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** 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 12, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Specific Victims:
Catherine Eddowes:
The Goulston Street Graffito:
Archive through March 12, 2001
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 01:25 am |        | ED, you got the date of the Haymarket Bombing in
Chicago wrong. It was in 1886, not 1884, and one
of the four anarchists sentenced to death did
manage to kill himself with an explosive. The
anarchist (who probably was not the person who
threw the bomb - the trial of the anarchist was
manifestly biased) was Louis Lingg. He managed
to have a stick of dynamite smuggled to him,
which he put into his mouth and lit (Lingg did not
believe in dying at the behest of a capitalist
court). Actually, horribly mangled as he was, he
lived for six more hours while three doctors tried
to save him. He communicated by writing on paper
until the end. According to Paul Avrich, THE
HAYMARKET TRAGEDY (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1984), "That he [Lingg] wrote
in his blood "Long live anarchy!" as some writers
assert, is a legend." [P. 505] Lingg's suicide
was November 10, 1887.
Jeff |
Author: E Carter
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 04:32 am | | Jeff, thank's for correcting this mistake, I copied it directly from the book written by Colin Wilson and his brothers Damion and Rowan: 'famous murders' Robinson Publishing 1993, I wrote it down directly from the book without thinking, and he has the date wrong. The actual date was May 4th 1886, four were hung on November 11th: Spies, Engels, Parsons and fichser, Govenor Ogelsby commuted Michael and Shwabb's sentences to life in prison. However, other sources, including the internet state that 'Louise Lingg, the youngest and the only one to have possessed a bomb at any time, blew half his head of with a dynamite cap.
I read in (I think it was) the Readers Digest some time ago that the grafitti quickly became anarchist folklore. My point was that the text and the fact that it was supposed to have been written in blood would have been well-known to anarchists at the time of the Whitechapel murders. I will look into this further. Thank's ED. I intend to write a post later I will see if I can find any more. |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 10:09 am | | Hi Ed.
Sorry for not acknowledging your last two posts to me. I read them but had no real time to respond, involved in some other studies here.
The inquest reports I quote from are always what I have from London, copies of the originals. In that way I do not fall victim to the odd scribal error (I can rest assured, any errors are purely mine).
You lost me on the 'see page 158'...of what?, I was not aware of a book we were talking about, but I admit I have not been able to read every poste this last week.
Regards, Jon |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 10:41 am | | Hi Tom,
This is the second time I am composing this post. I had it nearly finished and then hit the back button on my browser as I was revising the preview and, when I tried to return, it had vanished. After leaping around the room a few times, I am back.
Please understand that I was in no way trying, in my earlier post, to argue one way or the other about whether it was "likely" that the Ripper wrote the graffiti. And I certainly don't believe I am settled into the camp that is, as you say, "discount[ing] the Ripper's involvement with the graffiti on gut feeling alone." But I am also *not* simply arguing for an open mind. I genuinely do believe that the sentence on the wall and its scene of writing *are* ambiguous, both because of its grammar and because of its erasure and variations in transcription. And this ambiguity seems to me built into the sentence and its history and does not go away simply because some sort of consensus is arrived at by readers or because those who study the words most thoroughly agree that certain readings are "not likely" and therefore can be dismissed. For instance, one of those meanings I was considering, that did not immediately seem to me simply "unlikely," (and I readily admit the possibility that this might have been simply because I had not considered it thoroughly enough and do not have enough experience with the case) was the one Rick advanced earlier when he suggested that,
"I can't see anything wrong with it myself. It was written on a Jewish occupied building, and it was likely written by Jewish person. If that was the case then this person was complaining about the Jewish Race of people being blamed for something they had not done,-ie, 'we haven't done anything,we are not to blame'."
As to the spelling error, I am not sure that every Jew in the community would not have spelled the word the way (whichever way) it was spelled on the wall, but I understand your point about what seems likely. You state clearly that "the two most likely scenarios for the graffiti are 1. The Ripper wrote it. 2. An anti-semite wrote it." If these are the only "two most likely scenarios," and if we have all, for whatever reason and because of whatever desire, decided to settle and agree upon this, then our task is made significantly easier (though still not clear or easy, since the ambiguity of this sentence as an anti-semitic insult or as a Ripper clue remains, of course). I suppose this limiting of the possibilities here through scholarly consensus is a good thing, if it is genuinely arrived at and as generally agreed upon as you say.
And I am truly not trying to be difficult here. I am still just considering readings and developing thoughts about all of this and trying to approach these words with care and some attention to specific details of interpretation, and I certainly cannot claim to have reached anything like the level of comfort apparently achieved by those you call "virtually all educated students on the case." If you tell me that "virtually all educated students on the case" have discarded these possibilities as simply unlikely, then I accept that.
Once again, however, my argument was not just in favor of an open mind. There were words written on this wall and words have meanings and in this case, in part because of a grammatical error, those meanings remain in doubt and this field of doubt does not change simply because we, or at least "virtually all educated students on the case," have decided that some of those meanings are less likely than others. Indeed there is a significant difference between saying that some sorts of things are "not likely" and saying other sorts of things are "not likely," as your delightful Queen Victoria example itself demonstrates.
Still, I apologize if the possibilities for interpretation that I suggested earlier have already been discarded by a consensus of learned scholars on the case or if they seemed so "unlikley" that those who study these things have agreed that they no longer need consideration.
In any case, I have not phrased this as clearly as I would have liked (or as clearly as I did the first time I wrote it -- this is inevitable I suppose). I hope I have at least managed to explain my position concerning the necessary reading problems I believe are built into the sentence and their complicated effects, which may in fact be unresolvable, more carefully; and I will try to be more responsible with my readings in the future.
--John |
Author: Jade
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 10:59 am | | Colin Wilson gets a lot of things wrong, in his and Doanld Seaman's book on serial killers he lists Sartre has a serial killer. Doh! (Or maybe I hust interpreted that way)
Just for the record the group ‘The People’s Will’ is Narodnaya Volya? And the name of the Jewish girl was Hessia Helfmann, I know its not the point your making Ed, but…
Interesting though your point made by the Daily Telegraph, although I would say the pogroms against the Jews was principally a propaganda machine, by the tsarist and Pobedonostsev’s reactionary regime ; a canaille of hate against the jews, after the assassination of Alexander 11. The second attempt after Alexander got out of his carriage (silly bugger) also killed the man who threw the bomb, Ivan Grinevitsky. Pobedonostsev stated that: ‘One third of Jews of Russia must die, one third emigrate, and one third assimilate.
Alexander 111’s regime was not directly responsible for the pogroms when compared to the ethnic cleansing by Hitler’s Nazism, although the Tsarist system did condone the pogroms and justified them as acts of patriotism. The revolutionaries made a big mistake if they thought the new Tsar would help the Jews, if this was their intention. It also gave license to throw in some new laws restricting Jews (‘The May laws’) in all manner of way. Jews however although there was one or two prominent in the Bolshevik party some twenty- six years later, were never really involved in subversive revolutionary activity. The Goulston Street graffiti should read: ‘The Jews are the race that will be blamed for everything'. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 01:47 pm | | Dear Jade & Ed,
Can't we just stick with "Jews" and leave "race"
out of it? I don't think they ever claimed to be a "race".
Rosemary |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 06:42 pm | | Dear Anybody,
Was the medium that was used to write the message on the wall, chalk? It appears from various accounts that it was something similar and easily erasable (no problem with spray-cans here).If it was chalk, Jack did'nt find it lying close to hand, he certainly brought it with him/on him, in his pocket...fingering it all the while, reassuring himself it had'nt been lost...together with the PIECE of apron -the BOND Of union/parts to the whole - linking it to the writing on that
BOND. Is it beyond the bonds of possibility that
we have here a FOUR-D teaser?
Rosie O'Bond, |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 08:54 pm | | Dear Anybody,
Which lead one to conclude that, by means of such 'linkages' (forensic, poetic, mimetic, atheletic), we are in all probability dealing with 'criminal genius', the rarest creature in creation.
His cunning, skill, audacity, display a self-knowledge which hold us enthralled and few will ever grasp.
Yet, the most extraordinary fact... of this most extraordinary fact we call "Jack the Ripper", is,
HE KNEW HE WOULD TRANSCEND HIS OWN TIME AND SPACE TO SPEAK DIRECTLY TO...US!
Rosemary O'Ryan |
Author: Tom Wescott
Saturday, 10 March 2001 - 10:02 pm | | John,
I understand your meaning. And while I was reading it a point came to mind that I wished to throw at you. Incidentally, it seems to be echoed a bit in Jaded's post that follows, and that is to note that the sentence uses the word 'men'. Of course, I am aware that we are supposed to use the masculine sense when speaking of a person whose sex is not defined, however I found it odd that this person, if it were someone other than the Ripper, who wished to either inflame the jews with an anti-semitic message, or empower them with support, chose to single out adult males as opposed to writing 'The Juwes will be blamed for nothing', or 'The Juwes are to blame'. However, if we were to look at it from the point of view that the Ripper wrote it, it would only make sense for him to specify adult males, as only adult male jews were being 'blamed' for his crimes. Also, he surely would have known he was at the Working MENS club when he killed Stride (assuming, as I believe, that he did). Now, I concede that it's possible someone else used the word 'men' and meant it to encompass all ages and sexes, and perhaps this person only wanted to inflame or support male jews, but once again it makes more sense, when considering the inclusion of this word, that the graffito was written by the Ripper.
You seemed to not agree with me that the general consensus is that the graffito was written by either the Ripper or an anti-semite as you made a point of mentioning that part of my post in your last message. To that I will just suggest that you read all the books on the Ripper and all the messages on this thread and see if you don't arrive at the same conclusion.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: E Carter
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 07:07 am | | | Jon and Jade. Jon that's O'K, I am at the records office this week I will clarify things, the following might interest you. Jade, yes he tends to, but the information concerning the pogroms came from Willian J Fishman, this is a good book, remember I suggested you get it. If you get onto the internet explorer, type in 'S.S Belgium, Hemun'. A ship passenger list should come up. Go to 'find on this page' and then type in, Hemun. Now read the grafitti back from the 'r' in 'are' down to the 'a' in 'that', now go up, and back, to the 't' in 'the' at the begining of line one and carry on in this fashion untill spelling Hemun, read this with care. Jon you will note C Hemun left Antwerp the year Feigenbaum arrived. Examine the details of his passage. Best Wishes and Love ED. PS Jade I went to Herts Uni,but as I mentioned before I left school at 15 with a 50 yards swimming cert. |
Author: Jade
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 07:42 am | | Hi Ed
I have just found the page. Last week I tried all manner of inputting the information in the 'search engine' but couldn't find anything relevant, I just cut and pasted yours in and it did work. Will get back to you thanks.
Love Jade |
Author: Jade
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 08:15 am | | Hi Tom
I do feel a bit jaded J
I think the use of the term 'Men' is a naturalism. I think it might pertain to 'race', but Feminism’s probably rare, it was a masculine world way back then.
Regards Jade |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:47 am | | Hi Tom,
This point you make about the graffito including the word "men" I do find an interesting one because it suggests that a choice was made (which it obviously was) and that there must be a reason for that choice (which there must be, even if that reason was not a clearly defined or even conscious one). Jade could be right, of course, that it is a naturalism, especially with regard to this particular issue (of the Jews and their scapegoating) and the Bibilical and tribal vocabularies often used in conjunction with it. Then again, I think your point about a Ripper thinking that adult males would be the ones to blame and this being indicated by the specifying of "men" in the sentence is also a provocative and sensible one. Indeed, the choice of the word, reviewed through the lens of reading the past, seems to hold both interpretations.
Near the end of your post, you write,
"You seemed to not agree with me that the general consensus is that the graffito was written by either the Ripper or an anti-semite as you made a point of mentioning that part of my post in your last message. To that I will just suggest that you read all the books on the Ripper and all the messages on this thread and see if you don't arrive at the same conclusion."
Honestly, I am not at all sure whether or not I agree with your evaluation of the "general consensus," or, indeed, whether there is any "general consensus" at all on this sentence and the limits of its accepted meanings. I've read a large number of the Ripper books (though certainly not all) and I have read every word on this thread, including all of the archives. I think, of course, that the books come much closer to some sort of consensus than this board-thread does. But I think these debates and new old readings keep arising both because new people continually arrive on the board and perhaps also because the consensus is not yet thoroughly "settled" -- nor should it be. I do find a voice to alternative readings, including ones that might not qualify as one of your two listed possibilities, in a book or two and certainly in a number of posts above. I've also read the contemporary accounts in the Casebook archives and the problems seem at least somewhat to remain there as well.
However, my point is, I guess, that even if a consensus had been firmly agreed upon and allowed to stand somehow as the "official" state of knowledge on the subject; that would not change the ambiguities built into the grammar and the erasure and the uncertainties of the scene of the writing of this sentence. A community of scholars can study and carefully read and finally interpret and agree upon what X means to the point of general consensus, even allowing the reading to become authoritative, but if X remains an utterance that has a degree of undecidability built into it (because of unclear grammar or lack of certain knowledge or evidence concerning the actual words or the scene of their writing), then that agreement doesn't make that undecidability disappear; it simply allows us not to have to deal with it any longer. This may be, as you suggest, a natural progression and a good thing, since it moves the field of study "forward." I'm not sure.
I do find your reading of the word "men" to be a useful one and I will continue to read and think about this more. Thank you, seriously, for your patience with me on this issue. I apologize if I have not always been as clear as I would have liked. It's something about this damn language, I suppose.
--John |
Author: Tom Wescott
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 10:46 am | | Jade,
It was a masculine world "way back then"? Take a look around you.
John,
Your point is well made and indeed received, at least by me.
Does anybody have anything else to offer this discussion about the graffito? My brain is about gone!
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 10:57 am | | Tom,
Er....I did......(cough).....once write some graffiti........(splatter and sneeze).......on a toilet wall once, does that help. What ? No? I'm only trying, sorry.
Mind you, it does help your old grey matter go once in a while around here does it not ?
Tris |
Author: Jade
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 02:11 pm | | Hi all
The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing
Is grammatically wrong, the correct grammar would be ‘anything’.
However:
The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing
Is grammatically correct despite its double negative:
Not very significant, but with the high levels of illiteracy, and non-English-speaking immigrants it may be an intentional mistake, but then again it might be slang, I probably heard on Eastenders’ ‘I aint done nuffink’.
Just a thought
Jade |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 02:22 pm | | Hi then Jade:
Are we then looking for a Juke? Maybe the Juke of Euston or the Jukes of Hazzard? 
It looks as if E. Carter is saying Jewish anarchists did the murders, am I right?
Chris |
Author: Jade
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 02:36 pm | | Hi Chris
LOL
I'm not sure yet, I am still a bit in the wilderness myself. I wouldn't go with a Jewish Anarchist theory though.
Jade |
Author: stephen stanley
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 02:41 pm | | Obviously down to the Kosher Nostra then....(sorry just couldn't resist it)
Steve S. |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 04:23 pm | | | Groan ! |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 04:40 pm | | There is also David's theory that the ' Juwes ' referred to are the Jews from the Working Men's club , and that they are to blame for Eddowes' death because they disturbed Jack while he was killing Liz Stride ( thus the graffiti refers to Diemschutz , Morris Eagle et al ). The implication is that because Jack was unable to mutilate Stride he had to take out his wrath on Eddowes , he had to kill again.
This may be so but the misspelling of ' Jews ' is surely an indication that the message has a deeper level of meaning IMHO.
If 'Juwes ' is deliberately misspelled to imply a lower level of education than the writer had , surely the message of the graffiti would have been expressed more clearly and more simply. And would that be the message that the Ripper would have wanted to have left for posterity ?
I think it is suggesting too great a level of coincidence that the Ripper dropped the apron next to the graffiti without being aware of it. Its possible each murder was committed by a different killer , but we dismiss this as being too great a coincidence ; similarly I believe we must dismiss the claim that the apron was dropped next to a puzling , seemingly cryptic piece of graffiti with no bearing on the case whatsoever and NOT written by the Ripper , as too much of a coincidence too ! |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 04:44 pm | | Hi Jade and Simon:
I must say that I have not really tuned into Edward Carter's theory. Maybe because I am not much of dancer, I can't stay with his "Take the graffito and take line three, and take three paces back, move to the right, then go to the left."
Hi, Ed:
If you are saying that the name of one of your anarchists, "C. Hemun" is hidden in the wording of the graffito, well, I am afraid you have already lost me, because hidden words is way beyond the message in blood-written-on-a-wall-by-an-anarchist. Political slogans are meant to convey something overtly not hide a covert, hidden meaning. Or am I misunderstanding what you are telling us?
Chris George |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 06:03 pm | | Hello Jade
this phrase,--The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing, or---- The Juwes are not The men That Will be Blamed for nothing. These two phrases I've taken from the AtoZ, the first one has a small- "the men",--- the second has a capital "The men". I don't know whether that should be noted, or make any difference come to that, I just thought I'd mention it. You say the correct term should be "anything" for the first phrase. But that would turn the phrase into a statement saying, The Jewes are not willing to be blamed for anything at all, right or wrong! Same goes for the second phrase too. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think the writer meant that, he/she meant critics should have a legitimate/reasonable wrongdoing in mind to blame them for, and state it! I'd also say I think the phrase would be correct if the writer had written, The Juwes are the men "who" will not be blamed for "nothing".
But who are we to criticize that writer of 1888, have you studied the graffiti of today? the phraseology, the foul language, the spelling?, and they are proud of it!!!
My Regards, Rick |
Author: Tom Wescott
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 06:54 pm | | Simonizer,
I believe I mentioned a few posts back the possibility that the graffiti was in reference to, or in retaliation of the Jewish Working Men's Club. Was that David's theory? It's a very good theory. So is the theory that the message was in response to all the newspaper coverage of the killer being a jew, ala the 'Dear Boss' letter (i.e. 'They say I'm a doctor now. Ha ha', and 'That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits'). I'm still waiting for a better theory than these two.
Jaded,
Your post above about grammar was very interesting. Good work.
Chris George,
Don't waste your time on Special Ed.
Rick,
I can't picture a woman of 1888 crouching in that doorway to leave graffiti. Sorry, just can't picture it. You are right about today's graffiti, though. Too bad spray paint doesn't come with spell check.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 06:57 pm | | Simon - have you ever been in a street lit by widely spaced gas lamps? You would have been unlikely to see a person standing still in the Goulston street doorway, let alone make out the graffito. If the nearest gas lamp had a broken mantle - (obviously several are likely to have done in impoverished Whitechapel) - then you wouldn't have been able to see an elephant! The first time I came up to London after a boyhood in Penzance - (albeit mostly electric lit) - I was astonished by streetlighting that meant I could see clearly the crowds on a pavement on the other side of a wide road. It felt to me like daylight vision. If the Ripper did write the graffito after killing Katherine Eddowes, he must have carried his own illumination with him.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 07:50 pm | | Martin, if the Ripper did the writing on the
street (yes, I know you don't believe he did)
in the daylight, or at daybreak the proceeding
day or the moning of the murder, would the sunlight have given him or the writer of the
graffito sufficient light to write by? Otherwise,
if it was written in late afternoon or evening,
would a match have been sufficient to illuminate
such a writing?
Jeff |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 08:33 pm | | Hi Jeff:
I defy you to try to provide yourself with sufficient light to write the graffito in a dark entranceway with a match in one hand and holding a piece of chalk in the other to write, on brickwork, five lines of writing "in a ‘a good schoolboy’s round hand’, the capital letters about three quarters of an inch high and the others in proportion." I would suggest that you would burn your fingers very quickly even if you could perform the balancing act of holding the light in one hand and trying to apply chalk to brick with the other. No, some other illumination must have been used. A candle or an oil lamp, perhaps? Or a bull's eye lantern, maybe?
Chris George |
Author: Diana
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:11 pm | | | It was also raining so if there was a moon it probably would have been obscured by clouds. However if JTR needed extra light to cut up Eddowes then he would have still had it when he got to Goulston Street. |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:38 pm | | ....enter the redoubtable (emphasis on 'doubt')...re-doubt-able, Sir Henry Smith.
"It was a bright moon-lit night, almost as light as day".
Regards, Jon
(Psst....did I ever tell you that Smith said the piece of apron was found 'folded up'?) |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:45 pm | | Dear Chris,
It is obvious that a match is insufficient. I
did not think about a lantern or a candle, because
anybody writing and holding those objects would
probably stir up the curiosity of the locals
(if he is just a graffiti writer, why does he
need any illumination - graffiti is not that
important). My reasoning might be faulty, but
a match, or a series of matches, would be less
noticeable.
Jeff |
Author: David M. Radka
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 10:35 pm | | ...tick...tick...tick...
David |
Author: Tom Wescott
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 11:48 pm | | Hello all,
Why does he need all this light? He'd be standing two inches from the graffito that he would be writing with WHITE chalk. Perhaps the lack of light would explain the simplicity of the message. The amount of light really doesn't matter in this circumstance.
Did I see someone ask if sunlight would have given him sufficient light to write by? Come on!
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 05:04 am | | The writing had probably been there since the previous evening, or earlier. By what I understand, it was written on the inside of the doorway, not the outside facing the street. Then it all depends on which way the constable approached the doorway on his round as to whether he would notice it, or the piece of apron. Despite the evidence of the two policemen, I have a feeling they could have been covering themselves, or they didn't notice those things the first time (2:00am---only when they were alerted by the murder in Mitre square did they start patroling more diligently.
Jon, yes I knew the apron piece was folded. The statement goes something like--"The scrap of rag looked like the killer had buffed his hands on it, then folded it and ran it up and down his knife blade a number of times. Folding also makes the rag smaller, doesn't it?
I have a query about Hutchinson's evidence. I've experienced gas lighting in my own town years ago,
it's an awful greenish yellow colour and takes colour out of everthing it illuminates,--like moonlight. Yet Hutchinson saw the well dressed gent pass to Mary a "red" handkerchief.
Tom, I don't think it was a woman either, but some may.
Rick |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 07:39 am | | Jeff -
Why do I have to speculate about these alternative times? I specifically postulated, 'If the Ripper did write the graffito after killing Katherine Eddowes...'
Good point about the colours, Rick. Hutchinson's testimony relates to this discussion, too, in that he said specifically he stood underneath the lamp: this was the only point at which he could have hoped to get a good view of the astrakhan-collared man's face.
NB, as well, the varying testimony about how light or dark Mitre square was that night - in general very dark, but there is some suggestion that KE was in the best lit corner. (Needed, presumably, to see her eyelids and the placing of the Vs on her cheeks).
Martin F |
Author: Matthew Brannigan
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 09:22 am | | Martin,
Perhaps our American cousins still associate the very idea of Victorian England with a sort of Nordic perma-darkness!
I have to say the question as to whether daylight would afford enough light to write the graffito did raise a wry smile.
With questions such as the one about light source in Mitre Square, can the matter be settled definitively perhaps by reference to contemporary records of where street lighting was placed? Knowing the thoroughness of your usual research, I would expect that you have looked down this avenue and found that no such records exist.
Jeff,
Speculating that the Ripper wrote the graffito at those times seems a long shot. I, as you, believe that the earnest policemen who said they had not seen the writing on earlier beats were at best mistaken, but putting forward a theory that requires belief that not only did those officers mislead the enquiry by failing to spot the graffito, but that the Ripper engraved it at an earlier time and then deliberately left Kate Eddowes apron by his words sometime later really does stretch credibility.
Matt |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 10:12 am | | Jeff,
There certainly is a general description somewhere of just where the (I think one) gas lamp was placed in the Square and how it illuminated the corner. But I did my work on this 16 years ago, and could not now tell you just where it is. Probably inquest testimony, howeverI'd guess.
Martin |
Author: Jade
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 11:49 am | | Hi Rick
Yes you are quite right, but these grammar checkers are funny things, it won’t move and pick up the error unless I correct the capitals, the capitalised words are being picked up as errors first. In normal rules of grammar I agree it would make the sentence a statement: that the Jews will not be blamed for anything. if you change the grammar to casual it accepts it fine I think it is just slang for ‘anything’. The capitalised words validate the entire sentence has a statement that the Jews will not be blamed for anything. (IMO).
Regards, Jade
Hi Tom
Thank you 'Doubting Thomas' ;-) |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 05:26 pm | | Martin , I remember when I went on holiday to Cornwall ( to Zennor ) that there were no street lights at all and the only TV to be found was in the pub , with a very poor reception ! And this was in 1991 !
There is a contemporary sketch map of Mitre Square printed in ' The Ripper and the Royals ' which shows three light sources near to the area : a gas wallamp at the entrance to the passage leading to Mitre Street , on the left hand side ; a gas streetlamp about 60ft away from the murderscene near the entrance to Kearley and Tonge ; and a gas wallamp in Church passage at the entrance to the square , about 70ft away from the crime scene. Thus the corner where Eddowes was found was very dark , but could apparently be seen into from the upper window of the policehouse.
A new type of brilliant white gaslighting was coming into use at this time but this would not be present in the East End ; rather it would have been the yellowish lighting that Rick describes , of very poor quality. Therefore its very possible that the Ripper had an extra light source availible to him , to complete his nefarious work.
A small lantern or a bullseye lamp would have been sufficient , something easy to turn off when he heard the footsteps of PC Harvey approaching maybe ? |
Author: Jon
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 08:19 pm | | Re. Mitre Sq.
One thing we tend to forget is that in our generation we live with artificial all day & night but in the East End in those days people likely could see much better in the dark, as they were more used to it than us today.
We find it hard to imagine a world without artificial light, although it did exist it was minimal compared to today.
'Jack the Ripper's corner' was stated to be the darkest in the square, but it was obviously light enough for him to mutilate her face.
Re. Goulston St.
On the 1873 Ordnance survey map #7.67. there appears to be a 'L.P.' (Lampost) in front of the adjacent building, next door, (to the right) to where the apron was found. From rough scaling it would appear that the frontage of these entrances was 20-25 ft wide and directly in front of the building, immediatly to the right (when stood facing the entrance) was a L.P., therefore this implies a rough distance of 20-25 ft away from the spot where the graffiti was written. Now, as we have no idea as to which side of the arch (right or left) the graffiti was scribbled then we cannot say if he had the benefit of this streetlamp or not.
If the graffiti was written on the right side of the arch he would be writing in a shadow, but if he scribbled it at the left side of the arch he had the light of the streetlamp over his shoulder.
This, assuming Jack wrote it......on that I have no opinion. Just here figuring the logistics.
Regards, Jon
(On the 1894 version an access way has been created through the buildings requiring the removal of the streetlamp, which was moved one building northwest (left), directly outside No.108-119. This must have been after 1888.
It would really help if someone could confirm house numbers here just so we are on the right tack) |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 08:29 pm | | If you spend some time outdoors in the dark, your eyes begin to accustom themselves, and you can make the most of even a very small amount of ambient light. The murderer's work in successfully ventrally removing uteri and other organs, usually in quite a bit of darkness, indicates that he probably had a strong genetic night vision capability as well. Additionally, he was able to succesfully cut Stride's throat in absulutely pitch-black conditions in Dutfield's alley--it was so dark there that Joseph Lave, who walked through five minutes before the murder, had to run his hand along the wall to be able to tell where he was. (On the other hand, the darkness in the alley may explain why he didn't mutilate Stride--he might not have figured on it when he attacked her, but then realized the futility of mutilating when he couldn't even see the results of his work, and left to find another prostitute.) Night vision varies with people--in my case, I've got good night vision, but poor dusk or twilight vision. At dusk I lose all sense of three-dimensionality in what I see, and really shouldn't drive. It all comes back, however, in the dark.
This is a genetic factor, and is caused by the shape of the rod and cone structures in the eyes. Perhaps if the police had multiple suspects, and they knew about rods and cones, they might have tried examining their suspects' eyes to see these shapes--the guilty one would likely have a telltale shape indicating night vision fitness.
So I agree with the consensus that writing the graffitus would be difficult, but I don't really think we need to go so far as to require him to have a light source. He could have tarried a few moments in the Wentworth alcove, where it would have been pitch dark, to accustom his eyes.
I think we need to imagine him as someone who had a good deal of confidence in his night vision, otherwise he wouldn't have undertaken his M.O. He might have pushed his rods and cones one step too far in Dutfield's alley, but then this would be the exception that proves the rule.
David |
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