The Five

[Michael W Richards]

I do know that many Ripperologists tend to paint all the women with a single street prostitute brush. Simply presuming they were soliciting at time when there is no evidence they were, that is a kind of bias towards these women. There is in fact evidence that only 2 of the alleged Ripper victims on the Canonical list were actively soliciting when they met their killer, and both personally stated that to friends the respective nights that they were killed.

What if being a working street prostitute was not a deciding factor in whether he would kill a certain victim? What if someone was trawling for those kinds of victims, and Jack wasnt? 3 of Five victim investigations did not reveal any evidence that the women were actively soliciting on their murder nights. Liz, Kate and Mary.

So it appears that the majority of murders that are attributed to Jack the Ripper did not reveal active solicitation as one of his requirements.

This along with many other facets of all the murders to me suggest that what hampers this area of study more than any other single issue is the presumption that the Canonical Group is a logically constructed series based on evident similarities, including Victimology. When it actually isnt that at all.

Its a grouping that was made based on the lack of real information about the killer..or killers.....the fact the kill zone is very small comparatively with other serial crimes, and that the murders all occurred...and remain unsolved.....within a 2 1/2 month period.

The Canonical Group premise may well be the yoke around the neck of Truth.

[c.d.]

The Canonical Group premise may well be the yoke around the neck of Truth.

I'm not aware of the non-Canonical Group premise solving the case or any particular approach doing so for that matter.

c.d.

[jmenges]

Simply presuming they were soliciting at time when there is no evidence they were, that is a kind of bias towards these women.

Of course this is not what the book suggests. Rubenhold claims that the victims, outside of Kelly, never engaged in prostitution of any kind, subsistence or otherwise, and all of the existing evidence that they did should be completely ignored. That position is its own kind of bias, and far uglier in my opinion.

JM

[Monty]

"...3 of Five victim investigations did not reveal any evidence that the women were actively soliciting on their murder nights. Liz, Kate and Mary."

There is evidence Eddowes was soliciting at the time of her murder. She wasnt darning her socks.

Nor was she asleep. Coalhole covers do not make comfortable pillows.

[Linotte]

Hi Tani! There’s some good stuff in The Five. Unfortunately, readers haven’t really had a chance to parse it out. Kathleen Faure’s work on prostitution in Victorian London and Katherine Crook’s paper on the victims and prostitution as a legit form of labor should be read in conjunction with The Five to get a more holistic understanding of what the women’s lives were like. I’d also recommend Playing the Whore, by Melissa Gira Grant.

These women were often doing several kinds of jobs just to survive. It’s similar to today’s hustle culture. According to Faure, it was generally accepted among the poor and working class that sometimes women in particular would have to resort to prostitution as a means of making ends meet. To them, it was really just another income stream. That’s at least how I look at it.

[PaulB]

I do know that many Ripperologists tend to paint all the women with a single street prostitute brush. Simply presuming they were soliciting at time when there is no evidence they were, that is a kind of bias towards these women. There is in fact evidence that only 2 of the alleged Ripper victims on the Canonical list were actively soliciting when they met their killer, and both personally stated that to friends the respective nights that they were killed.

What if being a working street prostitute was not a deciding factor in whether he would kill a certain victim? What if someone was trawling for those kinds of victims, and Jack wasnt? 3 of Five victim investigations did not reveal any evidence that the women were actively soliciting on their murder nights. Liz, Kate and Mary.

So it appears that the majority of murders that are attributed to Jack the Ripper did not reveal active solicitation as one of his requirements.

This along with many other facets of all the murders to me suggest that what hampers this area of study more than any other single issue is the presumption that the Canonical Group is a logically constructed series based on evident similarities, including Victimology. When it actually isnt that at all.

Its a grouping that was made based on the lack of real information about the killer..or killers.....the fact the kill zone is very small comparatively with other serial crimes, and that the murders all occurred...and remain unsolved.....within a 2 1/2 month period.

The Canonical Group premise may well be the yoke around the neck of Truth.

What is the source saying that all the victims were soliciting at the time they were murdered? As far as I recall, which isn't very far these days, the police said they were all prostitutes, not that they were soliciting. Ot's a reasonable assumption that they were - Nichols and Chapman went out late at night with the intention of soon returning with the money for their beds, Stride and Eddowes may have been (they were seen with men, if it was Eddowes that Lawende and Co saw), and Kelly was soliciting. There's little doubt that Rubenhold's theory that they weren't prostitutes is hogwash, and it's questionable that they weren't soliciting, but I'm not sure that their murderer killed them because they were prostitutes. They were probably just approachable, and likely to have gone with him to somewhere dark and quiet.

[Ms Diddles]

What is the source saying that all the victims were soliciting at the time they were murdered? As far as I recall, which isn't very far these days, the police said they were all prostitutes, not that they were soliciting. Ot's a reasonable assumption that they were - Nichols and Chapman went out late at night with the intention of soon returning with the money for their beds, Stride and Eddowes may have been (they were seen with men, if it was Eddowes that Lawende and Co saw), and Kelly was soliciting. There's little doubt that Rubenhold's theory that they weren't prostitutes is hogwash, and it's questionable that they weren't soliciting, but I'm not sure that their murderer killed them because they were prostitutes. They were probably just approachable, and likely to have gone with him to somewhere dark and quiet.

Hi Paul,

The only one I'm not so sure about is Eddowes.

I mean, it would make perfect sense that a woman in her circumstances would engage in casual prostitution to survive, but IIRC there is no particular evidence of this in her case.

Agree it's got more to do with accessibility of victims rather than prostitution per se regardless.

[Monty]

Hi Paul,

The only one I'm not so sure about is Eddowes.

I mean, it would make perfect sense that a woman in her circumstances would engage in casual prostitution to survive, but IIRC there is no particular evidence of this in her case.

Agree it's got more to do with accessibility of victims rather than prostitution per se regardless.

It would seem Eddowes was thimble tapping at the time of her death.

[Ms Diddles]

It would seem Eddowes was thimble tapping at the time of her death.

Oh, thanks Monty!

This doesn't ring any bells with me (not that that's unusual!).

Is that just supposition because a thimble was found amongst her belongings, or were there reports of her actually engaging in thimble tapping?

[jmenges]

John Kelly’s statements at the inquest are open to interpretation. He first denies that she’s at times forced to go out onto the streets but then later in his testimony he seems to contradict himself:
"When asked whether deceased had been in the habit of frequenting the streets, he answered sturdily, "No, sir, I never suffered her to do so."
[...]on Saturday he had parted with her on the understanding that she was going over to Bermondsey to try and find her sister to see if she could get a trifle "to prevent her going out on the street"
And later...
"I never knew her to go out for any immoral purpose - I never suffered her to do so. She was only slightly in the habit of drinking to excess. When I left her she had no money about her. She went over to see her daughter to get a trifle from her, in order that I might not see her walking the streets at night."- Daily News 5 October 1888

To me this can be read several ways.
One- that CE did have the habit of resorting to prostitution when she was very desperate for money, Kelly knew this but minimized it at the inquest, and so going to Bermondsey was a last ditch attempt to prevent her from having to solicit.
Two- Both CE and Kelly knew that they were living so close to the edge that she might have to resort to prostitution as the only way to survive, and they knew this from seeing other women in the same circumstances having to do it. But CE had never reached that point yet.
Three- Kelly knew that in her past CE had to sell sex to survive but as long as she was with him she hadn't done so, as far as he was aware, and Bermondsey was again, a last gasp plan to obtain some money so that walking the streets was avoided for one more night.

We know that its likely CE didn't go to Bermondsey to see her daughter at all. If she did, she wouldn't have located her and received any money since Annie had moved several times in the two years since she had last seen CE and purposefully didn't let CE know where she was living. We know that by 8:30 PM she was back in the East End and hopelessly drunk.

So, if their only option to keep CE from walking the streets that night was getting money in Bermondsey, and she either didn't go or in any event failed at this quest, where did that leave her option?

JM

[Debra A]

MORE ABOUT THE STREETS OF LONDON BY LIETENANT-COLONEL SIR HENRY SMITH, K.C.B., EX COMMISSIONER CITY OF LONDON POLICE
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol 179 1906 pp 693

The Ashford hop-fields furnished the Whitechapel murderer with one of his victims. The night of Saturday, September 29, 1888, was a glorious one. It was light as day when shortly after midnight Catherine Eddowes left the police station in Bishopsgate, and not three-quarters of an hour afterwards was cut to pieces. This woman was the wife of a soldier, whom she left to live with another man. She drank heavily, and that, as I afterwards discovered, was not her only failing. She and her "husband" had made some money "hopping" and had got through it all in a week's time. On the afternoon of the 29th she pawned a pair of boots to get something for supper; but, instead of doing so, got drunk on the proceeds and was locked up, --a typical case altogether of everyday life in the "Far East" When sober enough to take care of herself she was released, the "reserve man" in charge of the cells advising her to go straight home and face the "hiding" which she said she was sure to get from her "old man." His advice she did not follow, for instead of walking away northwards in the direction of "Flower and Dean Street," one of the very worst streets in that notorious locality, he noticed that she turned left, and to the left again up Houndsditch, which would lead her inro Mitre Square, where she met her fate, presumably in the endeavour to replace by other means the money she had squandered. A ghastly sight she was by the light of the harvest moon as she lay in the corner of Mitre Square, and one not easily forgotten. Her "husband"-bad as he was, he was too good for her-I found fairly intelligent, and with a certain amount of confidence in and chivalrous feeling for the miserable being with whom he had lived. God knows how his confidence was abused! "She drank a bit, sir" he admitted, "but I a sure she would never do anything wrong." "I don't want, I assure you, " I said, "at such a time to hurt your feelings, but what was she doing about Aldgate and Mitre Square at that hour?""Well sir, you see," he replied, "this is how it was; she had a daughter, very comfortable, living in Bermondsey; and whenever we were hard up she would go across to her, and she never came back without something." This story I was disinclined to believe, seeing that he could not, or would not, tell me where the daughter lived; but after a great deal of trouble, having discovered the woman in question, I found she had not seen her mother for years. How the money was got when times were hard does not call for explanation from me. That explanation " the streets of London" will afford.

[jmenges]

Thanks Debs,
Yes, so as to not have to publicly admit Eddowes engaged in prostitution Kelly might have completely invented the whole ‘going over to Bermondsey’ tale.

JM

[Monty]

Oh, thanks Monty!

This doesn't ring any bells with me (not that that's unusual!).

Is that just supposition because a thimble was found amongst her belongings, or were there reports of her actually engaging in thimble tapping?

More the fact a thimble was found by Dr Brown laying off a finger of her right hand.

this would indicate to me that either she was just simply wearing a thimble (unusual and impractical to me), had been darning (unlikely) or….

[Tani]

I know he's not popular here, but HoL has a 'film' on this, an hour old,

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold - Jack the Ripper facts or fiction? - YouTube

[jmenges]

Those of us who first brought many of these issues up immediately after the publication of The Five were ridiculed, lied about, attacked and threatened with legal action on social media and in the press. Hopefully we smoothed all that over for Ed to be in a safer space 5 years later. If so, you’re welcome.

JM