Morris Lewis and the reporting of his story

Fellow members of this forum will be aware that I was tasked by none other than Pierre himself with the important mission of analysing the source of the statements in the press by Morris/Maurice Lewis.

As he posted on 22 March 2016:

'Someone should look into this. I think it would be just the right job for David Orsam. I don�t communicate with him right now, but perhaps he will read this.'

I have now completed this task and present my preliminary findings:

The news of MJK�s murder during the afternoon of 9 November was being supplied to London and regional newspapers principally by the two main press agencies: The Press Association and the Central News.

It was a Press Association reporter who spoke to Lewis on the day of the discovery of MJK�s murder so let us focus on what the Press Association was reporting that day.

The Press Association put out four separate bulletins during the afternoon of 9 November.

THE FIRST PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORT

The was released shortly after noon and was very brief and slightly inaccurate as to location:

'A woman was murdered this morning in Dorset Court, Dorset Street, Whitechapel. The particulars have not yet transpired.'

Due to the miracle of telegraphic technology the story was being seen 400 miles away by readers of the early afternoon edition of the Edinburgh Evening News.

THE SECOND PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORT

At some point between midday and one o�clock the Press Association Reporter managed to get out a more detailed account as follows:

'At half past ten this morning the dead body of a woman with her head almost severed from her body was found in an untenanted house or shed in Dorset Court, Dorset Street, Commercial Street, Spittalfields. It had evidently been there for some hours, but several scavengers who were in the court at nine o�clock this morning declare that the body was not there then. They might, however, have been mistaken as the place is very dark. An alarm was immediately raised and an inspector of police and a number of constables were soon on the spot. It is remarkable that Dorset Court is exactly opposite the houses in Dorset Street in which the unfortunate woman Annie Chapman used to lodge. The discovery created the greatest excitement in the neighbourhood, and crowds quickly gathered at the scene.'

The above is from the Edinburgh Evening News but other newspapers which carried the identical report on 9 November referred to 'an untenanted outhouse or shed' (rather than house) and corrected 'Spittalfields' to 'Spitalfields'. Instead of 'It had evidently been there...' some (e.g. Nottingham Evening Post) said of the body 'It had evidently lain there...'.

The same report in the Gloucestershire Echo of 9 November said of the body, 'It must have lain there some hours, and was quite cold' which was not in the other versions and this version did not mention anything about the scavengers.

Although some regional newspaper editors no doubt made small modifications to the Press Association stories, my conclusion from the above is that the Press Association was sending out several versions of the same report during the early afternoon, probably correcting and improving all the time.

For our purposes, the important point to note is that the victim had not yet been identified as Mary Jane Kelly.

THE THIRD PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORT

The next report was written and despatched at some point between 2pm and 3pm. The victim had still not been identified as Mary Jane Kelly but the Press Association reporter knew she was a 21 year old woman of genteel appearance who had recently separated from a man she was living with. He had also ascertained, slightly inaccurately, that the crime had been discovered by a young man named McCarthy when attempting, with his mother, to collect the rent. Further, he had picked up on rumours that the body was badly mutilated.

The most important point for our purposes is that the victim was said to be 'a young woman who occupied a room in a house in Dorset-court'.

It is in this report that we are first introduced to Morris Lewis. The relevant part of the report states:

'Morris Lewis, a tailor, states that he was playing pitch and toss in the court at nine o�clock this morning, and an hour before that he had seen the woman [some versions say �a woman� some versions say �deceased�] leave the house and return with some milk. There is no evidence as to who was in the house with her, and up to two o�clock there was no clue as to the perpetrator of the murder.'

Note that Lewis was not, apparently, playing pitch and toss when he saw the woman leave the house because this had happened an hour before the game, making the relevance of the pitch and toss in the report somewhat uncertain and also making it unclear what he was doing in the area at 8am (and making it unclear whether he was actually in Millers Court at this time).

This report is known to have appeared in the following newspapers on 9 November:

Edinburgh Evening News
Nottingham Evening Post
South Wales Echo
Lancashire Evening Post
Gloucestershire Echo
Hull Daily Mail
Sheffield Daily Telegraph
London Evening Post

Of these six newspapers, the first four in the list refer to 'a woman' leaving the house while the last three refer to 'the woman'. The Gloucestershire Echo alone refers to 'deceased'. While I am no by means 100% certain, it would appear that 'a woman' was included in the earliest editions and it was the later editions that carried the phrase 'the woman'.

The same report was also carried in at least 19 newspapers on 10 November as follows:

London Daily News
Northampton Mercury
Dundee Courier
Leeds Mercury
Bristol Mercury
Liverpool Mercury
Western Daily Press
Blackburn Standard
Manchester Times
Dublin Daily Express
Glasgow Herald
Sheffield Daily Telegraph
Grantham Journal
Gloucestershire Echo
Manchester Courier
Gloucestershire Chronicle
Hampshire Advertiser
Wrexham Advertiser
Bucks Herald

Of these, only the Manchester Courier said 'a woman' left the house. The first 14 in the list, including the Gloucestershire Echo, which the day before had referred to 'deceased', now referred to 'the woman' leaving the house while the last four in the list all refer to 'deceased'.

Either the Press Association was sending out slightly amended versions of its reports by telegram during the day or it used some sort of sub-agency to transmit the reports to newspapers around the country which sent out slightly different versions to different newspapers.

A condensed summary of the Morris Lewis story appeared in the Times and Morning Advertiser on 10 November but it was clearly only a shortened version of the P.A. report of 9 November and can be ignored.

THE FOURTH PRESS ASSOCIATION REPORT

Before considering what Morris Lewis actually said, let us first consider the fourth Press Association report.

This report was written after the doctors emerged from Millers Court (so that the reporter manged to discover from one of them a number of details about the mutilations) but before the body was moved from that location. This allows us to place it at some time between 3pm and 4pm.

The victim�s name was now known to be Mary Jane Kelly. For our purposes, the relevant part is as follows:

'The woman�s name is Mary Jane Kelly, and the man she lived with sells oranges in the streets. It is stated that she was drinking with him after 10 o�clock this morning, and he then left to sell his oranges. He says he did not see her again.'

There was, once again, another version of this same report in some newspapers as follows:

'It is confidently stated that the deceased was seen after ten o�clock this morning in company with a paramour, when they were both drinking at a public house at the corner of Dorset-street. Her name is Mary Jane Kelly, and the man she lives with sells oranges in the streets. After speaking to her in a public house he left there to sell his oranges, and he states that he did not see her again until her corpse was discovered.'

No source is attributed to this apparent sighting of Kelly in the public house at 10:00am.

THE REPORT IN THE GLOBE

Before we consider the implications of these stories, we should note that the Fifth Edition of the Globe, timed at 4:30pm on 9 November (and, for all we know, in earlier editions too) carried a report which is similar to the Press Association�s third report of that day but seems to have come from a different source. After stating that the victim was known as 'Mary Jane' (no surname was stated) and had recently lived with a man called 'Dan' from whom she had parted, the Globe report stated:

'As far as can be ascertained, she was met this morning at a quarter past eight o�clock. She was then walking down the court with a jug, and returned shortly after with some milk. In a few minutes she came out of the house and went to a small public house, where she remained drinking for about half an hour, when she went back to meet her frightful end.'

There is no mention of Morris Lewis in this report and the information about Kelly having walked down the court with a jug does not appear in any version of the Press Association report.

WHAT DID MORRIS LEWIS SAY?

So, what do we make of all this?

Firstly, let�s dispose of the significance of the reference to the woman being said to have come out of 'the house'. The third report of the Press Association stated that the unknown victim occupied a room in 'a house', being 26 Dorset Street. So, when that same report referred to someone coming out of 'the house', this was self-evidently a reference to that same house in which the victim occupied a room. There is nothing in the use of the word 'house' which can possibly be used to justify a conclusion that the victim definitely did not emerge from 13 Millers Court. This does not mean, however, that the report is necessarily saying that the woman DID emerge from 13 Millers Court because it does not seem to be the case that the reporter knew exactly where the woman had been murdered.

As to the reference to 'a woman' versus 'the woman' versus 'deceased' it is clear that this is all a reference the same person, namely the woman who was believed to have been murdered. That is obvious from the context because the reporter makes the point that the identity of the man she was with was not known. We have no idea what Morris Lewis actually said to the Press Association reporter, and there might have been a misunderstanding, but that reporter cannot possibly have believed that Lewis was only saying that he had seen an unknown woman coming out of the house in which there had been a murder to get some milk. Whatever Lewis did actually say, the reporter undoubtedly understood him to be saying that he had not only seen a woman coming out of the victim�s house but that woman was the victim. If the reporter had understood Lewis as saying no more than that he saw a woman come out of the house who could have been anyone, this surely wouldn�t have been included in the report; certainly not in the way it was written. I am confident that the reference to 'a woman' was a mistake in the rush to get the story out and it was corrected in later versions.

However, it is fair to ask whether Morris Lewis knew at that time that the victim was Mary Jane Kelly. The Press Association had not at the time it filed its third report identified the victim by name. This suggests that Morris Lewis himself did not know the victim�s name otherwise he would surely have informed the reporter. If he thought the murdered woman was another woman, whose name he did not know, who lived in 26 Dorset Street, whom he had seen emerging from the main door along the side of the building (i.e. Prater�s door) with a jug in her hand, it is quite possible that he could have been talking about a woman other than Mary Jane Kelly, thinking this other woman to have been the murder victim.

I don�t believe that Lewis confused the victim for Caroline Maxwell. There is another report of a (male) market porter who lived at 3 Miller�s Court going out to get some milk that morning and from this it is evident that it was common practice, hence a lot of men and women that morning must have been in and out of their houses getting fresh milk for their breakfast. There is nothing special, in other words, about Mrs Maxwell purchasing milk. It's also not entirely clear to me where Mrs Maxwell lived. To a Central News reporter on 10 November she apparently said she lived in number 26 Dorset Street but at the inquest she said it was number 14 Dorset Street. If the latter then there is certainly no chance of her being mistaken for a woman emerging from number 26. Perhaps someone is able to clarify her address.

THE SUNDAY MORNING ACCOUNT

Now we need to consider the account attributed to Lewis which appeared exclusively in Lloyd�s Weekly Newspaper of 11 November 1888 and must therefore have been told to its reporter on 9 or 10 November. It read as follows:

'Maurice Lewis, a tailor, living in Dorset-street, stated that he had known the deceased woman for the last five years. Her name was Mary Jane Kelly. She was short, stout, and dark; and stood about 5 ft. 3in. He saw her on the previous (Thursday) night, between 10 and 11, at the Horn of Plenty in Dorset-street. She was drinking with some woman and also with "Dan," a man selling oranges in Billingsgate and Spitalfields markets, with whom she lived up till as recently as a fortnight ago. He knew her as a woman of the town. One of the woman whom he saw with her was known as Julia. To his knowledge she went home overnight with a man. He seemed to be respectably dressed. Whether or no the man remained all night he could not say. Soon after 10 o'clock in the morning he was playing with others at pitch and toss in M'Carthy's-court, when he heard a lad call out "copper," and he and his companions rushed away and entered a beer-house at the corner of Dorset-street, known as Ringer's. He was positive that on going in he saw Mary Jane Kelly drinking with some other people, but is not certain whether there was a man amongst them. He went home to Dorset-street on leaving the house, and about half an hour afterwards heard that Kelly had been found in her room murdered. It would then be close upon eleven o'clock.'

While Lewis cannot have known Kelly for five years (perhaps he said five months?) the obvious point of note is that, despite mentioning the game of pitch and toss in Millers Court (now supposed to have happened at 10am rather than 9am), there is no mention by him of seeing anyone going to get milk at 8am. And in the third Press Association report he didn�t mention anything about seeing the victim drinking in a beer-house at 10am.

This does, of course, call into question his credibility and reliability but one explanation for the discrepancy might be that when he first spoke to the Press Association reporter he was under the impression that a different woman who lived in 26 Dorset Street had been murdered; the woman who he saw going to get some milk at 8am. When he discovered that the murdered woman was, in fact, Mary Jane Kelly, who he knew well, he realised that he had seen her too that morning except that it was in the Britannia Beer House at 10am.

There is some support for this notion if we assume that Lewis was the source of the information in the Press Association�s Fourth Report of 9 November. Recall that this report stated

'It is confidently stated that the deceased was seen after ten o�clock this morning in company with a paramour, when they were both drinking at a public house at the corner of Dorset-street. Her name is Mary Jane Kelly, and the man she lives with sells oranges in the streets.'

Save for the fact that Lewis told LWN he was not certain that there was a man drinking with Kelly on the Friday morning, that matches the information which Lewis gave to LWN down to the part about Barnett (evidently known to him as 'Dan') selling oranges.

If we assume that Lewis was the source of the P.A.�s Fourth Report we can easily imagine that the reporter did not want to name Lewis as his source bearing in mind that this reporter had filed a report identifying Lewis as having seen the victim getting milk at 8am. That same reporter could now hardly say to all the Press Association�s clients, "oh hold on, the tailor Lewis actually saw the victim at 10am but I didn�t think to mention that in my earlier report". And he would not have wanted to rubbish the earlier report either. So as to cover up the c0ck-up of mis-identification, he simply didn�t name Lewis as his source.

Of course, it is odd that the Press Association story seems to have Barnett admitting that he left MJK in the Britannia but some wires must have got crossed there.

In considering this theory we have to note that the Globe seems to carry the two combined stories of Lewis, namely that Mary Jane got the milk AND then went to the beer house. The fact that it also refers to Barnett as 'Dan' does seem to point to Lewis as its source. I can�t really draw any sensible conclusions about the origins of the Globe�s report. If it had a special relationship with the Press Association and was getting exclusive versions of its reports then, unless it was sold a dud, this suggests that the Press Association reporter did believe that MJK had purchased the milk.

For the avoidance of any confusion, one thing to note is that the Times of 10 November merged the information from both the third and fourth Press Association stories into one paragraph so that the story about the sighting in Ringer�s follows immediately after Lewis� story about the milk. But we don�t need to trouble about this because the source of the Times� report was clearly the Press Association.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If Lewis was not the source of the Fourth Press Association report of 9 November then it is possible that he read about it in the newspaper during the evening of 9 November and changed his story accordingly when he spoke to the LWN reporter on (perhaps) 10 November. But that then begs the question as to who was the source of the P.A. report about Kelly drinking in a pub in the morning.

If Lewis was the source of the P.A. report then it does get interesting because Caroline Maxwell, of course, claimed to have seen Mary Jane very close to Ringer�s on the morning of 9 November at roughly the same time (if a little earlier) that Lewis says he saw her in there drinking.

Ultimately, as usual, no definite conclusions can be drawn but hopefully this post is helpful in understanding how the Lewis story developed and was reported.

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