The Big Book of Jack the Ripper
Page 9
November 22. Considerable excitement was caused throughout the East End yesterday morning by a report that another woman had been brutally murdered and mutilated in a common lodging-house in George Street, Spitalfields, and in consequence of the reticence of the police authorities all sorts of rumours prevailed. Although it was soon ascertained that there had been no murder, it was said that an attempt had been made to murder a woman of the class to which the other unfortunate creatures belonged by cutting her throat, and the excitement in the neighbourhood for some time was intense.
The victim of this last occurrence fortunately is but slightly injured and was at once able to furnish the detectives with a full description of her assailant. Her name is Annie Farmer and she is a woman of about forty years of age who lately resided with her husband but on account of her dissolute habits was separated from him. On Monday night the woman had no money and, being unable to obtain any, walked the streets until about half-past seven yesterday morning. At that time she got into conversation in Commercial Street with a man whom she describes as about thirty-six years old, about five feet six inches in height, with a dark moustache, and wearing a shabby black diagonal suit and hard felt hat. He treated her to several drinks until she became partially intoxicated. At his suggestion they went to the common lodging-house, 19 George Street, and paid the deputy eight pence for a bed. That was about eight o’clock and nothing was heard to cause alarm or suspicion until half-past nine, when screams were heard proceeding from the room occupied by the man and Farmer. Some men who were in the kitchen of the house at the time rushed upstairs and met the woman coming down. She was partially undressed and was bleeding profusely from a wound in the throat. She was asked what was the matter and simply said, “He’s done it,” at the same time pointing to the door leading into the street. The men rushed outside but saw no one except a man in charge of a horse and cart.
November 23. The man who committed the assault on Annie Farmer on Wednesday morning has not yet been captured. It is now believed that the wound to Farmer’s throat was not made with a sharp instrument; also that the quarrel arose between the pair respecting money, as when the woman was at the police station some coins were found concealed in her mouth. The authorities appear to be satisfied that the man has no connection with the recent murders.
Key Texts
MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI AND NATHAN BRAUND
As an editor, author, translator, critic, and expert in several popular fiction categories, Maxim Jakubowski (1944– ) has edited more than eighty anthologies in the fields of mystery, science fiction, fantasy, photography, and erotica. After many years in the British publishing world, he left to open Murder One, a bookshop in London that specialized in crime fiction but also sold romance and other categories of fiction; he ran it for more than twenty years before it closed.
Jakubowski was the crime reviewer for Time Out London and The Guardian and is the literary director of London’s Crime Scene Festival, an annual literary and film celebration.
He has also written several short story collections and novels of dark erotica under his own name, and he is one of the suspected (unconfirmed but not denied) authors of many of the explicit Vina Jackson worldwide bestselling novels that followed the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon.
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Nathan Braund (1970– ) has been teaching English in such countries as Estonia, Japan, and Oman while pursuing a writing career. His novel The Broken Boots Guide to Astlavonia (2012) is the story of a writer who wins a contest with a totally made-up travel article and is sent to a former Soviet state to write its first travel guide. His autobiographical work The Wrong Way Round to Ewan McGregor (2013) describes his efforts to get his film script into the hands of the Scottish movie star.
“Key Texts” (“Witness Statements,” “Autopsy Reports,” and “The ‘Ripper Letters’ ”) was first published in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund (London, Robinson Publishing, 1999).
KEY TEXTS
Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund
WITNESS STATEMENTS
Elizabeth Long (aka Mrs. Darrell)
Elizabeth Long is a contentious witness, in that her evidence casts into doubt Dr. George Bagster Phillips’s statement that Chapman had been dead for two hours when he examined her body at around 6:30 A.M. Those who believe Mrs. Long—and the coroner, Wynne Baxter, was among them—point to the apparently corroborative evidence of Albert Cadosch, who testified that, at 5:30 A.M., he heard a voice in the yard of 29, Hanbury Street saying “No!” as well as something falling against the wooden fence dividing the yards. Those who side with Phillips, allowing for half an hour either way, point out that Long’s evidence is vague and inconsistent. Why did she particularly observe the time when she passed No. 29? And if this couple which she observed were of such interest, why did she not turn to see the man’s face? She thought he wore a dark coat, but was not quite certain of that…She couldn’t say what his age was…but he looked over forty…He appeared to be a little taller than Chapman…appeared to be a foreigner…Few have pointed out that Cadosch’s evidence fits the notion of someone, drunk or otherwise, coming upon the body and lurching into the fence with an ejaculation quite as well as the notion that this was Chapman’s last moment, for there must have been other sounds attendant upon the killing—notably the splashing of the blood on such a dry night.
Baxter: Did you see the man’s face?
Mrs. Long: I did not and could not recognize him again. He was, however, dark complexioned, and was wearing a brown deerstalker hat. I think he was wearing a dark coat but cannot be sure.
Baxter: Was he a man or a boy?
Mrs. Long: Oh, he was a man over forty, as far as I could tell. He seemed to be a little taller than the deceased. He looked to me like a foreigner, as well as I could make out.
Baxter: Was he a labourer or what?
Mrs. Long: He looked what I should call shabby genteel.
William Marshall
Marshall, a labourer of 64, Berner Street, denied seeing the flower which others reported on Stride’s bodice, but that does not mean that he was an unreliable witness. His description of the man’s coat and cap tallies with that of PC Smith, while his overall description of the man closely resembles that given by J. Best and John Gardner, who, shortly before 11 P.M., saw Stride leaving the Bricklayer’s Arms, Settles Street, with a man about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with a black moustache and weak, sandy eyelashes, and wearing a morning suit and a billycock hat. Gardner corroborated Best’s evidence in every regard. Marshall testified that the man he saw had been kissing Stride and that he heard him say, in a mild, educated voice, “You would say anything but your prayers,” at which Stride laughed. This is a very natural response to Stride saying (roughly): “Then I’d better say my prayers” (suggestive of a threat).
Baxter: Did you notice how he was dressed?
Marshall: In a black cutaway coat and dark trousers.
Baxter: Was he young or old?
Marshall: Middle-aged he seemed to be.
Baxter: Was he wearing a hat?
Marshall: No, a cap.
Baxter: What sort of a cap?
Marshall: A round cap, with a small peak. It was something like what a sailor would wear.
Baxter: What height was he?
Marshall: About 5 feet 6 inches.
Baxter: Was he thin or stout?
Marshall: Rather stout.
Baxter: Did he look well dressed?
Marshall: Decently dressed.
Baxter: What class of man did he appear to be?
Marshall: I should say he was in business, and did nothing like hard [meaning manual] work.
Baxter: Not like a dock labourer?
Marshall: No.
Baxter: Nor a sailor?
Marshall: No.
Baxter: Nor a butcher?
Marshall: No.
Baxter: A clerk?
Marshall: He had more the appearance of a clerk.
Marshall: It is.
Baxter: You did not see his face. Had he any whiskers?
Marshall: I cannot say. I do not think he had.
Baxter: Was he wearing gloves?
Marshall: No.
Baxter: Was he carrying a stick or umbrella in his hands?
Marshall: He had nothing in his hands that I am aware of.
Israel Schwartz
He was an immigrant of Hungarian origin, and one of our best witnesses. He testified that he had seen a strange encounter shortly before the murder of Elizabeth Stride. He subsequently gave an interview to the Star in which he elaborated his original description. The first man, he said, had been walking “as though partially intoxicated,” while the second man, leaving the pub, carried a knife rather than a pipe, with which he threatened Schwartz. It seems plain that Schwartz’s evidence was believed by the police, which makes the absence of any account of his giving evidence at the subsequent inquest remarkable.
12:45 A.M. 30th Israel Schwartz of 22, Helen Street, Backchurch Lane, stated that at this hour, on turning into Berner Street from Commercial Street and having got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed, he saw a man stop and speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the footway and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out, apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road, “Lipski” and then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man, he ran so far as the railway arch, but the man did not follow so far.
Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other. Upon being taken to the mortuary Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen. He thus describes the first man, who threw the woman down: age, about 30; ht, 5 ft 5 in; comp., fair; hair, dark; small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered; dress, dark jacket and trousers, black cap with peak, and nothing in his hands. Second man: age, 35; ht., 5 ft 11 in; comp., fresh; hair, light brown; dress, dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat, wide brim; had a clay pipe in his hand.
Joseph Lawende
A commercial traveller in cigarettes of 45, Norfolk Road, Dalston, he left the Imperial Club at 16–17, Duke Street at 1:35 A.M. in company with Harry Harris, a furniture dealer, and Joseph Hyam Levy, a butcher. At the corner of Duke Street and Church Passage, they saw a man and a woman in conversation. Levy and Harris took little notice of the pair, but Lawende was more observant. The description of the man furnished by Lawende but withheld in the following exchange is that of a man of medium build and the look of a sailor. He wore a loose salt-and-pepper jacket, a grey cloth cap and a red or reddish “kingsman” or neckerchief. His age was about 30. He was 5 feet 7 inches or 5 feet 8 inches tall and had a fair complexion and moustache.
Lawende: I was at the Imperial Club with Mr. Joseph Levy and Mr. Harry Harris. We could not get home because it was raining. At half past one we left to go out, and left the house about five minutes later. I walked a little further from the others. We saw a man and a woman at the corner of Church Passage, in Duke Street, which leads into Mitre Square.
Coroner (Mr. Langham): Were they talking at the time?
Lawende: She was standing with her face towards the man. I only saw her back. She had her hand on his chest.
Coroner: What sort of woman was she?
Lawende: I could not see her face, but the man was taller than she was.
Coroner: Did you notice how she was dressed?
Lawende: I noticed she had a black jacket and black bonnet. I have seen the articles at the police station, and I recognize them as the sort of dress worn by that woman.
Coroner: What sort of woman was she?
Lawende: About 5 feet in height.
Coroner: Can you tell us what sort of man this was?
Lawende: He had a cloth cap on, with a peak of the same material.
Mr. Crawford (solicitor for the police): Unless the jury particularly wish it, I have special reason for not giving details as to the appearance of this man.
Jury: No.
Coroner: You have given a special description of this man to the police?
Lawende: Yes.
Coroner: Do you think you would know him again?
Lawende: I doubt it, sir.
Mr. Crawford: The Club is 16 and 17, Duke Street, about fifteen or sixteen feet from where they were standing at Church Passage. By what did you fix the time?
Lawende: By seeing the club clock and my own watch. It was five minutes after the half hour when we came out, and to the best of my belief it was twenty-five to when we saw these persons.
Coroner: Did you hear anything said?
Lawende: No, not a word.
Coroner: Did either of them appear in an angry mood?
Lawende: No.
Coroner: Was there anything about them or their movements that attracted your attention?
Lawende: No, except that Mr. Levy said the court ought to be watched, and I took particular notice of a man and woman talking there.
Coroner: Was her arm on his breast as if she was pushing him away?
Lawende: No, they were standing very quietly.
Coroner: You were not curious enough to look back to see where they went?
Lawende: No.
George Hutchinson
George Hutchinson was unemployed, and a resident of Victoria Home, Commercial Street. His testimony appears trustworthy, not least because he seems to have known Kelly well. It has been surmised, indeed, that he may have been among Kelly’s occasional clients when he could afford her, or may have been, in the slang of the time, “mashed on” her, which would explain his close interest and her request for the loan of sixpence (Hutchinson told journalists that he occasionally gave her a shilling) and, possibly, his subsequent elaboration of his description of the man sighted.
Hutchinson told the press that the man was of respectable Jewish appearance, that he wore a long dark coat with an astrakhan collar and cuffs, a dark jacket and trousers, light waistcoat, dark felt hat turned down in the middle, button boots, gaiters with white buttons, a linen collar, black tie with a horseshoe pin, and a thick gold chain. His age was 34 or 35, his height 5 feet 6 inches. His complexion was fair, his hair and eyelashes dark, his moustache slight and curled up at the ends. He carried a small parcel wrapped in American cloth (a glazed calico or oilcloth). Hutchinson believed he saw this suspect in Petticoat Lane on 11 November. The theatricality of this description—this appears to be a swell or “masher”—grows with each retelling. The “red handkerchief” is a curious motif. Most of the Whitechapel Murderer’s victims wore a “kingsman” or neckerchief. Eddowes’s, at least, was of red silk. Why did Kelly tell this man that she had lost her handkerchief? Does this imply that he had already given her a significant handkerchief, and why was he so ready to hand her a red handkerchief? Mayhew—admittedly thirty years earlier—writes of a fence who bought stolen silk handkerchieves, paying them ninepence apiece although they might be worth as much as four or five shillings, so this was no insubstantial gift.
The following statement was made at Commercial Street police station by Hutchinson following the conclusion of the Kelly inquest on 12 November.
About 2 A.M. 9th I was coming by Thrawl Street, Commercial Street, and just before I got to Flower and Dean Street, I met the murdered woman Kelly, and she said to me Hutchinson will you lend me sixpence. I said I can’t I have spent all my money going down to Romford, she said good morning I must go and find some money. She went away toward Thrawl Street. A man coming in the opposite direction to Kelly, tapped her on the shoulder and said something to her they both burst out laughing. I heard her say alright to him, and the man said you will be alright, for what I have told you: he then placed his
right hand around her shoulders. He also had a kind of small parcel in his left hand, with a kind of a strap round it. I stood against the lamp of the Queen’s Head Public House, and watched him. They both then came past me and the man hung down his head, with his hat over his eyes. I stooped down and looked him in the face. He looked at me stern. They both went into Dorset Street. I followed them. They both stood at the corner of the court for about three minutes. He said something to her. She said alright my dear come along you will be comfortable. He then placed his arm on her shoulder and [she] gave him a kiss. She said she had lost her handkerchief. He then pulled his handkerchief a red one and gave it to her. They both then went up the Court together. I then went to the court to see if I could see them but I could not. I stood there for about three quarters of an hour to see if they came out. They did not so I went away.
AUTOPSY REPORTS
Mary Ann Nichols
Mary Ann Nichols was the first of the universally accepted “canonical” victims of the Whitechapel Murderer. She was a drab, but had nonetheless retained some vanity. According to her own statement, made on admission to Mitcham workhouse on 13 February, she was born in Dean Street off Fetter Lane in August 1845. Her father, however, locksmith Edward Walker, declared that she was 42. In 1864, she had married William Nichols and had five children. It appears that William had an affair in or around 1877, and, whether this was cause or effect, it was around this time that Mary Ann’s lethal relationship with the gin bottle took over her life.
In 1880, the couple separated, and Mary Ann rapidly became a lodging-house dosser and shilling-shag market dame. On 12 May 1888, she made a last bid for respectability, taking a job as a domestic servant in Rosehill Road, Wandsworth. “They are teetotallers, and very religious,” she wrote optimistically of her employers, “so I ought to get on.” For all her efforts to convince herself, the lure of the streets, the rowdy companionship, the intoxicating uncertainty of the vagabond life and, above all, the gin, was stronger by far than that of respectability won by solitary service in suburbia. In July, she absconded with clothing to the value of three pounds and ten shillings. We are uncertain where she spent the last five or six nights of her life, though Ellen Holland, her friend and bedfellow, was given the impression that Nichols had been lodging at the White House, a common lodging house in Flower and Dean Street. This, however, is unconfirmed, and Nichols’s last days remain a mystery.