Jack The Ripper - The Definitive History Part 7

I am your obedient servant, L. Forbes Winslow, M.B. Camb., D.C.L. Oxon. 70, Wimpole-street, Cavendish-square, W., Sept. 11.16 Several strange characters came to the attention of the police, among the main ones a man who drank a half pint of beer suspiciously quickly at the Prince Albert Tavern (known locally as the Clean House) at the corner of Brushfield Street and Stewart Street, and who was noticed by the landlady, Mrs. Fiddymont, to have blood spots on the back of his right hand, dried blood between his fingers and a narrow streak of blood below his right ear. This was on 8 September at 7.00am. The police appear to have taken Mrs. Fiddymont reasonably seriously and asked her to view a man called William Henry Pigott to see if he was her half-pint quaffing customer. Pigott had been arrested in Gravesend in the Pope's Head tavern where his conversation had betrayed a great hatred of women and had attracted attention. A PC Vollensworth was unable to obtain a satisfactory account from Pigott and arrested him. Inspector Abberline was summoned to Gravesend on Monday morning and returned with Pigott to London where he was one of 17 men placed in an ident.i.ty parade before Mrs. Fiddymont, who declared he was not her customer. The police held on to Pigott, whose behaviour had become increasingly strange, and eventually he was removed to the workhouse lunatic yard preparatory to being committed to an asylum.

Another suspect was Joseph Issenschmidt, reported as a lunatic to the police on 11 September by two doctors. A butcher who became depressed and mentally unstable following the collapse of his business, he had spent ten weeks at Colney Hatch Asylum at the end of 1887. He was committed again in September 1888, this time to the asylum at Bow. In a report submitted by Inspector Abberline it was stated that Issenschmidt was 'identical with the man seen in the Prince Albert' and it was hoped that arrangements could be made for him to be seen by Mrs. Fiddymont. We possess no further reports on the matter and the press quickly lost interest in Mrs. Fiddymont, so it is quite possible that Issenschmidt was the man she saw.

Pigott and Issenschmidt indicate something of the dangerous sort of people who were wandering around the streets at that time.

The police also put a lot of effort into trying to trace the whereabouts of three insane medical students who had attended London Hospital. Two were traced and one apparently went abroad, but a Home Office file contains an interesting question from someone who signed himself 'W.T.B.', who asked Charles Murdoch, a senior Home Office clerk, if information should be sought about what became of the third student, 'about whom there is a good deal of gossip in circulation'. Inspector Abberline replied: With regard to the latter portion of your letter I have to state that searching enquiries were made by an officer in Aberdeen Place, St. John's Wood, the last known address of the insane medical student named 'John Sanders', but the only information that could be obtained was that a lady named Sanders did reside with her son at number 20, but left that address to go abroad about two years ago.17 n.o.body named Sanders lived at 20 Aberdeen Place in 1888 or in 1886 (or, indeed, prior to that date). John Sanders lived with his family at 20 Abercorn Place, St. John's Wood, and the Post Office London directories list Mrs. Laura T. Sanders, the widow of an Army Surgeon, as living there from 1874 to 1896 inclusive. She was the mother of six children, one of them, John W. Sanders, having entered the London Hospital Medical College on 22 April 1879 and who, according to the Examination Book, 'Retired because of ill health'. Who he was and what fate ultimately befell him is currently unknown, but he was evidently treated as a serious suspect and not merely just one of the many about whom enquiries were made. Curiously, the reference to John Sanders being the subject of 'a good deal of gossip' is interesting because it does not appear to have reached the press and may have been circulating at a high level.

One clue to the reason why the police took an interest in these medical students is possibly given by Sir Henry Smith, Chief Superintendent of the City Police at the time of the Ripper investigations, who wrote in his reminiscences, From Constable to Commissioner: After the second crime I sent word to Sir Charles Warren that I had discovered a man very likely to be the man wanted. He certainly had all the qualifications requisite. He had been a medical student; he had been in a lunatic asylum; he spent all his time with women of loose character, whom he bilked by giving them polished farthings instead of sovereigns, two of those farthings having been found in the pocket of the murdered woman. Sir Charles failed to find him. I thought he was likely to be in Rupert Street, Haymarket. I sent up two men, and there he was, polished farthings and all, but he proved an alibi without shadow of doubt.18 Finally, soon after the discovery of Annie Chapman's body, an unnamed woman reported that she had been accosted in Spitalfields by a man who struck her several times and ran off when she started to scream. She said that the man had given her two bra.s.s medals, pa.s.sing them off as sovereigns. It was reported that the police were investigating. Whether or not this had the slightest bearing on the subject under discussion remains to be seen.

On 10 September the inquest was opened by Wynne Baxter and the Deputy Coroner George Collier at the Working Lads' Inst.i.tute. The room was crowded and a large number of people gathered inside and outside the room. The jury was empanelled and went to view the body at the mortuary.

Criticism of the police as well as the Home Secretary, the Coroner and even Dr. George Bagster Phillips mounted as the month progressed.

It is clear that the Detective Department at Scotland Yard is in an utterly hopeless and worthless condition; that if there were a capable Director of criminal investigations, the scandalous exhibition of stupidity and inept.i.tude revealed at the East End inquests, and immunity enjoyed by criminals, murder after murder, would not have angered and disgusted the public feelings as it has done.19 . . . the detectives have no clue. The London police and detective force is probably the stupidest in the world.20 Sir Charles Warren came in for particular opprobrium, especially from the Pall Mall Gazette, which perhaps expectedly raised the point that the police had denied thousands of unemployed men the right to demonstrate in Trafalgar Square but were unable to detect a lone killer of prost.i.tutes.21 Otherwise Warren was accused of militarising the police, restricting the speed and movement of the detectives and creating a system whereby the local police lacked local knowledge: the sooner the police make up their minds to catch him the better for their own reputation . . . the Whitechapel tragedies open up the whole question of our police organisation . . . We are militarising our police . . . Sir Charles Warren, a martinet of apparently a somewhat inefficient type . . . Nothing, indeed, has been more characteristic of the hunt after the Whitechapel murderer than the want of local knowledge displayed by the police . . . if Whitechapel had had a properly organised local force it would long ago have been rid of the ghoul whose midnight murders have roused all London and frightened decent citizens in their beds.22 Home Secretary Henry Matthews, distinctly unloved and having to take the blame for decisions that were not his own, was equally pilloried, which must have been a cause of considerable concern for Lord Salisbury, who would almost certainly have feared Matthews' resignation as a consequence: We have had enough of Mr. Home Secretary Matthews, who knows nothing, has heard nothing, and does not intend to do anything in matters concerning which he ought to be fully informed, and prepared to act with energy and despatch. It is high time that this hapless Minister should be promoted out of the way of some more competent man.23 Wynne Baxter was criticised by a correspondent in The Times for prolonging the inquest: Is it not time that the inquest on Annie Chapman should close . . . The discovery of the murderer or murderers is the duty of the police, and if it is to be accomplished it is not desirable that the information they obtain should be announced publicly in the newspapers day by day through the medium of the coroner's inquiry.24 George Bagster Phillips received censure for not giving a full account of the injuries suffered by Annie Chapman, the former Deputy Coroner of Crickhowell in Brecons.h.i.+re pointing out that, by the Statute de Coronatere, the coroner is bound to inquire the nature, character and size of every wound on a dead body . . . Originally this was done super visum corpus . . . the object of the inquest is to preserve the evidence of the crime, if any . . .25 Samuel Barnett wrote to The Times: Whitechapel horrors will not be in vain if 'at last' the public conscience awakes to consider the life which these horrors reveal. The murders were, it may almost be said, bound to come; generation could not follow generation in lawless intercourse, children could not be familiarised with scenes of degradation, community in crime could not be the bond of society and the end of all be peace.

He advocated 'efficient police supervision . . . Adequate lighting and cleaning . . . The removal of the slaughter-houses . . . and sights are common which tend to brutalise ignorant natures . . . [and] The control of tenement houses by responsible landlords'.26 People also sought to place the blame for the murders not merely on the corrupting influences of slum dwelling, but also on the media, be it blood-curdling stories or the posters advertising penny-dreadfuls. Accounts of blood were sure to stir the feeble-minded, claimed the St. James Budget, citing as an example 'the negro Bruce . . . [who, whenever he] saw blood he "went mad", and performed an amount of miscellaneous killing which would have done honour to one of Mr. Rider Haggard's heroes'. The 'ghastly story' had recently been told 'with an over-abundance of gory minuteness . . . which it is greatly to be hoped is wildly exaggerated' by W.B. Churchward in his book Blackbirding in the South Pacific.27 This unexpectedly free publicity no doubt increased Mr. Churchward's sales handsomely.

The Eastern Argus complained of 'pictures of murders and a.s.sa.s.sinations' that had been pasted to various walls in the parish and asked if the Vestry had 'no control over this frightful method of inflaming the minds of weak and pa.s.sionate men?'.28 Others firmly laid the blame on serials in cheap magazines: It is only those whose duties cause them to be mixed up with the lower and criminal cla.s.ses who can really appreciate how great is the evil influence of this pernicious literature . . . It is, to my mind, quite possible that the Whitechapel murders may be the fruit of such pernicious seed falling upon a morbid and deranged mind.29 By 15 September newspapers were beginning to remark on the way in which the murders had shed a terrible light on the depredation and degradation of the area. In the florid prose typical of the period a journalist for the East and West Ham Gazette barely paused for breath as he drew attention to what he felt was this neglected aspect: The Whitechapel tragedies have an aspect which should not be disregarded, though only of the nature of a side sight. The veil has been drawn aside that covered the hideous condition in which thousands, tens of thousands of our fellow creatures live in this boasted nineteenth century. In the heart of the wealthiest, healthiest and most civilised city in the world we have all known for years that terrible misery, cruel crime and unspeakable vice mixed and matted together lie just off the main thoroughfares that lead through the industrial quarters of the metropolis. The daily sin, the nightly agonies, and hourly sorrows that haunt and poison and corrupt the ill-fated sojourners in these dens of shocking degradation and vice have again and again been described by our popular writers. But it is when crime of this terrible nature, or accident more than usually painful has given vividness and reality to the previously unrealised picture that we are brought to face what our keenest powers failed adequately to perceive before how parts of our great capital are honeycombed with cells hidden from the sight of day, where men are brutalised, women are demonised, and children are brought into the world only to become full of corruption, reared in terror, and trained in sin, till punishment and shame overtakes them too and thrusts them down to the black depth where their parents lie already lost or dead to all hope of moral recovery and social rescue.30 A lot of criticism was levelled at Henry Matthews in particular and at the government and the police in general for the refusal to offer a reward, but this had been official Home Office policy for several years. Matthews was not personally opposed to rewards, but he had to shoulder the brunt of the criticism. Such is the lot of a politician. Inevitably the newspapers drew parallels between the West and East End, notably The Star proclaiming that large sums would have been raised if the women had been murdered in the West End.

Very early on the Daily Star had advocated the creation of a vigilance committee: The people of the East-end must become their own police. They must form themselves at once into Vigilance Committees. There should be a central committee, which should map out the neighbourhood into districts, and appoint the smaller committees. These again should at once devote themselves to volunteer patrol work at night, as well as to general detective service.31 On 10 September, the day the inquest opened, there was a meeting of 16 local tradesmen who formed a vigilance a.s.sociation with a view to offering a reward for the capture of the murderer or for information leading to his arrest. The committee included: Mr. J. Aarons, landlord of The Crown, 74 Mile End Road, who was appointed Chairman; a Mr. B. Harris, the hon. sec.; and Mr. George Lusk. Others included Messrs. Cohen, Houghton, H.A. Harris, Laughton, Lord, Isaacs, Rogers, Mitch.e.l.l, Barnett, Hodgkins, Lindsay, Reeves and Jacobs. In the course of the proceedings a long list of subscriptions towards the reward fund for the apprehension of the murderer was read, including 5 from Mr. Spencer Charrington, 5 from Lusk and 5 from Aarons. It led to all sorts of questions about the government offering a reward, which as was made clear to the vigilance committee in a letter from E. Leigh Pemberton and widely published in the press, 'the practice of offering rewards for the discovery of criminals was discontinued some years ago, because experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good'.32 The vigilance committee complained with considerable irritation that in consequence they had difficulty raising funds themselves, many otherwise generous and charitable people refusing to give money because they believed it to be the responsibility of the government. Other organisations were formed at various working, political and social clubs.33 The final sensation came when Wynne Baxter concluded the inquest on Wednesday 26 September 1888. During his summing up he proposed a theory about the motive of the murderer: The body had not been dissected, but the injuries had been made by someone who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge. There were no meaningless cuts. The organ had been taken by one who knew where to find it, what difficulties he would have to contend against, and how he should use his knife so as to abstract the organ without injury to it. No unskilled person could have known where to find it or have recognised it when found. For instance, no mere slaughterer of animals could have carried out these operations. It must have been someone accustomed to the post-mortem room. The conclusion that the desire was to possess the missing abdominal organ seemed overwhelming.34 Baxter was saying that Annie Chapman had been murdered by a surgically skilled person for the specific purpose of obtaining the uterus, . . . but the object of the murderer appears palpably shown by the facts, and it is not necessary to a.s.sume lunacy, for it is clear that there is a market for the object of the murder. To show you this, I must mention a fact which at the same time proves the a.s.sistance which publicity and the newspaper press afford in the detection of crime. Within a few hours of the issue of the morning papers containing a report of the medical evidence given at the last sitting of the Court, I received a communication from an officer of one of our great medical schools, that they had information which might or might not have a distinct bearing on our inquiry. I attended at the first opportunity, and was told by the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum that some months ago an American had called on him, and asked him to procure a number of specimens of that organ that was missing in the deceased. He stated his willingness to give 20 for each and explained that his object was to issue an actual specimen with each copy of a publication on which he was then engaged. Although he was told that his wish was impossible to be complied with, he still urged his request. He desired them preserved, not in spirits of wine, the usual medium, but in glycerine, in order to preserve them in a flaccid condition, and he wished them sent to America direct. It is known that request was repeated to another inst.i.tution of a similar character. Now, is it not possible that the knowledge of this demand may have incited some abandoned wretch to possess himself of a specimen? It seems beyond belief that such inhuman wickedness could enter into the mind of any man, but unfortunately our criminal annals prove that every crime is possible. I need hardly say that I at once communicated my information to the Detective Department at Scotland-yard.

The theory gained immediate acceptance in the press, but the response of the medical press was distinctly dismissive until investigations by the British Medical Journal found that some 18 months or more earlier a foreign physician had enquired as to the possibility of acquiring specimens of the uterus,35 but Baxter or his informant had misunderstood or misreported much of what had been said.

The theory has attracted considerable interest in recent years, particularly as a result of interest in a suspect called Dr. Tumblety, but it should be noted that Wynne Baxter did not suggest that the doctor seeking uteri was responsible for the murders, only that on learning of the request some warped entrepreneur had sought to fulfil the request. The Chicago Tribune London correspondent expanded a little on the story: I learned today from a Scotland Yard man working on the case that the mysterious American who was here a few months ago offering money for specimens of the parts taken from the bodies of the victims has been discovered. He is a reputable physician in Philadelphia with a large practice, who was over here preparing a medical work on specific diseases. He went to King's College and Middles.e.x Hospitals and asked for specimens, and merely said he was willing to pay well if he could not get them otherwise.36 The police received hundreds of letters from all parts of the country offering suggestions of various kinds for the capture of the murderer, though 'it is almost needless to say that none of the communications help in any way to elucidate the mystery'37 and one in particular was about to deepen it even further. The Central News Agency would receive a letter dated 25 September 1888 that began 'Dear Boss' and was signed 'Jack the Ripper'.

Before that, however, the nation would be shocked to its core by two murders on the same night.

Notes.

1. Sheppard, F.H.W. (1979) Survey of London. Vol. XXVII. Spitalfields and Mile End New Town. The Parishes of Christ Church and All Saints and the liberties of Norton Folgate and the Old Artillery Ground. London: The Athlone Press, University of London. L.C.C., p.192.

2. Yorks.h.i.+re Post, 11 September 1888.

3. Windsor and Eton Gazette, 15 September 1888.

4. HO 144/221/a4930/1c sub.8a and MEPO 3/140 fol.16 1820.

5. Various newspapers, but see Woodford Times, 14 September 1888.

6. Another woman, named Darrell or Durrell (who was not called to give evidence at the inquest and whose account may be a duplicate of that of Mrs. Long and falsely attributed) also claimed to have been walking along Hanbury Street at 5.30am and to have seen the couple standing outside number 29. It was initially reported that she was very doubtful if she could recognise the woman again, but after a visit to the mortuary she maintained that the woman had been Annie Chapman.

7. British Medical Journal, 22 September 1888.

8. The Times, 20 September 1888.

9. The Star, 8 September 1888.

10. New York Times, 9 September 1888.

11. The Times, 10 September 1888.

12. Manchester Guardian, 12 September 1888.

13. Manchester Guardian, 10 September 1888.

14. Report by Inspector Helson dated 7 September 1888, MEPO 3/140 fol. 238.

15. Pizer apparently threatened to sue The Star for defamation, but Ernest Parke later the editor invited him to the newspaper's offices. He was able to knock Pizer down from the 100 he demanded to 50. (See O'Connor, T.P. (1929) Memoirs of an Old Parliamentarian. London: Ernest Benn, vol.2, p.257.) 16. The Times, 12 September 1888.

17. HO 144/221/A49301C sub.8a.

18. Smith, Lieut.-Col. Sir Henry (1910) From Constable to Commissioner: The Story of Sixty Years, Most of Them Misspent. London: Chatto and Windus.

19. East London Observer, 22 September 1888.

20. New York Times, 9 September 1888.

21. Pall Mall Gazette, 8 September 1888.

22. East London Advertiser, 15 September 1888.

23. East London Observer, 22 September 1888.

24. Letter from J.P. to The Times, 19 September 1888.

25. Letter from Roland Adams Williams to The Times, 26 September 1888.

26. The Times, 19 September 1888.

27. St. James Budget, 15 September 1888; Churchward, W.B. (1888) Blackbirding in the South Pacific; or, the First White Man on the Beach. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Churchward was an official in the British consular service in the South Pacific and his narrative described his travels in the South Seas.

28. Eastern Argus, 8 September 1888.

29. Letter from E.T.A. in The Times, 22 September 1888.

30. East and West Ham Gazette, 15 September 1888.

31. The Star, 8 September 1888.

32. East London Advertiser, 22 September 1888.

33. The Times, 11 September 1888.

34. East London Observer, 29 September 1888.

35. British Medical Journal, 6 October 1888.

36. Tribune, 7 October 1888. (My thanks to Michael Conlon for bringing this to my attention.) See George, Christopher (2002) 'The Philadelphia Doctor', Ripperologist Issue 43, October.

37. The Times, 12 September 1888.

Chapter Ten.

The Double Event Elizabeth Stride.

The small village of Stora Tumlehead lies in the parish of Hisingen, north of the seaport of Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. Gustaf Ericson and his wife Beata Carlsdotter had a small farmstead there and on 27 November 1843 Beata gave birth to her second child, who was baptised Elizabeth in nearby Torslanda on 5 December. Her elder sister was named Anna Christina and two brothers would also be born, Carl in 1848 and Svante in 1861.

On 14 October 1860 Elizabeth moved to the parish of Carl Johan in Gothenburg, where she worked as a maid, looking after widower Lars Fredrik Olofsson and his children. After a few years she moved to Central Gothenburg but something had gone very wrong with her life, for in March 1865 she was registered by the police as a professional prost.i.tute. Being on the prost.i.tutes' register meant that she was the victim of a system not far removed from the one Josephine Butler fought so hard to have repealed in Britain branded for life and forced into a life of s.e.xual slavery, 'caught in a pitiless web of brothel madams, police inspections or medical checks, and the infirmary . . . terrorised by inspectors, fines and prison'.1 In April 1865 Elizabeth gave birth to a stillborn girl and towards the end of the year was treated at the Holtermanska infirmary for venereal disease. Almost a month later she was discharged from the police record. This was no easy achievement and seems rather suspicious. It appears that a lady named Maria Wejsner took Elizabeth into service and vouched for her good behaviour. Although it is by no means certain, the possibility is that Maria Wejsner was a brothel keeper. If so, a tragedy brought with it a small amount of hope: Elizabeth's mother died and left her a small but acceptable inheritance. In due course Elizabeth applied for and was granted permission to go to London, where she arrived in 1866, according to one story entering the service of a foreign gentleman and to another as a servant to a family who lived in Hyde Park.2 By 7 March 1869 she had met and married John Thomas Stride and for 12 years the relations.h.i.+p was strong enough to survive several moves and changes of circ.u.mstance, but in 1881 they finally separated, Elizabeth Stride's heavy drinking reportedly one of the main causes. Three years later, on 24 October 1884, John Thomas Stride died at the sick asylum, Bromley.

One interesting story that Elizabeth Stride told for the rest of her life was that her husband and children had perished in the Princess Alice tragedy of 1878. The Princess Alice was a paddle steamer named after Queen Victoria's third daughter, Princess Alice, Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Hesse-Darmstadt, and it took pa.s.sengers on pleasure cruises along the Thames from London Bridge to Sheerness. At about 7.45pm on Tuesday 3 September 1878, as dusk was falling on what had been a warm, sunny day, the band packing away their instruments and the 700 pa.s.sengers gathering their belongings in preparation for disembarking, the Princess Alice rounded Tripc.o.c.k point into Galleons reach, 11 miles below London Bridge, and came face to face with a giant steel collier named the Bywell Castle.3 The collier threw its engines into reverse at full speed, but nothing could avert the inevitable collision. The Princess Alice was struck just forward of the starboard paddle box and sheared in half. The resulting scenes were from the worst imaginable nightmare. The Times called it 'one of the most fearful disasters of modern times'.4 Only 69 people were pulled from the Thames alive. The exact number of dead was never established.5 Several newspapers on 8 October 1888 carried the following news agency story: With reference to the ident.i.ty of Elizabeth Stride, the Woolwich newspapers of the time of the Princess Alice disaster have been referred to, and it has been found that a woman of that name was a witness at the inquest and identified the body of a man as her husband, and of two children then lying in Woolwich Dockyard. She said she was on board and saw them drowned, her husband picking up one of the children, and being drowned with it in his arms. She was saved by climbing the funnel, where she was accidentally kicked in the mouth by a retired a.r.s.enal police inspector, who was also clinging to the funnel. The husband and two children are buried in Woolwich Cemetery.6 The Woolwich newspaper that carried this story has never been traced. Wynne Baxter, the Coroner at Stride's inquest, said that the records of the subscription fund raised for the relatives of those who had died in the disaster had been checked and that Stride had not made an application. Of course, Elizabeth Stride had no children and John Thomas Stride was alive at the time of the accident. Curiously, however, the mortuary photograph of Elizabeth Stride shows a slight swelling or deformity of some kind on the side of her mouth and above her lip, which if not an injury caused at or shortly before her death, could have been the consequence of being kicked in the face.

How or why she ended up in Spitalfields is not known. By December 1881 she was living in Brick Lane and she spent Christmas and New Year in the Whitechapel Workhouse infirmary suffering from bronchitis. From there she moved to 32 Flower and Dean Street in Spitalfields7 and had probably returned to prost.i.tution. On 13 November 1884 she was sentenced for being drunk, disorderly and soliciting. The following year she met and began a stormy relations.h.i.+p with a waterside labourer named Michael Kidney and the couple lived at 33 Dorset Street. They often separated, Stride going off for days or weeks at a time. Kidney estimated that five months of the three years that they lived together had been spent apart.8 They had parted company in Commercial Street on 25 September, apparently on good terms, although a woman named Catherine Lane claimed that Stride had told her that she'd left Kidney following a row,9 but Kidney denied this and said he expected Stride to be at home when he returned from work. Where Stride went is not known, but on Thursday 27 September she returned to her old lodging at 32 Flower and Dean Street.10 The lodging house keeper, Elizabeth Tanner, who only knew Stride by the nickname 'Long Liz', described her as a very quiet woman who sometimes stayed out late at night, who did cleaning work for the Jews and who would sometimes clean the lodging house rooms, as she had done during the afternoon of Sat.u.r.day 29 September, for which she had been paid 6d. A Mrs. Ann Mill, a bedmaker at the lodging house, said of Stride that 'a better hearted, more good natured cleaner woman never lived'.11 But people would hardly have given bad testimonials to someone who had died in such tragic and shocking circ.u.mstances. The records of the Thames Police Court tell a different story, showing that between 1887 and her death she had appeared there at least eight times on charges of being drunk, disorderly and using obscene language. She also appeared in court in April 1887, having turned in Michael Kidney on a charge of a.s.sault. She didn't pursue the prosecution and the case was discharged.

At 6.30 that evening Stride visited the Queen's Head at 74 Commercial Street, almost opposite the entrance to Dorset Street. The building was converted in 1927 from a public house into a wholesale confectioners and in 1957 into warehousing. Stride did not stay there long and returned with Elizabeth Tanner to the lodging house. At 32 Flower and Dean Street she began preparing to go out and in one of those moments of pathos, such as Polly Nichols' pride in her jolly new bonnet, Elizabeth Stride borrowed a clothes brush in an effort to make her poor clothing look respectable. Looking cheerful, she set out for a Sat.u.r.day night.

Berner Street, now called Henriques Street,12 is a short, narrow street running north to south off Commercial Road. It was here, just inside some gates leading to the yard of number 40, that Elizabeth Stride would be found murdered.

40 Berner Street is historically the most interesting of all the murder scenes because it was the home of the International Workingmen's Educational a.s.sociation, commonly referred to as the Berner Street Club.13 At its rear were the printing and editorial offices of a radical socialist newspaper, Arbeter Fraint ('Worker's Friend'), founded in 1885 by Morris Winchevsky, one of the great names in the history of Jewish radicalism. He was known as the 'grandfather of Yiddish socialism' and, with Morris Rosenfeld, regarded as one of the great Ghetto poets (sometimes called 'sweatshop poets' or 'worker poets') whose work reflected the lives of working-cla.s.s immigrant Jews. The non-partisan socialist Arbeter Fraint, 'open to all radicals . . . social democrats, collectivists, communists and anarchists'14 was first published as a monthly on 15 July 1885, from 29a Fort Street, which ran off Brushfield Street. It proved to be a particularly inspirational journal and became a.s.sociated with a variety of other organisations, including the Society of Jewish Socialists, which in 1884 had inaugurated an International Workers' Educational Club and in February 1885 had acquired 40 Berner Street as a base for their radical and trades union activities. The founders of the Society allied themselves with Arbeter Fraint and in June 1886 became its sponsors. From July 1886 the newspaper became a weekly. The take-over, marked a dramatic change in the tone of the paper. An earlier stilted dogmatism was replaced by the more popular vernacular and the circulation soared. The result was twofold. It helped to stimulate the drive towards unionisation both in London and the provinces. Small trade unions under workers' leaders.h.i.+p sprang into existence in the major tailoring and shoemaking trades as well as among the smaller cigarette, cabinet and stick making industries. In Leeds the Jewish Socialists responded by forming a Workers' Educational Union, which generated the largest and strongest trade union in the clothing industry. Willing or not, Socialist and trade union forces were merging into a common front and moving in the same direction. Socialist societies proliferated in Glasgow, Liverpool and overseas in Paris, where a group of immigrant activists were involved in radical agitation. All owed their inception to the teachings of the Arbeter Fraint.15 Arbeter Fraint and the club enjoyed a national and international reputation, were highly controversial and regarded by the leaders of Anglo-Jewry as distinctly dangerous. Efforts were made to prevent publication. A compositor was bribed to change the traditional last page message, 'Workers, do your duty. Spread the Arbeter Fraint!', to 'Workers, do your duty. Destroy the Arbeter Fraint!' Later the printer succ.u.mbed to the taint of gelt and refused to print the paper. It was widely believed that the money for these efforts was supplied by Sir Samuel Montagu,16 the Liberal MP for Whitechapel. Whether it was or not, some particularly weighty pressure must have been placed on the local printers because it took three months for a replacement to be found. Once news of Arbeter Fraint's problems became known, readers and supporters from as far afield as New York gave money enough for the club to buy its own printing press, which, with the editorial office, was housed in a brick-built printing and editorial office in the yard behind the club.

Arbeter Fraint was edited by Philip Krantz, who arrived in London early in 1888 and of whom 'it can be said about him, "no finer man wore shoe leather . . ." ',17 and it was heavily influenced by the antireligion obsessed Benjamin Feigenbaum. Whilst this opened the newspaper and the club to a broader spectrum of people, it alienated many of the orthodox Jews and gave the club something of an unsavoury reputation among locals. Barnett Kentorrich, of 38 Berner Street, which adjoined the club, told a journalist reporting Elizabeth Stride's murder, 'The club is a nasty place', a young man in the surrounding crowd explaining, 'You see, the members are "bad" Jews Jews who don't hold their religion and they annoy those who do in order to show their contempt for the religion'.

40 Berner Street was an old wooden18 two-storey19 building [and had] a s.p.a.cious room with a capacity of over 200 people and contained a stage. Here were performed by amateurs mostly in Russian language plays by well known Russian revolutionists Tchaikovsky (not the famous composer), Volchovsky, Stepniak, Winchevsky, Gallop; later came Simon Kahn, Krantz, Feigenbaum, Yanovsky, and others . . . Invariably, on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday evenings, there was a truly international gathering of Russian, Jewish, British, French, Italian, Czech, Polish, and radicals of other nationalities . . . Quite often the renowned radical poet, William Morris was seen there reading his splendid verses. It may be said that there, in Berner Street, was laid the foundation for true International Brotherhood of Mankind . . . Like Faneuil Hall in Boston, Berner Street Club was the 'Cradle of Liberty', for the workers' emanc.i.p.ation from economic slavery, in London.20 Sat.u.r.day 29 September was no different to the weekends described above. The Chair was taken that evening by a young man named Morris Eagle, who opened the discussion, 'Why Jews Should Be Socialists'. About 100 people attended and the discussion finished at about 11.30pm. Most people left the club by the street door before midnight, including Morris Eagle who walked his sweetheart home and then returned to the club to get some dinner. The 2030 people who remained behind were either upstairs, where they were talking, singing or dancing, or in the downstairs rooms.

The first floor was the room used for entertainments. 'It was of medium size and held hardly more than a hundred and fifty persons. Plain benches without backs stretched through it crosswise and along the walls. Everywhere extreme poverty, but everywhere also the endeavour to overcome poverty. On the walls hung a number of portraits: Marx, Proudhon, La.s.salle overthrowing the golden calf of capitalism . . . At the front the room was enclosed by a small stage . . .'.21 The room had three windows, all looking out on the rear yard. A third storey provided accommodation for the Steward, his wife and guests.

The house had a door and single window at the front. At the side, running the length of the house, was a pa.s.sage entered through a 912 feet wide entrance with two wooden gates folding backwards from the street, one with a small door in it. A side-door, opposite which there were two lavatories, gave access to the rear room of the house.

The yard, known as Dutfield's Yard because a man named Arthur Dutfield carried on his business as a van and cart manufacturer there, contained a house on the left-hand side occupied by two or three tenants. A workshop facing the gates was used by a sack manufacturer named Walter Hindley and adjoining it was an unused stable. Next to it, built onto the rear of the club, was Arbeter Fraint's two-roomed stone office.

Louis Diemschutz was a trader of cheap jewellery and had for the previous six months been Steward of the Berner Street club. He had, as usual, spent the day at Westow Market in Crystal Palace. He drove his pony down Commercial Road and as he turned into Berner Street glanced at the clock outside the baker's shop on the corner, noticing that it was 1.00pm. He intended to drop some goods off with his wife at the club before taking his pony and cart on to his stabling in George Yard: My pony is rather shy and as I turned into the yard it struck me that he bore too much towards the left hand side against the wall. I bent my head to see what it was shying at, and I noticed that the ground was not level. I saw a little heap which I thought might be some mud. I touched the heap with the handle of my whip, and then I found that it was not mud. I jumped off the trap and struck a match. When I saw that it was the body of a woman I ran indoors.22 Elizabeth Stride was laying on her back, almost against the wall near the gates, her head towards the rear of the building. Her face was turned towards the wall, mud on the left side and matting her hair. Her right arm was over her stomach, the hand and wrist covered with blood; the left was extended and the hand clutched a packet of cachous, several of which tumbled into the gutter when a doctor prized her fingers apart. According to the medical examiners, Stride's throat had been cut, the incision being 6 inches in length, commencing 212 inches in a straight line below the angle of the jaw, and 34 inch deep over an undivided muscle, then becoming deeper. The cut was very clean and deviated a little downwards. Death had resulted from the severance of the left carotid artery.

Over both shoulders there was a bluish discoloration that in the opinion of Dr. Frederick Blackwell had been caused 'by two hands pressing on the shoulders'. Dr. Phillips, who had charge of the post-mortem, gave it as his opinion that Stride had been seized by the shoulders and forced onto the ground, the murderer having then cut her throat from left to right. He thought that the murderer had 'a knowledge of where to cut the throat' and said that as the blood would have flowed away from the murderer and into the gutter the murderer would not necessarily have been bloodstained. That Stride was lying down when her throat was cut did not account for her bloodstained right hand and wrist, for which Dr. Phillips was unable to suggest an explanation. Dr. Blackwell, however, suggested that the murderer had been standing behind Stride and had grasped the back of the scarf Stride was wearing around her neck, pulling back her head. Stride would have instinctively reached for the front of the scarf with her hand and thus it would have been covered with blood as the knife severed the windpipe and sliced her throat. But this didn't explain the shoulder bruising.

Most notably, of course, was a complete absence of post-mortem mutilation. Either Stride was not murdered by Jack the Ripper, or, if she was, the killer had left the scene perhaps disturbed by Diemschutz's pony and trap.

Having discovered the body, Diemschutz ran into the club looking for his wife: I did this because I knew she had rather a weak const.i.tution. I saw my wife was sitting downstairs, and I at once informed the members that something had happened in the yard. I did not tell them whether the woman was murdered or drunk, because I did not then know. A member named Isaacs went down to the yard with me, and we struck a match. We saw blood right from the gate up the yard . . . The woman seemed to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. She was a little bit better dressed, I should say, than the woman who was last murdered. Her clothes were not disarranged. She had a flower in the bosom of her dress. In one hand she had some grapes, and in the other some sweets. She was grasping them tightly. I had never seen her before.23 Diemschutz went into the yard with Isaac M. Kozebrodsky, familiarly known as Isaacs, followed by Morris Eagle, who recalled, 'As soon as I saw the blood I got very excited and ran away for the police. I did not touch the body'.24 He returned to the yard with PC Lamb and PC Collins. Diemschutz, meanwhile, had run off with another man in search of a policeman and couldn't find one. They returned to the club followed by a man named Edward Spooner, who had been attracted by their commotion and asked what was happening. There were about 15 people in the yard. Somebody struck a match and Spooner lifted the chin of the woman. He said that she had a piece of paper doubled up in her hand (the packet of cachous) and that there was a white and red flower pinned to her jacket. He thought that maybe five minutes had pa.s.sed between his arrival and the return of Morris Eagle with the two policemen, who viewed the body. PC Collins then went to fetch the doctor whilst Morris Eagle was despatched to fetch a.s.sistance from the police station.

PC Collins reached the residence of Drs. Kay and Blackwell at 100 Commercial Road. Dr. Blackwell was asleep, but was roused by his a.s.sistant Edward Johnston and informed of what had been discovered. Johnston returned with Collins to Berner Street, followed by Dr. Blackwell, who arrived at Berner Street at precisely 1.16am. Dr. Blackwell estimated that Stride had been dead for 2030 minutes by the time he arrived placing death between 12.45am and 1.00am.

A rapid succession of people now descended on Berner Street, among them Dr. George Bagster Phillips and a.s.sorted senior policemen. Over the next few hours various premises were searched, people questioned and clothes examined. At 4.30am the body of Elizabeth Stride was removed to the mortuary. By 5.00am the police had concluded their initial enquiries. At 5.30am PC Collins washed away all traces of blood.

From 7.00pm on Sat.u.r.day night when dressed up and looking cheerful, she left Flower and Dean Street until shortly after 1.00am on Sunday morning, when her body was found lying in the mud and dirt of a Berner Street pa.s.sage, Elizabeth Stride's movements are unknown. Four hours, from 7.00pm to 11.00pm, are a complete blank. It was raining heavily and Stride may have stayed indoors, but no publican or pub customers are known to have come forward to say they had seen her or spent time with her. We know that it was probably during this time that she had a meal of cheese and potato, the remains of which were found in her stomach. But from 11.00pm onwards there are several sightings of varying reliability.

She may have spent some time before 11.00pm drinking with a man in a pub called the Bricklayer's Arms in nearby Settles Street. A journalist for The Evening News met three men at the mortuary who had gone there to view the body, believing that Stride was the woman they had seen with a man in or just outside the Bricklayer's Arms in Settles Street. One of them, J. Best, told the journalist: I was in the Bricklayer's Arms, Settles Street, about two hundred yards from the scene of the murder on Sat.u.r.day night, shortly before eleven, and saw a man and a woman in the doorway. They had been served in the public house, and went out when me and my friends came in. It was raining very fast, and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging her and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on with the woman, who was poorly dressed. We 'chipped' him, but he paid no attention. As he stood in the doorway he always threw sidelong glances into the bar, but would look n.o.body in the face. I said to him 'Why don't you bring the woman in and treat her?' but he made no answer. If he had been a straight fellow he would have told us to mind our own business, or he would have gone away. I was so certain there was something up that I would have charged him if I could have seen a policeman. When the man could not stand the chaffing any longer he and the woman went off like a shot soon after eleven.

I have been to the mortuary, and I am almost certain the woman there is the one we saw at the Bricklayer's Arms. She is the same slight woman, and seems the same height. The face looks the same, but a little paler, and the bridge of the nose does not look so prominent.

The man was about 5ft 5in in height. He was well-dressed in a black morning suit with a morning coat. He had rather weak eyes. I mean he had sore eyes without any eyelashes. I should know the man again amongst a hundred. He had a thick black moustache and no beard. He wore a black billyc.o.c.k hat, rather tall, and he had on a collar. I don't know the colour of his tie. I said to the woman 'that's Leather Ap.r.o.n getting round you'. The man was no foreigner; he was English right enough.25 Best was supported by a fellow drinker, John Gardner, who commented on a flower pinned to the woman's jacket and said, 'Well, I have been to the mortuary and there she was with the dahlias on the right side of her jacket'.26 Whether the woman was Elizabeth Stride or not is uncertain.

Another unreliable sighting of Elizabeth Stride is that of a fruit-seller named Matthew Packer who claimed to have sold grapes to Elizabeth Stride, but he changed his story frequently and a recent a.n.a.lysis of the available evidence suggests that his story is a fabrication.27 The first reasonably reliable sighting of Elizabeth Stride we possess is therefore at about 11.45pm when labourer William Marshall went to the front door of his lodging at 64 Berner Street and saw outside number 63 a woman he identified as Elizabeth Stride with a man who kissed her and said, before walking off down the street, 'You would say anything but your prayers'. The man, said Marshall, was about 5ft 6in, middle aged, stout, clean shaven, and dressed in a small black coat, dark trousers and a round cap with a peak like sailors wear.28 Sat.u.r.day slipped into Sunday and the heavy rain moved inland, which probably cheered PC William Smith as he turned into Berner Street from Commercial Road and began his weary beat along the same side of the road as the club. It was about 12.30 or 12.35am and as he drew near to the club he noticed a man and a woman talking on the opposite side of the road. The woman had a red flower pinned to her jacket. He felt certain the woman was Elizabeth Stride, he later said, having viewed the body in the mortuary. Her companion, to whom he paid little attention ('I didn't notice him much', he told the inquest) was aged about 28, was 5ft 7in, tall with a dark complexion and a small dark moustache. He was wearing a black diagonal coat, hard felt deerstalker's hat, white collar and tie.29 PC Smith walked on.

Mrs. f.a.n.n.y Mortimer, who lived with her husband at 36 Berner Street, told a reporter for The Evening News, 'that shortly before a quarter to one o'clock she heard the measured heavy tramp of a policeman pa.s.sing the house on his beat. Immediately afterwards she went to the street door with the intention of shooting the bolts, though she remained standing there ten minutes before she did so'.30 The only man she saw in Berner Street 'was a young man carrying a black s.h.i.+ny bag who walked very fast down the street from the Commercial Road. He looked up at the club, and then went round the corner by the board school . . .'. We know who this man was, which means that we know Mrs. Mortimer's story is true. He was named Leon Goldstein and he visited Leman Street Police Station the day after the murder, identifying himself as the man who had walked down Berner Street shortly before Stride's body was discovered, that his bag contained empty cigarette boxes and that he had left a coffee house in Spectacle Alley a short time before. Mrs. Mortimer went back inside her house and five or six minutes later heard Louis Diemschutz's pony and cart pa.s.s by. A short time later she also heard the commotion following the discovery of Elizabeth Stride's body.31 Several other people were in the yard of the Berner Street club, in the pa.s.sage running alongside the house, or in the street. Charles Letchford, who lived at 30 Berner Street, walked up the road at about 12.30am: 'Everything seemed to me to be going on as usual, and my sister was standing at the door at ten minutes to one, but did not see anyone pa.s.s by. I heard the commotion when the body was found, and heard the policeman's whistle, but did not take any notice of the matter, as disturbances are very frequent at the club, and I thought it was only another row'.32 William West, overseer of the Arbeter Fraint printing office, left the club at about 12.30am by the side entrance and went into the printing office to return some literature. The editor, Philip Krantz, was there reading. West returned to the club, again by the side entrance, and looked towards the gates. He saw nothing unusual, but admitted that he was short-sighted and might not have noticed the body if it was there.33 At 12.35am Morris Eagle, having accompanied his young lady home, returned to the club, found the front door locked and went down the pa.s.sage to the rear door. He didn't see anything, although it was very dark and it was possible that he might not have seen the body if it was there. Joseph Lave, at about 12.40am, went into the yard for a breath of fresh air and 'walked for five minutes or more'. He went 'as far as the street. Everything was very quiet at the time, and I noticed nothing wrong'. Five minutes later Israel Schwartz turned into Berner Street from Commercial Road. According to a police report by Chief Inspector Donald Swanson: 12.45am 30th Israel Schwartz of 22 Helen Street,34 Backchurch Lane stated that at that hour on turning into Berner St. from Commercial Road & having got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed he saw a man stop & speak to a woman, who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round & threw her down on the footway & the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road 'Lipski' & then Schwartz walked away, but finding that he was followed by the second man he ran as far as the railway arch but the man did not follow so far. Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other. Upon being taken to the mortuary Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen & he thus describes the first man who threw the woman down: age about 30 ht. 5 ft. 5in. comp. fair, hair dark, small brown moustache, full face, broad shouldered, dress, dark jacket & trousers black cap with peak, had nothing in his hands. Second man age 35 ht. 5ft. 11 in. comp. fresh, hair light brown, moustache brown, dress dark overcoat, old black hard felt hat wide brim, had a clay pipe in his hand . . .

On the evening of 30th the man Schwartz gave the description of the man he had seen ten minutes later than the PC and it was circulated by wire. It will be observed that allowing for differences of opinion between the PC and Schwartz as to apparent age & height of the man each saw with the woman whose body they both identified there are serious differences in the description of dress: thus the PC describes the dress of the man whom he saw as black diagonal coat, hard felt hat, while Schwartz describes the dress of the man he saw as dark jacket black cap with peak, so that it is at least rendered doubtful whether they are describing the same man.

If Schwartz is to be believed, and the police report of his statement casts no doubt upon it, it follows if they are describing different men that the man Schwartz saw & described is the more probable of the two to be the murderer, for a quarter of an hour afterwards the body is found murdered. At the same time account must be taken of the fact that the throat only of the victim was cut in this instance which measured by time, considering meeting (if with a man other than Schwartz saw) the time for the agreement & the murderous action would I think be a question of so many minutes, five at least, ten at most, so that I respectfully submit it is not clearly proved that the man that Schwartz saw is the murderer, although it is clearly the more probable of the two.35 Henry Matthews made an interesting marginal comment: 'The police apparently do not suspect the 2nd man whom Schwartz saw on the other side of the street & who followed Schwartz'. He also enquired as to the meaning of 'Lipski' and Inspector Abberline replied that, since a Jew named Lipski was hanged for the murder of a Jewess in 1887 the name has very frequently been used by persons as mere e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n by way of endeavouring to insult the Jew to whom it has been addressed.36 It is to be doubted that Henry Matthews really needed reminding who Lipski was. Indeed, reading the name should have brought him out in a cold sweat as he recalled the whole ghastly episode of the year before, so he presumably wanted to know the context in which it was used. The importance of the question hasn't diminished over the years.

Was the word 'Lipski' directed at Schwartz or the second man, now commonly referred to as 'the pipeman'? If it was addressed at Schwartz, would this mean that the man a.s.saulting the woman was not a Jew? Or was the man a.s.saulting the woman trying to divert attention from himself to Schwartz, perhaps attempting to suggest that Schwartz had a.s.saulted the woman? Or did 'the pipeman' call out 'Lipski', and if so was he addressing Schwartz or the man a.s.saulting the woman? And since 'Lipski' on its own doesn't seem a sensible thing for anyone to have said, were there other words that Schwartz either didn't hear or didn't understand?

Inspector Abberline said that Israel Schwartz had 'a strong Jewish appearance' and that the insult 'was addressed to him as he stopped to look at the man he saw ill-using the deceased woman'. Confusingly, however, he also reported: I questioned Israel Schwartz very closely at the time he made the statement as to whom the man addressed when he called Lipski, but he was unable to say. There was only one other person to be seen in the street, and that was a man on the opposite side of the road in the act of lighting a pipe.

On 1 October 1888 The Star picked up the Schwartz story and secured an interview: Information which may be important was given to the Leman Street police yesterday by an Hungarian concerning this murder. This foreigner was well-dressed, and had the appearance of being in the theatrical line. He could not speak a word of English, but came to the police station accompanied by a friend, who acted as interpreter. He gave his name and address, but the police have not disclosed them. A Star man, however, got wind of his call, and ran him to earth in Backchurch Lane. The reporter's Hungarian was quite as imperfect as the foreigner's English, but an interpreter was at hand, and the man's story was retold just as he had given it to the police. It is, in fact, to the effect that he saw the whole thing.

It seems that he had gone out for the day, and his wife had expected to move, during his absence, from their lodgings in Berner Street to others in Backchurch Lane. When he came homewards about a quarter before one he first walked down Berner Street to see if his wife had moved. As he turned the corner from Commercial Road he noticed some distance in front of him a man walking as if partially intoxicated. He walked on behind him, and presently he noticed a woman standing in the entrance to the alleyway where the body was found. The half-tipsy man halted and spoke to her. The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the pa.s.sage, but feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street. Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter, but just as he stepped from the kerb a second man came out of the doorway of the public house37 a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in the second man's hand, but he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently, to his new lodgings.

He described the man with the woman as about 30 years of age, rather stoutly built, and wearing a brown moustache. He was dressed respectably in dark clothes and felt hat. The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other, but not so stout, and that his moustaches were red. Both men seem to belong to the same grade of society. The police have arrested one man answering the description the Hungarian furnishes. This prisoner has not been charged, but is held for inquiries to be made. The truth of the man's statement is not wholly accepted.

The Star reported a slightly different version of Schwartz's story to that given in the police reports. The man is reported to have pushed Stride into the pa.s.sage, not to have thrown her onto the pavement. It reports a quarrel between the woman and the man. Very significantly it is 'the pipeman' who is said to have shouted first in which case 'the pipeman' addressed the man a.s.saulting the woman as 'Lipski' and to have produced a knife as Schwartz approached. No mention is made of the second man pursuing Schwartz.

Schwartz did not give evidence to the inquest, or if he did it was given in camera. A draft letter from Sir Robert Anderson to the Home Office contained in the files suggests that the latter is possible. Anderson wrote, 'With ref. to yr letter &c. I have to state that the opinion arrived at in this Dept. upon the evidence of Schwartz at the inquest in Eliz. Stride's case is that . . .' [my italics]

Any suggestion that Schwartz didn't appear at the inquest because the police had ceased to place credence in his story is dashed by the fact that the reports between Scotland Yard and the Home Office were written after the conclusion of the inquest. It is clear, therefore, that the story was believed throughout that time and the only reasonable explanation for his testimony not being reported in the newspapers is that Schwartz testified in private and was, one a.s.sumes, considered a very important witness.

It seems highly unlikely that two different women could have been a.s.saulted in the same place or that the same woman could be a.s.saulted twice in the same spot within fifteen minutes, therefore the probability is that the woman seen by Israel Schwartz was Elizabeth Stride and that the man who a.s.saulted her was her murderer. The only reasonable alternative is that the a.s.sault was a common domestic, that the man who a.s.saulted Stride left the scene and that another man, probably 'the pipeman', killed Stride. The surviving police doc.u.ments don't mention 'the pipeman' as a suspect, and as was noted in the margin of Chief Inspector Swanson's report, the police did not appear to suspect him. Did the police therefore know who he was? We have no idea, but in later years Sir Robert Anderson would state that an eyewitness positively identified a Jack the Ripper suspect. Israel Schwartz and 'the pipeman' are two of the possible candidates.

It is a remote possibility that the woman was not Elizabeth Stride, but a dock labourer named James Brown was returning home about 12.45am when he saw a man and a woman standing outside the board school in Fairclough Street. Brown, who was almost certain that the woman was Elizabeth Stride, heard her say, 'No. Not tonight. Some other night', and he turned to look. The man was about 5ft 7in, stout and wearing a long coat that very nearly reached his heels. He walked on and about 15 or 20 minutes later he heard cries of 'Police!' and 'Murder!'.38 Brown almost certainly didn't see Elizabeth Stride. His description of the woman doesn't mention a flower, the man doesn't fit other descriptions of a man seen with a woman presumed to be Stride and The Evening News of 1 October 1888 briefly mentioned that an unnamed young girl was standing with her boyfriend in an unspecified 'bisecting thoroughfare' for about 20 minutes from about 12.40am. It is reasonable to a.s.sume that this was the couple seen by Brown. The reported descriptions of all possible suspects are outlined below.

It is noticeable that William Marshall, PC Smith and Israel Schwartz all saw a man wearing a hat with a peak. Marshall and Smith's man was clean shaven, but Schwartz's had a moustache.

Witness Time Description J. Best and John Gardner 11.00pm 5ft 5in, thick black moustache, no beard, weak, sore eyes, no eyelashes, wearing a black morning suit with a morning coat, a collar and tie, and a billyc.o.c.k hat. He was English in appearance.

William Marshall 11.45pm Middle aged, 5ft 6in, stout, clean shaven, small, black cutaway coat, dark trousers, round cap with a peak like sailors wear.

Matthew Packer 12.00 12.30pm Aged 2530, 5ft 7in, black frock coat b.u.t.toned, soft felt hawker hat.