scared to admit that what they actually heard that night was a murder, and they did nothing about it.

Certainly plausible - but not provable, sadly.

[Robert St Devil]

'Oh, murder' just seems trite to me.

Hi MsWw.

She,s also record saying, "Oh Carrie..." Maybe "Oh!" was a tendency for her.

[Joshua Rogan]

'Oh, murder' just seems trite to me. If you could see the light through the gaps in the floorboards (correct me if I have that wrong), you could almost certainly hear everything that happened in that room. I don't think that there's a big conspiracy here, just ordinary people too scared to admit that what they actually heard that night was a murder, and they did nothing about it.

It may sound trite when in print, but it's not easy to translate what may have simply been a gasp or a shriek into a written word. There's a couple of reports that give it a little more context.

Daily News 13 Nov;
"Perhaps the most sensational bit of evidence tendered was that of a garrulous young woman who, with some dramatic force, imitated by voice and action a sort of nightmare cry of "Oh! murder!" which she declared she had heard just after she had been woke up by her kitten rubbing its nose against her face about half-past three or four o'clock on the morning of the murder. It was a faintish cry, she said, as though somebody had woke up with the nightmare"

The Echo 12 Nov;
And, just as I pushed the kitten away I heard, "Oh! Murder!" It was as if it was a nightmare. It was just "Oh! Oh! (in a faint, gasping way) - Murder!"

Incidentally, I don't think Mrs Prater lived directly above Kelly, but in a first floor front room. So the light she might have seen (but didn't) as she went upstairs would probably have been through the gaps in the partition wall, rather than through the floorboards. She did say she would have been able to hear sounds from downstairs, though.