Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

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by kindels


  But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.

  For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

  When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,

  They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.

  ’Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.

  For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

  Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,

  For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;

  But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other’s tale –

  The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

  Man, a bear in most relations – worm and savage otherwise, –

  Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.

  Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact

  To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

  Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,

  To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.

  Mirth obscene diverts his anger – Doubt and Pity oft perplex

  Him in dealing with an issue – to the scandal of The Sex!

  But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame

  Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;

  And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,

  The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

  She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast

  May not deal in doubt or pity – must not swerve for fact or jest.

  These be purely male diversions – not in these her honour dwells.

  She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

  She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great

  As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.

  And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim

  Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

  She is wedded to convictions – in default of grosser ties;

  Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! –

  He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,

  Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

  Unprovoked and awful charges – even so the she-bear fights,

  Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons – even so the cobra bites,

  Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw

  And the victim writhes in anguish – like the Jesuit with the squaw!

  So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer

  With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her

  Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands

  To some God of Abstract Justice – which no woman understands.

  And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him

  Must command but may not govern – shall enthral but not enslave him.

  And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,

  That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

  APPENDIX II

  In the decades following the Whitechapel murders, there have been 26 recorded Ripper-type attacks worldwide – incredibly, all of them committed by women.

  In 1974, Winifred Ransom from the U.S. became the first woman known to have performed what was in effect an illegal caesarean operation. She shot her victim and hacked her twenty times with a hatchet, killing her. Then, drenched in blood, she sliced the abdomen open with a butcher’s knife, and cut out the foetus.

  Twenty-two women acted alone. In 2000, Lazerene Mannoe, a former policewoman from South Africa, attacked a pregnant schoolgirl. She bound, gagged and stripped her victim before using a breadknife and scissors to tear open her abdomen, exposing her stomach and intestines. The girl remained conscious the whole time and, covered in blood, managed to escape.

  In 2009, Korena Roberts from the U.S., nicknamed the Baby Ripper, first beat her victim about the head. She then inflicted further injuries, slitting her breast and body, and viciously biting her arm. After cutting open her abdomen, she lifted the internal organs to one side and tore the foetus from its womb. Her victim died of shock and loss of blood.

  Also in 2009, Leung Sin-ting invited her victim back to her Hong Kong apartment where she strangled her until the pregnant woman passed out. She then slashed open the abdomen with a 4-inch kitchen knife. Moving the intestines and internal organs out of her way, she cut the foetus from its womb, killing it in the process. The victim survived.

  The youngest attacker, at 19, was American Darcy Pierce, who tied her victim to a tree before strangling her to unconsciousness. She then ripped open the abdomen with her car key, pushed the internal organs away from her, tore the foetus from its womb, and finally bit through the umbilical cord. Though the child survived, the victim subsequently bled to death.

  Four of the women attackers enlisted male help, including Veronica Deramous who, at 40, was the oldest attacker, also American. After she abducted her victim, she brought her back to her own apartment. There, she tied her up with the help of her 17-year-old son. Using razor blades and a box-cutter, she slashed open the abdomen, exposing the placenta, stomach and intestines. Fainting and weak from loss of blood, the victim was rescued when a suspicious neighbour called the police.

  The murders attributed to Jack the Ripper, far from being crimes that could have been committed only by a man, mirror almost exactly the vicious attacks which, since that time, are all known to have been perpetrated by women. No man has ever been convicted, or even suspected, as the principal aggressor in any of these attacks, and all the evidence suggests that these horrendous acts of violence are ‘women-only’ crimes.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Alban, J.R., Swansea, 1184-1984 (Swansea City Council and the South Wales Evening Post, 1984)

  Anderson, Sir Robert, Criminals and Crime (London: J. Nisbet, 1907)

  Begg, Paul, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner, Jack the Ripper A-Z (London: Headline, 1996)

  Cook, Dr Andrew, Jack the Ripper: Case Closed (London: Amberley Publishing, 2009)

  Cornwell, Patricia, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed (New York: Berkley Books, 2002)

  Cullen, Tom, Autumn of Terror: Jack the Ripper, His Crimes and Times (London: Bodley Head, 1965)

  Dally, Ann, Women Under the Knife: A History of Surgery (London: Radius, 1991)

  Dew, Walter, I Caught Crippen: Memoirs of Ex-Chief Inspector Walter Dew CID (London and Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1938)

  Emmons, Dr Robert, The Life and Opinions of Walter Richard Sickert (London: Faber and Faber, 1941)

  Evans, Ruth, John Williams 1840-1926 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1952)

  Farson, Daniel, Jack the Ripper (London: Michael Joseph, 1972)

  Fishman, William J., East End 1888 (London: Hanbury, 2001)

  Hamil, John, The Craft: A History of English Freemasonry (London: Lewis Masonic, 1994)

  Hughes, Stephen, Copperopolis: Landscapes Early Industrial Period Swansea (Aberystwyth: Royal Commission, 2005)

  Jackson, Wray, The Story of a London Fog (London: James Nisbet and Co. 1888)

  Jakubowski, Maxim and Nathan Braund, The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2008)

  Jones, Iorwerth H., ‘The Medical Aspect of the Life of Sir John Williams’ (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, JournalVol. IX/2, Winter 1955)

  Knight, Stephen, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (London: Collins Publishing Group, 1976)

  Lee, Harper, To Kill a Mockingbird (Washington: Heldref Publications, 1960)

  Leeson, Benjamin, Lost London (London: Stanley Paul & Co, 1934) Lily, Marjorie, Sickert, The
Painter and His Circle (London: Elek Books, 1971)

  Morris, Byron Vincent, ‘Stone lays foundation for Victorian Journey’ (South Wales Evening Post, 14 May 2001)

  Odell, Robin, Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction (Oxford: Mandrake, 2008)

  Peat, David, Dictionary of Murder and Detection (Ottawa: Deneau, 1984)

  Robinson, John R. Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry (London: Century, 1990)

  Rumbelow, Donald, The Complete Jack the Ripper (London: W.H. Allen, 1987)

  Russell, R., London Fogs (London: Edward Stanford, 1880)

  Spencer, Herbert, ‘Obituary’, The Lancet (London: University College Hospital, Vol. XV, September 1926)

  Stewart, William, Jack the Ripper: A New Theory (London: Quality Press, 1939)

  Sugden, Philip, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper (London: Constable and Robinson Ltd, 2002)

  Whittington-Egan, Richard, A Casebook on Jack the Ripper (London: Wiley, 1976)

  Williams, Tony (with Humphrey Price), Uncle Jack (London: Orion, 2005)

  NEWSPAPERS

  Daily Telegraph

  Illustrated Police News

  Pall Mall Gazette

  South Wales Evening Post

  The Daily News

  The Independent

  The New York Times

  The South Wales Chronicle

  The Star

  The Times

  WEBSITES

  Jones, Richard, Casebook: Jack the Ripper (www.casebook.org)

  MAP

  Kelly, Barry (www.carewkelly.ie)

  Copyright

  Seren is the book imprint of

  Poetry Wales Press Ltd

  Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales

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  www.serenbooks.com

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  © John Morris, 2012

  The right of John Morris to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  ISBN 978–1–85411–643–7

  A CIP record for this title is available from

  the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holders.

  The publisher works with the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council

  Printed by CPI Anthony Rowe, Chippenham

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chronology of the Murders

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Appendix I

  Appendix II

  Bibliography

  Copyright

 

 

 


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