|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through March 06, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Specific Victims:
Mary Jane Kelly:
Archive through March 06, 2001
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 06:05 am |        | Dear Bob,
The nearest and dearest to the deceased was clearly emphatic in his identification of the
corpse. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 08:56 am | | Dear Judith,
"Did Caroline Maxwell see Mary Kelly?" |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 09:00 am | | Dear Bob,
"Did Caroline see Mary Kelly?" |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 09:18 am | | Hi Rosemary,
"I don't know." is not simple?
It is honest.
I'm not sure I understand.
Hi Judith,
It is certainly possible that Mrs. Maxwell found herself in the predicament you describe, although in her case, no one was accused because of her testimony, so the situation would have been slightly different from the woman in the Texas case -- who was the main witness for the prosecution. Also, the nature of the identifications were a bit different, since Mrs. Maxwell knew (at least casually) Mary and Joe and was claiming not only that she saw Mary, but that she stopped and had the conversation with her which she dramatizes. In the Texas case you speak of, the identification, was, I believe, of a stranger.
Hi Bob,
If Caroline is telling the truth, however, then she began the conversation by calling Mary by name and Mary answered.
From the deposition:
"I spoke to her I said why Mary, what brings you up so early she said Oh! I do feel so bad! Oh Carry I feel so bad! She knew my name."
That might make the misidentification you are suggesting less likely. I'm not sure. In the Inquest, this conversation is altered slightly and more specifically positioned such that the two are on either side of the narrow street:
"When I came out of the lodging-house she was opposite.
[Coroner] Did you speak to her ? - Yes; it was an unusual thing to see her up. She was a young woman who never associated with any one. I spoke across the street, "What, Mary, brings you up so early ?" She said, "Oh, Carrie, I do feel so bad."
[Coroner] And yet you say you had only spoken to her twice previously; you knew her name and she knew yours ? - Oh, yes; by being about in the lodging-house."
As a final observation, it should be noted that calling of proper names is missing from the initial interview on Friday 9th, wherein Abberline has Caroline telling the story without the use of the names, although she does insist that "we were on speaking terms..." This statement, might well have been taken more hastily as Abberline was interviewing many witnesses at the time, of course. But slowly deliberately, over the three times that she officially repeats her memories, Caroline's narrative becomes more and more a drama, and therefore, in a sense, more and more vivid.
One related and troublesome aspect of the testimony, by the way, is why, if Caroline lived on Dorset St. and her husband was deputy at the nearby CLH, had she not seen Mary for three weeks? It's not a very big neighborhood, after all.
I do want to make it clear, though, that I have not argued, in either of my two overly-long posts above -- the first one on Thursday, March 1st or especially the lengthy one on Saturday, March 3rd, concerning two paragraphs in the Evans and Gainey book -- that Caroline Maxwell is telling the truth (or that she is not). Rather I am suggesting that the uncertainty that her tale produces makes an incision into the body of evidence and leaves a wound that those who would construct any final, reliable account have to suture over in order to proceed. But the scar remains -- Mrs. Maxwell's text is useful because it becomes a tool which we can use to open and bring to the surface the hidden assumptions and movements of historical narratives and arguments, such as the one I read above from Evans and Gainey. It is a certain awareness of the status our own assumptions about what constitutes reliable knowledge and history that I am calling for here and I think the statements of Mrs. Maxwell, as they remain without resolution here and now, might help us to be more self-conscious about that awareness.
At least, that's the idea.
One last note (appropriately). A very kind board member and lurker was generous enough to send me an image of the first page of Abberline's hand written notes on Maxwell's 9th November testimony. As I thought after reading the Companion, the addition of the time is made in the margins as an added text-note complete with asterisk both at the point in her story where it is relevant and at the head of the note. I am still curious as to why the time is positioned on the margins and when it might have been added. We cannot know that, but we can note its difference from the rest of the statement and from the form of all the other witness statements taken that day.
It is a difference which begins to displace Maxwell's testimony from the others and allows it to mark, perhaps forever, the necessity of caution about any desire for a language of certainty as these events are translated from memories to historical narratives that claim to be legitimate.
At least I think that might be one useful way to read the tale of Mrs. Maxwell.
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 09:42 am | | Dear John,
"Did Caroline Maxwell see Mary Kelly?" The question can't be more simple, John? |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 10:07 am | | Rosemary,
Nor can my answer.
I don't know.
--John |
Author: Jade Bakys
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 10:27 am | | Hi all
Caroline Maxwell’s Inquest testimony is dubious because of the times she gives when referring to spotting Kelly, described below form the Inquest and her Witness Testimony:
You say you saw her standing at the corner of the entry to the court ? - Yes, on Friday morning, from eight to half-past eight. I fix the time by my husband's finishing work. (And then later when she sees Kelly again) [Coroner] And yet you say you had only spoken to her twice previously; you knew her name and she knew yours ? - Oh, yes; by being about in the lodging-house.
[Coroner] What did she say ? - She said, "I've had a glass of beer, and I've brought it up again"; and it was in the road. I imagined she had been in the Britannia beer-shop at the corner of the street. I left her, saying that I could pity her feelings. I went to Bishopsgate-street to get my husband's breakfast. Returning I saw her outside the Britannia public-house, talking to a man.
[Coroner] This would be about what time ? - Between eight and nine o'clock. I was absent about half-an-hour. It was about a quarter to nine.
Why would she say between eight and nine o’ clock, and then end her statement with about a quarter to nine.
The first time Maxwell gives from eight to half-past that is quite some length in time, if she went to get her husband breakfast from Bishopsgate, and was gone half an hour, she would have had to leave at quarter past eight to see Kelly again at a quarter to nine. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:07 am | | Hi Jade,
I'm not sure I understand precisely what you are suggesting here, but I think I can offer some thoughts about the time. In her first testimony (to Abberline) the time "about half past 8 o'clock" is added by Abberline in the margins at the point when Caroline says she saw Mary "standing at the corner of Miller's Court in Dorset Street." I am not sure about the circumstances that caused the note to be added.
In her second testimony, her deposition, Caroline says, consistent with the earlier statement:
"I took a deal of notice of deceased this evening seeing her standing at the corner of the Court on Friday from 8 to half past I know the time by taking the plates my husband had to take care of from the house opposite. I am positive the time was between 8 and half past I am positive I saw deceased."
(and then Caroline tells of her encounter.)
After that:
"I then went to Bishopsgate as I returned I saw her outside the Britannia talking to a man -- the time was about 20 minutes to half an hour later about a quarter to nine."
So if she talked to Mary at at around 8:15 (between 8 and 8:30), took the twenty to 30 minute trip to Bishopsgate, it would indeed be around 8:45.
I am reading the "from" in her deposition and then in her testimony which you cite above ("from eight to half-past eight") to mean "between," since she obviously did not speak to Mary for half an hour. Perhaps this is the source of the confusion. Perhaps I am mistaken in this reading, but I do think it would have been an acceptable usage. Caroline herself uses the word "between" interchangeably with "from" in the second part of her deposition ("I am positive the time was between 8 and half-past"). Within such a reading, of course, none of the times are exact, but they are all within fifteen minute frames. If this renders the testimony "dubious," then I suppose it must remain "dubious." It is, however, at least consistent.
It should be noted again, perhaps, that the time and date of Caroline's successful completion of her errand were confirmed by police.
I am not sure all of this is in any way helpful. It is obviously in no way decisive. I think one can read these statements as the words of a woman telling the story repeatedly for official records and trying to do her best with the times; although that is clearly not the only possible reading.
I do not even know if I have offered any clarification.
--John |
Author: Rachel Henderson
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:14 am | | Hi Leanne
Sorry for the delay. I don't think anyone spoke to the "muggers", but I can't really remember, it was quite a long time ago. I see your point tho, I was really just trying to see what everyone else thought about the - potential - difference between "truth" and "perception".
Thanks for all the comments, it has been really interesting to read.
Rachel |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:24 am | | Jade,
One other small detail caught my attention in reading about the times in question. It is odd perhaps that Caroline says in her deposition,
"I took a deal of notice of deceased this evening..."
talking about the morning she spoke with Mary Kelly, the morning the murder was discovered.
In her formal testimony, she is quite clear, saying she met Kelly
"...on Friday morning, from eight to half-past eight. I fix the time by my husband's finishing work."
What, in her memory, prompted the use of "evening" to describe the early morning hours of the 9th in her deposition? Her account of the tale in each and every case makes it clear she meant the morning -- she even notes how rare it was to see Mary up so early and in her initial statement to Abberline she clearly says "Friday morning 9th." This again might be a usage problem. Or not.
--John |
Author: Jade Bakys
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:26 am | | Hi John
I am taking my information from the Inquest here on the casebook, but they are not very useful, in that often they lack the type of extra evidence you show in your above post. This happened on another board, and it was useful that I was shown a graphic, of the testimony, that solved my initial confusion. I am not sure if the testimonies on the casebook are merely highlights.
I follow what you mean about the eight - half past, that could be the case, but in the second part of the statement when she is referring to seeing Kelly again after she went to Bishospgate and returned she say's 'Between eight and nine o'clock', I would have expected her to state at at time after half past eight, because she used from eight until half past to state the first time she had seen Kelly.
I am looking at the Coroners Inquest when he cross examined all the witnesses, and not her deposition testimony.
I agree with your penultimate paragraph though. It would be useful to know at what stage in the proceedings the Inquest, held by the coroner and the jurors' is in relation to other testimonies.
Jade |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:36 am | | Dear John,
You raised a spectre...I conclude you do not wish to press the point further. Thank you for your time. |
Author: Jade Bakys
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:51 am | | Hi John
I didn't notice your second post, it must have popped up whilst I was writing mine, and it is an intersting piece of detail
Jade |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 11:53 am | | Dear Rosemary,
I would, in any case, be delighted to have made possible a haunting.
And, of course, thanks to the archive, our readings remain.
I have always felt that whenever we read, we walk with ghosts.
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 03:15 pm | | Dear John,
You can borrow my ghost-writer :-) |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 05:05 pm | | Rosemary
Whether or not Mary Kelly was the victim in that appaulling murder will always be up for debate. Witness' will always be called into question, unfortuanatly they are not alive to be cross examined. Even records left behind cant provide us with the appropriate answers.
That only leaves us with gut instincts. My guts say she lived and fled Parisian pursuers. I cant back this up with evidence or even try to explain why I believe in this. You explained it best when you, in around about way, said that we should look at her nearest and dearest at who was the actual victim that night.
Tris
PS
My ghost writer for today has been Timothy Claypole from "Rentaghost" (a good joke for all UK users of this website) |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 07:42 pm | | Dear Tris,
A tryst with a twist on bunker? (I preferred the name Lulu O'Ryan...but "he" would'nt have.I'm thinking of running off to Paris with you, Tris...
away from Jock MacGribber.) Shh...I think I hear
Joseph coming!
Love,
Rosie |
Author: R Court
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 03:23 am | | Hi all,
John, as with you, I can also only surmise on whether Maxwell was mistaken or lied, I tend to suppose mistaken, or if she did see Mary, which I take to be improbable.
Reading through the evidence as it applies to Maxwell, we see the tendency that at first, Maxwell would seem to hardly know Mary. Proceeding in time, the impression is that she would know her better and better. This sort of change in nuance in evidence is well known in police circles, with repeated questioning it is easy for the witness to embellish, bit for bit, in order to adjust to criticism in the interrogation.
Fictional example:
Interrogator: "..but you said yesterday that you only spoke to her twice ever!"
Maxwell: "I knew her well enough to know her name."
I: "You say you knew her name, but did she know yours, then?"
M: "Um- I think she knew my name, um- yes, I..I remember she called me Carri..." etc.
In so far as Maxwell's evidence is very problematic anyway, this names bit may have little significance.
Hi Rosemary,
Joe Barnett knew Mary better than any other of those called to give evidence, he identified her "by her eyes and 'ear'". (I subscribe to the conviction that Joe said 'hair', not 'ear' and was misreported/misheard.) I tend to believe that the chance of the victim being so similar to Mary in these particulars as to fool Joe Barnett to be almost impossible. I suspect that Joe had also recognised her in other features that he either chose to suppress or didn't consider relevant (hands, feet, maybe chemise etc.)
Above all, we should consider young Mary trolling home to discover the totured horror on her bed, a sight that sent hardend policemen reeling back in shock. A short cry of 'Murder' would, I submit, hardly be her only verbal reaction. Being seen as she was by CGH shortly before this time going in to her room, her clothes neatly folded on a chair etc., it does seem unlikely that she left home again. The chance that she did so, leaving someone to sleep there having 'eyes and ear (hair)' similar to herself to be murdered, then returning after the carnage to stroll around completely unconcerned in the pubs and street for an hour or two before disappearing does not seem to be high.
Where would she have gone to? She would not have returned to the people from whom she is supposed to have fled, or why should she have arranged the whole business in the first place? She would have to disappear without trace, and that would not have been easy with no money, few possesions and an evil horde of criminals after her.
Best regards,
Bob |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 04:38 am | | Dear Bob,
In summary, m'lud, some of the witnesses may be right some of the time, and some of the witnesses may be wrong some of the time, but it must also be considered that all the witnesses may be wrong all the time, and, of course, the possiblity that ALL the witnesses may be right all the time!No matter how improbable...we may occassionally consider the impossible as the only solution.
Rosemary |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 11:28 am | | Hi All,
I've just read through all the posts since Friday - all extremely interesting, especially John's, in which he describes, in wonderfully clear detail, the way in which Maxwell’s testimony has been dealt with and overcome in what, to me, is a less than wholly satisfying manner. John is very clearly not expressing an opinion on the reliability or otherwise of Maxwell as a witness. This is not, as far as I can see, where he is going on this one. His argument is that this woman's reliability has entered the history books as questionable, based solely on how all the other evidence has been viewed - by the police and medical profession at the time, and all the theorists ever since. Her testimony, while it remains disputed or unconfirmed, is as convenient for some theorisers as it is inconvenient for others, and one wonders if it could have been examined far more closely at the time than it was. Was her husband questioned, for example, in an attempt to corroborate, or identify problems with, any of the details of her story, or her general honesty, reliability and powers of observation? The cynic in me asks why, if they could have undermined Maxwell’s testimony fairly easily, on the testimony itself, rather than by comparing it unfavourably with other evidence, not directly related to her Friday morning story, would they not have done so and left a record of it for posterity? Doesn’t it tell us something, if the authorities did not think it necessary to do all they could to resolve her story one way or the other? I’m wondering how all the interested parties in 1888 would have reacted, for example, had Mr and Mrs Maxwell been together at the time of the alleged conversation with Kelly, or had an independent witness seen it taking place? Would we now still be comparing one lot of inconclusive evidence - the unreliable time of death opinions and an "oh murder" or two - with the contradictory Maxwell testimony, and reaching the conclusion that the former must, not only take precedence over, but cancel out, the latter? No – we would be forced to look deeper at the puzzle and work that much harder to solve it. So, in a paradoxical way, the Maxwellian sore thumb makes things too easy for the various theorists now because it wasn’t explored enough in its day. All the theories, from the sensible to the fanciful, survive and thrive on such things being left to one side to fester.
It may be a great shame that we can't conjure up Carrie Maxwell here and now and get her side of things once again. But I'm not altogether sure we'd get our definitive answer even then - we'd still be divided over our individual judgements of her motives and character.
For those who think it would have been a useful exercise to explore Mrs M further, while she and her friends and family were still around, giving her the best possible chance to explain herself, and us an alternative way of assessing her story, this should have some relevance to the Diary debate, where we have real live people suspected of giving false testimonies. Just a thought.
Love,
Caz |
Author: R Court
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 12:46 pm | | Hi Rosemary,
As Sherlock said......
If, however, we suggest that no witness would EVER tell the truth then we must also assume that there was no Mary, no Joe, no CGH and no Jack and that the whole of recorded history is a lie.
Hi Caz,
If Caroline M did turn up in our time, she'd probably run screaming down to the Thames and jump in at once.
Recorded history is really often completely turned a... about, as I have often found when I've read in the newspapers about some do where I was present myself. You get the feeling that the reporter got most of his copy by reading tea-leaves. Even when the gist is at least recognisable, the rest is so twisted as to become nonsense.
Not that Caroline M. was definitely misquoted, but the very absense of recorded police effort with respect to her testimony would indicate that either she qualified her statements later or the police found other good grounds to disqualify her. This doesn't seem to have been recorded by the media but, as said, nothing about them suprises me very much.
On your last point, an old indian proverb says more or less: Those who only tell the truth are the biggest liars.
:-)
Bob
XX |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 03:40 pm | | Dear Bob,
Perhaps the evidence of Caroline Maxwell forms the critical lynchpin within a superstructure built from the ground up or from the top down,
that is, all the available evidence supports an obvious scenario, as opposed to, an unobvious scenario.
I am all too aware that occassionally some burglars are reported as ghosts, and conversely,
ghosts as burglars!BUT, only burglars and ghosts know this to be a fact.
Rosemary |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 05:59 pm | | Hello All,
Thanks Caroline, for the comments on my earlier post and for the interesting lessons this little problem might offer us when we turn to other areas of the case or other documents, forged or genuine. I do think it is important, at least for me as I examine this history, these texts, that I always remember that I am reading and that reading is often the most difficult of activities which comes with the highest degree of responsibility.
I too am starting to wonder more and more about Mrs. Caroline Maxwell, the ghost. For me she has also become a curiously provocative fictional character (despite the fact that she was once not fictional at all). I can't help but wonder about what her friends and family said to her during November of '88; how her husband treated her; how much of an issue her recitation of her tale in official circumstances at least three times became for her. It's odd. She is almost a more interesting figure if she is *not* telling the truth. If her story did happen to be true, then she is standing up against the forces of official power and authority because she knows she is right, and that, of course, is noble and perhaps even heroic, but it also a Hollywood cliché by now. But if she is wrong; if she was at first mistaken and then realized but stuck to her story, or if she was lying from the beginning for one psychological reason or another; then, to me, she becomes rather intriguing and her little mini-drama, so imaginatively told, becomes the beginning of what must have been, personally, an intense month in a probably already fairly intense and difficult life.
I am curious as to what sort of social standing her husband Henry might have had because of his position as deputy at the nearby CLH. I wonder, as well, what Caroline might of thought about her own social standing in the neighborhood. What subtle shifts in her own mind about her appearance in the eyes and minds of others must have been taking place as the days of the 9th and the 10th and the 11th and the 12th went by and she waited to tell her story again, knowing that she, Caroline Maxwell of Dorset Street, would be in all the papers. Did she think it would change her life? Her life, of course, must have been about much more than the Ripper case. But her legacy remains here. As far as I can tell, we do not even know if she had children, if her descendants remain. No one has researched it, that I can find. Here on these boards, where people claim to know every detail about every life right down to the number on Joe Barnett's porter license and what day what Kosminsky entered what asylum -- because these things leave records, these things result in official remains, even here Mrs. Maxwell is only a name, an address and a story. And, as a legacy, she has also become a plot device, sometimes crudely and too conveniently used by those who want to weave one tale or another into something called "history" and then lay claim for it as "what must have happened." I do not think this is the way I would have wanted my name to have been written into the future. But perhaps this legacy would have pleased Caroline. Perhaps she liked intrigue and conspiracy, perhaps she read the serials with abandon and spread rumors to watch their effect. Or perhaps she was normally quiet. Perhaps she simply worked hard at keeping her home and keeping her friends and she had a streak of stubborness about her, especially when she knew (or thought she knew) what was true. I have no idea. What makes Caroline Maxwell, as a fiction, so powerful, is what we don't know about her. What makes her narrative, as a record, so troublesome and yet so useful as a tool to keep readers honest, is what no one, apparently, seemed to know about her.
This case, these murders and their histories, are, as Rosemary so eloquently points out, always about ghosts; ghosts that remain even after mourning, even after we have at least tried to come to terms with the horror of the crimes and the remains they have left behind. Someone much smarter than I am once wrote "Nothing could be worse, for the work of mourning, than confusion or doubt: one has to know who is buried where -- and it is necessary (to know -- to make certain) that, in what remains of him, he remains there. Let him stay there and move no more!"
But, as evidenced by our reading and writing here, that does not happen. He still moves. They still move. The killer(s) and the victims and the witnesses and all involved still move and so we re-write, tortured by the way their movement, the uncertainty of their stories and their memories, makes our mourning impossible. I do not want to get too literary here, but I can't help thinking of one of those scenes in Shakespeare that still gives me chills. I can still hear the dreadful and insistent whispering plea of Hamlet's dead father, "Remember me."
Mary. "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once."
If there is a source for the responsibility I attach to reading, to listening always with open ears, it is this invocation of memory. These thoughts came to me today as I thought about Caroline Maxwell, her story, true or false, and its place in our readings, what it does to our desire that ghosts be put back in their graves.
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 06:48 pm | | Dear John,
These literary figures or phantoms that you speak of so movingly...are our very selves, John! We are as we were...its a very long reverie.
Rosemary |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 08:35 pm | | Dear Caroline,
Dear John,
Sorry,that all sounds like whiskey-talk...("Smoke on the Water", is my tipple.)Sod it, I propose Caroline Maxwell as Jack the Ripper!
Orsearmy (hic) |
Author: R Court
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 09:45 pm | | Hi all,
Caroline Maxwell would, I think, be flattered if she knew how much her reported testimony caused waves in our interpretation of her history and the truth.
Ghosts are a popular subject, in the past, nowadays, and almost certainly within the future. Like Caroline M's evidence and flying saucers, they are well known everywhere but never proven beyond doubt. We should remember that if Maxwell lied or not, or was mistaken or not, does absolutely nothing to change the truth.
On what her family, friends etc. may have thought or not depended on how well they knew her (did she often exagerate/lie/make silly mistakes or was she generally truthful/sensible/solid etc.) We can't tell at this distance, but to suppose that an adventurous 'Mary escaping from doom with a subsitute left to suffer her fate etc.' story could be reliably extracted from probable mistaken statements from Caroline M is, IMHO, pushing it a bit far.
We should remember that a whole load of crackpot statements from almost anyone were recorded by the police at the time. Most were rightly simply filed and/or forgotten because of the obvious flaws contained therein. If these statements were now to be given the same treatment as Caroline M's, where would we be now? Or is Caroline the culprit, spreading a smokescreen? Damn clever if so
Best regards
Bob. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 03:59 am | | Hi Bob,
John already made the point that Maxwell is almost held responsible, not only for lying or being mistaken, but for the more fanciful theories, which emanated from the fact that her testimony was not actually proved false, and was treated seriously enough that it was not simply filed and forgotten about.
While we should rightly condemn Mrs M, if she had any doubts that her story was true but, for selfish reasons, chose not to voice them, or stuck to a lie, unconcerned that she was obstructing the police enquiry into the deaths of all these women, I really think the crime of indulging in fanciful theory as a result (and I agree entirely that the one you suggest is 'pushing it a bit far'), cannot justly be laid at our shady lady's door.
I have no ripper theory which would be affected, whether Kelly died in the wee small hours, shortly after her drunken singing session; later that morning, when back indoors nursing a hangover; or peacefully and anonymously in her bed from old age. But, when I first read about Mrs M's story, it struck me as special, and worthy of further exploration. I'm glad I'm not alone.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 04:23 am | | Hi All
I do love the idea of that Mary Jane being spotted after she was suppossed to have died being called some kind of Victorian ufo. Perhaps these these letters should now stand for Unidentified "Fallen" Object.
Yet again we have another mystery that may never be solved. The only we it could be is if a piece of Kellys' "known" DNA was compared to what we know is lurking at the bottom of her grave. But I am not aware of anything else that could provide a DNA sample other than the body itself. Even if there was I'm sure it would be totally unethical to exhume a body that had been so terribley mutilated just so us lot can get a piece of mind.
Caz,
Sorry I mentioned the age, I just got carried away with myself. For the point I would like to say that if your old enough to be my mother then you would have been a child bride. I suppose I'm going to get blasted by other posters now for crawling and getting off the point.
Keep up all the good stuff kiddo's, I'll continue reading in interest.
Tris |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 04:24 am | | Dear Bob n' Caz,
Only two answers allowed :-)
Rosemary |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 06:58 am | | Regarding the evidence of Mrs Maxwell, I'm inclined to go along with Bob's theory. We don't know what kind of woman Caroline was, but most people who lived in Dorset St in 1888 were of the simplest nature and education. they could be lied to, or "led on" by people they thought were better than them, and I'm sure they could do their share of lying and fantasising, for whatever reason. They certainly weren't the same in their outlook and values as we on these boards. If Caroline said she saw Mary after she was dead, (in my view, and it's the most logical), she was mistaken,-- she was attention seeking,-- she was looking for a little reward from newspapers or police for her information,-- like Hutchinson was maybe doing, and even perhaps Mrs Long/Darrel. These three peoples suspect sightings didn't match, anything like, Lavende's suspect, and his sighting is the only one I can believe. He didn't seem to want to volunteer his evidence, it had to be squeezed out of him. My belief is, Caroline was trying to get involved in a horrible murder investigation, for whatever reason, and make it more wierd and talked about, with herself at the centre, she may have thought,- "there's no harm done, and I might be doing myself a bit of good. When once said, pride or fear of the authorities would prevent her from admitting to a hoax on her part. Either that or she was mistaken. People, even today do some very funny things to involve themselves in a murder investigation. A man was let out of detention last week, after 17 years. It turns out that he didn't kill the two women he was accused of murdering, and yet on the day their bodies were found, he rang up the police and admitted to the crime,-- it cost him 17years of his life, for a few weeks of limelight,--and the real killer is still free, and will remain so I suppose.
Rick |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 07:36 am | | Dear Rick,
After all is said and done, I think Caroline Maxwell did see Mary Jane Kelly. A case of misidentification, Rick?
Rosemary |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 08:33 am | | Hi Rick,
I don't really want to speculate on Maxwell's reasons for coming forward with her tale. If I could decide whose opinion to trust over a probable time of death for Kelly, things might be different. But if, for instance, it could be shown that Kelly couldn't have been killed shortly before her body was discovered (I do believe it was the woman Joe Barnett had lived with and knew as MJK), I'm not sure I'd be all that interested in why Maxwell was wrong.
One small point, though. Rewards are usually given for potentially useful information, aren't they? If Maxwell knew hers was, or could be, just plain wrong, when she first came forward with it, is a financial motive likely?
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 10:59 am | | Hi Rick,
I wanted to say that I have been enjoying your posts on a number of these boards lately.
I have written elsewhere, without speculating myself as to whether Mrs. Maxwell was lying, mistaken, or telling the truth, why I think it might be dangerous to too quickly decide about this woman's motives for her initially giving her account and then repeatedly sticking to her story. Remember also that her tale was first told to Abberline on the day of the murder, so there would not, when she first spoke of her conversation with Mary, have been any talk yet of anything like a reward just for her information as a witness. She was, at that point, merely one of a number of people interviewed and she did not know yet, presumably, what others had told Abberline or what the doctors had decided. I am not sure she could have known, at that particular time, her position against the grain with respect to any to-be-developed or received account of events. She would, of course, later be informed of it. And we do not know for sure whether she sought out the Inspector or whether she was approached by the authorities as part of the standard interviewing of those nearby. Abberline even had to add the time into her initial statement in a note alongside his transcription of her account and we do not even know if that was added while she was speaking to him or later. In the face of so much that is missing, I am not at all sure why we are bound to decide about Mrs. Maxwell's motives and intentions. Indeed, what I think I am trying to do, with some sort of precision, is to call attention to our need, our desire to decide and I guess I would like to ask specifically about the consequences of that desire not only for the legacy of Mrs. Maxwell, for the ways in which her name is allowed to resonate in history -- as a liar, as mistaken, as a gossip or as an isolated dissenter who knew at least her own truth -- but also for the way in which we write our narratives and the language we use when asserting our beliefs and our conclusions. It is the simplest of things to decide and then to allow that decision to write itself as a history. But it has effects and I think it is these sorts of decisions we might want to be cautious about making too easily, because I do believe we have a certain responsibility to what we don't know about the names in the past.
Having said that, I do not want to discount the possibility of the narrative of intention that you advance. It certainly remains as an interesting account of motives and events. But Bob writes,
"We should remember that if Maxwell lied or not, or was mistaken or not, does absolutely nothing to change the truth."
This, I think, might prove to be something of a problem. If we mean that it (the truth or not of Mrs. Maxwell's tale) does nothing to change what actually happened, then of course I agree. But if we mean that it does nothing to change what we continually decide, as those who write the history that gains currency as the truth, about what happens, then I do not think it is quite that simple. As we have seen above, what we decide about Mrs. Maxwell often does change what we decide about the truth. And in the business of writing histories as narratives, of course, what we decide to write about (or as) the truth often establishes itself, for a while at least, as the truth. Surely the histories of the study of this case are compelling evidence of that. This is why I would be cautious about suggesting that the effects of our decisions about such written reports as the three we have concerning Mrs. Maxwell have no bearing on the truth. Indeed, this is precisely how we construct our truths all the time, by reading and interpreting such records and reports. And the process is, I suspect, interminable, as history and its re-writing must be, if only in the name of vigilance.
I've only tried here to use the tales of Mrs. Maxwell and their written remainders to give evidence for the case for such constant caution and concern. Because what is slowly being revealed in all of this is not only a set of powerful if temporary, written truths that appear in books and films and on television and enter into the public consciousness, but also the effect of the stories we choose to write upon the memory of those about whom we write. And I am not at all sure that, in some sense, memory is finally not at least as devastating and as powerful as truth.
Paul Feldman, in his book, seems to take a certain pleasure in reminding us of the appropriateness of the Maybrick Family Motto:
Tempus Omnia Revelat
Time Reveals All
But it doesn't. It may reveal. But not all. Not when you are living in the world of, as one poet puts it, "the ghosts that sell memories." Or when you are living in the world of interpretations of images and the reading of documents. The "All" here, it seems to me, is as much written as revealed.
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 11:48 am | | Hi, John:
First, it was Shirley Harrison, in her original 1993 The Diary of Jack the Ripper, two years before Feldman's use of the Maybrick motto in his 1995 book, who first revealed that James Maybrick had applied for and been given a coat of arms with the Latin motto, Tempus Omnia Revelat or "Time Reveals All." If you monitor these boards, or look through the old posts, you will also see that it is a phrase that Shirley continues to be fond of using. 
I certainly agree with you that time does not always reveal all. In fact, in this infuriating case of the Whitechapel murders it appears that the more we know the more confusing it all gets! 
This has been a most interesting discussion. While I have tended up to this point to dismiss Caroline Maxwell as simply mistaken, we have to recognize that a sighting of around 8:30 a.m. would leave enough time for Mary Jane Kelly to return to 13 Miller's Court, presumably with the Ripper, be murdered, and for him to escape before Bowyer came calling for the rent. So Mrs. Maxwell could have been telling the truth. Her testimony is not necessarily at variance with the fact of MJK's body being discovered some two hours later, it is only at variance with the medical testimony, or rather opinion, that MJK died around 2:00 a.m.
Although some take Mrs. Maxwell's testimony and those of others to mean that MJK survived, this should not necessarily be the conclusion. Maxwell's testimony just implies that MJK was still alive at 8:30 a.m.
My big question though is, if MJK was up and walking around at 8:30 a.m., how did the Ripper escape in broad daylight? One thing that occurs to me is that if the partition from the rest of 26 Dorset Street was as thin as has been said, is there any way he could have escaped through the house rather than out of the front door of 13 Miller's Court? Has this possibility been investigated? Another possibility that might be pondered is that he could have hidden somewhere in the court during the hue and cry of later in the morning. Just another idea to think about. In any case, escape in broad daylight might be facilitated if he was a local man, e.g., Thomas Bowyer himself, McCarthy, Hutchinson, or Maxwell, or if he was a woman or a man dressed as a woman. One would think that a stranger, and particularly a "toff" coming out of the narrow, mean passageway of Miller's Court onto Dorset Street at 10:00 a.m. would have attracted the notice of many witnesses.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 12:16 pm | | Hi Chris,
Of course, you are right about the history of the motto and where I first saw it. I just happened to remember Paul using it to end, with a melodramatic flourish, Chapter 15 of his Final Solution book (251 in the paperback).
And by the way, I deny emphatically that my initials (J.O.) were ever engraved by me onto anything.
But a reading of the paragraphs in question in Paul's book does demonstrate rather too vividly how the language of revelation (and desire for revelation) can be used to disguise what is not much more than random speculation.
Here we can see the rhetoric of narratives in movement towards truth allowed to stand in as established conclusion and the naming of remaining questions allowed to simulate open attitudes; when, in fact, the questions are not really permitted or designed to remain as questions at all, but are posed in order to insinuate themselves as speculations and, possibly, truths that might be "revealed" by "Time."
"By now, everything seemed to be starting to make sense. The debate about the true provenance of the watch and diary had been answered. Both artifacts had been passed down through the 'family.' The truth had to be simple; it is. There are, however, questions that remain open.
Had Albert bought a gold watch from the jewellery shop, or a white one with black numbers? Perhaps he bought both, knowing that the gold one had been sold to the shop by his mother?
Is the J.O., engraved on the back of the watch, any connection to 'John Over.' brought to our attention by Florence Maybrick's extraordinary letter to her mother?
Was Emma Parker, nurse to James and Florence's children and later to become Mrs. John Over, lover to the master of the house and did she bear him any children?
We may never know the answers to these questions, but perhaps as James Maybrick's family motto states..."
And you know the rest.
I will allow the sliding of these questions and the implied conclusions constructed here to stand as evidence for what I have been saying about the way reading is too often done and for the importance of responsibility in the construction of "historical" conclusions or even implications.
This might be another lesson made available to us through a self-conscious re-reading of our reading of Mrs. Maxwell's tales.
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 02:50 pm | | Dear Caz, Rick, Chris, John,
Caroline Maxwell's sighting of Mary Kelly at about
8.30am IS explainable only on the grounds that Mary Kelly had been dead for at least 2 and a 1/2
hours.
In other words, "Caroline Maxwell saw 'Mary Kelly'"...at an unusual time...on a winter's morn.
Once we comprehend this miniscule mystery...we slay ten others!
Rosemary |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 03:56 pm | | Dear All,
Let me spell it out before Joseph eviscerates me.
Jack went to Millers Court and put Mary to bed. At about 2-3.00am he strangled her/cut her throat
while she lay on the bed.
Between the hours of about 3-6.00am Jack carried out his task. The tub beneath the bed was to prevent the seepage of blood either under the door
or into the next room, but mainly to stop slipping on it as he worked his way through the gore and stench in the flickering firelight.
Having completed his task at about 6-7.00am he prepared to leave the room.First, he undid his parcel of women's clothing and put them on a chair
Secondly, he took off his own outer garments and carefully burnt them after cleaning his shoes.
Thirdly, he put on Mary Kelly's clothing, a wig and bonnet...then smoked his pipe while the fire burned itself out...contemplating the scene.
Fourthly, when he saw Caroline Maxwell coming through the square, he unlocked the door then locked it behind him...and the rest is history.
Bravo. Encore.
Rosemary
Rosemary |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 04:01 pm | | Hi Rosemary:
Then how come Caroline Maxwell nor nobody else noticed that mustache on Mary Kelly's face?
Chris |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 04:06 pm | | Dear Chris, We only have the testiment of Caroline Maxwell and she did'nt mention any mustache :-)
Rosemary |
Author: R Court
Tuesday, 06 March 2001 - 04:52 pm | | Hi all,
Good (and a little bad) points all round IMHO. As we know, medical opinion at the time gave Mary's demise at about 2.0 am. Carolime M claimed to have seen her not only at 8.30 am, but about 30 minutes later 'from a distance'. That means Mary must have been strolling about at least at 9.00 a.m., if Caroline M. was telling the truth. We can assume, then, that she would have been in her room to get murdered after then, let's say 9.15 a.m.
Bowyer found her dead shortly before 11.00 a.m. Time enough for Jack to chop her up, but what a risk, in broad daylight with possible screams alerting anyone in the near. He must have needed some little time to do the job and escape, so either he was so reckless as to have the devil's luck, or he wasn't there at that time.
Now comes the difficult bit. If Mary was first killed at or after 9.15 a.m., rigour mortis could have set in at the very earliest at 3.15 p.m. and not already have set in at the latest at 2.00 p.m. as testified by Dr. Phillips.
The bit about a tranny Jack is amusing, but Mary is testified as being always bare-headed (W.Dew as example), Caroline claimed to have spoken with her (deep voice, disguise it. Hair, disguise it, masculine stance and form, disguise it, great hairy boots, etc.) Jack must have had a cupboard full of oscars, and had an operation...
About Maxwell and the truth, John writes that if we think of truth as being that which we can only decide upon then that is a problem. Of course, I meant the actual, occurred truth as John states, and not that which we might decide to consider as being a truth. Even the truth as we may decide to call it would, I submit, not be changed by her evidence, which is almost certainly wrong.
I hesitate to call Caroline M. a liar, though. She could have been mistaken, or driven to false statement by interrogation etc. as already stated. A question that I don't think has been answered anywhere, was Caroline Maxwell sober at the alleged sightings, or was she, as so many others, roaring drunk?
I am now going to get roaring drunk, because I have just won a few coppers on the lottery and don't have to work tomorrow, Proßt, Cheerio and Skol!-, to all on the board.
Best regards
Bob
..it's really time I gave out a few HWs... :-) |
|
|
|
|
