Ripper Confidential by Tom Wescott (2017)

[MrBarnett]

Gary, you're really far too old and accomplished to be this petty and jealous.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom,

Why resort to personal insults rather than answer the question?

How do you square Margaret's admission to the London Hospital at some time on the 1st September, after three other 'non accident' patients, with her radial artery having been severed 24-48 hours earlier?


Gary

[Tom_Wescott]

Tom,

Why resort to personal insults rather than answer the question?

How do you square Margaret's admission to the London Hospital at some time on the 1st September, after three other 'non accident' patients, with her radial artery having been severed 24-48 hours earlier?


Gary

I didn't mean 'old' as an insult, Gary. I have no idea what your age is. But I'm guessing you're an adult, right? So too 'mature' petty jealousies is what I meant. As for Millous (or Mallows, etc), she went to the hospital on the same morning Nichols was murdered. She would have been treated at that time. That's the point that matters. Whenever the paperwork was filled out doesn't really matter.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Debra A]

Debs,

I also thought it looked like Millous initially.

As I'm sure you will have appreciated, that was not the main point of my post. Do you have an opinion on when this woman (however you spell her name) was admitted to the London Hospital? Is there any evidence that it was within a few minutes of a supposed JTR attack on the night of 30/31 August, 1888? Or do the records suggest it was 24-48 hours later?

Gary

Gary,
Regarding the admission of this woman to the hospital. The admission record for her clearly states she was admitted on Sept 1st without a ticket.

I haven't looked in to the protocol of admissions to the London Hospital. Was admission recorded immediately on entering the hospital for treatment? What I mean is- was there an outpatients department where casualties without a ticket could walk in and be treated and then admitted later to a ward if the case was serious enough?
Perhaps a check for this would be to compare the date that Emma Smith was recorded as entering the hospital after her attack as she was a casualty entering at night who was admitted to a ward.

As you are aware, my interest in these records, which Tom kindly shared with me, was to discover if there was a woman admitted who may have matched the woman supposedly attacked by a blind man that I re-posted about when research was ongoing in to Pearly Poll and her husband Thomas Foggarty..

[MrBarnett]

Gary,
Regarding the admission of this woman to the hospital. The admission record for her clearly states she was admitted on Sept 1st without a ticket.

I haven't looked in to the protocol of admissions to the London Hospital. Was admission recorded immediately on entering the hospital for treatment? What I mean is- was there an outpatients department where casualties without a ticket could walk in and be treated and then admitted later to a ward if the case was serious enough?
Perhaps a check for this would be to compare the date that Emma Smith was recorded as entering the hospital after her attack as she was a casualty entering at night who was admitted to a ward.

As you are aware, my interest in these records, which Tom kindly shared with me, was to discover if there was a woman admitted who may have matched the woman supposedly attacked by a blind man that I re-posted about when research was ongoing in to Pearly Poll and her husband Thomas Foggarty..

Debra,

Yes, that was my initial interest, too. And the lady I found intriguing was admitted as the first accident case on 10/9. I initially misread her name as Caroline Crab. The victim of the blind man was attacked on the 9th, and was initially treated by the police surgeon at Commercial Street station I believe.

For clarification, MM was admitted as an 'accident' victim and the date of her admittance was recorded as 1/9/1888, so somewhere between midnight 31/8 and midnight 1/9. Tom would have us believe that was the same 'morning' Polly Nichols was killed.

I made the point earlier that there could have been a delay in recording her admittance, if she was an emergency case. But stating as a fact that MM's injuries were sustained 'concurrently with the leaving of bloodstains in Brady Street' is misleading.

Gary

[Robert]

I'm not a doctor and it's difficult researching medical matters on the net, but I have seen references to severed radial arteries closing up of their own accord (presumably provided the person holds their arm up, etc).

A person with a severed artery might not feel like walking to a hospital. Presumably, though, a wound can re-open a day later.

As I say, I am not a doctor.

[MrBarnett]

I didn't mean 'old' as an insult, Gary. I have no idea what your age is. But I'm guessing you're an adult, right? So too 'mature' petty jealousies is what I meant. As for Millous (or Mallows, etc), she went to the hospital on the same morning Nichols was murdered. She would have been treated at that time. That's the point that matters. Whenever the paperwork was filled out doesn't really matter.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom,

You do realise that Polly was killed in the early hours of Aug 31st, right? And you do realise that 1st Sept is not the same day as 31st Aug?

The incident in Brady Street happened at least 20-odd, and possibly as much as 48, hours before the date Maragaret's admission was recorded. The surgeon assigned to her case was Mr Couper, who does not seem to have been on duty on 31/8.

You've shrugged off a string of geographical howlers as inconsequential, and still seem unaware of your wicket/wicker gaff, but surely you have to accept that this represents a major factual error in your book.

We can either use the date as recorded in the admissions book as the date MM was admitted to the hospital, or we can consider it unreliable. Either way, we have no evidence that MM was attacked in the early hours of 31/8 - something you state as a fact in your book and have just repeated.

Gary

[MrBarnett]

I'm not a doctor and it's difficult researching medical matters on the net, but I have seen references to severed radial arteries closing up of their own accord (presumably provided the person holds their arm up, etc).

A person with a severed artery might not feel loike walking to a hospital. Presumably, though, a wound can re-open a day later.

As I say, I am not a doctor.

So they might even be able to make it from the Old Nichol to Whitechapel? Interesting.

[MrBarnett]

Incidentally, patient no. 1030, Annie Glick, was recorded as being admitted and discharged (to the fever hospital) on 1/9. Margaret was patient 1032.

[MrBarnett]

MM was recorded as having been admitted on 1/9 and discharged on 18/8 after having spent 17 days in hospital.

There is NO way that can be worked back to and admittance around midnight on 30/8.

Unless, of course, you enlist the services of Dianne Abbott.

[Sam Flynn]

There is NO way that can be worked back to and admittance around midnight on 30/8.

Unless, of course, you enlist the services of Dianne Abbott.

For those unfamiliar with the British domestic scene, Diane Abbott is a respected mathematician with modest political ambitions.

[Robert]

And a time machine.

[MrBarnett]

MM was recorded as having been admitted on 1/9 and discharged on 18/8 after having spent 17 days in hospital.

There is NO way that can be worked back to and admittance around midnight on 30/8.

Unless, of course, you enlist the services of Dianne Abbott.

Never let it be said...

Of course, if the hospital only counted whole calendar days, that would work out to 17.

Annie Glick was admitted and discharged on the same day - her no. of days was 0.

In Tom's book there is one omission (admission date) and one error (discharge date) which coveniently obscure the fact that there is no evidence of MM sustaining her injury on 30/31 Aug.

[Tom_Wescott]

The incident in Brady Street happened at least 20-odd, and possibly as much as 48, hours before the date Maragaret's admission was recorded.

Gary, you're not getting it. There is when something happened and when it was recorded. They needn't be the same thing and, in fact, rarely are. You're zeroing in on one thing and choosing to remain blind to all the other stuff, such as the articles appearing later that referred back to a surviving victim. I know MysterySinger's findings have you thoroughly irked, but I find those very compelling as well. While I'm always skeptical of family lore, I'm cautious not to discount it too quickly. But you just keep discounting all the stuff you don't like Gary. You seem to enjoy that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[MrBarnett]

Gary, you're not getting it. There is when something happened and when it was recorded. They needn't be the same thing and, in fact, rarely are. You're zeroing in on one thing and choosing to remain blind to all the other stuff, such as the articles appearing later that referred back to a surviving victim. I know MysterySinger's findings have you thoroughly irked, but I find those very compelling as well. While I'm always skeptical of family lore, I'm cautious not to discount it too quickly. But you just keep discounting all the stuff you don't like Gary. You seem to enjoy that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Let me first address your statement that l was 'irked' by MS's finding. Is this another case of your using the Wescott English Dictionary? I'm thoroughly intrigued by the finding. So much so that it occurred to me to go and knock on the door of 195, Reede Road and ask if the current owners remember the Samuels family.

The fact that there is a family anecdote of a brush with JTR and a record of someone with that family's name being admitted to the LH in Sept, 1888 is rather exciting - especially for me living very close to where the family lived.

Now to the point about my missing the point. You have stated unequivocally that MM's admission to the LH took place on the same morning as the incident in Brady Street. The written evidence explicitly contradicts that. That evidence is curiously missing from your book.

You don't tell us that MM was admitted to the LH on 1/9. You tell us that you 'reached out' to the London Hospital for 'copies of all individuals who registered between the hours of 10pm on August 30th and the time of the Nichols murder the next morning'. You then mention your discovery of Millous and the reader is left with the impression that she was admitted between the times you mention.

Only if the records are incorrect can that have been the case. If they are correct, then she could have been admitted as late as midnight on 1/9 - two days after the Brady Street incident.

[David Orsam]

Gary, you're really far too old and accomplished to be this petty and jealous.

I don't think that's a fair or appropriate comment, Tom. MrBarnett has made a very pertinent observation which demands a response. Do you accept that the woman in question was admitted to hospital on a different day to the attack on Nichols or are you saying that MrBarnett has read the London Hospital records wrong?