Jack The Ripper - The Definitive History Part 9

15. Smith, Major Henry (1910) From Constable to Commissioner: The Story of Sixty Years, Most of Them Misspent. London: Chatto and Windus, pp.14950.

16. For example: 'The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing' (Detective Halse); 'The Juws are not the men to be blamed for nothing' (Frederick Foster, City of London Surveyor); 'The Jews shall not be blamed for nothing' (Pall Mall Gazette, 8 October 1888).

17. Thomas Arnold, report dated 6 November 1888, HO 144/221/ A49301C/8c.

18. Sir Charles Warren to the Home Office, 6 November 1888, HO 144/221/A49301C.

19. Dew, Walter (1938) I Caught Crippen: Memoirs of Ex-Chief Inspector Walter Dew CID. London: Blackie and Son, p.126.

20. Mackenzie, Compton (1963) My Life and Times: Octave One 18831891. London: Chatto and Windus, pp.1645.

21. Dew, Walter, op. cit., p.137.

22. In later years the author Stephen Knight maintained that the 'Juwes' was the collective name for Jubelo, Jubela and Jubelum. These men, who murdered Grand Master Hiram Abiff at the time of the building of Solomon's Temple, featured in British Masonic rituals until 1814, but they were dropped during the major revision of the ritual between 1814 and 1816 and it is doubtful if many British Masons would even have known their names in 1888. In the United States the names were and are used. However, it appears that they were and are known as 'the Ruffians', not 'the Juwes'. 'Juwes' is not and apparently never has been a Masonic word, nor has 'Juwes' or any word approximating to it ever appeared in British, Continental or American Masonic rituals.

Chapter Twelve.

Dear Boss.

The appearance of East London early on the Sunday morning so soon as the news of the murders was known and, indeed, all day almost baffles description. At ten o'clock, Aldgate and Leadenhall-street, Duke-street, St. James'-place, and Houndsditch were all literally packed with human beings packed so thick that it was a matter of utter impossibility to pa.s.s through. The babel of tongues as each inquired of the other the latest particulars, or the exact locality of the Aldgate murder, or speculated on the character or whereabouts of the murder, was simply deafening. Every window of every inhabited room in the vicinity was thrown open, for the better view of the inmates; and seats at these windows were being openly sold and eagerly bought. On the outskirts of this vast chattering, excited a.s.semblage of humanity, costermongers, who sold everything in the way of edibles, from fish and bread to fruits and sweets, and newspaper vendors whose hoa.r.s.e cries only added to the confusion of sounds heard on every hand, were doing exceedingly large trades.1 Thousands of people had gathered about Berner Street. The police cordoned off the entrances and posted men along the street. Reinforcements were brought in to protect the mortuary, and the entrances to Mitre Square were closed. Yet even so, reported the East London Observer, the crowd 'seemed to derive a kind of morbid satisfaction in standing even so near the scene of the tragedy of a few hours before, and in gazing with a kind of awe upon so much of the dull flagstones of the square as they could see'. The newspaper added that the crowds 'considerably diminished between two and four o'clock', which coincided with a public meeting which began at 3.00pm in Victoria Park under the chairmans.h.i.+p of Mr. Edward Barrow of the Bethnal Green Road. There were several speeches regarding the conduct of Sir Charles Warren and Home Secretary Matthews and a resolution was unanimously pa.s.sed that 'it was high time both men should resign and make way for some other officers who would leave no stone unturned for the purpose of bringing the murderer to justice'.2 Thousands of people attended the meeting, which was but one of four held in London that day.

Criticism of the police and particularly of Home Secretary Matthews mounted following the announcement on 1 October by the City Police that a reward of 500 would be paid for 'such information as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the murderer or murderers'. The Lord Mayor then offered in the name of the Corporation of London a further reward of 500. George Lusk, the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vilgilance Committee, pounced on the apparent inequality between rich and poor in the matter of rewards, pointing out that the Government had offered a reward for the capture of the murderer of Lord Cavendish in Phoenix Park but refused to offer a reward for the murderer of helpless and dest.i.tute prost.i.tutes, and he argued that a reward 'would convince the poor and humble residents of the East End that the Government authorities are as much anxious to avenge the blood of these unfortunate victims'.

Soon the press was crying for blood: It is rather hard upon Mr. Matthews that he, who has never proposed legislation for the reform of the City, nor indeed done anything by personal initiation of a remarkably useful character, should now be placed in this difficulty by that unreformed Corporation he has done his best to protect. But if the 500 reward offered by the City for the apprehension of the Whitechapel murderer should be claimed, it may go hard with Mr. Matthews in regard to his refusal.3 The Home Secretary now in office is a source of miserable weakness and discredit to the present administration. In the House of Commons he has been nothing more nor less than a fantastic failure. In the provinces he is scarcely known, even by name; and when the provincials do become aware of him, it is only to mistrust him and to express disrespectful and indignant astonishment that a Government, otherwise so capable and so popular, should drag with it a dead weight of so much vacillation, so much inept.i.tude, and so many frankly naive confessions of cra.s.s ignorance concerning things of which the most commonplace Home Secretary ought to be fully cognisant.4 Mr. Matthews is a feeble mountebank, who would pose and simper over the brink of a volcano.5 Criticism of the police could hardly be worse than it was when the sequence of murders began, but what must have seemed impossible proved only too possible and once again police deficiencies and inefficiencies were paraded through the newspaper columns and letters pages amid dire warnings of panic and revolution. A press agency report repeated by numerous provincial newspapers warned: With each fresh murder in the Whitechapel series public alarm has been accentuated and unless something can soon be done to restore confidence in the detective powers of the police panic will be the result.6 Ironically, neither Matthews nor Warren were opposed to offering a reward. Henry Matthews' decision not to offer one was following a precedent set by Sir William Harcourt, the Home Secretary in Gladstone's Liberal Government. As Matthews explained to his secretary, I have never myself shared to the full extent the HO prejudice against rewards; nor have I thought Harcourt's reasoning on the subject at all conclusive. I am disposed to regret now that in the first instance I did not sacrifice to popular feeling and offer a considerable reward. But in as much as I did yield to the official view and refuse to make an offer and subsequently repeated the refusal, I feel that my hands are tied.

And when, on 3 October, Matthews had had a meeting with both Sir Charles Warren and James Monro, neither had advocated offering a reward, Warren having declared that, 'a reward was of no practical use; that it would serve as 'eye-wash' for the public and nothing else'. It therefore came as something of a shock when Warren privately began to advocate a reward of 5,000 a staggering amount. Matthews observed of Warren, For his own credit and that of the force it is imperative that some visible evidence of effort of ingenuity of vigorous and intelligent exertion should be on record. Anybody can offer a reward and it is the first idea of ignorant people. But more is expected of the CID. Sir C.W. will not save himself, or put himself right with the public, by merely suggesting that.7 For his part Warren attributed his change of heart to the reward offered by the City and observed that, 'if other murders of a similar nature take place shortly, and I see no reason to suppose that they will not, the omission of the offer of a reward on the part of the Government may exercise a very serious effect upon the stability of the Government itself'.8 Warren's advocacy of a substantial reward may genuinely have been as a palliative to public feeling, but Matthews clearly thought the knives were out and that Warren was protecting his own back at Matthews' expense. It can hardly have helped the already strained relations between the two men. It is nevertheless interesting that Warren believed, as did the press, that Jack the Ripper could end Matthews' political career and even bring down the Government an achievement that cannot be seriously laid at the door of many killers and an indication of just how serious these crimes really were.

Sir Robert Anderson, newly-appointed and absent head of the CID, finally returned to England on 6 October. In his autobiography he commented that after the Chapman murder, The newspapers soon began to comment on my absence.9 And letters from Whitehall decided me to spend the last week of my holiday in Paris, that I might be in touch with my office. On the night of my arrival in the French capital two more victims fell to the knife of the murder fiend; and the next day's post brought an urgent appeal from Mr. Matthews to return to London; and of course I complied.10 It is a slight mystery, perhaps capable of a simple solution, that if Anderson curtailed his holiday in the Alps in response to 'letters from Whitehall', why did he stop off in Paris for a week rather than return to London immediately? And if he received 'an urgent appeal from Mr. Matthews' on 1 October, why did he wait until 4 October before leaving? As has been remarked elsewhere,11 in Paris at the same time as Anderson was a man named Richard Pigott, the central figure in a judicial Royal Commission due to open at the end of the month. To all intents and purposes this was set up to inquire into allegations in The Times that Irish Nationalist MP Charles Stewart Parnell was in league with Fenian terrorists. Anderson was somewhat involved in this entire debacle and it is interesting to speculate that he may have been in Paris for reasons other than health and holiday.12 Anderson writes that, arriving back in London, I found the Jack-the-Ripper scare in full swing. When the stolid English go in for a scare they take leave of all moderation and common sense. If nonsense were solid, the nonsense that was talked and written about those murders would sink a Dreadnought. The subject is an unsavoury one, and I must write about it with reserve.

He went on to explain, I spent the day of my return to town, and half the following night, in reinvestigating the whole case, and next day I had a long conference on the subject with the Secretary of State and the Chief Commissioner of Police. 'We hold you responsible to find the murderer', was Mr. Matthews' greeting to me. My answer was to decline the responsibility. 'I hold myself responsible', I said, 'to take all legitimate means to find him'. But I went on to say that the measures I found in operation were, in my opinion, wholly indefensible and scandalous; for these wretched women were plying their trade under definite Police protection. Let the Police of that district, I urged, receive orders to arrest every known 'street woman' found on the prowl after midnight, or else let us warn them that the Police will not protect them. Though the former course would have been merciful to the very small cla.s.s of woman affected by it, it was deemed too drastic, and I fell back on the second.13 There is no evidence that any formal instruction was issued that prost.i.tutes were no longer subject to police protection, but some, now lost, may well have been issued to the effect that they could not be protected if they walked the streets and took customers any one of whom could have been the Ripper into dark, secluded and lonely spots. If any such order was issued, it is the only action Anderson is known to have taken. And it is one he thought successful: 'However the fact may be explained, it is a fact that no other street murder in the "Jack the Ripper" series . . .'. Anderson specified 'street murder', the last of the crimes having been committed indoors.

In Anderson's absence Sir Charles Warren had appointed Chief Inspector Donald Swanson to oversee the Ripper inquiry. He was intelligent (a Greek and Latin scholar) and for a short time was a teacher before joining the Metropolitan Police. He was a very capable detective described as 'One of the best cla.s.s of officers'14 and 'a very capable officer with a synthetical turn of mind'.15 In a report to the Home Office, Swanson described the efforts thus far taken by the police to find the murderer: 80,000 pamphlets to occupier were issued and a house to house enquiry made not only involving the result of enquiries from the occupiers but also a search by police & with a few exceptions but not such as to convey suspicion covered the area bounded by the City Police boundary on the one hand, Lamb St. Commercial St. Great Eastern Railway & Buxton St. then by Albert St. Dunk St. Chicksand St. & Great Garden St. to Whitechapel Rd. and then to the City boundary, under this head also Common Lodging Houses were visited & over 2000 lodgers were examined.

Enquiry was also made by Thames Police as to sailors on board s.h.i.+ps in Docks or river & extended enquiry as to asiatics present in London, about 80 persons have been detained at the different police stations in the Metropolis & their statements taken and verified by police & enquiry has been made into the movements of a number of persons estimated at upwards of 300 respecting whom communications were received by police & such enquiries are being continued.

Seventy six Butchers & Slaughterers have been visited & the characters of the men employed enquired into, this embraces all servants who had been employed for the past six months.

Enquiries have also been made as to the alleged presence in London of Greek Gipsies, but it was found that they had not been in London during the times of the previous murders.

Three of the persons calling themselves Cowboys16 who belonged to the American Exhibition were traced & satisfactorily accounted for themselves.

Up to date although the number of letters daily is considerably lessened, the other enquiries respecting alleged suspicious persons continues as numerous.

There are now 994 Dockets besides police reports.

(sd) Donald S. Swanson Ch. Inspr.17 Men were arrested for behaving suspiciously or when reported by members of the public including a comical arrest of a journalist who attracted suspicion by being dressed in women's clothing. He hoped to attract Jack the Ripper's attention, but instead attracted the attention of a crowd in Lewisham (what was he doing trying to catch the East End murderer in Lewisham?) and had to be taken to the police station for his own protection.18 Psychics and spiritualists offered such advice and a.s.sistance as they could, writing to the newspapers and even visiting the police. One group in Cardiff claimed to have been told by the spirit of Elizabeth Stride that a middle-aged man who lived off Commercial Street or Commercial Road and belonged to a gang consisting of 12 men had killed her.19 At a seance in Bolton a medium described the Whitechapel murderer 'as having the appearance of a farmer, though dressed like a navvy, with a strap round his waist and peculiar pockets. He wears a dark moustache and bears scars behind the ear and in other places. He will, says the medium, be caught in the act of committing another murder'.20 Robert James Lees, supposed Psychic by Appointment to Queen Victoria (which he certainly wasn't21 and who in recent years has popped up in some wilder theories about the Ripper's ident.i.ty), apparently offered his services to the police, recording in his diary with disarming candour that he was variously called 'a fool and a lunatic', a 'madman and a fool', and on a third and final attempt received the 'same result' but did manage to obtain a promise that he would be contacted if his services were required. With much the same level of success, Sir Charles Warren investigated the possibility of using bloodhounds, which gave the press the opportunity to enjoy some humour at his expense and gave birth to some canards that have dogged Ripper studies ever since.

Elizabeth Stride was buried 'quietly and at the parish's expense' on the day of Anderson's return and on 8 October Catharine Eddowes was buried in a manner that she could never have antic.i.p.ated in life. Eddowes made her last journey in a polished elm coffin with oak mouldings, borne in an open-gla.s.s hea.r.s.e drawn by a pair of horses, followed by mourning coaches. The route was thronged with crowds of people and the cortege was conducted to the cemetery by the police. A Mr. Hawks, an undertaker, met all the expenses.22 The press were playing a very significant part in the 'creation' of the Ripper case.23 It is almost impossible to fully appreciate how insular life was for most people in the 1880s. Obviously people did not have the Internet, telephone, television, radio and all the numerous means of communication and news dissemination we possess today. The average person was poorly educated and barely literate. By 1819 most of the population was 'certainly basically literate, including even women and the very poor'24 but didn't travel abroad, rarely travelled out of their immediate community except, perhaps, on their annual pilgrimage to the hop fields of Kent and had little comprehension of anything beyond their immediate surroundings. Poverty was even more restrictive. As an example of what the poorer end of the population knew, Henry Mayhew questioned a lively and spirited boy on general and religious knowledge: Yes, he has 'eered of G.o.d, who made the world. Couldn't exactly recollec' when he'd heer'd of him. Didn't know when the world was made or how anybody could do it. It was afore his time, 'or your'n either, sir'. Knew there was a book called the Bible; didn't know what it was about . . . Had never heer'd of France, but had heer'd of Frenchmen . . . Had heer'd of Ireland. Didn't know where it was . . . thought he had heer'd of Shakespeare, but didn't know whether he was alive or dead, and didn't care . . . Had seen the Queen but didn't recollec' her name just at the minute . . . Had no notion what the Queen had to do.25 The boy was far from unique and Mayhew cited numerous other examples of profound ignorance. Such ignorance had increasingly concerned the authorities as the nineteenth century progressed, not, of course, because people were being denied the right to education but because it was weakening military and business superiority. It was believed that the North's victory over the South in the American Civil War and Prussia's defeat of Austria was due to the victors' soldiers being better educated. Improved schooling among Britain's commercial compet.i.tors also caused the government to reconsider its opposition to primary education. Government reforms led to the pa.s.sing of the Education Act in April 1870, which enabled local authorities to set up locally-elected school boards to oversee the building of schools financed from the rates. These were called board schools. One such was the imposing structure at the end of Buck's Row where the first murder occurred. The Act was for children aged under 13 (secondary education would not be reformed until 1902), but by the 1880s education had improved considerably and in the election year of 1885 it was estimated that only 4 per cent of the electorate were illiterate.

Better education and improved literacy created a new and hungry market for newspapers, and the abolition of various taxes26 that had made newspapers expensive and beyond the reach of ordinary people, coupled with improvements in newspaper production and distribution, meant that newspaper proprietors could target a whole new market and create publications directed wholly at their needs and interests. There was a boom in both the number of daily and evening newspapers and also in the circulation of existing and new t.i.tles. For example, there were 14 daily newspapers in the United Kingdom in 1846, and 158 by 1880. Newspaper distribution also improved. In 1876 W.H. Smith managed to arrange for newspapers to go to press in time to be delivered to 'newspaper trains' which left London before dawn and arrived, even in distant places like Liverpool, before midday. As a consequence the number of newsagents almost doubled during the 1880s.

The press also began to acquire a new power. Some politicians recognised the influence of the press. Lord Randolph Churchill, a 'genius for vulgarisation',27 almost obsessively cultivated links with the press, so much so that when he impulsively resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the middle of the night in December 1886, Lord Salisbury observed to his wife, 'if I know my man, it will be in The Times this morning'. It was.28 But politicians also began to appreciate how intrusive the press was and how it moulded public opinion be it the influential and campaigning Pall Mall Gazette or Henry Labouchere's weekly Truth, which peered into murky corners for political scandals and financial swindles. There is a subtle irony in that it was politician W.H. Smith (the son of the newsagent) who, fed up when journalists disturbed a business meeting at the home of Lord Salisbury, observed of journalists, 'these vermin are omnipresent and it is hopeless to attempt to escape observation . . . it is really quite intolerable'.29 Gladstone, like Churchill, rather liked publicity at first,30 but complained to Lord Hartington in December 1885 that 'the whole stream of public excitement is now turned upon me, and I am pestered with incessant telegrams which there is no defence against, but either suicide or Parnell's method of self-concealment . . . [he was] so battered with telegrams that I hardly know whether I stand on my head or my heels'.31 The telegraph made it possible to gather and disseminate news very quickly, and the immediacy of reporting, so familiar today but revolutionary then, considerably heightened public awareness of the world at large and increased interest in foreign affairs. It also meant that provincial newspapers which grew from two dailies in 1846 to 88 by 188032 were able, through the services of London correspondents and press agencies, to report London news almost as it happened, and also to influence London-based decision-making. The Liberal agitation against Disraeli's foreign policy in the latter years of the 1870s began in the provincial press much to Queen Victoria's disgust; she disliked Gladstone even more as a result.

Newspapers took on a new role. Instead of simply reporting, some newspapers saw themselves as having a pre-Reithian responsibility to educate as well as inform; not just educating their readers in the intricacies of national and international politics, economics and social concerns, but in educating the ruling elite in the opinion of the people. With a readers.h.i.+p of hundreds of thousands, the newspaper could accurately test public opinion, and the newspaper 'would be a great secular or civic church and democratic university . . . the very soul of our national unity', as Stead put it.33 But it was 'investigative journalism' 'new journalism' for which the latter part of the 1800s is best remembered.

Victorian newspapers were extraordinary beasts. Typified magisterially by The Times, they had no headlines or cross-heads, just row after row, column after column of densely packed blocks of tiny type. The content catered almost exclusively for the upper and middle cla.s.ses and was overwhelmingly political. Parliamentary reports alone occupied about a quarter of The Times's editorial content and a fifth of the Daily Telegraph's. Speeches in and out of Parliament were often printed in full. The 'papers otherwise covered business and religious news, sports like racing and cricket, and sensational law cases. Editorial opinion was almost non-existent and where it existed it was in the leader or thrashed out in the letters columns. Newspapers themselves were not primarily commercial and their owners 'were usually well-educated, middle cla.s.s people, cautious rather than ambitious, seeking no new worlds to conquer, valuing their papers chiefly for the political and social influence which accrued through them, and disposed in most instances to view the proper exercise of this influence very seriously as a sort of personal trust'. But it was a quiet and ordered world under threat: 'This dignified phase of English journalism reigned unchallenged till 1886 and indeed beyond. Yet the seed of its destruction was already germinating'.34 And, 'in a few short years it was rivalled, defeated and eventually almost driven out of the field, by the meteoric rise of another type, but far more widely sold'.35 It sounds horribly dramatic and in many respects it was the newspaper revolution has been described as 'one of the turning points in national evolution'36 but the 'new journalism' was almost single-handedly responsible for creating the enduring legend of Jack the Ripper. 'New journalism' was a term coined in 1887 by Matthew Arnold, in an article expressing a thinly veiled but profound distrust of the unintelligent ma.s.ses, 'the new voters, the democracy': We have had opportunities of observing a New Journalism which a clever and energetic man has lately invented. It has much to recommend it; it is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instincts; its one great fault is that it is featherbrained.37 The 'new journalism' was criticised, even by a standard work such as Sir Robert Ensor's England 18701940, where it is described as having replaced 'dignified journalism', compared to which it was 'far less responsible and far less intellectual' and catered for 'people who had been taught to decipher print without learning much else, and for whom the existing newspapers, with their long articles, long paragraphs, and all-round demands on the intelligence and imagination, were quite unsuited'.38 The 'clever and energetic man' referred to by Matthew Arnold was W.T. Stead, and the 'new journalism' was his campaigning, investigative journalism. But whether or not Stead was deserving of the accolade and whether or not his journalism was the 'new journalism' has been fiercely debated. As L. Perry Curtis, Jnr, has observed, If this term is confined to the shock-provoking and crusading journalism a.s.sociated with William T. Stead's famous expose of child prost.i.tution in 1885, then the accolade of innovator should fall on the Pall Mall Gazette. But if we extend the term to include a heavier emphasis on crime, scandal, disaster, and sports along with bolder and more lurid headlines and subheads, then the Sunday and evening press of the 1860s and 1870s deserves most of the credit for this development.39 As far as Sir Robert Ensor was concerned, 'The key feature of the new journalism was not sensation but commercialism. It ran its sensations, as it ran everything else, to make money, and measured them solely by the sales they brought'.40 Ensor had Alfred Harmsworth and the Daily Mail in mind, but Frank Harris'41 earlier editors.h.i.+p of The Evening News had been dependent on his ability to increase the circulation, which he did from 7,000 to 70,000. In the process he pioneered the human interest story, the success of which he is said to have once explained to Henry Labouchere: I edited the Evening News first as a scholar and man of the world of twentyeight; n.o.body wanted my opinions but as I went downwards and began to edit as I felt at twenty, then at eighteen, then at sixteen, I was more successful; but when I got to my tastes at fourteen years of age I found instantaneous response. Kissing and fighting were the only things I cared for at thirteen or fourteen and these are the things the British public desires and enjoys today . . . when I got one or other or both of these interests into every column, the circulation of the paper increased steadily.42 But the 'new journalism' wasn't an adoption of commercialism. Commercialism was thrust upon it by the compet.i.tion for readers. T.P. O'Connor, founder in 1888 of the radical The Star, thought the 'new journalism' consisted of stories that hit the reader 'right between the eyes'. Edward Dicey, the Daily Telegraph's leader writer, thought the 'new journalism' delivered the news in 'minces and snippets' rather than 'in chops and joints', which for an accomplished leader writer seems a rather tortured metaphor.

The 'new journalism' was a combination of racier journalism (shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, emphasis on the human angle, providing summaries instead of verbatim reports); investigative journalism (digging out the story behind the story); making the news (campaigns highlighting scandals, inefficiencies and inadequacies, and news a.n.a.lysis); sensationalism (exaggerated reporting, perhaps what Gladstone in 1885 described as a 'prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics'43); and general presentation (headlines, cross-heads, large typeface emphasised by the Pall Mall Gazette's 'smaller size, larger type, more readable format and gossipy style'44). The 'new journalism' was looking for a sensation. It had found a few. Jack the Ripper rolled them all into one.

As innovative as the Pall Mall Gazette was, it was a traditional newspaper in the sense that it directed its campaigns at the upper middle cla.s.ses. Its campaigns, like the Maiden Tribute, weren't produced for the t.i.tillation of the readers, but to shock and spur the powers that be into action. The readers.h.i.+p the 'democracy' were the people who could influence the ruling elite. They were not primarily the new voters, the newly literate. The first newspaper to cater specifically for this new market was t.i.t-bits, founded in 1880 by a schoolfellow of Stead's named George Newness. The manager of the northern branch of a London-based fancy goods business, he conceived the idea of a journal that would be a digest of material culled from all available sources and on 2 October 1881 produced the first edition of the weekly t.i.t-bits. Within two hours 5,000 copies were sold. He would go on to launch numerous publications, including the Strand magazine in 1891, which if nothing else provided a permanent home for one of the greatest literary creations of all time Sherlock Holmes, who had debuted in 1887 in Mrs. Beeton's Christmas Annual. Among those employed by Newness was Alfred Harmsworth, who in 1888 started his own newspaper, a weekly rival to t.i.t-bits called Answers to Correspondents. It would achieve an unheard of circulation of 250,000 and by 1896 would provide Harmsworth with the money to launch the Daily Mail, the first true newspaper for the ma.s.ses 'written by office boys for office boys' was how Lord Salisbury famously described it which within three years reached a circulation of 543,000, untouched by the compet.i.tion.

But Harmsworth was a different animal to W.T. Stead. Stead was a newspaperman who recognised that newspapers were a business. Harmsworth albeit that his brother was the financial genius was a businessman whose business was newspapers. Stead saw the newspaper as a means for evoking change; Harmsworth saw the newspaper as a way of making money. Stead knew his newspaper could and did influence people and therefore had a responsibility to those people; Harmsworth did not. As a friend and admirer put it, Harmsworth's 'conviction [was] that whatever benefits them [his publications] is justifiable, and that it is not his business to consider the effect of their contents on the public mind'.45 As Sir Robert Ensor observed, Harmsworth appreciated newspapers brought power but 'he never appreciated they brought responsibility'. Harmsworth's was a development of 'new journalism' and goodness knows what the Daily Mail would have done with the Ripper murders. As it happens, it was Jack the Ripper who nearly killed the Daily Mail before it had even been conceived. Answers To Correspondents was not an immediate success and Harmsworth was reduced to utter despair when the circulation began to fall and he could do nothing to revive it, blaming 'the heavy fog that was blanketing London; this plus the Jack the Ripper scare then at its height'.46 Ironically, whilst Jack the Ripper nearly killed Answers to Correspondents, he was instrumental in the success of another newspaper launched in 1888 The Star. The Star was founded by staunch radical T.P. O'Connor Tay Pay, as he was nicknamed, who 'survived until 1936, but his mind never advanced beyond the year 1865'47 for the express purpose of providing the pro-Home Rule movement with a voice in the London evening press. The Star saw itself from its first issue as a 'people's' newspaper not necessarily for the people, but reflecting the view of the people and the effect of policy on the people. As such it was a pioneer of 'new journalism'. As O'Connor observed in his first editorial, complete with a reference to Whitechapel: The charwoman that lives in St. Giles, the seamstress that is sweated in Whitechapel, the labourer that stands begging for work outside the dockyard gate in St. George's-in-the East these are the persons by whose condition we shall judge the policy of the different political parties, and as it relieves or injures or leaves unhelped their position, shall that policy by us be praised or condemned, helped or resisted.

O'Connor hired 'a young, flossy-haired man, with a keen face' named Ernest Parke, who was an excellent journalist and future renowned editor of the newspaper. 'He might be trusted to work up any sensational news of the day, and he helped, with "Jack the Ripper", to make gigantic circulations. .h.i.therto unparalleled in evening journalism'.48 A few years later H.W. Ma.s.singham, O'Connor's a.s.sistant editor, recalled that The Evening News, The Star and the Echo had their presses running 'around the clock' during the sensation of the Ripper crimes.49 The Sunday newspaper, the People, sold more copies than it had ever done. Crime always boosted sales, of course, but a sensational series of horrific crimes unfolding like a serial in a penny dreadful was 'a journalistic windfall' as far as Fleet Street was concerned opportunistically happening at a time when the compet.i.tion for readers was becoming fierce enough to cause several investors qualms.

The press drew its battle-lines according to its political colours. The liberal and radical press launched an a.s.sault on the police and the government, the Pall Mall Gazette and the new kid on the block, The Star, unsurprisingly singling out Matthews and Warren, and accusing them of not caring about the victims because they were dest.i.tute and immoral women. The Pall Mall Gazette, The Star and the Daily Chronicle reminded their readers that Warren had been active enough when brutally repressing the legitimate right of starving workers to hold meetings in Trafalgar Square. The conservative press tried to defend both Matthews and Warren, and The Times at one point tried to s.h.i.+ft the responsibility to the victims themselves. As time pa.s.sed, particularly during the long murder-free month of October, the press struggled to keep the story going, despite the long and detailed coroner's inquiry. One distinguished journalist, J. Hall Richardson, recalled that covering the inquiry, . . . was a time of great nightmares . . . It involved the most unpleasant work, long hours of vigil in the streets of the East End, contact with repulsive people, constantly 'up against' the inventions and fict.i.tious stories of compet.i.tors in journalism.50 The 'inventions and fict.i.tious stories' spoken of by J. Hall Richardson may be those mentioned by a fantasist, novelist and journalist for the Globe, William Le Queux, who rather more breezily wrote of how he played 'a three-handed game' with Charles Hands51 and Lincoln Springfield52 of The Star: We practically lived as a trio in Whitechapel, and as each murder was committed we wrote up picturesque and lurid details while we stood on the very spot where the tragedy had occurred. One evening Springfield of the Star would publish a theory as to how the murders had been done . . .; next night Charlie Hands would have a far better theory in the Pall Mall, and then I would weigh in with another theory in the Globe.53 One of the reasons why the journalists were forced to scratch around for stories was that the police were not particularly forthcoming with information. Complaints about police reticence were voiced particularly after the 'double event', but also in a book, Police!, published in 1889 and co-auth.o.r.ed by the same J. Hall Richardson who spent 'long hours of vigil in the streets of the East End' and was an intimate of many policemen. Both the police and the coroner, he wrote, 'distrusted the newspapers', and he blamed 'the police by their reticence' for the 'Leather Ap.r.o.n'/John Pizer scare, after which, he said, under pain of dismissal, the detectives refused information even to the accredited representatives of London papers. But there was a suspicion that there was favouritism exercised.

There has always been a rule to the effect that information is not to be given to the press, Mr. Vincent having enjoined: 'Police must not on any account give any information whatever to gentlemen connected with the press relative to matters within police knowledge, or relative to duties to be performed or orders received, or communicate in any manner, either directly or indirectly, with editors or reporters of newspapers on any matter connected with the public service, without express and special authority. The slightest deviation from this rule may completely frustrate the ends of justice, and defeat the endeavour of superior officers to advance the welfare of the public service. Individual merit will be invariably recognised in due course, but officers who without authority give publicity to discoveries, tending to produce sensation and alarm, show themselves wholly unworthy of their posts.54 Not that the rule was always observed. As the authors observed, 'there was a suspicion that there was favouritism exercised' and they singled out James Monro as one who used the Daily Telegraph to thwart crimes, notably the Fenian plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate Queen Victoria during her Jubilee celebrations in 1887. It is difficult not to think that Richardson didn't have his tongue in cheek when he wrote about favouritism, however, as he worked for the Daily Telegraph and was 'a great personal friend' of Monro.55 The news agencies also 'served as conduits for information that Scotland Yard wanted to divulge'.56 Prior to the Telegraph Act of 1868 there were several private telegraph companies and, under the collective name of the Magnetic and Electric Companies, they exercised a monopoly over distributing news to the provincial press. The news was mainly political and commercial, not always pertinent and sometimes inaccurate, but complaints were greeted by the charges being increased and a cessation of the service to those who refused to pay. The Telegraph Act nationalised the private telegraph companies and as pa.s.sage of the Act approached, several provincial newspaper bosses got together and decided to form their own press agency to provide news 'unvarnished and unspun'. Thus the Press a.s.sociation was born. It quickly formed an alliance with the international press agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius de Reuter, and was then able to provide London news to the world and world news to London and the provinces.

The Press a.s.sociation was not the first such organisation serving the provincial press. William Saunders (182395),57 who had started the Plymouth Western Morning News in 1860 and other newspapers in Newcastle and Hull, had launched the first news-distributing agency, Central Press, in 1863 with his brother-in-law Edward Spender. In 187071 it became the Central News Agency and went into direct compet.i.tion with the Press a.s.sociation, 'and unofficial war was declared in the battle for business'. The battle was a b.l.o.o.d.y one and Central News developed a reputation both for delivering scoops and for playing dirty: 'During the 1880s there was a suspicious series of incidents that caused the Press a.s.sociation to fear there was an element of corruption, possibly bribery, at work' when PA reports didn't arrive in newspaper offices until after Central News reports, even though the PA handed their reports to the Post Office before Central News. The implication was that somebody was delaying the PA text. Complaints were lodged, but nothing could be established. Not that the Press a.s.sociation always played clean!

By 1887 the war had degenerated into a cost-cutting battle, 'the Central News slashed its charge for special reporting such as major political speeches from fifteen s.h.i.+llings to ten s.h.i.+llings a column. The P.A. followed suit at a cost of 3,000 a year'. Throughout 1888 the agencies battled one another, Central News supplying less stodgy copy, 'was more lively, colourful and, as it sometimes seemed, much faster. Its correspondents did not feel so diffident about using their imaginations when the facts were unexciting'. And this was by no means a recent phenomenon Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal in October 1883 having castigated Central News for spreading a false story about a plot to murder the new Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada: What is to be done with the concoctors of false news and those who, without the expense of verification, disseminate for pecuniary gain? , . . Were the bogus telegram agency forced to return the money received for the falsehood, and the newspapers reproducing it fined, more care might perhaps be taken in announcing one moment what has to be contradicted the next.58 Central News developed something of a reputation for underhand practices and supplying stories of dubious veracity, particularly in its overseas operation, and in 1895 The Times printed a highly critical article accusing Central News of embellishments in its reports.59 It was to the Central News agency that a letter would be sent, purporting to be from the Whitechapel murderer, being signed and for the first time giving the name 'Jack the Ripper'.

On 25 September 1888 the penman wrote and dated a letter which he posted to: The Boss, Central News Office, London City. It was posted on 27 September and received by Central News the same day. It read: 25 September 1888 Dear Boss I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won't fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Ap.r.o.n gave me real fits. I am down on wh.o.r.es and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I can't use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the lady s ears off and send to the Police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work . then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

Yours truly Jack the Ripper Don't mind me giving my trade name Wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I am a doctor now ha. ha.

At first the agency treated it as a joke, but decided on 29 September to send it to Scotland Yard, which it did with a short covering letter: The Editor sends his compliments to Mr. Williamson & begs to inform him the enclosed was sent to the Central News two days ago, & was treated as a joke.

The 'Jack the Ripper' letter with its strange scatterings of Americanisms such as 'the boss' and 'quit', well written with a neat, copperplate hand, was intriguing. On 1 October Central News received a second communication, a postcard that read: 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 time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper These communications were almost certainly written by the same person, although the possibility that the postcard was an imitative hoax certainly exists. If so it was written by a hoaxer who must have had access to good information at an early stage in the police enquiries, especially as the postcard said that the first 'squealed a bit', which seems to be a reference to the largely unpublished testimony of Israel Schwartz who said the woman he saw a.s.saulted had 'screamed three times but not very loudly'. The press largely regarded the communications as a hoax, however, The Star reporting on 1 October 1888 that, 'A practical joker, who signed himself "Jack the Ripper", wrote to the Central News last week . . .'. The Daily Telegraph, which published a facsimile of part of the letter on 4 October, stated that the police 'do not attach any great importance to them, still they thought it well to have facsimiles prepared, and to send them to the Press, in the possibility that the handwriting may be recognised by some one'. The Star, in a front page editorial on 4 October, criticised the Daily Telegraph for publis.h.i.+ng the facsimile, interestingly adding, 'We were offered them by "Central News", and declined to print them. They were clearly written in red pencil, not in blood, the obvious reason being that the writer was one of those foolish but bad people who delight in unholy notoriety. Now, the murderer is not a man of this kind . . .'. The police certainly regarded the letter and postcard as a hoax, as a letter from Sir Charles Warren to G.o.dfrey Lus.h.i.+ngton dated 10 October shows. He said, 'At present I think the whole thing is a hoax'. But as Warren observed, the police were 'bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case'.60 We cannot say why the police seem to have paid more attention to the 'Jack the Ripper' correspondence than to the hundreds of other letters, although the content as already noted may explain it in part, which made it necessary for the police to try to identify the author. But the chilling soubriquet was a fortuitous stroke of genius and bestowed upon the unknown murderer an immortality among the greatest villains of fact and faction. In this respect and others, not the least being that they sp.a.w.ned hundreds of further hoax letters the distribution of the facsimiles was a mistake: The fame of 'Jack the Ripper' spread far and wide. It is probable that nothing would have been heard of this cognomen had it not been for the indiscretion of Scotland Yard in publis.h.i.+ng a facsimile of sensational letters sent to a news agency, which thereby gave to these interesting doc.u.ments the stamp of official authority.61 Finally, on Friday 5 October Central News received a third missive from 'Jack the Ripper' and informed Scotland Yard, though curiously the agency this time only supplied a transcript: Dear Mr. Williamson At 5 minutes to 9 o'clock tonight we received the following letter the envelope of which I enclose by which you will see it is in the same handwriting as the previous communications '5 Oct 1888 Dear Friend In the name of G.o.d hear me I swear I did not kill the female whose body was found at Whitehall. If she was an honest woman I will hunt down and destroy her murderer. If she ['was an honest woman' deleted] was a wh.o.r.e G.o.d will bless the hand that slew her, for the women of of [sic] Moab and Midian shall die and their blood shall mingle with the dust I never harm any others or the Divine power that protects and helps me in my grand work would quit for ever. Do as I do and the light of glory shall s.h.i.+ne upon you. I must get to work tomorrow treble event this time yes yes three must be ripped. will send you a bit of face by post I promise this dear old Boss. The police now reckon my work a practical joke well well Jacky's a very practical joker ha ha ha. Keep this back till three are wiped out and you can show the cold meat Yours truly Jack the Ripper'

Yours truly T.J. Bulling The police, at least at a senior level, seem not only to have regarded the 'Jack the Ripper' correspondence as bogus, they apparently knew or thought they knew the ident.i.ty of the hoaxer. Writing in 1910 in a serialisation of his memoirs that would be published in book form later in the year, the now-retired Sir Robert Anderson wrote, I will only add here that the 'Jack-the-Ripper' letter which is preserved in the Police Museum at New Scotland Yard is the creation of an enterprising London journalist.

And, as a footnote, added, I should almost be tempted to disclose the ident.i.ty of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter above referred to . . .62 A correspondent to the East London Observer at the time of Anderson's revelations about the author of the 'Jack the Ripper' correspondence, as well as the ident.i.ty of the murderer (of which more later), wrote to say that the letter and postcard had been written by 'an enterprising local penny-a-liner' meaning a journalist who was paid a penny a line. The correspondent signed himself 'A Wide-Awake East-Ender'.

An anonymous contributor to Crime and Detection in August 1966 recalled, In 1931, working on an outline for a life of William Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner, a friend mentioned an ex-jockey who was living not far from my home (then Henley-on-Thames). Through several introductions, to reach this character, I finally arrived at a man named Best, an ex-journalist. He was spry and very clear-minded, though well past 70. He knew the jockey, and arranged a meeting at the house of a friend in a small place called Culham, on the Oxon-Berks border.

I met the ex-jockey, a vigorous old gentleman of, he claimed, 95. Known as Jack, or John, Faulkener, he had ridden a number of races for William Palmer, and his fund of reminiscences was large.

Returning homewards with me, Best discussed murders, the Whitechapel murders in particular. With much amplifying detail he talked of his days as a penny-a-liner on the Star newspaper. As a freelance he had covered the Whitechapel murders from the discovery of the woman, Tabram. He claimed that he, and a provincial colleague, were responsible for all the 'Ripper' letters, to 'keep the business alive . . . in those days it was far easier to get details, and facts from the police, than today'. Best did not mind me having these facts so many years later, and said a close reading of the Star of the time might be informative, and that an experienced graphologist with an open mind would be able to find in the original letters 'numerous earmarks' of an experienced journalist at work; the pen used was called a 'Waverley Nib' and was deliberately battered to achieve an impression of semi-illiteracy and 'National School' training! Best scoffed at the notion that the 'Ripper' had written a single word about his crimes.

Some years before this the late Edgar Wallace mentioned that in his reporting days the better informed Fleet Street men were satisfied that a newspaperman was 'behind' the letters.

This story, with its lack of detail about 'Best', the battered pen nib to give the impression of 'semi-illiteracy and "National School" training!' (which doesn't fit the Dear Boss and Saucy Jacky correspondence, but could fit the Lusk letter discussed shortly), is intriguing. A reading of The Star does suggest that it was determinedly not taken in by the correspondence, which is interesting. Best, of course, wasn't necessarily talking about what are today known as the Dear Boss letter and Saucy Jacky postcard. The police had received hundreds of letters from all parts of the country offering suggestions of various kinds for the capture of the murderer, advancing suspects and even claiming to be the murderer, and 'it is almost needless to say that none of the communications help in any way to elucidate the mystery'.63 Best, a.s.suming he existed, could have meant any of these. On the other hand, hardly any of the correspondence achieved any notoriety or were worthy of note or discussion, and Best could hardly have meant that he wrote all of it.

R. Thurston Hopkins, in his book Life and Death at the Old Bailey, also pointed the finger of guilt at a journalist: But it was in a letter, received by a well-known News Agency and forwarded to the Yard, that the name first appeared . . . It was perhaps a fortunate thing that the handwriting of this famous letter was not identified, for it would have led to the arrest of a harmless Fleet Street journalist. This poor fellow had a breakdown and became a whimsical figure in Fleet Street, only befriended by the staffs of newspapers and printing works. He would creep about the dark courts waving his hands furiously in the air, would utter stentorian 'Ha, ha, ha's', and then, meeting some pal, would b.u.t.ton-hole him and pour into his ear all the 'inner story' of the East End murders. Many old Fleet Streeters had very shrewd suspicions that this irresponsible fellow wrote the famous Jack the Ripper letter . . .64 Sir Melville Macnaghten, who succeeded Anderson as a.s.sistant Commissioner CID, also said he 'could discern the stained forefinger of the journalist' in the Ripper correspondence.65 The ever-cautious Macnaghten didn't commit himself to actual knowledge of the ident.i.ty of the perpetrator, but said 'I had shrewd suspicions as to the actual author!'. For a name we had to wait until the distinguished Ripper authority Stewart Evans purchased some correspondence once belonging to the journalist George R. Sims, a man famous in his day but now largely remembered, when he is remembered at all, for 'Christmas Day In The Workhouse'. Among the letters was one written in September 1913 by ex-Chief Inspector John Littlechild: With regard to the term 'Jack the Ripper' it was generally believed at the Yard that Tom Bullen of the Central News was the originator but it is probable Moore, who was his chief, was the inventor. It was a smart piece of journalistic work. No journalist of my time got such privileges from Scotland Yard as Bullen. Mr James Munro when a.s.sistant Commissioner, and afterwards Commissioner, relied on his integrity. Poor Bullen occasionally took too much to drink, and I fail to see how he could help it knocking about so many hours and seeking favours from so many people to procure copy. One night when Bullen 'had taken a few too many' he got early information of the death of Prince Bismarck and instead of going to the office to report it sent a laconic telegram 'b.l.o.o.d.y Bismarck is dead'. On this I believe Mr. Charles Moore fired him out.66 The names here are incorrect, Tom Bullen being Thomas John Bulling and Charles Moore almost certainly John Moore, the Manager of Central News.

As was recognised at the time, it was highly unlikely that a member of the public would have sent correspondence to a news agency. It is equally difficult to understand how, except in the broad general sense of prolonging the story, any journalist, particularly a penny-a-liner, would have hoped to benefit personally from the hoax. The same question could be asked of Central News: what would they have gained?

Perhaps the most extraordinary comment about the correspondence was published in radical MP and pro-Parnellite Henry Labouchere's magazine, Truth, on 11 October: On the doctrine of possibilities, it is long odds against the murderer having written the 'Jack the Ripper' letters. He may have, and so may many thousands of others. But there is a coincidence in respect to these letters to which attention has not yet been drawn. The handwriting is remarkably like that of the forgeries which the Times published, and which they ascribed to Mr. Parnell and to Mr. Egan. I do not go so far as to suggest that the Times forger is the Whitechapel murderer, although this, of course is possible; but it may be that the forger takes pride in his work, and wishes to keep his hand in.

Parnell certainly knew by 11 October, when this article was published, that Pigott was the author of the forged letters supposedly written by Parnell and used in a series of articles alleging Parnell's involvement with crime, and Labouchere may have known too. Anderson may have met Pigott in Paris on 4 October, also obtaining a confession to the authors.h.i.+p of the letters. Could Pigott have confessed to writing 'Dear Boss'? He was a journalist . . . At times the subject of Jack the Ripper provides rich seams from which to mine tempting speculation.

Probably the most significant event of the month took place shortly after 5.00pm on 16 October when a letter and a cardboard box were delivered to George Lusk, the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The letter read: From h.e.l.l Mr Lusk.

Sor, I send you half the kidne I took from one woman prasarved it for you, tother piece I fried and ate; it was very nice. I may send you a b.l.o.o.d.y knif that I took it out if you only wate a while longer.

[signed] 'Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk.'

At first Lusk thought it was a hoax but he was persuaded by other members of the vigilance committee to take the contents of the box to the nearby surgery of Dr. Wiles at 56 Mile End Road. Wiles' a.s.sistant Dr. Reed examined the contents and recommended that they be taken to Dr. Thomas Openshaw of the London Hospital. Openshaw p.r.o.nounced it to be a left human kidney (nothing more), and Mr. Lusk then took it to Inspector Abberline at the Leman Street Police Station. The Metropolitan Police in due course pa.s.sed it to the City Police, where it was examined by Dr. Gordon Brown.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police, wrote with perhaps typical inaccuracy of the 'Lusk kidney' in his memoirs under a chapter heading, 'Of Kidneys, Not Devilled', which perhaps gives something of the flavour of these remembrances:67 When the body was examined by the police surgeon, Mr. Gordon Brown, one kidney was found to be missing, and some days after the murder what purported to be that kidney was posted to the office of the Central News, together with a short note of rather a jocular character unfit for publications. Both kidney and note the manager at once forwarded to me. Unfortunately, as always happens, some clerk or a.s.sistant in the office was got at, and the whole affair was public property next morning. Right royally did the Solons of the metropolis enjoy themselves at the expense of my humble self and the City Police Force. 'The kidney was the kidney of a dog, anyone could see that', wrote one. 'Evidently from the dissecting-room', wrote another. 'Taken out of a corpse after a post-mortem', wrote a third. 'A transparent hoax', wrote a fourth. My readers shall judge between myself and the Solons in question.

I made over the kidney to the police surgeon, instructing him to consult with the most eminent men in the profession, and send me a report without delay. I give the substance of it. The renal artery is about three inches long. Two inches remained in the corpse, one inch was attached to the kidney. The kidney left in the corpse was in an advanced stage of Bright's Disease; the kidney sent me was in an exactly similar state. But what was of far more importance, Mr. Sutton, one of the senior surgeons of the London Hospital, whom Gordon Brown asked to meet him and another pract.i.tioner in consultation, and who was one of the greatest authorities living on the kidney and its diseases, said he would pledge his reputation that the kidney submitted to them had been put in spirits within a few hours of its removal from the body thus effectually disposing of all hoaxes in connection with it. The body of anyone done to death by violence is not taken direct to the dissecting-room, but must await an inquest, never held before the following day at the soonest.68 The reality, of course, is that the kidney wasn't sent to Central News or pa.s.sed by the Central News to Major Smith. No renal artery seems to have been attached to the piece of kidney, there was no evidence of Bright's Disease and we don't know who Mr. Sutton was. In any event the kidney being preserved in spirits would suggest that it was removed during an autopsy or dissection, not, as Major Smith seems to have imagined, the reverse. Apart from this there is no immediate reason to doubt what's left of Major Smith's story which isn't much.

A report submitted to the Home Office by Chief Inspector Swanson of the Metropolitan Police does throw doubt on Major Smith's belief that the kidney could not have come from a body used in a dissecting room: The result of the combined medical opinion they have taken upon it, is, that it is the kidney of a human adult; not charged with a fluid, as it would have been in the case of a body handed over for the purpose of dissection to a hospital, but rather as it would be in the case where it was taken from the body not so destined. In other words similar kidneys might and could be obtained from any dead person whom a post mortem had been made from any cause by students or dissecting room porter.69 Dr. Gordon Brown told a journalist for The Sunday Times, I cannot see that it is the left kidney. It must have been cut previously to its being immersed in the spirit which exercised a hardening process. It certainly had not been in spirit for more than a week. As has been stated, there is no portion of the renal artery adhering to it, it having been trimmed up, so, consequently, there could be no correspondence established between the portion of the body from which it was cut. As it exhibits no trace of decomposition, when we consider the length of time that has elapsed since the commission of the murder, we come to the conclusion that the probability is slight of its being a portion of the murdered woman of Mitre Square.

Mounting opinion, contrary to the view advanced by Major Smith, was that the kidney was a hoax. But the correspondence has lived on to intrigue and fascinate, and most recently a new so-called Ripper letter has generated a new round of theorising. On 29 October 1888 Dr. Openshaw received a letter himself. Addressed to 'Dr. Openshaw, Pathological curator, London Hospital, Whitechapel': Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hopperate agin close to your ospitle just as i was goin to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the job 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 c.o.c.ked up.

The crime novelist Patricia Cornwell has discovered that this letter has the same watermark as paper used by the noted British artist and sometime Jack the Ripper suspect Walter Sickert.70 It may not have seemed at the time that Jack the Ripper was changing the face of the press, but the 'new journalism', seeded in the Sunday press in the 1860s and finding root with the Pall Mall Gazette and 'Modern Babylon', flowered following 'b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday' in 1887 and 'Jack the Ripper' in 1888. The world was changed. And in their own small way the murder of five helpless prost.i.tutes in the warren of streets and alleys of London's East End were instrumental in changing it. But the full horror had yet to be played. Jack the Ripper still had a curtain call.

Notes.

1. East London Observer, 6 October 1888.

2. The Times, 1 October 1888.

3. Manchester Guardian, 2 October 1888.

4. Daily Telegraph, 2 October 1888.

5. The Star, 2 October 1888.

6. See the Manchester Guardian and the Yorks.h.i.+re Post, 1 October 1888, as examples.

7. Matthews' comments are in a letter from Matthews to his private secretary, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, dated 5 October 1888. This is contained in the J.S. Sandars papers, MS. Eng. Hist. C.723 at the Bodleian Library, Department of Western Ma.n.u.scripts, Oxford. The letter is reproduced in full in Begg, Paul (1988) Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts. London: Robson Books, pp.1325.

8. Letter from Sir Charles Warren to Henry Matthews dated 6 October 1888. HO 144/220/A49301B/sub.9.

9. The Pall Mall Gazette, 8 October 1888, for example: 'Strange, almost