Jack the Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect

by Robert House

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Paraphrased from Paul Begg’s talk at the Docklands Museum, London, May 17, 2008.

  2. Sir Robert Anderson, “The Lighter Side of My Official Life,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh, March 1910.

  3. Reference MEPO 3/140, ff. 177–183. Most of the quotes I have cited from official police documents related to the case are from Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2000).

  4. Donald Swanson, marginalia in his personal copy of Robert Anderson’s book The Lighter Side of My Official Life. Property of Nevill Swanson, on permanent loan to New Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum.

  1. “Fear God and the King”

  1. John Klier and Shlomo Lambroza, eds., Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 4.

  2. Ibid., 5–6.

  3. Simon M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times until the Present Day, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1918).

  4. William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975), 4–7.

  5. Jewish Chronicle, March 25, 1881.

  6. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times until the Present Day, 40.

  7. Ibid., 96.

  8. “The Assassination of the Czar,” Jewish Chronicle, March 18, 1881.

  9. Eugene C. Black, The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry 1880–1920 (Oxford, UK: B. Blackwell, 1988), 243.

  10. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 17.

  11. Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 31.

  12. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, “The Real Blood of Passover,” www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-real-blood-of-passover-1.213323.

  13. Ukase of January 17, 1835, quoted in Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 14.

  14. I. Michael Aronson, “The Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia in 1881,” in Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 47.

  15. Nicholas Ignatiev, memorandum of March 12, 1881. Cited in Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 58.

  2. 1881: The Storm Breaks

  1. Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, trans. Antonina W. Boius (New York: Free Press, 2005), 414.

  2. John Klier and Shlomo Lambroza, eds., Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 39.

  3. “The Late Czar,” Jewish Chronicle, March 25, 1881.

  4. “The Late Emperor of Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, April 1, 1881.

  5. “The Assassination of the Czar,” Jewish Chronicle, March 18, 1881.

  6. Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 39.

  7. Ibid.

  8. I. Michael Aronson, “The Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia in 1881,” in Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 45.

  9. “Outrages upon Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 6, 1881.

  10. “Outrages upon Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 13, 1881.

  11. “Outrages upon Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 6, 1881.

  12. “Outrages upon Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 13, 1881.

  13. “Outrages upon Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 6, 1881.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. “The Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 20, 1881.

  17. Simon M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times Until the Present Day, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1918),

  254–255.

  18. “The Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 20, 1881; and Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, 254.

  19. “The Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 20, 1881.

  20. “The Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, June 24, 1881.

  21. Jewish Chronicle, May 1881, www.vladimirets.org/pale_of_settlement.htm.

  22. “The Jews in Russia,” Jewish Chronicle, May 20, 1881.

  23. Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 39.

  24. Aronson, “The Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia in 1881,” in Klier and Lambroza, Pogroms, 50.

  25. Daniel Field, “Nationality Groups in Russia around 1900,” www.choices.edu/resources/supplemental_russianrevolution_2.php.

  26. Walter Moss, A History of Russia (London: Anthem Press, 2005), 84. Moss cites Robert F. Byrnes, Pobedonostev: His Life and Thought (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), 207.

  27. William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975), 30.

  3. The Victorian East End

  1. “London: The Greatest City,” Channel4.com, www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/i-m/london4.html.

  2. Arthur Morrison, Tales of Mean Streets (Boston: Roberts Bros., 1895), 15.

  3. John Henry Mackay, The Anarchists: A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Humboldt Publishing, 1894), 152.

  4. “At Last,” Times (London), September 19, 1888.x

  5. “The Whitechapel Tragedies. A Night Spent with Inspector Moore,” Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1889.

  6. William J. Fishman, “Tower Hamlets 1888.” Originally published in the East London Record, no. 2, 1979.

  7. “At Last,” Times (London).

  8. Alan Palmer, The East End, Four Centuries of London Life (London: J. Murray, 1989), 73.

  9. Ibid., 90–92.

  10. John Law (Margaret Harkness), Captain Lobe: Or in Darkest London (Cambridge, UK: Black Apollo Press, 1889), 103–104.

  11. Helen Ware, “Prostitution and the State: The Recruitment, Regulation, and Role of Prostitution in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century” (PhD thesis, University of London, 1969), 408.

  12. William Acton, Prostitution, Considered in Its Moral, Social and Sanitary Aspects, 2nd edition (London: John Churchill and Sons, 1870).

  13. Stephan Ridgway, “Sexuality and Modernity,” A lecture for Sociology at Sydney University, 1996, www.isis.aust.com/stephan/writings/sexuality.

  14. Charles Booth, Albert Fried, Charles Booth’s London: A Portrait of the Poor at the Turn of the Century, Drawn from His Life and Labour of the People in London, ed. A Fried and R. Elman (Pantheon Books, 1968), 128.

  15. Paula Bartley, Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860–1914 (New York: Routledge, 2000), 10.

  16. Jack London, People of the Abyss (New York: Macmillan, 1903), 37.

  17. Edward J. Bristow, Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight against White Slavery, 1870–1939 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 21.

  18. Ibid., footnote p. 55.

  19. Rosemary O’Day and David Englander, Mr Charles Booth’s Inquiry: Life and Labour of the People in London Reconsidered (London: Hambledon Press, 1993), 79, cites Passfield MS Diary, xii, 172.

  20. Hermann Adler, “Report to Home Office on the Problem of Prostitution in the Jewish Community,” in James Knowles, ed., The Nineteenth Century, vol. 23 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench 1888), 415.

  21. Bristow, Prostitution and Prejudice, 237.

  22. William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914 (London: Duckworth, 1975), footnote p. 51.

  23. Robert F. Haggard, “Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London,” in Essays in History, published by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, 1993.

  24. Andrew Mearns, Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor (London: James Clarke, 1883).

  25. London, People of the Abyss, 25.

  26. Mearns, Bitter Cry of Outcast London, 6.

  27. London, People of the Abyss, viii.

  28. Queen Victoria to William Gladstone, October 30, 1883, in G. E. Buckle, ed., Letters of Queen Victoria, second series (London: John Murray, 1926), III, 452, quoted in Palmer, The East End, 83.

  29. Palmer, The East End, 83.

  30.
MEPO, Supt. Arnold (H Division), report submitted to Commissioner Monro, August 3, 1889.

  31. “Whitechapel Horrors,” Times (London), July 23, 1889.

  32. Jacqueline Banerjee, “How Safe Was Victorian London?” Victorian Web, www.victorianweb.org/history/crime/banerjee1.html.

  33. MEPO, Supt. Arnold (H Division), report submitted to Commissioner Monro, August 3, 1889.

  34. Home Office, August 6, 1889, A49301/173, cited in Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2000), 473–474.

  35. “The Whitechapel Tragedies. A Night Spent with Inspector Moore,” Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1889.

  36. Letter from James Monro to the Home Office, May 5, 1889.

  37. “The Whitechapel Tragedies. A Night Spent with Inspector Moore,” Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1889.

  4. Jewish Tailors in the East End

  1. E-mail correspondence with Adam Weglowski, of Focus Historia monthly (Poland), June 2008.

  2. Marriage Certificate of Abram Jozef Koziminskiewicz and Golda Lubnowska, 1844, State Archives, Poznan, Poland. The exact year of Golda’s birth is again unknown and is based on her age in later documents, which vary somewhat.

  3. Birth certificates of Pessa Elka Kozminska, Hinde Kozminska, Iciek Szyme Kozminski, Malke Ruchel Kozminska, Blimbe Laje Kozminska, and Aron Mordke Kozminski, all from the State Archives, Poznan, Poland.

  4. Micha Rawita-Witanowski, Kodawa i jej okolice: Pod wzgedem historyczno-ludoznawczym, http://books.google.com/books?id=wolBAAAAYAAJ&client=safari&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  5. Death certificate, Abram Kozminski, January 18/30, 1874. Register of Jewish deaths at Kodawa, 1874, number 1, State Archives, Poznan, Poland.

  6. Book of Permanent Residents (Index and Book 130, p. 104), Kodawa, Polish State Archives, Konin, undated entries.

  7. Mosiek and Malke’s marriage certificate has not yet been found.

  8. Birth certificate of Mosiek Lubnowski, January 6, 1857, State Archives, Poznan, Poland.

  9. Correspondence with a descendant of Matilda and Morris Lubnowski, 2007.

  10. The Lubnowskis’ firstborn son, Joseph, was born in Germany circa 1878–1880 (as indicated on the 1891 London Census).

  11. Marriage certificate of Wolek Lajb (later Woolf) Kozminski and Brucha (later Betsy) Kozminska (at Kolo), May 5/17, 1881.

  12. William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914 (Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications, 2004), 37.

  13. Ibid., 33, quotes Lloyd Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England (1870–1914) (London: Allen and Unwin 1960), 27.

  14. Charles Booth, ed, Life and Labour of the People in London, vol. 1 (London: Williams and Norgate, 1889), 582–583.

  15. George R. Sims, “Sweated London,” in George R. Sims, ed., Living London (London: Cassell, 1902), 52.

  16. Ibid, 53.

  17. Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, 148.

  18. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 47.

  19. “Our Foreign Poor,” editorial in the Jewish Chronicle, August 12, 1881.

  20. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 32–33.

  21. Testimony of Ellis Franklin to House of Commons Select Committee on Alien Immigration, First Report, 1888.

  22. Isaac Abrahams’s son Mark was born on December 19, 1872, at which time Isaac’s address was listed as 13 Fieldgate Street. Birth registration, January 18, 1873. General Register Office (GRO) reference: Whitechapel 1c 399.

  23. Charles Booth online archive, http://booth.lse.ac.uk/. Survey notebooks concerning the tailoring trade, B109, p. 69.

  24. Woolf Abrahams’s naturalization application, December 1886–January 1887, HO 144/187/A45961.

  25. Illustrated Police News, April 24, 1886.

  26. Booth notebooks, B8, pp. 91, 93. In July 1887, Woolf was still registered at 62 Greenfield Street (1888 electoral register). By July 1888, his address was unknown.

  27. Booth Poverty Map, 1889, Charles Booth Online Archive, http://booth.lse.ac.uk.

  28. Morris Lubnowski Naturalization Application, June–August 1888.

  29. Booth notebooks, B109, p. 69.

  30. Booth, “The Inhabitants of Tower Hamlets (School [June 1887] Board Division), Their Condition and Occupations,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (1887): 370.

  31. Booth notebooks, A19, p. 38, and B109, p. 69. These workshops can be seen on an 1894 London Ordinance Survey map of the area.

  32. Booth notebooks, A19, pp. 78–82.

  33. Ibid., p. 79.

  34. Lou Taylor, The Study of Dress History (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 94. Quoting Arthur A. Baumann, MP, “Possible Remedies for the Sweating System,” National Review 12, no. 69 (November 1888): 289–307.

  35. J. A. Dyche, “A Trade Created by Jewish Immigrants: The History of the Mantle Trade in England,” Jewish Chronicle, April 22, 1898.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Booth, ed., Life and Labour of the People in London, 102.

  38. Interview with Mr. Zeitlin, December 9, 1887, Booth notebooks, A19, pp. 53–57.

  39. Myer Wilchinski, “History of a Sweater,” Commonweal, May and June 1888, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, p. 45, and Bishop of Bedford to House of Lords’ Committee, in William H. Wilkins, The Alien Invasion (London: Methuen,

  1892), 43.

  40. Wilkins, The Alien Invasion, 44.

  41. “Busy and Slack in London,” Poilishe Yidl, September 19, 1884, quoted in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 144.

  42. Sims, Living London, 55.

  43. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 136.

  44. Jewish Chronicle, May 16, 1884, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 136.

  45. “The Haunts of the East End Anarchist,” Evening Standard, October 2, 1894.

  46. Alan Palmer, The East End, Four Centuries of London Life (London: J. Murray, 1989), 105.

  47. Poilishe Yidl, no. 11, October 3, 1884, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 90.

  48. Letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, February 1886, quoted in Palmer, The East End, Four Centuries of London Life, 100.

  49. Stephen Fox, “The Invasion of the Pauper Foreigners,” Contemporary Review (June 1888): 861. Quoted in “Jack the Ripper as the Threat of Outcast London,” by Robert F. Haggard, Essays in History (Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, 1993).

  50. Pall Mall Gazette, March 9, 1887.

  51. “Memorial of Chinese Laborers, Resident at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, to the Chinese Consul at New York,” 1885, U.S. House Report (1885–1886), 49th Congress, 1st Session, no. 2044, p. 28–32. Cited in Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and H. Mark Lai, Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 52.

  52. St. James’s Gazette, May 1887, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 70.

  53. Arnold White, “The Modern Jew,” letter to the editor, London Times, 1899.

  54. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 71.

  55. East London Advertiser, March 3, 1888, cited in Anne J. Kershen, Strangers, Aliens, and Asians: Huguenots, Jews, and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields, 1660–2000 (New York: Routledge, 2005), 177.

  56. Interviews with Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Rosen, and Mr. Solomon, conducted March 1, 1888, Booth notebooks, A19, pp. 78–82.

  57. Dyche, “A Trade Created by Jewish Immigrants.”

  58. Beatrice Potter, “Pages from a Work-Girl’s Diary,” in Nineteenth Century (London: Kegan Paul, Trench 1888), 120.

  59. Diary of Beatrice Webb, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Harvard University, 1982), 267.

  60. Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship (Cambridge, UK: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1979), 331.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, 108.

  63. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 71.
/>   64. Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, 492.

  65. Arnold White, The Destitute Alien in Great Britain (London: S. Sonnenschein, 1892), 87.

  66. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 44.

  67. Select Committee of the House of Lords, Report on the Sweating System, Parliamentary Papers, 1890, vol. XVII.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Ibid.

  71. Ibid.

  72. Ibid.

  73. Wilchinski, “History of a Sweater,” cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, 46.

  74. “The Pages from a Work Girl’s Diary,” Nineteenth Century, September 1888.

  75. Select Committee of the House of Lords, “Report on the Sweating System.”

  76. “A Sweater’s Meeting,” East London Observer, Saturday, June 30, 1888.

  77. “The Magistrate and the Pole,” Jewish Chronicle, September 14, 1888.

  78. Arbeter Fraint, March 15, 1889, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 165.

  79. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 167.

  80. Ibid., 163–168.

  81. Ibid., 173.

  82. Ibid., 166.

  83. “Interview with the Secretary,” East London Observer, September 21, 1889.

  84. Jewish Chronicle, September 6, 1889, cited in Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 174.

  85. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 73; and Fishman, “Tower Hamlets 1888.”

  86. Robert K. Ressler, Ann Wolbert Burgess, and John E. Douglas, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 71.

  87. Letter printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, February 1886.

  5. The Murders Begin

  1. “Alleged Fatal Stabbing Case in Whitechapel,” Eastern Post and City Chronicle, April 7, 1888. (Most of the newspaper reports cited concerning the murders were from the very extensive “Press Reports” section of the Web site casebook.org. I am indebted to the Web site and to the many people who spent countless hours transcribing the reports.)

  2. Ibid.

  3. “Attempted Murder at Mile End,” East London Observer, March 31, 1888.

  4. “Money or Your Life,” East London Advertiser, March 31, 1888.