East End Murders

by Neil Storey

  Baxter: Supposing anyone is charged with the offence, they would have to come out then, and it might be a matter of comment that the same evidence was not given at the inquest.

  Phillips: I am entirely in your hands.

  Baxter: We will postpone that for the present. You can give your opinion as to how the death was caused.

  Phillips: From these appearances I am of the opinion that the breathing was interfered with previous to death, and that death arose from syncope, or failure of the heart’s action, in consequence of the loss of blood caused by the severance of the throat.

  Baxter: Was the instrument used at the throat the same as that used at the abdomen?

  Phillips: Very probably. It must have been a very sharp knife, probably with a thin, narrow blade, and at least 6 to 8in in length, and perhaps longer.

  Baxter: Is it possible that any instrument used by a military man, such as a bayonet, would have done it?

  Phillips: No, it would not be a bayonet.

  Baxter: Would it have been such an instrument as a medical man uses for post-mortem examinations?

  Phillips: The ordinary post-mortem case perhaps does not contain such a weapon.

  Baxter: Would any instrument that slaughterers employ have caused the injuries?

  Phillips: Yes, well ground down.

  Baxter: Would the knife of a cobbler or of any person in the leather trades have done?

  Phillips: I think the knife used in those trades would not be long enough in the blade.

  Baxter: Was there any anatomical knowledge displayed?

  Phillips: I think there was. There were indications of it. My own impression is that the anatomical knowledge was only less displayed or indicated in consequence of haste. The person evidently was hindered from making a more complete dissection in consequence of the haste.

  Baxter: Was the whole of the body there?

  Phillips: No, the absent portions being from the abdomen.

  Baxter: Are those portions such as would require anatomical knowledge to extract?

  Phillips: I think the mode in which they were extracted did show some anatomical knowledge.

  Baxter: You do not think they could have been lost accidentally in the transit of the body to the mortuary?

  Phillips: I was not present at the transit. I carefully closed up the clothes of the woman. Some portions had been excised.

  Baxter: How long had the deceased been dead when you saw her?

  Phillips: I should say at least two hours, and probably more; but it is right to say that it was a fairly cold morning, and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost the greater portion of its blood.

  Baxter: Was there any evidence of any struggle?

  Phillips: No, not about the body of the woman. You do not forget the smearing of blood about the palings.

  Baxter: In your opinion did she enter the yard alive?

  Phillips: I am positive of it. I made a thorough search of the passage, and I saw no trace of blood, which must have been visible had she been taken into the yard.

  In his summing up, Baxter added some revelations of his own:

  The object of the murderer appears palpably shown by the facts, and it is not necessary to assume lunacy, for it is clear that there is a market for the object of the murder. To show you this, I must mention a fact which at the same time proves the assistance which publicity and the newspaper press afford in the detection of crime. Within a few hours of the issue of the morning papers containing a report of the medical evidence given at the last sitting of the Court, I received a communication from an officer of one of our great medical schools, that they had information which might or might not have a distinct bearing on our inquiry. I attended at the first opportunity, and was told by the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum that some months ago an American had called on him, and asked him to procure a number of specimens of the organ that was missing in the deceased. He stated his willingness to give £20 for each, and explained that his object was to issue an actual specimen with each copy of a publication on which he was then engaged. Although he was told that his wish was impossible to be complied with, he still urged his request. He desired them preserved, not in spirits of wine, the usual medium, but in glycerine, in order to preserve them in a flaccid condition, and he wished them sent to America direct. It is known that this request was repeated to another institution of a similar character. Now, is it not possible that the knowledge of this demand may have incited some abandoned wretch to possess himself of a specimen. It seems beyond belief that such inhuman wickedness could enter into the mind of any man, but unfortunately our criminal annals prove that every crime is possible. I need hardly say that I at once communicated my information to the Detective Department at Scotland Yard. Of course I do not know what use has been made of it, but I believe that publicity may possibly further elucidate this fact, and, therefore, I have not withheld from you my knowledge. By means of the press some further explanation may be forthcoming from America if not from here. I have endeavoured to suggest to you the object with which this offence was committed, and the class of person who must have perpetrated it.

  Mortuary photograph of Annie Chapman. (Stewart P. Evans)

  If your views accord with mine, you will be of the opinion that we are confronted with a murder of no ordinary character, committed not from jealousy, revenge, or robbery, but from motives less adequate than the many which still disgrace our civilisation, mar our progress, and blot the pages of our Christianity. I cannot conclude my remarks without thanking you for the attention you have given to the case, and the assistance you have rendered me in our efforts to elucidate the truth of this horrible tragedy.

  A verdict of wilful murder against a person or persons unknown was returned and the newspapers went wild with lurid descriptions and depictions of the ‘Hanbury Street Horror.’ Within hours of the murder, a broadsheet of doggerel verses entitled Lines on the Terrible Tragedy was being hawked on the streets by long song sellers, who cried out the verses to the hardly appropriate tune of ‘My Village Home’.

  Rumours became rife; one said the killer had scrawled ‘Five, fifteen more and then I give myself up’ on the fence above his handiwork on poor Annie. A leather apron discovered at the scene of the Hanbury Street murder – although later found not to be connected with the crime – led suspicion to fall upon anyone who used a knife or wore a leather apron for their trade, and, after the revelations of Dr Phillips, on the medical profession. Could the murderer be a man of medical learning – perhaps even a gentleman?

  Following the repeated assertions in the press and on the streets that ‘no Englishman could have perpetrated such a horrible crime’, there were numerous cases of assault upon ‘foreign types’, especially members of the East End Jewish population. The Daily News expanded the story to claim the divisional police surgeon (George Bagster Phillips) and his assistant were ‘out of their beds nearly all Saturday night on cases of assault.’ The paper sensationally concluded, ‘there may soon be murders from panic to add to murders from lust for blood… a touch will fire the whole district, in the mood which it is in now.’

  Dissatisfied with police progress and concerned for the safety of the inhabitabts of the East End, a disparate body of interested parties, from tradesmen to labourers, gathered at The Crown public house on Mile End Road on 10 September 1888 to form the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. At the meeting local vestryman George Lusk was appointed their chairman and Joseph Aarons, the licensee of The Crown, their treasurer.

  On 10 September 1888 Detective Inspector Abberline, who was leading the hunt for the Whitechapel Murderer on the ground, drew a crowd at Commercial Street police station. He had arrived hotfoot from Gravesend with a suspect. William Piggott was apprehended for being seen drinking in a pub wearing a bloodstained shirt. He was known to Gravesend police for his strange behaviour, but he was not identified by police witnesses – and within two hours his speech had become so garbled a doctor w
as sent for to assess his sanity. Piggott was pronounced insane and was immediately removed to the asylum at Bow.

  Following concerns expressed to the authorities by Dr Cowan and Dr Crabb about a certain Jacob Isenschmid, the police at Holloway succeeded in making an arrest and Detective Inspector Styles was sent to investigate this potential suspect. After Isenschmid was brought into custody, he was certified as a lunatic and was sent, under restraint, to Islington Workhouse (and later the Grove Hall Lunatic Asylum).

  On 18 September 1888 PC John Johnson (number 866 of the City force), was on duty in the Minories at about 3 a.m. when he heard loud screams of ‘Murder!’ coming from a dark court. Running towards the cries, he was led to Butcher’s Row and some railway arches near Whitechapel Road, where he found a man behaving in a threatening manner towards a prostitute named Elizabeth Burns. Asked what he was doing, the man replied ‘nothing’, but the distressed unfortunate begged, ‘Oh, policeman, do take me out of this.’ PC Johnson sent the man on his way and walked with the woman, who was too shaken to speak properly, to the end of his beat, when she blurted out, ‘Dear me, he frightened me very much when he pulled that big knife out.’ The constable set out in pursuit of the man but he could not be found. The man was later apprehended, at about 3 a.m., after an altercation at a coffee stall where he drew a knife and threatened Alexander Finlay (also known as Freinburg), who then threw a dish at the threatening man. PC John Gallagher 221H intervened and arrested the man, who was subsequently identified as German immigrant Charles Ludwig. Ludwig was held for a fortnight until his hearing at Thames Magistrates Court. Being in custody at the time of the murders of Stride and Eddowes, Ludwig had solid alibis for the latest Ripper killings. Magistrates considered he had been incarcerated long enough for his crimes and released him.

  As the investigation into the Ripper crimes failed to apprehend the murderer and the crimes continued, the police were widely criticised for inefficiency – as demonstrated by the mercilessly satirical cartoons of Punch, such as this jibe from 22 September 1888.

  On 19 September Sir Charles Warren sent a report to the Home Office discussing the suspect Isenschmid (which Warren spells Isensmith) and a certain Oswald Puckeridge who had been released from an asylum on 4 August. Puckeridge had been educated as a surgeon and had been known to threaten to rip people up with a long knife. In the report Warren stated:

  He is being looked for but cannot be found yet… A brothel keeper who will not give her address or name writes to say that a man living in her house was seen with blood on him on the morning of the murder… when the detectives came near him he bolted, got away and there is no clue to the writer of the letter.

  Never one to miss a chance to publicise the plight of his flock, Samuel Barnett, canon of St Jude’s and founder warden of Toynbee Hall, wrote an extended letter to The Times published on 19 September 1888. His arguments were clear: there should be a national effort to re-house the poor because such was degradation in which many in the East End lived, especially Spitalfields, that crime was inevitable. Part of his letter stated; ‘Whitechapel horrors will not be in vain, if “at last” public conscience awakes to consider the life which these horrors reveal. The murders were, it may also be said, bound to come; generation could not follow generation in lawless intercourse.’

  The Revd Barnett then made four practical suggestions to avoid the perpetuation of the situation:

  1. Efficient police supervision.

  2. Adequate lighting and cleaning.

  3. The removal of slaughterhouses (sights such as blood on the streets from the butcher’s and slaughterhouses brutalise ignorant natures).

  4. The control of tenement houses by responsible landlords.

  There was no groundswell from government or the people of Britain to improve the lot of the poverty stricken in the East End, but Canon Barnett never lost hope and worked tirelessly with local council, charities, benevolent individuals and organisations aimed at improving the life of those living in the poorest quarters of the East End.

  September 27 1888 was literally a red-letter day for the Whitechapel murder case, for this was the date postmarked on the famous letter received at the offices of the Central News Agency, 5 New Bridge Street, Ludgate Circus. Posted in EC1 (East London), it read:

  Dear Boss,

  I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont [sic] fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant [sic] quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was, I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant [sic] use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys [sic] ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  Don’t mind me giving the trade name. Wasn’t good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now ha ha.

  This lurid missive would become known as the ‘Dear Boss’ letter. It was more likely to have been penned by an unscrupulous journalist hoping to add yet another twist to the tale than the actual murderer. The theme took off and soon hundreds of letters were being sent to London and provincial police forces and civic officials purporting to come from the Whitechapel Murderer. This letter will, however, remain unique and would go down in infamy as the first appearance of the name ‘Jack the Ripper’.

  On 29 September Punch magazine captured the mood with an eerie cartoon showing a spectre stalking the mean streets of the metropolis, the word ‘CRIME’ emblazoned on the forehead of the shroud it was wearing. The accompanying script contained this poem:

  Foulness filters here from honest homes

  And thievish dens, town-rookery, rural village.

  Vice to be nursed to violence hither comes,

  Nurture unnatural, abhorrent tillage!

  What sin soever amidst luxury springs,

  Here amidst poverty finds full fruition.

  There is no name for the unsexed foul things

  Plunged to their last perdition

  In this dark Malebolge, ours–which yet

  We build, and populate, and then–forget!

  Dank roofs, dark entries, closely-clustered walls,

  Murder-inviting nooks, death-reeking gutters,

  A boding voice from your foul chaos calls,

  When will men heed the warning that it utters?

  There floats a phantom on the slum’s foul air,

  Shaping, to eyes which have the gift of seeing,

  Into the Spectre of that loathly lair.

  Face it–for vain is fleeing!

  Red-handed, ruthless, furtive, unerect,

  ‘Tis murderous Crime–the Nemesis of Neglect!

  The following day, 30 September 1888, at 12.45 a.m., Israel Schwartz followed a man who appeared to be drunk into Berner Street from Commercial Road. As the man walked along the road he was seen to stop and speak with a woman later identified as 45-year-old Elizabeth Stride. Born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, near Gothenburg, Sweden, she was commonly known on the streets of the East End as ‘Long Liz’. Schwartz saw the man throw her to the ground and attempt to pull her onto the path outside Dutfield’s Yard beside the International Workmen’s Club. She screamed three times, but not very loudly. Schwartz wanted no part in this strife and crossed to the other side of the road, where he saw a man lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down could see Schwartz was staring and he shouted the typical abusive name for East End Jews at the time, ‘Lipski’, after the
murderer of Miriam Angel in 1887 (see Chapter 3).

  The infamous ‘Nemesis of Neglect’ cartoon published in Punch magazine on the day before the ‘Double Event.’

  The man began to follow Schwartz, so Schwartz ran off. Later that night, at 1 a.m., Louis Diemshutz was returning to Dutfield’s Yard with his costermonger’s barrow, but as his pony entered it shied and would not walk on. Diemshutz went to investigate and saw what he thought was a pile of old clothes laying in the yard. He struck a match, and although it was almost instantly blown out by the wind he had seen enough. It was the body of a woman, later identified as Elizabeth Stride. Her throat had been slashed across, but she had not been mutilated – many drew the conclusion that Jack had been disturbed. However, if Jack had not had his hideous appetite for mutilation sated, he soon found his second victim.

  Earlier that same evening Kate Eddowes (43) had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly outside 29 Aldgate High Street. Kate was described by her contemporaries as an educated woman but one with a fierce temper. Her marriage to George Eddowes had failed on account of her drinking. For a time she lived with another man, Thomas Conway, as man and wife. They had three children, but this relationship had also failed about six or seven years previously, also due to Eddowes’ drinking. Conway was known to become violent towards her when he had had a drink. Eddowes left and exhausted the good will of her family with her constant appeals for money and her excessive drinking. When her relatives moved and kept their addresses from her, Eddowes soon fell on hard times and took to living in dosshouses, drinking and turning to prostitution as an occasional means of earning money. She had recently returned from a trip to the hop-picking fields of Kent with her man friend, John Kelly, described at the time as a ‘strong looking labourer.’ Things had not gone well and they decided to return to London. Kelly later recalled, ‘We did not have money enough to keep us going till we got to town, but we did get there… Luck was dead against us… we were both done up for cash.’