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Jack the Ripper & the Whitechapel Murders


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After chatting to Hikari I thought that I’d add a new thread if the mods are ok with it. It’s a very loose theme and I’m unsure if there will be many posts but it’s here anyway.

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Hey, Herlock -- anybody can create a new thread any time, no need to ask permission!  You've even put this neatly in the right part of the forum.  I have taken the liberty of adding the name "Jack the Ripper" to the title, so interested parties who are not familiar with the Whitechapel connection will know what the thread's about.

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Thanks Carol,

 

I was slightly wary because there are a few people around who are under the completely mistaken impression that those who are interested in these crimes are in some way ‘glorifying’ this horrible Murderer. I know many people with an interest in the murders (as an historical whodunnit.) They also havea fascination with the social history aspects too. They also always remember the terrible, unimaginably hard lives that those poor women led.

There’s a pub on Commercial Street called The Ten Bells which was used by some, if not all, of the murdered women. It’s a very nice pub today. I was in there around 6 weeks ago. A few years ago some ‘bright spark’ had what he thought was a good idea and changed the pubs name to ‘The Jack The Ripper.’ It even sold Ripper related drinks and food and t-shirts. Fortunately there were many protests (largely women’s groups but some ripperologists too) and they changed it back to The Ten Bells again. Sense (and taste) prevailed in the end.

Can you imagine in the USA if someone opened ‘The Ted Bundy Bar!’

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Thanks Carol,

 

I was slightly wary because there are a few people around who are under the completely mistaken impression that those who are interested in these crimes are in some way ‘glorifying’ this horrible Murderer. I know many people with an interest in the murders (as an historical whodunnit.) They also havea fascination with the social history aspects too. They also always remember the terrible, unimaginably hard lives that those poor women led.

There’s a pub on Commercial Street called The Ten Bells which was used by some, if not all, of the murdered women. It’s a very nice pub today. I was in there around 6 weeks ago. A few years ago some ‘bright spark’ had what he thought was a good idea and changed the pubs name to ‘The Jack The Ripper.’ It even sold Ripper related drinks and food and t-shirts. Fortunately there were many protests (largely women’s groups but some ripperologists too) and they changed it back to The Ten Bells again. Sense (and taste) prevailed in the end.

Can you imagine in the USA if someone opened ‘The Ted Bundy Bar!’

 

Herlock,

 

I'd be very surprised if someone hadn't thought of that already.  Or the BTK Lounge.  Have a BLT at the BTK!

 

Author David Marcum and his deerstalker took the Ripper tour in Whitechapel and he posted some photos on his blog.  Whitechapel by day in the 21st century looked quite wholesome.  He got a nighttime shot of a deserted street though and it gave me the jeebies.  Just add fog and voila! 1888 all over again (with better pavements).

 

People have ghoulish minds.  The BBC series "Ripper Street" opens with a Ripper tour guide shepherding his charges around the bloody crime scenes--and this was a scant 6 months after they had occurred.  The group comes upon an unfortunate gutted woman that looks like the Ripper's calling card announcing himself back in business . . and the curtain rises on our little drama.  There is a certain element of glorification of Jack's awful crimes, given that those scenes of horrifying deaths are a 'Must See!' stop on a visitor's tour of London, after paying the appropriate admission fee, of course. 

 

Jack wasn't the most prolific serial killer we've had, nor the most imaginative, nor certainly not the first.  But he's the first serial killer that captured the public imagination via media attention, and the first killer to essentially invent the moniker 'serial' as common usage.  And of course, the largest part of his mystique is that he was never caught or identified.  Ted Bundy killed many more women than did Jack--36 that he admitted to.  Experts who interviewed him think the count was 100 or more actually.   Next to that Jack's tally is puny--and Ted targeted attractive young women, college students from the middle class.  Author Michael Dibdin writes of the Ripper's choice of victim as disposable murders--practically the closest thing to euthanasia one could conceive.  Regardless of their personal demons or station in life, the Whitechapel victims were human beings and as such deserved the dignity of life.  However, the Ripper no doubt surmised (rightly) that nobody would give a toss about another dead prostitute in Whitechapel, where knife violence was a daily, if not an hourly occurrence.  Had his murders not been marked by such a degree of ritualistic overkill, and his identity remained shrouded in mystery, it's pretty likely that the names of his poor and socially insignificant victims would have been long forgotten.  Bundy was America's most prolific serial killer, but only the most dedicated Bundy-buffs can likely recite the names of any of his multitude of victims.  His capture and unmasking were actually banal.  Jack eluded such a humiliating end by staying anonymous--a creature of our collective nightmares.  As a result, even the most casual peruser of his crimes can likely recognize the names of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes & Mary Kelly.  Jack's crimes have become the basis for myriad films, books and research papers.  The most famous film treatment of Bundy's crimes is a 1986 TV film called 'The Deliberate Stranger'.

 

I'm glad Bundy was apprehended and sorry the Ripper wasn't, but in terms of notoriety down the ages, eluding capture is better for a serial killer's legacy.  Bundy had sex with the dead bodies of some of his victims.  Jeffrey Dahmer ate some of his.  Both could be justifiably said to vastly outstrip the Ripper in depravity--and yet, he still tops them all.  They were silly enough to get caught.

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A very late response Hikari. The ‘ripper’ sites are pretty much unrecognisable now. So much so that the tours only really visit one site and that Mitre Square. I’ve been there a few times and was there in September and saw a big change. There’s now a grassy area in the centre and the bench has gone that used to be at what was known as ‘rippers corner.’ In a way it’s sad to see places vanish but obviously you can’t ask the council to preserve an area because it was the site of an horrific murder! Even the Goulston Street doorway is the doorway for a very good fish & chips restaurant.

There are still areas that give you a real sense of what the area looked like in 1888. Gunthorpe Street for one. There are still quite a few alleyways that are very atmospheric. Some of the old buildings have been redeveloped and are now very desirable properties.

You’re right Hikari in that compared to Bundy, Chikatilo etc Jack was an amateur. I think the reason that the mystery endures are threefold. Firstly the name. Secondly the times (the poverty, the cliched gaslit streets, the image of a man in a Top Hat and cloak carrying a Gladstone bag) And thirdly, he was never caught and still hasn’t been identified (and probably never will.) We love a whodunnit. Added to that there are conspiracies (even ones involving the Royal Family) and ‘suspects’ that are famous like Sickert, Thompson, Carroll etc.

The mystery will go on..........unless?

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A very late response Hikari. The ‘ripper’ sites are pretty much unrecognisable now. So much so that the tours only really visit one site and that Mitre Square. I’ve been there a few times and was there in September and saw a big change. There’s now a grassy area in the centre and the bench has gone that used to be at what was known as ‘rippers corner.’ In a way it’s sad to see places vanish but obviously you can’t ask the council to preserve an area because it was the site of an horrific murder! Even the Goulston Street doorway is the doorway for a very good fish & chips restaurant.

There are still areas that give you a real sense of what the area looked like in 1888. Gunthorpe Street for one. There are still quite a few alleyways that are very atmospheric. Some of the old buildings have been redeveloped and are now very desirable properties.

You’re right Hikari in that compared to Bundy, Chikatilo etc Jack was an amateur. I think the reason that the mystery endures are threefold. Firstly the name. Secondly the times (the poverty, the cliched gaslit streets, the image of a man in a Top Hat and cloak carrying a Gladstone bag) And thirdly, he was never caught and still hasn’t been identified (and probably never will.) We love a whodunnit. Added to that there are conspiracies (even ones involving the Royal Family) and ‘suspects’ that are famous like Sickert, Thompson, Carroll etc.

The mystery will go on..........unless?

 

Yep, I'm confident the mystery will endure until we are on the other side of the veil.  Would it benefit us, really, to learn the Ripper's identity?  God knows, but unless He decides to share that little tidbit, I guess we will never know.  When I get to Heaven I will have more pleasant things on my mind than the identity of a Victorian serial murder.

 

It's a pity that forensic technology back then was so primitive to nil.  I feel fairly certain that Jack was not so superhuman that he didn't make any mistakes which would have tripped him up with modern policing methods.  There was probably DNA all over those letters he sent to the police.  And he may well have been spotted fleeing the scene of at least one of his crimes, if not in the actual commission of it if the denizens of Whitechapel weren't so determined to 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'.  In a better-lit area of London where the citizenry made it their business to form their own Neighborhood Watch, he wouldn't have been able to slip into the shadows that easily.  He must have been covered in blood more than once.  But it was so dark, and if he was wearing dark clothing (like a police constable's uniform, perhaps?) he could have walked brazenly around with blood-soaked clothing and not have attracted any notice. 

 

Another small item that bolsters the police constable argument for me was that notorious message scrawled in chalk on the wall about 'the Juwes are the the men who will not be blamed for nothing'.  Apart from totally mangled English . . chalk is not a common item for everyone to walk around with in their pockets.  Beat bobbies carried chalk to whiten their cuffs.  Jack could have possibly been a tailor; they use chalk and have familiarity with sharp tools of their trade.  But (and I defer to your greater knowledge here), that Juwes message has the air of a spontaneous act--an improvisation, as it were.  To improvise a message in chalk, you'd have to already have the chalk with you, as something you normally carried around with you.  The message wasn't Jack's normal MO since it only appeared at one scene.

 

The taunting messages to the police obviously pointed to a high degree of narcissism in our killer . . .Catch me if you can, plods! . . . but wouldn't such taunts be extra-Saucy if he was taunting his own?  The use of the term 'Boss' is deeply interesting.  Why would an average citizen address the cops as Boss?  On the other hand, the use of 'boss' is a very familiar term to subordinate officers when addressing their superiors.

 

I know you don't care for the 'Jack-as-cop' theory, but it answers a lot of questions for me.  It removes a lot of the difficulties Jack would have had in fleeing out of sight, covering up blood splashes on his clothing . . .even overcoming the reticence of his victims to go with a stranger who appeared suddenly on their patch.  What if he *wasn't* a stranger, but a familiar face to the victims and also to the police?  He could have melted easily into a large scrum of constables if he *was* one of them . . .and in the dark and the fog, who's going to be looking closely at his trousers?  Wouldn't that have been a huge *Nyyyah!* to 'Boss' if he was watching the reaction to his crimes--from the front row seat and impeccable reason of being 'on duty' and thus having every right to be present?  Makes my brain fizz, it does.

 

P.S.  Congratulate me--I have just been promoted to Detective Inspector!!  Unlike Robbie Lewis, I was only a DS for like a week!  (He, poor sod, was a DS for at least 20 years.)

 

But I still have to call you Boss.  Or Sir.  I don't care for Guv'nor, but I will use it if you insist.  One must cater to the whims of higher-ups along the greasy pole. 

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A very late response Hikari. The ‘ripper’ sites are pretty much unrecognisable now. So much so that the tours only really visit one site and that Mitre Square. I’ve been there a few times and was there in September and saw a big change. There’s now a grassy area in the centre and the bench has gone that used to be at what was known as ‘rippers corner.’ In a way it’s sad to see places vanish but obviously you can’t ask the council to preserve an area because it was the site of an horrific murder! Even the Goulston Street doorway is the doorway for a very good fish & chips restaurant.

There are still areas that give you a real sense of what the area looked like in 1888. Gunthorpe Street for one. There are still quite a few alleyways that are very atmospheric. Some of the old buildings have been redeveloped and are now very desirable properties.

You’re right Hikari in that compared to Bundy, Chikatilo etc Jack was an amateur. I think the reason that the mystery endures are threefold. Firstly the name. Secondly the times (the poverty, the cliched gaslit streets, the image of a man in a Top Hat and cloak carrying a Gladstone bag) And thirdly, he was never caught and still hasn’t been identified (and probably never will.) We love a whodunnit. Added to that there are conspiracies (even ones involving the Royal Family) and ‘suspects’ that are famous like Sickert, Thompson, Carroll etc.

The mystery will go on..........unless?

Yep, I'm confident the mystery will endure until we are on the other side of the veil. Would it benefit us, really, to learn the Ripper's identity? God knows, but unless He decides to share that little tidbit, I guess we will never know. When I get to Heaven I will have more pleasant things on my mind than the identity of a Victorian serial murder.

 

It's a pity that forensic technology back then was so primitive to nil. I feel fairly certain that Jack was not so superhuman that he didn't make any mistakes which would have tripped him up with modern policing methods. There was probably DNA all over those letters he sent to the police. And he may well have been spotted fleeing the scene of at least one of his crimes, if not in the actual commission of it if the denizens of Whitechapel weren't so determined to 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'. In a better-lit area of London where the citizenry made it their business to form their own Neighborhood Watch, he wouldn't have been able to slip into the shadows that easily. He must have been covered in blood more than once. But it was so dark, and if he was wearing dark clothing (like a police constable's uniform, perhaps?) he could have walked brazenly around with blood-soaked clothing and not have attracted any notice.

 

Another small item that bolsters the police constable argument for me was that notorious message scrawled in chalk on the wall about 'the Juwes are the the men who will not be blamed for nothing'. Apart from totally mangled English . . chalk is not a common item for everyone to walk around with in their pockets. Beat bobbies carried chalk to whiten their cuffs. Jack could have possibly been a tailor; they use chalk and have familiarity with sharp tools of their trade. But (and I defer to your greater knowledge here), that Juwes message has the air of a spontaneous act--an improvisation, as it were. To improvise a message in chalk, you'd have to already have the chalk with you, as something you normally carried around with you. The message wasn't Jack's normal MO since it only appeared at one scene.

 

The taunting messages to the police obviously pointed to a high degree of narcissism in our killer . . .Catch me if you can, plods! . . . but wouldn't such taunts be extra-Saucy if he was taunting his own? The use of the term 'Boss' is deeply interesting. Why would an average citizen address the cops as Boss? On the other hand, the use of 'boss' is a very familiar term to subordinate officers when addressing their superiors.

 

I know you don't care for the 'Jack-as-cop' theory, but it answers a lot of questions for me. It removes a lot of the difficulties Jack would have had in fleeing out of sight, covering up blood splashes on his clothing . . .even overcoming the reticence of his victims to go with a stranger who appeared suddenly on their patch. What if he *wasn't* a stranger, but a familiar face to the victims and also to the police? He could have melted easily into a large scrum of constables if he *was* one of them . . .and in the dark and the fog, who's going to be looking closely at his trousers? Wouldn't that have been a huge *Nyyyah!* to 'Boss' if he was watching the reaction to his crimes--from the front row seat and impeccable reason of being 'on duty' and thus having every right to be present? Makes my brain fizz, it does.

 

P.S. Congratulate me--I have just been promoted to Detective Inspector!! Unlike Robbie Lewis, I was only a DS for like a week! (He, poor sod, was a DS for at least 20 years.)

 

But I still have to call you Boss. Or Sir. I don't care for Guv'nor, but I will use it if you insist. One must cater to the whims of higher-ups along the greasy pole.

Hi Hikari,

There were many ‘possible’ sightings of Jack. Elizabeth Long in Hanbury Street, Joseph Lawende near Mitre Square, Israel Schwartz in Berner Street, George Hutchinson in Dorset Street to name but four. It’s how much credence can be placed on their testimonies. One of the biggest problems with witness statements at that time was the issue of timing. Very few working class men and women would have owned a watch. Many even relied on a policeman to ‘knock them up’ in the morning so that they could get to work on time. So when someone mentions a time it could easily have been 15 minutes or half an hours difference.

We can’t be sure that a killer would have gotten blood on him. Many feel that he strangled or partially strangled his victims first which would stop any spurting blood. It also makes sense from the point of view that the first thing that Jack would want to do would be to prevent a victim crying out.

Most ‘experts’ believe that the ripper letters are all hoaxes. A possible culprit has been named for the ‘Dear Boss’ letter. A journalist called Bulling. If any letter is genuine most believe that the ‘From Hell’ letter Sent with the kidney is the likeliest to be genuine. I’m unsure. But then again, on this subject, I’m unsure of most things.

The Goulston Street Graffito debate still rages on. Jack or not? I’d say, at the moment, if a vote was taken it would be around 60-40 against. Possibly slightly more. I’ve always been slightly in favour but I’m probably now firmly on the fence. For me it comes down to what was the reason for Jack taking the piece of apron away from Mitre Square?

The use of the phrase ‘dear boss, suggests USA. The upper classes at the time felt that ‘no well bred Englishman could have committed these crimes.’ Snobbery...the English....never! It maybe just that the letter writer had read the phrase somewhere. He may have spent time in The States?

 

I don’t know if you have any specific interest in true crime Hikari (possibly not) but if you ever want a case to look into I’ll recommend one to you. You may have heard of it. It was the murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool in 1931. I’ve just read a book on it (my second) and imfascinated by it. It’s a really Mystery. An infuriating whodunnit. For me, apart from Jack, it’s the classic whodunnit.

Congratulations on your promotion by the way.

 

I just watched a speech by Leslie Klinger on YouTube by the way.

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Ah, Mr. Klinger.  So what did Laurie King's BFF have to say? 

 

Me so bad . . but I'm off those two.  They really don't need the adulation of other people when they have such a healthy mutual admiration society going on.

 

I really don't understand how the Baker Street Irregulars conduct their membership rules.  I was reading a bio of one of the contributors to David Marcum's latest MX compilation and it said he was made a BSI at the age of 19.  19!!!  With all due respect to prodigies, who I know walk among us, though not very often . . . what could an individual, prodigious or not, have accomplished while still in his teens to warrant membership in this most esteemed circle, when people of 3x that age, with a list of publications as long as my arm, still aren't in?  I have no aspirations to this rarified group, believe me (especially if Mr. Klinger & Mrs. King are on the roster for the night) . . .but on behalf of David Marcum and a number of other very deserving authors, I'm miffed, to say the least.  Talk about a snobby in-group . . !  And, they didn't even admit women until the 1990s, so sexist as well.  The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes was created in reaction to this snub . . .and they admit men now, too, and it didn't take them 70 years to get there.  Apparently the American President FDR was a member.  To my knowledge, Mr. Roosevelt was too busy being a career politician to contribute substantially to Sherlockian literature, though he was keen on the stories.  But he was the American President at the time the society was created, so talk about a coup for the charter membership.

 

Speaking of notorious murder cases . . .I'm sure you have heard about our own version of the Ripper, aka the Black Dahlia killer, who was never caught either, though posthumously identified (maybe?) by his own son, who makes a compelling case for his father's guilt.  In January 1947, the body of starlet Elizabeth Short was found in a park in Los Angeles, naked and hacked into two pieces, with a Joker grin carved into her face.   I lean against the Ripper being an American, but this killer was most definitely homegrown.

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Ah, Mr. Klinger. So what did Laurie King's BFF have to say?

 

Me so bad . . but I'm off those two. They really don't need the adulation of other people when they have such a healthy mutual admiration society going on.

 

I really don't understand how the Baker Street Irregulars conduct their membership rules. I was reading a bio of one of the contributors to David Marcum's latest MX compilation and it said he was made a BSI at the age of 19. 19!!! With all due respect to prodigies, who I know walk among us, though not very often . . . what could an individual, prodigious or not, have accomplished while still in his teens to warrant membership in this most esteemed circle, when people of 3x that age, with a list of publications as long as my arm, still aren't in? I have no aspirations to this rarified group, believe me (especially if Mr. Klinger & Mrs. King are on the roster for the night) . . .but on behalf of David Marcum and a number of other very deserving authors, I'm miffed, to say the least. Talk about a snobby in-group . . ! And, they didn't even admit women until the 1990s, so sexist as well. The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes was created in reaction to this snub . . .and they admit men now, too, and it didn't take them 70 years to get there. Apparently the American President FDR was a member. To my knowledge, Mr. Roosevelt was too busy being a career politician to contribute substantially to Sherlockian literature, though he was keen on the stories. But he was the American President at the time the society was created, so talk about a coup for the charter membership.

 

Speaking of notorious murder cases . . .I'm sure you have heard about our own version of the Ripper, aka the Black Dahlia killer, who was never caught either, though posthumously identified (maybe?) by his own son, who makes a compelling case for his father's guilt. In January 1947, the body of starlet Elizabeth Short was found in a park in Los Angeles, naked and hacked into two pieces, with a Joker grin carved into her face. I lean against the Ripper being an American, but this killer was most definitely homegrown.

I was surprised to here Klinger make an error! He was talking early in his speech about not giving any spoilers for those who hadn’t read the canon and he jokingly mention the phrase ‘the Butler did it.’

Later he mentioned The Musgrave Ritual saying that in that story the Butler actually did do it; that he committed the murder?! Strange for an expert to get something so wrong as the Butler, Brunton, didn’t kill anyone. He actually got killed himself by being trapped in a vault.

On the Baker Street Irregulars, I was under the impression that, at least in the early days, prospective candidates had to pass some kind of Holmes-related test? I may be mis-remembering though Hikari. Sexism definately ruled in those days. A women would have had as much chance of joining The Diogenes! Imagine Mycroft’s face! Hopefully we’ve moved on (well most of us have.) I was just looking at some of the members and noticed that only one actor that has portrayed Holmes is listed as a member (I’m only using Wikipedia though so it’s not an extensive list [Klinger and King are both there though.]) I see August Derleth Of Solar Pons fame, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman. Frederick Dorr Steele is listed so I’m wondering if Paget was also a member? As you will know Roosevelt was an honorary member so if I was proposing honorary members I’d suggest Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone and William Gillette?

I’ve read 3 or 4 books on the Black Dahlia case but many years ago. There maybe a new one out? The Zodiac Case was also an interesting one (I once had a look on a Zodiac forum and the debate was vigorous to say the least. One case that has been recommended to me (via the Casebook site) is The Cleveland Torso Killer. A book called In The Wake Of The Butcher has been highly recommended to me by a guy who has studied the case. It’s on my never ending ‘to buy’ list. It’s the Wallace case that’s intriguing me at the moment though. A guy just sent me the link to the trial transcript which I’ve started to work my way through. My brain hurts!

I agree that the ripper was likely to have been British though he could have been an immigrant. When Tumblety was revealed we were hoping to blame the USA but he doesn’t work for me

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Hikari,

I just checked on the Casebook site and found out the title of that new Black Dahlia book which, according to one poster, has been getting good reviews.

 

It’s called Black Dahlia Red Rose by the unusually named Piu Eatwell. Amazon have it on sale in paperback form for £8.99 (around $12 to you.)

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Hemlock,

 

How funny that you should mention the Cleveland Torso Killer.  At home at this moment I have a novel from the library about the CTK!  Author Lisa Black must hail from Cleveland; her specialty is forensic mysteries set in Cleveland. 

 

As an aside, I grew up less than an hour from Cleveland, in the similarly-depraved steel mecca Youngstown.  Y-town is about equidistant from Cleveland to the north and Pittsburgh to the east.  It is also about smack in the middle distance between New York City and Chicago so I understand that back in the heyday of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, all the captains of industry would converge in Youngstown for their board meetings and so forth so that all the people from the various headquarters could travel the same distance.  Y-town was also notorious for another reason - as a major base of operations for the Mafia.  In the 1970s it seemed like some mob figure was being blown up in a car bombing every week, earning the city the sobriquet 'Bombtown, USA'.  That's settled down now, but Y-town is still an armpit (or somewhere lower) of these former Colonies.  But if you crave any sort of immigrant food - Italian, Eastern European, Greek, Vietnamese . . .we can probably set you up!

 

I know Indian food is the most popular foreign cuisine in Britain due to your history of the Raj; Indian restaurants are a bit hard to come by in my part of the country.  We've got tons of other Asian cuisines - the small town where I'm living now has 3 Thai establishments and 2 Japanese steakhouses, but no Indian.  Pity, because I like Indian food (within reason).  I got exposed to both Indian and Thai food in Japan.

 

Re. the Irregulars

 

It was my understanding that the BSIs were created in NYC in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, with Vincent Starrett as another charter member, and the idea was to have an American scion society with the prestige of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London.  I might be wrong, but I don't think the BSIs were around in time for Sidney Paget to have joined.  (Personal aside:  I am quite chuffed to share a birthday with Mr. Paget, Oct. 4th.)

 

When Les Klinger said 'the butler did it', maybe he meant, not in terms of committing murder, but of being the instigator of the crime that led to his death?  If he'd just treated his girlfriend with more kindness, his grisly death wouldn't have happened that way.  Rachel Howells is a particularly cold-blooded example of the female of the species.  Maybe Sherlock Holmes avoids close association with females as a rule, not because he finds them stupid, vaporish creatures--that's just his line to Watson to cover up the real potential truth:  SH is scared of what women are capable of, and he doesn't want to be blindsided by any 'feminine charms'.  The Woman is proof (let us call her proof) that he *was* susceptible.  And we have to remember that 'The Musgrave Ritual' happened very early on in Holmes's life and career.  He couldn't have been more than 23, 24 years old when that happened, and so this murdering female would have made a deep impression on the nascent detective who perhaps was not that far removed from a romantic crush or two in his schooldays.

 

If Mr. Klinger got confused about the actual perpetrator in TMR, that is a quizzical error for the creator of 'the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes' to have made.  A similar glaring goof brought me up short when I read Laurie King's "Mary Russell's War" short story collection.  Les wrote a glowing introduction and served as editor.  And yet--in a preface to one of the stories, there's a reference to 'The Mazarin Stone' . . .except that the story that was being referenced was actually 'The Blue Carbuncle'.  Why was this error allowed to stand?  Nobody who confuses The Mazarin Stone for the Blue Carbuncle deserves a berth in the BSIs, in my opinion.  And *neither* of these two apparently caught the mistake.

 

Or perhaps they are just messing with our heads, in the fine tradition of the Literary Agent in the matters of Watsons wives and wounds and so forth.  If that isn't the answer, then I'm mystified.

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Actually, I am very curious and it's probably had been discussed in your JTR forum, does the advancement of forensic nowadays could eventually reveal the identity?

 

There are many cold cases being solved by new technology and knowledge, and as you indicate, there is no way this man could leave no trace.

 

I actually like the police theory. It makes a lot of sense, from accessing potential victim and keeping close to authority to avoid making wrong steps.

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Hemlock,

 

How funny that you should mention the Cleveland Torso Killer. At home at this moment I have a novel from the library about the CTK! Author Lisa Black must hail from Cleveland; her specialty is forensic mysteries set in Cleveland.

 

As an aside, I grew up less than an hour from Cleveland, in the similarly-depraved steel mecca Youngstown. Y-town is about equidistant from Cleveland to the north and Pittsburgh to the east. It is also about smack in the middle distance between New York City and Chicago so I understand that back in the heyday of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, all the captains of industry would converge in Youngstown for their board meetings and so forth so that all the people from the various headquarters could travel the same distance. Y-town was also notorious for another reason - as a major base of operations for the Mafia. In the 1970s it seemed like some mob figure was being blown up in a car bombing every week, earning the city the sobriquet 'Bombtown, USA'. That's settled down now, but Y-town is still an armpit (or somewhere lower) of these former Colonies. But if you crave any sort of immigrant food - Italian, Eastern European, Greek, Vietnamese . . .we can probably set you up!

 

I know Indian food is the most popular foreign cuisine in Britain due to your history of the Raj; Indian restaurants are a bit hard to come by in my part of the country. We've got tons of other Asian cuisines - the small town where I'm living now has 3 Thai establishments and 2 Japanese steakhouses, but no Indian. Pity, because I like Indian food (within reason). I got exposed to both Indian and Thai food in Japan.

 

Re. the Irregulars

 

It was my understanding that the BSIs were created in NYC in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, with Vincent Starrett as another charter member, and the idea was to have an American scion society with the prestige of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I might be wrong, but I don't think the BSIs were around in time for Sidney Paget to have joined. (Personal aside: I am quite chuffed to share a birthday with Mr. Paget, Oct. 4th.)

 

When Les Klinger said 'the butler did it', maybe he meant, not in terms of committing murder, but of being the instigator of the crime that led to his death? If he'd just treated his girlfriend with more kindness, his grisly death wouldn't have happened that way. Rachel Howells is a particularly cold-blooded example of the female of the species. Maybe Sherlock Holmes avoids close association with females as a rule, not because he finds them stupid, vaporish creatures--that's just his line to Watson to cover up the real potential truth: SH is scared of what women are capable of, and he doesn't want to be blindsided by any 'feminine charms'. The Woman is proof (let us call her proof) that he *was* susceptible. And we have to remember that 'The Musgrave Ritual' happened very early on in Holmes's life and career. He couldn't have been more than 23, 24 years old when that happened, and so this murdering female would have made a deep impression on the nascent detective who perhaps was not that far removed from a romantic crush or two in his schooldays.

 

If Mr. Klinger got confused about the actual perpetrator in TMR, that is a quizzical error for the creator of 'the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes' to have made. A similar glaring goof brought me up short when I read Laurie King's "Mary Russell's War" short story collection. Les wrote a glowing introduction and served as editor. And yet--in a preface to one of the stories, there's a reference to 'The Mazarin Stone' . . .except that the story that was being referenced was actually 'The Blue Carbuncle'. Why was this error allowed to stand? Nobody who confuses The Mazarin Stone for the Blue Carbuncle deserves a berth in the BSIs, in my opinion. And *neither* of these two apparently caught the mistake.

 

Or perhaps they are just messing with our heads, in the fine tradition of the Literary Agent in the matters of Watsons wives and wounds and so forth. If that isn't the answer, then I'm mystified.

My post was badly worded there Hikari. I meant Paget as an Honourary member. Of course he died in 1908. I should have placed him at the end with my other ‘proposed’ honourary members but I put him next to Steele.

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Actually, I am very curious and it's probably had been discussed in your JTR forum, does the advancement of forensic nowadays could eventually reveal the identity?

 

There are many cold cases being solved by new technology and knowledge, and as you indicate, there is no way this man could leave no trace.

 

I actually like the police theory. It makes a lot of sense, from accessing potential victim and keeping close to authority to avoid making wrong steps.

 

It would be awesome if modern DNA analysis could nab the Ripper.  But it's got to be impossible.  Even if it had been possible to preserve the remains of the victims/potential DNA samples for future study, anything would be far too degraded after nearly 120 years.  Jack may have left DNA traces on or in the victims but I'm guessing not.  I doubt he would have had sex with them prior to killing them.  He worked really fast, and since he was so 'down on whores' he wouldn't have been interested in the 'business end' of their anatomies.  Was Jack impotent?  Had he been given a disease by a previous dalliance with a prostitute?  Did he have a prostitute mother who abused or neglected him?  Was this a perverted exercise of religious 'cleansing'?  We will never know why Jack was so down on whores.

 

He would have been more likely to be tied to his crimes by traces he left in his personal life--blood-spattered clothing, 'souvenirs' taken from the victims, etc.  There was the matter of having alibis for the nights of the slayings . . . but if Jack lived alone, who would notice or care where he went or how he kept his rooms?  Lots of gentlemen wandered around Whitechapel in search of entertainments, carnal or just theatrical.  Merely being placed in Whitechapel on certain evenings would have incriminated thousands of men.

 

It's too bad, considering, that of the two giants of the Victorian age we are discussing, Jack the Ripper was a real person and Sherlock Holmes was not.  How much better the world would have been, particularly for the Ripper's victims, if those realities had been reversed.  Jack could be the nightmare figment out of story-land, and Sherlock Holmes could move from the realm of fictional superhero to real-life hero.  Too bad!

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Hemlock,

 

How funny that you should mention the Cleveland Torso Killer. At home at this moment I have a novel from the library about the CTK! Author Lisa Black must hail from Cleveland; her specialty is forensic mysteries set in Cleveland.

 

As an aside, I grew up less than an hour from Cleveland, in the similarly-depraved steel mecca Youngstown. Y-town is about equidistant from Cleveland to the north and Pittsburgh to the east. It is also about smack in the middle distance between New York City and Chicago so I understand that back in the heyday of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, all the captains of industry would converge in Youngstown for their board meetings and so forth so that all the people from the various headquarters could travel the same distance. Y-town was also notorious for another reason - as a major base of operations for the Mafia. In the 1970s it seemed like some mob figure was being blown up in a car bombing every week, earning the city the sobriquet 'Bombtown, USA'. That's settled down now, but Y-town is still an armpit (or somewhere lower) of these former Colonies. But if you crave any sort of immigrant food - Italian, Eastern European, Greek, Vietnamese . . .we can probably set you up!

 

I know Indian food is the most popular foreign cuisine in Britain due to your history of the Raj; Indian restaurants are a bit hard to come by in my part of the country. We've got tons of other Asian cuisines - the small town where I'm living now has 3 Thai establishments and 2 Japanese steakhouses, but no Indian. Pity, because I like Indian food (within reason). I got exposed to both Indian and Thai food in Japan.

 

Re. the Irregulars

 

It was my understanding that the BSIs were created in NYC in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, with Vincent Starrett as another charter member, and the idea was to have an American scion society with the prestige of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I might be wrong, but I don't think the BSIs were around in time for Sidney Paget to have joined. (Personal aside: I am quite chuffed to share a birthday with Mr. Paget, Oct. 4th.)

 

When Les Klinger said 'the butler did it', maybe he meant, not in terms of committing murder, but of being the instigator of the crime that led to his death? If he'd just treated his girlfriend with more kindness, his grisly death wouldn't have happened that way. Rachel Howells is a particularly cold-blooded example of the female of the species. Maybe Sherlock Holmes avoids close association with females as a rule, not because he finds them stupid, vaporish creatures--that's just his line to Watson to cover up the real potential truth: SH is scared of what women are capable of, and he doesn't want to be blindsided by any 'feminine charms'. The Woman is proof (let us call her proof) that he *was* susceptible. And we have to remember that 'The Musgrave Ritual' happened very early on in Holmes's life and career. He couldn't have been more than 23, 24 years old when that happened, and so this murdering female would have made a deep impression on the nascent detective who perhaps was not that far removed from a romantic crush or two in his schooldays.

 

If Mr. Klinger got confused about the actual perpetrator in TMR, that is a quizzical error for the creator of 'the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes' to have made. A similar glaring goof brought me up short when I read Laurie King's "Mary Russell's War" short story collection. Les wrote a glowing introduction and served as editor. And yet--in a preface to one of the stories, there's a reference to 'The Mazarin Stone' . . .except that the story that was being referenced was actually 'The Blue Carbuncle'. Why was this error allowed to stand? Nobody who confuses The Mazarin Stone for the Blue Carbuncle deserves a berth in the BSIs, in my opinion. And *neither* of these two apparently caught the mistake.

 

Or perhaps they are just messing with our heads, in the fine tradition of the Literary Agent in the matters of Watsons wives and wounds and so forth. If that isn't the answer, then I'm mystified.

My post was badly worded there Hikari. I meant Paget as an Honourary member. Of course he died in 1908. I should have placed him at the end with my other ‘proposed’ honourary members but I put him next to Steele.

 

 

Aha.  Well, I'm totally in support of a posthumous honorary membership for Mr. Paget, seeing as he singlehandedly created the physical image of Sherlock  Holmes in the popular mind.

 

I tend to think of SH's 'grey eyes' as a unique feature to him, so I got perturbed when I noticed that Conan Doyle tended to describe almost every minor character's eyes as 'grey' also.  If they weren't grey, they were 'black' or 'light blue'.  Brown, green, hazel or any other shade of blue was hardly ever favored.  Conclusion:  Either 90% of the British populace have 'grey' eyes . . .or Conan Doyle tended to be a lazy writer when it came to providing inventive physical descriptions of people.  There are all manner of 'grey' eyes, of course.  Generally one thinks of the sort of blue eyes that are so light they are almost leached of color.  I think of SH's eyes as darker; the color of burnished steel (some authors call them silver) . . .becoming darker when he is angry.  Anyway, his is the first incidence of 'grey eyes' that I can recall reading about in literature.  My whole family has brown eyes, so light-colored eyes of any shade are fascinating to me.

 

Wow, there's a tangent for ya!

 

P.S. Herlock . . Where is this Jack the Ripper forum you frequent?  I am interesting in dropping by that blood-soaked abbatoir of disputation if you lot are amenable to new members.  Or is it like a secret society?  :ph34r:

 

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Actually, I am very curious and it's probably had been discussed in your JTR forum, does the advancement of forensic nowadays could eventually reveal the identity?

 

There are many cold cases being solved by new technology and knowledge, and as you indicate, there is no way this man could leave no trace.

 

I actually like the police theory. It makes a lot of sense, from accessing potential victim and keeping close to authority to avoid making wrong steps.

Hi VB,

 

The issue is that we have no items that can be proved to have been in contact with the ripper. DNA testing has been used twice in recent years though. Author Patricia Cornwell took DNA from a painting by the artist Walter Sickert and achieved some kind of ‘match’ with an alleged ripper letter. The problem is that the DNA is apparently unreliable (though don’t ask me to explain the science bit.) The other issue is that most experts believe all ripper letters to be hoaxes. So the best that she could say is that there’s a possibility that Sickert wrote a ripper letter or two. He was known to take a real interest in the case and seems to have been quite a strange chap. Absolutely no evidence of him being a killer though.

 

Also a guy called Russell Edwards bought a shawl which was alleged to have been taken from Catherine Eddowes by City Police Officer Amos Simpson. DNA was found on there. He claims that the results show a match with a descendant of victim Catherine Eddowes and ripper suspect Aaron Kosminski. The validity of the results have been quite strenuously argued against though. There are also 2 other issues. Would a policeman be allowed to take away a piece of evidence (especially from such a high profile case?) More importantly, records show that Amos Simpson wasn’t in Mitre Square that night, or anywhere near it,

 

The ripper could have been a police officer but I think that he’d have to be an off-duty one. There’s nothing impossible about the idea of a police officer ripper.

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Hemlock,

 

How funny that you should mention the Cleveland Torso Killer. At home at this moment I have a novel from the library about the CTK! Author Lisa Black must hail from Cleveland; her specialty is forensic mysteries set in Cleveland.

 

As an aside, I grew up less than an hour from Cleveland, in the similarly-depraved steel mecca Youngstown. Y-town is about equidistant from Cleveland to the north and Pittsburgh to the east. It is also about smack in the middle distance between New York City and Chicago so I understand that back in the heyday of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, all the captains of industry would converge in Youngstown for their board meetings and so forth so that all the people from the various headquarters could travel the same distance. Y-town was also notorious for another reason - as a major base of operations for the Mafia. In the 1970s it seemed like some mob figure was being blown up in a car bombing every week, earning the city the sobriquet 'Bombtown, USA'. That's settled down now, but Y-town is still an armpit (or somewhere lower) of these former Colonies. But if you crave any sort of immigrant food - Italian, Eastern European, Greek, Vietnamese . . .we can probably set you up!

 

I know Indian food is the most popular foreign cuisine in Britain due to your history of the Raj; Indian restaurants are a bit hard to come by in my part of the country. We've got tons of other Asian cuisines - the small town where I'm living now has 3 Thai establishments and 2 Japanese steakhouses, but no Indian. Pity, because I like Indian food (within reason). I got exposed to both Indian and Thai food in Japan.

 

Re. the Irregulars

 

It was my understanding that the BSIs were created in NYC in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, with Vincent Starrett as another charter member, and the idea was to have an American scion society with the prestige of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I might be wrong, but I don't think the BSIs were around in time for Sidney Paget to have joined. (Personal aside: I am quite chuffed to share a birthday with Mr. Paget, Oct. 4th.)

 

When Les Klinger said 'the butler did it', maybe he meant, not in terms of committing murder, but of being the instigator of the crime that led to his death? If he'd just treated his girlfriend with more kindness, his grisly death wouldn't have happened that way. Rachel Howells is a particularly cold-blooded example of the female of the species. Maybe Sherlock Holmes avoids close association with females as a rule, not because he finds them stupid, vaporish creatures--that's just his line to Watson to cover up the real potential truth: SH is scared of what women are capable of, and he doesn't want to be blindsided by any 'feminine charms'. The Woman is proof (let us call her proof) that he *was* susceptible. And we have to remember that 'The Musgrave Ritual' happened very early on in Holmes's life and career. He couldn't have been more than 23, 24 years old when that happened, and so this murdering female would have made a deep impression on the nascent detective who perhaps was not that far removed from a romantic crush or two in his schooldays.

 

If Mr. Klinger got confused about the actual perpetrator in TMR, that is a quizzical error for the creator of 'the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes' to have made. A similar glaring goof brought me up short when I read Laurie King's "Mary Russell's War" short story collection. Les wrote a glowing introduction and served as editor. And yet--in a preface to one of the stories, there's a reference to 'The Mazarin Stone' . . .except that the story that was being referenced was actually 'The Blue Carbuncle'. Why was this error allowed to stand? Nobody who confuses The Mazarin Stone for the Blue Carbuncle deserves a berth in the BSIs, in my opinion. And *neither* of these two apparently caught the mistake.

 

Or perhaps they are just messing with our heads, in the fine tradition of the Literary Agent in the matters of Watsons wives and wounds and so forth. If that isn't the answer, then I'm mystified.

My post was badly worded there Hikari. I meant Paget as an Honourary member. Of course he died in 1908. I should have placed him at the end with my other ‘proposed’ honourary members but I put him next to Steele.

Aha. Well, I'm totally in support of a posthumous honorary membership for Mr. Paget, seeing as he singlehandedly created the physical image of Sherlock Holmes in the popular mind.

 

I tend to think of SH's 'grey eyes' as a unique feature to him, so I got perturbed when I noticed that Conan Doyle tended to describe almost every minor character's eyes as 'grey' also. If they weren't grey, they were 'black' or 'light blue'. Brown, green, hazel or any other shade of blue was hardly ever favored. Conclusion: Either 90% of the British populace have 'grey' eyes . . .or Conan Doyle tended to be a lazy writer when it came to providing inventive physical descriptions of people. There are all manner of 'grey' eyes, of course. Generally one thinks of the sort of blue eyes that are so light they are almost leached of color. I think of SH's eyes as darker; the color of burnished steel (some authors call them silver) . . .becoming darker when he is angry. Anyway, his is the first incidence of 'grey eyes' that I can recall reading about in literature. My whole family has brown eyes, so light-colored eyes of any shade are fascinating to me.

 

Wow, there's a tangent for ya!

You can’t beat a good tangent

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Hemlock,

 

How funny that you should mention the Cleveland Torso Killer. At home at this moment I have a novel from the library about the CTK! Author Lisa Black must hail from Cleveland; her specialty is forensic mysteries set in Cleveland.

 

As an aside, I grew up less than an hour from Cleveland, in the similarly-depraved steel mecca Youngstown. Y-town is about equidistant from Cleveland to the north and Pittsburgh to the east. It is also about smack in the middle distance between New York City and Chicago so I understand that back in the heyday of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, all the captains of industry would converge in Youngstown for their board meetings and so forth so that all the people from the various headquarters could travel the same distance. Y-town was also notorious for another reason - as a major base of operations for the Mafia. In the 1970s it seemed like some mob figure was being blown up in a car bombing every week, earning the city the sobriquet 'Bombtown, USA'. That's settled down now, but Y-town is still an armpit (or somewhere lower) of these former Colonies. But if you crave any sort of immigrant food - Italian, Eastern European, Greek, Vietnamese . . .we can probably set you up!

 

I know Indian food is the most popular foreign cuisine in Britain due to your history of the Raj; Indian restaurants are a bit hard to come by in my part of the country. We've got tons of other Asian cuisines - the small town where I'm living now has 3 Thai establishments and 2 Japanese steakhouses, but no Indian. Pity, because I like Indian food (within reason). I got exposed to both Indian and Thai food in Japan.

 

Re. the Irregulars

 

It was my understanding that the BSIs were created in NYC in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, with Vincent Starrett as another charter member, and the idea was to have an American scion society with the prestige of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. I might be wrong, but I don't think the BSIs were around in time for Sidney Paget to have joined. (Personal aside: I am quite chuffed to share a birthday with Mr. Paget, Oct. 4th.)

 

When Les Klinger said 'the butler did it', maybe he meant, not in terms of committing murder, but of being the instigator of the crime that led to his death? If he'd just treated his girlfriend with more kindness, his grisly death wouldn't have happened that way. Rachel Howells is a particularly cold-blooded example of the female of the species. Maybe Sherlock Holmes avoids close association with females as a rule, not because he finds them stupid, vaporish creatures--that's just his line to Watson to cover up the real potential truth: SH is scared of what women are capable of, and he doesn't want to be blindsided by any 'feminine charms'. The Woman is proof (let us call her proof) that he *was* susceptible. And we have to remember that 'The Musgrave Ritual' happened very early on in Holmes's life and career. He couldn't have been more than 23, 24 years old when that happened, and so this murdering female would have made a deep impression on the nascent detective who perhaps was not that far removed from a romantic crush or two in his schooldays.

 

If Mr. Klinger got confused about the actual perpetrator in TMR, that is a quizzical error for the creator of 'the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes' to have made. A similar glaring goof brought me up short when I read Laurie King's "Mary Russell's War" short story collection. Les wrote a glowing introduction and served as editor. And yet--in a preface to one of the stories, there's a reference to 'The Mazarin Stone' . . .except that the story that was being referenced was actually 'The Blue Carbuncle'. Why was this error allowed to stand? Nobody who confuses The Mazarin Stone for the Blue Carbuncle deserves a berth in the BSIs, in my opinion. And *neither* of these two apparently caught the mistake.

 

Or perhaps they are just messing with our heads, in the fine tradition of the Literary Agent in the matters of Watsons wives and wounds and so forth. If that isn't the answer, then I'm mystified.

My post was badly worded there Hikari. I meant Paget as an Honourary member. Of course he died in 1908. I should have placed him at the end with my other ‘proposed’ honourary members but I put him next to Steele.

Aha. Well, I'm totally in support of a posthumous honorary membership for Mr. Paget, seeing as he singlehandedly created the physical image of Sherlock Holmes in the popular mind.

 

I tend to think of SH's 'grey eyes' as a unique feature to him, so I got perturbed when I noticed that Conan Doyle tended to describe almost every minor character's eyes as 'grey' also. If they weren't grey, they were 'black' or 'light blue'. Brown, green, hazel or any other shade of blue was hardly ever favored. Conclusion: Either 90% of the British populace have 'grey' eyes . . .or Conan Doyle tended to be a lazy writer when it came to providing inventive physical descriptions of people. There are all manner of 'grey' eyes, of course. Generally one thinks of the sort of blue eyes that are so light they are almost leached of color. I think of SH's eyes as darker; the color of burnished steel (some authors call them silver) . . .becoming darker when he is angry. Anyway, his is the first incidence of 'grey eyes' that I can recall reading about in literature. My whole family has brown eyes, so light-colored eyes of any shade are fascinating to me.

 

Wow, there's a tangent for ya!

 

P.S. Herlock . . Where is this Jack the Ripper forum you frequent? I am interesting in dropping by that blood-soaked abbatoir of disputation if you lot are amenable to new members. Or is it like a secret society? :ph34r:

Here’s a liink.

 

http://forum.casebook.org/

 

There’s not much that you can’t see if you’re not a member. I’ve done very little ripper posting lately.

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Herlock,

Thanks for the links.  Will check those out.

 

I learned in my travels that the Strand illustrators initially wanted Walter Paget for the commission, and there was a snafu in communication.  It was unclear which 'Mr. Paget, the illustrator' was being sought and Sidney ended up taking the job because he thought they were asking for him.  Sid was the youngest of the artistic Paget brothers and, by some accounts, the least-talented.   But the Strand readers immediately took Sidney's renditions of Holmes and Watson into their hearts and minds' eyes and would have no others. 

 

Don't know what Walter Paget felt about losing out on this lucrative job that was meant for him in the first place, but he remained involved in a crucial way:  his kid brother used him as the model for the drawings of Sherlock Holmes.  That has to be at least as good as being the one who drew them, wouldn't you say?

 

My favorite Paget illustration of our dynamic duo is the one accompanying 'Sliver Blaze', with Holmes and Watson on the train to Kings Pyland.  SH is in his full regalia and he is leaning intently forward, with his elbows on his knees and his hands turned upwards, making some very intense and emphatic point to Watson across the aisle.  It's a very Sherlock-y pose and Sherlock is looking very Himself in it.

 

See you in the Rippersphere!

 

P.S.  I looked in briefly on both of those forums.  They seem set up very similarly.  Aka very basic; not nearly as nice as this site, and I found them very busy to look at and navigate.  Is there one you prefer, or are they both chock-full of lunatics? lol  What am I saying?  It's the Internet; it's Jack the Ripper/conspiracy theorists' haven . . .of course they are both chock full of lunatics!

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Herlock,

Thanks for the links. Will check those out.

 

I learned in my travels that the Strand illustrators initially wanted Walter Paget for the commission, and there was a snafu in communication. It was unclear which 'Mr. Paget, the illustrator' was being sought and Sidney ended up taking the job because he thought they were asking for him. Sid was the youngest of the artistic Paget brothers and, by some accounts, the least-talented. But the Strand readers immediately took Sidney's renditions of Holmes and Watson into their hearts and minds' eyes and would have no others.

 

Don't know what Walter Paget felt about losing out on this lucrative job that was meant for him in the first place, but he remained involved in a crucial way: his kid brother used him as the model for the drawings of Sherlock Holmes. That has to be at least as good as being the one who drew them, wouldn't you say?

 

My favorite Paget illustration of our dynamic duo is the one accompanying 'Sliver Blaze', with Holmes and Watson on the train to Kings Pyland. SH is in his full regalia and he is leaning intently forward, with his elbows on his knees and his hands turned upwards, making some very intense and emphatic point to Watson across the aisle. It's a very Sherlock-y pose and Sherlock is looking very Himself in it.

 

See you in the Rippersphere!

 

P.S. I looked in briefly on both of those forums. They seem set up very similarly. Aka very basic; not nearly as nice as this site, and I found them very busy to look at and navigate. Is there one you prefer, or are they both chock-full of lunatics? lol What am I saying? It's the Internet; it's Jack the Ripper/conspiracy theorists' haven . . .of course they are both chock full of lunatics!

Hi Hikari,

 

I tend to post on the Casebook site but both are very good. Lots of people who know the case inside out. Also many authors.

 

The letter was definately intended for Walter as they had seen some of his previous work (I can’t recall where from) which impressed them. It’s not on record whether Walter ever resented this (especially when Sidney used him as a model.) After Sidney died various artists illustrated Holmes stories and Walter got to do just one. It makes you wonder why they didn’t just ask Walter to take over completely?

 

My favourite illustration, I think, is this one by Frank Wiles from The Valley Of Fear.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=frank+wiles+holmes+illustration&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB704GB704&hl=en-GB&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv7equ68PXAhXMPxoKHWIyD4kQ_AUIEigB&biw=1024&bih=1251#imgrc=Qr5uJAFuRzRrwM:

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A bold choice!  Holmes is a bit too 'bald, old man' in that for me.

 

Here's the one I am thinking of,  It adorns the recently published Conan Doyle bio, 'Arthur & Sherlock.'  Let's see if it works . . .

 

http://lowres-picturecabinet.com.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/29/main/15/1105728.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hemlock,

 

Auto-correct?  :D

 

I tend to think of SH's 'grey eyes' as a unique feature to him, so I got perturbed when I noticed that Conan Doyle tended to describe almost every minor character's eyes as 'grey' also.  If they weren't grey, they were 'black' or 'light blue'.  Brown, green, hazel or any other shade of blue was hardly ever favored.  Conclusion:  Either 90% of the British populace have 'grey' eyes . . .or Conan Doyle tended to be a lazy writer when it came to providing inventive physical descriptions of people....

Author Rex Stout was also quite prone to giving his characters gray eyes.  (Some people claim that Stout's best-known detective Nero Wolfe was the son of Sherlock Holmes, but I doubt that explains it.)  I've seen very few people that I would describe as having gray eyes, but they do seem to abound in literature!

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I like a bit of Nero Wolfe. I’ve recently listened to a few old radio shows on YouTube starring Sidney Greenstreet as Wolfe.

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