Two good reasons why The Ripper did not communicate by written word.

[Trevor Marriott]

The letters all have different handwriting and the signature all differs.
The letter to Dr oppenshaw is in my opinion crucial to the mystery. In that letter mention is made of a scalpel.microscope and a slide used with a microscope.

It has been suggested that the sending of the kidney was instigated by a medical student.i have to ask who else in victorian times would have that knowledge of those type of instruments other than persons connected with medicine.

It was also suggested that the kidney was linked to Eddowes by reason of Brights disease. if that be the case i still come back to my beleif that the organs were not removed by the killer at the scene but by other persons. If this be the case then as i said before a mediacl student could have quite easily have been resposible.

[Sam Flynn]

i have to ask who else in victorian times would have that knowledge of those type of instruments other than persons connected with medicine.

Many people, Trev. Henry Mayhew's London Labour & The London Poor, written in 1861, mentions street entertainers who scraped a living out of letting working-class people gawp at hair, fleas and other wonders under a microscope. Aside from that, practically any moderately-educated person (doctors, postmen, policemen, publicans... even journalists) would have heard of such apparatus.

[Trevor Marriott]

Sam
can always rely on you to be contradictory

is there anytime over the past 120 years since you have been on here have you agreed with anything or anyone. God you all moan about poor old AP but Sam you run him a very close second

[Natalie Severn]

I am with Trevor here.Moreover,I believe the ripper himself wrote that particular letter.

[Sam Flynn]

Sam
can always rely on you to be contradictory

is there anytime over the past 120 years since you have been on here have you agreed with anything or anyone. God you all moan about poor old AP but Sam you run him a very close second

It's not a matter of "agreeing" or "contradiction", Trevor - I told you a simple fact. If you have an issue with that, then it's neither my fault nor my problem.

[Sam Flynn]

I am with Trevor here.

Why? Because he came up with the incorrect conclusion that only those connected to the medical profession would have heard of a microscope in the late 19th Century?

[perrymason]

Hello all,

Just so we are sticking to absolutes here, there is no link at all proven to exist between the kidney section received by Lusk, and the missing kidney from Kate. The kidney was "trimmed up", therefore we cannot determine the match regarding the remaining portion of renal artery in Catherine, and the Brights Disease is suggestive but not a link.

If the Lusk letter is a hoax, then I can see Medical Students being the most likely segment of the population to send a preserved kidney section, but if it isnt, then there is nothing in that letter or package that would indicate any knowledge of anatomy or surgical skill , and no mention of scalpels, slides or microscopes, which did appear in another letter.... written by someone else.

Having said that, I do believe that there is evidence within the actions taken by the killer to suggest, with good reason, that he had knowledge of internal organs and some idea on how to access and remove them.

Intentionally providing the authorities with clues as to his occupation or industry, as in using medical terms in a version of a rhyme, would suggest that the man had at least some inner desire to be caught, or was sloppy in his concealing of his knowledge. Yet by everything we can see about how he does what he does, he is careful not to leave any trace of himself or clues.

He is not sloppy. And would appear to have preferred staying at large, to being caught and bringing back public hangings.

People for years have cited the Dear Boss/Saucy Jack, and lately another letter sent later in October, but there is nothing in any of those letters that required intimate knowledge of events beyond what could be learned on the street or in the press before mailing it.

If a letter ever mentioned the exact location of the items found around Annie for example, or Kate, or something the woman had on them or with them that wasnt reported, we would have better reasons to believe he wrote letters that are seemingly only intended to taunt, gloat, or ramble.

Best regards all.

[Limehouse]

I don't believe any of the letters sent were written by the killer. My reason for this conclusion is that the killer's main expression is in the killings themselves that, for him, would speak for themselves.

With regard to the people responsible for the letters - most were cranks or mischief makers but those sent to the Central News Agency were almost certainly the work of journalists bent on 'keeping the kettle boiling' to sell more newspapers. Only by sending the correspondance to the CNA could those responsible be sure they would be publicised.

[Natalie Severn]

Why? Because he came up with the incorrect conclusion that only those connected to the medical profession would have heard of a microscope in the late 19th Century?

No Sam,its because I believe he was mad ,rather than a Bundy type sexual serial killer.

[Sam Flynn]

No Sam,its because I believe he was mad ,rather than a Bundy type sexual serial killer.

... I'm inclined to agree, but Trevor didn't allude to any of that in his recent post, Nats - the one that cast doubt on how many people, outside of the medical profession, would have heard of microscopes in 1888.

[Cap'n Jack]

I think it is the basic assumption here that is at fault, that the killer would have written a gloating, boasting sort of letter, full of filth, spite and venom.
Not a bit of it, I say, for surely this very type of killer - who would have put pen to paper I'm sure - would have been offering explanations, excuses, or even apologies for what he had done, or even planned to do.
As an example, the police should not let women wander around Whitechapel with their filthy napkins on as the smell offended the writer.

[Trevor Marriott]

But sam your suggestion that on every street corner in whitechapel there was a man with a suitcase giving demonstartions on the the use of modern medical equipment isnt very feasable the mention of slide and scalpel and mikerscope are consistent withe someone involved in the sciences or medicine. I dont think Harry The hawker would be to impressed or even bothered.

[Sam Flynn]

But sam your suggestion that on every street corner in whitechapel there was a man with a suitcase giving demonstartions on the the use of modern medical equipment isnt very feasable.

I never made that suggestion in the first place, Trevor. All I suggested - with at least some backing from an historical source - was that it was eminently possible for a working-class person to have known about such instruments. Presumably Ostrog, when he nicked a microscope, recognised it as such - unless you want to propose that he thought it was a rather elaborate brass kettle.

Edit: as to microscopes being "modern medical equipment" - they had been in use since the mid-17th Century.

[perrymason]

I think it is the basic assumption here that is at fault, that the killer would have written a gloating, boasting sort of letter, full of filth, spite and venom.
Not a bit of it, I say, for surely this very type of killer - who would have put pen to paper I'm sure - would have been offering explanations, excuses, or even apologies for what he had done, or even planned to do.
As an example, the police should not let women wander around Whitechapel with their filthy napkins on as the smell offended the writer.

Im not sure Id agree with "pen to paper- Im sure", but I do agree that there is nothing compelling in any letter. The ones predicting events on specific dates and times were hoaxes, the ones that liked "little games", and "sharp knife" kinds of spooking were as well....then there was the biological sample and note...to my mind, a standalone in this particluar question.

Best regards

[Shelley]

I imagine the Ripper would be a man in his late twenties who lived, and had llived, in the vicinity of the murders all his life. He was perhaps the bastard son of a prostitute who had been brought up by his Grandmother. By the time he had reached his late twenties and become frustrated and angry with his life.... now caring for his elderly Grandmother..... he had built up a hatred of his Mother for deserting him and leaving him to perhaps a very physically disciplined early life. The position of having an elderly, maybe bedridden , co-inhabitant would mean he would be free to come and go late at night, his Grandmother thinking him to be in bed and unable to go and look....when she called out for him and got no reply she would think he was sleeping. He would also be doing his own and his Grandmothers laundry. The reason he would kill around the weekend would be because, having some menial job, Friday would be pay day and he would be able to afford to get drunk. Maybe being intoxicated brought out the killer in him...as alcohol often does.
I imagine the killer to be a a lot like Hitchcocks Psycho without a Hotel.
I think when his Grandmother died he committed suicide. When his belongings were checked by Police or relatives, maybe his whole room was a shrine....bloody shawls, his knife, newspaper cuttings...dried up organs.
I think the reason the police covered this up was because the Ripper was jewish and they did not want unrest etc. as it was all over.

I agree with you Stephen that the Dear Boss letter and Lusk letter was not written by the Ripper, but i have different reasons one in which the Dear Boss letter is the exact same handwriting as the journalist ' Bulling ' ( i think that's his name from memory), and yes there would be a certain amount of anger in the writing, as the memory of the killing would set off also in his writing as they would definately be connected through memory of the event ( so very good point indeed), the Lusk letter is a hoax and cover up of basically your Victorian goading Nutcase primarily concerned with what was in his pants at the time, so a young man who thought such things were funny.
However, the action of taking or attempting to take wombs from the victim are ' Regression ' and this is found in men who are much older and soon after regression they die ( approx late forties into mid fifties), it is a form of comfort of going back to the womb. The Ripper almost certainly had atomincal knowledge, as all 4 doctors reports say that he did have medical skill, the only report saying that he didn't have atomnical skill was the exact same Doctor who changed his mind and said that he did have the skill, so in his report he said that the Ripper did have atomnical knowledge then also said that he didn't, what swayed me was that the report said that it was hard to detect a particular membrane and get around that, as only a Doctor would know about that. The Ripper was definately someone with medical knowledge that's for sure.
As for the three victims, Eddowes, Chapman and Nicholls they had all had a drink the night they died, however with Nicholls she did not smell much of alcohol, neither did Chapman that much, but Eddowes stank of stale alcohol and between the three Eddowes face was quite mutilated and in the areas of where a projection of anger was displayed, the Rippers mother had undoubtedly been an alcoholic, but a poor unfortunate person is hardly going to raise a Doctor, is she now? It's possible to be a middle class Victorian woman with double standards at the most part of being an alcoholic woman, so emotional problems evident, perhaps the Rippers father was a violent man and the wife was brutalised at times within the home, so i would think that he came from a middle class family that was situated close to a poor area such as a street named Commercial Street, Commercial Street was situated in the middle class area right next door or stones throw away from the poor classes, it is also a suitable location for all of the Ripper killings to have taken place, approx 1 to 1 1/2 miles of the killings. the Ripper would have been an alcoholic himself, a Doctor with a tipple ( i re-wrote the song i am a cider drinker by the wurzels and replaced it with I am Jack the Ripper on another Ripper website...hee hee).
Also when you are older you usually get slower...So the within 2 minutes killing of Eddowes according to Levy, lawende and the other witness of seeing her alive and the policeman's beat to find her dead ripped open body does not fit the time scale no matter how fast you are, for Eddowes to be dead and mutilated it would take at bare minumum fast scale of work 25 minutes tops! But 40-45minutes is more realistic, so there is a liar somewhere. Also i would think that the Killer would feel a bit uneasy at having bits of body parts about the place if he was living with someone else, not unless he could explain it away if these body parts were uncovered by the other person, a Doctor could explain it away, but also again a single person wouldn't have to.