New Rube-Friendly Ripper-Tour

[Howard Brown]

15 years doing tours and he uses a photo of a woman who was not Polly Nichols.


Certainly Ripperologist Halle Rubenhold is reasonably certain that not all of these women sold sex. The Five is an excellent book which maybe should be compulsory reading for some tour guides who still like to dwell on the depths of depravity that they like to imagine these women sank.


https://www.walks.com/our-walks/jack...s-whitechapel/

[Mark J D]

... tour guides who still like to dwell on the depths of depravity that they like to imagine these women sank...

You know, literally the maddest part of the entire Rube groundswell is the way so many people act as if subsistence sex work meant it was the women who were depraved, and not the laissez-faire capitalist society in which they were imprisoned.

In fact, it seems to me that the absurd spectacle of a pampered western liberal torturing the sources so as to make it seem that a sex worker wasn't a sex worker is, at base, a defence of the de facto religion that is capitalism. ("Capitalism made these women sell sex. But capitalism is defined as doubleplusgood. Therefore these women didn't sell sex. Yaaay, capitalism!")

M.

[Chris Phillips]

You know, literally the maddest part of the entire Rube groundswell is the way so many people act as if subsistence sex work meant the women were depraved, and not the laissez-faire capitalist society in which they were imprisoned.

In fact, it seems to me that the absurd spectacle of a pampered liberal torturing the sources so as to make it seem that a sex worker wasn't a sex worker is, at base, a defence of the de facto religion that is capitalism. ("Capitalism made these women sell sex. But capitalism has to look like something good. Therefore these women didn't sell sex. Yaaay, capitalism!")

M.

And of course equally, by implication, it's a condemnation of the women who did sell sex (who included, in reality, the women whose reputations Hallie Rubenhold was purportedly rescuing).

[Mark J D]

... And of course equally, by implication, it's a condemnation of the women who did sell sex (who included, in reality, the women whose reputations Hallie Rubenhold was purportedly rescuing).

Indeed. And from this point onwards, the tangle only gets madder and madder. For one thing, the very word 'prostitute' messes with people's heads, with the result that they both enjoy the erotic frisson and demand that the woman be seen to be punished. I give you: Annie Chapman portrayed by a Barbara Windsor not out of her twenties. A good-time girl; won't get a proper job; stays up late; doesn't budget responsibly; wears a fifty guinea outfit; shows historically impossible quantities of cleavage. Oo-er. Yeah, she had it coming.

We are a seriously sick society.

M.

[Stuart Banks]

You know, literally the maddest part of the entire Rube groundswell is the way so many people act as if subsistence sex work meant it was the women who were depraved, and not the laissez-faire capitalist society in which they were imprisoned.

In fact, it seems to me that the absurd spectacle of a pampered western liberal torturing the sources so as to make it seem that a sex worker wasn't a sex worker is, at base, a defence of the de facto religion that is capitalism. ("Capitalism made these women sell sex. But capitalism is defined as doubleplusgood. Therefore these women didn't sell sex. Yaaay, capitalism!")

M.

Mark, I'm afraid it sounds like you haven't read the book properly. While I agree that capitalism has made these women turn to selling sex, Halle simply points out that just because a woman is on the street at night does not a sex worker make. That is just voicing the truth, not justifying or condemning capitalism.

[Jonathan Menges]

She says there’s no evidence that the victims engaged in subsistence prostitution. Of course there is. She chose not to include any of that evidence in her book.

JM

[Gary Barnett]

Has there ever been a political system under which prostitution didn’t flourish? Let me know and they’ll get my vote at the next election.

The point here is that Hallie’s approach implies that the women are being blamed for their choice of occupation. If there was evidence that one them was occasionally a washerwoman, would we hesitate to accept it? So why should we ignore the evidence, albeit small, of prostitution? Only if we feel the women would be shown in a bad light if they were so desperate that to survive they had to occasionally sell their bodies. It’s Hallie and co. who look at things that way, not ‘Ripperologists’.

[Stuart Banks]

She says there’s no evidence that the victims engaged in subsistence prostitution. Of course there is. She chose not to include any of that evidence in her book.

JM

Under 'occupation' in the police files forms, the police entered 'prostitution' in the assumption that if she was out at night then that was what she was up to. That happened for sure with Polly Nicholls. Please give an example of actual evidence.

[Stuart Banks]

Has there ever been a political system under which prostitution didn’t flourish? Let me know and they’ll get my vote at the next election.

The point here is that Hallie’s approach implies that the women are being blamed for their choice of occupation. If there was evidence that one them was occasionally a washerwoman, would we hesitate to accept it? So why should we ignore the evidence, albeit small, of prostitution? Only if we feel the women would be shown in a bad light if they were so desperate that to survive they had to occasionally sell their bodies. It’s Hallie and co. who look at things that way, not ‘Ripperologists’.

What evidence? Granted Mary Kelly but the others were just looking for a bed for the night. Any evidence that wasn't anecdotal?

[Michael Banks]

Error.

[Michael Banks]

What evidence? Granted Mary Kelly but the others were just looking for a bed for the night. Any evidence that wasn't anecdotal?

Do you really believe that the killer was targeting rough sleepers?

[Gary Barnett]

What evidence? Granted Mary Kelly but the others were just looking for a bed for the night. Any evidence that wasn't anecdotal?

Isn’t Kelly’s evidence also anecdotal? In her case we know nothing whatsoever about her that isn’t anecdotal, but HR constructs an elaborate fantasy about her French escapade based loosely such anecdotes.

She also perpetuates a myth about Kate Eddowes being a ballad writer based on a complete fiction constructed in a dodgy lads mag in 1995.

What kind of evidence are you expecting? If the contemporary police and people who know a woman say she was an ‘unfortunate’, why should that be ignored? It’s all we have. If those same people said the woman was a washerwoman or was ‘fond of singing’ would you dismiss it as being ‘anecdotal’?

At the very least, HR should have presented all the evidence. The fact that she didn’t speaks volumes about her intentions.

[Gary Barnett]

HR clearly didn’t feel comfortable wallowing in the gutters of the East End. That’s why she accepted the anecdotal evidence of Mary Kelly’s previous and spun it into something more glamorous with West End and French touches.

She imagines Kelly having a fling with a Scot’s guards officer in the West End and suppresses the evidence that suggests ‘Johnto’ might have been an enlisted man she met in the Highway.

[Gary Barnett]

HR tells us that working class Welsh lads wouldn’t have joined such a prestigious Scots/London regiment as the Scots Guards. Absolute rubbish! Just look at the enlistment records of the regiment.

She mentions the regiment being based in the West End but neglects to mention that while Kelly was in the Highway the very battalion that Johnto was supposed to be in was a few minutes walk away in the Tower. Why? Either because her research was abysmal or because that inconvenient fact got in the way of her West End officer fantasy and so had to be omitted.

That sort of thing happens time and time again in The 5.

[Jonathan Menges]

What evidence? Granted Mary Kelly but the others were just looking for a bed for the night. Any evidence that wasn't anecdotal?

The 7 September 1888 police report written by Inspector Helson of J Division states that William Nichols, whom had separated from Polly had later discovered that she “was living the life of a prostitute” and discontinued her allowance with the approval of the court “these facts being proved”. Rubenhold ignores the existence of this police report.

Emily Holland and other lodgers at 18 Thrawl Street told a reporter that Polly “had led the life of an unfortunate”. This incident was rewritten by Rubenhold to make it appear as if the reporter, rather than being told this information, had invented it.

Inspector Chandler’s report from 8 September 1888 states that Timothy Donovan, deputy of Crossinghams lodging house, said he ha known Annie Chapman “for about 16 months as a prostitute”.
Rubenhold ignores the existence of this police report.

Thomas Bates, a watchman who knew Elizabeth Stride, said that when she was “driven to extremities she walked the streets” since “when she could get no work she had to do the best she could for a living.” This account does not appear in The Five.

Amelia Palmer was specifically asked at the inquest whether Annie Chapman earned money from prostitution and she said “I cannot say. I’m afraid she was not particular. She was out late at night at times, she told me so.” This testimony does not appear in The Five.

Rubenhold ignores any and every existing account that suggests the victims engaged in subsistence prostitution. Instead she theorizes that they were all murdered sleeping rough. When eyewitness accounts contradict her theory, like the evidence given by John Richardson and Elizabeth Long (just to name two) she ignores them completely also.


JM