Ripperologist 96

RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE
Issue 96, October2008

QUOTE FOR OCTOBER:
‘You can give thanks to your deity now. Paris Hilton says that she’s thinking about settling in England . Oh Jesus, it’s like they’re getting the Black Plague
again. “I love it here, I am going to move here permanently. I have already been here for one month and am much, much happier here. I love guys with
English accents. I have met a really cute English guy, but it’s early days.” The early days of the end of days for the UK. She’s there filming her “BFF” show
and trying to blow Prince William. Is it bad to wish that Jack the Ripper was still around and caught her coming out of a pub?’
Paris Hilton Might Be Leaving The U.S., Infos Jeunes France, Paris, France, 20 October 2008
We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by

Features the following people in the production of this issue of
Ripperologist: — Rob Clack, Philip Hutchinson, Stewart P. Evans,
Murder? So What? Melissa Garrett —Thank you!
Editorial by Adam Wood
The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed
Young Montie: Montague John Druitt at Winchester articles, essays, letters and other items published in
Ripperologist are those of the authors and do not necessarily
Andrew Spallek
reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Ripperologist or
Why No October Surprise? its editors. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in
unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other
Don Souden
items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of
Elisabeth Stride: The Yiddish Connection Ripperologist and its editorial team.
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thing we have published we will be pleased to make a prop-
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The contents of Ripperologist No. 96 October 2008, including
Kate’s Folks the compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles,
essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright ©
Neal Shelden
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civil liability and criminal prosecution.
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Murder? So What?
Editorial by Adam Wood
Earlier this year my teenage son was witness to a murder where the victim was repeatedly
stabbed and slashed before bleeding to death.
He has been remarkably unaffected by the incident, being more concerned with the welfare of his girlfriend, who
was with him at the time. This week he received a summons to appear as a witness at the trial, and confided that,
strange as it sounds, he can’t remember many of the details.
Was it the trauma of what he’d seen, or something more?
There is a strong argument that the video game age that the video game age has resulted in the younger generation becom-
ing desensitised to violence. Certainly, my son is a keen gamer; the number of zombies, enemy soldiers, and evil warlocks that
have met their end at his hands on the Xbox probably runs into the 100s. This has lead to some of the more extreme sections
of the media suggesting that those impressionable youths constantly exposed to violent video games could grow up to become
deranged serial killers. In the case of my son, this couldn’t be further form the truth. He is an extremely balanced, pleasant
young man. But there’s no denying that his generation have become immune to violence through video games.
But before the Sony PlayStation filled our screens with video nasties, other forms of media brought pain and death
to the masses.
Cinemas screening war films, newspaper reports of multi-vehicle crashes, television coverage of high-school snipers
— we constantly face exposure to violence and death.
My interest in the Ripper murders began in the mid 1970s with my grandfather’s tales of my family living in the East
End at the time, and his father supposedly having seen the body of one of the victims.
In the 30 years since, I’ve become familiar with stab wounds, throats cut almost to the point of decapitation, and
severed carotid arteries, not to mention horrific mutilation and internal organ removal. All of this ‘knowledge’ has been
gleaned from books. In the course of my studies I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve become anesthetised to the true hor-
ror of the wounds suffered at the hands of the Whitechapel murderer, as I’m sure many readers have.
Even during the Ripper murders, East End locals almost
Screenshot of video game Manhunt 2, which the British Board shrugged their shoulders at the murder of Alice McKenzie, as
of Film Classification had attempted to have permanently
banned from release. After months of legal wrangling the
the Decatur Daily Despatch reported on 17 July 1889: “The
developer, Rockstar, succeeded in an appeal to have the game people are so blase with these horrors that there is very little
classified 18 and it was released in the UK on 31 October.
excitement at the revival, but it will lead to fresh agitation
against the present system of London police.”
But violence in popular media is far from new. From 2000BC,
the ancient Egyptians re-enacted the murder of Osiris as enter-
tainment, according to an excellent study entitled Violence in
Media Entertainment at the Media Awareness Network website
(http://www.mediaawareness.ca/english/issues/violence/vio-
lence_entertainment.cfm). The report also tells us that
“ancient Romans were given to lethal spectator sports as well,
and in 380 BC Saint Augustine lamented that his society was
addicted to gladiator games and ‘drunk with the fascination of
bloodshed.’”
Yes, violence has always been with us. And human nature
has always been able to adapt and accept it. But it’s a sober-
ing thought to realise that coming face to face with violence
is very different on the printed page than it is in real life.
Ripperologist 96 October 2008 1

Young Montie:
Montague John Druitt at Winchester
By Andrew Spallek
Much has been written about the life of Montague Druitt since he has emerged as a Ripper sus-
pect. Both Tom Cullen1 and Daniel Farson2 have detailed Druitt’s life, as have more recent authors
Martin Howells and Keith Skinner3 and D. J. Leighton.4 Together, these authors have given us more
than a glimpse into the tragic life of this suspect. However, primary research has not been
exhausted. In the summer of 2008 I was able to visit Montague Druitt’s old school, Winchester
College, and spend a whole day trolling through archival
DP1 — Montague Druitt at about age 13
Copyright Winchester College material relating to Druitt. The verbal information was
informative and has helped to round out Druitt the young
man but there was also a treasure I did not expect to find.
The Winchester College archives has in its possession sev-
eral photos of young Montague from approximately age 13
to age 18. Some of these are individual portraits. Others
are group pictures of the entire student body. The group
photos are perhaps the most fascinating as for the first
time we now get to see Druitt’s size and body type rela-
tive to others. These photos are published here for the
first time.
The Photographs
Let us begin by looking at the portrait photos of Montague Druitt

taken at Winchester. Photo DP1 shows a boyish Montague Druitt at
about age 13 with his trademark look: hair parted in the middle. Eyes
wide and distant, he looks a bit lost in his new surroundings. DP2 shows
Montague at about age 15, looking a bit more confident. There is the
beginning of the mustache he would be seen wearing later in life. Yet
the gaze is still distant and lost. DP3 shows Druitt at perhaps age 17.
1 When London Walked in Terror (New York: Avon, 1965).
2 Jack the Ripper (London: Michael Joseph, 1972).
3 The Ripper Legacy (London: Sphere Books, 1987).
4 Montague Druitt: Portrait of a Contender (London: Hydrangea, 2004).

A high collar partially hides his long neck and a fancy pin or pen-
dant adorns his necktie. The expression is determined yet the gaze
is still distant. The clothing appears expensive. Finally there is
DP4, a photograph that has been published previously. Here the
photographer’s name, W. Savage, is visible. This print is undoubt-
edly made from the original negative and is therefore much clearer
than most previously published copies. Druitt appears to be about
age 18 or 19. His mustache is clearly visible and the gaze remains
distant and somewhat forlorn.
Of perhaps more interest are the group photos that include
Montague Druitt. Other than one photo of Druitt with his cricket
team we have previously had no photos which give us any real indi-
cation of Druitt’s size. Now we have several! These group pictures
of the student body of Winchester College are all taken on the
steps to the dining hall entrance. Druitt occupies the same posi-
tion in each: on the right hand edge of the doorway about halfway
up the steps. DG1 was taken in 1873. Here Druitt is visibly differ-
ent from his portrait appearance. Gone is the forlorn, distant
expression. It has been replaced by a confident smile. His face is
no longer gaunt or sallow; it is full. Indeed, were it not for the
DP2 — Montague Druitt at age 15
Copyright Winchester College telltale hair parted in the middle one might have difficulty identi-
fying this as Montague Druitt. Height is difficult to determine
because it is not clear which student is standing on which step but Druitt appears to be of at least average size. DG2
was taken in 1875. Here Druitt appears in his usual position on the right side of the dining room entrance. This time
Montague sports a round cap with a peak perched a bit jauntily askew, portraying an air of confidence. The most inter-
esting feature of this photo is that it clearly shows Druitt to be a broad-shouldered man. His build is one of an accom-
plished athlete, projecting an image of physical strength. DG3, taken in 1876, is perhaps the most entertaining of the
archival photos. Here Druitt is shown clowning, mugging for the camera. His elbow cocked and head resting on his fist,
Montague leans against the classmate to his right. He appears considerably taller than those around him. These group
photos portray a Druitt different in appearance and mannerisms than his portraits display.
Written Material
Much has already been written about Montague Druitt’s time at Winchester and is perhaps best detailed by Leighton.5
Druitt entered Winchester College in 1870 as a fee-paying student but soon qualified for one of the prestigious schol-
arships awarded by that institution. He entered Fearons, the boarding house named after William Fearon, who would
later become headmaster of the college. He was a star both academically and athletically. A member of the debating
society, and later its treasurer and secretary, Druitt sparred verbally with some of the finest intellectual minds of his
generation. Druitt also excelled in cricket and “fives” (a handball game at which Druitt was school champion). He also
played football (this was the standard game known to Americans as “soccer” rather than Rugby football) and partici-
pated in various track and field events. The one blemish on his academic experience at Winchester was his less than
stellar performance as Toby Belch in a reading of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It has also been said that Montague
Druitt carved his initials in the wood paneling of the Great Hall at Winchester College. Indeed, the name “M. J. Druitt”
5 Leighton, 25-35.

is carved in the paneling (now with a portrait placed strategically over
it). However, the names of dozens of other students also appear in the
same font and style. The Winchester archivist explained to me that in
all likelihood the students hired someone, probably the school car-
penter, to immortalize their names in this manner. This was under-
standable and pardonable, the archivist went on to explain, because
the Great Hall was disused at the time as a new classroom building
had just been completed.
Although these facts were known, I found my search through the
archives to be fascinating as many more details emerged. Also inter-
esting was a cache of correspondence between author Daniel Farson
and the Winchester archivist in preparation for the release of Farson’s
book in 1972. Unfortunately for Farson, many of the photographs I
produce here were unavailable to him as a key photo album of
Winchester students lay forgotten in storage at the Winchester public
library and was only re-discovered and presented to the college
archives in recent years.
Debate
Debate was a key interest of Montague Druitt. A member of the

debating society from 1873 until he left the school in 1876, Druitt was
DP3 — Montague around the age of 17
Copyright Winchester College
elected to office as treasurer and secretary. It is interesting to note
that the vice-president of the society and perhaps its most noted member was Edward Tyas Cook. Cook, who would
become a noted journalist, lived at Blackheath, not far from Druitt’s residence at Eliot Place. Cook was quite involved
in the founding of Toynbee Hall, an academic institution founded by Oxford and Cambridge scholars intended to pro-
vide educational opportunities for poor East End residents. Cook and Druitt would have known one another well at
Winchester and perhaps continued their friendship when both lived at Blackheath. Not knowing whether the archivist
would be willing to show me the hand-written minutes of the debating society, I resolved to ask anyway. To my great
delight, “I’ll get them for you right away,” or something very like it, was her reply. I was presented with these hand-
written documents, some written in Druitt’s own hand, and left to peruse them in private for hours. It appears that
topics for debate were proposed by a member of the society and then the various debaters lined up either “for” or
“against.” The positions apparently were not assigned, but chosen.
Following is a summary of Druitt’s debates:
Proposition: “That German influence in Europe has reached such dangerous pitch as to require immediate suppres-
sion.” Druitt spoke FOR the proposition. In his argument Druitt pronounced Germany “politically, morally, and socially
a curse to the world.” He argued that if Germany were to annex Denmark it would gain a seaboard. Russia, in turn,
would then “turn to the East” which was a very unfavorable idea to England. Germany also displayed moral laxity by
interfering in Spain. Socially, Druitt decried the German practice of police breaking into private homes and imposing
fines on those who dared to speak up for the Danish or French. “It is time for such influences to be suppressed.”
Proposition: “That the prevalent bondage to fashion is one of the greatest evils of the day.” Druitt spoke AGAINST
the proposition. “Fashion is not a tyrant. She allows great latitude. The fashion of the present day seemed to him
(Druitt) the most graceful combination of beauty and utility. Fashion is liable to mistakes. The motion argues that the
whole social state of England is in a most degraded condition.” With this Druitt disagreed.

Proposition: “That Wordsworth does not deserve a place in the first rank
of English poets.” Druitt spoke AGAINST the proposition. Druitt argued that
Wordsworth’s poems ought to be taken as a whole. Wordsworth managed to
include in his poems all the elementary feelings of nature.
Proposition: “That the good of Europe demands the immediate extinc-

tion of the Turkish Empire.” Druitt spoke FOR the proposition. Druitt argued
that since the Treaty of Paris the Turkish Empire had been put to the test
and found wanting. England accepted the pledge of Turkey in that treaty
with all sincerity but Constantinople did not live up to the terms. England
was thus absolved from her obligation and had the duty to break up the
empire as champions of freedom.
Proposition: “That a system of compulsory military service is not advan-

tageous to a nation.” Druitt spoke AGAINST the proposition. There is no
record of his speech.
Proposition: “That in the opinion of this house the conduct of the

Government in the Tichbourne Trial is worthy of the severest condemna-
tion.” Druitt spoke FOR the proposition. Although he said that he had come
quite unprepared to speak, Druitt argued that the Lord Chief Justice had
been clearly prejudiced. Interestingly, Druitt seemed to display an early
interest here in court and trial proceedings.
Proposition: “That the evident Conservative reaction proves that the pres-
ent Ministry is unworthy of support.” Druitt argued FOR the proposition. Druitt
DP4 — Montague aged 18 or 19
Copyright Winchester College questioned the political nature of the motion and went on to list Conservative
problems.
Proposition: “That a Republic is the only form of government which can save France from the ruin now threatening
her.” This proposition was moved by E.T. Cook and seconded by Druitt. He claimed that the danger facing France was
now anarchy and not monarchy and that a republic had been operating for the last 18 months.
Proposition: “That the execution of Charles I was from every point of view wholly unjustifiable.” This proposition
was moved by Druitt, who condemned the execution and drew parallels to the modern day situation in France. Druitt
labeled the execution “a most dastardly murder that will always attach to England’s fair name as a blot.”
Proposition: “That Mr. Disraeli should retire in favor of Lord Derby.” Druitt rose in SUPPORT of the proposition stat-
ing that Disraeli should retire because of his health.
Athletics
My search through the college archives also produced further information regarding Druitt’s athletic career at
Winchester. The following information comes from The Wykehamist , the newspaper of Winchester College.
Druitt’s most successful sport was cricket. Details of his cricket performance, if any, as an underclassman are not
reported in The Wykehamist. However, beginning in 1874 Druitt played a prominent role in Winchester cricket.
Reporting on the April 28, 1874 match against Exeter, The Wykehamist reported “Marriott’s and Druitt’s (bowling) analy-

sis were the best” as Druitt took four wickets.6 On May 1 Druitt bowled for “the Eleven”
vs. “the Sixteen” and took nine wickets. On May 5 Druitt bowled against the First
Battalion Rifle Brigade but took only one wicket.7 On June 8 and 9 Druitt took five
wickets for Winchester against the Old Wykehamists and on July 10, bowling for
“the Twenty-two” vs. “the Eleven,” he took three wickets.8 Taking eleven wick-
ets vs. New College on May 18, 1875, The Wykehamist pronounced Druitt’s
bowling “very effective.”9 On June 10 and 11 Druitt bowled vs. the Old
Wykehamists. The Wykehamist reported: “The bowling of Druitt (in the first
innings) is worthy of remark — seven wickets for twenty-six runs.” Druitt took
four more wickets in the second innings.10 Druitt opposed “The Garrison” on
May 11, 1876. The Wykehamist reported: “Druitt, who had been bowling capi-
tally in the morning, was unable later on to produce anything but ‘longhops’ var-
ied by ‘barters.’”11 On June 1 Druitt’s bowling was “excellent”12 against O. Milne’s
Eleven. Then on June 5 and 6 Druitt once again turned out for Winchester against the
Old Wykehamists. Druitt’s performance was once again good: five wickets for twenty-
seven runs in the first innings and four for ninety-one in the second innings. Performing against
Eton on June 23-24, Druitt faced the likes of J.E.K. Studd, Harry Goodhart, and Evelyn Ruggles-Brice but did not dis-
tinguish himself, taking only two wickets, as Eton won by an innings and ninety-nine runs. A poem describing the match
penned by one “K.M.” was published in the Eton newspaper and reprinted the The Wykehamist. It reads in part: “Studd
6 The Wykehamist 68 (1874). 10 The Wykehamist 83 (1875).

7 Idem. 11 The Wykehamist 94 (1876).
8 The Wykehamist 71 (1874). 12 The Wykehamist 96 (1876).
9 The Wykehamist 82 (1875).
DG1 — Druitt in 1873.

DG2 — Photograph taken in 1875.
soon fell to Druitt, Whitfield could not do it/To his own or his side’s satisfaction.”13 Druitt appeared against Lansdowne
later that summer but once again did not distinguish himself. Druitt took ten wickets for College (East) vs. E.J. Turner’s
on July 7 and 8. On the second day Druitt “got a white hat, bowling three wickets with three successive balls.”14 Druitt
later bowled vs. Rev. J.G. Crowdy’s Eleven and against the itinerant I. Zingari but did not distin-
guish himself.
In addition to cricket, Druitt played football at Winchester. In 1873, Druitt played in
at least two matches and was favorably reviewed by The Wykehamist. On October 22,
1874 Druitt played for the College Six vs. the Sixteen. The Wykehamist reported that
“Druitt showed well at times.” He also played for the College Fifteen vs. the
Commoners’ Fifteen and vs. the Houses Fifteen in November 1874. On November 2,
1875 Druitt once again took the field for College Fifteen vs. the Commoners’
Fifteen. The Wykehamist again reported: “The game now became faster, Druitt,
Pritchard, Cooper, and Beever becoming conspicuous for their sides.”15 And on
November 4 vs. Old Houses’ Fifteen: “It remained under ropes close to Houses’ goal,
till Druitt succeeded in getting it out and obtaining another goal for College.”16
Druitt also participated in track and field events, where he had far less success. In 1871,
Druitt ran the 100-yard dash in the under 15-year old division and finished last. He ran again in
13 Idem.
14 The Wykehamist 99 (1876). Turners was a college residence house near Druitt’s residence at Fearons.
16 Idem.

1872 and finished third but finished last in the half-mile run. Also in 1873 Druitt participated
in the “throwing the cricket ball” event, placing second in the under 15 division with a
throw of 72 yards, 2 feet, 3 inches. As he matured, Druitt fared little better in track and
field events. In 1875 he finished second-last in the 100-yard dash and finished third
in throwing the cricket ball, seven feet behind the leader.
The other sport at which Montague Druitt excelled was “fives,” a handball-type
game that required much strength and skill in the hands and wrists. In 1874, Druitt
won the senior double fives competition with partner J.B. Hollings but lost to
Hollings in singles competition 15-4, 15-4. The following year was more successful
for Druitt. Defeating W.A. Thornton 15-14, 15-9, Druitt advanced to play Herbert
Webbe whom he dispatched 15-4, 15-6. Druitt’s next opponent was O. Milne, who in
turn fell 15-13, 15-12. Facing Milne again in the finals, Druitt battled to victory. In
the first game Druitt prevailed 15-12. The Wykehamist describes the final game of the
championship contest:
The second game was much more hardly contested, and throughout excitement never
flagged. This time again Druitt began the scoring, but Milne soon passed him, and after some ten
minutes’ play the game stood at (8.5). After this Milne ran ahead, and soon “game ball even” was called. Druitt now
redoubled his efforts, and by some excellent play scored seven aces whilst his opponent scored none. They now “set
three,” Druitt scoring two before he was ousted by Milne, who also made two. “Game ball all” was now called for the
second time, when Druitt went in and won a most exciting game by one (17-16).17
In doubles play, the team of Druitt and W.H.B. Bird lost to O. Milne and W. Milne in the championship round.
DG3 — 1876.

Miscellaneous
Much mention has been made of Druitt’s appearance as Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The impression
has been given that this was a stage performance; however The Wykehamist review clearly indicates that it was only
a reading. Furthermore, the reading was divided in two parts, separated by a fortnight. Druitt appeared in his ill-fated
role only in the second half of the reading, which may have been hastily arranged.18
There is a curious letter to the editor of The Wykehamist appearing in October 1873. The letter, signed only “D.”
may have been written by Montague Druitt:
Sir, — Allow me, through the medium of your most valuable columns, to make a suggestion which I am sure all the
Fives and Racquet players in the School will most gladly endorse; it is that effectual means be taken by the school
committee to stop the rain falling through the skylights of Fives and Racquet Courts; at present, on wet days, when
the Courts are most especially wanted, they are by this means rendered perfectly useless, or, at least it is no pleas-
ure whatever to play in them. Trusting that so simple a matter will be remedied as soon as possible, for there are sub-
scriptions to pay for such repairs.
I am, Sir, yours, etc. D.19
Conclusion
It is my hope that these notes regarding Montague Druitt’s activities at Winchester College and especially that the
newly discovered photographs will help to flesh out our image of this Ripper suspect. We now have a much better idea
of his physical appearance and size. In some of the photos a bit of prankish boyishness shows itself. We know a bit more
of his athletic accomplishments and much more of the stances he took in his debates and even the content of his speech-
es. Perhaps this new detail will help us to understand just a bit better the mind and body of the troubled soul who was
Montague Druitt.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks Winchester College Archives for granting access to the photographs, minutes, and other documents related to Montague John
Druitt, and for permission to quote from the documents and reproduce the photos. He particulary thanks archivist Suzanne Foster for her assis-
tance.
Andrew J. Spallek has been studying the Whitechapel murders since their centenary in 1988.
Originally from Chicago, he now resides in St. Louis, Missouri where he is an ordained Lutheran pas-
tor. He is also frequent visitor to England. Concentrating on suspect Montague Druitt for the past
three years, Spallek counts among his research accomplishments the identification of Henry Richard
Farquharson of Dorset as the Member of Parliament who in 1891 suspected Druitt of being Jack the
Ripper and now also the publication of the early Druitt photographs published for the first time
here.

Why No October Surprise?
By Don Souden
Why, indeed—or was the fact that there were no Ripper-attributed murders in October the real sur-
prise? However you choose to look at the month of October 1888, though, the dearth of deaths in
Whitechapel that could be added to the Ripper’s account during that period has vexed investigators
of the Reign of Terror for twelve decades. Granted, there are those who feel the question is a bit of
a snare since they maintain those crimes ended in Mitre Square with the evisceration of Kate Eddowes.
That is a legitimate argument, but one that only makes the silence of October more intriguing.
Certainly, there has been no lack of reasons suggested for the fallow month of October from the very moment that
November dawned in 1888 until now. As an example, posters to the Casebook: Jack the Ripper forums over the past
few months, produced—in no particular order—the following reasons why there were no October murders:
A prolonged, heavy fog;

Increased police presence made him cautious;
Jack was seen by witnesses during the “double event;”
He did attempt October murders, but failed in the execution;
Jack left the country for Paris, Dublin or points unknown;
He was in jail and/or a mental institution;
He suffered septicaemia that resulted from mutilating Eddowes;
The arrival of bloodhounds Barnaby and Burgho made him more wary;
He was planning a move indoors and was biding his time;
His work schedule changed;
He was ill with something other than septicaemia;
He was a sailor whose regular trips to London were interrupted;
The suddenly huge rewards offered made him more wary;
He had Mary Jane Kelly in mind all along and waited for a chance;
He was suffering from an “emotional hangover” after the double event;
He was too busy with his day job;
He filled his October “quota” with the double event;
He broke or lost his knife and had to get a new one.
Without a doubt, a mixed bag of suggestions, but none without some merit. Even those that might seem at first
rather risible are worthy of a second look. With the hackneyed stereotype of a top-hatted Jack disappearing into a dis-
tant mist we tend to dismiss anything about Jack that deals with such low-lying clouds. Yet it is a fact that a heavy fog,
a proverbial “pea-souper,” descended upon London in October and hung around for a while. Whether such a fog would
have hurt or enhanced Jack’s murderous efforts is debatable, but all myths to the contrary, none of the his killings were
committed when the city might have been rightly called “foggy London town.”
Similarly, the two bloodhounds borrowed from Edwin Brough, Barnaby and Burgho, are treated as something of a

joke these days. Yet when the suggestion was first
advanced, the public was generally convinced
they would prove quite effective. And, in sever-
al controlled tests, they did prove to be tenacious
man-trackers. How well they might have per-
formed on a colder scent in the midst of busy
London was never determined, but at least one
contemporary observer—H.M. Mackusick—did give
the dogs credit for keeping the Ripper at bay dur-
ing October.1
Most of the other reasons proposed for the hia-
tus in October also have been around for nearly
120 years and still remain interesting if seemingly
incapable of proof. Conveniently, though, they all
can be lumped into just a few groups, the easier
to examine and assess relative merit. That is,
Barnaby and Burgho
they roughly fall into the categories of health,
occupational problems, detention, other change of venue, incompetence and caution.
That Jack was laid low by any of the many natural shocks and ailments “that flesh is heir to” is, of course, quite
possible but that also could have occurred during the months he was active. Thus, it would have had to be something
quite disabling—one finds it hard to believe that catarrh, quinsy or the dreaded “gravel in the guts,” would stop a deter-
mined Ripper. The septic poisoning theory, on the other hand, would have effectively sidelined him, though that idea
has always seemed a bit too fanciful. A broken hand, however, or other serious injury would suffice as an explanation
while likely remaining forever beyond our ken.
The notion that Jack underwent some change in his occupational routine has also been around from the onset. It is,
however, dependent on Jack having a job that imposed constraints on his free time, an idea favored by those who see
deep meaning in the murders occurring—roughly—on weekends and holidays. But it could be that Jack was a shiftless,
slacking yob who never drew an honestly earned shilling in his life and only struck on weekends and holidays because
there was more quarry then for him to hunt. Certainly, the occupational upheaval theory is quite possible. But it is also
no more than that.
That Jack was temporarily detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for some minor offense is also quite tenable as a rea-
son there were no murders in October. Further, it would be capable of some checking, though even if records were
carefully combed we would be none the wiser unless one of a small handful of names showed up as dining on the
Queen’s ticket that month. In the same manner, Jack might have voluntarily left London for any of a long list of rea-
sons, though those who suggest he was on something of a “grand tour” or even taking the air at Brighton are probably
guilty of the conceit of modernism. In any case, unless he booked his passage under the name Jack T. Ripper, we shall
never know if he spent the month following Sir Robert Anderson’s footsteps in Switzerland.
On the other hand, there are some who feel that Jack was not inactive at all during the month of October but was
just unsuccessful. That is, he stalked one or more women in his usual East End haunts but was unable to close in for
the kill—literally. This might have been because the prostitutes in the area were both more wary and fewer in number.
This was, to an extent, true but for too many women in the area their desperation to find nightly doss money remained the
ultimate imperative and a determined Jack could have found prey if he were looking. That point raises a corollary that Jack
was not sufficiently determined during the month, being still emotionally drained from the excesses of Mitre Square (and,
for those who so believe, the strain of the “double event”) and did not pursue victims with his accustomed vigor. It might
1 Daily Telegraph, October 19, 1888.

be the reason for a month without a murder—and it might well not be.
Finally, there is the matter of increased caution on the part of
Jack throughout the month. This presupposes that Jack at least
had the low cunning of most carnivorous predators without neces-
sarily resorting to having constable’s beat times analysed on
spreadsheets. But if one doesn’t believe in some measure of low
cunning, then the discussion is fruitless and Jack obviously
attacked as whim alone directed. For those who do think Jack did
more than flip a mental farthing, however, the idea of increased
caution on his part must be seriously considered.
There was a good chance that he may have feared he was seen
at Berner Street or outside Mitre Square or near Goulston Street.
And these fears would only have been amplified as more and more
and reward money was offered and the lure of that pot of gold
stimulated memories ever more greatly. Also, if he lived in the
area, the house-to-house search of parts of Whitechapel and
Spitalfields might well have further unnerved him. And most of all,
it is suggested, the police presence in the East End that daily grew
was a powerful deterrent.
The police certainly did not fail for trying as hundreds of addi-
A suspect being taken into Leman Street police station
tional members of the Metropolitan force were drafted into tempo-
rary duty with H division. The numbers must have been impressive
in such a relatively small area and if not quite a “sea of dark blue,” all the dark blue coats on view must have looked at
times like a reunion of old Oxonians. Yet for all the numbers, there were definite problems with the increased police
presence and reasons why it may not have been as effective as presumed.
One of the major difficulties was created by all the new PCs suddenly popping up in H division—they simply did not
know the territory and, even more, they didn’t know the local residents. This difficulty was exemplified by PC Long at
Goulston Street. He had no idea who belonged where and had to wait until another PC, an H division regular, arrived
on the scene to monitor the building’s entrance while Long scurried off to Leman Street with the apron part. Nor were
the police on the ground unaware that much of their effort was ineffectual, as CID Chief Constable Fred Wensley admit-
ted years later in his memoirs. Wensley was one of those brought to H division from outside and of that experience he
wrote “In common with hundreds of others I was drafted there and we patrolled the streets—usually in pairs—without
any tangible results.”2 Whether there was the intangible result that Jack was rendered inactive because of their pres-
ence remains moot.
And there the argument might rest were it not for the inspiration provided by Neil Bell’s masterly article “Defenceless
Whitechapel” in last month’s Ripperologist. Although certainly well known to researchers, the full effect of what first
the St. Jude’s District Committee, then the Mile End Vigilance Committee and finally the East London Trade and
Labourers Society Vigilance Committee provided in terms of patrols was surprising and impressive. Combined, they put
upwards of a hundred or more additional men—armed with lanterns, whistles and sticks—on the streets of the East End
from late evening until the following dawn.3
At first glance they must have seemed a motley, unprepossessing crew. They were untrained, had no experience or
enforcement powers and while the patrol leaders were tradesmen and shopkeepers, many of those on “beat” were drawn
from the ranks of the unemployed. Yet for all that they had one great advantage over the police—those recently drafted
into the area and even those regularly assigned to H division—because they knew the people who lived in the East End. It
2 Wensley, Frederick P.; Detective Days (London 1931); p. 4.
3 Bell, Neil; “Defenceless Whitechapel” Ripperologist 95 (September 2008).

was their community and they knew their neighbors in ways
that no outsider could ever imagine. They were effectively
Whitechapel’s “men in the ‘hood.”
If, as most believe, Jack the Ripper was a local resident
(or at least was frequently in the area), then the vigilance
committee patrols could well have been his worst night-
mare incarnate. They need not have caught him in the act
anymore than the police might in order to scare him into
resisting mightily his murderous urges. The patrols need
only have seen Jack when and where that seemed very,
very strange to start tongues wagging and Jack’s heart-
beat racing at near-coronary level.
You can easily imagine the confrontation: three in the
morning on a quiet night when a lone male wandering on
the street is suddenly accosted. The police might ask him
his business and if he answered satisfactorily he would be
quickly on his way without their making any note of his
presence. Stumbling upon a vigilance patrol, however,
might be something else again.
“Well now, look who’s ‘ere, it’s Mikey [or Ikey]. What
Vigilance Commitee members living up to their name are you doin’ so far from ‘ome on a night like this mate?”
Enough to chill the very marrow of Mikey’s [or Ikey’s]
bones. The first night he might well come up with a reasonable excuse like walking off a drunk or a bad toothache or
anything else reasonably plausible. But a second time would be less easily explained and a third perhaps impossible to
talk his way out of adequately. Even if the immediate patrol members were satisfied at the moment they would be like-
ly to talk (“Guess where we found Mike last night?”) and quickly the community would have heard. Definitely the last
thing Jack would want is for the people in his own “backyard” to be talking about his nocturnal peregrinations and that
is just what the vigilance committee patrols might have made him fear the most. Perhaps they even scared him into a
forced “vacation” during October and then caused him to kill indoors the next time (and wreak all his month-long pent
up fury on Kelly).4
Were the increasing number of citizen patrols during October the reason that Jack the Ripper committed no mur-
ders that month? There is no way that can be adequately answered, but the constraints they imposed by the dangers
inherent in neighbors seeing another neighbor at strange times and in strange places cannot be underestimated.
Certainly, the possibility that the vigilance committees, by their very local character, deterred further Ripper depre-
dations may well have been given less credence than it deserves.
Don Souden is a Ripperologist editor who looks forward to another New England winter with ambiva-
lence. He enjoys moonlit walks in the snow but rather hates shovelling the white stuff.
4 The idea that the increased police presence forced Jack indoors has been around forever, but since the last person I saw raise it was col-
league Christopher T. George I will credit him as the latest endorser of the notion.

Elisabeth Stride:
The Yiddish Connection
By Daniel Olsson
Several years ago I started researching the life of Elisabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride, who was born near
my hometown, Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, and died in London at the hands of Jack
the Ripper. My research was greatly facilitated by the comprehensive records kept by the Swedish
Lutheran Church. In the nineteenth century, Sweden was a deeply religious country and the
Church kept tight control over its flock. Baptisms, confirmations, marriages and other major
events in the lives of the faithful were meticulously noted in parish records. Priests travelled reg-
ularly to the villages within their parishes to test the Biblical knowledge of their inhabitants.
Ignorance of scripture was not a minor transgression but a serious offence that shamed the inad-
equate scholars as well as their negligent families.
In Elisabeth’s Story, an article published in Ripperologist No. 52 (March 2004), I used information from parish records
and the logs recording the results of the periodical scriptural proficiency tests to recreate Long Liz’s first 16 years. She
was born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter on 27 November 1843 in the small village of Stora Tumlehed, Hisingen Island, Torlanda
Map of Gothenburg —1871

Parish. In October 1860, all of 17 years old, she left her village to travel the 20 miles that separate it from Gothenburg,
the second largest city in Sweden. From then on, the records concerning her become scarcer and considerable gaps in
the information exist which I have so far been unable completely to fill.
In February 1861, a few months after arriving in Gothenburg, Elisabeth found employment as a domestic servant
with the Oloffson family. Three years later, she left her position in what seems to have been a bit of a hurry. Later that
year she apparently drifted into prostitution in the streets of Gothenburg. During the remainder of her life in Sweden
she was mentioned mostly in hospital and police records. Several entries record her passage through the Kurhuset,
Gothenburg’s hospital for the treatment of venereal diseases. She appeared for the first time in police records on 17
October 1865, when she was listed as Prostitute Number 97 in the ‘prostitutes’ register’. Her address was given as
Pilgatan Street, Haga Parish.1 A sad, solitary entry in the register of baptisms in the local church shows that on 21 April
1865 Elisabeth was delivered of a stillborn girl at the Kurhuset. That was all. I searched for her in vain in the censuses
for 1865 and 1866 and utterly failed to find any trace of her in the parish records for those years.
By November 1865, Elisabeth had found employment as a domestic servant with the Wejsner family and was struck
off the prostitutes’ register. Shortly afterwards, she inherited a substantial amount of money from her mother, who had
died in August 1864. On 7 February 1866, she left for England.
Although I have been able to flesh out considerably the sketchy outline of Elisabeth’s life, I have remained puzzled
at her absence from parish records and censuses between 1864 and 1866. After giving much thought to this problem, I
established a connection with another question that had kept me scratching my head in wonderment for quite some
time: Elisabeth spoke Yiddish.2 Michael Kidney, the waterside labourer who had a turbulent relationship with her dur
1 The expression ‘Pilgatan Street’ is somewhat tautological, since ’gatan’ means ’street’ in Swedish. The names of streets are, however, given
in this form in the present article for reasons of clarity.
2 Yiddish, or Jüddisch Deutsch, is a High Germanic language with a distinctive lexical component of about 18 per cent Hebrew/Aramaic and
16 per cent Slavic. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Yiddish originated over a thousand years ago in the Rhineland and until World War Two
and the later resurgence of Hebrew was the most widely spoken Jewish language, with nearly 11 million speakers. At present there are about
4 million Yiddish speakers worldwide.
The house in Husargatan Street where Elisabeth stayed with Mrs Wejsner. The picture was taken in the 1870s.
ing the last three years of her life, made a statement to that effect on 3 October 1888, at the inquest into her death.3
But, I wondered, where did a Christian peasant girl from the outskirts of Gothenburg learn to speak Yiddish, the lan-
guage of Central and Eastern European Jews?
Also on 3 October, at the inquest, Elizabeth Tanner, a deputy at the lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street
where Elisabeth spent her last days, stated that she worked among the Jews.4 Did Elisabeth learn Yiddish while doing
this work? Or did she get the work because she could speak Yiddish?
When I was approached by Ripperologist to write an article on Elisabeth for the issue devoted to the 120th anniver-
sary of her tragic death, I decided to share with its readers some reflections that may throw light upon these questions.
I have often asked myself why, despite the substantial amount of time I spent searching for Elisabeth in all types of
records, I could find no trace of her. She had told the police that she lived in Pilgatan Street, but there was no evidence
of her presence in Pilgatan Street or anywhere else within Haga Parish. She just wasn’t there. Perhaps she had lied to the
police. Or perhaps, and this is the interesting part, she lived with a family that didn’t appear in regular censuses.
As noted earlier, in late 1865 Elisabeth was working as a domestic servant at the home of the Wejsner family, where
3 The Times, 4 October 1888.
4 Ibid.
This is the police station where Elisabeth was registered as a prostitute on 17 October 1865. The building still stands today.

she remained for about six months before leaving for
England. Very little is known about the Wejsner family.
Indeed, most of what is known may be found in my articles
Mrs Wenzel, published in Ripperologist No. 53, May 2004,
and The Executioner, the Musician, his Wife and her Friend,
published in Ripperologist No. 61, September 2005.
Mrs Wejsner’s maiden name was Inga Maria Hansdotter.
Her husband, Carl Wenzel Wejsner, was a musician with the
West Götha Artillery Regiment band who had immigrated to
Sweden from Bohemia, then part of the Habsburg Empire
and currently of the Czech Republic. He was originally cal-
led Wiesner, a common Jewish surname. Once established in
Sweden, he changed his surname to Wejsner, which sounded Gothenburg Synagogue — 1860
more Swedish. The Wejsner family lived at 27 Husargatan

Street, Haga Parish. In the early and middle 1800s, many of Eastern European Jews lived in Gothenburg, particularly in
Haga. Indeed, together with Stockholm and Norrköping, Gothenburg was one of only three cities where the Jews had
been allowed to settle by the Jewish Ordinance of 1782.
At the time, the Jews were not listed in the censuses. Obviously, they did not participate in the parish catechetical
meetings held once a year by priests from the Christian Swedish Lutheran Church. Elisabeth may have indeed lived in
Haga, but with a Jewish family that was not part of the Lutheran Church or the ordinary Swedish community and was
therefore not reflected in censuses or parish records. This may well be the reason why I could not find her in any
records for this period.
Still, some questions remained unresolved. How did Mrs Wejsner and Elisabeth meet one another in the first place?
Mrs Wejsner lived in Husargatan Street. Elisabeth told the police that she lived in Pilgatan Street, which crosses
Husargatan Street. In fact, only 100 meters separate the two addresses. The chances that Mrs Wejsner and Elisabeth
bumped into each other every now and then are pretty high.
Most of the Jews who lived in Haga, perhaps as many as 99 per cent of them, spoke Yiddish. It is quite possible that
Mr Wejsner spoke Yiddish at home and Elisabeth learnt the basics of the language during the time she was a member
of his household. Could she have also lived in Haga from the time she left the Olofssons until she was registered as a
prostitute? If she did, she would have spent about 20 months in daily contact with Yiddish speakers. Could she have
learnt to speak Yiddish in this environment?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to express my gratitude to Eduardo Zinna and Jane Coram, who helped me put together this article.
I am 31 years old. For the past two years I have worked as a Teamleader for MediaMarkt Göteborg.
I have been a active Ripperologist for the past four years, specialising in the life of Elisabeth Stride,
who was born near Gotenburg and in this city spent her early years. Besides working and writing, I
spend most of my free time with friends, watching movies and enjoying lots of good food!

The Princess Alice Disaster
In the autumn of 1878, the Princess Alice, a

steamer, sank with a loss of 590 lives, although no
one was ever quite sure of the real figure. The
fearful suddenness of the event shook the world.
Yet in the annals of maritime disaster it seems
almost forgotten, overshadowed by the sinking of
the Titanic and the Lusitania.
The Princess Alice sunk on Tuesday, the 3rd of
September, 1878. It had been a sultry day, and the
The Princess Alice evening was warm and muggy. On this particular
evening, the SS Princess Alice, commanded by her
captain William Robert Hattridge Grinsted, left her dock at Swan Pier near London Bridge at 10am and set off for
Gravesend and Sheerness. By about 6pm she had re-boarded her passengers and was returning to Swan Pier. Most of her
passengers were Londoners returning home from the Rosherville Gardens in Gravesend after a pleasant afternoon stroll.
The trip along the river was part of the day’s excitement, for children that might not have been on a boat before, it was
a wonderful day out and something they would never forget. Unfortunately most of them would not live to remember it.
She had almost completed her journey and was steaming past Tripcock Point when a steam collier ship, the Bywell
Castle, commanded by Captain Harrison came from upstream. The 890-ton Bywell Castle was travelling from Millwall
docks to Newcastle, where it would pick up a cargo of coal destined for Alexandria in Egypt. As Captain Harrison entered
Gallions Reach he was travelling at half-speed in
Woolwich Pier
the centre of the river. He saw the Alice turn
towards the north shore, appearing to cross in
front of his bow, and to avoid a collision he told his
pilot to move towards the south shore. The idea
was to pass safely past the stern of the Alice; how-
ever, Captain Grinsted misunderstood the situa-
tion and he turned the Alice to the south as well,
straight into the path of the huge collier. Captain
Harrison ordered a full-speed reverse of his
engines but it was too late. Bywell Castle
ploughed into the Princess Alice just behind her
starboard paddle wheel. The Alice did not stand a
chance against a ship that was some four times
bigger, and she was sliced in half; it took her all of

Contemporary illustration of the disaster
four minutes to sink to the bottom of the river. The Princess Alice was licensed to carry 936 passengers, and although
there are no exact figures, it is thought that somewhere in the region of 750 people were aboard that day and all were
thrown into the Thames. Most drowned. The clothing of the time was large and voluminous, impossible to swim in, even
if the person could swim. The women and children stood no chance at all, in fact most of the men succumbed as well.
Even though the Bywell Castle’s hold was empty few of the victims could climb on board because she was too high
in the water and most just clung to whatever they could in the water, waiting for rescue. There was a sewer outlet
right by where the collision too place and thousands of gallons of raw sewage was being spewed into the river, so the
victims would have been swallowing and gulping in raw sewage.
Not only this but waste products from the industrial plants was being pumped straight into the water and that sec-
tion of the river was the most polluted in the country. The conditions would have been horrendous.
On the wharf and pier at Woolwich a small crowd had collected, not more than who had heard rumours of a ship
going down on that stretch of the River Thames.
Soon policemen and watermen were seen by the dim light of lamps carrying the first consignment of dead bodies,
mostly little children whose small bodies had floated, kept on top of the water by their clothes. Soon, bodies of men
women and children were lying everywhere, the victims of the disaster.
It soon became clear after about 100 people had been saved that this was going to become an operation of recov-
ering the dead, not rescuing the living. The local watermen were each paid five shillings per body they recovered, and
they were still pulling victims out of the river for weeks afterwards. In the end all the bodies were probably never

Rescue teams tried desperately to save any they could from the disgustingly polluted water
recovered, but a large number were found still trapped inside the ship when the two halves were later raised to the
surface. It would have been horrible work for the Watermen. Because of the pollution a lot of people couldn’t be iden-
tified , in fact 115 people were buried without being identified.
The newspapers soon got wind of the story and the event was front page news. The story was told in more than three
thousand newspapers, to the people of every civilized land throughout the world.
The first estimate of the loss of life was five hundred, but it was soon realised that it was over six hundred.
It was more dreadful to see these survivors than to look upon the dead. They walked about dazed and in shock wait-
ing for their dead to be brought on shore
It was fortunate that there was a large place like the Dockyard available to meet the emergency, and the authori-
ties not only granted its use, but sent down large parties of soldiers to render help. As soon as a body was identified it
was coffined and promptly buried, and long processions of army wagons bearing the dead to the cemetery were seen
day after day.The inquest was held in the Board room at the Town hall, before Mr. C. J. Carttar, coroner, and occupied
more than thirty days. The jury accepted that the collision was an accident but blamed the Princess Alice for causing
the accident. However, this verdict did not prove final; another inquiry in Millwall put the blame with the Bywell Castle,
while yet another at the Admiralty Court shared the blame between the two ships. This confusion made it very hard to
lay the blame on a single captain.
A memorial to the victims of the tragedy was funded by a national donation scheme in which some 23,000 people
donated sixpence each to a fund which allowed the creation of a marble cross in Woolwich Cemetery.
Following the disaster a wealth of memorabilia and commemorative souvenirs and poems appeared. Some of the
poems were better than others, but the maudlin sentimentality of the Victorians could be clearly seen.

The following is entitled 'The Loss of the Princess Alice' and was published sometime around September 1878.
The Loss of the Princess Alice

Tune: Sailor’s Grave.
How many thousands have found a grave Many a man how sad to say,
beneath the ever rolling wave, Lost all he loved that fatal day.
And day by day the list we swell, The screams were heard on Woolwich shore,
Another loss we have to tell; Of those who sank to rise no more,
Above five hundred precious lives. Down in the Thames’ cold watery bed,
Women, and children, men and wives, Above five hundred were lying dead.
In the midst of joy and pleasures’ games, Just before, they were full of life,
They all were drowned in the river Thames. The husband sitting beside his wife,
Beneath the Thames their bodies lie, Their little children by their side,
Both old and young were doom’d to die, Now all were drown’d beneath the tide.
The Steamer sank beneath the wave, They had not time for the humble prayer,
And hundreds found a watery grave, Destruction soon was reigning there,
To Sheerness they had been that day, The waters caught each fleeting breath,
Eight hundred souls, how sad to say, One minute in life, the next in death.
Returning home with hearts so light, Their pleasure came to a fearful end,
Through the darkness of the night. No-one on earth relief could send.
They met a vessel on the way, Their time was come for them to die,
At the close of that eventful day, God bless them all now dead they lie.
The “Princess Alice” she was run down, What must the feeling of relations be.
Opposite to Woolwich Towm. Waiting and expecting friends to see,
Eight hundred souls were in the waves, Little thinking they were drowned,
Struggling against a watery grave, Or that such a fearful death they’d found.
The old and yound both were there, We all shall think of them I’m sure,
Feeble age and youth so fair. And pray for them be they rich or poor,
Women with children on their breast, History will record the names,
In death’s embrace they sank to rest, Of those who drown’d in the river Thames.

Almost everyone interested in the crimes of Jack the
Ripper will be aware that Elizabeth Stride claimed that
her husband and children were killed in the Princess Alice
disaster in 1878 and that her palate was injured by being
kicked in the mouth while climbing the mast to escape.
No evidence exists for this statement — the name Stride
was not on the list of those dying in the disaster;
Elizabeth did not claim any money from the relief fund
set up for the disaster and it is known that her husband
John Stride was alive after the disaster. John and
Elizabeth are listed in the 1881 census as living together
in Usher Road, Bow and John actually died in 1884.
It seems though that most believed Elizabeth’s story,
and she received charity from the Swedish Church on the
strength of the tale.
Researcher Neal Shelden, posted on casebook in August
2004 that he had found an interesting snippet in the
Illustrated Police News for 27th October 1888. Mr North,
a publican had come forward at the time of Elizabeth
Stride’s murder with a PC Daniels because they had both
known her when she lived in Poplar High Street.
Crowds waiting on the dock for news of their loved ones
North revealed that he had seen Stride and her hus-
band daily until 1879, and afterwards less frequently.
Apparently, at the time of the Princess Alice Disaster, Stride had
told North that she was trying to get some money from the relief A souvenir of one lucky soul that decided not to take the
trip after he had purchased the ticket
fund for the victims, and indicates that he had seen her husband
after the disaster. North had said that Elizabeth was nicknamed
“Mother Gum” on account of “a peculiarity of the top lip, which,
when she laughed, showed the whole of the upper gum”.
When Neal searched directories for this man he found a Francis
North, of the “Blackney’s Head” pub at 143 Poplar High Street. For
a time Liz and John lived in that street, first at 178 and then 172.
Their less frequent visits to his pub after 1879 can be explained by
them moving to Usher Road, Bromley, where they appear on the
House Fund.
Because there was a peculiarity with her mouth, Elizabeth prob-

ably attempted to turn this deformity into a story of an injury
gained while bravely fighting for her life in the disaster.
The post mortem report on her specifically states that there was no
damage to either her hard or soft palate, although she certainly had
some deformity of the mouth as evidenced by her nickname and this
does appear to be confirmed by the mortuary photograph.

Despite the obvious fatal flaws in Elizabeth’s story however, Chris Scott unearthed an interesting newspaper item,
which seems to show that even if Elizabeth was not on the Princess Alice, her tale was surprisingly close to the truth.
Daily News, 8 October 1888
With reference to the identity of Elizabeth Stride, the Woolwich newspapers of the time of the Princess Alice
disaster have been referred to, and it is stated that a woman of that name was a witness at the inquest, and identi-
fied the body of a man as her husband, and of two children then lying in Woolwich Dockyard. She said she was on board
and saw them drowned, her husband picking up one of the children, and being drowned with it in his arms. She was
saved by climbing the funnel, where she was accidentally kicked in the mouth by a retired Arsenal police inspector,
who was also clinging to the funnel. The husband and two children are buried in Woolwich Cemetery.
Is it possible that she knew someone that actually survived the disaster and heard the tale from them claiming the
tale as her own to elicit money and sympathy?
Sources:
www.yellins.com/woolwichferry/thames/PrincessAlice.htm
www.yellins.com/transporthistory/rail/alice.html
www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.101/The-Princess-Alice-tragedy.html
www.thamespolicemuseum.org.uk/h_alice_1.html
www.lalamy.demon.co.uk/alice.htm
www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4921/12065.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/chris.mansfield1/alice.htm
http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=928
The Swedish Church where Elizabeth obtained money on the strength of the tragedy of the Princess Alice disaster

Berner Street
(Henriques Street)
Revisited
The third in a series taking a closer look at the murder sites of the
canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper
On September 30th, 1888, Berner Street, a usually quiet and fairly respectable street in the East End
of London, suddenly became the focus of mass media attention when the body of Elizabeth Stride was
found in a small side alley known as Dutfield’s Yard.
Berner Street, renamed Henriques Street in 19641 runs southward from Commercial Road and was named Berner Street on
1st May, 1868, a combination of Upper Berner Street, Lower Berner Street, and Batty Buildings. It was situated in the Parish of
St. George in the East, and it was just five-minutes’ walk from Hanbury Street, where Annie Chapman was found murdered on
the 8th September 1888.
During the second half of the 19th century, Berner Street consisted mainly of small terraced houses, almost all of them two-
storey, inhabited for the most part by Jews of many nationalities who worked in a variety of manual trades. Many were dock
labourers, carmen, shoe-makers, and tailors, labouring in sweat shops around the area or from home, in conditions which were
quite unacceptable — but they were so desperate for work that they would do almost anything to put food on the table. They
were a tight-knit community, bonded by poverty, family ties, and their religion.
The area was designated ‘violet’ on Charles Booth’s poverty map, which was a mixture of poor households, living alongside
those who were slightly more comfortably off.
It was in many ways a self-contained community, with every facility the residents needed within short walking distance. Many
members of the community worked from home, and would never have to leave the few streets surrounding their houses. Even
those that worked further afield, such as the dock workers or market porters, would generally walk to work and spend most of
their lives within a few square miles.
On Berner Street’s eastern side, that is the side opposite to the yard where Elizabeth was murdered, stood several small ter-
raced houses — No’s 25-41 — along with a board school, which most of the local children attended. It was remarked by one
newspaper that the children that attended generally appeared to be well-dressed and looked after, which gives a fair idea of
the general standard of living in the community.
Matthew Packer, who confused and confounded the police and private detectives with his tales of purchased grapes, ran a
greengrocer’s and sweet shop at No. 44 — but there were several other retailers in the street, mainly selling food of one sort
or another, and much of this would have been kosher to cater for the local Jews.2 Most of the residents would have shopped
exclusively at these shops, or at one of the local street markets, and had never gone further for their provisions.
1 Berner Street was renamed Henriques Street in 1964 in tribute to Basil Henriques, OBE (1948) who died on 2nd December 1961, and was founder of
the Bernhard Baron Oxford and St. George Settlement, a youth club for lads in the area which he opened on 3rd March 1914, when he was 24.
http://www.jewisheastend.com/basilhenriques.html
2 There was a greengrocer’s shop at No.2, run by Edwin Sumner and another grocer’s shop at No 74, which Jacob Lubin ran. Louis Friedman was pro-
prietor of the local bakers at No. 70. Henry Norris was the proprietor of a chandler’s shop at No. 48, opposite Nelson’s Beer Shop, selling cooked food
for the locals, who for the most part did not have cooking facilities in their houses.

Berner Street and the surrounding area in the late 19th century, showing the position of Dutfield’s Yard.
There were two public houses in Berner Street — The George IV at No. 68, and the Nelson, also known as Nelson’s Beer Shop,
at No. 46 — just a few yards from the spot where the murder took place.3
The Daily Chronicle, 1st October, 1888, stated that Berner Street was close to ‘Tiger Bay’, and frequented by desperadoes,
giving it a less-than-favourable report. Many newspapers followed suit and tended to overstate the failings of the community,
without bothering to report any of the good points.
Inspector Walter Dew, who admittedly did not have the greatest memory when recalling events around the time of the mur-
der, wrote in his memoirs:
Berners [sic] Street had been reformed. Formerly it had been known as Tigers’ Bay and had been the refuge of many of the
most desperate criminals of the East End. But the police had combed and cleaned it, with the result that it had become a com-
paratively decent street in which to live.4
3 The George IV was managed by Edmund Farrow, who was related to William Farrow, landlord of the Frying Pan in Brick Lane. At the end of 1889
William had taken over this pub temporarily, while Edmund had moved to The Weaver’s Arms in Hanbury Street. The Nelson was on the junction with
Fairclough Street and the landlord was Louis Hagens. It was converted to a chandler’s shop sometime around 1897.
4 The Hunt for Jack the Ripper, Walter Dew, Chapter VI — http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.walterdew.html

True, Berner Street had not been entirely trouble free in the year or so preceding the murder of Elizabeth Stride. It was only
a few yards from the house in Batty Street, where Israel Lipski murdered Miriam Angel by pouring acid down her throat the year
previously, and according to the Chronicle, at least, the neighbourhood generally had an evil reputation.
The Star of the 2nd October reported on the trial at Thames Police Court of one William Seaman, who was charged with the
attempted murder of John Simpkin, a chemist of 82 Berner Street, Whitechapel. Seaman was charged with hitting the chemist
twice with a hammer, and the victim was only saved because there were other people in the shop. Really, though, compared to
places like Castle Alley and George Yard it was quite a respectable and decent area.
The residents of Berner Street were quite typical of the poorer working classes in the East End in 1888, whether Jew or
Gentile, and conditions were rife for political unrest. The 1880’s saw a great rise in enthusiasm for Socialism in Great Britain.
By 1888 Socialist groups and organizations had sprouted up everywhere, encouraging the working classes to political agitation
and rebellion. Bloody Sunday (13th November 1887) proved to many that revolution was a real possibility.
Two major Socialist groups sprang up — the SDF and the Socialist League — each having many offshoots and affiliations. Of
the two, the Socialist League was far more active in their propaganda and protests, and also far more proactive in encouraging
‘foreign’ comrades to join them in campaigns of bill posting and delivering leaflets to the locals, as well as taking part in demon-
strations and marches.5
One of these ‘foreign’ clubs was The International Working Men’s Club, which occupied No. 40 Berner Street. Sometimes
known as International Working Men’s Educational Society, or simply ‘The Berner Street Club’, it was run mainly for and by Jews
5 Letter to Commweal (a radical paper run by William Morris), 12th May 1888 by F Charles of 38 Ainsley Street, Bethnal Green. East End 1888, William
J. Fishman, p. 272.
Berner Street as it would have looked on the night of Elizabeth Stride’s murder — The entrance to Dutfield’s Yard can be seen towards the
right of the painting. Copyright Jane Coram.
of all nationalities, chiefly Russians and Poles. They
had around 70 members in September 1888. This
club was to provide support, ideas and practical
help to aid the local Jewish population, particularly
in their industrial action against sweat-shop labour
and inhuman working hours and conditions, organ-
ising strikes and marches throughout 1888.6
The International Working Men’s Club had a very
mixed reputation amongst the locals. Despite their
efforts to aid the most deprived of their fellow Jews
in getting better working conditions, there was a
great deal of antagonism between local Jewry and
members of the club, which was equally reciprocated
by the club members for the more orthodox Jews.
This was mainly because the Rabbis condemned the
Berner Street in 1909 Dutfield’s Yard is situated
directly below the cartwheel mounted on the wall. radicals as being heretics and atheists, and the
Jewish Chronicle constantly spoke against them.7
Most orthodox Jews considered them to be ‘bad Jews’ because of their political views and policy of agitation, and also because
they dismissed religion as irrelevant and they were mainly atheists.
It seems that a lot of very heated debates, not to say full-blown arguments and even fist fights, took place in the club, and
this is possibly where its unsavoury reputation came from. Quarrels amongst the members were mentioned by people in the
neighbourhood, such as Abraham Heahbury [Heshburg], who lived at 28 Berner Street. One row, at least, went on until the early
hours of the morning and resulted in the arrest of two people.
Barnett Kentorrich, of 38 Berner Street, which was next door to the club, said: ‘The club is a nasty place.’8
Radical Jews used to meet at this club often, prior to taking their demonstrations to The Great Synagogue in Mitre Square,
6 East End 1888, William J. Fishman, p. 279.

7 East End 1888, William J. Fishman, p. 280.
8 Times, October 1st, 1888.
Detail from the above photograph, showing the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard and the International Working Men’s Club. (adjusted to allow for
foreshortening and camera angle).
which was close to the spot where Catherine Eddowes
was murdered shortly after Liz Stride.
....many marches and demonstrations started from

the [Berner Street] club. Interestingly, in March 1889
when Monro was commissioner, there was a fight out-
side the club involving between 200 and 300 people,
one of whom was Diemschutz, who had found Stride’s
body. According to one report , the police forced their
way into the club, ‘broke windows, tore down pictures
and posters and fell with their fists and their batons
upon a few of the comrades who happened to be
there.’ Diemshutz’s wife was thrown down ‘and
kicked, others they beat until the blood streamed,
three were dragged to the station, again beaten and
then charge with assaulting the police. The houses
were searched twice and a loft door broken open.’9
The press, too, had very differing attitudes towards

the members of the club. The Star newspaper, for one,
gave the IWEC a better reputation than most newspa-
pers and generally tried to put them in a good light
wherever possible — but the club did receive some sup-
port from such respected papers as the Times as well.
The Times of the 1st October, 1888 made a point of

saying:
The Club itself is a most respectable one, and among

its members numbers several Englishmen, as well as
young men of numerous other nationalities.
Members of the International Working Mens’

Educational Club were frequently described as ‘anar-
chists’ in the press, however.10 Rather than using the
term ‘Jews’ to describe the members, they were often
referred to as ‘foreigners’, although everyone knew
Contemporary sketch of the crowds in front of the International Working Men’s
Club and Dutfield’s Yard the day after the murder. that this was intended to mean ‘Jew’. Typical of this is
the comment in the Montreal Daily Star of the 3rd October:
The first murder occurred in a narrow court off Berners [sic] street at an early hour this morning, beneath the window of
a foreigners Socialist club .
9 JtR Scotland Yard Investigates, Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow, p. 290.
10 They were also referred to ‘anarchists’ by Sir Melville Macnaghten in Days of My Years, 1914.

One report in the Star seems to indicate that the police
were quite keen to find something against the members of
the club, even if it meant using entrapment.
The Star reported:
In the midst of the excitement following on the Berner-

street murder, some of the police were mean enough to try
to purchase tobacco and drink from some of the members
of the Jewish club. Money was tendered when request was
made, but was, of course, refused. The police were not so
entirely absorbed in endeavoring to catch the criminal but
that they could attempt to inveigle innocent persons into
committing a petty crime for the sake of securing a paltry
conviction.11
Strictly speaking the club was not exclusively Jewish, as

a workingman of any nationality could be a member of the
club as long as they supported the Socialist movement.
At the inquest the coroner asked William Wess, a mem-
ber of the club, about the nature of the IWEC, and what rules
and principles the members were expected to adhere to:
[Coroner] How many members are there in the club?
Contemporary newspaper illustration of Dutfield’s Yard Wess — From seventy-five to eighty. Working men of any
nationality can join.
[Coroner] Is any political qualification required of members?
Wess — It is a political — a Socialist — club.
[Coroner] Do the members have to agree with any particular principles?
Wess — A candidate is proposed by one member and seconded by another, and a member would not nominate a candidate
unless he knew that he was a supporter of Socialist principles.12
The club was also the patron of the journal Der Arbeter Fraint (The Workers’ Friend), a Yiddish newspaper that was founded
by Morris Winchevsky (real name Leopold Benedickt). It first appeared on 15th July, 1885.
Der Arbeter Fraint was very popular amongst the young intellectual Jews, and its editor, Philip Krantz, a well-respected fig-
ure. The main aim of the paper was to advertise any upcoming event and activity, and monitored the world for any important
news that affected both Jews and Socialists. Philip Krantz and Benjamin Feigenbaum, another prominent Jewish radical, wrote
articles for it, but the paper also received input from such well-known personalities as William Morris.
The Chief Rabbi was continually at loggerheads with the leaders of the Berner Street club and Der Arbeter Fraint. This came
to a head when the club advertised a meeting on the same day as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of Jewish
festivals, which led to inevitable violence.
11 Star, October 1st, 1888.
12 Daily Telegraph, October 2nd, 1888.

36
38
Forge
The International Working Men’s Club

and Der Arbeter Fraint offices
Berner Street
Elizabeth Stride
Dutfield’s Yard
Workshop
42
Cottages
44
Matthew
Packer’s shop
Nelson’s Beer
shop
Map showing the layout of Dutfield’s Yard and surrounding buildings as it was at the time of Elizabeth’s murder
Freethinking Jews and the Black Fast
The Workers’ Friend, the Hebrew Socialist paper, of this week, announces that as a protest against the Jewish religion and
the Day of Atonement, the Jewish Socialists and Freethinkers have organised a banquet for tomorrow, which will take place
at the International Working Men’s Club, 40, Berner street, Commercial road. Speeches will be delivered in various languages.
The announcement has caused much excitement amongst the orthodox Jews, and it is rumored that a disturbance may take
place at the banquet. If so, the members of the International Working Men’s Club state that they are prepared, and the aid
of the police will not be called in to assist in quelling it. This banquet is unprecedented in Jewish history.’13
The results were predictable, and the story was followed by a report in the Star on September 17th.
A Feast on a Fast Leads to a Riot
While the orthodox Jews of the East end were on Saturday celebrating the Day of Atonement by fasting and prayer, the
Socialist and Freethinking Hebrews held a banquet at the International Working Men’s Club, Berner street, where speeches
were made pointing out that the miseries and degradation of the people were not due to any Divine power, but that they were
caused by the capitalists, who monopolised all the means of production and paid starvation wages. The orthodox Jews took
great umbrage at this banquet, and assembled in Berner street in great numbers. The windows of the club were smashed, and
when three of the men in the club went out to secure the man who did the damage, they were very roughly handled, till about
a hundred of their colleagues went to their assistance. The police subsequently dispersed the mob, and guarded the club till
a late hour.’14
13 Star, September 14th, 1888.

Reconstruction of the front of Dutfield’s Yard and the International Working Men’s club, as it would have looked in 1888, taken from photo-
graphs and contemporary sketches. It is not known what colour the gates were and lettering on both the gates and above the front window
varies considerably between sketches, so the wording can only be approximated, although the layout used would seem the most likely.
Copyright Jane Coram.

On the night of the murder of Elizabeth Stride, proceedings at the club were carrying on as they usually did on a Saturday
night, with a discussion or lecture, followed by some lighter entertainments or further debate on various political topics. Often
a free fist-fight was thrown in for good measure.
The Socialist League encouraged social activities, such as outings, dances and evenings of entertainment, as they saw this
as an important aspect of their message — which presumably attracted a much greater membership than they might otherwise
have had.
That night the proceedings started at about 8.30pm, and were still going on when Elizabeth’s body was found around 1 am.
There were about 100 people initially present in the club, the bulk of them being members and the remaining 30 or so being
their friends and relatives. Six women were there that night, but they were all known to the club members. There was no danc-
ing, Saturday not being dancing night, although after the main proceedings had finished there might well have been the odd
unofficial comradely folk-dance to accompany the impromptu singing. When the talk finished at about 11.30pm most went
home, leaving between 20-30 people in the upstairs room and about a dozen more people downstairs.15
The building itself was originally an old two-storey wooden building, quite barn-like in appearance and spacious, capable of
housing 200 people. Originally an ordinary house, it was converted to be used as a social club in 1884 by a group of Jewish social-
ists. A stone office, consisting of two rooms, was added onto the rear of the club. One of these rooms was used by the editor
of Der Arbeter Fraint, and the other was used as a composing room for the newspaper.
The IWEC had just one front door, which led into a narrow passage extending the entire length of the building. On the right-
hand side there was a door leading into the front room, which was generally used as a dining room.
A little further along was the narrow staircase that led to the upstairs room — a large hall with a small stage, where lec-
tures, plays and recitations were given by quite prominent people of the day; the plays mainly being those of well-known Russian
revolutionaries such as Chaikovsky, Volchovsky, Stepniak. Quite often the renowned radical poet, William Morris, was frequently
seen there reading his own work.16
The lecture that evening was ‘Why Jews should be Socialists’, chaired by Morris Eagle. When the talk finished between
11.30pm and midnight, the assembly began to thin out, some members going home and others moving downstairs to the front
room for a cup of tea, whilst the more energetic members made their own musical entertainment in the hall upstairs. The win-
dows of the hall were partly open to allow some fresh air to come in, although it had been raining quite heavily at times that
evening.17
The light that emanated from the club’s first floor fell more on the opposite cottages than into the yard, and directly below
the windows, where the body was found, was in almost complete darkness. None of the members left in the club heard any-
thing out of the ordinary, although it is unlikely they would have heard anything in the yard outside as they were making a con-
siderable amount of noise themselves.
Descending the stairs again to the passage and turning right at the bottom, you would reach the gas-lit kitchen, where Mrs
Diemschutz, who helped take care of the club, and her assistant usually sat.
After the talk had finished Mrs Diemschutz had spent her time moving between the kitchen and the dining room, serving tea
to the members that had decided against taking part in the frivolities. The door which led from the kitchen to the yard was half
open, and there was a small window above it, allowing light from the kitchen to spill into the alley way — just a few yards from
where the body of Elizabeth Stride lay.18
15 Morning Advertiser, October 1st, 1888.
16 Jack the Ripper, the Uncensored Facts, Paul Begg, p. 95.
17 Times, October 2nd, 1888.

18 ibid.

Neither Mrs Diemschutz nor the assistant heard a sound as Elizabeth was murdered, and they were only made aware of what
had happened when Louis Diemschutz came running in to the dining room, where his wife was chatting with a few people, to
see if she was alright.19
Opposite the doorway to the kitchen there was another door, which again had a small window above it, that led out into the
yard.20 Across from that door were two outside lavatories for the members and the tenants of the cottages to use, although it
is quite possible that they were used by passers-by on occasion as well.
Once outside in the yard, if you turned to the right you would find the stone-built offices of Der Arbeter Fraint set directly
behind the kitchen, but only accessible from the outside. This office consisted of two rooms. The one adjoining the kitchen was
19 Daily News, October 2nd, 1888.

Reconstruction of Dutfield’s Yard as it looked at the time of the murder. Copyright Jane Coram.
used as a composing-room and the other one was for the
editor, Philip Krantz, a member of the IWEC who was to
testify at the inquest, but who heard and saw nothing
unusual that night. The compositors had left off work at
2pm that afternoon, but the editor was there all day.
The two high wooden gates to the yard that abutted
the club were some 9 feet 2 inches across, and swung
inwards into the narrow but deep yard. Lettered in
white paint on the gates was “W. Hindley, Sack
Manufacturer” and “A. Dutfield, Van and Cart Builder”.
Although the entranceway was only around 9 feet
across, the entrance to the yard and the part of the yard
immediately inside the gates, where Elizabeth was
killed, appears quite narrow. The entrance was just
wide enough to allow a small cart to drive through.21
The cart driven by Louis Diemschutz on the night he dis-
covered Elizabeth’s body was a two-wheeled small cart
pulled by a pony, rather than a large wagon pulled by a
Contemporary illustration depicting the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride
horse. There were wheel-ruts on either side of the yard
that had been worn down by the continuous traffic in
and out of the yard.
Elizabeth’s body, even if it were lying quite close to the right hand wall, would have been quite an obstruction to anyone
entering the gates and heading for the side door of the club. There was a grating in the wall, just where Elizabeth’s body was
found.
When the gates were closed the doorway was usually locked, but they were seldom closed until late at night, when all the
tenants had retired. There was a small man-door (wicket gate) set in the right-hand gate for people to gain access to the yard
when the gates were closed. No particular person looked after them, they were just closed or opened by any of the members
when the need arose.22
The yard itself was named after Arthur Dutfield, a manufacturer of vans and carts, whose business had lain opposite the gate-
way to the west of the yard, until he moved to Pinchin Street just prior to the murder.23 He had been having serious money
problems in the year or so running up to the murder and had been forced to make drastic cutbacks to his business.
Once inside the yard there was several feet of blank wall on the left, at which point there were three whitewashed cottages
set back a little and the yard widened out by about another two feet. The extreme length of the court was about 30 yards, end-
ing with the disused workshop, which may have been a dwelling-house at the time of the murder.24
The club building and the printing office occupied the whole of the right-hand side of the yard, and three small terraced
dwelling-houses the other. The three cottages were occupied mainly by Jewish tailors and cigarette makers. William Wess, who
testified at the inquest, said that the gates were sometimes closed, and at other times left open all night. He left the premis-

23 Star, September 30th,1888.
24 Boston Daily Globe, December 10th, 1888.

es at about 12.30am and he noticed that one or two of the lights were on in the last of
the cottages, and they were on the first floor.25
However, the Morning Advertiser of October 1st, 1888, stated that at the time when
the murder was committed the lights in all of the cottages had been extinguished. It is
possible that the lights were put out at some time between Wess leaving and the actu-
al time of the murder.
The people residing in the cottages on the other side of the court were all indoors,
and most of them in bed by midnight. Several of these persons remember lying awake
and listening to the singing, and they also remember the concert coming to an abrupt
termination; but during the whole of the time from retiring to rest until the body was
discovered no one heard anything like a scream or a cry of distress.26
The occupants of the cottages and members of the club using the side door to get
into the club would generally have to fumble their way in the darkness to reach their
destination, as the yard did not have any light of its own and there were no street lights
close enough to light the yard. The coroner stated that there were four lamps between
Louis Diemschutz
Commercial Road and 40 Berner Street, a distance of 350 feet.27
Diemschutz reached the gate just as the clock struck one. “It was very dark,” he said. “There is no light near here, and the
darkness is consequently much more intense between these two walls” — pointing to the walls of the Club and a house on the
other side of the yard — “than out in the street. The gate was pushed back, and the wheel of my cart bumped against some-
thing. I struck a match to see what it was, but the wind blew it out.”
Philip Krantz confirmed how dark the yard was:
At 12.10am I went from the Club into the printing office to put some literature away. Upon returning, I went into the yard,
and noticed that the gates were opened. There are no lamps in the yard; neither are there any lamps in Berner-street which
will light the yard. The only light that comes into the yard is derived from the gas-light in the Club premises.28
It would have been pretty hard going getting across the yard, as it would have been extremely dark along the club wall in
particular.
The surface of the yard was old rubble, bits of brick, and some old broken paving stones, all forced in to make a pathway of
sorts, but it would have been very uneven and treacherous in the dark. There was a gutter running along the side wall of the
club, and the back part of the club, where the kitchen and the Arbeter Fraint offices were situated, actually jutted out slightly
from the front part of the building — about a foot or so, as can be seen in the contemporary sketch and the sketch that was made
by Furniss some little while later. It is probable that the kitchen door was left open to give the club members a little light to
use as a beacon in the pitch darkness, to guide them to the side entrance of the club.
Wess stated that when there was any kind of meeting or gathering in the club, the front door was usually locked, and it was
easier for the member to use the side door to get to the first floor room where most of the activities took place, despite the
darkness.
Next to Walter Hindley’s old workshop at the back of the yard was an unused stable, but neither had an exit through the
back. The only way out of the yard was through the double gates. The yard actually formed a sort of L shape at the back, and
25 Times, October 2nd,1888.

26 Morning Advertiser, October 1st,1888.
27 Morning Advertiser, October 3rd, 1888.
28 Echo, October 10th, 1888.

Henriques Street 2001 — The board school is on the right.
that area particularly would have been very secluded and deserted, although it is very probable that there was a window in the
back of the Arbeter Fraint offices that overlooked it, as contemporary sketches of Dutfield’s Yard do not show a window facing
into the yard from the back room. Philip Krantz was in this room at the time the murder took place, but stated at the inquest
that the window and door into his room was shut and that he heard nothing.29
It has been suggested by some researchers that Elizabeth may well have been soliciting in the gateway of Dutfield’s Yard that
night, but if the members of the club were telling the truth, then this seems unlikely. The consensus amongst the witnesses who
testified at the inquest was that it was very unusual for prostitutes to be seen plying for trade in Berner Street — in fact it was
not a likely place for them to pick up customers.
Wess stated that he had noticed ‘low’ women and men together in Fairclough Street, but had not seen any in Berner Street.
He had never seen any of ‘these women’ around his club. About 12 months ago he stated that he happened to go into the yard
and heard some conversation between a man and a woman at the gates. He went to shut the gates and then saw a man and
woman leave the entrance. That was the only occasion he had ever noticed anything.30
Morris Eagle stated that he had seen men and women coming from Nelson’s Beer Shop, but not on the night of the murder.31
The Nelson was almost certainly closed at the time that Elizabeth was killed.
Louis Diemschutz, under oath, stated that he had never seen men and women in the yard involved in immoral acts, and said
that he had not heard of any being found there to his knowledge.32
29 Daily Telegraph, October 6th, 1888.

31 ibid.
32 ibid.

The newspapers seemed to take the same view.
The yard where the murder took place was deemed an unlikely place for a prostitute to take her client - In fact, the traf-
fic there is too great and two constant to allow of that secrecy, which is the companion of immorality.33
The coroner, at the summing up of the inquest, stated that although it was common to see couples in Commercial Road, it
was exceptional to meet them in Berner Street.34
If Elizabeth was waiting there in the club gateway to pick up a client then it would seem to have been an unusual occur-
rence, if we are to believe the testimony from various sources. However, although the yard itself does not seem to have been
used by prostitutes to service clients for the simple reason that it was too busy for privacy, several witnesses at the inquest seem
to have seen a couple, or indeed several couples, in Berner Street that night.
William Marshall and James Brown both reported seeing a woman whom they identified as Elizabeth with a companion in
Berner Street, although the identification was by no means certain. A police constable, William Smith, stated that he had seen
Elizabeth there with a man as well.
If the statements by the club members stating that few couples were ever seen together in Berner Street are correct, then
it does make it more likely that these were in fact sightings of Elizabeth . . . or the night of September 29th-30th had suddenly
became an exception to the rule.
Acknowledgements — We would like to thank Stewart Evans and Rob Clack for allowing us to use photographs in this article.
Look for ‘Mitre Square Revisited’ in an upcoming issue of Ripperologist.
33 Evening News, October 1st, 1888.

34 Scotsman, October 2nd, 1888.
Henriques Street 2005 — Photograph Rob Clack.

Kate’s Folks
By Neal Shelden
—
Neal Shelden continues his research of more than two decades now into the Ripper’s victims
and their lives with an interview of two of Catherine Eddowes’s descendants, Jean Smith and
Tracey Marks. Interviewed late this summer, Jean is Catherine’s great-great-great-granddaughter
and Tracey is Catherine’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter.
How exactly did you find out that you were a direct descendant of Catherine Eddowes?
Tracey: I was studying our family tree and became stuck on my great-great-grandmother. My mum did not have any
more certificates and we hit a dead end on the Internet sites. My mum phoned her second cousin, whose mum lived
with Annie Phillips when she first got married. That was when she
told us of Neal’s connection. And that’s how we learned of Contemporary illustration of Catherine Eddowes
Catherine’s relationship to us
Jean: My daughter Tracey was researching our family tree and she
got stuck on my great-grandmother. I telephoned my second
cousin to see if she had any birth certificates left after her mum
had died and she told me about a letter she had received from
Neal Shelden
Has the Catherine Eddowes connection helped

to bring you together with long lost relatives?
Tracey: Since we have found out about Catherine some of the

family have got together and met up with Neal Shelden and went
on the Jack the Ripper walk. We have been in more contact with
each other but there are still some of the family we have yet to
meet and we are hoping this will happen soon, maybe in time for
the anniversary of Catherine’s death.
Jean: No, but we are hoping to arrange a family get together with
other members of the Eddowes family

—
How do you feel about Catherine from what you’ve read about
her, especially her lifestyle and her personality? Do you think
you would have liked her?
Tracey: Her lifestyle was much like many other women’s of the time. It was “needs
must” and you survived the best way you knew how. Of course she drank a lot, which
obviously did not help with her money situation. But again, it was a Catch 22 for peo-
ple then. Much like young people today with drugs and how they get out of the situ-
ation. She seemed to be the “life and soul of the party,” which is much like most of
my family, especially my late grandmother Emily and my mother Jean, both of them
are red heads too.
Jean: I felt sorry for her lifestyle, but back then everyone was in the same boat. I
think I would like her.
Jean Smith
Do you think Annie Phillips was right to avoid Catherine in the last two years of her life
because Catherine was constantly asking her for money?
Tracey: I think she made the right decision for her and her family at the time, whether after Catherine’s death she felt
differently I don’t know, but I don’t think she recalled the story of her mother’s death afterward to her family. Because
my Grandmother was certainly unaware of the death and it was a complete surprise to us when we heard.
Jean: Yes she was, but then again it was her mother.
Do you think that Catherine was wholly responsible for the lifestyle she led, partly respon-
sible or not responsible at all?
Tracey: This is a hard one to call; the whole East End lifestyle was one of destitute men, women and children living to
survive each day at a time. I am not sure she would have been able to live her life any different if she wanted to.
Jean: It was the times so she really did not have much choice.
How would you feel about Thomas Conway if he had been Tracey Marks
beating Catherine while they were together?
Tracey: I don’t condone domestic violence at all, so I feel angry about it.
Jean: I do not believe a man should beat a woman.
Have you ever read the details of what Jack the Ripper did to
Catherine, and, if so, how did it make you feel?
Tracey: I have read the details of what happened to Catherine, both before I knew
she was my great x4 grandmother and since finding out. Obviously the murder was
horrific and what he done to her was appalling, and it doesn’t make nice reading. But
once I knew about Catherine it made me sad to think she suffered so much.
Jean: Yes I have read some books and I was horrified.

—
How do you feel about the mortuary pictures of Catherine; should they continue to be used
in books and other media?
Tracey: I feel in the right context the photos need to be shown in books on the cases, etc. However, when I first found
out I was related to Catherine and I searched for photos of her on the net I came across an American site that sells T-
shirts with the photo of Catherine’s mortuary photo on it. That disgusted me. And these should not be sold.
Jean: As it is part of history, then yes, it should be used.
If it were possible, would you approve or disapprove of an exhumation of Catherine’s body

for medical tests?
Tracey: I would not agree to this, unless it was vital for some reason or another. I do not see what would be achieved
in doing so.
Jean: No; there is no point as the crime will never be solved.
What do you think of people who are interested in the Jack the Ripper murders — harm-
less or loonies?
Tracey: Totally harmless and having people who show an interest keeps the event alive.
Jean: Harmless people who are interested in history.
Do you think it is right for people to attend conferences on Jack the Ripper, or write musi-
cals about it, or make up board games?
Tracey: Yes I feel it is good people are interested enough to attend the conferences on the Ripper cases, this is not just
my history but British history and we need to maintain this for future generations. As for musicals and board games I
was not aware these existed but as long as they tell an accurate portrayal of the events I don’t think there is anything
wrong.
Jean: Conferences are ok, but not musicals or board games.
Do you intend to go to the Museum in Docklands exhibit about Jack the Ripper despite its
failure to include an adequate section on the victims?
Tracey: I went along this week [4th Aug 08] I was disappointed by it really. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would
be. However, I managed to get some information from them on Catherine. I asked the staff for copies of the paperwork
on show, and they were happy to print them off for me.
Jean: We went along to the museum this week; it was not how I thought it was going to be. Not much information real-
ly but we did get some info on Catherine.

Just for fun, if you could think of a current
actress, British or otherwise, to portray
Catherine Eddowes in a film, who would it be?
Tracey: Well being that Catherine was a red head and obvious-
ly from London I feel that Catherine Tate could probably por-
tray her well. However in the scheme of the business that is
Hollywood I think Nicole Kidman may make a good Catherine
Eddowes.
Catherine Tate to play Catherine in a film? Jean: Helen Mirren.

Screen shot from Charles Dickens’s ‘Bleak House’.
What is your occupation and your hobbies and other interests?
Tracey: I work as a special educational needs co-ordinator at a children’s centre right in the Heart of Whitechapel.
London. My hobbies include making greeting cards, surfing the net, music and spending time with my family.
Jean: I am retired and my hobbies are knitting and line dancing.
How do you feel about having a connection to one of the most famous crimes in history?
Tracey: I feel that having Catherine as my great-great-great-great grandmother, very fascinating, I enjoy telling people
of my connection and they too find it just as interesting, asking lots of questions.
Jean: Interesting.
Neal Shelden began researching the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper at the age of eighteen. He is the
author of several books on the subject, most recently, The Victims of Jack the Ripper, published in October 2007.

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes
Hit or Myth
Following the death of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, almost every newspaper car-
ried extensive reports of the crime, ranging from the very accurate to the quite bizarre. It has
been a minefield for researchers, and many authors over the years have allowed some of the
myths to creep into their recounting of the last hours of Elizabeth’s and Catherine’s life. Here are
just a few of the misconceptions that have arisen. . .
Liz had eaten or held grapes just before her death
This is almost certainly untrue, although some researchers still maintain that there might well be some truth behind
the story. It’s probably best to leave the debate as ‘unresolved’.
The news reports that ran on October 1 stated that Elizabeth had some grapes tightly clasped in her right hand when
she was found, and that in her left were a number of sweetmeats (cachous). Apart from the fact it would seem rather
odd for her to have cachous in one hand and grapes in another, leaving her no hands free for anything else, there is
Contemporary illustration of the murder of Elizabeth Stride.

conflicting evidence about the existence of those grapes.
In the hours following the murder of Elizabeth Stride, almost all of the
residents of Berner Street were interviewed by the police. Sergeant Stephen
White interviewed Matthew Packer, who ran a small greengrocery and
sweets shop from the front room of his house at 44 Berner St, at 9am on the
morning of September 30. Mr Packer stated at that time that he did not see
anyone go into Dutfield’s Yard, or see anything else suspicious, or hear the
slightest noise. He claims he knew nothing about the murder until he heard
about it the following morning.
Notwithstanding Packer’s original newspaper interview, The East London
Advertiser for October 6 ran this story.
DISCOVERY BY PRIVATE DETECTIVES
The Evening News publishes important information obtained by two pri-

vate detectives. Their inquiries go to establish the fact that the perpetra-
tor of the Berner-street crime was seen and spoken to whilst in the company
of his victim, within 40 minutes of the commission of the crime, and only
passed from the sight of a witness 10 minutes before the murder, and with-
in 10 yards of the scene of the awful deed.
When they began their quest, almost the first place at which the detec-
tives sought evidence was No. 44, Berner-street, the second house from the
spot where the body was found. This is the residence of a man named
Mathew Packer, who carries on a small business as a greengrocer, and
fruiterer. His shop is an insignificant place with a half window in front, of the sort common in the locality, and most
of his dealings are carried on through the lower part of the window case, in which his fruit is exposed for sale, Mathew
Packer after two or three interviews made and signed a statement in writing.
On Saturday night about 11:45 a man and woman came, he says, to his shop window, and asked for some fruit. The
man was middle-aged, perhaps 35 years; about 5ft. 7in. in height; was stout, square built; wore a wideawake hat and
dark clothes; had the appearance of a clerk; had a rough voice and a quick, sharp way of talking. The woman was mid-
dle-aged, wore a dark dress and jacket, and had a white flower in her bosom. It was a dark night, and the only light
was afforded by an oil lamp which Packer had burning inside his window, but he obtained a sufficiently clear view of
the faces of the two people as they stood talking close in front of the window, and his attention was particularly
caught by the white flower which the woman wore, and which showed out distinctly against the dark material of her
jacket.
The man asked his companion whether she would have black or white grapes; she replied,
“Black.”
“Well, what’s the price of the black grapes,” old man?” he inquired.
“The black are 6d. and the white 4d.,” replied Packer.
“Well, then, old man, give us half a pound of the black,” said the man.
Packer served him with the grapes, which he handed to the woman. They then crossed the road and stood on the
pavement almost directly opposite to the shop for a long time — more than half-an-hour. It will be remembered that
the night was very wet, and Packer naturally noticed the peculiarity of the couple’s standing so long in the rain. He
observed to his wife,

“What fools those people are to be stand-
ing in the rain like that!”
At last the couple moved from their posi-
tion and Packer saw them cross the road
again and come over to the club, standing
for a moment in front of it as though lis-
tening to the music inside. Then he lost
sight of them. It was then 10 or 15 minutes
past 12 o’clock, Packer, who was about to
close his shop, noting the time by the fact
that the public-houses had been closed.
With a view of testing the accuracy and Newspaper sketches of the man allegedly seen buying grapes with Elizabeth Stride on
the night of her murder, as described by Matthew Packer.
honesty of Packer’s testimony, the detec-
tives obtained an order to view the body of the woman murdered in Mitre Square, and took Packer to see it, leaving
him under the impression that they were taking him to see the Berner Street victim.
On seeing the body he at once declared that it was not the woman for whom the grapes had been bought, and not
a bit like her.
The next evidence gleaned by the detectives was that of a Mrs. Rosenfield and her sister, Miss Eva Harstein, both
residing at 14, Berner-street. Mrs. Rosenfield deposes that early on Sunday morning she passed the spot on which the
body had lain, and observed on the ground close by a grape stalk stained with blood. Miss Eva Harstein gave corrobo-
rative evidence as to the finding of the grape stalk close to where the body lay. She also stated that, after the removal
of the body of the murdered woman, she saw a few small petals of a white natural flower lying quite close to the spot
where the body had rested. It will be remembered by those who have read the accounts of the murder and the pro-
ceedings of the police subsequent to it, that the passage in which the crime had been committed was washed down
by the police as soon as the body was removed.
The two detectives, reasoning that the grape-stalk had probably been washed away with the blood and dirt removed
by the police, next proceeded to search the sink down which the results of the police washing had been put, and,
amidst a heap of heterogeneous filth, they discovered a grape-stalk. It is a matter of common knowledge that some
grapes were found in one hand of the murdered woman, so that the finding of this fragment of grape-stalk, though
important as binding the links of the evidence closer together, was scarcely necessary to establish the fact that the
victim had been eating the fruit immediately before her death.
There is one seeming discrepancy between the story of Packer and the facts as published; it has been reported that
a red flower was found in the murdered woman’s bosom, and Packer states that she wore a white flower. This is suf-
ficiently easy of explanation, since Packer does not say that the woman wore only a white flower, but that his atten-
tion was particularly drawn to the white flower from its standing out against the black of her dress, and the absence
of the flower from her jacket when found by the police is unimportant in view of the evidence of Miss Harstein, who
subsequently saw fragments of it in the passage.
Unfortunately, Mr Packer’s story mutated so dramatically over the coming days that it was soon dismissed as total
fiction by most.
There were six people other than Packer that claimed to have seen the grapes, or at least the grape stalk — Louis
Diemshűtz, Isaac Kozebrodsky and Fanny Mortimer, who gave their accounts to the Daily News of October 1; Eva
Harstein; and the two detectives, Le Grand and Batchelor.

In the account in the Daily News for October 1, Diemschűtz is fairly specific about what he saw:
She [Elizabeth Stride] had dark clothes on, and wore a black crepe bonnet. Her hands were clenched, and when the
doctor opened them I saw that she had been holding grapes in one hand and sweetmeats in the other.
His statement is hardly ambiguous and would seem to support the suggestion that there were grapes in Elizabeth’s
hand.
Isaac Kozebrodsky, speaking to the same reporter, was equally certain of what he witnessed that night.
While the doctor was examining the body, I noticed that she had some grapes in her right hand and some sweets in
her left. I saw a little bunch of flowers stuck above her right bosom.
Mrs Mortimer confirmed:
The woman appeared to me to be respectable, judging by her clothes, and in her hand were found a bunch of grapes
and some sweets.
Three independent witnesses, all stating that they saw grapes in Elizabeth’s hand directly after her murder. An impor-
tant point here is that Diemschűtz and Kozebrodsky both state that they saw the grapes in her hand while ‘the doctor’
was examining Elizabeth’s body. How could so many witnesses get it wrong? It’s impossible to say, but their statements
conflict with other, more solid witness testimony.
Diemschűtz was the only one of the above to be called to give evidence at the inquest, and he stated there under
oath that he didn’t notice the position of Elizabeth’s hands, and mentions nothing about grapes or the cachous. It’s pos-
sible, though, that he just didn’t bother to mention them because he didn’t think they were important. However, if he
didn’t see the position of Elizabeth’s hands, it seems hard to imagine that he could have seen what was in them.
As to the other two witnesses already mentioned, Fanny Mortimer and Isaac Kozebrodsky, we can’t really say any-
thing definite as they did not appear at the inquest, and we must just accept or dismiss their statements on their word.
Eva Harstein told Le Grand and Batchelor she had seen a blood-stained grape stalk in Dutfield’s Yard, but this does-
n’t tie in with the evidence given by the three witnesses who said they saw grapes, as the grapes would hardly have
eaten themselves between the time they were seen by Diemschűtz, Kozebrodsky and Mortimer.
Le Grand and Batchelor did search the drain and state they found a grape stalk, but again, this could hardly be the
stalk of the same bunch of grapes. Harstein also said that she saw some white flower
Dr Frederick Blackwell petals by the murder spot, but we know that Elizabeth was wearing a red rose with a
maidenhair fern, so there has be some question about the validity of her statement.
There had been a fair amount of traffic through the yard during the course of that
day, and if Harstein did see the flower petals and the stalk, they could well have been
dropped at any time, by anyone. Packer could have, and probably did, sell grapes to
more than one person that day. The fact that the grape stalk was blood-stained is easily
accounted for, by the fact that it was dropped near the murder spot and when the blood
was washed down it would have been nigh on impossible for it not to get stained.
Now we turn to the medical evidence given under oath by the doctors that attended
the scene.
Dr Frederick Blackwell, giving testimony at the inquest, does not mention any grapes
or stalks, even though he examined Elizabeth just minutes after her murder.
On Sunday morning last, at ten minutes past one o’clock, I was called to Berner Street
by a policeman. My assistant, Mr. Johnston, went back with the constable, and I fol-

lowed immediately I was dressed. I consulted
my watch on my arrival, and it was 1.16 a.m.
The deceased was lying on her left side
obliquely across the passage, her face looking
towards the right wall. Her legs were drawn
up, her feet close against the wall of the
right side of the passage. Her head was rest-
ing beyond the carriage-wheel rut, the neck
lying over the rut. Her feet were three yards
from the gateway. Her dress was unfastened
at the neck. The neck and chest were quite
warm, as were also the legs, and the face was
slightly warm. The hands were cold. The right
hand was open and on the chest, and was
Elizabeth Stride’s Inquest — Louis Diemschűtz is testifying.
smeared with blood. The left hand, lying on
the ground, was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue paper. There were no
rings, nor marks of rings, on her hands.1
Dr George Bagster Phillips fails to mention that there were grapes in Elizabeth’s hand when he examined her shortly
after 1.36am, in his preliminary statement at the inquest:
I was called on Sunday morning last at twenty past one to Leman-street Police-station, and was sent on to Berner-
street, to a yard at the side of what proved to be a clubhouse. I found Inspector Pinhorn and Acting-Superintendent
West in possession of a body, which had already been seen by Dr. Blackwell, who had arrived some time before me.
The body was lying on its left side, the face being turned towards the wall, the head towards the yard, and the feet
toward the street. The left arm was extended from elbow, and a packet of cachous was in the hand. Similar ones were
in the gutter. I took them from the hand and gave them to Dr. Blackwell. The right arm was lying over the body, and
the back of the hand and wrist had on them clotted blood.2
Not only were no grapes found on Elizabeth when she was examined, but the post mortem proved conclusively that
she had not eaten the skin or the seed of a grape that night.
Dr George Bagster Phillips: On the last occasion I was requested to make a re-examination of the body of the
deceased, especially with regard to the palate, and I have since done so at the mortuary, along with Dr. Blackwell and
Dr. Gordon Brown. I did not find any injury to, or absence of, any part of either the hard or the soft palate. The
Coroner also desired me to examine the two handkerchiefs which were found on the deceased. I did not discover any
blood on them, and I believe that the stains on the larger handkerchief are those of fruit. Neither on the hands nor
about the body of the deceased did I find grapes, or connection with them. I am convinced that the deceased had not
swallowed either the skin or seed of a grape within many hours of her death.3
The coroner asked Blackwell specifically if he had seen any grapes near the body in the yard, and Blackwell very
definitely said ‘No’. The coroner then asked: “Did you hear any person say that they had seen grapes there?” Blackwell
replied: “I did not.”
1 Daily Telegraph, October 3, 1888

So where does this leave us? The doctors did not mention seeing any grapes, although it is possible that Elizabeth
had only sucked the juice from the grapes and spat out the seed and the skin — there were some possible fruit stains
on her handerkerchief, which might support this.
There is one other possible explanation — although it has some serious drawbacks. Dr Johnston examined Elizabeth
prior to the other doctors arriving. Looking at the timing of events, he must have been ‘the doctor’ that Diemschűtz
and Kodebrodsky were referring to in their statements to the newspaper.
I felt the body and found all warm except the hands, which were quite cold. . . I did not notice at the time that
one of the hands was smeared with blood. The left arm was bent, away from the body. The right arm was also bent,
and across the body.4
Could Johnston have dislodged the grapes whilst he was performing the examination? Of course it is possible, but if
so, what happened to the grapes afterwards? They could not have just disappeared, and surely would have been found
when the yard was painstakingly searched for evidence. No mention is made anywhere of grapes being found in the
yard — only a stalk, and that was only reported by witnesses that were not called to testify at the inquest.
Another point is that if Packer were telling the truth and Elizabeth bought the grapes at around midnight, would she
have still had them in her hand almost an hour later? That seems a very long time to suck a couple of grapes.
Although this issue must remain unresolved, it would seem far more likely that the witnesses who saw the grapes
were mistaken, or what they thought were grapes were in fact something else entirely or that they were misquoted by
the press, a not impossible situation.
Elizabeth Stride and Michael Kidney lived at 35 Dorset Street
This is completely untrue. Elizabeth moved in with Michael Kidney at 35 Devonshire Street sometime in 1885. They
then moved to 36 Devonshire Street five months prior to Elizabeth’s death. Elizabeth was living at a common lodging
house at 32 Flower and Dean Street at the time of her murder, and Michael Kidney was living at 33 Dorset Street. At no
time did they live at Crossingham’s lodging house, 35
Dorset Street.5 Contemporary illustration of 32 Flower and Dean Street where
Elizabeth regularly lodged when she separated from Michael Kidney.
Liz was done up in her Sunday best when she left

the lodging house on the night of her murder
A great deal of discussion has taken place about whether

or not Liz was on a date the night she was murdered, and
whether or not she was done up in her best clothes to go
out that night. This is partly fuelled by the inquest testi-
mony given by Charles Preston, when he stated that
Elizabeth asked him if she could borrow a clothes brush, a
request he refused. The coroner asked him what Elizabeth
had been wearing on the night she was killed.
4 Daily Telegraph, October 4, 1888.

5 The Jack the Ripper A-Z, Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, p454.

[Coroner] What was she wearing?
Preston — The jacket I have seen at the mortuary, but no
flowers in the breast. She had the striped silk handkerchief round
her neck.6
This doesn’t really tell us much about what sort of clothes

Elizabeth was wearing at the time she was killed, but Elizabeth
Tanner gives more details in her inquest testimony, as recorded in
the Times of October 4, 1888 :
Elizabeth Tanner stated:-
Coroner — Have you seen her clothes?

Tanner — Yes. I cannot say if the two handkerchiefs belonged to
her. The clothes she was wearing were the ones she usually wore,
and they were the same she had on Saturday. I recognized the long
jacket as belonging to her.
So Elizabeth was wearing her usual clothes when she went out
that night, and possibly the only clothes she owned, although she
seemed to be trying to make the best of them.
Liz was given the green velvet as a gift
We have no way of knowing if this piece of velvet was a gift, where Elizabeth got it from, or what she intended to
do with it. The only testimony we have comes from Catherine Lane, who lived at 32 Flower and Dean Street with
Elizabeth.
[Coroner] Did you see her leave the lodging-house?

Lane — Yes; she gave me a piece of velvet as she left, and asked me to mind it until she came back. (The velvet
was produced, and proved to be a large piece, green in colour.)
[Coroner] Had she no place to leave it?
Lane — I do not know why she asked me, as the deputy would take charge of anything.7
There is no evidence to suggest that Elizabeth was given it as a gift.
Liz was known as ‘Long Liz’ because of her height
This is untrue. Liz was only 5ft 5 inches tall, which was not exceptional for the time. There have been several rea-
sons given for the nickname. One is that she had a long face — which is not really likely — another that it was because
she had a long step. The most likely, though, is that it was a nickname common to anyone called ‘Stride’ in the East
End.
7 Ibid.

Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy and Henry Harris all saw Kate and an unknown man in Church Passage,
Mitre Square when they came out of the Imperial Club at 1.35am.
This is untrue, only Lawende saw them clearly. Levy

saw them just in passing, but without taking much notice.
Harris did not even give evidence at the inquest, and
apparently saw nothing worth mentioning at all.
Lawende: On the night of Sept. 29, I was at the

Imperial Club, Duke-street, together with Mr. Joseph
Levy and Mr. Harry Harris. It was raining, and we sat in
the club till half-past one o’clock, when we left. I
observed a man and woman together at the corner of
Church-passage, .Duke-street, leading to Mitre I saw a
man and woman standing at the corner of Church-pas-
sage, but I did not take any notice of them. I passed on,
thinking they were up to no good at so late an hour.8
There was a sink close the the graffito that was wet with blood/A sink off Dorset Street was found to contain
bloody water.
The only source of this is Major Henry Smith’s autobiography, From Constable to Commissioner (1910), Chapter XVI.
The assassin had evidently wiped his hands with the piece of apron. In Dorset Street, with extraordinary audacity,
he washed them at a sink up a close, not more than six yards from the street. I arrived there in time to see the blood-
stained water.
This is obviously a reference to something that happened after Mary Kelly’s murder in Miller’s Court, and it is doubt-
ful if it had anything to do with any of the murders. Major Smith was notorious for misremembering details, and there
is no evidence at all that any blood was found in a sink — and even if there were, there would be no way of proving
that it had anything to do with the murders, and might well have come from an innocent source.
Catherine Eddowes occasionally slept in a shed in Dorset Street
This is possibly partly true, but misreported. If Catherine did sleep in a shed in Dorset Street, then it could not have
been a shed at the front of No. 26 Dorset Street. Lloyds Newspaper of October 7 (and was itself copied from the Daily
Telegraph), reported that Eddowes:
‘. . .slept in a shed off Dorset Street, which is a nightly refuge of some ten to twenty homeless creatures who are
without the means of paying for their beds’.
The Daily Telegraph, November 10, 1888, reported: ‘curiously enough, the warehouse at No. 26’, (Dorset Street,)
now closed by large doors, was until a few weeks ago the nightly resort of poor homeless creatures, who went there-
for shelter. One of these women was Catherine Eddowes, the woman who was murdered in Mitre-square.’
8 Daily Telegraph, October 12th, 1888.

A contemporary illustration of a ‘homeless shed’
The reporter of the November item obviously got his information from the October article, but the October report
failed to state the exact address of the shed that Eddowes often slept in. Could there have been another shed in Dorset
Street that was a more likely place to fit the bill?
No. 6 Dorset Street was owned by a man named Bailey, who rented it out as flats to the local poor — however the
ground floor of the building was used as stables and for storage, so it may have been available for homeless people to
sleep in. Catherine Eddowes gave the address of ‘6 Fashion Street’ to the pawnbroker when she pawned her partner
John’s boots, which was obviously a false address, but if she did sleep in any shed in Dorset Street, No. 6 would have
been a more likely candidate.
Lloyd’s Newspaper of the November 11, in describing the room rented by Mary Kelly, said:
‘It is really the back parlour of 26 Dorset Street, the front shop being partitioned off and used for the storage of
barrows etc. This was formerly left open, and poor persons often took shelter there for a night; but when the
Whitechapel murders caused so much alarm, the police thought the spot a temptation to the murderer, and so the
front was securely boarded up.’
There was nothing said about Catherine staying there.

The origins of the confusing Dorset Street ‘shed’ story seem to have been in the Daily Telegraph October 3 report,
that included this statement:
‘It appears that Detective-Sergeant Outram, of the City Police, came to the mortuary in Golden-lane, with a party
of six women and a man. Some of the former had, it is said, described the clothing of the deceased so accurately that
they were allowed to confirm their belief by viewing it at the Bishopsgate-street Police-station. Subsequently they
were taken to the chief office in Old Jewry, and thence conducted to the mortuary. Here two of the women positive-
ly identified the deceased as an associate, but they did not know her by name. She does not seem to have borne a
nickname. They were ignorant of her family connections or her antecedents, and did not know whether she had lived

with any man. The dead woman had, in fact, belonged to
the lowest class, and frequently was without the money to
obtain admission to the common lodging-houses.
Whenever she was in this impecunious state she had, in
the company of the women who now identified her body,
slept in a shed off Dorset-street, which is the nightly
refuge of some ten to twenty houseless creatures who are
without the means of paying for their beds.’
It is very likely that these people were taken to the mor-

tuary and the police station, but describing the victim’s
clothing didn’t prove knowledge of the victim, as the cloth-
ing list was circulated in every newspaper at the time and
they could easily have seen it in print. Not only this, but at
least some of the clothes had been newly acquired by Kate
whilst on her way back from hop picking in Kent, and there-
fore could not have been seen by any of them. Moreover,
she was gone from London for nearly a month and before
that lodging house deputy Frederick Wilkinson testified that
she and John Kelly had been regular clients for many
months before and that Kate was unlikely to have spent any
time in a Dorset Street shed.
Just to further accentuate the impossibility of the notion
that the front of 26 Dorset street was once a shed used to
store barrows, one only has to look at the photograph taken
The front of 26 Dorset Street and the entrance to Miller’s Court, showing
that it is really impossible that this was ever used as a shed to store carts in the 1920’s, which shows that the front of 26 was a typi-
cal house front, and that the building work was contempo-
rary with the rest of the building. It is impossible for that to have been used to store barrows, as there was no access.
This makes it very unlikely indeed that the homeless would have been allowed to sleep in there, especially as it was
so close to the entrance to Mr McCarthy’s grocers shop just a few feet away.
All in all, the whole story of the shed seems to be either a mix up of addresses, or sheer fabrication. The suspicion
is that the seven, like many other sensation-seekers, concocted the story, based on the clothing Kate wore that was
listed in the newspapers in order to view the body.
Catherine’s apron was so dirty that it looked as if it was black
Various authors have speculated about the state and colour of Catherine Eddowes’ apron. The idea that it was black,
or so dirty that it looked as if it was black, originated with Inspector Walter Dew, who wrote in his memoirs:
She had been wearing a black apron. Part of this was missing. The torn portion was found later by a police-consta-
ble on the steps of a block of buildings in Goulston Street, nearby. It was covered with blood, and had obviously been
used by the woman’s assailant to wipe his bloodstained hands as he ran away.9
9 The Hunt for Jack the Ripper, Walter Dew. Available at http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.walterdew.html

This is entirely false. A read through the inquest testimony gives the truth of the matter.
Daniel Halse 254 A, Metropolitan police: I was on duty in Goulston-street, Whitechapel, on Sunday morning, Sept. 30,
and about five minutes to three o’clock I found a portion of a white apron (produced). There were recent stains of blood
on it. The apron was lying in the passage leading to the staircase of Nos. 106 to 119, a model dwelling-house.10
So the apron was white, or at least was still recognisable as white. Kate had been hop picking in Kent, however, and
the stain from the hops would likely have left delightful green stains over the whole apron and Kate’s hands, which can
turn black after a while, so it’s very likely the apron was extremely dirty — but for spots and smears of blood to be
seen on it, there must have still been some lightness to the cloth. Incidentally, the green string that Kate used as boot
laces was almost certainly string used to tie up the hops to the frames.
The Goulston Street graffito was written in chalk right across the brickwork of the entrance hall of
Wentworth Model Dwellings in large letters, covering most of the wall
This is completely untrue. The Goulston graffito was actually

written in very small letters on the black door jamb, and was quite
neat.
Daniel Halse, detective officer, City police: . . . After visiting

Leman-street police-station, I proceeded to Goulston-street,
where I saw some chalk-writing on the black facia of the wall. . .
[Coroner] Did the writing have the appearance of having been
recently done?
Halse — Yes. It was written with white chalk on a black facia. .
.There were three lines of writing in a good schoolboy’s round
hand. The size of the capital letters would be about 3/4 in, and the
other letters were in proportion. The writing was on the black
bricks, which formed a kind of dado, the bricks above being
white.11
The portion of kidney sent to George Lusk was definitely a

piece of kidney coming from a woman of Kate’s age, suffer-
ing from Bright’s disease, and it very likely came from her
City Police Commissioner Major Sir Henry Smith wrote the follow-
ing in his memoirs, concerning the Lusk kidney.
I made over the kidney to the police surgeon, instructing him to

The doorway of Wentworth dwellings where the graffito was found.
The writing was found on the door jamb. consult with the most eminent men in the Profession, and to send
me a report without delay. I give the substance of it. The renal
artery is about three inches long. Two inches remained in the corpse, one inch was attached to the kidney. The kid-
ney left in the corpse was in an advanced state of Bright’s Disease; the kidney sent me was in an exactly similar state.

10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.

But what was of far more importance, Mr Sutton, one of the senior surgeons at the London Hospital, whom Dr
Gordon Brown asked to meet him and another surgeon in consultation, and who was one of the greatest authorities
living on the kidney and its diseases, said he would pledge his reputation that the kidney submitted to them had been
put in spirits within a few hours of its removal from the body thus effectually disposing of all hoaxes in connection
with it.
That would seem to be the end of the matter, but is the subject as cut and dried as Major Smith would have us
believe? Unfortunately, as already mentioned, Major Smith seems to have had a less-than-perfect memory where some
events are concerned. Several stories in his memoirs are certainly untrue.
We can say with certainty that it was a human kidney, but it was impossible in 1888 to tell if a kidney came from a
man or woman with utmost certainty. In general, the female kidney is smaller and lighter than the male, but there is
a considerable overlap between the male and female averages and the part kidney sent to Lusk would have made it
harder to identify than a whole kidney. Also it might have been smaller, even if it were a male kidney, if the person
were suffering from Bright’s disease.
The Star and the Daily Telegraph of October 20 reported Dr Brown’s post-mortem, stating that he found Eddowes
“right kidney pale, bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that
Catherine was suffering from Bright’s disease, as the same symptoms apply to quite a few different conditions; however
it is possible that she was suffering from it.
Even were it proven beyond doubt that she did, we can’t say for certain that the Lusk kidney was damaged by the
disease, so we must say that it’s impossible to prove that either Catherine or the Lusk kidney showed signs of Bright’s
disease. It was also only possible to make a rough guess as to the age of the kidney, because there were so
many mitigating factors, and again if Bright’s disease was present it could also skew the results.
It is also now known that alcohol does not damage the kidney, and therefore it would be impossible to tell if the
kidney came from an alcoholic.12
All in all, the subject is still open to debate, but it is more likely that the part of kidney was a prank by a medical
student or journalist to cause some excitement in what was otherwise a quiet month for the newsmen.
Kate claimed to know the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer and had come back to claim the reward.
According to a report in the East London Observer of October 13, 1888, Kate, the day after she returned from hop-
ping in Hunton, in Kent, told the Superintendent the Casual Ward at Mile End that she had come back to claim the
reward for the apprehension of the ‘Whitechapel Murdrerer’, stating that she thought she knew him. The superinten-
dent told her to beware that the killer didn’t come for her, and she said: “Oh, no fear of that.”
It was alleged that Catherine had often stayed at the casual ward before leaving London, but it was the first time
she had stayed there for some time. The superintendent said that she was well-known there, however.
There are several possibilities here:
Firstly, we have to ask if Catherine made the statement at all — it could well have been sheer fabrication on the
part of the superintendent to get his name in the papers. If the incident did happen, it is possible that it was just a
joke on Catherine’s part as she was known for her sense of humour, and would not have been averse to having a joke
at the superintendent‘s expense.
12 Another Look at the Lusk Kidney, Christopher-Michael DiGrazia. Available at http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-cmdlusk.html

There are no sources suggesting that John Kelly knew anything about it either, and although it might have been
expected that she would have confided in John, some of her other activities on the day she was murdered, might sug-
gest that she did keep things back from him, so perhaps not too much should be read into this.
Kate and John were desperately short of money after a rather disastrous time hop-picking, and sorely needed funds.
Even a relatively small reward for information would have been a real blessing to them. If Catherine did have informa-
tion it seems odd that when they returned to London, she didn’t go straight to the police to tell them what she knew
to get the money as quickly as they could.
It is possible that she wasn’t quite certain and wanted to check out a few facts before she committed herself. This
would account for her telling John that she was going to Bermondsey to try and get some money for her daughter that
afternoon, when she must surely have known that her daughter had moved some years before.
At the inquest Catherine’s daughter had testified that Catherine was a persistent scrounger, and that she had moved
without telling her mother where she was going. If Catherine were always asking for money, it seems strange that she
didn’t know that her daughter had moved some time ago. Spinning John a line to explain her absence from him for a
few hours might have been her excuse to go and get information on her suspect.
There are other factors to take into consideration. Apart from the fact that there had been remarkably little in the
way of rewards offered at the time — the reward idea only received prominence after Catherine’s murder — it is doubt-
ful, although just possible, that Catherine knew anything of importance because she and her partner John had left for
Kent around the 1st of September, just about the time that Mary Ann Nichols was murdered.
There is a possibility that Catherine may have heard about the second murder by word-of-mouth whilst hopping in
Kent, but that again is unlikely as news did not travel fast between London and the country in those days, and those
she was in contact with at the hop farm would have been persons that travelled down to Kent at the same time she
and John did.
There is one factor that might give some credence to the tale. The Inquest into the murder of Annie Chapman fin-
ished on the September 26, with Coroner Baxter’s summing-up appearing in most newspapers. Perhaps Catherine read
something that aroused her suspicion.
Overall, though, it seems very unlikely indeed that Catherine knew anything of any consequence, and even more
unlikely that it led to her death.
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From the Archives
Cutthroat
A detailed examination of the neck wounds sustained
by the Whitechapel murder victims
By Karyo Magellan
Elizabeth Stride
Inquest testimony of Dr William Blackwell1: ‘There was a check silk scarf around the neck, the bow of which was turned
to the left side and pulled very tightly. There was a long incision in the neck, which exactly corresponded with the lower
border of the scarf. The lower edge of the scarf was slightly frayed, as if by a sharp knife. The incision in the neck com-
menced on the left side, two and one half inches below the angle of the jaw, and almost in a direct line with it, nearly
severing the vessels on that side, cutting the windpipe completely in two, and terminating on the opposite side one and
one half inches below the angle of the right jaw, but without severing the vessels on that side. Deceased would have
bled to death comparatively slowly, on account of the vessels on one side only being severed, and the artery not being
completely severed. The deceased could not have cried out after the injuries were inflicted as the windpipe was sev-
ered. I formed the opinion that the murderer probably took hold of the silk scarf, at the back of it, and then pulled the
deceased backwards, but I cannot say whether the throat was cut while the woman was standing or after she was pulled
backwards. Deceased would have taken a minute or a minute and a half to bleed to death.’
Inquest testimony of Dr Phillips2: ‘There was a clean-cut incision on the neck. It was six inches in length and com-
menced two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, three quarters of an inch over an undivid-
ed muscle, and then, becoming deeper, dividing the sheath. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards.
The artery and other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through. The cut through the tissues on the right side
was more superficial, and tailed off to about two inches below the right angle of the jaw. The deep vessels on that side
were uninjured. From this it was evident that the haemorrhage was caused through the partial severance of the left
carotid artery. [The cause of death was] undoubtedly from the loss of blood from the left carotid artery and the divi-
sion of the windpipe.’
1 The Times, 3rd October, 1888

2 The Times, 4th October, 1888
Neck wounds to Elizabeth Stride

Catharine Eddowes
Inquest testimony of Dr Frederick Brown3: ‘The throat was cut across to the extent of about six or seven inches. A super-
ficial cut commenced about an inch and a half below the lobe and about two and a half inches behind the left ear and
extended across the throat to about three inches below the lobe of the right ear. The big muscle across the throat was
divided through on the left side - the large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed - the larynx was severed
below the vocal chords. All the deep structures were severed to the bone the knife marking intervertebral cartilages -
the sheath of the vessels on the right side was just opened, the carotid artery had a fine hole opening. The internal
jugular vein was opened an inch and a half not divided. The blood vessels contained clot. All these injuries were per-
formed by a sharp instrument like a knife and pointed. The cause of death was haemorrhage from the left common
carotid artery. The death was immediate and the mutilations were inflicted after death.’
3 Coroner’s inquest (L), 1888, No. 135, Catherine Eddowes inquest, 1888 (Corporation of London Record Office)
Neck wounds to Catherine Eddowes
Schematic representation of the major structures of the human neck — transverse section at the laryngeal level
dorsal aspect 1 Skin and subcutis

right left
2 Spine of cervical vertebra
3 Trapezius and other supporting musculature
4 Spinal cord
5 Vertebral disc
6 Sternocleidomastoid muscle
7 Internal jugular vein
8 Common carotid artery
9 Oesophagus
10 Trachea
11 Thyroid cartilage

Elizabeth Stride
In the neck there was a long incision which exactly corresponded with the lower border of the scarf. The border was slight-
ly frayed, as if by a sharp knife. The incision in the neck commenced on the left side, 2 inches below the angle of the jaw,
and almost in a direct line with it, nearly severing the vessels on that side, cutting the windpipe completely in two, and
terminating on the opposite side 1 inch below the angle of the right jaw, but without severing the vessels on that side.
Mr. Frederick William Blackwell’s inquest testimony, Daily Telegraph, October 3rd, 1888
Daily Telegraph, October 4th, 1888
The throat was deeply gashed, and there was an abrasion of the skin, about an inch and a quarter in diameter, under the
right clavicle. . . Over both shoulders, especially the right, from the front aspect under colar bones and in front of chest
there is a bluish discolouration which I have watched and seen on two occasions since. On neck, from left to right, there is
a clean cut incision six inches in length; incision commencing two and a half inches in a straight line below the angle of the
jaw. Three-quarters of an inch over undivided muscle, then becoming deeper, about an inch dividing sheath and the vessels,
ascending a little, and then grazing the muscle outside the cartilages on the left side of the neck. The carotid artery on the
left side and the other vessels contained in the sheath were all cut through, save the posterior portion of the carotid, to a
line about 1-12th of an inch in extent, which prevented the separation of the upper and lower portion of the artery. The
cut through the tissues on the right side of the cartilages is more superficial, and tails off to about two inches below the
right angle of the jaw. It is evident that the haemorrhage which produced death was caused through the partial severance
of the left carotid artery.
Mr. George Baxter Phillips: Daily Telegraph, October 4th, 1888

Catherine Eddowes
Frederick Fosters drawing, showing the position of Catherine’s body
Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, London police surgeon called in at the murder, arrived at Mitre Square around 2:00 AM. His report is
as follows.
The body was on its back, the head turned to left shoulder. The arms by the side of the body as if they had fallen there. Both
palms upwards, the fingers slightly bent. The left leg extended in a line with the body. The abdomen was exposed. Right leg bent
at the thigh and knee. The throat cut across.
The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder -- they were smeared over with some fecu-
lent matter. A piece of about two feet was quite detached from
Close up of Catherine’s face wounds from Foster’s drawing. the body and placed between the body and the left arm, appar-
ently by design. The lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut
obliquely through.
There was a quantity of clotted blood on the pavement on the
left side of the neck round the shoulder and upper part of arm,
and fluid blood-coloured serum which had flowed under the neck
to the right shoulder, the pavement sloping in that direction.
Body was quite warm. No death stiffening had taken place. She
must have been dead most likely within the half hour. We looked
for superficial bruises and saw none. No blood on the skin of the
abdomen or secretion of any kind on the thighs. No spurting of
blood on the bricks or pavement around. No marks of blood
below the middle of the body. Several buttons were found in the
clotted blood after the body was removed. There was no blood

on the front of the clothes. There were no traces of
recent connexion.
When the body arrived at Golden Lane, some of the
blood was dispersed through the removal of the body to
the mortuary. The clothes were taken off carefully from
the body. A piece of deceased's ear dropped from the
clothing.
I made a post mortem examination at half past two
on Sunday afternoon. Rigor mortis was well marked;
body not quite cold. Green discoloration over the
abdomen.
After washing the left hand carefully, a bruise the size
of a sixpence, recent and red, was discovered on the
back of the left hand between the thumb and first fin-
ger. A few small bruises on right shin of older date. The
hands and arms were bronzed. No bruises on the scalp,
the back of the body, or the elbows.
The face was very much mutilated. There was a cut
about a quarter of an inch through the lower left eyelid,

Dr Gordon Brown’s drawing of Catherine’s face wounds.
dividing the structures completely through. The upper
eyelid on that side, there was a scratch through the skin on the left upper eyelid, near to the angle of the nose. The right eyelid
was cut through to about half an inch.
There was a deep cut over the bridge of the nose,

An approximation of Catherine’s face wounds, using Foster’s drawing
extending from the left border of the nasal bone down and written descriptions.
near the angle of the jaw on the right side of the cheek.
This cut went into the bone and divided all the structures
of the cheek except the mucuous membrane of the mouth.
The tip of the nose was quite detached by an oblique
cut from the bottom of the nasal bone to where the wings
of the nose join on to the face. A cut from this divided the
upper lip and extended through the substance of the gum
over the right upper lateral incisor tooth.
About half an inch from the top of the nose was another
oblique cut. There was a cut on the right angle of the
mouth as if the cut of a point of a knife. The cut extended
an inch and a half, parallel with the lower lip.
There was on each side of cheek a cut which peeled up
the skin, forming a triangular flap about an inch and a
half. On the left cheek there were two abrasions of the
epithelium under the left ear.

The throat was cut across to the extent of about six or seven
inches. A superficial cut commenced about an inch and a half
below the lobe below, and about two and a half inches behind
the left ear, and extended across the throat to about three
inches below the lobe of the right ear.
The big muscle across the throat was divided through on the
left side. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were
severed. The larynx was severed below the vocal chord. All the
deep structures were severed to the bone, the knife marking
intervertebral cartilages. The sheath of the vessels on the
right side was just opened.
The cartoid artery had a fine hole opening, the internal
jugular vein was opened about an inch and a half -- not divided. The blood vessels contained clot. All these injuries were performed
by a sharp instrument like a knife, and pointed.
The cause of death was hemorrhage from the left common cartoid artery. The death was immediate and the mutilations were
inflicted after death.
We examined the abdomen. The front walls were laid open from the breast bones to the pubes. The cut commenced opposite
the enciform cartilage. The incision went upwards, not penetrating the skin that was over the sternum. It then divided the enci-
form cartilage. The knife must have cut obliquely at the expense of that cartilage.
Behind this, the liver was stabbed as if by the point of
a sharp instrument. Below this was another incision into
the liver of about two and a half inches, and below this
the left lobe of the liver was slit through by a vertical
cut. Two cuts were shewn by a jagging of the skin on the
left side.
The abdominal walls were divided in the middle line
to within a quarter of an inch of the navel. The cut then
took a horizontal course for two inches and a half
towards the right side. It then divided round the navel on
the left side, and made a parallel incision to the former
horizontal incision, leaving the navel on a tongue of skin.
Attached to the navel was two and a half inches of the
lower part of the rectus muscle on the left side of the
abdomen. The incision then took an oblique direction to
the right and was shelving. The incision went down the
right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch
behind the rectum.
There was a stab of about an inch on the left groin.
This was done by a pointed instrument. Below this was a
cut of three inches going through all tissues making a

wound of the peritoneum about the same extent.
An inch below the crease of the thigh was a cut extending from the anterior spine of the ilium obliquely down the inner side of
the left thigh and separating the left labium, forming a flap of skin up to the groin. The left rectus muscle was not detached.
There was a flap of skin formed by the right thigh, attaching the right labium, and extending up to the spine of the ilium. The
muscles on the right side inserted into the frontal ligaments were cut through.
The skin was retracted through the whole of the cut through the abdomen, but the vessels were not clotted. Nor had there been
any appreciable bleeding from the vessels. I draw the conclusion that the act was made after death, and there would not have been
much blood on the murderer. The cut was made by someone on the right side of the body, kneeling below the middle of the body.
I removed the content of the stomach and placed it in a jar for further examination. There seemed very little in it in the way of
food or fluid, but from the cut end partly digested farinaceous food escaped.
The intestines had been detached to a large extent from the mesentery. About two feet of the colon was cut away. The signoid
flexure was invaginated into the rectum very tightly.
Right kidney was pale, bloodless with slight congestion of the base of the pyramids.
There was a cut from the upper part of the slit on the under surface of the liver to the left side, and another cut at right angles
to this, which were about an inch and a half deep and two and a half inches long. Liver itself was healthy.

The gall bladder contained bile. The pancreas was cut, but not through, on the left side of the spinal column. Three and a half
inches of the lower border of the spleen by half an inch was attached only to the peritoneum.
The peritoneal lining was cut through on the left side and the left kidney carefully taken out and removed. The left renal artery
was cut through. I would say that someone who knew the position of the kidney must have done it.
The lining membrane over the uterus was cut through. The womb was cut through horizontally, leaving a stump of three quar-
ters of an inch. The rest of the womb had been taken away with some of the ligaments. The vagina and cervix of the womb was
uninjured.
The bladder was healthy and uninjured, and contained three or four ounces of water. There was a tongue-like cut through the
anterior wall of the abdominal aorta. The other organs were healthy. There were no indications of connexion.
I believe the wound in the throat was first inflicted. I believe she must have been lying on the ground.
The wounds on the face and abdomen prove that they were inflicted by a sharp, pointed knife, and that in the abdomen by one
six inches or longer . . .
Mortuary photographs of Catherine Eddowes

Robert James Lees: The Facts
By Jennifer D. Pegg
Robert James Lee’s London omnibus chase to the door of the Ripper has become an important
part of the myth of the Ripper as a doctor in his top hat and carrying his Gladstone bag. His sup-
posed story of Ripper capture was famously incorporated into Stephen Knight’s 1976 book Jack
the Ripper: The Final Solution. It could be said that the idea of Dr Gull (in carriage) as the Ripper
was made more plausible by the idea that someone, albeit, perhaps, only psychically, witnessed
the event. It has been part of Spiritualist folklore for many years. This dual myth of Lees as both
the psychic aide to Queen Victoria and Ripper capturer has played a small, but significant part in
Spiritualism’s attempts to win acceptability. But is it true?
The myth of Robert Lees has taken us from actual diary entries about his attempt to go to the police regarding the
identification of the Ripper to a full-blown Hollywood piece of Ripper folklore where Robert’s own alleged visions are
taken on by the character of Inspector Abberline who saw it all himself! Amongst many serious Ripperologists this per-
son is, in fact, viewed as a weirdo and a delusional crazy. Melvin Harris totally denounced the idea that Lees knew any-
thing about the Ripper in his books Sorry You’ve Been Duped (1986), Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth (1987) and The
True Face of Jack the Ripper (1994) and attempted (quite successfully) to undermine totally the idea Lees could have
any credible link to the case.
To understand the myth it is first important to understand the somewhat turbulent and troubled life of the protag-
onist of this particular part of Ripper folklore, up until the year of the publication of his link to the case for the first
time, in 1895.
Robert James Lees — The Beginnings
Lees was born on the 12th August 1849 in Bond Street, Hinckley, Leicestershire. He was the son of William Lingham
Lees, who was a grocer and baker at this point, and his wife Elizabeth, formerly Patch1. Robert was named after his
paternal grandfather, a needle maker, who had sadly died in the previous year at the age of 592, and he probably took
his middle name after his uncle, his father’s brother James3.
Robert James joined a growing family, his sister Elizabeth having been born in 18434 and his brother William Lingham
Lees (whom I shall subsequently refer to as William Lingham Lees junior for the sake of clarity), who was born in 18455.
The family were living at 39 Bond Street, Hinckley, Leicestershire at the time of the 1851 Census6. At this time Robert
1 Birth certificate — 15 74 Hinckley
2 Hinckley Baptist Group Monumental Inscriptions — Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Records Office
3 Hinckley Baptisms DE 1135/10

James’s father was still listed as a baker and grocer. Incidentally, dur-
ing the 1840’s and early 1850’s Joseph Patch, Robert James’s maternal
grandfather, is listed in the historical directories as a shopkeeper on
Bond Street7. At the time of the 1851 Census, aged 77, he is listed as a
farmer of 10 acres as well as a grocer8.
In the years following Robert’s birth he was joined by a brother, John,
born around 18529 (possibly also a family name as Robert James had an
uncle, also called John who had died in infancy in 182610). This was fol-
lowed by the birth of his sister Mary Lingham Lees (named after her
paternal grandmother) born in 185311.
In 1854 Robert James’s maternal grandfather, Joseph Patch, died in
Hinckley12. In the years that followed Elizabeth and William Lingham
Lees had another child, confusingly named, Robert Joseph Lees13.
Robert James Lees from the front piece to his little Whether the naming of this new arrival as Robert indicates an illness in
known 1897 work A Corner Wall Mystery
the childhood of Robert James (at this point just seven years old) or sim-
ply is a bizarre twist in the early life story of the man, is unclear! Elizabeth bore two further children, Sarah Ann born
in 185814 and Joseph Patch Lees born in 186115. Joseph Patch Lees’s arrival meant that there were now children in the
family named Robert James, Robert Joseph and Joseph Patch Lees respectively. Sadly, this bizarre trio of names did not
last long as Joseph Patch Lees died of diarrhoea and convulsions at just ten days old (pertinently on the 13th of
February) 186116.
By this point the family had moved from Bond Street to 186 Regent Street and were still there at the time of the
1861 Census. By now, Robert James’s father, William Lingham Lees, is listed as a joiner and the family have an appren-
tice, Richard Sharp, living with them. Robert James, now only 11, is listed as a scholar17.
Birmingham— Married Life and Beyond
The family resided in Birmingham at the time of the 1871 Census. Robert James’s father, mother, brother Robert
Joseph, sisters Mary and Sarah, as well as Annie Hunt, granddaughter of William Lingham Lees senior, are living at 88
Pershore Street, Birmingham, Saint Martin. The premises are listed as a school and Robert James’s mother the governess
of an infants’ school at home. Robert James’s father, William Lingham Lees, is still listed as a joiner18. William Lingham
Lees junior was married in King’s Norton in the West Midlands to Mary Ann Willis in 1867, so was not with the family19.
Robert James himself was living in the Aston area of Birmingham; he is listed as a compositor and is lodging with a
William and Mary Higgins20. According to preface of his book The Life of Elysian it was in Birmingham, aged just 13,
that he became associated with the Spiritualist movement for the first time.
Shortly after this time, aged 23, Robert James got married. The ceremony took place at the Congregational Chapel,
4 March qrt 1843, Hinckley, 15 71[18] 11 Births Sept qrt 1853, Hinckley 7a 49
5 June qrt 1845, Hinckley 15 71 12 Deaths December qrt 1854, Hinckley, 7a 35
6 1851 census Hinckley reel 16 pp 155 13 1861 census, Hinckley, RG 9/2261
7 Pigots 1840, 1841 Leicestershire Directories, Post Office Directory 14 Births Sept qrt 1858, Hinckley 7a 50
Leicestershire 1848, Slater’s Leicestershire and Rutland Directory, 1850 15 March qrt 1861, Hinckley, 7a 52
and Melville Leicestershire Directory 1854. 16 Death certificate, 13th February 1861 7a 32
8 1851 census Hinckley reel 16 pp 258 17 Hinckley 1861Census RG 9/2261
9 According to the 1861 census 18 1871 Census Birmingham RG 10/3106
10 DE 1135/10 Hinckley Baptism records and Hinckley Baptist Group 19 Marriages 1867 Sept qrt, Kings Norton, 6c 589
Monumental Inscriptions

Erdington, Aston, Birmingham on the 17th of
December 1871. His wife was Sarah Ann Bishop,
aged 20, the daughter of Henry Bishop, a silver-
smith. Robert James’s father was at this time work-
ing as a cabinet fitter21.
Robert James would later speak of Sarah very
highly indeed, but their married life did not start
well. Just over a month on from their marriage on
the 18th of January 1872, Sarah Ann gave birth to
the couple’s first of 16 children22. The child, a boy,
whose name was not recorded, died on the 20th of
January and lived for just 39 hours. The cause of
death is listed as a premature birth and asphyxia,
certified. Robert James registered both the birth
and death on the 20th of January 1872. (The couple
were at this time living in Upper Thomas Street in
Aston, and Robert James was listed as a printer
compositor23).
Sadly, there was a further tragic twist for the
Lees family, as Robert James’s nephew, son of his
brother William Lingham Lees, and Williams’ name-
sake, also died on the 20th January 1872. The infant
William was just seven months old and died from
laryngitis, at Bull Barn Road, Saint Thomas,
Birmingham24.
1873 saw the birth of the couple’s second child,
also a son, whom they named Norman Albert.
Norman was born on the 20th March 1873; at this
time Robert is still listed as a printer compositor
and the family are living at Anglesey Street, Aston,
Birmingham. Sarah registered the child’s birth on
the 29th April 187325. Between the child’s birth and
its registration a new tragedy hit the family. On the
27th of March 1873, Robert’s brother, Robert Joseph
Lees died, aged just 17 years, at 88 Pershore Street.
20 1871 Census Aston

21 Marriage Certificate, 17th December 1871, Aston
22 Birth Certificate, 18th January 1872, Aston
23 Death Certificate, 20th January 1872, Aston
24 Death Certificate, 20th January 1872, St Thomas,
Birmingham
This portrait of Lees is said to date from around 1910

Robert Joseph died of Phthisis (TB), which he had been suffering from for three months26.
Between 1873 and 1875, the young Lees family moved from Aston to Salford in Lancashire (today Salford is in Greater
Manchester). On the 12th of September 1875 Sarah gave birth to the couple’s third child, Ernest Harold. At the time of
the birth Robert James is listed as a letterpress printer27. Two years later, in 1877, and still living in Salford a fourth
son was born. The child was named Lionel Herbert (and he was registered in the March quarter of 1877)28.
Family Life in London
At some point between the birth of Lionel and the couple’s next child, Bernard Victor, born 1878, the family moved
from Salford in Lancashire to 44 Anstey Road, Camberwell, Surrey. Bernard Victor was born on the 1st of December
1878, and by this time Lees is listed as a commission agent29. The couple’s first daughter, Eveline Amy Florence was
born shortly after this in 1879 in Camberwell30.
By the time of the 1881 Census, Lees and his family are living in Forest Hill, Lewisham, Kent at 3 Allenby Va. and
Lees is by now a sub-editor. Lees’ family has also grown by one member as a further son, Aylmer Gordon, was born in
Forest Hill in 1881 and is aged just two months on the Census31. The following year, on 3rd March, Sarah gave birth to
the couples’ eighth child, a seventh son, whom they named Douglas Percival. By now Robert James is making a living
as an engraver master and the growing family have again moved, this time to Peckham, London32.
There was to be a further move as by 1883 the family were in Acton, Brentford. On the 19th of October 1883, Sarah
and Robert (by now listed as a lecturer) had a second girl, their ninth child; they called the girl Viola Irene (Lees is now
an agent)33. In late 1884, the 10th of the couples’ 16 children arrived. The child was a son, whom the couple named
Marmion (a name from literature34). Unfortunately, the year of 1885 would not be kind to the Lees family. On the 5th
April Viola Irene died, aged just one year and six months. She had had bronchitis for seven days and convulsions for
twenty-four hours before passing away35. It was barely more than a month later when the family were hit by a second
tragedy as their youngest child, Marmion, died on the 30th of May 1885 of marasmus (a form of malnutrition) aged just
eight months36.
Lees started a lanternslide lecture tour of America in November 1886 on London and London life37. The tour went
on between November 1886 and March 1887. Happier times also arrived in his family life, as 1886 saw the arrival of the
11th child, a third daughter, Pearl Clemensa, also registered in the Brentford district38. The following year, now at 5
Goldsmith Road, Acton and still with Robert’s occupation listed as an agent, the couple welcomed their 12th child and
fourth daughter, Eoila May Jasmine into the world on the 8th of May39. The year after the Ripper murders a thirteenth
child, a son, named Claudius Pentaur, was born40.
By the time of the 1891 Census the Lees family relocated a further time, this time landing at 67 Ondine Road in East
Dulwich. Lees, Sarah and their children, Ernest, Lionel, Bernard, Eveline, Aylmer, Douglas, Pearl, Eoila and Claudius
were living there 41(Norman Lees, Robert’s eldest surviving son, had by this point headed for the bright lights of the
25 Birth certificate 20th March 1873, Aston 33 Birth Certificate, 19th October 1883, Acton
26 Death Certificate, 27th March 1873 34 Births, December qrt, 1884, Brentford
27 Birth Certificate, 12th Sept 1975, Salford 35 Death Certificate, 5th April 1885, Acton
28 Births, March qrt 1877, Salford 36 Death Certificate, 30th May 1885, Brentford
29 Birth Certificate, 1st December 1878, Camberwell 37 De4481/310 LLRO
30 Births, Camberwell 1879 38 Births, June 1886, 3a 135,Brentford
31 1881 census, Lewisham, Kent 39 Birth Certificate, 8th May 1887, Brentford
32 Birth Certificate, 3rd March 1882, Camberwell 40 Births, March qrt 1889, 3a 143, Brentford

USA). Sarah again gave birth on 12th of February 1893, this time the
child was a daughter (their fifth) and they named her Ianthe Carona
Hypatia (Ianthe being another name from literature). Robert is now
calling himself a magnetist42. Sadly on the 11th of October 1893, at
just eight months old, Ianthe died of diarrhoea and asthenia due to
her premature birth43.
The family once more relocated to Peckham, this time to 26 The
Gardens where they were living by December 1893. At this time Lees
and his wife were instrumental in running a philanthropic organisa-
tion called the People’s League with Robert as its president. The
League’s aim was ‘to promote the rights of the people, to protect
their interests and to educate them on subjects touching their pres-
ent and future welfare’44. It was at The Gardens, on the 26th of
November 1894, that the couple’s youngest son, Wallace Caerel, was
born. By now Robert is calling himself a psychopathic theraputist45.
It is at this point that we will leave the Lees family as it was short-
ly after this point the Lees Ripper story was first published. We shall
now examine, Lees’ connection to the Ripper saga.
Lees and the Ripper — the plot thickens
The Lees/Ripper story as we know it today has its origins in a

Chicago Sunday Times Herald article that first appeared in print on
the 28th of April 189546. A version of the story was circulated in The
People newspaper in the UK on the 19th of May that year. A further This picture of Lees with his ‘spirit friend’ dates from 1898
version of the story mentioning Lees was also in the Brooklyn Eagle
on the 28th December 1897. Versions of the Chicago Sunday Times Herald article had also appeared in the Philadelphia
Times and the St Louis Globe—Democrat, in the years following the Chicago article’s publication47.
The basis of the story was that over a number of years Lees was troubled by vivid psychic visions of the Ripper at
work. Each one of these terrible visions came true. Lees was troubled terribly by his visions, he sought medical help
and when this failed to help, he went abroad. Luckily for Lees, whilst he was abroad he was not troubled by these
visions. Upon returning to London and whilst travelling on a London omnibus with Sarah a man got on board; a man,
declared Lees, who was Jack the Ripper himself.
When the man got off the bus Lees followed him, bumping into a constable along the way to whom he repeated the
tale and who laughed at the tale. Following further murders Lees was able to lead the police to a fashionable West End
house where the Ripper lived. The Ripper was a London physician and was incarcerated in an asylum in Islington under
the name Thomas Mason, 124. A mock funeral was held for the well-known doctor with all but a select few believing
that he had died48.
This whole story, so the journalist who wrote it claimed, had its basis in a tale that a Dr Howard told to someone
identified as William Greer Harrison of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, the story in turn being told to the Chicago
41 1891 Census Camberwell RG 12/468 46 As viewed on www.rjlees.co.uk

42 Birth Certificate, 12th February 1893, Camberwell 47 Research by Chris Scott — Casebook Jack the Ripper message
43 Death Certificate, 11th October 1893, Camberwell boards
44 DE 4481/341 minutes of Peoples League 1893-95 48 Chicago article as viewed on www.rjlees.co.uk
45 Copy of Wallace Lees birth certificate LLRO DE4481/230

journalist by a Chicago gentleman who overheard it on
account of Howard’s drunkenness. Details of the Ripper
crimes are less than factual in this account. The crimes
are more numerous than in reality and they a span a peri-
od of years, rather than the usually acknowledged period
of a few months in 188849.
The second major story about Lees and the Ripper to
appear in the UK press was in the Daily Express, in a
series of articles published on the 7th, 9th and 10th of
March 1931, just a few months after Lee’s own death in
January of that year50. The Lees family did not profit
from this and tried to find out the source. Claude and Eva
Lees, Robert’s children (who both lived in Leicester at
this point) wrote a letter to the Express to ask for the
source of this story, but unfortunately the journalists
were not forthcoming and simply stated it came from a
‘family friend’51.
The French paper Le Matin of the 29th March 1931
reported that Eva Lees said Robert had received half of
the reward that was promised to whoever should cause
the arrest of Jack the Ripper and was awarded a pension
for twenty years as a result. The article also reported he
had made a formal promise to Queen Victoria that the
Ripper’s name, however much sought, should not be
given52.
After Lees’s death versions of the story appeared in
several Spiritualist sources. Dan Black’s unpublished biog-
raphy of Lees recounts a version of the Lees/Ripper story
This picture of Lees comes from the
front piece to An Astral Bridegroom that bears striking resemblance to the Chicago article53.
An article in a similar vein appeared in 1949 in the Journal
for Psychical Research. In his book Ghost Detectives, Fred Archer recounts a version of the Lees/Ripper tale that is also
remarkably similar to the original Chicago article. Cynthia Leigh reported in the autumn 1970 edition of the Spiritualist
magazine Light that Lees had told her a story of his tracking down the Ripper several times. It is worth remembering,
however, that this article was written 30 years after Lees’s death and in a Spiritualist publication and at a time when
stories about Lees’s alleged involvement in the Ripper’s capture had been in circulation in Spiritualist circles for some
time.
Probably the book that made the Lees story famous to the wider public is Stephen Knight’s Jack the Ripper: The Final
Solution. This book was the first time that the Chicago Sunday Times-Herald article had officially been extensively quoted
in a major publication in the UK since it was originally reproduced in The People. Knight claims Lees may have known some-
thing due to his close connection to the court (however, this connection is unproven by modern research, and most likely
untrue). Knight believed that the Lees story must have been in circulation in London as early as 1889 due to a Ripper let-
ter he felt quoted Lees by name. However, later research by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner showed this to be a mis-
51 Letter from Claude and Eva Lees, March 10th 1931 DE 5428
49 Ibid. 52 Le Matin, 29th March 1931
50 Daily Express, 7th, 9th and 10th of March 1931 53 DE 4481/318

A picture of Robert and his wife Sarah, as used in his work The Heretic
reading of the London slang term for plain clothes police offices ‘tecs’54.
In a late addition to the main text of his work, Knight claims the Lees family’s roots were in Bournemouth (as we
have seem this is not true) and that a possible relation, a Nelson Edwin Lees, witnessed Inspector Abberline’s will. This
statement of Knight’s was (intentionally or not) a misleading statement implying a close and familial relationship
between Robert James Lees and Nelson Edwin Lees — a relationship that almost certainly did not exist.
Robert Lees and the Ripper: What really happened?
Melvin Harris was fiercely critical of the Lees’s story, dismissing it as a sham for the first of several times in his 1986
book Sorry You’ve Been Duped. In that book he goes so far as to call the story one of Robert Lees’s delusions, despite
there being no evidence that Lees ever told the story to the press, or was himself the source for it. In the 1987 Jack
the Ripper: The Bloody Truth and 1994’s The True Face of Jack the Ripper Harris stated that the Chicago article was a
deliberate self-revealing hoax. He then goes on to detail how the article got wrong the basic details of the crimes. The
article was written to taunt the butt of the hoaxes and jokes, William Greer Harrison of the San Francisco Bohemian
Club. Its perpetrators were the Chicago Newspaper Club, which had named itself the Whitechapel Club. However, in
this version of what happened things remain unclear. That is, why would the Chicago Whitechapel Club be involved in
54 Evans and Skinner, Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell,(2001)

a hoax against a San Francisco man in a newspaper he
was unlikely to read? Surely, a San Francisco paper would
make more sense if this were the case. What is the evi-
dence that the Whitechapel Club were involved? How do
we know that Greer Harrison was the butt of jokes? And,
interesting to my own research, how did they, or indeed
whoever was behind the article, know so many pertinent
details about R. J. Lees?
The Whitechapel Club of Chicago were founded in the
summer of 1889 in Henry Kosters’ saloon. It lasted just
five years, meaning it closed before the Chicago article’s
publication. Their offices were close to the Chicago
Sunday Times Herald’s. The premises opened onto an
alley that contained many bizarre items, including a col-
lection of skulls of the insane donated by member Dr
John Spray (who had conducted a study of the insane)
and a table made from a coffin. Several journalists from
the Herald were members. Other non-journalists such as
the heavyweight boxer James C. Corbett were also mem-
bers. W.T. Stead is known to have visited the club, possi-
bly in 189355 (Stead went to Chicago for the World’s
Fair)56. Despite these interesting connections and
accepting the possibility that remnants of the flagging
club might still have existed in 1895, it seems unlikely
Sarah Lees at the time of her son Lionel’s wedding in 1899 that a club that had officially disbanded due to financial
difficulties would have perpetrated a complex hoax in
order to taunt a man who lived not in Chicago but in San Francisco. Their name makes them seem like a plausible source
for the story, but in my opinion, if they did play a role it was not so obvious as this.
So what of the actual protagonists in the Chicago article aside from Lees? Dr Howard, turned out to be Dr Benjamin
Howard, who angrily wrote to The People after coming to learn of the story in January 1896. He denied everything
claimed in it, even to the point of saying he had not been Stateside at the time that the article stated he should have
been57. Howard’s letter generated an apology from the journalist who wrote the article, also in a private letter58.
According to research that was conducted by Jeffrey Bloomfield and that he discussed via email with me from April
2002, the Bohemian Club of San Francisco was formed in 1872, its members mainly being newspaper men. This club’s
archives were lost in the earthquake of 1906. Amongst its members was Ambrose Bierce, its secretary for 1875 — 7659
(and the man whom Harris cited as laughing at Greer Harrison’s poetry60).
Jeffrey Bloomfield also found that William Greer Harrison was the manager of a marine insurance company and that
he was the author of the book Making a Man: A Manual of Athletics published in 1915. In a book Jeff cited by Rufus
Steele, Steele inferred that Greer Harrison had been a distinguished San Francisco resident for more than 50 years.
Steele also stated that Harrison was extremely closely associated with the San Francisco Olympic Club of which he had
55 The Whitechapel Club: Defining Chicago’s Newspapermen in the 58 Harris (1994)

1890’s American Journalism 15:1 Winter 1998 pp83 —102 59 Private correspondence J. Bloomfield April 2002 - 2004
56 Private correspondence J. Bloomfield April 2002 - 2004 60 Harris (1994) pp 167
57 Knight (1976), Harris (1994)

been president a staggering 21 times. Furthermore, Harrison was born in Ireland on the 27th of November 1836. On his
60th birthday he walked 60 miles in 15 hours. He was a friend of James C. Corbett, world heavyweight champion from
1892-1897, and who was a member of the Whitechapel club as mentioned previously. Harrison was also a playwright.
Jeff found that Greer Harrison was at loggerheads with Ambrose Bierce in 1894-1895 after Bierce had let himself fall
open to charges of anti-Semitism. Critics, including Greer Harrison, took the opportunity to speak out against Bierce.
Jeff also cited Roy Morris, Jr’s, biography of Bierce Alone in Bad Company (1995, pp 222) wherein Harrison had likened
Bierce’s verses to ‘a roadside pump replenishing a horse trough’.
The Chicago article also mentions one Fred C. Beckwith of Broadhead, Wisconsin, a financial promoter then in London
and a Roland B. Shaw, a mining stockbroker from New York61. The pair, according to the article, were dining with Lees
at the Criterion restaurant at the time of a murder in Whitechapel. As Stephen Butt has previously pointed out, this
passage has similarities to a piece of writing of Lees published in Light in 1886 in which he was talking with two
Americans, a Mr B and a Mr S, about his theories on religion. This incident occurred at twenty past eight according to
Lees’s description62. However, one must be careful not to overstate the similarities, although it does seem to be more
than a coincidence that the men in both cases were Mr B and Mr S.
What of Lees himself? His diary entries for 1888 show that in the week following the double event he went to both
Scotland Yard and the City police offering his services. He did this on the second and third of October, when he went
to the City police and was called a combination of either a ‘fool and a lunatic’ or a ‘madman and a fool’, and on the
fourth of October when he visited Scotland Yard. This visit, he recorded, had the same result, although the Metropolitan
police had promised to write to him.
He also records in the diary that he went to Berner Street and picked up a scent at the scene (also on the second
of October). The diary, unfortunately for those who might support the idea of the story being true, records that the
police turned Lees away on both occasions63. Lees also makes no mention of it in his autobiographical piece The Heretic
despite mentioning other harrowing events. When I reread the Chicago article to write this piece it struck me that a
part of it says that Lees went to ‘Scotland Yard and detailed the whole matter to the detectives. As they regarded him
as nothing short of a lunatic […] he naturally received little attention’. It seems that the word lunatic cropped up quite
often in connection to the Lees/Ripper saga!
Later versions of this yarn recount how Lees was banished to St. Ives or given some form on monetary reward, both
events occurring from the time of the Ripper’s capture after the final murder. However, Lees did not move to St Ives
and live the life of a rich man in early 1889. In fact he did not move there until early 1895. He moved because of fail-
ing health, Victorians believing that sea air helped invalids, and not due to political pressure.
This is quite clear from his diaries. His 1895 diary shows that this started in March 1895, before the Chicago article’s
publication and that he finally settled in St Ives in June64. It may well be that Lees found himself unable to respond
to the article due to his ill health — or that he did not know of it since he was unwell and also was out of London dur-
ing the period the stories first circulated in London. Lees’s 1896 diary records for New Year Day ‘continued to break
down my health and destroy my glorious work’65 indicating that his health had not improved. The idea that Lees
received a financial boost from 1888 also bears little resemblance to what actual events suggest.
The author of the article knows of Lees’s involvement in the Peckham organisation to help the working class, as well
as knowing his exact address at the time the article was written, 26 The Gardens, Peckham. Where he had only lived
for two years, having moved around greatly in the preceding years. It also shows a picture of Lees that is a very true
likeness to real life. It could be that this information was picked up from other sources, especially bearing in mind Lees
ran an organisation whilst in Peckham, and so may have published his address. The Chicago article also contains an
61 Chicago article ibid 63 Lees Diary 1888

62 Butt Ripperologist 35 June 01 and DE 4481/338 — Light article, 64 DE 4481/2223 Lees diary 1895-6
15th May 1886, 'Rev T Ashcroft and Spiritualism.'
65 DE 4481/223 Lees diary 1895-6

interesting aside, stating that the Ripper was a vivisectionist.
Lees himself is documented as being an antivivisectionist; in
1893 he exchanged letters with W.T. Stead stating that animals
had souls and in 1924 he actually spoke at a BUAV meeting. This
aspect of course, is probably a coincidence. It could also be a
possibility that the source of the Chicago article knew of Lees’s
visits to the police in 1888 to offer his help and that the story
printed was a journalistic embellishment of this.
It is interesting to note that at least three people close to
Lees were in Chicago in the years preceding the articles publi-
cation (and importantly after the time that Lees had moved to
26, The Gardens, Peckham). In 1893, Stead had visited Chicago
for the World’s Fair (and had at this point visited the
Whitechapel Club, Chicago). In 2003, Stephen Butt shared with
me a letter that his research had uncovered. W.T. Stead wrote
this letter on The 27th of July 1894 to Dr Albert Shaw at the US
review of Reviews of Reviews. Stead mentions Norman Lees
(calling him a young English police reporter) who had helped
Stead with his Chicago detective work and who was leaving
Chicago for New York with his brother, although he would be
returning back to Chicago66. This places Norman Lees and one
of his brothers in Chicago in the year that preceded the article
naming Lees as a Ripper capturer. Moreover, it is stated that
Norman was working as a reporter.
At present, analysis of the people mentioned in the article
and their connections to each other and the Whitechapel Club
raises more questions than it provide answers. It would appear
that the events leading to the article’s publication are more
complex than first meets the eyes. It was probably not a sim- A later portrait of Robert and Sarah
ple telling of the story that led to the publication of the article,
but rather a more complex process.
The Lees family — Afterword
After he moved in 1895 to St Ives, Lees had one more child. This was a little girl; they named her Muriel Amethyst
Athena and she was born on the 14th April 1897. By now Robert simply stated that he was of ‘independent means’. At
the time of the 1901 census Lees, Sarah and their children, Ernest, Eveline, Aylmer, Douglas, Pearl, Eoila, Claudius,
Wallace and Muriel were residing in Plymouth, Devon. Lees was calling himself a Congregationalist minister and author.
Ernest was a private secretary, Aylmer a photographer and Douglas a grocer’s assistant. Lionel Lees and his brother
Bernard were living in nearby Newquay where they ran a grocers shop. Lionel by now was married with a young daugh-
ter and Norman was still in the USA.
Sadly, Sarah Lees died in early 1912, in Ilfracombe, Devon, where the family had lived for more than ten years67.
In one of his last letters that he is known to have sent to Lees, W.T Stead sent his condolences on having learnt this
66 Letter to Albert Shaw from W.T. Stead, 27th July 1894 — private collection of S. Butt
67 Deaths, 1912, Barnstaple, March qrt 5b 654

news. In a few short months Stead himself would be dead, having perished on the RMS Titanic68.
Lees’s obituary in the Leicester Mercury on the 12th January 1931 recorded he had fathered sixteen children and
that ten of these were still living at the time of his death. This meant that, sadly for Lees, two more of his children
predeceased him. During the First World War, Wallace Lees, Robert James’s youngest son, joined the 10th Battalion of
the Royal Fusiliers. Wallace landed in France on the 30th July 1915; he died in action on the 7th of September of that
year. He was just 21 years old69. He had been a witness at his brother Aylmer’s wedding just a few short months before
on the 22nd March 191570.
The last of his children to predecease Robert James was Aylmer who died aged 41 on the 21st of December 192271.
His brother Bernard was the informant at the death. Aylmer died of pulmonary TB at Colindale Hospital. He left behind
one daughter Joan and a pregnant wife, Florence (formerly Tizard). Florence gave birth to the child, named Edna, in
the March quarter of 192372.
Conclusion
In previous articles on this subject I have stated that Melvin Harris managed to discredit the idea that Lees knew
anything about the Ripper. However, it may well be the case that we can now state that his version of what happened
was over-simplistic and that it missed evidence that has subsequently come to light. The details of the article seem
to bear, at least in places, some truth to reality. It would be wrong to confound elaborations of Lees’ involvement,
changed over time, with what Lees himself said or did at the time of the crimes. In later life Lees would appear to have
let himself be associated with the other rather dubious claim about his career such as that he acted as a medium for
Queen Victoria following the death of Prince Albert. There is, however, no direct record of him actually saying he solved
the Ripper case in his lifetime, though after his death, the idea was apparently taken up by Spiritualists.
In my opinion all that Lees probably did was go to the police in the week following the double event to try to get
his hands on the reward money that had been offered following the double event. And who could blame him for so
doing; as we have seen, by 1888 he had eight children and another on the way. He had also sadly already seen three
of his children die in infancy. Or maybe Lees really did think he had psychically seen the Ripper or even picked up his
scent in Berner Street. The fact remains, however, that the likely outcome of his attempts to convince the police of
this is simply what was recorded in his own diary, that he was turned away as a madman and a fool.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jeffrey Bloomfield, Stephen Butt, Mike Hutchinson and Jo Pegg for their help in aspects of research that
formed this article and of course Neal Shelden for spending several nights in the company of a dead Victorian man and
listening to my ranting! Thanks also, as always, to everyone at Ripperologist.
The pictures used in this article are taken from Stephen Butt’s website on Lees which can be found at www.rjlees.co.uk.
Jennifer Pegg, managing editor of Ripperologist, has been involved in research into the life and times of
Robert James Lees for eight years. During this time she has published several articles on the subject. This
is the most detailed publication of her findings to date.
68 Letter to R.J. Lees from W.T. Stead February 22nd 1912 - DE 70 Marriage Certificate, 22nd March 1915, Camberwell
4481/43 71 Death Certificate, 21st December 1922, Hendon

69 H/I/04/335 —720 H/I/2YB — 52 WO/372/12 Commonwealth War 72 Camberwell, December qrt 1915, 1d 1537 and Camberwell March
Graves Commission website, 2002 qrt 1923, 1d 1500

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Joseph Patch Lees, March qrt 1861, Hinckley, 7a 52 Knight, S (1976) Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, Harper Collins,
Lionel Herbert Lees, March qrt 1877, Salford London, 1994 paperback edition.
Eveline Amy F Lees, 1879, Camberwell Lees, R.J (1900) The Heretic
Marmion Lees December qrt, 1884, Brentford Lees, R.J (1912) The Life of Elysian
Pearl Clemensa Lees June 1886, 3a 135, Brentford
Claudius Pentuar Lees, March qrt 1889, 3a 143, Brentford Websites
Joan Lees December qrt 1915, 1d 1537, Camberwell
Edna J.A Lees, March qrt 1923, 1d 1500, Camberwell Butt, S. (2008) (ed) ‘Chicago Sunday Times Herald article, that first
appeared in print on the 28th of April 1895’ (copy) www.rjlees.co.uk
Marriages accessed 1/10/08.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission Website (2002) — records
William Lingham Lees and Mary Ann Willis, Sept qrt 1867, Kings relating to Wallace Lees
Norton, 6c 589 Pegg, J. D (2001) ‘The Ripper and the Medium’ www.rjlees.co.uk
Deaths accessed December 2001.
Joseph Patch, December qrt 1854, Hinckley, 7a 35 R.J. Lees 1888 Diary as shown on www.rjlees.co.uk.
Sarah Lees, March qrt, Barnstaple, 5b 654
Private Correspondences
Census
Private correspondence J. Bloomfield April 2002 — 2004.
1851 Census for Hinckley — Reel 16 pp 155 and 258
1861 Census for Hinckley — RG 9/2261 Private Collections
1871 Census for Birmingham - RG 10/3106
1871 Census Aston Letter to Albert Shaw from W.T. Stead, 27th July 1894 — private col-
1881 Census Lewisham lection of S. Butt.
1891 Census Camberwell - RG 12/468
Records in the collections of the Leicester,

Leicestershire and Rutland Records Office
Birth Certificate of Wallace Lees (copy) DE 4481/230

Dan Black’s unpublished biography of Lees - DE 4481/318
Diary 1895 — 6 — DE 4481/223
Hinckley Baptist Group Monumental Inscriptions
Hinckley St Mary’s Baptisms DE 1135/10
Letter to R.J Lees from W.T Stead February 22nd 1912 - DE 4481/43
Letter from Claude and Eva Lees, March 10th 1931 - DE 5428

The Suspect Series
Sanders: Suspect or Scapegoat?
By Stan Russo
This article is about the ‘insane’ medical student John William Smith Sanders. It is not about
the newer suspect, Dr. Jon William Sanders, although I could see how the two could be mixed up.
That is almost entirely why Dr. Sanders has been brought into the suspect forum, the similarity
of his name to John William Smith Sanders. Don’t feel too bad if you also made the same mistake
as this is not the first time this has happened. There was also the case of Dr. John Hewitt.
The temptation is simply too powerful to resist the chance at a possible solution. Rather than putting in a complete
effort to investigate the source and history behind why Dr. Hewitt, or Dr. Sanders for that matter, could be a viable sus-
pect, an easier path was chosen. One could argue that all that truly resulted from this was time wasted. There is always
more than meets the eye, though. When I began by stating this article was not about Dr. Jon William Sanders, that was
not exactly the truth. The truth is—it is about all three of them.
Annie Chapman was murdered in the early hours of the morning on September 8, 1888. Eighteen days later, an inter-
esting new theory would be put forth, yet it would not really shake the foundations of the investigation at the time.
This theory was soundly refuted on October 6, 1888, but anyone who has ever watched a courtroom drama on televi-
sion or on film knows that once a volatile statement or theory is made, even if it is refuted, its impact is usually never
forgotten. The impact of this statement/theory continues to be felt today, even if the theory itself has no actual foun-
dation in the true investigation of these unsolved murders, but I will return to this issue later.
The day after this theory was first put forth, a letter was received by the Central News Agency, or CNA. This letter
is important for a number of reasons, most notably the fact that this letter gave birth Chief Inspector Donald Swanson
to the infamous moniker known worldwide today. Other issues that have been pre-
sented by researchers and historians include questions regarding the authenticity of
the letter, which is a valid query. Why would the murderer send the letter to the CNA
rather than the police? It could have something to do with the author asking the CNA
to hold back publication of the letter until the next murder, which took place less
than a week later. It could be due to the fact that the author wanted to mockingly
marvel at how the police were inept in their attempts to solve the murders. It could
be any of a number of reasons why. However, that’s not the most important part of
the letter, in my opinion. That part, the most important, will be addressed later.
On October 19th, three days after Mile End Vigilance Committee President George
Lusk received a parcel containing a letter and a portion of a human kidney, a report
was made to the Home Office on the murders, by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. In
this report, Swanson records that efforts were made regarding three ‘insane’ medical
students. One could argue that this was a direct result of the Catherine Eddowes
murder, more specifically what was done to Eddowes in Mitre Square, on the night of
her murder. However, according to the report, the recorded search for the three

‘insane’ medical students was in direct connection with the Annie Chapman murder, therefore, from a standpoint of
historical accuracy, we should dismiss the circumstances surrounding the Catherine Eddowes murder as having any role
in the search for this particular type of medical students.
At the time, the Mary Ann Nichols murder was connected to the murder of Annie Chapman. There is also internal
evidence to suggest that the Martha Tabram murder was connected to the Nichols and Chapman murders as well. I am
not attempting to argue whether or not Martha Tabram was a victim of “Jack the Ripper”, but it is patently obvious,
from the evidence of what took place with the police, that these murders were viewed as connected. In having these
three murders connected, there is no viable reason to suspect medical students, let alone ‘insane’ medical students.
Let me digress for a moment.
The recorded definition of the term ‘insane’ is actually one who is ‘not sane’. A more proper alternative is one who
is mentally deranged. The latter has been developed with time. This is an important characteristic to understand. The
definition of ‘insane’ was extremely different in 1888 than it is today. In 1888, for example, a woman was considered
‘insane’ if she wanted to vote. Voting rights were not granted to women because they were seen as second-class citi-
zens, therefore the desire of wanting to perform an activity that was prohibited by law, specifically one that challenged
the gender hierarchy of the time, was enough to classify someone as not of sound mind, hence ‘insane’. The point
attempting to be made here is that the term ‘insane’, in 1888, was not as clearly defined as it is today.
With the above, questions must be asked why the police were searching for these three ‘insane’ medical students?
Once again, you could argue that the horrific circumstances surrounding the murder of Catherine Eddowes played a
part in this search, yet it is clear from written reports to the Home Office that this search was linked to the Annie
Chapman murder. So where could this search stem from? Perhaps it stems from an original primary source, the
September 26th theory, which is the first on record to actually propose a man of medicine as the murderer.
In the summation of the Annie Chapman inquest, Coroner Wynne Baxter, the man presiding over those proceedings,
decided to offer his own opinions as to who the murderer might have been. Baxter stated that he was told a story, by
the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum, about an American doctor who was offering money for organ specimens.
The sub-curator, who along with the American doctor, were both not named. He did tell Baxter that this American doc-
tor had inquired about purchasing the same organ that was taken from Annie Chapman, in order to include along with
a copy of his future published writings. The sub-curator also revealed, according to Baxter, that this man had made
additional inquiries at similar establishments. Baxter apparently took this information and ran with it until an October
6th report put an end to it, or at least an end to Baxter’s public espousing of this theory.
The October 6th report, in The British Medical Journal, conclusively refuted Baxter’s theory. The report even went
so far as to state that the information provided necessitated the complete dismissal of Baxter’s theory, without men-
Coroner Wynne Baxter

tioning his name. The vital facts contained within Baxter’s story
were incorrect, according to the report, and the report concluded
by offering that Baxter himself, once again without mentioning him
by name, no longer endorsed his own theory about the American
doctor. This should have been the end of it, but once again, as
any good trial lawyer can tell you, as soon something is said it
can never be un-said.
Baxter’s theory was published in the newspapers, on
September 27th. This is a key point about which many have
missed the significance. To date, no researcher has been able to
find a newspaper that mentioned Baxter’s theory on September
26th, 1888. The earliest that Baxter’s theoretical idea of a med-
ical man as the murderer appeared in a newspaper was
September 27th, which was the same day the CNA received the
legendary letter that gave the world the infamous moniker. A few

points must be stated about this letter.
The date on the ‘Dear Boss’ letter reads
September 25th, yet in the second postscript,
the author writes: ‘. . . They say I’m a doctor
now ha ha’. First of all, who are they? The
argument that the letter was written by a
journalist is not one without merit. In fact, I
actually concur that the ‘Dear Boss’ letter
was written by a journalist. Within this argu-
ment, they could not logically refer to a fel-
low journalist however, so one can argue that
the idea that they say the murderer is a doc-
tor now comes from an alternate source than
The postscript on the ‘Dear Boss’ letter the newspapers, written by fellow journal-
ists. Also, since the newspapers did not
report on Baxter’s theory until the day that
the letter was received at the CNA, it logically follows that the author of the letter did not get this specific informa-
tion from the newspapers, since the letter was postmarked when it was received. So where did the author get this infor-
mation from?
This is one of the key points that I believe many have missed. From a chronological standpoint, it appears that the
author of this letter could have received his second postscript information from only one source, Baxter himself, at the
actual inquest. Due to the time frame, the letter had to be placed in the mail no later than September 26th, in order
to be delivered on September 27th. I am no Victorian postal expert, but even I can deduce that it would have been almost
impossible for the author of that letter to have read that specific information in the newspapers, added that second post-
script, sealed or re-sealed the envelope, with the new letter in it of course, mailed it and had it delivered and then
received by the CNA, all in the same day. Additionally, since the author asks that the letter be held back until the next
murder, it follows the same line of basic reasoning that the author did not glean this information from the newspapers.
Why hold the letter back from the public if the newspapers were already reporting on the man of medicine theory?
Since the second postscript apparently derives from the Baxter inquest summation, due to the fact that it cannot
logically have come from anywhere else, it makes much more sense that the letter was mailed on the 26th and received
on the 27th. There is also the idea that the second postscript, which refers almost wholly to the doctor quote, is in a
separate handwriting from the rest of the letter, but that is an issue for another time.
The ‘Dear Boss’ letter was sent to Scotland Yard after the CNA held it for two days. After the double event happened,
it was sent and eventually released for publication. The arrival of the infamous postcard, inexorably linked to the orig-
inal letter, also fostered the publication of the letter. With the publication of this letter, men of medicine became open
game as suspects, but it was not that simple. For a man of medicine to have committed these murders, there had to
be something wrong with them. They had to be ‘insane’. This idea is nothing more than the same bigotry shown against
the Jews and the theorists who believed that it had to be the Jews who not only murdered these women but also may
have given the murderer safe harbor. The October 19th report to the Home Office clearly defines what type of med-
ical men the authorities were looking for.
The first two ‘insane’ medical students had been traced and cleared, while the third ‘insane’ medical student was
initially found to have gone abroad. A number of memos were circulated regarding this person, identified only as the
third, or one of three ‘insane’ medical students. It was not until a November 1st, 1888 report, by Inspector Abberline,
that the third ‘insane’ medical student was named. Two subsequent reports mention John Sanders, or ‘Saunders’, and
the inquiries pertaining to him. Sanders was traced to No. 20 ‘Aberdeen Place’, and it was discovered that a woman
named Sanders had lived with her son but had left the country two years ago.

The London Hospital where John William Smith Sanders enrolled as a medical student.
Inquiries into Sanders continued after it was found that he might have left the country. Today it is known that it was
Sanders’ mother who had lived at No. 20 Abercorn Place. The correct address was checked out because the informa-
tion about Mrs. Sanders was given to the investigator, yet this may not have been the correct information as Mrs.
Sanders was still listed as residing at No. 20 Abercorn Place. The information regarding her son was also not correct.
It was assumed that Sanders had left the country with his mother, as their neighbors had specified. They were wrong
on both counts. The truth is that John William Smith Sanders was placed in various asylums during 1887. Continued
research has led to the discovery that, during the autumn of 1888, Sanders was safely locked up in a private asylum in
Kent called West Malling Place.
It is unknown whether the police ever traced Sanders to West Malling Place during their inquiries, but the interac-
tion between the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office seems to lead that way. They may have found out what is
known today, that John William Smith Sanders could not have been ‘Jack the Ripper’, as he was safely locked up dur-
ing the time of the murders.
Currently, there are numerous doctors who have been proposed as ‘Jack the Ripper’. There is a theory that once a
person is named as a suspect, they can never be unnamed, only disproved. I ascribe to that theory, with one stipula-
tion; there must be a relevant basis for naming a suspect. Dr. Morgan Davies was a suspect’s suspect. Dr. Alexander
Pedachenko was a theorist’s invented suspect. Dr. William Thomas Evans became a suspect in 1993 based on an oral
tradition that has never been verified. Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who was in prison at the time of the murders, was pro-
posed. ‘Dr. Stanley’ and ‘Dr. Merchant’ are pseudonyms for suspects. Even Montague John Druitt was mistakenly iden-
tified as a doctor by the police official who believed in his guilt the most, which is also a story for another time. . .
It is evident that words carry extreme weight and their impact continues today. The almost immediate refutation of
this theory is of little concern. Once something is said, as I stated earlier, it can never be ‘un-said’. There are those
who believe the sole criteria for discovering the murderer is a background and or expertise in medicine. Some have
even hedged their ‘medical’ bets, so to speak, by incorporating occupational knife proficiency into their criteria as a
primary trait. It is important to note that the same principle behind what was discussed in my previous article [“Pizer’s
Problem” Ripperologist 95 September 2008], in connection with what appears to be a need to view ‘Jack the Ripper’
as ‘not one of us’, is at play here. A man of medicine is generally an upstanding citizen and a beacon of the community.
Of course that is nothing more than a pompous effete method of racial, ethnic and class segregation. It is also untrue,

as history has proven that there have been many men of medicine who have committed atrocities, as well as women
of medicine. It is in the face of these subtle insults that the ‘insane’ medical man theory hardened. It could not be a
man of medicine who was not ‘insane’ because that would be too harsh of a reality and force a confrontation of the
dark secrets in one’s own life.
Even a man of medicine was too tough for some to grasp, so the aforementioned occupational knife proficiency
became a key factor. When that failed to provide any real answers, the coup-de-grace was eventually offered, albeit
at a later date, the occupationally knife proficient suspect who was also a Jew. Some might call that the bigoted daily
double. I would call that theoretical supposition, which I am deeply in favor of, yet I am also adamant in insisting this
particular kind of theoretical supposition possess some form of substance behind them. Unfortunately, as is the case
with most theories of this type, they lack the most integral part, substantiation.
There are a lot of people who cry in their soup, as I like to classify it, for the naming of suspects by stating that it
is extremely unfair to them. I say that in a losing battle, which the solution of this case may be, try whatever you can
to turn it around from a losing battle to one that can be won. I do not believe that anyone is rolling around in their
grave over the thought of having been suggested as being ‘Jack the Ripper’, primarily because I believe once you’re
dead you’re dead and that is it. However, if you’re dead and that’s it, yet you got away with something, we owe it to
ourselves not let that stand and we owe it to the victims. If a few people’s distant relatives get offended along the
way, then so be it. If they have nothing to hide and or have no worries about whether the person they are related to
was the murderer, then they shouldn’t be so offended.
Dr. Jon William Sanders and Dr. John Hewitt are not legitimate suspects, though. Their inclusion as suspects was
based primarily on name similarities and a flawed theory that was discredited eleven days after it was made, which
has only been fueled over the course of this unsolved murder by bigotry and ignorance—two traits that often go hand
in hand.
Dr. John Hewitt has been conclusively exonerated as a suspect, just like the third ‘insane’ medical student, John
William Smith Sanders. Dr. Jon William Sanders has yet to be cleared and I will not totally rule him out as a suspect
until we have definitive proof. That is not the same as endorsing his candidacy as a suspect, because no case has ever
been truly presented against him. His candidacy is largely built on smoke and mirrors and to this date no serious case
has been made for him as ‘Jack the Ripper’.
In an ironic twist, there is actually less hubbub over Dr. Jon William Sanders as a suspect than many of the more
popular suspects. It is ironic because there is less to connect Dr. Jon William Sanders to these murders than these same
popular suspects over whom many cry in their proverbial soup. There is even less to connect Dr. John Hewitt to the
case and through research he has been conclusively exonerated. Nobody has anything to say about that. One thing is
readily apparent; the overall tone of debate is this field is completely off kilter.
Stan Russo was graduated from Oswego (NY) State University with a degree in Forensic Psychology.
He has authored three books: The Jack the Ripper Suspects; The 50 Most Significant Individuals in
Recorded History, and The 50 Best Movies for the Movie Fan. He is currently working on a philosophy
book, Did God Speak to Joan, that examines the history and nature of religion. He and his recent
bride, the lovely Nicole, reside in New York City.

CHRIS SCOTT’s
Press Trawl
The Scotsman
6 October 1888
THE LETTER AND POST CARD
The facsimiles of the letter and post card addressed to the Central News Agency, and signed “Jack the Ripper,” have
now been posted up at each police station in the Metropolitan district. It may be remembered that in the post card,
which was posted on Sunday afternoon, the writer stated that “number one (the Berner Street victim) squealed a bit.”
Until yesterday it had been assumed that, as in the case of the other victims, the cutting of the throat caused instan-
taneous death. But in his evidence before the Coroner yesterday Dr Phillips expressed his opinion that in this instance
the victim did have time to (cry out).
ARRESTED ON SUSPICION
A man arrested in Bishop Stortford in suspicion of being concerned in the murders was set at liberty yesterday after-
noon, the police having ascertained that the account he gave of himself was correct. No further arrests have been
made, and no persons are now in custody.
THE USE OF BLOODHOUNDS
The Central News is authorised to state that Sir Charles Warren has been making inquiries as to the practicability of
employing trained bloodhounds for use in special cases in the streets of London, and having ascertained that dogs which
have been accustomed to work in a town can be procured, he is making immediate arrangements for their use in London.
A NEW YORK STORY Hot on the trail? Possibly not.

New York, October 5, morning.
The atrocious crimes committed in Whitechapel have

aroused intense interest here. The following statement
has been made here by an English named Dodge. He says
he arrived in London from China on August 13 by the
steamship Glenorlie. He met at the Queen’s Music Hall,
Poplar, a Malay cook named Alaska. The Malay said he had
been robbed by women of bad character of two years’ sav-
ings, and he swore that unless he found the woman and
recovered his money he would murder and mutilate every
Whitechapel woman he met. He showed Dodge a double
edged knife which he always carried with him. He was
about 5 feet 7 inches in height, 150lb. in weight, and
apparently 35 years of age. Of course he was very dark.

THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS
ADJOURNED INQUEST ON THE BERNER STREET VICTIM
At the Vestry Hall, St George’s in the East, London, yesterday, Mr Wynne E. Baxter, Coroner for the south eastern
division of Middlesex, resumed the inquest on the body of Elizabeth Stride, who was found murdered in Berner Street
on Sunday morning last. Superintendent Arnold, H Division, and Detective Inspector Reid, of the Criminal Investigation
Department, watched the case on behalf of the police.
Dr Phillips, divisional police surgeon, said — You will recollect that on the last occasion I was asked to examine the
body in regard to the palate. Along with Dr Blackwell and Dr Gordon Brown, I went to the mortuary and examined the
body, and found none of the hard or soft palate wanting. At your request I examined some handkerchiefs. I have not
been able to discover any blood upon them. The stains on the larger handkerchief I think are those of fruit. Neither
in the hands nor on the body of deceased did I find any grapes or any connection with them. I am of opinion that the
deceased had not swallowed either a skin or a seed of a grape within many hours of her death. The abrasion on the
right side of the neck which I spoke of was apparently only an abrasion, for on washing it, it was removed and the skin
was found to be uninjured. The knife that was produced on the last occasion was delivered to me properly secured by
Police constable 282H, and on examination I found it to be such an one as is used in a chandler’s shop, and is called a
slicing knife. It has blood upon it, which has characteristics similar to that of a warm blooded animal. It has been
recently blunted, and its edge turned by apparently by rubbing on a stone, such as a kerb stone. It evidently before
was a very sharp knife. Such a knife could have produced the incision and injuries to the neck, but it is not such a
weapon as I would have chosen as inflicting the injuries in this particular case; and if my opinion as regards the posi-
tion of the body is correct, the knife in question would become an improbable instrument as having caused the inci-
sion. I have come to conclusion, both as regards the position of the victim and that of the inflictor of the deed, and
I find that she was seized by the shoulders, placed on the ground, and that the perpetrator of the deed was on her
right side when he inflicted the cut. I am of opinion that the cut was made from the left to the right side of decreased,
and, therefore, arises the unlikelihood of such a long knife having inflicted the wound described in the neck, taking
into account the position of the incision.
The Coroner — Was there anything in the cut which shows whether there was an incision with a point?
Phillips — No, sir.
Newspaper illustration of Elizabeth Stride’s discovery. The body is The Coroner — Have you formed any idea how the right hand of
entirely the wrong way around in this contemporary sketch.
the deceased became covered with blood? — It is a mystery. There
were small oblong clots of blood on the hand. I may say, sir, that I
am taking it as a fact that the hand always remained in the same
position as I found it
Phillips — resting across the body.
The Coroner — How long had the deceased been dead, do you
think, when you arrived?
Phillips — Within an hour she was alive.
The Coroner — Would the injury taken long to inflict?

Phillips — Only a few seconds. It might be done in two seconds.
The Coroner — Does the presence of the cachous still remaining

in her hand show that it was done suddenly, unexpectedly, without
any struggle?
Phillips — Some of the cachous were scattered about. I cannot
draw anything from that. I have seen several self inflicted wounds

more extensive than this one, but they have not usually involved the carotid artery. I gather that there seems to have
been in this case, as in others that I have seen, some knowledge where to cut the throat to cause a fatal result.
The Coroner — Is there any similarity between Chapman’s case and this case?
Phillips — There is a very great dissimilarity. In Chapman’s case the neck was severed all round, down to the verte-
bral column, the vertebral bones being marked with two sharp cuts, and there had been an apparent attempt to sep-
arate the bones.
The Coroner — From the position you assume the perpetrator to have been in, would he have been likely to get
bloodstained?
Phillips — Not necessarily, for the commencement of the wound and the injury to the vessels would be away from
him, and the stream of blood — for stream it would be — would be directed away from him, and towards the water-
way already mentioned.
The Coroner — Was there any appearance of an opiate, or any smell of chloroform?
Phillips — There was no perceptible trace of any anaesthetic or narcotic. The absence of noise is a difficult ques-
tion in this case under the circumstances to account for, but it must not be taken for granted that there was not any
noise. If there was an absence of noise, there is nothing in the case by which I can account for it.
A Juryman — That means that the woman might cry out after the cut?
Phillips— Not after the cut.
The Coroner — But why did she not cry out while she was being put on the ground?
Phillips — She was in a yard, and in a locality where she might cry out very loudly and no notice taken of her. It
was possible for the woman to draw up her legs after the wound, but she could not have turned over. The wound was
inflicted by drawing the knife across the throat. A short knife, such as a shoemaker’s short knife, would do the same
thing. My reason for believing that deceased was injured when on the ground was partly on account of the absence of
blood anywhere on the left side of the body and between it and the wall. There was no trace of malt liquor in the
stomach.
Dr Blackwell, who assisted in making the post mortem examination (recalled), said:
I removed the cachous from the hand of the deceased. That would account for nobody noticing them at the time.
I think the hand would gradually relax while the woman was dying. When I was previously asked as to the possibility
of the case being one of suicide, I did not make myself quite clear. I meant that, taking all the facts into considera-
tion, and especially the absence of any instrument, it was impossible that the case could be one of suicide. I have seen
more severe wounds self inflicted by suiciders. With respect to the knife found, I concur with Dr Phillips that, although
it might possibly have inflicted the injury, it is an extremely unlikely instrument to have been used. It appears to me
that a murderer, in using a round pointed instrument, would considerably handicap himself, as he would only be able
to use it in a particular way. I am told that slaughterers always used sharp pointed instruments, but I do not mean to
suggest that this crime was done by a slaughterer. I endorse all that Dr Phillips has said with respect to the post
mortem appearance. There were what we call pressure marks on the shoulders, which became better defined some
time after death. They were not what are ordinarily called bruises, neither is there any abrasure of the skin. There
is a mark on each shoulder, and they would be caused by the pressure of hands on the shoulders. It is rather difficult
to say how long before death they were caused.
By the Jury — I saw no grapes or grape stems in the yard when I was called to see the body.
Mr Sven Ollson, 32 Princes’ Square, St George’s in the East, said:
I am Clerk of the Swedish Church in Princes’ Square. I saw the body of the deceased last Tuesday, and I recognised

her as a person I have known for 17 years. She was a Swede, and her name was Elizabeth Stride, the wife of John
Thomas Stride, a carpenter. Her maiden name was Gustafsdotter, and she was born at Dorslander, near Gottenburg,
on the 27th November 1843. At the church we keep a register of all Swedes coming to this country who desire to be
registered, and deceased was registered as an unmarried woman on the 10th July 1866. She was not married at my
church. In the registry I find a memorandum, undated, written by the Rev. Mr Palmayer, in Swedish, stating that the
deceased had been married to am Englishman, John Thomas Stride. I don’t know when this entry was made, but it
must have been many years ago. I know the hymn book produced. It is an old one published in 1821. There is no name
in it, but I gave it to the deceased last winter. I believe the deceased was married to Stride in 1869. She told me that
he was drowned in the wreck of the Princess Alice. At the time of his death she was very poor, and I gave her assis-
tance.
The Coroner — Do you know that there was a subscription made for the sufferers by the Princess Alice disaster?
Ollson — No.
The Coroner — I can tell you there was, and I can also tell you that there was no person of the name of Stride made
application for relief. Don’t you think if her story had been true she would have applied?
Ollson — I cannot say.
The Coroner — Have you ever seen her husband?

Ollson — No. We gave her a little assistance before Stride died. Two years ago she gave me her address as Devonshire
Street, Commercial Road, and said she was doing a little work in sewing. She spoke English fairly well. I believe she
came to England a little before she was registered in 1866.
William Marshall, 64 Berner Street, deposed:
I am a labourer in an indigo warehouse. I have seen the body of the deceased at the mortuary. I saw deceased on
Saturday evening in Berner Street, about three doors off from where I am living. She was on the pavement opposite,
about No. 58. She was between Boyd Street and Fairclough Street. It was then about a quarter to twelve o’clock at
night. She was standing on the pavement talking with a man.
The Coroner — How did you know this was the same woman?
Marshall — I recognised the deceased was the same woman by her face and her dress. She was not wearing a flower
in her breast. She and the man were talking quietly There was no lamp near. The nearest lamp was some yards off. I
did not see the face of the man distinctly.
The Coroner — Did you notice how he was dressed?

Marshall — Yes; he had a black small coat and dark trousers.
The Coroner — How old do you think — young or old, or middle aged?
Marshall — He seemed to me to be a middle aged man. He was not wearing a hat. He was wearing a round cap, with
a small peak to it, somewhat like what a sailor would wear.
The Coroner — What height was he?

Marshall — He was about 5 ft 6 in.
The Coroner — Was he thin or stout?
Marshall — Rather stoutish.
The Coroner — Did he look well dressed?

Marshall — Yes, sir, he looked decently dressed.
The Coroner — What class of man did he look?
Marshall — He looked as if he worked at some respectable business.

The Coroner — Everybody works at a respectable business.
(Laughter.)
Marshall — He did not look like a dock labourer nor a sailor. He had more the appearance of a clerk than anything
I can suggest. I do not think he had any whiskers. He was not wearing gloves. He had no stick or umbrella in his hand.
He had a cut away coat.
The Coroner — Are you sure it was not me? (Laughter.)

Marshall — No, sir. (Laughter.) I am sure deceased is the woman. I did not take much notice as to whether she had
anything in her hand. I was standing at my door.
The Coroner — What attracted your attention to them?

Marshall — I was first attracted by their standing there for some time, and he was kissing and cuddling her.
The Coroner — Did you overhear anything they said?

Marshall — I heard the man say to the deceased, “You would say anything but your prayers.”
The Coroner — Different people talk in a different tone, and in a different way. Did his voice give you the idea of
a clerk?
Marshall — Yes. He was mild speaking. From the way he spoke I thought he was an educated man. I did not hear
them say anything more. They went away after that. I did not hear the woman say anything. but after the man made
the observation she laughed. When they went away they went towards Helen Street.
They walked in the middle of the road. They would not pass No 40 (the International Club) on their way. The woman
was dressed in a black jacket and a black skirt. Neither of them appeared to me to be the worse for drink. I went
indoors about midnight. I did not hear anything till I heard murder being called in the street just after one o’clock on
the Sunday morning.
By a Juror — I was standing at my door from half past eleven till twelve. During that time it did not rain.
By Detective Inspector Reid
Marshall — They were standing between my house and the Club. They were standing there about ten minutes. They
passed me in the road.
A Juror — Did you see the man’s face as he passed you?

Marshall — No. The woman was next me, and the man had his arms round her neck. His face was turned towards
me, but I did not take any notice of it as I did not expect to come here. There is a gas lamp at No 70 Berner Street.
Detective Inspector Reid — Were they hurrying along?

Marshall — No, sir.
Detective Inspector Reid — Was it raining at the time?

Marshall — No, sir; not that I saw.
Sven Ollson (recalled) said — I find that the original entry of the marriage of the deceased is in the handwriting of
Mr Frost, who was the pastor for about eighteen years until two years ago.
James Brown, called and examined, said:
I live at Fairclough Street. I am a dock labourer. I have seen the body at the mortuary. I do not know the woman.
I saw her on Sunday about a quarter before one o’clock. I was going from my own house to get some supper at a chan-
dler’s shop at the corner of Berner Street and Fairclough Street. I was in the shop three or four minutes, and then
went back home. On my way I saw a man and woman standing against the wall by the Board School in Fairclough Street.
I heard the woman say, “No, not tonight — some other night.” That made me turn round, and I looked at them. I saw

enough then to enable me to say that I am almost certain deceased was that woman. I did not notice any flower in
her dress. The man was standing with his arm leaning against the wall. The woman was standing with her back against
the wall facing me.
The Coroner — Did you notice the man?

Brown — Well, I noticed that he had a long coat on, which reached very nearly down to his heels. It appeared to be
an overcoat. I could not say what kind of hat or cap he had on. They were in rather a dark place. He was wearing a
dark coat. I saw nothing light in colour about either of them. He was leaning over her. It was not raining at the time.
I went on and indoors. When I had nearly finished my supper I heard screams of “police” and “murder.” There had
been an interval of about a quarter of an hour between my getting home and these screams. When I came in at twelve
o’clock I do not think it was raining.
The Coroner — Did you notice the height of the man?

Brown — I should think he was about the same height as myself — 5 feet. He was of average build. Neither of them
seemed the worse for drink. The speech of the woman was as if she were sober. I did not notice any foreign accent
about the woman’s remark. When I heard the screams of “murder” and “police,” I went up to the window and looked
out, but I did not see whence they proceeded. They ceased when I got to the window. The cries were those of moving
persons going in the direction of Grove Street. Shortly afterwards, I saw a policeman standing at the corner of
Christian Street.
Constable Smith, 153H, said:
On Saturday last I went on duty at ten p.m. My beat, which included Berner Street, took me from twenty five min-
utes to half an hour. I was last in Berner Street before the murder at half past twelve. When I returned in the ordi-
nary course at one o’clock I found a crowd of people outside the gates of No 40. There were no cries of “police.” Two
policemen were on the spot when I arrived. The gates of the yard were closed. I do not remember passing any one on
my way down Berner Street. I saw that the woman was dead, and went to the station for the ambulance, leaving the
other constables in charge. Dr Blackwell’s assistant came just as left. When I was in Berner Street at 12.30 I saw a
man and woman together. The woman was like the deceased, and I have no doubt that the body in the mortuary is
that of the person I saw. The two stood a few yards up Berner Street on the opposite side to where she was found. I
noticed the man. He had a parcel done up in newspaper in his hand. It was about eight inches long and six or eight
inches wide. As near as I could see he was about 5 ft 7in high, and he was wearing a hard felt deerstalker hat, dark
colour. His clothes were dark, and he wore a cut away coat. I did not overhear any conversation. Both persons appeared
to be sober. I did not see the man’s face very clearly, but I noticed that he had no whiskers. He seemed to be about
28 years of age, and had a respectable appearance. I observed that the woman had a flower in her dress.
PC William Smith Michael Kidney, the man with whom the deceased lived, identified the Swedish
hymn book as having belonged to the deceased, who gave it to a Mrs Smith on the
previous Tuesday, saying she was going away. She gave it to Mrs Smith not as a gift,
but to take care of.
By Inspector Reid
Kidney — When deceased and I lived together, the door was padlocked when we
were out. I had a key, and she borrowed one to get in or waited till I came. On
the Wednesday before her death, I found she had gone into the room and taken
some things, although it was locked.
By the Coroner —
Kidney — I only thought she had something the matter with the roof of her
mouth, because she said there was. I did not know from examination.

Philip Krantz, of 40 Berner Street, said:
I am editor of a Hebrew Socialist paper. I write in a room, part of which is a printing office, beneath the club. The
entrance is from the yard. On Saturday night I was in the room from nine o’clock till I was called and told that there
was a woman lying in the yard. I had not heard any cry or scream, or anything unusual. If a woman had screamed I
should have heard it, but for the singing upstairs, which was very loud at the time. When I went out I saw the woman
on the stones, surrounded by members of the club. There was no one there who was a stranger to me. Of course, I
was not on the look out for a stranger. I went out into the street to look for a policeman, and found that two mem-
bers had gone for one. A constable came about ten minutes after. I don’t think it is possible that any stranger could
have escaped from the yard unobserved after I arrived. He might have done so before.
By a Juror
Krantz — The weather was quite dry at the time.
After some formal evidence had been given to prove the plans of the locality of the murder put in by the police,
the inquiry was adjourned.
THE WHITEHALL DISCOVERY
The police are still busily engaged in their investigations respecting the Westminster tragedy, and some progress has
been made in following up the various clues to establish then identity of the remains. It is now thought that the mis-
creant who deposited the mutilated remains in the basement archways of the new police buildings, gained access
thereto through an opening in the hoarding when a board had been removed. The corner in question is in Cannon Row,
and at an obscure spot where, as stated, persons have been seen occasionally to enter the works.
Detectives and police are still employed to watch the buildings, and inquiries are being diligently made in the vicinity.
A London evening paper publishes the results of an interview with Mr Edward Deuchar, a gentleman who (the jour-
nal says) has communicated some important information to the police, which may assist in the discovery of the man
who deposited the body of the woman in Whitehall and the arm in the Thames. Mr Deuchar is a commercial traveller,
and a little over three weeks ago he went on a tram car from Vauxhall Station to London Bridge. He noticed a man on
the car carrying a parcel. He would not have taken particular notice of the parcel but for the fact that there was a ter-
rible smell emanating from it. The olfactory organs of most of the passengers were affected by the extraordinary stench
which pervaded all the car. A lady gave her husband, who was sitting next to the man, some lavender to hold to his
nose. The parcel seemed to be heavy. The man carried it with extreme care under his arm. It was tied up in brown
paper. The top of it was under his arm, while he held the corner end in his hand. Mr Deuchar says the man looked ill
at ease and agitated. He described him as a powerfully built man, of rough appearance, with a goatee beard. He was
rather shabbily dressed. Mr Deuchar is confident that he could recognise him again. The car went on, and when at the
Obelisk, St George’s Circus, several persons alighted. Mr Deuchar still remained on the car, but when about 30 yards
past the Obelisk said, “This stink is awful. I can’t stand it any longer,” and proceeded to go out. Just at that moment,
the suspicious looking individual with the parcel asked the conductor “Have we passed the Obelisk yet?” and then
jumped out. Mr Deuchar, when he had descended and walked some distance towards London Bridge, called a police-
man’s attention to the retreating form of the “man with the stinking parcel,” and told him to keep an eye on him.
It is stated by the police in the Whitehall Division that the detectives engaged in the case have made several other
important discoveries. Amongst these is the house where the moire silk skirt in which the body was enveloped was
made. The maker is the proprietor of a West End establishment. Having discovered so much, it is probable the person
who ordered and received the skirt will be reached. This some sensational development of the case is anticipated. The
date of the committal of the crime was fixed under rather peculiar circumstances. The piece of a London paper adher-
ing to the remains was only about six inches long and four broad. Upon searching the files of the office of the paper,
however, it was found that it was a portion of an edition published on the 24th of August. The doctors and the police

therefore came to the conclusion, comparing this with the post mortem indications, that the deed must have been com-
mitted either on that date or shortly anterior thereto.
A Guildford correspondent says some sensation was caused in Guildford yesterday by a report that the remains which
were discovered on August 24 in a brown paper parcel lying on the railway near the station were supposed to be part
of the body of the woman the trunk of which was found in the vault of the new police barracks at Whitehall. It may be
remembered that the remains found at Guildford consisted of a right foot and a portion of a left leg from the knee
down to the ankle, where it had been severed. the police doctor examined the limbs at the time, and certified them
to be human, while he also considered them to be those of a woman, but the flesh had been either roasted or boiled.
No clue had been found to solve the mystery, but after the discovery at Whitehall, Superintendent Berry, of Guildford
burgh police, wrote to the Scotland Yard authorities, with the result that Detective Inspector Marshall, who has the
Whitehall mystery in hand, proceeded yesterday to Guildford, and had the remains, which had been buried in the ceme-
tery, disinterred, and in the evening he conveyed them to London. Mr Marshall, in reply to the correspondent, stated
that he could form no opinion as to whether the remains were part of the trunk referred to, but on his arrival in London
he would immediately taken them to Dr Bond and W. Hibberd, by whom they would be carefully examined.
It is (says another correspondent) a singular coincidence, and one that may prove a link in the chain of evidence in
the elucidation of the mystery, that the newspaper found with the trunk has been found to be part of an issue of August
24.
The police have commenced a systematic search of unoccupied buildings in Whitechapel district.
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
Today’s Daily Telegraph furnishes its readers with sketches which, it says, are presented, not as authentic portraits,
but as a likeness which an important witness has identified as that of a man who was seen talking to the murdered
woman in Berner Street and its vicinity until within a quarter of an hour of the time when she was killed last Sunday
morning. Three men, William Marshall, James Brown, both labourers, and Police constable Smith have already stated
before the Coroner that a man and woman did stand in Fairclough Street, at the corner of Berner Street, for some time
- that is, from a quarter to twelve o’clock, as stated by Marshall, to a quarter before one a.m., the hour mentioned by
Brown. The policeman appears to have seen the same pair in Berner Street at half past twelve. The evidence of anoth-
er witness has yet to be taken, and this man seems to have a better opportunity of observing the appearance of the
stranger than any other individual, for it was at his shop that the grapes which other witnesses saw near the body were
bought. This witness, Matthew Packer, has furnished information to the Scotland Yard authorities, and it was consid-
ered so important that he was examined in the presence of Sir Charles Warren himself. He has also identified the body
of Elizabeth Stride as that of the woman who accompanied the man who came to his shop not long before midnight on
Saturday. In accordance with the general description furnished to the police by Packer and other, a number of sketch-
es were prepared portraying men of different nationalities, ages, and ranks of life. These were submitted to Packer,
who unhesitatingly selected one of those reproduced by the Telegraph - the portrait of the man without the moustache,
and wearing the soft felt or American hat. Further, in order to remove all doubt, and if possible to obtain a still better
visible guidance, Packer was shown a considerable collection of photographs, and from these, after careful inspection,
he picked out one which corresponded in all important respects to the sketch. It was noticed that Packer, as also anoth-
er important witness presently to be mentioned, at once rejected the faces of men of purely sensuous type, and that
they thus threw aside the portraits of several noted American criminals. Both witnesses inclined to the belief that the
man’s age was not more than thirty, in which estimate they were supported by the police constable, who guessed him
to be twenty eight. If the impressions of two men who, it may be supposed, have actually conversed with the alleged
murderer be correct, and their recollection of his features can be relied upon, then, in their opinion, at all events, the
Telegraph says, its sketches furnish a reasonably accurate representation of his general appearance as described and
adopted by them. A man without a moustache and wearing a soft black felt deerstalker hat, as drawn on the Telegraph

sketch, was seen by Matthew Packer, of 44 Berner Street, two doors from the scene of the murder, late on Saturday
night. He describes the incident which brought the man to his notice as follows:- On Saturday night, about half past
eleven o’clock, this man and the woman he has identified as the deceased came to the fruiterer’s shop which he keeps.
It was not necessary for them to enter it, as customers usually stand upon the pavement and make their purchases
through the window, which is not a shop front of the ordinary kind. Packer is certain that the woman, who wore a dark
jacket and a bonnet with some crepe stuff in it, was playing with a white flower which she carried. The man was square
built, about 5 feet 5 inches in height, thirty years of age, full in the face, dark complexioned, without moustache, and
alert looking. His hair was black. He wore a long black coat and soft felt hat. It seemed to Packer that he was a clerk,
and not a working man. He spoke in a quick, sharp manner, and stood in front of the window. The man purchased half
a pound of black grapes, which were given to him in a paper bag, and he paid threepence in copper. The couple then
stood near the gateway of the Club for a minute or so, and afterwards crossed the road and remained talking by the
Board School for some time. They were still there when Packer had had supper and when he went to bed, and Mrs
Packer remarked it as strange that they should remain, for rain was falling at the time. It is a remarkable circumstance
— much more than an ordinary coincidence — that the description of the supposed murderer given by Packer was yes-
terday confirmed by another man who, without being aware of the fact, also chose from the sketches the one which
had been already selected as Packer. Search for an individual answering to the description above detailed, but having
a small moustache, and wearing a black deerstalker felt hat, instead of a soft one, has been made by the police in
Whitechapel ever since Saturday, September 1, the day following the Bucks Row tragedy.
Information was tendered at the King David’s Lane police station at about that time by a dairyman, who has a place
of business in Little Turner Street, Commercial Road. It will be recollected that on Saturday, September 1, a desperate
assault was reported to have been committed near the Music Hall in Cambridge Heath Road, a man having seized a
woman by the throat and dragged her down a court, where he was joined by a gang, one of whom laid a knife across
the woman’s throat, remarking, “We will serve you as we did the others.” The particulars of this affair were subse-
quently stated to be untrue; but the milkman has reason to suppose that the outrage was actually perpetrated, and he
suspects that the murderer of Mary Ann Nicholls in Bucks Row had something to do with it. At any rate, upon that
Saturday night, at five minutes to twelve o’clock, a man corresponding with the description given by Packer of the indi-
vidual who purchased the grapes in Berner Street called at the shop, which is on the left of a covered yard usually occu-
pied by barrows, which are let out for hire. He was in a hurry, and he asked for a penny worth of milk, with which he
was served, and he drank it down at a gulp. Asking permission to go into the yard or shed, he went there but the dairy-
man caught a glimpse of something white, and having suspicions, he rejoined the man in the shed, and was surprised
to observe that he had covered up his trousers with a pair of white overalls, such as engineers wear. The man had a
staring look, and appeared greatly agitated. He made a movement forward, and the brim of his hard felt hat struck the
dairyman, who is therefore sure of the kind that he was wearing. In a hurried manner the stranger took out of a black
shiny bag, which was on the ground, a white jacket, and rapidly put it on, completely hiding his cut away black coat,
remarking meanwhile, “It’s a dreadful murder, isn’t it,” although the subject had not been previously mentioned.
Without making a pause the suspicious person caught up his bag, which was still open, and rushed into the street
towards Shadwell, saying, “I think I’ve got a clue!” The matter was reported to the police, and, although strict watch
has been maintained for the reappearance of the man, he has not been seen in the street since. He is said to have had
a dark complexion, such as a seafaring man acquires.
In connection with the Whitechapel murders a black bag has been repeatedly mentioned. Mrs Mortimer said:- “The
only man I had seen pass through Berner Street previously was a young man who carried a black shiny bag. He walked
very fast down the street from the Commercial Road. He looked up at the club, and then went round the corner by the
Board School. This was on the morning of the murder in Berner Street. Albert Bachert, of 13 Newnham Street,
Whitechapel, has also made a statement bearing on this, which has been previously published. There is (proceeds the
Telegraph) one striking point in Bachert’s narration. His interrogator appears to have asked him particularly about the
age of the woman. Hitherto it has been singular that none of the victims were young woman, all of them having been

over 40 years of age. With respect to the age of their assailant the witnesses differ, but the police, in connection with
the Berner Street tragedy, circulate the following description of a man:-
“Wanted, as having been seen in the company of the deceased during the Saturday evening, age 28, slight; height,
5 feet 8 inches; complexion dark, no whiskers; black diagonal coat, hard felt hat, collar and tie; carried newspaper
parcel; respectable appearance.”
The age, 28, herein named is favoured by two witnesses, while Bachert thinks he was a littler older; and assuming
that the same man was also seen by Mrs Long, who gave evidence at the Hanbury Street inquest, he must have been
forty. In the interval he may have taken pains to alter his personal appearance by shaving, so as to elude detection.
Mrs Long is the person who saw Annie Chapman in Hanbury Street shortly before her death, and at that time, 5.30 a.m.
on September 8, she was talking to a dark man, who was wearing a “brown low crowned felt hat, and who had the
appearance of a shabby genteel foreigner.” A thoroughly practical suggestion has been made for the Scotland Yard
authorities to adopt. In their possession at Whitehall they have some thousands of photographs of criminals, with full
particulars concerning their convictions. These are kept bound in registers, which can be consulted easily. If the wit-
nesses who are believed to have seen the Whitechapel murderer were permitted to examine these records, one or other
of them might possibly find a face which would serve to identify the subject; and, if not, the fact might be presump-
tively established that the detectives need not look for the man in the ranks of recognised criminals.
The Scotsman
8 October 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
Up to last evening the police had obtained no further definite news as to the identity of the Whitechapel murderer,
but they had been busily engaged throughout the day in piecing together the information in their possession with a view
to tracing his course on the night of the last murders, and his movements generally, and also in dealing with the mass
of communications volunteered by inhabitants of the locality in response to the request which had been officially
issued. The weather being fine yesterday, a great number of people visited the district, but the extra force of police
still on duty was able to prevent any disorder or obstruction.
During the last evening much excitement prevailed owing to rumours being generally circulated that the police had
received a number of letters intimating that the murderer intended to resume his terrible operations, but those
rumours were found to be without any material foundation, and were in most cases the result of the excited state of
the public mind. On Saturday night and last night every nook and corner of Whitechapel district was watched, and every
person of at all suspicious appearance was traced until the reason for suspicion had been cleared away. The police and
the members of the Vigilance Committee work very well together, and as proof of the thorough way in which they have
been carrying out their duties, it may be mentioned that in several instances some of the plain clothes constables who
were new to the neighbourhood were watched by members of the Vigilance Committee, while they in turn came under
the scrutiny of detectives.
A CLUE FROM AMERICA
New York, October 6.
The New York Herald declares that the seaman Dodge, who recently stated that a Malay, whom he met in London,
threatened to murder a number of Whitechapel women for robbing him, said that he knew the street where the Malay
stayed, but that he would not divulge the name until he learned what chance there was of a reward. He stated, how-
ever, that the street was not far from the East India Dock Road, but he was not certain about the house where the man
lived. Another seaman said he thought the Malay was now on a vessel plying in the North Sea.

ANOTHER ARREST
A respectably dressed young man, who said he came from Chelsea, was taken to Commercial Street Police Station
last night by a Vigilance Committee detective as bearing a resemblance to one of the sketches in Saturday’s Daily
Telegraph - the one representing the man with a hard felt hat. He complained bitterly of his detention, and stated that
he had been attending a place of worship close by. He carried a bag containing two razors. He is detained in custody
pending inquiries.
A later telegram says:- At first it was stated that he gave two false addresses, but it appears that he had come up
from the country yesterday, and, having explained his movements, the police considered there was no reason for
detaining him.
COURTING NOTORIETY
An extraordinary statement bearing upon the Whitechapel tragedies was made to the Cardiff police yesterday by a
respectable elderly woman, who stated that she was a spiritualist, and in company with five other persons held a
seance on Saturday night. They summoned the spirit of Elizabeth Stride, and after some delay the spirit came, and in
answer to questions stated that her murderer was a middle aged man whose name she mentioned, and who resided at
a given number in Commercial Road or Street, Whitechapel, and who belonged to a gang of twelve.
A journalist on Saturday night attempted to play the role of the amateur detective by donning women’s clothes. He
succeeded in evading suspicion for some time, but eventually was surrounded by some women who declared he was a
man, and as a crowd soon gathered and continued to increase he found it desirable to proceed to Southwark Police
Station, where the people called upon the police to take him into custody; but as he was professionally well known
there he was ultimately able to return to his home without further molestation.
At the Birmingham Police Court on Saturday, a man giving the name of Alfred Napier Blanchard, a canvasser from
London, was charged on his own confession with the Whitechapel murder. The prisoner was arrested on the strength
of a statement he had been making in a public house, containing a circumstantial account of his proceedings. He now
denies any connection, and explains his confession by pleading mental excitement, caused by reading about the affair.
He was remanded till Monday.
The Scotsman
9 October 1888
So far there is little decrease in the excitement produced in London by the Whitechapel murders. It was feared that
there might be more slaughter on Sunday night; and it is said that there was a perceptible sense of relief when it was
found that no killing had been done. This is only what might be expected. The murders that have been committed, and
the fact that the murderer is yet at liberty could not but create an alarm which must be akin to panic; and as a plain
purpose seems to be shown in all the assassinations, it is difficult to believe that this purpose is abandoned. The mur-
derer did not commit his atrocities night after night. He committed them at intervals more than a week apart. He
seems to have been cunning enough to wait till the first outburst of alarm had lulled. He no doubt knows that the vig-
ilance which is close enough immediately after a crime, falls off as days elapse without a fresh crime being commit-
ted. Then, at the moment when less watchfulness is exercised, he strikes another blow. All this shows that to the feroc-
ity of murderous lunacy he adds the cunning often possessed by the murderous lunatic. It would be strange, then, if
he did not make some further attempt at his black work; and it may be that through such an attempt he will be dis-
covered. The medical evidence as to the body found in the cellars on the Thames Embankment strongly corroborates
a theory stated some days ago in these columns. The woman whose body has been found must, the doctors say, have
been killed as far back as August last. The murder has been committed in some house, and the murderer, finding a dif-

ficulty in disposing of the body, has for further murders betaken himself to the streets, where he could leave his vic-
tims as he killed them. There are upon the body found in the cellars exactly the same proofs of a purpose as have been
afforded by two, at least, of the cases in Whitechapel. All the woman who have been killed have not been treated in
precisely the same manner; but in the cases where they have not, there is reason to believe that the assassin was dis-
turbed in his horrible work. The first of the series of murders and mutilations which have occurred in Whitechapel was
committed on the 7th of August; the second was committed on the 31st of August. Put these facts by the side of the
statement of the medical men that the woman whose mutilated body had been found on the Thames Embankment was
murdered early in August, and it becomes impossible to doubt that the same person is responsible for all the blood-
shed. This is not all. It was another part of the theory stated here - stated, indeed, before the body was found on the
Thames Embankment - that the murderer was an educated man, who could and did lull possible suspicions on the part
of his victims by suave manners and speech; and, further, that he need not be sought for in Whitechapel lodging hous-
es, but in some better part of London. It seems that a silk dress, or part of a dress, was found with the body in the cel-
lar; and it is further stated that this dress has so far been traced as having been made in a West End shop. If this be
the case, it lends great additional force to the theory that has been put forward. What more probable than that the
murdered woman was one of the well dressed unfortunates haunting the western streets of London, and that she was
induced by some man of gentlemanly demeanour to go with him to his rooms, where he killed her and mutilated her
body? That may have been his first crime of the kind, and he has found the process too full of risks to be continued. In
any case, it would be a grave mistake if the police were to neglect the clue, weak as it may seem to be, that the dress
found with the body affords them. There is, indeed, no reason to suppose that they are neglecting it. Detective work,
to be done properly, cannot be done in the broad light of day, before all the public; and it may be that the police are
following up traces that may lead to the detection of the criminal. Sir Charles Warren hinted as much the other day in
a letter which he addressed to a public body in London that had communicated with him on the subject. It is conceiv-
able that, aided by the dress, the police may ascertain who the woman was who wore it, and when she was last seen.
Some of her companions may remember to have seen her drive off with a man about the time when she disappeared.
A cabman may remember driving a man and woman to some house. The possible clues are indeed many; and if the
police are able to follow them up, and find the man who went with the woman, they will find the man who slaughtered
the unfortunates in Whitechapel.
Unhappily, London is so large, and its population so enormous, that the difficulty of tracing a particular woman can-
not be overrated. It may be feared that women and men disappear from their places in London without the fact ever
being made known. Take, for instance, the case of the woman whose body has been found on the Thames Embankment.
She was murdered early in August. Has any report that she was missing reached the police? Has there been in the inter-
val any search for her? Apparently both questions must be answered in the negative. She has gone down in the vast sea
of London life, and nobody has cared what became of her. With what fairness, then, can blame be thrown upon the
London police because they do not at once detect a murderer who has the cunning of the Whitechapel assassin? Yet it
seems to be thought necessary in the London newspapers, or some of them, to censure the police because the murder-
er is not caught. At the same time that this censure is bestowed, the most absurd suggestions are made as to tracing
the murderer. One of these suggestions is, that the police should wait for another murder, and then use bloodhounds.
No sooner is this proposal made than men who know what bloodhounds are, and what they can do, show that they would
be perfectly useless in the crowded streets of London. It would be a mere waste of time to go through all the sugges-
tions that have been made - most of them have the stamp of absurdity on their face. One step taken by the police is
to placard facsimiles of letters said to have been received by a news agency. These letters are signed “Jack the Ripper,”
and they are smeared with blood. The police are right in leaving nothing undone, no matter how unlikely a suggested
clue may seem to be. But that “Jack the Ripper” is a fraud can scarcely be doubted. Most likely he writes his letters
in a box in some public house in or about Fleet Street, and smears it with blood from a cut finger. We have been

favoured with a post card signed “Jack the Ripper” and smeared as if by bloody fingers. To put it before the public as
having any possible connection with the London murderer would be absurd. All such productions are the work of mis-
chievous blackguards, who have their dearest hopes gratified if the slightest importance is attached to what they write.
No one can believe that a man possessing the cunning shown by him who has committed the Whitechapel murders,
would communicate his threats and his intentions to a news agency. He would not want more light thrown upon his
movements than he chose himself to throw. But a fellow who wished to increase the alarm in London by threats and
boastings would have no hesitation in using a news agency for his purpose. He might, indeed, have a shrewd idea that
the agency would lose not a moment in sending out his effusion to the papers. The criminal must not be looked for in
the direction of “Jack the Ripper;” he must be looked for elsewhere. Meanwhile, the alarm that has been created and
the statements that have been published have called public attention to phases of London life which are not creditable
to our civilisation. The lodging houses of Whitechapel are not places where morality and the Christian virtues are cul-
tivated. There is in the streets of that part of the city a seething mass of vice, which no police regulation can destroy,
and which cannot be dealt with effectively by any administrative restraints. At the same time, there is an indifference
to this state of matters which is almost more appalling than the evil itself. At the inquests, witnesses have made state-
ments as to what they have seen and heard in the streets, and have done so without expressing disgust or horror. What
ought to be regarded as altogether abnormal and detestable is regarded as common and what must be expected. It may
be that these Whitechapel murders will lead earnest men to do something to awaken the public conscience as to the
sin of leaving matters as they are. The remedy is not easy to find. It will not come through the advocacy of this fad or
that ‘ism. It will come through steady and persistent effort, based on the full recognition of the fact that human nature
must be strengthened into uprightness, not left utterly to itself, or dealt with merely by petty and irritating legislative
restraints.
Loretta Lay Books

Over 200 Jack the Ripper and associated titles on the website
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De Locksley (Dr.John) The Enigma of Jack the Ripper, softcover £35
Dorsenne/Whittington-Egan Jack L'Eventreur, (Signed by Richard & Molly W-E) hb/dw £50
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Magellan (Karyo) By Ear and Eyes, softcover, signed £16
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Whittington-Egan (Richard) A Casebook on Jack the Ripper, small h/b, signed label £225
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All the news that’s fit to print...
I Beg to Report
DEATH OF ‘MAYBRICK WATCH’ OWNER. We were saddened to hear of the recent
death of Albert Johnson, owner of the mysterious pocket watch supposedly
engraved with the initials of the Ripper's victims, that is now forever associated
with the 'Maybrick Diary' after being first discussed in the initial Smith-Gryphon
edition of Shirley Harrison’s The Diary of Jack the Ripper in 1993. Rip Executive
Editor Adam Wood remembers his first encounter with Mr Johnson, in the run-up
to the 2001 UK conference in Bournemouth. To add interest to the upcoming
event, Adam invited Mr Johnson and his wife Viv and asked if Albert could possi-
bly bring the controversial watch so attendees could see it:
’For the 2001 event, Paul Begg and I were organising the UK conference for the
first time, and decided we'd aim high with speakers and exhibits. We were fortu-
nate that nearly everyone said yes, and were able to display the original “Dear
Boss” letter and Abberline's walking stick and cuttings book, courtesy of Met
Assistant Deputy Commissioner John Grieve, and Robert Smith agreed to bring
along the Maybrick Diary. When I spoke to Albert Johnson on the phone, it took
about 10 seconds to persuade him to attend. Having the disputed Maybrick items
Albert Johnson
available to view 'in the flesh' meant for a large crowd of interested delegates,
both pro and con Maybrick.
‘Whichever way your allegiance lay, nobody could deny that Albert Johnson was simply one of the nicest people you
could wish to meet. He had no problem allowing anyone interested to handle the watch, opening the casing to show
the scratched initials, and subsequently dropping it to the floor! As part of the “Maybrick Panel” section featuring Ms
Harrison, Mr Smith, Melvyn Fairclough and himself, this conference was the first time anyone had heard the story of
the events of 1993–94 as told by the main protagonists sitting at one table. It gave Albert the chance to tell his story,
in the simple manner to which he always adhered.
‘But it was two years later that I got to know Albert better. He and wife Val enjoyed themselves so much in
Bournemouth that they attended the 2003 conference in Liverpool, as paying delegates. Frequently the butt of host
Jeremy Beadle's gags, Albert played the part well and endeared himself to everyone present. Once the conference had
ended, he invited me to some of his local haunts, including the Poste House, for a few beers. There we met some of
his cronies, and although admittedly ending in drunken revelry, it was one of the highlights of the weekend for me. I
explained to Albert that his story, and all the information known about it, should be collated and put together into a
booklet for easy access. He was extremely sceptical, saying that anything he did with the watch would be viewed with
great suspicion, as an angle for him to make money.
‘I was still attempting to persuade him to allow me to put this document together months later when a spate of anti
Diary and watch posts on Casebook made up his mind for good not to proceed with the project. Whatever the truth
behind Albert's involvement with the watch, he was without doubt one of the nicest, most fun people to be around. If
only there were more people in the Ripper world like him.’
Look for a full remembrance of Albert Johnson in next month’s issue of Ripperologist.

WOULD-BE ‘JACK THE RIPPER’ JAILED FOR LIFE. A convicted rapist from
Preston, Lancashire, who moved to London with the apparent intent to
emulate Jack the Ripper has been jailed for life for killing two women
whose bodies have not yet been found. Derek Brown, aged 48, convicted
of raping a woman in Lancashire in 1989, served five years for that crime
before moving to Rotherhithe, East London. In 2007, he abducted DVD
seller Xiao Mei Guo, 29, and prostitute Bonnie Barrett, 24, from
Whitechapel. He then took them back to his flat at 22 Laburnum Court,
Albion Street, murdered them and disposed of the bodies.
Closed-circuit TV footage showed Mr Brown with Mrs Guo outside of
Whitechapel Tube Station just before her disappearance in August 2007.
Miss Barrett was last seen in the same area on 18 September 2007. Brown,
48, a delivery driver, was convicted of both murders by a jury at the Old
Bailey after less than three hours of deliberation. Judge Martin Stephens
gave Brown two life sentences and ordered he serve a minimum of 30
years before he can be considered for parole. The prosecution said Brown
targeted the women as ‘both lived on the edge of society and both were
soft targets for the killer, who thought that neither woman would be
missed’.
Xiao Mei Guo
Mr Brown admitted paying the women for sex but denied killing them.
The jury was told that 65 separate blood spots and smears were found in the defendant’s flat, with indications that
attempts had been made to clean up the blood. An extensive search by police for the bodies of the missing women
came up empty. Detectives are also looking into the possibility that Mr Brown might have been involved in other mur-
ders.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Kandiah, who led the investigation, commented, ‘He is clearly a very evil man. In
my opinion he was not going to stop.’ He added, ‘If he kept killing prostitutes from the Whitechapel area, then that
link [with Jack the Ripper] would be made. If this was a spree, it seems likely that we stopped him at number two.’
The investigator also said, ‘Brown’s motives remain unclear. He is a convicted rapist, which may indicate his inten-
tions, but for a man of his age to kill two women in a few weeks may indicate he sought notoriety. It is my view that
he would have killed again if not stopped. He has shown no hint of remorse and he deserves a lengthy sentence.’ Judge
Stephens characterised Brown as a ‘terrible case’.
Mrs Guo’s husband said: ‘[Her] body still has not been found. It is really very difficult for me to accept the truth. It
seems that there will be no closure.’ He told reporters that he lacked the ‘courage’ to tell his sons about their moth-
er’s death. The boys still live in Fujian province in southern China.
Mr Guo said that his wife was a ‘very beautiful, traditional and thoughtful person and what she really wanted was
her family to have a happy and bright future.’
BBC News, London, UK
Friday, 3 October 2008 16:58 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7650889.stm

BRITAIN’S TOP COP RESIGNS. On 2 October, controversial Commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, announced his resignation effec-
tive 1 December of this year. The announcement caused a political
firestorm over the circumstances of his resignation, which was forced on
the commissioner by new London mayor Boris Johnson.
Sir Ian has been in the job for nearly four years, having assumed the
post on 1 February 2005, when he took over from Sir John Stevens. His
time as commissioner has been clouded by allegations of race discrimina-
tion and charges that he gave contracts to cronies. Perhaps most famous-
ly, in the aftermath of the 21 July 2005 London terrorist bombings, Sir Ian
came under fire over the shooting of an innocent man when armed police
killed Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube Station. The police mis-
took the 27-year-old Brazilian for a suicide bomber. On 1 November 2007,
a jury found the Metropolitan Police guilty of violating health and safety
laws, highlighting 19 ‘catastrophic errors’. However, they found that the
de Menezes shooting was an ‘isolated breach under quite extraordinary
circumstances’. Although there were calls for Sir Ian to resign at the time,
he refused to do so.
When Mayor Johnson took over as chairman of the Metropolitan Police

Authority on 1 October, it is understood he told Sir Ian that he did not have
Sir Ian Blair
his confidence and thus in his view was not the correct man for the job.
The only previous commissioners to resign before completing their time in office were Sir Charles Warren and his
successor James Monro, in 1888 and 1890, respectively. Although popular myth maintains that Warren and Monro ‘quit
after having failed to catch Jack the Ripper’, the truth is somewhat different: Warren resigned just before the 9
November 1888 murder of Mary Jane Kelly after a series of battles over a variety of matters with Home Secretary Sir
Henry Matthews. Monro resigned following a controversy over police pensions.
In regard to the Blair resignation, Home Secretary Jaqui Smith noted that in order to dismiss the commissioner Mayor
Johnson should have sought the approval of the Home Office. Ms Smith told BBC Question Time, ‘There’s a process in
place that the mayor chose not to respect.’
Announcing that he would step down, Sir Ian said he had wished to remain commissioner until the end of his con-
tract in 2010 but this was not possible ‘without the mayor’s backing’.
Sir Ian Blair joined the Met in 1974, with the rank of Constable, in the Soho area of London’s West End. Over the
next next 17 years, he served in both uniform and CID in central London. Having completed 30 years of service, Sir Ian
is eligible for a full pension. Experts said that after such a length of service Sir Ian was likely to be entitled to a pen-
sion worth 160,000 pounds a year - two thirds of his 240,813 pounds annual salary.
‘Sir Ian Blair is the first Met Police Chief to quit in over 100 years,’ Daily Telegraph, London, UK,
By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor, 2 October 2008

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/ianblair/3124158/Sir-Ian-Blair-is-the-first-Met-Police-Chief-to-quit-in-over-
100-years.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Blair
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

WOULD THE POLICE OF 1888 HAVE CAPTURED ‘JACK’ USING
MODERN CSI TECHNIQUES? The question hovers over a new ITV
series which features University of Derby forensic scientist
Jonathan Wright, whose specialty is Victorian crime detec-
tion. The eight-week ‘Forensic Casebook‘ series began to air
in the UK on Mondays at 10.30pm on 27 October. Mr Wright
and fellow University of Derby scientist Dr Ian Turner appear
with presenter Matthew Kelly in an exploration of the history
of forensic science.
Mr Wright said, ‘Unsolved crimes such as the notorious Jack

the Ripper murders would probably have been solved in min-
utes using modern techniques. The bodies could have been
examined for fingerprints and trace evidence such as hair and
Presenter Matthew Kelly
fibres from the assailant and the wounds would reveal the
type of weapon involved.’
He said that the police in the era of Whitechapel murders were limited by their approach to crime detection: ‘[The]
the Victorian police would just be looking for obvious visual clues such as searching the streets for a suspect covered
in blood.’
He added, ‘Probably one of the major differences between the detective of today and yesteryear is a flask of brandy
Victorian police always took one with them when they were out on a case, just to drink – something that would be
frowned on today.’
Finding Jack the Ripper would be elementary now'
This Is Derbyshire, Saturday, October 25, 2008, 07:30
www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Finding-Jack-Ripper-elementary/article-426634-detail/article.html
JACK ART SHOW. We quote unexpurgated and without comment from the blog site my.opera.com:
‘Yup, we're still bringing you more fashion videos from Fashion Week but we're switching gears a bit to bring you
some very whacky art videos. Apparently, the St. Louis art community gets even more creative than usual this time of
year & puts on events like Jack's Art Show (as in Jack the Ripper, how funny & sick is that?-lol) and Art Attack, a fundrais-
er at which the audience decides how to destroy the pieces of art that don't win the auction. I must say that I have
never, ever had so much fun at at art opening as I did at Jack's Show. You may notice that I was giggling a bit in this
video and no, I was not drunk! I was just letting loose; no alcohol was involved. Really.’
my.opera.com/CultureSurfer/blog/2008/10/27/new-culturesurfer-videos-for-the-week-of-october-27-
2008?cid=6299715
Interviews with partygoers at the Jack the Ripper Art Show at the Koken Art Factory in St. Louis, Missouri, USA
culturesurfer.com/Art.htm?bcpid=1258426369&bclid=1171884615&bctid=1878208905

Dear Diary
Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum
The Museum is located in the former crypt of a fine, late 19th century, early English style church, designed
by Arthur Cawston, which has been extensively restored. The building also accommodates the Library of the
School of Medicine and Dentistry at Whitechapel. Visitors wishing to see the main body of the church may do so
on weekdays, subject to the approval of the Duty Librarian at the Library reception desk. The Museum, which
has a separate entrance in Newark Street, reopened to the public in 2002 following major refurbishment, sup-
ported by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London Charitable
Foundation.
The Museum now has revamped sections on the history of the hospital since its foundation in 1740, on Joseph
Merrick (the ‘Elephant Man’), who lived at the hospital in a cellar room after being saved from a sideshow by Dr
Frederick Treves, and on London Hospital nurses Edith Cavell and Eva Luckes. A new section on forensic medi-
cine sponsored by crime writer Patricia Cornwell features original material on the Whitechapel murders, Dr
Crippen and serial killer John Reginald Christie’s murders. The Museum also includes a permanent exhibition of
artefacts and archives relating to the hospital and the history of health care in the East End. Works of art, sur-
gical instruments, medical and nursing equipment, uniforms, medals, and written archives and printed books are
included.
Of special interest to Ripperologists, criminologists, and historians of the late Victorian period will be the fol-
lowing:
Illustrated Police News cuttings about the Whitechapel murders.
Plan of Mitre Square by F W Foster and drawings of face and body of Catherine Eddowes by Dr Gordon Brown,
1888.
Photographs of “From Hell” letter addressed to George Akins Lusk, chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance
Committee, and of a letter to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw, Pathology Curator of the London Hospital, 1888.
Foster’s Mitre Square drawings

Documents relating to the trial of John Reginald Christie.
Summons to Dr Francis Camps, forensic pathologist at The London
Hospital Medical College, to give evidence for the prosecution.
Photographs collected by Francis Camps of human bones and teeth

found in the garden of 10 Rillington Place (Christie’s house) and of
microscopic specimens taken from bodies found in the garden.
Documents relating to the trial of Hawley Harvey Crippen. Report

of court proceedings from The Times, 7 November 1910 annotated
by Dr (later Professor) Hubert Maitland Turnbull, Director of the
Institute of Pathology at The London Hospital, who gave evidence
for the defence.
Photograph of a pathology microscope slide prepared by Dr

Bernard Spilsbury in connection with the case.
Diagrammatic reconstruction of Dr Spilsbury’s slides in the Crippen

case by Dr Turnbull.
Material related to Joseph Merrick includes:
Joseph Merrick Hat and veil reputedly worn by Joseph Merrick during the period
1884–1890.
Model church, c1886 assembled by Merrick from pre-printed card while he was resident at the London Hospital.
London Hospital in-patient register, 1886, showing Merrick’s admission to the hospital.
Portrait photograph of Merrick in his Sunday best suit, c1889.
The 18th century section features an overview, together with specific subsections on the foundation of the vol-
untary hospital, benefactors, medical education and health in the 18th century. Among the original material dis-
played are the hospital charter of 1758, a drawing given by the artist William Hogarth in 1744 and the operation
bell of 1792.
The 19th century section features an overview, together with subsections on surgery before antisepsis (including
instruments belonging to hospital surgeon Sir William Blizard), nursing and Florence Nightingale, hospital expan-
sion, hospital matron Eva Luckes, Dr Barnardo, Frederick Treves and the Elephant Man and Victorian doctors.
Objects on show include contemporary surgical instruments and medical equipment
Address: Archives and Museum, The Royal London Hospital, St Augustine with St Philip’s Church, Newark Street,
London E1 2AA. The Museum is open Monday to Friday, 10am-4.30pm (closed over Christmas and New Year, Easter
and public holidays). The Museum is located in the former crypt St Philip’s Church the entrance is on Newark
Street.
The Museum has a small number of staff and our opening hours may be subject to change at short notice. We
recommend that you check opening times before planning a special visit to the Museum by telephoning 020 7377
7608. Small groups are welcome, but please telephone in advance to discuss requirements, as space is limited.
Admission is free, but donations are welcome. Wheelchair access: there is ramped access to the Archives and
Museum from Newark Street.
www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/aboutus/the_royal_london_hospital_archives.asp
The Museum shop sells a range of cards, postcards and publications.
The Archivists are Jonathan Evans and Kate Richardson. We thank Ms Richardson for providing the detailed infor-
mation above.

Pc Watkins finds the body of Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. Image by Jake Luukanen.

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RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE

Issue 96, October2008

We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given by

Berner Street (Henriques Street) Revisited er acknowledgement.

Cutthroat part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

News and Views

Editorial Team Consultants Advertising

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 1

Let us begin by looking at the portrait photos of Montague Druitt

1 When London Walked in Terror (New York: Avon, 1965).

2 Jack the Ripper (London: Michael Joseph, 1972).

3 The Ripper Legacy (London: Sphere Books, 1987).

4 Montague Druitt: Portrait of a Contender (London: Hydrangea, 2004).

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 2

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 3

Debate was a key interest of Montague Druitt. A member of the

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 4

Proposition: “That the good of Europe demands the immediate extinc-

Proposition: “That a system of compulsory military service is not advan-

Proposition: “That in the opinion of this house the conduct of the

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 5

6 The Wykehamist 68 (1874). 10 The Wykehamist 83 (1875).

DG1 — Druitt in 1873.

Copyright Winchester College

DG2 — Photograph taken in 1875.

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 7

17 The Wykehamist 78 (1875).

Copyright Winchester College

18 The Wykehamist 89 (1875).

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 9

A prolonged, heavy fog;

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 10

1 Daily Telegraph, October 19, 1888.

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 11

2 Wensley, Frederick P.; Detective Days (London 1931); p. 4.

3 Bell, Neil; “Defenceless Whitechapel” Ripperologist 95 (September 2008).

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 12

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 13

Map of Gothenburg —1871

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 14

3 The Times, 4 October 1888.

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 16

more Swedish. The Wejsner family lived at 27 Husargatan

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 17

In the autumn of 1878, the Princess Alice, a

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 18

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 19

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 20

The Loss of the Princess Alice

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 21

Because there was a peculiarity with her mouth, Elizabeth prob-

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 22

Daily News, 8 October 1888

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 23

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 24

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 25

6 East End 1888, William J. Fishman, p. 279.

....many marches and demonstrations started from

The press, too, had very differing attitudes towards

The Times of the 1st October, 1888 made a point of

The Club itself is a most respectable one, and among

Members of the International Working Mens’

Ripperologist 96 October 2008 28

In the midst of the excitement following on the Berner-