The Insidious Nature of this Case

[curious]

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

what a great post. You've expressed something I could not have put into words as I have not been able to decide why I can't let go. But you are so right about all the layers.

[Archaic]

what a great post. You've expressed something I could not have put into words as I have not been able to decide why I can't let go. But you are so right about all the layers.

Thanks Curious.

Even as I was writing that post, I wasn't quite sure what I was trying to say- I knew what I felt, and what I have experienced, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it as a rational concept... I really wasn't sure how to express it in coherent language.

It's a relief to know it didn't come out as total gobbledygook.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Wickerman]

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 ......

And I often wonder how much the theatrical notion of Stevenson's, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had played into this emerging stereotype.

While it is apparent that the Whitechapel murderer was never truly considered as a "Toff" throughout the spate of the murders, the image of a well-dressed man as the perpetrator was slowly emerging. The final curtain-call of this evolving character was of course Hutchinson's eerie suspect.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is perhaps the subliminal inspiration for the modern-day concept of the popular image of Jack the Ripper.

Regards, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi all

Between Errata and Archaic I think it's pinned down cold....

Thanks!

Dave

[Jonathan H]

To Wickerman

Hutchinson's (bogus?) affluent-Jewish villain, straight from melodrama, may have been the 'final curtain call' of that kind of anti-Semitic toff stereotype in 1888 -- but then the same curtain rose again, at the sunset of the Victorian Era.

From 1898 Jack-the-Toff made a spectacular comeback, as contemporaneous reviewers noted -- some sceptically -- and thus was cemented for all time the pop notion of the caped, top-hatted figure looming out of a fog with a black medical bag.

An English Gentile professional was apparently the chief suspect of the police in 1888. The super-efficient police had nearly arrested him, no less. This mad doctor was 'undoubtedly' the fiend, or so these writers with top police contacts claimed to varying degrees (both went a long way to exonerate a Polish Jew suspect and a Russian doctor suspect.)

This Toff solution was propagated by a Tory, Major Arthur Griffiths, and then by a Liberal-Radical, George Sims-Dagonet (what they perhaps did not know was that they were both rebooting a reshed tale originating from Dorset in 1891).

Much of this Jack profile was fictionalised -- eg. 'family' became 'friends' -- to be much more like 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', yet the English toff elements have turned out to be true.

[Cogidubnus]

Bloody hell Jonathon - a posting without a paradigm within...what is the world coming to?

All the best mate!

Dave

[Jonathan H]

Bloody Hell, Dave -- you startled me!?

For I'm barely read here, only by outsiders -- and of course by the Okhrana agents on the other site who instantly swoop the moment they think I stumble.

[lynn cates]

nothing escapes me

Hello Jonathan. Oh, you are being read all right. In fact, my kind are like Inspector Harry "Snapper" Organs. We keep tabs on your every movement--by reading the colour supplements. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[mklhawley]

And I often wonder how much the theatrical notion of Stevenson's, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had played into this emerging stereotype.

While it is apparent that the Whitechapel murderer was never truly considered as a "Toff" throughout the spate of the murders, the image of a well-dressed man as the perpetrator was slowly emerging. The final curtain-call of this evolving character was of course Hutchinson's eerie suspect.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is perhaps the subliminal inspiration for the modern-day concept of the popular image of Jack the Ripper.

Regards, Jon S.

...and the other thing so intriguing about the Ripper case is all of the series of coincidences, such as Jekyll and Hyde playing at the Lyceum Theatre during the killings.

Sincerely,
Mike

[K-453]

What makes the case fascinating is that 'Jack' was alone.

I have just read William T. Stead's 'A Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon'. He mentions a 'gentleman', who brags about 'having ruined 3,000 virgins'. Which means, the girls were lured into brothels, where he raped them. Very gentle indeed!

Compared to that, 'Jack' looks merciful. He ended a handful of miserable lives, while the other guy turned thousands of lives into misery at an early stage.

Nevertheless, I have a bet going on with myself, that, although Stead's article caused a 'moral panic', the virgin raper was not prosecuted. I have a second bet going on that there are no websites dedicated to finding out who he was.

I tried to figure out why this is so.

It is easy to guess what kind of person this 'gentleman' was. He was a respected and influential part of society. He had a multitude of connections to other people. He had lots of influential friends. He must have been great at 'dealing with people', that is, negotiating, flattering, bribing, threatening. - He actually used this network to get virgins! It is easy to imagine, his daylight self was a successful businessman or politician, and a devoted husband and father.

'Jack', however, was likely someone from the other end of the hierarchy, poor, illiterate, mad and sick. Most of all: He was alone. That is, he was powerless.

Society accepts brutality much easier when the powerful inflict it on the powerless. We are not really surprised about a rich politician raping poor girls, are we? We might deny it, but deep inside, we all 'allow' him to act like this.

'Jack' turned the hierarchy upside down by commiting crimes society won't allow somebody who is alone.

That is what makes him so interesting. Not the brutality. Not the gore. Not the perversion. Such things happen all the time and we don't bat an eye.

We might want to find out who he was because we have the urge to punish him for his insisting on special treatment. Might because we want to learn from him.