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John Carey
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 18, 2005 - 8:48 am: | 
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(Moderator – please replace my earlier posting with this one)
As Charlie Chan the fictional Chinese detective’s Number One Son used to say “Here’s a swell clue”. It is the description of the man given by Mrs Paumier the young chestnut seller, widely quoted in the press at the time but not, it seems, followed up by the police. If not it should have been.
To refresh your memories, here is the report in the Daly News of 10 November 1888:
“A Mrs. Paumier, a young woman who sells roasted chestnuts at the corner of Widegate street, a narrow thoroughfare about two minutes' walk from the scene of the murder, told a reporter yesterday afternoon a story which appears to afford a clue to the murderer. She said that about twelve o'clock that morning a man dressed like a gentleman came to her and said, "I suppose you have heard about the murder in Dorset street?" She replied that she had, whereupon the man grinned and said, "I know more about it than you." He then stared into her face and went down Sandy's row, another narrow thoroughfare which cuts across Widegate street. When he had gone some way off, he looked back as if to see whether she was watching him, and then vanished.
Mrs. Paumier said the man had a black moustache, was about 5ft 6in in height, and wore a black silk hat, a black coat, and speckled trousers. He also carried a black shiny bag about a foot in depth and a foot and a half in length. Mrs. Paumier stated further that the same man accosted three young women, whom she knows, on Thursday night, and they chafed him and asked him what he had in the bag, and he replied, "Something that the ladies don't like." One of the three young women she named.
Now, that was a VERY good description of a man seen face-to-face in broad daylight. The story about the stranger accosting three women was repeated at the inquest but Mrs Paumier herself was not called as a witness. Why not? Or did the authorities not want this evidence given in public?
By a process of elimination I have traced the young chestnut seller. She was born in 1864 and christened Annie (not Ann) Casey and she married George Paumier in 1883. They had three children and their first address was 2 Parliament Square, Whitechapel.
In 1901 the family were living at 59 Church Row, Bethnal Green: The 1901 census shows George Paumier, 37, Navvy, born Finsbury, London: Annie Paumier, wife, 36, born London Spitalfields, Mary Paumier, 13, daughter born London Spitalfields: (Mary is recorded as “feeble minded” in the census) and younger daughters Ellen Paumier 8 and Frances Paumier, 1, both born Spitalfields. (Census reference RG13 piece 291 folio 66 page 4).
The current London telephone directory lists just one person with the surname Paumier.
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