|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** 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 **
Your red scarf matches your eyes
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: General Discussion:
Your red scarf matches your eyes
Author: Susan Topa
Thursday, 24 May 2001 - 08:42 am |        | | Two out of five ripper victims were wearing neckerchiefs and one was brandished at Mary Kelly on the night she was murdered. Just something I noticed, having this odd fantasy that perhaps the Ripper targeted his victims by the neckerchiefs they were wearing or maybe even presented them with neckerchiefs as a sort of 'cut on the dotted line' gesture. Didn't Sickert have something about a red scarf in his story? |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Thursday, 24 May 2001 - 11:31 am | | Dear Susan -
Annie Chapman had a "handkerchief" around her neck (though its colour does not seem to have been recorded; testimony of Dr Phillips). Elizabeth Stride had on a "check silk scarf" (Dr Blackwell) or "coloured striped silk handkerchief" (Charles Preston; again, the exact shade seems not to have been mentioned) and George Hutchinson told of a man flourishing a red handkerchief in front of Mary Kelly (MEPO 3/140, ff. 230-232).
Catherine Eddowes also had a "white wrapper and a red silk handkerchief" around her neck (testimony of PC Hutt).
The Sickert story you are thinking of comes from his biographer, Marjorie Lilly, who noted that Sickert occasionally used a red scarf as a spur for his inspiration. It was an artist's prop, to put him in the proper "frame of mind" when painting such things as the "Camden Town Murders" series, and not part of the larger story his supposed "son," Joseph Gorman, told and tells about the Ripper murders.
But the larger question - and the one you seem to be leaning towards - is: Does it all mean anything? IMHO, I don't think so. It is possible the Ripper gave the nack wrappings out as tokens - assuming he did pre-select his victims - but impossible to prove, as there is no way of telling when each of the women acquired their adornment. We know at least that Stride had her neckerchief before she went out the night of September 30 (Preston), so if it were a gift from her killer, she must have met him and accepted something from him at some point earlier. Again, possible, but impossible to prove. Hutchinson. . .well, you would have to believe his story. Frankly, I don't.
And as well, I don't think that red neckerchiefs / handkerchiefs were as uncommon as we think them. Victorians were very fond of colour (having spent some time as a house-painter, you would be surprised at the garish tints our grandsires considered attractive), so they may simply have been an everyday item - and probably cheap as well. But perhaps someone who can speak more to 1888 clothing that I can make a more definitive statement.
Regards,
Christopher-Michael |
Author: Susan Topa
Thursday, 24 May 2001 - 02:16 pm | | Hello Christopher-Michael,
Thanks for the reply to my conjecture...very concise and logical. It's like so much about this case, there's not much we can prove about it. The facts are there and they don't seem to lead to any one person, so I suppose the tendency is to grasp at straws (or cachous) and to compare anything that might tie the victims together which led to my little fantasy. I would agree that neckerchiefs were probably a lot more commonplace than they are today, for warmth if for nothing else. I suppose these poor women were too hard up to be using a color code for the type of favors they were prepared to offer.
Sue |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 25 May 2001 - 04:24 am | | Hi Sue,
This from Mayhew (bearing in mind he was writing circa 1850):
'The costermonger, however, prides himself most of all upon his neckerchief and boots. Men, women, boys and girls, all have a passion for these articles. The man who does not wear his silk neckerchief - his "King's-man" as it is called - is known to be in desperate circumstances; the inference being that is has gone to supply the morning's stock-money. A yellow flower on a green ground, or a red and blue pattern, is at present greatly in vogue. The women wear their kerchiefs tucked-in under their gowns, and the men have theirs wrapped loosely round the neck, with the ends hanging over their waistcoats. Even if a costermonger has two or three silk hankerchiefs by him already, he seldom hesitates to buy another, when tempted with a bright showy pattern hanging from a Field-lane doorpost.'
'The general costume of the women or girls is a black velveteen or straw bonnet, with a few ribbons or flowers, and almost always a net cap fitting closely to the cheek. The silk "King's-man" covering their shoulders, is sometimes tucked into the neck of the printed cotton-gown, and sometimes the ends are brought down outside to the apron-strings.'
BTW, I caught quite a few references to 'moleskin' in this chapter on Dress of the costermongers, which reminded me of that odd line in the dreaded Maybrick Diary:
Christmas save the whores mole bonnett [sic]
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Friday, 25 May 2001 - 10:35 am | | Caz -
Of course! Thank you for the Mayhew quote, which I might have posted myself were I not spouting the above post off the top of my silly head. Liquid chocolate to you (pace the Diary board). In any event, Sue, I vaguely recall this discussion taking place sometime last year; it tends to come up whenever people new to the case believe they see patterns or unanswered lines of inquiry that have been missed by everyone else.
Not that there aren't such things - Yaz's current ponderings over Catherine Eddowes' apron is an example of just such. Something odd seems to be going on there, but it's hard to say just what. Perhaps the only constant in this case is that the more you learn, the more you realise how ignorant you are. Many's the time this board has made me feel like an utter tyro. . .
And now to work. Some of us do not have the holidays off and must continue to subsist in the same soul-destroying daily grind. :-)
As ever,
CMD |
Author: David Cohen Radka
Friday, 25 May 2001 - 05:47 pm | | Christopher-Milhous,
I agree concerning your last statement.
David |
Author: Susan Topa
Wednesday, 30 May 2001 - 07:53 am | | Thanks all for the discussion. I'm back from the long holiday weekend, refreshed and a bit wiser about the effects of absinthe on the common graphic artist. I think that you're right CMD, about the more you know about this, the less you do. Maybe that's why I get frustrated and lose interest on a regular basis. I always come back though, looking for those similarities..something to tie the murders together, some straw to grasp at...or a scarf.
Thanks Caz for the info from Mayhew. I shall go right out and purchase myself a green scarf with yellow michelmas daisies.
Sue |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 30 May 2001 - 10:26 am | | And very becoming you will look in it, I'm sure my dear. But will it match your daisy roots - boots? 
Love,
Caz |
|
|
|
|
