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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 **
Long Liz and Dutfield's Yard
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Victims: Ripper Victims:
Long Liz and Dutfield's Yard
Author: Monty
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 08:11 am |        | Martin,
Thank you for presenting a laymans version. Im at work right now and it beckons.
Would it be ok if I get back to you on this tomorrow ??
Thanks again
Monty
 |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 08:19 am | | Sure, Monty. Naturally I don't guarantee that I'll be in a position to answer.
All the best,
MArtin F |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 10:19 am | | Hi, Martin:
I find it interesting that you think Anderson may have meant when he said "a clue" a physical clue and not just a witness sighting. This is what had occurred to me when I was formulating my answer to you, that by rights a witness sighting should be termed evidence or a clue, particularly in the case of Schwartz who witnessed one of the victims (Stride) being assaulted, or Lawende who saw a victim (Eddowes) within moments of her demise, close enough to be fairly certain that the man with her was the murderer.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 10:55 am | | Hi Chris,
Yes, exactly what I'd always felt, and felt that my ear for linguistic usage backed this. Maybe yours does too, as you too are an historian?
But I decided against putting it on the board with reference to the October report when I found that the OED doesn't offer a definition which meets the precise semantic force you and I suspect. In the case of any statements after 1891, however, (when Kosminsky went into the asylum) any statement by Anderson that "we had no clue" MUST refer to physical evidence, because he thought they'd gone beyond informational clues or principles of search pointing toward the conclusion to actually reaching the conclusion itself.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Timsta
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 10:02 pm | | Stewart, your knowledge of police procedures is invaluable. I find your argument of not re-doing already covered areas most plausible and have no real problems accepting it in the case of the Berner St area, at least.
However, are we to believe that the initial enquiries carried out after the Nichols murder extended as far west as Dunk St and Gt Garden St? Although obviously we don't know the eastern boundary of the search area, this looks like a lot of ground to cover. You obviously would have a much better idea than I of the resources required to cover such an area; would this not be greater than the resources likely to be allocated for what then was considered either a 'single event', or possibly connected at most to the Tabram murder and, perhaps, the assault on Smith?
I also find it intriguing that the area between Whitechapel High St and Commercial Rd was excluded, especially in view of the fact that two witnesses place Stride coming out of the Bricklayer's Arms in Settles St at 11pm. (BTW I cannot find the source for the oft-quoted Gardner and Best witness statements; the Evening News of 4th Oct perhaps?) Do you think this area may have been covered as part of the Berner St investigation?
I concur with your your reading of "& with a few exceptions" as indicative of an attempt to 'hide' specific enquiries within the larger 'dragnet'.
Alex, wonderful news about your site. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the transcripts. Given the 17th October date of the report you cite, are we to take this to imply that the house to house search started on the 16th/17th? Getting the start date of the search would seem to be very important in understanding Anderson's comments below.
How do you read the phrases "A House to House Search Among the Jews" and "amongst the Jews at the East-end"? Do you think this might be equivalent to "down in the Jewish Quarter"? Do we really think that the police were confining the search to Jewish households and lodgers? ("What is your name?" "Macduff." "Any Jews in the house?" "No." "Thank you for your time, Sir.")
If this was indeed the case, and we are not simply reading too much specificity into the Star's report, it appears that the police were concentrating on a Jewish suspect from the outset of the broader search.
Martin, re: 'a generalised suspicion crystallising', if I may quote Anderson in Blackwood's again:
"During my absence abroad [Sugden states he returns to London on or soon after 5 Oct] the Police had made a house-to-house search for him [pace Stewart's commentary, this very much does seem to refer to the Berner St investigation] ... [a]nd the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews..."
If the larger enquiries commenced sometime around the 16th/17th, as evidenced by the Star report, and Anderson (writing 22 years later, let us not forget) genuinely was referring specifically to the Berner St enquiries, and the specific mention of the Jews in the Star report is being read accurately, might this imply that something discovered during the Berner St investigation was responsible for confining the later enquiries to Jewish persons? And perhaps also responsible for the boundary of the search?
Anderson's pipe reference is from the Daily Chronicle of 1 Sept 1908. He does indeed say "In two cases of that terrible series there were distinct clues destroyed, wiped out absolutely - clues that may have very easily secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe...In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue - handwriting that might have been at once recognised as belonging to a certain individual." [my emphasis]
I would venture that given his use of the word "proof", he is using the word "clue" in the sense of physical evidence. The modern usage for the other sense would doubtless be "lead" but I don't know if that was in common parlance at the time; I can't find an earliest citation for that sense of the word. Of course, he may be using the word in a different sense in his 23rd October 1888 report.
And of course, like others, I find the phrases "a certain individual" and "at once" most interesting.
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Timsta
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 10:19 pm | | In the interests of not providing misleading half-quotes, I should add the remainder of Anderson's Blackwood's sentence above:
"[a]nd the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were low-class Jews, for it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice."
Perhaps he surmised that, because of reported Jewish non-cooperation with the police in the Berner St enquiries, that somehow JtR had to be Jewish? (Because if he were a Gentile, he would have been "grassed up" by someone?)
Dammit, Anderson's rampant anti-Semitism continually clouds the issue, I feel.
While we're still on the subject (sorry for banging on about this relentlessly, but I feel there's some value in trying to get to the bottom of this), who was likely to actually have been responsible for delineating the parameters of the search(es)? Swanson? Abberline?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Timsta
Monday, 01 July 2002 - 11:29 pm | | Stewart, perhaps you could clarify another point for me. In your post, you state that "We also know that one of the objects ... was to list all those persons living in the area who fitted the requirements for a suspect... It is probable that the special notebooks contained all the names of occupants fitting the suspect requirements and that amongst them would almost certainly be Kosminski."
The only addresses I have seen linked to (Aaron) Kosminski are Sion Square and Greenfield St, both of which lie outside the search boundary. Do you therefore believe Kosminski to have been one of the "few exceptions"?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 03:13 am | | I don't believe that any area was deliberately missed out from the house to house enquiries. We know that pretty extensive enquiries were made after the Nichols murder (which was the first to become sensationalised in the press) and I am sure that the area surrounding Buck's Row would have been checked, certainly as far west as Dunk Street, which physically is not very far. Similarly the area between Commercial Road and Whitechapel Road would not have been omitted, it is immediately north of Berner Street. I have no idea how many officers would have been committed to these enquiries in Victorian days, but a small team could have carried them out.
Such enquiries would have included all households, not merely Jews, albeit there was a large local Jewish population. It is a nonsense to suggest that the police were concentrating on only Jewish suspects and the lie is given to this by the fact that Swanson's report on the Berner Street enquiries lists many types of suspects including Greek gipsies and cowboys. However, we do know that this was a period when a certain bias for a Jewish suspect existed as a result of the 'Leather Apron' scare, and the shout of 'Lipski' heard by Schwartz. If the police had restricted their enquiries to Jewish households only, omitting the non-Jewish ones, this in itself would have been very obvious and would have caused an anti-Semitic outcry or an accusation of police racism, something we know that Warren was at pains to avoid. We must also bear in mind that on 13 October 1888 Warren wrote, "...the last murders were obviously done by some one desiring to bring discredit on the Jews and Socialists or Jewish Socialists."
In deciding on a more extensive area of house to house search a letter from Sir J. Whittaker Ellis to the Home Secretary on 3 October 1888 seems to have played a part. "Draw a cordon of half a mile round the centre & search every house", he suggested, "This would certainly unearth him." [the murderer] This letter was passed to Warren who then discussed the possibility, stating some reservations he had, calling it 'an illegal action.'
The Home Secretary's conclusion was that it would be more practical to, "...take all houses in a given area which appear suspicious upon the best inquiry your detectives can make. Search all those, which the owners or persons in charge will allow you to search. Where leave is refused, apply to a magistrate for a search warrant, on the ground that it is probable or possible the murderer may be there. If search warrants are refused, you can only keep the houses under observation..."
To specify the meaning of the word 'clue', used by Anderson, to suit a preferred suspect is stretching the imagination a little too far. A clue is a clue, whether it is of a physical nature or supplied by way of the verbal evidence of a witness. There is no reason to suppose, from the official records, that the house to house enquiries threw up a specific suspect. Indeed the contrary is indicated. The police report of 25 October 1888, to the Home Office, concluded, "I do not think there is any reason whatever for supposing that murderer of Whitechapel is one of the ordinary denizens of that place."
It is amazing how Anderson's later writings are retrospectively applied to the official reports of 1888 and used to qualify or interpret them differently from the obvious meaning intended. The argument thus, again devolves to Anderson and his odd quotes.
To answer the final question about delineating the parameters of the search area, I am sure this would have been decided in discussion by the senior investigating officers, mainly Swanson and Abberline, with reference to enquiries that had already been made.
That the true identity of the murderer was still a complete mystery in July 1889 is proved by the words of the Commissioner, James Monro, on the day of the McKenzie murder:-
"I need not say that every effort will be made by the Police to discover the murderer, who, I am inclined to believe is identical with the notorious 'Jack the Ripper' of last year.
It will be seen that in spite of ample Police precautions and vigilance the assassin has again succeeded in committing a murder and getting off without leaving the slightest clue to his identity."
Of course, that the murderer was still undetected in February 1891 is proved by the fact that the police treated Sadler, arrested on 14 February 1891, as a viable Ripper suspect and checked out his sailing dates against those of the murders in 1888. Anderson's own words on 13 February 1891 tend to confirm this lack of knowledge as to the identity of the Ripper:-
"The officers engaged in investigating the former Whitechapel murders were early on the spot, & every effort is making to trace the criminal. But as in former cases he left nothing, & carried away nothing in the nature of property, to afford a clew.
RA 13/2/1"
Followed by:-
"As in former cases I wish to have a report each morning for the present.
RA
13/2"
Anderson apparently thought that the Ripper might be at work again. |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 06:26 am | | Hi Timsta!
In re Best and Gardner: like all other serious authors and researchers, I curse the printing costs economies which have destroyed proper, sensible footnotes on the page documenting everything. The compromise I had to make in "Crimes, Detection and Death" (where I think the quotation was first thrown into the Ripperdata maelstrom) is completely inadequate, just listing papers and dates for each chapter without showing which number refers to which point. They don't include 'The Star'. The papers listed are: (i) East London Advertiser,(ii) East London Observer, (iii) Echo, (iv) Evening News, (v) Illustrated Police News, (vi) Jewish Chronicle,(vii) Morning Post,(viii) Pall Mall Gazette, (ix) Reynolds News, and (x)[London] Times.
The dates cited are (i) 15, 22 Sep. 3, 6 Oct.
(ii) 15 Sep
(iii) 24 Sep.15 Nov.
(iv) 1,4,10, 17, 31 Oct
(v) 13 Oct
(vi) 14 Sep. 5, 12 Oct.
(vii) 1, 6 Oct
(viii) 6, 8 Oct
(ix) 7 Oct
(x) 1,2,3,4,6,15,16,18,19,24,25 Oct.
The quotation should be in one of those - but might not be: this way of documenting is so much less reliable than proper footnotes that I was shocked to find I hadn't documented in the Chapman chapter the very important newspaper interview in which Abberline confessed to not knowing her posthumous injuries: it took Keith to trace the reference some years later.
Hoping it helps,
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 09:28 am | | On this point about the house-to-house search and the resulting conclusion that the murderer was a Jew, Anderson at no time says or allows us to infer that the house-to-house itself indicated any specific individual at that time or at any time thereafter. He appears to be very specific about what caused the suspicion to fall upon the low-class Polish Jews, namely that: ‘it is a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice.’
What Anderson says is that the police created a profile – hardly up to F.B.I. standards - that (a) the murderer was ‘a sexual maniac’ who (b) lived ‘in the immediate vicinity’ of the murders, and who (c) either lived alone or with people who knew of his guilt and refused to hand him over to justice. He then says apropos of (c) that the house-to-house indicated that the murderer and his people were Polish Jews because they didn’t surrender their own to the police.
In other words, the only reason they suspected an immigrant Jew was because they thought the murderer was probably being 'protected' by his family and because immigrant Jews didn't surrender their own to the police
And quite frankly, given that the police in their own country had been their persecutors, the immigrant Jews probably thought that cooperation was a good way to bring indiscriminate reprisals down on their heads. Not 'getting involved' would probably have seemed a wise move. However, Anderson's view was not unique to him. The unwillingness of the immigrant to community to give information to or, indeed, have any dealings with the police, even when they were the victims, is echoed by Frederick Porter Wensley, who said the immigrant’s ‘were even more loath than Britishers to call for help, or give information to the police.’
And I believe the Best and Gardner comments come from the Evening News, 1 October 1888.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 11:25 am | | Paul,
Anderson may well have drawn his conclusion in the manner you describe. However, it certainly was not a general conclusion drawn by the police as a whole, as witness the statements of other senior police officers who simply did not agree with him.
Whether he was right or not to describe the Jews as people who would not surrender their own to the police is arguable. The Jewish response in 1910 indicated this, and, of course, there were non-Jewish elements of the community who loathed the police, did not trust them and would also never surrender 'one of their own' to the police.
Anderson stated that one of the aims of the house-to-house search was to "investigate the case of every man in the district whose circumstances were such that he could go and come and get rid of his blood-stains in secret". There must have been a great many individuals who matched this criteria, and their names would certainly have been listed by the police. If the Polish Jew suspect Kosminski was living in the district at the time he was probably listed as meeting this requirement. When when his name later, in some way, came to light as a suspect (which it obviously did as he is in Macnaghten's 1894 report) Anderson would have taken his presence on the list as some sort of further confirmation that he was the guilty party.
But I agree with you, there is no indication whatsoever that any specific individual was indicated in the house-to-house enquiries, either in 1888 or later.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 02:17 pm | | Stewart,
Do we have any data on other police officers' thoughts about the conclusions to be drawn from the house-to-house at the time Anderson says they reached them - i.e. on receipt of the notebooks? They might have changed their opinions at any time thereafter and for any number of reasons, and I immediately concede that Anderson was almost, if not quite, alone among senior officers who left direct statements in holding that the original conclusion proved an excellent prediction which was upheld by a definite solution. But I don't know of any evidence to the effect that those who surveyed the totality of the enquiry differed from the conclusion Anderson says they all reached at the time they made the examination.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 03:28 pm | | Martin,
We have no record of any conclusion being drawn by the police as a result of the house to house enquiries.
Anderson himself wrote on 23 October 1888, after the conclusion of the enquiries:
"That a crime of this kind should have been committed without any clue being supplied by the criminal, is unusual, but that five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary, if not unique, in the annals of crime. The result has been to necessitate our giving attention to innumerable suggestions, such as would in any ordinary case be dismissed unnoticed, and no hint of any kind, which was not obviously absurd, has been neglected. Moreover, the activity of the Police has been to a considerable extent wasted through the exigencies of sensational journalism, and the action of unprincipled persons, who, from various motives, have endeavoured to mislead us. But on the other hand the public generally and especially the inhabitants of the East End have shown a marked desire to assist in every way even at some sacrifice the themselves, as for example in permitting their houses to be searched as mentioned at page 10 of the last report."
This last comment about the house to house enquiries is quite the opposite to any suggestion that the inhabitants were shielding anyone from the police or holding back information.
And to repeat, Sir Charles Warren stated on 24 October 1888:
"Very numerous and searching enquiries have been made in all directions, and with regard to all kinds of suggestions which have been made: these have had no tangible result so far as regards the Whitechapel Murders, but information has been obtained which no doubt will be useful in future in detecting cases of crime."
I'm sorry, but these unequivocal statements by the two most senior officers involved lend no other interpretation than that the result of the house to house enquiries was negative.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Timsta
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 08:27 pm | | Anderson, 23 October 1888:
"...the inhabitants of the East End have shown a marked desire to assist in every way..."
Anderson, 1 September 1908:
"...it is a remarkable fact that people of that class [low-class Jews] in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile justice."
Without attempting to draw any inferences therefrom (I'll save that for another of my tedious posts), I still cannot work out how to reconcile these two statements.
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Timsta
Tuesday, 02 July 2002 - 08:59 pm | | Gosh, sorry, but the questions just keep on coming.
When Warren writes on 13 October 1888, "...the last murders were obviously done by some one desiring to bring discredit on the Jews and Socialists or Jewish Socialists.", does this imply that he believed the Goulston St graffito/i to be linked to the murderer? Or is he simply referring to the environs of the murder sites (IWMEC and Imperial Club)?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 03 July 2002 - 05:00 am | | Hi Timsta and Stewart,
I think Timsta's second posting, noting the Warren statement of 13 October with a definite conclusion of a kind contained in it, and contrasting with Warren's statement ten days later that the enquiries had 'no tangible results' indicates the confused state of mind of the officers at the top. They hadn't a clue - (and I assume Stewart has noted that, without prompting from me, Chris George feels what I have always felt - that the word is most likely used with the connotation of a definite piece of physical evidence) - and lacking such direction they came to various tentative conclusions. Warren's odd one, (not as far as we know shared by ayone else) was that the Berner Street murder by its location (and possibly the Goulston Street graffito) pointed to somebody maliciously aiming to discredit Jews or socialists. Had it subsequently been proved to his satisfaction that the Ripper was Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the notorious anti-Semite and proto-Fascist, Warren might well have said, "And my conclusion proved exactly right." Had he remembered other people giving nodded agreement at the time he might have called it "our conclusion".
Nothing in Anderson's writing would lead me to imagine that he wrote "the conclusion we arrived at" in order to share credit with colleagues who hadn't really earned it: he was always much more likely to seize the credit he felt he deserved for himself. But equally, Timsta, nothing in Anderson's character and personality as shown in his writings suggests that he would fabricate a conclusion that never took place, or fall into the geriatric self-delusion that he had "always suspected it would be somebody like that". We may take it as certain that at the very least, at some point Anderson or somebody in his presence remarked something to the effect of, "So it looks as though one of those Polish Jews is hiding him out as they always do," and the others present nodded or agreed. (It may be worth noting that when I first contacted him during my researches, Richard Whittington-Egan remarked enthusiastically that he had always thought it was likely that one of the sussy East End immigrants could have been be the Ripper, and you may note in his "Casebook" that he treats Anderson's statements with a respect quite unusual for the time.)
Anderson may have exaggerated the strength of the conclusion. (Conversely, he may have cautiously minimized it to the point of excision when putting in writing what were only deductions from no direct evidence on 23rd October). The consecutive days on which Warren and Anderson wrote their denials of having any sense of direction certainly establish that on 23rd and 24th October the top brass were agreed that they didn't know where they were going. This had apparently not been so in Warren's case on 13th, and either before or after 23-24th October, it was not so in Anderson's case, either.
That the inhabitants of the East End in general had made heroic efforts to help the police at the expense of their own privacy in no way need eliminate the counter-proposition that immigrant Jews with memories of the Czarist Police would never hand over one of their number to authority. (Actually events a few years ago among one of the Hassidic communities in London show that the deep wish to keep the dirty linen within the home has not died, and anybody who calls in the authorities to report child abuse may find himself victimized). It isn't difficult to believe two contradictory things at once and vociferate them both very decisively at different times. I would suggest it is commonplace, and produces a great deal of the inconsistency which is often wrongly attacked as hypocrisy. (As when most passionate opponents of abortion have no objection to terminating human life by war or capital punishment, and conversely many pacifists and anti-hangers have no hesitation in approving abortion - and both groups insist that they are motivated by respect for the sancitity of human life).
So I, personally, would beware of taking one of two contradictory quotations from the same individual as proof that the other is invalid. And even if there were (as there isn't in this case) cogent external evidence to prove that one or other of the statements was definitely true and the other untrue, I should still be looking to a detailed study of the individual's character to reach my own conclusion as to why he made the false statement.
I normally find a "rush to judgement" to dismiss Anderson's uncomfortable statements is accompanied by, at best, some selective snippets from his writings or other people's comments on him, all intended to "prove" that he was unreliable. It is this which Paul Begg and I are constantly fighting. We still stand by our original and independent research into the characters, reliability, and positions with relation to information, of all the contemporary figures. We still find that the correctives and rebalancings required by other people's work have not gone the distance of making any other contemporary source except Swanson self-evidently as important as Anderson, and in the nearest case, Littlechild, we really need more evidence on which to base any opinion of him to weigh against Anderson. We are not, as some people imagine, so besotted with the argument that Kosminsky or Cohen was the Ripper to the extent that we will defend Anderson at all costs. We are in clear personal disagreement about how to interpret Anderson's statements, and as to whether to give priority to his or Swanson's remarks. We differ as to how to interpret the defnite statements by Swanson that contradict positively established facts. And this has led people to claim that we must be all at sea because we can't be unanimous after 15 years. But we admit these differences, and still point to the fact that, probably knowing more about Anderson's weaknesses than anyone else who has studied him, we still say that his statements to the effect that the Ripper's identity was known must be given the highest historical importance, and attempts to push them aside without extremely careful examination of the whole background are not helping our overriding cause - the pursuit of truth.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Monty
Wednesday, 03 July 2002 - 07:37 am | | Timsta, Martin and Stewart,
STOP
I could read this all day. The input is fascinating, thank you.
CARRY ON
Monty
|
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 03 July 2002 - 08:33 am | | Hi Timsta,
The two statements relate to different things:- bing reluctant to hand one of your immediate family over to the police on suspicion of having committed a crime is an entirely different thing from being generally reluctant to help the police with their inquiries. Or to put it another way, you might willingly assist the police in every way possible until such time as one of your own was suspected.
And I agree that 'clues' meant something tangible rather than, say, witnesses. When Anderson wrote his report it is clear from other documents that they had witnesses, they had the apron, they had the graffito... so when Anderson said they had no clues, he either intended a clue to embrace those things and was therefore lying or he didn't and wasn't. |
Author: Robeer
Wednesday, 03 July 2002 - 08:38 am | | Martin,
Well said.
Robeer |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 03 July 2002 - 12:35 pm | | Timster,
I just came across the following. I don't know if it's still of interest to you but here it is.
The Evening News, 1 October 1888
INTERVIEW WITH MEN WHO SAW THE WOMAN
At the mortuary our reporter saw three men who had their suspicions raised on Saturday night by the conduct of a man and a woman in Settles-street, Commercial Road.
J. Best, 82 Lower Chapman-street, said: I was in the Bricklayer’s Arms, Settles Street, about two hundred yards from the scene of the murder on Saturday night, shortly before eleven, and saw a man and a woman in the doorway. They had been served in the public house, and went out when me and my friends came in. It was raining very fast, and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging her and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on with the woman, who was poorly dressed. We “chipped” him, but he paid no attention. As he stood in the doorway he always threw sidelong glances into the bar, but would look nobody in the face. I said to him ”Why don’t you bring the woman in and treat her?” but he made no answer. If he had been a straight fellow he would have told us to mind our own business, or he would have gone away. I was so certain there was something up that I would have charged him if I could have seen a policeman. When the man could not stand the chaffing any longer he and the woman went off like a shot soon after eleven.
I have been to the mortuary, and I am almost certain the woman there is the one we saw at the Bricklayer’s Arms. She is the same slight woman, and seems the same height. The face looks the same, but a little paler, and the bridge of the nose does not look so prominent.
THE MAN
The man was about 5ft 5ins in height. He was well-dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes. I should know the man againamongst a hundred. He had a thick black moustache and no beard. He wore a black billycock hat, raher tall, and he had on a collar. I don’t know the colour of his tie. I said to the woman “that’s Leather Apron getting round you.” The man was no foreigner; he was English right enough.’
John Gardner, labourer, 11, Chapman-street, Corroborated all that Best said respecting the cnduct of the man and the woman at the Bricklayer’s Arms, adding “before I got to the mortuaryto-day (Sunday) I told you the woman had a flower in her jacket, and that she had a short jacket. Well, I have been to the mortuary and there she was with the dahlias on the right side of her jacket.
I COULD SWEAR
she was the woman I saw in the Bricklayer’s Arms and she has the same smile on her face now that she had then.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Robeer
Saturday, 06 July 2002 - 10:25 am | | Paul,
Here is an interesting variation on the discovery of the Berner Street murder from The Weekly Herald, 5 Oct 1888:
Quote:THE BERNER STREET MURDER.
The scene of the second murder is Berner Street, Commercial Road on the St George's-in-the-East side and within about two hundred yards of Buck's Row or Hanbury Street, where the last two murders took place. About five minutes to one o'clock on Sunday morning a youth, about twenty years of age, named Joseph Koster, was accosted by a little boy, who came running up to him as he was passing, on the opposite side, 40 Berner Street, used by the International Socialist Club, and told him that a woman was lying in the gateway next to the club with her throat cut. Koster immediately ran across the road, and saw a woman lying on her side in the gateway leading into Dutfield's stabling and van premises. The gate, which is a large wooden one, was partly opened, and the woman was lying partly in the street. He immediately rouses the neighbours, and, by the aid of a candle, it was seen that the woman's throat was cut open very nearly from one ear to another, and her lips were drawn up as if she had suffered sharp pain. She was dressed in black, and appeared to be in mourning. She wore a black bonnet, elastic-sided boots, and dark stockings. In her breast was a small bouquet of flowers, and in her left hand she held a small packet of scented cachous. Constable Lamb, 252 East Division, soon afterwards appeared, and, with the assistance of two other constables, had the body, which was quite warm when found, removed to 40 Berner Street, where it was placed in a back room. To all appearances the woman seems to have been treated like the former victims, carried out and laid openly in the street. The case, in fact, resembles in many points the Bucks Row tragedy.
What do you make of this?
Robeer |
Author: graziano
Saturday, 06 July 2002 - 10:30 am | | | Toilet paper. |
Author: Robeer
Saturday, 06 July 2002 - 09:06 pm | | Times (London)
Monday, 1 October 1888
Quote:MORE MURDERS AT THE EAST-END.
In the early hours of yesterday morning two more horrible murders were committed in the East-end of London, the victim in both cases belonging, it is believed, to the same unfortunate class. No doubt seems to be entertained by the police that these terrible crimes were the work of the same fiendish hands which committed the outrages which had already made Whitechapel so painfully notorious. The scenes of the two murders just brought to light are within a quarter of an hour's walk of each other, the earlier-discovered crime having been committed in a yard in Berner street, a low thoroughfare out of the Commercial-road, while the second outrage was perpetrated within the city boundary, in Mitre-square, Aldgate. In the first mentioned case the body was found in a gateway leading to a factory, and although the murder, compared with the other, may be regarded as of an almost ordinary character - the unfortunate woman only having her throat cut - little doubt is felt, from the position of the corpse, that the assassin had intended to mutilate it. He seems, however, to have been interrupted by the arrival of a cart, which drew up close to the spot, and it is believed to be possible that he may have escaped behind this vehicle. Conflicting statements are made as to the way in which the body was found, but according to one account a lad first made the discovery and gave information to a man named Costa, who proceeded to the spot, where almost immediately afterwards a constable arrived. The body was then removed to No. 40, Berner-street, which is very near to the now notorious Hanbury-street. These premises are occupied by the International Workmen's Club.
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Author: Robeer
Sunday, 07 July 2002 - 02:52 am | | Times (London)
2 October 1888
Quote:Louis Diemschütz deposed that he lived at 40, Berner-street, and was steward of the club. The correct title of the club was International Working Men's Educational Club...........Witness had with him a costermonger's barrow, and it was drawn by a pony. The pony was not kept in the yard of the club, but in George-yard, Cable-street. He drove home for the purpose of leaving his goods. He drove into the yard, and saw that both gates were wide open. It was rather dark there. He drove in as usual, and as he entered the gate his pony shied to the left. Witness looked to the ground on his right, and then saw something lying there, but was unable to distinguish what it was. Witness tried to feel the object with his whip before he got down. He then jumped down and struck a match. It was rather windy, but he was able to get a light sufficient to tell it was a woman lying there..........He did not touch the body, but at once went off for the police. He passed several streets without seeing a policeman, and returned without one, although he called out "Police" as loud as he could. A young man whom he had met in Grove-street and told about the murder, returned with him. This young man lifted the woman's head up, and witness for the first time saw that her throat was cut. At the same moment the last witness and the constables arrived.
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Author: graziano
Sunday, 07 July 2002 - 04:15 am | | The young man spoken by Diemschutz/Dienschitz or something like was Edward Spooner who gave testimony at the inquest.
The first two statements refer very imprecisely to the discovery of the body by the same Diemschutz/Dienschitz or something like, his entering the Club and his coming back on the spot with Isaac Kozebrodzky, improperly called here Koster/Costa.
The Central News Agency dispatched reports that were used (totally or just in part) by various newspapers.
If the CNA made a mistake in its report you could find thus the same mistake in different newspapers, which were not corroborating eachother but just spreading the same misleading statement.
A virus well known and carried on through the years by Ripperology.
Good Bye. Graziano. |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 07 July 2002 - 07:31 am | | Hi Robeer,
Excellent! That report had escaped me, although I've always known of a denial: The Yorkshire Post (1st October) reports an interview with a man named Abraham Heahbury who said: “No, the body was not found by Koster, but by a man who goes out with a pony and barrow...’ and goes on to describe a man who was clearly Diemshutz.
Many thanks for bringing that to my attention. Very much appreciated. |
Author: Timsta
Monday, 08 July 2002 - 07:17 pm | | Wow, a lot of new stuff to digest. For now, I'd just like to raise one point.
In all the research I've read, most of the Met material appears to come from sources such as the PRO MEPO archive, etc. There must surely be a lot of material which was never archived for PRO purposes but which is still extant.
Any chance the 'special notebooks' could be lying in a dusty heap somewhere in the back of Leman St Police Station (or wherever)? Is this likely? What is the possibility of researchers being given permission to 'wade through old files' held locally?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: Caroline Morris
Tuesday, 09 July 2002 - 04:30 am | | 'The scenes of the two murders just brought to light are within a quarter of an hour's walk of each other,...' Times (London) Monday, 1 October 1888
'Within the quarter of the hour I found another dirty bitch willing to sell her wares.'
What are the chances that the person who wrote the latter got his inspiration from the former?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Eduardo Zinna
Thursday, 11 July 2002 - 11:40 am | | Hey, Caz, we know where the second quotation came from, don't we?
L always,
E. |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 11 July 2002 - 12:17 pm | | | 101 Dalmations? |
Author: Caroline Morris
Thursday, 11 July 2002 - 12:29 pm | | Mi Querido Eduardo,
Well spotted!
Dear Paul,
Well spotted!
Love,
Caz
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