The Ripper's Victims in Print

by Rebecca Frost

  Three paragraphs later, however, the marriage has crumbled for no concrete reason. It might be the birth of their children—mysterious figures both—or outside influence, but Annie and Fred agreed to part. Underwood even states that Fred visited his estranged wife in the East End from time to time, as well as giving Annie a weekly allowance until his death. He even reminds readers that Annie did not change her name after the split, although he never mentions her birth name. She is Annie Chapman from the heading of her story until the end.

  What confuses Underwood is whether or not Annie was a prostitute after her husband’s death. On page five he derides authors who have been fooled by her friends’ comments that she had other ways of earning a living, accusing them of being led astray as well by Annie’s rose-colored description of what her married life had been like. However, when summarizing her murder ten pages later, he declares that “Annie was not a regular streetwalker.”31 Does he mean that she did not walk the streets as frequently as Polly had? Underwood indicates her poor health as a reason she may not have been able to work, whether he meant as a prostitute or as a seller of trinkets.

  He makes it clear in the preceding pages that Annie had become a prostitute. No longer thin but still able to attract men, she had taken to selling herself for money simply because she needed necessities like food and shelter. These are regular needs and thus Annie would be in search of more regular employment. She was certainly penniless on her final night, and Underwood presents her as in search of a customer, so perhaps it is Annie’s happier past that prevents her from being a “regular” prostitute and not any events that happened since her husband’s death.

  Elizabeth Stride is introduced as being half of the hard-working couple running a coffee house in the dockland district. Her Swedish heritage was almost an afterthought. Apparently their coffee house was known for the cheerful demeanor of the owners and they way they would not tolerate the tougher customers, an interesting prospect. It would seem that cheerfulness might have helped Liz later on in her life, when she worked as a prostitute, but her ability to refuse customers service might not have carried over.

  Thomas and Elizabeth Stride have three children in this version, and apparently the coffee house was not enough to support a family of five, since Elizabeth also took work on pleasure steamers. This, of course, led to the entire family being aboard the Princess Alice on the day it sank, and Elizabeth lost all four members of her family. Underwood reports that, when the ship began its sudden sinking, Thomas went to look for the children while Elizabeth “dived into the water to wait for them.”32 This gives Elizabeth multiple points of guilt: not only was she reason that her husband and children were on the ship in the first place, but the fact that she jumped into the water while her husband went off into the ship is the sole reason she survived. Presumably she had previously learned how to swim, because Underwood describes her as having been in the water for quite a long time, looking for her family, before she was recused. Now widowed and without her children, Liz could no longer run the coffee shop, and this is what drove her to the streets.

  Like other authors before him, Underwood promptly undermines this sympathetic tale by reporting that the Princess Alice part of it was inaccurate. He cannot trace her husband—but suspects he was still alive in 1888—and wonders if she might indeed have had nine children, all of whom outlived her. Even her long-term relationship with Michael Kidney is thrown into doubt, since Liz is painted as having lived with a string of men. Not only did she drink with them, but she supported them through prostitution. If Liz had done this with previous men, and if Kidney were only the next man in line, then there is reason to suspect that she had been supporting him, as well. If this were true, then she not only lied about her past to gain sympathy, but Kidney is responsible for the fact that she was on the street that night.

  Clearly her men would have wanted a relationship if she were supporting them, despite Underwood’s disparaging comments about her looks. But what would Liz get from them? She was not in these relationships for the money, if she happened to be the one providing it. If Liz could take care of two people on her income, surely she could have managed by herself. But Underwood gives her the basic human need of companionship, of having someone to distract her from her past woes and dismal-looking future. As pathetic as she may have been, Liz was still seeking out human comfort, and her Princess Alice story may well have been a way of ensuring that received just that.

  Michael Kidney, who had lived with her on and off for three years, certainly would not admit that he was using Liz for her money. Underwood pushes him even further to the point where Kidney is presented as being willfully unaware—that is, even if Liz came to him with coins, he would not think about how she had obtained them. It would seem either that Kidney was able to fool himself about Liz’s activities, or that he wanted others to think him so naïve so they would not judge him harshly. Further, his testimony at the coroner’s inquest was far from straightforward, and he is not shown to have known much about Liz’s past. With all of these factors, it seems likely that he may have been using her for money, after all.

  John Kelly at least has the honor of being known as Catherine’s common-law husband, and he is not presented as having no idea that Catherine was a prostitute. This couple cobbled together a living between his casual laboring and her selling: her body at night and trinkets during the day. Apparently this still was not enough, since Underwood says that Catherine never had a full meal and looked both ravaged and aged.

  The two should have had at least a slight change in fortune before her death, since they had been out in the country hop-picking, both working hard. Underwood reports that their money was stolen after they had used some of it to get drunk, but does not explain how they returned to London. At any rate, they arrived penniless, and any money earned over the next few days was quickly lost to drink. Once again Catherine ends up locked away because she had achieved enough alcohol on her last evening to be rendered senseless, and Underwood laments the fact that she was released in the middle of the night and not followed, as the police had apparently been ordered to do with known prostitutes.

  Catherine went from her cell to die in the darkest corner of Mitre Square. For Underwood, “it says little for Catherine’s common sense or awareness”33 of the previous murders that she so willingly went with a stranger and probable client into such an isolated place. At least he then acknowledges that there are reasons beyond blatant ignorance or stupidity, admitting that it might not have been a stranger; that there might have been nothing about a stranger to make him seem like a threat; or that she might still have been drunk enough that she was not aware of the danger. It is more empathy than he affords the other women, and he shows it in the way he allows for variances within the situation. In truth there is no evidence as to whether Catherine went to Mitre Square to meet someone, went there with someone, or happened to there for another reason, only to be ambushed. It is unusual for authors to admit that they are uncertain of the exact way these events unfolded, since most of them must present the murders in a single way in order for their pet theories to hold true. Underwood’s uncertainty in this case admits that we know very little of Catherine and her habits.

  Even less is known for certain about Mary Jane Kelly, although she is presented as a “fascinating puzzle”34 that is worth a bit of time and effort to examine. Underwood, like others, points out that Mary Kelly—often mentioned with her first and last name, while the other women are referred to by their first names or nicknames—seems to have taken a nosedive at top speed from the West End and France to the East End. Since so much of Mary Kelly’s past is a mystery, Underwood suggests that perhaps a certain rumor is true, and that she did indeed have children—perhaps during those two years that are so mysterious. Since these possible children do not appear in the East End with her, their absence, either due to death or her inability to care for them, could be a plausible explanation for her drinking.

  Mary Kelly keeps
up a string of relationships in the East End, apparently going from man to man as she was continually abandoned or kicked out due to her drinking. Underwood even has her repeatedly make visits somewhere near Elephant and Castle, possibly to visit the child or children she had to give up for adoption. Stability only comes in the form of Joseph Barnett, who stays with her until shortly before her death and does not report being abandoned at any time before then. They did argue, though, following the traditional issue of Mary Kelly’s drinking, “but sometimes, no doubt, about her child, if she had one.”35 Mary Kelly might not even be a mother, but Underwood has her possible offspring coming between her and Joseph Barnett.

  The final blow is, of course, when Mary invites another woman to stay with them in their small rented room. It seems as though Underwood can think of no reason she would do so, outside of a possible accusation of lesbianism. It is also this specter of lesbianism that might had led to Barnett’s departing, although he seems more inclined to think it was the fact that Barnett found out Mary Kelly had been prostituting herself behind his back. The threat of Jack the Ripper that made Catherine Eddowes a complete idiot to go with a stranger in the middle of the night has no bearing on Mary Kelly’s decision to allow a friend to spend the night with her. Apparently this Mary Kelly has no room for empathy.

  She does, however, stand out in any way possible from the other women in the East End. Her personality, her looks, her past, and her education may not have been exemplary elsewhere, but they were certainly of note in Whitechapel. Instead of being labeled a snob, she is instead popular, presumably friendly instead of distant. Mary Kelly could easily have stood out in a negative way, driving the others way instead of drawing them to her, especially because she could be “a little more selective”36 in how she earned her drinking money, or with whom.

  Despite all these positive attributes, Mary Kelly may in fact have been the least fortunate the Ripper’s victims. One of the two new suspects Underwood presents, although he personally campaigns the Robert James Lees story, is Joseph Barnett himself. Ostensibly he committed the murders in an attempt to keep Mary Kelly off the streets. She would have heard about an earlier murder and, upon seeing her reaction, Barnett would have decided that this would be the way to make sure his girlfriend stayed indoors, especially after dark. When things did not turn out in his favor, he ended his crime spree by killing Mary Kelly herself. This would explain both the increasing violence of the crimes—with the exception of Liz—and the fact that Mary Kelly was both the last and the worst.

  There are times when Underwood shows compassion and insight into the lives of these women, admitting that many facts are unknown and some oft-repeated sentiments may indeed be untrue. Unfortunately these moments then highlight the places in which details are glossed over instead of being examined. The inconsistency in his representation of these women makes their narratives vastly uneven. For example, although he starts with a dramatized narrative of Polly’s final hours, he does not follow through with this method for the other women. In fact, it is Catherine’s final moments that lead to one of the segments in which Underwood admits uncertainty and allows himself to flesh out the many possibilities that exist without the anchor of certain fact. In the face of a century of declarations as though they were the truth, made to support an ever-changing array of Ripper identities, perhaps the more surprising segments are not those in which Underwood backs away from these details and questions, but those in which he engages.

  Judge and Jury

  In one last book from 1987, Colin Wilson and Robin Odell present themselves as lawyers in the case of the identity of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict presents readers with the details of the murders and then moves through the various Ripper identity proposals in chapters headed with general professions that are, at times, associated with specific names. Their conclusion is perhaps no conclusion as they inform the readers that they must acquit all proposed Rippers in the face of such a lack of evidence, although Wilson and Odell do remain hopeful that there will be others advanced to their fictitious courtroom to stand their own time of trial.

  The murders are discussed together in the first chapter, “Ripper at Large,” a title which at least does not discriminate or direct attention toward a single woman. It is even the longest chapter in the book, being fifty-one pages. Granted, covering the time period between August 31 and November 9 means discussing the police case, the inquests, and the Ripper letters as well as the women themselves, but at least Wilson and Odell do not attempt to condense this information into the twenty or thirty pages of their other chapters. The amount of space devoted to each woman, however, does not necessarily expand to help fill this space.

  Polly’s life is discussed on a single page, starting with the identification of her body and briefly recounting the apparently relevant information that led up to her death. Wilson and Odell begin with her name, age, and occupation: Polly is, without question, a prostitute. The authors focus mostly on the Polly who was murdered that night, and thus their relevant information is that she had become a prostitute was because her marriage had ended five years previously due to her drinking. Any details of her childhood or even of her marriage are irrelevant, since she was only on the street because that marriage was over. It was over because of gin, which is also relevant to the fact that she was drunk on the night of her death. Gin was also the first thing Polly is meant to have bought with any of her earnings, the second being a bed for the night. Food is not mentioned.

  This is the entirety of Polly as they see fit to present her. She crossed paths with the Ripper because she needed money to pay for her bed; she could earn that money through prostitution; and she had to work as a prostitute because she was no longer with her husband. The narrative line, as always, points toward the Ripper.

  Annie receives a similarly brief description with few variations. She, too, had been married, and had “been separated”37 from her husband for four years before his death. There is no blame in this phrasing—unlike Polly, she is not shown to be an alcoholic. Instead of going straight to prostitution, as Polly seems to, she tried to live with another man for a time, and was assisted by the allowance from her husband. When he died that allowance stopped, and this was the reason Annie found herself in the East End.

  It is only at this point that Annie’s children are mentioned and placed in homes. They had not made prior appearances and had likely stayed with their father during the separation. Annie is left widowed, childless, and at some point without the man she had been living with, since she is forced to fend for herself. Still, she makes a good try to stay off the street with her crochet work and selling flowers. Annie fights every step of the way before “she lapsed into drunkenness and prostitution,”38 having resisted both conditions for so long. It does not matter how long she worked as a prostitute, and Wilson and Odell do not say—it could have been her very first customer she met early on the morning of September 8, because she was surely looking for such a man to earn money for her bed.

  Elizabeth, on the other hand, may not have been seeking a customer and may indeed not have been a prostitute at all. She was Swedish but had been in England for twenty-two years at the time of her death. Once married and now on her own—although not widowed by the Princess Alice, since that tale is again reported as being false—Elizabeth had been living off and on with Michael Kidney. Like Polly, she would turn to drink, and this was the cause of the breakups. Apparently Kidney took her back regularly once she had sobered, although she had left him again a few days before her death. Wilson and Odell do not discuss what she did for money when she was on her own, or what she might have been doing out and about the night of her death, although half past one in the morning might not really be all that late for the East End. The authors make no note of this—it is enough that she was indeed out, a woman on her own because she was separated from her husband and had recently also left her current companion, and that was how she met the Ripper.

 
Kate, like Elizabeth, was also not out looking for a customer when she was murdered. In fact, John Kelly reported that he had “never heard of Kate walking the streets for immoral purposes”39 in all seven years they were together. Although Kelly is not the only man she has had in her life, it seems that Kate lived for quite some time with the first one, as well, and there is no list or even hint at a list of names between the two relationships. Unlike Annie, Kate seems to have been able to make her living well enough hawking goods on the street, and of course she had the benefit of Kelly’s income to supplements her own.

  This Kate does drink, but rarely too much, and she was well-liked by those who knew her. Her sister, her lodging house keeper, and Kelly himself having nothing bad to say about her, although they could simply wish to not speak ill of the dead. Still, their reports, and the picture painted by Wilson and Odell, present Kate to be about as respectable as an East End woman could get.

  Mary Jane Kelly, often referred to as Mary Kelly but at least once simply as Kelly, receives the most attention, both in this first chapter and then in the rest of the book. Because she is central to many past theories of the Ripper, she is mentioned and discussed again, especially under “Doctor Ripper,” “Royal Jack,” and “Jack of all Trades.” This last includes her most recent companion, Joseph Barnett, as a suspect, with Barnett committing murder after murder in “a losing battle to steer Mary Kelly away from drink and prostitution.”40 There is no question, then, about Mary Kelly’s habits or her means of earning a living. She, like Polly, is flatly declared to be a prostitute and denied even Annie’s efforts to slow her slide into such a position.