Casebook Examiner No. 2 (June 2010)

[caz]

Among those men, only one can be shown to be inserting himself into the investigation, and in a manner that can only be described as desperate. The end result of that subterfuge is Grape Man and the Batty Street Lodger...

Fine, Tom, but the two words in bold are yours and reflect your opinion of what Le Grand (with Batchelor in tow) was really up to and why.

It's this motivation that I question. Why would Le Grand have been 'desperate' at this point to deflect suspicion away from himself? What suspicion? And how could any 'subterfuge' involving Grape Man be designed to achieve that end, given that here was the least likely witness in the known universe to have had the cops eating (grapes or anything else) out of his hand, following on from his little "I saw nothing" performance?

Love,

Caz
X

[mariab]

Le Grand's motive

My own problem, Tom, with considering Le Grand as the Ripper, is his motive. It's a bit of an overkill to have conducted all these mutilations just to put the “fear of God“ into the “unfortunates“ working independently, without a pimp. And it's atypical from what other gangs did at that time to the Whitechapel “unfortunates“. On the other side, the attack on Emma Smith makes me wonder if such mutilations were indeed so “atypical“ after all, and if Le Grand were not perhaps involved in that attack.
Also, Le Grand doesn't strike me at all as a sexually frustrated man, with a hate for his mother etc.. NOT that necessarily the Ripper would have been like that, i.e. an introvert and general people-hater. He might have kept not just a low profile, but also a superficially very “normal“ profile. It's all so hard to separate from mythology and from the clichés conveyed by profiling! If you want to know, Le Grand strikes me as an extrovert, a very manipulative character, and as such very much reminds me of Chapman.
I'm sure I'll have a more informed opinion after having read Examiner 2, which I have here on my laptop, but there's so a bunch of surf-related lit I need to read up first, plus a couple of work-related emails to write.

[lynn cates]

PI ad

Hello All. Here is a Le Grand PI ad from 1888. The snippet is from Lloyd's Weekly, June 3, 1888.

Cheers.
LC

[Debra A]

A very good find, Lynn.
I've never come across 'Grand and Co' advertising in the press before.
Hopefully more new things will be found in the future to add to what we know about him already.
The snip shows that Grand and Co. was the name of the detective agency at least, could it be that Le Grand was trying to go straight and operate just like a real private detective?
Thanks for sharing this.

[lynn cates]

hope

Hello Debra. Thanks.

"could it be that Le Grand was trying to go straight and operate just like a real private detective?"

Well, let's keep a good thought--hope springs eternal in the human breast.

On the other hand, old habits die hard. (heh-heh)

I shall keep an eagle eye out for more.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

This ad obviously means that Le Grand and Co. did research for people to find cause for divorce, isn't that it? So that was already a custom as early as in 1888? Had no idea about this! I can't wait to read up on Le Grand, starting with Examiner 2, as I'm almost finished with the surf lit.
(While I'm stuck at the Johannesburg International airport for a couple hours until my flight to Frankfurt, after already a car ride and 2 flights... Long day today.)

[lynn cates]

appearance/reality

Hello Maria. Well, close. We cannot gather from the ad that he actually did investigative work; only that he CLAIMED to do it.

Of course, if his PI company were merely a front, this is precisely what he'd need to do.

I think the jury must still be out on the question of his having a legitimate or quasi-legitimate company.

(Were investigators looking for causes for divorce back then? Well, how much does human nature change over the aeons?)

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Hello Lynn. I'm completely aware of the nuances between what kind of work Le Grand's “company“ claimed to be conducting vs. what he really used to do as a “job“. Possibly his “investigative business“ was just a cover for being a pimp ?
By the way, this is possibly a Polyanna idea, but I was wondering, are there any Bank Archives in London where info on bank accounts from the 1880s/1890s might be still available? Or has this been all destroyed in the Blitz?
Because recently I've conducted a similar research at the Archivio di Banco (the bank archive) in Naples to find details about the dealing conducted in the early to mid 19th century by Domenico Barbaia, the notorious director and impressario of the Neapolitan Teatro San Carlo, who accessorily (and actually not so much accessorily, more like mainly!) was also moving LOTS of money into gambling etc. inside the Teatro San Carlo foyer. I found Barbaia's bank account and some info, but unfortunately not what I was looking for (about a certain collaboration with Rossini I was interested in), because we know that Barbaia liked to pay his closest business associates in cash – no receipts, no dash!
I was wondering if someone could conduct this kind of research on Le Grand in London, so that we could find out what exactly le Grand was doing, in a way or another...

[Tom_Wescott]

I was wondering if someone could conduct this kind of research on Le Grand in London, so that we could find out what exactly le Grand was doing, in a way or another.

Yeah, I wish Debra Arif would do a little research on Le Grand so I could write an essay on him. Oh wait, that's been done. Le Grand would write extortion letters to men demanding money or else he'd air their dirty laundry. Often just the threat was enough, even if the men were clean. Other tactics would be to follow someone around and generally terrify them; when they confronted you, you'd explain you were being paid to do this, but would be willing to stop if they paid you more. People would pay just for you to go away. LOL.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[John Savage]

Private Detectives and Divorce

Hi All,

I think it should be kept in mind that Divorce was not a simple matter in England during the nineteenth century, indeed until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, you probably needed an act of parliament to obtain a divorce.

With the introduction of this act divorce became slightly easier, and could be granted if there were grounds. One such ground was adultery, but it had to be proven.

This gave rise to a situation were a man and wife wanted to divorce but needed the grounds in order for a divorce to be granted. If a man was found to have slept with another woman you have evidence of adultery. So the man arranges to stay at an hotel one night with a woman who was not his wife and also arranges for a private detective to observe him entering the hotel with this other woman. They spend the night in the hotel probably in a double bed, although there is no legal need for intercourse to be proved to have taken place.

The evidence is given in court by the private detective and backed up by the chambermaid who cleaned the room giving evidence that the state of the bed, two cups having been used (one perhaps with lipstick) indicate that adultery had taken place, and low and behold you have a divorce!

Private detectives would also not be above making the arrangements for such a scenario, arranging for the other woman and making sure that the chambermaid was "looked after" for giving the appropriate evidence. All for a fee of course.

Anyone think that LeGrand might have stooped to such a thing?

Rgds
John

[mariab]

I wouldn't have a problem at all imagining that Le Grand would have “stooped“ to what John Savage described.
Hi, Tom. Le Grand sounds Dickesian and even Oscar Wild-ish – referring to the woman trying to extort money from the protagonist in the play An ideal husband, not to Oscar Wild himself! But the tactics you decribed remind me more of Tom Sawyer! Anyway, I'll most certainly read up in Examiner 2 what research Debra Arif conducted so that you could write your piece. (How come she didn't write the piece herself then, or co-authored it or something?)
Back in Berlin, unscathed after 4 flights, but when my little trolley case came out the caroussel rieking very stark of red wine, I knew that a bottle from ZA had broken up. Unbelievably a surf mag and its environmental paper sucked up all the wine, and for some miraculous reason my clothes were spared. Still, the living room totally reeks like a winery, as I'm airing things... (The other bottle came out fine.)
It reminds me of a similar problem I had when I went to Oxford for a first conference last fall, and a bag of chips exploded inside my travel bag, and I spent my first night at Jesus College, Oxford, shaking my clothes out of the window in the rain, and on the next day, during my presentation, I could still see chips crumbs attached to my “best work suit“.

[caz]

Not really relevant to Le Grand, but I have a feeling that a wife could not obtain a divorce at that time on the grounds of her old man's adultery, but a husband could obtain one if it could be shown that his missus was playing away. I think a woman's grounds had to be physical or mental abuse, or possibly desertion, but don't quote me on that one.

If there was a mutual falling out, for example, a divorce could be obtained if they arranged for the husband to strike his wife in front of witnesses, or for the wife to stay overnight in a hotel with another man - again with witnesses.

There are hints of something like this going on with Florie and Jim Maybrick, where both events happened, in fairly quick succession, in early 1889. Little attempt was made to conceal the 'evidence' from witnesses or the 'injured' party. So Florie may have been counting on Jim divorcing her for adultery, or giving her the grounds to divorce him for striking her in retaliation

Love,

Caz
X

[c.d.]

... and to think all a woman has to do today to obtain a divorce is to nag her husband to death. My how times have changed.

c.d.

[mariab]

Actually I was thinking about this too (was just too tired to post about it), precisely as Caz said, that a woman's grounds for obtaining divorce would have been much more difficult than a man's in the 19th century, and even in the early 20th century. I also agree with Caz's interpretation of what really happened with the Maybrick saga/divorce.

[Debra A]

Anyway, I'll most certainly read up in Examiner 2 what research Debra Arif conducted so that you could write your piece. (How come she didn't write the piece herself then, or co-authored it or something?)

She's too bloody lazy, Maria!