If Schwartz Lied ...

[NotBlamedForNothing]

We don't know the wording of Lamb's testimony. We only have conflicting reports by journalists. How much easier would it be if we had the actual transcript. But we don't. The use of the words "about", "around" "shortly before" etc are necessary when one has moved away from a clock, but that is not always adhered to by civilians.

I wonder if Lamb knew full well what the time was when he was called, but used approximate words, because he was reluctant to say anything that would imply Ayliffe had left the fixed point, before 1am? In other words, that Ayliffe had broken protocol.

It is also necessary to keep in mind the context in which Lamb states that he would be guessing the time.

Dr. Blackwell was the first doctor to arrive, and he did so in ten or twelve minutes after my arrival. I had no watch with me, and so I only guess the time.

Lamb did not state that he was guessing the time at which he was alerted to the murder, but rather he is referring to the time, after his arrival at the yard, when Blackwell arrived (and he was probably referring to Johnston). He never actually stated a guessed time. Policemen on a beat - especially a short beat like Lamb's section of the main road - do not guess the time.

I am not argueing that he was not estimating. I am proposing that for his time estimate (not time interval estimate) he had to have seen a clock at sometime. You proposed that it may not have been the Harris clock because it may not have been reliable. You expressed astonishment when I suggested that maybe the Harris clock was 20 minutes out due to the unreliability you suggested. Well, what if the Harris clock and the Club clock were each ten minutes out, which is considered by Chris McKay to be entirely normal, but one is fast and the other slow. Couldn't that account for the difference between your traditional times and Michael's times?

It could, but that would be an extreme case. From the Times:

Morris Eagle, who also claimed to affirm, stated that he lived at 4, New-road, Commercial-road, and was a traveller in jewelry. He was a member of the International Working Men's Club, and was there several times during the day.

Quite possible that Eagle passed the Harris clock, while on foot, during the daylight hours of Sep 30. What are the chances he would have noticed a 20 minute discrepancy between the club clock and the Harris clock, and not adjusted the minute hand?

[JeffHamm]

Hi NBFN,

I wonder if Lamb knew full well what the time was when he was called, but used approximate words, because he was reluctant to say anything that would imply Ayliffe had left the fixed point, before 1am? In other words, that Ayliffe had broken protocol.

It is also necessary to keep in mind the context in which Lamb states that he would be guessing the time.

Dr. Blackwell was the first doctor to arrive, and he did so in ten or twelve minutes after my arrival. I had no watch with me, and so I only guess the time.

Lamb did not state that he was guessing the time at which he was alerted to the murder, but rather he is referring to the time, after his arrival at the yard, when Blackwell arrived (and he was probably referring to Johnston). He never actually stated a guessed time. Policemen on a beat - especially a short beat like Lamb's section of the main road - do not guess the time.

Well, we know Dr. Blackwell had a watch, and he checked it upon his arrival, and it read 1:16. Lamb's statement of 10-12 minutes places his arrival at the scene between 1:04 and 1:06 if taken literally. Generally people tend to overestimate short times like this, though, so 1:08 wouldn't be unreasonable either. Regardless, we do not know when Lamb last checked a clock, his statements about the time he arrived are presented in cautious language, and his estimate of a relatively short duration can be anchored to a definite clock reading made by Dr. Blackwell upon his arrival.

Of course, it seems improbable that the last clock Lamb saw was Dr. Blackwell's watch, so there's always the clock sync issue.

It could, but that would be an extreme case. From the Times:

Morris Eagle, who also claimed to affirm, stated that he lived at 4, New-road, Commercial-road, and was a traveller in jewelry. He was a member of the International Working Men's Club, and was there several times during the day.

Quite possible that Eagle passed the Harris clock, while on foot, during the daylight hours of Sep 30. What are the chances he would have noticed a 20 minute discrepancy between the club clock and the Harris clock, and not adjusted the minute hand?

I would think the odds are pretty high he wouldn't. He's a club member, not the caretaker. He's not there to tidy up after all.

- Jeff

[GBinOz]

I wonder if Lamb knew full well what the time was when he was called, but used approximate words, because he was reluctant to say anything that would imply Ayliffe had left the fixed point, before 1am? In other words, that Ayliffe had broken protocol.
Don't we have enough trouble to be going on with without this?
It is also necessary to keep in mind the context in which Lamb states that he would be guessing the time.

It could, but that would be an extreme case. From the Times:

Morris Eagle, who also claimed to affirm, stated that he lived at 4, New-road, Commercial-road, and was a traveller in jewelry. He was a member of the International Working Men's Club, and was there several times during the day.

Quite possible that Eagle passed the Harris clock, while on foot, during the daylight hours of Sep 30. What are the chances he would have noticed a 20 minute discrepancy between the club clock and the Harris clock, and not adjusted the minute hand?

Adjusted the minute hand to what? Noticing a discrepency doesn't tell him which clock is out. Adjusting to the Harris clock just means the club clock is still 10 minutes out, just in the other direction.

Cheers, George

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi NBFN,

Well, we know Dr. Blackwell had a watch, and he checked it upon his arrival, and it read 1:16. Lamb's statement of 10-12 minutes places his arrival at the scene between 1:04 and 1:06 if taken literally. Generally people tend to overestimate short times like this, though, so 1:08 wouldn't be unreasonable either. Regardless, we do not know when Lamb last checked a clock, his statements about the time he arrived are presented in cautious language, and his estimate of a relatively short duration can be anchored to a definite clock reading made by Dr. Blackwell upon his arrival.

Of course, it seems improbable that the last clock Lamb saw was Dr. Blackwell's watch, so there's always the clock sync issue.

Hi Jeff,

The problem with that is you have Lamb arriving after Smith, if Smith can be assumed to have had a reasonably accurate idea of the time. That order of events cannot be the case of course, and so if Smith were close to being right, then Blackwell's watch must have been ahead of time. The alternative is obviously to suppose that it were Smith who got it wrong, so we really need more information to be able to 'break the tie'. That is why I suggested Smith's comment about writing a report while at the crime scene, and only then leaving for an ambulance and crossing paths with Johnston as he does, is critical to getting the timing as accurate as we can hope for.

The 'Smith on time, Blackwell ahead of time model', is also compatible with a few other points:

* Ayliffe still being at his fixed point, and who is given the signal to leave at 1am, by either Smith or Lamb (or whoever gets to him first?)

* Ayliffe being delayed on leaving the yard, owing to an need to do some crowd control

* Other witness accounts that place the discovery at or before 1am, but not after, in any case


This model obviously conflicts with the traditional 'Diemschitz on time, Smith behind time model', which discards early witness timings as outliers. Which model is correct may be impossible to know for sure, but what should be kept in mind is that both 'camps' are united in a common belief; Louis Diemschitz discovered the body.

I would think the odds are pretty high he wouldn't. He's a club member, not the caretaker. He's not there to tidy up after all.

I don't see why this Socialist would see this 10 second job as being beneath him, but even if he did, he could have informed the caretaker, assuming that the caretaker had not already taken the care required to set the clock correctly during the day, knowing that about 100 people would be showing up that evening.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Adjusted the minute hand to what? Noticing a discrepency doesn't tell him which clock is out. Adjusting to the Harris clock just means the club clock is still 10 minutes out, just in the other direction.

Cheers, George

You're right, and I didn't bother with the details of how Eagle would have determined which clock, if either, was correct. However, if the Harris clock was incorrect, let's hope that both Eagle and Lamb ignore it.

None of this helps explain Kozebrodski's reference to 12:40.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Accepting MWR's theory for the sake of argument, I would have to ask; why does everyone need to be 'on script' for the 'plot' to work? You keep on telling us that the police believed Diemschitz. That means they believed him, regardless of contradictory evidence from people like Spooner, Koz, and Herschburg. Does that also mean there could well have been a 'plot' that involved time-shifting, but that not everyone was made aware of, or in some cases did not remember to follow the 'script'?

Why does the 'plot' require total consistency to work, if that is not the case for the non-plot scenario? Seems like you are implicitly holding MWRs theory to a higher standard, than the standard you suppose the police actually did hold.

Game on?

Wonderful.

So you’re now suggesting that Louis would have thought “ok, the police will interview me and everyone else at the club, that’s around 30 people. I’ll say 1.00 but half a dozen or more might still say 12.45. No matter, the police will believe me over the others as I’m such a fine upstanding citizen and they aren’t.”

Give me a break.

The cover up plot is dead.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

I don't agree that because someone was assertive in their statement of a time that they were not estimating. I phrased my question "which clock" badly. I was actually meaning to which time zone was the clock set. There are too many clocks possibly set to too many time zones to make any sense of comparative times.

BTW, just a friendly comment - stamping the feet and shouting (bold and capitals) normally doesn't acheive any advancement of the validity of an argument.

Cheers, George

Frustration sets in when posters continue to bend over backwards. I’m past tired of it George.

The evidence points to a discovery time of 1.00.

She said 12.50. No ‘about’ or ‘around.’ It implies certainty but we can’t assume this of course. So if she on her doorstep at 12.45 then nothing had occurred by then. If it was 12.55 then nothing had occurred by then.

Can we know when she went on her doorstep (as Letchford just said that she was on her doorstep at 12.50)

So if she went onto her doorstep and 12.45 and was still on her doorstep at 12.50 then we can infer that she went in at some point after 12.50 (because Letchford didn’t say that she went inside at 12.50)

Ditto if she went onto her doorstep at 12.50. Then she was on until a period after 12.50.

Letchford doesn’t say that he heard the commotion at 12.50 and certainly not before 12.50. So there was a gap of unknown length between 12.50 and the discovery time.

How the hell can this do anything else but point to a later discovery time in line with Diemschutz? How much more do we need to show the obvious?

[Herlock Sholmes]

More evidence that some members cannot recall what others have said on particular issues, from one day to the next, and that members are often perceived as belonging to an homogenous lump, whose characteristics are chosen to make the lump appear as far from mainstream thought, as possible.

Some members need to start keeping notes, to help prevent the misrepresentation of other peoples views. I suggested this to Caz a while back, and she seemed to be very receptive to the idea.

What is the point of this post? George mentioned, hypothetically the clock time being 12.40 instead of 1.00. When I was at school that constituted 20 minutes.

And as you quote my comment about Koz I’m assuming that you’re making some silly point about that? Yes, believe it or not, some people don’t keep a Forum Diary and so can’t recall every single thing that’s been posted here or on what thread it’s to be found. You might also notice that my comment about Koz ends with a ? Which means that I was asking a question. One that I’ve received no answer to btw.

My question was something like - wasn’t Kozebrodski mentioned in some kind of police incident too? Or maybe I’m misremembering?

[GBinOz]

Hi NBFN,

Well, we know Dr. Blackwell had a watch, and he checked it upon his arrival, and it read 1:16. Lamb's statement of 10-12 minutes places his arrival at the scene between 1:04 and 1:06 if taken literally.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

The inquest report shows that Lamb said he closed the gates after the doctor arrived and the doctor opened Stride's blouse. Johnson said Lamb closed the gates after he arrivesd and he opened Stride's blouse . Blackwell said the gates were closed when he arrived and Stride's blouse was already open. Lamb mistook Johnson for Blackwell, so the 10-12 minutes has to be subtracted from Johnson's arrival time, not from Blackwell's. Blackwell actually pointed out this error when he was recalled.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

We don't know the wording of Lamb's testimony. We only have conflicting reports by journalists. How much easier would it be if we had the actual transcript. But we don't. The use of the words "about", "around" "shortly before" etc are necessary when one has moved away from a clock, but that is not always adhered to by civilians.

I am not argueing that he was not estimating. I am proposing that for his time estimate (not time interval estimate) he had to have seen a clock at sometime. You proposed that it may not have been the Harris clock because it may not have been reliable. You expressed astonishment when I suggested that maybe the Harris clock was 20 minutes out due to the unreliability you suggested. Well, what if the Harris clock and the Club clock were each ten minutes out, which is considered by Chris McKay to be entirely normal, but one is fast and the other slow. Couldn't that account for the difference between your traditional times and Michael's times?

I'll accept that you think Diemshitz looked at the clock if you'll accept that I think he didn't.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

Sorry I can’t accept that he didn’t look at the clock because it implies dishonesty and therefore some kind of cover-up. Of course any poster is free to believe or consider whatever point they want to George but I won’t. I’ve looked into this for months and discussed it with many posters. I couldn’t be more certain or more convinced that there was no plot. I’m also tired of the dishonesty that’s gone on to try and shoehorn it into place (not by you George) This theory was proposed 20 years ago. It was invented for a reason. If someone needs a cover-up and lo and behold one appears (from that same person) then we should start smelling a rat. Posters/researchers like Tom Wescott looked into this at the time and dismissed it. Over the years many others have done the same. Michael holds onto it like a comfort blanket though and won’t let go in the teeth of a mountain of evidence. This is why it’s frustrating and tempers flare. Yes I can be a sarcastic ***** or even an irritable *****. But I try and stay with the bounds of reasonableness and DON’T make things up. Errors maybe, and I’ll hold my hands up when their pointed out to me, but I don’t try and manipulate evidence.

On your final point George, yes we have to accept that clocks might have been out. In fact we would be in fantasy land to say that all clocks were correct and synchronised. The problem is that Michael doesn’t accept differences due to the clocks. For him it’s a case of deliberate lies which is nonsense.

[GBinOz]

Frustration sets in when posters continue to bend over backwards. I’m past tired of it George.

The evidence points to a discovery time of 1.00.

She said 12.50. No ‘about’ or ‘around.’ It implies certainty but we can’t assume this of course. So if she on her doorstep at 12.45 then nothing had occurred by then. If it was 12.55 then nothing had occurred by then.

Can we know when she went on her doorstep (as Letchford just said that she was on her doorstep at 12.50)

So if she went onto her doorstep and 12.45 and was still on her doorstep at 12.50 then we can infer that she went in at some point after 12.50 (because Letchford didn’t say that she went inside at 12.50)

Ditto if she went onto her doorstep at 12.50. Then she was on until a period after 12.50.

Letchford doesn’t say that he heard the commotion at 12.50 and certainly not before 12.50. So there was a gap of unknown length between 12.50 and the discovery time.

How the hell can this do anything else but point to a later discovery time in line with Diemschutz? How much more do we need to show the obvious?

So the only time after 12:50 is 1:00. Thank you for explaining that to us no brainers.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

The problem with that is you have Lamb arriving after Smith, if Smith can be assumed to have had a reasonably accurate idea of the time.

Jeff makes the very valid point, and one that I’d neglected of late, that Lamb himself places his time of seeing Eagle at after 1.00. Now of course it will be argued that his estimation was an error even though I thought that errors by Lamb were impossible. You also continually bring up this erroneous point about how this has Smith arriving before Lamb.

Smith said that he passed at 12.30-12.35. He also said that his beat took 25-30 minutes. So 12.35 + 30 = 1.05.

Smith actually said:

“At 1 o’clock I went to Berner-street in my ordinary round.”

So where’s the disaster? Oh yes, Smith was 5 minutes out on his return time and the police checked their times on dozens of accurate and perfectly synchronised clocks along their beats. What was I thinking.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So the only time after 12:50 is 1:00. Thank you for explaining that to us no brainers.

Cheers, George

No George that’s not what I said.

We surely couldn’t suggest that what Letchford meant was that his sister was on her doorstep at 12.50 and then she went inside and Charles heard the commotion at 12.51?! What I said is that this very strongly implies a gap between 12.50 and the hearing of the commotion. How long that gap was…. we can’t say.

But any minute after 12.50 points us further and further away from a discovery time of 12.45. And every minute past an earlier discovery time points us more and more to a discovery time of closer to 1.00. It’s an accumulation.

We have this evidence. We have Diemschutz seeing a clock. We have Lamb saying that he arrived at the yard 10 or 12 minutes before 1.16. We have Eagle saying that he was called to see the body at around 1.00. We have Brown giving us a very plausible account of how he estimated his time of hearing the men calling for a Constable at around 1.00. We have a discredited cover-up and so we can discount lies.

When it quacks like a duck….

[NotBlamedForNothing]

We surely couldn’t suggest that what Letchford meant was that his sister was on her doorstep at 12.50 and then she went inside and Charles heard the commotion at 12.51?! What I said is that this very strongly implies a gap between 12.50 and the hearing of the commotion. How long that gap was…. we can’t say.

Why can't it mean that? He may well have been implying that the commotion was first heard just after the sister went back inside. Imagine she had heard the pony and cart turning into the street just as she was closing the door. That is exactly how Walter Dew described the situation with Fanny Mortimer. Be that the case with Letchford's sister, then it is quite possible the commotion was heard very soon after, and well before just after 1am.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why can't it mean that? He may well have been implying that the commotion was first heard just after the sister went back inside. Imagine she had heard the pony and cart turning into the street just as she was closing the door. That is exactly how Walter Dew described the situation with Fanny Mortimer. Be that the case with Letchford's sister, then it is quite possible the commotion was heard very soon after, and well before just after 1am.

I give up!

You, like Michael, are lost causes.

When you 2 enter the room reason leaves by the back door.