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Phil Hill
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2005 - 1:57 pm: |       |
Contributing to the discussions on Casebook naturally sent me back to my Ripper books and files, and I found a paper I wrote some six years ago about the importance of gaining a better understanding of the life and times of Whitechapel in 1888.
If others are interested, I might think of sending the whole paper to Casebook for publication, once I am registered. In the meantime, I thought some of the questions I posed might make fertile ground for discussion.
My argument was that some of the assumptions we make about 1888 may not be soundly based. Times change and so do the meaning of words, habits and customs.
So here we go.
1. What do we mean when we talk of "the weekend" in terms of Whitechapel in 1888? Today most of us in the UK would probably assume that the "weekend" starts when work ends on Friday evening. But I can recall my father working on Saturday mornings in the 1960s.
High Society might have regarded the weekend as Friday to Monday for houseparties etc, but I suspect that the working week in Whitechapel in 1888 was at least as long as that my father knew, maybe longer. Perhaps only Sunday was a day of rest.
So did the Victorian's regard Friday and Saturday as essentially different from any other working day? If the concept of the "weekend2 had no meaning in working class areas, then how relevant are conclusions that JtR went about his work on a Friday because he was freer to do so than at other times?
Would a mmeber of the professional or leisured classes (Druitt say) have taken a different view to a Billingsgate porter (Barnett) or an immigrant like Kosminski?
Could understanding that difference of perspective take us a tiny step closer to identifying the KIND of man JtR may have been?
2. What was the working day to a man in the East End? We know that men like Cross and Paul started the day FAR earlier than we are wont to do today. Did they finish commensurately early? How would they have expected to spend the evening after work? At what time did the "average" man and woman go to bed - perhaps of course dependent on light, time of year etc? What implications does that have for those on the streets later? Sometimes one has the idea that the streets of Whitechapel were teeming with life in the small hours - were they?
3. I have asked this question before, but it was not taken up. For Jews such as Lawende, Levy etc the Sabbath was Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. What did this mean for businesses being shut (maybe Friday night - see above - was time off for a Jewish worker?) Given the heavily Jewish population of Whitechapel in 1888, were the streets relatuively deserted on a Friday night/Saturday to afternoon, given religious travel restrictions?
Lawende and his friends were out on Sunday morning, so presumably went to their Club on the Saturday evening. Would this have been typical beahaviour ofr men of their race, class and station in life?
More questions to come. Let's see how these go down first.
Regards,
Phil |
Maria Giordano
Inspector
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 258
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 9:57 am: | |
Go for it,Phil. I think it's very handy to try to put ourselves in the mindset of contemporary people.
Mags |
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