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Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 890
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 10:49 pm: | 
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I started to think, we tend to imagine that Barnaby and Burgho were a bad idea. After all, we reason, London was a crowded place. JTR's scent would be quickly blended with hundreds of others and lost.
But then I remembered reading things written by people who know about this, that a crime scene can and often does smell bad. The odor of blood, and in this case feces and who knows what else would have been very noticeable even to the humble olfactory apparatus of a human. And it would have clung to Jack.
To the finely honed senses of a bloodhound the reek of that room, I would think, would be easy to follow wherever it went. It would stand out. A pity they weren't able to follow through. |
Nicholas Smith
Inspector
Username: Diddles
Post Number: 155
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 9:30 am: |
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G'day Diana,
Interesting point, but I'm not sure that the bloodhounds of the 1880's were as well trained as they are today.
I think back in those days they were primarily used for hunting and not tracking people - although having said that they would have had to have an article of Jacks for them to follow.
Although they were sopposedly able to track Warren through Regents Park, the streets of Whitechapel would have been a different story - as mentioned in the A-Z.
The police would have also been ridiculed for using the dogs who wouldn't have had a chance of finding Jack as they had been for not being able to catch him themselves. So it's probably best that the dogs weren't used.
Jules |
Diana
Chief Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 892
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 11:45 am: |
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The clothing would have had the odor of smoke from the huge fireplace fire. There would have been the smell of body fluids, feces and blood. If the dogs had been allowed in the room they would not have needed an item of Jack's clothing to smell. The distinctive room odors which were probably even detectable if not overwhelming to human olfactory apparatus would have clung to Jack's clothing skin and hair.
All of us have had the experience of meeting someone who has sat in a room full of smoke for a period of time and smelling it on their clothes.
We would not so readily pick up the other distinctive odors connected with that room, but a bloodhound would. |
John Malcolm
Sergeant
Username: Johnm
Post Number: 16
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 6:26 pm: |
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This may be relevant here: |
Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 10:55 am: |
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Diana,
To the finely honed senses of a bloodhound the reek of that room, I would think, would be easy to follow wherever it went. It would stand out
Perhaps, but the entire neighbourhood wasn't particularly fragrant - open sewers etc - and neither were its inhabitants. Given the number of slaughtermen, fish-porters and costermongers in the area, the dogs may have struggled to find someone that didn't reek of blood, effluent and stale market produce of various descriptions.
It may not be that brilliant now, by the way. When I visited Whitechapel in October Goulston St ponged a bit and I had to turn back from Mitre Square because the stench of the drains in some of the neighbouring streets was truly foul.
Had they still been able to do so, however, it would certainly have been worth giving the bloodhounds a try. They might not have been able to track the culprit, but they could have unearthed additional evidence (abandoned aprons or the like) near the crime scene. |
Andrew Spallek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 1030
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 11:39 am: |
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My goodness, Gareth, you must have one sensitive schnozzola! In several trips to modern WC I not noticed and foul odors. The smell of Middle Eastern food, yes.
But clearly in Victorian times it would have been a smelly place.
Andy S. |
Nicholas Smith
Inspector
Username: Diddles
Post Number: 163
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 2:18 pm: |
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G'day Andy,
During my tour around WC with a couple of mates a few years ago, we still came across a couple of alleys which reeked of urine and spent condoms.
Maybe you didn't go to the right places.
Jules |
Gareth W
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, December 17, 2005 - 3:20 pm: |
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Andy,
"In several trips to modern WC I not noticed and foul odors. The smell of Middle Eastern food, yes."
I was well away from Brick Lane, so the scent of Eastern cuisine was by then a distant nasal memory. Apart from a dodgy whelk stall near Liverpool St station, the only odours my olfactory bulbs detected were of a distinct - how shall I put it? - "curry aftermath" variety.
It got so bad at the southern end of Middlesex St I turned back, resolving to return once the Borough authorities have fixed the drains! |
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