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Here is just one reason why the matter of whether a Casebook Ripper suspect, the English poet Francis Thompson.(1859-1907) was a murderer or not needs to be resolved. Historically the most important case ever decided by the Supreme Court of the United States was, Brown v. Board of Education. This 1955 landmark decision ruled that segregation between blacks and whites in schools was unconditional. It was considered as a major victory of the civil rights movement.
A key problem of the court’s ruling was its reliance on the words from a poem by Thompson, who was first named as a Ripper suspect in 1888. Here is what Wikipedia says about it,
‘The court delegated the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts with orders that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed," a phrase traceable to Francis Thompson's poem, The Hound of Heaven. Supporters of the earlier decision were displeased with this decision. The language “all deliberate speed” was seen by critics as too ambiguous to ensure reasonable haste for compliance with the court's instruction. Many Southern states and school districts interpreted "Brown II" as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in some cases for a decade or more’
Here is the section of Thompson’s 1893 poem, in which the Judges of the Supreme Court got their wording from.
“The Hound of Heaven”
‘But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbčd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat
─
and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
Having Francis Thompson, as a Ripper suspect leaves us with a potential killer whose words may have shaped modern world.
A key problem of the court’s ruling was its reliance on the words from a poem by Thompson, who was first named as a Ripper suspect in 1888. Here is what Wikipedia says about it,
‘The court delegated the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts with orders that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed," a phrase traceable to Francis Thompson's poem, The Hound of Heaven. Supporters of the earlier decision were displeased with this decision. The language “all deliberate speed” was seen by critics as too ambiguous to ensure reasonable haste for compliance with the court's instruction. Many Southern states and school districts interpreted "Brown II" as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in some cases for a decade or more’
Here is the section of Thompson’s 1893 poem, in which the Judges of the Supreme Court got their wording from.
“The Hound of Heaven”
‘But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbčd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat
─
and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
Having Francis Thompson, as a Ripper suspect leaves us with a potential killer whose words may have shaped modern world.