Mary Jane's Young Son

This article states that Mary Jane Kelly's young son was LIVING with a friendly neighbor at the time of her murder. Not that he was staying the night or visiting briefly; but LIVING there. Maybe this neighbor of Mary's had more room in her house, or was better able to provide for him.

LONDON HORRIFIED.
The Latest Whitechapel Murder Has Terrified the Town.

NOT A CLEW TO WORK UPON.
Hundreds of Men Are Scouring the City Trying to Find the Fiend, and Many Useless Arrests Have Been Made - Puzzled Police.

LONDON, Nov. 10. - The excitement here over the lengthening series of Whitechapel atrocities is more intense than ever. The papers are having enormous sales, though they contain little besides speculation and rumors. Beyond the broad facts of this ninth atrocity the police are endeavoring to keep everything secret.
The one question in everybody's mind is can the murderer of Mary Jane McCarthy or Kelly be found?
This is the problem before the London police, and the impression prevails that it will be answered negatively. But if so the public indignation is likely to culminate in an overturn of the present police authorities.
Yet the Whitechapel monster left more tracks behind him in this than in any other previous butchery. He was seen by several persons.

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As he was entering the small court which leads to the dirty room where the crime was committed, both the man and Mary Jane stopped and laughed at a large poster which offers 100 pounds reward for the Whitechapel murderer. A number of people who live in a lodging house across the way noted the incident and gave this description of the man; About 30 years old, five feet six inches tall, wore speckled trousers and a black coat, and respectable in appearance.
A Mrs. Paumier, who sells walnuts in Sandy's row, gives a similar description of a man who talked with her about the murder at 11 o'clock on the day of the last crime. He bought no walnuts, but lingered around the locality for some time. In his left hand he carried a black bag. He accosted several girls in the neighborhood, and when asked by them what he carried in the bag replied in a sarcastic tone:
"Something the ladies don't like."
"Fair Emma," as she was known to the denizens of Commercial street, was between 26 and 30 years of age. Her small son has recently been living with some friendly neighbor. Thursday night, soon after midnight, she went into Dorset street accompanied by a man. They turned out of the street into Miller's court.
After they entered the woman's room persons in the house heard her singing "Sweet Violets" in a drunken voice. No sound was detected from the room thereafter until the horribly mutilated body was discovered by the landlord who called to collect his rent.

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Yet here are definite facts for the police to work upon. It is Sir Charles Warren's opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency or inefficiency of himself and his subordinates. The bloodhounds put upon the murderer's track proved a failure. The police are baffled and helpless as before. The keenest detectives in the force, who have been on the watch since the last murder, are unable to find a clew or even form a theory.
As on previous occasions, in the absence of any indications, a drag net has been thrown over the metropolis, and all the men who can be spared are searching every railway station, public house, evil resort and hole and corner not only in the East End but throughout the city and suburbs, in the wild hope that something may be discovered.
There is no doubt that the perpetrator of this and the eight other butcheries which preceded it is one and the same man; that he decoys, or suffers himself to appear to be decoyed, into a safe place; that the murder is instantaneous, no warning being given the victim, no chance to cry for help, no time to struggle for life; that the mutilation of the remains is accomplished at such leisure as the murderer

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may have, and it is noted that the ingenuity of his fiendish devices is in proportion to the time in each case which he probably had at his disposal; that he leaves no mark behind except upon the bodies of his victims; that even the money and jewelry they may have is untouched, and that he enters and leaves a house without making any noise or attracting the slightest attention, as in the last case when people were up or awake all night in the building and heard nothing remarkable.
He waits, watches his chances, secures his prey, seizes the opportunity, applies the knife, probably at the instant when the unresisting victim is most off her guard, finishes the awful work and vanishes into the void of London.
The only defense made by Sir Charles Warren of the police for their failure to discover the assassin is that both parties conspire, as it were, to prevent detection by shrouding their movements in darkness and secrecy.
The people of London are exasperated beyond measure at the repetition of these atrocities. Demands for the offer of a large reward are again made upon Home Secretary Matthews.
The panic in Whitechapel and Spitalfields is revived. The outcasts who formerly thronged the streets cower in their lodgings in a state of abject terror. Their traffic has been stopped as if a pestilence were abroad.
Not a woman could be seen on the streets last night in the infested quarter. The police have again been doubled. Every doubtful house is under espionage and every suspicious stranger closely watched.
Several arrests have been made, but in no case has there been any evidence on which to base a just suspicion, and in every instance the women who saw the man have been unable to identify the prisoner.

Source: The Ogdensburg Journal, Monday, November 12, 1888

Would 'small son' suggest someone 6 years old and not someone 10 years old?
I doubt he'd be small for his age considering Mary's height.

If this is a different source, that would make at least the fourth witness to testify to reporters as to the existance of a child, including Barnett.

And if the child was living somewhere else, there could not be a mistake in identity with Elizabeth Fisher's child who lived with her in the same building, as is often claimed by skeptics.

What is clear is that these "skeptics" will soon be going down.

Karen wrote:What is clear is that these "skeptics" will soon be going down.

Excuse me, but who are "skeptics"? Is this a particular group?

Perhaps.

Onaga wrote:

Karen wrote:What is clear is that these "skeptics" will soon be going down.

Excuse me, but who are "skeptics"? Is this a particular group?

The skeptics I'm talking about are the ones that don't believe Mary Jane Kelly had a child whose identity and existance was covered-up and who may be the key to the whole thing or, at least, to identifying Jack.
Generally they are mainstream Ripperology.

Precisely who I mean - those who "lie" for profit.