The Ripper's Victims in Print

by Rebecca Frost

  Annie Chapman is also described as being overly fond of drink, although in her case this is balanced by the fact that she was also “quiet and inoffensive.”4 Matters takes an interesting approach to Annie, often tempering any negative comments with these and similar positive ones, and introducing her as the least of the least. Out of all the victims, the future looks bleakest for Annie. Exactly why Matters chooses to present her in such a way is not clear, but he alternately robs her of humanity by describing her as a poor creature before restoring again and making her a singularly unhappy woman. Annie is reduced far beyond Mary Anne in these descriptions, although the language surrounding her also offers her more emotion and more sympathy, despite the similarities in their brief biographies.

  Matters informs readers that Chapman was a widow—thus without a husband to spread tales of how she had been in life and during their marriage—but again, like Mary Anne, she had not been living with him for some time before his death. Annie had also been inhabiting various boarding houses in the slums in and around Whitechapel, but again Matters’ description of the situation uses more evocative and sympathetic language than when he explained Mary Anne’s plight. He does continue to play with Annie’s identity, alternating between animal descriptions and the use of human language. Whatever Annie is, Matters paints her as a pitiful figure, pointing out that, on her last night and in search of her doss money, she likely walked quite a distance and over a long period of time in search of a man willing to so much as look at her. While the figure of the East End prostitute has sunk low, apparently Annie Chapman has managed to end up lower than most—and somehow, by being the most pitiful of the pitiful, inspired Matters to sympathy instead of disgust.

  With as little information as Matters gives about Mary Ann and Annie, Elizabeth Stride has even less. He relates her tale of the sinking of the Princess Alice, once again drifting toward empathy when he writes that she watched her two children drown, and it was this tragedy that resulted in her drinking habit—and her life on the street to support it. Instead of drink driving a separation and propelling the woman in question into the East End, Matters suggests that this tragedy struck Elizabeth first and thus she had a cause for drinking. Matters is unable to discover what had become of the children’s father, but after the sinking Elizabeth is left entirely alone, with no one to drive her away because of her sudden decision to drink and no one to provide for her.

  Aside from this tragic tale, Matters notes that she was forty-five years old and living among the various other homeless populations in the East End. He does provide an interesting bit of commentary, though, when he adds that Elizabeth was a woman of such stature that she “could have been expected, if given the chance, to fight tenaciously for her life.”5 There are many things he might be implying with this statement: first, that she was not given the opportunity to fight for her life and was surprised by the Ripper; second, that she did indeed fight, but the Ripper was physically superior and managed to overpower her; or third, he might wish to question whether such a life was worth fighting for at all, or if Elizabeth might have submitted to her fate as a way of committing suicide. It is an intriguing statement since it is simply offered without being followed up by any such suppositions, perhaps to indicate that none of the other women could have been expected to physically resist in any way.

  Catherine Eddowes is described in familiar terms, being of the same general age and appearance of Mary Anne and Annie—and indeed perhaps the majority of women who found themselves in the East End. On the night of her death Catherine had been locked up for being publicly drunk and was released only a handful of hours later, still not entirely recovered. Matters seeks to clarify the relationship between Catherine and drink when he adds that, “though usually sodden with gin, she was not originally a subject for the police.”6 Catherine may not generally practice sobriety, but neither is she a generally disruptive drunk, so her final night seems to have been out of character.

  Outside of this, the only information Matters seems to find important is that Catherine very much belonged in the group that held Mary Ann, Annie, and Elizabeth. He does not outright state that she is a prostitute, instead referring to class instead of occupation, but women of this lowest class, left on their own, were likely simply assumed to have taken themselves to the streets. Catherine has also left her husband and has no other means of support, by this time a familiar tale. Perhaps by this point Matters believes he had proven his point, and that these details were indeed very much the same and his readers might find themselves bored with further information on Catherine’s biography, since her story seems to be very similar to the previous women’s.

  This lack of attention disappears, however, when Matters comes to Marie Jeanette Kelly. She is not only the focus as the Ripper’s final victim, but also in the narrative that Matters later presents to Jack the Ripper’s motives and why the killings indeed stopped after her death. From the start Matters separates her from the others, listing her in contrast: she was younger than the others, only in her twenties, who still retained her good looks despite the fact that, like the others, she was indeed a prostitute. In fact, Matters seems to struggle to reconcile a beautiful woman to someone of her occupation, nothing that “[s]he was given to drink and was immoral, but being so young she had not fallen to same depths as the other, older victims.”7

  Marie Jeanette is further separated from the other women because she, unlike them, was not forced to walk the streets so often, or in such desperation. She rented her own room and did not have to come up with pennies every night for a bed. Somehow she was able to secure a steady enough income in order to be able to afford this, but Matters must present her as a prostitute instead of assigning her some other occupation in order for his theory to play out. Marie Jeanette stands apart from the others all the same—where Annie Chapman inspired pity, Marie Jeanette inspires awe.

  Marie Jeanette was a widow like Annie, having lost her husband in a mining accident while she was still quite young. Matters does not trace her path from widowhood to the East End, but he does report that she was friendly with the prostitutes of the area and, like the others, was fond of drink. Joe Barnett, who had been living with Marie Jeanette in her small room until shortly before her murder, defends this behavior by saying that “she was otherwise a respectable person.”8 Respectability is not a term often associated with women in the East End, and not one that Matters has allowed to be attached to any of the previous women. Even though Marie Jeanette drank just like they did, and even though she spent her time in behavior that sounds suspiciously like prostitution, Matters allows her to be respectable, if only by comparison.

  Her identity as a prostitute, as well as this respectability, both play a role in Matters’ narrative of his Ripper suspect. He proposes that the Ripper was a doctor, and gives him the pseudonym of Dr. Stanley so as to protect the man who made a deathbed confession. Dr. Stanley wishes to kill Marie Jeanette because she afflicted his son with a sexually transmitted disease that led to the young man’s death. During her encounters with the younger Stanley, Marie Jeanette “was just one of those light-hearted creatures who seemed to have been destined for the night-life into which she fitted so naturally.”9 She is not only young and beautiful, but cunning as well, having had her “apprenticeship” at a brothel in the West End. This attractive Marie Jeanette knows her appeal to young gentlemen of the upper classes and has trained herself to use this to her advantage, entering into prostitution quite willingly and making full use of her charms. Instead of being forced into the streets, prostitution is her personal choice.

  This Marie Jeanette not only uses the young Stanley but also many other men, being ostensibly irresistible to the men of her own class, as well. The young Stanley is perhaps a bit naïve when he does not realize her profession, but men of the lower classes wish to support Marie Jeanette because she seems to be above them in some way. She uses what men she can find, one after another, for as much as she can get from them. This explains
why she was able to afford her own room instead of staying at lodging houses, although it makes Barnett just the latest in a string of men to be duped by her charms. Instead of engaging in casual acts of prostitution recognized as such by both parties, she fools men into supporting her in a semblance of a long-term relationship while in actuality simply using them.

  Matters is convinced that this scheme will not last, since although Marie Jeanette is young and beautiful, her penchant for drink will soon force her the way of the others. Whatever Matters thinks of Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth, and Catherine, Marie Jeanette is far worse because her beautiful exterior hides a twisted and devious character. Devious, it seems, only toward men who gravitate toward her, since she was popular with the women in the area, especially when she could do them a favor. It is a sign of insecurity that Matters reports Marie Jeanette did not like to be alone, but preferred to go about with at least one other woman in her company. Somehow both sides of her existed at the same time, and her metaphorical claws only came out when she found herself with a likely man she could use. Since she was meant to have infected a doctor’s son, who was an up-and-coming doctor himself, her preference for men—or perhaps her appeal to the same—was not limited to a single class.

  Marie Jeanette, although given by far the most narrative attention, therefore comes across as something of a complicated contradiction. This is a young woman who was willing to buy drinks for her friends—perhaps so she simply would not be drinking alone—but was also something of a danger to any man who foolishly crossed her path. She was intelligent enough to keep herself from being used while at the same time knowing how best to present herself to make a living off of men. By spending more time in his description of Marie Jeanette, Matters presents her as a complicated human being with many of the failings of the other women, but with a few unique characteristics, as well.

  Even discounting the extended treatment of Marie Jeanette, Matters disproves his own thesis that each woman’s story was much like the last. Readers need only to refer to his sentimental treatment of Annie Chapman. Despite his attempts to present each woman as made from the same cloth, especially considering the factual similarities within their biographies, Matters still, perhaps unintentionally, differentiates his subjects. He barely touches on Elizabeth and Catherine, likely with the assumption that readers can fill in the blanks along the lines of the previous women’s stories. However, the information he gives, along with the style in which he gives it and his choice of emotional vocabulary, already serve to separate Annie from Mary Ann and show that perhaps not every East End woman can be made to fit the same backstory, after all.

  The Authority of a Detective

  Edwin T. Woodhall’s 1937 book Jack the Ripper or When London Walked in Terror does perhaps a better job of making Matter’s argument for the mysterious Dr. Stanley even though he offers fewer details about the victims. Woodhall believes that his interpretation stands out, both because he was first a detective before turning to writing, and second because his authoritative statement is also affordable, being advertised as “cheap” even on the cover. His focus is, of course, on finding the identity of Jack the Ripper, and since he includes a retelling of the Dr. Stanley story, Marie Kelly once again receives more attention than the other women, some by a rather large margin.

  Due to the small amount of space devoted to the crimes, each woman is typically only given a few descriptors. Together they are “defenseless women,”10 “women of a certain type,”11 and—more poetically, when describing victim Martha Tabram—“a Magdalene of the East End streets.”12 Even though Woodhall employs these and other euphemisms, it is clear that he intends his readers to take the next logical step and label them as prostitutes, plain and simple. Although he does not come out and specifically use this possibly offensive language fifty years after the deaths of his subjects, the hints are anything but subtle. For Woodhall, these women are not simply down on their luck, making a living in the East End by any means possible. They are, each and every one, clearly earning a living through sex.

  Mary Ann Nichols is presented as wearing “a loud black and white check costume,”13 immediately recognized by the constable who first came upon her body due to this unlikely and garish outfit. Perhaps his readers are far enough removed from the reality of life in the East End of London in the 1880s, since there is no doubt that her outfit is indeed a “costume” that presumably matches and was not acquired piecemeal. Further, the white checks are still white, despite the notorious air pollution of industrial London and the living conditions of the East End. Woodhall knows that Mary Ann was living on her own, with no relatives to help her, and that she spend her nights in lodging houses of the East End with no access to proper laundry services—or perhaps even an alternate outfit to wear while washing this one. He still dresses her in this ensemble that sounds rather ridiculous, adding insult when he, like Matters, calls Mary Ann a “derelict” and, later, “the poor ‘creature of the streets’ of East End London.”14 A derelict, in the language of shipwrecks, is cargo that has sunk to the bottom and cannot be recovered. Even though it once may have had a use, it must now be dismissed and left where it lies. Woodhall removes Mary Ann’s humanity while she is still living, and thus she ceases to be a woman before she becomes a corpse.

  Ann Chapman fares little better, being identified first by her name and age and then her looks. She is “pretty in a rather flashy way,”15 although it seems little would be flashier than a black a white checked costume. She is at least, and remains, a woman instead of already an object, although the mention of her looks is still troubling. Mary Ann is neither pretty nor ugly, perhaps because her checked outfit detracted from her face. Ann, on the other hand, is pretty, a woman objectified if not an object. Woodhall offers a small gesture of sympathy, although the fact that he calls her poor and unfortunate might simply be statements of facts. He has already clarified that the Victorians used the word “unfortunate” to describe prostitutes, much in the way hat he himself is dancing around the term. The terse way he describes Ann the woman, as opposed to Ann the corpse, makes it difficult to tell which meaning he intends.

  Woodhall’s entire description of Elizabeth Stride is confined to a single sentence that explains he will not give any more information about her “for the reason that there were no fresh aspects, beyond the fact of the crime belonging to the same class of female mass-killings.”16 There were no fresh aspects as far as clues pointing to the killer, and—in an argument that supports Matters—no fresh aspects in the figure of Elizabeth herself. She is simply part of the same class, and therefore the same occupation, that has already been under discussion, and thus there is no use expounding on her presumably unremarkable life. Had there been more clues to be found on her corpse, perhaps her life—or at least the very end of it, in which she had encountered the killer—would have been worthy of discussion. As it stands, this is Woodhall’s shortest discussion of any of these women, and it seems readers should count themselves lucky enough to know Elizabeth’s name.

  There is only a little more information about the life of Catherine Eddowes. She is solely more interesting to Woodhall because of the timeline of events. Catherine was murdered the same night as Elizabeth, with her body being discovered while police were still organizing the questioning of witnesses where Elizabeth was found. The police officer whose steady beat brought him through Mitre Square helped to narrow down the window of opportunity even further, which meant that the Ripper murdered and mutilated Catherine in a surprisingly short amount of time. And finally, Catherine is the only victim who, according to Woodhall, was seen in the company of the Ripper before her death. All of this is, however, focused on identifying the Ripper instead of on the person of Catherine herself.

  He does reveal that Catherine had been arrested the previous afternoon, as was common practice when women were found drunk on the street. There is no indication as to whether Catherine was either frequently arrested or frequently drunk, leaving readers to come to
their own conclusions based on this single instance. There is no discussion of her clothing or her looks, which can apparently be assumed to have both been plain and not worth mentioning.

  In contrast, “Marie Kelly was a little different. She was younger, more refined, better dressed, and far nicer looking than any of them had been”17—and apparently she avoided wearing checks. Within the text describing the crimes, the space in which Woodhall discusses the other women and before he ventures into various theories, this is all we know of Marie prior to her death. The extent of her injuries quickly turns her from a human being into an object, although Woodhall does not dwell on those injuries. At least Marie is allowed to maintain her humanity until her encounter with Jack the Ripper.

  She is even discussed again when Woodhall introduces the final theory he has chosen to discuss, that of Dr. Stanley. In his version of the tale, Marie becomes a “female ‘night life butterfly’”18 who, in all her glory, is capable of seducing the younger Stanley. As a butterfly of any kind she has already risen above the level of caterpillar, although Woodhall does not describe what that might have entailed for young Marie. Perhaps an innocent child, Marie entered into her chrysalis and emerged scheming and dangerous, as well as overwhelmingly attractive to men. Woodhall indicates that her choice of the young Stanley was a form of dubious compliment, since she had met such a large number of nice young men in her life—of his class as well as her own—and had for some reason battened on to him. She is no innocent young beauty but is rather fully aware and fully in control of her actions, as well as her men. This Marie also uses them for her own devices, and has clearly been blessed with the good looks and cunning in order to do so.