The Complete and Essential Jack the Ripper

by Paul Begg

  Dr George Bagster Phillips believed that the two murders were not committed by the same person21 but made no comment as to the medical skill of Catherine Eddowes’s killer as he had done in the case of Annie Chapman. Dr George Sequeira believed that the murderer would have had sufficient light in Mitre Square to perform the mutilations and that he needn’t have any anatomical skill,22 but Dr Frederick Gordon Brown hinted at some considerable ability and knowledge – even that possessed by someone used to cutting up animals for a living.23

  News of the two murders was quick to spread, and great crowds assembled outside the gates of Dutfield’s Yard, and the entrances to Mitre Square as east London woke to tales of more horrors on their doorstep.

  All day long there were yesterday mobs of people assembled in the vicinity of the two dead-houses in which the victims are at present laid, and Berner-street was at one time during the day greatly thronged. During the working dinner hour people poured down into the neighbourhood in a continuous stream, and a densely packed crowd stood before the closed gates beside the International Club, discussing the events, as though the sight of the gates and the club assisted them to realise what the morning papers had been narrating to them. Thousands of the people about this part of London cannot read English papers; but they can more or less perfectly understand spoken English, and up and down the street and all the corners persons were to be seen reading aloud the newspaper accounts to listening throngs clustering round, every detail of the shocking occurrences being earnestly debated.24

  7.

  ‘O have you seen the devle?’

  The events of 30 September triggered a new groundswell of opinion from the public and press alike. Newspapers around the globe were now becoming more than familiar with the unravelling events, reporting on the crimes as if they were happening on their own doorstep. Back in London, the radical press was becoming extremely vocal in its condemnation of the police, especially Sir Charles Warren and Henry Matthews, who as home secretary was deemed complicit in the perceived malfunction of the Metropolitan Police. One element of this which continued to surface was the matter of rewards, as picked up by the Star:

  Mr MATTHEWS has neatly tapped in the last nail in his political coffin by again refusing to issue the reward which the City authorities, the majority of the Unionist Press in London, and all sensible officials now favour. Whitechapel now knows the measure of the interest which its lords and governors take in its welfare. No one asks for a reward as an absolutely certain method of discovering the murderer. We ask for it as one of a series of methods – such as drawing the cordon, setting on bloodhounds, reorganising the detective agencies of the metropolis, and modifying the clumsy military drill of the police in favour of a system more especially directed to the pursuit of criminals – which have occurred to everybody but Sir CHARLES WARREN and Mr MATTHEWS.1

  The Home Office stood its ground, despite the increasing number of private individuals and organizations offering rewards of their own. As suggested by the comments above, the lord mayor of London had offered a reward of £500 on behalf of the City authorities, which, combined with contributions from other private businesses and institutions, made a total of £1,200.2

  Another newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, now spoke of a ‘headless C.I.D.’ and made a direct reference to Dr Robert Anderson’s absence:

  At a time when all the world is ringing with outcries against the officials who allow murder to stalk unchecked through the most densely crowded quarter of the metropolis, the chief official who is responsible for the detection of the murderer is as invisible to Londoners as the murderer himself. You may seek for Dr Anderson in Scotland-yard, you may look for him in Whitehall-place, but you will not find him, for he is not there. Dr Anderson, with all the arduous duties of his office still to learn, is preparing himself for his apprenticeship by taking a pleasant holiday in Switzerland!3

  The Star printed extracts from what it deemed were ‘hundreds’ of letters it had received from the general public. Suggestions were many, such as having a number of prostitutes working alongside the police and even having officers dressed as women to act as lures. One of the most common suggestions was the introduction of bloodhounds, a matter that was being discussed heavily by the Metropolitan Police at that time. They had concerns, however – the possibility of such a dog attacking the wrong person was an issue, as were the difficulties faced by dogs which had not been trained for use in the urban environment. Even the financial expenditure for keeping bloodhounds was discussed. Despite these reservations, behind the scenes the idea was certainly gaining momentum.4

  So the perceived inactivity of the police by the radical press was not necessarily the reality. Following the double murder, extensive enquiries were made; reports made by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, now well and truly in the thick of his new post, showed that a colossal manhunt was underway. Eighty thousand leaflets were distributed to home occupiers requesting information; 2,000 lodgers from common lodging houses were interviewed and examined; the Thames Police were enquiring into the movements of sailors; the activities of three supposedly insane medical students were investigated; seventy-six butchers and slaughtermen along with their employees were questioned, as were visiting Greek gypsies and cowboys; upwards of 300 people were detained.5

  Another development had come on 1 October, when a postcard was received by the Central News Agency from ‘Jack the Ripper’. The writing was the same as that found on the original ‘Dear Boss’ letter of 27 September and its content was equally chilling:

  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 not the time to get ears for police. thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

  Jack the Ripper

  It bore the postmark ‘LONDON OC 1 88’ and, despite the apparent prediction of a ‘double event’, it could easily have been written and posted the day before, when news of the murders was already common knowledge. The police had been keeping the previous letter back, as requested by the author, until there was another murder. Now the time seemed to be right to issue the text of the ‘Dear Boss’ letter. It appeared in the evening newspapers later that day6 along with the text of the postcard, and both were soon to be reproduced on posters which were displayed on police station noticeboards around the country. The result could not have been predicted. In the following weeks, a multitude of letters descended upon the newspaper offices, police stations and homes of private individuals, each one claiming to have been written by the murderer and many of them bearing the name ‘Jack the Ripper’. Like ‘Leather Apron’ before it, the name became a byword for fear, the difference being that this one prevailed.

  Elizabeth Stride was buried in a modest ceremony at the East London cemetery in Plaistow on 6 October, and Catherine Eddowes’s funeral took place at the City of London cemetery (Little Ilford) two days later, her body being interred only a few yards from that of Mary Ann Nichols. As Catherine’s funeral cortège made its way from Golden Lane mortuary, crowds of people gathered or leaned out of windows as the procession passed, marking a tremendous outpouring of sympathy for the plight of the Whitechapel murderer’s latest victim.7 Ironically, it was only after so much bloodshed that Robert Anderson returned to London, as a matter of great urgency, to take up his duties as Assistant Commissioner (CID). It was hardly an auspicious start.

  Meanwhile, the Vigilance Committees continued their work and the Central Vigilance Committee, formed in the West End of London in the mid-1880s, but now focusing its attention on events unravelling in Whitechapel, joined the cause.8 George Lusk, chairman of the Mile End Vigilance Committee, had by now become a prominent resident of the East End, and his name and address had been made public several times in the press. As a result of this, he had been subjected to a number of letters from the alleged murderer. One, however, took on considerable significance. On 16 October, he rece
ived a parcel in the evening post; contained within were a letter and half a kidney. The letter, in a less-than-educated hand, peppered with spelling mistakes, read:

  From hell

  Mr Lusk,

  Sir

  I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

  signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

  Lusk was immediately of the opinion that it was all a gruesome stunt, but he did not dispose of the kidney immediately. After mentioning it to members of the committee two days later, he was encouraged to have it examined by a medical expert, bearing in mind that a similar organ had been taken from Catherine Eddowes. The kidney was taken to the surgery of Dr Frederick Wiles at 56 Mile End Road, but in his absence it was examined by his assistant, Mr Francis Reed. Reed, feeling that it warranted further inspection, took the piece to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw, curator of the Pathology Museum at the London Hospital. From there it was taken, along with the accompanying letter, to Leman Street police station. The kidney was passed on to the City of London Police for further examination by Dr Frederick Gordon Brown, and the letter went to Scotland Yard.9

  Mr Reed believed the kidney to be human, that it was divided longitudinally and that it had been preserved in spirits of wine. He was also reported as stating that it was probably genuine.10 The initial reports on Dr Openshaw’s findings were highly misleading. According to a press interview with Vigilance Committee member Joseph Aarons, Dr Openshaw had claimed that it was part of a left kidney, that it had belonged to a female in the habit of drinking and that it had probably been removed around the same time as the previous murder.11

  However, interviewed in the press the following day, Dr Openshaw refuted nearly all the claims attributed to him:

  Dr Openshaw told a Star reporter to-day that after having examined the piece of kidney under the microscope he was of opinion that it was half of a left human kidney. He couldn’t say, however, whether it was that of a woman, nor how long ago it had been removed from the body, as it had been preserved in spirits.12

  Various claims and counter-claims would result from this obviously important piece of potential evidence, particularly regarding the condition of the kidney portion in relation to the other organ remaining in Catherine Eddowes’s body. One consideration, suggested by the original press accounts, is that it was described as a ‘ginny’ kidney, an idea that was bolstered by the later opinion of Major Henry Smith, in 1888 the acting commissioner of the City Police; specifically that the organ showed signs of Bright’s Disease, an affliction allegedly present in the kidney which remained in Catherine Eddowes’s body.13 Conflicting press statements and missing doctor’s reports have only served to cloud the mystery of the kidney over the years, but during October 1888 the claims of the letter’s author certainly added more shock to an already outrageous story as limbs of the press, disposed toward the kidney piece being genuine, described the murderer as a ‘cannibal’.14

  As October progressed, the two police forces of London continued to be inundated with the efforts of tireless letter-writers. The City Police received an inordinately large amount of correspondence from the public, including offers of help, suggestions on investigative techniques and the exposure of suspicious individuals. Some, like those which professed to garner information from the spirit world or which accused police officers of the crimes, were generally given short shrift. Some claimed to be from the murderer, including this unusual one written on 2 October from a ‘M. Puddig’ of ‘Thrall Street, London E’:

  You offer certainly a handsome reward but I have sworn that nobody shall earn it, this the one thousand eight hundred and eighty eighth year of our Lord. shall find me still at liberty untill its close, for not till I hear the first chimes of the church bells on watch night will I be tired of gloating over my work for hard work it has indeed been. thanks to my thorough proficiency in anatomical matters I gave them little or no pain, for humanity – they had to die, and at my hand. Still only a few more weeks and my task is done, when I shall ornament the scaffold that in short hours then and not till then shall you become acquainted with the motive of my crimes as you are pleased to style them was stern duty. They will forgive me when we meet in paradise, in celestrial bliss. Amen15

  Another, addressed to Dr Thomas Openshaw, arrived at the London Hospital on 29 October. In a similarly uneducated hand to the Lusk letter (though by no means identical) it read:

  Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to you ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the jobn soon and will send you another bit of innerds

  Jack the Ripper

  O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up.

  It is hard to assess how much credence the authorities gave to missives like these, or how much time they spent following up letters which named specific individuals as the killer. But sensational letters like the one sent to George Lusk would certainly have kept the investigation ticking over and the press well fed with more outrageous news, despite no ‘Ripper’-type murders being committed in October. These unique crimes had appeared to follow a pattern, being committed during the first week or the last days of the month, and at weekends or bank holidays, so it would have been logical to assume that any further crimes would possibly take place at the start or end of October, but it was not to be. That month, a thick fog descended over London, a matter that might have had some bearing on when the killer felt disposed to act next – poor visibility might well have benefited the murderer in the act of escaping the scene of the crime, but it could also prove risky should a passer-by or policeman suddenly loom out of the smog at the wrong moment.

  And in the first week of November, with the police no closer to finding out the identity of their elusive assassin, Sir Charles Warren resigned as chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He had tendered his resignation on three previous occasions (the last being in the early summer of 1888), but this time it was final. In early November, Murray’s Magazine, a small London newspaper, published an article written by Warren in which he attempted to describe how the Metropolitan Police worked. However, rather than limiting itself to this seemingly safe subject, the article managed to criticize government ministers past and present; even the public were harangued for their fickle opinions on the police, which appeared to fluctuate on the basis of how much the people of London felt they needed the protection of the force at any given time.

  Unbeknownst to Warren, this article was in direct contravention of an 1879 ruling stating that no police officer was to publish any material without the prior consent of the Home Office. He claimed not to know about such a ruling and stated that, if he had, he would never have taken his position as chief commissioner in the first place, believing that he had a right to defend himself and his men from unfair condemnation.16 Home Secretary Henry Matthews fired off an immediate communiqué to Warren, but the chief commissioner was adamant that his duties were governed by statutes which meant the home secretary was not in any position to give orders to the police. Warren, now at the end of his tether with such interference, tendered his resignation on 8 November 1888, the day before the Lord Mayor’s Show.

  Word spread about Warren’s resignation the following day, mixed with the excited reports of yet another murder, which, for its sheer brutality, was unsurpassed.

  8.

  ‘I hope I may never see such a sight again’

  At about 10.45 on the morning of 9 November 1888 Thomas Bowyer walked from Dorset Street into the narrow, grimy passageway leading to Miller’s Court with the intention of calling upon the young resident of room 13, Mary Kelly. He had been sent by John McCarthy, who owned the shop at 27 Dorset Street where Bowyer worked as well as the various furnished rooms i
n Miller’s Court and who was aware that Mary owed him a considerable amount of money in unpaid rent. Bowyer, arriving at room 13, knocked on the door. As there was no reply, he knocked again, with the same result, so, not put off, he walked round to the windows, where one pane of glass was missing in the window nearest the door. Assuming Mary was in the room, he put his hand in the open window frame, pulled aside an old curtain and peered into the dark room. At first he saw what he thought were two lumps of flesh on the bedside table; looking again, he could see a body lying on the bed and a large amount of blood on the floor. Obviously shocked, he immediately ran to McCarthy’s shop by the entrance to Miller’s Court and informed his master of what he had seen.1 Once McCarthy had seen the body for himself, the two men ran to Commercial Street police station, where Inspector Walter Beck was on duty. Beck, accompanied by PC Walter Dew, followed the two men back to Dorset Street. Immediately Beck closed Miller’s Court off so that nobody could leave or enter and sent for Dr George Bagster Phillips.

  Soon news of the murder had been telegraphed to police stations across London. A number of constables were called down from Commercial Street police station and were used to guard Miller’s Court and to cordon off each end of Dorset Street. Dr Phillips arrived at 11.15 a.m. and, looking into the room, saw immediately that Mary Kelly was in no need of medical attention. Inspector Abberline arrived soon after with the word that entry to the room would have to wait for the arrival of the much-debated bloodhounds. However, the situation deteriorated into farce when the dogs were not forthcoming, and it was not until 1.30 p.m. that Inspector Thomas Arnold arrived with instructions to enter the room. John McCarthy, curiously having no key of his own, forced the door open with a pickaxe. The sheer horror of the spectacle that confronted the men as they entered was summed up by Mc-Carthy in a later interview: