What then is the evidence for Tumblety being the Ripper? Littlechild says he was ‘amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one’. Not the suspect, is what he is saying, but a possibility along with a number of others. According to Inspector Byrnes, who had Tumblety under surveillance after his arrival back in New York, there was no proof of the doctor’s complicity in the Whitechapel murders and the offences for which he was wanted were not extraditable. He was also under surveillance by an English detective. It is hard to see why he was there if there was not the evidence to extradite Tumblety. Possibly he was hoping that the doctor would cross over the Canadian border to Montreal where he had an office. Once there he could have been arrested for the gross indecency offences, as English law applied in Canada, and extradited back to Britain.
Even more puzzling is Littlechild’s assertion that after leaving France Tumblety was never heard of again. The police surveillance must have been lax because on 5 December 1888 a workman saw him leave the house where he was staying (Tumblety was showing ‘a great deal of nervousness’, constantly glancing over his shoulder) and, making his way down the street, caught an uptown bus. According to one newspaper, people who knew him best thought that he was going to some quiet country town where he could rest until the excitement died down. Almost certainly this is what he did, because only a few months later he published a booklet he had written in the intervening period, Dr. Francis Tumblety – Sketch of the Life of the Gifted, Eccentric and World Famed Physician, attacking the ‘reptile press’ for the infamous slanders made against him yet skilfully evading all mention of his arrest and the charges alleged against him. Why, one asks, when Littlechild was so highly placed, and if Tumblety was such an important suspect, why did he not know any of this, even when he was writing to George R. Sims in 1913, ten years after the quack doctor’s death?
Physically and in age Tumblety does not match any witness descriptions of the killer. He was fifty-five years old at the time of the murders. The man seen talking to Annie Chapman was around forty. This suspect was seen only from behind. Other witnesses speak of a man between twenty-eight and thirty-seven years old. In height Tumblety was 5 ft. 10 ins. Witnesses put the man’s height between 5 ft. 3 ins. and 5 ft. 9 ins.
For the last ten years of his life, Tumblety lived with an elderly niece in Rochester, New York. Her house was both his home and his office. Clearly, with his whereabouts known and no attempt at concealment, if any evidence could have been brought against him for the Whitechapel murders it would have been. He died on 28 May 1903.
Frederick Deeming
Frederick Bailey Deeming killed his first wife and four children in 1891. Before emigrating to Australia with wife number two, he had disposed of their bodies under the kitchen floor of their home in Dinham Villa, Rainhill, near Liverpool. His second wife was murdered within a month of their landing in Australia. She was buried under the bedroom floor of the house near Melbourne. Deeming’s prospective third wife was already on her way to meet him when the body of wife number two was discovered. He was arrested, and executed on 23 May 1892. In prison he claimed to be Jack the Ripper but this was mere boasting, since he had been in prison at the time of the Whitechapel murders. After his execution a plaster death mask was forwarded to New Scotland Yard, apparently because of the persistence of these rumours, and for many years it was pointed out to visitors as the death mask of Jack the Ripper; it is now in the famous Black Museum. This has helped to perpetuate the myth, which was also reinforced by the following piece of doggerel verse:
On the twenty-third of May,
Frederick Deeming passed away;
On the scaffold he did say –
‘Ta-ra-da-boom-di-ay!’
‘Ta-ra-da-boom-di-ay!’
This is a happy day,
An East End holiday,
The Ripper’s gone away.
The Slaughterman
In Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction, Robin Odell suggests that the killer was a Jewish shochet, or ritual slaughterman, who was never caught or identified. In doing so, he makes the perfectly valid point that a current preoccupation with identifying the Ripper has sometimes led to exaggerated accounts of the murders and to a lack of interest in the murderer’s probable motives and character.
In Whitechapel in 1888 there was a Jewish abattoir in Aldgate High Street where the slaughtering of animals regularly took place and where there must have been many shochet to cope with the demands of the expanding immigrant population. Possibly the shochet in question may have been a refugee from Eastern Europe who fled to America in the great wave of persecutions following the anti-Jewish decrees of the early 1880s. He may have stayed there for just one or two years before moving on to Britain and finally settling in London. This temporary residence in America might help to explain some of the obvious Americanisms in some of the Ripper letters, for example ‘Boss’. Such expertise in slaughtering would explain why the police, in at least two of the murders, were baffled by the lack of blood. Odell attributes this to the manner in which the victims were handled – he compares it to the way in which the Japanese kicked away the trunks of the people they had just beheaded – so as to prevent the murderer’s clothes from becoming bloodstained. Unfortunately, he completely omits to suggest that the victims might first have been strangled. Any blood would then seep onto the ground and be soaked up by the victim’s clothes, which, the police reports confirm, is what actually happened.
In explaining his theory, Odell begins by quoting Dr G. Sequiera, the police surgeon who examined Eddowes, to the effect that the killer was no stranger to the knife. Shochets had considerable expertise with the knife – as they showed when performing the shechitah, or ritual slaughtering, which was ‘designed to drain the meat of blood which was sacred to God’. In the abattoir the animal was prepared for slaughter by hobbling its legs with ropes and ‘casting’ its throat for the knife, which was long-bladed and carefully honed to give a razor-sharp edge. To comply with Talmudic law it had to be free of any nicks or blemishes, since to kill with an imperfect weapon would invalidate the slaughtering and the meat would be forbidden to Jews. The blade was tested by being drawn backwards and forwards across the index finger of the other hand and when the shochet was satisfied that the blade complied with the religious law he would give the benediction and draw the razor-sharp knife across the prescribed area of the animal’s throat. A quick forward and backward stroke, and the work was done, the throat cut through to the bone. Death was immediate, and as the shochet stepped back the animal’s life-blood gushed to the ground from the severed arteries and veins. Having done this, the shochet had to make a post-mortem examination, or bedikah, of the animal. First he had to make sure that the throat had been cut correctly and that the windpipe and gullet had both been severed. Next, he had to make an incision in the chest and examine the heart and lungs for injury or disease. A third incision was then made in the abdomen so that the stomach, intestines, kidneys and internal organs could be similarly examined. If there was any sign of disease or injury the meat was trefah, or forbidden; if not, the meat was marked kosher, or fit.
Some anatomical knowledge and a degree of skill were clearly necessary to remove these and other parts of the body, as prescribed by Jewish law, and, as Odell remarks, ‘if there were any doubts about equating the elementary anatomical knowledge displayed by Jack the Ripper with the skill of a slaughterman, surely these must now be dispelled.’ Clearly, the shochet’s expertise would account for the skilful butchering of his victims.
This may be so, but such expertise was not confined to a shochet. Judging by the following letter, written by a contemporary of the Ripper to the harassed police, it would have been possessed by any good professional butcher. The letter is interesting and worth quoting at length. Although it shows how a shochet may have worked – assuming for the moment that Odell’s theory is correct – at the same time it disposes of his argument that an ordinary butcher or slaughterman would not have had the literacy t
o write the one or two genuine Ripper letters.
The writer was R. Hull, of 4 Bloomfield Road, Bow. The letter is dated 8 October 1888:
From the age of 14 years till past 30, I was a butcher so that I can speak with some authority. Doctors, I think, but little know how terribly dextrous a good slaughterman is with his knife. There has been nothing done yet to any of these poor women that an expert butcher could not do almost in the dark. It is not known perhaps to the medical fraternity that a slaughterman is a dexter handed man. Consequently Doctors are misled. And as to the time taken by the murderer to do the most difficult deed done as yet, I think it would be reduced to about one third of the time stated by them if done by a practical man, which according to their own evidence it must be or some one connected with their own craft. I cannot think that inexperienced men could do it. I have never seen the inside of a human being, but, I presume there is little difference between such and a sheep or pig. I could when in the trade, kill and dress 4 or 5 sheep in one hour. Then as to the blood, do not be misled, if done by a butcher he will not have any or very little upon his person. I have many a time gone into the slaughterhouse and killed several sheep or lambs and scarcely soiled my clothes, that is when the weather has been fine and the skins have been dry. It likewise occurs to me, that if done by a butcher he would know his work too well to attempt to cut the throat of his victim whilst standing up, but when they have laid down for an immoral purpose, then with one hand over the mouth and the thumb under the chin, then with, what is known in the trade as a Sticking knife, which is a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong butcher, in the twinkling of an eye he has cut the throat, then turning the head on one side, like he would a sheep, the body would bleed out whilst he did the rest of his work, from which the blood would flow. The only fear of making a mess would be the breaking [of] a gut or intestine and that would not be done by one knowing his business. The slaughterman’s knives consist of a set of three; the Sticking knife which is about 6 or 8 inches long in the blade, with a thick back to keep it from bending whilst severing the Pith or Spinal cord. The next is a Dressing knife, a little shorter and wider than the Siding knife, which is a longer one than either of the others, curved at the end so that it shall not go through the hides. This knife is only used just for one particular work in dressing beasts. They all have wooden handles rivetted through the tang of the blade.
A shochet was a minor cleric, a person of high respectability and some education, and possessing a deep religious faith. Although he would be of some standing in the community, it is unlikely that his income would have been much greater than that of the lower-class elements among whom he lived and worked. His dark clothes and black frock coat would have given him the slightly shabby and faded respectability that matches some of the descriptions of Ripper suspects. Because he was such a familiar figure, and a person to be trusted, this might explain why the victims were willing to trust themselves to go with him and were temporarily lulled into a sense of false security. Odell points out that a well-dressed stranger might have worked his charm on one or two occasions; but that he should continue to do so goes against all common sense. Yet this is precisely what did happen many years later when the Boston Strangler was terrorizing that city; it went against all the rules that he should have been able to persuade these women to open their doors to him, a perfect stranger, especially when their doors had been reinforced with locks and chains for the very purpose of keeping him out. How much easier it must have been in London’s East End for the Ripper to have persuaded women to go with him when they were starving, cold and ill, desperately in need of the few pence that he would give them for some food and perhaps even shelter.
Odell’s theory is that the Ripper was possibly a psychopath suffering from some sort of religious mania: ‘A ritual slaughter-man steeped in Old Testament law might have felt some religious justification for killing prostitutes.’ He draws a colourful picture of this man’s background and mental state:
Lurking behind the respected character of the ritual slaughterman was the mind of a sexual sadist tormented with hideous desires. The tiger’s heart was filled with cunning, premeditation, and fiendish delight in the perverted and these were the tools of his ambition. His distorted mind drove him to seek gratification for blood-lust in a manner that mirrored his professional ability. Jack the Ripper did not commit those terrible crimes because he was a slaughterman. He killed because he was a psychopath, but inevitably his perversions drew strength from his training and skill as a slaughterman.
Remorse was an alien feeling to the Ripper, for his mind was filled with an overpowering appetite that only death could end. In his twisted way he could claim, too, a sense of religious justification in clearing the East End streets of harlots. In such ways do wretched prostitutes become the butt of the sexual psychopath’s inadequacy. Incapable of normal sexual relations, and inferior to the task of seduction, these perverts often seek the easy acceptance of prostitutes, and then in a cruel travesty of morals claim justification for killing them.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to agree with his final assertion that of all the potential murderers in London in 1888, the hypothetical shochet alone possessed all the requirements of motive, method and opportunity to murder prostitutes in the East End. The methods have already been discussed, and as we have seen, an ordinary butcher had precisely the same expertise and could wield a knife with equal dexterity. Motive and opportunity are even more easily disposed of: a similar case could equally easily be made against any unknown living in the East End at that time, and would be just as difficult to disprove. If the Ripper did strangle his victims – and the evidence suggests that he did – then Odell’s theory falls to the ground. It is only by agreeing with Odell’s argument totally and uncritically that we can accept it. Unfortunately, the facts are too few to do this.
In explanation of the Ripper’s ceasing his activity after Miller’s Court, Odell suggests that he was discovered by his own people who may have dealt with him according to their own brand of justice in preference to having him before the English courts. This would have effectively countered any of the outbreaks of anti-Semitism that Sir Charles Warren had feared might lead to rioting in the East End and which had prompted him to rub out the message on the wall. According to Sir Robert Anderson in his memoirs, The Lighter Side of my Official Life, the Ripper was a Polish Jew and it was ‘a remarkable fact that people of that class in the East End will not give up one of their number to Gentile Justice’.
After the ‘double event’ which involved them for the first time, the City police didn’t overlook the possibility that the Ripper might be a Jewish slaughterman. Replying to one correspondent who suggested that as ‘Hebrew Butchers are special Adepts at Cutting the Throats of Animals and avoiding the force of Blood wouldn’t it be worth While to ask the Inspectors of Slaughter Houses to take quiet observation of any Man using the Knife with the Left Hand’, Henry Smith answered, instructing a secretary on the back of the letter in red ink: ‘Thank him for the suggestion and say we have accounted for the times of all the butchers and slaughterers.’
Smith pragmatically gave a set of shochets’ knives to the City police surgeon, Dr Gordon Brown, to see if they could have been used in the murders. His report was that such knives could not have been used because of their curved ends. This information was given to the Jewish Chronicle to counter the rumours that the murderer was a Jew.
Perhaps the last word on this particular theory should be left to the anonymous scribbler who wrote:
I’m not a butcher,
I’m not a Yid,
Nor yet a foreign skipper,
But I’m your own light-hearted friend,
Yours truly Jack the Ripper.
Jill the Ripper
William Stewart in his book set himself a more modest objective. He didn’t try to prove the Ripper’s identity but only the class of person that he might have been. He began by asking four questions: (1) what sort of person was it th
at could move about at night without arousing the suspicions of his own household or of other people that he might have met? (2) who could walk through the streets in blood-stained clothing without arousing too much comment? (3) who would have had the elementary knowledge and skill to have committed the mutilations? and (4) who could have been found by the body and yet given a satisfactory alibi for being there?
At first glance, the solution would seem to be a policeman. The only objection to this might be a low score under (3) – but even this could be overcome if it is remembered that most policemen were ex-army men with enough overseas experience of war to have given them a working knowledge of slaughtering, of both animals and men, and the treating of wounds. However, Stewart’s choice was for a woman who was or had been a midwife. Such a woman might also have been an abortionist. Stewart postulates that she might have been betrayed by a married woman she had tried to help and sent to prison; as a result, this was her way of revenging herself on her own sex.
Stewart argued that such a woman would have had the theoretical knowledge for committing the mutilations. She could have moved about the streets at night without arousing suspicion, and she would have had the confidence of her victims. Her blood-stained clothing could have been explained away by a difficult birth or from her examination of one of the victims to see if she was alive. Alternatively, the clothes of the period would have enabled her to turn her skirts and cloak inside out to conceal the bloodstains.
Stewart makes a great deal of the point about blood-stained clothing, but he never seems to have considered the possibility of strangulation. He always assumes that the murderer must have walked away bespattered with blood. The nearest he comes to recognizing that something such as this could have happened is when he says that the murderer ‘would have been easily able to almost instantly produce unconsciousness, particularly in persons given to drink, by a method frequently used on patients in these days by midwives who practised among the extremely poor’. This remark is never explained, but presumably he is suggesting that midwives partly throttled their patients by exerting half-pressure on the pressure points.
The Complete Jack the Ripper Page 29