Romford

[Ben]

I know! It’s because he had paid for a weekly ticket in advance but had neglected to get a special night pass – an item which anyone who reads the Victoria Home rules can tell at a simple glance is quite separate from a bed ticket.

Nah, Lechers.

Sorry, but I'm afraid this is still wrong, and hasn't stopped being wrong from when we discussed this business on the "Wrong Night" thread. The weekly ticket was still the special night pass. It is not listed as a "separate item" in any list of rules. The rules simply used alternating terminology to describe the same item once it was in use and fulfilling its various tasks, i.e. getting him past the doorman and towards the bedrooms. Let's not make the Victoria Home some maximum security multi-bouncered dwelling again, please.

[The Grave Maurice]

If I'd had lyricists like you guys, I might have had more luck coaxing the birds from the trees. We don't need more of these.

[Chris]

Well if you go back to the 18th century, Mr Earnshaw walks from Yorkshire to Liverpool and back in Wuthering Heights.

Only from Yorkshire to Liverpool and back? Luxury! When I were a lad we used to get up, walk from Yorkshire to John O'Groats and back before breakfast ...

[Ben]

I was thinking... why would Hutchinson even say he had been down to Romford if it was an unusual thing to walk back from there?

Because he wanted or needed a good excuse for being on the streets in the small hours of the morning, Mike, in my opinion. It needn't necessarily have been Romford, but the location was required to be some distance away in order to validate superficially the suggestion that he missed closing time at the Victoria Home, and was consequently compelled to walk the streets all night. He clearly realized from Sarah Lewis' evidence that he had been seen loitering on Dorset Street, and thus in addition to feeling himself compelled to legitimize his presence and preoccupation with that particular spot (I saw a scary-looking Jewish man with gold chain and dark eyelashes, honest to piddliing goodness, guvna!), he also felt had to explain what he was doing on the streets at all.

A claim to have only just returned from some relatively far-flung location would have been ideally suited to the purpose, as it accounted for his "failure" to secure lodgings AND skirted round any consideration that he had been skulking round the district all night (which he could have been doing had he remained in Spitalfields all night).

Hutchinson's story was believed initially, remember, but apparently not in the long run.

[Lechmere]

Or
Show me the way to go Home
(the Victoria one from Romford)
Or
Give it to the girl next door
Or
I hear you knocking but you can't come in (Victoria Home)
I hear you knocking and you can come in (13 Miller's Court)

[Lechmere]

With…no…alibi!
This line needs to be changed to
With a disposal alibi

[Robert]

Tomorrow :
I could have walked all night
The lovesick swain stays mainly in the rain
I've thrown a cutlass at her face
I'm getting buried in the morning

[Lechmere]

'Why didn't he say, "I walked about all night because I had no money to get into where I usually sleep?"'

Hmmm, Ben why or why?
I know! It’s because he had paid for a weekly ticket in advance but had neglected to get a special night pass – an item which anyone who reads the Victoria Home rules can tell at a simple glance is quite separate from a bed ticket. How can anyone tell this? Because it is listed as a separate item in those rules. Furthermore Hutchinson confirms it for us. That he wasn’t picked up on this by either the police (as far as we know) or the press (which we do know) is further confirmation. Case solved.

[The Good Michael]

I was thinking... why would Hutchinson even say he had been down to Romford if it was an unusual thing to walk back from there? If he was trying to hide something, why would he pick Romford if it was was such an extraordinary feat to walk from there? And as others asked, why did no one find it an abnormal thing to do? Either it was a not uncommon thing for people to have done, or it was, but Hutchinson had a Romford connection that explained why he had been there that we don't know about. Either way, everyone was satisfied that he had been down to Romford. There was no doubt that his story was believed.

That doesn't make it true, but it is something that absolutely cannot have its credibility questioned. It just can't.

Mike

[Ben]

When I was young and foolish, as opposed to what I am now (old and foolish), if I had a crush on a girl I used to walk by her house repeatedly, or stand outside as long as possible, in the hope that she would come out

Rather like Freddie from My Fair Lady, GM.

I have often walked down this street before,
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before
All at once am I
Several stories high,
Knowing I’m on the street where you live!

Is it half as foul in the heart of town?
Does the ripper prowl in any other part of town?
Does debasement pour
Out of every door?
No, it’s just on the street where you live!

And oh! The towering feeling,
Just to know, somehow you are here.
The overpowering feeling that when ol’ Blotchy’s gone you’ll suddenly appear.

Lewis stops and stares. She might bother me.
‘Cause the hangman’s rope is not somewhere I’d rather be.
Let the time go by
With…no…alibi!
Loiterin’ here on the street where you-oo-oo (and he really milks it here) oo-oo-ooo live!

[Robert]

Well if you go back to the 18th century, Mr Earnshaw walks from Yorkshire to Liverpool and back in Wuthering Heights. I'm sure Emily Bronte wouldn't have put this in if it sounded an impossible feat. People used to do this - particularly Yorkshire folk who were tight wi't brass, tha knows.

[jason_c]

In terms of walking distances I do remember reading of football fans walking to away grounds during the Depression of the 1930's. Im doing my best to find an online reference to this. These would be similar miles to Hutchinsons Romford walk.

[jason_c]

Are you suggesting that those folks knew more about what people did daily and could do than we, 120 years later know? I mean just because they lived in those times and witnessed such things daily doesn't mean they knew anything.

Mike

Certainly not. Im of the opinion that modern day users of internet message forums will know far more about the lifestyle of the Victorian Urban poor than a contemporary police detectice of 20 years experience would.

Indeed right this minute im writing a letter to The Times Literary Supplement pointing out numerous factual errors in Charles Dickens' portrait of workhouse life in Oliver Twist.

[Ben]

If he had paid weekly in advance for a metal bed ticket (which were was issued each night – and we know that most inmates paid weekly) then he would also require a special late night pass in order to obtain access after 12.30 or 1.00 am.

No, no, no, no, bloody no, Lechmere.

Please let's not repeat this nonsense again. A weekly pass is precisely the same thing as a bed ticket, as is evident from the rules of the Victoria Home that we have discussed ad nauseam. If Hutchinson had paid for a weekly pass, he could have accessed a bed at the Victoria Home at any hour of the night. If he didn't have a pass, the cut-off point to obtain one was either 12:30am or 1.00am. If he had neither a pass nor money to pay for one upon arrival, his Romford footslog is rendered pointless and illogical, because there was no chance of him getting into the Victoria Home at all.

I meant what I said about the obvious inconsistency. First he tells us (or rather Kelly herself) that he has no money, but when speaking to the press, he divulges the detail that the place where he usually slept had closed. But why mention the closure of a home if he has no money to get in anyway? It's irrelevant. Why didn't he say, "I walked about all night because I had no money to get into where I usually sleep?".

I think I'll file this post away under "To be used again if ever challenged on this issue".

[Chris]

But in Ripperology there's a difference between the random commentator and any comment from one that bears a certain degree of knowledge...

Thank goodness we agree on that much at least.