Romford

[Sally]

Oh I know, I wasn't serious!

6am. Although, the kitchens must have been open sooner (yes, must...) to meet the requirements of the many lodgers who would have been at work by then.

[Ben]

Sorry, Lesley, I should clarify:

When I suggested that "Romford" had been invented, I was specifically referring to the circumstances of his alleged return. It is quite possible that he was "out of the way" for most of Thursday, or even in Romford itself, but I don't accept for a moment that that he had nowhere to stay that night, or that he was compelled to to "walk about all night" with no money and no pass. I agree that he was unlikely to have been knocking around the pubs of the Spitafields on Thursday, as this had the potential to compromise his Romford account, as you note.

Hi Sally,

You didn't ruin my afternoon. You may even have enhanced in with some interesting observations. I wonder what time the Home did open "in the morning"?

All the best,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

As for this “checking out” business, yes, if he told the truth about going to Romford, his presence there could have been verified, but if he LIED about, the police would NOT have been able to expose the lie, since Hutchinson could have come up with any manner of bad excuse for his lack of alibi there. “Gosh, I forget the same of the road, sir, and the employer was a bloke named Smith I think, or was it?” Anything.

Ben -this argument makes me feel rather uneasy...

If Hutchinson wasn't in Romford, then it's understood that he was somewhere else.

It's not logical to think that, if he wasn't in Romford, then he could have been anywhere else outside London. The precise place had no bearing on his story.

Having accepted that, you must surely accept that if lied about going to Romford, then the most likely alternative is that he stayed in London.

But London was teeming with people. Sleeping in a lodging house as he did,
doing casual labouring jobs as he did, and drinking in pubs (as is probable),
for all he knew anyone might have seen him in the East End, and his lie be exposed.

Apart from Police interviewing his lodging house, entourage etc about him,
there is the fact that once he started stating to the Press that he'd been in Romford, he risked someone coming forward and saying 'oh, no he wasn't !'.

I just can't believe that he'd risk his neck on the Romford story when, wherever he was before the killing, it wasn't a hanging offense.
(I made that statement because, had he been exposed as a liar on this detail, he risked becoming a suspect).

However, there were certainly other lies possible to explain why he wasn't
at his usual lodgings on the night in question. So why 'Romford' ? -unless it was simply true.

[Ben]

"everyone", reading your strained responses should not be repeatedly exposed to your "backdoor clause" of denouncing any source which disagree's with your entrenched position.

But the source you are using is incorrect, Jon. That’s the major difference here. It argues against all other press sources as well as Lewis’ original police statement, and yet you champion it as correct for some fascinating reason. The other newspapers you mention were most assuredly not “incomplete” just because they didn’t include a bogus detail reported by the Morning Advertiser that you insist must be true. No other newspaper claimed that Lewis’ “in drink” couple passed “up the court”, nor did Lewis herself state as much in her police report. The couple in question had nothing whatsoever to do with the court. They merely "passed along" Dorset Street.

All these journalists had access to the testimony. Is it plausible that one of them managed to pick up on a detail that was mysteriously missed by all other journalists, or dare we accept that the 99% majority of press reports were correct and that the Morning Advertiser had confused certain details?

“Lewis never claimed to know Kelly, nor looked her in the face at any time that night/morning”

Yes, I realise that. But your contention is that the female half of the “passing along” couple was Kelly – an idea you’ve arrived at on the basis of a seriously mistaken press report. My point was that if there had been any police consideration that this woman was Kelly, Lewis would have been called to the mortuary in an attempt to compare the body with her recollections of the women in question, much like William Marshall had done with the female half of his “couple” from Berner Street. Lewis never stated that she did not see the face of the women “in drink”.

“What she said, among other reports, was:
" In the doorway of the deceased's house I saw a man in a wideawake hat standing. He was not tall, but a stout-looking man."

You’re just not listening to me, Jon.

Lewis never stated any such thing – fact.

The Daily News is factually in error on this point.

Lewis stated in her police report that the man was standing against the lodging house, which was on the other side of the road from the Miller’s Court entrance. When speaking later at the inquest, she cemented this location as “opposite the court”, which tallies perfectly with her police statement. I am quite aware that Hutchinson claimed to have entered the court itself after aborting his Dorset Street vigil, and he may well have done so, but when Lewis saw the man at 2:30 (whose identity was probably Hutchinson, as we both appear to accept), he was at that time on the other side of the road, and certainly not outside Kelly’s doorway.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sally]

Please reassure me that we're not back to this distressing business about lodging houses, passes and tickets?

No, it looks as though we are, doesn't it? Sorry to ruin your afternoon, and all that, but hey - that's just how it goes, I'm afraid...

Money is the thing here. Hutchinson had no money, according to himself. This if true would explain why he couldn't seek lodgings in Romford - plenty of them about, I understand - rather than hoofing it all the way back to the East End to arrive just in time to be the last person to see his dear friend Kelly alive.

And indeed, he recounts how he told his dear friend Kelly that he had no money. And yet.

And yet, by the time the Victoria Home was open the next morning, Hutchinson was able to enter, which means by then he had the money for a bed. If he was paying for his bed on a nightly basis.

If this is the case, where did he get it from?

If it is not the case, and he did not acquire money for his bed between the night and the morning, then this means he had paid in advance and so should have been able to enter the Victoria Home whenever he came knocking.

What a conundrum.

See, this is why I prefer Lewis Carroll. Nice and simple.

[Ben]

Please reassure me that we're not back to this distressing business about lodging houses, passes and tickets?

It would most assuredly not be strange for Hutchinson to remain in Romford if there was no bed available at the other end of that 14 mile walk. What is worse – no lodgings for the night plus a wholly unnecessary 14-mile journey in miserable weather conditions, and in the small hours, or no lodgings for the night without such an unnecessary journey?

If Hutchinson had paid in advance for a weekly ticket, he would have been allowed access at any hour of the night. The curfew only applied to those lodgers who had failed to secure either a daily or nightly pass/ticket by 12:30am (some sources say 1.00am). Hutchinson referred specifically to the closure of the home as his reason for “walking about all night” (on top of all that walking he had already endured in cold and exposed conditions, naturally). He cannot, therefore, have been in possession of a weekly/daily ticket/pass, at least not if he was telling the truth.

Some people suggest that he had misjudged the length of the journey by an hour to an hour and a half, but this overlooks our second crucial problem: Hutchinson also claimed to be penniless. Even if he had made it back in time for 12:30 or 1.00am when ticket sales ceased, he would still have had no money to pay for a ticket. Hence, the “Damn, just missed it” excuse would not have availed him.

If Hutchinson told the truth, it would mean that he walked all that distance with no chance of getting into his usual lodging house (no pass, no money), and no chance of getting into any other lodging house either (no money). It would mean that he walked all that distance with the full expectation of skulking around the streets upon his arrival.

Personally, in light of the foregoing, I don’t believe he did tell the truth. I believe Romford was invented in order to legitimise his presence on the streets in the small hours, which would not have been achieved anywhere near as successfully had he been in the East End all evening. It also conveyed the impression that he merely “happened upon” Kelly and Miller’s Court, as opposed to having gone there deliberately.

If you see a man loitering opposite a court, apparently waiting for someone to come out, you might make the logical inference that he had planned to go there for that very purpose. The same may be said of the man Lewis saw. My suspicion is that Hutchinson recognised himself in Lewis' account, but didn’t want anybody, least of all the police, making the sort of inference I’ve described, hence his eagerness to demonstrate that he was only drawn to that spot out of unusual “happenstance”, having been miles out of the area beforehand, and not because of a prior decision to visit Dorset Street and Miller’s Court that night.

Anyone is free to disagree, but as long as people don’t do so on the basis of yet more confusion with regard to the Victoria Home’s rules, which tends to crop up with rather alarming frequency wherever the Romford aspect is discussed. We can’t any of more of the following, for example:

“We know for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to get in even if he had paid in advance if he had neglected to get a special late pass for the Thursday night.”

Absolutely no way, Lechmere.

As we’ve discussed extensively and repetitively, no, that is absolutely not the case at all. If he paid in advance for a weekly ticket, he could get in at any hour simply by showing the doorman the ticket he had paid for. It was the “pass”, and an extra one would have been utterly superfluous to requirements.

As for this “checking out” business, yes, if he told the truth about going to Romford, his presence there could have been verified, but if he LIED about, the police would NOT have been able to expose the lie, since Hutchinson could have come up with any manner of bad excuse for his lack of alibi there. “Gosh, I forget the same of the road, sir, and the employer was a bloke named Smith I think, or was it?” Anything.

As for the police not rejecting his Romford claims, there is no evidence that he made any reference at all to having “walked all the way” in his police interview. This detail can only be found in his press interview, which was circulated shortly before he was discredited, not so coincidentally.

All the best,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

Why did he stay so late? Who knows. People sometimes are late. I am often late. I have missed last busses and trains and walked long distances, not having enough for a cab. Maybe he got a train there and misjudged the time it would take to walk back. It is almost pointless speculating why he was late. Suffice it to say, if he had no credible reason then if challenged his whole story would have unravelled (see above).

[/QUOTE]

Just as you say.

Of course, he might never have wanted to get back to his lodging house on time anyway -he could quite easily deliberately 'misjudge the time it would take to walk back'.

It is quite possible that he really did go to Romford, really was late back to London with a 'credible' reason for being so -and had planned to be inside Mary Kelly's room that night, all along. It would give him a motivation for the long hike, in bad weather, knowing very well at what sort of time he would arrive.

[harry]

Lechmere,
"Had he been challenged on it'.we do not know that he was.Aberline,and indeed perhaps the papers, just accepted his word.It happens.That it can be challenged,is because like most information on the murders,there is no definate answer.It is fair to say,that most posters challenge something.I am no different,but i would not be challenging the trip to Romford,if information existed that firmly placed him there,but there is none.You do not provide any.

[Lechmere]

Rubyretro - Catherine Deneuve or maybe Simone Signoret

[Lechmere]

Harry – of course there is a theoretical chance that Hutchinson didn’t go to Romford and he made the whole thing up.
However (I’m sure I said this a few posts back but these things get buried) he said he went to Romford. He was not picked up on this as an unlikely story by the press at the time and there is no evidence that the police discovered it was a lie and they could easily have checked. If the police had determined that he was lying about other aspects of his statement then I think they would have ‘checked out’ others too. Such as the Romford trip.
Also it would have been incredibly risky for him to make it up. Had he been challenged on it his whole story would have unravelled.
In short there is no reason to disbelieve this aspect of his story.
I don’t think that it is very credible to build a suspect theory on believing the press and police were that stupid and negligent in looking at a major witness’s testimony. It is one those ‘revisionist’ aspects of the case that doesn’t stand up to proper scrutiny in my opinion.

Why did he stay so late? Who knows. People sometimes are late. I am often late. I have missed last busses and trains and walked long distances, not having enough for a cab. Maybe he got a train there and misjudged the time it would take to walk back. It is almost pointless speculating why he was late. Suffice it to say, if he had no credible reason then if challenged his whole story would have unravelled (see above).

[Wickerman]

That’s precisely what “we” should do. Why do you keep using the royal “we”, incidentally?

Because there are more than just you & I reading this, therefore "we all", that is, "everyone", reading your strained responses should not be repeatedly exposed to your "backdoor clause" of denouncing any source which disagree's with your entrenched position.

My guess is that everyone except you realises that when all other sources attest to a certain observation, and one newspaper says the opposite, we don’t prioritize that one newspaper.

What you do is weigh all the "incomplete" testimony provided by Daily Telegraph, Echo, Daily News, St. James Gazette, Morning Advertiser, and Irish Times (though offshore papers require more of a caveat), etc. and subsequently the official court record, GRLO R.1095.

What you do not do, is cherry-pick one or two sources which just happen to expose a flaw in your conjectures, and insist these sources are unreliable.
Every source has it's own missgivings, which is why analysis & interpretation are so important.

The Morning Advertiser – your personal favourite - is clearly in error, since they make claims about the activities of the couple that do not appear anywhere else.

It was not the Morning Advertiser, the report that Lewis saw the loiterer outside Kelly's door, which incidently Hutchinson admitted to, is provided in the Daily News.

We may be reasonably certain of one thing, which is that the couple in question were not Kelly and her killer. If the police seriously thought otherwise, Lewis would have been called to the mortuary to attempt an identification with the female half of that couple, but this appears not to have happened

Well thats also clearly wrong, Lewis never claimed to know Kelly, nor looked her in the face at any time that night/morning, why then would she be called to identify a woman she could not describe?
Likewise with Lawende, he was not called to identify Eddowes for precisely the same reason.
Evidently you once again misunderstand the scenario which unfolded.

She absolutely does not say any such thing.

She stated to the police that the man was standing against the lodging house, which was on the other side of Dorset Street and nowhere near Kelly’s door.

What she said, among other reports, was:
" In the doorway of the deceased's house I saw a man in a wideawake hat standing. He was not tall, but a stout-looking man."

It would be easy to argue that the report should have said "archway" of the passage, yet if Hutchinson was the man in question, in your own preferred source, the Star!

"I went up the court and stayed there a couple of minutes, but did not see any light in the house or hear any noise."

You cannot see a light in Kelly's room from the street, likewise you cannot expect us to believe he meant he could have heard anything from her room, from standing in Dorset St.
Even you must admit Hutchinson had to have moved from standing outside Crossinghams' where he was initially seen, to standing directly outside the archway of the passage. Subsequently, he then admits to walking up the passage to Kelly's door, but could see no light nor hear a sound.
This is what Sarah Lewis referred to, him standing outside Kelly's door.

Regards, Jon S.

[harry]

He was penniless and it would have been strange to stay in Romford.Quite agree.But it seems he did,at least untill it was too late to get back before the lodging house closed.So why would a penniless man hang around in Romford?Oh!,and looks can be deceiving.Where's your information,Lechmere,that HUtchinson was even in Romford.There must be some,you sound so sure.

[Lechmere]

Harry – we know that Hutchinson was of military appearance – while that does not necessarily imply he was a lean mean fighting machine (still less a killing machine) – I would suggest it implies he looked relatively robust – the type of person for whom a 14 mile yomp would be child’s play.
Also it is no mystery why he didn’t hang around in Romford. By his own submission he was penniless and his place of usual abode was the East End. It would be strange if he had opted to stay in Romford in such circumstances.

Furthermore he says he was too late to get into his usual place. We know that he stayed at the Victoria home, and we know that almost uniquely among East End lodging houses that the Victoria Home had a curfew. So this adds up and no doubt the press and police knew this also.
If he had paid weekly then he would be getting a free bed on Sunday and would be able to sleep there Friday night and Saturday night as well. This also makes explicable his statement that he was too late to get into his usual place.

We know for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to get in even if he had paid in advance if he had neglected to get a special late pass for the Thursday night. Hutchinsonites tend to ignore the part of Hutchinson’s testimony where he says he was too late to gain entry. Remember he did not say that he was too skint to get in because if that was the reason he was too skint to get into any lodging house. He said it was because he was too late. That means he didn’t need money to get onto his lodging house which implies he had paid for a weekly ticket.
Hutchinsonites also refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Victoria Home’s rules – for which we have two sources that spell out with absolute clarity that for an inmate to gain entry after 12.30 or 1.00 am they required a special pass. This special pass is obviously something quite separate from the weekly bed ticket. That is what the rules say. It is spelt out in English words!
Now ‘we’ are at last making progress with the Romford business, perhaps we can make progress with the reason he couldn’t gain access to his lodging house.

[Wickerman]

..... Why would we work from the presumption that Hutchinson was NOT "used to walking"?

Indeed!, lets also forget about the annual 'exodus' of eastenders, both men & women, who trudge all the way to Kent and back, for Hop-picking.
Romford is just, ...morning excercise?

Regards, Jon S.

[Chris]

Aren't there two 's's in 'Commissioner'?