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What do you think is the most likely ?

  • The Ripper was a Freemason?

    Votes: 7 9.7%
  • The Ripper had medical knowledge?

    Votes: 10 13.9%
  • It was Maybrick?

    Votes: 4 5.6%
  • The Ripper was 'of the same class' as his victims?

    Votes: 9 12.5%
  • The Ripper was foreign?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • It was Druitt?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • None of the suspects yet put forward?

    Votes: 17 23.6%
  • It was a woman?

    Votes: 2 2.8%
  • Another?

    Votes: 19 26.4%

  • Total voters
    72
Best part of the episode of Star Trek was the crew acting as high as kites while the computer was infested.
And it uttering "no...no...noooooooo!" when Spock tells it to compute Pi to the last digit.
 
The fact that Kosminski should remain a suspect is undisputed, his age and appearance fit, however I really do not buy into the DNA evidence found on the supposed shawl.

The itinerary listing out the possessions found upon Cate Eddows body, make no reference to the shawl whatsoever, and can we believe that a shawl covered with blood, facial matter and seaman, would be taken from the crime scene by a Sergeant of the City of London Police, as a gift for his wife..?

In the words of Del Boy – No way Pedro.
 
I have not read through all 67 pages, so perhaps the following has been raised before.

Anyone seen the film The Ruling Class?

In it, Peter O'Toole plays the schizophrenic heir to the Gurney estate. On his father's death, he becomes Earl Gurney. Believing, and acting as if, he is Jesus is the symptom of his condition. Despite being totally harmless, his behaviour causes great embarrassment to his family. They have him treated for schizophrenia and an apparent cure is effected. Earl Gurney now behaves as he should for an aristocrat. Unbeknown to all, however, Gurney's schizophrenia has not been cured. The symptoms i.e. thinking and behaving as if he is Jesus, have only been supressed. Since the schizophrenia must express itself somehow, and since the "Jesus" symptoms have been supressed, the symptoms re-emerge in a darker form. Earl Gurney has become Jack The Ripper.

So, as to the poll and the real identity of the Ripper, my money's on Earl Gurney.
 
It is still quite a jaw-dropping film! Some rate Gurney as O'Toole's finest film performance, bar none!

What other film opens with Arthur Lowe assisting his aristocratic master in an act of autoerotic asphyxiation? It then turns into a sort of musical.

A few years ago, a complete print showed up on Youtube but it is not the easiest picture to find. I think it had a very limited cinema release and got a couple of telly showings way back . . . :fugly:

Edit: I see it is still on Youtube!
 
Edit: I see it is still on Youtube!

I haven't seen this film for many years. Today, the film having been brought to mind as a result of this thread, I looked it up on YouTube. Seems the full movie is available. I'll be watching it very soon. Hope it is as funny as I remember.
 
It'll certainly be as weird as you remember.

Ah, the 1970s, when British cinema was turning to stuff like The Ruling Class, O Lucky Man!, The Final Programme and Lisztomania. And everyone in the country went to see Confessions of a Window Cleaner instead.
 
It'll certainly be as weird as you remember.

Ah, the 1970s, when British cinema was turning to stuff like The Ruling Class, O Lucky Man!, The Final Programme and Lisztomania. And everyone in the country went to see Confessions of a Window Cleaner instead.
Listzomania marvellously bonkers, I think I may have my viewing sorted for today.
 
It'll certainly be as weird as you remember.

That too!

Ah, the 1970s, when British cinema was turning to stuff like The Ruling Class, O Lucky Man!, The Final Programme and Lisztomania. And everyone in the country went to see Confessions of a Window Cleaner instead..

Actually, I find that a lot of cinema from the 60s and 70s is very refreshing. There's less political correctness for one thing. There's more of a sense of freedom that is gone today. And more realism. Kelly's Heroes is a case in point where most of the time Kelly and his group of men spend more time being bombed (accidentally) by their own side than by the enemy. It's that sort of appreciation of the idiot blunders that higher status people make, as well as the consequences for the "little person", that I refer to as realism.
 
I took a lunchtime stroll to London’s Guildhall art gallery today ( Yes, I can be quite Cultured when not quaffing beer or shouting obscenities at football referees)

Was having a good look around when I noticed the date of this. It’s the start of the Lord Mayors procession through the city of London on the 9th of November 1888. The lord Mayors show traditionally sets off at 11am, so around about the time poor Mary Kelly’s body was found just a mile to the east.

IMG_1343.JPG


Oh and I thought I’d get this one in as a sort of coincidence. I happened upon this and never had any clue it was included in the exhibition. It’s a 1900 painting of the Boundary street estate (Britain’s first ever social housing project ) and formerly the Old Nichol slum and in which I was born and raised 71 years prior to this painting being inked.
IMG_1344.JPG


Anyway, It wasn’t long before I grew dizzy of all this kulture lark, so retired to the nearest pub to do what I do best.
IMG_1347.JPG
 
Oh and I thought I’d get this one in as a sort of coincidence. I happened upon this and never had any clue it was included in the exhibition. It’s a 1900 painting of the Boundary street estate (Britain’s first ever social housing project ) and formerly the Old Nichol slum and in which I was born and raised 71 years prior to this painting being inked.
View attachment 22595

Blimey - you were born in 1829? You're doing well for a 190 year old.
 
Drinkers in [the Ten Bells] pub are being charged more after 10pm

The Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, which has been in place since the 18th century, is known for allegedly being a haunt of victims of Jack the Ripper.

It has also appeared in Jamie Oliver television shows; the celebrity cook's great-great-grandfather was a landlord of the pub during the 1880s.

Customers visiting the pub have noticed that after a certain time of night, they are charged 10 per cent more for their beers.

A pub industry insider told The Telegraph that the pricing could be to do with the local council's late night levy.

He said: "The levy itself is just a council charge on businesses that are open late. It's up to the business to pass that charge onto the punter."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/17/drinkers-city-pub-charged-10pm-pass-council-late-night-levy/

maximus otter
 
A friend recently told me that she went either on a Ripper tour or a Historical East London type tour which of course included a bit of JTR. The guide said that in terms of suspects, if you simply look at the amount of convicted murderers in and around Whitechapel at the time then there were dozens. I was under the impression that most murderers were hanged, transported or banged up for good in those days, so surely there wouldn't me many? I asked her if she'd put that to the guide but she hadn't.

Were convicted murderers let out in those days and early enough that they weren't decrepit? Perhaps she was mistaken and he was referring to people who were suspects for other murders.
 
A friend recently told me that she went either on a Ripper tour or a Historical East London type tour which of course included a bit of JTR. The guide said that in terms of suspects, if you simply look at the amount of convicted murderers in and around Whitechapel at the time then there were dozens. I was under the impression that most murderers were hanged, transported or banged up for good in those days, so surely there wouldn't me many? I asked her if she'd put that to the guide but she hadn't.

Were convicted murderers let out in those days and early enough that they weren't decrepit? Perhaps she was mistaken and he was referring to people who were suspects for other murders.

I was for my sins very interested in the JTR murders for several years. I lost interest because every 'fact' you find about the case is contradicted by an equal and opposite 'fact'.

You will find people who insist that murder was rare in LVP London, and those who will insist it was extremely common. You will find people who insist that JTR had 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, or even 0 victims.

There are so few real facts about the case - even the coroner's reports are open to question - that in my opinion you might as well seek the philosopher's stone or El Dorado.
 
A friend recently told me that she went either on a Ripper tour or a Historical East London type tour which of course included a bit of JTR. The guide said that in terms of suspects, if you simply look at the amount of convicted murderers in and around Whitechapel at the time then there were dozens. I was under the impression that most murderers were hanged, transported or banged up for good in those days, so surely there wouldn't me many? I asked her if she'd put that to the guide but she hadn't.

Were convicted murderers let out in those days and early enough that they weren't decrepit? Perhaps she was mistaken and he was referring to people who were suspects for other murders.

Although the days of the Bloody Code were over, the death sentence was mandatory for cases of murder, unless commuted by the monarch or their representatives; there were post-sentence reprieves, but they were rare and only applied to cases with very obvious extenuating circumstances. The M'Naghten Rules came to play mid century-ish, and the later Trial of Lunatics Act was passed in the early 1880's, which gave a jury the option to find a defendant guilty but insane, and subject to a custodial rather than capital punishment.

To be honest, I would have assumed that the the guide was using the number of convictions for murder that had been carried out as an illustration of the endemic social problems associated with the area, rather than suggesting that there were hundreds of live convicted murderers running unfettered around Whitechapel. If indeed the latter, then I suspect that they were talking absolute bobbins.

On a slight aside: One of the earlier arguments against capital punishment was that in the absence of irrefutable smoking gun evidence, the inevitability of the mandatory death penalty and the lack of any other sentencing options available to a judge put many jury members off finding a defendant guilty when they might have found them so had a custodial sentence been available. Unlike some other arguments against the death penalty, this one wasn't based on concern for the innocent getting punished, but for the guilty going unpunished. (This was I believe quite common in poisoning cases - which reached epidemic proportions during the Victorian era - where it was often felt that the science involved was too much of a foreign language for many jury members, who were unwilling to convict on evidence that they simply did not understand.)

One thing reading around the subject has convinced me is that our ancestors were nowhere near as unthinkingly bloodthirsty and vengeful as they are often portrayed, nor were the authorities quite as monolithically ruthless and oppressive; it's worth bearing in mind that we are discussing who Jack the Ripper might have been - not whether the man caught, tried and executed for the murders was the real culprit.
 
Although the days of the Bloody Code were over, the death sentence was mandatory for cases of murder, unless commuted by the monarch or their representatives; there were post-sentence reprieves, but they were rare and only applied to cases with very obvious extenuating circumstances. The M'Naghten Rules came to play mid century-ish, and the later Trial of Lunatics Act was passed in the early 1880's, which gave a jury the option to find a defendant guilty but insane, and subject to a custodial rather than capital punishment.

To be honest, I would have assumed that the the guide was using the number of convictions for murder that had been carried out as an illustration of the endemic social problems associated with the area, rather than suggesting that there were hundreds of live convicted murderers running unfettered around Whitechapel. If indeed the latter, then I suspect that they were talking absolute bobbins.

On a slight aside: One of the earlier arguments against capital punishment was that in the absence of irrefutable smoking gun evidence, the inevitability of the mandatory death penalty and the lack of any other sentencing options available to a judge put many jury members off finding a defendant guilty when they might have found them so had a custodial sentence been available. Unlike some other arguments against the death penalty, this one wasn't based on concern for the innocent getting punished, but for the guilty going unpunished. (This was I believe quite common in poisoning cases - which reached epidemic proportions during the Victorian era - where it was often felt that the science involved was too much of a foreign language for many jury members, who were unwilling to convict on evidence that they simply did not understand.)

One thing reading around the subject has convinced me is that our ancestors were nowhere near as unthinkingly bloodthirsty and vengeful as they are often portrayed, nor were the authorities quite as monolithically ruthless and oppressive; it's worth bearing in mind that we are discussing who Jack the Ripper might have been - not whether the man caught, tried and executed for the murders was the real culprit.

It's entirely possible that I'm misremembering what she said or that she's mistakenly recalling what the guide said. I think the guy had done a fair bit of research, I don't know how much of it original. Your suggestion sounds more likely.
 
... To be honest, I would have assumed that the the guide was using the number of convictions for murder that had been carried out as an illustration of the endemic social problems associated with the area, rather than suggesting that there were hundreds of live convicted murderers running unfettered around Whitechapel. If indeed the latter, then I suspect that they were talking absolute bobbins. ...

Agreed ... That's how I parsed the description of the guide's comments - i.e., an illustration of how many eventually convicted murderers lived or operated around Whitechapel at the time rather than any insinuation Whitechapel was infested with convicted killers who weren't incarcerated for their crime(s).
 
There was a murder near here the same night as the Ripper double event. Murderer beat and kicked his mother to death upstairs in the pub she ran, all the while taking a barmaid hostage. He proceeded once mother was dead to continue to pulverise her corpse for hours after stripping her and dumped the unrecognisable as a human remains in the fireplace.

First storey and very high up (the building is now a shop) but barmaid managed to attract attention of a passer by at dawn and jumped to safety out of the window.

Murderer was quickly sentenced by the judge and sent straight to Broadmoor. No question of prison or execution.

Not sure about 1880s but there has been research looking at data for the decades before and murder was a rare crime and sometimes places like York Castle, whose prison calendar I have looked at for earlier 19thc dates, might go several years without a single hanging. Then like buses two at once.

Thus building was the local chemist for many years and the upstairs rooms just storage. These days it’s a carpet shop and I notice the room where the horror happened is now someone’s flat.
 
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It's entirely possible that I'm misremembering what she said or that she's mistakenly recalling what the guide said. I think the guy had done a fair bit of research, I don't know how much of it original. Your suggestion sounds more likely.

1) “Between 1857 and 1890, there were rarely more than 400 homicides reported to the police each year, and during the 1890s the average was below 350.

In Victorian England, the homicide rate reached 2 per 100,000 of the population only once, in 1865. Generally, it was about 1.5 per 100,000 falling to rarely more than 1 per 100,000 at the end of the 1880s and declining even further after 1900.”

https://richardjohnbr.blogspot.com/2011/03/murder-and-assault-crimes-against.html

2) Current rate in England & Wales: 1.2 per 100,000 population.

3) The official recorded crime statistics for England and Wales for the last four years of the Victorian era (1898-1901) show that there were the following number of homicides (murder, manslaughter and infanticide):

1898: 328
1899: 322
1900: 312
1901: 341

Homicides didn’t exceed that last number until 1933.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ment_data/file/116649/rec-crime-1898-2002.xls

maximus otter
 
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For Christmas, the Sister-in-Law gave me They All Love Jack by Bruce Robinson.
A weighty tome, with illustrations, examples and index.
Frankly, it is not only his proposal for a candidate but it examines the whole Ripperology industry, in-depth detail of actual conditions of the time and examines each 'popular' suspect.
I found it convincing.
He backs up his assertions with fact, written and published record. He does have some supposition and extrapolation but it's not unreasonable.
 
For Christmas, the Sister-in-Law gave me They All Love Jack by Bruce Robinson.
A weighty tome, with illustrations, examples and index.
Frankly, it is not only his proposal for a candidate but it examines the whole Ripperology industry, in-depth detail of actual conditions of the time and examines each 'popular' suspect.
I found it convincing.
He backs up his assertions with fact, written and published record. He does have some supposition and extrapolation but it's not unreasonable.
There are certainly some candidates that are better than others -William Bury, David Cohen/Kosminsky, Thomas Cutbush, James Kelly. The only 'famous' candidate I include is Francis Thompson. I don't give Druitt or Maybrick or Sickert any credence at all. But I fear JTR is not known to us - his luck stayed with him, alas and we will never be able to prove who he was. We have no DNA, no reliable witness statements, no evidence at all other than dead women.
 
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