They All Love Jack

by Bruce Robinson

  This history is choke-fed with the kind of mind-numbing vaudeville propagated by men like Harris. It is endless and everywhere, erupting down the years like an anaesthetising virus. ‘Who christened the phantom killer with the terrible sobriquet of Jack the Ripper?’ asks R. Thurston Hopkins, a long-dead forefather of the Harris school. ‘That is a small mystery in itself,’ he says. ‘At the time the police bag bulged with hundreds of anonymous letters from all kinds of cranks and half-witted persons who sought to criticise or hoax the officers engaged in following up the murders.’13

  To acquiesce in the face of such damned silliness is not only to compromise reality, but also to miss the most important credential of the ‘Dear Boss’ letter.

  And that is that it was the first.14

  ‘Dear Boss’ was not one of hundreds plucked from a bulging postbag. It was a one-off. At the time of its receipt it was unique. Within twenty-four hours, two women lost their lives in Whitechapel; can even the most ardent apologist persist with the asinine certainty of ‘hoax’?

  ‘Sir,’ wrote a correspondent to the Daily Telegraph on 5 October 1888,

  Permit me to suggest in reference to the tragedies that are presently occupying the mind of everyone:–

  1) That the idea that the letters attributed to the murderer could have been a ‘practical joke’ or ‘hoax’ is quite untenable. It is inconceivable that any human being, even the most degraded, could joke on such a subject. Rather, the more degraded the class, the more sympathy there would be with the unfortunate women. Whereas, these letters breathe the very spirit of such a murderer.

  2) It is unlikely that the man’s dress or exterior is at all in keeping with his crimes. Probably he is well dressed, and his entire appearance is such as to totally disarm suspicion, otherwise women would not trust themselves in his company in the way that they seem to do.

  In my view this contemporary opinion is worth more than five hundred Melvin Harrises. Later in the narrative I shall confirm the provenance of much of Jack’s correspondence. Meanwhile, let it be said, the Central News Agency made no attempt to exploit this letter. It was forwarded directly to the police, who clearly considered it genuine enough to slap it up all over East London. Why Warren was forced into its publication is a matter I’ll presently explore, and we can use Mr Harris’s world-class expertise as a stepping stone.

  As Melvin is not best-known for his original thinking, I wanted to find out from where he had purloined his opinion. This didn’t waste much of my morning. His ‘ink-stained hack’ surfaced from the inkwell of Sir Melville Macnaghten, the man who gave us a lead on Kosminski, a.k.a. ‘the Whitechapel Wanker’. ‘In this ghastly production,’ Sir Melville wrote of ‘Dear Boss’ in 1914, ‘I have always thought I could discern the stained forefinger of a journalist.’

  But Macnaghten wasn’t yet at Scotland Yard at the time of the murders, so he can’t be Harris’s source. We therefore descend the autobiographical ladder from 1914 to 1910, where no less a figure than Sir Robert Anderson waits with support for Melville and Melvin. ‘The “Dear Boss” letter,’ writes Anderson, ‘now preserved in the Police Museum at New Scotland Yard, ‘is the creation of an enterprising young journalist.’15

  So, in other words, the very outfit that put the posters up (Scotland Yard) declares that ‘Dear Boss’ is false? By definition, they then are also hoaxers? It’s something to get your mind around. But wait a minute, the barmy pulpiteer isn’t yet spent: ‘Having regard to the interest attached to this case, I am almost tempted to disclose the identity of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter above referred to.’16

  The identity of the murderer? Holy Christ, that’s a statement from the chief of London’s CID. Not only could he have arrested some ‘ink-stained hack’, he could also have arrested Jack the Ripper! What was the problem, Bob?

  ‘The only person who ever got a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him.’

  What a rotter. I bet he was a Hebrew.

  ‘In stating that he was a Polish Jew, I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact.’17

  I don’t know where to attack this horseshit first. Let us not forget who’s writing it. This was the head of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, writing of 1888. Allow me to give a brief reprise. Anderson says he knew the writing on the wall was genuine, ‘chalked up by the murderer’, but colluded at its public suppression. And he says he knew ‘Dear Boss’ was fake, yet connived at its promotion, plastering posters on what may well have been the same bloody wall.

  This endless contradictory junk is pawed over by Ripperologists in their tireless quest for answers that do not involve police duplicity, when such answers there are none. Macnaghten and Anderson are doormen at the house of mirrors, touts selling tickets for the ‘Mystery Show’. There was no ‘Irresponsible Journalist’, no ‘Ink-Stained Hack’, just as there was no ‘Womb-Collector’, ‘Goulston Street Hoaxer’ or ‘Nautical Man’. Irresponsibility was the prerogative of the Metropolitan Police. At the time ‘Dear Boss’ went up on posters, somebody at Scotland Yard clearly considered it genuine enough to publish. This is where historical reality must impinge on even the misplaced certainties of Melvin Harris. There’s no way a man saturated in this affair, like Inspector Moore, is going to spend half an afternoon comparing the text with the inventions of some ink-stained idiot whose identity is supposedly already known to Robert Anderson. Mr Harris is trying to pull out a rabbit without a hat. His empiricisms are in fact confections culled from the memoirs of a pair of easily discredited liars.

  The police knew ‘Dear Boss’ was about as genuine as it got, but as the unarrestable purger proceeded with his rampage, certain hallmarks of his correspondence had become very un-OK. It was therefore decided, almost simultaneously with the publication of ‘Dear Boss’, that all letters from Jack, both the fake and the real, were to be surreptitiously tainted with the word ‘hoax’. A process of transparent but enduring spin kicked in, men like Macnaghten retrospectively mopping up spilt milk just as Charlie Warren did at the wall.

  The trashing of evidence was by now endemic, posing the question, why put the ‘Dear Boss’ posters up in the first place?

  We come to the nub of Warren’s dilemma, and yet again it was Jack calling the shots. Early in the morning of 1 October, the Central News Agency received another communication. Subsequently known as ‘Saucy Jacky’, it was a postcard signed ‘Jack the Ripper’:

  I was not codding dear old boss when I gave you the tip, you’ll hear about saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn’t finish straight off. had no time to get ears for police thanks for keeping the last letter back till i get to work again – Jack the Ripper.

  Receipt of this card coincided with the first public appearance of ‘Dear Boss’, its text only reproduced early that same morning in the Daily Post. Hoax or not, it was assumed by press and public alike that the letter and the postcard were the work of the same pen. Later that day the evening papers printed the text only of both, the reaction to them summarised by the Evening News:

  It is not necessarily assumed that this has been the work of the murderer. The idea that naturally occurs being that the whole thing is a practical joke. At the same time the writing of the previous letter immediately before the commission of the murders of yesterday was so singular a coincidence that it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the cool, calculating villain who is responsible for the crimes has chosen to make the post a medium through which to convey to the press his grimly diabolical humour.

  In my view this is a very reasonable supposition, which a variety of apologists have been trying to navigate ever since. If you want to ascribe the entire Ripper correspondence to hoaxers, it is first necessary to discredit the most important letter of them all. Experts like Melvin Harris have applied themselves to the task with muscular zeal, and where Ha
rris flunks it, Mr Philip Sugden picks it up. Both deny that ‘Dear Boss’ has any connection with the murderer, and both deny any reason to assume one, since the threat to Eddowes’ ears wasn’t carried out.

  ‘The next job I do,’ forewarned the letter, ‘I shall clip the lady’s ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly.’

  ‘The threat was not carried out,’ counters Mr Sugden. ‘Claims made on behalf of the Jack the Ripper letter and postcard are easily refuted.’18

  I think they may be a little more difficult to refute than he imagines. Obviously, had there been an assault on Eddowes’ ears, it would massively up the ante in favour of the genuineness of ‘Dear Boss’. In fact, it would then be foolish to claim the letter was a hoax. For how could any hoaxer predict the intentions of an unknown psychopath with such astonishing specificity? If ears, or an ear, had been cut off, only the murderer could have written ‘Dear Boss’.

  ‘Unfortunately for the argument,’ writes Mr Sugden, ‘the medical records tell a different story. Dr Gordon Brown, examining Kate’s body in Mitre Square, did discover that the lobe of her right ear had been severed. But one detached earlobe does not constitute evidence of any attempt to remove both ears and, given the extensive mutilation of Kate’s face and head, can hardly be deemed as significant.’19

  Mr Sugden may pursue any argument he pleases, but he might want to check out Gordon Brown’s medical report with a little more precision. Reading from his notes at the inquest, Dr Brown said, ‘The lobe and auricle of the right ear were cut obliquely through.’20

  Auricle: The external ear, or that part of the ear that is prominent from the head.

  The definition comes from Webster’s Dictionary, 1888. Thus, according to Dr Gordon Brown, the Ripper had amputated Mrs Eddowes’ right ear in its entirety. This included the lobe. We have a mortuary sketch that clearly shows her right ear as missing, and it is a reality confirmed in various postmortem photographs. Where this ‘auricle’ went is not accounted for.

  Brown’s original drawing shows a dark slash in place of the amputated ear, its absence confirmed by the photograph of Eddowes in her coffin, where instead of an auricle there is a black hole. This is hardly the trivial distraction of an accidentally severed lobe. Contrary to Mr Sugden, I think this amputated ear may well constitute evidence of an intention to amputate the other. But as stated in ‘Saucy Jacky’, maybe the murderer didn’t have the time or the security to harvest both.

  Meanwhile, congratulations to our immature and irresponsible ‘ink-stained hack’. He must have been some hot scribe, with a facility of insight little short of the supernatural. Hitherto, the object of his fantasy had not mutilated the head or face of any previous victim, knife activity being kept to the torso. But now, in perfect synchronicity with his homicidal muse, both the ‘ink-stained hack’ and Jack the Ripper move on to new territory, one threatening ears, and the other actually cutting one off. It is to be hoped that this ink-stained journalist with a talent to access the future had a triumphant career, beyond the ersatz blather of Mr Melvin Harris and Mr Philip Sugden.

  Ever eager to get into line behind the ‘authorities’, Ripperology took up the task of misinformation, the following being a contribution from The A to Z: ‘Since the “Dear Boss” letter was published in the morning papers on October 1st, when the “Saucy Jacky” card was posted, the latter might easily have been an imaginative hoax by another hand.’

  I want to evaluate this ‘might easily’. To explore it, I will separate these so-called hoaxers into Hoaxer A and Hoaxer B, being ‘Dear Boss’ and ‘Saucy Jacky’ respectively.

  Let’s have a look at that word ‘easily’ in relation to Hoaxer B. Firstly, how does he know whether the Ripper has cut off two ears, one ear, or none? Dr Brown’s report on the missing ear was not yet in the public domain. Thus either Hoaxer B must have access to inside information (like the Maybricks with their matchbox), or he is the murderer. But conjecture over ears pales into insignificance compared with the next hurdle Hoaxer B must surmount. The A to Z correctly states that ‘Dear Boss’ was published on 1 October, in the same dawn as ‘Saucy Jacky’, but neglects to mention a problem of some circumstance for Hoaxer B, and that is the matter of the handwriting.

  The printed, typeset text of ‘Dear Boss’ was published in the Morning Post of 1 October, but not in facsimile of the handwriting it was written in. As far as Hoaxer B could know, ‘Dear Boss’ might have been written in capitals, slanting forwards, slanting backwards, in copperplate or ignorant scrawl.

  For access to the physical appearance of the handwriting, Hoaxer B would have had to wait for another three days before the facsimile posters went up. If Hoaxer A and Hoaxer B were not one and the same, Hoaxer B must have been rushing around London like the proverbial blue-arsed fly. Not only would he have to be certain of his ears, contradicting ‘Dear Boss’ and championing a negative, he would also have had somehow to discover the printworks where the Met were preparing to set up the facsimiles for their as yet unprinted posters. And it is here that, like the ‘ink-stained hack’, his talents truly bloom. By some photo-telepathic gift, as yet unexplained, Hoaxer B was able to reproduce the handwriting of Hoaxer A’s ‘Dear Boss’ as accurately as if it had come in on a fax.

  Former CID officer and handwriting specialist Douglas Blackburn approaches the analysis of such enigmas as ‘Dear Boss’ and ‘Saucy Jacky’ on the premise of something he calls ‘the law of probabilities’. ‘It is asking too much,’ he writes, ‘to expect one to believe that there should be two different persons, probably strangers, who possess the same peculiarities of penmanship.’21

  It is ‘asking too much’ for anyone to believe it. So, by way of experiment, I ask the authors of The A to Z to look at the text of this page, and at four in the morning, on any windy corner of choice, to reproduce a single line of it in my handwriting, or anything that even vaguely approximates it.

  ‘Might easily’ has become ‘frankly ridiculous’.

  By mid-morning on 1 October 1888, two newspapers, the Evening News and the Star, had run the text – but not the facsimile – of the Ripper correspondence. ‘A postcard bearing the stamp London E October 1, was received this morning,’ reported the Evening News. ‘The address and subject matter being written in red and undoubtedly by the same person from whom the sensational letter already published was received Thursday last.’

  It’s interesting to note that both the Evening News and the Star acknowledge the Central News Agency as their source, and not the Metropolitan Police. There appears to have been no consultation with the police on whether the letters should be published, and pressure of time suggests that no authority was sought. It seems ‘Saucy Jacky’ was too hot a news item to risk a tangle with red tape, and in deference to commercial interests, it went out immediately. By ten that morning the cat was out of the bag.

  That same day, the original ‘Dear Boss’ came into the hands of Commissioner Henry Smith of the City Police, The Times commenting, ‘No doubt is entertained that the writer of both communications, who ever he may be, is the same person.’

  That didn’t do a lot for The A to Z, and I can guarantee it didn’t do a lot for Warren. Twenty-four hours earlier he’d ruffled not a few feathers in the City, Smith being particularly sour after Warren’s failure to protect the writing on the wall.

  Irritability among the City Police was great, as was the antipathy of the press (although Fleet Street was as yet ignorant of the farce at Goulston Street). Any more dismissal of evidence, or potential evidence, and Smith might have gone bananas. If Warren had tried to trash these letters (as his mendacious pals were later to do), a dangerous public row might have erupted between the City and the Met. Warren could hardly rub out one lot of handwriting and just as casually dismiss another. He didn’t obliterate the writing on the wall in order for it to become public – he wanted it to stay a secret, so as to avoid precisely the furore it caused when it got out.

  I therefore suspect Smith of bei
ng a more likely reason the posters were stuck up than any pressing desire from Warren. Maybe posters would draw the sting of denying Smith his photographs. Plus, there were tactical advantages. First, it would make the press and the public think the police were actually doing something – which, apart from covering up, they were not. And second, a poster campaign would hopefully distract attention from Scotland Yard’s flagrant ineptitude.

  Week one of October 1888 must have been amongst the worst of Charles Warren’s life. It wasn’t Saucy Jacky doing the rushing about, but rather the reverse. Jack was out of control, and it was Dear Old Boss who had to run in the night. He must have been traumatised with apprehension, gone to work expecting to find a body hanging over the telegraph wires or a head in his desk drawer. Certainly, as will be explored, on 4 October a headless piss-take was discovered in the vaults of his new building at New Scotland Yard. Oh my God, did they ever struggle to navigate that one. Everywhere Warren looked was murder, and with it came the inevitable condemnation. The people were ‘bitterly angry’, and the press reflected it. ‘In the East End of London these two latest atrocities have caused a reign of terror,’ bawled the Evening Post.

  Feelings of hopelessness, horror, and despair spread through the crowded populations on Sunday evening. Thousands of people are thronging the scenes of the murders, and people are angrily crying out against Mr Matthews, the Home Secretary, and against the futility of the work of the police. They are indignantly discussing amongst themselves what they consider the proven ineptitude of the police. They point out that it is only after the murders are committed that the police come into play at all; that they are never at the right spot at the right moment; and that what ever their preparations and organisation may be, there stands the indisputable fact that nothing is accomplished.22