The Big Book of Jack the Ripper
Page 3
Subsequently, it seemed, the murderer had made his way from Mitre Square across Houndsditch and Middlesex Street to Goulston Street, where a bloodstained rag from Eddowes’s apron was found at 2:55 A.M. To confuse the public and the police still more, a chalked message about the Jews—“The Jewes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing”—was found in the passageway at Goulston Street. Neither the rag nor the message had been there half an hour before when the police constable passed through on his beat at 2:20 A.M.
As soon as Major Smith was told of this discovery, he dispatched an inspector with two detectives to photograph the message, but General Warren had arrived in Goulston Street meanwhile and took it upon himself to order the writing rubbed out at once, without waiting for the photographer, on the grounds that he feared it would incite an anti-Jewish riot. We shall hear more later about this mysterious communication about the “Jewes.”
While the police doctors, F. G. Brown and George Sequiera, were examining the body in Mitre Square, the murderer apparently left Goulston Street and went north to Dorset Street, where he paused to wash blood off his hands at a public sink. This suggested that he knew the neighborhood, because the sink was set back from the street. Passersby observed the blood shortly afterward.
Eddowes’s body was removed to the mortuary. It was stripped and an autopsy carried out, but the body was not identified until Tuesday, October 2, by her friend John Kelly. Ironically, his last words to Eddowes had been a warning to her to be careful of the Ripper; he had been lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that one of his friends had seen her being taken to the police station. It was he who identified her shattered body, finally, by the pawn ticket found in her bonnet for the boots he himself had bought a few days earlier. (Her own husband took two weeks to come forward, having changed his name to avoid being traced by her.)
At the Eddowes inquest in October 1888, a commercial traveler named Joseph Lawende and a J. H. Levy reported having seen a man and a woman talking together at the corner of the court leading to Mitre Square in Duke Street shortly before the murder. The police released the following description: “Thirty years old, five feet nine inches in height, with a small fair moustache, dressed in something like navy serge and with a deerstalker’s hat, peak fore and after. He also wore a red handkerchief.”*14
Until 1966, this was the only description given of a man seen close to the scene of the murder. My own research has turned up other and more substantial findings.
By now the whole of London was in an uproar. Suggestions for catching the murderer poured in from all quarters. A Mr. Blair wrote from Dumfries to suggest the use of decoys:
Let a number of men—say twelve—be selected, of short stature, and as far as possible of effeminate appearance, but of known courage & tried nerve, dress them as females of the class from whom the victims are selected, arm them with the best and lightest weapons and distribute them over the district haunted by the murderer.
Note, The men would require to be fair actors, and behave in the natural manner of women of that class, further they would require to be shadowed by help, in an unobtrusive way, and the whole scheme would require to be kept absolutely secret, for once let the press get a hint of it, and farewell to any chance of success.*15
Mr. Blair added that his plan was “based on the theory that the murderer solicits intercourse, and that the woman accompanies him to a quiet spot, where the crime is committed while in the act, so that men who undertook the duty of capturing him would require to have all their wits about them.”*16
A civil servant with the Customs Department became convinced that the murders were the work of Portuguese sailors, because, he said, they had contracted venereal disease from a prostitute and were acting out the “characteristic revengefulness of the Portuguese race.” His theory was carefully, if illogically, set forth and Scotland Yard treated it seriously for a while, then concluded the man was “a troublesome faddist.”*17
An engraver wrote to the Yard suggesting that a full pardon be offered to the murderer and that, when he turned himself in, the promise should be ignored: “for once [we should] break our national word of honour for the benefit of the universe.”*18
The fact that the murderer had shown some skill in eviscerating the bodies led the police to suppose that the Ripper might have a medical background, and the police spent much time tracking down “three insane medical students.” The police also employed bloodhounds, though to little effect. In the Scotland Yard files I also found a “Secret” memorandum ordering a supply of tricycles for the police to enable them to follow more quickly on the trail of the mysterious assassin who struck with such lightning speed. Local Whitechapel businessmen formed a Vigilance Committee, headed by Mr. George Lusk.*19 A Member of Parliament named Samuel Montagu suggested that a reward be paid for the murderer’s capture.*20 Terrified prostitutes continued to ply their trade, however; they had no other means of support.
For forty days following Eddowes’s death, nothing happened. It seemed that, temporarily, the violent homicidal impulses of the murderer had become satiated. But on Friday, November 9, a twenty-five-year-old prostitute named Marie Jeanette Kelly was found dead at Miller’s Court, Spitalfields, in the vicinity of Hanbury Street. This murder took place in the privacy of Kelly’s own room in Miller’s Court, and not in the streets. The murderer, therefore, had the safety and leisure to commit the bloodiest butchery of them all.
London policemen who saw Kelly’s body never forgot it. She was unrecognizable. Her skin was flayed on the face, upper body and thighs, and the flesh removed on some parts so that only her skeleton remained. The bed and night table had bits of flesh on them. Her nose and ears were cut off and her liver was located at her feet. Her uterus was mutilated. Her amputated breasts and kidneys were carefully placed on a nearby table. A doctor who had viewed the body reported to an American newspaper that the sight of the murdered woman surpassed all his gory experiences.
Once again, those who examined the victim concluded that the murder knife was wielded with some knowledge and practice. At the autopsy it was discovered that Kelly was pregnant.
The Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard continued their massive investigations, and millions of Londoners became hostages to the night as they waited for Jack the Ripper to be caught. It was a name he had introduced for himself in one of his cocky notes to the authorities and it immediately captured the public’s imagination. Everybody had an idea about the identity of the murderer, and it seemed that almost everybody passed on their suggestions to Scotland Yard, which painstakingly investigated each one they thought worthy and filed the others away.
In a memo on October 25, 1888, a police report to the Home Office noted:
That a crime of this kind should have been committed without any clue being supplied by the criminal is unusual, but that four successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary, if not unique, in the annals of crime.
The result has been to necessitate our giving attention to innumerable suggestions, such as would in any ordinary case be dismissed unnoticed, and no hint of any kind, which was not obviously absurd, has been neglected. Moreover, the activity of the Police has been to a considerable extent wasted through the exigencies of sensational journalism, and the action of unprincipled persons, who, from various motives, have endeavoured to mislead us.*21
The Ripper murders stopped just as suddenly as they had started. It was some months before it became apparent that the nightmare was over, but like everything about the case, it was a puzzle to know why. Had the murderer become insane, or fled the country, or had he himself died or been murdered? The guesses were as diverse as the list of people whom the police interrogated about the murders, or on whom public suspicion rested, however briefly.
Whatever the reason, there were no more murders following Kelly’s death that bore the Ripper’s bloody and unmistakable trademarks. And despite the days and months
of dogged work by the police, the case remained unsolved. Eventually, the official files and a mass of papers connected with them passed into the archives of Scotland and New Scotland Yard, some marked with the top confidential notation: “closed until 1993.”*22 Despite the British practice not to publish information about a controversial event for at least a century, I obtained permission to release the material in this book. The Jack the Ripper murders became a part of history.
There has always been some dispute about how many women Jack the Ripper killed; the number has varied from five to twelve. But the common features in the five murders presented here, I believe, are conclusive.
All five murders shared certain characteristics. They all took place in an area within one square mile of each other. All were committed between the hours of eleven at night and five in the morning. Each took place on a weekend. The throat of each victim had been severed, and with the exception of Stride, the body carved up and mutilated with a knife. And all of their faces were congested. An article in The Lancet which described the circumstances of one of the murders “suggests that the absence of a cry was due to strangulation being the real cause of death, a common practice of sexual murders.”*23
All the women were prostitutes, suggesting a psychologically intimate, if unconscious, connection between the murderer and his victims. They were destitute, vulnerable, and alcoholic. Four out of the five were over forty years old and had borne children. Kelly was pregnant.
The mystery of Jack the Ripper’s identity is a major reason for the persistence of the myth. Considering the vast efforts of both police and public, even in those days when investigation was a much more primitive business, it is remarkable that he was never apprehended.
The grotesque murders instilled widespread terror not only throughout London itself, but also across a nation that was already gripped by strong anti-Jewish feelings and fears of radical movements that would lead to political anarchy. Faced with confusion and incredulity over the murders, the police were involved simultaneously in trying to pursue the investigations, reassure frightened citizens, and prevent future attacks.
A divided leadership within the police department exacerbated their difficulties. Individual policemen who remained diligent in their duties were nonetheless hampered in their activities. But weak leadership within the police was far from being the only catalyst of an explosion of social unrest. On the flip side of police ineptitude lay its power structure, designed to protect the upper strata of England’s monarchy.
In 1886, two years before the Whitechapel murders, bloody riots and demonstrations had erupted in Pall Mall and Oxford Street. Fueled by continuing mass unemployment, the upheavals continued into the following year, with unemployed workers camping out in the parks and Trafalgar Square on a semi-permanent basis. Finally, a confrontation took place on November 13, 1887, in Trafalgar Square between a huge mob of demonstrators and several thousand men from the Metropolitan Police; inevitably, there were injuries and massive arrests, and the day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
The Home Secretary appointed General Charles Warren, a professional soldier, as Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and it was Warren who handled the confrontation in Trafalgar Square. His success in controlling the riots was rewarded with a knighthood, but his harsh tactics increased public outcry and agitation. Renewed outbursts of dissatisfaction with Warren surfaced during the investigation of the Whitechapel murders.
Warren was not only taken to task for the failure of his men to find the Ripper, but he was also rumored to be a Freemason.*24 In today’s society, Freemasonry is considered perfectly respectable, but at that time Freemasons were thought to be potential anarchists because they operated under a clandestine code. It has been subsequently suggested that the rumors themselves were a diversionary tactic masking the involvement in the Whitechapel murders of certain powerful men in the government, and even in the royal family.
There were reasons for Warren’s inept handling of the murders. In the first place, he was deprived of full authority to conduct the investigations. Although he had been brought in originally to reorganize the police force, the Metropolitan Police continued to operate under dual supervision. The General was given control only of the operations of the uniformed branch, while the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) remained under the command of a superintendent who dealt directly with the Home Office.*25
There is considerable mystery as to the extent of Warren’s responsibility for the investigation of the Ripper murders. He certainly paid an almost instant visit to the passageway at Goulston Street where the mysterious message had been chalked on the wall: “The Jewes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing.”*26
The inspector in charge of the case appealed to Warren to know what action he should take; Warren told him to erase the message immediately, without waiting for the photographer summoned by Major Smith of the City Police, who was expected within the hour. Warren claimed that the reason for the erasure was to prevent an anti-Jewish riot, and his report to the Home Secretary of November 6, 1888, consists of a lengthy defense of this position:
4 Whitehall Place, S.W.
6th November 1888
Confidential
The Under Secretary of State
The Home Office
Sir,
In reply to your letter of the 5th instant, I enclose a report of the circumstances of the Mitre Square Murder so far as they have come under the notice of the Metropolitan Police, and I now give an account regarding the erasing the writing on the wall in Goulston Street which I have already partially explained to Mr. Matthews verbally.
On the 30th September on hearing of the Berner Street murder, after visiting Commercial Street Station I arrived at Leman Street Station shortly before 5 A.M. and ascertained from Superintendent Arnold all that was known there relative to the two murders.
The most pressing question at that moment was some writing on the wall in Goulston Street evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews, and which Mr. Arnold with a view to prevent serious disorder proposed to obliterate, and had sent down an Inspector with a sponge for that purpose, telling him to await his arrival.
I considered it desirable that I should decide this matter myself, as it was one involving so great a responsibility whether any action was taken or not.
I accordingly went down to Goulston Street at once before going to the scene of the murder: it was just getting light, the public would be in the streets in a few minutes, in a neighbourhood very much crowded on Sunday mornings by Jewish vendors and Christian purchasers from all parts of London.
There were several Police around the spot when I arrived, both Metropolitan and City.
The writing was on the jamb of the open archway or doorway visible to anybody in the street and could not be covered up without danger of the covering being torn off at once.
A discussion took place whether the writing could be left covered up or otherwise or whether any portion of it could be left for an hour until it could be photographed; but after taking into consideration the excited state of the population in London generally at the time, the strong feeling which had been excited against the Jews, and the fact that in a short time there would be a large concourse of the people in the streets, and having before me the Report that if it was left there the house was likely to be wrecked (in which from my own observation I entirely concurred) I considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once, having taken a copy of which I enclose a duplicate.
After having been to the scene of the murder, I went on to the City Police Office and informed the Chief Superintendent of the reason why the writing had been obliterated.
I may mention that so great was the feeling with regard to the Jews that on the 13th ulto. the Acting Chief Rabbi wrote to me on the subject of the spelling of the word “Jewes” on account of a newspaper asserting that this was Jewish spelling in the Yiddish dialect. He added “in the pre
sent state of excitement it is dangerous to the safety of the poor Jews in the East [End] to allow such an assertion to remain uncontradicted. My community keenly appreciates your humane and vigilant action during this critical time.”
It may be realised therefore if the safety of the Jews in Whitechapel could be considered to be jeopardised thirteen days after the murder by the question of the spelling of the word Jews, what might have happened to the Jews in that quarter had that writing been left intact.
I do not hesitate myself to say that if that writing had been left there would have been an onslaught upon the Jews, property would have been wrecked, and lives would probably have been lost; and I was much gratified with the promptitude with which Superintendent Arnold was prepared to act in the matter if I had not been there.
I have no doubt myself whatever that one of the principal objects of the Reward offered by Mr. Montagu was to shew to the world that the Jews were desirous of having the Hanbury Street Murder cleared up, and thus to divert from them the very strong feeling which was then growing up.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
(signed) C. Warren*27
Warren enclosed two identical copies of the following message:
The Jewes are
The men that
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing*28
There has been some argument about whether the spelling was “Jewes” or “Juwes,” the exact position of the word “not” (which differs in the version above from that given earlier), and whether there was significance in the breaks in the message. But it seems clear that the purpose of the message was diabolically cunning—the Ripper intended to throw the police off the scent, linking the message to the murder through the rag from Eddowes’s apron; no doubt he also disliked the Jews, and he may well have hoped to incite the sort of anti-Jewish demonstration Warren’s swift decision prevented.