Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Leather Apron - an account of his invention

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Leather Apron - an account of his invention

    Lincoln Springfield claimed in 1924 that "Leather Apron" had been a journalistic invention on the part of his former colleague on The Star, Harry Dam [Begg, The Facts, p. 99].

    An article entitled "The Police Reporter" by Vance Thompson, published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, volume 62, pp. 283-288 (July-December 1898) purports to tell the story of how this invention arose. (This volume is available at http://books.google.com) The account is interesting, though obviously wildly inaccurate in many details. I have added a few notes.
    ____________________________________

    [p. 283]

    Once upon a time there was a young man who came over-sea. He had smoked putative pipes and "boned" Kant and Haeckel in a musty German university, had mooned through Italy and fluttered in Paris, moreover had written verses and dramas, - unpublished to date, - and had his Horace and his Richepin on the end of his tongue. In short, he would have frankly confessed himself an Amalek of a fellow.

    [p. 284]

    He was young, and he went to Chicago. A perfectly useless eye-glass was screwed into one eye; he wore a long-caped top-coat, outrageously red and yellow; on his feet were patent-leather boots with yellow silk "spats;" he had terra-cotta gloves and a very fine walking-stick and a very tall silk hat.

    He wanted to reform Western journalism. That was his object in life in those days, and he offered his services to the city editor of a Chicago newspaper.

    [There follows an anecdote about this "idiot with the eye-glass" being sent on a fool's errand by a senior reporter, falling upon "an adventure, horrible and weird", seeing his account of it printed on the front page and thus winning the city editor's approbation.]

    [p. 287]

    In New York and London there is none of the loyalty to one paper that sends the police reporter far afield in dangerous ways. The "bureau system" runs rampant; that is, there is a system whereby the newspapers farm out the gathering of police news to different agencies. In New York there are two of these of importance; in London each police court is controlled by one man, who has the right that time gives to furnish stenographic reports. To be sure, there is plenty of "outside work" - one must be pardoned for using the slang, catch-penny phrases of journalism - for the night police reporter on any London paper, even as there is on any American journal. That is, "something big" comes up, and the editor of the paper pays no attention to the "flimsy-factories," the agencies that grind out the ordinary grist of petty police news, but calls upon one of his trusty reporters.

    And here again I find it pleasant to look back upon an idiot who was reporting for one of the London papers in '88 and '89. The editor of the paper was an Irish member of Parliament. [1]

    There had been two or three murders, - ghastly murders, where women were done to death. One night, for instance, - and this was the first, - there was a woman slain in St. George's Square, East, and there were thirty-three stabs in her body; then another woman was killed off the Mile-End Road; and a third in Hanbury Square: all of these down in the wretched ruins of Whitechapel.

    Then there began to be a deal of excitement in the newspaper offices. Another murder came; a poor degraded bit of femininity was slashed

    [p. 288]

    to death in one of the black, blind courts off Mile-End Road; then another was cut to pieces in Mitre Square, near Aldgate, in the old city of London. So the newspapers were aroused - even the London editors; and be it said, with proper respect, that it takes an earthquake of news to arouse a London editor. Thereupon all the journalists in London who could "write a wee bit" were sent out to do the Whitechapel murders. And one of these reporters was an idiot with an eye-glass, - he had degenerated to the eye-glass again, - and the plump editor ordered him to go to Whitechapel and discover and describe "Jack the Ripper."

    The young reporter led his eye-glass down the stairs and found himself in Fleet Street. He did not know how to set about the business, so he strolled into Mitre Court, which is off Fleet Street, and there he found a tavern that is known as The Mitre. In other days Burke and Garrick and Reynolds and Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith, in a peach-blossom coat, and Boswell, in green velvet smalls, gathered there and drank Oporto. [2]

    And there, in The Mitre, the idiot met a man who wrote the opera of "Billee Taylor," once famous in these parts. [3]

    "What are you doing?" he asked.

    "The Whitechapel murders," said the reporter.

    "Descriptive?"

    "Yes, a general descriptive story."

    "Why don't you read up De Quincey?"

    "What - Leathern-Apron?"

    "To be sure: it is excellent stuff," said Stephens.

    Then the young man - who had read his De Quincey - sat down and wrote up a description of the wicked man who had done to death the wicked women of Whitechapel. He used as prototype the curious creature of De Quincey, the leathern-aproned Jew with the knife in his belt and the white face blurred with black eyebrows. There was something startlingly realistic about the picture. Then the idiot went down and interviewed the periwinkle-men and apple-women of Mile-End Road. Of course they had seen Leathern-Apron slinking about the streets, with his knife whisking in his hand.

    So it was a good story, and the young man turned it in to the office. But there was one odd end to it: the day after the story was printed the police began to look for Leathern-Apron. By some whimsical mischance they found a poor innocent Hebrew who answered the description: he was a butcher down in Besis Court, and he lay in jail for two weeks, and - well, "Billee Taylor" was responsible for it.
    ____________________________________

    [1] In 1888 the founder and proprietor - though not the editor - of The Star was T. P. O'Connor, the Irish M.P. for Liverpool Scotland.

    [2] The Mitre Tavern in Mitre Court had certainly existed, and had been frequented by Johnson, Boswell and Goldsmith, but it had ceased to be a tavern a century before the Whitechapel murders, and had been demolished in 1829.

    [3] Henry Pottinger Stephens (1851-1903), the librettist of Billee Taylor (1880).

  • #2
    Here is a photograph of Harry Dam, from the period of his own operatic success, The Shop Girl (1894) - from the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/briti...des-caryll.jpg

    Assuming he was Vance Thompson's "idiot with the eye-glass", he had graduated from a monocle to spectacles by this time.

    Click image for larger version

Name:	HarryDam.jpg
Views:	2
Size:	24.1 KB
ID:	654788

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi Chris,

      There's a lot wrong with this article.

      Harry Jackson Wells Dam was "on the run". As private secretary to Governor Stoneman of California Dam had been accused of selling releases to jailed felons. He had also been having an affair with Stoneman's wife, for which the Governor threatened to kill him. Dam moved quickly, first to New York where he wrote a series of acclaimed articles for the New York Times and from where extradition proceedings were started, and then to London.

      Harry Dam filed his first "Leather Apron" story with the New York Times on Monday 3rd September. The next day it appeared in The Star. The day after this The Echo published a counter-story along the lines of the Lippincott article—namely that the unnamed Dam [or rather his colleague] had been joshed.

      T.P O'Connor was the "nominal" editor of The Star in 1888. He wrote the leader columns whilst leaving the drudge work to Hugh Massingham. And Ernest Parke was credited with whipping up the JtR story.

      Personally, I don't believe the "Pizer sued The Star and Daily Telegraph" story and got £10 in gold for his trouble. If anyone linked The Star's anonymous "Leather Apron" with John Pizer it was the police. Incompetent and impulsive as ever.

      Harry Dam married American actress Dorothy Dorr in London, 1892, lived in Abbey Road, had children, enjoyed the company of various luminaries such as Oscar Wilde, went on to write hit musicals like "The Shop Girl" and died in Havana, Cuba in 1906.

      There's a lot more about Harry Dam which I won't bore you with at the moment.

      Regards,

      Simon
      Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

      Comment


      • #4
        If anyone linked The Star's anonymous "Leather Apron" with John Pizer it was the police. Incompetent and impulsive as ever.

        Why should they have been incompetent? A leather apron was found in the yard. The best thing to do is to get to bottom of the LA legend.

        Pizer said he was hiding out with relatives just before he was arrested. Not from Police but from the Public. Why would the Public want him if they didnt think he was LA?

        The more I think about it. The more I believe LA must have been Pizer.

        Some of the girls had bad dealings with him. Maybe he hustled them maybe he just had a bad romance with one. They get to drinkin and shootin the sh-t and pretty soon a legend is born.

        Then reporters come in and the rest is History.
        Last edited by Mitch Rowe; 09-08-2008, 06:57 AM.

        Comment


        • #5
          Hmm..Sorry.
          When I first read this testimony I must have inferred Pizer was hiding from the Public at large. But reading it again it seems Pizer was hiding from Police.

          [Coroner] Who lives at 22, Mulberry-street? - My brother and sister-in-law and my stepmother. I remained indoors there.
          [Coroner] Until when? - Until I was arrested by Sergeant Thicke, on Monday last at nine a.m.
          [Coroner] You say you never left the house during that time? - I never left the house.
          [Coroner] Why were you remaining indoors? - Because my brother advised me.
          [Coroner] You were the subject of suspicion? - I was the object of a false suspicion.
          [Coroner] You remained on the advice of your friends? - Yes; I am telling you what I did.
          The Coroner: It was not the best advice that you could have had.


          At any rate.. If a reporter made it up that would mean Pizer and Police were together on the coverup. And that was proven false by Stewart P. Evans.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Simon Wood View Post
            There's a lot wrong with this article.
            Thanks for your comments. I agree that there's a lot wrong with the article, though in essence it does seem to be the same story later mentioned by Lincoln Springfield.

            One puzzling aspect is the reference to "Leathern Apron" as - apparently - a well-known figure from the writings of de Quincey, which the journalist used as his "prototype". So far I haven't been able to find any trace of such a character, in the writings of de Quincey or anyone else.

            Another is the statement that the "real" Leather Apron "was a butcher down in Besis Court", when of course John Pizer's family lived in Mulberry Street. And no such place as "Besis Court" seems to have existed. There was a "Bevis Court" off Basinghall Street in the City, but that doesn't seem a very likely location. Perhaps Thompson was thinking of Bevis Marks?

            Comment


            • #7
              Hi Chris,

              I, too, could find no De Quincey references to Leathern Apron.

              It's a bit of a leap from De Quincey to Benjamin Franklin, but this might help give us a clue.

              Click image for larger version

Name:	LA CLUB.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	62.1 KB
ID:	654791

              Regards,

              Simon
              Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

              Comment


              • #8
                Hi,
                about De Quincey, I wonder why he spelled Berner Street "Berners Street".
                Was this street called "Berners" at a time, or is it a mistake from TDQ (or from the French translation of the "Conference")?

                Amitiés,
                David

                Comment


                • #9
                  Hi David,

                  There was/still is a Berners Street in central London.

                  Regards,

                  Simon
                  Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Many thanks Simon,
                    so it's not "our" Berner Street.
                    Pity! (As acoincidence, there is a reference to Old Bailey in the previous paragraph.)
                    A footnote in my translation tells that Coleridge and Fuseli had lived there.

                    Amitiés,
                    David

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Simon Wood View Post
                      Harry Dam filed his first "Leather Apron" story with the New York Times on Monday 3rd September. The next day it appeared in The Star. The day after this The Echo published a counter-story along the lines of the Lippincott article—namely that the unnamed Dam [or rather his colleague] had been joshed.
                      Thanks for the pointer towards the New York Times piece (dated 3 September and printed in the 4 September edition). As this isn't in the press reports section of this site (though later pirated versions from other American papers are) I thought it might be useful to post it here.
                      ______________________________________

                      LONDON, Sept. 3.
                      ...
                      Whitechapel has a murder mystery which transcends anything known in the annals of the horrible. It is Poe's "Murders of the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" rolled into one real story. It is nothing less than a midnight murderer, whose step is noiseless, whose strike is deadly, and whose cunning is so great that he leaves no trace whatever of his work and no clue to his identity. He has just slaughtered his third victim, and all the women in Whitechapel are terrified, while the stupidest detectives in the civilized world stand aghast and say they have no clue.

                      When the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, who was cut into ribbons last Friday night, was investigated it became evident that the murder was the work of the same hand that committed the two preceding ones. All three were moneyless women of the lowest class. All were killed in the street between 1 and 3 o'clock in the morning, and all were mutilated in the same fiendish and peculiar way. The coincidence was so great as to strike even the detectives, and they are now looking for the one man whom they believe to be guilty of all three crimes.

                      The man is called "Leather Apron" and nobody knows him by any other name. He is in character half way between Dickens's Quilp and Poe's Baboon. He is short, stunted and thick set. He has small, wicked black eyes and is half crazy. He is always hanging about the deep shadows that fill the intricate network of the courts, passages, and alleyways in Whitechapel. He does not walk, but always moves on a sharp, queer run and never makes any noise with his feet. In addition to the three women he is believed to have murdered he has scared a hundred more of them nearly to death. Every street-walker in Whitechapel has her own story to tell of him. He lives by robbing them late at night and has kicked, cuffed, or knocked down two score of them in the last two years. His usual lodging place is a fourpenny lodging house in a poverty-stricken thieves' alley off Brick-lane. He has left there now, however, and nobody knows where he is.

                      He is suspected of having done the three murders from the fact that he has frequently drawn a knife on women, accompanied by the same threats which have been carried out on the dead women. The story of Mrs. Colwall, who heard the screams of the woman as she was being murdered, is to the effect that she was clearly running away from somebody who was murdering her, and yet she could hear no other footsteps. The blood stains on the sidewalk indicated the same thing - that the murderer, whoever he was, was noiseless in his pursuit, and this quality points directly to "Leather Apron." He is a slippermaker by trade, and gets his nickname from the fact that he always wears a leather apron and is never seen without it. One peculiar feature of the case is that none of the police or detectives appears to know him, he having always kept out of their sight, and they are now gleaning information concerning him from women he has assailed.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hi All,

                        This is from Henry Longfellow's "The Divine Tragedy", 1871, and strangely apropos to our discussion—

                        "The disciples draw near, and one of them is
                        Judas Escariot; he that cometh last,
                        Girt with a leather apron. No one knoweth
                        His history; but the rumour of him is
                        He had an unclean spirit in his youth.
                        It hath not left him yet."

                        Regards,

                        Simon
                        Last edited by Simon Wood; 09-11-2008, 07:25 PM. Reason: spolling mistook
                        Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.

                        Comment

                        Working...
                        X