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I did start a thread on this article on the old boards but never posted the complete text. Despite the numerous errors in the allegedly factual background to the case, this may be of interest
Sullivan's encounter with "Leather Apron" in Dorset Street can be dated as follows:
He says his nightly patrols began two days after the murder of Stride i.e on 2 October. He met with "Leather Apron" on his 10th night of wandering the streets of Whitechapel, which would place it at 3 a.m. on the morning of 12 October.
Chris
Salt Lake Herald
25 August 1901
HUNTING "JACK THE RIPPER"
Thrilling Experiences of a Man Who Posed in Woman's Garb
(John T Sullivan) in Denver Post
The recent scare among Denver women because of the raids of the Capitol Hill thug reminds me of the reign of terror among the denizens of the Whitechapel district, London, during the months of September and November, 1888. I had been in London for some months playing at Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, and during the months mentioned was appearing as Joseph Surface, with Kate Vaughan, in "The School for Scandal."
"Jack the Ripper" at that time was a common phrase around the town. Those three words, "Jack the Ripper," were enough to blanch the cheek of every woman and send children shrieking into their homes. No one can understand the reign of terror that there existed, and strangely, for among that class fear is an unusual emotion.
No one had ever met the creature and lived to tell the tale, so that impenetrable mystery seemed to surround him. It was this element of the wonderful that assisted in making his murder so successful.
The first murder was that of a woman described as a blear eyed hag. She was found on an embankment in the Whitechapel district, her throat cut from ear to ear, her body frightfully mutilated.
The second victim was Martha Turner, a hawker. Her body was found on the first floor landing of the George Yard buildings, in Commercial Road, Spitalfields. Tuesday, Aug. 7.
The third was Mary Ann Nichols. This murder occurred two days later in Bucks Row, near the house of Mrs Green.
The fourth victim was Annie Chapman, who was killed Aug. 17 (sic) in the back yard of a Mr Richardson, 29 Hanbury Street.
The fifth was on Sept. 23, when an unknown woman was found dead at Gateshead, Newcastle on Tyne.
The sixth was Hippity Lip Annie, Sept. 30, on Berners Street. Her throat was cut, but before he could mutilate her the murderer was frightened away.
The seventh happened fifteen minutes later on the southwest corner of Mitre Square. The murdered woman was unknown.
The eighth victim was found Oct. 1 on the site of the intended Metropolitan opera house. She was unknown and the body was decomposed.
The ninth occurred Nov. 9. Jane Lawrence was the unfortunate. She was killed in her room on Dorset Street.
The tenth crime was committed Nov. 28, and the victim was without a name.
During the ten days prior to Fen, 9, 1889, ten crimes of an identical character to those perpetrated in Whitechapel were committed in Managua, Nicaragua.
July 17, 1889, a doctor in London, at times demented, confessed that he had used surgical instruments at times when he was unconscious and had not assisted in any operation.
Victims All of One Class
This was all the data obtainable. The victims were all dissolute women, and the same sort of mutilation characterized each case. The throat was invariably cut - as a rule from ear to ear - and the body was savagely slashed and mutilated.
It was the night of Sept. 3 (sic), 1888, that made London, great as it is, roar with indignation from center to circumference. In Berners Street, Commercial Road, Whitechapel, the body of a woman, identified as "Hippity Lip Annie," was found by a teamster, still warm and cut and mutilated as in the other cases, thus adding another to the crimes of "Jack the Ripper."
Twenty minutes later, at a distance of a mile, a policeman stumbled over the body of a woman in Mitre Square. She had been similarly murdered.
When you take into consideration the fact that on that very night, in Berners Street, there was a social gathering of the members of the Working Mens' Club, an organization in Whitechapel, and that these men were continually going back and forth to the "pub" adjoining the archway where the woman was found, it seems almost incredible that a murder could have been committed without noise or screams that could have been heard by the revellers. It was only twelve feet from the body to the floor of the saloon.
Murders Deeply Mysterious
Still more incredible seems the next murder. The Berners Street body was found at 11:20 p.m. The Mitre Square body was found at 11:40, yet the policeman, at 11:33, had passed down Mitre Street within twenty five feet of Mitre Square and had looked in and had seen nothing wrong.
On his return at 11:40, in passing the square under a gas lamp at the immediate corner, the policeman saw a woman lying on the ground. Running to her assistance, he discovered that another victim of "Jack the Ripper" was in evidence. He had the body taken to the Old Jewry station house.
When you consider that it would take twenty minutes, as it took me, to walk from Berners Street to Commercial Road; up that road to Whitechapel; west on Whitechapel to Mitre Square, one wonders how this thing was done.
The next morning London rang with the news. The papers devoted pages to it, calling on the police to suppress this scourge. Scotland Yard put in its best men, and Sir Charles Warren, since famous in the Boer war, then London's chief of police, called upon the guards and volunteers to patrol Whitechapel thoroughly. At least 2,200 men were serving as detectives in that celebrated district.
Interest Was Universal
Naturally, all classes were interested; particularly so were the American residents of London, of whom there were a great number at that time. We used to meet, probably twelve to twenty of us, after the performances at the theatres, at the Victoria Hotel. A number of the boys felt like volunteering.
I might say, incidentally, that the City of London had offered £1,000 reward for the apprehension of the murderer. Sir Charles Warren offered another additional £1,000. The Board of Aldermen offered another £1,000, and at last the reward aggregated £5,000. This was to be paid to anyone producing "Jack the Ripper" dead or alive. No one could give any description of him, as none who had met him had ever lived to describe him. Various theories were offered as to his identity, but all were faulty and useless.
The only thing to be done was to catch him red handed - but how was this to be done? Well, we Americans thought we could solve the problem. During the month of August a number of us attended a garden party, given by Lady Mackenzie at her charming villa on the Surrey side. In presenting a charade I appeared in a burlesque of a vivandiere masquerading as a guardsman, but still a woman. It was a very clever conceit, and William King of Buffalo, son of millionaire King, suggested a plan for catching "Jack the Ripper."
King had seen me at this garden party, and two nights after the double murder at the Victoria Hotel he startled us all by saying, "I've got the plan of catching 'Jack the Ripper,' and it's the only one."
Jack Jolly Prospect
We all exclaimed, "What is it, Willy?"
"Well," he said, turning to me, "Jack, it's up to you - it concerns you principally."
Answering my look of inquiry and turning to the boys, he said:
"The plan is this: Jack here looked so like a woman the other day that he could easily pass for one. Now, let him dress as a woman - not too swell, but like the Whitechapel women - and patrol the streets and alleys and yards.
We will follow him up - have our guns ready, watch, and, if he is accosted, close in on the man - and that is the only way 'Jack the Ripper' will ever be caught."
Needless to say, I didn't look at the scheme in quite the same optimistic light that my friend King did, as the fact was evident that the women who had been killed had never had time to even utter a cry.
I was not so sure whether it would be "Jack the Ripper" or I who would "get it."
Well, we sat discussing the plan until daylight, and they finally persuaded me that it was my duty to go masquerading through Whitechapel - a perilous errand, mind you - provided I was given permission by Sir Charles Warren to carry a revolver or a knife, to defend myself. Incidentally, too, there was the question of the $25,000 reward, beside the glory and renown to be attained.
In Skirts and Wig
At 7 o'clock in the morning I was at the shop of Madame Auguste, a sister of the late Sir Augustus Harris. She was the best costumer in London, and had furnished me many dresses for the parts I had played. She entered into the plan enthusiastically, fixing me up with a hat, waist and skirt. C.H. Fox, a noted perruquier of King Street, Covent Garden, got up a wig for me at short notice. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon I was duly rigged out, and looked like a healthy country girl. I had a slit made on the right side of my skirt that opened on a leather holster, which was to hold a revolver, a hammerless Smith & Wesson, which I had brought from America.
Meantime, while I was contriving the costume, the boys were arranging for a permit for my appearance and permission to carry firearms. Warren, then chief of police, thought a great deal of the scheme, but considered that there was great risk attached to it. He willingly gave the permit for my costume so far as the police authorities were concerned, but absolutely refused the permit to carry arms.
Nothing daunted, I went down to Scotland Yard and told my story to Marshall, one of the most famous detectives in England. He assured me that the permit to pass the police lines would also include a defensive weapon, and told me to go ahead.
On a Perilous Mission
It was the night of Oct. 2, 1888, that I left the Globe Theatre, where I was playing, and started on my perilous but extremely fascinating undertaking. It was 10:30 o'clock, and King and Elliott, fellow Americans whom I have mentioned, were with me. I was fully equipped. My revolver I could feel pressing against my thigh at every step. I reached through the slit I had made in my dress and found the revolver ready for use. It was arranged on a swivel, by which I could turn it in any direction and shoot through my skirt in such fashion as I pleased, and at a moment's notice.
I cannot quite describe my sensations. I was all excitement through holding myself down and displaying no trepidation. I knew the great risk I ran. I was to become a target. I was going out to be killed - unless I should prove quicker with my revolver than the "Ripper" was with his knife, and his awful swiftness and certainty with that weapon were indisputable.
Start for the Slums
Well, at the Globe theatre we entered a bus, went through the Strand into Fleet Street, to Ludgate Hill, through St. Paul's churchyard, into Whitechapel. At Commercial Road we alighted, and then began our quest. We entered a couple of "pubs" near Spitalfields Market, went into the women's bar and mingled with the many habitues of the crowded groggery. I attracted some attention from the women, but the men paid no attention to me. Out into the street again, over through the market and then into the slums and mews of the wickedest part of London.
To be sure my friends, dressed as sailors and rolling along drunkenly as if they were tars just given shore leave and out for a holiday, followed me closely. But they were always twenty or more yards behind me, and I kept my hand on my revolver and thought of the "Ripper" and his swift work.
I was a plain country hussy, not over particular as to neatness and willing to drink with any of the hardened male debauchees whom I met. I made my second stop at a "pub" called "The Twin Anchors," I pretended to be considerable under the influence of liquor. I called to the men to come and drink with me. They did so, without comment. They were meanly dressed and dirty, but they made no effort of affront. My two watchful trailers halted and put in the time bantering two women of the streets.
Failed to Find Trouble
After I had got my drink and found that nobody had any indignities or insults to offer, I reeled along the purlieus of ignorance, filth and vice, working my way through the Whitechapel district.
But I want to say now, and I remarked it with astonishment at the time, that not once during the entire fortnight which I gave to this work was I offered insult, or even accosted, by the best or the worst of those debauched denizens of that horrible dirty and most vicious and uncontrolled district.
The sights I saw would disgust a satyr. The drunkenness, the wantonness, the vileness, the foul language and utter depravity of the Whitechapel district are things I will never forget.
Whitechapel, you know, has no counterpart in any other country. This great, populous home of the debauched is a perfect labyrinth of twisting alleyways, queer shaped courts, blind passages and all sorts of odd nooks and corners. It is easy to get lost there, and one might wander for days without encountering a familiar locality to guide him back to his starting point.
'Mid Scenes of Squalor
In these courts and narrow passages, thousands of hucksters and peddlers back their wagons at night. In many places these vehicles are so closely packed together that it takes ten minutes to wind among them for the space of a square. The entire district is at night a perfectly safe harbor for thieves, cut throats and all manner of social outcasts. The masses of depraved and debauched humanity I saw beneath those wagons were pictures of vileness that so impressed me that they remain as vividly in my mind today as that first night when, with my false hair touzled like that of the veriest drab, my face smudged with soot and my hand ever pressing the pistol inside my dress, I wandered through the mazes of that great, dark area of filth and drunkenness, and the mystery of sudden, horrible and totally inexplicable death.
I soon grew sick of the sights I saw and, but for the overpowering interest of the quest and my keen desire to meet and see and conquer this bloody fiend who kept the thousand silly tongues of Whitechapel wagging, I should have given up the undertaking after the first two hours. But, as it was, my determination increased each moment - and I will tell you that I had some thrilling moments, too.
Followed by Friends
My friends, dressed as roistering sailors and playing the parts with great effect, were always within forty or fifty yards of me, but they could not keep me every moment in sight. There were sharp angles to turn, and I must turn them, else be detected in my masquerade. I realized how easy it would be, unless I proceeded with unusual caution, to be struck down from behind, from overhead, maybe, or by some dark imp springing from out the gloom beneath one of the wagons that crowded the courts.
The women of the district were full of gossip and all sorts of wild guesses concerning the mysterious murderer. It was pretty generally agreed, however, that the fiend was a man called "Leather Apron," who had suddenly appeared at various times to several women and given them awful frights. No definite description could be had of him, beyond the statement that he wore a leather apron reaching down from his chin to his knees. The fact that he had been seen in various parts of the district on the same night gave strength to the theory that he was the "Ripper," and you may wager that I kept especially keen watch for anything that looked like leather.
Well, we worked hard, we three Americans. Every night after my work at the theatre, I put on my slum togs, my friends did the same, and we started on our zigzag saunterings through Whitechapel. It was hard work, for we seldom left the field of our efforts before dawn began to send its murky white shafts down among the sleeping, blear eyed, carousing denizens.
Very Little Doing
My only adventure during the entire campaign was on the tenth night of my vigil. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning, and I was greatly fatigued, and, I presume, showed my weariness in my walk. I had dishevelled the hair at the back of my wig, and, as I wandered carelessly along, I must have been about the most dejected looking figure abroad.
I had just turned a sharp corner into Dorset Street, near the spot where one of the murders had been committed, when suddenly I felt, rather than saw, a man close behind me. He appeared so swiftly and so silently that I could not form the slightest idea of where he had come from. It really seemed as if he had sprung out of the earth.
A cold chill went over me as I got the revolver firmly in my grasp, ready to fire into the body of my enemy at a second's warning. I saw a man of apparently 45 years glancing up at me with a peculiar look in his eyes - a wild, demented look. He had a stubbly, reddish beard on his chin, and below that a leather apron down to his knees.
This, then, was "Leather Apron." Would he grasp me by my head, and, passing a quick hand beneath my chin, cut my throat as the throats of others had been cut? I had not much time at my disposal - in fact, the whole thing was over in a flash. But I did a good deal of thinking during that fateful moment. Then I made a sudden grab at his shoulder with my disengaged hand, but he was too quick for me. He gave me another wild stare, turned suddenly and was off like a shot, running noiselessly but swiftly.
An Exciting Foot Race
I ran after him, and my two friends, seeing this, ran after me. We could not overtake the man, but we notified Scotland Yard, and, by great luck more than anything else, "Leather Apron" was apprehended and the newspapers were full of it, all claiming that the "Ripper" had been caught.
But it wasn't the "Ripper" at all. I went down to the court next morning and identified him as the man I had encountered in Dorset Street, but it was shown that he was an eccentric but harmless employee in a harness shop in Fleet Street, and that his only object in stealing about at night was to frighten women, and see them run.
After two weeks of this sleuthing, my physician told me I would have to give it up. The continuous excitement - or, more properly, suspense - together with the unavoidable loss of sleep, was wearing on me and would soon lay me on my back, he said, so I gave up the cause. But I will never forget that experience.
One significant fact, however, marked my connection with the case. I commenced my search two days after the murder of the woman "Hippity Lip Annie," which occurred Sept. 30. Other murders, preceding this one, had been committed at intervals of only a few days. No murders were committed during the period of our sleuthing. Other murders followed close upon the conclusion of our vigil. My deduction was that the "Ripper" knew of our movements, and I believe that to this day.
Solution of Famous Mystery
As to the identity of "Jack the Ripper," both the man and his habitat are known. But, mind you, it is only in the last three months that this fact has come out. At the time of which I write London was divided in its opinions. Some thought the work was that of a frenzied sailor - a butcher on one of the cattle transports, who had taken this form of revenge upon those poor outcasts for a fancied wrong. Others held that it was a physician who had suffered in the same way. The latter surmise was correct. It was a physician, a reputable man in London - a perfect Jekyll and Hyde. He had developed a homicidal mania and had been confined in a private sanatorium in a suburb of London. How he escaped was a mystery, but Scotland Yard knows that man today. He is an exile from his country. He lives at Buenos Ayres, in the Argentine Republic, and there being no law of extradition between that nation and England, he is entirely safe there. I have this on the best authority, although this is the first time the facts have been given to the public.
"Jack the Ripper" has not been in evidence since Dr. E left England. I need hardly say that he is under close surveillance in the Argentine capital, so that there will no repetition of his offense.
John T Sullivan
Sullivan's encounter with "Leather Apron" in Dorset Street can be dated as follows:
He says his nightly patrols began two days after the murder of Stride i.e on 2 October. He met with "Leather Apron" on his 10th night of wandering the streets of Whitechapel, which would place it at 3 a.m. on the morning of 12 October.
Chris
Salt Lake Herald
25 August 1901
HUNTING "JACK THE RIPPER"
Thrilling Experiences of a Man Who Posed in Woman's Garb
(John T Sullivan) in Denver Post
The recent scare among Denver women because of the raids of the Capitol Hill thug reminds me of the reign of terror among the denizens of the Whitechapel district, London, during the months of September and November, 1888. I had been in London for some months playing at Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, and during the months mentioned was appearing as Joseph Surface, with Kate Vaughan, in "The School for Scandal."
"Jack the Ripper" at that time was a common phrase around the town. Those three words, "Jack the Ripper," were enough to blanch the cheek of every woman and send children shrieking into their homes. No one can understand the reign of terror that there existed, and strangely, for among that class fear is an unusual emotion.
No one had ever met the creature and lived to tell the tale, so that impenetrable mystery seemed to surround him. It was this element of the wonderful that assisted in making his murder so successful.
The first murder was that of a woman described as a blear eyed hag. She was found on an embankment in the Whitechapel district, her throat cut from ear to ear, her body frightfully mutilated.
The second victim was Martha Turner, a hawker. Her body was found on the first floor landing of the George Yard buildings, in Commercial Road, Spitalfields. Tuesday, Aug. 7.
The third was Mary Ann Nichols. This murder occurred two days later in Bucks Row, near the house of Mrs Green.
The fourth victim was Annie Chapman, who was killed Aug. 17 (sic) in the back yard of a Mr Richardson, 29 Hanbury Street.
The fifth was on Sept. 23, when an unknown woman was found dead at Gateshead, Newcastle on Tyne.
The sixth was Hippity Lip Annie, Sept. 30, on Berners Street. Her throat was cut, but before he could mutilate her the murderer was frightened away.
The seventh happened fifteen minutes later on the southwest corner of Mitre Square. The murdered woman was unknown.
The eighth victim was found Oct. 1 on the site of the intended Metropolitan opera house. She was unknown and the body was decomposed.
The ninth occurred Nov. 9. Jane Lawrence was the unfortunate. She was killed in her room on Dorset Street.
The tenth crime was committed Nov. 28, and the victim was without a name.
During the ten days prior to Fen, 9, 1889, ten crimes of an identical character to those perpetrated in Whitechapel were committed in Managua, Nicaragua.
July 17, 1889, a doctor in London, at times demented, confessed that he had used surgical instruments at times when he was unconscious and had not assisted in any operation.
Victims All of One Class
This was all the data obtainable. The victims were all dissolute women, and the same sort of mutilation characterized each case. The throat was invariably cut - as a rule from ear to ear - and the body was savagely slashed and mutilated.
It was the night of Sept. 3 (sic), 1888, that made London, great as it is, roar with indignation from center to circumference. In Berners Street, Commercial Road, Whitechapel, the body of a woman, identified as "Hippity Lip Annie," was found by a teamster, still warm and cut and mutilated as in the other cases, thus adding another to the crimes of "Jack the Ripper."
Twenty minutes later, at a distance of a mile, a policeman stumbled over the body of a woman in Mitre Square. She had been similarly murdered.
When you take into consideration the fact that on that very night, in Berners Street, there was a social gathering of the members of the Working Mens' Club, an organization in Whitechapel, and that these men were continually going back and forth to the "pub" adjoining the archway where the woman was found, it seems almost incredible that a murder could have been committed without noise or screams that could have been heard by the revellers. It was only twelve feet from the body to the floor of the saloon.
Murders Deeply Mysterious
Still more incredible seems the next murder. The Berners Street body was found at 11:20 p.m. The Mitre Square body was found at 11:40, yet the policeman, at 11:33, had passed down Mitre Street within twenty five feet of Mitre Square and had looked in and had seen nothing wrong.
On his return at 11:40, in passing the square under a gas lamp at the immediate corner, the policeman saw a woman lying on the ground. Running to her assistance, he discovered that another victim of "Jack the Ripper" was in evidence. He had the body taken to the Old Jewry station house.
When you consider that it would take twenty minutes, as it took me, to walk from Berners Street to Commercial Road; up that road to Whitechapel; west on Whitechapel to Mitre Square, one wonders how this thing was done.
The next morning London rang with the news. The papers devoted pages to it, calling on the police to suppress this scourge. Scotland Yard put in its best men, and Sir Charles Warren, since famous in the Boer war, then London's chief of police, called upon the guards and volunteers to patrol Whitechapel thoroughly. At least 2,200 men were serving as detectives in that celebrated district.
Interest Was Universal
Naturally, all classes were interested; particularly so were the American residents of London, of whom there were a great number at that time. We used to meet, probably twelve to twenty of us, after the performances at the theatres, at the Victoria Hotel. A number of the boys felt like volunteering.
I might say, incidentally, that the City of London had offered £1,000 reward for the apprehension of the murderer. Sir Charles Warren offered another additional £1,000. The Board of Aldermen offered another £1,000, and at last the reward aggregated £5,000. This was to be paid to anyone producing "Jack the Ripper" dead or alive. No one could give any description of him, as none who had met him had ever lived to describe him. Various theories were offered as to his identity, but all were faulty and useless.
The only thing to be done was to catch him red handed - but how was this to be done? Well, we Americans thought we could solve the problem. During the month of August a number of us attended a garden party, given by Lady Mackenzie at her charming villa on the Surrey side. In presenting a charade I appeared in a burlesque of a vivandiere masquerading as a guardsman, but still a woman. It was a very clever conceit, and William King of Buffalo, son of millionaire King, suggested a plan for catching "Jack the Ripper."
King had seen me at this garden party, and two nights after the double murder at the Victoria Hotel he startled us all by saying, "I've got the plan of catching 'Jack the Ripper,' and it's the only one."
Jack Jolly Prospect
We all exclaimed, "What is it, Willy?"
"Well," he said, turning to me, "Jack, it's up to you - it concerns you principally."
Answering my look of inquiry and turning to the boys, he said:
"The plan is this: Jack here looked so like a woman the other day that he could easily pass for one. Now, let him dress as a woman - not too swell, but like the Whitechapel women - and patrol the streets and alleys and yards.
We will follow him up - have our guns ready, watch, and, if he is accosted, close in on the man - and that is the only way 'Jack the Ripper' will ever be caught."
Needless to say, I didn't look at the scheme in quite the same optimistic light that my friend King did, as the fact was evident that the women who had been killed had never had time to even utter a cry.
I was not so sure whether it would be "Jack the Ripper" or I who would "get it."
Well, we sat discussing the plan until daylight, and they finally persuaded me that it was my duty to go masquerading through Whitechapel - a perilous errand, mind you - provided I was given permission by Sir Charles Warren to carry a revolver or a knife, to defend myself. Incidentally, too, there was the question of the $25,000 reward, beside the glory and renown to be attained.
In Skirts and Wig
At 7 o'clock in the morning I was at the shop of Madame Auguste, a sister of the late Sir Augustus Harris. She was the best costumer in London, and had furnished me many dresses for the parts I had played. She entered into the plan enthusiastically, fixing me up with a hat, waist and skirt. C.H. Fox, a noted perruquier of King Street, Covent Garden, got up a wig for me at short notice. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon I was duly rigged out, and looked like a healthy country girl. I had a slit made on the right side of my skirt that opened on a leather holster, which was to hold a revolver, a hammerless Smith & Wesson, which I had brought from America.
Meantime, while I was contriving the costume, the boys were arranging for a permit for my appearance and permission to carry firearms. Warren, then chief of police, thought a great deal of the scheme, but considered that there was great risk attached to it. He willingly gave the permit for my costume so far as the police authorities were concerned, but absolutely refused the permit to carry arms.
Nothing daunted, I went down to Scotland Yard and told my story to Marshall, one of the most famous detectives in England. He assured me that the permit to pass the police lines would also include a defensive weapon, and told me to go ahead.
On a Perilous Mission
It was the night of Oct. 2, 1888, that I left the Globe Theatre, where I was playing, and started on my perilous but extremely fascinating undertaking. It was 10:30 o'clock, and King and Elliott, fellow Americans whom I have mentioned, were with me. I was fully equipped. My revolver I could feel pressing against my thigh at every step. I reached through the slit I had made in my dress and found the revolver ready for use. It was arranged on a swivel, by which I could turn it in any direction and shoot through my skirt in such fashion as I pleased, and at a moment's notice.
I cannot quite describe my sensations. I was all excitement through holding myself down and displaying no trepidation. I knew the great risk I ran. I was to become a target. I was going out to be killed - unless I should prove quicker with my revolver than the "Ripper" was with his knife, and his awful swiftness and certainty with that weapon were indisputable.
Start for the Slums
Well, at the Globe theatre we entered a bus, went through the Strand into Fleet Street, to Ludgate Hill, through St. Paul's churchyard, into Whitechapel. At Commercial Road we alighted, and then began our quest. We entered a couple of "pubs" near Spitalfields Market, went into the women's bar and mingled with the many habitues of the crowded groggery. I attracted some attention from the women, but the men paid no attention to me. Out into the street again, over through the market and then into the slums and mews of the wickedest part of London.
To be sure my friends, dressed as sailors and rolling along drunkenly as if they were tars just given shore leave and out for a holiday, followed me closely. But they were always twenty or more yards behind me, and I kept my hand on my revolver and thought of the "Ripper" and his swift work.
I was a plain country hussy, not over particular as to neatness and willing to drink with any of the hardened male debauchees whom I met. I made my second stop at a "pub" called "The Twin Anchors," I pretended to be considerable under the influence of liquor. I called to the men to come and drink with me. They did so, without comment. They were meanly dressed and dirty, but they made no effort of affront. My two watchful trailers halted and put in the time bantering two women of the streets.
Failed to Find Trouble
After I had got my drink and found that nobody had any indignities or insults to offer, I reeled along the purlieus of ignorance, filth and vice, working my way through the Whitechapel district.
But I want to say now, and I remarked it with astonishment at the time, that not once during the entire fortnight which I gave to this work was I offered insult, or even accosted, by the best or the worst of those debauched denizens of that horrible dirty and most vicious and uncontrolled district.
The sights I saw would disgust a satyr. The drunkenness, the wantonness, the vileness, the foul language and utter depravity of the Whitechapel district are things I will never forget.
Whitechapel, you know, has no counterpart in any other country. This great, populous home of the debauched is a perfect labyrinth of twisting alleyways, queer shaped courts, blind passages and all sorts of odd nooks and corners. It is easy to get lost there, and one might wander for days without encountering a familiar locality to guide him back to his starting point.
'Mid Scenes of Squalor
In these courts and narrow passages, thousands of hucksters and peddlers back their wagons at night. In many places these vehicles are so closely packed together that it takes ten minutes to wind among them for the space of a square. The entire district is at night a perfectly safe harbor for thieves, cut throats and all manner of social outcasts. The masses of depraved and debauched humanity I saw beneath those wagons were pictures of vileness that so impressed me that they remain as vividly in my mind today as that first night when, with my false hair touzled like that of the veriest drab, my face smudged with soot and my hand ever pressing the pistol inside my dress, I wandered through the mazes of that great, dark area of filth and drunkenness, and the mystery of sudden, horrible and totally inexplicable death.
I soon grew sick of the sights I saw and, but for the overpowering interest of the quest and my keen desire to meet and see and conquer this bloody fiend who kept the thousand silly tongues of Whitechapel wagging, I should have given up the undertaking after the first two hours. But, as it was, my determination increased each moment - and I will tell you that I had some thrilling moments, too.
Followed by Friends
My friends, dressed as roistering sailors and playing the parts with great effect, were always within forty or fifty yards of me, but they could not keep me every moment in sight. There were sharp angles to turn, and I must turn them, else be detected in my masquerade. I realized how easy it would be, unless I proceeded with unusual caution, to be struck down from behind, from overhead, maybe, or by some dark imp springing from out the gloom beneath one of the wagons that crowded the courts.
The women of the district were full of gossip and all sorts of wild guesses concerning the mysterious murderer. It was pretty generally agreed, however, that the fiend was a man called "Leather Apron," who had suddenly appeared at various times to several women and given them awful frights. No definite description could be had of him, beyond the statement that he wore a leather apron reaching down from his chin to his knees. The fact that he had been seen in various parts of the district on the same night gave strength to the theory that he was the "Ripper," and you may wager that I kept especially keen watch for anything that looked like leather.
Well, we worked hard, we three Americans. Every night after my work at the theatre, I put on my slum togs, my friends did the same, and we started on our zigzag saunterings through Whitechapel. It was hard work, for we seldom left the field of our efforts before dawn began to send its murky white shafts down among the sleeping, blear eyed, carousing denizens.
Very Little Doing
My only adventure during the entire campaign was on the tenth night of my vigil. It was about 3 o'clock in the morning, and I was greatly fatigued, and, I presume, showed my weariness in my walk. I had dishevelled the hair at the back of my wig, and, as I wandered carelessly along, I must have been about the most dejected looking figure abroad.
I had just turned a sharp corner into Dorset Street, near the spot where one of the murders had been committed, when suddenly I felt, rather than saw, a man close behind me. He appeared so swiftly and so silently that I could not form the slightest idea of where he had come from. It really seemed as if he had sprung out of the earth.
A cold chill went over me as I got the revolver firmly in my grasp, ready to fire into the body of my enemy at a second's warning. I saw a man of apparently 45 years glancing up at me with a peculiar look in his eyes - a wild, demented look. He had a stubbly, reddish beard on his chin, and below that a leather apron down to his knees.
This, then, was "Leather Apron." Would he grasp me by my head, and, passing a quick hand beneath my chin, cut my throat as the throats of others had been cut? I had not much time at my disposal - in fact, the whole thing was over in a flash. But I did a good deal of thinking during that fateful moment. Then I made a sudden grab at his shoulder with my disengaged hand, but he was too quick for me. He gave me another wild stare, turned suddenly and was off like a shot, running noiselessly but swiftly.
An Exciting Foot Race
I ran after him, and my two friends, seeing this, ran after me. We could not overtake the man, but we notified Scotland Yard, and, by great luck more than anything else, "Leather Apron" was apprehended and the newspapers were full of it, all claiming that the "Ripper" had been caught.
But it wasn't the "Ripper" at all. I went down to the court next morning and identified him as the man I had encountered in Dorset Street, but it was shown that he was an eccentric but harmless employee in a harness shop in Fleet Street, and that his only object in stealing about at night was to frighten women, and see them run.
After two weeks of this sleuthing, my physician told me I would have to give it up. The continuous excitement - or, more properly, suspense - together with the unavoidable loss of sleep, was wearing on me and would soon lay me on my back, he said, so I gave up the cause. But I will never forget that experience.
One significant fact, however, marked my connection with the case. I commenced my search two days after the murder of the woman "Hippity Lip Annie," which occurred Sept. 30. Other murders, preceding this one, had been committed at intervals of only a few days. No murders were committed during the period of our sleuthing. Other murders followed close upon the conclusion of our vigil. My deduction was that the "Ripper" knew of our movements, and I believe that to this day.
Solution of Famous Mystery
As to the identity of "Jack the Ripper," both the man and his habitat are known. But, mind you, it is only in the last three months that this fact has come out. At the time of which I write London was divided in its opinions. Some thought the work was that of a frenzied sailor - a butcher on one of the cattle transports, who had taken this form of revenge upon those poor outcasts for a fancied wrong. Others held that it was a physician who had suffered in the same way. The latter surmise was correct. It was a physician, a reputable man in London - a perfect Jekyll and Hyde. He had developed a homicidal mania and had been confined in a private sanatorium in a suburb of London. How he escaped was a mystery, but Scotland Yard knows that man today. He is an exile from his country. He lives at Buenos Ayres, in the Argentine Republic, and there being no law of extradition between that nation and England, he is entirely safe there. I have this on the best authority, although this is the first time the facts have been given to the public.
"Jack the Ripper" has not been in evidence since Dr. E left England. I need hardly say that he is under close surveillance in the Argentine capital, so that there will no repetition of his offense.
John T Sullivan
An interesting story.
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