A Petticoat Parley: Women in Ripperology

[harry]

Just to recap,I did actually give a reason why the 'five",with the possible exception of Chapman,did not need to prostitute themselve,on the night/morning of their death. Nichols was offered accomodation by her friend Holland.Why she declined would be known only to herself,but the need for money for accomodatin,at that time and afterwards that night ceased.No one,except perhaps her killer,knows what happened from then on.I could say,with some justification,she wandered the streets without purpose or thought untill tiredness overcame her,and she stopped to rest where she was found dead,in Bucks Row.It would be just as much a possibility as the idea she was in Bucks Row soliciting.
That is not philosophy,but an understanding of a woman who on the night of her death was thinking of a bed to lie on,but was short of money.

[Varqm]

The reason Polly refused Emily Holland's offer to go with her and she said she will back soon, 2x ,to somebody in the lodging house and Emily, was she was going to earn money. She had no plans to be homeless. She already earned 3x her doss money and was confident enough she was going to earn again.
Same thing with Chapman, she told the deputy, 2x,she will be back soon do not let up the bed. She had no plans to be homeless. she was going to earn money.

At 2-3 am what job was there that could earn them fast enough they will be back soon?

Nichols ended in Bucks row where it was deserted .Chapman ended in the backyard where John Richardson had come across men\women who were there for immoral purposes. Anyways this is futile..

[Varqm]

The one thing I do know is that Rubenhold’s explanation is about as plausible as a Nichols being dropped there by the U.S.S. Enterprise’s transporter beam.

It's just that at the moment, she's hiding behind the door while her mum insists she's not coming out to play.

That's funny.

[PaulB]

Just to recap,I did actually give a reason why the 'five",with the possible exception of Chapman,did not need to prostitute themselve,on the night/morning of their death. Nichols was offered accomodation by her friend Holland.Why she declined would be known only to herself,but the need for money for accomodatin,at that time and afterwards that night ceased.No one,except perhaps her killer,knows what happened from then on.I could say,with some justification,she wandered the streets without purpose or thought untill tiredness overcame her,and she stopped to rest where she was found dead,in Bucks Row.It would be just as much a possibility as the idea she was in Bucks Row soliciting.
That is not philosophy,but an understanding of a woman who on the night of her death was thinking of a bed to lie on,but was short of money.

Harry,
Your last message, no.207, began, ’Without some questioning of the term prostitute…’. That was raising the philosophical question about what was and is meant by ‘prostitute’.

Yes, you did point out that Nichols had turned down an offer of accommodation, and we have to wonder why she did that. She could hardly have preferred the prospect of walking the cold streets and sleeping in a shop doorway, so did she have an alternative place to go, not want to be beholden to her friend, thought she’d have no difficulty getting 4d and paying her own way? Those questions are rhetorical, of course, the point being that Holland’s offer did not take away the need for money, be it for a bed, a bit of food, a hot drink, or a tot of something stronger. So, do you think she would have turned down the chance to make 4d if the opportunity had arisen?

Your point doesn’t really hold water, I'm afraid. Holland’s offer did not remove Nichols’ need for accommodation, it merely leaves us wondering why Nichols declined it. Nichols still needed somewhere to sleep, she still didn't have any money, and she still ended up dead in a back street. Maybe tiredness overcame her, or maybe she collapsed in a drunken stupor like Rubenhold suggests, but such a suggestion means that she walked half a mile, passed several alleys, numerous shop doorways and other places affording a degree of shelter, and found her way into a back street behind a railway station, where she decided to sleep in the middle of an open pavement. Or she went there for some other purpose. We know what the police concluded. What's the probability that they were wrong?

[PaulB]

The reason Polly refused Emily Holland's offer to go with her and she said she will back soon, 2x ,to somebody in the lodging house and Emily, was she was going to earn money. She had no plans to be homeless. She already earned 3x her doss money and was confident enough she was going to earn again.
Same thing with Chapman, she told the deputy, 2x,she will be back soon do not let up the bed. She had no plans to be homeless. she was going to earn money.

At 2-3 am what job was there that could earn them fast enough they will be back soon?

Nichols ended in Bucks row where it was deserted .Chapman ended in the backyard where John Richardson had come across men\women who were there for immoral purposes. Anyways this is futile..

Yes; of course I could have expressed myself just as succinctly, without the school-teachery verbosity to which I am sometimes susceptible, but I don't. I'm a pillock. What you say is perfectly true. Nichols, like Chapman, did anticipate returning soon with the necessary cash.

[harry]

I believe the plans of Nichols and Chapman were to return to the places from which they had been refused permission to sleep.Doesn't appear to me they had plans for anything else.Of course money would allowed them to indulge in other needs,but if we are to be led by evidence,their primary and stated need was for accomodation.

[PaulB]

I believe the plans of Nichols and Chapman were to return to the places from which they had been refused permission to sleep.Doesn't appear to me they had plans for anything else.Of course money would allowed them to indulge in other needs,but if we are to be led by evidence,their primary and stated need was for accomodation.

I agree with you that both Nichols and Chapman planned to return to their lodging houses, that's what Varqm said in his above post, namely that Nichols told Emily Holland and Chapman told the deputy that they'd be back. But if that's what Nichols intended, why didn't she accept Holland's offer and return with her to the lodgings? Instead, she went off into the night. Why? What for?

And thus you've brought us full circle to where this discussion started. How did Nichols and Chapman think they were going to make the money for a bed in the early hours of the morning?

[The Baron]

I believe the plans of Nichols and Chapman were to return to the places from which they had been refused permission to sleep.Doesn't appear to me they had plans for anything else.Of course money would allowed them to indulge in other needs,but if we are to be led by evidence,their primary and stated need was for accomodation.

Harry, I agree with you wholeheartedly, calling women prostitutes based on cheap newspapers articles or any thing less than a court conviction without any reasonable doubt is a shame, we should be avoiding this.



The Baron

[Herlock Sholmes]

I believe the plans of Nichols and Chapman were to return to the places from which they had been refused permission to sleep.Doesn't appear to me they had plans for anything else.Of course money would allowed them to indulge in other needs,but if we are to be led by evidence,their primary and stated need was for accomodation.

But it’s not a case of what money would have allowed her to indulge in Harry. Accommodation didn’t come free. In the early hours of the morning when everything was closed and most people were in bed how was Nichols expecting to come by the money to pay for that accommodation (as Paul and Varqm have both said?) We surely can’t believe that she trecked over to Buck’s Row just to have a kip in a gateway? It’s not a case of labelling her or maligning her. We know that she engaged in prostitution. We know that she had no money. We know that she needed money for a bed. We know that there were no ways of ‘earning’ that cash at that time. We know that she wasn’t intending to borrow money or else she would simply have taken up Emily Holland’s offer. There’s only one thing remaining whether we like it or not I’m afraid. And sadly it led to her death.

[harry]

I do not know,Herlock,that Bucks Row was an intended destination.Do you?I know not how Nichols or Chapman expected to come by the money needed.Perhaps after a while it became clear to them the money was not to be had,and like other homeless persons,they would have to stay outdoors.So it's not a case of only one thing remaining,is it?A night on the 'Cobbles' was a regular resort of many at that time it has been reported.
I do not know they were engaged in prostitution.Not enough real evidence to say they were.Did they themselves acknowledge it?
What appears strange to me is the insistance,for 'Historical' reasons,that I and others should accept they were prostitutes.Does it matter?

[jmenges]

As you all may know, Rippercast had her book 3 months before it was released and our little group went through this book together and discussed it with one another in depth.
Here are 3 examples from that discussion not taken from cheap newspapers and these 3 examples are not included in her book at all. Our question was (and is, since she’s still not addressed it 3 years on): Why didn’t she engage with this evidence? Why did she instead ignore it completely? As Richard Evans said “Reputable and professional historians do not suppress parts of quotations from documents that go against their own case, but take them into account, and, if necessary, amend their own case, accordingly.”

On 7 September 1888 a police report written by Inspector Helson of J Division summarized the investigation to date and referred to the evidence of William Nichols and he said, I quote “they separated about nine years since in consequence of her drunken habits. For some time he allowed her five shillings per week, but in 1882, at having come to his knowledge that she was living the life of a prostitute, he discontinued the allowance. In consequence of this she became chargeable to the guardians of the Parish of Lambeth, by whom the husband was summoned to show cause as to why he should not be ordered to contribute towards her support, and these facts being proved, the summons was dismissed.” Here we have Inspector Helson saying that William Nichols had stated that he had stopped paying his wife’s support because he had found that she was a prostitute.

In a report by Inspector Chandler on September 8, 1888, he says “the woman has been identified by Timothy Donovan, deputy of Crossinghams lodging house 35 Dorset St., Spitalfields. He states he has known her for about 16 months as a prostitute and for the past four months she has lodged at the above house.”

We see it again at the inquest for Annie Chapman. Her friend Amelia Palmer was specifically asked whether Annie Chapman earned money from prostitution and she said “I cannot say. I’m afraid she was not particular. She was out late at night at times, she told me so.” This quote shows Palmer being a little bit evasive, trying to avoid a direct answer, not giving any ‘yes or no’ answer… but “I’m afraid she is not particular” is probably about as close to an admission that she was a prostitute as somebody was prepared to give at that time.

Another thing Rubenhold does is manipulate the evidence she does engage with.
There’s one example where she says “following inquiries made amongst the women of the same class… at public houses in the locality the police could find not a single witness to confirm that she had been among the ranks of those who sold sex”, she being Chapman, of course. And then there’s a footnote. If you go there, there’s a source for a Home Office file and this consists of an index and a fairly long report by Inspector Swanson dated 19 October 1888, which enumerates the investigation to that date. And what the report actually says is “inquiries were also made amongst women of the same class as the deceased, and the public houses in the locality”. The report does not make any mention of the police having been unable to find anyone who could confirm that Chapman was a prostitute. In fact, no mention is made of the police having even looked for anyone who could confirm that Chapman was a prostitute. It simply says that inquiries were also made amongst the women of the same class as the deceased and at pubs. What Hallie Rubenhold has done is take from Swanson’s report a statement that inquiries had been made among women and at the pubs and then added her statement that they hadn’t found anybody to confirm that Chapman was a prostitute, giving the impression that the search amongst the women and the pubs had been in an effort to find that information out. To find out whether there was anybody to confirm that Chapman was a prostitute. And that isn’t, in fact, what this report says. She puts the footnote number at the end of her bit that said ‘they could not find a single witness’, which gives the impression that the Home Office file actually said that. This is manipulating the source to try to make it look like it’s saying something that it isn’t.

She habitually manipulates sources - newspapers (like with the women from 18 Thrawl Street) and MEPO reports- to make them appear to say something they aren't.

We (Rippercast's panelists) don't give a horse's ass if they were prostitutes or not. This is not a new argument that Hallie Rubenhold suddenly came up with. But the evidence that indicates they were engaged in subsistence prostitution needs to be plausibly discredited if you're attempting to present a sensible alternative. Instead she just completely ignores it. That's not good enough. Not even close.

JM

[Ally]

Harry, I agree with you wholeheartedly, calling women prostitutes based on cheap newspapers articles or any thing less than a court conviction without any reasonable doubt is a shame, we should be avoiding this.



The Baron

Really? It's a shame to rely on newspapers to give us facts about someone? Would you feel the same about it if the newspapers called them flower-sellers? No? So, then tell us, what moral judgment do you think these women deserve for being prostitutes? You clearly feel it's a slur on their character, so how exactly would your view of them change if it were proven that they were prostitutes? You'd think less of them? Why precisely do you think we shouldn't be calling them prostitutes, when the preponderance of the facts and testimony shows that they were? What judgment do you place on them for being so that we should out and out avoid labeling them thusly? What moral judgment do you place on that label?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I do not know,Herlock,that Bucks Row was an intended destination.Do you?I know not how Nichols or Chapman expected to come by the money needed.Perhaps after a while it became clear to them the money was not to be had,and like other homeless persons,they would have to stay outdoors.So it's not a case of only one thing remaining,is it?A night on the 'Cobbles' was a regular resort of many at that time it has been reported.
I do not know they were engaged in prostitution.Not enough real evidence to say they were.Did they themselves acknowledge it?
What appears strange to me is the insistance,for 'Historical' reasons,that I and others should accept they were prostitutes.Does it matter?

I’ll just refer you to Jon’s post Harry as I can’t put it any better than that.

It’s not a case of Ripperologists ‘needing’ to portray those women as prostitutes it’s a case of asking why Rubenhold is so he’ll bent on trying to show that they weren’t (contrary to the evidence?) We’ve known for years that these women would try and earn money in other ways when they could but circumstances were against them. Times were tough enough for men of that class but they were far tougher for women. No one judges them for being forced into the position that they were in. From the off, Rubenhold’s agenda was obvious. Demonise ripperologists and portray herself as the virtuous, honest seeker after truth. Unfortunately she was willing to make things up to get there. The facts have found her out. So far she’s been shielded by the fact that 99% of her readers have done no research themselves and so they simply believe St Halle. Hopefully now, with the help of this Podcast the truth might reach a wider audience and bypass her attempts at censorship. What did she call the women on the Podcast? “An army of trolls’ or something like it. She might live to dislike those ‘trolls’ even more. I certainly hope so.

[The Baron]

Why precisely do you think we shouldn't be calling them prostitutes

Because it is not a proven fact beyond any reasonable doubt that they were prositutes.


"if it were proven that they were prostitutes"


Is a big if Ally.




The Baron

[caz]

There was no money found on the victims, so we can reasonably infer that they had spent what little they had, or their killer robbed them of their last penny before leaving the scene.

I suspect he promised to pay well once they had arrived somewhere quiet, away from the main thoroughfare. He may even have shown them more money than they could have earned in a week by other means. That would have been quite an incentive for an unfortunate woman with no means, if she had ever previously had to sell sex to survive. The victims did not need to be actively soliciting when they met their killer, but the evidence suggests that if they weren't, he made them an offer they couldn't afford to refuse and went off with him anyway. Stride may well have been an exception, and possibly died because she wasn't willing for a shilling.

Love,

Caz
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