I'm not a butcher, I'm not a Yid......

[Mayerling]

It may be jovial, but the rhythms are far less sophisticated in the "extra verses" than in Macnaghten's original. In absolute poetic terms, the lines "But I ain't a chap yet to drown / In drink or Thames or sea" and "But you should know, as time will show / That I'm society's pillar" use tortuous English and are positively lame.

The phrase "the goddamn town", apart from being rather unidiomatic and decidedly inelegant, are frankly a waste of syllables. A much better option would have been "Up and down old London town", for example. Whoever wrote the extra verses, they evidently didn't expend too much time or effort on them.

Maybe he did not have the time because he was on the run - especially if he had just written the GSG a moment before he penned this.

[Phil Carter]

Please excuse the diversion..but I can remember clearly the first thought I had reading through the "diary"...

"Another McCormick"

The similarity of invention struck me. The educated prose. The hint..slightest hint only.. of the over dramatic..which..as both books went on. .increased.

Just an additional, slightly linked thought on McCormick and his awful book.

Happy New Year to all 😊


Phil

[Robert]

"I'm not a butcher
I'm not a Yid
Nor yet a foreign skipper
But I'm your own light-hearted friend
Yours truly
Walter Pettigrew

I couldn't think of a rhyme there, Lurcio."

"Well you're the only one who can't."

[Robert]

Up and down the goddamn town
All over the metropolis
I wrote my curse in splendid verse
Though some don't think a lot of this.

[Mayerling]

Up and down the goddamn town
All over the metropolis
I wrote my curse in splendid verse
Though some don't think a lot of this.

I am acquainted with a poem from the late 1890s by a minor poet of that period. It does have similar traits and spirit to those ascribed as written by Jack that have been put down. The poet involved here mysteriously vanished about 1897. Only published two collections.

Anyway:

"Round and round the shutter'd Square
I strolled with the Devil's arm in mine.
No sound but the scrap of his hoofs was there
And the ring of his laughter and mine -
We had drunk black wine.

I scream'd, 'I will race you Master!"
"What matter," he shriek'd, "to-night which of us runs the faster?
There is nothing to fear to-night in the foul moon light"

The I look'd him in the eyes.
And I laugh'd full chill at all that he told
And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise.
It was true what I'd time and again been told:
He was old - old."

There was a subsequent report he may have been seen in the next century visiting a prominent locale, but the length of time involved seems to make it improbable it was the same man.

Jeff

[Robert]

Enoch Soames.

[Mayerling]

Enoch Soames.

Right on Robert. I believe it is from his book "Fungoids".

[Robert]

Jeff, when I was about 11, I read Beerbohm's story 'A.V. Laider.' I spent the next couple of years scrutinising my palm and imagining I was doomed.

[Sam Flynn]

Enoch Soames.

Is that Enoch Soames, the famous wrecking-ball operator?

[Mayerling]

Jeff, when I was about 11, I read Beerbohm's story 'A.V. Laider.' I spent the next couple of years scrutinising my palm and imagining I was doomed.

Robert, if you haven't read it check out Oscar Wilde's story, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime". It too deals with palm reading.

Jeff

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

Yes, it's a good one.

[Spider]

Those verses were probably made up by Donald McCormick in the late 1950s. I believe that doggerel first appears in his book The Identity of Jack the Ripper.

Quite right Sam, I've found them in McCormick's book The Identity of Jack the Ripper.
He qualifies the final verse as being attributed to McNaughten's memoirs, however there is no reference to the source of the two other verses unfortunately ;-(

[Iconoclast]

Quite right Sam, I've found them in McCormick's book The Identity of Jack the Ripper.
He qualifies the final verse as being attributed to McNaughten's memoirs, however there is no reference to the source of the two other verses unfortunately ;-(

Hi Spider,

I look forward to the day when someone publishes more on this material. In the meantime, it's worth the adding that the order of the verses were as literally reported in McCormick (paperback, pp100-101) and as suggested by your original post, albeit you add a caveat which re-jigs the order:

"I'm not a butcher
I'm not a Yid
Nor yet a foreign skipper
But I'm your own light-hearted friend
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper"

However I'd be interested to know the source for the 'apparent' preceding two verses that appear as follows;

"Up and down the goddamn town
policemen try to find me
But I ain't a chap yet to drown
In drink or Thames or sea.

I've no time to tell you how
I came to be a killer
But you should know, as time will show
That I'm society's pillar"

It would appear that we are to believe that the verses were written in the order above. This is evident from McCormick's comment (p101), "The last verse is perhaps the most enigmatic of all Jack's ventures in rhyming ..." (he is referring to the 'society's pillar verse). So, the ditty reads as you have it above (or - at very least -the last verse is not the Jack the Ripper one). I would suggest that - if there is any debate about whether the three verses connect in terms of scanning and style - it is perfectly plausible that Jack wrote the first verse to mirror that which he wrote shortly after Annie Chapman's murder on September 8; and that his subsequent two verses were added later, thereby changing the context of the author’s mood when he (or she) wrote them.

By the way, I spotted your original post via Google when seeking the full three verses as I have decided to add them as an epigram in my brilliant History v. Maybrick original text. As you may recall from my other posts on t’other thread, I believe that the final verse reported by McCormick (but excluded by Macnaghten) is a powerful clue to the author of the verses and – by implication – the author of the very crimes themselves:

I've no time to tell you how
I came to be a killer
But you should know, as time will show
That I'm society's pillar

James Maybrick’s family motto (purchased by him out of typical Victorian middle class vanity) reads tempus omnia revelat (‘time reveals all’, or more cryptically, ‘as time will show').

And pillars are made out of a number of materials, one of which is, of course, brick.

James Maybrick was ‘society’s pillar’, but not in the more familiar sense of doctor, clergyman, prime minister, etc.. The cryptic criminal struck again, and it has taken 130 years to decipher the clues.

As I say, I look forward to the day someone publishes more on these critical insights into the criminal mind which was Jack the Spratt McVitie.

[Sam Flynn]

And pillars are made out of a number of materials, one of which is, of course, brick.

Haven't seen such a tenuous link in a while, Ike. Bravo.

[Robert]

A lamp-lighter?