August/September 2017 No.

157

Home
Office Spin?
We remember DON SOUDEN
with two of his greatest articles

THE DEVIL IN SIR ARTHUR, OBITUARY:

A DOMINO SCOTLAND YARD, RICHARD GORDON
Simon Stern SHERLOCK HOLMES
AND A SERIAL KILLER: THE BLACKHEATH
JACK IN FOUR COLORS A VERY TANGLED MYSTERY and THE
Dave M Gray SKEIN TOOTING HORROR
Daniel L. Friedman and Jan Bondeson
MAYWEATHER VS Eugene B. Friedman
McGREGOR VICTORIAN
STYLE DRAGNET! PT 1 VICTORIAN FICTION
Brian Young Nina and Howard Brown William
Ripperologist Hope
118 January 2011 Hodgson
1
 Ripperologist 157
August/September 2017

EDITORIAL: FAREWELL, SUPE

Adam Wood

PARDON ME: SPIN CONTROL AT THE HOME OFFICE?

Don Souden

WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEING UNMOTIVATED?

Don Souden

THE DEVIL IN A DOMINO

Simon Stern

SIR ARTHUR, SCOTLAND YARD, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND A SERIAL KILLER:

A VERY TANGLED SKEIN
Daniel L. Friedman and Eugene B. Friedman

JACK IN FOUR COLORS

Dave M Gray

MAYWEATHER VS McGREGOR VICTORIAN STYLE

Brian Young

OBITUARY: RICHARD GORDON

THE BLACKHEATH MYSTERY and THE TOOTING HORROR
Jan Bondeson

DRAGNET! PT 1
Nina and Howard Brown

VICTORIAN FICTION: THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

By William Hope Hodgson

BOOK REVIEWS

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Editorial

Farewell, Supe
ADAM WOOD
Executive Editor
We were deeply saddened to learn recently of the passing of Don ‘Supe’ Souden, a EXECUTIVE EDITOR
former long-standing member of Ripperologist’s editorial team, after a long illness. Adam Wood
Don joined us in July 2006 with issue 69. We’d steadied the ship following our EDITORS
transition seven months earlier from a print magazine to electronic format, but Don’s Gareth Williams
infectious enthusiam and drive saw the good ship Ripperologist soon reach a rate of knots Eduardo Zinna
following his arrival. He was able to turn his hand to just about anything: it was his idea to EDITOR-AT-LARGE
prepare our four-part series The Autumn of Terror, an intense investigation into a myriad Jonathan Menges
of aspects of the case published over consecutive months to makr the 120th anniversary
REVIEWS EDITOR
of the crimes. It was he, too, who nonchalently penned the series The Detectives, in which Paul Begg
famous fictional sleuths such as Miss Marple would be placed in 1880s Whitechapel.
COLUMNISTS
Don departed in January 2010 following the publication of issue 110, taking the helm Nina and Howard Brown
of the Casebook Examiner in time for its launch in April that year. Seven information- David Green
packed issues were produced over the course of the following year before the title ceased
ARTWORK
publication; Don soon reappeared with the New Independent Review, which sadly ran
Adam Wood
for just four issues between September 2011 and November 2012, when Don announced
that his failing health meant he could no longer cope with the demands of running the
magazine.
Although few were aware at the time, he entered a rehabilitation centre following
severe diabetes problems. Despite initially showing signs of recovery, Don suffered a
stroke on 8 August 2013 and would spend his remaining years in hospital in his native
Connecticut.
But rather than dwell on the problems of his later years, we’d like to remember Don’s
incredible work in the Ripper field. He was one of the most knowledgeable people
studying the case, and had a knack of approaching it from angles few would contemplate; Ripperologist magazine is
his understanding of particular intricacies admirable. He was as much as at home sparring published six times a year and
on the Ripper message boards as penning published articles, and it is there that most will supplied in digital format. It is free
have fond memories of his sharing of genial insights and locking of horns, all the while of charge to subscribers.

with the intelligent, easy-going nature which won him so many friends. Back issues from 62-156 are
available in PDF format.
Those joining the Ripper community in more recent years will have no knowledge of
Don’s work, and that’s a great pity. We feel it very appropriate, therefore, to republish over An index to Ripperologist
magazine
the following pages two of his articles from issues of Ripperologist gone by. Reading them,
can be downloaded from
it’s impossible not to admire the man’s talent but to also miss him terribly. ripperologist.biz/ripindex.pdf
Rest in Peace, Supe.
To be added to the mailing list,
Donald Ogilvie Souden: 21 October 1941 - 30 July 2017 to submit a book for review or
to place an advertisement, get in
 touch at contact@ripperologist.
biz.
While mourning the loss of Don, we’re pleased to welcome with this issue our new
Editor-at-Large, Jonathan Menges, who will be known to many of you as the brains behind We welcome well-researched
articles on any aspect of the
the phenomenal Casebook: Rippercast project, which since February 2008 has seen Whitechapel murders, the East
podcast interviews with more than 100 Ripper authors, researchers and commentators. End or the Victorian era in general.
Welcome JM!

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Pardon Me
Spin Control at the Home Office?
By DONALD SOUDEN

One of the fallacies to guard against when doing LVP exercise in “spin control.”
any sort of historical theorizing is that of applying Of course, the government of the moment and the
modern concepts to centuries-old problems. What
Home Office officials would not have understood the term
seems clever and even natural to us today may not
(thinking, perhaps, it referred to an uprising of “whirling
only be misplaced when applied retroactively but
actually quite counter-factual in practice. This fallacy dervishes”), but if the phrase might have seemed strange
also applies to any speculation about Jack the Ripper the purpose would have been quite clear. The public, the
and is one reason that profiling, when applied to the press and even the monarch were growing ever more
events of the fall of 1888 in Whitechapel, may be little disenchanted with the inability to catch Jack the Ripper
more than a dodgy parlor trick. That said, however, and the governing party - rightly or not - was getting
there is one group of people whose basic instincts and increasing criticism for the string of murders in the East
behavior has changed little over the course of human End of London. Clearly, something had to be done and, as
history - and no, I am not talking about serial killers
ever, the prime imperative was CYA!
but rather about politicians.
But, before taking a long look at the end result of the
Oh, the issues may change with the times, though among
government’s exercise in spin control it would be wise to
the British variety of politician the old cry “We have to
take a look at the whole issue of Crown rewards and pardons
teach those demmed [insert here a word like colonials, or
as unfolded in the late 1880s. In fact, government rewards
foreigners or lower classes or upper classes] a good lesson!”
of anywhere from £200 to £2,000 (even going as high as
resonated well for centuries and the notion of spending
other people’s money in big bundles to buy popularity £15,000 for the infamous Phoenix Park assassinations in
is a perennial favorite everywhere - even in places like Dublin) were accepted policy for several centuries. But
Zimbabwe where the money is literally not worth the that all changed in 1884 when some innovative criminals
effort to print it. In the same way, the perquisites of power arranged for an explosion at the German Embassy and
may vary over time, with $400 blow-dry hairstylings and a then framed an innocent man as the culprit in order to
helicopter at one’s beck and call topping the charts today, collect the posted reward. This, naturally, suggested the
just as powdered perukes and personal sedan chairs were possibility of future such conspiracies so the then Home
once the favored preserve of politicians. Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, ended the practice and
Nonetheless, if there is one guiding principle to which even though he was from the other side of political divide
all politicians have subscribed from the time of the first his action provided the governing Conservatives with a
protofolk moot to that of multi-national parliaments it is precedent to cite in denying appeals for a reward in the
the simple notion of CYA (cover your butt in less graphic Ripper case.1
language). Crises and even scandals may come and go, but As it was, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir
so long as a politician can protect his power base and cling Charles Warren and many of his subordinates didn’t think
to office by whatever combination of smoke and mirrors… that a reward was likely to be efficacious anyway, so that
well that is all that really counts. And it is that universality aspect of Home Secretary Henry Matthews’s hewing to a
over time and from place to place of politicians that leads
me to consider the belated issuance of a pardon for any 1 Evans, Stewart P. and Donald Rumbelow, Jack the Ripper: Scotland
of Jack the Ripper’s accomplices as nothing more than an Yard Investigates, Sutton Publishing (2006), pp. 146-7.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

policy of no rewards was no cause for concern. However, to the men under him and Sir CHARLES WARREN’S
overshadowing any question of a mere police investigation directions, they could have done one thing which
of a murder was that of politics - the elephant in the might even now have caught the murderer. They might
room that was never remarked upon but which forever yesterday morning have drawn a cordon round the
Hanbury-street district - which is plainly the Thug’s
loomed silently in all policy considerations in the LVP.
headquarters - searched every nook and cranny, and
The Conservative government of Prime Minister Lord
examined every suspicious character. Meanwhile,
Salisbury had been elected with a safe majority in 1886
we suggest (1) more Vigilance Committees, (2) the
(and would remain in office though 1892 and again from shadowing of East-end unfortunates, (3) further
1895 to 1902) was under increasing political pressure rewards. Further, there must be an agitation against
throughout the period, especially from the radical press Sir CHARLES WARREN, who is now beginning his
that had become very important with the advent of cheap old bad work of breaking up, or allowing paid Tory
newspapers. roughs to break up, the meetings of the unemployed
Aside from the ever-festering Irish question at the time, in Hyde-park, and detaching more men from regular
among the favorite targets of the radical press was Warren police and detective duty to political work. Above all,
let us impress the moral of this awful business on the
who was considered the bloody architect of the 1887
consciences and the fears of the West-end. The cry of
Trafalgar Square riots that saw the Metropolitan police
the East-end is for light - the electric light to flash into
use the bodies of the protestors like so many bongo drums.
the dark corners of its streets and alleys, the magic
From Warren, the opprobrium flowed upwards to his light of sympathy and hope to flash into the dark
superior, the Home Secretary and from there the criticism corners of wrecked and marred lives. Unless these
moved on and embraced the entire Salisbury government. and other things come, Whitechapel will smash the
And, politics again entering the equation; however much Empire, and the best thing that can happen to us is for
Salisbury might have liked to ease Matthews out of office some purified Republic of the West to step in and look
the fact that he was the lone Roman Catholic in the cabinet after the fragments.2
made him something of a protected “minority token” at
the time.
Moreover, this dangerous brew in a political cauldron
stirred by the anti-government elements in the press
truly threatened to boil over when prostitutes began to
be eviscerated on the streets of Whitechapel. As far as
the press and public were concerned, after the so-called
“Double Event” six women had been cruelly murdered that
year in the East End (despite any evidence to the contrary
they included Emma Smith and Martha Tabram in the
total) and so far the Metropolitan Police, responsible for
investigating five of those killings, had proven remarkably
inept. Indeed, Warren’s (and ultimately the government’s)
minions were fair game for newspapers like the Star,
which would editorialise:

The police, of course, are helpless. We expect nothing

of them. The metropolitan force is rotten to the core,
and it is a mildly farcical comment on the hopeless
unfitness of Sir CHARLES WARREN that when red-
handed crime is stalking the streets he has assigned
his men the fresh duty of sharing with providence the
looking after drunken men. But there is one scandal
about this business so gross as to cry to Heaven.
Mr. MATTHEWS - “helpless, heedless, useless” Mr.
MATTHEWS as the Telegraph calls him to-day - is
philandering with pot-house Tories at Birmingham Sir Charles Warren
while GOD’S poor are being slaughtered wholesale
in London. Where is this man, and what is he doing?
He must be sternly interpellated in Parliament. As 2 Star, October. 1, 1888.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The language is more than a little lurid and the representatives, to do all in your power to dissuade
suggestions to remedy things questionable in several the unfortunate women about Whitechapel from
instances. Just what made the Star decide Jack called going into lonely places in the dark with any persons
Hanbury Street his home base is a bit puzzling at this - whether acquaintances or strangers.
remove in time, but what the editorial may have lacked I have also to point out that the purlieus about
in actionable evidence it more than made up for in nearly Whitechapel are most imperfectly lighted, and that
actionable invective - “philandering with pot-house darkness is an important assistant to crime.

Tories” surely struck below the belt with power. But this I can assure you, for the information of your Board,
is the sort of derision the police, Warren, the Home Office that every nerve has been strained to detect the
and - by extension - the entire Conservative government criminal or criminals, and to render more difficult
further atrocities. You will agree with me that it not
was facing daily.
desirable that I should enter into particulars as to
Nor was it just such radical groups like the editorial what the police are doing in the matter. It is most
board of the Star that was pecking, so to speak, at important for good results that our proceedings
Warren’s liver. The series of horrendous murders in should not be published, and the very fact you may be
the East End had seemingly shaken the fabric of British unaware of what the Detective Department is doing is
society. As Thomas Babington Macauley once famously only the stronger proof that it is doing its work with
opined “We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British secrecy and efficiency.
public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” That once A large force of police has been drafted into the
more seemed the case and everyone was getting into the Whitechapel district to assist those already there to
act of telling Warren and the government how to do its the full extent necessary to meet the requirements;
job. Even so mainstream an organization as the Board but I have to observe that the Metropolitan police have
of Works had seen fit to excoriate Warren and the police not large reserves doing nothing and ready to meet
emergencies, but every man has his duty assigned
and he was obliged to respond. That reply is appended
to him; and I can only strengthen the Whitechapel
below; not because it is so important but because it is a
district by drawing men from duty in other parts of
grand example of the political class trying to smooth over
the metropolis.
criticism by saying nothing in as many palliative words
You will be aware that the whole of the police work
as possible. Indeed, a close reading could serve as a non-
of the metropolis has to be done as usual while this
narcotic (and surely non-addictive) sleeping aid.
extra work is going on, and that at such a time as this
extra precautions have to be taken to prevent the
4, Whitehall-place, S.W., Oct. 3.
commission of other classes of crime being facilitated
Sir, - In reply to a letter of the 2nd inst. from the Clerk
through the attention of the police being diverted to
of the Board of Works for the Whitechapel District
one special place or object.
transmitting a resolution of the Board with regard
I trust your Board will assist the police by persuading
to the recent atrocious murders perpetrated in
the inhabitants to give them every information in
and about Whitechapel, I have to point out that the
their power concerning any suspicious characters
carrying out of your proposals as to regulating and
strengthening the police force in your district cannot in the various dwellings, for which object 10,000
possibly do more than guard or take precautions handbills, a copy of which I enclose, have been
against any repetition of such atrocities so long as the distributed.
victims actually, but unwittingly, connive at their own I have read the reported proceedings of your meeting,
destruction. and I regret to see that the greatest misconceptions
Statistics show that London, in comparison to its appear to have arisen in the public mind as to the
population, is the safest city in the world to live in. The recent action in the administration of the police. I beg
prevention of murder directly cannot be effected by you will dismiss from your minds, as utterly fallacious,
any strength of the police force; but it is reduced and the numerous anonymous statements as to the recent
brought to a minimum by rendering it most difficult changes stated to have been made in the police force,
to escape detection. In the particular class of murder of a character not conducive to efficiency.
now confronting us, however, the unfortunate victims It is stated that the Rev. Daniel Greatorex announced
appear to take the murderer to some retired spot and to you that one great cause of police inefficiency was
to place themselves in such a position that they can be a new system of police whereby constables were
slaughtered without a sound being heard; the murder, constantly changed from one district to another,
therefore, takes place without any clue to the criminal keeping the ignorant of their beats.
being left. I have seen this statement made frequently in the
I have to request and call upon your Board, as popular newspapers lately, but it entirely without fountain.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The system at present in use has existed for the last have left no stone unturned, no resource unexhausted.
20 years, and constables are seldom or never drafted But there is a special reason for offering a reward in this
from their districts except for promotion or from some present case. London is in daily danger of a repetition
particular cause. of the recent butchery. Ordinarily, a reward is merely
Notwithstanding the many good reasons why designed to bring the perpetrator of a past crime to
constables should be changed on their beats, I have justice; but here it may have the effect of preventing
considered the reasons on the other side to be more a repetition of the crime. The prospect of a reward is
cogent, and have felt that they should be thoroughly enough in a district like the East-end to convert every
acquainted with the districts in which they serve. other resident into an amateur detective. The criminal
must know that it increases his risk a hundredfold,
And with regard to the Detective Department - a
and who knows how many a life may be saved by that
department relative to which reticence is always most
knowledge alone? Have our red-tape bound officials in
desirable - I may say that a short time ago I made
Whitehall looked at this special feature of the present
arrangements which still further reduced the necessity
case?4
for transferring officers from districts which they knew
thoroughly.
I have to call attention to the statement of one of your
members that in consequence of the change in the
condition of Whitechapel in recent years a thorough
revision of the police arrangements is necessary, and I
shall be very glad to ascertain from you what changes
your Board consider advisable; and I may assure
you that your proposals will receive from me every
consideration.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
CHARLES WARREN.3

Amidst all the criticism of the government what was

rapidly becoming the real “hot button” issue was that of
rewards and it became even hotter when the City of London,
not bound by any Home Office strictures, announced
on October 4, 1888, that it was offering a £500 reward
in regard to the murder of Catharine Eddowes, which
happened (albeit just) within its boundaries. As might be
expected, the Star saw this as a very sanguinary move and
also took the occasion to once more heap scorn on Warren
and Matthews.

LOOK at this question of the offer of a reward. At this

Home Secretary Henry Matthews
moment the City proper is placarded with notices of
a £500 reward, offered by the municipal authorities. Less red-meat for its ravenous readers in terms of
Outside that magic area, the authorities believe that invective, perhaps, but the Star would seem to echo the
such an offer is useless, or worse than useless, and sentiments of many at the moment.
are so strong in that belief that they reject all proffers
Of course, not everyone and every publication fell into
of private aid in the matter. Whether the City is right
line and supported the notion of rewards. For example, the
or the Home Office is right, what more convincing
Law Journal (described by a contemporary as “extremely
demonstration could be offered of the necessity of
placing the whole police of the metropolis under the cautious”) had this to say in an editorial.
control of a genuine municipal authority?
The Whitechapel murderer, if such there be, has by
IN our opinion the City is right. The very fact that the invading the City boundary given rise to a curious
City police believe in the possible efficacy of a reward illustration of the anomalies of local government which
shows that there is room for doubt on the subject, and are now in process of being reformed. By slightly
where there is room for doubt the benefit ought to be widening the circle of his crimes he has had brought
given in the direction of long-established and well-
tried practice. It is the duty of Mr. Matthews and his 3 The Times, October 4, 1888.
subordinates, as we said the other day, to show that they 4 Star, October 4, 1888.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

to bear upon him a resource of barbarism of late years public feeling, to give it without prospect of reward.
relegated to the past. The Home Secretary, in spite of On the other hand, the offer of a reward would be
clamor, has been steadfast in maintaining the practice almost certain to produce false information.
inherited from his predecessors of refusing to try
Even if the case were a proper one for a reward, the M.P.
to catch criminals by offering large rewards. This is
for the district is not the proper person to offer it. Of
a policy which has now been adopted for the whole
course SofS cannot forbid Mr. Montagu to publish the
country, and it is obvious that if once broken in upon
offer, but he can forbid Police to give their authority to
the whole mischief of information being held back
it.
by those who are waiting for the offer of a reward is
revived. Unfortunately, the understanding which has Say that, had the case been considered [a] proper one
prevailed has only the sanction of the comity of the for the offer of a reward. SoS [would] at once have
police authorities throughout the country, and has no offered one on behalf of the Govt., but the practice of
legal force. The City authorities, having the control of offering rewards was discontinued some years ago
their own police, can revert to exploded expedients because experience showed that in their general effect
by dealing with crime from the commercial point of such offers…produce more harm than good, and the
view with some show of right, but in point of law every SofS…thinks the present case one in which there is
private person may offer a reward for information special risk that the offer of a reward might hinder
leading to the detection of crime, and would be held to rather than promote the ends of justice.
his promise in a court of law. An Act of Parliament is Add that the offer of a reward while any person is under
necessary to save the administration of the law from arrest on suspicion, is open to special objections and
the periodical reversion to quack remedies to which it has…not at any time be [sic] allowed.7
is exposed.5
Troup’s draft was forwarded to Edward Leigh Pemberton,
Nonetheless, the opinion of the Law Journal was definitely Home Office Legal Assistant to the Under-Secretary, who
in the minority as far as most of the popular press and, it then drafted a letter to Montagu that said, in effect, “thanks,
would seem, a good portion of the populace. So much so but no thanks.” And it was then that an essentially simple
that organizations and individuals came forward offering matter became yet another major political thorn in Warren’s
to augment any rewards offered by the government. side. The message from the Home Office to Montagu
In fact, as far back as early September - just two days after was evidently delayed and moreover the Member for
Annie Chapman’s murder - the MP for Whitechapel, Samuel Whitechapel was aggrieved that his letter about a reward,
Montagu, wrote to the police that he would personally first sent to the police, was not handled immediately by
underwrite a reward: the force. After disputing the wisdom of the Home Office
decision, Montagu went on to complain:
Dear Sir,
Feeling keenly the slur cast upon my constabulary by On Monday the 10th inst. about mid-day I made my
the recent murders & the non discovery [sic] of the offer to Inspector West. He stated he would submit it to
criminal or criminals I hereby authorise you to print & you. On Tuesday he called here & said that the proposal
distribute at my expense posters offering £100 reward had been submitted to the Home Office & he thought
for the discovery & conviction of the murderer or it would be favourably received. I regret that you did
murderers, which reward I will pay. not obtain the decision of the Home Secy. at once by
Samuel Montagu telegram, because on Tuesday my proposal must have
Member for Whitechapel transpired & was published in the daily papers on
Sept. 10th 18886 Wednesday last.
Under these circumstances it is too late to withdraw
This letter led to Charles Edward Troup, a clerk in the my offer & in case information is received, leading to
Home Office, to research and write what would be the basis conviction of the murderer or murderers, I must pay
of Home Office policy in regard to rewards throughout the the £100 to the person entitled to receive.8
Ripper’s reign:
Forget about a woman scorned, Hell truly hath no fury
The H.O. rule is against offering rewards and, even if like a politician embarrassed (politically and financially).
exceptions to the rule are to be allowed, I think this case
is the last in which it should be done. 5 As reprinted in the Star, October 6, 1888.
It is generally agreed that the Whitechapel murderer 6 Evans, Stewart P. and Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper
has no accomplices who could betray him. Companion, Carroll & Graf (2000), p. 113.
Any person, other than an accomplice, who possesses 7 Ibid., pp. 111-2.
information, would be certain, in the present state of 8 Ibid., p. 114.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Nor did Warren help by churlishly replying to Montagu that of our East-end that the Government authorities are as
if he had wanted a telegraphic reply he should have said so. much anxious to avenge the blood of these unfortunate
victims as they were the assassination of Lord
Warren, a very maligned fellow in many ways, did have
Cavendish and Mr. Burke. - Apologising for trespassing
an absolute knack for creating public relations disasters.
on your valuable space, we beg to subscribe ourselves,
At about the same as he was irritating an M.P., J.S. Sanders,
faithfully yours,
the assistant to the private secretary to the Home Secretary,
GEORGE LUSK
reported that Warren:
JOSEPH AARONS.10

[R]emarked to me very strongly upon the great

hindrance, which is caused to the efforts of the
Police, by the activity of agents of Press Associations
& Newspapers. These “touts” follow the detectives
wherever they go in search of clues, and then having
interviewed persons with whom the police have had
conversations and from whom inquiries have made,
compile the paragraphs which fill the papers. This
practice impedes the usefulness of the detective
investigations and moreover keeps alive the excitement
in the district and elsewhere.9

There may well have been a kernel of truth in Warren’s

plaints about the press, but in the course of just two days
he had managed to alienate further members of Parliament
and members of the Fourth Estate, actions that would only George Lusk
exacerbate the problems the government was facing in
connection with the Whitechapel murders. Nor did Lusk and his Vigilance Committee cavil at raising
the ante yet more. This it did by involving Queen Victoria,
And meanwhile, the clamor for a government reward as
directly sending her a letter of petition:
well as offers of private rewards kept coming. In September,
George Lusk and his Vigilance Committee had considerable To Her Most Gracious Majesty
- and increasingly acrimonious - correspondence with The Queen
Warren and the Home Office over the matter of rewards. The Humble Petition of George Lusk
Ever one with an eye for publicity, Lusk eventually went Of Nos. 1, 2 & 3 Alderney Road in the Parish of Mile
quite public with the following letter to the Daily Telegraph: End Old T[own] in the County of Middlesex, Builder
and Contractor, a mem[ber] of the Metropolitan Board
SIR - As members of the Whitechapel Vigilance of Works, a Vestryman of the above named Parish and
Committee, who communicated without result with the the President and Chairman of the Vigilance Committee
Home Secretary with the view of obtaining, on behalf formed for the purpose hereunder mentioned….
of the public at large, the offer of a Government reward
Sheweth
for the apprehension and conviction of the assassin or
1 That Your Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home
assassins in the recent East-end atrocities, we shall be
Department has for some years past discontinued the
glad if you will allow us to state that the Committee do
old practice of offering a Government reward for the
not for one moment doubt the sincerity of the Home
apprehension and conviction of those offenders against
Secretary in refusing the said offer, as he apparently
Your Sovereign Majesty Your Crown and Dignity who
believes that it would not meet with a successful
have escaped detection for the crime of Murder.
result. If you would, however, consider that in the case
of the Phoenix Park murders the man Carey, who was 2 That in the course of the present year (A.D. 1888.)
surrounded by, we may say, a whole society steeped in no less than four murders of Your Majesty’s subjects
crime, the money tempted him to betray his associates, have taken place within a radius of half a mile from one
in our opinion if Mr. Matthews could see his way clear point in said district.
to coincide with our views the Government offer would
be successful. The reward should be ample for securing
the informer from revenge, which would be a very great 9 Evans, Stewart P. and Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper
inducement in the matter; in addition to which such Companion, Carroll & Graf (2000), p. 117.
offer would convince the poor and humble residents 10 Daily Telegraph, October 1, 1888.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

3 That notwithstanding the constitution of the correspondence on the question of rewards, with ever more
Scotland Yard Detective Office and the efforts of the obscure examples of the usefulness or lack of same of the
trained Detectives of such office, the perpetrator or practice being dredged up by such legal researchers such
perpetrators of these outrages against Your Majesty will as the aforementioned C.E. Troup. And in the end the result
remain undiscovered.
was always the same, the policy precedent established by
4 That acting under the direction of Your Majesty’s Harcourt should stand.
liege subjects your petitioner…caused to be sent to Your
Throughout the month of October there was a volume
Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department a
of correspondence between Warren and Matthews on
suggestion that he should revert to the original system
of a reward looking at the fact that the present series of the reward/pardon issue. It should be borne in mind that
murders was probably the work of one hand and that the pair did not like each. Indeed, Matthews was rather
the third and fourth were certainly the work of that unpopular with many within the government and was
one hand and that inasmuch as the ordinary means of viewed as a rather weak vessel who certainly was not at his
detection had failed and that the murderer would in best defending the government in parliamentary debate.
all probability commits other murders of a like nature Still, his status as the lone Catholic in the government (and
such offer of a reward at the earliest opportunity was the first since Elizabeth I was on the throne) kept him
absolutely necessary for securing Your Majesty’s protected. For his part, Warren always chaffed at being
subjects from death at the hands of the above one subordinate to anyone (throughout his military career he
undetected assassin.
had always performed best in far corners of the empire that
5 That in reply to such suggestions your Petitioner saw him removed from the normal chain of command and
received from Your Majesty’s Secretary of State for the thus able to act on his own initiative) and was thus not the
Home Department a letter of the following is a copy…
best of public servants on behalf of the government.
[There followed what had become the standard “Thanks,
but no thanks” letter from Pemberton in regard to offers
Lending his part to ongoing debate was once more
of rewards.] George Lusk. Just how much he was motivated by the public
weal and how much by a lust for publicity remains an open
6 That the reply above quoted was submitted to
the inhabitants of the East End of London in meeting question, but having gotten no satisfaction in the matter
assembled and provoked a considerable amount of of a reward, he began to call publicly and privately for the
hostile criticism and that such criticism was re-echoed issuance of a pardon. These efforts prompted a letter from
throughout Your Majesty’s Dominions not only by Warren to the Home Office on October 9.
Your Majesty’s subjects at large but, with one or two
exceptions the entire press of Great Britain. Sir,

Your Petitioner therefore In reply to your immediate letter just received on

Humbly prays Your the subject of Mr. Lusk’s proposal as to a pardon to
Majesty as follows: accomplices in the Whitechapel murders, I have to state,
for the information of the Secretary of State, that during
That Your Majesty will graciously accede to the prayer
the last three or four days I have been coming to the
of Your Petitioner preferred originally through Your
conclusion that useful results would be produced by
Majesty’s Secretary of State and direct that a government
the offer of a pardon to accomplices. Among the variety
reward sufficient in amount to meet the peculiar
of theories there is the possibility that the murderer is
exigencies of the case may immediately be offered, Your
someone who during the day-time is sane, but who at
Petitioner and these loyal subjects whom he represents
certain periods is overbalanced in his mind; and I think
being convinced that without such reward the murderer
it possible in that case that his relatives or neighbours
or murderers of the above four victims will not only
may possibly be aware of his peculiarities and may have
remain undetected but will sooner or later commit
gradually unwittingly slid into the position of being
other crimes of a like nature.11
accomplices, and may be helpless of any escape without
a free pardon…
Naturally, the Queen did not respond; rather, her staff
immediately forwarded it to the Home Office. In any As a striking commentary on this matter I have today
case, the fat was truly in the fire now and even the Prime received a letter from a person asserting himself to be
an accomplice, and asking for a free pardon; and I am
Minister, Lord Salisbury, was involved if not active. After
commencing a communication with him through an
all, parliamentary democracy that Great Britain may have
advertisement in a journal. The letter is probably a hoax,
been at the time, when the reigning monarch says “Jump!”
even (or rather especially) the prime minister can only reply
“How high?” The result was a spate of internal Home Office 11 Evans & Skinner, op.cit., pp247-8.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

for we have received scores of hoaxing letters, but on first that it is not a case in which the offer of a pardon is
the other hand it may be a bona fide letter, and if so I feel appropriate.
what a very great loss it would be to the discovery of the It is quite possible however that you may be of a different
murderer by omitting to offer the pardon; and I cannot opinion.13 [Emphases in original]
see what harm could be done in this or any future case
by offering a pardon.12 The reader will note that throughout the memorandum
from Lushington has a political cast. The arguments
It is worth noting that even now, before the Kelly murder, advanced, for and against a pardon, are not so much
Warren, at least, was willing to entertain the notion of concerned with what might prove useful in finding the
accomplices. This would contrast greatly with the Home murderer, but rather what will resonate best with the voters.
Office position when a pardon finally was offered. Just as President Nixon’s advisers were said to ask “Will it
In contrast, the Home Office Permanent Under-Secretary, play in Peoria?” so, too, does this analysis worry most about
Godfrey Lushington, wrote to Matthews advising against a the political effect of a pardon. Also worth remembering is
pardon. Lushington’s caution that a pardon issued at this late date
would draw criticism as to why it was not done much sooner.
Mr. Matthews,
In any case, the correspondence between Matthews and
This letter from the Commissioner [Warren] and
Warren for the rest of October and early November
letter from Mr. Lusk on which it is founded, give
returned to the question of a reward. Warren
you an opportunity to offer a pardon if you
was of the opinion that while the efficacy
are so inclined. Offering a pardon is not
of a reward was doubtful, there could
open to the same objections as offering
a reward, nor has the S. of S. done be little or no harm done. For his part,
anything to commit himself to refuse Matthews clung to the “no reward”
to offer a pardon. The mere lapse of position and further argued that it
time occasions no difficulty, for in was not likely to produce any positive
a crime of this atrocious character results. In this regard, Matthews was
it is desirable that if possible no being proven correct: since the first
person, even an accessory after week of October more than £1,400 in
the fact, should receive a pardon. reward money (worth considerably
A pardon, therefore, is only offered more than £100,000 in today’s money)
when it is pretty clear that the efforts was available and yet no worthwhile
of the Police to detect the crime have
claimants had come forward with useful
been unavailing, and if the S. of S. does not
evidence.
now offer a pardon his action will of course be
open to the criticism that he has declined to take Moreover, for the same period of time the
a step recommended by the Commissioner. On Godfrey Lushington murderer (who by then had been christened Jack
the other hand the Commissioner’s letter does the Ripper) had been quiet. And if the public had
not appear to me to throw any new light on the case not quite relaxed its obsessive fascination with and fear of
or to suggest the probability that the offer of a pardon the fiend, there was doubtless an increasing hope on the part
will lead to discovery. His recommendation is based on of the police and government that the series of murders had
a mere supposition, one of many suppositions that have ended and while bruised a bit, both had survived without
occurred to everybody from the beginning. much damage. And then, on the morning of November 9,
Then, as to the offer of a pardon on the public mind. 1888, landlord John McCarthy’s hired man, “Indian Harry”
The offer of a pardon will not allay the excitement of Bowyer went to collect some rent from Mary Jane Kelly.
the public who on the contrary will wrongly infer that
What Bowyer saw when he peeked through a window was
the view of the Home Office is that the murderer had an
the result of yet another Ripper murder and without doubt
accomplice and this will make the outrages appear of a
the most horrendous to date. Kelly’s murderer had literally
far more grave character. Nor will the offer of a pardon
flayed her body and left skin and body parts strewn around
restore confidence in the Police. It will be accepted as
an admission of their failure to detect the crime; it will her little room at No. 13 Miller’s Court. The news quickly
provoke renewed attention to the action of the Home spread and quite upstaged the Lord Mayor’s Parade the
Office and hostile critics are sure to say that the step if same day. Even more, it reopened the long festering wounds
taken ought to have been taken earlier. In my opinion
it would be better for the S. of S. not to…offer a pardon 12 Evans & Skinner, op.cit., p. 255.
taking his stand on the ground that he has held from the 13 Ibid, pp, 253-4.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

the government had suffered throughout the earlier Ripper And so, the cabinet meeting on the morning of November
outrages. It raised the spectre of a political catastrophe and 10, 1888, voted to issue a pardon to any accomplices of
the government moved quickly to apply the best political the Ripper not actually involved in the murders. As those
solution available. The cabinet met post haste and voted things work, the cabinet sent Warren a copy of the letter
to issue a pardon. Nor did it come any too soon. The Star (appended below) that had already been sent to the press
had yet another rabid editorial and moreover one that tore over his name.
into not only Warren (even reprising Trafalgar Square) and
Matthews but the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, as well, The Commissioner of Police
suggesting that things augured poorly for the Conservatives’ Metropolitan Police

majority: Murder
Pardon
Meanwhile this seventh murder ought to rid us of Mr. Whereas on November 8 or 9, in Miller-court, Dorset-
MATTHEWS, and also of Sir CHARLES WARREN. The street, Spitalfields, Mary Janet Kelly was murdered by
proclamation of a reward by the City authorities shows some person or persons unknown: the Secretary of State
that the criminal apathy and indifference of the HOME will advise the grant of Her Majesty’s gracious pardon
SECRETARY have not been echoed even in quarters to any accomplice, not being a person who contrived
where interest in the lives and welfare of the people or actually committed the murder, who shall give such
is small indeed. What effect the issue of a reward may information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery
ultimately have on the capture of the murderer it is and conviction of the person or persons who committed
impossible to say, but there cannot be the slightest the murder.
doubt of the result which the withholding of all tangible
CHARLES WARREN,
Ministerial sympathy has had in the poor quarters of
Commissioner of Police
London.
of the Metropolis.
We have heard the wildest stories as to the reasons
etropolitan Police-office, 4, Whitehall-place,
M
which popular opinion in Whitechapel assigns for Mr.
S.W., Nov. 10, 1888.15
MATTHEWS’S obstinate refusal to offer a reward. It is
believed by people who pass among their neighbours
It was accepted practice that subordinates like Warren
as sensible folk that the Government do not want the
would agree to whatever words the Home Office put in his
murderer to be convicted, that they are interested in
mouth (or penned to paper), but in this instance it was truly
concealing his identity, that, in fact, they know it, and
will not divulge it. Of course this is rank nonsense, but a formality as Warren had resigned the day before, effective
it is nonsense which may end in a panic, while for the the end of the month. His action had nothing to do with the
Government it is particularly dangerous nonsense. Ripper murders or even Trafalgar Square. Rather, never able
Already the folly of Lord SALISBURY, in sticking to his to take direction well, Warren resigned because he refused
discredited colleague, will cost the Government every to allow the Home Office to scrutinize beforehand any
seat which they hold in the East-end of London. For our articles he submitted to journals. In a way, though, Warren’s
part, if it were not for higher considerations even than resignation was a blessing as it provided a handy, and now
the winning of two or three seats for Mr. GLADSTONE, out-of-office, scapegoat should the need arise.
we should say - By all means let Mr. MATTHEWS go Meanwhile, as a dutiful public servant, Lord Salisbury
on and fill the cup of his follies full to the brim. But we
himself informed Queen Victoria of the cabinet’s decision,
remember Trafalgar-square, and the danger of fresh
hoping of course the action would still some of her recent
assaults on the unemployed this winter. Therefore, we
misgivings.
say MATTHEWS and WARREN must go, and the sooner
the better. The first is a pitiful creature, a poor and
Decypher
spiritless specimen of the race of smart adventurers
who creep into politics by back doors. Above all, he is Novr: 10.1888
a tactless, heartless red-tapeist, and probably nine out Marquis of Salisbury
of ten of the clerks at the Home Office would be better To
fitted to look after the lives and property of the citizens
The Queen
of London than the right hon. gentleman who takes
Humble duty:
£5,000 a year for doing nothing. As for the second, there
is but one cry from Tory and Liberal - “WARREN must
go.” At the Show yesterday his name was execrated from
Aldgate to Pall Mall. He has become impossible. He is 14 Star, November 10, 1888.
doomed.14 15 Evans & Skinner, op. cit., p. 349.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

At Cabinet today it was resolved to issue a Proclamation issues a report it can be hoped that the original problem
offering free pardon to anyone who should give evidence will no longer seem important. Commissions are the ideal
as to the recent murder except the actual perpetrator of way to handle a political crisis, but they do require time and
the crime….16 above all the Salisbury cabinet must have known they had
very little time to assuage public opinion.
There was one last public act in the pardon saga that
occurred in the House of Commons on November 23, Still, there was a need for the government to be seen
1888. The member for Aberdeen, North, a Mr. Hunter as doing “something” and moreover a something that
asked Matthews “whether he is prepared, in the case of the suggested a rapid response to the Ripper’s latest murder
Whitechapel murders, other than that of the woman Kelly, that might actually help run him to ground. Popular as it still
to offer a free pardon to any person not being the actual was in the public mind, a reward was impossible after all the
perpetrator of the crimes?” previous refusals to offer one. A pardon, however, had many
of the same advantages (e.g. a strenuous bid to discover the
In reply, Matthews said:
Ripper) and having never been dismissed out of hand like a
I should be quite prepared to offer a pardon in the reward it could be proffered with a straight face.
earlier Whitechapel murders if the information before Ah, but what about Matthews’s phrase in answering
me had suggested that such an offer would assist in the Mr. Hunter in the House, the business about “certain
detection of the murderer. In the case of Kelly there circumstances”? To understand that, we must go back
were certain circumstances which were wanting in to Godfrey Lushington’s minute about pardons in early
the earlier cases, and which made it more probable October in which he advised Matthews that a pardon “will
that there were other persons who, at any rate after the
provoke renewed attention to the action of the Home Office
crime, had assisted the murderer.”17 [Emphasis added.]
and hostile critics are sure to say that the step if taken
ought to have been taken earlier.” This objection to a pardon
That phrase “certain circumstances” has bedevilled
would be obviated, however, if it could be suggested that
Ripperologists for more than a century now as they seek
the Kelly murder was somehow different than the others.
to uncover its meaning. For some it means that the Ripper
Since Mr. Matthews was not known as a great debater in
and his clothes had to be such a bloody mess after he had
the House one suspects he was primed with the “certain
hacked her to bits that wherever he called home there must
circumstances” response (perhaps by Lushington) if the
have been someone who saw him in such an incardine state.
question ever did come up. In fact, the phrase was a very
For others it has been suggested that the police may have
clever rejoinder because it provided the government with
thought that the man seen by Sarah Lewis loitering across the
plausible deniability in the event anyone wondered why the
road from Miller’s Court was an accomplice (though, Israel
pardon was so late in coming. As it was, the pardon offer
Schwartz’s “pipeman” might also have filled that bill). Then
succeeded. It looked as if the government was concerned
there are the conspiracy buffs whose febrile imaginations
enough to try something daringly different, it bought time
conjure up all manner of secret evidence involving Fenians,
and, except for a couple momentary frissons of fear after the
Royals or rogue elements the Knights of Pythias.
murders of Alice McKenzie and Frances Coles, the Ripper
In fact, they are most assuredly all wrong. On the morning
scare subsided enough that the government also survived
of November 10 the Salisbury cabinet was faced with a
its own scare.
political crisis of frightening proportions and as politicians
Boys will be boys and politicians will always be politicians
they sought an expeditious - and political - solution. Given
- even at the height of the Ripper terror. The pardon was an
time, they doubtless would have fallen back on the politicians’
exercise in spin control.
favored answer to any looming problem: the appointment
of a Blue Ribbon Commission. Indeed, commissions are an
16 Evans & Skinner, op. cit. pp. 348-9.
ideal way to deflect adverse public criticism. They give the
17 Ibid., p. 349.
impression those in charge really care, they can suggest
the “best and brightest” are on the job (especially if a few

prominent and seemingly disinterested citizens can be
persuaded to serve) and by the time a commission finally This article first appeared in Ripperologist 82, August 2007.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

What’s Wrong
With Being Unmotivated?
By DONALD SOUDEN

The underlying motive for the Ripper murders is through experience that being able to show plausible
an evergreen topic within the community and was motive goes a long way toward getting a conviction from
doubtless a favored subject of conversation over a a jury. This was explained well by DA Vincent Bugliosi in
few (many?) pints at the recent [2010] conference his book Helter Skelter about the Manson Family’s Tate-
in London. Indeed, for many among the ranks of Labianca murders in 1969. To that end, Bugliosi conjured
Ripperologists the question of Why seems even to up a convoluted motive based on a Beatles song and
transcend that of Who. Nor is that curiosity necessarily an apocalyptic race war. Today, that fervid fable seems
a means to answer both questions with one pull of the
overblown and overly imaginative, but it was effective in
trigger, though, as will be seen, explanations of motive
helping secure a guilty verdict, though perhaps not nearly
are a particular staple of most suspect-based books
so important to jurors’ minds as the crimes themselves
and theories.
and the actions of the defendants. After all, motive tends
Nonetheless, the Why of the Ripper murders is to take a backseat when those on trial not only boast of
often enough sufficient by itself to keep Ripperologists their alleged crimes but comport themselves like drug-
wondering and expatiating at length. As an example, the addled dregs of society.
message board at JTRForums.com has a thread dedicated
Motive is also a staple of most detective fiction, with
to the Ripper’s motivation that lists thirty different
“why the butler did it” often leading, albeit tortuously, to
possibilities, followed by “31) Combinations or variations
the perpetrator. But the unraveling of motive, of course,
of the above. 32) Unknown” and finally that ultimate
is only achieved with the aid of a smudged fingerprint, a
escape clause, “33) Other.” There is no question, then, that
seemingly guilty demeanor, an unexplained lapse in the
motivation looms large in the minds of many and, with
alibi and the sudden recollection that the guilty party had
a plethora of possibilities, admits of nothing close to a
once admitted to a positive passion for smelts sautéed with
consensus.
sauerkraut (a predilection in real life that would be ipso
Given that interest, it is worth noting with a bit of facto proof of not only a crime against nature but likely a
irony that discovering a motive, far less proving it, is not mental illness as well). Being a work of fiction, moreover,
necessary while investigating or prosecuting criminal allows the author to ascribe a motive to the murderer
conduct. Of course, certain crimes admit of rather obvious murkier more confusing than the Voynich Manuscript
motives that need little explanation. That is, most robbers (though, perhaps more plausible than those put forward
are motivated by a hope of monetary gain. The same holds by some Ripper theorists). Generally, the motive will
for embezzlement, extortion and simony. In contrast, involve, in varying combinations and permutations,
there are many crimes that are essentially motiveless, a legacy or title, an effort to forestall the revelation of
such as vehicular homicide or assault and battery when various guilty secrets or a longstanding resentment that
the underlying cause is the consumption of enough the victim received rather more remuneration from the
alcohol to render someone too drunk to understand, far Tooth Fairy when he and his proxy Atropos were but wee
less moderate their actions. bairns. It often makes for entertaining reading at least.
Nevertheless, motive - especially in capital (or what Another group that enjoys exploring motive would be
were capital cases) is rather beloved of District Attorneys criminal psychologists and their mind-probing minions.
and Crown Prosecution Service counsels, they believing One obvious reason for this practice is that it is the

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

only avenue open to them; the nuts and bolts of actual quondam lover of Mary Jane Kelly, and he makes the quite
investigation being well beyond the ken of those who valid point that spouses and cohabiting lovers are always
populate the groves of academe. And this often results the suspects of choice, at least initially, when investigating
in their making egregious errors the partner’s murder. And quite
about the facts. Besides, these often the police need go no farther
academics are by nature classifiers in the search than that person. It is a
and “putters-in-pigeonholes,” even disquieting fact of human nature that
if their activities often flirt with the line between love and hate can
the Alpha-Centauri Fallacy. That is, become blurred beyond recognition
should we ever get to meet aliens or reason by the trauma of rejection.
from that solar system we can be Had Paley stopped there, he would
darn sure they won’t call the sun have produced a neat little solution
their home planet circles Alpha- to the murder at 13 Miller’s Court,
Centauri. Still, their utterances also but in Ripperology that would be
are often entertaining, though not akin to Hillary and Norgay stopping
nearly so much as the writers of well short of the peak during their
detective fiction. assault on Mount Everest. So, with
Further, we must consider the the bravura of all adventurers, Paley
category into which many of our tried to link Barnett to all the so-
fellow travelers in Ripperology called Ripper murders. He began by
fall - armchair detectives. Without applying the “one-size-fits-all” FBI
the energy or - irony of ironies - profile of Jack the Ripper and like all
the motivation to time themselves who do so found enough there - age,
(armed with stopwatch, map and a mother who may have deserted
GPS hardware) making the trek from Dutfield’s Yard to young Joseph and a possible speech impediment - to
Mitre Square or, alternately, inviting permanent pixel satisfy himself if not all (or even most) of his critics. Still,
pixilation by spending hours, days, even years staring at there remained that nagging question of motivation.
digitized documents, some will content themselves with It was when he moved to explaining Barnett’s
endless contemplation over just why Jack the Ripper did motivation for killing anyone besides his beloved “Marie
what he did. That is a harmless enough pursuit, rather Jeanette” that Paley turned from detective to fabulist.
on a par with pondering the number of pinheads who The reason, we are told, for the series of brutal murders
can dance on an angel, but one that rarely makes for in Whitechapel during the fall of 1888 was that Barnett
entertaining reading. was so desperate to wean Kelly from working the streets
That said, however, just such puzzling over why Jack as a prostitute that he sought to frighten her into chaste
the Ripper eviscerated a number of East End unfortunates behavior by randomly killing some of her “sisters in sin”
is too often thrust upon an unfortunate public, usually in and only when that failed (and Kelly coincidently turned
the guise of a book that names a particular suspect as the him out) did he kill Kelly herself.1 Seriously, is that the
one and only Jack the Ripper. Like the District Attorneys first expedient most people would attempt when trying to
and Crown Prosecutors previously mentioned, the writers break someone of a bad habit? Today, I suppose, Barnett
of suspect-based Ripper books usually feel it incumbent might have arranged an intervention, but back then he
upon themselves to explain just why their particular most likely would have beaten her with a cudgel. Not, let it
suspect felt it necessary to practice street-corner surgery be added quickly, a commendable means of chastisement
upon the unwilling of Whitechapel. And for the most part but surely one more in keeping with the times than a
these authors could give a stroke a hole - and still coast to random killing spree.
victory - to most purveyors of detective fiction in terms
Think about that motive for a good long moment and
of convoluted and downright bizarre reasons for murder.
ponder if it would even pass the test of bad detection
Bruce Paley and his 1994 book The Simple Truth might fiction. To begin with, there is no reliable evidence that
be a good place to start a review of Jack the Ripper’s Kelly was still walking the streets after she and Barnett
murderous motivation. As theories go, his explanation
of the Ripper’s raison d’etre is surely bizarre if not quite 1 Bruce Paley; The Simple Truth; Headline Book Publishing (1995);
round-the-bend madness. He fingers Joseph Barnett, passim.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

settled into their Miller’s Court snuggery. That doesn’t upon a campaign of extracting the uteri of unfortunates
mean she wasn’t and certainly her entertaining of Joseph in order to “cure” his wife’s inability to conceive.3 Thus,
Fleming was likely not for purposes of studying the Second perhaps the earliest attempt to assign motivation to Jack’s
Law of Thermodynamics or discussing the implications of depredations still has adherents today.
Home Rule, but nonetheless to embark upon the random
murder and evisceration of local unfortunates as a way of
scaring Kelly straight is clearly counterintuitive and rather
beyond the pale even for serial killers. But such are the
problems people like Paley face when they try to explain
the Ripper’s motivation. Nor, is this stab at motivation far
from the worst spun by Ripper theorists.
In fact, the motivation game began while the Ripper was
still having his innings thanks to coroner Wynne Baxter.
Addressing the jury at the inquest into Annie Chapman’s
murder the Times reported on September 27, 1888, that
Baxter said in his summation:

Within a few hours of the issue of the morning

papers containing a report of the medical evidence
given at the last sitting of the Court [that Chapman’s
uterus had been excised and taken away] he [Baxter]
received a communication from an officer of one of
our great medical schools that they had information
which might or might not have a distinct bearing on
that inquiry. He... was informed by the sub-curator of
the Pathological Museum that some months ago an
American had called on him and asked him to procure
a number of specimens of that organ that was missing
in the deceased. He stated his willingness to give £20
apiece for each specimen. He stated that his object Wynne Baxter
was to issue an actual specimen with each copy of a © Adam Wood

publication on which he was then engaged. He was told

However, despite coroner Baxter’s foray into the
his request was impossible to be complied with, but
theorizing derby, most of his contemporaries gave very
he still urged his request. He wished them preserved,
not in spirits of wine, the usual medium, but glycerine, little thought to the Why and were much more interested
in order to preserve them in a flaccid condition and in the Who part of the Ripper conundrum. The police,
he wished them sent to America direct. It was known who will be examined more closely later, were rather
that this request was repeated to another institution unanimous that Jack was maniac of some sort without
of a similar character. Now was it not possible that the worrying about any other motivational bells and whistles.
knowledge of this demand might have incited some This would also seem to have been the feelings of at least
abandoned wretch to possess himself of a specimen?2 the “semi-literate” of the age. A check of letters from the
public to the City of London Police reveals that these
Baxter’s effort at ascribing a motive to the Ripper’s
erstwhile armchair detectives were overwhelmingly
work - for gain more grisly but no less fathomable than
concerned with capturing the fiend and the majority
murder in the course of robbery - was given short shrift
kept reinventing the wheel by suggesting the police use
by Scotland Yard and the press, but continues to be trotted
policemen dressed in female garb as decoys. Interestingly,
out today in a somewhat different guise. That is, most
one letter writer turned things around and accused a
modern theorists have eliminated the middleman and
troupe of female impersonators as being responsible.4
made the Ripper himself a collector of wombs. The theory
is particularly dear to some who posit Dr. Francis Tumblety
2 Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner; The Ultimate Jack the Ripper
as Jack, arguing that he did, in fact, possess a number
Companion; Carroll & Graf (2001); p. 119.
of such preserved organs at one time in Washington,
3 Tony Williams & Humphrey Price; Uncle Jack; Orion House (2005);
D.C. On the other hand, Tony Williams suggested in his passim.
execrable book Uncle Jack that his distant relative, the 4 Stewart P. Evans & Donald Rumbelow; Jack the Ripper: Scotland
renowned physician Sir John Williams, had embarked Yard Investigates; Sutton Publishing (2006); pp. 271-286.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

And, accusing annoying relatives, neighbors and perfect out to convey the impression, though without actually
strangers of the crimes accounted for nearly all the committing himself to a positive statement, that he
remaining letters. It would seem a fair bet that very few not only believed, but actually knew, that Eddy and the
mooching cousins, loners living next door, odd-looking Ripper were the same.

train travelers or luckless physicians were not fingered Stowell had convinced himself that a man of whom
at one time or another during the fall of 1888 by those he had got some particulars at third hand was Eddy.
with enough gumption to take pen to paper. That said, It is true that certain dates in the lives of both the real
Ripper and of Eddy do tally, but Stowell professed to
there were a few correspondents who at least ventured
believe that he was hearing about Eddy, rather than
into motivation by suggesting that Jack had been cheated
about someone of lower social rank. It made a better
by or, worse, made syphilitic by a prostitute and was now
story.7
wreaking vengeance on the entire class with his murders.
That possibility gained little traction at the time but No question it made for a better story. As Shakespeare
nonetheless the seeds were sown for what would become established more than 350 years earlier, mixing low comedy
one vast field of weed-like theories.5 with hi-jinks in high places is often a recipe for success. The
Perhaps the first harvest of those weeds was provided low comedy element was yet to appear, but you certainly
by Leonard Matters, initially in a December 26,1926, article could not have found anyone higher than a member of
in People magazine and later in his 1929 book The Mystery the Royal family for any hi-jinks and Stowell’s article
of Jack the Ripper. Stripped to its basics, it concerns a once- consequently created an immediate sensation. Indeed,
prominent English physician, “Dr. Stanley” (a pseudonym some aver that by making Eddy a suspect, the piece in The
admitted to by Matters) making a deathbed confession Criminologist was a major element in making the Ripper
that he was Jack the Ripper. As the tale went, his beloved mystery such a major fascination of the late 20th century.
son Bertie contracted syphilis from one Mary Kelly and Moreover, if Eddy may now be personally exculpated for
upon his death Stanley pere embarked upon the slaughter the crimes, he remains an important part of many modern
of street whores to avenge Stanley fils, a killing spree that motivation theories.
culminated in the horrors at Miller’s Court when Kelly Ironically, perhaps, one of the first to shoot down the
herself was cornered.6 It is a story line worthy of a soap idea that Prince Eddy was Jack the Ripper, Michael Harrison
opera and full of more holes than the New York Giants’ in his 1972 book Clarence: Was He Jack the Ripper?, did so
defense, but it has nonetheless spawned enough variations only at the expense of providing his own peculiar motive
on a theme to keep the minds engaged of many more for the murders. Harrison’s suspect was Eddy’s one-
hopeful Ripper theorists than might comfortably fit into time tutor at Cambridge, James Kenneth Stephen. The
the coach section of a Boeing 747. More to the point, while evidence adduced amounts to little more than the parsing
Matters set the table, so to speak, for the basic motive of of poems by Stephen, but the motive did add an entirely
punishing prostitutes because of a venereal disease caught new avenue for speculation. That is, Harrison posited that
from one of the sisterhood, even more he provided two Eddy and Stephen had likely been homosexual lovers and
other ideas that would become staples for future seekers Stephen, after a serious head injury, sought to regain Eddy’s
after motive: physicians as a part of the plot and the notion affection by staging the Ripper murders. There is more to
that Mary Jane Kelly was the ultimate target of the Ripper. it than that, but this little bit should suffice. As a means of
regaining a lost love it strains credulity as much as Paley’s
A further element in so many modern theories of
vision of Barnett’s killing prostitutes in order to keep Kelly
motivation was probably provided by T.E.A Stowell, C.B.E,
off the streets and Harrison’s theorizing met with even
M.D. in the November 1970 issue of The Criminologist
less acceptance among most Ripperologists than Paley’s.
magazine, where he all but named Prince Albert Victor the
Still, it has had one lingering effect - permanently bringing
Duke of Clarence and Avondale, more popularly known as
Stephen’s name into some modern efforts at explaining
Prince Eddy and heir presumptive to the British throne, as
motive. In fact, that would seem to provide one axiom
having been Jack the Ripper. Dr. Stowell never quite said
for theorists: new characters are constantly added to the
publicly that Eddy was the Ripper and at his death his
drama, but old ones are ever retained.8
papers and notes were destroyed (coincidentally enough
for those who see portents everywhere, he breathed his
5 Stewart P. Evans & Donald Rumbelow; Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard
last on November 9, 1970, the anniversary of Mary Jane Investigates; Sutton Publishing (2006); pp. 271-286.
Kelly’s murder) he nonetheless made his suspicions quite 6 Dave Froggatt: Ripper Rarities - The Mystery of Jack the Ripper by
clear. As one analyst has written: Leonard Matters. Ripperologist No. 40: April 2002
7 Michael Harrison; Clarence: Was He Jack The Ripper; Drake
If the editors and feature writers had read Stowell’s Publishing (1972); pp. 137-8.
article they would have realized that the author had set 8 Harrison; op. cit.; passim.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

As it was, the low-comedy complement to hi-jinks in Roman Catholic Annie Elizabeth Crook have been legal
high places was incorporated just a few years later with the and thus able to topple the monarchy, but it turns out that
publication of Stephen Knight’s epochal tour-de-force Jack Ms. Crook was a Protestant all along-not that there is any
the Ripper: The Final Solution. With the book’s publication, compelling evidence whatsoever that Prince Eddy ever
the Royal Conspiracy emerged full-blown. Most are familiar met her, far less had any interest in her. More to the point,
with Knight’s thesis, but in short the motivation espoused this theory of motivation, like so many others, would have
for the murders involved an infelicitous (and putatively led Occam of razor fame to grow a beard of knee-length or
illegal) marriage between Prince Eddy and a commoner better. That is, rather than applying the simplest solution
Roman Catholic, Annie Elizabeth Crook. With the future to the crimes Knight opted for the most far reaching and
of the monarchy at stake, a cabal of prostitutes (headed silliest of solutions. If Lord Salisbury’s government really
by Mary Jane Kelly) embark upon blackmail. Enter Queen wanted to silence a few Whitechapel unfortunates would
Victoria’s physician-in-ordinary Sir William Gull who, you really believe they would arrange for an aging, stroke-
abetted by coachman John Netley (here is the low comedy riddled physician, an obscure coachman and the flighty,
role that truly should be played by Jim Carrey in any modern flakey bohemian artist Walter Sickert to wage their feckless
movie) and artist Walter Sickert, to remedy the situation. If war of attrition on Whitechapel whores or would they just
nothing else, Sickert’s inclusion in the terrible trio helped have had the women rounded up and--at the very least -
revive his flagging reputation. Never, perhaps in the top tier consigned them to Broadmoor, to remain there at her
of artists for the period, he nonetheless had real talent but Majesty’s pleasure?
had fallen into the category “and others of interest.”
There was one other ingredient in Knight’s toxic cocktail
of motivation and that was a large jigger of Freemasonry.
No matter how sprawling and convoluted Knight’s thesis
may seem, it actually had a controlling entity and that
was composed wholly of Freemasons. Not only do they,
as an avowed secret organization, bring a measure of
conspiratorial skulduggery to the Ripper mystery, but any
theorist looking to incorporate important names without
much evidence should be forever in Knight’s debt. This is
because among the governing types of the LVP membership
in the Masons was about as easy and ubiquitous as that for
regular folks at Facebook today. Indeed, if there was any
sort of Masonic conspiracy in operation back then it was
probably running the British empire, but that is a topic for
another time and another publication.
As it is, the subsuming of the Masons into the Ripper
motivation corpus provided theorists with “explanations”
for any number of vexing questions (e.g. the erasure of
the Goulston Street Graffito was to protect the Masons
from suspicion, the word Juwes don’t you know is a part of
Masonic lore and so on). And the fact that the explanation
is errant nonsense makes no difference to a true-believer.
Annie Elizabeth Crook
I once came across a fervent apostle of the Masonic
conspiracy school and my life has not been the same since. Of course, none of this has kept subsequent theorists in
Especially because his final words were “I may already have search of a motive from borrowing, in whole or part, from
told you too much and your life, like mine, may now be in those who conjectured before. Thus, we have had books
danger.” Try walking down a strange street at three in the and magazine articles a-plenty that have reflected, refined
morning with that warning stuck in your memory. Mere and reified the royal conspiracy. In their The Jack The Ripper
muggers are welcomed at those moments so long as they Whitechapel Murders Andy and Sue Parlour kept Dr. Gull,
aren’t wearing an apron and top hat. but only as a mastermind while assigning the actual killing
Nor for that matter did it make much difference that to James K. Stephen (remember him?) and Montague J.
Knight’s story at its very simplest was a rather flimsy Druitt, the hapless barrister who apparently drowned
fabrication. Not only wouldn’t any alleged marriage to the himself in December 1888 and first came to the attention

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

of Ripperologists with the appearance of the Macnaghten of occult practices, usually involving Robert D’Onston
memoranda.9 Walter Sickert popped up as the Ripper Stephenson. Regardless, the need for those on the outside
in several books since, most notably Patricia Cornwell’s to spin newer and ever more involved motives to explain
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed. Once having Jack the Ripper’s murder spree is in marked contrast to the
come to the public’s attention, the suspects encompassed view of most law enforcement professionals.
by the Royal Conspiracy are never “out of work” for long. Indeed, those officials who were on the scene and
Low comedy and hi-jinks in high places, you understand. actively involved in the LVP were almost unanimous
The only basis for motive to rival the Royal conspiracy about the Ripper’s basic motivation. Right after the death
these days would seem to be the hoary chestnut that dates of Mary Jane Kelly, Dr Thomas Bond undertook, at the
back at least to the Roman Republic when it was decided by behest of Sir Robert Anderson, a detailed examination of
the few that Julius Caesar had outlived his “rule-by date” - the Canonic Five murders and said, in part, that Jack was
that old devil conspiracy. We have already encountered the moved to kill because of “periodic attacks of Homicidal and
Masonic conspiracy, but viral as it has proved, it is neither erotic mania.”11 A bit later, City of London Police Inspector
the oldest, nor the most dangerous excuse for Jack’s reign James McWilliam said “I have sent officers to all the Lunatic
of terror. It would seem odd, indeed, if the possibility of Asylums in London... Many persons being of opinion that
Fenian involvement had not occurred to at least a few on these crimes are of too revolting a character to have been
the scene in 1888. After all, the Irish nationalists were a real committed by a sane person.”12 Sir Robert Anderson was
and present danger at the time and besides it was always of the opinion that “It is impossible to believe they were
convenient to blame the Irish because they were foreigners acts of a sane man - they were those of a maniac - reveling
and ...well, Irish. Interestingly, a possible Fenian motive in blood.”13 Then there was Sir Melville Leslie Macnaghten
has remerged among modern theorists, aided no doubt by who, in his famous memoranda, named as strong suspects
Tumblety’s tenuous connection to the cause. Montague J. Druitt, Aaron Kosminski and Michael Ostrog.
Supposedly, the Irish nationalists abetted, if not actually He labeled each, in turn, as “sexually insane,” “insane”
commissioned, the Whitechapel murders as a means to and “a homicidal maniac.”14 These examples are hardly an
embarrass and endanger England’s government, monarchy exhaustive list of what was said by those law enforcement
and establishment by a wild serial killing spree in London. professionals close to the investigation, but it does suggest
That reasoning smacks rather strongly of Joe Barnett that for most there was no need to find any motive beyond
randomly killing streetwalkers to scare Mary Jane Kelly or severe mental derangement. And, while the concept of
the Freemasons’ letting slip the terrible trio of Gull, Netley a serial killer had yet to be advanced, they showed great
and Sickert. That is, the Fenians at least had much earlier prescience in the face of a yet to be perceived phenomenon.
discovered a very effective means of scaring the English Nor have the advances in serial-killer awareness over
public and establishment dynamite. They had no need for the past 12 centuries made much difference to the way
proxy murders: and that applies as much today as it did in professionals on the front-line still look at serial killers and
1888. their motivation. Mark Fuhrman may not be everyone’s
The same argument would seem to rebut the efforts to first choice for a racial-harmony award, but there are few
frame a motive by William Tufnell Le Queux, who at least savvier (and articulate) former law enforcement officials
had the bona fides of having covered the Ripper murders writing these days, so his opinions about the subject are
for the Globe newspaper. Whatever, in 1923 he published certainly worth looking at:
one of his many books, Things I Know About Kings,
Celebrities and Crooks, in which he claimed that a document Ever since the signature/MO distinction was first
written by Rasputin named a Dr. Alexander Pedachenko (a developed by John Douglas and Robert Ressler of the
name that still defies identification with anyone who ever FBI, there has been a great deal of study and debate
lived) as Jack the Ripper. He was loosed on London by the on the subject. The theory has helped detectives
distinguish between serial sexual psychopaths and
Czarist secret police in order to embarrass the English
establishment because it was too lax toward Russian
9 Maxim Jakubowski & Nathan Braund (editors.); The Mammoth Book
immigrants scheming to bring down the Czar.10
of Jack the Ripper; Carroll & Graf (2001); pp. 259-79.
This article is not intended to be a thorough examination 10 Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner; The Jack the Ripper A to Z;
of motives that have been put forward to explain the East Headline Book Publishing (1994); pp. 258-9.
End murders in the fall of 1888. Instead, it has been an 11 Ibid.; p. 53.
admittedly sketchy look at some of the more enduring 12 Evans & Rumbelow; op. cit.; p. 225.
theories of motivation and there are many that have not 13 Ibid,
been mentioned. Among those would be the application 14 Ibid.; pp. 226-7.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

common criminals. Too often, the theory has been taken criminal psychology can’t figure out. The motives of
into the less useful realm of attempting to understand normal humans are mysterious enough. How can we
the motives of these psychopaths. possibly expect to understand the motives of sexual
Law enforcement professionals, mental health experts, psychopaths?15
journalists and academics have spent their careers
examining the psychological makeup of serial murderers Yet, if the mantra of the real estate business is “Location,
in an attempt to understand what drives them to kill. If location, location!” that for many Ripperologists remains
they ever do come up with a theory that might explain “Motivation, motivation, motivation!“ This is so despite the
this, that’s fine. But I doubt it will happen. I’ve always many contemporary police officials and others involved
found human nature too perverse and mysterious to fit in the investigation of the Ripper murders who were
into the precise formulation of scientific models. convinced that no motive beyond insanity was at work and
I’m a detective, not a psychologist or profiler. I’m modern police professionals like Fuhrman who argue that
interested in only using the signature to connect victims serial killers’ minds are so twisted as to make any attempt
in order to catch the suspect... Signature is motive. at divining a rational motive a waste of time. Still, presenting
Understanding a serial killer’s motive as if I ever could a motive seems increasingly paramount for most theorists
is not going to help me identify the suspect. A detective and the question then presents itself as to why this is so.
doesn’t need to understand why the suspect kills. The
To begin with, it is entirely possible that some who
detective needs to know how he kills in order to catch
him.
promulgate motives for the Ripper that go beyond sexual
mania of one sort or another truly believe their theories.
Motive is the one thing you don’t have to prove in a
Nor should the wilder, more incredible motives necessarily
criminal trial. It might be important for the criminal
profiler or psychologist who is trying to understand be exempt from this possibility. Surely, there are those
how the mind of the serial killer works, and help law who do still believe in the Freeman conspiracy. Not many,
enforcement identify him or predict his next moves. thankfully, but a few. Moreover, there is the instance of a son
For a working detective, trying to figure out motive is a of the author of one of the more successful “alien abduction”
waste of time. It’s one thing to try to get into the serial books confiding to a mutual friend that his father “absolutely
killer’s head and to recreate his movements and actions believed every word he wrote on the subject.” And this was
at the crime scene. It’s something else entirely to try to a man most would otherwise consider a paragon of sense
understand why he’s doing it. and sobriety.
...Murder never makes sense. People kill because of Then, too, one must consider the charming, though
jealousy, anger, greed. Your marriage breaks up, your
doubtless apocryphal, story of the parishioner who found
business partner rips you off, you catch your girlfriend
his minister’s sermon notes for the coming Sunday with
in bed with your next door neighbor - are these good
marginalia that read “Argument weak here; shout like Hell.”
reasons to kill somebody? Even a revenge killing or
murder for hire might have a motive that is rational to That is, many suspect-based books and articles are sorely
the suspect, but still incomprehensible to the rest of us. lacking in actual - or even inferential - evidence that points
Detectives often trap themselves into thinking that if toward the preferred perpetrator. In those cases, you “shout
they understand the motive, they’ll understand the like Hell’ or at least drag in what might be a distracting theory
murder and be able to fit everything into a neat little of motivation. And if you can make that motive exciting (or
theory that will lead them to the killer. This is a fruitless even believable) then that is so much the better. It happens
pursuit that will only frustrate and distract a homicide all the time in order to sell both books and ideas. And most
detective, leading him or her further away from the authors are not quite so honest as Michael Harrison who
solution. once said in a BBC interview about Dr. Stowell’s theory that
Listen to the evidence. Let the evidence say what it is Prince Eddy was the Ripper: “I didn’t agree. But I couldn’t
going to say. If you don’t understand the motive and in leave the reader high and dry, so what I did was find
many cases I would be worried if I didn’t worry about somebody I thought was a likely candidate.”16
it. If the motive is obvious, that’s fine. But don’t waste
And thus did James K. Stephen become a Ripper suspect
any time, effort, or energy trying to figure out a killer’s
and disappointed homosexual love a motive.
motive.
Particularly in the case of serial murder, in which the
desire for violent sexual gratification is deeply rooted in
the twisted psyche of the killer.
...Sexual psychopaths are, by definition, irrational. A
working detective has no hope of understanding what 15 Mark Fuhrman; Murder in Spokane; Harper Collins (2001); pp. 50-51.
even experts who devote their lives to the study of 16 Begg et al.; op. cit.; p. 446.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Finally, though, there is quirk of human nature that British monarchy engineered by Freemasons, physicians,
without quite understanding what it is we crave, we do have artists, poets and amateur cricket players. For whatever
a great need for some seemingly rational explanation for reason, that somehow seems a lot more understandable
why things happen that goes beyond whim or insanity. As than the depredations of one hopelessly deranged soul.
discussed earlier, this works perfectly well for the writers That said, searching for a motive beyond mania in the
of detective fiction, but then when we open the pages
Ripper murders seems nothing but a snare and a delusion.
of such novels there is a willing suspension of disbelief
If one ever hopes to discover the Who it will not come
on our part. Our view of the real world is not so easily
from chasing after the chimera of Why. Certainly that is the
compartmentalized, however, and while events may happen
opinion of law enforcement professionals, then and now, so
that suggest there truly is insanity, even mindless evil, in the
perhaps the final word should be from that famed deputy
world we cannot accept such abstractions as explanations
sheriff of Mayberry, Bernard Fife. No matter how often Fife
of why things occur as they do.
sought to get through to his personal nemesis, criminally
And that is why when a political leader is assassinated
inclined hillbilly Ernest T. Bass, those attempts were ever
the likelihood of a lone, deranged gunman being responsible
doomed to failure. And, throwing up his hands in despair,
is rejected in favor of a conspiracy. Or why, after World War
Fife would always declare “He’s a nut!” We might do worse
I, it was necessary to convene congresses to lay the blame on
than say that about Jack the Ripper’s motivation and then
a cabal of arms merchants rather than the sheer diplomatic
move on from there.
ineptitude of most world leaders in the fall of 1914. Or why,
in the fall of 1888, the serial murder of East End prostitutes

was not the work of a single sexual psychopath, but that it
was a front for something more rational, like a bid to save This article first appeared in Ripperologist 110, January 2010.

THE WHITECHAPEL ALBUM

JACK THE RIPPER’S EAST END IN 1995

This 50-page hardback book features a nostalgic look

back at ‘Jack’s’ East End as it was captured, in colour, in
1995 by enthusiastic photographer and Ripperologist,
Ray Luff.

True Crime bookdealer Loretta Lay recently acquired

Ray’s catalogue of over 430 photographs, and with
Adam Wood’s expertise and in-depth knowledge of the
East End, the results have been published in this limited
edition book, with 87 carefully-selected photographs to
represent the area as it was 21 years ago, along with six
rare black/white photographs taken in the mid-1960s.

The book’s publication is limited to 100 numbered

copies, with very few remaining.

AVAILABLE FROM WWW.MANGOBOOKS.CO.UK

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The Devil in a Domino

By SIMON STERN

a Domino is an unusual contribution to this group. Most

of the Ripper-themed novels published during this period
were either detective stories (such as The Whitechapel
Murders: Or, On the Track of the Fiend by “Detective
Warren” [New York: Munro, 1888] and The Whitechapel
Murders: Or, an American Detective in London, by A. Frank
Pinkerton [Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1889]), or tales of the
supernatural (such as The Curse Upon Mitre Square, A.D.
1530-1888, by John Francis Brewer [London: Simpkin,
Marshall, 1888] and A Fatal Affinity: A Weird Story, by
Stuart C. Cumberland [London: Blackett, 1889]).
The Devil in a Domino is neither of these; instead, it
undertakes a psychological inquiry into the formation of
a serial killer. In fact, it is hard to tell whether the Ripper
murders inspired the author to write a story seeking to
explain the killer’s mentality, or whether the author,
having already chosen this as his subject, attempted
to make the story more topical by locating some of the
events in Whitechapel. In any case, the author’s concern
with a hereditary degenerative disorder as the basis of the
killer’s illness – a subject that is introduced on the novel’s
first page, and that is frequently reiterated throughout
the novel – makes the tale an intriguing contribution to
this early set of novels, predating Marie Belloc Lowndes’s
The Lodger (London: Methuen, 1913). It should be added
that the novel’s treatment of this question focuses almost
entirely on the issue of genetic heredity, rather than with
Published in December 1897, The Devil in a Domino social or developmental factors. This way of posing the
was among the first books to be released by Lawrence inquiry probably helps to account for some of the terrible
Greening & Co., which had set up shop at 20 Cecil reviews that the book elicited: the Edinburgh Evening News
Court earlier that year. called it a “peculiarly repulsive piece of writing, indicative
The book signaled its pseudonymous status giving the of the low and morbid type of so-called literature which
author’s name as “Chas. L’Epine,” in quotation marks, on is purveyed to a half-educated constituency,” while the
the title page. Appearing during the first wave of novels London Academy Fiction Supplement observed that if the
based on the Whitechapel killings of 1888, The Devil in author meant to “exemplify the most awful workings of

20
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

heredity,” he had succeeded “only by means too crude for Gull; so far, no other plausible candidate has been offered,
art.” and we may never be able to identify the author with
I first came across the novel several years ago, in certainty.
the course of some research on its publisher. After the
first edition, in 1897, Greening judged that the sales
warranted a “popular edition,” published in 1902, but the
latter evidently did not sell rapidly, because we see the
title included in Greening’s catalogue of available titles,
appended to other books they published as late as 1908.
Despite the publication of this second edition, there are
(as readers of this journal may know), only a handful of
libraries that own a copy of either one, and only one library
in the United States – the Texas Wesleyan University
Library. However, the librarians there kindly agreed to
lend their copy, through inter-library loan, and the book’s Book World, January 1898
publisher (James Jenkins, of Valancourt Books) and I are
The novel seemed worth reprinting, to James and me,
very grateful to them for permitting the loan.
for several reasons. Not only is it unusual among the
early Ripper-themed stories for the reason given above,
but its literary affinities are also striking. No one would
characterize The Devil in a Domino as a work aimed at a
cultivated or erudite audience (its reviewers certainly
did not), but the novel displays some intriguing links to
Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1886) and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/91)
– both novels that contemporaries also associated with
the Ripper murders. (Stevenson’s story was related to
the killings retroactively – in 1894, a commentator in
the London Athenaeum called it “an artistic reflex of
that mysterious series of crimes” – and one of the first
reviewers of Dorian Gray described the hero as “half Jack-
the-Ripper, half [Piers] Gaveston,” presented in a fashion
that lacked any “tact and restraint.”) In addition, the novel
is eminently readable, and it abounds in a kind of dry
humor that livens the narrative throughout; on the first
page, for instance, after declaring that the protagonist’s
mother “was a drunkard,” the author remarks, “This was a
Edinburgh Evening News, 23rd December 1897 pity, as she had her fine physical points, and was sober at
the wedding.” Both as a historical artefact and as work of
As to the author’s identity, Douglas A. Anderson has fiction, the novel deserves a wider audience.
made a convincing case for C. Ranger Gull, who went on
to publish many more novels with Greening, some of 
them with similar themes. So far as I know, none of the
The Devil in a Domino, with an introduction by Simon
others deal with serial killers, but his fiction often traffics
Stern, is available in hardcover, softcover and ebook
in conspiracy theories, murder, and insanity. For instance,
versions from www.valancourtbooks.com/the-devil-in-a-
one of his last novels, Cinema City (London: Hurst &
domino-1897.html
Blackett, 1922), features a crazed and avaricious film
director who has built his huge studio on stolen property, 
and who plans to create a movie in which the true heir
to the property will be killed on screen, in a reenactment SIMON STERN (Ph.D., English, UC Berkeley: J.D., Yale) is a professor
of law and English at the University of Toronto. His faculty web
of Saint Sebastian’s death (an early example of the snuff
page is www.law.utoronto.ca/faculty-staff/full-time-faculty/simon-
film). In the introduction to the new edition, I say more stern, and his publications can be downloaded at papers.ssrn.com/
about Anderson’s reasons for assigning the authorship to sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=782504.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Sir Arthur, Scotland Yard,

Sherlock Holmes and a
Serial Killer
A Very Tangled Skein
By DANIEL L. FRIEDMAN and EUGENE B. FRIEDMAN

The late summer of 1888 saw the world’s largest city circulated more than one million newspapers in a single
evolve into a modern day Pandemonium, all of it the week, a staggering half-million more ‘than the number
result of five horrific mutilations, all of them targeting ever circulated in any week by any other evening paper
women. During a four-month period, a sociopathic in London.”
lone wolf toyed with the collective psyche of the
Simultaneously, their was frenetic activity in city
people of London and had no difficulty manipulating
of London’s judicial departments as the courts were
the press nor the City of London’s Police Force and the
forced to confront the challenge of reviewing each bit
world-renowned Scotland Yard.
of the gory details and startling evidence that had been
This cunning madman possessed enough audacity uncovered during this crime spree. Owing to the technical
to send off hand-written letters to news agencies, sophistication that accompanied the first four of these
vigilance committees, and law enforcement. One of these mutilations, Police Surgeon Dr Rees Llewellyn held
correspondences became the talk of the town when its firm in his opinion that the autopsies he had personally
sender claimed he had posted it ‘From Hell.’ In another supervised on the Ripper’s first two victims, the 42-year-
letter, addressed to the newly formed Whitechapel old Mary Ann Nichols and 45-year-old Annie Chapman,
Vigilance Committee president, George Lusk, the author had sufficiently demonstrated that their killer had been
boasted that he had just finished dining on a portion of his well-trained in surgical procedures and possessed
latest victim’s kidney, and closed with a simple invitation detailed anatomical knowledge of the bodies in question.
to ‘Catch Me when You Can.’ A missive sent to the Central When divisional Police Surgeon George Bagster
News Agency from mid-September, concluded with a Phillips had been asked at the inquest of Annie Chapman
facetious valediction, ‘Good Luck, Yours truly. Jack the whether the murderer possessed surgical skills, Phillips
Ripper.’ And so, with a quick twist of his proverbial knife, responded, “Yes, the mode in which the intestines were
the Ripper was able to dig the wounds he had inflicted abstracted showed some anatomical knowledge.”
even deeper into the collective hearts of London. From Llewellyn’s and Phillips’s sentiments paralleled
that moment on, this self-assigned eponym, Jack the those of the famed Police Surgeon, Dr. Frederick Gordon
Ripper, has remained, and will remain, synonymous with Brown, who, after he had completed his post mortem
fear, terror, murder, and mayhem. examination on the Ripper’s fourth victim, emphatically
But it wasn’t the London press alone that took advantage stated that, “Yes, the killer of Catherine Eddowes had
of the more sensational aspects of these atrocities in shown considerable knowledge of the position of the
order to enrich their purses themselves. Similar tactics various organs and how they might be removed”.
were employed by the regional and international press One of the upshots of these inquests was public
to beef up their circulations. On September 15, 1888, consideration of the mystery that lurked behind Jack’s
The Star, the newspaper with the “largest circulation of motives to exact this terrible vengeance on these
any evening paper in the Kingdom,” boasted that it had unfortunate women. At this juncture, local vigilance

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committees sprang up (examples are Spitalfields, Mile murdered was anyone’s guess - as few as four, or, perhaps,
End, Jewish, East London Trade and Labourer’s Vigilance as many as a couple of dozen. The inability of the police
Committees) and moved themselves to action by setting to assign an exact number of deaths to his hand led to an
up neighbourhood watches designed to protect the local exponential increase in the fear factor.
citizenry and by offering a reward for the Ripper’s capture. Although all of the known Ripper victims had been
There was a general perception that the police seemed prostitutes, they should not be subjected to harsh
incapable of dealing with the situation at hand. prejudgment. After all, most of these unfortunates were so
With a panicked public demanding action, Parliament impoverished that, in order for them to subsist, or merely
began discussing whether or not to offer a financial exist, they were given no choice but to ply their trade on
incentive to bring the Ripper to justice. At the centre of all the dangerous streets of the East End, to drum up the
this controversy was the British government’s steadfast few shillings they needed to pay their daily rents at the
adherence to its traditional no reward policy. During the local doss houses. Although both of London’s police forces
Mary Ann Nicholls inquest, a disgruntled jury foreman were mobilized to find him, the Ripper remained several
opined that “If a substantial reward had been offered by the steps ahead of them, which made his proper identification
Home Secretary in the case of the murder in George-yard, impossible.
these two horrible murders would not have happened.” Four years later, on December 2, 1892, Arthur Conan
This statement immediately made Home Secretary Doyle, along with fellow luminaries Jerome K. Jerome
Matthews the target for the London press because of his (author of Three Men in a Boat and editor of The Idler),
staunch political stance against financial remuneration. It Dr. Philip F. Gilbert (medical officer at both Newgate and
wasn’t long before the Lord Mayor of the City of London Holloway prisons) and E.W. Hornung (author of Raffles and
offered specified sums of money to anyone who could Conan Doyle’s brother-in law), received special invitations
bring the Ripper to justice. Unfortunately, neither pound to New Scotland Yard’s own Black Museum, so they could
nor pence were ever paid out. look through its amazing collection of photographs,
In the spirit of the day, both the Metropolitan and the newspaper clippings, and relics, ‘all connected in one way
City of London Police Forces, decided to adopt a Darwinian or another with crime and criminals’1
approach to what was going on, and an immediate
redistribution of manpower was put into effect, on that
placed emphasis on the Whitechapel district. Some officers
were sent out in groups and worked in plain clothes. Soon,
constables were nailing discarded pieces of rubber they
had obtained from bicycle tires onto the soles of their
clunky regulation boots so that they could move around
surreptitiously. In essence, the Ripper investigation led to
the invention of today’s sneaker. And, although they were
never called into action by the Bobbies, two bloodhounds
named Barnaby and Burgho, were ‘recruited’ by Police
Commissioner Charles Warren to track down the Ripper’s
scent.
Unlike any of suspects who appear in Doyle’s Holmes
tales, Jack the Ripper possessed an uncanny ability to elude
detection by anyone who ever tried to catch a glimpse of
him, let alone, apprehend him - whether it be the police,
vigilance committees, neighbourhood watches, security
guards, night watchmen, tradesmen, or anyone else who
happened to be out and about. Jack’s supernatural ability
to foil any attempt to bring him to the gallows served only
to add to his mystique and growing legend.
But then, the Ripper killings simply came to end
Arthur Conan Doyle
with unexpected suddenness. Paradoxically, this abrupt
cessation of activity compounded the apprehension of the
people of London. Just how many women the Ripper had 1 Chamber’s Journal 1885, pp 264.

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remember going to the Scotland

Yard Museum and looking at the
letter which was received by
the police, and which purported
to come from the Ripper. Of
course, it may have been a hoax,
but there were reasons to think
it genuine, and in any case, it
was well to find out who wrote
it. It was written in red ink in a
clerkly hand. I tried to think how
Holmes might have deduced the
writer of that letter. The most
obvious point was that the letter
was written by someone who
had been in America. It began
‘Dear Boss,’ and contained the
phrase, ‘fix it up,’ and several
others which are not usual with
the Britishers. Then we have
the quality of the paper and the
The Black Museum’s collection of over 150 grisly and
handwriting, which indicates
ghastly curiosities was laid out ‘to allow free inspection that the letters were not written by a toiler. It was
of the various objects.’ Plaster casts representing the good paper, and a round, easy, clerkly hand. He was,
heads of sundry criminals and hangman’s kits containing therefore, a man accustomed to the use of a pen.
pinioning gear, halter, and cap were on exhibit, as well as a
Having determined that much, we can not avoid the
vast array of criminal work tools, that included crowbars
inference that there must be somewhere letters which
(with names such as the Lord Mayor, the Alderman, and this man had written over his own name or documents
the Common councilman), picklocks, skeleton keys, or accounts that could be readily traced to him. Oddly
centre-bits, brass knuckle-dusters, pistols, life preservers, enough, the police did not, as far as I know, think
daggers, razors, knives and all other types of weaponry. of that, and so they failed to accomplish anything.
Among the other objects that Doyle and his fellow Holmes’s plan would have been to reproduce the
visitors observed were the folding ladder that had been letters facsimile and on each plate indicate briefly
the peculiarities of the handwriting. Then publish
used by Charles Peace during his failed escape attempt
these facsimiles in the leading newspapers of Great
from Wakefield prison, the chisel used by the Dalston
Britain and America, and in connection with them
murderer, the bulls-eye lantern that had been foolishly
offer a reward to anyone who could show a letter or
left behind by Fowler and Milsom (the Muswell Hill
any specimen of the same handwriting. Such a course
murderers), and skin belonging to John Bellingham (the would have enlisted millions of people as detectives
man who murdered Prime Minister Spencer Perceval). in the case.
Although relics of the 1872 Wainwright (Whitechapel)
murder case were on display (the cigar which Henry What is quite important is that Conan Doyle viewed
Wainwright was smoking when arrested, a piece of the Ripper as being ‘a sharp man’, while he shrewdly
the shinbone and a button from the dress of his victim, confessed that he was ‘not in the least degree either sharp
Harriet Lane, along with the spade he had used to dig her or an observant man’. With just a single stroke of the pen,
grave), Conan Doyle concentrated primarily on the more Conan Doyle was able to place the Ripper on a plane higher
recent Whitechapel murder cases of 1888. He scrutinized than the rest of us mortals. When he described the ink
Jack the Ripper’s infamous ‘Dear Boss’ letter, and when used by the Ripper as being red in colour and the paper
interviewed, he told the world “How ‘Sherlock Holmes’ of being of good quality, Doyle was telling his readers that
Would Have Tracked’ the Ripper.” he had actually seen the genuine article up close, and not
just a facsimile of that document. After his discussion
With a bit of false humility, Doyle pronounced that:
of the round, clerkly penmanship of the author,2 Conan
I am not in the least degree either sharp or an Doyle offered a hypothesis of his own - that the letter had
observant man myself. I try to get inside the skin of been authored by someone who must have hailed from
a sharp man and see how things would strike him. I America. Doyle based it on phrases such as ‘Dear Boss’

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and ‘Fix it Up’, perhaps failing to remember that only a from Sherlock Holmes, and had been asked to track down
half-dozen years before, he had affectionately referred to the notorious Jack the Ripper, he and Dr. Watson, would
his mentor, Dr. Reginald Hoare, as ‘the boss’ whenever he have been out searching for a brilliant American writer (or
spoke of him, and as “Dear Boss” whenever he wrote to someone who knew Americanisms) midwife/obstetrician
him. Interestingly, the opening line of his 1881 short story, who walked the London streets in a deerstalker hat and
A Night Among the Nihilists, is, “Robinson, the boss wants navy pea coat and addressed his letters ‘Yours truly’ and
you!” and his The Stone of Boxman’s Drift (December 1887), ‘Dear Boss’.
has Big Bill Stewart responding to Headley Dean, “All right,
boss.” 2 Perhaps a nod to Charles Lamb; Harper’s Monthly Magazine; 1855
The phrase, ‘fix it up’ was an old railroad term in common page 568.

usage in Victorian England and Doyle actually employed it

himself in his 1893 Sherlock Holmes tale, The Adventure of REFERENCES
the Stockbroker’s Clerk when Hall Pycroft cries out, “Those “London Tragedies.” The Daily Telegraph, October 5, 1888: 1. Offering of a
are the company’s offices into which he has gone. Come £500 reward for the capture of the Ripper.
with me and I’ll fix it up as easily as possible.” “The Murders in the East-End.” The London Standard, October 2, 1888:
It is also an undeniable fact that Conan Doyle wrote 3. ‘Offer of a Reward. The Lord Mayor has offered a £500 reward.
Additionally, private rewards from Mr. Montagu, Alfred Kirby, and the
An American’s Tale well before he had ever set foot in the Vigilance Committee would more than double the amount offered from
United States, and yet he was able to craft that story with the Lord Mayor.
absolute mastery of the vernacular of the Wild West. And so, “Two More Women Horribly Murdered.” London Mid Surrey Times and
if Jack the Ripper was truly Doyle’s intellectual superior, we General Advertiser, October 6, 1888: 3. Watkins saw a body outside of
would have no reason to doubt that the Ripper would have Taylor and Co, Picture-Frame Makers. He claimed that some intestines
stuffed into her neck wound; ‘Diemsitiz’ returns from Crystal Palace with
been reading stories by American authors of the calibre of
his wares; col b, Offer of Rewards, Scene of the Crimes (Map); Inquest of
a Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Bret Harte. When the Fifth Victim; col c, List of the East-End Murders (1- unknown, Osborne
Conan Doyle stated that he regarded that Jack the Ripper and Wentworth street, 2- Martha Turner, 3- Nicholls, 4- Chapman, 5-
was no toiler to the art of writing, that opinion was based Elizabeth Stride, 6- unknown (Mitre-Square)
on the combination of high quality paper and impressive “The Whitechapel Horrors.” Evening News (London), October 2, 1888: 3.
penmanship. A 1,200 pound reward is offered for the Ripper’s capture. The Evening
News asked ‘Why weren’t the bloodhounds used?’ A man named Baskert
Conan Doyle died in 1930, but years later, his son Adrian stated that, ‘On Saturday night, about seven minutes to 12, I entered
recollected that his father was convinced that the Ripper the Three Nuns Hotel, Aldgate. While in there an elderly woman, very
‘had a rough knowledge of surgery and probably clothed shabbily dressed, came in and asked me to buy some matches. I refused
and she went out. A man who had been standing by me remarked that
himself as a woman to avoid undue attention by the police
those persons were a nuisance, to which I responded “Yes.”... He then asked
and to approach his victims without arousing suspicion me if I knew how old some of the women were who were in the habit of
on their part.” Although plausible, it is improbable that soliciting outside.”
the Ripper could have been a midwife (as the term was “Old World News by Cable.” New York Times, October 7, 1888: 1. ‘If it
used to describe what we now call obstetricians). And, so, should happen when Parliament meets that the strange assassin is still
Doyle’s Jill the Ripper loses all credibility with the tragic undiscovered, or if more of these horrible crimes be committed and the
perpetrator is tracked by outsiders, there would be a storm of indignation
events accompanying the first four murders are subjected
let loose in St. Stephen’s under which certainly Mr. Matthew and very
to a detailed look. The only reliable eyewitness accounts possibly his associates would go down.’
regarding the Ripper’s appearance had him wearing a navy
Morning Advertiser: November 21, 1888: The Whitechapel Murders.
pea-coat and deerstalker hat, an outfit strangely worn by Spitalfields Vigilance Committee mentioned.
Conan Doyle’s master detective, Sherlock Holmes.
Wensley, Frederick, Forty Years of Scotland Yard. Doubleday, Duran, and Co.
And so, if Inspector Lestrade had asked for a consultation Garden City, New York. 1933.

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Please send your submissions to contact@ripperologist.biz
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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Jack in Four Colors

By DAVE M GRAY

Do you remember when Jack the Ripper made his If we are to discuss Jack’s appearances in comic books
Marvel Comics debut by traversing time and space, we’ll simply have to sub-categorize. It’s too unwieldy,
joined a gang with Blackbeard and Jesse James, only too farcical, and too serious by turns to be looked at as
to lose a fight with Captain America? Of course not! No some sort of whole. We can’t talk about a grim and serious
one does. Still, it happened in Timely Comic’s All Select approach to, say, the Royal Conspiracy, in the same breath
Volume 1 #7 published in 1945, before our society got as a Japanese series where Jack is a teenage boy in an
collector fever for everything on the planet. Only a obsessive love triangle with teenage Abberline and teacher
handful of copies still exist and all of those are kept Mary Kelly, or the time Barnabas Collins and Vampirella
in plastic bags stuffed inside vaults that will never teamed up to track down Jack in New York, or Sergio
allow a wisp of air or single fleeting ray of sunlight Bonelli Editore’s multi-title horror and mystery universe
penetrate their dark recesses. fumetti (All right. Those last two go together pretty well.
Throw in his resurrection by the Necronomicon Exmortis
and we have something there). Not only would it take far
too long to scratch the surface, it would confuse us all.
We will focus instead on the most popular form in the
medium, Superheroes. While Jack’s shadow has stalked
the corners of adult fiction, speculation and conversation,
it spent just as long festering in the shadows, lurking in
the minds of youth and the stories that spoke to them
(traditionally, let’s not argue about Superheroes being for
adults, ok? Thanks).
Jack has shown up in books from all the major
publishers, and most of the minor ones too. In these
appearances he is usually more monstrous than
adult views would allow him to be, an embodiment
of the creatures in the dark waiting for the reader.
Jack has had some great appearances in his tussles with
costumed crusaders, the height being his tangles with DC
Comic’s big guns Batman, in the one shot that launched
the popular Elseworlds stories Gotham by Gaslight, and
Wonder Woman, in Amazonia, another Elseworlds title.
To be honest, Jack has had even more lows, often taking
up a lackey role to greater series antagonists.
Let’s start with the lows, shall we? Many of those reside
with the other big bastard in the industry - Marvel Comics.
It’s more fun that way... and you’ll be desperate to hear me
wax lyrical about it by the time I get there (Scoot over, P.T.

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Barnum, you mustachioed wonder).

Though Jack’s first appearance in Marvel Comics’
Earth-616, the main continuity dimension of Marvel and
predecessors Timely and Atlas, ended more than a little
embarrassingly for him, it would not be his last. The
Ripper of Earth-616 would eventually be revealed as a
gaggle of soul-corrupting parasites that were a fun little
joke the Dark Dimension’s sorcerer king Dormammu (you
might recall him as the Giant Evil Head from 2016’s Doctor
Strange movie) decided to play on an English kyphotic
named Tom Mulverne. Poor Tom didn’t just have a hunch;
he also had terrible luck and some psychotic tendencies.
He was mentally tormented by the parasites until he
succumbed to their madness to sate their lust for bloody
terror. In exchange, they did him a solid by giving him a
perfectly-formed human body while on the hunt. This is
more than you can usually expect from the minions of Not that this would be the end of Marvel’s Ripper. You
Dormammu. Wanting to keep his killer form full time, simply cannot keep a good demonic parasite down. Not
Tom sought out a coven of vampires. The vampires offered for long anyway. It was the 70s and the Marvel bullpen was
to give him eternal life in his killer bod if he consumed too unwilling to let such a plot device go. Not when they
human blood before December 31st. This command set had so many fields to run through. So began the migration
Tom out on the killing spree of five increasingly vicious of Jack side stories that would fill the pages of several
and brutal murders from August to November 1888. Marvel books.
These are a slightly sanitized version of the real Ripper
murders to meet the comics code requirements still
being highly enforced at the time. Tom just couldn’t bring
himself to drink human blood. His rage at his impotence
to consume drove him to increase his brutality on each
successive victim, finally culminating with the shockingly
vicious butchery of Mary Kelly, the victim whose blood he
was determined to taste. Just as he was about to chug her
quickly-cooling blood, Tom found himself in the middle of
1977 Manhattan, pulled there by Deviant scientist Zakka’s
Time Projector.
This sudden unexpected change of venue did nothing to
slow Tom down. He immediately took to stalking a young
woman in her apartment building. Things would seem
pretty dire for her, except you can never underestimate
how good Earth-616 superheroes are at timing. Just before
Tom could get down to his business, the Eternals, Thena
and Ransak the Reject, decided to stick their noses into
things. Tom/Jack suffered a complete and thorough defeat
at the hands of Ransak. Just before the reject could end his
life Tom was pulled back again to 1888, a very short time
before the deadline passed.
Like, Tom had terrible luck. Torn apart, discarded in a
shallow grave under his nom de guerre. Don’t weep for our
hunchback friend, though, as he occasionally still makes
appearances haunting and killing those who dare disturb
his grave, as recently as May 2014.

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Marvel would fold an old Atlas-released Astonishing on a movie set in the first place, but apparently OSHA
Tales Jack the Ripper story about an unidentified man doesn’t exist on Earth-616. Taking the name Zaniac for his
digging up Jack’s grave and being attacked by the corpse own, having a small little killing spree where he targets
inside to set the groundwork for his return. This story was women with his “Knife of Love” and simply beats men to
returned to continuity in Journey into Mystery volume 2 death with his “Fist of Hate” (I couldn’t make this stuff up),
#2, an authorized, but changed to fit in universe, retelling he is quickly subdued by the God of Thunder and for the
of Robert Bloch’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. This issue first time carted off to prison. Being a superbeing in this
explained that every host assumed the same physical form form means that he still doesn’t stand trial, but who needs
when on the hunt or engaging in other illicit activities. a justice system that works when you have Norse gods?
In an industry that has never been very bothered with That’s right, we all would even more than ever.
fully explaining chronology, the more open the easier to
fill in a decade on a whim, Earth-616’s Jack would soon
turn up in modern day Chicago, finding a succession of
new hosts, as the lackey of Sax Rohmer’s racist caricature
supervillain Fu Manchu in the pages of The Hands of Shang-
Chi Master of Kung Fu #100. The equally racist caricature
hero of the book would have a number of dealings with
Jack the Ripper in many host bodies, most notably the
body of Fu Manchu’s daughter’s lover, Philip, who would
use the name The Mad Slayer. Each time Shang-Chi would
emerge victorious with a kick to the head, which must
have been terribly frustrating for the parasites, but I’m not
sure they can get concussions.

Zaniac would return in Thor #372 & #373, where we

learn in one of the endless possible distant futures that
During this period, Marvel’s Jack the Ripper dabbled Zaniac has managed to kick off a world war. Time travel
with similar themes as Matt Wagner’s Grendel series, the shenanigans ensue, Thor saves the day, and that future is
idea of violence and psychosis as an actual spreadable possibly avoided. Unless they decide to dip back into that
disease. Though unlike Grendel, Marvel only seems to specific well, which would make a ton of sense as Thor
have toyed with the idea instead of using it to embrace is now the name being used by the original’s 40-year-
and expand into deeper questions on our humanity. Of long off and on and off and on and off and on again
course, one could argue that Master of Kung Fu wasn’t the romantic interest Jane Foster. It could be a real blast to
place for that kind of thinking. With the title’s popularity see her pummel Zaniacs over multiple issues. Or not. That
beginning to fade and Marvel losing the license to the Fu kind of idea is probably why Marvel doesn’t return my
Manchu character - which makes collecting these older calls and calls security when I root through their trash.
Shang-Chi storylines a bit tricky even though Shang-Chi Jack would sit on the bench for almost twenty years,
still kicks around - the Ripper parasite started to show up making only a handful of tertiary appearances. These
in other places. included being a minion of Mister Sinister in the fifth
In Thor #317, one parasite’s host is an actor named season of Fox’s 1990s X-Men cartoon, being one of a gaggle
Brad Wolfe who is working on a horror movie titled of Hell Pirates that hunted both the X-Men and Ghost Rider
Zaniac (Get it? That is a reference to William Lustig’s in the early 2000s for a few panels, and a couple of issues
Maniac, which features an incredibly sincere and daring of an Italian Wolverine series. It was a long wait before
performance by the late Joe Spinell.). Wolfe, who already being called back into major service for the 2007 six-issue
has his own issues with women, gets super strength Wisdom mini-series released under the MAX imprint. Pete
after being caught in an explosion of some rather vague Wisdom is a mutant secret-agent working for the British
radioactive something that probably shouldn’t have been Secret Service MI-13 division, working alongside Captain

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Midlands (the UK’s answer to Captain America) and an takes a shine to our intrepid reporter, using his otherworldly
Intergalactic type Alien John Lennon impersonator (before powers to protect her at all cost and driving ol’ Supes away
you ask - yes, the other Beatles also have alien imposters), with visions of his dead mother. Caspar he isn’t. Before it’s
and served as primary government contact of the long all over the ghost whisks Lois back to 1888 Whitechapel
running UK-based superhero group Excalibur. and prepares to make her the next Ripper victim. Yeah, it’s
In Wisdom issue #4, “Too Man Jacks”, every Marvel a dream. You spotted that, huh? ‘Course ya did.
iteration of Jack the Ripper make their return bringing
with them every other version of Jack that anyone has
ever thought of for good measure. Or so it claims. I know
I didn’t see my personal pet theory in the mix - an Albino
Turtle Clown with a glass eye and razor-lined bowler hat.
The Jacks reappear again in the sixth and final issue as well.
This is, arguably, Jack’s finest hour from the House That
Stan Built.
Confession - I skipped one. A major one, but there are
reasons for this. Jack the Ripper’s penultimate major hurrah
for Marvel was May 1988 with the Cloak & Dagger one-
shot graphic novel titled Predator & Prey. This book fills in
details of Jack arriving in the United States and the reason
so few of the parasites are running around. Honestly, it’s not
a very good story. It is rushed and makes all the nonsense
before it look more reasonable. Cloak & Dagger are getting
their own TV series on the teenager focused Freeform cable
network in the near future, and despite mind-numbingly
epic amounts of goofiness it is actually fairly important to
the characters, so there are decent odds that Marvel’s Jack
the Ripper will be making his way to the MCU. There is no
other reason to bother with it. Your humble guide through
these tales is unable to give proper treatment here and
prefers not to try.
All of that is offered to illustrate how superhero comics
usually handle most topics. While occasionally brilliantly, it
is usually a convoluted mess that can barely be deciphered
by the casual reader and appears to be mostly the worst Jack wouldn’t make another main continuity appearance
gibberish to those without the barest level of initiation. until July 2001 in Supergirl volume 4 #58. While trying to
There is no arguing that Marvel’s fumbling with Jack get help for her demon guide Buzz, Supergirl - the third
the Ripper is breathtaking in its wrongness. For once, it one by the way - learns his history. A demon that has been
is the complete opposite of DC Comics’. DC has mostly around since Caligula’s rule over Rome. She also learns that
held the urge for completely crass exploitation in check. Buzz has been pretty busy with his casual evil. Name pretty
Keeping Jack the Ripper to their more horror thriller and much any event and Buzz probably had a hand in it. The
adult-themed Vertigo imprint titles, usually just a passing assassination of Lincoln? Yeah, Buzz talked John Wilkes
reference, and to their Elsewhere titles that exist outside Booth into it. Jack the Ripper? Also Buzz’s fault. He cajoled,
of main continuity. Not that they haven’t given into the guided, and worked as a partner in Joe’s killings.
temptation to have Saucy Jack make a pair of appearances. Multiple universes are not a new concept to comic books.
Spoiler - in the main DC continuity Jack the Ripper DC Comics has played with them since the 1940s as a way
is Joseph Barnett. His first appearance can be found in to get around creative restrictions. Going under the banner
Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane volume 1 #108 published of “Imaginary Stories”, these out of continuity stories, most
in February 1971. After interviewing an English emigrant prevalent in the early 1960s in Superman titles, allowed
who claims Jack the Ripper to be the rotten fruit on his their creators to write about the deaths of characters, have
family tree, Lois is attacked by a group of thieves. For the bad guys win, and place their hero in new histories. Bruce
first time in the history of her existence she is not saved by Wayne and Clark Kent could be raised together, Superman
the Man of Steel. She is saved by a ghost. The ghost really could be Communist or Tarzan or Buck Rogers. Clark Kent

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and Lois Lane could get married... which they did... a lot... at least - my knowledge is only based on Johnny Depp
every freaking month or two... so often that when they movies, Beatles interviews and BBC costume dramas from
would pull a similar stunt, usually as a sting for some article the 1980s. It steadfastly refuses to indulge in the steampunk
they were writing, in the main continuity DC would have sci-fi trappings that so many works set in the Victorian era
to put disclaimers on the cover that this issue was not an have recently indulged in (can not say the same for the
Imaginary Story. Imaginary Stories fell out of favor through sequel, Master of the Future, which is included in the most
out most of the 1970s and ‘80s before being relaunched in recent editions). Tucked away in it’s panels are some nods
a major way. to actual suspects and theories. Prince Eddy and William
In February 1989 Gotham by Gaslight hit the shelves of Gull have a brief walk on cameo, Sickert is name checked.
comic shops. The 52-page one-shot was written by Brian
Augustyn, his first solo written title after only three years
as an editor in the industry, illustrated by Mike Mignola,
who would soon go on to create cult favorite Hellboy for
Dark Horse Comics, and edited by Mark Ward, whose best-
known work would be an acclaimed eight-year run on The
Flash edited by Augustyn, with an in-universe introduction
written in the style of a Ripper letter by Robert Bloch.
Set in an alternate 1889, Bruce Wayne is returning home
to Gotham at the end of his final training trip where he
studied under a “famous London detective” and some guy
in Vienna named Freud. After being given a rundown on the
current state of crime in the city by Inspector Gordon, who
sports a very Teddy Roosevelt-inspired look, Bruce soon
dons the cowl and takes to the streets for a little nighttime
hunting. Jack begins his own hunt, complete with taunting
postcards, soon afterward. It is understandable to assume
that a character like Batman would immediately spring-
heel into action against a well-known and brutal serial
killer appearing in his city. This Batman doesn’t. Instead,
he chooses to stay out of it, preferring to err on the thinking
that stopping the Ripper would make the public less afraid
of the Bat himself. Which is perception he definitely does
not want to endanger. Of course, he won’t be allowed to
stay out of it for too long. Finding himself framed for the
Ripper murders, Bruce soon owns his Greatest Detective
moniker as it takes him four and a half pages, less than half
the space it took Judge Dredd, several million dollars less To underestimate Gotham by Gaslight’s influence and
than Patricia Cornwall and fifteen years faster than Bruce legacy is a mistake. Not only has it remained one of the most
Robinson, from his cell using newspaper clippings and popular one-shots in the publisher’s history, though usually
local police reports. Quickly followed by a denouement and coming behind The Killing Joke and Batman: Red Rain
some head scratching questions about how no one figures (Dracula vs Batman), it has served as an opening to many
out Batman’s identity after looking at his cell. interests in the Ripper case and true crime in general. It is
While it isn’t as well-researched or as deep an exploration a common first step for many of my generation and those
of crime and theme as another Jack the Ripper comic that behind us before From Hell and Rumbelow. It spawned
started publication in early 1989, Gotham by Gaslight is a a flood of other alternate universe titles, a temporarily
good read. It moves along quickly and doesn’t bog itself canceled video game adaptations (developer THQ was
down in theories, suspects or rationalization. Mignola’s run by brain-damaged donkeys who forgot to pay their
art style is a fantastic complement to the setting. Its simple bills and went bankrupt, the rights are still tied up in the
styling with a strong command of form and shade, richly- liquidation), and the world it built still makes appearances
textured backgrounds and strong use of establishing shots in the mainstream DC continuity.
bring this version of Gotham to moody life. Augustyn’s Gotham by Gaslight is also the just-announced next
dialog is to the point and era appropriate... as far as I know release in Warner Brother’s successful DC animated film

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

franchise. Scheduled to be released in 2018, the film will of Whitechapel. By the end of the books that belief is
take the same basic premise, but greatly expand on the shattered; there is some garbage about a drug that removes
story. Using an Agatha Christie-inspired fair-play mystery the femininity from men, and a lot of Englishwomen get
approach to the story, it promises to bring in more powers that are not explained or given any satisfying use
characters and Bat lore to the Victorian age. Tragically, it that you would think would happen in such a society.
also appears to have fallen into the steampunk trap. Though While the book is mostly a painfully heavy-handed slog to
you can’t not expect that at least a bit when focusing on a read that confuses depth with convolution and illustrations
guy who wears his Underoos on the outside and wears a that are muddled or difficult to follow the action of. That
funny balaclava like that. There has been little actual news doesn’t mean it is not without some interesting ideas
on it, but a hype video is available on YouTube, where you and winks. It does spare Mary Kelly’s life, so there’s that
can see the screenwriter dressed like he robbed a vampire aberration of time for a couple of winking comments and a
working at Hot Topic. The adaptation will be a huge cameo. Please don’t ask me to talk about the ending; it’s too
success; unlike their live-action travesties DC can do some goofy even for this overview.
damn fine cartoons, and probably worth keeping an eye out Actually, so is the final DC Elseworlds Ripper book, JLA:
in your store or digital platform of choice. The Island of Dr Moreau. Dr Moreau makes his usual people/
animal hybrids, but this time they are all reworkings of
Justice League members. Moreau brings his menagerie to
London, swears they will catch Jack the Ripper. They do.
It turns out he’s another creation of the Doc. Everyone
dies. Being terribly written by legend in the medium Roy
Thomas only makes it all that much more disappointing.
Thomas’ Dracula series for Marvel is worth reading for any
fans of the Count. This book’s only real positive is that it is
well-illustrated by Steve Pugh. There’s really no reason to
bother with it.
Batman wouldn’t be the only DC hero to take on Saucy
There you have it. A very exhausting, for your far-from-
Jack in an Elseworlds book. It was too successful the first
humble guide anyway, look at how the major publishers
time. You have to hit wells until they run dry in this industry.
have worked Jack the Ripper into their worlds with varying
No, Jack would have two more run chances to prove himself
degrees of success. The low-lights and the mid-lights. If
against more of The World’s Greatest Superheroes.
you enjoy kung-fu goofiness from the 70s, Master of Kung
Published in 1997, Wonder Woman: Amazonia, written by Fu does have some collected volumes, but character rights
William Messner-Loebs and illustrated by Phil Winslade, is issues and general modern cultural views on representation
the story of what happens when Queen Victoria and almost make them rare with some rather large gaps and I don’t
the entire English royal family burns to death one night in think any of the Ripper storylines are completely collected.
1888, leaving only a brain-damaged and wheelchair-bound Wisdom is a lot of fun. Gotham by Gaslight is legitimately
due to his recovery from his illness Prince Eddy and their good and should make for an interesting expanded movie
mysterious American cousin Jack Planter. When cousin adaption. Amazonia has its heart in the right place, even if it
Jack assumes the throne things go very, very poorly for the lacks the necessary skill to pull it off.
women of the kingdom. King Jack’s hate for women spreads
through his subjects. Women must be chained to their 
spouses when out, females of the lower classes disappear
DAVE M GRAY lives with two out of three loves of his life, a flat-
every night never to be seen again. All rights are suspended
coat retriever named Phineas and an American Shorthair named
in a crushing patriarchy. Elvira Grace. He can be heard every week on Raiders of the Podcast,
So it makes perfect sense for this to be the society that discussing a wide spectrum of movies with a multinational group of
miscreants and snobs. Dave is a former heavyweight sumo wrestler,
discovers the Amazonian’s Paradise Island. Diana Prince is fusion chef and pet psychic. Forged in a 1970s experiment to create
the star attraction in Steven Trevor’s Museum of Oddities. the ultimate warlord, based on an amalgam of Leonardo Da Vinci
She has been such a draw that Mr Trevor’s station in life plans and Zeppo Marx patents, he instead chose to follow his dreams
of floral arrangement and became a jackass of all trades. When asked
is improving dramatically. Diana remembers her years on
to talk about himself he invariably and heavily lies. He can usually
Paradise Island as if they were a dream, and lives with the be found in Maryland areas not nearly close enough to the Bay for
belief that she is just another street urchin from the streets his taste.

31
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Mayweather vs. McGregor

Victorian style
How John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan
put on the first “super fight” between
America and Ireland
By BRIAN YOUNG
The whole world was talking about it. Media outlets or wrestler than a boxer. However, this was before the
on both sides of the Atlantic would not stop promoting Marquis of Queensberry Rules for boxing1 were the
it. The Irish-born “fighter” was about to take on the accepted rules for the prize ring. Boxing was still fought
American who many considered the greatest boxer of in most places under the London Prize Rules,2 which
his era. The boxer got to choose the rules, and it would
allowed a fighter to throw his opponent, or even wrestle
take place on American soil. The public passionately
him to the ground wherein winning a round. And unlike
backed their man each side believing they could
today, Boxing rounds were not timed under these rules,
not lose. The fans of the Irishman thought, being
a grappler and naturally bigger, he would simply and a round lasted until one or both men were knocked to
outsize his opponent. The backers of the American the ground in accordance with the rules.
knew his skills, as a “pure boxer” would give him a Ryan was a quick learner, and under the tutelage of
decided advantage. This was after all his sport, his Killoran, was ready in three short years to square off
rules and his country. against Joe Goss, who at the time was recognized as
Sound familiar? Of course I’m talking about the much- heavyweight champion. On May 30th 1880 in Collier’s
hyped mega fight between Connor McGregor and Floyd Station, West Virginia, after 87 rounds (a full 90 minutes
Mayweather Jr. right? Well, yes and no, because 135 of fighting), Paddy Ryan, the “Trojan Giant”, was victorious
years ago, on February 7th 1882, Irish-born Paddy Ryan and crowned Heavyweight Champion (of America or of
entered the prize ring against American John L. Sullivan in the World, depending on the source at the time).
the Victorian Era’s version of this Super Fight.
John L. Sullivan, “The Boston Strong Boy,” is considered
Paddy Ryan was born on March 15th 1851 in Thurles, by most historians to be the first sporting hero of the
Tipperary, Ireland, but moved to Troy, New York at an early United States. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts on
age. Here he earned the nickname “The Trojan Giant”. Ryan October 15th 1858 to Irish immigrant parents who wanted
ran a saloon in Troy in 1874, and once, while “dealing” their boy to become a Catholic priest. In 1875, Sullivan
with some drunks, he was spotted by Jim Killoran, the was enrolled at Boston College. Rather than studying for
Athletic Director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. the priesthood he began playing the newly-professional
Killoran decided to take it upon himself to train Ryan and sport of Base-ball (baseball was a strictly amateur game
turn the brutish saloon keeper into a prizefighter. Ryan, a until 1869). By 18 years of age John Sullivan was earning
naturally gifted athlete at 6 feet 2 inches tall (according
to some sources, 5 foot 11 by others, but what is a few
1 Established in 1867 by John Sholto Douglas, the Marquis of
inches when it comes to larger-than-life figures) and in Queensberry.
peak shape weighing between 180 and 200 pounds was a 2 Established in 1838, later revised in 1853) drafted by Jack
“fighter” in the purest sense of the word, more a grappler Broughton in 1743.

32
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

up to $40 a week (approximately $700 a week by today’s Mississippi, where this fight was to take place. That
standards) playing base-ball. In an interview with the “technicality” did not stop the media from talking openly
Denver Tribune in 1883 Sullivan said “...I threw my books about the fight. The public was enthralled with the sport
aside and gave myself up to it. This is how I got into the and with John L Sullivan in particular. Law or no law, this
base-ball profession and I left school for good and all. From fight would take place and the papers would write about
the base-ball business I drifted into boxing and pugilism.”3 it.
As a professional boxer, Sullivan is credited with 44 fights A headline from the St. Louis Globe–Democrat from
(40 wins, 1 loss and 2 draws with 34 knockouts and 1 Sunday, January 29th 1882 reads:
no contest), but the Great John L. also went on “touring
SULLIVAN AND RYAN
exhibition” tours, where he would offer people money to
How the Heavy Weights Are Preparing for the
fight him. It is estimated that Sullivan fought between 400
Meeting a Week from Tuesday
and 500 of these non-sanctioned fights!
This article goes on to discuss, in detail, the training
camps, where the fighters were staying and many other
facts that could have clued anyone in law enforcement in
on how to prevent this “spectacle”.
A New York Times headline from February 7th 1882
(the day of the fight) reads as follows:

THE EXPECTED PRIZE-FIGHT:

THE PRINCIPLES ON THEIR WAY TO
THE FIGHTING GROUND

Again, no secrets. The only thing not reported was the

exact location of the event, making one wonder why it was
not stopped after Governor Lowry of Mississippi issued a
proclamation ordering all local sheriffs to do “whatever
was necessary to stop the fight.”
The event was to be a bare-knuckle contest under
the London Prize Ring Rules, in a 24-foot ring; each side
putting up $2,500 on their man in a winner-take-all
contest. By today’s calculations, the winning fighter would
receive approximately $114,000. This came at a time
where the average manufacturing job paid $345 per year,
and an average teaching job paid less than $75 per year
(less than $55 for female teachers).4
Accordingly to the New York Times of February 9th
1882:

The spot finally agreed upon, therefore, was on the

sea shore, in front of Barnes’s Hotel, at Mississippi
City. This is a point 70 miles from New Orleans
and 60 miles from Mobile, in Harrison County,
Miss., and just abreast of Ship Island, of war fame.
Paddy Ryan Sullivan and Ryan arrived on the ground at 8 o’clock
this morning, and went to Barnes’s and Tegarden’s
By 1881, John L. Sullivan was quickly earning a hotels, respectively. Both were in superb condition.
reputation as the best fighter in America. It was only a
matter of time before the public demanded that champion
3 The Champion Slugger: John L Sullivan Tells the Story of his Life
Paddy Ryan face the Boston Strong Boy in a sanctioned (Denver Tribune).
match for the title. At this time in the United States, boxing 4 Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890 by Clarence
was still illegal in most parts of the country, including Dickinson Long.

33
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The excursion train, which consisted of 14 coaches brought to his knees at rounds-end. Through five rounds
and carried about 1,000 people, left New Orleans Sullivan was leading 3 to 2, but it was obvious to all that he
at 5 o’clock this morning and reached the ground at was inflicting far more damage.
10:30. At 11:30 the stakes were driven, about 1,500
people having assembled. Sullivan was the first to
get in the ring. He had on a cap, and was wrapped
in a blanket. He looked very pale. Fifteen minutes
later Ryan appeared, smiling serenely. Ryan got the
choice of corners, and after considerable bickering
Alexander Brewster, of New Orleans, and Jack Hardy,
of Vicksburg, were chosen joint referees. The ring was
cleared at 11:50 A.M.

FIGHT TIME!!
Under the rules of the time, a fighter was to pick two
“assistants.” They would act as trainer/caretaker, and be
in charge of carrying the fighter back to his corner in case
of a knock down. There they would provide water and help
revive the fallen warrior. Sullivan chose as his trainers the
former heavyweight champion Joe Goss, the man who
Ryan defeated for the title, and Billy Madden. Goss was to
be in charge of the physical training and Madden in charge
of attending to Sullivan’s other interests, whatever they
may be, Ryan for his team picked a very capable, but less
well-known team of Johnny Roche and Joe Connick.
At 11:58am the combatants shook hands for the start of
the first round. Ryan was the first to throw a punch, a lead John L. Sullivan
right that was short, and for his efforts he was caught by
Sullivan came out smiling for the sixth round; by now
a counter left from Sullivan that landed cleanly to the face
he knew he was in control of the fight. It appeared that
of the Irishman. What followed were a series of short but
Ryan now seemed afraid of the Boston Strong Boy. Sullivan
fast punches by both men until Ryan was put down by a
went in for the attack, but Ryan slipped and struck Sullivan
vicious right hand to the cheek, round 1 was in the history
across his backside, putting him down to end the round.
books with John L Sullivan winning it in 30 seconds.
The seventh round was another quick one. As the men
Round 2 began with Sullivan charging right at Ryan
approached each other, Sullivan unloaded on the game
catching him with a left hand. Ryan grabbed and wrestled
but overmatched Ryan, putting him down hard to end
Sullivan to the ground, landing on top of the challenger at
the round. Sullivan was reported to be smiling on his way
25 seconds of the 2nd round.
back to the corner, and to the shock of most observers,
The third round would have been missed if anyone Ryan was not only able, but willing to continue.
blinked. The fighters rushed at each other from their
The eighth round began with both men coming out
corners and Sullivan put Ryan down once again with a
of their corners quickly, but Ryan appeared to have no
powerful right hand to the chest just four seconds into the
strength left. With sheer guts he tried to put up a fight.
round!
Sullivan boxed him over to the corner the umpires were
Both men came out cautious for the fourth, feinting (a in and pushed Ryan over the ropes. They were separated,
boxing term describing faking a punch), and looking for and when Ryan came off the ropes, he made one last
an opening. It was Sullivan who opened up first, landing effort to attack Sullivan. It was not to be. Another shot
again flush to the face of Ryan. Both men began slugging, from Sullivan put the champion down to one hand and
but Sullivan was the stronger and pushed Ryan to the knee. Ryan’s assistants tried calling for a foul as Sullivan
ropes and then down once more; this time again in under raised his right to strike his fallen opponent, but Sullivan
30 seconds. pulled back, allowing Ryan to stand. Both men thought
According to accounts, round 5 was almost exactly like that the round was over, but for some reason it had not
the previous round, only this time it was Sullivan who was been called a knock down by the umpires, possibly due to

34
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

the confusion of Ryan’s corner calling foul. Either way, the Ryan was knocked out in three brutal rounds by his now
two fighters started making their way to their respective legendary rival. The knockout came just before the police
corners when both corners were heard to yell “Go For stormed the ring and tried to put an end to the contest.
Him!” the two fighters had to turn around and go at each According to the Wheeling Intelligencer from November
other once more. They clinched, and after some time, both 15th 1886:
fell to the grass finally ending the round, and the fight. Ryan
was unable to come out for the ninth round and the fight The police rushed in, but it was too late. There was
nothing for them to do. The fight was ended. Sullivan
was officially awarded to John L Sullivan.
waived the timekeepers back so as to see if Ryan had
The New York Times reported the aftermath of the fight anything more to say. When time was called Ryan was
as follows: still on the floor. Sullivan then stooped down, raised him
up and carried him to the corner. The crowd quickly
Ryan and Sullivan were visited after they had gone
dispersed amid shouts for Sullivan.
to their quarters. Ryan was laying in an exhausted
condition on his bed, badly disfigured in the face, his
Very little is written about the shared history of these
upper lip being cut through and his nose disfigured. He
two men after this. We do know that the Trojan Giant
did not move but lay panting. Stimulants were given
and the Boston Strong Boy put on a series of three-round
him to restore him. He is terribly punished on the head.
exhibition bouts between 1891 and 1897 (nine that we
At the conclusion of the fight Sullivan ran to his
quarters at a lively gait, and laughing. He lay down for
know of for sure, with a tenth scheduled for October 5th
a while as he was a little out of wind, but there is not a 1895 in Cleveland, Ohio, that was cancelled when Mayor
scratch on him. He chatted pleasantly with his friends. Mckisson refused to allow the bout to take place.) There
The fighting was short, sharp, and decisive on Sullivan’s were likely several more of these exhibitions that are now
part throughout, Ryan showing weariness after the first lost to time.
round. Paddy Ryan slipped through the cracks of history and
has become little more than a footnote to boxing historians.
The Sullivan vs. Ryan fight is historic not for the fact that
Although he continued fighting until 1897, he never again
it was it the night John L. Sullivan became Heavyweight
gained the credibility or respect he had before the first
champ, as most boxing historians do not consider this to be
Sullivan fight. He died on December 14th 1900 in Green
true. The fact that Ryan, nor Goss ever defended this title
Island, New York. He was elected to The Ring Magazine
internationally cause historians to claim that this should
Boxing Hall of Fame in 1973, but is yet to be inducted
only be considered the Heavyweight Title of America, and
into The International Boxing Hall of Fame, unlike his
not the World. According to boxing historians, Sullivan did
most famous opponent and conqueror Sullivan, who was
not become Heavyweight Champion of the World until
inducted in the inaugural class.5
either 1888, when he defeated Charley Mitchell in France,
One interesting side note is that when Robert Emmet
or more likely when he knocked out Jake Kilrain in the 75th
Odlum, the brother of the famous American women’s
of a scheduled 80 rounds in 1889.
rights reformer Charlotte Odlum Smith, jumped to his
The historical significance of this fight is that it was the
death off the Brooklyn Bridge on May 19th 1885, allegedly
very last time that the title “heavyweight champion” would
attempting to be the first person to successfully dive off the
be won (not defended) in a bare-knuckle fight under the
bridge into the East River in New York, Paddy Ryan was
London Prize Ring Rules. The boxing world was about
one of the members of Mr. Odlum’s party at the event. Ryan
to change. The Queensberry Rules were to become the
assisted in unsuccessful resuscitation efforts.6
preferred method of sanctioned fighting. This included
John L. Sullivan, on the other hand, went on to be part
gloves being worn by the pugilists. The rule change
of American folklore; part sports-hero, part tall-tale, all
made John L Sullivan the last bare knuckle Heavyweight
legend. Sullivan remained undefeated as a professional
champion. Sullivan would go on to defend that title 31
until losing the title (under Marquis of Queensberry rules)
times, winning 28 with 1 no contest and 2 draws.
to Gentleman Jim Corbett on September 7th 1892. It took
Paddy Ryan, who after this night considered retiring from
21 rounds for the much younger and faster Corbett to defeat
the prize ring, continued to fight on until 1897, including
the ageing Champ, who was by this time out of shape and
two more official fights against Sullivan. The first of those
happened on January 19th 1885 in New York, NY, officially
5 1990: International Boxing Hall of Fame: Canastota New York
ending as a “no contest” as the police raided and put an end
6 The Life and Adventures of Prof. Robert Emmet Odlum: Containing an
to the fight after one round. The two fought once again on Account of His Splendid Natatorium at the National Capital by Catherine
November 13th 1886 in San Francisco, California, where Odlum

35
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

already ravaged by
alcohol and over
indulgence. After the
loss, Sullivan retired
back to his home state
of Massachusetts but
still fought exhibitions
for the next 12 years.
Many of these exhibitions
were against his old foe
Paddy Ryan. The final
bout of his career was
a two-round exhibition
against Jim McCormick in
Grand Rapids, Michigan,
in 1905. When it was all
over, John L. Sullivan was
the first athlete to earn
over one million dollars
in his career!
Long after his
boxing career was over,
Believed by some boxing historians to be the fight between John L. Sullivan and Paddy Ryan Sullivan remained one
of the biggest celebrities
in America. He was a sought-after public speaker, an occasional stage actor, a widely-read sports reporter and even a
“celebrity” baseball umpire enjoying the love and admiration of a country that looked upon him as something more than a
mortal. Sullivan, though, was all too mortal. Albeit able to give up his long addiction to alcohol later in life, even becoming a
prohibition lecturer for a time, the many years of hard living and drinking caused the Great John L. to die almost penniless
at the age of 59. He is buried in the Old Calvary cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.
In death John L. Sullivan became even more revered, the subject of numerous books including John L. Sullivan and His
America by Michael T. Isenberg, John L. Sullivan, Champion of Champions by Nat Fleischer (founder and first editor of The
Ring Magazine) and Strong Boy: The Life and Times Of John L. Sullivan, America’s First Sports Hero by Christopher Klein
to name a few. He was even the subject of a 1945 Hollywood movie, The Great John L., where he was portrayed by Greg
McClure.
The Sullivan vs. Ryan contest of 1882 not only created an American icon, but it also paved the way for the August 26th
2017 “mega fight” between Connor McGregor, the bigger, Irish grappler and Floyd Mayweather Jr., the American boxer
considered to be the best of his era. This time, however, both fighters were winners, each taking home over $100 million
dollars, whereas poor Paddy Ryan took home nothing more than what he had in his pockets before the fight, that and a
severely battered body and face to show for it.

OTHER SOURCES
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, January 29th 1882; The New York Times, February 9th 1882; The Wheeling Intelligencer,
November 15th 1886; Reminiscences of a 19th Century Gladiator: The Autobiography of John L. Sullivan by John L Sullivan
with James Bishop; John L. Sullivan, Champion of Champions by Nat Fleischer; John L. Sullivan and His America by Michael
T. Isenberg.

BRIAN YOUNG is a musician, writer, historian, researcher, sports nut, and cigar smoker from the Buffalo, New York area. He has appeared
on numerous radio shows and podcasts as both a Victorian era historian and also as an expert boxing analyst/historian. He has been
researching projects surrounding Francis Tumblety for the past year and a half with Michael Hawley and is always working on one project or
another.

36
 OBITUARY

Richard Gordon
15 September 1921 - 11 August 2017

Gordon Stanley Ostlere, better roles dried up and he was working

known as author Richard Gordon, as a mini-cab driver when the police
died on 11 August 2017 aged 95. visited his home in 1997 in connection
He was born in London on with a stolen vehicle report. They
15 September 1921, studied at found him dead. He’d sustained a blow
Selwyn College, Cambridge, and St to the head and there were high levels
Bartholomew’s hospital medical of alcohol in his blood. Rumoured to be
school. He would claim to have bisexual, stories circulated that Evans
an intense dislike of patients and had been killed by an 18-year-old man
therefore became an anaesthetist at St he’d befriended and who could not be
Bart’s and at the Nuffield department charged because of a lack of evidence.)
of anaesthetics in Oxford. He was
It was in 1978 that Gordon began
briefly editor of the British Medical
his trilogy of “Private Life’ books,
Journal and was afterwards a ship’s
beginning with the controversial The
doctor, which is when he started
Private Life of Florence Nightingale,
writing the comic novel, Doctor in the
which suggested that she was a
House, for which he is justly famous.
lesbian. This was followed by The
In 1980 he wrote The Private Life Private Life of Jack the Ripper and The
of Jack The Ripper in which he argued
Private Life of Dr Crippen.
that the murderer was a doctor, and because none of the
Richard Gordon tended to remain in the shadows,
victims had made a sound, specifically an anaesthetist
claiming to be “pathologically shy”, an excuse he offered
experienced in the use of chloroform.
for exclaiming “Oh balls!” when confronted with the
However, he is best known as the author of the
big red book and Eamon Andrews declaring “Richard
extraordinarily popular ‘Doctor’ series of comic novels.
Gordon, this is your life”. The programme was broadcast
Based on his own experiences and on stories he heard
live and following Gordon’s exclamation the plug was
from friends in the medical profession, Doctor in the
pulled, screens went blank and a standby programme
House concerned the misadventures of a group of medical
was broadcast instead. Gordon’s wife prevailed on him to
students at the imaginary St. Swithin’s hospital, where
relent and he recorded a programme that was broadcast
the scary chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt, ruled like
later.
an autocrat. The book was published in 1952 and two
years later it was filmed, starring Dirk Bogarde as Simon He leaves a wife, two sons, and two daughters.
Sparrow.

Gordon followed this up with Doctor at Sea - he had
been a seagoing medico himself - and this was later filmed We were also saddened to learn of the passing on 11
with Brigitte Bardot as Bogarde’s co-star. More books and August of Fred J. Abbate, organiser of the philosophical
films followed, as did a radio series with Richard Briers conference “Jack the Ripper Through a Wider Lens,” the
and a TV series starring Barry Evans and Robin Nedwell first ever philosophical conference themed around the
(Barry Evans ended up a probable murder victim: acting case, which was held at Drexel in 2011.
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

From the Casebook of

a Murder House Detective

The Blackheath Mystery

and The Tooting Horror
By JAN BONDESON

THE BLACKHEATH MYSTERY, 1898

The 60-year-old Mrs Arabella Charlotte Tyler was

the widow of Mr William John Tyler, the late Secretary
of the India-rubber and Gutta-percha Telegraph Works
Company Ltd, of Silvertown. After her husband had died
in early 1897, she lived on in their elegant detached villa
at No. 67 Kidbrooke Park Road, Blackheath, just opposite
St James’s Church. On one side of No. 67 was a similar villa,
on the other the Manor Park Farm. The large rear garden
overlooked the Kent County Cricket Ground. Mrs Tyler
lived in comfortable affluence, together with her spinster
daughter Maud and her recently widowed daughter Mrs
Violet Huxham. They normally had two domestics, but the
housemaid had just left, and Mrs Tyler was waited on by
her general servant Ann Gusterson.

The mystery servant Mary Ann Gusterson,

from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, August 21 1898.

On the evening of Sunday August 13 1898, Mrs Tyler

had seemed uncommonly energetic, saying that she
would rise at 5.00am the next morning, to do some hard
graft in the garden. Both her daughters were away, and
Ann Gusterson was the only other person who slept in the
large house. On Monday morning, Ann Gusterson woke up
at 6.30. She was surprised to see that the doors from the
kitchen to the garden were open, and looked if her mistress
was working out there, but Mrs Tyler was nowhere to
be seen. She lit the stove and prepared the glass of hot
water that her mistress liked to drink each morning. But
A drawing of the murder house at No. 67 Kidbrooke Park Road, when the domestic entered Mrs Tyler’s room, carrying
from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, August 21 1898. her frugal repast, she saw her mistress lying on the floor

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

A photograph of the Blackheath murder house,

from Harmsworth’s Magazine, December 1898.

at the foot of the bed, wearing her night clothes. Her face death. There were some open drawers in the bedroom,
was quite livid, and her head thrown back. Realizing that and also signs that some of the downstairs rooms had
she was dead, the servant girl ran out into the road and been searched, but nothing valuable had been stolen. The
screamed for assistance. Two workmen came to her aid, police suspected that the intruder had intended to burgle
one of them going for the police and the other guarding the house. Rather adventurously, they presumed that the
the house, as Ann Gusterson herself went for the doctor. reason he had not stolen more was that a large hayrick
Dr Clifford, the local practitioner, declared that Mrs at nearby Manor Park Farm had mysteriously caught
Tyler had been dead for several hours. Her neck had fire the very same night, and that the intruder had been
strangulation marks from powerful fingers, her face was alarmed by the sound of people running along Kidbrooke
blue, and her eyes were starting from the head. This was Park Road to extinguish the flames. In the garden, several
clearly a case of murder by strangulation. The police made footprints were found, indicating that the murderer had
a thorough search of the murder house. They saw marks opened the kitchen doors to the garden and fled through
that might indicate that the murderer had tried to force the flower beds. The Scotland Yard detectives were busy
the large French doors to the dining room. There were making plaster casts of these footprints.
also signs that the intruder had entered the house through Mr E. Negus Wood, the deputy coroner for West Kent,
climbing up some trellis work leading from the porch to was communicated with, and the inquest on Arabella
Mrs Tyler’s bedroom window. Ann Gusterson said that Charlotte Tyler began on August 17, in the Kidbrooke
her mistress used to leave her window open by about a Mission Room. Mrs Tyler had told friends that she was
foot, due to the August heat; thus the intruder would have fearful of burglars, since the house was quite isolated, and
found it easy to enter the room. But Mrs Tyler had woken annoyed at local youths stealing fruit from the garden. Her
up and confronted the intruder, who had strangled her to son-in-law Samuel Childs said that the house at No. 67

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Kidbrooke Park Road had contained plate valued at £220, opening drawers and cupboards, while not stealing
although he was not sure whether Mrs Tyler’s jewelry was anything valuable? In Mrs Tyler’s bedroom, two valuable
worth much. Ann Gusterson seemed quite distraught and rings were kept in an open drawer, but neither was stolen.
had to sit down while giving evidence. Mrs Tyler had had And was it not a remarkable coincidence that when the
only one visitor the day before the murder, the neighbour ‘burglar’ struck, none of Mrs Tyler’s daughters were in the
Mrs Georgina Jackson. The police surgeon Dr Cooper house, and only one of the domestics?
agreed with his fellow practitioner that Mrs Tyler had The second scenario involves an old enemy of Mrs
been strangled by a powerful intruder. Tyler coming to settle the score with her, before doing his
The inquest was adjourned until September 15, and best to make the murder look like a burglary gone wrong.
then until October 12. Chief Inspector Conquest, who was Mrs Tyler’s daughters and remaining son-in-law denied
in charge of the police investigation, told the jury that that she had any enemies, but would they have known
further time was needed, since the Blackheath Mystery everything about her past?
was an extremely complex case. A writer in the Illustrated
Police News commented that “Nothing transpired as to the
nature of the evidence which will then be forthcoming,
but rumour has that it will be of an extremely interesting
character.”
But when the inquest was finally resumed on October
12, the result was a damp squib. The coroner announced
that Chief Inspector Conquest had given him a full account
of the murder investigation, and that he had decided that
there was not significant evidence to make out a prima
facie case against any person. The jurymen were not
happy about this. One of them said that many a crime had
been traced through the detective work of jurymen: they
were not dummies, but should be allowed to question the
witnesses themselves. The coroner reluctantly agreed.
The juryman insisted that he must ask the servant
Ann Gusterson, about whom many rumours had been
abounding, some probing questions. She denied having
been visited by any sweetheart while residing at No. 67
Kidbrooke Park Road. The only person who had come
to see her there had been a female cousin. She had been
surprised to see the kitchen doors to the garden open
the morning after the murder, she said. But clearly not
surprised enough to investigate whether a burglary had
occurred before she brought her mistress her breakfast,
the suspicious juryman retorted. Nothing more came of
this attempt to incriminate Ann Gusterson, however: the The murder house at No. 67 Kidbrooke Park Road,
coroner had his way, and the jury returned a verdict of as it stands today.

wilful murder against some person or persons unknown. In the third scenario, Mrs Tyler’s son-in-law hires an
It is possible to discern three different murder assassin to murder her, to make sure that, through his wife,
scenarios in the Blackheath Mystery. The first one agrees he gets a share of her wealth. The burglary was a cover-
with the police hypothesis: a burglar intends to rob No. up and Ann Gusterson an accomplice. In her will, Mrs
67 Kidbrooke Park Road and misadvertently enters Mrs Tyler left a total of £5,869. But the son-in-law in question,
Tyler’s bedroom. To prevent her from giving the alarm, he Mr Samuel Childs, who had married young Margaret
strangles her, before ransacking the house. But would a Mary Tyler in 1891, appears to have been a respectable
burglar really choose the hazardous route up to the first- gentleman, who stayed away from criminal conspiracies,
floor bedroom, without knowing who was there? Why and earned his income by more conventional means than
go to the extreme of murdering Mrs Tyler, instead of just murdering his mother-in-law. Mrs Tyler had changed her
knocking her on the head? And why did the intruder make will in September 1897, to leave the bulk of her estate to
sure it looked like the house had been burgled, through the three daughters. What had the earlier will contained,

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

and why did she change it? Might it have had anything to seven children alive, ranging in age from the 14-year-old
do with George Trevor Huxham, who died from what was Frank Jr. to little Georgie aged just twenty months. Later
supposed to be diabetes in 1895, aged just 33, after being the same year, Frank Taylor lost his job. He tried getting
married to Violet Tyler for just two years? And why did another one, but was struck down with influenza. Due
Samuel Childs, when interviewed by a journalist just after to the severe winter, work was scarce, and once he had
the murder, claim that the cause of death had been heart recovered, he could not find employment. His family was
disease? soon destitute, and they barely had food for the children.
The Blackheath Mystery would have been a match even In between visiting various shops to look for work, Frank
for Sherlock Holmes. It is quite an interesting and anomalous scrambled on the ice for pennies and farthings thrown by
crime, which I would suspect has a more adventurous well-to-do skaters who made the most of the cold snap.
solution than the ‘burglar’ hypothesis favoured by the The children were regular visitors to the penny paupers’
police. It is a great pity that the police files on the case, suppers provided by the Tooting Graveney parish church.
which should have been kept at the National Archives, have Frank Jr. earned a few pennies by carrying fresh water
been lost or stolen. The murder house at No. 67 Kidbrooke to neighbours whose pipes had frozen, but his father
Park Road still stands, just opposite St James’s Church at remained unable to find paid employment. For every day
the crossing with Wricklemarsh Road. The large house has that went by, Frank Taylor became increasingly bitter and
been subdivided into several small flats. There is no longer morose. The family now owed six weeks rent, and in spite
any trellis work near the porch, leading to the first floor bay of the freezing cold weather, none of the children had boots.
window. At half past five in the morning of March 7 1895, there
This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s Murder was a knock at the door of Mr Richard Henry Hockins, a
Houses of South London (Troubador Publishing, Leicester house-painter living at No. 9 Fountain Road. When he looked
2015). out of the window, he could see Frank Jr. standing by the
door. Bleeding profusely from the throat, arm and hands,
 he called out ‘Father cut all our throats and mother is dead!’
Realizing that something terrible must have happened,
THE TOOTING HORROR, 1895 Mr Hockins came downstairs, bandaged young Frank’s
wounds, and made sure the police was called in. The front
In 1880, the 24-year-old plasterer Frank Taylor married
door to No. 12 Fountain Road was locked and bolted, but the
Martha Hocking, the 21-year-old daughter of a well-to-do
constables broke it down. Inside the cramped little house
manufacturer. It was a runaway match, and Martha would
they met with the grossest scenes. In the back bedroom,
receive no further support from her family, since they
they found all six children dead in a bloodbath, with their
considered that she had married beneath her station in life.
throats cut. In the front bedroom, they found the body of
Frank was a steady, industrious man, however. Although he
Martha Hocking with injuries from a terrible struggle;
remained a humble labourer, he was able to keep poverty
her head was nearly severed from the body. Frank Taylor
from the door, and put food on the table for their steadily
himself was the only person alive, in spite of a large gash in
increasing brood of children.
the throat, but he expired on the way to the Wandsworth &
Clapham Infirmary. He had succeeded in exterminating his
entire family, apart from Frank Jr.
From his bed at St Thomas’s Hospital, Frank Jr. gave his
account of the ‘Tooting Horror’, as the mass murder was
called in the newspapers. At about half past five in the
morning, his father had come into the tiny bedroom shared
by the seven Taylor children, saying ‘Frank, where are you?’
‘I am here, father’, the sleepy lad had replied. His father had
then leapt at him like a madman, slashing at him with a
large razor. In spite of the deep wounds on his hands and
arm, Frank kept fighting back. The other children woke
up, and started shrieking and crying. Frank Taylor let go
Frank and Martha Taylor,
of his severely wounded son, and instead began cutting
from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper March 17 1895.
the throats of all the smaller children, one by one, except
In 1894, the Taylors were living in a small terraced house the seven-year-old Florrie. He lurched out of the room,
at No. 12 Fountain Road, Tooting. They had no less than sharpened the razor, and dispatched Florrie as well. Frank

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Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Sensational Scenes of the Tooting Horror,

from the Illustrated Police News March 16 1895.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Three views of the Tooting murder house,

from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper March 17 1895, the Penny Illustrated Paper March 16 1895
and from the Illustrated Police Budget March 16 1895.

Jr. heard his father exclaim ‘Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!’ and saw him Tooting Vestry Hall on March 9. The coroner, Mr Braxton
reel out of the room. With considerable presence of mind, Hicks, said that this was one of the most painful and
the wounded lad took on his mother’s jacket, unbolted the dreadful affairs that had happened in England for many
front door, and went to seek assistance from Mr Hockins. years. Visibly moved, the jury then viewed the bodies. The
His father pursued him downstairs, but did not venture out police constables who had searched the murder house had
into the road, preferring to bolt the door and cut his own found a bundle of religious hymns, and also an envelope on
throat as well. which Frank Taylor had written “I love my wife and children
too dearly to allow people to jeer. They are all pure.” There
The Tooting Horror was widely reported in the
were also two letters with confused statements about
newspapers. Although the irrepressible Illustrated Police
false accusations against Frank Taylor being washed away
News exploited the tragedy in some ‘thrilling’ illustrations,
in the Lord’s precious blood. His enemies, who hated him
the majority of the press struck a more sombre note. The
with a cruel hate, had destroyed his life. A writer in the
tragedy caused widespread revulsion throughout Britain.
Pall Mall Gazette pointed out that the Tooting Horror was
Some people blamed the Tooting authorities for their lack of
the worst family tragedy in Britain since 1834, when the
charity: was it really right that an honest workman should
German Johann Nicholas Steinberg had murdered his
become completely destitute, and driven to desperation,
common-law wife and four children in a bloodbath, at No.
once he had lost his job? The relieving officer for the parish 17 Southampton Street [today Calshot Street; the house no
of Tooting retorted that Frank Taylor had been offered longer stands]. Rather flippantly, the journalist commented
work as a stonemason a few weeks before the tragedy, and that the German had fallen short of Taylor’s record by two
that he had recently been fined two shillings and sixpence victims.
for failing to send his children to school. The local people,
Amidst loud applause, the Rev. D.H. Morton, Rector of
who had done very little to help Frank Taylor when he was
Tooting Graveney, offered to have the murdered Taylors
alive, now sang his praises and those of his family. Frank buried free of charge. A gentleman stood up to say that if the
had been a very honest, upstanding citizen, his wife a hard- Rector had not made his generous offer, he and his friends
working, respectable woman, and the children very well would have paid for the funeral, so that the Taylor children
behaved. In particular, golden-haired little Florrie had been were spared the indignity of a pauper’s grave. There was
a very pretty girl, and quite the pet of the neighbourhood. more applause among the spectators; the Taylors were
The inquest on the murdered Taylors was opened at clearly more popular dead than alive. Commenting that

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The terrace of houses in Fountain Road, Tooting.

such unseemly and raucous behaviour did not suit this O it was just before the dawn,
sombre occasion, the coroner went on to read a number On that fatal Thursday morn.
of letters from ladies and gentleman all over the country, It was early there the lad they did behold,
offering to take care of the boy Frank, who was still He was crying there with fear:
recovering in hospital. In a strange ceremony of exorcism, ‘O come to mother, dear,
For father’s killed them, they are dead and cold.’
all the furniture, clothes, and other effects of the murdered
family was dragged out of the murder house, and burnt to ‘Then, where is my father?’ little Frankie cried,
ashes in a field to the rear of the house. ‘With your mother and the babies he has died.’
‘O here I must remain
The last we hear of Frank Jr is that having recovered
and suffer grief and pain,
from his wounds, he was taken to the King’s College
But we’ll all meet up in Heaven side by side!’
Convalescent Home. Various charitable individuals had
made sure that his future education, and a fair start in life, So, is Tooting’s House of Horrors still standing? This
had been secured for the orphaned lad. In spite of a plaque question has been debated on the Tootinglife internet
being sold to commemorate the Tooting Tragedy, with the homepage, but without any constructive deductions being
names of the eight dead members of the Taylor family, it made. Interestingly, one of the contributors could remember
is well-nigh forgotten today, even by the locals. No local lodging in a haunted house in Fountain Road, where doors
history book mentions it, but the Surrey folk singer ‘Pop’ opened and shut on their own accord, and no tenant stayed
Maynard has rescued a contemporary song on the subject, longer than eight months. Even for an experienced murder
which he has performed more than once: house detective, finding the House of Horrors was quite a
challenge, particularly since the contemporary accounts
Once in Tooting did reside,
With his children by his side, gave two different numbers for the house (No. 8 and No.
Frank Taylor and with him his loving wife. 12). The houses in Fountain Road were renumbered a few
But from life they are now gone, years after the Tooting Horror, and the present-day No. 12
Little Frankie left forlorn, (and No. 8) are clearly innocent, since they are of a later
To tell how father robbed them of their life. style than the murder house.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Two vital clues come from the Penny Illustrated Paper’s slightly higher level than the houses to the west of it, again
drawing of the House of Horrors: it is situated next to a agreeing with the original illustrations. The murder house
slightly wider house without a fence, a shop carrying the is today’s No. 159 Fountain Road, situated just to the west
name J. Lee. Since the Post Office directories put Joseph Lee’s of Lee’s former shop at No. 157. It has not changed much
grocer’s shop at No. 11 Fountain Road, it makes good sense since the time of the Tooting Horror.
for No. 12 to be next door, and thus it is impossible that the This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s Murder
murder house was at No. 8. Secondly, the illustration shows Houses of South London (Troubador Publishing, Leicester
open fields on the opposite side of the road, indicating that 2015).
the murder house is in the longer terrace of twenty houses
seen on the 1894 Ordnance Survey map of Tooting, near the 
Blackshaw Road end of Fountain Road. The images in the
Penny Illustrated Paper and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper also JAN BONDESON is a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist
at Cardiff University. He is the author of Rivals of the Ripper, Murder
show that the murder house is on the western side of Lee’s
Houses of London, The London Monster, The Great Pretenders, Blood
former shop (which can still be seen to be wider than the on the Snow and other true crime books, as well as the bestselling
other houses in the terrace). Importantly, this shop is on a Buried Alive.

The house of horrors at No. 12 [today No. 159] Fountain Road, Tooting,
where Frank Taylor murdered his wife and six of his children in 1895, before committing suicide.
It is the house to the right, just west of Lee’s old shop, which is still wider than the other houses in the terrace.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Dragnet!
An American Actor out to apprehend
the Ripper while Dressed in Women’s
Clothes (Part One)
By NINA and HOWARD BROWN

Case researchers encounter many strange stories Others, such as the 20th century article in which the killer
when trawling the contemporary newspapers. Along is named (Andrew Kramer) are usually of the ‘He said,
with the number of hoaxes (false alarms), phony she said’ variety, reliant on handed-down hearsay and
confessors, and letter writers, one thing observers rumored revelations to the identity of the Ripper.
will come across if they stick around long enough
is a published article featuring a ‘solution’ to the
crimes, usually composed by an individual using a
nom de plume. The average Ripperologist would be
hard-pressed to find one of these elaborate but error-
ridden tales in which the true name of the author is
given.
We’ve seen the number of books written on the heels
of the Kelly murder... some of the fictional works require
intestinal fortitude to finish, cover to cover. Decades later,
these fictional column fillers reappear, sometimes with
minor modification, sometimes with none at all, but all
with the same gist.
One example of these stories, possibly the most well
known, involves an American named ‘Charles Kowlder’.
Since the discovery of this story, which was published in
more than one paper less than two weeks after the Mary
Kelly, murder, no-one has been able to find anyone named
Kowlder either in the UK or US or the Antipodes. It is highly
unlikely that a Charles Kowlder existed, but someone
using that name certainly did. ‘Kowlder’ soliloquizes
being the Whitechapel Murderer in an eerie, elaborate
tale culminating with him leaving ‘Martins Court’ (sic)
and departing from London.
Kowlder’s tale is probably the most elaborate of them
all, which is sort of like boasting of being the leper with
the most fingers. Another story, which we located and
have yet to post on JTR Forums, revolves around a ‘Strange When I first saw the story and before actually reading
Little Frenchman’ who points the finger of guilt at a British it, you can imagine that I knee-jerked and assumed it
Earl, who, the author points out, is still out and about. would be just like the stories above. An anonymous

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

author.... a drawn-out drama... and a heap of errors in the Detroit., died Sunday night (June 19th ) at his hotel in
piece. Useful only in collecting ephemera relative to the New York.
Whitechapel murders but not of any evidentiary value. Sullivan was once married to the eminent British
I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the actress, Rose Coghlan, from 1890 to 1893, their marriage
author of the piece not only existed and was using his real ending in an amicable divorce.
name, but he was famous. His name was John T. Sullivan, a

well-respected and renowned thespian from County Cork,
Ireland. And, importantly, he was in London at the time of The story, due to its length, will appear in this and
the murders. the next issue of Ripperologist. The reader will find
Sullivan’s resume was presented in the July 13th, factual errors which may, in defense of Mr. Sullivan, be
1889 issue of The Theatre, a New York-based magazine attributable to the 13 years which had transpired between
published fortnightly. The following material is from that the murders and the publication of this article. Persons
piece. mentioned, such as C. H. Fox, perruquier or wig maker, of
John T. Sullivan was born in 1859 at Bere Island, Covent Gardens, did exist.
Castletown, County Cork. He had predilections for the With no further ado, this, then, is the story of John T.
stage - reciting pieces while a mere child and ‘spouted’
Sullivan’s ‘Hunt For The Ripper’ disguised, so he described,
while attending school in Detroit, Michigan.
as a ‘plain country hussy’. Sullivan apparently decided to
He was a man of some business prominence, holding
an important business position in the Michigan Central
share his experiences in Whitechapel because of the then
Railroad; an expert stenographer and telegrapher and current brutal assaults upon women in Denver, Colorado.
a thorough mathematician.
Had he never played before, Mr. Sullivan, as Langham Salt Lake Herald- Sunday
in Robert Elsmere, would have been instantaneously August 25, 1901
appreciated as an actor of no mediocre talent.
Our first impulse is to give praise to Mr. Sullivan
was when we saw him a few years ago in a weird HUNTING “JACK THE RIPPER”
melodrama at Niblo’s Gardens.... it must stand to his Thrilling Experiences of a Man
credit as a student of the abstract. Who Posed as Decoy In Women’s Garb
The season of ‘86-’87 saw him the leading juvenile
man to Edwin Booth, during which he played a round The recent scare among Denver women because of the
of splendid parts, some 12 in all. raids of the Capitol Hill thug reminds me of the reign of
In July of 1887, he appeared at Madison Square terror among the denizens of the Whitechapel district,
Theater (later Garden) alongside Richard Mansfield in London, during the months of September and November
Monsieur and remained with him for two years, during 1888. I had been in London for some months, playing at
which time he portrayed Gabriel Utterson in Dr. Jekyll Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theater and during the months
and Mr. Hyde.
mentioned was appearing as Joseph Surface with Kate
He accompanied Mansfield to England as his leading
Vaughn, in School For Scandal.
man, sailing on the City Of Rome, July 11, 1888
arriving on July 18th and opening at the Lyceum ‘Jack the Ripper’ at that time was a common phrase
Theater, London under the management of Henry around the town. Those three words, Jack the Ripper,
Irving August 4th in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This ran were enough to blanch the cheek of every woman and
for six weeks. send children shrieking into their homes. No one can
September 20th, a one act piece called Lesbia was understand the reign of terror that there existed, and
produced in which he played the Roman poet Catullus.
strangely for among that class fear is an unusual emotion.
October 1st, he appeared in Parisian Romance. He
portrayed ‘Joseph Surface’ in School For Scandal, No one had ever met the creature and lived to tell the
considered the most successful part he portrayed tale, so that impenetrable mystery seemed to surround
in London when there in 1888 and according to the him. It was this element that assisted him in making his
eminent theater critic, Clement Scott, was the finest murders so successful.
ever presented on the English stage.
The first murder was that of a woman described as a
Sullivan’s obituary appeared in the June 21st edition of
bleary-eyed hag. She was found on an embankment in the
the Detroit Free Press:
Whitechapel district, her throat cut from ear to ear, her
After suffering for two weeks with inflammatory
body frightfully mutilated.
rheumatism, which finally affected his heart, John
T. Sullivan, for fifteen years one of the most popular The second victim was Martha Turner, a hawker. Her
actors on the American stage and a former resident of body was found on the first floor landing of the George-

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

yard buildings, in Commercial road, Spitalfields, Tuesday, to the ‘pub’ adjoining the archway where the woman was
August 7th. found. It seems almost incredible that a murder could have
The third was Mary Ann Nichols. This murder occurred been committed without noise or screams that could have
two days later in Bucks Row near the house of Mrs. Green. been heard by the revelers. It was only twelve feet from
the body to the door of this saloon.
The fourth victim was Annie Chapman, who was killed
in the backyard of a Mr. Richardson, 29 Hanbury street.
Murders Deeply Mysterious
The fifth was on September 23, when an unknown
woman was found dead at Gateshead, Newcastle-upon- Still more incredible seems the next murder. The
Tyne. Berners street body was found at 11:20 p.m. The Mitre
The sixth was Hippity Lip Annie, Sept. 30, on Berners square body was found at 11:40, yet the policeman, at
street. Her throat was cut, but before he could mutilate her 11:33, had passed down Mitre street within twenty-five
the murderer was frightened away. feet of Mitre square and had looked in and seen nothing
wrong.
The seventh happened fifteen minutes later on the
southwest corner of Mitre square. The murdered woman On his return at 11:40, in passing the square under a
was unknown. gas lamp at the immediate corner, the policeman saw a
woman lying on the ground. Running to her assistance he
The eighth victim was found October 1 on the site of
discovered that another victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’ was in
the intended Metropolitan opera house. She was unknown
evidence. He had the body taken to the Old Jewry station
and the body was decomposed.
house.
The ninth occurred Nov. 9. Jane Lawrence was the
When you consider that it would take twenty minutes,
unfortunate. She was killed in her room on Dorset street.
as it took me, to walk from Berners street to Commercial
The tenth crime was committed Nov. 28th and the
road; up that road to Whitechapel; west on Whitechapel to
victim was without a name.
Mitre square; one wonders how this thing was done.
During the ten days prior to February 9, 1889, ten
The next morning London rang with the news. The
crimes of an identical nature to those in Whitechapel were
papers devoted pages to it, calling on the police to
perpetrated in Managua, Nicaragua.
suppress this scourge. Scotland Yard put in its best men,
July 17, 1889, a doctor in London, at times demented, and Sir Charles Warren, since famous in the Boer war,
confessed that he had used surgical instruments at times then London’s chief of police, called upon the guards and
when he was unconscious and had not assisted in any volunteers to patrol Whitechapel thoroughly. At least 200
operation. men were serving as detectives in that celebrated district.

Victims All of One Class Interest Was Universal

This was the data obtainable. the victims were Naturally, all classes were interested; particularly so
all dissolute women and the same sort of mutilation were the American residents of London of who there were
characterized each case. The throat was invariably cut - as a great number at that time. We used to meet, probably
a rule from ear to ear - and the body was savagely slashed twelve to twenty of us, after the performances at the
and mutilated. theaters at the Victoria hotel. A number of the boys felt
It was the night of September 30, 1888 that made like volunteering.
London, great as it is, roar with indignation from center I might say, incidentally, that the City of London had
to circumference. In Berners street, Commercial road, offered £1,000 reward for the apprehension of the
Whitechapel, the body of a woman, identified as ‘Hippity murderer. Sir Charles Warren offered another additional
Lip Annie’ was found by a teamster, still warm and cut and £1,000. The board of aldermen had offered another
mutilated as in the other cases, thus adding another to the £1,000 and at last the reward aggregated £ 5,000. This was
crimes of ‘Jack the Ripper’. to be paid to anyone producing ‘Jack the Ripper’, dead or
Twenty minutes later, at a distance of a mile, a policeman alive. No one could give any description of him, as none
stumbled over the body of a woman in Mitre square. She who had met him had ever lived to describe him. Various
had been similarly murdered. theories were offered as to his identity, but all were faulty
When you take into consideration the fact that on that and useless.
very night, in Berners street, there was a social gathering The only thing to be done was to catch him red-handed
of the Workingmen’s club, an organization in Whitechapel, - but how was this to be done? Well, we Americans
and that these men were continually going back and forth thought we could solve the problem. During the month

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

of August a number of us attended a garden party given fact was evident that the women who had been killed had
by Lady Mackenzie at her charming villa on the Surrey never had time to even utter a cry.
side. In presenting a charade I appeared in a burlesque I was not so sure whether it would be ‘Jack the Ripper’
of a vivandiere masquerading as a guardsman, but still or I who would ‘get it’.
a woman. It was a very clever conceit, and William King
Well, we sat discussing the plan until daylight and
of Buffalo, son of millionaire King, suggested a plan for
they finally persuaded me that it was my duty to go
catching ‘Jack the Ripper’.
masquerading through Whitechapel - a perilous errand,
mind you - provided I was given permission by Sir Charles
Jack’s Jolly Prospect
Warren to carry a revolver or a knife to defend myself.
We all exclaimed, “What is it, Billy?” Incidentally too, there was the question of the $25,000
“Well,” he said, turning to me, Jack, its up to you - it (£5,000 in 1888) reward, beside the glory and renown to
concerns you principally.” be attained.
Answering my look of inquiry and turning to the boys,

he said:
The plan is this: Jack, here, looked so like a woman
the other day that he could easily pass for one. Now,
Next issue: The Hunt Is On.....
let him dress as a woman - not too swell, but like the
Whitechapel women - and patrol the streets and alleys Sources: The Theater, July 13, 1889 edition, Salt Lake
and yards. Herald, August 25, 1901, and Detroit Free Press, June 24,
We will follow him up - have our guns ready, watch, 1904
and if he is accosted, close in on the man - and that is
the only way ‘Jack the Ripper’ will ever be caught.

Needless to say, I didn’t look at the scheme in quite
the same optimistic light that my friend King did, as the NINA and HOWARD BROWN are the proprietors of JTRforums.com.

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BY ROBIN ODELL

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AVAILABLE FROM WWW.MANGOBOOKS.CO.UK

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Victorian Fiction

The Voice in the Night

By William Hope Hodgson

Edited with an introduction by Eduardo Zinna

INTRODUCTION of the monster his adoptive father Geppetto. The old man
was consuming the last of his provisions at a table lit by
Reverence and fear have always informed humankind’s
a candle stuck in a bottle. It was not long before puppet,
visions of the sea. Men who go down to the sea in ships are
father and tuna fish effected their escape taking advantage
thrust into a confined world of waves and winds, tides and
of the monster’s sleep.
tempests, forced comradeship and pervading loneliness.
Round them is the rough, wide sea, which in early times For ten years after the fall of Troy, Odysseus, the wily
was believed to be the abode of fearsome monsters. King of Ithaca, was unable to return home through the
Lôtan, the fugitive serpent, dwelled in its waters, and so enmity of Poseidon, the god of the earthquake and the
did Leviathan, the tortuous serpent that will be killed at ruler of the seas. In his wanderings Odysseus heard the
the end of time. Off the shores of Greenland and Norway, Sirens’ voices and steered his ship between Scylla, the
the massive, many-tentacled Kraken would rise to the monster with twelve feet and six long necks, each ending
surface of the waters, and plunge again, dragging along in a head with triple rows of teeth, and Charybdis, the
with it ships and their crews. whirlpool that sucks the waters down together with
Monsters from the deep feature in many tales, both any ships that may be passing by. Sindbad the Seaman
ancient and modern. Fleeing from the Lord, Jonah – who was actually not a sailor but a merchant - went
boarded a ship leaving on a sea voyage. But the Lord sent to sea seven times and was shipwrecked, left behind or
a great wind into the sea, and a mighty tempest ensued. cast away seven times. As he crossed and re-crossed the
The sailors were afraid and cast lots to know for whose seas, he encountered sleeping whales, sea-stallions and
cause that evil was upon them. The lot fell upon Jonah. the formidable Old Man of the Sea, who captured lost
He admitted he was the source of their misfortune and travellers and turned them into his slaves.
told them to cast him forth into the sea. They did as they In his narrative, Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
were told and the sea ceased raging. A great fish came recounted how he had survived tempests, mutiny,
and swallowed up Jonah, and he was in the belly of the shipwreck and the attentions of cannibals to find himself
fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the sailing ever farther south through Antarctic waters. At
Lord and the fish vomited out him into the dry land. the close of his story, Arthur and his companions rush
Many years later, Pinocchio the puppet was swimming into the embraces of a limitless cataract, where a chasm
in the sea when he saw, rising up out of the water and throws itself open to receive them. But there arises in
coming to meet him, the horrible head of a sea-monster their pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger
with a wide-open cavernous mouth and three rows of in its proportions than any dweller among men. The last
enormous teeth. Pinocchio swam away as fast as he could, words of Arthur’s narrative are: ‘And the hue of the skin of
but in vain. The monster overtook him and swallowed the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.’ White
him up with such avidity that Pinocchio fell straight into is also the colour of Moby Dick, the White Whale pursued
its stomach, where he found himself in total darkness. by Ahab, the scarred, one-legged Captain of the Pequod,
Unlike Jonah, he did not resign himself to his fate but into death and the deep.
began immediately to explore his surroundings. With the Many are the story-tellers, great and small, known and
logic of fairy tales, he soon befriended a philosophical unknown, who have conjured up the wonders and horrors
tuna fish and, to his great happiness, found in the belly of the sea: the anonymous authors of the Bible and the

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Arabian Nights, Homer, Daniel Defoe, Coleridge, Byron, he qualified as a seaman and shortly thereafter became an
James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne, Frederick Marryat, officer in the Merchant Navy. During his service, he sailed
Arthur Rimbaud, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Jack three times round the world.
London. A place among them can certainly be granted to A young man short in stature and possessed of fine,
William Hope Hodgson. delicate features, Hodgson found himself amid coarse
and sometimes brutal shipmates. To protect himself he
undertook an intense programme of physical development
which turned him into an exceptionally powerful man.
It was said at one point that he could lift a full-grown
man over his head with one hand. Hodgson also became
an accomplished photographer, kept journals of his
experiences at sea and wrote poetry which remained
unread and unpublished for many years. On 28 March
1898, off Port Chalmers, New Zealand, he dived into shark-
infested waters to save a sailor who had fallen overboard.
For this act of heroism, he received a medal from the Royal
Humane Society. Yet he grew disenchanted with his life as a
seaman – the pay, the food, the conditions - and developed
a strong aversion for the sea which he had once so loved.
By 1899, Hodgson was back in Blackburn. His father
had died in 1892, leaving the family impoverished and
dependent largely on charity. An inheritance from his
paternal grandfather in 1900 improved their situation
and allowed him to open his School of Physical Culture in
early 1901. He offered personal training to his customers,
who included members of the local police force. Despite
his growing reputation, he found that he could not earn a
living from the School, and eventually shut it down.
In need of a new income, Hodgson began writing
Hodgson was born on 15 November 1877 in Blackmore articles for magazines and journals and used his own
End, Essex. He was the second of the 12 children of Samuel photographs to illustrate them. In one of his earliest
Hodgson, an Anglican priest, and Lissie Sarah Brown. pieces, entitled Health from Scientific Exercise, published
Reverend Hodgson was an ascetic, grim and sternly in Cassell’s Magazine in November 1903, he expounded his
religious man. For 21 years he dragged his family through physical health theories. He also contributed an article to
11 different parishes throughout Britain. In 1887 they The Grand Magazine on the topic Is the Mercantile Navy
arrived at Ardrahan, in County Galway, Western Ireland Worth Joining? His answer was a categorical ‘No’. He laid
– which the Church of England then considered as little out in detail his negative experiences at sea, including
better than a pagan land. The encounter of the English facts and figures about salaries. This led to a second article
Anglican priest and the Irish Catholic community was, to in The Nautical Magazine, an exposé on the subject of
say the least, problematic. There were disputes, threats apprenticeships, which had given rise to much abuse.
and confrontations, and one night a stone thrown by Hodgson also wrote fiction. In April 1904, he published
persons unknown struck the Rev Hodgson in the head. his first short story, The Goddess of Death, in The Royal
Years later these incidents inspired his grown-up son Magazine. Inspired by a statue of Flora in Corporation
to write his novel The House on the Borderland, whose Park in Blackburn, he crafted a tale about a statue of the
protagonist gallantly defends his home against monstrous goddess Kali that stands in a small English town. The
creatures swarming from the depths of the earth. statue seems to come alive to strangle one by one those
Even at an early age Hodgson had a difficult relationship who seized it from an Indian temple. In the end, it all
with his father, which drove him to a lifelong profession of turns out to have a rational, if improbable, explanation. A
atheism. Moved by a strong fascination with the sea, he Tropical Horror – which features a vast slobbering mouth
ran away to become a sailor several times, but was always from whose huge dripping lips hang great tentacles -
returned to his family. Finally, in 1891, at the age of 14, he followed in June 1905 in The Grand Magazine. In 1906, The
began a four-year apprenticeship as a cabin boy. In 1895, Monthly Story Magazine (later The Blue Book) published

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From the Tideless Sea, opening for Hodgson the profitable West, non-supernatural mysteries and war and light sea
American market. He would continue to sell stories to stories.
both American and British magazines for the remainder
of his writing career.
In 1907, while Hodgson was still living with his family
in relative poverty, his first novel, The Boats of the Glen
Carrig, appeared. In Supernatural Horror in Literature, H
P Lovecraft wrote

…we are shewn a variety of malign marvels and

accursed unknown lands as encountered by the
survivors of a sunken ship. The brooding menace in
the earlier parts of the book is impossible to surpass,
though a letdown in the direction of ordinary romance
and adventure occurs toward the end. An inaccurate
and pseudo-romantic attempt to reproduce
eighteenth-century prose detracts from the general
effect, but the really profound nautical erudition
everywhere displayed is a compensating factor.

Hodgson’s second novel, The House on the Borderland,

appeared in 1908. Michael Moorcock, James Cawthorn
and Sir Terry Pratchett have all praised it highly. Lovecraft
considers it as ‘perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson’s
works’ and adds ‘[it] tells of a lonely and evilly regarded
house in Ireland which forms a focus for hideous other-
world forces and sustains a siege by blasphemous hybrid
anomalies from a hidden abyss below.’ He concludes: ‘But
for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality this
book would be a classic of the first water.’
The Ghost Pirates followed the next year. Lovecraft
On 26 February 1913, Hodgson married Bessie
describes it as ‘a powerful account of a doomed and
Farnworth, who wrote the ‘agony’ column for a women’s
haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-
magazine. The newlyweds moved to the south of France,
devils (of quasi-human aspect, and perhaps the spirits
largely because the cost of living there was lower than in
of bygone buccaneers) that besiege it and finally drag it
Britain. When war broke out, they returned to Britain.
down to an unknown fate.’
Despite his experience at sea and his Third Mate
Hodgson’s last novel to see publication, The Night
certificate, Hodgson declined to join the Navy. Instead he
Land, appeared in 1912. Lovecraft took exception to its
entered the Officer Training Corps of the University of
archaic language, verbosity and sentimentality, but still
London. In July 1915 he was commissioned to the rank
considered it as ‘one of the most potent pieces of macabre
of Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. In June 1916,
imagination ever written.’ Hodgson considered The Night
while training new soldiers, he was thrown from his horse
Land his masterpiece and was terribly disappointed when
and suffered a broken jaw and concussion, as a result of
it did not sell well. For the remainder of his life he wrote
which he was gazetted out of the army. But he recovered
only short stories, never to return to the novel format and
sufficiently to re-enlist on 18 March 1917. He first saw
rarely to phantasy or horror.
action at Ypres in October 1917. Six months later he was
Like Conan Doyle and other contemporary authors,
killed by a direct hit from mortar fire and his remains were
Hodgson wrote short stories featuring recurring
buried at the foot of the eastern slope of Mont Kemmel in
characters: the occult detective Carnacki the Ghost-Finder
Belgium. His Commanding Officer wrote:
and Captain Gault the smuggler. The Carnacki stories,
including The Gateway of the Monster, The Whistling Room …He was the life and soul of the mess—always so
and The Horse of the Invisible, appeared in The Idler in willing and cheery. Of his courage I can give no praise
1910. He also tried his hand at other genres, including that is high enough. He was always volunteering for
Judge Barclay’s Wife, a tale of adventure in the American any dangerous duty, and it was owing to his entire lack

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

of fear that he probably met his death on April 17. He man by the time of Victoria’s death. His background,
had performed wonders of gallantry only a few days formation and sensibility were undoubtedly
before, and it is a miracle that he survived that
Victorian. The language and the values of the
day. I myself am deeply grieved, having lost
present story confirm it.
a real, true friend and a splendid officer.
Because they were published both in
William Hope Hodgson is Britain and America, Hodgson’s novels
commemorated at the Tyne Cot and short stories exist in varying
Memorial in the British cemetery at versions. The Voice in the Night as
Passchendaele.
presented here follows closely
Although Hodgson’s stories British spelling and usage. The
contain their share of frightful text is unabridged and unedited,
monsters, none is present in our
with one exception. As is known,
Victorian Fiction offering for this
language has a life of its own, and
issue, which is in fact a gentle story
over time words may come to
showing instances of courage,
mean something totally different
kindness and self-sacrifice. Yet I
believe that once you read it you will from what they originally meant.
not easily forget it. To retain a word whose meaning is
The Voice in the Night first no longer what it once was may affect,
appeared in print in the November even though slightly, the immediate
1907 issue of The Blue Book, an American perception of the reader, and distort
magazine. From a strict viewpoint, its date of the intent of the text. Our Victorian Fiction
publication fell after the Victorian era had ended. feature is not designed for the scholar but for the
Queen Victoria had vacated her throne six years earlier reader willing to visit or revisit these tales of a bygone era.
and Edward VII was more than halfway through his short I have accordingly replaced two terms currently tainted
reign. But Hodgson was born in 1877 and was a grown by ambiguity by more appropriate ones.

The Voice in the Night

By William Hope Hodgson
It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the It came again—a voice curiously throaty and inhuman,
northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for calling from somewhere upon the dark sea away on our
the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, port broadside:
breathless week by a thin haze which had seemed to float ‘Schooner, ahoy!’
above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles
‘Hullo!’ I sang out, having gathered my wits somewhat.
descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.
‘What are you? What do you want?’
With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller,
and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of ‘You need not be afraid,’ answered the strange voice,
two men and a boy, were sleeping forward in their den, having probably noticed some trace of confusion in my
while Will—my friend, and the master of our little craft— tone. ‘I am only an old—man.’
was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin. The pause sounded oddly, but it was only afterwards
Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there that it came back to me with any significance.
came a hail: ‘Why don’t you come alongside, then?’ I queried
‘Schooner, ahoy!’ somewhat snappishly; for I liked not his hinting at my
The cry was so unexpected that I gave no immediate having been a trifle shaken.
answer, because of my surprise. ‘I—I—can’t. It wouldn’t be safe. I—’ The voice broke off,

53
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

and there was silence. I told him the strange thing that had happened. He
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, growing more and more put several questions; then, after a moment’s silence, he
astonished. ‘What’s not safe? Where are you?’ raised his hands to his lips, and hailed:
I listened for a moment; but there came no answer. And ‘Boat, ahoy!’
then, a sudden indefinite suspicion, of I knew not what, From a long distance away there came back to us a faint
coming to me, I stepped swiftly to the binnacle, and took reply, and my companion repeated his call. Presently, after
out the lighted lamp. At the same time, I knocked on the a short period of silence, there grew on our hearing the
deck with my heel to waken Will. Then I was back at the muffled sound of oars, at which Will hailed again.
side, throwing the yellow funnel of light out into the silent
This time there was a reply: ‘Put away the light.’
immensity beyond our rail. As I did so, I heard a slight,
muffled cry, and then the sound of a splash as though ‘I’m damned if I will,’ I muttered; but Will told me to
someone had dipped oars abruptly. Yet I cannot say that do as the voice bade, and I shoved it down under the
I saw anything with certainty; save, it seemed to me, that bulwarks.
with the first flash of the light there had been something ‘Come nearer,’ he said, and the oar-strokes continued.
upon the waters, where now there was nothing. Then, when apparently some half-dozen fathoms distant,
‘Hullo, there!’ I called. ‘What foolery is this?’ they again ceased.
But there came only the indistinct sounds of a boat ‘Come alongside,’ exclaimed Will. ‘There’s nothing to be
being pulled away into the night. frightened of aboard here.’
Then I heard Will’s voice from the direction of the after ‘Promise that you will not show the light?’
scuttle: ‘What’s to do with you,’ I burst out, ‘that you’re so
‘What’s up, George?’ infernally afraid of the light?’
‘Come here, Will!’ I said. ‘Because—’ began the voice, and stopped short.
‘What is it?’ he asked, coming across the deck. ‘Because what?’ I asked quickly.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Will put his hand on my shoulder. God! No!’ There was a moment’s pause; then it added, in
‘Shut up a minute, old man,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Let a tone which seemed a merited reproach: ‘It was because
me tackle him.’ of our want I ventured—because her agony tortured me.’
He leaned more over the rail. ‘I am a forgetful brute,’ exclaimed Will. ‘Just wait a
minute, whoever you are, and I will bring you up something
‘See here, mister,’ he said, ‘this is a pretty strange
at once.’
business, you coming upon us like this, right out in the
middle of the blessed Pacific. How are we to know what In a couple of minutes he was back again, and his arms
sort of a deceitful trick you’re up to? You say there’s only were full of various edibles. He paused at the rail.
one of you. How are we to know, unless we get a squint at ‘Can’t you come alongside for them?’ he asked.
you—eh? What’s your objection to the light, anyway?’ ‘No—I DARE NOT,’ replied the voice, and it seemed to
As he finished, I heard the noise of the oars again, and me that in its tones I detected a note of stifled craving—
then the voice came; but now from a greater distance, and as though the owner hushed a mortal desire. It came to
sounding extremely hopeless and pathetic. me then in a flash that the poor old creature out there
‘I am sorry—sorry! I would not have troubled you, only in the darkness, was SUFFERING for actual need for that
I am hungry, and—so is she.’ which Will held in his arms; and yet, because of some
unintelligible dread, refraining from dashing to the side of
The voice died away, and the sound of the oars, dipping
our schooner, and receiving it. And with the lightning-like
irregularly, was borne to us.
conviction there came the knowledge that the Invisible
‘Stop!’ sang out Will. ‘I don’t want to drive you away.
was not mad, but sanely facing some intolerable horror.
Come back! We’ll keep the light hidden if you don’t like it.’
‘Damn it, Will!’ I said, full of many feelings, over which
He turned to me.
predominated a vast sympathy. ‘Get a box. We must float
‘It’s a damned strange rig, this; but I think there’s off the stuff to him in it.’
nothing to be afraid of?’
This we did, propelling it away from the vessel, out into
There was a question in his tone, and I replied. the darkness, by means of a boat hook.
‘No, I think the poor devil’s been wrecked around here, In a minute a slight cry from the Invisible came to us,
and gone crazy.’ and we knew that he had secured the box.
The sound of the oars drew nearer. A little later, he called out a farewell to us, and so
‘Shove that lamp back in the binnacle,’ said Will; then he heartful a blessing, that I am sure we were the better for
leaned over the rail and listened. I replaced the lamp, and it. Then, without more ado, we heard the ply of oars across
came back to his side. The dipping of the oars ceased some the darkness.
dozen yards distant. ‘Pretty soon off,’ remarked Will, with perhaps just a
‘Won’t you come alongside now?’ asked Will in an even little sense of injury.
voice. ‘I have had the lamp put back in the binnacle.’ ‘Wait,’ I replied. ‘I think somehow he’ll come back. He
‘I—I cannot,’ replied the voice. ‘I dare not come nearer. I must have been badly needing that food.’
dare not even pay you for the— the provisions.’ ‘And the lady,’ said Will. For a moment he was silent;
‘That’s all right,’ said Will, and hesitated. ‘You’re then he continued, ‘It’s the strangest thing ever I’ve
welcome to as much grub as you can take—’ Again he tumbled across, since I’ve been fishing.’
hesitated. ‘Yes,’ I said, and fell to pondering.
‘You are very good,’ exclaimed the voice. ‘May God, And so the time slipped away—an hour, another, and
who understands everything, reward you—’ It broke off still Will stayed with me; for the strange adventure had
huskily. knocked all desire for sleep out of him.
‘The—the lady?’ said Will abruptly. ‘Is she—’ The third hour was three parts through when we heard
‘I have left her behind upon the island,’ came the voice. again the sound of oars across the silent ocean.
‘What island?’ I cut in. ‘Listen!’ said Will, a low note of excitement in his voice.
‘I know not its name,’ returned the voice. ‘I would to ‘He’s coming, just as I thought,’ I muttered.
God—’ it began, and checked itself as suddenly. The dipping of the oars grew nearer, and I noted that
‘Could we not send a boat for her?’ asked Will at this the strokes were firmer and longer. The food had been
point. needed.
‘No!’ said the voice, with extraordinary emphasis. ‘My They came to a stop a little distance off the broadside,

55
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

and the strange voice came again to us through the ship at an angle; so that in the course of three hours, by my
darkness: watch, her hull became invisible to our sight, her broken
‘Schooner, ahoy!’ masts remaining in view for a somewhat longer period.
Then, towards evening, it grew misty, and so through the
‘That you?’ asked Will.
night. The next day we were still encompassed by the mist,
‘Yes,’ replied the voice. ‘I left you suddenly, but—but
the weather remaining quiet.
there was great need.’
‘For four days we drifted through this strange haze,
‘The lady?’ questioned Will.
until, on the evening of the fourth day, there grew upon
‘The—lady is grateful now on earth. She will be more our ears the murmur of breakers at a distance. Gradually it
grateful soon in—in heaven.’ became plainer, and somewhat after midnight, it appeared
Will began to make some reply, in a puzzled voice, but to sound upon either hand at no very great space. The raft
became confused, and broke off short. I said nothing. I was raised upon a swell several times, and then we were
was wondering at the curious pauses, and apart from my in smooth water, and the noise of the breakers was behind.
wonder, I was full of a great sympathy. ‘When the morning came, we found that we were in
The voice continued: ‘We—she and I, have talked, as we a sort of great lagoon; but of this we noticed little at the
shared the result of God’s tenderness and yours—’ time; for close before us, through the enshrouding mist,
Will interposed, but without coherence. loomed the hull of a large sailing vessel. With one accord,
‘I beg of you not to—to belittle your deed of Christian we fell upon our knees and thanked God; for we thought
charity this night,’ said the voice. ‘Be sure that it has not that here was an end to our perils. We had much to learn.
escaped His notice.’ ‘The raft drew near to the ship, and we shouted on them
It stopped, and there was a full minute’s silence. Then to take us aboard; but none answered. Presently the raft
it came again: touched against the side of the vessel, and seeing a rope
hanging downwards, I seized it and began to climb. Yet I
‘We have spoken together upon that which—which
had much ado to make my way up, because of a kind of
has befallen us. We had thought to go out, without telling
grey, lichenous fungus which had seized upon the rope,
anyone of the terror which has come into our—lives. She is
and which blotched the side of the ship lividly.
with me in believing that tonight’s happenings are under a
special ruling, and that it is God’s wish that we should tell ‘I reached the rail and clambered over it, on to the deck.
to you all that we have suffered since—since—’ Here I saw that the decks were covered, in great patches
with grey masses, some of them rising into nodules
‘Yes?’ said Will softly.
several feet in height; but at the time I thought less of this
‘Since the sinking of the Albatross.’ matter than of the possibility of there being people aboard
‘Ah!’ I exclaimed involuntarily. ‘She left Newcastle for the ship. I shouted, but none answered. Then I went to the
‘Frisco some six months ago, and hasn’t been heard of door below the poop deck. I opened it and peered in. There
since.’ was a great smell of staleness, so that I knew in a moment
‘Yes’ answered the voice. ‘But some few degrees to the that nothing living was within, and with the knowledge, I
North of the line, she was caught in a terrible storm and shut the door quickly; for I felt suddenly lonely.
dismasted. When the day came, it was found that she was ‘I went back to the side where I had scrambled up.
leaking badly, and, presently, it falling to a calm, the sailors My—my sweetheart was still sitting quietly upon the raft.
took to the boats, leaving—leaving a young lady—my Seeing me look down, she called up to know whether
fiancée—and myself upon the wreck. there were any aboard of the ship. I replied that the vessel
‘We were below, gathering together a few of our had the appearance of having been long deserted; but
belongings, when they left. They were entirely callous, that if she would wait a little I would see whether there
through fear, and when we came up upon the decks, we was anything in the shape of a ladder by which she could
saw them only as small shapes afar off upon the horizon. ascend to the deck. Then we would make a search through
Yet we did not despair, but set to work and constructed a the vessel together. A little later, on the opposite side of the
small raft. Upon this we put such few matters as it would decks, I found a rope side ladder. This I carried across, and
hold, including a quantity of water and some ship’s biscuit. a minute afterwards she was beside me.
Then, the vessel being very deep in the water, we got ‘Together we explored the cabins and apartments in the
ourselves onto the raft and pushed off. after part of the ship; but nowhere was there any sign of
‘It was later, when I observed that we seemed to be in life. Here and there within the cabins themselves, we came
the way of some tide or current, which bore us from the across odd patches of that queer fungus; but this, as my

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sweetheart said, could be cleansed away. soaked the places where it had been, with carbolic, a can-
‘In the end, having assured ourselves that the after full of which I had found in the pantry. Yet, by the end of
portion of the vessel was empty, we picked our ways to the week the growth had returned in full strength, and
the bows, between the ugly grey nodules of that strange in addition it had spread to other places, as though our
growth; and here we made a further search, which told us touching it had allowed germs from it to travel elsewhere.
that there was indeed none aboard but ourselves. ‘On the seventh morning, my sweetheart woke to find
‘This being now beyond any doubt, we returned to a small patch of it growing on her pillow, close to her
the stern of the ship and proceeded to make ourselves face. At that, she came to me, as soon as she could get her
as comfortable as possible. Together we cleared out garments upon her. I was in the galley at the time, lighting
and cleaned two of the cabins; and after that I made the fire for breakfast.
examination whether there was anything eatable in the ‘“Come here, John,” she said, and led me aft. When I saw
ship. This I soon found was so, and thanked God for His the thing upon her pillow I shuddered, and then and there
goodness. In addition to this I discovered a fresh-water we agreed to go right out of the ship and see whether we
pump, and having fixed it, I found the water drinkable, could not fare to make ourselves more comfortable ashore.
though somewhat unpleasant to the taste. ‘Hurriedly we gathered together our few belongings,
‘For several days we stayed aboard the ship, without and even among these I found that the fungus had been at
attempting to get to the shore. We were busily engaged in work; for one of her shawls had a little lump of it growing
making the place habitable. Yet even thus early we became near one edge. I threw the whole thing over the side,
aware that our lot was even less to be desired than might without saying anything to her.
have been imagined; for though, as a first step, we scraped ‘The raft was still alongside, but it was too clumsy to
away the odd patches of growth that studded the floors guide, and I lowered down a small boat that hung across
and walls of the cabins and saloon, yet they returned the stern, and in this we made our way to the shore. Yet, as
almost to their original size within the space of twenty- we drew near to it, I became gradually aware that here the
four hours, which not only discouraged us but gave us a vile fungus, which had driven us from the ship, was growing
feeling of vague unease. riot. In places it rose into horrible, fantastic mounds,
‘Still we would not admit ourselves beaten, so set to which seemed almost to quiver, as with a quiet life, when
work afresh, and not only scraped away the fungus but the wind blew across them. Here and there it took on the

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

forms of vast fingers, and in others it just spread out flat attacked us already. We decided to stay. God would do with
and smooth and treacherous. Odd places, it appeared as us what was His will. We would wait.
grotesque stunted trees, seeming extraordinarily kinked ‘A month, two months, three months passed and the
and gnarled—the whole quaking vilely at times. places grew somewhat, and there had come others. Yet we
‘At first, it seemed to us that there was no single portion fought so strenuously with the fear that its headway was
of the surrounding shore which was not hidden beneath but slow, comparatively speaking.
the masses of the hideous lichen; yet, in this, I found we ‘Occasionally we ventured off to the ship for such
were mistaken; for somewhat later, coasting along the stores as we needed. There we found that the fungus grew
shore at a little distance, we descried a smooth white patch persistently. One of the nodules on the main deck soon
of what appeared to be fine sand, and there we landed. It became as high as my head.
was not sand. What it was I do not know. All that I have
‘We had now given up all thought or hope of leaving the
observed is that upon it the fungus will not grow; while
island. We had realized that it would be unallowable to
everywhere else, save where the sand-like earth wanders
go among healthy humans, with the thing from which we
oddly, path-wise, amid the grey desolation of the lichen,
were suffering.
there is nothing but that loathsome greyness.
‘With this determination and knowledge in our minds
‘It is difficult to make you understand how cheered
we were to find one place that was absolutely free from we knew that we should have to husband our food and
the growth, and here we deposited our belongings. Then water; for we did not know, at that time, but that we should
we went back to the ship for such things as it seemed to possibly live for many years.
us we should need. Among other matters, I managed to ‘This reminds me that I have told you that I am an old
bring ashore with me one of the ship’s sails, with which man. Judged by years this is not so. But—but—’
I constructed two small tents, which, though exceedingly He broke off, then continued somewhat abruptly:
rough-shaped, served the purpose for which they were ‘As I was saying, we knew that we should have to use
intended. In these we lived and stored our various
care in the matter of food. But we had no idea then how
necessities, and thus for a matter of some four weeks
little food there was left of which to take care. It was a
all went smoothly and without particular unhappiness.
week later that I made the discovery that all the other
Indeed, I may say with much happiness—for— for we
bread tanks—which I had supposed full—were empty,
were together.
and that (beyond odd tins of vegetables and meat, and
‘It was on the thumb of her right hand that the growth some other matters) we had nothing on which to depend
first showed. It was only a small circular spot, much like but the bread in the tank which I had already opened.
a little grey mole. My God! how the fear leapt to my heart
‘After learning this I bestirred myself to do what I
when she showed me the place. We cleansed it, between
could, and set to work at fishing in the lagoon; but with no
us, washing it with carbolic and water. In the morning of
success. At this I was somewhat inclined to feel desperate,
the following day she showed her hand to me again. The
until the thought came to me to try outside the lagoon, in
grey warty thing had returned. For a little while we looked
the open sea.
at one another in silence. Then, still wordless, we started
again to remove it. In the midst of the operation she spoke ‘Here, at times, I caught odd fish, but so infrequently
suddenly. that they proved of but little help in keeping us from the
hunger which threatened.
‘“What’s that on the side of your face, dear?” Her voice
was sharp with anxiety. I put my hand up to feel. ‘It seemed to me that our deaths were likely to come
by hunger, and not by the growth of the thing which had
‘“There! Under the hair by your ear. A little to the front
seized upon our bodies.
a bit.” My finger rested upon the place, and then I knew.
‘“Let us get your thumb done first,” I said. And she ‘We were in this state of mind when the fourth month
submitted, only because she was afraid to touch me wore out. When I made a very horrible discovery. One
until it was cleansed. I finished washing and disinfecting morning, a little before midday, I came off from the ship
her thumb, and then she turned to my face. After it was with a portion of the biscuits which were left. In the mouth
finished we sat together and talked awhile of many things of her tent I saw my sweetheart sitting, eating something.
for there had come into our lives sudden, very terrible ‘“What is it, my dear?” I called out as I leapt ashore. Yet,
thoughts. We were, all at once, afraid of something worse on hearing my voice, she seemed confused, and turning,
than death. We spoke of loading the boat with provisions slyly threw something towards the edge of the little
and water and making our way out onto the sea; yet we clearing. It fell short, and a vague suspicion having arisen
were helpless, for many causes, and—and the growth had within me, I walked across and picked it up. It was a piece

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

of the grey fungus. insatiable. In the midst of devouring, the remembrance

‘As I went to her with it in my hand, she turned deadly of the morning’s discovery swept into my amazed brain.
pale; then rose red. It was sent by God. I dashed the fragment I held to the
ground. Then, utterly wretched and feeling a dreadful
‘I felt strangely dazed and frightened.
guiltiness, I made my way back to the little encampment.
‘“My dear! My dear!” I said, and could say no more. Yet
‘I think she knew, by some marvellous intuition which
at my words she broke down and cried bitterly. Gradually,
love must have given, so soon as she set eyes on me.
as she calmed, I got from her the news that she had
Her quiet sympathy made it easier for me, and I told
tried it the preceding day, and—and liked it. I got her to
her of my sudden weakness, yet omitted to mention the
promise on her knees not to touch it again, however great
extraordinary thing which had gone before. I desired to
our hunger. After she had promised, she told me that the
spare her all unnecessary terror.
desire for it had come suddenly, and that until the moment
of desire, she had experienced nothing towards it but the ‘But, for myself, I had added an intolerable knowledge,
most extreme repulsion. to breed an incessant terror in my brain; for I doubted
not that I had seen the end of one of these men who had
come to the island in the ship in the lagoon; and in that
monstrous ending I had seen our own.
‘Thereafter we kept from the abominable food, though
the desire for it had entered into our blood. Yet our drear
punishment was upon us; for, day by day, with monstrous
rapidity, the fungoid growth took hold of our poor bodies.
Nothing we could do would check it materially, and
so—and so—we who had been human became—Well, it
matters less each day. Only—only we had been man and
maid!
‘And day by day the fight is more dreadful, to withstand
the hunger-lust for the terrible lichen.
‘A week ago we ate the last of the biscuit, and since
that time I have caught three fish. I was out here fishing
‘Later in the day, feeling strangely restless and much tonight when your schooner drifted upon me out of the
shaken with the thing which I had discovered, I made mist. I hailed you. You know the rest, and may God, out of
my way along one of the twisted paths—formed by the His great heart, bless you for your goodness to a—a couple
white, sand-like substance—which led among the fungoid of poor outcast souls.’
growth. I had, once before, ventured along there, but not to
There was the dip of an oar—another. Then the voice
any great distance. This time, being involved in perplexing
came again, and for the last time, sounding through the
thought, I went much farther than hitherto.
slight surrounding mist, ghostly and mournful.
‘Suddenly I was called to myself by a queer hoarse sound
‘God bless you! Good-bye!’
on my left. Turning quickly, I saw that there was movement
among an extraordinarily shaped mass of fungus, close to ‘Good-bye,’ we shouted together hoarsely, our hearts
my elbow. It was swaying uneasily, as though it possessed full of many emotions.
life of its own. Abruptly, as I stared, the thought came to me I glanced about me. I became aware that the dawn was
that the thing had a grotesque resemblance to the figure of upon us.
a distorted human creature. Even as the fancy flashed into The sun flung a stray beam across the hidden sea,
my brain, there was a slight, sickening noise of tearing, and pierced the mist dully, and lit up the receding boat with a
I saw that one of the branch-like arms was detaching itself gloomy fire. Indistinctly I saw something nodding between
from the surrounding grey masses, and coming toward the oars. I thought of a sponge—a great, grey nodding
me. The head of the thing— a shapeless grey ball, inclined sponge— The oars continued to ply. They were grey—as
in my direction. I stood stupidly, and the vile arm brushed was the boat—and my eyes searched a moment vainly for
across my face. I gave out a frightened cry, and ran back the conjunction of hand and oar. My gaze flashed back to
a few paces. There was a sweetish taste upon my lips the—head. It nodded forward as the oars went backward
where the thing had touched me. I licked them, and was for the stroke. Then the oars were dipped, the boat shot
immediately filled with an inhuman desire. I turned and out of the patch of light, and the—the thing went nodding
seized a mass of the fungus. Then more, and—more. I was into the mist.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Reviews
Included in this issue:
Ripperland, American Jack,
The Face of Jack the Ripper and more
Unusually, this time round we have quite a few Jack the Ripper books and related titles for review, but the news has
pretty much been dominated by the announcement that the so-called Maybrick diary was definitely found underneath
some floorboards in the Maybrick home, Battlecrease House, where they’ve laid for many years. This caused something
of a tizzy on both Casebook and JTR Forums; nobody knew what the evidence for this was, yet otherwise perfectly sane
people vehemently argued that it couldn’t be true. Other news was American Ripper. The 8-part television series on
the History Channel touting H.H. Holmes as the Ripper, came to its rather predictable end – no really credible evidence
emerged that Holmes was in Britain when the murders took place, a photo in a box allegedly having belonged to Holmes
had a 64% match to a photo of Elizabeth Stride, except it wasn’t a photo of Elizabeth Stride but a sometime dressmaker’s
model named Catherine who lived in Portsmouth. And if any of the claims made in the programme had Holmes turning
in his grave, the exhumation certainly showed that’s where he was.
But we’ve a lot to look forward to this issue, not least a much-awaited illustrated book by Andrew Firth, and, a surprise
to me, a revamped and sprightly Whitechapel Society Journal.
PAUL BEGG

RIPPERLAND reviewed quite a few over the years. I also have a particular
Andrew Firth fondness for the “then and now” collections which show
Foreword by John Bennett how a place looked back in time – usually attractive and
London: Mango Books, 2017 interesting - and how it looks today – usually demolished
www.mangobooks.co.uk
with a large and bleak road running through it.
hardcover
130pp; biblio Usually the “then and now” photographs are two
ISBN:978-1-911273-22-6 photos side by side and the reader has to try and mentally
£25.00 superimpose the two. What sets Andrew Firth’s book
Now, I know I’m mean. And aside is that he has cleverly inserted a photograph of how
I don’t have too much cash to the place used to look into a photo of the place today.
spare. When it comes to what I If you haven’t seen one of these montages – many have
spend it on, I’m fairly careful. So, generously been put online – then I should explain that
when I say that a book costing he hasn’t just done a photo-in-photo job, he’s matched the
£25 is a must have, you can take two images perfectly so that pavements, walls, roofs, and
it that I mean it. so on all match perfectly.
Andrew Firth’s Ripperland is Apparently, this means going to the site, working out
a must have. where the original photographer stood, and the angle at
There are some provisos which the photograph was taken, and later matching the
though. I’m not a big fan of coffee-table books. You know, old with the new. I’m brilliant with a camera – brilliant at
those large, glossy books with loads of pictures that look taking a really bad photograph – so to me Andrew Firth’s
really pretty but generally lack substance and are more montages are works of genius.
for decoration than anything else? Well, an illustrated I used to say that a lot of Ripper folk look at the East
book has to have something about it that lifts it above the End and see it as it used to be in 1888, usually they see it in
level of a coffee-table book. black and white too! With Andrew Firth’s montages, that
Having said that, I like illustrated books and I have becomes as real as it ever could be. And it can be shared.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

But my enthusiasm for Andrew Firth’s photographic to seeing the real thing. It’s reproduced on glossy paper, of
magic mustn’t let me forget to mention that this is a course, whereas the paper of the original is thick, rough,
reading book too, the illustrations being accompanied by and cheaply made, but otherwise it shows the writing
an interesting and informative text. clearly and legibly. There’s a transcript too.
And finally, as John Bennett says in his introduction, This isn’t wholly new. The diary was reproduced in
this book is also a record of how the East End is changing. Shirley Harrison’s book, which also contained a transcript,
Some of the “now” photographs will be “then” photographs so you don’t really have to drop a pile of dosh for this
in a few years time, buildings having been demolished, the edition. But if you’d like a copy as close to the original as
skyline altered, and the look and feel totally changed. Mr possible, then this is the best you’ll probably ever get. The
Firth will have to produce a now and then and then book! transcript in Shirley’s book also contained spelling and
So, if you are into suspect theories or Victorian social punctuation “errors” and these have been corrected here.
history or big reading books, you might not think it worth The text is also fully annotated, which sets what the
investing your money in Ripperland, but if you would enjoy diary says in context, as far as possible, and explains what
a comfy armchair; a big mug of tea (regularly replenished), the diarist is talking about.
and several hours looking at how the Victorian world fits The shortest part of the book is Robert Smith’s text,
into ours, Ripperland is definitely a must have. an introduction followed by four chapters: The Physical
and Scientific Evidence, Michael and Anne Barrett, The
25 YEARS OF THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER:
Diary’s Provenance, and Controversial. For many the most
THE TRUE FACTS
important and likely the most discussed of these will
Robert Smith be the provenance, including as it does the story of the
London: Mango Books, 2017
electricians.
www.mangobooks.co.uk
hardcover Like it or not, the diary is one of the most controversial
154pp; principal sources; acknowledgements; index. artefacts in Ripper history, a significant part of Ripper
Limited to 500 copies, signed and numbered by the author
studies over the past quarter century, spawning several
£25.00
books, a documentary, millions of words on message
Warning! This book, which
boards, and quite a bit of ill-feeling. If you want a copy
is a high-quality facsimile of
of what the fuss was all about, this is the book you either
the so-called Maybrick diary, is
have or will be kicking yourself for not ordering. The
limited to 500 copies, signed by
quality of the facsimile is excellent and you probably won’t
the author, and the last I heard
get to see it this good anytime soon. The transcript and the
it had sold out. So, there’s a
annotations are particularly valuable, and Robert Smith’s
very good chance that you are
text is honest and informative. If you want a facsimile of a
currently reading about a book
little bit of history, this is a must have.
you already have, or you’ll have
to wait until they start creeping
onto the second-hand market to AMERICAN JACK:
grab a copy. JACK THE RIPPER AND THE UNITED STATES
The so-called Maybrick diary is guaranteed to raise Simon Webb
temperatures and hackles, and usually among those who The Langley Press, 2017
believe it is a “modern” (post-1988) forgery. Which seems tinyurl.co.lpdirect
odd to me, because you’d expect those who are certain it’s softcover & ebook
164pp; biblio
a fake to settle back, put their feet up, and leave people
ISBN:197397830X
who think otherwise to defend their lost cause. Maybe it’s softcover £6.91, ebook £2.30
just the frustration of not being able to make people see
How many associations can you make off the top of
what they can see so clearly themselves? But I guess that’s your head between Jack the Ripper and the United States?
the bug that gets into so many theorists. I must confess that my immediate thoughts produced a
I suspect that this book will have been bought by people rag-bag that numbered three: that practitioner of herbal
who are a more flexible in their thinking about the origins medicine, Francis Tumblety, of course. Then I thought of
of the diary. This book is primarily a high-quality facsimile the unidentified Philadelphia doctor whose alleged need
of the diary. Having seen the original many times, I can for uteri to accompany a book he’s written may have
honestly say that it’s probably about the closest you’ll get inspired the murderer, or so voiced coroner Wynne Baxter.

61
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

And not a bad idea, but one that a read instead.

has been misunderstood and
caused Baxter to be ridiculed JACK THE RIPPER
ever since. And finally I thought (HISTORY’S WORST)
of the Chicago Whitechapel Club Michael Burgan
that may or may not have been New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2017
www.simonandschuster.com/kids
responsible for the famous story
hardcover, softcover & ebook
about psychic Robert Lees and 198pp; timeline; notes; glossary; further reading; recommended
the insane doctor, and all the websites; select biblio
implications and ramifications ISBN: 978-1-4814-7945-5
arising therefrom. hardcover £14.75, softcover £6.21, ebook £4.99

It’s strange how the mind I think it must be very difficult

works. For a few seconds though I couldn’t think of to write a book about Jack the
anything else. Then a ramshackle train of thought rattled Ripper for young people. Not
through my mind, as I suspect a similar one must have only is there the problem of
passed through Simon Webb’s, leading to a list that discussing disembowelment,
became surprisingly long. mutilation, murder, prostitution,
and the grim realities of East
The list includes the aforementioned Francis Tumblety,
End life in Victorian Britain,
then Arbie La Bruckman, George Chapman, Dr Thomas
but there is getting the balance
Neill Cream, Jack Gibson (identified as Jack the Ripper by
right between describing the
Robert Graysmith in The Bell Tower), H.H. Holmes (real
crimes and running the risk of
name Herman Webster Mudgett and absent from Webb’s
glamorising Jack the Ripper as someone who outfoxed the
book; I bet he’s kicking himself over that moment of
police and became an international man (or woman) of
forgetfulness), James Kelly (who, mad as a box of frogs,
mystery.
murdered his wife and was committed to Broadmoor, from
which he escaped and fled to America, where he managed As far as I recall, everyone who has undertaken the task
to live a comparatively normal life), James Maybrick, and has done so very well, including Michael Burgan, who has
Donston Stephenson. written a refreshingly clear and balanced account of the
crimes and the tireless and generally tiresome theorising
Then there’s Buffalo Bill, Mexican Joe, some Indians
about Jack’s identity. Tough as it was, Burgan clearly likes
(or Native Americans as I’m told we should call them),
a challenge, having launched the series called “Histories
and Colorado Charley, a real-life cowboy who really
Worst” with a book about Adolf Hitler!
did come under suspicion of being Jack, although he’s
not mentioned by Simon Webb. Another omission – The book pretty much follows the traditional pattern,
deservedly, as it’s about as likely as Jack being the Loch first discussing the crimes and then the suspects, but
Ness Monster – is Thomas ‘Boston’ Corbett, the chap who with enjoyable diversions here and there to take a very
shot the assassin of Abraham Lincoln. He was another brief look at topics as varied as the use of bloodhounds to
madman who escaped from an asylum – Corbett, I mean, London fog.
not Lincoln – vanishing in 1888. The book plunges into the murder of Polly Nichols
I don’t mean to mention the names omitted from without preamble. The details of the injuries are kept to
Webb’s book, it’s just that when you start thinking about a minimum. The second chapter has a brief look at the
American connections – the Servant Girl Annihilator is East End - the book is written primarily for an American
another (it’s in the book; Shirley Harrison suggested that audience, so it explains that London is the capital of Great
it may have been James Maybrick!) – it’s amazing how Britain, and that Great Britain is composed of England,
many you come up with. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. This doesn’t
Simon Webb writes lightly and with humour, and happen too often. It then discusses the earlier murder of
there’s nothing deep here, but it’s an enjoyable and short Miriam Angel by Israel Lipski – soon to be the subject of
enough read for the lightweight concept not to become a book launching the very exciting re-birth of the Notable
boring. There is some very stiff competition for your spare British Trials series – before returning to the murder of
cash this time round, but if you are happy with the ebook Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddwes, and
then it’s modestly priced at about the cost of a coffee-shop Mary Kelly.
latte, so I recommend that you save the waistline and have Throughout the book certain words are highlighted,

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

which means that their meaning is explained in the another theory or questioning
glossary. The ebook doesn’t need this, of course, as you some piece of long-accepted
can define every word as you read. evidence?
The examination of the suspects begins with a look at I asked myself this question
Thomas Cutbush, arguably the earliest named suspect, and for the umpteenth time as I read
moves on to the Macnaghten memorandum and the three through Peter Thurgood’s book.
suspects named therein, Druitt, Kosminski and Ostrog. Now…
Other suspects examined include George Chapman, “Jill Spoiler Alert! If you don’t
the Ripper”, the Royal conspiracy, Dr. Tumblety, and James want to know who Peter
Maybrick. Burgan moves briefly to look at Jack in fiction Thurgood thinks was Jack the
and films, before returning to look at some of the sillier Ripper, go to the next review.
of the more recent theories, such as Jose Luis Abad’s Now!
theory that the Ripper was Inspector Abberline, Trevor Still here?
Marriott’s now apparently withdrawn theory that the
On 10 September 1888 a group of concerned
murderer was Carl Feigenbaum, Wynne Weston-Davies
businessmen and ratepayers met at The Crown, a pub
theory that the Ripper was Francis Spurzheim Craig, and
in the Mile End Road, with a view to doing something
Bruce Robinson’s heavyweight thoughts about Michael
about the murders. Sixteen men formed a committee and
Maybrick.
a painter and decorator named George Akin Lusk was
There are quite a few minor errors, such as repeating appointed president.
what appears to be a canard that Thomas Cutbush was the
Mr. Lusk, whose photo, looking every part the dapper
nephew of Superintendent Charles Cutbush, describing
businessman, I was able to publish for the first time back
Montague Druitt as the “headmaster of a private school
in 1988, is the man Peter Thurgood proposes as Jack the
that helped boys with bad grades prepare for exams”.
Ripper. “No other suspect in the last 129 years comes even
Druitt, of course, wasn’t the headmaster – that was Mr
close to Lusk,” writes Mr Thurgood.
Valentine. He also writes that Kosminski “was actually
released in 1894”, rather confusingly adding, “although Really?
he went to another facility for the mentally ill”. Kosminski In some respects Lusk is not a bad candidate – nobody
wasn’t “released”, but was transferred from one asylum to would have batted an eyelid if they’d seen him out on the
another streets late at night, and if he was found lurking down a
dark passage, well, that was his job. And he would have
Michael Burgen has made extensive use of Casebook:
been known to the local prostitutes and probably been
Jack the Ripper, which is a fantastic resource for material
trusted by them.
like transcripts of the inquests and press reports about
the crimes, but he also appears to have balanced this by Or would he? Did Lusk go out on the streets. He seems
reading a good many of the books, so overall he gives a the timid sort, alarmed by the boxed piece of kidney that
pretty solid foundation of the case for young adults. arrived in his mail. Assuming he didn’t send it to himself,
as Thurgood implies. But even if we accept that he was
THE FACE OF JACK THE RIPPER: out on the streets, peering into and out of dark alleys, and
REVEALED FOR THE FIRST TIME nodding to the ladies of the night, the theory seems to go
Peter Thurgood downhill. There’s no motive. Peter Thurgood tries to give
Independently published, 2017 one to Lusk, but it’s made up.
softcover & ebook
Thurgood appears to get carried away with his
199pp;
ISBN:1549514865 narrative at times, such as when he describes George
softcover £9.95, ebook £5.00 Lusk’s emotions in March 1888 when his wife Susannah
I often wonder why anyone writes a book about Jack died: “Lusk was grief-stricken; what would he do - how
the Ripper, especially when they don’t have anything to would he cope without the love of his life, the woman who
add to the subject. And so few do. Is it because they are had shared the last 25 years with him and helped raise
interested in the subject and just want to add another their beautiful family together?”
to the 200 or so we already have? Or is it because they Lusk probably was grief-stricken, Susannah may have
see a book about Jack as a potential money-spinner no been the love of his life, and he may have looked at a bleak
matter what it contains? And then they look for a hook on future, but how does Peter Thurgood know? He doesn’t
which to hang a standard narrative, such as offering yet cite any source, so I guess it’s just imagined to add a little

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

colour and perhaps pad out a rather thin scenario. And it How wrong is it possible to get?
starts to irritate when Mr Thurgood very briefly explains “The police believed the killer had to be a doctor,
what men talked about in pubs and claims that the “big nothing could sway them until the name of William Bury
news” was the attack on Emma Smith. In fact, there is no fell across their desk...”
reason to think this incident was widely known about, let
That’s news to me. I don’t think anyone knows who the
alone that it was the topic of the day, and I suspect that it
police believed was the murderer, but Bury doesn’t seem
is Mr Thurgood daubing the colour again. He overloaded
to have loomed large on the guilt horizon
his brush, however, when he explained that the consensus
of opinion blamed foreigners, but Lusk argued in favour Walter Sickert was a suspect because he was in the
of a gang. He has no idea what Mr Lusk thought about same Masonic Lodge as Sir William Gull, lived next door to
the death of Emma Smith, or even that he gave her death a vet, and went walking late at night.
much thought at all. Did everyone who lived next door to a vet get suspected?
And it is in this vein that Mr Thurgood suggests that Or who went for a late night stroll?
George Akin Lusk lost his faith in God. God had taken Lusk’s I wondered who the faintly theatrical sounding
beloved Suzannah, God had forsaken Mr Lusk himself, and Frederick Downing was. Then I realised Robson meant
so it was that Lusk exacted his terrible revenge. But it’s all Frederick Deeming.
supposition. In fact, it’s probably all imagination.
Inspector Abberline thought lames Kenneth Stephen
No notes, no sources, no bibliography, no index. And and Montague Druitt worked together....
the face of Jack the Ripper is only revealed metaphorically
“Over the years we have watched countless movies all
– no illustrations. And as far as I am concerned, no sense.
claiming to reveal the killer...”
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JACK THE RIPPER: There haven’t been “countless” movies about Jack the
YOU PLAY DETECTIVE TO REVEAL THE REAL KILLER Ripper and those that try to offer a real solution to the
Alan Robson mystery of the killer’s identity can probably be counted on
London: Britain’s Next Bestseller, 2017 the fingers of Captain Hook’s right hand.
www.bnbsbooks.co.uk
ebook
Robson says that an unnamed woman, supposedly
111pp the lover of Dr Roslyn D’Onston claimed to have found a
£2.99 box of blood-stained ties belonging to him and told the
The trouble with an ebook is newspapers that he admitted to having chloroformed his
that you can’t put it to good use victims and cut
when the last sheets of Andrex their throats from behind. Also, Robson says, the police
come free from the roll and “admitted that the journalist had told them she had been
you’ve forgotten to buy more. created to give credence to a theory.”
This book is bad. Really bad. Robson doesn’t tell us who this journalist was or if he
I’m used to the amateurish does I missed it, but I assume it’s George Marsh, who along
twaddle some people serve up
with Inspector Roots and the story found by Stephen
in Ripper books. There’s not a
Knight in the case papers at Scotland Yard, is otherwise
lot that causes me to shake my
unmentioned. The woman’s name was Mabel Collins, and
head in utter disbelief, but I
was not unknown at all, and neither Marsh nor Donston
did at this book. I may even have uttered a squeaky, girly
nor any other journalist told the police she’d been
giggle of semi-hysteria. In my head, of course. Or at least
“created” to sell a theory.
I hope so.
This book has 33 chapters in 111 pages and every page
Robson tells us that Montague Druitt “loved sex with
prostitutes” - which is not something often said about probably contains an error, probably more than one, and
Druitt, who was dismissed from a boys school for a serious often a gross one. I’m baffled that anyone could possibly
offence and is therefore often described as a homosexual have done any research on the Ripper and understood so
and child molester — and that his “vigorous and violent little. This travesty is supposed to be the first of a series
sex acts with them included sodomy and choking, which that will include titles on Robin Hood, King Arthur and
brought him to the attention of the police.” Robson also Adolf Hitler. I can’t wait to see how Robson screws those
tells us that the “only evidence against him were a set of up.
faked documents, created by a journalist.” Actually, I can wait. I can wait a very long time.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

WHITECHAPEL SOCIETY JOURNAL Almost three months later, on 2 February 1964, the
Edited by Samantha Hulass body of another prostitute, Hannah Tailford, was found
Membership Manager: Susan Parry susanparry@hotmail.com murdered, again the body being found on the Thames
www.whitechapelsociety.com foreshore. By 16 February 1965 there had been five more
There aren’t many journals dedicated to the subject prostitute murders, the victims were Irene Lockwood,
of Jack the Ripper and related topics. In fact there’s Helen Barthelemy, Mary Flemming, Margaret McGowan,
Ripperologist and the Whitechapel Society Journal. The and Bridget O’Hara.
latter was born when the former parted company from
The murders were called the Hammersmith Nudes
the Cloak & Dagger Club, as the Whitechapel Society then
Murders and the murderer was dubbed Jack the Stripper.
was, to become an independent publication. It’s kind of
The murderer was never caught, although a number
frightening to me, therefore, to see that the Journal has
of suspects have been advanced over the years. Chief
reached its 75th issue!
Superintendent John Du Rose, a very well-respected
Not only that, it has a new editor and has undergone detective into whose hands the investigation was put,
a revamp with a somewhat period front cover and some in later years voiced his belief that the killer was a man
new and interesting content, two notable articles being named Mungo Ireland. A number of the victims bore
“The Cooneys of Spitalfields and Marie Lloyd” by Rowan flecks of a spray paint used at the Heron Industrial Estate,
Lennon, and “Dr Forbes Winslow and the Drowned where Ireland was a security guard. He committed suicide
Doctor Theory” by Wolf Vanderlinden. Other contributors and the murders ceased. In recent years research has
include Joe Chetcuti, Rosie Loffredo, Ian Parsons, Ed Stow suggested that Ireland may have been away from London
and Amanda Harvey Purse. when the murder was committed.
The Whitechapel Society Journal has been looking a Speculation has sometimes got out of hand, one highly
little tired for a while, so this revamp was needed, and it unlikely suspect seriously advanced was Superintendent
looks pretty good. Exciting issues ahead, I hope. Tommy Butler, who headed the Flying Squad at Scotland
Yard. Persistent rumors also circulated about light-
THE HUNT FOR THE 60s RIPPER
heavyweight boxing champion and entertainer Freddie
Robin Jarossi
Mills, who shot himself in 1965. (The Secret Life of Freddie
London: Mirror Books, 2017
www.mirrorbooks.co.uk Mills: National Hero. Boxing Champion. Serial Killer by
www.robinjarossi.com Michael Litchfield has just been published by Blake, and
softcover & ebook Pitch Publishing has brought out Fearless Freddie: The
283pp; illus (some colour); sources
Life and Times of Freddie Mills by Chris Evans. Both will be
ISBN:1907324659
reviewed in the next Rip, but if you’re interested in the life
softcover £7.99 & ebook £3.85
and death of Freddie Mills you can get them now).
On the north-side of the
River Thames, where it The story of the Nudes murders and the arguments for
bends at Chiswick, is Duke’s and against the various suspects has been recited many
Meadow, a pleasantly tranquil times, notably in David Seabrook’s Jack of Jumps (2006)
parkland around which a and Dick Kirby’s Laid Bare: The Nude Murders and the
police car designated Foxtrot Hunt for Jack the Stripper (2016) (see Ripperologist, 152,
4 was routinely patrolling October 2016, for a review), and frankly Robin Jarossi
on 17 June 1959. There were doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. What he
three policemen inside, P.C. does do, however, is to give you a readable and reliable
Mills was driving, and as the introduction to the subject.
car approached the towpath It’s a real story of the ‘60s. Prostitution was rife and
alongside the river he spotted a woman’s bare legs highly visible, as was crime, and the “Swinging Sixties” had
protruding around the trunk of a willow tree. Her name a deeply sordid side that bubbled to the surface with the
was Elizabeth Figg. She was a prostitute. And she had Profumo Affair. The Stripper’s victims were women who
been murdered. had sunk into the depths of that world and to be brutally
On 8 November 1963, another prostitute was found honest it’s very difficult to treat sympathetically. Jarossi
murdered. Gwynneth Rees’ body had been left at a rubbish manages to do this, or at least he does a better job of it
dump run by Barnes Borough Council in Mortlake. This than one or two of his predecessors. Otherwise, Jarossi
was about one mile from Duke’s Meadow and close to the keeps up the pace and tells the story well, concluding
same Thames towpath. that the police were simply overwhelmed by the amount

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

of information generated and possibly hindered by the when one thinks about it, consisted of nearly half of their
murderer being one of their own! The softcover is available eventful lives. Recommended.
at a seriously discounted price on Amazon. Review by John Bennett

THE KRAYS: THE PRISON YEARS THE HOUSE OF BEAUFORT:

David Meikle and Kate Beal Blyth THE BASTARD LINE THAT CAPTURED THE CROWN
Century (2017)
Nathen Amin
ISBN-10: 1780896832
Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1780896830
hardcover & ebook
Hardback: 384 pages
467pp;
£12.99
ISBN:
This is not the first book hardcover £20, ebook £13.60
devoted to the Krays’ lives in jail, The fourteen-year-old boy
having been preceded by works was safely aboard the small ship,
from Robin McGibbon in 2011 the coastline of south-west Wales
and Steve Wraith and Stuart receding as the vessel drew out
Wheatman in 2015, but this to sea. It was a frail safety and
aspect of the twins’ legendary for the rest of his life he would
lives is one of the less frequently never rest easy, for the threat of
covered, no doubt due to the harm and death would be very
limitations of access during their real and ever present. His name
incarceration. Nonetheless, for a was Henry.
complete overview of their lives, such an examination is The events that put young Henry on that ship pulling
necessary. away from Tenby harbour had their beginning in a royal
The Krays: The Prison Years is a satisfying look at the wedding. When King Edward III married his teenage bride,
twins’ lives behind bars, written in an easy, informal style Philippa of Hainault - not the stop on the Central Line
common to most books in the genre. Dwelling only briefly in North East London but the province in Belgium - the
with their activities before they received their life sentences retinue that accompanied Phillipa included a man called
in 1969 (strangely devoting much time to the murder of Paon de Roet.
Jack McVitie) the book is at its best when devoting itself He’s pretty much a man of mystery, apart from the
to the subject in hand. It reveals a very vulnerable Krays, fact that he had three daughters: Isabel, a nun and in due
subjected to all the rigours of the prison system, in some course the Canoness of a convent in Hainaut. Philippa, who
ways stripping them of the image of the powerful and married Geoffrey Chaucer, who penned the Canterbury
intimidating crime overlords we have always been told Tales. And Katherine, who married a knight named Hugh
about. The authors do not flinch when it comes to regaling Swynford, had two or three children by him, and was
the reader of the real horrors of life in maximum security appointed governess to daughters of John of Gaunt, King
prisons, and the twins fell foul of it all. Tales of violence Edward III’s third son. Katherine got on a little too well
and abuse reveal that Reg and Ron, despite numerous with John of Gaunt and they had four children (John,
concessions made to them whilst inside, did not always Henry, Thomas, and Joan), all being born on the wrong side
have it easy. Interviews with friends who visited them of the duvet, they were all illegitimate, although John and
regularly show that, despite their lack of freedom, they Katherine would one day marry and the children would be
tried hard to maintain their business interests and their legitimised.
integrity within the system, exposing their drive to survive
Oddly enough, John of Gaunt (he was born in Ghent,
against all odds.
hence the name) may not have been legitimate either.
Naturally, there are lighter touches, especially in regards Funnily enough, when I briefly took my nose from The
to Ron, whose strange behaviour and quirky humour was House of Beaufort it was to be with Professor Turi King.
still intact, particularly during his years in Broadmoor, and Turi led the team of geneticists at Leicester University
this makes for a balanced account, which also fascinates which confirmed that the remains of the body buried in
with its insight into the twins’ characters and how they the car park were those of the body of Richard III. You
coped with the possibility of never living free lives again. may recall that it emerged that there looked like there
All in all, this is an accessible and rewarding portrayal might have been a break in the genetic links between John
of a relatively obscure part of the Krays’ history which, of Gaunt and Richard III, and Turi was widely quoted as

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

saying that “If, and it is a very big if” that’s where the break The convoluted story of the Beauforts, from their
lay “historians could theoretically ask questions about beginnings with Paon de Roet to Henry Tudor, is the subject
the inheritance of a number of Plantagenet monarchs.” If of this book by Nathen Amin, who amongst other things is
that is where the break lay, then eye’s looked at John of the founder of the Henry Tudor Society, a challenge to the
Gaunt being illegitimate, evidence, perhaps, that Philippa more famous Ricardians.
of Hainault wasn’t adverse to a little extra-marital rumpty- It’s not a light-weight story, and I am a very, very long
tumpty either. way from being knowledgeable about this period of history,
Anyway, the thing is that the eldest offspring of John of which is about a 1,000-years ahead of my comfort zone,
Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, John, became 1st Earl of but I am reliably informed that Nathen Amin knows his
Somerset, and had a son, also called John, who became 1st stuff. Certainly, this book seems to have been thoroughly
Duke of Somerset, and he had a daughter name Margaret. researched, the evidence carefully assessed, and the
conclusions cautiously reached. He’s managed to pull
Margaret married four times. She was only a child when
together the threads of a complex story and present it in an
married to her first husband and a mere twelve years old
understandable and, I must say, a thoroughly entertaining
when she married her second, the half-brother of King
way.
Henry VI, Edmund Tudor. She quickly became pregnant,
but was widowed before the child was born when Edmund Tudor history is very popular right now, maybe inspired
died from the plague then sweeping the country. Margaret by the discovery of Richard III’s remains, maybe by the
popularity of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (or not, as Ms
gave birth to his son. The boy was named Henry and he was
Mantell might say), so if you can squeeze one book on the
that young teenager sailing from Tenby.
Tudors into your busy Ripper-reading schedule, this one
He would return. It would be his army that would defeat
should be it. And if you search around you’ll find some
that of Richard III and who would unceremoniously dump discounts on the cover price too! There’s really no excuse
his body in the hole that would one day be covered by a not to make The House of Beaufort your “proper history”
car park. He would be Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor reading.
dynasty, whose number included Henry VIII and Elizabeth
I. All reviews by Paul Begg except “The Krays: The Prison Years”

OVER 200 JACK THE RIPPER AND ASSOCIATED TITLES ON LAYBOOKS.COM INCLUDING:
LAY (LORETTA) & WOOD (ADAM) - The Whitechapel Album h/b Numbered Limited Edn. MACNAGHTEN (SIR MELVILLE L.) - Days of My Years h/b £425
New £25
MATTERS (LEONARD) - The Mystery of Jack the Ripper h/b £150
ANDERSON (SIR ROBERT) - The Lighter Side of My Official Life h/b Insc. and Signed +
handwritten letter to sister £425 MAYBRICK (FLORENCE ELIZABETH) - Mrs. Maybrick’s Own Story h/b £90

DEW (EX-CHIEF INSP. WALTER) - I Caught Crippen h/b £375 ROBINSON (BRUCE) - They All Love Jack : Busting the Ripper hb/dw Signed New £35

GRIFFITHS (MAJOR ARTHUR) - Mysteries of Police and Crime (1902 edn. in 3 volumes) SIMS (GEORGE R.) - The Mysteries of Modern London h/b £175
h/b £150
SIMS (GEORGE R.) - My Life Sixty Years’Recollections of Bohemian London h/b Signed
JEYES (S.H.) & HOW (F.D.) - The Life of Sir Howard Vincent h/b Signed by Ethel Vincent (Fair only) £150
£400
SWEENEY (LATE DET.-INSP. JOHN) & RICHARDS (FRANCIS) - At Scotland Yard h/b £225
LEESON (EX-DET. SGT. B.) - Lost London h/b (fair only copy) £120
WHITTINGTON-EGAN (RICHARD) - A Casebook on Jack the Ripper h/b signed £250
LITTLECHILD (CHIEF-INSP. JOHN GEORGE) - The Reminiscences of Chief-Inspector Littlechild
h/b (Good only) £100 SMITH (LIEUT.-COL. SIR HENRY) - From Constable to Commissioner h/b £600

LOGAN (GUY B.H.) - Masters of Crime h/b £180 STEWART (WILLIAM) - Jack the Ripper: A New Theory h/b £900

MCLAUGHLIN (ROBERT) - The First Jack the Ripper Victim Photographs Ltd. Edn. WILLIAMS (WATKIN W.) - The Life of General Sir Charles Warren h/b (ex-Boots) £275
Numbered (73) Signed Robert + Whittington-Egan label As New s/c £225
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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

Fiction Reviews
By DAVID GREEN

Included in this issue:

Jack Is Not A Man, Broken Window, The Whitechapel Midwife and more
JACK IS NOT A MAN bookshop where the novel opens and closes. ‘Entertaining’
Pascale Leconte and Laurent Thompson is hardly the best word for it. It will make you wince, which
Owl Hollow Press, 2017 is perhaps not a bad thing in a novel dealing with serial
ISBN-10: 194565404X murder. In places it is so self-consciously outrageous you
Paperback, 292pp can almost hear the author jeering in the background
£11.62 as she offends good taste. Pascale Leconte has a habit of
Here at last is an English staring at battlefield casualties long after other writers
language edition of Pascale would have turned away.
Leconte’s 2014 novel about Readers who have already dirtied their hands delving
Florence Maybrick and the around in the innards of the Ripper Diary are perhaps
Jack the Ripper murders, best placed to appreciate the author’s scheme. She has
nicely timed to coincide merged fake news with biography, true crime with fantasy,
with the 25th anniversary to produce a strange, searching novel that explores the
of the publication of Shirley meaning of identity and the nature of innocence and guilt.
Harrison’s The Diary of Jack It’s not a Ripper novel as such, but a reconstruction of a life
the Ripper. that straddles both fiction and nonfiction genres. Towards
Jack Is Not A Man starts the end the author explains that this whole business
out as historical biography, ‒ the Maybrick story, the Jack the Ripper murders ‒ is
recounting the courtship and the unhappy marriage essentially a saga about women: Florence Maybrick, the
between Florence Chandler and James Maybrick. By murder victims, Anne Graham, Nurse Yapp, Jill the Ripper.
degrees, though, the plot turns violent, blood-drenched, And, of course, Pascale Leconte.
and sickening. There are decapitated chickens; corsets and
dresses are slashed with scissors. In a flashback we see BROKEN WINDOW
Florence as a child being sexually molested by her step- (THE HOUSE OF JACK THE RIPPER BOOK ONE)
father, the Baron von Roques. We see her being strangled Amy Cross
by her husband. There are fantasies of tearing babies from 2017
the womb and feeding them to the hounds. She christens Kindle Edition, 202pp
her new bay horse ‘Haemo’ (short for haemorrhage),
£0.99
which made me laugh (but nervously).
Broken Window is the first volume in a new horror
Florie disguises herself as a maid so that she can
story series titled The House of Jack the Ripper. The house
secretly follow her husband on his supposed business
in question is No. 9 Cathmore Street in Whitechapel,
trips into the East End. There she spies him consorting
an abandoned three-storey Victorian townhouse with
with Mary Jane Kelly, and that evening, incandescent
boarded-up windows and an over-grown front garden. It
with rage, she begins jotting down her private thoughts
has such an evil reputation even squatters won’t go near
into a Victorian scrapbook. Gradually, her mind turns to
the place. Yet one dark and stormy evening homeless
murder, and Florence’s narrative merges with the text of
teenager Maddie Harper opts to take refuge in the house
the Ripper Diary and with the legend of Jack the Ripper.
and crawls inside through a broken window round the
It’s a rather gloomy work, like the interior of the Paris
back.

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 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

The house is full of richly novels (the RIP series) that are being marketed (slightly
unsettling material ‒ creaking misleadingly) as ‘paranormal murder mystery romances’.
floorboards, scurrying rats, I approached the first volume rather cautiously, but I was
doors that open without quickly won over by this compelling and highly original
human agency, and bells detective story.
that sound mysteriously Set in 2017 in an alternate London, Track the Ripper
from upstairs rooms. In the offers an exciting fusion of noir thriller, near-future
basement there is an old science fiction and supernatural horror. While the style
operating theatre, and in one and the décor may remind you at times of Hill Street Blues,
of the bedrooms she finds a the novel’s descriptions of the sordid underbelly or East
stash of tattered papers and
London low-life mark this out as taut study of sexual
notebooks (with diagrams)
distress and violence.
detailing gruesome medical
The East Edge is a sprawling, rotten district of butcher
procedures. The remnant of something nasty, at least a
shops and high-rise apartment buildings that have been
century old, still lingers in the property.
gutted and turned into opium dens. The pubs are dim
Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we learn that the
and smoky, lit only by candles because electricity is too
house was once the residence of Jack the Ripper. He is Dr
expensive. Surveillance helicopters patrol the skies, and
Charles Grazier, a retired surgeon, who ventures out at
police officers use a voice-activated knowledge database
night into Whitechapel to slaughter prostitutes in order
called Blue. Out of this off-kilter metropolis crawls Jack the
to harvest their organs for transplant into his dying wife.
Ripper. So far he has struck three times ‒ Emma Smiley,
We watch as he manacles his wife into a wheelchair and
Martha Taberm, and now Mary Nickels ‒ and his crimes
takes her down into the basement theatre for emergency
are becoming increasingly bestial. Terrible rumours
surgery…
pullulate through the slums of Whitechapel telling of a
Broken Window may not be entirely suitable as bedtime
race of creatures ‒ half-man, half-animal, part human, part
reading. Amy Cross has crafted a superior horror tale
wolf or dog ‒ dwelling in the basements of the city.
which inflicts its macabre and creepy effects without
Inspector Frank Abberline is assigned to the case,
restraint. It is abundant in grisly incidents, and timid
teaming up with rookie PC John Thain and Inspector
readers need to be warned that things are only going to
Spratling.
get worse (i.e. scarier, more ghastly, even bloodier) in
later volumes. Book One ends in spectacular style with a The novel teems with well-drawn characters. There
ferocious twist I didn’t see coming. is Blazarius, the chain-smoking serial arsonist, who
This is a series definitely worth following. sets fire to the London docks on the night Mary Nickels
is murdered; a gaunt and very creepy Dr Llewelyn who
TRACK THE RIPPER works only at night and always in the morgue; a morbidly
obese slaughterman called Leather Chest. Mary Kelly
Lexy Timms
put her knowledge of Japanese rope bondage and erotic
2017
macramé to good use in a number of intriguing ways.
Kindle Edition, 213pp
There is a cameo by ‘Ivan’ Lipski who we first meet passed
£0.99
out under the bed from alcohol.
Lexy Timms is an
American author best known Beautifully written, smart and well-researched, this is a
for her erotic romance and remarkable cross-genre novel that impressed me deeply.
historical fantasy novels. Happily, the series continues over two further novels, and
Her books are full of bad boy I can’t wait to get back to the grim streets of East Edge.
cage fighters, panty-melting
motorcycle leaders, hunky THE WHITECHAPEL MIDWIFE
firefighters, and playboy M.L. Lanzillotta
bosses. Occasionally, she’ll 2017
turn her hand to hospital Kindle Edition, 5pp
love stories. £0.99

Now she offers a medical Here’s a short sharp shocker about a midwife
soap opera of a different abortionist working among the poor in Whitechapel.
kind. She has written a trilogy of Jack the Ripper themed A spoonful of laudanum, a few slashes of the surgeon’s

69
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

knife, and another unborn SHERLOCK HOLMES AND

baby is spared entry into the THE WHITECHAPEL WOMEN
cruel world. Until a botched Kelvin I Jones
operation on Mary Ann 2017
Nichols results in carnage, and Kindle Edition, 218pp
a new vocation is inspired… £2.30
Coming in at fewer than Kelvin Jones is the author
800 words, this bloodthirsty of the Inspector Ketch series
little horror tale barely gets of detective stories set in and
to introduce Jill the Ripper around Cromer on the Norfolk
before the curtain falls. coast. He has also written
There’s just enough time several novels featuring
for the heart to miss a beat and for the sickening stench Sherlock Holmes and Dr
of death to pervade the room. I don’t know anything at Watson, and a nonfiction
all about the author, but she has produced something study of Conan Doyle’s career
unsettling and rather sinister. as a psychic investigator.
Sherlock Holmes and the
1888 ‒ THE RIPPER FILE Whitechapel Women pits the
Lora Edwards famous consulting detective against the infamous serial
Purple Press, 2017 killer. Of course, these adversaries have met many times
Kindle Edition, 246pp before, most recently in Mark Sohn’s novel Sherlock Holmes
£0.99 and the Whitechapel Murders (reviewed in Ripperologist
Teagan Faelyn lectures on 155). Does Kelvin Jones bring anything new to the story?
the Whitechapel Murders at He’s written a sort of cross between John Cleland’s
Duke University. When her Fanny Hill and ‘A Study in Scarlet’. It’s the kind of book
grandfather discovers a never- which in the 1970s might have been mailed to you under
before-seen journal written plain cover from Forest Gate. The novel throbs away like
by Jack the Ripper in a dusty an old war wound or a pervert’s cock. The reader gets to
old box in the basement of the visit the knocking shops in the old city of Peshawar, the
British Museum, she journeys velvet-curtained torture rooms at 19 Cleveland Street,
to London to investigate the and the headmaster’s study at Grimstoke Towers where
artefact. But things don’t go naughty schoolgirls regularly get a sound flogging. I think
according to plan. She learns it’s fair to say that most of the characters in this novel end
that her mother is a witch and up with their backsides reduced to raw beef after a good
her father heir to the Faery caning or slippering. Holmes and Watson are depicted as
Throne; she is inculcated into a secret organisation, the homosexual lovers; the Baker Street Irregulars are former
Paranormal Research and Rescue Institute, and travels juvenile prostitutes, and Holmes has a dangerous taste for
back in time to put a stop to a rogue supernatural entity young boys; Moriarty is a pornographer and corrupter of
who has knocked off Montague Druitt and intends on youth; another character cools his ardour by emptying
murdering prostitutes. the contents of a woman’s just-used chamber pot over
1888 ‒ The Ripper File is crowded with witches and his face. Jack the Ripper is… Well, read it and find out.
dragons, unicorns, vampires, and Valkyries. While it’s Amid all this X-rated material you forget at times you are
competently written, I found the whole thing inane and supposed to be reading a Jack the Ripper novel.
vacuous. A romance between Teagan and a fellow agent It is late September, 1888. Sherlock Holmes has been
struck me as contrived and predictable. At one point, called in by DCI Swanson to assist in the psychological
during the height of the Ripper scare, Teagan and a friend profiling of the sadistic monster who is murdering
from the Institute spend a girls’ night in scoffing mint prostitutes in Whitechapel. Lately, Holmes has been
chocolates and watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians having terrible precognitive dreams in which he sees
on a flat-screen TV. I think that tells you all you need to himself eviscerating and disembowelling women. After
know about this novel. 1888 ‒ The Ripper File should be acquainting himself with Krafft-Ebing’s theories on lust
put at the back of the filing cabinet. murder, he forms the opinion that the Ripper may be
suffering from satyriasis. Plot-wise, the novel is a mess,

70
 Ripperologist 157 August/September 2017

which ends up wallowing in black magic conspiracy Frederick Wensley), who

theories, but it does a good job of situating the Whitechapel serves as Swift’s companion
murders against a grey landscape of British public school and interlocutor, and who acts
beatings. as our narrator.
This is an energetic romp that for the most part is good What follows is a kind of
clean dirty fun. grand tour of the East End,
taking in the crime scenes and
I Was Jack the Ripper (Part 4) other venues of interest ‒ the
Michael Bray London Hospital, the docks,
2017 the doss houses, the music
Kindle Edition, 36pp halls, and the surrounding
£0.99 streets and courtyards. All the while Swift is thinking
about the murders, developing a theory as to the identity
In Ripperologist 150 I
of the Ripper, jotting down his ideas into his pocket book.
reviewed Michael Bray’s I Am
It is only at the end of the story, when Seymour retires
Jack, the first volume in what
from the force, that he reveals the contents of Swift’s
I thought at the time was a
notebook and the younger officer’s solution to the Jack
projected trilogy. The series
the Ripper mystery.
has now been renamed I Was
Jack the Ripper, and the author It’s cleverly done. Readers new to the Ripper mystery
tells me he is developing should warm to the format of two coppers maundering
the story as an 8 or 10 part around the East End in search of answers. They peer into
serialized novel. The novella doorways, check out the fall of shadows in Mitre Square,
I reviewed in June 2016 and discuss every aspect of the Ripper crimes. Every
comprises Parts 1‒3 of the now and then they re-enact key events like ham actors:
new series. “Lipski!” snarls PC Swift, before trotting across the road to
play at being Israel Schwartz.
Part 4 is now out. It continues the shocking confession
of one-time mortuary assistant Edward Miller, the man The book is mesmerising in the way it explores the
claiming to be Jack the Ripper. It is 1893 and Miller is fallibility of memory and the relationship between
dying; he has approached Charles Hapgood to write his individuals and the chance events in their lives. I don’t
biography. Before a roaring fire, and with whiskey glass think Ting-Tang works as a piece of fiction, and nor can
in hand, the sordid details of his life spill out onto the it be trusted as a faithful documentary account of the
carpet like vomit. In this instalment, Miller describes Whitechapel Murders. Rather, it belongs on your shelves
his first encounter with Inspector Abberline, the double next to the life-writings of retired police officers ‒ the
event, and his blossoming relationship with Mary Kelly. self-aggrandising autobiography, the unreliable memoir,
But betrayal and rejection are powerful forces, feeding the the thrilling first-hand account of detective work in
monster inside. the raw. Clive Johnson has pulled off an act of literary
ventriloquism, using Swift and Seymour as mouthpieces
This is building into a very powerful drama. I will
for some of his own reflections on the autumn of terror
review it in detail once all the episodes are published.
‒ the role of eyewitness testimony, the murderer’s use
of disguises and confederates, the significance of grape
TING-TANG: THE TELL-TALE CHIMES
stalks and red roses, and the chiming of brewery clocks
Clive Johnson on Brick Lane that gives the book its title.
2017
Hugely enjoyable.
Kindle Edition, 209pp
£2.99 

This appears to be an updated version of the author’s IN THE NEXT ISSUE we review Matthew J. Kirby’s A Taste
2002 crime novel The Chime. It’s the story of Metropolitan For Monsters, and take a look at Ernie Lee’s new novel,
police constable Colin Swift (i.e. PC Ernest Thompson) Him, about the Malay cook suspect.
who discovered the body of Frances Coles in Swallow
Gardens. Reproaching himself for allowing the assailant 
to escape, Swift sets out to solve the Ripper mystery
DAVID GREEN lives in Hampshire, England, where he works as a
and bring the culprit to justice. In this endeavour, he is freelance book indexer. He is currently writing (very slowly) a book
befriended by another young officer, Fred Seymour (i.e. about the murder of schoolboy Percy Searle in Hampshire in 1888.

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