| Author |
Message |
    
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 557
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 1:57 pm: |       |
Just running things through in my old brain I realised that I am stuck in the groove of imagining that ‘flashers’ are somehow a product of this new age and that they couldn’t have possibly existed in the Late Victorian Period.
Now, I don’t necessarily believe that ‘flashing’ might have been a primary motive behind the crimes of Jack but I do believe it to be a useful key in our historical understanding of the crimes.
I would be highly interested in any information regarding this ‘soft’ sexual crime during that time period, in fact it may not have been a crime at all, and any views or data would be greatly appreciated.
I feel it is of import to the case.
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1316
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 2:24 pm: | |
Hi AP
Maybe the story told by Sarah Lewis at the Kelly inquest
is relevant. "He then undid his coat and felt for something and we ran away."
Robert |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 558
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 4:06 pm: | |
Yes, I remember that now Robert
I had read it then as he was perhaps going for his knife, but obviously you refer to a weapon of some description. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1319
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 4:12 pm: | |
Hi AP
Yes, it could be interpreted as Lewis's fear that he was going for a knife. However, the man had a bag, and old Jacky was supposed to keep his knife in his bag.
Perhaps the women just weren't taking any chances.
Robert |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 437
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 8:58 am: | |
Hi AP:
This isn't a criticism of you but I should think that flashing or exposure by males is as old as time, and probably took place in Pompeii as likely as in Victorian London. While I have no statistics to cite, I should think that such practices would come under such rubrics as "lewd and indecent behavior" and would have been dealt with appropriately by the authorities.
Best regards
Chris George |
Monty
Inspector
Username: Monty
Post Number: 407
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 11:36 am: | |
AP,
Have you heard of Colin Pitchfork?
Yes, the DNA Pitchfork.
He claimed that he went out to 'exposed' himself during his first murder.
He states he gave the girl enough room to just walk by. That was the plan in his head.
But she didnt walk by. She froze. She just didnt move. Pitchfork then stated he panicked and attacked which resulted in her death.
Just an add on.
Monty
|
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 572
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 1:14 pm: | |
Chris
you are probably quite right, but I do seem to have this mental block when trying to see this soft sexual crime in history.
I would be very interested in any references to this sort of 'lewd' behaviour in any history slice.
I believe I am right in assuming that it was perfectly legal and proper for coachmen and passengers to urinate against a certain wheel of the coach during the LVP, so perhaps the sight of a man waving his wand about was perfectly acceptable during the LVP?
I don't know, but I would like to. |
John Savage
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 119
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 2:00 pm: | |
AP
Flashing, or indecent exposure is dealt with under the Vagrancy Act 1824, and the Town Police Clauses Act 1847; which states the following:
"Wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely exposing a penis with intent to insult any female"
I suppose that if it was against the law, ergo it must have happened. But not being any expert in this field that is all I can tell you.
Regards,
John Savage |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 439
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 2:15 pm: | |
Hi, John:
Thanks for citing the specific act that made such lewd acts illegal. It was my assumption that there would be such legislation and this I think proves that likely such incidents were commonplace. By the way, not that this tells us anything about the Victorian period, but when I was a small boy in the 1950's a man exposed himself to me in the Wavertree Recreation Ground, known locally for some reason as "The Mystery." Also I was told by a Liverpool girlfriend that such incidents were commonplace with men exposing themselves to women in the working class areas of Liverpool, so I would presume again that the same thing had occurred over generations past.
All the best
Chris |
John Savage
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 121
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 3:44 pm: | |
Well Chris,
It was a recreation ground, so I suppose that was his idea of recreation!
AP
I too have heard this idea that it was legal for a coachman to urinate against the near side wheel of his coach, however I have no idea of the legality, although I always understood that you had to be at least 1 mile from your destination.
Of course if it where ilegal and John Netley had been arrested for urinating against his coach wheel, the case may well have been solved.
Regards,
John Savage |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 156
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 4:31 pm: | |
"...obscenely exposing a penis with intent to insult any female"
Uh, how exactly is this an insult?
The obssessive revealing of one's shortcomings might be lewd, offensive, illegal, and even emotionally abusive, but I'm not sure how it's insulting.
Then again, I live in a country where one of the first things the new Attorney General did when he took office was to install two long curtains to cover a statue of Justice in his office building.
Why?
Because she was topless.
I guess he was insulted.
All the best,
--John
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1364
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 5:17 pm: | |
Hi
It may have been legal for a coachman to urinate against the wheel of his coach if he was one mile from his destination - but not if he was one mile from the coach.
Robert |
Mark Andrew Pardoe
Detective Sergeant
Username: Picapica
Post Number: 144
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 5:33 pm: | |
"...obscenely exposing a penis with intent to insult any female"
Therefore, do I presume the gentleman who showed his penis to Christopher was not breaking the law?
Also, is this why Chris has moved to America?
Cheers, Mark |
AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 575
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 5:54 pm: | |
John (Savage)
thanks for that, a marker of law in that period.
It is a funny old thing and perhaps not always best judged by laws passed and enforced.
On the strange little island where I live men are commonly fined up to £350 for relieving themselves in the street whereas men who do the same to 'insult' females are fined about £50.
I am still interested in tracing this behaviour as far back as possible... in my own research I did manage to find cases of sexual serial killers operating well before the BC, but of 'flashers' I found nothing. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 485
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 4:55 am: | |
Hi All,
When I was at school, I had to take the underground from Southfields to Hammersmith every day, and it didn’t matter whether the train was packed or nearly empty, my pals and I would often encounter flashers and touchers. We had a signal to alert each other when this was happening, one of us would take a ruler out of our schoolbag. When we were being prodded indecently while crushed together like sardines, the strategy would include treading hard on toes or poking back with a brolly where it hurt most. We treated it all as an inevitable part of growing up and commuting, and I suppose it was our introduction into the world of sexual fantasies, and the revelation that there have always been, and will always be, men who can’t resist going beyond the fantasising.
I bet there were 'resident' flashing commuters when my grandad travelled up to London from Southfields by underground as a lad in 1888! And I can well believe the ladies then would describe the experience as shocking or insulting, when complaining to their menfolk, even if they were giggling about it privately with their closest female friends.
The ‘in’ joke 80 years later for us was: Is that your ruler? Yes, but I don’t use it as a rule.
One could choose to spend one’s whole life feeling insulted by men’s little peccadillos. I prefer to smile at those indulgently and concentrate on the whoppers – such as what makes flashing turn to actual bodily harm.
Love,
Caz
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1369
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 5:03 am: | |
Hi AP
It may be worthwhile to have a look at the history of Quakerism. The early ones, on both sides of the Atlantic, thought nothing of stripping off. I don't know to what extent the law was invoked against their nudism, as distinct from their religion.
On your island, the insulted women should tell the flashers to p*ss off - then they'd be fined four hundred quid.
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1370
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 5:12 am: | |
Hi Caz
A friend of a friend was flashed at a while ago. A man asked her for the time and then exposed himself.
My reaction was that she should have said "The big hand's fallen off, but the little hand's pointing to six o'clock." In the light of Pitchfork though, maybe not such a good idea.
Robert |
Eric Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 1:40 am: | |
I lived in England for 2 years and for the vast majority of the time, it was too cold to go flashing. Especially in the winter, flashing might cause frost bite of certain "bodily extremities". Risky business indeed. |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 440
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 10:13 am: | |
Hi, Caz:
Thanks for sharing your experiences with flashers on the underground from Southfields to Hammersmith as a schoolgirl. I am prepared to believe, based on what I was told by my lady friend in Liverpool and what you have said, that these incidents unfortunately happen all too often to females. I can also understand why given the prudishness of the law and officialdom in Victorian days such practices would have been labeled in that era as an "insult" to the female sex. Mark is correct that a male so exposed unwontedly to a flasher should have been equally "insulted" but perhaps the law did not recognize that as happening, though I should think, by implication, it probably did occur, as it did happen to me as a little boy in that Liverpool park circa 1954.
Caz, on a lighter note, Eric of course is correct about the cold temperatures for much of the year in England. I should wonder then if there would have been anything to measure with your rulers!!!  My school pals and I in Liverpool used to call our wooden rulers "pig stickers" -- in retrospect, an appropriate term for a weapon to fend off any brute who would expose himself in public, I think.
By the way, I hope the sales of your book written with Seth and Keith, Ripper Diary: The Untold Story are going well!
All my best
Chris |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 489
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 12:28 pm: | |
Hi Robert, Chris, All,
A flasher went into a jeweller’s shop, confirmed with the lady assistant that repairs could be done there, exposed himself and said “Put a couple of hands on that then!”
And when I complained to hubby that a strange man had put his arms round me three times on the train, I got no sympathy. “Nonsense”, he replied. “No one’s got arms that long.”
Believe me, the London Underground, apart from maybe the coldest day in January, is a very hot and sweaty place to be, and I’d advise all schoolgirls not to forget their rulers, and older ladies their brollies or knitting needles. 
Love,
Caz
|
Andy and Sue Parlour
Detective Sergeant
Username: Tenbells
Post Number: 71
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 2:19 pm: | |
This is a serious discussion.
A flasher exposed himself to my sister-in-law.
When the Police asked her if she would recognise him again if she saw him, she replied 'I didn't look at his face'. True story.
Anyway Caz a 3ft midget could touch fingers around your waist! |
Erin Sigler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rapunzel676
Post Number: 113
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 1:25 am: | |
No one's ever seen fit to flash me, although I was once mistaken for a prostitute while waiting on a city bus in broad daylight, groceries in hand.  |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1448
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - 5:31 am: | |
Erin, good job you heard clearly what the man said. "Get to the back of the queue" would have been an unfortunate response.
Robert |
panopticon
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, December 12, 2004 - 7:52 am: | |
hi, im doing legal research in nineteenth century australia and have found alot of cases of 'flashing' or indecent exposure, especially of men exposing themselves to groups of young girls etc. also in regard to the top posts, the word 'something' i.e. 'he felt for something' is an extremely common nineteenth century euphemism for penis. in rape cases for example the victim often describes the attack as 'he put something in me'. hope this helps |
