The Insidious Nature of this Case

[fireskin]

Being new to Ripperology, I find myself pondering why..

Why is it so fascinating? Why am I sucked in so irrevocably?

I can't stop reading and studying and theorizing.. GAH!

[lynn cates]

why?

Hello Fireskin. Perhaps the fascination lies in the fact that the inquest records are missing, the witness reports are sometimes suspect, and, above all, the vast disparity between how the case looked originally and how it has come to look today?

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

It's a "tip of the tongue" case. We have just enough information that we feel like we know what happened, and if we could just find one more clue, make one more connection, interpret on more piece of data that we can solve it. Like the answer is on the tip of our tongue.

[Rubyretro]

It's a "tip of the tongue" case. We have just enough information that we feel like we know what happened, and if we could just find one more clue, make one more connection, interpret on more piece of data that we can solve it. Like the answer is on the tip of our tongue.

Well put !

[Sally]

It's a "tip of the tongue" case. We have just enough information that we feel like we know what happened, and if we could just find one more clue, make one more connection, interpret on more piece of data that we can solve it. Like the answer is on the tip of our tongue.

Yes. The other thing is that its a broad field; partly because the evidence is scattered and inconclusive, partly because side avenues are inevitable in the study of anything if it continues for long enough.

The sheer diversity of interests and theories that are apparent in Ripperology indicates that it has a widespread appeal for a a multitude of reasons. The downside is that barring the discovery of a big game-changer, nobody will ever be able to agree on who the Ripper was

The other other thing is that there are avenues of research still to be explored, which gives us the impression that the case could be solved, one day.

How realistic that is, is hard to call.

[ChrisGeorge]

It's a "tip of the tongue" case. We have just enough information that we feel like we know what happened, and if we could just find one more clue, make one more connection, interpret on more piece of data that we can solve it. Like the answer is on the tip of our tongue.

Well said, Errata. Very true. And of course we might add that this aspect of the case is the very reason why so many authors have broken into print with what they believe to be the solution to the case when they make a few assumptions and leaps of logic that supposedly tie all the loose threads together. And why, as well, the case is perhaps a trap and graveyard for many authors of books on Jack the Ripper suspects when they try to make such connections.

Best regards

Chris George

[Archaic]

It's a "tip of the tongue" case. We have just enough information that we feel like we know what happened, and if we could just find one more clue, make one more connection, interpret on more piece of data that we can solve it. Like the answer is on the tip of our tongue.

Wow, I wish I'd said that! Well put, Errata.

I think the Whitechapel murders also pose an enormous question: Why?

Why would any human being want to do such horrible things to other human beings? Who was the killer, what was his motivation? Why did he do it?

Trying to grasp what happened and make some kind of sense of it really sucks us in.

Best regards,
Archaic

[John Wheat]

I think the area, time in which the murders were commited have something to do with the fascination with this case. The myths about Jack the Ripper as well. E.G. A top hated gent using the barely lit back alleys to murder prostitutes in the East End of London.

[Robert]

I think if you hear about the case early enough, and think about it long enough, it becomes almost a question of personal nostalgia - like trying to remember the first 2 or 3 years of your own life, which are always inaccessible.

[Jonathan H]

What fascinates me is that primary sources, by people who were there, claim the mystery was solved, despite the culprit not being charged -- let alone convicted.

Subsequent secondary sources beginning in the 1920's rebooted the case as an unsolved mystery which had baffled the entire constabulary, and which of course baffles us today.

This creates the redundant notion of Jack the Ripper 'suspect' books, when what you really have are some secondary sources arguing that some of the primary sources are reliable; that the case was indeed probably solved at the time.

To John Wheat

The pop caricature of the top-hatted toff with medical bag and opera cloak, cemented by Griffiths and Sims as the 'drowned doctor' [alleged] chief police suspect of the Edwardian Era, became detached as the decades passed from the tormented suicide in the river.

[John Wheat]

To Jonathan H
I did say the myths about Jack the Ripper. Also on the covers of modern books etc Jack the Ripper is frequently portrayed as a top hated toff. I'm however well aware that it is unlikely that Jack the Ripper was a top hated toff.

[ChrisGeorge]

To Jonathan H
I did say the myths about Jack the Ripper. Also on the covers of modern books etc Jack the Ripper is frequently portrayed as a top hated toff. I'm however well aware that it is unlikely that Jack the Ripper was a top hated toff.

Hi John

There's the stereotype of the top-hatted Ripper and the alluring idea of a gentleman who led a double life, a member of West End society during the day, who slaughtered prostitutes in the poverty-stricken East End at night. That spectre has had a magnetism from the beginning even though it may not match the reality of the crimes. Additionally, the crimes were so blatant, committed one after the other, so there's the mystery of how the killer got away with it time and time again in an area of only about a square mile. It's true that a lot of the original records are missing. Yet, the crimes almost speak for themselves if we only had that little bit of information that would give us the answer to the mystery.

Best regards

Chris

[Archaic]

Hi everyone.

I think there's another aspect of Ripperology which makes it so addictive.

Once you start educating yourself about the Whitechapel Murders, they start to serve as a sort of "time-portal" or window back into the way life was lived and the world was viewed in the Victorian Era. The nature of the subject takes us from the historical macrocosm to the microcosm.

The more you learn, the more you find there is to learn. While exploring the Whitechapel Murders, our knowledge can expand in countless directions - the social conditions, politics, history, personal perspectives and testimonies, details of daily life - all of which shed more light on what it was like to live in 1888 and experience the crimes of Jack the Ripper first-hand.

I think that's why here on Casebook we start by investigating the killer, but quickly develop a fascination for the minutiae of the case: What were conditions really like in a public lodging house? How did poor people survive in the East End? Why did the killer choose these victims? What did Kate's apron look like? What did Annie have in her pockets and why? What is the truth about Mary Kelly's past?

What's interesting to me is that so many people really care about the answers to those questions, and want to know the truth.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Jonathan H]

Toff vs. Toff

To John Wheat

To say that it was unlikely might be true.

But this is a modern, secondary paradigm which claims that a primary source, a police chief of the time, was most likely mistaken in his believing and publicly asserting that the Ripper was a toff -- top hat notwithstanding.

A chief who pointedly and/or implicitly rejected his fellow cops who conversely believed it was a local man, a poor Jew, a convicted poisoner, a sectioned lunatic, or an American medico.

Remarkably a toff cop who posthumously accused a lesser toff who was, nevertheless, a product of Winchester and Oxford (the toff cop loved cricket and his own school days too, and yet he was so certain about a deceased man who was both a cricketer and a teacher?)

It's just me, but I have never seen a convincing argument as to why this primary source is likely to be wrong and a succession of secondary, dismissive sources are likely to be right?

[Robert]

Chris, I fear that the little bit of extra information would not give us the answer. It would be ambiguous, the sentence would be badly punctuated, there would be argument as to what it meant, or even whether it was genuine, and even if the meaning was clear, and the source impeccable, another equally impeccable source would say the exact opposite.....

I'm a cheerful soul.