Bowyer's man seen with Kelly 7 Nov 1888

[Chris Scott]

My apologies if this snippet has been posted before but I have no memory of having seen it
In the passage below Bowyer allegedly described a man he saw with Kelly on Wednesday 7 Nov 1888. The description of the man is said to tallly closely with the account of Matthew Packer in Berner Street.
I am also attaching the original short article


The Western Mail
12 November 1888

THE SUPPOSED MURDERER
Harry Bowyer, the man engaged in the general shop who discovered the crime, states that on Wednesday night he saw a man speaking who resembled the description given by the fruiterer of the supposed Berner Street murderer. He was, perhaps, seven or eight and twenty, and had a dark moustache and very peculiar eyes. His appearance was rather smart, and attention was drawn to him by his showing very white cuffs and a rather long white collar, the ends of which came down in front over a black coat. He did not carry a bag.

[curious]

ah, peculiar eyes.

I wonder what that meant exactly.

And it wasn't only the fruiter who gave that description about a man seen with Liz Stride.

J Best described the man she was with at 11 p.m. as "5ft. 5in. in height. He was well dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes."

interesting.

[Normy]

Hiya all
Neil Cream looks cross eyed in at least one of his photo's, he also has a horse shoe tie pin as mentioned by Hutch in a picture.
Shame he was in nick at the time.

Normy

[perrymason]

ah, peculiar eyes.

I wonder what that meant exactly.

And it wasn't only the fruiter who gave that description about a man seen with Liz Stride.

J Best described the man she was with at 11 p.m. as "5ft. 5in. in height. He was well dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes."

interesting.

Symptom of Alopecia?....although no mention of a Hat.

Cheers

[Pontius2000]

I believe I have seen the "peculiar eyes" comment at least twice.

In my opinion, James Kelly had "peculiar eyes".

and according to his records at Broadmoor, Thomas Cutbush had "bulging eyes".

I also seem to remember a comment about WH Bury's eyes, but I can't remember.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi all. The 'peculiar eyes' fellow has been known for a long time, but Chris' article is the first I've heard of that compared him to Packer's ficticious suspect and went into more detail about his appearance. Bowyer may have been the original source for the early East End 'collars and cuffs' theory about Prince Eddy. I imagine it was the reporter, and not Bowyer, who drew the comparison to Packer's man.

Curious,

Good observation regarding J Best's evidence, although for some reason the police don't seem to have taken Best very seriously as a witness.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Suzi]

Didn't Mr Astrakan look at Hutch in a 'peculiar' way too?

[Archaic]

Thanks for the interesting article, Chris- you certainly know how to find 'em!

It's hard to know what "peculiar eyes" means... In those days they expected anyone who was a murderer or a maniac (or both) to have strange, noticeably abnormal eyes.
Sometimes it reminds me of the 'Spring-Heeled Jack' stories, where the creature's strange uncanny eyes are always described by "witnessess" in great detail, and get more fiendishly supernatural with each re-telling until he sounds like a comic-book villain or a space-monster.

When I read the bit about "a rather long white collar, the ends of which came down in front over a black coat" I pictured an Oscar-Wilde type dandy... don't know if that's what the man actually looked like, but there was a fad for very large and flamboyant white collars among the ultra-fashionable set. That look didn't catch on with the mainstream at all; in fact, they found it ridiculous and made fun of it in endless caricatures.
Any man who dressed a little different from the norm would have stood out immediately in those days.

Best regards, Archaic

[Tom_Wescott]

Since we're discussing Le Grand on another thread, I thought I'd mention that he had grey eyes. That seems rather 'peculiar' to me. But the age doesn't tally so well. Le Grand passed for 35 in 1888 and may have been as much as five years older than that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott