Jack The Ripper - The Definitive History Part 6

No relief or justice would come from them.

The working men had now the vote conferred upon them. What for? To turn one party out and put the other in? Were they going to be content with that while their wives and children wanted food?

When the people of France demanded food, the rich laughed at those they called the 'men in blouses', but the heads of those who laughed soon decorated the lamp-posts.

Here the leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic League wanted to settle affairs peaceably if they could; but if not, they would not shrink from revolution.11 According to Burgess, Hyndman then pointed towards club-lined Pall Mall, asked what their members thought of the distress suffered by the unemployed and said they cared not a jot. The only hope left lay in revolution, he said, and proclaimed that the next time they met it would be to take the wealth of which they had been robbed. Inflamed by these revolution-preaching speeches, the SDF's followers overturned the fair traders' platforms and then at an apparently spontaneous suggestion Burns with his red flag, Hyndman, and two other SDF leaders led maybe as many as 3,000 men out of Trafalgar Square to march through the West End to Hyde Park. n.o.body in authority saw them leave and Commissioner Henderson, who had been in Trafalgar Square, heard none of the speakers and, having not seen the overturning of the fair traders' platforms, remarked to Pearson that 'it was the quietest meeting he had seen for a long time'.

Burns led his group of demonstrators into Pall Mall, lined by prestigious gentlemen's clubs and businesses. At 3.50pm someone threw a stone at and shattered the window of a wine merchants near the United Service Club. They pa.s.sed the Athenaeum, the Travellers' Club and the Reform Club, then reached the mid-century Italian facade of the predominantly Conservative Carlton, where according to Burns a member at a window made a derisory gesture as the procession pa.s.sed.12 This infuriated the marchers who rushed the doors and hurled whatever they could find at the windows, including war medals. The march continued along Pall Mall. Stones were thrown indiscriminately: The Reform Club, the Beaconsfield, the Marlborough and the aristocratic White's and Boodles escaped damage, but the Service Club, Brooks's, the radical Devonshire and the New University Club13 were badly stoned. Continuing to smash windows as it went, the mob moved along St. James Street and Piccadilly and began looting from shops. The crowd reached Hyde Park and split into two groups, following Burns into the park where the men listened to speeches before dispersing; the other, estimated at between 400 and 1,000 men, continued to loot and smash windows in the West End, finally meeting opposition from the police an Inspector Cuthbert and 15 constables from the Marylebone Police Station. There was a bit of a scuffle in which one of the constables received a severe cut on his head, but the mob dispersed quickly and three rioters were taken into custody. They were two painters and a labourer from East London. Damages reached as high as 50,000, mostly from broken windows, and businesses filed 281 claims for riot compensation.

It was later realised that the rioting could have been prevented. Commissioner Henderson idly thought as the demonstration in Trafalgar Square broke up most of the men noticeably heading back to the East End that some of the demonstrators could drift into Pall Mall. He issued instructions to inform Superintendent Hume to take his reserves there. This message pa.s.sed down the chain until entrusted to PC William Hull, who unfortunately told Hume to take his men to The Mall. Other failures of communication compounded the problem, police scattered around London having taken no action whatsoever, 150 of the reserves never leaving Scotland Yard, and most of the police in general unaware that anything untoward had happened. Superintendent Walker, for example, was directing traffic in Trafalgar Square until almost 7.00pm without any notion of what had happened. It was hugely embarra.s.sing.14 But this wasn't the end of it. The next day many shopkeepers antic.i.p.ated further troubles and shuttered or barricaded their shops. The police entertained similar expectations and reinforced their patrols. Troops were put on standby at Chelsea, Wellington and Knightsbridge Barracks.

Nothing happened.

But on Wednesday an unusually dense fog descended over the city and it was rumoured that 75,000 unemployed from Deptford and Greenwich were using it to a.s.semble un.o.bserved before marching on the West End. The police took the precaution of recommending shopkeepers to shutter their shops and factory owners to barricade their gates. 'One firm's engineers made preparations to defend the premises by means of fire hoses attached to cauldrons of boiling water. The Bank of England maintained a special guard throughout the day. The Houses of Parliament shut down and the huge iron gates at Charing Cross were closed.'15 It was all probably very sensible in light of Monday's events, but the rumours proved to be untrue and the precautions looked like scare-mongering overreaction. Home Secretary Childers formed a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry and after four days of hearing testimony the blame was firmly laid on Commissioner Henderson's shoulders. By this time, however, he had tendered his resignation and it had been accepted. Childers ordered the arrest of the four SDF leaders and they were tried but acquitted.

Although most socialists, among them William Morris and Frederick Engels, condemned or otherwise deplored the rioting, the spontaneous outbreak of violence preceded by all the ranting about the heads of capitalists hanging from French lampposts made people, among them the workers themselves, realise that they had muscles to flex. Whether from a genuine desire to help the poor or a fear of revolution, the Mansion House Fund for poor relief in the City apparently doubled. Those in the City could afford such largesse. East London could not.

In August 1887, an 18-year-old girl accused of fighting in Covent Garden was brought before the Bow Street magistrates and in the course of the proceedings was asked where she lived. She replied, 'Nowhere'. Asked where she slept, she replied 'Trafalgar Square'. In his Utopian novel News From Nowhere William Morris portrays the disbelief with which a far-future generation greeted a story about a long-past disturbance in Trafalgar Square in which unarmed men were bludgeoned.

The old man looked at me keenly, and said: "You seem to know a great deal about it, neighbour! And is it really true that nothing came of it?"

'This came of it', said I, 'that a good many people were sent to prison because of it'.

'What, of the bludgeoners?' said the old man. 'Poor devils!'

'No, no', said I, of the bludgeoned'.

Said the old man rather severely: 'Friend, I expect that you have been reading some rotten collection of lies, and have been taken in by it too easily'.

'I a.s.sure you', said I, 'what I have been saying is true'.

'Well, well, I am sure you think so, neighbour', said the old man, 'but I don't see why you should be so c.o.c.ksure'.16 Morris was referring to the events of 1887 in Trafalgar Square, which in his romance are followed by a general strike and the collapse of the Government, the Square itself being, as it was in reality, a national symbol of Britain and the Empire. At night it was extremely popular with vagrants and one of those who used to sleep there was Mary Ann Nichols, the first canonical victim of Jack the Ripper. It became a popular place for 'slummers' to visit, some of whom brought money and gifts, and charitable organisations brought meals. This generosity made Trafalgar Square even more attractive to the dest.i.tute, who arrived in greater numbers, used the fountain for bathing and washing their clothes17 and lingered throughout the day, whereas before they had drifted away about dawn.

Throughout the second half of 1888 the socialists used Trafalgar Square almost daily for a.s.sorted events ranging from meetings and speeches to spectacles like a fife and drum band and as the starting place for demonstrations, such as a march by 2,000 unemployed to the Mansion House on 14 October. Speakers who appeared there included William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant, Henry George and the Russian anarchists Kropotkin and Stepniak.

By the end of October the marches were increasingly disorderly affairs, and there were occasional clashes with the police. The public, offended by the sight of vagrants and the unemployed, complained to the police, as did tradesmen who suffered loss of business, and a knock-on effect of the crowds and the marches was traffic congestion, which in turn added to the noise. All in all people got fed up with the whole thing and the complaints increased. For the new inc.u.mbent at the Home Office, a general election having installed Henry Matthews in the troubled chair of Secretary of State, the Trafalgar Square problem was one of several civil liberty cases to land on his desk. One was the Ca.s.s case, another the murder of Miriam Angel by Israel Lipski.

On Jubilee night, 21 June 1887, PC Bowden Endacott had arrested 23-year-old Elizabeth Ca.s.s for soliciting in Regent Street. Miss Ca.s.s, who had only recently arrived in London from Stocktonon-Tees, and her friends declared with considerable outrage that she was not a prost.i.tute but a respectable woman. PC Endacott, however, maintained that he had observed her previously and that his decision to arrest her was neither spontaneous nor illconsidered. At the Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court the magistrate, Mr. Newton, found the charges against her unsupportable and the case was dismissed, but the magistrate concluded by saying to Miss Ca.s.s, 'If you are a respectable girl, as you say you are, do not walk Regent Street or stop gentlemen at ten o'clock at night. If you do you will be fined or sent to prison'.18 Newton clearly believed PC Endacott, but should not have spoken as if the charges had been proven. There was a major public outcry, even a big debate in the Commons, and Henry Matthews was formally censured for having failed to set up an inquiry. Matthews tendered his resignation, but Lord Salisbury refused to accept it. The case did not put either Henry Matthews or the police in a good light.19 A few days later a murder in the East End of London became the focus of considerable press attention. On 28 June a young woman named Miriam Angel was found dead in her bedroom at 16 Batty Street, off the Commercial Road, nitric acid having been poured down her throat. A 22-year-old Polish immigrant named Israel Lipski was found beneath her bed, traces of nitric acid in his mouth. He was charged with her murder, but protested his innocence, claiming that two workmen named Rosenbloom and Schmuss had killed her. His story was not believed and he was sentenced to death, but there was immediate controversy about the verdict because the judge, James Fitzjames Stephen, had suggested to the jury that Lipski's motive for killing Miss Angel was l.u.s.t. In fact no motive had ever been suggested by the prosecution, no evidence of l.u.s.t had been presented and the defence had had no opportunity to refute the suggestion.

The Pall Mall Gazette came to the defence of Lipski, as it had Miss Ca.s.s, and campaigned vigorously for his reprieve: Stead had inflamed the public until a mob were demanding Lippski's [sic] reprieve at Buckingham Palace, and people might have believed the Home Secretary was the criminal. Lippski [sic] was to be hung on Monday and Matthews and Stephen spent both Friday and Sat.u.r.day in fruitless consultation. Matthews even examined witnesses in their native Yiddish. On Sunday they met at five and carried their council into the night, their investigation being only illuminated by bursts of lightning from a thunderstorm, which had made applicable the proverb, Ruat Coelum fiat just.i.tia!20 Matthews used to describe the agony of that session. The last effort was being made to find reason for a reprieve and Matthews' whole reputation was at stake . . . and, exhausted as he was, his ears suddenly caught the sound of a voice crying 'Extra!' in the night. Nearer and nearer it came and he distinguished the magic word 'Confession!' At nine o'clock word of Lippski's [sic] confession was brought from the prison. A few hours later he was executed and Matthews sank back, feeling as if an answer had come from G.o.d.21 British justice and the Home Secretary were triumphantly vindicated, but for W.T. Stead the confession was an utter disaster and the press turned on him like ravenous hounds, only the socialist weekly The Commonweal voicing a note of restraint, reminding its readers that pressures could have been brought upon Lipski to confess: 'it is well to remember that the witches who were burnt in the seventeenth century almost always confessed their guilt, and "admitted the justice of their sentence", or were said to have done so'.22 Certainly Lipski's confession probably saved Matthews' political career,23 though in retrospect it's questionable that it was in itself worth saving. What is important, however, is the observation made by author Martin L. Friedland: Moreover, it is possible that if Matthews, the only Catholic in the Cabinet, had resigned, the Government would have fallen and Home Rule for Ireland would have been introduced. Incredible as it is, then, the confession of a poor immigrant Jew, who could not even speak English, may have been a factor in the future of the United Kingdom, having repercussions even today in the troubles of Northern Ireland.24 This perhaps oversimplifies the complex issues involved, but it is certainly true that Salisbury wanted Matthews in office, as his refusal of Matthews' tendered resignation after the Ca.s.s case demonstrates, and the huge publicity campaign against the government during the Ripper scare would have added to the anxiety about whether or not Matthews would resign as a result of the negative criticism he was receiving.

There are several links between Lipski and the Ripper case. Mr 'Injustice' Stephen, as W.T. Stead rather Rumpolianly described James Fitzjames Stephen, would later preside over the much disputed trial of Florence Maybrick, accused of poisoning her husband James, who has subsequently been identified as the Ripper following the discovery of a 'diary' supposedly written by him and confessing to the Ripper crimes. Stephen's son, James Kenneth Stephen, has also been identified as the Ripper. But perhaps the strongest link is that at one of the murder scenes someone who could have been Jack the Ripper was addressed as, or could himself have called out, 'Lipski!'.

As Matthews lurched from the disastrous case of Miss Ca.s.s to the career-saving confession of Israel Lipski, he hardly had time to breathe easy before Trafalgar Square erupted in his face. Had he known that Jack the Ripper waited in the wings, he would probably have felt like resigning. As it was Sir Edmund Henderson had resigned and had been succeeded in office by Sir Charles Warren, who took a close and personal interest in the demonstrations, processions and other activities of the socialists and the unemployed in and around Trafalgar Square, concluding that they were potentially very dangerous. But they did not contravene the law and there was little either he or Matthews could do about them. But as complaints and the pressure on police resources increased Warren decided to take action. On Monday 17 October 1887 he declared a temporary but unconditional ban on all meetings in Trafalgar Square. Two days later, on 19 October, Matthews, concerned about the legal issues, reversed the decision. Troops were put on standby. As they waited for legal opinion, Warren became increasingly concerned, telling Matthews that, the mob, which at first was disorganised is now beginning to obtain a certain amount of cohesion . . . I think it more than probable that they will get out of hand in a very short time if they are not dispersed . . . they appear to be able to get together now to the number of 2 or 3,000 in two or three minutes . . .25 On 1 November the legal advice came through that it was not acceptable to close Trafalgar Square. Meanwhile, as Lord Mayor's Day (9 November) was approaching, the socialist orators were becoming increasingly inflammatory and on 3 November Warren, with Matthews' approval, instructed the police to arrest any person who used threatening language.

Over the next few days there were several meetings in Trafalgar Square and several arrests were made, but it was quite clear that the socialists intended a very disruptive Lord Mayor's Parade Day meeting and procession. On the eve of Lord Mayor's Day Warren obtained Home Office permission to exploit a loophole in the law that enabled him to order a general ban on all further Trafalgar Square meetings or demonstrations because the area was Crown property. By 8.00am the following morning 4,000 placards were posted around Trafalgar Square and its approaches: In consequence of the disorderly scenes which have recently occurred in Trafalgar Square . . . and with a view to preventing such disorderly proceedings and to preserve the public peace, I, Charles Warren, the Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis, do hereby give notice, with the sanction of the Secretary of State, and concurrence of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings that . . . until further intimation, no public meetings will be allowed to a.s.semble in Trafalgar Square, nor will speeches be allowed to be delivered therein.26 Instead of explaining the reasons for this on-off att.i.tude towards demonstrations, the authorities kept the public and the would-be demonstrators in the dark. The redoubtable Annie Besant no doubt reflected the opinion of many when she claimed that it was a deliberate trap. The delegates from various clubs met and decided to go ahead with the march to Trafalgar Square, formally protest 'against the illegal interference' and then break up the gathering. That this on-off policy was Warren's procrastination, or Matthews', is even reflected by Sir Robert Ensor, who suggests that it contributed to the irritation and anger of the demonstrators and gave publicity to them.27 As it happened it rained badly on Lord Mayor's Day, dampening the spirits of everyone, including the protestors, and it pa.s.sed without incident, as did the rest of the rain-soaked week. But an announcement on Friday 11 November by the Metropolitan Radical a.s.sociation of plans to stage a mammoth demonstration the following Sunday in Trafalgar Square won immediate support from a wide variety of other groups, including the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League, but also the Home Rule Union and a.s.sorted anarchist and radical clubs, groups and organisations. No doubt with the previous year's disorders in Pall Mall in mind, Sir Charles Warren put 5,000 constables on duty, positioning 2,000 in and around Trafalgar Square. The rest were distributed around the approaches. A battalion of Grenadier Guards and a regiment of Life Guards were put on standby. A magistrate was readied to read the Riot Act. Warren went to the Square himself and remained there from early morning until the middle of the afternoon.

Meanwhile groups gathered in various parts of London to be addressed by William Morris, George Bernard Shaw and Annie Besant. At various times they then set off to converge on Trafalgar Square.

The first conflict with the police was in Bloomsbury Street, when marchers were charged and dispersed by mounted and infantry police. At Westminster Bridge there was a conflict in which 26 marchers were injured sufficiently badly to be taken to St. Thomas's Hospital. At a second battle at Parliament Street a stonemason named George Harrison struck a policeman with an iron gas pipe and stabbed another with an oyster knife. An estimated 5,000 men marched from East London and they a.s.saulted numerous policeman en route to the Square. But the police managed to break up the cohesion of the marchers, so that they arrived in small groups and were unable to unite. The Times estimated the size of the crowd by mid-afternoon at 20,000; the police estimated the numbers at 40,00050,000.28 Annie Besant later described her own experiences: As we were moving slowly and quietly along one of the narrow streets debouching on Trafalgar Square, wondering whether we should be challenged, there was a sudden charge, and without word the police were upon us with uplifted truncheons; the banner was struck down, and men and women were falling under a hail of blows. There was no attempt at resistance, the people were too much astounded at the unprepared attack. They scattered, leaving some of their number on the ground too much injured to move . . .29 Burns, Hyndman and Cunninghame Graham (the well-to-do son of a Scottish laird, world traveller, author and since 1886 a Member of Parliament for N.W. Lanarkshire) reached the corner of the Square. Hyndman was separated from the others. Burns and Graham launched an attack on the police fronting the Square. Graham struck a constable in the face, split his lip and knocked off his helmet. Arrested, he wasn't treated with gentleness when taken into custody: I was seized by the police. Two constables seized me, one by each shoulder. Another pulled me by the ear from behind, and a fourth struck me on the head with his truncheon. Other blows were struck on various parts of my body, and the policeman who cut my head was making a second blow when Burns raised his folded arms above his head and rushed between us to ward off the blow.30 The police, who also arrested Burns, were ultimately able to stop the advance and the 200 Life Guards who were called in weren't really needed, but as they divided into two groups and trotted around the police cordon three or four times, their glittering cuira.s.ses and plumed helmets made a magnificent and quelling sight. A short while later a battalion of Grenadier Guards marched into the Square, bayonets fixed, and cleared the entire area. According to George Bernard Shaw: You should have seen that high-hearted host run. Running hardly expresses our collective action. We skedaddled, and never drew rein until we were safe on Hampstead Heath or thereabouts. Tarleton found me paralysed with terror, and brought me on to the square, the police kindly letting me through in consideration of my genteel appearance. On the whole I think it was the most abjectly disgraceful defeat ever suffered by a band of heroes outnumbering their foes a thousand to one . . . It all comes from people trying to live down to fiction instead of up to facts.31 Annie Besant remarked: The soldiers were ready to fire, the people unarmed; it would have been but a ma.s.sacre.32 In the course of the afternoon 200 people were sent with injuries to hospital and two men subsequently died. Seventy-seven constables were injured. Forty rioters were arrested. Most received sentences of up to eight months with hard labour. George Harrison was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for stabbing the policeman. Burns and Graham, who were tried in January 1888, were convicted on one count of unlawful a.s.sembly but acquitted of riot and a.s.sault and sentenced to six months' imprisonment without hard labour. Seventy-five charges of brutality were lodged against the police. The day would go down in history, thanks to the Pall Mall Gazette, as 'b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday' and the general consensus of opinion seems to have been that the police were at fault and heavy-handed in the extreme. Stead told Gladstone the police were '. . . characterised by a brutality which I have never before seen in the whole of my life; and the sentences of three and six months, which have been pa.s.sed upon men who provoked beyond endurance, struck back at their lawless a.s.sailants in uniform are simply infamous'. Hamilton, whilst questioning whether the events deserved to be called 'b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday', agreed that the police were open to criticism: 'There were no doubt a good many heads broken and the police appeared to have conducted themselves with some brutality, but nothing occurred to warrant the appellation "b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday"'. And a spectator named Edward Carpenter wrote: Indeed, though a large crowd it was of a most good-humoured and peaceable kind; but the way in which it was 'worked up', provoked and irritated by the police, was a caution; and gave me the strongest impression that this was done purposely, with the intention of leading to a collision.33 The socialists' cause lost a lot of popular support and most newspapers deplored the demonstration. The following Sunday the plans for another meeting in Trafalgar Square were abandoned in favour of Hyde Park, where no disturbances were recorded. An attempt to hold a meeting on 28 November led to another conflict in which a man named Alfred Linnell suffered injuries from which several days later he died. His funeral on 18 December was matched for size only by that of the Duke of Wellington, with a procession stretching one and a half miles. Pall-bearers included Cunninghame Graham, W.T. Stead, William Morris and Annie Besant, who gave an indication of the depth of feeling in the East End when she remarked that 'at Aldgate the procession took three-quarters of an hour to pa.s.s one spot'.34 Sir Charles Warren came to be roundly blamed for initiating the violence of b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday by closing off Trafalgar Square, and when the dust had cleared the police were severely criticised for their heavy-handedness. It is curious, therefore, that the far more repressive policies of his successor, James Monro, have gone relatively unnoticed. Monro banned almost all demonstrations! Matthews defended him in public, but protested privately and so frequently over-ruled Monro that it strained relations. When Monro banned a Friendly Societies' parade in May 1890, Matthews wrote: These men are the pick of the working cla.s.ses, perfectly orderly, with an excellent object in view. It would be disastrous to get the police into collision with them. Processions are not necessarily illegal . . . I am quite aware how troublesome to the police these demonstrations are, but it will not do to go beyond the law in dealing with them. In the case of Trafalgar Square the law was strained to the utmost; but public safety and public opinion supported the action of the Police. That would not be so in this instance.35 But, as Sir Robert Ensor remarks, 'Bitter memories of it [b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday] lasted in the working cla.s.s districts for over twenty years. Much odium fell on Warren, who was indeed largely to blame; and much on the home secretary, Matthews, who was already unpopular in parliament'.36 b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday 'ended in such a decisive victory for the authorities that it marked the end of revolutionary heroics based on the plight of the East End poor'.37 It was a defeat for socialism. Lord Salisbury observed that 'by October 1892 socialist quackeries will either have been dropped or they will have been exposed by experience'. As one biographer wryly observed, 'It is fortunate for Lord Salisbury that history judges him for his governance rather than his sooth-saying'.38 As the economy improved and unemployment decreased at the end of 1887 and into 1888, enthusiasm for the demonstrations called by the socialist organisations diminished considerably and the unity of the groups and those within them began to fall apart. Eventually Herbert Asquith, the Home Secretary during Gladstone's final term as Prime Minister and a future Prime Minister himself, issued new regulations which permitted daylight meetings on Sat.u.r.days, Sundays and Bank Holidays provided police were given notice and approach routes approved. The limited right of meeting in Trafalgar Square met with approval from virtually all sides. The rules inst.i.tuted by Asquith have remained in force ever since.

As said, the events of 1887 lingered on in the minds of those on both sides of the dispute. The demonstration was shocking, the brutality of the police frightening and the aftermath prosecutions, described by Morris in News From Nowhere, disgusted the working man. There were rowdies and roughs among the demonstrators, even among their leaders if Cunninghame Graham's a.s.sault on the police officer is to be believed, but the memory of the working cla.s.s was of 'peaceable, law-abiding workmen, who had never dreamed of rioting, were left with broken legs, broken arms, wounds of every description . . . [and afterwards] men dazed with their wounds, decent workmen of unblemished character who had never been charged in a police-court before, sentenced to imprisonment without chance of defence'.39 And although the demonstrators had gathered from all parts of London, a particularly large contingent had come from the East End, which was an area distinguished by being predominantly working cla.s.s and home to the poorest among them, where unemployment was rife and dest.i.tution widespread and ever-present. Those who knew the East End poor and those who didn't alike recognised that a time bomb was ticking on the doorstep of 'respectable' society and wondered what it would take for the impoverished ma.s.ses to spontaneously rise in hurt and anger and desperation. Suddenly the spectre of 2 or 3 million dest.i.tute, hopeless and desperate men rising en ma.s.se from the slums of London to overwhelm respectable society became a very real, and often talked about, possibility: . . . men and their families are hovering on the brink of starvation, and there is grave reason to fear that a social revolution is impending.40 In the eyes of some, Jack the Ripper heralded that revolution. Rev. W.E. Kendall preached a sermon at the Harley Street Chapel in September 1888 called 'Moral and Social Aspects of the Murders' in which he referred to the centenary of the French Revolution: Unless something was done and done soon, for the dest.i.tute ma.s.ses of London and other great cities of this Empire, we should have, not a centenary of revolution, but a revolution itself. It was all very easy to drive 10,000 men and boys before you; but when half a million or a million people spring up, there would be another kind of reckoning. We must see that those in high authority dealt with this matter, and that the people are not driven to excesses in their despair.41 The Rev. F.W. Newlands preached apropos of Jack the Ripper: we are living at the crater of a volcano which at any moment may overwhelm the community as with a torrent.42 Strong stuff, but not merely the outpouring of alarmist ecclesiastics. Justice reported that the police had been ordered to break up any attempted procession by the unemployed and with distaste observed: Of what consequences are a few murders more or less in Whitechapel so long as polite society is secure from the denunciation of the Socialists? The unemployed are clubbed into silence, and the Red Flag is dragged from the hands of starving men lest it should offend the susceptibilities of the well-to-do.43 If one thing distinguishes the Jack the Ripper murders from other similar crimes it is their politicisation. The 1880s was indeed a decade of radical change, of old ideas being overthrown, of the seeds of the new thinking being planted, of people flexing their muscles and demanding their rights, be it Josephine Butler and her group campaigning for women's rights, or the likes of Burns and Shaw and Besant defending the working cla.s.ses. Strangely, whilst these campaigns were nationwide, the focus was the East End and would be given shape and form and substance by a lone and mysterious figure to be called Jack the Ripper.

Notes.

1. Gretton, R.H. (1930) A Modern History of the English People 18801922. London: Martin Secker, p.15.

2. Ensor, Sir Robert (1936) England 18701914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.112.

3. Gretton, R.H., op. cit., p.158.

4. The Times, 9 August 1872.

5. Richter, Donald C. (1981) Riotous Victorians. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, p.87.

6. Besant, Annie (1893) An Autobiography. London: T. Fisher Unwin, p.316.

7. John Burns enjoyed a remarkable career. He left the Social Democratic Federation in June 1889, after a fierce disagreement with H. Hyndman, but joined with Ben Tillett to lead the extraordinarily successful London Dock Strike in August 1889. Elected as representative of Battersea in the newly created London County Council, he was elected Battersea's MP in 1892, but refused to join the forerunner of the Labour Party. In 1906 Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman appointed Burns President of the Local Government Board, making him the first member of the working cla.s.s to become a government minister. Appointed President of the Board of Trade in 1914, he resigned from the government in opposition to Britain's entry into World War I and played no further role in politics, spending the rest of his life on his hobbies: the history of London, book collecting and cricket. John Burns died on 24 January 1943.

8. Cutbush shot himself in front of his daughter in 1896 following several years of depression and mild paranoid delusions. His nephew, Thomas Hayne Cutbush, was named by the Sun newspaper on 13 February 1894 and on following dates as Jack the Ripper, having been arrested for stabbing young women and committed to Broadmoor, where he died in 1903. The police seem to have investigated the allegations seriously, but absolved him of guilt.

9. Responsible for supplies and pay.

10. Childers, E.S.E. (1901) The Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Hugh Culling Eardley Childers. London, Vol. II, p.240.

11. Burgess, Joseph (1911) John Burns: The Rise and Progress of a Right Honourable. Glasgow: The Reformers' Bookstall, p.54.

12. The secretary of the Carlton would give testimony that the crowd wasn't ugly until addressed by a man carrying a red handkerchief or flag, after a few minutes of which they obtained stones from some nearby construction work and began to throw them at the windows.

13. Hyndman had recently been expelled for socialist ideas. That it suffered particularly badly was a mere coincidence, he said.

14. Numerous commentators, among them Burns and the journalist Joseph Burgess, maintained that an adequate police presence would have stopped the riot before it began.

15. Richter, Donald C. (1981) Riotous Victorians. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, p.121.

16. Morris, William (1891) News From Nowhere, or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from a Utopian Romance. London: Reeves and Turner.

17. Booth, General William (1890) In Darkest England and the Way Out. London: Salvation Army, p.100. He says 'In Trafalgar Square, in 1887, there were few things that scandalised the public more than the spectacle of poor people camped in the Square, washing their shirts in the early morning at the fountains'.

18. Begg, Paul and Skinner, Keith (1992) The Scotland Yard Files. 150 Years of the CID. London: Headline, p.113.

19. There was an inquiry and the police could not corroborate the charge against Miss Ca.s.s, although they played very dirty by producing evidence supplied by a Superintendent Ball of the Stockton Police that Miss Ca.s.s enjoyed the company of several men and had once spent some time alone in a hotel room with a married man who had given her a diamond ring. This evidence suggested that Miss Ca.s.s was not the innocent flower she and her friends represented her as being, but was irrelevant as to whether she had been soliciting in Regent Street. The case ultimately rested on PC Endacott's claim that he had witnessed her soliciting in Regent Street in the past, but he could not prove this and Miss Ca.s.s's legal advisors brought a case of perjury against him which led to his suspension and appearance at the Old Bailey. Since n.o.body could prove that Endacott had not previously seen Miss Ca.s.s in Regent Street, the judge felt that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the charge. PC Endacott was reinstated and spent the rest of his career on special duty at the British Museum.

20. 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall' meaning that the law must be followed precisely, no matter what the circ.u.mstances and eventualities.

21. Leslie, Shane (1921) 'Henry Matthews Lord Llandaff', Dublin Review, vol. 168, January, p.10.

22. The Commonweal, 22 August 1887.

23. Sir Edward Troup wrote: 'In the famous case of Lipski . . . a storm of protest was raised which would almost certainly have driven him [Matthews] from office had not Lipski confessed on the eve of his execution'. (Troup, Sir Edward (1925) The Home Office. London: G.P. Putnam and Sons, p.59.) 24. Friedland, Martin L. (1984) The Trials of Israel Lipski. A True Story of Victorian Murder in the East End of London. New York: Beaufort Books, p.187.

25. MEPO 2/182 Warren to Matthews, 31 October 1887.

26. This ban remained in force until October 1892.

27. Ensor, Sir Robert, op. cit., p.180. 'Warren alternately permitted and prohibited them [the meetings]; but the more the police interfered, the larger the meetings became'.

28. Richter, Donald C. (1981) Riotous Victorians. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, p.145.

29. Besant, Annie (1893) An Autobiography. London: T. Fisher Unwin, p.324.

30. Burgess, Joseph (1911) John Burns: The Rise and Progress of a Right Honourable. Glasgow: The Reformers' Bookstall, p.201.

31. Quoted in Kent, William (1950) John Burns. Labour's Lost Leader. London: Williams and Norgate, p.10.

32. Besant, Annie, op. cit., p.325.

33. Carpenter, Edward (1916) My Days and Dreams, Being Autobiographical Notes. London: George Allen and Unwin.

34. Besant, Annie, op. cit., p.327.

35. Matthews to Monro, 3 May 1890, PRO MEPO/2/248.

36. Ensor, Sir Robert, op. cit., p.181.

37. Roberts, Andrew (1999) Salisbury Victorian t.i.tan. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, p.471.

38. Ibid., p.471.

39. Besant, Annie, op. cit., pp.3256.

40. East London Observer, letter from R.J.W. to Editor.

41. East London News, 21 September 1888.

42. East End News, 18 October 1888.

43. Justice, 22 September 1888.

Chapter Nine.

Annie Chapman.

29 Hanbury Street was an uninspiring single-fronted house, three storeys high and two rooms deep, probably built by a carpenter named Daniel Marsillat who had leased the land in October 1740 from the owner Granville Wheler.1 In 1888 its eight rooms provided homes for 17 people, among them John Davis, who lived with his wife and three sons in the front room on the third floor. At about 5.45am on 8 September 1888 he got up and made himself a cup of tea. At about 6.00am he went downstairs and into the rear yard: I saw a female lying down, her clothing up to her knees, and her face covered with blood . . . What was lying beside her I cannot describe it was part of her body. I did not examine the woman, I was too frightened at the dreadful sight.

The body was that of Annie Chapman.

The first of several children born to a soldier named George Smith and his wife Ruth Chapman, Annie Eliza Smith opened her eyes on the world in September 1841. She grew up, probably receiving an acceptable standard of education, and on 1 May 1869 married a coachman named John Chapman. A photograph of Annie Chapman at this time the only photograph of one of Jack the Ripper's victims in life shows a somewhat stern-faced couple, smartly dressed and obviously enjoying a degree of prosperity. The couple had three children, two daughters born in 1870 and 1873, and the third, a boy, in November 1880. During most of this time John Chapman had worked for a n.o.bleman who lived in Bond Street, but Annie's character seems to have been doubtful even then, at least if her friend Mrs. Pearcer is to be believed, because she said John Chapman had been forced to resign the position because of his wife's dishonesty.2 He managed to get a job as a coachman and domestic servant with Josiah Weeks, but again her character seems to have let them down, it later being said of her that 'her dissolute habits made it imperatively necessary that she should reside elsewhere than on the gentleman's grounds'.3 A police report says they parted because of 'her drunken and immoral ways'4 and she was both known to and had been arrested by the Windsor police for drunkenness.5 In or about 1884 the couple formally separated, John Chapman thereafter regularly paying his wife a weekly allowance of 10s, made payable at the Commercial Road Post Office. These payments continued until his death on Christmas Day 1886.

By this time Annie Chapman had taken up with a sieve-maker named Jack Sivvey and was living with him in a lodging house at 30 Dorset Street. A little while later she formed a relationship with a bricklayer's labourer named Edward Stanley, nicknamed 'The Pensioner', who had known her when she lived in Windsor. By May or June 1888 Annie Chapman had taken to living at Crossingham's lodging house at 35 Dorset Street.

According to those who knew her, Annie Chapman had a taste for rum, drank to excess at times as her arrest for drunkenness in Windsor testifies and was said to get drunk regularly on Sat.u.r.day nights (as many people did and still do), but to be sober the rest of the week. She does not appear to have resorted to prost.i.tution prior to the death of her husband and the cessation of the money he provided, and had tried thereafter to support herself by doing some crochet work, selling flowers or selling matches.

Annie Chapman was also dying, she was far advanced in a disease of the lungs and the membranes of the brain.

Described as 5ft in height, with dark brown wavy hair, blue eyes and a thick nose, she was by 1888 stout and well proportioned. The police report states that she had two teeth missing in the lower jaw, but the teeth were not missing from the front. The doctor who examined Chapman's body and gave evidence at the inquest stated that Chapman was not missing any front teeth; the front teeth were perfect as far as the first molar and were very fine teeth indeed.

During the first week of September Chapman complained to friends of feeling unwell and she probably spent two days in the casual ward, being given a bottle of medicine which was found in her Dorset Street lodging house. Her friend Amelia Farmer saw Chapman about 5.00pm on 7 September in Dorset Street. Chapman complained of feeling unwell, too ill to do anything, but said: 'It's no use my giving way. I must pull myself together and go out and get some money or I shall have no lodgings'. At 11.30pm she had no money, but asked the lodging house keeper, Timothy Donovan, if she could enter the kitchen. William Stevens saw her there just after midnight. She took a box of pills from her pocket but the box broke and she wrapped the pills in a torn piece of envelope that she took from the mantelpiece over the fire. Chapman then left the kitchen and Stevens thought that she had gone to bed. In fact she had probably gone to the 'Ringers' (a corner pub called the Britannia but nicknamed the Ringers after the landlord) for a drink. Chapman returned to the lodging house about 1.35am and was seen by John Evans, the night watchman. She had not got enough money for a bed, but she would soon get it. She left the lodging house. Evans said that he saw her enter Paternoster Row and walk in the direction of Brushfield Street. That was the last time that Annie Chapman was definitely seen alive.

Mrs. Amelia Richardson was the landlady of 29 Hanbury Street and had occupied the first floor front room for 15 years. She now shared the room with her 14-year-old grandson. She also rented the cellar of the house and the rear yard, from where she ran a business manufacturing packing cases. Between 4.40 and 4.45am her son John Richardson stopped by the house on his way to work at Spitalfields Market. Several months earlier somebody had broken into their cellar and stolen some tools, since when he had made it a habit to check the cellar door. Having checked that the padlock was secure, Richardson pushed open the door leading into the yard and examined his boot, which had been hurting him, and cut off a strip of leather. He felt sure that he would have seen anything unusual, but didn't notice anything.

At 5.15am Albert Cadosch, who lived next door, went into the yard of his house and heard some people talking, apparently in the yard of number 29, but the only word he could catch was 'No'. He went into his house, but on returning to the yard a short time later he heard what sounded like something or someone falling against the fence. He did not take any notice, but went off to work. He did not see anybody in Hanbury Street. At 5.30am Elizabeth Long, who lived with her husband James Long, a park-keeper, at 32 Church Street, was walking down Hanbury Street on her way to Spitalfields Market. She was certain of the time because the brewer's clock had just struck. She was on the right hand side of the street the same side as number 29 and outside that house she saw a man and woman on the pavement talking, close against the shutters of number 29. Mrs. Long could not see the man's face, which was turned away from her, but she had a good view of the woman, whom she subsequently identified as Annie Chapman. She heard the man say, 'Will you?' and the woman reply, 'Yes'. Mrs. Long then pa.s.sed on her way. Although she had not seen the man's face, Mrs. Long stated that he looked like a foreigner, a description which in those days usually meant a Jew. He was about 40 years old and she thought he was wearing a dark coat, a deerstalker hat and that he was of a 'shabby genteel appearance'. He was a little taller than the woman, which, if the woman was Chapman, would make the man between 5ft and 5ft 5in.6 At 6.00am John Davis came down from his third floor room to the hallway that ran the 25 feet length of the house from the street door to the yard. Two steps led down from the hall to the yard, which was about 1314 feet square and had a shed at the bottom but no exit. Between the steps and the old and rotten fence there was a recess. There lay the body of Annie Chapman.

Davis returned through the hallway to the street. He first attracted the attention of Henry John Holland, who was pa.s.sing along the street on his way to work, and then shouted to two men, James Green and James Kent, who were standing outside the Black Swan Public House at 23 Hanbury Street. 'Men! Come here!' shouted Davis. 'Here's a sight. A woman must have been murdered!'. Footsteps in the pa.s.sage woke a Mrs. Hardyman on the ground floor and she roused her son to go and see what was going on. He returned to say that a woman had been killed in the yard.

James Kent viewed the body, and then went to find a policeman but couldn't find one and went for a brandy instead, which he probably needed. He fetched a piece of canvas with which to cover the body. Henry John Holland also went in search of a policeman and found one in Spitalfields Market, but he was on fixed point duty under no circ.u.mstances to leave his position and told Holland to find another officer. Incensed, Holland that afternoon lodged a formal complaint against the constable at Commercial Street Police Station. By this time someone had conveyed the news up the road from the market to Inspector Chandler, H Division, at the Commercial Street Station. He went straight to the scene. There were lots of people in the pa.s.sage, but none in the yard. Inspector Chandler sent for the Divisional Surgeon, Dr. George Bagster Phillips, whose surgery was at 2 Spital Square, and an ambulance was brought from the Commercial Street Police Station, accompanied by other constables whom Chandler got clearing the area of bystanders. From a neighbour he acquired some sacking with which he covered the body.

Dr. Phillips arrived and viewed the body, which was then taken by Sergeant Edmund Berry to the mortuary in Old Montague Street in the same sh.e.l.l as that used to carry Mary Ann Nichols. Outside the house several hundred people had a.s.sembled and were described as very excitable. Inspector Chandler searched the yard. He found a piece of coa.r.s.e muslin, a small pocket hair comb, a screwed up piece of paper containing two pills and a portion of an envelope which on one side had the letter 'M' in a man's handwriting and a post office stamp 'London, 28 August 1888'. On the reverse was the seal of the Suss.e.x Regiment.

At 7.00am Robert Mann, the pauper inmate of the Whitechapel Union who had charge of the mortuary and who received the body of Nichols, now received the body of Annie Chapman. Inspector Chandler arrived at the mortuary at about the same time and after checking that everything was secure, he left the body in the charge of PC Barnes. Two nurses from the infirmary, Mary Elizabeth Simonds and Frances Wright, were directed to undress the body (Mann left the mortuary whilst this was done). At the inquest Simonds said that she had been instructed by Inspector Chandler to do this. Chandler denied that he had ever issued any such instructions and the Coroner's Officer said that it had been done by order of the clerk of the Guardians. The nurses stripped the body and placed the clothes in a pile in the corner, though they left a handkerchief around the neck of Chapman. They then washed the body.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Thicke, Sergeant Leach and other detective officers had arrived in Hanbury Street, and a telegram had been sent to Inspector Abberline at Scotland Yard. Sergeant Thicke went to the mortuary and took a description of the body, which was later circulated, and Acting Superintendent West, who was in charge of H Division reported to Scotland Yard that in the absence of Local Inspector Reid, who was on holiday, the enquiries had been entrusted to Inspector Chandler and Police Sergeants Thicke and Leach. He requested that Inspector Abberline 'who is well acquainted with H Division, be deputed to take up this enquiry as I believe he is already engaged in the case of the Buck's Row murder which would appear to have been committed by the same person as the one in Hanbury Street'. Abberline discussed things with Acting Superintendent West and Inspector Helson over on J Division where Nichols had been found, and they agreed that the same man who had killed Mary Ann Nichols had murdered Annie Chapman.

Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the Divisional Surgeon for H Division, performed a post-mortem. He believed Chapman had first been strangled or suffocated, the lividity of the face, lips and hands consistent with asphyxia. A long incision had then been made through the neck, through which the blood had drained from the body. The post-mortem mutilation would therefore have been almost bloodless. The throat had been cut from the left side through to the spine, the murderer having apparently tried to remove Chapman's head. A portion of the small intestines and of the abdomen was lying on the ground over the right shoulder, but still attached to the body. Two other parts of the wall of the stomach were lying in a pool of blood above the left shoulder. Parts of the body had been removed, 'a certain portion of the abdominal wall, including the navel; two thirds of the bladder (posterior and upper portions); the upper third of the v.a.g.i.n.a and its connection with the uterus; and the whole of the uterus'.7 Dr. Phillips said that a sharp, thin, narrow blade 6 or 8 inches long had been used and he thought the murderer must have had anatomical knowledge. He said that he doubted that he could have performed all the mutilations in under a quarter of an hour, and that it would have taken him the best part of an hour had he been doing them professionally.8 The problem was in estimating the time of death. Dr. Phillips stated rigor mortis was commencing, which caused him to estimate death at about 4.30am. This meant the testimonies of Mr. Cadosch and Mrs. Long may be irrelevant to the murder. However, Dr. Phillips acknowledged that the coolness of the morning and the loss of blood meant that his timing of the murder could be less accurate than desired.

The newspapers had a field-day of indulgent prose: London lies to-day under the spell of a great terror. A nameless reprobate half beast, half man is at large, who is daily gratifying his murderous instincts on the most miserable and defenceless cla.s.ses of the community . . . The ghoul-like creature who stalks through the streets of London, stalking down his victim like a p.a.w.nee Indian, is simply drunk with blood, and he will have more.9 Not even during the riots and fog of February, 1886, have I seen London so thoroughly excited as it is to-night. The Whitechapel fiend murdered his fourth victim this morning and still continues undetected, unseen, and unknown. There is a panic in Whitechapel which will instantly extend to other districts should he change his locality, as the four murders are in everybody's mouth. The papers are full of them, and nothing else is talked of.10 One may search the ghastliest efforts of fiction and fail to find anything to surpa.s.s these crimes in diabolical audacity.11 Throughout that Sunday large numbers the newspapers spoke of thousands of well-dressed people visited both the murder scene in Hanbury Street the people living either side of number 29 making a small charge to anyone who wanted to view the yard and where costermongers set up stands and did a brisk trade selling fruit and other refreshments and the lodging house in Dorset Street where Annie Chapman had lodged. Sometimes the road became so crowded that the police had to charge at the spectators.

According to the police report, they searched the rooms and questioned the residents of 29 Hanbury Street and their neighbours, enquired at all common lodging houses about any bloodstained or otherwise suspicious individuals, made enquiries in an attempt to find Chapman's rings and investigated all people who behaved suspiciously in the street or who were the subject of letters received from members of the public.

The piece of envelope bearing the regimental seal of the Suss.e.x Regiment was investigated by Inspector Chandler, who travelled down to Farnborough where the 1st Battalion was located, where he learned that stationery bearing the regimental seal was on sale in the canteen and to members of the public at the local Post Office. Chandler concluded that Chapman had picked up the envelope in the lodging, used part of it to wrap her pills, as witnessed by William Stevens, and that as the lodging house was used by a large transient population the envelope could have belonged to anyone and wasn't a clue to the ident.i.ty of the killer.

Chapman had worn three bra.s.s rings on the middle finger of her left hand and these were missing when her body was found, an abrasion over the ring finger suggesting that they had been wrenched off. Some newspapers reported that the rings were laid out near the body, but in fact they were missing and the police made enquiries at all p.a.w.nbrokers, jewellers and dealers.

The police concentrated their search for the mysterious 'Leather Ap.r.o.n', although there was a growing feeling that he owed much of his notoriety to the imagination, the nickname more likely heard 'accompanied by a guffaw than whispered in a tone which would indicate any fear of the mysterious individual'.12 However, Timothy Donovan, the keeper of the lodging house at 30 Dorset Street where Chapman slept, claimed to 'know him well' and to have once turned him out of the lodging house when he attacked a woman there'.13 The police early on connected 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' with a man named John Pizer, Inspector Helson reporting that: 'Jack Pizer, alias Leather Ap.r.o.n, has for some considerable period been in the habit of ill-using prost.i.tutes in this, and other parts of the Metropolis, and careful search has been and is continued to be made to find this man in order that his movements may be accounted for on the night in question, although, at present, there is no evidence whatever against him'.14 On 5 September 1888 The Star had published a major feature on 'Leather Ap.r.o.n'. On 6 September it reported that two Bethnal Green constables had arrested the 'crazy Jew' the previous Sunday (2 September). On the day The Star article appeared, 6 September, John Pizer returned to his home at 22 Mulberry Street, arriving there about 10.45pm. He chatted with his sister's 'young man', then went to bed. Pizer did not leave the house, except to go into the yard, until 8.00am on Monday 10 September 1888 when he answered a knock on the front door and opened it onto the burly form of Sergeant Thicke. Pizer was taken to Leman Street Police Station where he, his family and friends protested his innocence. Curiously, at the inquest Pizer explained that he had not left the house because his brother had advised him not to do so because it was feared he would 'have been torn to pieces'. If Pizer was not 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' and was not even nicknamed 'Leather Ap.r.o.n', why would anyone have thought that Pizer would have been torn to pieces? Especially as he was quickly able on his arrest to provide an alibi for his whereabouts on the night of the murder of Nichols, which included the testimony of a police constable that he was at a lodging house in the Holloway Road.15 Before leaving 'Leather Ap.r.o.n', a figure who achieved some notoriety in the Ripper story in later years was L. Forbes Winslow, a noted authority on mental illness. He may have given birth to or perhaps reflected the idea that Jack the Ripper was a 'toff': I think that the murderer is not of the cla.s.s of which 'Leather Ap.r.o.n' belongs, but is of the upper cla.s.s of society, and I still think that my opinion given to the authorities is the correct one viz., that the murders have been committed by a lunatic lately discharged from some asylum, or by one who has escaped. If the former, doubtless one who, though suffering from the effects of homicidal mania, is apparently sane on the surface, and consequently has been liberated, and is following out the inclinations of his morbid imaginations by wholesale homicide. I think the advice given by me a sound one to apply for an immediate return from all asylums who have discharged such individuals, with a view of ascertaining their whereabouts.