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So, I'm rereading Sugden's 'Complete History of Jack the Ripper'. In describing the last few days of Martha Tabram's life, he notes:
"By 1888 [Martha's boyfriend] was out of regular employment, and he and Martha were earning a living as hawkers, selling trinkets, needles and pins, menthol cones, and other small articles."
I'd always just assumed that menthol cones were some type of air freshener, probably like the little charcoal cones of incense that one sees, just menthol-scented. For some reason I decided to look it up, and was delighted at what I found.
"American Druggist", volume 14, for April of 1885, states:
"Menthol has been known for a long time, but it is only in the past two years that it has become, owing to its great consumption in the manufacture of menthol cones and pencils, an article of commercial importance.
Menthol has been used by the Japanese for nearly two hundred years, and is known by them as 'Hakka-no-sei', or 'Hakka-no-hair'. Previous to the late change in the social system of Japan, the native gentlemen there were accustomed to carry attached to their girdle a medicine-box, which contained, among other things, a compound called 'Hotan', of which menthol was one of the principle ingredients.
[...]
It is only in the last three or four years that the value of menthol has been recognized by Western nations. The 'Lancet' (London) drew attention to it in 1879, and since that period, many medical men, both in Great Britain and America, have published their experience of it as a remedy for diseases such as headache, neuralgia, toothache, epidemic influenza, etc. So popular has this specific become that at the present day by far the largest proportion of menthol produced is employed in the manufacture of menthol cones, which are made use of as a household remedy for nervous diseases such as those mentioned."
The article goes on to speak of the manufacture of cones, which are made by pouring melted menthol into a metal form. The finished cones are provided in wooden or metal cases or tubes with removable tops, with the base of the cone being melted by brief exposure to flame, and then stuck to the base of the tube. The finished article apparently resembled a modern lipstick in a tube. It's said that:
"wooden cases are preferable to those made of metal, the latter, owing to the property metal possesses of being a good conductor, being apt to get heated in warm climates. The result is that the menthol which touches the metal melts, and the cone becomes quite loose."
The cones remain popular in the far east to this day. A google search returns a wide assortment of brands, most in plastic tubes, but a few being provided in rather ornate-looking traditional wooden tubes. They're marketed as a remedy for headache and nasal/sinus congestion, and are apparently used by rubbing the cone on the skin of the temples and upper lip. That accords with the information in 'American Druggist', which, while noting and deploring adulterants commonly used in cheap cones, notes especially that menthol which has been adulterated with wax will not rapidly evaporate from the skin as pure menthol will, but instead will be trapped against the skin, causing redness and irritation.
I'm unable to find much about pricing. The Kingston Jamaica 'Gleaner' for Sept 1st, 1890, advertises menthol cones for 9d. As the ad appears in issue after issue, I'm assuming that they were of acceptable quality to middle class readers, hence probably of better quality than what Martha was selling. Going by the rule of thumb that retail is normally about three times wholesale, 3d seems to have been the wholesale price for cones that a middle-class consumer would buy. Martha's stock was presumably cheaper, which fits with her being able to stock a hawker's tray with for the 1s/6d that her boyfriend gave her on August 4th.
On a personal note, this sort of thing fascinates me. It's all too easy to fall into the mindset of seeing Whitechapel as a sort of hellscape, a Brueghel engraving come to life, populated by the wretched and the damned. The people who lived there and then didn't see it that way. They had their lives, and their friends, they had hopes and fears for the future, just as we do. No doubt some of them couldn't see past the bad parts, just as we have people today who fixate on what they lack, ignoring the wonderful things that *are* available to them.
The menthol cones bring that home to me. This was a trendy product, only on the market for a few years, but already widely popular. People would have been aware of it from advertising, and from word of mouth. Most people want to be part of whatever is currently exciting the herd, especially if there seems to be some tangible benefit to it, as the doctors of the day were claiming for these menthol cones. They tie directly into the Victorian passion for Progress, and lives made better by science. They had the added cachet of being associated with Japan - 'The Mikado' had premiered only a few years earlier, in 1885, and Japonaiserie was very much in fashion. Martha, like retailers before and since, was selling aspirations along with tangible goods.
"By 1888 [Martha's boyfriend] was out of regular employment, and he and Martha were earning a living as hawkers, selling trinkets, needles and pins, menthol cones, and other small articles."
I'd always just assumed that menthol cones were some type of air freshener, probably like the little charcoal cones of incense that one sees, just menthol-scented. For some reason I decided to look it up, and was delighted at what I found.
"American Druggist", volume 14, for April of 1885, states:
"Menthol has been known for a long time, but it is only in the past two years that it has become, owing to its great consumption in the manufacture of menthol cones and pencils, an article of commercial importance.
Menthol has been used by the Japanese for nearly two hundred years, and is known by them as 'Hakka-no-sei', or 'Hakka-no-hair'. Previous to the late change in the social system of Japan, the native gentlemen there were accustomed to carry attached to their girdle a medicine-box, which contained, among other things, a compound called 'Hotan', of which menthol was one of the principle ingredients.
[...]
It is only in the last three or four years that the value of menthol has been recognized by Western nations. The 'Lancet' (London) drew attention to it in 1879, and since that period, many medical men, both in Great Britain and America, have published their experience of it as a remedy for diseases such as headache, neuralgia, toothache, epidemic influenza, etc. So popular has this specific become that at the present day by far the largest proportion of menthol produced is employed in the manufacture of menthol cones, which are made use of as a household remedy for nervous diseases such as those mentioned."
The article goes on to speak of the manufacture of cones, which are made by pouring melted menthol into a metal form. The finished cones are provided in wooden or metal cases or tubes with removable tops, with the base of the cone being melted by brief exposure to flame, and then stuck to the base of the tube. The finished article apparently resembled a modern lipstick in a tube. It's said that:
"wooden cases are preferable to those made of metal, the latter, owing to the property metal possesses of being a good conductor, being apt to get heated in warm climates. The result is that the menthol which touches the metal melts, and the cone becomes quite loose."
The cones remain popular in the far east to this day. A google search returns a wide assortment of brands, most in plastic tubes, but a few being provided in rather ornate-looking traditional wooden tubes. They're marketed as a remedy for headache and nasal/sinus congestion, and are apparently used by rubbing the cone on the skin of the temples and upper lip. That accords with the information in 'American Druggist', which, while noting and deploring adulterants commonly used in cheap cones, notes especially that menthol which has been adulterated with wax will not rapidly evaporate from the skin as pure menthol will, but instead will be trapped against the skin, causing redness and irritation.
I'm unable to find much about pricing. The Kingston Jamaica 'Gleaner' for Sept 1st, 1890, advertises menthol cones for 9d. As the ad appears in issue after issue, I'm assuming that they were of acceptable quality to middle class readers, hence probably of better quality than what Martha was selling. Going by the rule of thumb that retail is normally about three times wholesale, 3d seems to have been the wholesale price for cones that a middle-class consumer would buy. Martha's stock was presumably cheaper, which fits with her being able to stock a hawker's tray with for the 1s/6d that her boyfriend gave her on August 4th.
On a personal note, this sort of thing fascinates me. It's all too easy to fall into the mindset of seeing Whitechapel as a sort of hellscape, a Brueghel engraving come to life, populated by the wretched and the damned. The people who lived there and then didn't see it that way. They had their lives, and their friends, they had hopes and fears for the future, just as we do. No doubt some of them couldn't see past the bad parts, just as we have people today who fixate on what they lack, ignoring the wonderful things that *are* available to them.
The menthol cones bring that home to me. This was a trendy product, only on the market for a few years, but already widely popular. People would have been aware of it from advertising, and from word of mouth. Most people want to be part of whatever is currently exciting the herd, especially if there seems to be some tangible benefit to it, as the doctors of the day were claiming for these menthol cones. They tie directly into the Victorian passion for Progress, and lives made better by science. They had the added cachet of being associated with Japan - 'The Mikado' had premiered only a few years earlier, in 1885, and Japonaiserie was very much in fashion. Martha, like retailers before and since, was selling aspirations along with tangible goods.