If Schwartz Lied ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Might I illustrate my last post with a scenario based on the theory of cumulative and compensating errors.

Witnesses A and B both leave their home at 12 midnight by their clocks and both estimate that they will arrive by walking to the same club in one hour. Witness A's clock is 5 minutes fast so he is actually leaving at 11:55pm, and his estimated walking time of an hour is actually 55 minutes, so while he is sure that he arrives at 1am, it is actually 12:50am. Witness B's clock is slow so he actually leaves home at 12:05am, and his estimated time of 1 hour is actually 1 hour and 5 minutes, so he arrives at 1:10am, but is certain it is 1am. This is cumulative error. (If the witnesses actual times for their estimated hour were reversed, it would be compensating error, and the would both arrive at the same time).

Haha says arm chair detective 130 years later, if they both arrived at 1am, how come they didn't see each other. Someone is lying or mistaken. No one is lying or mistaken. A clock accurate to 5 minutes was a very good clock in 1888, and a five minute error in 1 hour is also an acceptable margin of error. A third level of error is introduced in that people didn't know in advance that they would be asked in the future the time of a current event, and the phenomena of recreative memory. Only the police were required to know the time on an on going basis, and doctor's as time events occurred.

I hope this throws into sharp contrast the absurdity of accurate to the minute timelines for this era. I have been guilty of this in the past, but I have mended my ways and have reformed. Sequences are much better.

Cheers, George

Hello George,

I certainly agree that we are making rods for our own backs by trying to tie times down too accurately. As your example shows, it’s so easy to look at events of 130 years ago and reel off the ‘impossibilities.’ If I remember correctly wasn’t it Halse who claimed to have walked along Goulston Street at exactly the same time as Long said that he also had and yet they didn’t see each other? Would we assume that one of them was lying or that they simply arrived at their times by different clocks that would only have needed to have been a minute or less out?

On reflection I still can’t help wondering if Stride did know BS man though and that she might have arranged to meet him there. Firstly she’s apparently determined to not to agree to any proposal from the man that Brown potentially saw her with and secondly, there’s the fact that she didn’t scream loudly. After Smith, Tabram, Nichols and Chapman how terrified would we have expected a lone woman (one who engaged in prostitution at times) to have been whilst being attacked in the street, in that area and in the early hours by some unknown man? It’s not a given of course but I think that there has to be a possibility that either she’d arranged to meet him or that she’d arranged to meet someone and BS man was some troublesome admirer or punter.

Maybe she’d arranged to meet Goldstein but he was late (didn’t Fanny say that she was walking very quickly?) and he quickly looked into the gateway to see if she was there. Maybe Goldstein was hesitant to come forward because his ‘relationship’ with Stride would have been frowned on by his friends and seen as suspicious by the police. Maybe…..maybe not.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Did she disengage from Brown’s man because she needed cash and he wasn’t a potential punter? Would the gates of Dutfield’s Yard have been a likely soliciting spot? Maybe she wasn’t initially standing in the gateway? She might have just crossed the road and was walking toward Commercial Road when she saw BS man approach and so she stopped to wait for him?

[GBinOz]

Hello George,

I certainly agree that we are making rods for our own backs by trying to tie times down too accurately. As your example shows, it’s so easy to look at events of 130 years ago and reel off the ‘impossibilities.’ If I remember correctly wasn’t it Halse who claimed to have walked along Goulston Street at exactly the same time as Long said that he also had and yet they didn’t see each other? Would we assume that one of them was lying or that they simply arrived at their times by different clocks that would only have needed to have been a minute or less out?

On reflection I still can’t help wondering if Stride did know BS man though and that she might have arranged to meet him there. Firstly she’s apparently determined to not to agree to any proposal from the man that Brown potentially saw her with and secondly, there’s the fact that she didn’t scream loudly. After Smith, Tabram, Nichols and Chapman how terrified would we have expected a lone woman (one who engaged in prostitution at times) to have been whilst being attacked in the street, in that area and in the early hours by some unknown man? It’s not a given of course but I think that there has to be a possibility that either she’d arranged to meet him or that she’d arranged to meet someone and BS man was some troublesome admirer or punter.

Maybe she’d arranged to meet Goldstein but he was late (didn’t Fanny say that she was walking very quickly?) and he quickly looked into the gateway to see if she was there. Maybe Goldstein was hesitant to come forward because his ‘relationship’ with Stride would have been frowned on by his friends and seen as suspicious by the police. Maybe…..maybe not.

Hi Herlock,

My opinion is that Brown saw Mortimer's young couple and that Stride was with the same man, the one from the Bricklayers Arms at least until she was seen with him by Smith. I would agree with your suggestion that Stride knew BSman, maybe as a troublesome admirer or punter but I don't think she was waiting for him. I think that she was either waiting for Parcelman or had arranged a cleaning job in the Club. I suspect the three "screams" may have been more of a remonstration than a cry for help. I am toying with a hypothesis that, if Stride was killed by BSman, he may have been Kosminski, but not the ripper.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

My opinion is that Brown saw Mortimer's young couple and that Stride was with the same man, the one from the Bricklayers Arms at least until she was seen with him by Smith. I would agree with your suggestion that Stride knew BSman, maybe as a troublesome admirer or punter but I don't think she was waiting for him. I think that she was either waiting for Parcelman or had arranged a cleaning job in the Club. I suspect the three "screams" may have been more of a remonstration than a cry for help. I am toying with a hypothesis that, if Stride was killed by BSman, he may have been Kosminski, but not the ripper.

Cheers, George

Perhaps we tend to assume that Stride was actually waiting in the gateway but this might not have been the case. As I suggested, she might have been heading toward Commercial Road when she saw BS man approaching and stopped near the gateway knowing that BS man would want to ‘talk’ to her?

I tend to think that ‘scream’ was possibly just a poor choice of word from a non-English speaking Schwartz. I’ve also wondered if Schwartz might have misread the situation. He said that BS man appeared drunk so perhaps the encounter wasn’t actually a threatening one and BS man was just an annoying drunk? Perhaps he mistook boisterousness and horseplay for anger? Not being able to understand what was being said might have contributed toward this.

[Losmandris]

Perhaps we tend to assume that Stride was actually waiting in the gateway but this might not have been the case. As I suggested, she might have been heading toward Commercial Road when she saw BS man approaching and stopped near the gateway knowing that BS man would want to ‘talk’ to her?

I tend to think that ‘scream’ was possibly just a poor choice of word from a non-English speaking Schwartz. I’ve also wondered if Schwartz might have misread the situation. He said that BS man appeared drunk so perhaps the encounter wasn’t actually a threatening one and BS man was just an annoying drunk? Perhaps he mistook boisterousness and horseplay for anger? Not being able to understand what was being said might have contributed toward this.

I tend to agree. Schwartz had not long been in the country and possibly not used to seeing this type of behaviour. If he had fled somewhere where this kind of thing could never be just horseplay but the prelude to some serious violence, it is no wonder he ran. If you add into this a lack of comprehension of English, it is highly possible that he didn't fully comprehend what was really happening. We only have his word for it, so maybe its a case of one persons horseplay could be another's assault?

[GBinOz]

I tend to think that ‘scream’ was possibly just a poor choice of word from a non-English speaking Schwartz. I’ve also wondered if Schwartz might have misread the situation. He said that BS man appeared drunk so perhaps the encounter wasn’t actually a threatening one and BS man was just an annoying drunk? Perhaps he mistook boisterousness and horseplay for anger? Not being able to understand what was being said might have contributed toward this.

Absolutely agree, much can be explained by language difficulties. I don't think she was thrown to the ground. Pulled away from his light grip and overbalanced would be more likely.

From the moment Stride got up (I don't think she was dragged) to the time her body was found is the period where we need more data to progress. With Parcelman, BSman, Pipeman and some unnamed person from the club, we have a full cast of players vying for the lead role of the killer. That information hole is stopping any determination of the actual killer.

Cheers, George

[c.d.]

You would think that if Abberline questioned Schwartz closely with respect to the shout of "Lipski" why would he not do the same with respect to screamed but not loudly which would seem to be a contradiction in terms.

c.d.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

But we don’t need to give times for Schwartz and Goldstein because they aren’t verifiable.

That extends to all witnesses - times given by all witnesses are unverifiable. Yet that hasn't stopped you from arguing times at length, including for Fanny Mortimer, which necessarily defines a time window for Goldstein and Schwartz too to some extent. So this response seems evasive.

It’s only when you start trying to tie these individual events down that you get the fertile ground for various theories.

Such as your post #2758

Yes, I should have added the word ‘possibly’ when I mentioned that Wess would have known about the Schwartz incident. It has to have been a reasonable possibility though. The interpreter might have been a club member but either way it’s no great leap to suggest a local Jewish grapevine of some sort.

Once you concede that "The interpreter might have been a club member", then the possibility that Schwartz had a connection to the club and may well have been member, must also be conceded. Then you have fertile ground for various theories.

I note you didn't follow up on my point about the interview with Wess being held on the Sunday afternoon, rather than Monday. A Sunday interview means that Wess was making implicit references to the 'Schwartz incident', before Schwartz had visited Leman street. That is fascinating in its own right, but to suggest that this was due to "a local Jewish grapevine of some sort", surely also suggests that for word to travel that quickly, the police would have had little trouble in finding someone who had heard the story, and maybe even someone who knew someone who was involved in the incident, or a witness to it. Is there evidence for this? Perhaps there is, in the Star, Oct 2:

In the matter of the Hungarian who said he saw a struggle between a man and a woman in the passage where the Stride body was afterwards found, the Leman-street police have reason to doubt the truth of the story. They arrested one man on the description thus obtained, and a second on that furnished from another source, but they are not likely to act further on the same information without additional facts.

Another source? Whoever that was, the outcome does not appear to be favourable to Schwartz. This one report alone, is enough to seriously question the near-universal belief in Schwartz's story, amongst Ripperologists.

So Wess could have heard about the Schwartz incident and as we know, these things don’t always get passed from one person to the next accurately. So Wess would only have had to have heard that ‘someone followed’ Schwartz as he’d left the street after seeing the incident at the club then he conflates Pipeman with BS Man and Bob’s your uncle we have Schwartz being ‘chased’ by the ‘murderer.’ Simples.

This amounts to rewriting the report, which clearly states that it was supposed that the man being chased was the murderer, and not that the murderer was doing the chasing. So a supposed conflation of Schwartz's first and second man does not explain away the huge discrepancy in the Echo report vs Schwartz's account. Let's be clear, in the Echo report, Israel Schwartz is implicitly regarded as the murderer. If the chase described in each case was real, then it cannot simply be assumed that Schwartz's 'side of the story' is the correct one. Yet that is what almost everyone does.

For me, the chances of anyone being involved in the invention of the Schwartz incident is close to zero. It’s all fanciful stuff and we don’t need fanciful because we have a simpler, more grounded and vastly more likely explanation for what went on. The Schwartz incident occurred and no one saw it. So what? It’s just not an issue. Things occur unseen all of the time and this only appears to be a problem if we imagine that it took longer than it did and imagine that they made as much noise as an Iron Maiden sound check. It took a few seconds and not much noise was made therefore no one saw or heard it. To keep harping on about there being some kind of plot is just red herring. There’s zero evidence for it. It didn’t happen.

Your summation of the case against Schwartz is predictably poor. This is a better one, yet far from complete. As for no one seeing or hearing anything, you will at least have to explain away the Echo report ...

... the secretary mentioned the fact that the murderer had no doubt been disturbed in his work, as about a quarter to one o'clock on Sunday morning he was seen- or, at least, a man whom the public prefer to regard as the murderer- being chased by another man along Fairclough-street ...

The phrase "a man whom the public prefer to regard as the murderer" tells us that Wess knows this is all BS, and had no difficulty maintaining the mental distinction between the chase and the search. My theory does not require us to regard Wess as being a halfwit. The other blatant giveaway is the phrase "about a quarter to one o'clock". Who said anything about about 12:45? Wasn't this misconstrued chase occurring a few minutes after 1am? Clearly Wess had all the details of the Schwartz incident. That is because he authored it.

And yes, I stand by my statement that timings are at the root of the issues here. All we have to do is accept timing inaccuracies. It was either Frank or George who suggested looking at these events without times attached. I agree. With a + or - of 5 minutes or so there are no real issues.

Then there should be no real issues with you giving times for Schwartz, Mortimer, and Goldstein, within +/-5 minutes.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

You said…



but….



So Wess was there all the time that the police investigation went on.

So you aren't aware that Wess had left to go home before Eagle returned. That passage from the Times contradicts itself ...

Witness worked in the printing office. He remained in the club until about 9 o'clock on Saturday night. He then went out and returned about half-past 10. He then remained in the club until the discovery of the deceased. On the first floor of the club was a large room for entertainments, and from that room three windows faced the yard. On Saturday night a discussion was held in the large room among some 90 or 100 persons. The discussion ceased between 11:30 and 12 o'clock. The bulk of the people present then left the premises by the street door entrance, while between 20 and 30 members remained behind in the large room, and about a dozen were downstairs. Some of those upstairs had a discussion among themselves, while others were singing. The windows of the hall were partly open. Witness left the club about half-past 12. He slept a 2, William-street, and gave as his address 40, Berner-street, as he worked there all day. The distance from his lodgings to Berner-street was about five minutes' walk. Before leaving the club he had occasion to go to the printing office to put some literature there, and he went into the yard by the passage door, thence to the printing office. He then returned to the club by the same way. As he passed from the printing office to the club he noticed the yard gates were open, and went towards them, but did not actually go up to them. There was no lamp or light whatever in the yard. There were no lamps in Berner-street that could light the yard. The only light that could penetrate into the yard was from the windows of the club or the house that was let out in tenements. He noticed lights in one or two windows of the latter house, and they were on the first floor. When he went into the printing office the editor was there reading. Noises from the club could be heard in the yard, but there was not much noise on Saturday night. When he went into the yard and looked towards the gates there was nothing unusual that attracted his attention.

Why do you suppose that no one else corrected you on this point?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Another scenario…..

12.35 Constable Smith passes down Berner Street and sees Stride talking to a man across the road.

12.38 Stride and the man have moved to the corner of Fairclough Street. He’s trying to persuade her to go with him but she’s already arranged to meet someone (BS man?)

12.38 Morris Eagle returns to the club but he doesn’t see the couple because they are standing just around the corner in Fairclough Street.

12.39 James Brown passes and hears Stride tell the man “no not tonight, some other night.” The man leaves. Stride walks over to the gates where she’s arranged to meet BS man.

12.40 Stride is at the gates when BS man approaches with Schwartz following behind. The incident occurs as Schwartz passes.

12.41 Schwartz and Pipeman leave the street.

12.42 BS man cuts Strides throat inside the gateway. Not wishing to draw attention to himself by running away he forces himself to walk away at a steady, normal pace. In a minute he’s gone from Berner Street.

12.43 Fanny Mortimer hears his footsteps and thinks that it might be a Constable on his beat.

12.45 Leon Goldstein passes along Berner Street. Just as he’s passed her door Fanny comes onto her doorstep. She looks to her right and sees Goldstein adjacent to the club and wonders if he’s just left it due the fact that he looked Jewish.

12.55 Fanny goes back inside to prepare for bed.

1.00 Fanny hears Louis Diemschitz horse and cart pass.

1.01 She hears the disturbance and goes back onto her doorstep.

Why didn't Mortimer hear the measured, heavy tramp when BS man was approaching Stride?

Swanson's report states that Goldstein passed at about 1am. Mortimer tells us she went out just after 1am, after being at her doorstep for most of the period 12:30-1:00. How is that both Goldstein and Mortimer could have been out by +15 minutes? Was it just a coincidence?

She looks to her right and sees Goldstein adjacent to the club and wonders if he’s just left it due the fact that he looked Jewish.

That interpretation is in no way compatible with this quote:

FM: It was just after one o'clock when I went out, and the only man whom I had seen pass through the street previously was a young man carrying a black shiny bag, who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial road. He looked up at the club and then went round the corner by the Board School.

So she had previously seen a man walking from the direction of Commercial Road. That would require her to have looked to her left, not her right. You're attempting to merge that quote with this ...

I only noticed one person passing, just before I turned in. That was a young man walking up Berner-street, carrying a black bag in his hand.

It's not going to work.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Herlock,

I think that you are on the right track. Chris McKay, who is considered an authority on clocks of that era said: "Overall I think that if you found a clock in the East End that was telling time to within 10 mins of GMT you were doing well.".

There are many people quoting times, the police, Diemshitz, the club members, Mortimer, Blackwell, Johnson....etc. Suppose of the clocks being used, some were close to GMT, some ten minutes fast and some ten minutes slow. Some one could be legitimately quoting a time and still be 10 minutes different from the witness with the GMT clock who is also legitimately quoting a time, and 20 minutes if were dealing with fast and slow examples. So it is folly to be quoting times unless they can be calibrated, which they can't! They're not lying, or mistaken, they're just looking at a different clock. The same applies for estimates except there is an additional level of error being introduced. When Jeff compared his Blackwell based timeline with my police based timeline he found the differences were negligible. My timeline showed that even the 12:40 discovery time could be explained with clock calibrations.

Cheers, George

George, are you still keen for me to publish a timeline, for peer review and comment?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Maybe she’d arranged to meet Goldstein but he was late (didn’t Fanny say that she was walking very quickly?) and he quickly looked into the gateway to see if she was there. Maybe Goldstein was hesitant to come forward because his ‘relationship’ with Stride would have been frowned on by his friends and seen as suspicious by the police. Maybe…..maybe not.

Goldstein was half Stride's age. So a relationship between the two seems highly unlikely, even without considering their very different cultural backgrounds. Yet it seems that the notion of Stride standing in that gateway, requires us to come up with these highly unlikely explanations, so why not this one?

[NotBlamedForNothing]

Hi Herlock,

My opinion is that Brown saw Mortimer's young couple and that Stride was with the same man, the one from the Bricklayers Arms at least until she was seen with him by Smith. I would agree with your suggestion that Stride knew BSman, maybe as a troublesome admirer or punter but I don't think she was waiting for him. I think that she was either waiting for Parcelman or had arranged a cleaning job in the Club. I suspect the three "screams" may have been more of a remonstration than a cry for help. I am toying with a hypothesis that, if Stride was killed by BSman, he may have been Kosminski, but not the ripper.

Cheers, George

A scream is a scream in any language.

We should not be altering the evidence to make sense of Schwartz's account. It should live or die of its own merits.

You would think that if Abberline questioned Schwartz closely with respect to the shout of "Lipski" why would he not do the same with respect to screamed but not loudly which would seem to be a contradiction in terms.

c.d.

Bingo!

It is highly conceivable that Abberline would have wondered out loud why no one had heard those screams, and only at that point did Schwartz provide the "not very loud" qualification.

[NotBlamedForNothing]

I tend to think that ‘scream’ was possibly just a poor choice of word from a non-English speaking Schwartz. I’ve also wondered if Schwartz might have misread the situation. He said that BS man appeared drunk so perhaps the encounter wasn’t actually a threatening one and BS man was just an annoying drunk? Perhaps he mistook boisterousness and horseplay for anger? Not being able to understand what was being said might have contributed toward this.

How do you get "boisterousness and horseplay" out of ...?

The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly.

You're talking bullocks.

[GBinOz]

How do you get "boisterousness and horseplay" out of ...?

The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly.

You're talking bullocks.

Hi Andrew,

It is not Herlock that is "talking bullocks" (who brought those cattle in here?). The man tried to pull the woman into the street, she asked him to let go of her and he complies resulting in her overbalancing and falling down. She protests that his actions have caused her fall, but not loudly so they cannot be considered a scream. The idea of quiet screams is the result of a loss in translation. Dictionary definition of a scream: " give a long, loud, piercing cry or cries expressing extreme emotion or pain". Obviously the "three screams, but not very loud" do not fit this definition and are the product of a translation error. If they were screams as defined in the dictionary they would have been heard in the club and the street.

You said "George, are you still keen for me to publish a timeline, for peer review and comment?".
Yes please, preferably as a sequence without times!

Cheers, George