Who did Sarah See?

[Colin Roberts]

The Jewish East End map of 1890 shows Dorset Street ...

"Map showing by colour the proportion of the Jewish population to other residents of East London, street by street, in 1899. The streets with the highest Jewish population are coloured dark blue and those with the lowest are coloured dark red, and it illustrates clearly the predominantly Jewish population at the time of the areas of Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Mile End in particular. It was reproduced in 'The Jew in London' by C Russell and H S Lewis, published in 1901. The maker, George Arkell, compiled the map from information gathered by the London School Board through its various visitors."



--- Click Thumbnail, to View Map ---

[Wickerman]

...I’m afraid I don’t consider Hutchinson and Packer to have been “honest”. Indeed, I regard it as very obvious that they were not.

Hi Ben.
Well, briefly, I will leave Hutchinson aside for now, we've debated him too much, again.
However, in the near future we should review all what we 'know' and what many 'think we know' about Packer's reliability as a witness. Certainly he seems to have been easily led by subsequent press reports.
But, Packer's reliability as a witness was strongly influenced by occurances which did not directly involve him. Namely, the suggested absence of grapes in Dutfields Yard. I say 'suggested' because there was an obvious rush to judgement concerning their existence that night - for the future perhaps.

All the best, Jon S.

[Lechmere]

Colin - yes the map says 1899, but when you blow it up to a large scale it looks like 1890. That is my excuse.

[Colin Roberts]

Colin - yes the map says 1899, but when you blow it up to a large scale it looks like 1890. That is my excuse.

You are, by no means, the first to make that mistake.

Perhaps, the most telling feature of the map, itself, is its inclusion of the Boundary Estate, which was not fully developed, until ~1900.

Notice, also, the depiction of Jewish dominance, in such places as Flower & Dean Street, which was - excepting its southwestern quarter, which was occupied by Rothschild Buildings - exclusively Gentile, in 1890, immediately prior to its redevelopment.

[Wickerman]

Because this exchange threatened to hi-jack the Romford thread, I move it here:

Tentatively then we see an emerging sequence which, as best as can be determined, begins on the evening of Wednesday the 7th of November.

Sarah Lewis/Kennedy was out walking in Bethnal-green Rd with a female companion when they were accosted by a suspicious “Gentleman” at approximately 8:00pm.

At some point on Wednesday night McCarthy's assistant Thomas Bowyer saw Kelly talking to a man who was about 27-28 yrs old, dressed smart like a Clerk with noticable white collar & cuffs. He had very peculiar eyes.
We don't know where Bowyer saw them together, but we might assume it was either in Millers Court, or somewhere in the vicinity of Dorset St.

[Note: Bowyer was asked at the inquest when he last saw the deceased. Bowyer's reply appeared to focus more on when he last spoke to her, in the afternoon, not when he last saw her, out at night.]

The following night, Thursday the 8th, a similarly dressed man accosted three girls in Brushfield St., which runs parallel with, but north of, Dorset St.

Very early Friday morning, the 9th, sometime before 3:00am, Bowyer again saw a strange man in the court? but provides no description.
However, Mrs McCarthy stated that one of her customers (not tennent?) said, “I saw such a funny man up the court this morning”, before the murder was known.
This customer 'could' have been Lewis/Kennedy, as Lewis did see a man & woman “up the court” very early this same morning. It is necessary though to ask whether this customer was referring to the loiterer, who stood outside Kelly's door for a moment, or the man who accompanied the woman walking ahead of the loiterer in the court?

Sometime before 12:00pm on Friday a strange “Gentleman” approached Mrs Paumier who worked on the corner of Widegate St. and enquired about her knowledge of the murder close by in Dorset St. Mrs Paumier claimed that this was the same man who accosted the three girls in Brushfield St.
Paumier's story was confirmed by Sarah Ronay, one of the three accosted girls.
At some time during Friday afternoon Paumier spoke to a reporter about what had transpired both today (Friday) at 12:00pm and previously in Brushfield St.

Once the murder was discovered all residents still within Millers Court were apparently detained inside, and no public or press were allowed to enter until about 5:30pm in the evening.

While detained within Millers Court Sarah Lewis, who only used this name with the police, provided a brief summary of what she knew.

From this sequence it is apparent that the story provided by Paumier & Ronay were provided to the press before Sarah Lewis could share her experiences with anyone outside the court. Therefore, neither Paumier nor Ronay can be included among any hypothetical “parroters', and why would they?

The press report mentioning “repeat stories” only concerned itself with the cry of “murder” and the various times it was heard. None of which were apparently published by any of the papers, with one caveat, Elizabeth Prater originally claimed to have heard nothing through the night, yet later changed her claim to “also” hearing a cry of “oh murder”.

Regards, Jon S.

[Ben]

The problem with your suggested sequence of events, Jon, is that it seemingly ignores all inquest testimony and is instead comprised almost exclusively of all the press tittle-tattle and second/third hand hearsay that appeared in the press in the immediate aftermath of the Kelly murder. That’s quite the wrong way to go about things. If you want to construct a legitimate sequence of events regarding Kelly’s last movements, it is essential to do so on the basis of the inquest transcripts and police statements, not the very worst press reports, and especially not the ones from 10th November, which were particularly ill-informed and error-ridden.

Your first mistake is to treat Sarah Lewis and “Mrs. Kennedy” as the same person, which they clearly weren’t. Mrs. Kennedy was evidently one of the “half a dozen” women who had plagiarized one of the “Oh murder” accounts – evidently Lewis', as noted by Philip Sugden on page 4 of his “Complete History”. Your “Lewis/Kennedy” construct is entirely baseless.

Thomas Bowyer evidently did not see a man with "very peculiar eyes" in the company of Kelly on Wednesday night. Had he done so, he would have made specific reference to it at the inquest. You are very obviously in error when you state that Bowyer was focussing only on when he last "spoke" to her. On the contrary, he was specifically asked at the inquest when he last “saw” the deceased, and responded with:

“On Wednesday afternoon, in the court, when I spoke to her."

The press claim regarding the “peculiar eyes” man is thus in complete contradiction to his inquest evidence, and must be rejected accordingly. It’s essential that you don’t incorporate it into any sort of sequence of events; less still state it as a fact as you have done. When a non-inquest press report is directly at odds with inquest evidence, the former must be thrown out. In any case, the “peculiar eyes” detail does nothing to enhance its credibility, and reminds me of the man with eyes like “luminous glow-worms” falsely attributed to Sergeant Stephen White many years after the murders.

What unites all these bogus non-inquest press "witnesses" whose accounts (often second hand or worse) appeared on 10th November is that the "suspects" involved invariably conform to the "bogeyman" image of the killer - "peculiar eyes", "funny", "silk top hat" etc.

You rely on Mrs. Paumier having been a reliable, potentially ripper-spotting witness despite her conspicuous non-appearance at the inquest and the total absence of any indication that she was ever in contact with the police. “Sarah Roney” fares even worse in terms of credibility, as we only have it on the already very dubious authority of “Mrs. Paumier” that she even existed, let alone reported what she supposedly did regarding a man with a “shiny black bag”. It’s second-hand hearsay at best, very much like the “evidence” attributed to an unknown customer by Mrs. McCarthy involving a “funny man”, of which there is not a single mention at the inquest – surprise, surprise.

And no, incidentally, the customer who allegedly reported this "funny man" sighting to Mrs. McCarthy was not Lewis (and certainly not the entirely separate entity “Mrs. Kennedy”) because she stated that there was nobody in the court. She never said anything about anyone heading “up” it, and she most certainly never said anything about a man standing near Kelly’s doorway – fact. The man she saw was standing against the lodging house, which was on the other side of the road from Miller’s Court. This is from her police statement, which accords perfectly with the “opposite the court” description she gave at the inquest.

“From this sequence it is apparent that the story provided by Paumier & Ronay were provided to the press before Sarah Lewis could share her experiences with anyone outside the court.”

No, that’s not the case at all. Sarah Lewis et al would have been released from Miller’s Court at approximately 5:30pm on the Friday, which gave her plenty of time to discuss her experiences with other women, and plenty of time for those other women to blab to the press. “Paumier” and “Roney” could easily have been amongst them; especially given the suspicious similarity between their “spooky black bag man” stories and Lewis’, and the report that a witness’s account (Lewis’, by process of elimination) had been plagiarized by other women.

“The press report mentioning “repeat stories” only concerned itself with the cry of “murder” and the various times it was heard.”

Whoops, I think you’ve raised this point before, and I’ve pretty sure I’ve countered it on more than one occasion. I’ll just check to make sure….yes, here we are: “Mrs. Kennedy” is the only other person we have on record who provided an “oh murder” account besides Prater and Lewis, and since it was observed that some women were parroting an “Oh murder” account, it naturally follows that Kennedy must have been one of the plagiarizing women referred to, and that Lewis, not Prater, must have been the plagiarized original witness. In this case, it appears that the plagiarizing went beyond the simple “Oh murder” detail. We don't know for certain who the other parroting women were, but “Paumier” and “Roney” also appear to have borrowed elements from Lewis’ evidence.

“Elizabeth Prater originally claimed to have heard nothing through the night, yet later changed her claim to “also” hearing a cry of “oh murder”.”

She made no reference to the murder cry when speaking to the press, almost certainly in adherence to a specific police request not to divulge key particulars of her account to the journalists. This does not mean that she gave divergent accounts to the police.

Regards,
Ben

[Sally]

Nice to see you here, Ben

This does not mean that she gave divergent accounts to the police.

Are you sure about that?

I'm quite interested in the idea that Sarah Lewis could have feasibly seen anybody other than Hutchinson - assuming he was where and when he said he was.

How many men do we think were hanging out in Dorset Street with an eye on Miller's Court that night?

I do wonder if a bit of perspective get lost sometimes.

[Wickerman]

In response to Tom, here is how I see the sequence of movements by Sarah Lewis.

I think a sequence of events can be determined from all the statements given by Sarah Lewis.

Keeping Hutchinson's statement in mind we need to weave in the movements of Lewis that night.

There are three points in her story which get little attention.

First, Lewis makes no mention of a man standing in Dorset St. while Lewis is approaching Millers Court.

If Hutchinson truly stood outside Millers Court, where was he when Sarah Lewis passed by?

What she does say is:
“-- When I went in the court I saw a man opposite the Court in Dorset Street standing alone by the Lodging House.”

Alternately we read:
“...when I came up the Court there was a man standing over against the lodging house on the opposite side in Dorset St.”

And again:
“...When I went into the court, opposite the lodging-house I saw a man with a wideawake.”

Lewis seems to make a point of saying “when she entered the court (passage)”. Yet we all know that if Hutchinson had been standing opposite Millers Court at that time anyone walking down Dorset St. would have seen him standing there long before you reach Millers Court.

That begs the question, where had Lewis been just before she entered the passage? In other words, what had she just stepped out of before she stepped into the passage?

Second, Sarah Lewis specifically say's she left the 'couple' behind her outside the Britannia, while she walked on by.
Quote:
"They were standing talking together. I passed on, but looked back at him. I went on my way. I did not tell a policeman, as I did not pass one on my way. I saw the man talking to the woman at the corner of Dorset-street, and left them there."

Third, Lewis's story suddenly changes and she tells us that she is now looking at a couple walking up Millers Court from behind.
“I also saw a man and a woman who had no hat on and were the worse for drink pass up the court.”
Is this a different couple?, I think not, no need to invent another couple.

One solution to all three points of controversy could be that Sarah Lewis stepped into McCarthy's shop before she went up the passage. The shop often stayed open till 3:00am.

Mrs McCarthy has said that very early on that Friday morning someone, a customer (not a tennent), mentioned to her about a funny looking man who she saw up the court.
This customer could have been anyone certainly, but equally, it could have been Lewis.

The inquest testimony of Sarah Lewis is entirely comprised of her responding to questions. At no point do we see her speaking freely about her movements that night. Lewis was asked something in the order of 20 or more questions and her replies have been compiled as if a continuous narrative, but it is not.
Sarah Lewis made no mention of entering McCarthy's, I think, because the question was never asked. She was only asked what she saw, not where she had been between sightings.

Lewis was ahead of the couple as she arrived at Millers Court. She steps into McCarthy's shop just before it closes. While she is inside the shop the couple who she left outside the Britannia arrive at Millers Court, walk up the passage, and Hutchinson follows on behind and takes up his position outside Crossinghams.
Lewis then steps out of the shop and noticed Hutchinson standing over the road looking up the passage, while this couple are walking up the passage ahead of her.

Sarah Lewis did say there was no-one in the Court but this was her response to a question, and we don't know what the question was. Presumably Lewis was responding to a query as to the intentions of the couple. The couple had obviously gone indoors rather than into the court for a 'quicky', therefore, "there was no-one in the court".

How Lewis came to see Hutchinson standing outside Kelly's door is not clear. Hutchinson gave no clue as to when he walked up the passage to stand at her door, whether this was before his 45 minute vigil or after is the problem, it could be either.
Quote:
“...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.”

Lewis said she did not sleep but only dozed, whether she saw Hutchinson's figure through a window or not we can only guess.

That is my interpretation so far.

Regards, Jon S.

[harry]

As one who was brought up when gas lit streets were still common(My 84th birthday was yesterday),and light at night so poor,I see nothing wrong with Lewis not noticing Hutchinson untill she reached the Court entrance.My wife and I still chuckle at the story of her father appologising to a horse he disturbed while walking down the street,He never saw it untill he almost collided with the beast,and when it shied,first thought it was another pedestrian.True story.

[Malcolm X]

.GH was standing on the other side of Dorset st staring into the court, S.Lewis saw him there as she returned home along Dorset st, before turning into the passageway.

he was not on the same side of the street as Millers court, near the archway or anywhere near Kelly's room.

he was not seen with MJK at all, that was Blotchy face, and that was M.COX that saw them, you need to return and study the opening police statements only, ignore the tabloid rubbish later on.

i cant believe you've messed this lot up.

GH looks guilty enough already, you do not need to add this speculation as well, i expect he stood outside MJK room many times that night, but unfortunately he was not seen doing so, because if he was seen standing opposite the court and for over 50 mins, then he would have DEFINITELY stood outside her room too, simply because you would get bored stiff standing in one spot all the time

you see, what members here have to realise is, this 50 minutes is a rediculous amount of time to wait...... it is truly massive, the most time i'd wait is about 15 mins, this points to GH being a real odd ball, or at the worst a stalker, it is definitely not normal behaviour, this and everything else makes him look so guilty.

[Malcolm X]

As one who was brought up when gas lit streets were still common(My 84th birthday was yesterday),and light at night so poor,I see nothing wrong with Lewis not noticing Hutchinson untill she reached the Court entrance.My wife and I still chuckle at the story of her father appologising to a horse he disturbed while walking down the street,He never saw it untill he almost collided with the beast,and when it shied,first thought it was another pedestrian.True story.

84 is a good age to be on this forum my friend, well done..

so street lighting was poor back then, as i suspected, this casts grave doubts on GH seeing LA DE DA as well as he said, we tried years ago to suss out the spacing of the street lights in Dorset st, but we got nowhere, i could not give just like everything else, a concrete answer either way.

i'm not sure this matters, it just means that i cant nail him well enough, i'm not even sure if the light over millers court was even working/ bright enough etc, there is therefore not that much mileage in this arguement either way, just strong suspicion

GH simply describes LA DE DA far too well, miles too well and this is maybe good enough for us, with regards to the lighting etc.....just add this to all the other suspicious stuff, put it right beside ``i was returning from Romford``.

but dont say that GH was seen at the entrance to the court or even worst.... outside her room, because this is going too far.

[Fleetwood Mac]

GH simply describes LA DE DA far too well, miles too well and this is maybe good enough for us, with regards to the lighting etc.....just add this to all the other suspicious stuff, put it right beside ``i was returning from Romford``.

Don't agree with this at all.

Being a lad from a mining village in Durham, I can imagine a 'toff' walking into such environment: "look at this prick here" and you would look him up and down (not me personally, wear what you want, but know how it works due to being born and bred in a working class area).

[Wickerman]

As one who was brought up when gas lit streets were still common(My 84th birthday was yesterday),and light at night so poor,I see nothing wrong with Lewis not noticing Hutchinson untill she reached the Court entrance.

Thats as maybe Harry, but visibility cannot have been so bad that Hutchinson couldn't see a policeman pass along Commercial St., from Millers court.

Quote:
"When I left the corner of Miller's-court the clock struck three o'clock. One policeman went by the Commercial-street end of Dorset-street while I was standing there, but not one came down Dorset-street."
Star, 14 Nov. 1888.

Regards, Jon S.
Many happy returns, you're the same age as my mother.

[harry]

Jon,
It is much easier,at night tme,in the sort of light that was available then,to notice a person who is moving.Hutchinson most probably was just standing and not moving,and most likely in shadow.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Wick,

Your version of events is obviously well thought-out, and I frankly think you've nailed some things here. I'd like to see more comments from others, and you should probably reproduce here the report that mentions a man standing in Kelly's doorway, unless you feel that was a reporter's error. But I'm quite impressed with your treatment of Sarah Lewis.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott