Ripperologist 78

Ripperologist 78 April 2007 1
RIPPEROLOGIST MAGAZINE
Issue 78, April 2007
QUOTE FOR APRIL:
Somehow, and [Manager] Alan Curbishley’s sheepish look on Saturday night suggested he wasn’t sure either.
West Ham are threatening to usurp Harry Houdini. Quite how they managed to defeat Arsenal despite only escaping their penalty area
twice in 90 minutes is a mystery to be bracketed alongside the whereabouts of Lord Lucan and the identity of Jack the Ripper.
football365.com’s report on West Ham United’s 1-0 win over Arsenal on 7 April 2007.
Features Books
Editorial: Paradise Lost On the Crimebeat
Adam Wood discovers murder doesn’t just live in the city. Wilf Gregg reviews the latest additions
From Who You Would Like To Know to the True Crime bookshelf.
Deborah Dobbins on why a poscard sent to Colonel James Fraser might not be so
We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance given
insignificant after all. by the following people in the production of this issue of
Ripperologist: Maggie Bird, Stephen Ryder, Keith Skinner,
“Mister, I Met a Man Once When I Was a Kid...” and Eduardo Zinna. Thank you!
Timothy Riordan looks at the mysterious life of Mary Jane Kelly. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in signed
articles, essays, letters and other items published in
“Two Most Peculiar Characters” Ripperologist are those of the authors and do not necessarily
reflect the views, conclusions and opinions of Ripperologist
Andy Aliffe with random observations of Francis Tumblety and Joshua Norton. or its editors. The views, conclusions and opinions expressed
in unsigned articles, essays, news reports, reviews and other
Charles Cross was Jack the Ripper? items published in Ripperologist are the responsibility of
Michael Connor returns with more on the man in Bucks Row. Ripperologist and its editorial team.
We occasionally use material we believe has been placed
A Tale of Two Farthings in the public domain. It is not always possible to identify
and contact the copyright holder; if you claim ownership of
Kevin Michael in (mdest) defense of Sir Henry Smith. something we have published we will be pleased to make a
proper acknowledgement.
“Mister, I Met a Man Once When I Was a Kid...” The contents of Ripperologist No. 78 (April 2007), including
Timothy Riordan looks at the mysterious life of Mary Jane Kelly. the compilation of all materials and the unsigned articles,
essays, news reports, reviews and other items are copyright
Obituaries: Bob Clark and Michael Dibdin © 2007 Ripperologist. The authors of signed articles,
essays, letters, news reports, reviews and other items
Eduardo Zinna remembers the lives of two gentlemen of retain the copyright of their respective contributions.
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Chris Scott returns with more from the news from the 19th century. constitute copyright infringement as defined in domestic
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Paradise Lost
EDITORIAL by ADAM WOOD
At the beginning of this month I had the pleasure of spending a fortnight as the guest of the
Ghost of Ripperologist Past, Eduardo Zinna, at his house on the Kenyan coast. Spending our early
mornings putting the world to rights as we strolled lazily along the white sand in the shadow of
palm trees, I wondered if it was possible to find a scene any further removed from the back streets
of London’s East End; the crimes of Jack the Ripper seemed a very long way away indeed.
Waiting for a connecting flight in Nairobi a few days later, however, I read a newspaper report of the
rape and murder of a two-year-old girl and, to quote Mr Monk Goes to Hawaii, “realised that danger, like
dirt, lurks everywhere.”
Lee Goldberg’s 2006 novel took the US TV private detective to many people’s idea of paradise, and
indeed the concept has featured in many fictional crime dramas, from Murder She Wrote to Hawaii Five-
O. In real life, while the population of Hawaii more than doubled from 632,772 in 1960 to 1,275,194 in
2005, and violent crime increased by more than 2,000%, murder itself remained very low, in double figures,
peaking at 84 in 1980*.
Just hearing the word ‘Jamaica’ conjures up images of a palm-lined Caribbean paradise, but according
a report in 2006 by the Caribbean Media Corporation, it’s now the murder capital of the world. In 2005
alone, over 1,600 people were killed - more than five each day.
Kenya was the scene of the infamous murder in 1988 of Julie Ward, whose dismembered, burned body
was discovered a week after she went missing on safari in the Masai Mara game reserve.
In Guanajuato, Mexico, sisters Delfina and Maria de Jesus Gonzales were sentenced in 1964 to 40 years
each for 91 murders; Ahmad Suradji admitted in 1997 murdering 42 women and girls over a period of eleven
years.
Even the Ripper was, for a while, feared to have made an appearance in Nicaragua. The world’s press
in February 1889 reported on the supposed murder and mutilation of six women in Managua, although it
was later claimed that the killings were hoaxes ‘put in circulation by Scotland Yard detectives... with the
strategical idea... of lulling to sleep the vigilance of the real monster’.
And three months earlier, the murder of Estina Crawford in Jamaica on 27 December 1888, was linked
to the Ripper in the press - even going so far as to be named ‘The Jamaica Ripper’ - simply because the
victim’s throat had been cut. The actual killer, Benjamin Ranger, confessed and was hanged on 5 February
1889.
Perhaps, with our focus on the damp, dirty slums of Victorian Whitechapel, we are conditioned to
automatically picture that landscape when thinking of murder and mayhem, so that dark deeds become
synonymous with dark places. And the truth is somewhat unsettling.
* www.disastercenter.com/crime
From Who You Would
Like To Know
A seemingly insignificant postcard sent to Colonel James
Fraser of the London Police is not so insignificant after all
By DEBORAH K DOBBINS
It is almost guaranteed that the first pieces of evidence a new Ripperologist examines are the
25th September Dear Boss letter, the Saucy Jacky postcard, the Lusk (From Hell) letter, and
perhaps the 6th October threat postcard. The Dear Boss letter, after all, gave birth to the name
Jack the Ripper which inevitably made the Whitechapel murders global news. From a pen filled
with thin red ink, the news sensation ‘Jack the Ripper’ was born. In the private investigations of
each individual hobbyist or serious researcher, the taunting letters are often regarded as hoaxes
written by an enterprising journalist, Thomas Bulling, and his boss at the Central News Agency,
John Moore. The authorship of Dear Boss, however, is debated as much now as it was then. Even
though it is more likely than not that the real Jack the Ripper didn’t write the ‘Ripper’ letters,
there remain unanswered questions and misconceptions as to the meaning of these letters and
the author’s purpose behind each one.
About halfway through Letters From Hell by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, I was taken aback by a postcard
addressed to Col James Fraser, Commissioner of the City of London Police. Signed only ‘Written from who you would
like to know’, it shared a remarkable number of personal handwriting traits with all three of the famous Dear Boss
communications – and there my work began.
I started this project fully prepared to do a complete handwriting analysis of each of the four letters which would
tell what the slant means, what each individual letter formation means, and so on. In other words, printing means this,
cursive means that, or if cross your dot your I and cross your ‘T’ a certain way it is indicatory of neurosis, etc. Early on
in the message boards it was quite clear that the audience was full of skeptics who would have a field day with this type
of analysis. I would like to make it clear that I have chosen not to go that route at this time. The purpose here will be
to analyze the text of these letters to discover the Dear Boss author’s individual personal handwriting characteristics
and get a better handle on the tone and purpose behind each one as well as that of the Fraser postcard.
So with the following document examination, I beg to offer modern Ripper detectives a new perspective in which
to view each letter, while also inviting the reader to accept the lesser known Fraser postcard as being the first of the
Dear Boss communications.
Analyzing Saucy Script

To include or eliminate a new letter as being written by the Dear Boss author, it is imperative to take a closer look at
the three letters and the Fraser postcard to examine each one’s unique purpose and meaning while comparing the many
similarities and differences. Some of the following details and descriptions may prove pure drudgery to read through,
but if you’re like me you’ve already scrolled down to look at the pictures first and come back to read the article. I
certainly hope that by the end of this article you may find this as exciting as I did. Images of the Ripper letters can be
found online at www.casebook.org/ripper_letters or in the book Letters From Hell.
Dear Boss, 25th September 1888

Something I’ve yet to see discussed in any other article or analysis of this particular communication is the style of
handwriting in which it was written. It is called copperplate calligraphy, commonly known as ‘script’ in Victorian days.
It is known for the strict disciplined style of thin hairline upstrokes and thick down strokes which form letters that run
on a diagonal 54-degree angle. It even requires the use of a specialized thin and flexible pen nib. The Declaration of

Independence is an excellent example of this. There are many
samples of Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting that exhibit his
vast skill and proficiency in this lettering style. Unfortunately,
Dear Boss was not written by the most skilled scribe as Dear
Boss does have several errors in letter formations. I’m also not
convinced that the author used the specialized pen nib for this
but instead made use of what he had to create the copperplate
letters.
Copperplate calligraphy has a specific pattern to follow
when forming each individual letter, so that all are uniform
and correct with one another. Even though there is a specific
pattern and rules to the formations, no one person writes the
same way twice. Your right hand has five fingers and so does
your left, and while both hands look very much the same, no
two fingers will have the same fingerprint. The same is true for
an individual’s handwriting. No two letters are ever identical.
Features and letters may appear pictorially similar but each
is unique. When the magnifying glass or other tool is utilized,
there will always be some small difference, no matter how
minute. This is especially true with the use of different writing
utensils, a variety of inks, and types of paper and surfaces.
It is also important to note that no matter how closely
the pattern is followed by the writer, one’s own individual
characteristics, features, discipline or lack thereof will be
present. This was very much the case with all three of the
communications. The first part of Dear Boss comprised a good
try at copperplate or script calligraphy but as the author went
on, he relaxed on many formations leaving his own traits
behind. To see if I could mimic the Dear Boss letter I began
to teach myself copperplate calligraphy. No matter how many times I practiced the alphabet or how close the same
items matched up, my personal traits and habits were present. In the long run, it is not the fancy calligraphy or
disciplined penmanship that will prove or disprove the significance of the Fraser card, but rather the unique individual
characteristics hidden in Dear Boss and the Fraser script that will provide the points for comparison.
As far as the tone and purpose, the author is clearly poking fun at the ignorance of the officials involved in the
investigation. If I were writing the Dear Boss letter today it would go something like
this, ‘You damn fools are nothing more than a bunch of squirrels chasing nuts! I’m
right under your nose and you haven’t a clue. I love doing it. I will do it again and
there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m arrogant because your ignorance has
made me that way. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.’ Of course, rather than ‘ha
ha’ I would write ‘LOL’.
Saucy Jacky Postcard, 1st October 1888

The Saucy Jacky postcard was short, sweet, and to the point. Unlike the 25th
September letter, this one was written in a hurry and probably not on a stable writing
surface. It was possibly written while moving in some fashion perhaps, in a bumpy
carriage or on a train. While the author did try to mimic his copperplate calligraphy
from before, he faltered and left us with even more clues of his personal traits.
The 6th October 1888 Threat Letter

This is perhaps the most concerning of the group. The author has dropped his
joking attitude and become downright nasty. He did try to write this letter to
copperplate standards and was likely on a sturdy writing surface such as a desk
or table. The author was obviously targeting some individual who had done or
said something to seriously wrong him. Even though it’s not likely he was Jack the
Ripper he was compelled to put the fear of the Ripper into them and their family.
By the shakiness and poor formations of some of the letters and features, I’m very

suspicious that the author had some sort of medical condition aggravating him at the time. I can only surmise tremors,
shakes, nervous twitches or tense muscles were to blame. It was no less written very slowly and tensely. I haven’t seen
the actual card in person, but I would also suspect that it was written with heavy pressure.
The Fraser Postcard and

Saucy Jacky Comparison
The Fraser postcard can be transcribed as
follows:
[Date unknown] [Drawing of heart] hart
[drawing of face] poor annie [drawing of rings]
rings I have those in my possession good luck
[Body of postcard]
Fraser you may trouble as long as you like for
I mean doing my work. I mean pollishing 10
more off before I stop the game. So I don’t
care a dam for you or any body else. I mean
doing it. I aint a maniac as you say I am to dam
clever for you Written from who you would like
to know [drawing of knife] my Knife.
A larger photo of the Fraser postcard is
available in Evans and Skinner’s Letters From
Hell.
By itself, this card is just another letter
poking fun at the police – in this case, Col James
Fraser. My first clue to the Fraser postcard being
written in the same hand as Dear Boss was the
handwriting itself. It wasn’t until much later
that it dawned on me that this was a similar
type of postcard to that used for the Saucy
Jacky communication. It was a very common
card for the time that was used for many of the
hoax letters. It appears to be the same brand
and style as the Saucy Jacky postcard. The only
notable difference between them seems to be
the printed postage stamp on the Fraser card
and what looks like a complete lack of postage
on the Saucy Jacky card.
Although the postmark date is no longer readable, the
artwork showing ‘poor Annie’ and the ‘rings’ offers some clue
that it was written after the murder of Annie Chapman on 8th
September 1888. This doesn’t conclusively prove but offers
the distinct possibility that the Fraser postcard predated the
25th September Dear Boss letter. Its primary focus is on Annie
Chapman and the crude sketch of the victim and her rings
indicates that Chapman was likely the most recent victim at
the time the communication was written.
The key phrases and mocking tone used in the Fraser card
and the Dear Boss letters are nearly identical. For example,
both make use of ‘I mean’ and ‘clever’. Both mention their
‘work’ and ‘games’. Who could forget the author’s ‘good luck’
well wishes to the police? Or his bad habit of underlining
ambiguous words and phrases? (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Top: Underlined words in the Dear Boss letter.
Bottom: Underlined words in the Fraser postcard

And now, here is a closer look at some of the similarities and personal traits.
Notice the lack of space between ‘I’ and ‘mean’ in both the Fraser and 6th
October letters. The ‘me’ rises above the ‘an’ and the ‘n’ is noticeably drooping
in both (Figure 2a). The letters ‘uck’ in both ‘luck’s are written very rigid causing
them to look like pointy lines rather than letters (Figure 2b).
Throughout the Dear Boss letters
and the Fraser postcard, there is a
repeated, deformed lower case ‘k’. The
Figure 2a body of the letter and notes around
Top: Fraser; Bottom: October 6th
the artwork in the Fraser letter are
very similar in appearance to the shaky
upright handwriting in the Saucy Jacky
postcard. On all three, the letters ‘ork’ Figure 3. Top: Dear Boss;
in ‘work’ rise above the first letter ‘w’ Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Saucy Jacky
(Figure 3).
The ‘would’ and ‘wouldn’t’ are
strikingly similar (Figure 4). Notice
Figure 2b
Top: Dear Boss; Bottom: Fraser another set of deformed ‘k’s and the
similarity of the ‘w’ in ‘know’ (Figure 5).
Note the small ‘h’ and small open top ‘a’ in the Fraser ‘have’ and the Saucy
Figure 4. Top: Dear Boss; Bottom: Fraser
Jacky ‘had’ is also made (Figure 6).
The author couldn’t send any of the letters without an address, could he?
On all three, the ‘don’ is higher
up than the ‘Lon’, and the middle ‘n’
and ‘d’ are barely connected with a
hairline stroke (Figure 7). The ‘L’ on
Figure 5. Top: Oct 6th; Bottom: Fraser
the Dear Boss ‘London’ was originally
written in lower case. One can see where
the author has gone back and made a
correction loop at the bottom to make
it capital. Despite the correction, the
Figure 7. Top: Saucy Jacky;
Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Dear Boss
capital ‘L’ in all three cases towers above
the rest of the word, including the small
‘d’ which should have been the same
height according to copybook rules. The Figure 6. Top: Dear Boss;
Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Saucy Jacky
ending ‘n’s are nearly identical.
Another set of similar letters is found in the double ‘ff’ words. The Fraser card
has two sets of double ‘ff’ words, ‘off’ and ‘office.’ Dear Boss also contains a few
double ‘ff’ patterns.
The Dear Boss double ‘ff’ clearly
didn’t follow the rules of copperplate
Figure 8. Left: Dear Boss;
calligraphy. This is another example of
Middle: Fraser; Right: Dear Boss
the author relaxing from the rules and
writing in his own personal style. This personal style is clearly present in the
Fraser double ‘ff’. The first ‘f’ is longer than the second with a near absence
of lower loops. The Dear Boss double ‘ff’ on the right shows an effort to form
them to copperplate standards, but still end up in the author’s individual
style (Figure 8).
Figure 9. Top: Dear Boss;
The author of both exhibits several different styles of the small ‘f’ (Figure Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Saucy Jacky
9). Please note that the top left Dear Boss ‘for’ was taken from the post
script.

Now that we’ve looked at some key words
and phrases, let’s take a closer look at the
individual alphabetical letters.
Notice the small indentations at the closure
of the ‘a’ and the slant and shape of the
capital letter ‘C’. Also look at the narrow
triangle between the ‘d’ loop and the stem
connection (Figure 10).
The Saucy Jacky
postcard and the
Figure 10a. Top: Dear Boss; Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Oct 6th Fraser postcard have
Figure 10b. Top: Dear Boss; Middle: Fraser; Bottom Saucy Jacky quite a bit in common
Figure 10c. Top: Dear Boss; Middle: Fraser; Bottom: Saucy Jacky
in relation to letter
formations. The Saucy
Jacky lower case ‘g’ and ‘p’ are two pictorially similar (Figure
11).
The author has used what is called a ‘spoon e’. The beginning
stroke comes up to a point, then drops back down, then back
up and around to form the top loop (Figure 12). Figure 11.
Left: Saucy Jacky;
Besides the spoon ‘e’, there are many other worthy ‘e’ Right: Fraser
comparisons (Figure 13).
Figure 12. Left: Oct 6th;
Middle: Dear Boss; Right: Fraser Figure 14 shows excellent examples the underhanded loops in the ‘g’, ‘a’ and ‘d’
in Dear Boss and the ‘o’, ‘g’, ‘a’, and ‘d’ of the Fraser postcard.
The alphabet comparison is always
an interesting one and is very telling
when matching the slant of the sample
documents (Figure 15). Unfortunately,
there were only a few capitals in the
Fraser letter to work with.
Figure 14. Left: Dear Boss; Right: Fraser
As we saw in the first example of the
small ‘a’ where there were indentations
at the closure, there were several ‘a’s
with no closure or, in the case of the 6th
October letter, a corrective stroke that
Figure 13. Left: Dear Boss; was used to cover this opening. As with
Middle: Fraser; Right: Saucy Jacky the small ‘f’, many letters used two to
three styles that were found in both Dear
Boss and the Fraser postcard (Figure 16). The small ‘k’ didn’t take on a
consistent formation in Dear Boss or the Fraser postcard, however, it was Figure 15. L-R: C I J L M
consistently deformed in all of the writings.
I had always assumed, like most everyone else, that Dear Boss, Saucy,
and the 6th October letter were the only taunting letters written by this
that particular hand. I had to flip back a hundred pages or so as I kept
thinking that I had just seen the double ‘ff’ pattern, the unique lowercase
‘e’, and deformed lowercase ‘k’ somewhere else in Letters From Hell.
After making the picture comparisons, it was very clear that the Fraser
postcard was not only written by the same hand but also, possibly was the Figure 16. Left: Saucy Jacky;
Middle: Fraser; Right: Dear Boss
first communication by that clever hand. The Fraser card was the one that
was written in the author’s true hand and will ultimately provide the most
clues if or when a match is found.
I would not be the least bit surprised to find out that the author wrote other letters and postcards that were thought
of as jokes and quickly discarded without a second thought. As with many aspects of this case, stranger things have
happened. Dear Boss and the other ‘Ripper’ communications are by no means the golden key that will unlock the door
to Jack’s identity. They no less remain a tiny piece in a much bigger picture of ‘who you would like to know’ and whom
we would all like to know.

Afterword
Deborah K Dobbins has been
a law enforcement officer
for the past 11 years and has
studied handwriting analysis and
forensic document examination
for the past six years. She lives
in Indianapolis, Indiana with
her family and two German
Shepherds. She is searching for
samples of handwriting from the
journalist Thomas Bulling other
than the two samples found in
Letters From Hell for a future
article and would appreciate any
help or leads. Deborah may be
contacted at CPTGSD@comcast.
net
Further Reading
Anyone wishing to learn more about the topics discussed in this article is encouraged to check out these excellent
publications for further study: Ron N. Morris, Forensic Handwriting Identification: Fundamental Concepts and
Principles. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2000 (ISBN 0-12-507-640-1); Herb Kaufman and Geri Homelsky, Calligraphy
in the Copperplate Style. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1980 (ISBN 0-486-24037-1); Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner,
Letters From Hell. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2001 (ISBN 0-7509-2549-3); Michelle Dresbold with James Kwalwasser,
Sex, Lies, and Handwriting New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006 (ISBN 0-7432-8809-2).
Loretta Lay Books

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[email protected]

“Mister, I Met a Man
Once When I Was a Kid...’
The Mysterious Life of Mary Jane Kelly
By TIMOTHY B RIORDAN
In the 120 years since the Whitechapel murders, researchers have dug deeply into every aspect of
the Ripper murders. Minute details are known about the lives of most of the victims, the suspects,
and the investigating officers. Seemingly, every nook and cranny of the Whitechapel district has
been explored, detailed and reported on. An extensive and voluminous literature discusses all
aspects of the case.
Amidst this wealth of detail, the one glaring exception is the personal history of Mary
Jane Kelly, the last of the canonical victims. Despite testimony from her friends and
acquaintances, very little can be verified about her life before her date with destiny.
Several excellent researchers have intensely scrutinized her story, yet the meager facts of
her life remain obscure. Christopher Scott, in Will the Real Mary Kelly...?, wrote a detailed
account of the pitfalls and frustrations of trying to identify this woman from the story
published in 1888.1 At least twice, her shadow should have been captured by the census
takers in Wales or England. The indexing and digitization of the census returns has not
yielded any person who fits the story. Not one verifiable fact can be positively associated
with the woman who died in Miller’s Court before the mid-1880s.
Why is Mary Jane Kelly the only Ripper victim who remains so unknown? Even the early
life of Elizabeth Stride, who was born in Sweden, is better documented than Kelly. There
are probably several reasons for this. Almost everything we know of her life comes from
Joseph Barnett, her last live-in lover. Barnett did not keep a detailed diary of what Kelly
told him, but remembered parts of casual conversations, undoubtedly some held while they
were both drunk. We should also keep in mind that Kelly told Barnett what she wanted him
to know of her previous life. Although they lived together for 20 months, there were likely
things she did not want him to know about her life and family.
A related problem is the lack of testimony from any close relatives. According to Barnett,
she had a number of brothers, a sister and both her parents were probably still alive. None
of these people showed up at the inquest, at her funeral, or appear to have said anything to the press. Given her less-
than-respectable lifestyle, this is perhaps understandable. There was a report that her father came looking for her
in London, but that she hid so that he would not find her.2 If true, this indicates a high level of estrangement on her
part. Her desire not to be found by her father may have implications for what she told people about her previous life.
Without any known relatives, it leaves us depending on the memories of people who only knew her in the last years of
her life.
1 Christopher Scott, Will the Real Mary Kelly...?, PABD Publishers, 2005, presents the most complete assessment of the traditional story.
The web site Casebook: Jack the Ripper also details this story and presents transcripts of the relevant newspaper accounts of the
murder and the inquest.
2 Penny Illustrated Paper, Nov. 17, 1888. This and most other references to newspaper articles come from transcripts posted on the
Casebook website.

Although it has been told many times, it is necessary to briefly repeat the story of Mary Jane Kelly’s life as it was
presented in 1888. While her age in 1888 was estimated between 22 and 30, the clear consensus was that she was 25
years old when she died. This is what she told Barnett and that is what he put on her coffin. Based on this, researchers
have set her birth in the year 1863 but no record of that birth has been found. She was reportedly born in Limerick,
Ireland and at an early age, her family migrated to Wales.
There has been some discussion as to whether Kelly was her birth name, a
married name or an alias she adopted. Barnett was quite clear on this in his
testimony, stating that her father’s name was John Kelly. He said that Kelly
was a “gaffer” or foreman in an iron foundry in either Carnarvonshire or
Carmarthenshire. Both Barnett and Mrs. Carthy said that Mary’s family was “well
to do,” implying that they were of a higher social status. Nothing in the record
speaks to who Mary’s mother was. The family was said to consist of six or seven
brothers and a “respectable” sister. One of the brothers was in the 2nd Battalion
of the Scots Guards and Barnett claimed that he came to see her once. His name
may have been Henry with his nickname being Johnto.
At the age of 16, she claimed to have married a collier (coal miner) named
Davis or Davies. He was killed in an explosion some unspecified time later. After
the death of her husband, she went to live with a cousin in Cardiff. While there,
she spent eight or nine months in an infirmary. She lived a bad life in Cardiff and
Barnett blamed the cousin for her “downfall.” Researchers have assumed that
Joe Barnett she became a prostitute while in Cardiff.
For unspecified reasons, she moved to London where her story becomes quite complicated. She found a place in a
West End brothel run by a French woman. She claimed to have done well and to have ridden frequently in carriages,
a sign of her status. A man she met suggested that she could do well in France and so she accompanied him across the
channel. It did not turn out well and she returned to London where she lived in the house of Mrs. Buki on Ratcliffe
Highway. It is reported that she took to drink and made herself unwelcome with Mrs. Buki. Next she went to the house
of Mrs. Carthy on Pennington Street, which Barnett said was a brothel. Leaving there, she may have lived near the
Stepney Gasworks with a man named Morganstone, then possibly near Bethnal Green with a man named Fleming and
finally with Joseph Barnett.
This is the story that has been examined, analyzed, and repeatedly dissected over the years without any success in
pinning down the details. Accepted at face value, it will never be fully understood. People shape the story they tell
others to suit their needs and often it is more important to garner sympathy or to hide perceived flaws than it is to
tell the truth. It could be that the more unfortunate the life, the greater the need to obscure and misdirect. While
later in time, Humphrey Bogart’s character in Casablanca, spoke about the way prostitutes use their story to get the
sympathy of their customers:
I heard a story once. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard a lot of stories in my lifetime. They went along with
the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. “Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid,” it’d
always begin.
We need to parse Mary Jane Kelly’s story in light of the several filters through which it has come down to us. The first
level is what Kelly herself hoped to gain or hide. She only told Barnett and others what she wanted them to know. The
second filter is Barnett’s recollection of what he was told and his desire not to harm her memory after her death. It is
likely that he told only the things that were necessary. Also, as he never expected to testify to any of the story, he might
not have remembered it in detail. Finally, we have the filter of what was recorded in the newspapers. Even a cursory
examination of the accounts of Barnett’s inquest testimony shows inconsistencies and different word choices with
subtly different meanings. These filters are one of the reasons why it has been so hard to identify Mary Jane Kelly.
For example, one of the issues where this may be important is that of Kelly’s age. She told Barnett and others that
she was in her mid-20s and that is an accepted part of the story. In her profession, youth was always a premium and
staying young meant a place to stay and food to eat. Being old meant the streets and hunger or worse. John McCarthy,
her landlord, said she was 25 but looked 30.3 One could attribute this to a hard life and too much drink, or perhaps
she was older than she told people she was. Her recent lover, Joseph Barnett, was 30 years old and she probably would
not want to be older than him. Still there is nothing in the story that demonstrates she was older than the generally
accepted age of 25.
3 In both the Washington Evening Star, Nov. 10, 1888 and the Syracuse Herald, Nov. 11, 1888, John McCarthy is reported to have said
he rented a room to Kelly, who “looked thirty.”

There are a few points that stand out in the 1888 story and, if we wish to find out who she was, we have to follow
these as guideposts. The first is the description of Mary Jane Kelly’s father. Barnett states that his name was John
Kelly and that he was a foreman in an iron foundry in Wales. This is a very specific and unique job description. If one
were going to invent an occupation for her father, there would be many, more likely possibilities than “a foreman in
an iron works,” and this has the ring of truth. In the 1881 census of Wales, there are 39 John Kellys born in Ireland and
only one is listed as a foreman in an iron foundry.4 He was not in Carnarvon or Carmarthen but worked at the famous
Sandycroft Foundry and Engine Works and lived in Hawarden, Flintshire. The company specialized in making machinery
for the mining industry not only in Wales, but in countries around the world. This would be a fairly responsible and
respectable position.
In the 1881 Hawarden Kelly household, in addition to John (age 54), was his wife Mary (56), daughter Marie (22) and
sons Philip (18), Thomas (16), John (13) and Charles (10). When this family was first found in the census, researchers
were excited about Marie but that hope was dashed when it was learned that she married William Evans in 1881 and
was still listed in the 1891 census living in Flintshire with a large family. Of this group, Mary, the mother, was born in
Scotland while Marie and Philip were born in Liverpool and the rest of the boys were born in Chester. They were all
living at 3 Bridge Cottages, in Sandycroft.5
If we look for this same family in the 1871 census, we have to look in Cheshire, not Wales, as the younger boys
were all born there. The family was then living at 4 Charles Street, in Chester. John and Mary are both listed and he is
still described as a foreman in an engine works. In addition to the children listed in the later census, we can add four
others to this family: Sarah (22), Mary Jane (19), William (17) and Elizabeth (14). All of these children were born in
Liverpool with the exception of Mary Jane, whose birthplace is listed as Dublin, Ireland. This Mary Jane Kelly would be
too old, being born in 1852, for the 25-year-old woman who died in Miller’s Court in 1888, assuming she was truthful
about her age.
The traditional story states that Mary Kelly married a collier named Davies when she was 16 years old. That would
place the marriage in 1879 and no trace of that marriage has been found. Christopher Scott wrote that “Mr. Davies
or Davis is noticeable by his absence.” A detailed investigation of marriages between Mary Kelly (of any spelling) and
anyone whose name begins with ”Dav...” between the years 1869-1882 in Wales, Cheshire and Lancashire produced only
two matches, remarkably both in 1874:
John Davies and Mary Kelly during Oct-Dec in Chester, Cheshire
Daniel Davies and Maria Kelly during July-Sept. in Wigan, Lancashire
In the first case, the marriage certificate reveals her father’s name was Patrick, not John. He was listed as a
carpenter and was already dead in 1874. While it has not been possible to identify this family in the 1881 census, the
details on the marriage certificate would tend to rule them out. In the second case, Maria Davies, although a widow,
was still living in Lancashire with her children in 1891.
The lack of any marriage record may indicate several things. At least some accounts of Barnett’s testimony show
considerable uncertainty on his part over the name of Mary’s husband and it may be that he did not actually recall it. If
so, she may be one of the many Mary Kellys who married during this period and we may never know. It is also possible
that she never married and that it was a tragic story she made up to garner sympathy from Barnett and others. It does
seem curious that if she had been married and widowed, she would be using her maiden name.
Mary Jane Kelly should be listed in the 1881 census either under her birth name or her married name. In fact, there
is a Mary Jane Kelly of the right age for the Hawarden Kelly, born in Dublin, as she was, living in Chester in 1881. This
woman is listed as a nurse in the Chester General Infirmary. Part of the story published in 1888 was that Mary Kelly had
spent some time in an infirmary in Cardiff so this looked promising. Unfortunately, in the 1871 census of Chester, in
the same parish, this woman is living with her parents, John and Mary. Also the 1891 census reveals that she had risen
to become head nurse at the infirmary. Thus, she was neither the woman who died in Miller’s Court nor the Mary Jane
Kelly of Hawarden and the case points out the difficulty and danger of doing this kind of research.
4 All references to the census or the indexes of births, marriages and deaths were consulted at the Ancestry.com website.
5 In the index to the 1881 census, this is listed as 3 “Raily” Cottages, which has been interpreted as “Railway” Cottages. However,
looking at the actual image, it is clear that this is “Bridge” cottages, an address that still exists in Hawarden.

Another possibility in the 1881 census is a
Mary Kelly, of the right age to be the Kelly from
Hawarden, listed in the Roath district of Cardiff.
Interestingly, she is an inmate at the Roman
Catholic House of Refuge for Fallen Women. This
institution, otherwise known as the Convent of
the Good Shepherd, was established in 1872 by
the Marquis of Bute as a home for “penitent and
destitute women,” and was supported by the
labor of the inmates. The institution could hold
160 women and almost all of them are listed
as “laundress.” The Mary Kelly listed, while of
the right age, lists her birthplace as Brighton.
Further searching of the 1871 and 1861 census
of England and Wales failed to find this woman.
Also, there is no birth of a Mary Kelly recorded
in Brighton during the period 1851-1854. Given
her age, the lack of a record of a Mary Kelly
born in Brighton and the story of the woman
murdered in Miller’s Court, it is possible, but not
proved, that this woman is both the Mary Kelly
of Hawarden and the murder victim.
The only other specific fact that Barnett
remembered about Mary’s family was that her
brother, whose name might have been Henry
and whose nickname was Johnto, was in the
2nd Battalion of the Scots Guards. Kelly said
that this brother had visited her in London but
Barnett had not met him. The Mary Jane Kelly
from Hawarden had a brother named John who
was born in Cheshire in 1868. In the 1891 census
of both Wales and England there are six John
Kellys born c1868 in Cheshire. Of these, five can
be eliminated by other family associations. The
remaining one is listed as living in Surrey at the
Caterham Barracks and was listed as a soldier.
The Caterham Barracks was the main depot for
Her Majesty’s Foot Guards, including the Scots
Guards. He would certainly be a good match for
the soldier Barnett was told about.
Finally, a search of the 1891 census of both Wales and England failed to reveal any record of the Mary Jane Kelly
who lived in Hawarden. Of course, if she finally married, she could be listed under another name. Immigration is also
an option. Given her history, it is also possible that she died at Miller’s Court in 1888.
In summary, the Mary Jane Kelly who lived in Hawarden fits the main points of the story published in 1888. She
was born in Ireland—only Dublin not Limerick. Her father was John Kelly and he was foreman in an iron foundry in
Wales—though Flintshire not Canarvonshire. She came from a large family with five brothers and three sisters. In 1881,
she may have been in an institution in Cardiff—a home for fallen women, however not an infirmary. She had a brother
named John—not Henry—who was a soldier in a Foot Guards unit. However, she is ten years older than the age recorded
in the 1888 story.
Given the evidence so far accumulated, it cannot be proved that the Mary Jane Kelly who lived in Hawarden is the
same woman who died in Miller’s Court. Nevertheless, her life has some startling parallels to that of the woman who
became a victim of Jack the Ripper. Much more detailed research in records less easily available than the census and
vital records needs to be done to establish the necessary links. Those connections may eventually be forged. Or, it may
be that this is a remarkable coincidence. The important point of this study is that the story created in 1888 needs to
be seen in the context of the person who told it and the man who repeated what he was told.

‘Two Most
Peculiar Characters’
Random Observations of
Francis Tumblety and Joshua Norton
By ANDY ALIFFE
Some time ago in these pages I recounted the legend of Wild West prostitute Sadie Orchard,
whose story I found in Bowler Hats and Stetsons, a book bought for $1 in the Strand, New York
City’s famous second-hand bookstore. It is an illustrated, biographical collection of stories of the
English who made ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in America during the late 19th Century. Two of the biographies
were of interest because of East End connections. Sadie’s account has been told [Ripperologist
71, September, 2006], which leaves me with the strange story of Joshua Abraham Norton, an East
End born Jew who, under the delusion of ‘temporary madness’, proclaimed himself ‘Norton the
First, Emperor Of America and Protector of Mexico’.
Born in London in 1819, Joshua Norton had in fact arrived in
America via South Africa and settled in California during the first
‘Gold Rush’ of 1849, but after a failed business venture, a loss of
thousands of dollars and a mental breakdown, he became bankrupt
and fell on hard times.
I had come across Norton’s name before in connection with Ripper
suspect Francis Tumblety, in a posting on the Casebook message
boards, back in 2004, by San Franciscan Joe Chetcuti, who wrote:
Ironically, not only were both Tumblety & Emperor Norton
doing their thing in San Francisco in the summer of 1870, but
it turns out the Emperor lived a short distance from Tumblety’s
2nd medical office on Kearny Street. So the idea of the 19th
century’s two most peculiar characters meeting in the street or
in a local pub could actually have occurred.
Well perhaps they did meet?

I knew nothing more about the Emperor until reading the book.
What struck me was the similarity in dress and life style of Norton
and Tumblety, these ‘two most peculiar characters’, and on further
research there followed more connections and coincidences.
Such was the fascination and popular notoriety of Tumblety and
Norton that both were immortalised in vaudeville sketches. On
September 17th, 1861, Joshua was invited to San Francisco’s newly
opened theatre, Tuckers Hall, to see a performance of Norton
the First – Or Emperor for a Day, his ‘regal’ presence being duly
recognised by a curious audience. Three months later, on December
4th, Tumblety was being portrayed (possibly by himself!) on the
stage of Washington’s Canterbury Theatre in a skit entitled Tumblety
Norton the First, Emperor of America and Protector of Mexico
Outdone. Thus, both their public personae were ensured.

Now let us compare the descriptions
of each man. From a composite of
various contemporary newspaper
reports of these two individuals, we
find the following about Tumblety:
He travelled around in the
costume of a military man. He
had an enormous ‘Persian Shako’,
a form of military hat, with a
peak and an upright plume. He
wore an elaborate uniform the
front of which was covered with
decorations, also cavalry trousers
with the brightest of yellow
stripes. He wore a thick, curly,
black moustache and hair. He
has two bright piercing eyes. He
wandered about the purlieus of
the city at all hours of the day and
night, and always had two pet dogs
as companions.
Norton and Tumblety
About Norton we find:

His garb was cut in military style and profusely adorned with brass buttons, and cavalry stripped trousers. He
sported a tall beaver hat, which was thoughtfully decorated with a plume of feathers and a rosette. With dark
hair that was inclined to curl, he had heavy eye-brows under a massive forehead, a dark curled moustache and
beard , and clear and penetrating eyes. As Norton made his way around the streets of San Francisco, his royal
court of two mongrel dogs would almost always be close by.
Strikingly alike I would say. Perhaps the ‘peculiarities’ of Tumblety’s own latter day ‘mode’ were inspired by the
Emperor’s own ‘eccentric fashion’?
It was through the pages of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin that both Tumblety and Norton made their first
published introductions to the citizens of the Bay area. Tumblety’s successful sales technique for his herbal remedies
relied solely on appealing to the gullible masses through false personal testimony, as printed in the pages of the local
press. A San Francisco contemporary of Tumblety’s was quoted as saying: ‘While here he stated to me that his stay in
this city would be governed by an arrangement he was trying to effect with the Bulletin about advertising’. Indeed a
productive promotional arrangement was duly made.
Tumblety’s autobiographical pamphlet, A
Sketch from an Eventful Career, meanwhile
proclaimed:
Without egotism I may say that no medical
practitioner ever visited San Francisco who so
speedily established as enviable a reputation
as myself. The success of my practice speedily
spread; for no advertising is so valuable as
the grateful expressions of those who have
been rescued from pain and suffering by the
administering of the physician. My office
daily presented the appearance of a ‘levee’,
an assembly of visitors and guests. So far
as the realization of a golden harvest was
concerned, at no previous epoch of my life
did fortune favour me with so favourable an
opportunity’.
Norton and canine friends So said he, with his usual air of modesty! Tumblety and canine friend

On the other hand, Emperor Norton’s ‘coronation’ was brief, without
fanfare and to the point! On September 17, 1859, a neatly dressed and
serious looking Joshua Norton climbed the stairs of 517 Clay Street to the
office of the Bulletin and placed in front of George Fitch, the editor, a piece
of paper, on which he had written the first of his many decrees. The next
morning, light-hearted news being in short supply, Fitch ran a headline:
‘Have We An Emperor Among Us?’ and printed the following proclamation:
At the pre-emptory request of a large majority of the citizens of
these United States, I Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of
Good Hope, and now for the last nine years and ten months past of
San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself the Emperor of
These United States, and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested
do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States
of the Union to assemble in Musical Hall of this city, on the 1st day of
February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing
laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country
is labouring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and
abroad, in our stability and integrity. Signed — Norton I, Emperor of the
United States.
Thus his empire was established, his reign begun, and the Bulletin
continued to be the ‘official mouthpiece’ for both Tumblety and Norton.
All cities have a singular class of eccentric, and San Francisco had perhaps
more than its fair share during the mid to late 1800s (and, some would
argue, still does!). Their popular ‘promenade’ was through the streets of
Montgomery and Kearny. Here in the late afternoon might be seen a most
unusual procession of ‘individuals’. Some were impoverished, soiled and
ragged; some in their personal appearance were fantastic or picturesque with delusions of grandeur; others were those
who retained the gentility of their happier days with dignity to the end. In the heart of this ‘cacophonous catwalk of
crazies’ were Tumblety and Norton.
Listed since the 1862/63 San Francisco City Directory as ‘Emperor, by obliging and sympathetic officials, Joshua
Norton was first listed as living at the Metropolitan Hotel, but his bohemian palace of 14 years became the ‘Eureka
Lodging House’ at 624 Commercial Street. Here again, in the 1870 census, under the heading of occupation, official
recognition was given to his status as Emperor, noting also that he was ‘insane’!
His ‘imperial’ apartment was not palatial.
It was a room of 6 x 10 feet in dimensions,
with a threadbare carpet, a bed and a
few other dilapidated furnishings. The
main decorations were portraits of foreign
rulers, pasted news clippings of his royal
exploits and a collection of hats, swords
and walking sticks.
Norton’s residential section adjoined the
parallel ‘promenading’ thoroughfares of
Kearny Street to the west and Montgomery
Street to the east, and was only a few
blocks away at each end from Tumblety’s
‘sometimes’ business addressees of 30
Kearny Street and 20 Montgomery Street,
with Tumblety’s residential address in the
Occidental Hotel also only a couple of
blocks to the south of the ‘Imperial Palace’
of Emperor Norton. So, for almost all of
1870 they were very near neighbours,
624 Commercial Street moving in close proximity on a daily basis.

THE ‘LICK HOUSE’
HIBERNIA BANK
TUMBLETY’S OFFICE
Montgomery Street, San Francisco
Tumblety would certainly have known about ‘Norton the First’ as the Emperor was a very familiar figure on the
streets and was seen and recognized everywhere. Indeed, the Emperor’s routine would have taken him past both
Tumblety’s offices, while happily engaging anyone in conversation on ‘issues of state’ or news of the nation.
With a ceremonial sword at his side and an umbrella or walking stick as his sceptre, the Emperor strolled about
his domain. During his daily patrol, Norton made certain that all pavements were unobstructed. He reviewed the
police to see that they were on duty. He checked on the progress of needed street repairs, inspected buildings under
construction, and in general saw to it that all of the city’s rules were enforced. This was not from idle curiosity but
from genuine interest.
Two stray mongrels, Bummer and Lazarus, became associated with the Emperor and were dubbed his ‘canine
courtiers’, who were supposedly seen to follow him everywhere. These mutts roamed the streets of San Francisco in the
early 1860s, exempt from a strict city ordinance that forbade dogs without a leash or muzzle. Any other dog attempting
this would have been captured and taken off to the pound, but Bummer and Lazarus gained the respect and attention
of the townsfolk because of their expertise at killing rats as well as their unique bond of friendship.
Much to the Emperor’s annoyance, he and the dogs
became the subject of a series of cartoons by the San
Francisco-based French artist, Edward Jump. One
depicted all three eating at a free luncheon table.
Another showed Bummer and Lazarus ambling along
Montgomery Street at the heels of Norton, while
yet another featured Norton giving the blessing at
Lazarus’ funeral while Bummer looked on, mournfully.
Newspapers constantly reported their escapades,
whether it was stealing a bone from another dog or
stopping a runaway horse.
At a later date, when Bummer lay dying in the
streets, local press vied with each other in updating
the news. The young reporter Mark Twain, who
worked a few doors away from the Emperor’s
lodgings in Commercial Street, as a reporter for
the San Francisco Morning Call, eulogized Bummer,
saying that he ‘died full of years, and honour, and
The Funeral of Lazarus, by Edward Jump disease, and fleas.’

Norton was personally known to and written
about by, both Mark Twain and Robert Louis
Stevenson. They were affectionate about him,
immortalised him as a fictional character in
their subsequent novels. Twain depicted him
as the ‘King’ in The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn and his non-majestic, scruffy self was
depicted as Emperor Norton in Stevenson’s The
Wrecker.
And what of Tumblety? By November 1888,
when his name became associated with Jack the
Ripper, his antecedents were being investigated Bummer and Lazarus, saved by the taxidermist
in San Francisco.
‘I remember him [Tumblety]’, exclaimed Dr C. C. O’Donnell. ‘He was noted for his eccentricity and mysterious
manners. He kept but little company, dressed in a peculiar fashion. His morals were of the most degraded character
and his reputation, generally speaking, was that of half crank half scoundrel. He came here in 1870 when a great row
was being made about unlicensed physicians. He was hauled up, and, having no diploma, was compelled to leave the
town. He sold out his stuff at auction, but there was not much but empty bottles to dispose of. He was a humbug and
was to be seen on Kearny Street every afternoon, just like the ‘Great Unknown’.
The curious appearance of Tumblety and Norton, made while promenading, left an impression on the locals and their
names would be linked in print with an array of other San Francisco’s ‘offbeats’.
The ‘Great Unknown’ appeared ‘promenading’ sometime in the late 1860s. A
contemporary edition of the San Francisco News told part of his story. He was faultlessly
attired, but from beneath his polished silk hat fell a thick mane of black hair, and he
walked with a curious flourish, his gold-headed cane held behind him. He spoke to no one,
preserving the aura of mystery, and went his way unconcerned by the staring public. As
time went on he became, along with Emperor Norton, one of the daily promenade’s most
fascinating features. After a time interest waned and he was taken for granted.
When finally newspapers announced that the ‘Great Unknown’ would give a reception in
Pacific Hall and there disclose his true identity, charging an admission of fifty cents [about
$7.30 in today’s money], no one was really interested. A few members of the public and
some newspapermen gathered to hear the secret reported by the San Francisco Chronicle
in July 1871. He revealed that he was a retired German tailor named William Frohm, living
only a block away from the Emperor on Dupont Street. Born in West Prussia in 1833, he
came to America, telling a reporter, ‘because I had read that it was a land flowing with
milk and honey, but I was disappointed. I have seen cutthroats, horse stealers, gamblers
and such like, but I never saw so many as I have met with here, with whiskey shops at
every corner.’
He also made known that he had engaged in many occupations ‘I have carried a hod,
kept a saloon, made rails, worked on farms, peddled amongst savages, traded in provisions
and all kinds of business until I became sick.’ Well not much for a fifty-cent entrance fee,
but he did do a trade at the end, selling signed portraits of himself as souvenirs! This was
The ‘Great Unknown’ a money-making idea that the Emperor would later adopt, and that the publicity hungry
Tumblety would transcend.
Another of San Francisco’s ‘colourful’ characters who became associated with Tumblety and Norton in the pages of
the press was ‘The King of Pain’. In December, 1869, the San Francisco Chronicle printed this:
Know all whom it may concern: That we, Norton 1st, Dei Gratia, Emperor of The United States and Protector
of Mexico, have heard serious complaints from adherents and all around, that our imperial wardrobe is a
national disgrace; and even His Majesty the King of Pain has had his sympathy excited so far as to offer us a
suit of clothing, which we have had a delicacy in accepting. Therefore we warn those whose duty it is to attend
to these affairs, that their scalps are in danger, if our said word goes unheeded. NORTON 1st.

The King of Pain was a contemporary of Tumblety’s and, like Tumblety, was an eccentric itinerant quack doctor,
widely known throughout the country. He was a health faddist who peddled liniments and ‘cure-alls’ from a gaily-
decorated coach. One of his pitches was outside San Francisco’s Pacific Clinical Infirmary where he sold ointments for
the relief of muscular aches and pains. He wore little clothing himself, with bare feet and a threadbare blanket around
his shoulders to protect against the wind and rain. It was his proud boast that he needed no garments so long as his
body was smeared with the lotion he sold. His hypnotic personality and clever showmanship drew immense crowds and
in spite of openly calling his customers ‘dammed suckers’ he made a fortune. Besides offering Emperor Norton a new
uniform, he regularly donated to many good causes throughout the country on his travels.
In 1888, the San Francisco police were quickly alerted when word reached them that Tumblety had been arrested
on suspicion of being the Whitechapel Murderer, and again the press were swift to interview the authorities that had
knowledge of his time in the city. One of the first to comment was Deputy Police Chief, Captain Isaiah Lees, who was
reported in November 20, 1888, Daily Examiner as saying: ‘Why, that fellow was only a crank, or a man who, like the
‘King of Pain’, lived solely upon his eccentricities. I had no idea that he would ever commit such crimes.’
Tumblety was also well known to the Chief of Police, Patrick Crowley, who had an
earlier encounter with the Emperor as well. On January 21, 1867, Norton was arrested
by Armand Barbier, an overzealous young policeman ‘to be confined for treatment of a
mental disorder’, and held at the police station pending a hearing. The public’s outrage
was immediate; many newspapers’ editorials denounced the action, and there was the
real possibility of civic uproar. The next day, when brought before the proper authorities,
Norton was promptly discharged. Soon after, the San Francisco Alta California reported
a spirited defence of him. It declared that: ‘Since he has worn the Imperial purple he
has shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be
said of his fellows in that line. There were returned to him the key of the palace, and
the imperial funds amounting to $4.75 lawful money. For these the Emperor gave his
royal receipt.’
Crowley himself was on hand to release the Emperor and he issued a lengthy public
apology. Norton was magnanimous about the whole affair, and from then on his relations
with the police became much more congenial. He led their annual parades and inspected
the new cadets; members of what he now called his ‘Imperial Constabulary’ and they
saluted him when he passed by.
During November 1888, Chief Crowley was keen to help his counterparts at Scotland Captain Isaiah Lees
Yard in regard to information on Tumblety and the Whitechapel Murders, and he sent a
telegram to Assistant Police Commissioner Sir Robert Anderson offering his assistance.
Anderson responded by requesting samples of handwriting and all other information to
be sent at once.
Crowley ascertained that Dr Tumblety arrived in San Francisco in April 1870, and took
rooms at the Occidental Hotel. He then opened an office at 20 Montgomery Street and
later at 30 Kearny Street, remaining in the city until the following September, when he
disappeared.
While he was living in the city, Tumblety had opened an account with the Hibernia
Savings Bank and deposited certain large sums, which, as late as 1888, had never been
withdrawn. After his departure Tumblety carried on a business correspondence with the
bank and they still had several letters written by him, which Crowley had photographed
and then forwarded copies to Anderson in London.
Crowley served as San Francisco’s Chief of Police from 1866 until 1873. In 1878 there
was a move to reinstate him to his former position. Mr Richard Tobin, the Hibernia
Bank’s President, was a member of the board that had the responsibility at that time of
selecting a new Police Chief and so he was instrumental in restoring Crowley as head of
the force in 1879. Chief of Police Patrick Crowley
On his retirement, Tobin offered Crowley the job of director of the Hibernia Bank, a
post he held until his death in 1907. So, when Sir Robert Anderson was corresponding with Crowley in 1888 concerning
Tumblety’s Hibernia account, the chief would have had no trouble in obtaining the necessary paper work.
Although Jewish by birth, the Emperor seemed to have no chosen religious persuasion. ‘I think it my duty’, he once
told a minister, ‘ to encourage religion and morality by showing myself at church, and to avoid jealousy I attend them
all in turn’. Norton subsequently ordered the amalgamation of all faiths into one ‘Universal Religion’.

Neither did Norton seem to have any particular political affiliations. His
uniform at times consisted of the mixed garb of both the northern Union
army and the southern Confederate forces, and like many others of the
time, Emperor Norton was dissatisfied with President Lincoln’s war policy.
He had never favoured Lincoln and in the best interests of the country
decided to get rid of him. In a public edict he declared he was to dissolve
the Government.
WE, Norton 1st, do herby decree that the office of President, Vice
President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United
States are, from and after this date, abolished...Done at our palace
this 21st day of December, A.D. 1862.
By 1869, still dissatisfied, he announced through the pages of the San

Francisco Herald that:
I, Norton 1st Dei Gratia Emperor of the United Sates and Protector
of Mexico, being desirous of allying the dissensions of party strife
now existing within our realm, do hereby dissolve and abolish the
Democratic and Republican Parties, and do also do herby decree
disenfranchisement and imprisonment for not more than ten, nor less
The Hibernia Savings Bank
than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this imperial
decree. Norton 1st.
Norton was compassionate about the ‘injustices’ of the people of the

world. In another of his published proclamations, he called upon other
‘leaders of the world’ to join him in forming a league of nations where
disputes could be resolved. Ironically, when such a league was permanently
formed, the United Nations, it was founded in 1945 in Norton’s own San
Francisco.
However, the Emperor’s personal sympathies did extend to the individual
struggle of the Irish cause. A week before Norton died in January 1880,
George Stewart Parnell, the Irish patriot, was in New York to raise funds for
his cause, ‘Home Rule in Ireland’. Norton had sent him a telegram saying
that: ‘The Emperor has no objections to you obtaining money to relieve
distress of your countrymen, and will forward to you all sums collected and
entrusted to him. He counsels you to avoid further agitation of the land
question.’
A reply, signed by Parnell, was sent that read: ‘Accept my thanks for your
interest on behalf of my distressed countrymen. The land agitation will be
avoided. I only ask for your authority to call on the American people for
funds to relieve the wants of my countrymen’.
It is thought however, that Tumblety had several Home Rule and Fenian
associations, and there is speculation that he may have also been a member
of the society. In any case, he would certainly have been well aware of John
Savage, the executive of the Fenian Brotherhood in America. On June 20th
1870, in a well-publicized event, Savage hosted a fund-raising dinner for
the organisation at San Francisco’s famous Lick House Club on Montgomery
The Emperor
Street.
The street was well known to both Tumblety, ‘The India Herb Doctor’,
and the Emperor. In earlier times, Norton had both lived and worked in
Montgomery Street and Tumblety’s office was directly opposite the Lick
House, which he used to advantage in advertising his own business address.
Joe Chetcuti has a theory that Fenian money was somehow connected
to Tumblety’s unexplained fortune deposited in the Hibernia Bank, which
coincidently was only a couple of blocks from Norton’s home and only yards
away—and on the same side of the street — as Tumblety’s office at the corner
opposite the Lick House!

So it would seem that during 1870, the streets of San Francisco were ‘perambulated’ by Tumblety and Norton, ‘these
two peculiar characters’ who shared common bonds, beliefs and eccentricities, and who were closely associated in
print and in public.
Joshua Abraham Norton — ‘Norton the First, Emperor of America and Protector of Mexico’ — died on January 8, 1880.
He dropped dead on the corner of California Street and Dupont Street (now Grant Avenue) while on his way to a lecture
at the Academy of Natural Sciences only a few blocks away. He was seen to stagger for a moment and then suddenly
slump in a heap to the gutter. He was wearing his regular, now faded, uniform of blue regimentals and feathered
cockade beaver hat and carrying his knotted cane and tri-coloured umbrella.
The next day the San Francisco Chronicle captioned its obituary ‘Le Roi Est Mort’ and soon his death was reported
across the country. The San Francisco Morning Call’s headline was a simple ‘Norton the First, by the grace of God,
Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life.’
There persisted a rumour that the Emperor had sought to be consort of many of the world’s most eligible female
members of the aristocracy. Indeed, local reporters, having gained entrance to his ‘state apartment’, took stock of
the ‘royal documentation’ and found correspondence with many heads of state. Among these were telegrams, real or
forged, from many important people, including Queen Victoria and an ageing and yellowed press report suggesting that
‘he was pledged to wed ‘The Widow of Windsor’ to cement the alliance between the United States and the United
Kingdom’.
There was no will, estate or ‘regal treasure’ and the ‘imperial coffers’ were all but empty, save for three dollars in
silver, one two dollar bit, a fifty cent piece and a French franc dated 1828, found in the pockets of Norton’s jacket.
Throughout his reign, the Emperor had no need for real money. He ‘luncheoned’ free of charge in many of the Bay
Area’s eateries, his rent was paid by sympathetic friends, his clothes and outfits were given at no cost, he was required
to pay no fare on public transport and was invited as a guest to many civic and official engagements. Indeed, many
establishments, as an attraction and for publicity, displayed posters proclaiming that they were associated with the
Emperor by ‘Royal Patronage’.
His personal fund-raising activities were usually in the form of
a monthly fifty-cent taxation on individuals and companies who
remembered Norton from his earlier successful times, and who
were happy to pay. However, the Emperor’s own master fiscal
stoke was selling the ‘Imperial Scrip’. This was issued in the form
of ‘promissory notes’ ranging from fifty cents to $10, carrying a
portrait picture. ‘Bonds of the Empire’ he termed them. Of no
financial worth, their real value was as an autographed novelty,
sought after by many ordinary folk and curious visitors.
Norton’s ‘promissory note’
Nobody ever really believed that Norton was the Emperor of the
United Sates except Norton himself. To his advantage, the Emperor
became an institution in a ‘pre-quake’ era and was acknowledged, tolerated and embraced by all the citizens and
officialdom of San Francisco.
The Emperor lived his self-proclaimed, make-believe life by command, decree and
proclamation. In 1872, Norton ordered ‘a bridge be built from Oakland Point to Goat
Island (Yerba Buena) and thence to Telegraph Hill.’ Though this received little notice at
the time, such a bridge would finally open as the Golden Gate in 1937, following the
exact route the Emperor had suggested.
Norton was buried on January 10, 1880. His former Masonic colleagues of the
Occidental Lodge and members of the Pacific Club covered the costs and he was laid to
rest in the Masonic cemetery. The funeral cortege was two miles long with an estimated
10,000 mourners.
In 1934, when San Francisco demolished its burial grounds, the Masonic Cemetery
was ploughed up but the Emperor’s bones were saved. His coffin was taken to nearby
Woodland Memorial Park where he was re-buried with full civic and military honours, laid
to rest again, under a monument properly and deservingly inscribed ‘Norton 1 – Emperor
of the United States and Protector of Mexico – Joshua A. Norton – 1819-1880’.
Headstone marking
the second resting place of Norton I

But to return my original question, did Tumblety and Norton ever meet? There is no definite answer. Still, I’m sure
that they may well have rubbed shoulders on many occasions and in many establishments, considering the confines of
the very small neighbourhood in which they both lived and worked.
Much is known of the life of Francis Tumblety but it would take many pages of a book to tell the colourful life of
Emperor Norton, a space insufficient for the purpose of this article. So instead, may I direct the reader to the websites
lised below to learn and hear more of this wonderful eccentric.
Acknowledgements
My greatest thanks go to San Franciscan, Casebook poster and published ‘Ripper Lore’ contributor, Joe Chetcuti for
his invaluable help. Joe did all the legwork and much of the research in the States, which has added colour and depth
to this article. Also to contributing authors to the Casebook, Ripperologist and Whitechapel Journal.
Bibliography
Norton 1st, Emperor of the United States by William Drury; Emperor Norton-Mad Monarch of America by Allen
Stanley Lane.
Emperor Norton Related Web Sites: sparkletack.com - an excellent, and recommended, audio documentary of the
Emperor; emperornorton.net; molossia.org.
If any of our American readers has an opportunity to record or find a copy to buy, of the Emperor Norton episode of
the TV series Bonanza in the US, I would be most grateful. Please email me with details.
Two faces of Norton

Charles Cross
was Jack the Ripper?
by MICHAEL CONNOR
Charles Cross is a serious suspect for the

Whitechapel murders.
The detail of Cross’s involvement with
the murders is fairly straightforward.
He lived at 22 Doveton Street, Bethnal
Green, and worked as a carman or cart
driver for Pickfords. On the morning of
31 August 1888 he was walking through
Bucks Row on his way to Pickfords’
depot in Broad Street when he found
the body of Polly Nichols.
Charles Cross is not an uncommon name and
though he has not previously been traced in any
British census, he may be present in the 1891
PC Neil discovers the body of Polly Nichols,
moments after Charles Cross and Robert Paul depart for assistance
records.
Not unreasonably, Cross, who claimed to have a
stable work record, could be expected to be living at the same address or in the same area when the 1891 census took
place. In that census there is a man of interest in the expected geographic setting.
On census night this person lodged at the Victoria Home in Whitechapel Road, very close to Doveton Street. The man,
who might be the witness Charles Cross, appears in the census as “Charles Crass”.
Cross is a common name, but Crass is uncommon. In the online nineteenth century British census records it is
noticeable that sometimes these names were confused. Either the census taker made a slight mistake or his writing
was wrongly transcribed when indexes were compiled. For example, a couple shown as Charles and Emma Crass in one
census reappear in another as Charles and Emma Cross. These are the same people as their ages and places of birth are
consistent across the years. In another instance, the surname for a man and his wife is given as Cross, but, on turning
the page, their children are named Crass.
In the 1891 census Charles Crass may be the carman Charles Cross who lived in Doveton Street in 1888. If the name
Crass is correct then there do not seem to be any other previous census records for him. Because Crass is an uncommon
name, it is easier to trace an individual with that surname through the different census years. Charles Cross has not
been identified in other census records because there are so many people with that name that it has proved impossible,
so far, to positively identify the correct man.
The 1891 census, however, notes that Charles Crass was married, aged 45, employed as a labourer, and born at
“Cambridge West Beach”.
If we assume that this is “our” Cross, and that the age he gave was approximately correct, this would fit the Daily
Telegraph claim in 1888 that he had worked for Pickfords “for over twenty years”. Employment as a labourer may mean
that he had left Pickfords, or perhaps that the type of work he did for them had changed. There is no explanation for
why a married man with a job was a lodger in a men’s home. Though, his wife may have been dead or the marriage

had collapsed or the claim was
not true. In the census there
does not seem to be a woman
named Crass who appears to be
living apart from her husband in
London.
Of course, nothing is
straightforward. There is no
place called West Beach in
Cambridgeshire. There are places
called Waterbeach and Wisbech.
Nor does a Charles Crass or
Cross appear to have been born
at Waterbeach or Wisbech in
1845—and in the previous ten
years there does not seem to
be a Charles Crass or Cross born
in Cambridgeshire who may
be the 1891 adult. After this
1891 recording, Charles Crass
disappears from future census
returns. If it was indeed Charles
Cross, then he too appears to
be absent from future returns,
although he may be hiding among
the men with the same name. Market Place, Wisbech, in 1871 - the birthplace of Charles Cross?
Or was he one of the “CCs” who
appear in census records as patients, prisoners or inmates? Did he go overseas? Did he die a pauper’s death? Did he live
on, perhaps into the 1920s? The mysteries may be no more than the usual problems encountered by genealogists doing
family research, but this genealogical puzzle could be well worth solving.
Still, assuming that Crass was Charles Cross, then in 1888 he would have been about 43. When they were murdered
Tabram was 39, Nichols 43, Chapman 47, Stride 45, Eddowes 46, Kelly 25, and Alice McKenzie 40. As a killer, Cross would
have been murdering, with the obvious exception of Kelly, within his own generation.
The Charles Cross who was in Bucks Row in 1888 was never a Ripper suspect. This ordinary carman in his ordinary
apron at the Nichols’ inquest may have been a 43-year-old local working man, married, in a settled position, simply on
his way to work when he found a body. That he might have been mutilating Nichols when interrupted by Robert Paul
was never considered by the police conducting the investigation, but it should have been.
Ripper books have maps of the murder sites that end just beyond the place where Nichols was murdered. If they
continued only a few streets further to the east, they would have included Doveton Street. Every day, going to and
from work, Charles Cross walked backwards and forwards through the killing area. Following his daily timetable he was
present in the area about the time Martha Tabram was murdered; he was discovered beside the body of Polly Nichols,
and Annie Chapman was murdered along his route to work.
If police investigators went back and worked through the paperwork of the Whitechapel murders from the beginning,
his name should have emerged as a person worth investigating. The possibility that the murderer was a local person
was taken seriously: at the end of September the Metropolitan Police issued posters appealing for information on
women “murdered in or near Whitechapel, supposed by some one residing in the immediate neighbourhood”. Cross’s
connection with at least three murder sites should have brought him to their attention.
Given the more extensive injuries in the later crimes, it would have been reasonable for contemporary investigators
to consider, as they reviewed the series of crimes, whether the murderer had completed his mutilation of Polly Nichols
or whether he had been interrupted. These thoughts would have drawn their attention to Charles Cross. If the crime
was incomplete, Charles Cross should have found a man beside the body. Cross neither saw anyone nor heard anything,
but perhaps there was a witness.
On the night of the murder, when his memory should have been fresh and uncontaminated by reading newspaper
accounts, Robert Paul told a reporter that when he walked into Bucks Row that morning, “I saw a man standing where
the woman was.” The man was Charles Cross.

Consider some of the Whitechapel
murders as morning killings committed
by a local man on his way to work
and the others as crimes that occurred
on his return journey. If you do then
Charles Cross, found beside the body of
a victim and close by when others took
place, is an obvious suspect.
Cross and Robert Paul notified
Constable Mizen of the presence of
Polly Nichols’s body. Mizen, not realising
the seriousness of what he was told,
allowed the two men to continue on
to work. Jack the Ripper may have
been caught in the act, and have been
allowed by a police officer to walk away
from the crime in the company of a
witness—someone who did not realise
the importance of what he had seen.
The murders were opportunistic.
Most were quickly done in public places
and victims were discarded where they
were killed. From the murderer’s point
of view these crimes were possibly
unsatisfying—and this could explain Mary
Kelly’s extensive mutilations.
Working for Pickfords, Cross may have
travelled throughout Britain in the years
before and after 1888. He may have
killed before, and may not have stopped
in 1888. In July 1889 Alice McKenzie,
like Catharine Eddowes, could have
been killed while Cross was returning
home to Doveton Street, or the Victoria
Home in Whitechapel Road.
Like the contemporary police,
later theorists—with several notable
exceptions—have shown little interest
in Cross. In part this may be due to the
intellectual appeal of their far more
complex theories—and the ordinariness
of Cross. He was not a gentleman, or a
Mason, or a relative of a policeman, or
a middleclass suicide, or a demented
doctor, or a famous painter. He was the
almost unknown local man who had not
heard the retreating footfall of Jack
the Ripper and was found beside a dead
woman. Charles Cross is not the most
romantic solution to the Jack the Ripper
murders, but he may be the right one.
On Charles Cross there is more to say,
Doveton Street in 2006.
and more to discover.
Did the Ripper live here in 1888?

A Tale of
Two Farthings
In (Modest) Defense of Sir Henry Smith
By KEVIN MICHAEL
After the second crime I sent word to Sir Charles Warren that I had discovered a man very likely
to be the man wanted. He certainly had all the qualifications requisite. He had been a medical
student; he had been in a lunatic asylum; he spent all his time with women of loose character,
whom he bilked by giving them polished farthings instead of sovereigns, two of these farthings
having been found in the pocket of the murdered woman. Sir Charles failed to find him. I thought
he was likely to be in Rupert Street, Haymarket. I sent up two men, and there he was; but,
polished farthings and all, he proved an alibi without the shadow of doubt.
Sir Henry Smith, From Constable to Commissioner (London: Chatto & Windus, 1910), pp147–148.
History has not been kind to Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of
the City of London Police at the time of the Ripper murders, at least in
regard to his recollections of the Ripper crimes. Of all the police memoirs
and reminiscences that have survived, few are viewed with more derision
or less credibility than those of Sir Henry, ‘good raconteur and good fellow’
though he was.
The ‘myth’ of the polished farthings has done much to bedevil Ripper
researchers over the decades. Arguments over the very existence of such
farthings at the scene of Annie Chapman’s murder in the backyard of 29
Hanbury Street in the early morning hours of 8 September 1888 still appear
on a semi-regular basis with little chance of resolution.
My purpose, however, is not to rehash the arguments for whether the
farthings were in the yard of Hanbury Street. Greater minds than mine have
grappled with the issue. I am content to accept that they may have been
there. Or not. Certainly there is no mention of the farthings in any surviving
inquest material. Some take the lack of mention of the farthings in the
inquest testimony as proof that the farthings were never there, others that
the information was ‘held back’ by the police. Both scenarios are possible
– certainly knowledge of the farthings would have had little influence on
the outcome of the inquest, while keeping such evidence in reserve could
have advantages. Given the prevalence of mentions of the farthings in the
press, it’s somewhat disappointing that during the Chapman inquest no-one
enquired about them directly and settled the matter once and for all.
My interest is, again, limited to whether the ploy of passing off farthings
as gold coins is as implausible as some Ripperologists have claimed. Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner
of the City of London Police in 1888
Objections to the Theory
Numerous authors have objected to the very idea of polished farthings being passed as coins of a higher value. Tom
Cullen, for example, claimed that no streetwise person would be duped by such a trick, while Patricia Cornwell says
with equal certainty that it is absurd to believe that a Victorian streetwalker could command a gold half-sovereign

(i.e., half a pound) for her services. Many objections to the farthings ‘in principle’ are to some degree founded on one
or both of these views.
Both points appear, on the surface, to be well made and many have accepted them at face value. But does history
agree?
Coppers on coppers
Although Smith was the most prominent Police official to mention the polished farthings in connection with the
Ripper murders, he was not the only one.
Walter Dew wrote concerning the murder of Alice Mackenzie:
Underneath the body was found a brightly polished farthing. This in the
dim light might easily have been mistaken for a half-sovereign, and the
theory held was that Mackenzie had been lured to her death by the offer
of a gold coin.
This was probably the true explanation, for another woman came forward
to say that the offer of a similar coin had been made to her, but she had
discovered the trick and had run away. Her description of the man was ‘a
dark foreigner, speaking good English’.1
It should be noted that no only did Dew not believe Mackenzie to be a Ripper
victim, he states that he did not believe the Ripper used false coins to lure his
victims. Nevertheless this streetwise policeman of many years experience does
not dismiss either the possibility of a bright farthing being mistaken for a half-
sovereign or that a streetwalker would be suspicious of such a high price being
offered to her.
In fact if the other woman who he claims came forward with a similar story
did so after Mackenzie’s death,2 then he supports the reports of at least three
woman – not including Chapman - who encountered this subterfuge between
September 1888 and July 1889.
Inspector Reid testified at Mackenzie’s
inquest that a farthing was found when
the corpse was moved, and connected
the discovery to coins found at Hanbury
Chief Inspector Walter Dew Street.3 Apparently he reiterated the
story of the coins during interviews
published in 1896.4 Again, as with Inspector Dew, Reid’s years of experience
did not seem to prevent him accepting the idea of the farthings being used
fraudulently.
1 Walter Dew, I Caught Crippen. London: Blackie and Son, 1938. Available at www.
casebook.org/ripper_media/rps.walterdew.html
2 That is, if Dew is not misremembering the accounts of Emily Walton that surfaced after
Chapman’s death.
3 The Times, 19 July 1889.
Inspector Edmund Reid
4 I have found references to such interviews, but have yet to find the actual transcripts.

Farthings in the Press
Various newspapers almost immediately injected the story of the farthings into their coverage of Chapman’s
murder:
In the dress of the dead woman two farthings were found, so brightly polished as to lead to the belief that
they were intended to be passed as half-sovereigns, and it is probable that they were given to her by the
murderer as an inducement for her to accompany him.5
The hapless prostitute butchered on Saturday morning in the back-yard of No. 29, Hanbury-street, had in her
pocket two bright farthings only - possibly passed off upon her as half-sovereigns - and it is still only a suspicion
that her rings of base metal had been wrenched from the fingers.6
There were also found two farthings polished brightly, and, according to some, these coins had been passed
off as half-sovereigns upon the deceased by her murderer.7
Often mentioned in tandem with Chapman is the strange case of Emily Walton, who was reported to have accepted
brass medals or farthings from a punter, thinking they were half-sovereigns. The man then apparently attacked her,
although she was able to escape:
Soon after this murder was reported, a woman reported to the police that a man, who spoke to her in the
streets of Spitalfields at an early hour that morning, gave her two half sovereigns, but she refused to do
what he wished. Thereupon he commenced to knock her about; she screamed, and he ran off. She afterwards
discovered that what he said were half sovereigns were brass medals.8
Within twenty-four hours, the press was already backpedaling on the accounts of coins being found on Chapman’s
body, although still mooting Walton’s attacker as a potential Ripper suspect. Referring to the description of William
Henry Piggott, the nervous man who was briefly detained as a suspect, the Daily News stated on 11 September:
That description applies, as well as can be gathered, to the man who gave the woman Emily Walton two
brass medals, or bright farthings, as half sovereigns when in a yard of one of the houses in Hanbury street at 2
a.m. on Saturday morning, and who then began to ill use the woman. The police attach importance to finding
the man, but it is not true that two farthings were found in the dress pocket of the murdered woman, which
would have been an important corroboration of Walton’s story.9
While it is reasonable to assume that the story of Emily Walton may have seeped into the accounts of Chapman’s
death (perhaps even being the source for the story of farthings being found on Chapman’s body) and vice versa, there
is nothing to suggest that the incident didn’t happen. After the ‘Double Event’ The Times of 30 September printed yet
another tale of farthings:
Last night a correspondent furnished us with another strange story of an incident occurring early on Thursday
morning, near to the scene of the four murders. He states that early in the morning a woman was sitting
sleeping on some steps in one of the houses in Dorset-street, when she was awoke by a man who asked her
whether she had any bed to go to, or any money to pay for a lodging. She replied that she had not, upon which
he said he had money, and then gave her what she thought was two half-sovereigns. She went with him down a
passage, and when there he seized her by the throat and tried to strangle her. A scuffle ensued between them,
in which she screamed and got away. The next morning she found that what he gave her was two farthings
machined round the edge like gold coins. She described him as being a man with a dark moustache, and dressed
in a rough frieze blue overcoat.10
This clearly appears to be a retelling of Walton’s story, although there are significant differences. The important
thing is that The Times did not dismiss the story as absurd, further evidence that the practice was not considered
implausible at the time.11
5 Evening News, 8 September 1888.

6 Daily Telegraph, 10 September 1888.
7 Daily Star, 10 September 1888.
8 Evening Standard (London), 10 September 1888.
9 Daily News, 11 September 1888.
10 The Times, 30 September 1888.
11 Walton, a seemingly excellent witness, quickly fades from the Ripper story. I would suggest that this is largely due to the Press’s
assumption that the man she was describing was William Henry Piggott, and so when he was cleared of the Chapman killings the Press
no longer considered Walton newsworthy.

So the press and police combined give us three – and possibly four – accounts of streetwalkers doing exactly what
Cullen and Cornwell claim as absurd. Even if Smith’s ‘suspect’ was not actually connected to the Ripper crimes, but
was rather a merging of reminiscences, there is some supporting evidence that such a man existed and was engaged in
the practices that Smith describes. Further support may actually come from the Mint itself, as we’ll now see.
So was it possible?
So having shown that contemporary accounts of such a swindle do exist, let us set aside the ‘common sense’ claim
that such a ruse is absurd and see for ourselves. First an overview of just what a farthing was.
The farthing, a denomination worth a quarter of a penny, prior to 1860 was made of copper. However, in that year,
the British government switched from copper, which tended to be a softer metal for coinage, to more durable bronze
for the penny, halfpenny, and farthing. Thus, the 1888 farthing was a bronze coin made up of 95 per cent copper, 4 per
cent tin, and 1 per cent zinc. When in mint condition, the coins had a smooth, bright finish that could reasonably be
mistaken for gold, especially in poor lighting.
The reverse side (‘tail’) of the farthing showed Britannia and the word ‘FARTHING’, the obverse side (‘head’) showed
the profile bust of Queen Victoria and the inscription ‘VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D’ standing for ‘Victoria Dei Gratia
Brittaniarum Regina Fidei Defensor’ or ‘Victoria by the Grace of God, Queen of Britain, Defender of the Faith.’
On the gold and silver coins of Victoria, several
portraits appeared, beginning with the Young Head
portrait (1838-1887), followed by the Jubilee Head
design commemorating the 50th year of Queen
Victoria’s rule (1887-1893) and the Veiled Head
design (1893-1901) which features the mature
Victoria. The young head on the half sovereign
was thus similar though not identical to the young
head on the farthing. The penny, halfpenny, and
farthing did not feature the Jubilee head but
retained the young head until 1893 when the
veiled head was substituted.
Obverse and reverse of Victorian farthing in mint condition
Gold and silver coins of the time had milled
edges to prevent the practice of ‘shaving’ or
removing small amounts of the precious metal from the edge. The farthing, like all smaller denominations, lacked this
milled edge. This could account for why Walton noticed the deception after accepting the coins.
Certainly the Royal Mint felt that the similarities between the farthing and the half-sovereign were resulting in
confusion, whether accidentally or by design. An attempt was made in 1896 to differentiate between the two coins by
making changes to the obverse side of the farthing.12 The changes never passed the trial stage, and the next year the
Mint approached the problem from an entirely new direction.
The solution was a chemical process that artificially darkened the surface of the farthing, so that it looked flat
and worn immediately upon issue. This solved the problem and the practice of darkening farthings would last until
1917 when the half-sovereign ceased production. It did not eliminate the deception entirely; however, from this point
onward bright farthings were limited to a few removed from the mint prior to darkening, or else older (or in some cases
darkened) farthings specifically polished for such a purpose – requiring much time and effort to be effective.
Conclusion
To be sure, Smith’s memoirs do little to counter the Col. Blimpish characterization that has attached itself to his
participation in the case. Factual errors, self-aggrandizing, and groundless speculation render his account virtually
useless as a serious tool for research. However, in the case of the ‘polished farthing’ story, other than confusing a
sovereign with half-sovereign, Smith’s account is by no means baseless. Other policemen, the press, and even the Mint
concur that the method of deception (if not the specific events) described by Smith was not only plausible, but actually
happened.
12 C Wilson Peck, English Copper, Tin, and Bronze Coins in the British Museum, 1558-1958, 2nd ed. London: British Museum, 1964.

CHRIS SCOTT’s
Press Trawl
Manitoba Daily Free Press
3 November 1888
JACK THE RIPPER
London, Nov. 2.
The city police have received a post card on which the following was written:-
“Dear Boss, On Saturday night I will do two more murders on a man and a boy. I am Jack the Ripper.”
The police at Rotherhithe had a letter which was found on Anchor street, Rotherhithe, at 5.30 Saturday afternoon,
handed to them and it is dated the 12th, and contains the following:-
“I’ll be over here soon, I’ll have you. My knife is a sharp one. Jack the Ripper.
I am up in the City and Bermondsey every day.
Good old Leather Apron.”
Another letter, bearing a Kilburn post mark, was written to Mr. Lusk of the Whitechapel vigilance committee, as
follows:-
“I write you a letter in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard
with your bloodhounds, as I will show you tomorrow night (Saturday.) I am going to do a double event, but not in
Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there; had to shift. No more till you hear from me again,
Jack the Ripper.”
St. James’s Gazette (London)

17 November 1888
ATTEMPT TO MURDER A WOMAN IN WHITECHAPEL TODAY.
PURSUIT OF THE CRIMINAL.
Great excitement was caused in Spitalfields this morning by a report that another murder of a woman had been
discovered about eight o’clock at a lodging house, 19 George street - a street running from Flower and Dean street to
Thrawl street. The report, it appears, was exaggerated, though the facts show that a murder was attempted. It seems
that at four o’clock a woman, aged about twenty eight, went to the house with a man and engaged a bed. It is stated
that the woman was intoxicated, and commenced singing, which she continued until eight o’clock, when, according
to Philip Harris, who lodges at the house, the singing ceased. About half past nine Harris was sitting in the kitchen
eating his breakfast when he saw a man come from the room and hurriedly leave the house. About the same time the
woman, who is known as “Dark Sarah,” came downstairs, and Harris observed that her throat was cut, and that she
was bleeding profusely.
Harris, in an interview with a representative of the Press Association, said:-
I saw what was the matter, and several of us rushed out of the house and pursued the man, who, we were
told, had gone up Thrawl street. We saw him running before us; but when we got to the corner of Brick lane
we lost sight of him. He was about 5 feet 6 inches in height, and wore a thick black moustache. I noticed that
he had an overcoat with a cape on it, but I did not see anything in his hand.

John Arundell, a coal heaver, living at 15 Wood street, Spitalfields, said that he went to No. 19 George street this
morning and saw the woman sitting on the bed, Dr. Phillips, the divisional surgeon, dressing her throat. After she had
been attended to she got up, walked downstairs, and was placed in an ambulance and wheeled to the Commercial
street Police station. There is strong belief that the man who attempted the murder is not the individual known as
“Jack the Ripper.” It is stated that the woman had a severe struggle with her assailant and that his face was severely
torn and scratched.
The superintendent of the Commercial street police station has informed a Press Association reporter that the
woman’s wound is quite superficial. There is no danger that her injury will result seriously. Her name has been
ascertained to be Annie Farmer.
Esther Hall, who lodged at No. 19 George street, has made the following statement:-
“I sleep in the basement of the house, and was awoke this morning by a man who told me a murder had been
committed. I ran upstairs and saw a woman lying down covered with blood. The deputy put a piece of rag round her
throat, and said, “Are you able to dress yourself?” She said she was not, so I dressed her. I then inquired, “Do you know
the man?” She replied, “Yes; I was with him about twelve months ago, and he ill used me then.” She added that the
man had a black moustache, and wore dark clothes and a hard felt hat, and that she thought he was a saddler. Farmer
also told her that the man made her drunk before he brought her to the house.
The following telegraphic communication has been circulated among the police:-
“Wanted, for attempted murder on the 21st inst., a man, aged thirty six years, height 5ft 6in, complexion dark, no
whiskers, dark moustache. Dress: black jacket, vest, and trousers, round black felt hat. Respectable appearance. Can
be identified.”
It is a singular fact that the victim of the George yard murder lived at No. 19 George street, while the victim of the
Osborne street murder lived next door at No. 18. It is stated that only a day or two since Mr. McCarthy, the landlord
of the room rented by the woman Kelly, received a postcard containing the information that on Wednesday morning a
murder would be committed not 100 yards from Dorset street. George street is just above that distance from the scene
of the last murder and mutilation.
A “JACK THE RIPPER” SCARE IN HYDE PARK.
Vanity Fair relates the following incident:-
A few days since two ladies, very well known in society, were walking along Hyde Park as evening was
rapidly falling. They were engaged in discussing the Whitechapel atrocities, and they expressed to each other
pretty freely their desire to be present, if not to assist, at the lynching of the mysterious murderer. Turning
sharply to cross opposite Upper Grosvenor street, they observed a man close upon their heels; but the fact did
not apparently call for notice until the next morning, when each of the ladies at their respective residences
received an ill written letter signed “Jack the Ripper,” stating that their conversation had been overheard,
and that the next time they ventured out alone a very horrible fate would assuredly overtake them. Eager and
excited consultations with various friends and relatives have ensued, and it is almost universally concluded that
somebody has perpetrated a very unseemly practical joke. If this is so, nothing could possibly be more foolish
or in worse taste. A great deal of unnecessary and regrettable nervousness and alarm has been created and
“somebody” ought to be very much ashamed of himself.
Syracuse Daily Standard

2 October 1888
THE WHITECHAPEL SLUMS.
A Look at the Streets Where Murder runs Riot.
London Correspondent of the New York Sun.
Your correspondent has spent from early evening until now, past midnight, wandering through the Whitechapel slums.
The best idea of the awful degradation of the men there can be gathered from a description of the woman, whose
ability to keep alive proves the existence of men so low as to consort with them. These wretched women swarm the
streets by thousands even now, but keep close together and look sharply around for murderers, even while pretending
to laugh and asking each other whose turn to be cut up will come next. The language in which they speak of the fiend,
who has made it his business to murder them, it is impossible to reproduce. Such profanity and hideously foul language
as may be heard coming from the group of women of any Whitechapel corner can probably not be heard anywhere else.

Some of these poor animals have actually grown old in their misery, shrivelled, horrible gin soaked hags, who fight and
quarrel on the gutter’s edge, and to approach within yards of whom is torture.
The younger women, the queens of these slums, are even more distressing to look at. Some are mere girls, almost
children, but all celebrate any stroke of fortune by getting drunk. Bright colors distinguish them. Light blue is the
favorite color. Cheap brocades, dragging in the mud, and ostrich feathers as sadly out of curl as the dissipated owners’
hair, are favorite outward signs of such prosperity as may be attained at Whitechapel. The poor creatures when born
were dropped upon the surface of the worst pool of human degradation that can be boasted by any great city on earth,
and all they can do is sink deeper down into it, fighting and drinking cheap gin as they go.
Infants brawling through heaps of refuse in the slums, never having been made jealous by the sight of clean, fat
babyhood, were fairly contented, and their parents evidently found their lives much enlivened by the sensation which
has come upon them. The scenes of both murders were swarming with curious crowds, preference being given to the
place where the most savage murder occurred, and up to tonight morbid citizens were busy lighting wax matches in
the dark corner of Mitre Square trying to discover blood stains.
No new theory worth entertaining has been put forward. That first advanced by your correspondent on September 8,
namely, that the murderer, whether a maniac or not, must possess some knowledge of surgery, is accepted as proven.
The attempt to connect the crime with some American medical student who is supposed to have offered large sums to
various hospitals for an anatomical specimen has been given up as ridiculous. The anatomical specimen in question can
easily be obtained for a few shillings. It is suggested that the murderer must be a respectable looking individual, as in
the present state of terror the most degraded Whitechapel women would not dare trust themselves with a rough. But
that is rubbish, for every social law in Whitechapel is based on want and hunger, and the lowest brute on earth with
means to procure gin would quickly find a Whitechapel woman eager to help him drink it. The murderer must be very
strong, as he appears to have been able in each case to overcome his victim with ease and to stifle any loud outcry.
Besides being strong, the murderer must have had a terribly sharp knife, for I have just come from the mortuary
where the first of last night’s victims lies. The gaping wound in the throat shows plainly the division of the jugular vein
and the windpipe and the notch caused by the knife coming in contact with the vertebrae. The wounds on the throat
of the Mitre square victim are almost identical.
It is evident that the police here are not going to do much, and if the legendary detective instinct which sniffs out
criminals still exists in America its owner had better come over here, humiliate Scotland yard, earn the thanks of all
England, and also earn the £300 reward which would pay his expenses. A detective leaving New York now would arrive
just in time for the next batch of murders.
Davenport Morning Tribune

14 October 1888
IS HE THE ASSASSIN?
A Bloodstained Man Thought to Be the Whitechapel Fiend.
London, Oct. 9.
Much importance is attached to the arrest at Belfast of a bloodstained man with a razor and knives in his possession
on suspicion of being the Whitechapel murderer. It was known beforehand that the man who had been writing
mysterious letters to editors of newspapers was actually in Belfast. On Oct. 9 he wrote from London to the editor
of a Welsh newspaper. Two days afterward he wrote to a Belfast editor, the envelope bearing the Belfast postmark,
and was directed evidently by the same person, the handwriting being the same and the paper daubed over with red
ink to imitate blood, exactly as in the specimens inspected. Since the evidence at the inquest yesterday about the
handwriting on the wall the identity of the murderer with the writer of these letters is generally believed.
New York Times

26 December 1888
Extract from an article entitled “Two Interesting Boys”
“But it seems to me that just at present, if I were in search of excitement and adventure, I have only to go into
Whitechapel. I was in the east of London the morning after this last murder was committed, and a most extraordinary
sight it was - just the kind of thing that De Quincey would have described splendidly in the style of his “Murder as One
of the Fine Arts.” On every wall there was a huge printed poster headed with “Murder! Five Hundred Pounds Reward!”
At every street corner groups of people had gathered together, not talking loudly and excitedly as they generally do,
but whispering among themselves with bated breaths and heads bent down, and glancing nervously over their shoulders
every now and then. The veriest stranger would not have needed to ask what they were talking about - one look at the

horror in their eyes would have been enough to tell him that it’s not often that one sees a whole city panic stricken
at once, but I certainly saw it then.”
Correo Espanol (Mexico)

8 September 1890
(Translation)
ARREST OF JACK THE RIPPER.
The great sensation of the day is the arrest of the famous Jack the Ripper, as the London newspapers named him.
At a spiritualist séance, two of the participants asked one of the spirits who the famous murderer Jack the Ripper
was. The medium gave details of a butcher from Betsy Street in the noted district of Whitechapel; with this information
the participants went in search of the chief of police, informed him of what had happened and they themselves went
in search of the famous Jack.
The chief of police, sceptical as a good policeman, at first did not believe in the information from the spirits; but,
considering that there may be basis of substance in this matter, he ordered police officers to seek out the Betsy Street
butcher. They found him and took him into custody, or so is truly believed, as the London police have not kept total
silence on this matter.
The Times
9 January 1889
MURDER AT GODALMING.
Yesterday the shocking murder of a woman at Godalming was brought to light. It appears that on Monday evening an
artist, named Jenkins, enticed his sweetheart, named Emily Jay, into his studio, which is situated in a garden almost
in the middle of the town. He there first seduced her, and then strangled her and made off, locking up the place.
Yesterday he walked into the Punchbowl Inn, about ten miles distant, and confessed the deed. The landlord at once
took him to Guildford and handed him over to the police, to whom he made a statement. Two constables were sent
over to Godalming, and found the body as described by the prisoner, the face being a horrible sight, a handkerchief
being stuffed into her mouth and a boa tied tightly round her neck. The body awaits an inquest.
The murderer, Ebenezer Jenkins, on being questioned by Superintendent Berry, of the borough police, stated that
he had committed the murder about 8 o’clock on Monday night, and that his victim was his sweetheart, Emily Jay by
name, and about 19 years of age. Jenkins further said that he was an artist, and had resided with the girl’s mother, and
had kept company with the deceased, to whom he was engaged. He had enticed her into his studio, which was situated
some distance from the house, and had ravished her and strangled her. Jenkins then handed over the key of the studio
to Superintendent Berry. After making this statement Jenkins became very excited, and expressed a hope that he might
be hanged. He was detained in custody, and was later on handed over to the county police, who were quickly on the
spot, together with Deputy Chief Constable Barker, who has charge of the case. The news of the murder soon spread,
and the spot was visited by hundreds of persons during the evening. A doctor who was called in declared from a casual
examination of the body that death was due to strangulation. Much sympathy is felt for the relatives of the deceased
girl, her mother being a widow. The deceased and Jenkins appeared to be on most affectionate terms, and were seen
walking in the direction of the studio about 7.30, or half an hour before the time Jenkins says he committed the deed.
The studio, it may be mentioned, is only about 200 yards from the principal street of Godalming, and it is situated
within a few yards of a main road, while it is also surrounded by cottages. It is thought strange that no cries for help
were heard. The victim was a quiet and steady girl and well known in the town. Jenkins is an artist by profession, and
is well connected. He was always fashionably dressed and mixed in good society. He is about 21 years of age. Half an
hour after committing the deed he appears to have entered a public house close to where he lives, and had something
to drink, which he paid for with a jubilee half crown. The coin has since been identified as the one which the deceased
wore in her brooch, and this Jenkins has admitted. After leaving the public house he appears to have made his way
towards Haslemere and to have slept the night at the Seven Thorns public house, about eight miles distant. The Coroner
for West Surrey has been communicated with, and the inquest will probably be held today.
The prisoner was last night brought before one of the county magistrates, and, sufficient evidence having been given,
he was remanded until Saturday next.
Some blood has been found on the prisoner’s shirt sleeves and the front of his shirt, which he says came from a bite
which the girl inflicted on his finger. The prisoner also states that he prayed for the girl after he has murdered her.
No motive has been assigned for the crime, but it is believed the prisoner’s mind had been affected by reading the
accounts of the Whitechapel murders.

The Times
9 October 1888
At the Thames Police court, Hans Bure, a well dressed German, was charged with assaulting Elizabeth Jennings, of
37 Duckett street, Stepney. Prosecutrix said that about 12.30 on Saturday night she was walking along Harford street,
on an errand, when the accused came up, caught hold of her arm, which he pinched, and said, “Come along with me.”
Witness was frightened and screamed. She stood by a young man whom she knew, when prisoner followed and she ran
into the road. Prisoner ran after her, but saw another lady coming, and then caught hold of her shawl. Several men
caught hold of the accused and detained him until a constable came, when he was given into custody. Mrs. Matilda
Beck said the accused caught hold of her shawl, but she released herself and ran away. He followed, but some men
stopped him. Witness was very much frightened. Constable 150E said that when arrested the accused said he did not
mean anything. He was under the influence of drink. Prisoner, through an interpreter, said he took the prosecutrix to
be a prostitute and did accost her. She screamed and ran away, and he followed to give an explanation, when he was
detained. He did the same to the other woman. A witness for the defence, named Webb, said he saw the prisoner just
touch the women. They screamed, and a mob of men got round the prisoner calling him “Jack the Ripper.” Mr. Saunders
said the accused had frightened the women and at a time when they would be easily frightened. He would be fined 40s
or undergo one month’s hard labour.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

13 January 1893
SLUMMING IN LONDON.
A Memphis Clergyman Narrowly Escaped Death.
“I had an adventure in London last spring of a very unpleasant nature,” said Rev. Theodore Swain, a Memphis
minister, now a guest of the Laclode. “I was wandering about the city sight seeing on day, and finally found myself near
the notorious Whitechapel district. I was approached by a beggar who appeared to be a complete physical wreck. I
questioned him, and his story was so pitiful that I concluded to investigate it. He said that he lodged in the next block,
and thither we went. He led me into a gloomy old building and up three pairs of rickety stairs to a little stuffy room, lit
only by a dirty skylight. Once in there he locked the door, laid aside his crutches, pulled off his gray wig and stood up
a powerful six footer in the prime of life. “Well,” said I, “I see that you are a fraud; what do you want with me?” He
replied that he wanted my purse, watch and chain, and to enforce his claim produced an ugly looking knife. “It will do
you no good to cry out,” he said, “for you cannot be heard in the street, and no one in this building will come to your
aid.” I had sized him up pretty close and concluded that he was bluffing - that he would not dare kill me in the very
heart of London, so I assumed a careless air and told him that if he robbed me he would have to kill me first, and that
he might just as well get at it. “Oh, I know that you have a pistol, but I’m not afraid of it,” he said. “Most Americans
carry pistols for just such cattle as you,” I replied, with all the coolness I could assume. “Now, if you are not afraid of
it, why don’t you get to work?” I saw that he was cowed, and, throwing my hand to my hip pocket, I steeped forward
and said firmly, “Give me that knife.” He handed it to me without a word, unlocked the door and held it open for me
to pass out. No, I had no pistol - never carry one - but I made no more visits to the dens of London beggars without a
burly officer at my elbow.”
Aspen Weekly
26 January 1889
A Jack the Ripper.
New Haven, Jan. 21.
A man recently wrote the postmaster saying he was about to begin slaughtering women, and signed “Jack the
Ripper.” The police arrested F.R. Harrison on a charge of forgery. Letters in the same handwriting as that received by
the postmaster were found on him.
Aspen Weekly Times

26 January 1889
Jack in Leadville
Denver, Jan. 25.
A Leadville special to the Times says: “Jack the Ripper is in this city, but whether he arrived on a railway pass is
not known. At any rate he is here, as will be seen by a letter received by Marshal O.M. White and the sheriff, dated
Leadville, Colorado, January 24.

It states: “Jack the Ripper is with you. I am the pal to the well known Jack the Ripper of London. I shall commence
operations here soon and expect to do my work among the lewd women of State street and West Fifth street. All
respectable women need have no fear but the denizens of these streets must leave the city before February 1st, else
they will suffer as their comrades in London did.
(Signed)
Jack the Ripper.”
Great consternation prevails along the streets designated among the class where the Ripper expects to do his work,
and some of the superstitious expect to get out, but the most of that class will likely stay and see the first sample of
his work.
Fort Collins Courier

27 June 1889
Who is C.M. Duncan, the detective, who has made himself famous by arresting the celebrated Whitechapel
murderer?
White Pine Cone

7 February 1890
At a recent fancy dress ball at Clifton, England, one of the men present was costumed as “jack the Ripper.” How in
the name of goodness did he know what old Rip looked like?
Record Journal of Douglas County, Castle Rock

16 March 1923
MOVIES NEXT WEEK
“THREE LIVE GHOSTS”
The story deals with three lads who after being reported “missing”, escape from a German prison camp and on
reaching London prove themselves to be live ghosts indeed. The featured players are Anna Q. Nilsson and Norman Kerry,
both well known to Paramount audiences. The picture is artistic and the supporting cast all that the most exacting
taste could demand.
To see “Three Live Ghosts” is tantamount to making a sightseeing tour of London. Here are some of the landmarks
shown:
The Limehouse quarter made famous by Thomas Burke’s stories, showing the real Limehouse as well as Limehouse
wharf and vicinity.
Glimpses of the mean streets contiguous to Shadwell and Poplar, the London Tower Bridge.
One of the characters carries spectators through Trafalgar Square, showing the Nelson Column, Whitehall, Downing
Street, the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus, the Bank of
England, the Royal Exchange and the slums of the Whitechapel section.
Scenes in the Chinese quarter also are shown, as well as rich country estates near London.
Leadenville Daily and Evening Chronicle

11 April 1889
JACK THE RIPPER.
An Individual Creates a Sensation in a Dublin Court by a Novel Confession.
Dublin, April 11.
Today a man of respectable appearance, who gave his name as John Alexander Fitzmaurice, went before the
authorities in Wicklow and made a most extraordinary statement. He stated that he was a native of Cardiff, and that
he was the real “Jack the Ripper.” He deposed to murders which he claimed to have committed in London and in other
cities. His statement was reduced to writing, and he promptly affixed his signature to it, after the contents had been
read to him. This morning, however, when taken before a magistrate, he denied the statement, and would only admit
that he was guilty of one murder, which took place in 1888, the victim being Mary Jane Wheeler. The prisoner was
remanded for further examination. Irish detectives have gone to London to investigate the sensational story related by
Fitzmaurice, who appears to be well educated and to possess some means.

Obituaries:
Bob Clark
Film Director; 5 August 1941 - 4 April 2007
Michael Dibdin
Crime Novelist; 21 March 1947 - 30 March 2007
American film director Bob Clark and British crime novelist Michael Dibdin, who died within days of each other,
were both accomplished craftsmen in their own fields. From 1973 to 1983, Clark dominated commercial filmmaking
in Canada. His productions were not only among the most financially successful Canadian films of all time; they were
also first-rate, and often groundbreaking, whether they were slasher films, teenage comedies, sentimental dramas
or Christmas tales. Dibdin also spent time in Canada, but it was a four-year sojourn in Italy which provided him with
the background of his detective novels featuring gloomy, cynical Italian Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen. As far as it’s
known, Clark and Dibdin never collaborated, never met and never even discussed each other’s work. Why are they
then remembered in Ripperologist not separately but together? Not because of their major accomplishments, which
have been the subject of long, scholarly and well deserved essays elsewhere, but because early in their careers both of
them created Sherlock Holmes adventures pitting the great detective against Jack the Ripper. In 1978, Dibdin wrote his
first crime novel, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, about the deadly encounter between the eccentric sleuth and the
elusive killer. In 1979, Clark directed Murder by Decree, in which Holmes pursues the Ripper and winds up uncovering
a heinous conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of the British government.
It is often said that many believe that Sherlock Holmes was a real person while Jack the Ripper was an imaginary
character. It is not too difficult to see why this should be so. Much is known about Holmes, from his deductive methods
to his misogynism, from his violin playing to his drug addiction, from his London address to his tart remarks. His features
are well known - though some think he looked like William Gillette, some that he looked like Basil Rathbone and some
that he looked like Jeremy Brett. By contrast, virtually nothing is known about Jack the Ripper. His most widespread
image, complete with opera cloak, top hat and Gladstone bag, is a purely fictional invention. Yet both detective
and murderer were, each in his own way, products of the Victorian era, living side by side against a background of
Hansom cabs, music-hall songs and yellow fog rolling heavily along cobble-stoned streets. They were well matched and
destined to meet. Holmes’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, declined to send Holmes after the Ripper. Others were not so
restrained. The first pastiches where the most celebrated detective of his time tackled its most notorious criminal saw
the light early in the 20th century. Since then, they have faced each other, with varying success, in Spanish lampoons,
American parodies and Nicaraguan spoofs. The full history of their rivalry still remains to be written.
Both Clark’s film and Dibdin’s novel are sound contributions to the Holmes-Ripper saga, this sub-genre within a
sub-genre. Of the two, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story is at the same time the most classical in style and the most
unconventional. Dr Watson’s narrative voice sounds genuine and affecting and the plot rushes to its conclusion with
grim inevitability. Some believe the novel can be truly enjoyed only by experiencing the full impact of its surprise
ending; some believe that the book’s many virtues will render it rewarding even if the final twist in the tale is known
beforehand. Ripperologist doesn’t believe in spoilers and won’t disclose why this is truly the last Sherlock Holmes
– and the last Jack the Ripper - story. Clark’s film, Murder by Decree, derives its plot from now well worn-out tales of
Masonic conspiracies combined with anti-Monarchist agitation and budding Republicanism. While its central hypothesis
may no longer be adequate, it was acceptable enough at the time, just a few years after the publication of Stephen
Knight’s The Final Solution. The film benefited from fast pace, evocative photography and a first-rate cast, including
Christopher Plummer as a surprisingly emotional Sherlock Holmes, James Mason as Dr Watson, Anthony Quayle as Sir
Charles Warren, John Gielgud as Lord Salisbury and Donald Sutherland as clairvoyant Robert Lees.
Benjamin ‘Bob’ Clark was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 5 August 1941, but grew up in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Instead of playing professional football he completed a drama major at the University of Miami and became
a film-maker. After working as director or assistant director in several low-budget films, he hit it big in 1972 with a
horror film, Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. The following year he moved to Canada, where he made Black
Christmas, a seminal film and box-office hit about a psychopathic killer stalking sorority girls which was a template
for later efforts such as Halloween and Friday the Thirteenth. Clark subsequently directed Murder by Decree, Tribute,
with an Academy-Award-nominated performance by Jack Lemmon, and the
phenomenally successful teen comedy Porky’s, which launched a thousand
imitators, from Police Academy to American Pie and There’s Something About
Mary, and still remains the highest-grossing Canadian film ever made. Clark
based Porky’s coming-of-age plot on his experiences as a teenager in Florida
in the mid-Fifties, spicing it up with much-imitated locker-room and shower
scenes and the casting of Kim Cattrall as Miss Honeywell, the high-school teacher
known, for good reason, as ‘Lassie’, and Susan Clark, who had played haunted
Mary Kelly in Murder by Decree, as the far happier hooker Cherry Forever.
In 1983, Clark co-produced, co-wrote and directed A Christmas Story, adapted
from Jean Shepherd’s short story In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, about a
nine-year-old boy desperate for an official Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot,
range-model air rifle. With a voice-over by Shepherd himself, A Christmas Story
has become a staple of holiday television viewing – rivalling It’s a Wonderful
Life for repeated showings – and is remarkably true to the spirit of its original source material without being overly
sentimental or phoney.
One year later, Clark returned to the United States, but he seemed to have lost his touch. His productions pleased
neither the public nor the critics. No-one ever had a good word to say about, for example, Rhinestone, a 1984 musical
featuring Dolly Parton as a country singer trying to turn cab-driver Sylvester Stallone into a star. Although his former
success continued to elude him, Clark remained active. At the time of his death he was due to start production on three
different projects, including a remake of his 1972 film Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. On 5 April 2007, he
was killed, along with his son, Ariel Hanrath-Clark, when a drunk driver struck his car head on while travelling on the
Pacific Coast Highway north of Los Angeles.
Michael John Dibdin was born on 21 March 1947 in Wolverhampton,
Staffordshire, England. His father was a physicist-cum-folklore
expert who for years dragged his family round Britain so that he
could collect folk songs. At the age of seven, Dibdin insisted that
they settle down in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, where they were at
the time. His father exchanged folklore for the rigour of a physics
lectureship and Dibdin attended school, where he developed a keen
interest in modern jazz, James Joyce and the thrillers of Raymond
Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Len Deighton.
in 1968, Dibdin earned an undergraduate degree in English
literature from the University of Sussex and the next year a master’s
degree from the University of Alberta, Canada. In the early 1970s he
returned to London. A friend with an enthusiasm for Jack the Ripper
dragged him to all the murder sites. At the same time, Dibdin’s wife
was reading Sherlock Holmes. Bringing them together seemed like the logical thing to do. The Last Sherlock Holmes
Story appeared in 1978 to mixed reviews. Dibdin moved to Italy, where he spent four years teaching English and
wrote yet another Victorian pastiche: A Rich Full Death (1986), featuring Robert Browning as an amateur detective in
Florence.
Returning to England, he settled in Oxford. Inspired by his Italian experience, he wrote Ratking, published in 1988,
which signalled the first appearance of brooding police detective Aurelio Zen. Dibdin wrote 11 Zen novels, the latest and
most likely the last of which, End Games, is scheduled to be published this autumn. Each novel took Zen to a different
part of Italy, from his native Venice to Rome, Milan, Naples, Perugia, Tuscany, Sicily and Sardinia. Reviewing Blood Rain
(1999) in the New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio wrote: ‘Dibdin has always been a master at adapting his style
to the various Italian provinces where he sets his stories. In Piedmont, his voice was elegiac; in Venice, menacing; in
Rome, cynical and sad. Sicily, where life is lived as ‘ritual theater,’ brings out the Greek tragedian in him.’ Sicily also
gave Zen an opportunity to die and be reborn – just like Sherlock Holmes. Blood Rain, his Sicilian adventure, ends with
a bridge exploding as the car where Zen is travelling crosses it. In And Then You Die (2002), however, Zen is revealed to
have miraculously escaped death, a neat trick he would perform again. Dibdin alternated his Zen novels with English-set
novels such as The Tryst (1989) and Dirty Tricks (1991), while The Dying of the Light (1993) was a send-up of country-
house mysteries and Dark Specter (1995) and Thanksgiving (2001) were American-based thrillers.
In the mid-1990s Michael Dibdin moved to the United States to be near his third wife, crime writer Kathrine Beck.
He died in Seattle on March 30 after a short illness.
All the news that’s fit to print...
I Beg to Report
FAREWELL BURGHO, GOOD BYE BARNABY. As we reported in ‘I Beg’ in
Ripperologist 71, Whitbread, a leisure company, wants to demolish the ruins
of Scalby Manor in Burniston Road, Scarborough, Yorkshire, including the
kennels where Barnaby and Burgho, the bloodhounds sent after Jack the
Ripper, were bred. The company intends to build a 37-bedroom hotel on the
location.
Little remains of Scalby Manor, formerly a stately home called Wyndyate which
was built in 1885 for Edwin Brough. Sir Charles Warren, Metropolitan Police
Commissioner at the time of the Ripper Murders, heard of Brough’s reputation
as a bloodhound breeder and requested that two trained bloodhounds be
taken to London for trials in Regent’s Park. Contrary to popular belief, the
results were encouraging. Unfortunately, the Ripper’s next victim, Mary Jane
Kelly, was found late on the day after her murder, when the trail was already
cold. The story, credited by many as having helped lay the foundations of
the police dog section, has led to objections against the kennels and stable
becoming casualties of the hotel scheme.
Elen Richards, of the Blood Hound Club, said: ‘The property has great
importance to the Club since it was the home of Edwin Brough, the foremost
breeder of bloodhounds of his time. It is a good example of a gentleman’s
Edwin Brough at Scalby Manor
house in the late 19th century especially due to the survival of the
outbuildings, which include the kennels where the dogs were kept.’
David Crease, of the Association of Bloodhound Breeders, added: ‘The outbuildings are important historically as well as
architecturally as the property was built by Edwin Brough, the foremost bloodhound breeder of the time and prominent
local figure. Such a complete survival of domestic livestock buildings is rare and these are an interesting set of what
were model buildings for the time. No others survive as far as is known.’
The Scarborough Civic Society said it considered ‘the whole ensemble worthy of retention as an uncommon local
survival of a modest 19th century gentleman’s estate’. Scarborough Council planning officers, on the other hand,
say the proposed hotel would be a valuable new tourist facility and, while the Scalby Manor outbuildings are of local
historical significance, it has not been sufficient for them to be listed – that is to say, protected.
Mark Branagan, Bloodhounds may fail to save manor under threat, Yorkshire Post, Leeds, Yorkshire, UK, 27 March 2007
OUT OF AFRICA. Move over, Kosminski. Step aside, Cohen. Eat your heart out, Pizer. There is a new Ripper suspect in
town. South African academic, historian and writer Charles van Onselen claims Jack the Ripper was a Polish Jew called
Joseph Silver - a white slaver, pimp, police informer, gang boss and overall bad mensch. In The Fox & the Flies - the
World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer & Psychopath, van Onselen chronicles Silver’s life from Poland to London – where
he lived at the time of the Whitechapel murders – New York, South Africa, German South West Africa, Paris, Chile and
back to Poland, where he met his end.
Silver was born in Kielce, Poland, in 1868. His birth name was Lis, which means fox in Polish – hence the title of van
Onselen’s book. This was not an oddity, since many Jewish surnames derive from the name of an emblematic animal,
including Hirsch (deer), Löwe (lion), Adler (eagle) and Füchs (fox again). From an early age Silver embarked on a
criminal career. He delved in gun-running, jewel-theft, safe-cracking and burglary, but his preferred métier was white
slavery, whether as procurer, brothel-keeper or vice czar. He specialized in seducing women, mainly from Eastern
Europe, and forcing them into prostitution. He was not above using rape and physical violence to achieve his ends.

From 1885 to 1889, Silver was in the East End of London. Even at that youthful age
he made his living off women. Van Onselen makes a compelling case for Silver as Jack
the harlot killer and suggests that one of the motives for the Ripper murders may have
been the use of terror to dissuade women from leaving the controlled, male-dominated
environment of the brothel for the relative independence of streetwalking.
From 1889 to 1895, Silver was in New York. During that period he was involved with
Tammany Hall, the corrupt Democratic Party organisation that controlled the city. As a
result of a bungled burglary, he saw the inside of New York’s notorious Sing Sing prison,
where he served a two years’ sentence. In 1895, he managed to be appointed as a
‘special agent’ for the Society for the Prevention of Crime (SPC).
In 1898, Silver arrived in South Africa in the company of Rachel Laskin, a woman he
had raped and corrupted and whom he would exploit for many years. At the time,
Johannesburg was a boom town producing 27% of the world’s gold. Novelist Olive
Schreiner wrote to a friend: ‘Here’s this great fiendish hell of a city sprung up in 10
years... A city which for glitter and gold, and wickedness, carriages, and palaces and
brothels, and gambling halls, beats creation.’ Men far outnumbered women in this city of
100,000 inhabitants. To meet the demand for sex, there was one brothel for every 1,000
inhabitants in Johannesburg in the mid-1890s.
Silver set up the American Club, a syndicate of over 50 pimps, mainly Polish Jews from
New York, operating in the city. Despite its ‘democratic’ veneer, the club’s executive
of elected officials was controlled by a secret ‘cabinet’ appointed to safeguard Silver’s rule over the sex trade. ‘In
organisational terms, the secret cabinet was Silver’s crowning achievement,’ van Onselen writes. ‘Since the moment of
his arrival in the city, it had taken 130 days to turn a ramshackle gambling and prostitution network into an integrated
organisation and knock the Bowery Boys into a disciplined unit with a recognisable, yet only partially revealed,
command structure. It was an extraordinary achievement.’
Kevin Ritchie writes in The South African Star: ‘What stunned me was the level of corruption in [South Africa] at the
time Silver operated. Indeed, had it not been for the venal police and inefficient bureaucracies, there would have been
no milieu for him to operate in.’ He adds: ‘The incredible levels of corruption, especially in Johannesburg and Cape
Town, were exactly the kinds of stimuli needed for an arch betrayer and dissembler like Silver to operate.’
But Silver’s chain of brothels, bars and gambling houses soon attracted the attention of the authorities, in particular
of future Prime Minister Jan Smuts, recently appointed State Attorney of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). The
forces of law and order, made up of mostly illiterate and corrupt men, were considered hopelessly inept against
organised crime. Smuts formed an elite unit reporting directly to him to counter Silver’s organisation. As his agents
began their search for witnesses with a view to building up a court case, Silver threatened one prostitute with ‘opening
up her belly’ if she testified against him.
At length Smuts succeeded in having Silver incarcerated for two years and permanently banished from the ZAR upon
completion of his sentence. Three months after his imprisonment in Johannesburg Fort, Silver, who was notorious as
a police informer and a pimp, committed an offence that immortalised his name in South African prison slang: he
attacked and sodomised a young African prisoner. Van Onselen writes: ‘To this very day, all informers in South Africa,
criminal and political alike, are collectively known as impimpi and older males in prison gangs who procure younger
men for sexual favours sport a variation of [Silver’s name: AmaSilva].’
As a result of Silver’s crime, his prison term was extended. But in 1899, when war pitted the Boers against Britain, the
prisons were thrown open to bolster the war effort and Silver was released. By 1902, he was working in Kimberley as an
undercover police agent monitoring illicit diamond buying - at a salary almost 10 times that of a normal police officer.
He next showed up in Bloemfontein, where he lived off the earnings of Rachel Laskin, his ‘whore-wife’. In 1904, he
moved to Cape Town, where he again ran brothels. Although everything showed that Rachel Laskin had been forced into
a life of prostitution in London’s East End as a teenager, Silver had her committed as a mental patient at Valkenberg
Hospital. She was to spend the rest of her life in institutions in South Africa, eventually dying in Potchefstroom in
1945.
During the rest of 1905 and 1906, Silver was in then German South West Africa, today Namibia. His job was procuring
women, mostly obtained in Brazil, for German troops suppressing the Herero revolt. As leader of a gang of Polish pimps
and coastal traders intent upon profiting from the war, he was sentenced to 3-years’ imprisonment and transportation
for living off the proceeds of prostitution. In 1908, he turned up in Paris, and, after that, in South America, where he
ran brothels in Chile under the name of José Silva.

As World War I was drawing to a close, Silver returned to his birthplace, Poland. Arrested by the Austro-Hungarian
army for looting military supplies as well as on suspicion of spying, he was convicted and sentenced to death. He was
executed by firing squad in 1917, aged 50, a few months before the war ended.
According to the publishers, Jonathan Cape, van Onselen was doing research in a library in Johannesburg in 1977 when
he came across Silver’s name in an edition of the Standard & Diggers News from 1898. The paper reported Silver was
the leader of the American Club, said to control both the police and ‘organised vice’ in Johannesburg. It would take
van Onselen’s 20 years of exhaustive research in four continents to realise that the man whose life he had painstakingly
tracked from birth to death was also the man who had mutilated and killed five prostitutes in London’s East End in
1888.
The book purports to cover many aspects of the Whitechapel murders, including a cradle-to-grave account of the life
of Joseph Isaacs, Inspector Frederick Abberline’s primary suspect after the killing of Mary Jane Kelly. Abberline jailed
Isaacs for a month but was unable to build a case against him. Other topics covered include the identification of Mary
Kelly’s secret lover Joe, linking him to the 19-year-old assailant of Emma Smith and the ‘schoolboy hand’ responsible
for the notorious anti-Semitic graffito that appeared on the wall in Goulston Street after the murder of Catherine
Eddowes; compelling circumstantial evidence concerning the place at the heart of Whitechapel where the killer was
working, dead centre in the spatial distribution of the murders; research on the most up-to-date psychiatric findings
on serial killers to build an academically rigorous framework for understanding the East End killer’s mindset, which
fits the candidate exactly; a revelation of the murderer’s obsession with an old Testament template from the Book of
Ezekiel that informed the incrementally violent sexual mutilations of the Ripper victims; an explanation of the melted
kettle in the grate in Miller’s Court; an integration of the latest research into the psychological impact of early syphilis
infection as part of the murderer’s obsessive rage towards women’s sexual parts; an explanation of why the murders
suddenly stopped, in terms of the physical locations of the murderer, the unfolding of his psychopathic condition, the
development of his syphilis, and an integration into this of his compulsively violent behaviour towards women in the
ensuing decades; and the presentation of the only candidate for the Ripper with an entire life story and criminal career
that fits the psychological and sexual profile of the killer and his ritualistic motives.
Van Onselen’s reputation is impeccable and his book, a hefty, profusely annotated volume, promises to be a great
read. Ripperologist readers, of course, will be primarily interested in the identification of Silver as the Whitechapel
murderer. We won’t be in a position to comment further on this point until we’ve had a chance thoroughly to examine
the book and the theses it proposes. Do we think there is a chance van Onselen might really have uncovered the Ripper?
What can we say? You never know.
Andrew Donaldson, Was the Ripper vice killing? Sunday Times, London, UK, 8 April 2007.
Kevin Ritchie, South Africa: Did the Ripper Stalk the Streets of SA? Cape Argus (Cape Town), 7 April 2007. AllAfrica.com.
Kevin Ritchie, Exposing South Africa’s dark, seedy underbelly, The South African Star, 12 April 2007.
JACK THE RIPPER MEETS EDVARD MUNCH. New York Times literary critic Joe
Queenan admits to a weakness for thrillers of the historical-character-meets-
historical-character variety. He was most recently impressed by Grim Legion:
Edgar Allan Poe at West Point. Shortly before being expelled from the United
States Military Academy in 1831, Poe stumbles upon a monstrous plot by a
shadowy organization called the Helvetian Society, which he frustrates with the
help of fellow West Pointer Robert E Lee, the future head of the Confederate
armies. Not likely, but entertaining.
As a fan of the genre, Queenan says he would ‘love to see more novels that unite
historical figures whose paths would almost certainly never cross in real life,
not because they lived in different eras but because they traveled in completely
different social circles.’ He offers a few plot lines for fictions of this type which
include Joseph Stalin meeting child prodigy Sting at the Moscow Zoo, Edgar Degas
having a tooth plucked by Doc Holliday, Jane Austen getting involved in a ménage
à trois with Aaron Burr and Davy Crockett, Harvey Lee Oswald becoming pals with
Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Calamity Jane bearing Kaiser Wilhelm’s
love child and Babe Ruth and Ethel Merman investigating mysterious goings-on
aboard the Lusitania in 1915. There is of course a special place for our Jack in this
extravaganza. Queenan’s proposed plot line: ‘An Etude in Scarlet: Jack the Ripper
and Erik Satie are actually one and the same person, and only Edvard Munch, who
supplements his paltry income as a painter by moonlighting as a private detective,
knows it.’ Eric Satie? Edvard Munch? Definitely one for the Ripperati.
Joe Queenan, Fancy Meeting You Here, New York Times, New York, 8 April 2007. Edvard Munch, fictional Ripper-catcher

JACK THE RIPPER MEETS TRICKY DICKY. ‘A 1974 survey asked: Who is the most hated person in history? Tyrants like Hitler
or Stalin, responsible for millions of deaths, didn’t reach number one. Neither did Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper, Judas
or even Satan. In first place was Richard Nixon. He had faults but ranking him number one shows how journalists can
deceive the public.’
Robert Kohtala, To the editor: Media bias noted, Daily Mining Gazette, Houghton, MI, USA, 27 March 2007.
JACK THE RIPPER MEETS LULU. ‘So is there a “eureka” moment when one key idea unlocks a show and becomes the
driving force for it? No response. He looks at me quizzically. I remind him of the central revelation that made his
ENO production of Berg’s Lulu such a startling departure from tradition. For the first time in my experience, Lulu
was a survivor not a victim of her sexuality. “Ah yes, she was a sex worker, wasn’t she?” says Jones, downplaying the
ingenuity. I, on the other hand, can still remember watching open-mouthed as she played out her snuff-movie fantasy
with Jack the Ripper, collected her earnings, and left work at the end of the show.’ From Edward Seckerson’s interview
with opera director Richard Jones, ‘who put Valkyries in latex suits and provided scratch ‘n’ sniff cards to accompany
Prokofiev.’
Independent, London, UK, 26 March 2007.
JACK THE RIPPER MEETS LULU – AGAIN. ‘Femme fatale as a descriptor for this concupiscent little cutie just won’t do
as she wraps herself tightly around her doomed lovers. A heart attack drops one. Another ends up an especially messy
suicide. And that’s just the beginning.’ This is how critic Wayne Myers describes Lulu, the wicked muse of German
playwright Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit 1895) and Pandora’s Box (1903). This April, Yale Repertory Theatre of
New Haven, Connecticut, staged both plays combined into Lulu, a Mark Lamos-Drew Lichtenberg adaptation with a Carl
R. Mueller translation directed by Lamos. ‘The phantasmagoric-like staging moves quickly from Lulu’s early swath of
sexual destruction to her sexual height in a scene with her coterie and an array of creamy desserts to her brutal end
in a London garret,’ writes Myers. In the last scene, Jack the Ripper butchers Lulu on stage as he holds her down on a
filthy mattress, mirroring Lulu’s earlier masturbation scene. ‘As Lulu’s death moan fills the stage,’ adds Myers, ‘Jack
yanks out her uterus and holds it up, stringy and glistening with blood, like a trophy, as he admires its beauty. The
reaction in the house was awesome. Everyone was effectively shut up, no longer tittering or gasping with mirth over
Lulu’s behavior.’ The reviewer considered this staging of the play superior to the Almeida Theatre’s Jonathan Kent-
directed Lulu of a few years ago with Anna Friel in the title role. His conclusion: ‘Yale Repertory Theatre’s lurid Lulu
only increases the playwright’s reputation.’
Wayne Myers, Yale Rep Stages Ribald Lulu, Oneida Dispatch, Oneida, NY, USA, 17April 2007.
JACK THE RIPPER MEETS MARY POPPINS. ‘It might say something significant about you,
or your mood at least, depending what side you choose to play in this foosball game
that takes “lights versus darks” to a whole new level. In Good versus Evil Foosball team
players that have never met before get to battle it out for the win, some of the most
interesting being (to me anyway) Mary Poppins and Christopher Robin on the good side
versus Jack the Ripper and Hitler on the evil side, to name just a few.’
Rigel Gregg, The ‘Good versus Evil’ Foosball Table, Luxist, Santa Monica, CA, USA, 12
April 2007.
SEX IN THE CITY. History of Sex Work: Vancouver is a new art installation consisting
of photo collages, ‘soundscapes’ from around Vancouver over the last 120 years and
interviews with project participants designed to give artistic expression to the so-
called world’s oldest profession. A group of former and current sex-trade workers have
designed the installation as a means of addressing public misconceptions, promoting
understanding and initiating change on issues from law enforcement to workers’ rights Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:
movements. Mary Poppins tackles the RIpper
Jennifer Allan, a former sex-trade worker, is one of the contributing artists. Her work, entitled ‘100 Years of Insecurity
for Sex-Trade Workers,’ focuses on the similarities between London’s sex-trade scene at the time of Jack the Ripper,
Seattle’s at the time of Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, and Vancouver’s at the present time, when Robert Pickton
is on trial for the murder of women from the Downtown Eastside. Ms Allan had to turn tricks to meet her most basic
needs such as food and shelter. ‘[Survival] sex work is not glamorous, it’s not a great lifestyle,’ she says. ‘This exhibit
shows society how they’ve allowed predators to target sex-trade workers.’ Survival sex-trade workers represent about
10 per cent of the city’s sex-trade industry.

Supported and funded by SFU Continuing Studies’ community education program, History of Sex Work: Vancouver was
launched on 12 April 2007 at the Dominion Hotel (210 Abbott Street, Vancouver) at 7:30p.m. The event featured live
music and burlesque show at the hotel’s Lamplighter Pub at 8:30p.m. The art installation will be in the hotel lobby
until 3 May.
Robyn Stubbs, The art of the sex trade, 24 Hours, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 12 April 2007.
BLUE JACK. British children’s television programme Blue Peter was supposed to be one
of the more wholesome programmes of its kind. On 14 March 2007, however, the BBC
issued an apology after Blue Peter was tainted by a live studio phone-in scandal. But
that was not the first Blue Peter scandal. In October 1998, the programme had just
celebrated its 40th birthday and was about to collect a prize at the British Academy
Children’s Awards when it became known that a Blue Peter presenter, Richard Bacon,
had ended a 12-hour drinking session by snorting cocaine. Bacon was sacked, but took
it on stride. ‘Where I stand is that I’ve done this, I am sorry, but it’s really nothing to
do with being a children’s presenter,’ he said. ‘I’m not Jack the Ripper. I want to lie
low for a while and then rebuild my career.’ Bacon currently has a show on BBC Radio
Five Live.
Richard Bacon: not Jack the RIpper Phone-in rip-off, Independent, 15 March 2007.
PARANORMAL JACK. ‘Ghost Hunters, a series about paranormal-hunting plumbers, returns to Sci Fi with 13 new episodes
next year. Sci Fi has also expanded its third season to include six new episodes this spring and six more in the fall. New
episodes of the hour-long weekly show feature the pair, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, exploring Ireland’s Lisheen
Ruins, London’s Jack the Ripper haunts, and other potentially supernatural-touched places.’
Anne Becker, Sci Fi To Run Show with Mentalist Derren Brown, Bring Back Ghost Hunters, Broadcasting & Cable, New York,
NY, USA, 21 March 2007.
CUTE JACK. ‘Ironclad law: When an American runs into a Brit, the American, particularly if he or she is a woman, will
say, “Gee, I just love your accent” - unless the Brit happens to be the Queen or Jack the Ripper Jr. It rarely dawns on
Americans that we have accents, too, or that the English don’t think their accent is particularly cute.’
Peter Leo, Morning File: Accent on British: Kiss me, I’m British, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, USA, 23 March 2007.
MANGA JACK. The Ripper plays a supporting role in the latest episode of the Cain Saga, a Japanese
manga. Reviewer Holly Ellingwood writes: ‘To quell the rumors surrounding the Hargreaves family,
an arranged marriage has been determined for young Cain. These pending nuptials won’t lead
to bliss for the cursed Cain, but to more bloody tragedy, death, horror and Jack the Ripper!...
Emiline, Cain’s fiancée, also proves to be the next victim of a serial killer when she falls victim
to the one and only Jack the Ripper... IN SUMMARY: Thrilling and terrifying both. This is the
penultimate volume of the Gothic manga series. This time Cain appears to be going up against an
old enemy, more family secrets, and perhaps his worst foe to date, Jack the Ripper.’
Holly Ellingwood, The Cain Saga (Vol. 4), Active Anime, USA, 27 March 2007.
JIHAD JACK. In ‘The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood’, published in the March-April issue of Foreign
Affairs, Robert S Leiken and Steven Brooke wrote: ‘In the anxious and often fruitless search
for Muslim moderates, policymakers should recognize that the Muslim Brotherhood presents a
notable opportunity.’ They added that the Brotherhood does not preach jihadism, though it ‘does
authorize jihad in countries and territories occupied by a foreign power. Like in Afghanistan under
the Soviets, the Ikhwan views the struggles in Iraq and against Israel as “defensive jihad” against
invaders, the Muslim functional equivalent of the Christian doctrine of “just war.”‘ Commentator Joshua Muravchik
remarks that ‘This is rather like saying that the acts of Jack the Ripper were the “functional equivalent” of courtly
love.’
Joshua Muravchik, The Brotherhood’s Creed, Commentary, New York, NY, USA, 9 April 2007.

TORY JACK. ‘A-list’ Conservative candidate Adam Rickitt, once an actor in the long-running television series Coronation
Street, still plans to sit in the Commons. ‘I very much intend to represent a constituency should I be lucky enough to
be selected,’ he says. ‘I need to earn a crust in the meantime.’ Rickitt, a native of Cheshire, is expected to offer his
services to Chester, where Labour has a majority of 917, with a view to an autumn selection. Whether this will fit in
with his acting commitments remains to be seen. Rickitt plans to appear in a ‘one-man play about Jack the Ripper’,
with the potential for a West End transfer ‘by the end of the year’.
Oliver Duff, A ripping new role for a young Tory hopeful, Independent, London, UK, 26 March 2007.
MASSAGE PARLOUR JACK. ‘Though some have called it satirical, [American conservative political commentator Ann]
Coulter writes satire like Jack the Ripper gives knife massages, even as propaganda, which surely Coulter does not set
out to write, the writing is too reactionary and laughably confrontational to be persuasive or even easily distinguished
from the output of a high school propaganda-writing exercise or some sort of Propaganda3000 automatic bile-producing
computer program.’ Ms Coulter made the remark that triggered off these comments on 2 March 2007. She said: ‘I was
going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have
to go into rehab if you use the word “faggot,” so I... can’t really talk about Edwards.’
Jason Gilbert, A few comments on Ann Coulter, Daily Princetonian, Princeton University, New Jersey, 27 March 2007.
COLLEGE JACK. The death of a University of California at Merced freshman was most likely the result of an accidental
fall, Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin announced during a press conference on 19 March. ‘We are 98% sure there was
no foul play involved,’ Pazin added. ‘My sole purpose here today is to assure the faculty, the students and the family
there is no Jack the Ripper lurking here on the confines of UC Merced. It appears that this was one-in-a-million trip
and fall.’
The Fresno Bee, Fresno, CA, USA, 20 March 2007.
PRIME TIME JACK. ‘Most likely, the issue isn’t that there’s that much more to be scared of out there but that thanks to
the media, horror stories are in our faces almost as soon as they happen. After all Jack the Ripper and others like him
have been around for eons. Even when Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka made headlines more than 10 years ago, the
details of their horrid crimes weren’t blasted all over the net and on TV in seconds. That’s what’s changed i.e. not so
much the amount of crimes and the perversion out there, but the immediacy with which it is all reported... and not
just once, but over and over, update after update.’
Cruiseroo, Are we bubblewrapping our children?, Digital Journal, Canada, 10 April 2007.
BAROQUE JACK. ‘With a glint of delirium in his eyes — stemming from sleep deprivation and that imported absinthe
— [producer Griffin] Rodriguez cues up the baroque ballroom waltz beginning of “Poor Jackie,” about a female Jack
the Ripper. For six Technicolor minutes, several different moods and sonic reference points flicker on by like a film reel
reeking of dread, ghastly gaslights and death. And then, the sudden climatic coup: a head-circling blues riff, beyond-
the-grave Beach Boys harmonies and horns that sound as if they should be streaming through stained glass windows.’
Andrew Parks, Stillborn Again, What to do when you’re stranded in Chicago for a week with Man Man, Philadelphia
citypaper.net, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 17 April 2007.
JACK AND THE JACKAL. ‘The left-right combination with a contrasting modus operandi making a killing, the West Indies
were caught in the dark alley with Jack the Ripper at one end and Jackal at another.’ Sounds like some sort of political
thriller, but actually it is a comment on the victory of Sri Lanka over the West Indies at the Cricket World Cup.
Sandeep Dwivedi, Jack the Ripper and Jackal in their zone: Jayasuriya scores his 25th century and sizes up the situation
well with Jayawardene to propel Lanka past 300, Indian Express, New Delhi, India, 2 April 2007
JACK WHO? Jack the Ripper finds himself in increasingly mixed company these days. There is reportedly a scandal
of sorts in Coral Gables, Florida, where Granada LLC, the operator of the Coral Gables Country Club, isn’t making
payments for the city’s $4-million investment in the club’s reconstruction. So City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera proposes
to ask one Hernandez – who approved the city-Granada contract - to study how to deal with that non-paying entity. Says
local commentator George Volsky: ‘Cabrera’s idea is like asking convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to teach him political
ethics, or suggesting that Jack the Ripper investigate crime.’ Jack the Ripper we understand, but who is Jack Abramoff
and what has he done to deserve such kudos?
George Volsky, Corrigan Masters Debate, Coral Gables Gazette, Coral Gables, FL, USA, 6 April 2007.

JACK THE RIPPER AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON. Not much information is available at this time, but we have learnt that
the Museum of London is planning an exhibition on Jack the Ripper’s London to open in the summer of 2008. Great
news, right? You’ll know more about it when we do.
THERE GOES THE OTHER BLAIR. ‘Doubts have been cast on the veracity of
Sir Ian Blair’s account of dodging IRA bullets as a young copper in 1975.
The author of a new book on the siege of Balcombe Street says the Met
Commissioner’s story doesn’t add up. I have no doubt Sir Ian will clarify
the matter in his memoirs, Mind How You Go - How I Nicked The Kray
Twins, Tracked Down The Great Train Robbers, Solved The Mystery Of Jack
The Ripper and Brought Dr Crippen To Justice.’
Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail, London, UK, 3 April 2007.
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY. On 16 April, troubled Korean student Cho Seung-Hui

went on a murder spree at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, which
claimed 33 people – including Cho, who took his own life. Following the
incident, one reader of the Arizona Daily Star remarked: ‘We have become
Sir Ian Blair so used to “wasting” a building full of people in video games, and then
hitting “reset,” that some people simply believe that it works in real life,
too. This kind of senseless violence did not always exist at this level; so there must be something we can do to reverse
this deadly trend.’ Another reader signing himself Matt W. (wakahaka) disagreed: ‘This hubris gets tiresome fast,’ he
wrote. ‘What about the continual massacre of Native Americans throughout the first 150 years of this country? What
about the Civil War - where 23,000 Americans were killed in a single day at Antietam? Did Hitler play Grand Theft Auto?
Do the Janjaweed in Darfur listen to Marilyn Manson? What about Jack the Ripper? Ted Bundy? Mao Zedong? Please...’
Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, AZ, USA, 18 April 2007.
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET VII: FREDDIE KRUEGER COMES TO LEICESTER. A man

obsessed with fedora-hatted, striped-jerseyed character Freddie Krueger from the
Nightmare on Elm Street films used a home-made bladed glove to slash a sleeping
friend. Jason Moore, 37, of Bulwer Road, Leicester, was jailed for life by Judge
Michael Pert at the city’s crown court.
The court heard Moore had watched Nightmare on Elm Street 20 times and watched
it again just before attacking John-Paul Skamarski on 30 August 2006. Moore and
Skamarski had been drinking cider together at Moore’s home when Skamarski fell
asleep on the sofa. He woke up to find Moore slashing at him with the glove and a
10in bread knife. During a 10-minute struggle, Skamarski suffered four cuts to his
face, cuts to his hand and a 1in stab wound to his chest.
Moore said he could not remember the attack. He claimed that he had made the
glove but never intended to use it. Philip Gibbs, defending, said Moore had accepted
he was a dangerous man. ‘He has only ever wanted to understand his actions,’ he
said. ‘He is a very damaged individual.’
Jailing Moore for a minimum of four-and-a-half years, Judge Pert said: ‘You are an
extremely dangerous man. ‘You are obsessed in particular with the Freddy Krueger
figure in Nightmare on Elm Street. What you were fascinated with was using that
glove to kill someone. The person you chose was your friend who was asleep and
had no reason to expect an attack.’
Moore fashioned the weapon - said to be a ‘labour of love’ - from a leather gardening
glove with four ‘cut throat’ blades welded into brass housings. Speaking after the
trial, Det Sgt Gary Rogers from Leicestershire Police said the glove was one of the
most frightening weapons he had ever seen. ‘A lot of skill has gone into creating Jason Moore and his home-made
‘Freddie Krueger’ glove
that glove. I have seen some horrific weapons in my life and that is probably the
most horrific I have seen.’
BBCNews.com, ‘Freddy Krueger’ attacker jailed, 4 April 2007.

FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH XIII: JASON GOES SHOPPING. Browsing through, of all things, the Irish Medical Times, we
came across an article featuring such obscure terms as paraskavedekatriaphobia and triskaidekaphobia. They turned
out not to relate, as we first thought, to some contagious disease. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13 and
paraskavedekatriaphobia is fear of Friday the 13th. The date of the newspaper issue carrying the article was, needless
to say, Friday 13 April.
The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that there are about 17 million paraskavedekatriaphobics in
the United States today. About $900 million is lost in business every Friday the 13th because the paraskavedekatriaphobics
won’t travel to work or conduct their business in the normal way.
But there is more to Friday the 13th than Jason’s day out. According to a study published in the British Medical Journal
in 1993, the bad luck associated with Friday the 13th might be more than just superstition. The Department of Public
Health, Mid Downs Health Authority, Haywards Health, West Sussex, conducted a study on ‘the relationship between
health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom’. The methodology was the study of
data comparing driving and shopping patterns and accidents in the South West Thames region on Friday 6 and Friday
13.The sample group comprised shoppers, residents and motorists. The results showed that there were consistently
and significantly fewer vehicles on the southern section of the M25 on Friday the 13th compared with Friday the 6th.
The numbers of shoppers were not significantly different on the two days. But admissions to hospital due to transport
accidents significantly increased on Friday the 13th. The study concluded that ‘Friday the 13th is unlucky for some.
The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 per cent. Staying
at home is recommended.’
Since ancient times, both Fridays and, separately, the number 13, have been deemed unlucky. Some believe that Eve
offered Adam the apple on a Friday, that the Flood began on a Friday, that God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower
of Babel on a Friday and that the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday. Of course, the Crucifixion occurred
on a Friday. Add to all good old goddess Freya (after whom Friday was named), who in Christian times became known
as the Witch Goddess.
The folklore and myth surrounding the unpopularity of the number 13 is equally colourful. There were 13 present at the
Last Supper, a true coven consisted of 13 witches, and 13 is known as the Devil’s Dozen. If your name has 13 letters, you
have the luck of the Devil; Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all
have 13 letters in their name. Some believe that 13 was a special, feminine number in prehistoric goddess-worshipping
days in that it represented the number of lunar and menstrual cycles in a year. Then, as the solar calendar triumphed
over the lunar, and patriarchal religions became established, the number 13 became anathema.
So, all told, Friday the 13th is bad news for the superstitious. The only consolation the paraskavedekatriaphobics have
is that they have three whole months before Friday the 13th happens again in July. Next year, there is only one Friday
the 13th, in the month of June.
If hit by paraskavedekatriaphobia you should probably take to bed, Irish Medical Times, Dublin, Ireland, 13 April 2007.
A LIVERPUDLIAN RENAISSANCE. Liverpool will celebrate the £23m restoration of its neo-classical masterpiece - St
George’s Hall - by hosting twice-nightly Son et Lumière displays recounting the city’s past 800 years from 23 April.
Devised by the Liverpool Culture Company and Ross Ashton, who lit up Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Jubilee and
80th birthday, the 30-minute showcase will be projected on to the rear of the Grade I-listed building. Audiences will
be able to see it from a special 500-seater, tiered grandstand in St John’s Gardens.
After a massive, five-year makeover to a leaking roof, crumbling walls and rotten fittings as well as the installation
of several new features, the re-opening on St George’s Day - 23 April - is one of the highlights of Liverpool’s birthday
celebrations, which will culminate on 28 August, the 800th anniversary of the granting of its first royal charter by King
John.
The re-opening of St George’s Hall will be marked by a series of spectacular events. The rarely seen, 30,000-piece
hand-crafted Minton tiled floor in the Great Hall will be on display. Last unveiled in 1997, it will be on show from 10am
to 8.30pm every day until 29 April. A series of concerts by Liverpool musicians, such as the 2006 BBC Young Musician
and Composer of the Year Mark Simpson, will be held in St George’s Concert Room. A new work of art interpreting the
city’s coat of arms by the acclaimed Singh Twins will go on show, as will a new sculpture of St George slaying the dragon
with a Liver Bird rising as a phoenix.
First opened in 1854, St George’s Hall was the result of two design competitions for a civic and court venue, both won
by architect Harvey Lonsdale Elmes for his ‘Acropolis-like’ vision. Queen Victoria described it as ‘worthy of ancient
Athens’. Fitted with the world’s first modern-air conditioning system and largest piped organ at the time, it hosted
famous cultural events such as Charles Dickens’s world premiere reading of A Christmas Carol.

Since the courts closed in 1984 only the Great Hall has been in
use. But St George’s Hall, which lies at the heart of Liverpool’s
Cultural Quarter and World Heritage site, has become a symbol
for the city, as a focal point for everything from remembrance
services to football cup parades and rallies to vigils, most
notably the death of John Lennon in 1980.
From 23 April St George’s Hall will feature a new Heritage Centre
with innovative public tours called ‘Truth and Justice’, and
‘Power and Glory’; new street level access at South Entrance
from St John’s Lane; upgraded courts, Judge’s robing room and
prison cells on show for the first time; new community exhibition
centre and the St George’s Concert Room restored to original
finishes and new 450-seat capacity. The Heritage Centre tours
will be self-guided, powered by hand-held digital devices, and
tell the story of the building, its role as a cultural venue and a
St George’s Hall: scene of Florence Maybrick’s trial restored
Crown Court where famous trials such as Florence Maybrick and
William Wallace, ‘the man from the Pru’, were held.
Liverpool’s finest civic building to re-open with spectacular light show, 24dash.com, Liverpool, UK, 11 April 2007.
A PARDON FOR FLORIE MAYBRICK. An online petition is in course to obtain a posthumous pardon for Florence Chandler-
Maybrick, who, following a controversial trial in 1889, was convicted of murdering her husband, James Maybrick, in
Liverpool. Mrs Maybrick served 15 years in prison for a crime many believe she did not commit and of which she was
allegedly convicted on the most minute and flimsiest evidence with important evidence that could have exonerated
her withheld.
JUST DON’T ASK FOR MORE. Who needs Cinderella when you can have Little Nell? Who needs Donald Duck when you
can have the Artful Dodger? Who needs Captain Hook when you can have Uriah Heep? Goodbye, Disneyland, hello
Dickens World! No, we are not joking. A theme park called Dickens World built at a cost of 62 million pounds in a
modern, aluminium-clad hangar on the Chatham Maritime estate in Kent is scheduled to open at the end of May. Charles
Dickens’s father once worked as a clerk in the Navy pay office at the dockyard in Chatham and Dickens himself spent
part of his childhood there. After the naval dockyards closed in the 1980s,
Chatham became plagued by unemployment. The park is part of efforts
to rescue the area through the encouragement of tourism. Dickens World
was the dream of the now deceased Gerry O’Sullivan-Beare, a theme park
designer who worked on Santa’s World and Andersen (as in Hans Christian)
World, among others.
Dickens World creators promise a flavour of ‘dark, smoky, moody London,
full of smells and mist’. Visitors – of whom they expect to attract as
many as 300,000 a year - will be able to take the Great Expectations
boat ride, based on the escape of the convict Magwitch, through a
Thames whose waters have been dyed brown. Other attractions include
Ebenezer Scrooge’s Haunted House, Quilp’s Creek, Newgate Prison, the
Britannia Music Hall, the Dotheboys Hall Victorian classroom, the Six
Jolly Fellowship Porters bar and Ye Olde Curiosity Gift Shop. Jolly good,
what?
But the idea has met with opposition from some quarters. ‘Is the world
ready for a Dickens theme park?’ asked the Observer. ‘There is a lot
to fear here,’ echoed the New York Times. ‘There is the prospect that
characters from Dickens’ novels - Mr Pecksniff and the Artful Dodger, Mr
Pickwick and Uriah Heep - will wander through Dickens World the way
Goofy and Mickey walk the streets of Disneyland,’ the paper said.
‘We are not Disneyfying Dickens,’ replies Dickens World manager Ross
Hutchins. ‘If Dickens was alive today, he would probably have built the
place himself. In fact, if Dickens was alive today, he would probably
have been working for television as a scriptwriter. He was very much a
populist. If we were Disneyfying Dickens we wouldn’t be talking to people

like the Dickens Fellowship to ensure the correct historical facts.’ He promises that the project will bolster knowledge
of the author: ‘If you asked many people today under 30 to name five Dickens novels, they probably couldn’t. We are
going to bring Dickens to life.’
Managing director Kevin Christie is equally enthusiastic about the project. ‘We think of the books as mostly about
poverty and misery, but we tend to forget this was the great age of the Victorian supremacy - there were big things
going on,’ he says. ‘The Dickens Fellowship have been on board on a daily basis. Their passion for Dickens means Dickens
World is going to have a focus of attention which pleases them. Everything we reproduce and say and do is faithful to
some element of his life.’
Christie says Dickens ‘...was the ultimate showman. He was the populist. He wrote in soap form for newspapers. When
his own career hit the rocks he took his show on the road, travelled up and down the country, reading his books off
the stage. The short answer is he would have loved it.’ He adds: ‘Somebody once said if Shakespeare was alive today
he would write plays, if Dickens was alive today he would have written for TV. Every episode ends on a cliffhanger. He
was a great story writer, he has got great characters.’
Former Dickens Fellowship joint secretary Thelma Grove has worked as a consultant on the theme park and strongly
supports the project. ‘A lot of the social concerns are still a problem for us today, with these young people going around
shooting each other,’ she says. Ms Grove delights in the international appeal of Dickens, but believes there is a certain
quintessential Englishness in his writing. ‘You cannot imagine Mr Pickwick coming from any other nation, bumbling with
good intentions that don’t work out. People tend to feel a sort of proprietorial interest in Dickens.’
in 2004, Race equality czar Trevor Phillips recommended Dickens to immigrants seeking to integrate in British society.
‘What we should be talking about is how we reach an integrated society, one in which people are equal under the law,
where there are common values of democracy rather than violence, the common currency of the English language,
honouring the culture of these islands, like Shakespeare and Dickens,’ he said.
Dr Peter D McDonald, English literature tutor at St Hugh’s college, Oxford, worries that theme parks and banknote
appearances contribute to the real meaning of Dickens being lost. ‘They are moves that can obscure aspects of Dickens
maybe people don’t really want to see, to tame and domesticate him. People want Dickens to represent some idea
of Englishness. It is making him too domestic and homely. The humour is deeply cruel and vicious. He is a massively
powerful and disturbing figure.’ Visit www.dickensworld.co.uk
Paul Majendie, Great Expectations for Dickens theme park, Reuters, 12 April 2007.
LONELY AS A CLOUD, MAN. Is there nothing sacred? In an attempt to increase publicity for the Lake District, the
Cumbrian tourist board have produced a video featuring a hip hop squirrel, known as Mc Nuts, rapping Wordsworth’s
poem ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,’ first published 200 years ago. The video was reportedly designed to introduce
Wordsworth to a new generation of kids more influenced by hip hop than poetry. It was filmed by the banks of Ullswater,
the second largest lake in the Lake District, where Wordsworth was inspired to write his poem when he came across a
‘long belt’ of daffodils on its shores. If you have not read the poem for some time and would like to be reminded of it,
click here; you can actually see and hear the rapping rodent. Be warned; some viewers have complained that Mc Nuts
looks more like a donkey or a deer than like a squirrel.
THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. You have the victim: an 82-year-old World War II veteran who was found
decapitated in his backyard. You have a suspect: a schizophrenic with an interest in headless bodies and Jack the Ripper
who has absconded from a mental institution. Some people might wonder what the police are waiting for. Indeed, so
do the residents of Armidale, a quiet university town in New South Wales, Australia, where elderly Mark Hutchinson
was found dead last January and the main suspect is roaming free. The town’s Mayor, Peter Ducat, told the Australian
newspaper on 19 April: ‘The community is concerned that the murder is unsolved.’ Yet matters are turning out not to
be so simple.
It was revealed during proceedings before the NSW Supreme Court that police had apprehended the suspect after staff
at a country mental health facility contacted them, concerned the patient may have been Mr Hutchinson’s killer. The
suspect was a long-term patient with chronic schizophrenia. He was found loitering near a school with scissors, and a
tomahawk was lying on the ground. Mental health staff notified police and the health service’s security on January 7
that he was ‘AWOL’.
Justice Carolyn Simpson said that when the suspect was apprehended on January 17, a few days after the murder, ‘his
shirt appeared to be heavily bloodstained’. The suspect’s defence team has challenged this finding. Police told the
court there were red stains on his shoes ‘presumptive for blood.’ The suspect’s sketches and writings shown to the court
‘included a drawing of a headless torso, a reference to Jack the Ripper, a drawing of a hand ashing a cigarette, another
depiction of a body with the head separated ... and much, much more that would require an expert to analyse,’ Justice

Simpson said. She added that the suspect’s medical records included ‘many instances of the use of dangerous objects,
threats of harm to others, aggressive and even homicidal thoughts towards various individuals’.
The head of the homicide squad, Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford, said on 17 April that the man was one of
a number of people Strike Force Penfold was interested in. He added DNA swabs were used to exclude people from
suspect lists. Although the Supreme Court approved an order two weeks ago to allow a mouth swab to be taken, police
were still awaiting the results. DS Beresford said: ‘This is just one line of inquiry that police are following at this stage
and we are continuing to examine a number of circumstances surrounding the incident.’
A police source said on 19 April that while they knew the location of the suspect, he was not in detention by either
police or health authorities. The suspect’s mother said she had seen him at her Armidale residence in recent days and
that he was living in his own flat and was free to move about the community. Mr Hutchinson’s nephew, Garry Newley,
said he had been aware that police were investigating the man. ‘His history, as reported, strongly suggests that he
presents a significant risk to the community and we are sure that the community will feel a sense of relief as long as
he is detained,’ he concluded.
Leonie Lamont, Dylan Welch and Les Kennedy, Mentally ill patient suspect in digger’s killing, Brisbane Times, Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia, 18 April 2007.
NOT JOAN OF ARC’S BONES AFTER ALL. Subjects on which the English and the French
have not always seen eye to eye include escargots, frog’s legs and Joan of Arc. The
French cause has recently sustained a blow as research revealed that bones thought
to be the remains of the 15th-Century heroine belonged in fact to an Egyptian mummy
and a cat. A jar found in a Paris pharmacy attic in 1867 bore a label claiming it held
Joan’s relics. But forensic tests suggest that the remains date from between the third
and seventh centuries BC, hundreds of years before Joan was born. Forensic scientist
Philippe Charlier, who led the investigation into the relics, told Nature, the journal that
published its results: ‘I’d never have thought that it could be from a mummy.’
Joan of Arc, who was canonised in 1920, was convicted of heresy and witchcraft in
1431. The relics were said to have been found at the stake in the Normandy town of
Rouen where she was burned alive, aged just 19. They consisted of a charred-looking
human rib, chunks of what appeared to be blackened wood, a 15-centimetre fragment
of linen and a cat thigh bone, which seemed to reinforce their authenticity since in
medieval Europe it was common practice to throw black cats into the pyres of supposed
witches. Recognised as genuine and sacred by the Church, the remains were housed in
a museum in Chinon belonging to the Archdiocese of Tours.
Dr Charlier, from the Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches, near Paris, obtained
permission from France’s Catholic Church to study the relics. He used a range of
scientific tests, such as spectrometry, electron microscopy and pollen analysis, which
dated both the human rib and the cat bone, which also was mummified, to between
Philippe Charlier with the relics
the seventh and third centuries BC. The researchers also found pollen from pine trees, thought to have been Joan of Arc
probably from resin used in embalming in ancient Egypt. Pines did not grow in Normandy
during the 15th Century.
Dr Charlier recruited two smell experts, Sylvaine Delacourte and Jean-Michel Duriez, from the perfume industry. They
were independently asked to sniff the relics as well as nine other samples of bone and hair without being told what they
were. Both smelled hints of ‘burnt plaster’ and ‘vanilla’ in the samples. The plaster smell would back up claims that
Joan was burnt on a plaster stake, to make the spectacle last longer. But a vanilla smell is inconsistent with cremation.
It comes from the compound vanillin, which is released during the decomposition of a body.
Analysis of the black crust covering the rib and the cat bone showed that it was not caused by fire, but was a mix of
wood resins, bitumen and chemicals, such as malachite, used for embalming. Dr Charlier told the Associated Press that
from medieval times on, powdered mummy remains were used for medicinal purposes, ‘to treat stomach ailments, long
or painful periods, all blood problems’.
He also said that the researchers’ assumption is that a 19th-Century apothecary transformed the remains of an Egyptian
mummy into a fake relic. Why it was done remains a mystery, though it was probably not for money. ‘Perhaps it was for
religious reasons,’ added Dr Charlier. ‘Perhaps it was created to increase the importance of the process of beatification
in 1909.’
BBC News, Joan of Arc remains ‘are fakes’, 4 April 2007.

I SAW WHAT YOU DID – WELL, NOT REALLY. A man has been jailed for three months for wasting police time with false
claims during the height of the investigation into a spate of prostitute killings in Ipswich. The bodies of Gemma Adams,
Anneli Alderton, Tania Nicol, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clennell were found in the area between 2 and 12 December
last year. Steve Wright has been charged with all five murders.
Andrew Purdy, 44, from Holbrook, Suffolk, was handed the sentence at Ipswich magistrate’s court after admitting he
had made false claims about the case in December 2006 and January 2007. As Suffolk police were trying to find the
killer of the five prostitutes, Purdy went to them saying he had received threatening phone calls and text messages.
After detectives paid for a panic alarm to be fitted in Purdy’s house and arranged for him to stay over at hotels they
became suspicious and began investigating his 27 separate claims. It was discovered that he had made up all of the
threats. Purdy admitted to wasting police time in court last month.
On sentencing, district judge David Cooper said Purdy was ‘the kind of fantasist who obviously got satisfaction and
a sense of importance by pretending to be a significant prosecution witness in a case that attracted a huge amount
of public attention’. According to the Suffolk Evening Star, the judge added: ‘I am told 50 hours of police time was
diverted from their proper duties, which seems to be a huge amount of time.’ He also said: ‘You are forlorn and pathetic
and some may say why waste more public money by putting you in prison. But it is time to pass a deterrent sentence
so people of your ilk do not come forward and waste police time.’
thedoghouse.com - Fantasist jailed over false Ipswich claims , 2 April 2007.
PHILADELPHIA CRIME AUTHOR BLOWS IT. For a moment there we thought we

were on to a good thing. A California history teacher, Jim Hoffman, has written
a book about one of Philadelphia’s most notorious unsolved murders: The Boy
in the Box: America’s Unknown Child. Hoffman says of the gruesome discovery
of a child’s body in February 1957: ‘He has no name, placed nude in a bassinet
box, of all boxes, on a road that was used as a dump site, across the street from
a school for wayward girls, I mean, how ironic, to me anyway.’ Hoffman gives
great credit to detectives (calling them ‘saints’) for their dogged pursuit of
clues across the decades, and thinks that even after half a century there could
be a breakthrough. So far so good; but then he reportedly hails author Patricia
Cornwell for solving the Jack the Ripper case. Why, Hoffman, why?
John Ostapkovich, Author Pens Book About Famous Phila. Murder, KYW News Radio
‘The Boy in the Box’ is taken to be buried 1060, Philadelphia, USA, 7 April 2007.
I’LL NEVER FORGET WHAT’S HIS FACE. Won’t you now? Would you really remember what the person who attacked and
robbed you looked like? Would you really remember what the person you saw attack and rob someone else looked like?
Sussex DC Clifford Clark is an expert on the subject. He has been interviewing witnesses and victims to produce E-FIT
images of criminals since the early 1990s. He is a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ facial identification
group and a former chairman of the national E-FIT User Group. Still, enthusiastic as he is about the employ of E-FIT to
help fight crime, he knows asking victims and witnesses to describe the face of the criminal they saw is asking a lot.
‘When did you last remember the component parts of a face?’ he says. ‘You recognise people you know by component
parts, not studying the shape of their eyebrows or ears!’ Yet there have been a number of cases where an E-FIT image
of a suspect derived from witness testimony has helped to bring an offender to justice.
The police officer who interviews victims or witnesses must carefully unlock their memory, so that details unfold
naturally, rather than using a set series of questions. DC Clark says: ‘We use the way memory works to extract
information. It’s been shown to be one of the best, if not the top way to interview witnesses in the world.’ The police
officer takes notes and then uses a computer programme to produce an E-FIT. The computer offers an index of facial
features originally designed by psychologists at Aberdeen University and Home Office. Starting with a blank oval face,
it is possible to import eyes, nose, mouth, hair, eyebrows, moustaches and beards, hats, glasses, and even shoulders,
so as to give a hint of collar and tie or other clothing. The victims don’t have to trawl through thousands of options,
but just a selection matching their initial description.
The interviewing police officer must be careful not to lead the witnesses. Instead they must faithfully follow the details
described by the witnesses, even if they sound ridiculous!
DC Clark says: ‘If they say put the eyes in the wrong place, even if it’s not physically possible, we have to oblige on the
E-FIT according to what we are told. People enlarge the eyes for example, because that’s what they remember but in
reality there are certain restrictions to the maximum size.’
He adds: ‘The image stays very flexible all the way along. There are lots of chances to make sure the emerging face
is what the witness wants, not what we want it to be. The last stage is for the detective to use a “blending” tool in
Photoshop, to blur any confusing edges where the features join.’

DC Clark continues: ‘It can be extremely difficult for the victim of a crime to see the face of the man who raped her
for example, on the screen. But a lot of people will go through that to help the investigation and the chances of finding
an offender. They sign the E-FIT and it becomes a piece of evidence - a pictorial statement which can be produced in
court, and can’t be changed by us.’ He adds: ‘If I have a certain suspect in mind I wouldn’t go to interview the witness
for an E-FIT.’
Sometimes several witnesses can produce different E-FITS based on their varying memories, but DC Clark would
never merge the two descriptions. ‘I’d rather end up with two different faces from two different witnesses’, he says,
‘because the second person’s may be more accurate.’
Technology is moving on apace as software companies produce ever more sophisticated photo-fit systems. E-FITS came
into being in the 1980s and early 90s, but back then computers were not able to cope with complicated graphics. DC
Clark says: ‘Now we have hundred of eyes to choose from, hundreds of noses, hairstyles etc. They can also be produced
in colour but we stick to grey scale as its faster - unless there’s a distinctive colouring we need to publicise, like a
tattoo or colourful birthmark.’
EVOFIT is the fast new system developed by Sterling University and ProFIT (a software company) being tested in
Yorkshire which DC Clark said will be used in Suffolk soon. It offers you typical faces and you choose the most similar to
the offender. Each choice leads to its own ‘generation’ of faces, to fine-tune the likeness. EVOFIT shaves half an hour
off the compilation process. According to DC Clark, it is probably the best system in the world.
Yet E-FITS are not the only way to produce pictures of a suspect. The FBI in America still prefer to rely on freehand
artists, which brings a subjective element into the process. A few years ago, DC Clark attended an FBI course where
police artists sketched faces. The drawings turned out well, but then they were all trained artists. ‘Each method has
its merits,’ says DC Clark, but he remains committed to E-FITS helping solve Suffolk crimes.’
At Suffolk Police ten officers are qualified to compile E-FITs. ‘We don’t really do as many as we should,’ DC Clark
admits. ‘There is a need for more enlightenment and resources. E-FITs are a means to find a suspect, but I think they
are used as a last resort sometimes.’ E-FITs are not evidence that a suspect did the crime, but they are investigative
tools to help find a suspect. DC Clark says: ‘One of the biggest things people need to understand is that an E-FIT is not
a picture of the offender. It is actually a representation of the memory of the victim or witness. It’s never going to be
a photo of an offender but it is the best likeness we can hope to get.’
An E-FIT was even produced in an effort to identify a criminal who has certainly been dead for a number of years:
Jack the Ripper. The question was whether modern policing techniques could have produced enough information for
the detectives working on the Whitechapel murders case in the 1880s to catch the killer. Head of analysis for Scotland
Yard’s Violent Crime Command Laura Richards, who studied serial killer Fred West and Soham murderer Ian Huntley,
used modern techniques to revisit the case for a Channel 5 documentary called Jack The Ripper: the First Serial
Killer. Ms Richards brought together a team of experts, including pathologists, historians and a geographical profiler,
to study descriptions of the Ripper given at the time by 13 witnesses. The team produced an E-FIT of the killer. Former
Metropolitan Police commander John Grieve believes the Ripper would have been caught if officers at the time had
had the image. ‘This is further than anyone else has got,’ he says. ‘It would have been enough for coppers to get out
and start knocking on doors... they would have got him.’ He adds: ‘It’s a popular misconception that nobody ever saw
the murderer, that he just vanished into the fog of London. Well that’s just not right. There were witnesses at the time
who were highly thought of by the police.’
Tracey Sparling, Captured by their victims’ memories, Suffolk Evening Star, Ipswich, England, UK, 19 April 2007.
AND FINALLY, A TEST OF YOUR RIPPER KNOWLEDGE. The question: The husband of
which major American film star likened John Wayne to Jack the Ripper? The answer
will appear in the next edition of I Beg to Report.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SEND US YOUR RIPPER-RELATED SNIPPETS.
WE ARE INTERESTED IN NEWS ITEMS, PHOTOGRAPHS, NEWSPAPER
CUTTINGS, OFFICIAL RECORDS, PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, DOCUMENTS,
LETTERS, DIARIES, DNA SAMPLES, ANECDOTES,
AUTOGRAPHS, CONFESSIONS, YOU NAME IT. NO PERSONAL BLOGS, NO
ARTIFICIAL LIMBS, NO PICTURES OF YOUR PETS, PLEASE.
SEND TO I BEG TO REPORT, [email protected]
IF WE LIKE IT, WE’LL RUN IT.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jack, er, John Wayne Ripperologist 78 April 2007 48

Dear Rip
Your Letters and Comments
The Trials of James Maybrick, Rip 77

Dear Rip
I read the editorial of your latest issue ‘The Trials of James Maybrick’ by Chris George (Rip 77) with some interest;
it seems the somewhat lively thread on the Casebook message boards about the forthcoming event in Liverpool left its
mark on Chris! Apparently he feels that the event organiser was ill treated on the Casebook, at least in some quarters,
however, it occurs to me that if people want to use such outlets to advertise their events then they should not be
surprised to find out that some posters have such plain speaking views against them, particularly if they had ever read
the boards before posting. That said, the thread wasn’t all a one way knee-jerk event-hating tirade and if I recall
correctly the organiser did, at one point, tell posters that if they could not get a ticket to his event they should ‘get
a life’.
Chris argues that all Ripper events provide some entertainment value, but I would say that this is different to
concocting a trial of a suspect purely for entertainment value and then acting as though it can serve some kind of
historical and/or cultural purpose when it clearly does not. One also wonders how fair things will be at the Liverpool
trial when, by the organisers own admission, those actually arguing James was not Jack will be outnumbered (3 for
James as Jack, 2 against, 1 neutral). Other ‘Ripper’ events, like the annual conferences, put serious Ripperological
studies first and entertainment second and that is the way it should be. History can be entertaining, but we also owe
the dead a duty of care because dead people cannot speak for themselves and they cannot defend themselves from
attack. Ripperologist and others should be careful that they are not deliberately misrepresenting or distorting the truth
about historical figures for either financial or personal gain. This is something that I have always felt strongly about, if
that makes me sanctimonious, then so be it.
Here’s where I find myself in a somewhat bizarre position in contrast to most of my fellow anti-diarists, since I will
be attending the event, despite agreeing with many of their reservations posted on the Casebook! To say this criticism
whilst simultaneously going to the event might be seen by some as a tad bit hypocritical (wouldn’t get an argument from
me!) but my view is why preach to the converted, it is better to preach to (and keep in check) the unconverted!
JENNIFER PEGG
Leicester, UK, 26 March 2007
Hi Jenni
I do thank you for your reply to my editorial. In writing the editorial, my intent was to show that all Ripper events
have some entertainment content. Likewise, though, I would argue that the Trial of James Maybrick coming up in
Liverpool next month should not be viewed as either just entertainment or a sham as it has been labeled on the
Casebook message boards. The Maybrick Trial of 1889 in itself is worthy of serious study, although I will agree that is
not the intent of the forthcoming event, which takes as its take-off point the idea that James Maybrick could have
been Jack the Ripper, as inferred by the debatable Diary.
The fact is though that two serious academics who will be attending the event, Professors David Canter and William
D Rubinstein, do take Maybrick’s candidacy seriously. Dr Canter sees Maybrick’s taking of lodgings in Middlesex Street
to be consistent with his theory of geographic profiling, in that he believes that the murderer would have resided
somewhere within the locus of the crimes. Professor Rubinstein actually goes further, in claiming that James Maybrick
is the best candidate that so far has been proposed as the Whitechapel murderer.
In an excerpt published in the printed programme for the event from his forthcoming book, Shadow Pasts: ‘The
Amateur Historian’ and History’s Mysteries, to be published by Longmans this September, Professor Rubinstein states:
‘I am more than 90 per cent convinced that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. Both evidence and inference appear
overwhelmingly to point to him. However, if it can be proved that he definitely was not the Ripper – if, for instance,
irrefutable proof were found that he was in Liverpool on the night a Ripper murder was committed – the identity of
Jack the Ripper remains a mystery; none of the other suspects is remotely convincing.’

While many of us who have studied the Whitechapel murders would protest, quite legitimately, that the controversial
Diary and watch with its scratches apparently pointing to Maybrick as Jack, have not been proven to be genuine (and
Caroline Morris and I do say this in our respective articles in the printed programme for the Maybrick Trial), Rubinstein
and Canter’s viewpoints at least should be listened to. I entirely agree with you, Jenni, that Ripperologists bear a
responsibility to properly assess the evidence in naming any Ripper suspect, and that the dead, who cannot defend
themselves, should be treated with respect and not defamed. We at Ripperologist would agree with you that people
should not deliberately misrepresent or distort the truth for financial or personal gain.
To be truthful, I have to say I am a bit puzzled by the stance of Professors Canter and Rubinstein in that they ‘buy’
the idea that Maybrick could have been Jack on the basis of the Diary. But then I am also puzzled by people such as
John J Eddleston (in Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia, 2001) when they accept the controversial 17 September 1888
‘Ripper’ letter as being a legitimate letter of 1888, when, to my mind, and that of ‘Ripper’ letters expert Stewart P
Evans, it appears to be a hoax slipped into the then Public Record Office files at the time of the Centennial of the
case in 1988.
On the last page of the programme for the May event, organiser Chris Jones shows the e-fit of Jack the Ripper
recently developed by John Grieve of Scotland Yard for the Channel Five programme, Jack the Ripper: The First
Serial Killer, and he adds Maybrick’s top hat to the e-fit, showing how in appearance Maybrick was not unlike in
appearance to the supposed suspect. This is similar to the argument aired by Shirley Harrison in her book The Diary
of Jack the Ripper in 1993 when she showed a newspaper sketch which seemed to show a man similar in appearance
to Maybrick.
CTG
Samuel Brighouse, Rip 77

Dear Rip
I thought I’d drop you a note to let you know how much I enjoyed your article on Samuel Brighouse. I’m glad to see
you draw attention to coroners and public safety concerns, particularly cases like your [Chris George] uncle’s; I think
they’re more representative of what coroners were all about.
I had no idea that Brighouse was a part-time coroner! They still have them today although the new Bill plans to do
away with them in favor of fewer (but full-time) coroners. I think The Times’ estimate of 25,000 inquests for his entire
career might be correct--there would have been many days when he would have held more than one inquest. Like
you mention in your article, there’s the advent of electricity, cars, bad roads, etc., that would have caused a lot of
accidents. Not to mention the impact the World Wars likely had upon his district. 25,0000 inquests over 50 years seems
to be in line with similar figures I’ve seen, although those are for full-time coroners in London. You can get an estimate
of Brighouse’s numbers by looking at local newspaper coverage of the County Council’s quarterly reimbursement of his
expenses, they ought to provide the number of inquests he held for that period.
DAVID O’FLAHERTY
Murfreesboro, USA, 5 April 2007
David, thank you for your illuminating letter. In answer to your point about the figure of 25,000 inquests carried
out by Sir Samuel Brighouse in his career of 56 years (1884-1940) being, in your view, credible because he could have
carried out a number of inquests in a single day, you could well be correct now that I think about the matter some
more. Particularly, that is, if some of those inquests, as they probably were, concerned small matters similar to the
treasure trove inquest I mentioned that was carried out in June 1940 by his son Robert Wales Brighouse about a gold
sovereign found by a schoolboy. While Sir Samuel we know held some major inquests that took more than one day if
many of the more minor inquests took only minutes he could have racked up such a total during his long career.
In addition, David, in the matter of Brighouse being a part-time coroner, it occurs to me that the same was true of
Wynne Baxter, since they both retained their positions with their law firms. This would be possible for a solicitor or
“legal coroner” but not so feasible for a “medical coroner”, ie, a physician, who could less easily handle a medical
practice while carrying out the duties of coroner.
CTG

On the
Crimebeat
WILF GREGG looks at the new
additions to the True Crime bookshelf
CRIME AND CRIMINALS OF VICTORIAN LONDON

Adrian Gray
S/B, 180 pp., Illus., Phillimore, £12.99
A large-size, excellently produced book, lavishly illustrated

throughout the text, backed up by splendid research and very
well written, this gives the reader a detailed picture of the
criminous times of Victorian London.
An early chapter entitled ‘Wilful Murder includes Courvoisier’, the
killer of Lord William Russell, the Mannings, Franz Muller - the first
Railway Murderer - Wainwright, Cream, and two largely neglected
cases, mass murderer Stephen Forward and the very fortunate
Thomas Bacon, amongst others, which Mr Gray deals with very
fully.
I should mention that the author does not include Jack the Ripper
as he considers “there is such a vast and detailed literature on his
case” and that the Whitechapel murders were not typical of the
Victorian age – where the motivation was more likely to be robbery
or brought about by the poor living standards of large numbers of
the population of the time. I have to say that I think this is a fair
comment and in no way detracts from the merit of the book.
Further chapters include ‘Violent Crimes’, which includes
attempted suicide - this being of course an indictable offence at the
time - attempted murder manslaughter and assault. Many interesting
cases are cited. Other chapter headings are ‘Robbers, Burglars
and Thieves’, ‘The Poverty of the Poor Law’, ‘Down By the River’,
‘Riot!’, ‘Love, Sex and Family Matters’, ‘Threats, Libels, Lies and
Frauds’, ‘Politics and Violence’ and ‘The Lengthening Arm of the
Law’. Amongst these chapters to name but a few can be found the
Flowery Land Pirates, the fraudster, Leopold Redpath, W T Stead,
the Fenians, the Clerkenwell Bombings, Charlie Peace, blackmail
Charlie Peace
and rather pathetic cases which in later years were treated as
infanticide. There are many cases cited which in their coverage are
certainly strange but give a wide panorama of crime in the Victorian age.
As stated, an excellent study of crime and criminals in Victorian London and a must for the shelves of the True Crime
afficianado.
Got something to say?

Got comments on a feature in this issue?
Or found new information?
Please send your comments to [email protected]

Rosetti’s Joan of Arc.
Relics long believed to be her remains
have been proved to be fake by tests.
See I Beg to Report.

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Ripperologist 78 April 2007 1

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News and Views

Editorial Team Subscriptions Advertising

Analyzing Saucy Script

Dear Boss, 25th September 1888

Ripperologist 78 April 2007 2

Saucy Jacky Postcard, 1st October 1888

The 6th October 1888 Threat Letter

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The Fraser Postcard and

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Loretta Lay Books

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Well perhaps they did meet?

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About Norton we find:

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Montgomery Street, San Francisco

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By 1869, still dissatisfied, he announced through the pages of the San

Norton was compassionate about the ‘injustices’ of the people of the

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Two faces of Norton

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Charles Cross is a serious suspect for the

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5 Evening News, 8 September 1888.

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St. James’s Gazette (London)

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Syracuse Daily Standard

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Davenport Morning Tribune

New York Times

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Correo Espanol (Mexico)

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Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Aspen Weekly Times

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Fort Collins Courier

White Pine Cone

Record Journal of Douglas County, Castle Rock

Leadenville Daily and Evening Chronicle

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