by Neil Storey
I desire to thank Mr Hayward for his efforts on my behalf, as well as all those who have interested themselves in me during this unhappy time. This confession is made of my own free will and is written down by Mr Singer at my request. May God comfort my loving father and mother, and may he accept my repentance and my death as an atonement for all my sins.
Dated Sunday, Aug. 21 1887
Signed: Israel Lipski
Witnesses: S. Singer, Minister
E.S. Milman, Governor of Her Majesty’s Prison, Newgate
After Lipski had dictated his confession in Yiddish, Rabbi Simeon Singer asked Lipski if he wished to write to his parents in Warsaw, and this he dictated in his native language. He also sorrowfully directed that another letter should be sent to Mrs Lyons, the mother of his fiancée. Having unburdened himself and now facing the gallows, Lipski was conscious all his affairs should be in order and asked the minister to pay a ‘trifling debt’ he owed to a fellow lodger, and that his effects and stock be sold to reimburse his landlady.
On the morning of his execution Lipski rose shortly after 5 a.m., and by 6 a.m. Rabbi Singer was in attendance again, and remained with him in prayer for nearly two hours. The Penny Illustrated Paper evocatively recorded the last moments of Israel Lipski thus:
The Newgate gallows.
Executioner James Berry.
Two or three minutes before eight o’clock the representatives of the press, eight in number, were admitted to the yard in which stands the scaffold, and simultaneously a procession consisting of the Sheriffs, Under Sheriff, the Governor of the prison, the surgeons, the condemned man, Mr Singer, and some officials, in addition to Berry, the executioner, started from the condemned cell, in which the preliminary pinioning process had been performed without any demur on the part of Lipski, after he had expressed his gratitude to Mr Singer and the officials for the kindness extended to him.
Before he took his stand on the scaffold, an interpreter was called forward and by request of the Sheriffs asked Lipski if he had anything to say. The reply, delivered in a low tone of voice, was brief, ‘I have no more to say; I am guilty.’ While the last preparations were being made, Lipski was repeating the responses in a moaning voice; then Berry disappeared, the drop fell, and death was apparently instantaneous. The black flag was hoisted over the prison, which, it is said, was the signal for a loud cheer from the mob outside the gates, just as the Minister was reciting in trembling tones the final prayer.
In his memoirs, James Berry, Lipski’s executioner, recalled:
At Lipski’s execution the crowd was the largest I have ever seen, many of the people remained hanging about for hours. The excitement was intense, but there was no sympathy for the prisoner. There were many Jews in the crowd, and wherever they were noticed they were hustled and kicked about, and insulted in every imaginable manner; for the hatred displayed by the mob was extended from Lipski to his race. When the black flag was hoisted it was received with three ringing cheers. Altogether, the crowd showed the utmost detestation of the murderer.
As per the full sentence of the law, Lipski’s body was placed in a grave and covered in quicklime within the walls of the prison, but his name lived on for years as a colloquial term of derision and abuse, often aimed against members of the Jewish population in the East End.
4
THE AUTUMN OF
TERROR
Jack the Ripper, 1888
In the long catalogue of crimes which has been compiled in our modern days there is nothing to be found, perhaps, which has so darkened the horizon of humanity and shadowed the vista of man’s better nature as the series of mysterious murders committed in Whitechapel during the latter part of the year 1888. From east to west, from north to south the horror ran throughout the land. Men spoke of it with bated breath, and pale-lipped, shuddered as they read the dreadful details. A lurid pall rested over that densely populated district of London, and people, looking at it afar off, smelt blood. The superstitious said the skies had been of deeper red that autumn, presaging desperate and direful deeds, and aliens of the neighbourhood, filled with strange phantasies brought from foreign shores, whispered that evil spirits were abroad.
So wrote Harold Furniss in his introduction to the Jack the Ripper editions of his Famous Crimes Magazine in the early years of the twentieth century. After the terror whipped up by the media frenzy and lurid illustrations of the crimes committed by the Whitechapel Fiend, later known as Jack the Ripper, the mystery and horror of the crimes has lingered on, permeating the social ‘memory’ or folklore of British society, as one generation after another is chilled by the faceless, top-hatted gentleman murderer, who strode the mean streets of the East End of London in search of another victim. That’s the myth… or is it? That’s the fascination of ‘hunting’ Jack the Ripper; for 120 years new theories naming suspects from the humblest to the highest in the land have argued, counter argued, named, shamed, and even fabricated evidence of who Jack the Ripper really was. I do not think it will now ever be possible to conclusively prove who he was – certainly not so a court would be convinced – but that does not mean we will ever stop hunting for him.
In this chapter I will examine the ‘canonical five’ murders widely agreed by crime historians and many Ripperologists as being perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. Let us primarily concern ourselves with the salient points of fact about the murders. For the purposes of this exercise, we shall predominantly use official records and newspaper articles, where we can read the accounts of contemporary witnesses to the discovery of the bodies, the statements of the doctors who examined the victims, and read of the subsequent police investigations carried out at the time.
We begin on the evening of 30 August 1888, which was no ordinary evening in the East End. The night was interspersed with heavy downpours of rain accompanied by rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning; the sky turning an ominous shade of red caused by two dock fires and the accompanying pall of smoke. The East London Advertiser described it thus:
The scene at half-past 10 was an imposing one. In the enormous docks, crammed with goods of incalculable value, with vast buildings on every side, and with great vessels in the wet docks, firemen, policemen and dock officers were either watching or aiding in endeavouring to extinguish the fire, while an enormous crowd gathered round the great gates and gazed at the progress of the fire from a distance. In a great shed building close to the fire the steamers had been drawn up in little clusters of twos and threes, and were pumping continuously with a deafening noise, while the horses, which had been unharnessed, stood quietly in couples in every corner. The water poured over the granite stones of the docks in torrents, and the whole scene was brilliantly illuminated by the fire above.
It was hardly surprising the East End streets were abuzz with people talking about and going to see the fire at the Shadwell Dry Dock.
Mary Ann Nichols was on the Whitechapel Road, probably soliciting. She was 42 years old and had been married, but it had proved to be a turbulent union, and after a number of separations Mary finally walked out on her husband and children in 1881. There then began a tragic and all-too-typical tale: Mary’s life descended further and further into an abyss of drink, destitution, prostitution, sleeping on the streets and in dosshouses, and living from workhouse to workhouse. In August 1888 her sole source of income was from prostitution. Mary, now known to many on the streets as ‘Polly’, had been living in a room she shared with four other women in a dosshouse at 18 Thrawl Street, but had recently moved to another, known as the White House at 56 Flower and Dean Street, where men were allowed to share a bed with a woman. In 1883 Flower and Dean Street had been described as ‘perhaps the foulest and most dangerous street in the whole metropolis’ (nothing had changed by 1888) and, along with nearby Thrawl Street, made up part of the area of Spitalfields known as the ‘evil quarter mile.’
At 12.30 a.m. on 31 August 1888, Polly, who had been drinking at the Frying Pan public house on the corner of Brick Lane and Thra
wl Street, was on her way back to her old lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street. After about an hour there, Polly was turned away by the deputy because she did not have the 4d required to stay the night. She was described as being ‘worse for drink, but not drunk’. After telling the deputy to save her a bed, she turned to the lodging house door, laughing, ‘I’ll soon get my doss money; see what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.’ She indicated the bonnet she was wearing (which the lodging-house deputy had not seen before).
Polly was next encountered by her old room-mate, Emily Holland, outside a grocer’s shop on the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street and nearly opposite the parish church, where the clock had just struck 2.30 a.m. Emily had been watching the Shadwell Dry Dock fire. Polly was, by then, much the worse for drink and was staggering against the wall. Emily tried to persuade her to come home with her, but Polly declined, telling Emily that she had had her doss money three times that day and had drunk it away, and declaring confidently, ‘It won’t be long before I’m back.’ Emily could only watch as Polly staggered off eastward down Whitechapel Road.
Less than an hour and a quarter later, and just under three-quarters of a mile away, Polly’s mutilated body was discovered on Buck’s Row, in a location opposite the Essex Wharf warehouse, Brown and Eagle Wool warehouse and Schneiders Cap factory – in the gateway entrance to an old stable yard between a board school and a row of terraced cottages. Her body lay face up with her head almost underneath the window of the end terrace house (known as the ‘New Cottage’) next to the stable-yard gates. This was the home of a widow named Mrs Green, who lived there with two sons, and a daughter who shared her bedroom with her. Despite claiming to be a light sleeper, neither Mrs Green nor any of her family claimed to have heard a thing until the police arrived.
The body was discovered by Charles Andrew Cross, who was on his way to work as a carman for Messrs Pickford & Co. (a job he had served for over twenty years). At the inquest, which was held on Saturday 1 September 1888 at the Working Lads’ Institute on Whitechapel Road before Mr Wynne E. Baxter, the coroner for South-East Middlesex, Cross gave the following account:
[At] about half-past three on Friday I left my home go to work, as I passed through Buck’s-row I saw on the opposite side something lying against the gateway, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I thought it was a tarpaulin sheet. I walked into the middle of the road, and saw that it was the figure of a woman. I then heard the footsteps of a man [another carman named Robert Paul] going up Buck’s-row, about 40 yards away, in the direction I had just come from. When he came up I said to him, ‘Come and look over here; there is a woman lying on the pavement.’ We crossed over to the body, and I took hold of the woman’s hands, which were cold and limp. I said, ‘I believe she is dead.’ I touched her face, which felt warm. The other man, placing his hand on her heart, said ‘I think she is breathing, but very little if she is.’ I suggested we should give her a prop, but my companion refused to touch her… I didn’t notice that her throat was cut, the night being very dark. We left the deceased, and in Baker’s-row we met PC Mizen, who we told we had seen a woman lying in Buck’s-row, I said, ‘She looks to me to be either dead or drunk; but for my part I think she is dead.’ The policeman said, ‘All right,’ and then walked on. The other man left me soon after.
Cover story: PC John Neil 97J shines his lamp on the body of Polly Nichols on Buck’s Row. (Stewart P. Evans)
Mr Baxter enquired further:
Baxter: Did you know the other man?
Cross: I had never seen him before.
Baxter: Did you see anyone else in Buck’s Row?
Cross: No, there was nobody there when he and the other man left.
Baxter: And the woman on the ground, could you see no injuries at all?
Cross: In my opinion she looked as if she had been outraged and gone off in a swoon; but I had no idea that there were any serious injuries.
At the same time that Cross and Paul encountered Constable Mizen, PC John Neil 97J was on patrol in Buck’s Row. His statement at the inquest was as follows:
Yesterday morning I was proceeding down Buck’s-row, Whitechapel, going towards Brady-street. There was not a soul about. I had been round there half an hour previously, and I saw no one then. I was on the right-hand side of the street, when I noticed a figure lying in the street. It was dark at the time, though there was a street lamp shining at the end of the row. I went across and found deceased lying outside a gateway, her head towards the east. The gateway was closed. It was about 9ft or 10ft high, and led to some stables. There were houses from the gateway eastward, and the School Board school occupies the westward. On the opposite side of the road is Essex Wharf. Deceased was lying lengthways along the street, her left hand touching the gate. I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back, with her clothes disarranged. I felt her arm, which was quite warm from the joints upwards. Her eyes were wide open. Her bonnet was off and lying at her side, close to the left hand. I heard a constable passing Brady-street, so I called him. I did not whistle. I said to him, ‘Run at once for Dr Llewellyn,’ and, seeing another constable in Baker’s-row, I sent him for the ambulance. The doctor arrived in a very short time. I had, in the meantime, rung the bell at Essex Wharf, and asked if any disturbance had been heard. The reply was ‘No.’ Sergeant Kirby came after, and he knocked. The doctor looked at the woman and then said, ‘Move her to the mortuary. She is dead, and I will make a further examination of her.’ We placed her on the ambulance, and moved her there.
Inspector Spratling came to the mortuary, and while taking a description of the deceased turned up her clothes, and found that she was disembowelled. This had not been noticed by any of them before. On the body was found a piece of comb and a bit of looking-glass. No money was found, but an unmarked white handkerchief was found in her pocket.
Baxter: Did you notice any blood where she was found?
PC Neil: There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. It was running from the wound in her neck.
Baxter: Did you hear any noise that night?
PC Neil: No; I heard nothing. The farthest I had been that night was just through the Whitechapel-road and up Baker’s-row. I was never far away from the spot.
Baxter: Whitechapel-road is busy in the early morning, I believe. Could anybody have escaped that way?
PC Neil: Oh yes, sir. I saw a number of women in the main road going home. At that time anyone could have got away.
Baxter: Someone searched the ground, I believe?
PC Neil: Yes; I examined it while the doctor was being sent for.
Inspector Spratling: I examined the road, sir, in daylight.
Baxter (to PC Neil): Did you see a trap in the road at all?
PC Neil: No.
Baxter: Knowing that the body was warm, did it not strike you that it might just have been laid there, and that the woman was killed elsewhere?
PC Neil: I examined the road, but did not see the mark of wheels. The first to arrive on the scene after I had discovered the body were two men who work at a slaughterhouse opposite. They said they knew nothing of the affair, and that they had not heard any screams. I had previously seen the men at work. That would be about a quarter-past three, or half an hour before I found the body.
Dr Rees Ralph Llewellyn was then called to give evidence.
On Friday morning I was called to Buck’s-row about four o’clock. The constable told me what I was wanted for. On reaching Buck’s Row I found the deceased woman lying flat on her back in the pathway, her legs extended. I found she was dead, and that she had severe injuries to her throat. Her hands and wrists were cold, but the body and lower extremities were warm. I examined her chest and felt the heart. It was dark at the time. I believe she had not been dead more than half-an-hour. I am quite certain that the injuries to her neck were not self-inflicted. There was very little blood round the neck. There were no marks of any struggle or of b
lood, as if the body had been dragged. I told the police to take her to the mortuary, and I would make another examination. About an hour later I was sent for by the Inspector to see the injuries he had discovered on the body. I went, and saw that the abdomen was cut very extensively. I have this morning made a post-mortem examination of the body. I found it to be that of a female about forty or forty-five years. Five of the teeth are missing, and there is a slight laceration of the tongue. On the right side of the face there is a bruise running along the lower part of the jaw. It might have been caused by a blow with the fist or pressure by the thumb. On the left side of the face there was a circular bruise, which also might have been done by the pressure of the fingers. On the left side of the neck, about an inch below the jaw, there was an incision about 4in long and running from a point immediately below the ear. An inch below on the same side, and commencing about an inch in front of it, was a circular incision terminating at a point about 3in below the right jaw. This incision completely severs all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision is about 8in long. These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood at all was found on the breast either of the body or clothes. There were no injuries about the body till just about the lower part of the abdomen. Two or 3in from the left side was a wound running in a jagged manner. It was a very deep wound, and the tissues were cut through. There were several incisions running across the abdomen. On the right side there were also three or four similar cuts running downwards. All these had been caused by a knife, which had been used violently and been used downwards. The wounds were from left to right, and might have been done by a left-handed person. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument.
Press reports rapidly drew together a number of previously unconnected murders in the East End and soon headlines were announcing that Polly Nichols was another victim of the killer they dubbed ‘The Whitechapel Murderer’ or ‘Fiend’. Among them was an Elizabeth Smith, Martha Tabram and even an unnamed (and probably fictional) woman who was allegedly murdered during Christmas week in 1887.