Robert Paul Time Issues

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Steve,
Any clock needn't have been on his direct route, only within earshot. Mrs Long said she fixed the time she saw Annie Chapman by the chiming of the brewery clock - there was a big brewery just south of Bath Street. There was also the station which might have had a clock.

And if Cadosche is accurate with his story, then Annie is already being mutilated when Mrs Long makes her sighting.

[David Orsam]

Uninteresting twaddle.

See? I answered AGAIN! Silly me.

You certainly did. And the absence of any substance in your answer - especially to the "9 minutes" criticism - is very teling.

[Fisherman]

Seriously? The ones who made the documentary are responsible for you saying "Then we've got a discrepancy of about 9 minutes or something like that."?* I could have sworn I saw your lips move. Was this an overdub of someone else's voice added to your lips?



The Swanson reports were written for the Home Office in 1888, not members of the public or researchers in 2017. It is clear from reading all his reports that Swanson was interested in approximate times only.



Well I don't believe it at all because they are BOTH approximate times and they are BOTH in effect saying the same thing: about 3.45 and about 3.40 were effectively the same time, especially in a pre-digital age. But as I've said, it looks like Abberline just took a bit more care with the detail, having realised that Cross and Paul couldn't have found the body AND spoken to Mizen at 3.45, so he adjusted accordingly.



I didn’t say it wasn't possible but my point was that, while a number of witnesses positively identified hearing a clock chime in other cases, not a single witness did in the Nichols case. The natural conclusion is that these witnesses didn’t hear a clock chime. You asked me for the conclusion and I gave it to you.



I didn't say he wasn't involved in the Ripper investigation. I said he did not investigate the murder of Mary Ann Nichols. That was done by Detective Inspector Abberline. By the time Swanson was brought on board the investigation into that particular murder was effectively concluded. He had no role to play in it. All he could have done was read the documents. Abberline was the investigating officer on the ground in early September who would have spoken to the witnesses and followed any leads.


p.s. So much for "I realize that this is the first of twenty-odd posts from you. What you don´t realize is that the rest will go unanswered for the usual reason - you are bickering about unimportant and uninteresting matters.". Why do you keep posting these types of statements when you don't have the self-control to stick to what you say?

Uninteresting twaddle.

See? I answered AGAIN! Silly me.

[David Orsam]

footnote to previous post

*The discrepancy of "9 minutes" (i.e. "Then we've got a discrepancy of about 9 minutes or something like that." per Christer Holmgren) is based on Cross leaving his house at exactly 3.30am (for which there is no evidence) and taking 7 minutes and 7 seconds to reach Bucks Row (which is the time it supposedly took Christer Holmgren and Andy Griffiths to walk along a modern route which did not exist in 1888 from Doveton Street to Durward Street), arriving at 3.37:07am, and on Robert Paul walking into Bucks Row at exactly 3.45am (for which there was no evidence presented at the inquest). To most people, 3.45 less 3.37 is 8 minutes (and should strictly be 7 minutes and 53 seconds) but Christer seems to have added on a whole extra minute, as you do, just for jolly, presumably because the documentary stated that "Robert Paul was in Bucks Row for a full minute before he noticed Lechmere." However, when I asked Fisherman to explain this statement he told me: "I cannot say what the documentary meant by stating that Robert Paul was in Bucks Rof (sic) for a full minute before he noticed Lechmere." Hence, the extra minute added to the so called timing "discrepancy" by Christer Holmgren must remain a mystery.

[David Orsam]

1. The ones who made the docu are the ones responsible for it. I have told you before that I would have done it differently in some respects, although I think it is overall quite good.

Seriously? The ones who made the documentary are responsible for you saying "Then we've got a discrepancy of about 9 minutes or something like that."?* I could have sworn I saw your lips move. Was this an overdub of someone else's voice added to your lips?

2. Even if the police sometimes will "paint with a broad brush", they will try and see to it that it is nevertheless the CORRECT brush. Is is not as if they could not care less, and as if they reason that it does not matter what they put in their reports, as long as they do put SOMETHING there. We rely on these reports for a reason.

The Swanson reports were written for the Home Office in 1888, not members of the public or researchers in 2017. It is clear from reading all his reports that Swanson was interested in approximate times only.

3. If one report says 3.40 and if an ensuing report says 3.45, then the first time given HAS actually been changed inbetween the reports, believe it or not.

Well I don't believe it at all because they are BOTH approximate times and they are BOTH in effect saying the same thing: about 3.45 and about 3.40 were effectively the same time, especially in a pre-digital age. But as I've said, it looks like Abberline just took a bit more care with the detail, having realised that Cross and Paul couldn't have found the body AND spoken to Mizen at 3.45, so he adjusted accordingly.

4. The fact that somebody gives a timing without saying that he or she got that timing from the chiming of a clock is not equivalent to that somebody not possibly having gotten the timing that way.

I didn’t say it wasn't possible but my point was that, while a number of witnesses positively identified hearing a clock chime in other cases, not a single witness did in the Nichols case. The natural conclusion is that these witnesses didn’t hear a clock chime. You asked me for the conclusion and I gave it to you.

5. Donald Swanson WAS involved in the Ripper investigation - all murders included - at the time he wrote the October 20 report.

I didn't say he wasn't involved in the Ripper investigation. I said he did not investigate the murder of Mary Ann Nichols. That was done by Detective Inspector Abberline. By the time Swanson was brought on board the investigation into that particular murder was effectively concluded. He had no role to play in it. All he could have done was read the documents. Abberline was the investigating officer on the ground in early September who would have spoken to the witnesses and followed any leads.


p.s. So much for "I realize that this is the first of twenty-odd posts from you. What you don´t realize is that the rest will go unanswered for the usual reason - you are bickering about unimportant and uninteresting matters.". Why do you keep posting these types of statements when you don't have the self-control to stick to what you say?

[Fisherman]

Correction to my former post - it should be the October 19, not 20, report.

[Fisherman]

Finished, David?

Good. Then I can give a short answer.

1. The ones who made the docu are the ones responsible for it. I have told you before that I would have done it differently in some respects, although I think it is overall quite good.

2. Even if the police sometimes will "paint with a broad brush", they will try and see to it that it is nevertheless the CORRECT brush. Is is not as if they could not care less, and as if they reason that it does not matter what they put in their reports, as long as they do put SOMETHING there. We rely on these reports for a reason.

3. If one report says 3.40 and if an ensuing report says 3.45, then the first time given HAS actually been changed inbetween the reports, believe it or not.

4. The fact that somebody gives a timing without saying that he or she got that timing from the chiming of a clock is not equivalent to that somebody not possibly having gotten the timing that way.

5. Donald Swanson WAS involved in the Ripper investigation - all murders included - at the time he wrote the October 20 report.

That´s about it, I think!

[David Orsam]

And? What eartshattering conclusions do you draw from this fact?

Well given that, as you say, other witnesses noted hearing church bells to guide them on timings, the earthshattering conclusion I would draw is that none of the participants in Bucks Row heard any church bells.

[David Orsam]

It is not a question of being able to nail down timings to the minute, David - it is a question of how the police would have regarded it as very important to get as close as they could to the actual timings. That is why it is of relevance that Swanson made the change - because the police had reached the stnce that 3.45 was reasonably and probably closer to the truth than 3.40. Whether it was 3.41 or 3.44 is not very important in this context - what is important is that the final weighing - as far as we can tell - prioritized 3.45 over 3.40.

But he didn't make any "change" Fisherman. Unless you think he also changed the witness timings in the Chapman case. He just gave an approximate time of the discovery, like he did for all the timings in his reports.

Abberline is the only person who appears to have noticed that both Cross and Neil couldn't both have discovered the body at 3.45 so he (correctly in my view) adjusted the first discovery down to 3.40, consistent with the evidence of P.C. Mizen at the inquest.

[David Orsam]

No, I haven´t, have I? Could that perhaps be because I do not think that it can be extrapolated to go for the Nichols murder, no matter if it true or not? Yes, it could.
If I had tried such a ploy, I would have been pooh-poohed off the boards. It´s rather reckless, and should not be used.
Swanson had access to the earlier report. He was aware what the PC:s said about the timings. Unless there was a practical reason to overturn Abberlines report in this respect, it would not have been done. And sloppiness would be the last reason for doing it.

It's not a question of extrapolating anything and it's not a "ploy" (why do you think I need one?). It's simply a demonstration of Swanson's working methods. He didn't pay the kind of close attention to the evidence on timings that one might expect from a modern researcher but that's because he didn't need to. The Home Office didn't care if the body was found at 3.40 or 3.41 or 3.45, nor did Swanson, and 3.45 was a perfectly sufficient approximation for the purposes of Swanson's report.

[David Orsam]

I am saying that Abberlines report preceded Swansons by a month. And I am saying that as work proceeds, the police will get a fuller and clearer picture of the events, not a less full and more blurred one. And they will change their bids accordingly.
If Abberlines report had been the last one, it would have stood the better chance to be the correct one. But it isn´t.

Swanson was providing a broad brush, big picture, overview for the Home Office. He didn't need to concern himself with minor details. The precise timings were clearly not viewed as significant, no doubt because it was impossible to establish them with any degree of certainty in most cases.

[David Orsam]

I realize that this is the first of twenty-odd posts from you.

When someone makes points in response to my posts I always think it is good manners, and conducive to an orderly debate, to respond to them and I usually prefer to respond to each point separately. I appreciate that not everyone likes it when their posts are responded to, usually because they don't like to discover they are wrong, but that's what the forum is all about.

[David Orsam]

Oh - so what you meant was that he was not involved in the investigation AT THE TIME.

How many police investigations do you think there were into the murder of Mary Ann Nichols?

Me? I think just the one.

And Swanson wasn't involved in it.

[David Orsam]

But sadly, you will find it impossible to prove in the matter we are talking about.

I don't need to prove anything, nor am I trying to. What I have demonstrated, at a minimum, however, is that it is far from certain that the body was found by Cross and Paul at 3.45am as opposed to 3.40am.

Why is this important? Well let's look at what was said in a well-known documentary about the subject:

v/o: According to Paul’s evidence, Lechmere found the body some sixteen minutes after he claimed he left home.

Christer Holmgren: And it says 7 minutes, seven seconds. That would have meant that if Lechmere left his home as he said at 3.30 he should have been here at 3.37.

Andy Griffiths: Well that’s very interesting because Paul says he came into the street at 3.45.

v/o: Andy and Christer have found a major gap in Lechmere’s timings.

v/o: Lechmere said that he was never alone with the body.

Caption of Lechmere kneeling over body with caption "3.37 am: Discovers body of Polly Nichols".

v/o Lechmere would have reached the murder site at 3:37, long before Paul turned into the street at 3:45.

Andy Griffiths: We know that he was late for work, as he said at the inquest and I think it’s reasonable to assume then he was keeping an eye on the time.

Christer Holmgren: Then we’ve got a discrepancy of about 9 minutes or something like that.

Andy Griffiths: Which was a big difference in that time.

Nowhere in there is it mentioned that the time of 3.45am of Paul turning into the street is unproven and uncertain.

Mind you, the close viewer of the documentary might have seen this caption on their screen about 10 minutes earlier:

"3:45am Police Constable Neil discovers a body".

Very odd!

[Fisherman]

Double posting.