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Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 636
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 11:18 am: | 
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I am quoting AP here from another thread: Madge was intimately involved with the 'Globe' and 'People' during the LVP, and then later with the evening newspaper, the 'Sun'.
But I was interested to see the following quote in his obituary:
'The first to realize that the first two Jack the Ripper murders were committed by the same man.'
AP brings out a very good point here. One of the first people to connect (rightly or wrongly) two of the murders was a person associated intimately with the press, not the police. The power of the press was a new and growing force and the effect of their sensational stories was to stir up the populace. The vigilance committee was formed. The police were subjected to public pressure which forced them to increase patrols. When a suspect was caught mobs formed and threatened to kill him until the police got him safely to the station.
What was the effect of all this? Ignoring for the moment the issue of which murders were Jack's, look at the frequency of prostitute murders in Whitechapel for the period leading up to JTR, during JTR and after JTR.
As you can see these murders happened closer and closer together with the peak at Nichols/Chapman only a week apart.
This was followed by the arousal of the press and public resulting in patrols, committees and mobs. Following this the murders came farther and farther apart.
In fact it might be accurate to say that up until Nichols/Chapman Whitechapel was a more dangerous place for a prostitute than after Nichols/Chapman. That during the majority of the Autumn of Terror the prostitutes of Whitechapel were actually safer than they had been for some time.
If, in fact, the murders were all done by different people and "Jack" was a media creation, the press, nevertheless, accomplished something good.
Why was it that those who initially connected the murders were media people and not policemen? The law enforcement profession had not grown enough at the time to be aware of the phenomenon of serial murder. It fell to someone outside the field to take a fresh look and come up with the idea. Today it is so much a part of our consciousness that we can't even conceive of a world where each killing is considered a separate event, where no patterns are sought, but that was 1888. Once the press raised the idea, the police, to their credit were willing to accept it. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2170
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 5:58 pm: |
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I like this type of thinking, Diana, and yes, I think you are probably exactly right, that whores were actually safer during the reign of terror than they were before or after.
Back in the good old days of the 90's I did speculate on this theme but as ever nobody heard my speculation. |
Howard Brown
Chief Inspector
Username: Howard
Post Number: 516
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 6:08 pm: |
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I agree A.P....This is an excellent concept for a thread, and it is true that prostitutes were "safer" during the Terror and like Diana said,in particular after Nichols/Chapman.
Only problem,is that JTR probably had to work a little harder himself,as he would have been hip to the increased interest.
Nice idea, Mrs. Comer
HowBrown
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Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 586
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 7:54 pm: |
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AP
[W]hores were actually safer during the reign of terror than they were before or after.
You might try telling that to Polly, Annie, Liz, Catharine and Mary Jane. Do you have real statistics to back up the claim? Just curious.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Adam Went
Inspector
Username: Adamw
Post Number: 198
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 9:17 pm: |
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I have to say that I agree that the press had a lot to do with the prostitutes actually being safer during the reign of terror than they were before and after it.
As we all know, the press of the time was very critical of every move the police made, and from that, so was the public. In a way I guess it may have made the police feel that they had to do everything right. And from that, the prostitutes probably were safer on the streets. Still, the police copped a hell of a lot of flak for how they went about trying to find the killer anyway.
Don:
"You might try telling that to Polly, Annie, Liz, Catharine and Mary Jane. Do you have real statistics to back up the claim? Just curious."
Well I think it's fairly well known that levels of crime in the East End in 1888 were quite high, Don. By increasing patrols, having plain clothes' men, watching out for every suspicious character, etc, it seems clear that it would have been safer on the streets. They didn't have that before Jack came along. Naturally it was still a dangerous place, and crimes were still committed, but there was more chance of the culprit getting caught, I'd say. They didn't catch Jack though, and that's the worst part of it.
Regards,
Adam.
"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."
- Kirsten Cooke,"Allo' Allo'"
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Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 589
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 9:32 pm: |
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Adam,
I realize that is the intuitive response, and it may be right, but lacking any real number crunching it remains nothing but intuitive. And even if true, there may have been other factors at work besides an increased police presence.
As it is, at least five women were brutally murdered and the attention of the City police and an increased number of Met patrols didn't prevent what happened in Mitre Square or someone dropping a material clue at some distance from the murder site unobserved.
In any case, without further research it isn't a slam-dunk that it was safer.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Adam Went
Inspector
Username: Adamw
Post Number: 201
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 10:21 pm: |
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Hi Don,
"I realize that is the intuitive response, and it may be right, but lacking any real number crunching it remains nothing but intuitive. And even if true, there may have been other factors at work besides an increased police presence."
Well it seems pretty obvious to me that it would have been harder to get away with crime, but I guess it's true that you really need some solid statistics to confirm it. Still, I think it's safe to say that it would have been harder to committ a crime with the increased police presence.
"As it is, at least five women were brutally murdered and the attention of the City police and an increased number of Met patrols didn't prevent what happened in Mitre Square or someone dropping a material clue at some distance from the murder site unobserved."
That's true, Don, but the Mitre Square murder was an unfortunate piece of luck for the Ripper. He must have been within just a couple of minutes maximum from being caught. Infact, there were risks involved with every outdoor murder he committed, perhaps excluding Polly Nichols. The police couldn't catch him when luck was apparently on the Ripper's side, but I do believe they did do everything they possibly could, unfortunately without a good result.
Regards,
Adam.
"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."
- Kirsten Cooke,"Allo' Allo'"
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Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 637
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 10:23 pm: |
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I suppose the real question is, were there any other prostitute murders during the Autumn of Terror that were not attributed to Jack.
The facts I used were the known ones. All the canonical and noncanonical victims that appear in the JTR literature. Donald is right, there is a weakness in that because there might have been killings that were not done by JTR and that everyone has forgotten about by now.
However I did crunch what I had. I looked up the date for every murder. I used a calendar program on my computer to create calendars for the relevant years. I sat and manually counted the number of days between each killing and the next. I set up a chart in EXCEL and told it to generate a line graph. I bunched, crunched and munched!
But lets say there was an obviously non-Jack prostitute killing during the Autumn of Terror. Sadie Jones is found outside a Commercial Street pub with her head bashed in, no mutilations. Given the climate created by the press, the hysteria, etc. don't you think there would be some surviving newspaper mention or something? The press was working this story for all it was worth. The killing of any prostitute by any means through any MO during those few months would have rated at least a few lines. |
Adam Went
Inspector
Username: Adamw
Post Number: 202
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 10:41 pm: |
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Hi Diana,
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting that up.
"But lets say there was an obviously non-Jack prostitute killing during the Autumn of Terror. Sadie Jones is found outside a Commercial Street pub with her head bashed in, no mutilations. Given the climate created by the press, the hysteria, etc. don't you think there would be some surviving newspaper mention or something? The press was working this story for all it was worth. The killing of any prostitute by any means through any MO during those few months would have rated at least a few lines."
Well I'm sure there would have to be a mention of this murder in the papers somewhere, as you say, because of the high level of hysteria at the time. Although I must admit I'd never heard of the Sadie Jones murder until you mentioned it just then.
I suppose though, there was also the series of torso murders in London around the same time as the Ripper murders. Perhaps there was more than I think!?
Regards,
Adam.
"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."
- Kirsten Cooke,"Allo' Allo'"
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Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 638
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 7:38 am: |
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Sadie Jones is a product of my brain. I dreamed her up as a hypothetical case. Sorry if I made it sound as if she was real.
Good grief, we've already got a jillion legends with no basis in fact to sort through, I never dreamed that I would be the one to originate another!
But my point was if there had been a Sadie Jones, and if she had been found outside a Commercial Street pub with her head bashed in, then 1) we could be fairly sure that it wasn't Jack who did it and 2)we probably would know about her because there would have been at least a few lines in the Times or the Star.
Prostitution is not a safe profession wherever and whenever it is practiced. Even if JTR had never existed, being a prostitute in Whitechapel in 1888 would not have been a safe thing to do.
The existence of the mobs, committees and patrols, however, did slow Jack down. It also probably discouraged other men who otherwise would have considered beating, abusing or killing prostitutes. None of them wanted to be accused of being JTR. Not when it meant being torn apart in the street by a mob or hanged. In that respect it is possible that Whitechapel was actually safer during the Autumn of Terror than before.
The fact is that the only killings we know about for August, September, November are the canonical 5. Annie Farmer (November) was assaulted but not killed. The circumstances look suspiciously like she might have faked it. Apparently Jack was the only prostitute killer active at the time and that in itself could be considered unusual. |
Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 602
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 8:08 am: |
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But was the police presence in Whitechapel really so heavy - sure patrols were increased and there was a house-to-house, but look at some real examples of what happened around the times of the later killings when the police were alert.
Stride (in this context it is irrelevant whether she was killed by Jack) - the description of the event we have is from a civilian (Schwartz) and the discovery was by a member of the public too.
Eddowes - the beat policeman saw nothing until he discovered the body.
As mentioned above, jack was able to drop a piece of evidence some distance from the murder scene. This was not picked up for sometime and may have been overlooked for a while.
Earlier the police had let Eddowes go from custody.
Kelly - again the main witness report we have is from Hutchinson (a member of the public). We have no statements to imply that any PC saw Kelly about her business that night.
One would expect that, if the police presence was as thick on the ground as is sometimes assumed, there would have been reports that Kelly was seen alive earlier that night, or Eddowes was seen as Lawende and Co saw her. But I know of none.
Reports such as that by White (sometimes associated with Druitt) that talk of surveillance and sightings of a man, have never been reliably placed or verified. But the fact is that if there were that number of PCs and plain clothes officers on the ground, we would have more of such sightings (or passing references to them), whether relevant or not.
When Nichols' body was found by Paul and Cross, a number of policemen, Mizen etc, were around and acted. I am unaware of any higher level of immediate response in any of the later crimes. Indeed, when MJK's body was discovered, they had to go to the police station to report it, did they not. This does not imply large numbers of uniformed coppers around (though it was Lord Mayor's Day).
Frankly, I am unconvinced by relatively unsupported statement s about prostitutes being "safer". What does that mean? Nichols and Co were no safer - they died horribly apparently unseen by the police.
Where were these officers? In pubs, on the main thoroughfares? The Dorset Streets and Mitre Squares apprently remained unattended and dark.
I wonder whether there was any less robbery or violence during that autumn.
Sorry to be so sceptical, but practicality and what we know seems to me to run counter to the statistical suggestion.
Phil
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 603
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 8:11 am: |
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Apologies double post. Don't know what heppened, Phil
(Message edited by Phil on June 07, 2005) |
Donald Souden
Chief Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 590
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 11:02 am: |
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Just a couple points for now.
Still, I think it's safe to say that it would have been harder to commit a crime with the increased police presence.
Adam, I don't want to keep beating an expired equine, but that statement is exactly what I meant about intuitive thinking. On its face it would seem obvious: more police=fewer crimes committed. But we don't know that was true in this instance. And you can call it luck if you want, but the beefed up patrols and heightened awareness didn't prevent two women being murdered within an hour (and easy walking distance) of each other.
The existence of the mobs, committees and patrols, however, did slow Jack down.
Again, Diana, we don't know that was so. There were longer gaps between what are supposedly Ripper murders: that is quantifiable, but the reason for the more lengthy gaps is not. It may have been because of more police and press attention (though, that didn't prevent a murder in oft-patrolled Mitre Square) but it could have been for any number of reasons known only to Jack.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 604
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 11:38 am: |
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The "gaps" may have been caused by many things - for instance, if Jack were a sailor, by absence; if a Druitt-type, by other commitments.
No conclusions can safely be drawn from the gaps, IMHO, although theories might be inferred....
Phil |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2172
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 3:56 pm: |
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I have studied the particulars involved here, and have posted elsewhere on this board with my results.
The problem is a Groucho Marx one. You see, no prostitutes were murdered in 1888, apart from the whores supposedly killed by Jack, which would have been the normal quota for a year during the LVP, but in 1888 every single whore killed is attributed to Jack.
Look at the year before, and the year after, and you have practically the same number of whores being murdered by different individuals, but in 1888 only Jack killed whores.
This is a real ‘blip’ on the proceedings.
My honest belief has always been that what the statistics are telling us is that Jack didn’t kill all those whores in 1888, that is unless all the individual whore killers of Whitechapel got together and said ‘right, because Jack is killing whores, us lot might as well go and have a pint of beer and forget about killing whores until 1889’.
Now that didn’t happen, did it?
So we are probably looking at a situation which is far from the truth: the truth being that whores were being killed by other individuals in 1888 in Whitechapel.
I will go back through my stuff and detail all this, but it might take me a few weeks, as I’m recently engaged to a bottle of fine Sobrano brandy and we plan a lot of fun. |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 909
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 4:12 pm: |
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Hi everyone,
But what about assaults and attempted murders? I question how safe unfortunates or even women in general might have felt in 1888 or any other year. Stephen Ryder found a terrific letter to The Daily News (2 Oct 1888) which I think illustrates the situation. Some of the low penalties these men faced amazes me.
WOMAN KILLING NO MURDER.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY NEWS.
SIR,-The wild beast who is running loose in Whitechapel is apparently a student of psychology. By the ordinary perusal of a newspaper he has become aware that he has only to persevere in his horrible atrocities, and as soon as they have ceased to be sensational by reason of their novelty they will be thought of small consequence. These frightful murders are no isolated events. They are part and parcel of a constant and ever-increasing series of cruelties perpetrated on women, and regarded so lightly by the public, and treated so leniently by judges that it must be a source of genuine surprise to a man when he finds that by chance he is going to be hanged for murdering a woman, or to be sent to a long term of penal servitude for the attempted murder of a woman.
It is surely unfair that a man may not know what he is to expect, if he wants to kill a woman, or if he wished merely to vent upon someone too feeble to return or resist his violence a savage gust of passion, careless whether his blows may kill or may only maim. In perhaps five out of six cases of woman-killing, judges and juries find the crime to be not murder: how unfair it is that a man should not know beforehand whether he is to expect to be one of the fortunate five, to receive a less punishment than he would do if he were driven by want to steal trifling articles and get half-a-dozen convictions for that-or whether he shall be the sixth on the list of woman-slayers, with bad luck enough to be called a murderer, and even, it is just possible by chance, to be hanged as such. How unjust, again, that a man should know that he may illuse a woman to an unlimited extent for a brief term of imprisonment (less than he would have for picking a pocket), if only she has the strength to live through it; while if the wretched creature completes her career of annoyances by dying there may be considerable fuss made about it. Is it his fault if she have a poor constitution?
The Whitechapel murders, ghastly and terrible though they are in the light of the fact that the murderer is roving at large, are in fact commonplace and even merciful, beside some that judges and juries have within the last twelve months declared not to be murders at all. Is it not worse to hack and mutilate a living woman's sentient body than to kill and cut at the insensible corpse? Is it not a more terrible fate to be slowly beaten to death in instalments [sic] than to be sent from earth by one swift stroke? Yet week by week and month by month women are kicked, beaten, jumped on till they are crushed, chopped, stabbed, seamed with vitriol, bitten, eviscerated with red-hot pokers, and deliberately set on fire-and this sort of outrage, if the woman dies, is called "manslaughter;" if she lives, it is a "common assault." Common indeed! And men who would not themselves lay a hand on a woman except in kindness-men who themselves feel it the greatest satisfaction of their lives that they make some woman's existence happy-are content to know that other men treat other women so, and that demoralised judges and magistrates throw the shield of the law and the authority of their office, not over the victim, but over the crime.
Let us make an end of the pretence that women have full protection against murder and violence from the laws of their country. Let it be recognised and admitted that to kill a woman is not murder-no more in a sensational case than in a more common-place one. Let it be stated that the most brutal assaults on women are of little consequence, and let a limit-such as is now applied in practice-be set on the sentences that are to be given in such cases. It is not fair to leave a man in doubt as to what his sentence is to be when he lets forth his fury on a woman, and it is not well to allow ordinary, decent-minded men to shelter their consciences behind the fact that the law theoretically protects women while the "discretion" of judges and magistrates and the cowardice or indifference of juries makes the law's protection a pretence.
May I briefly justify these hard sayings, that may seem too hard, if the facts are not brought to mind? Before me lies a heap of newspaper cuttings, all taken within the last few months, showing only too sadly that I am not too bitter, not too extreme. Here is Mr. Edlin, the Assistant Judge of the Middlesex Sessions, dealing with a case of burglary, cutting a watch dog's throat, and stabbing the woman of the house in the throat when she resisted an attempted rape, cutting seriously both her throat and the hands put up to protect it-six months' imprisonment! This was something like the Whitechapel cases, except that the throat cutting was not so skilful, and owing to interruption it did not kill; but, on the other hand, the burglary has to be added in the scale. Mr. Edlin again gave a similar sentence in an almost equally outrageous case, a few weeks ago. Nobody appears seriously shocked; for he has just received, as though in recognition of his services, the honour of knighthood, nominally from the hands of the first woman of the realm-the Sovereign who swore at her coronation to protect her people! Mr. Justice Charles a fortnight ago had before him a miscreant who had inflicted months of acute agony and disfigured a poor girl for life by pouring vitriol over her face because she refused to live with him-sentence, eighteen months. The same judge had a man who chopped a woman's head open with an axe-sentence, nine months. Mr. Edlin again had a case of a savage brute biting an old woman's cheek through to her teeth, and "worrying it like a dog"-eighteen months; the next case, settled by the same "officer of justice," being a burglary, with previous conviction proved, eight years. The magistrates are not behind-hand in their encouragement to brutality against women. Here, a fortnight ago, is Mr. de Rutzen: a man biting a woman's arm, when her baby was a month old-six months. Mr. Chance: for beating a woman with a ginger-beer bottle, and turning her out of doors in her night-gown-three months. The country magistrates are even worse. The Barnsley magistrates, for a brutal assault with a brick, kicking, and attempted rape, last week gave four months' imprisonment. The Whitehaven magistrates, for breaking a woman's jaw in two places and knocking out six teeth, six months. The Kidderminster magistrates, for a series of violent beatings, fine of 5s.; their next case being against a tradesman for leaving a couch an hour on the footpath, fined 10s. The Wolverhampton magistrates, for cruelly assaulting a woman, two months; for striking a policeman one blow, three months; for cutting one of the Corporation seats, six months. But I must end this catalogue, with which I might fill pages, and I have yet to give instances of woman-killing no murder. Here is Edward Doyle, who, not content with breaking a woman's ribs and scalding her with hot water, next thrust a red hot poker up into her abdomen, and let her lie dying for two days: manslaughter, fifteen years' prison. He will be let out to go on again while still quite in the prime of life; he is no murderer. John Freshfield, tearing off his wife's ear, breaking her breast-bone and also eight of her ribs on one side and nine on the other: manslaughter, (Mr. Justice Hawkins) eighteen months' prison. John Finnemore, stabbing his wife in the abdomen with a knife because his dinner, ordered for three, was not nice when he returned at midnight: manslaughter, twenty years. T. Leyland, setting a woman on fire, with express intention to kill her, by holding a lighted paper to her clothes, and then shutting her out in a high walled yard away from rescue: manslaughter, "recommended to mercy, because he looked a soft sort of man!" James Kelly, Edinburgh, fifty wounds on the head and elsewhere, the end of a long course of brutal usage: culpable homicide, ten years. John Jones, a murder described by the judge as one "for which we might search in vain amongst the records of barbarians to find a case so bad": manslaughter, (Mr. Justice Grantham) twelve months' imprisonment.
I must inflict no more on you. These are only, alas! specimens of a long, long list. What are men going to do? Now, when their consciences and their imaginations are aroused by the stealthiness and barbarous sequels of the Whitechapel murders, I ask them what are they going to do to check the ever-rising flood of brutality to women, of which these murders are only the latest wave?
FLORENCE FENWICK MILLER.
The Daily News ran the following the same day:
ANOTHER OUTRAGE AND THREATS.-James Henderson, aged 32, a tailor of [166], Woodland-street, Dalston, was charged before Mr. Horace Smith with violently assaulting an unfortunate woman named Rosa Goldstein, and threatening to "rip her up, the same as a few more had been done."-Prosecutrix, who appeared with surgical bandages about her head, and appeared weak from loss of blood, stated that on Saturday night she was going home when prisoner made proposals to her, which she refused, when he struck her three times on the head with the buckhorn handle of his stick, causing blood to flow freely, and rendering her partially insensible. A crowd gathered round, and she gave the prisoner into custody.-Mr. Horace Smith, addressing the prisoner, said-If it had not been that you were drunk, and may not have known exactly what you were doing, I should have dealt very severely with you. It is not because this class of women are unfortunate they are to be knocked about. I have considered the good character you have hitherto borne, and also that I do not think it was wilful [sic] wickedness, and therefore will only inflict a fine of 40s. or imprisonment for one month. |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2023
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 4:45 pm: |
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Hi David,
Thanks for this.It illustrates the double standards that existed very well and explains, to a certain extent, why the case of Thomas Cutbush as put forward in the Sun-1894, appears to never have been fully investigated by the authorities.
Instead it was put to bed with a vague flick of the wrist by Machnaghten when a willingness to investigate the claims further seems the very least he could have advised.
Best
Natalie
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David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 911
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 4:55 pm: |
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Hi Natalie,
Thanks. Florence Fenwick Miller was an activist of the time; I don't know much about her but would like to do a little research about her in the future. She seems to have had a keen acidic wit that I find engaging.
Cheers,
Dave |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2173
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 5:03 pm: |
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David
there are hundreds of such assaults and attempts at murder in 1888, and many of them - as you quite rightly point out - involve the 'unfortunate' class.
But I was referring specifically to the murder of such 'unfortunates' in 1888, in Whitechapel.
As you also point out, the justice handed down in such cases was hardly justice. |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 912
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 5:12 pm: |
|
Howdy AP
Thanks, you're right that those aren't Whitechapel-specific, but I thought we were also talking about women being safer during the murders. I distrust the 1888 Loane statistics and think there might be a problem there, although I can't prove it. From the letter above, it looks like the definition of murder was flexible (speculation on my point--for now).
Cheers,
Dave |
Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 612
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 - 1:45 am: |
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AP thanks for the facts, insight and commonsense you have brought to this thread.
Phil |
Adam Went
Inspector
Username: Adamw
Post Number: 205
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 - 6:48 am: |
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Hi again all,
Diana:
"Sadie Jones is a product of my brain. I dreamed her up as a hypothetical case. Sorry if I made it sound as if she was real.
Good grief, we've already got a jillion legends with no basis in fact to sort through, I never dreamed that I would be the one to originate another!"
Whoops, my bad!
Sorry Diana, I mis-interpreted what you had written. Yes, I thought Sadie Jones must have been real. But my mistake! Now I've re-read what you wrote, I understand what you mean.
And yes, you raise some good and interesting points in your posts.
But again, sorry for any confusion!
Don:
"Adam, I don't want to keep beating an expired equine, but that statement is exactly what I meant about intuitive thinking. On its face it would seem obvious: more police=fewer crimes committed. But we don't know that was true in this instance. And you can call it luck if you want, but the beefed up patrols and heightened awareness didn't prevent two women being murdered within an hour (and easy walking distance) of each other."
I think I'm going to stick with the 'luck' factor there, Don. We now PC Watkins was passing through Mitre Square every 14-15 minutes, and it seems there was no exception when he found Cathy Eddowes. She was seen alive by Joseph Lawende and his group around about 1:34 AM. (1:33 according to JH Levy, 1:35 according to Lawende, so I'll go with the middle time.) That gave the Ripper just 10 minutes to get her into the square, kill her, carry out the mutilations and escape.
If he wasn't lucky to get away with that, I don't know what other way there is to describe it.
And that's just one example.
Anyway, I do agree that more police patrols might not necessarily have meant fewer crimes, but even if there wasn't a drop in the crimes, then there certainly would have been a higher risk of capture for the criminals committing them, wouldn't you say?
So again, I think the luck factor was a big one for the Ripper.
Just my opinions though, Don.
Regards,
Adam.
"Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."
- Kirsten Cooke,"Allo' Allo'"
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