Lusk Letter sent to George Lusk of the vigilante committee

[Vigilantee]

So was this what was used at the time to preserve specimens in hospitals, if so it makes sense, and I'd plump for 45% chance porter, 55% chance jack, if not I think we still have a problem....

Hi JD,Spirits of wine seems to have been fairly ubiquitous in Victorian Britain, seemingly only costing a few pennies per bottle. Trawling through the Times between 1840 and 1890, I found that it had many and varied applications.

It was used by practitioners of such humble professions as stick-makers in making varnish. You may recall that Israel Lipski used cheap brandy for the same purpose.

Tin cases, filled with spirits of wine, were used by explorers as portable "cookers" to warm their food. Metal rods or bamboo poles bearing a wad of cotton-wool or similar material, impregnated with spirits of wine, were used as "tapers" to light chandeliers in theatres and concert-halls.

In 1858, some 211,352 gallons of "spirits of wine or pure alcohol" were sold in Britain "for home consumption". That probably means "not exported", by the way - God forbid that it was quaffed around the dinner table!

That's not to say it didn't have its domestic applications - spirits of wine was used in making tinctures of opium, camphor, peppermint (etc) and other weird and wonderful home remedies. The substance was also applied in cleaning and polishing domestic furniture and paintings.

It's clear that the stuff was available to, and commonly used by, more than just doctors and medical students.

[Doctor X]

What! A trained doctor can't tell a human kidney from an animal kidney, come on! Thats stretching credulity just too far.

Have you ever looked at a human and animal kidney under low magnification?

Have you also read my post?

Yours truly,

--J.D.

[Vigilantee]

Hmmmmm, I'm still not convinced, surely a medical student would know how to preserve something and could steal some medical spirit. Perhaps a porter would be more ignorant. However I dont know how they did things then but I've never seen a medical specimen NOT in preserving fluid, so why not take the correct preservative too. Unless the porter fancied himself as a surgeon when no ones looking.

'Tother' makes sense for Victorian speech, it may even have been a legit word then, but I agree 'signed' is strangely correctly spelt. Whats more strange is that someone who cant spell would actually use the word 'signed' at all. It could be a hoaxing porter, but my moneys on an impoverished immigrant with partial English ability, perhaps copying from a text book....

The kidney had been preserved in wine - not medical spirit - but Swanson concluded in his report that such a kidney could easily be 'obtained from any dead person upon whom a post mortem had been made'.
I am no medical expert and certainly have no experience how to establish the origin of a kidney, but all medical men involved came to the conclusion that it was human. Some of them even went as far as establishing that it was from a human adult or full grown human being. I have no idea how they came to this conclusion but it is a very specified statement.
Openshaw, however, admitted that he could not determine if it was from a woman or a male. And since it had been preserved in wine, he couldn't established how long it's been since it was removed from the body.

Personally I agree with people like Lusk and Swanson that it probably was a hoax by a medical student - several other letters clearly showed that seemingly ordinary and respectable people could go to great lengths and display quite morbid tendencies, just for the sake of the thrill and without any necessary motive. The feeling and excitement of being a part of the police investigation is generally 'motive' enough, plus that some gets the chance to fulfill their inner macabre fantasies. Many of the so called Ripper letters are quite bizarre and morbid, some are laughable while some are more disturbing (if we exclude the kidney many are in their content even more bizarre and revolting than the From hell letter).

The only thing that I really might find compelling and interesting is the fact, that - during a time when most people were very much ispired and taken by the new exciting name Jack the Ripper (and copied ech other and things in the press) - this letter writer chooses to NOT sign the letter Jack the Ripper or give himself another taunting trade name. What he (or she) does, is running his own race and completely doing his own thing.
However, it is no evidence of that the letter might be genuine, only that it's an interesting detail.

As for the spelling mistakes, one must note that although many indicates an Irish (or attempt of Irish) accent, a couple of very difficult words to spell if you have insufficient writing skills - like 'signed' - are correctly spelled. While some spelling errors and the word 'Tother' (possibly a merge of 'the' and 'other') seems constructed and a bit 'over the top'.
But again - we will never know.

All the best

[Vigilantee]

What! A trained doctor can't tell a human kidney from an animal kidney, come on! Thats stretching credulity just too far.

Can we? The problem is we do not know the condition of the kidney. "Microscopic examination" means . . . what? Did they section it? Stain it? Or did he just look at it under a low power microscope and say, "yup! Human!"?

Now, to be fair, I think one should speculate it was human unless someone can show that an improperly preserved kidney could appear as a human kidney with glomerulonephritis.

And . . . whilst we speculate . . . since it is described as half of a kidney with a trimmed renal artery, could it be a stolen specimen stuck in spirits for a bit?

Who knows?

This reminds me of any mythic reconstruction--you have to start with some assumptions, and the argument is about as solid as the assumptions.



Raven!!

RAVEN!!!

Yours truly,

--J.D.

I think Glenn raised a good point when he mentions that the letter lacks the most popular nickname of the area at the moment, yet purports to have something "He who shall not be named" has taken.

I think another interesting fact is the lack of mention of the first killing of the night...one which I personally feel was not committed by HWSNBN anyway. That for me gives it some credibility....a hoaxer would have claimed both and Mrs Browns cut throat if he could....(she was the third woman that Double Event night who got her throat cut).

I think not signing it and not mentioning Stride fits perfectly with the Goulston St evidence...where he leaves a piece of only the Mitre Square murder evidence, and possibly a note on Jews and blame.....considering the site of the first murder is All Jewish, and virtually every witnesses is, and the "blame" might be their (Club steward, and the meetings speaker that night) blaming the Ripper from the first moment they sought help, based solely on a dead woman found inside their gates.

If I may put myself in the "human" part of Jacks shoes and address that situation,... had I finished a murder and upon heading back to the house hear that I'm being blamed for another one too, 45 minutes earlier, because a woman was found dead in the yard of a Jewish Mens Club, I might be inclined to call them liars in some fashion, but not murderers....bad form,... since I am one in this case as well.

I think thats why the GSG message may be real, a real mad killer would probably not damn someone else for killing, ...because he himself kills, and he might believe he's not a bad guy. But he might accuse them of lying.

Cheers all.

[Doctor X]

Thanks!

--J.D.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi JD,

Any idea how common it would be? In other words "who" could obtain it?

Spirits of wine seems to have been fairly ubiquitous in Victorian Britain, seemingly only costing a few pennies per bottle. Trawling through the Times between 1840 and 1890, I found that it had many and varied applications.

It was used by practitioners of such humble professions as stick-makers in making varnish. You may recall that Israel Lipski used cheap brandy for the same purpose.

Tin cases, filled with spirits of wine, were used by explorers as portable "cookers" to warm their food. Metal rods or bamboo poles bearing a wad of cotton-wool or similar material, impregnated with spirits of wine, were used as "tapers" to light chandeliers in theatres and concert-halls.

In 1858, some 211,352 gallons of "spirits of wine or pure alcohol" were sold in Britain "for home consumption". That probably means "not exported", by the way - God forbid that it was quaffed around the dinner table!

That's not to say it didn't have its domestic applications - spirits of wine was used in making tinctures of opium, camphor, peppermint (etc) and other weird and wonderful home remedies. The substance was also applied in cleaning and polishing domestic furniture and paintings.

It's clear that the stuff was available to, and commonly used by, more than just doctors and medical students.

[Doctor X]

Yeah . . . do not know what the hell I was drinking. . . .

I still think--actually looking at the damn thing properly!--that it is part of a "taunt" as in the killer is a demon from Hell rather than a comment on the writer's emotional state.

Yours embarrassingly,

--J.D.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Oh . . . and thanks to the 27 posters for NOT jumping down my throat when I posted a "correction" above that the letter does not say "from Hell." I looked too quickly at the letter.

Do . . . not . . . post under the influence. . . .

--J.D.

Actually, I was at the point of commenting that at first, mostly because I wanted to be clear about what you meant or if I misunderstood you, but I erased it from the post. I assumed it was a mistake on your part.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi JD/Glenn,

The kidney had apparently been preserved in spirits of wine (i.e. rectified ethanol - circa 95%) as opposed to Chateauneuf du Pape.

What? Bloody hell (pardon my expression), it seems I have misunderstood that all along due to a language issue. Thanks for that, Sam.
However, feels nice to finally be able to enjoy my Italian red Amarone or Ripasso wines without having Eddowes' kidney popping up in my head...


All the best

[Doctor X]

Oh . . . and thanks to the 27 posters for NOT jumping down my throat when I posted a "correction" above that the letter does not say "from Hell." I looked too quickly at the letter.

Do . . . not . . . post under the influence. . . .

--J.D.

[Doctor X]

The kidney had apparently been preserved in spirits of wine (i.e. rectified ethanol - circa 95%) as opposed to Chateauneuf du Pape.

Ah . . . beddy INtahwesting!

Yet another great theory dash'd upon the rocks of reality. . . .

Any idea how common it would be? In other words "who" could obtain it?

--J.D.

[Sam Flynn]

I think that is a critical point. Alcohol you drink is not bactericidal nor bacteriostatic--in fact, the whisky you drink is not high enough in alcohol. You need greater than 95% to my recollection, but do not quote me. Red wine does seem to retard bacterial growth.

Hi JD/Glenn,

The kidney had apparently been preserved in spirits of wine (i.e. rectified ethanol - circa 95%) as opposed to Chateauneuf du Pape.

[Doctor X]

I am no medical expert and certainly have no experience how to establish the origin of a kidney, but all medical men involved came to the conclusion that it was human.

You check the serial number. [Stop that!--Ed.]

Right . . . sorry. . . .

Anyways, I am not--without seeing the damn thing--going to contradict Openshaw's opinion or that of Reed. So theirs is the "default" position in my opinion. If they took sections and examined it accordingly, they could determine that probably pretty well. "Adult" probably came from the size of the kidney.

And since it had been preserved in wine, he couldn't established how long it's been since it was removed from the body.

I think that is a critical point. Alcohol you drink is not bactericidal nor bacteriostatic--in fact, the whisky you drink is not high enough in alcohol. You need greater than 95% to my recollection, but do not quote me. Red wine does seem to retard bacterial growth. Anyways, the point is it is hard to "date" the kidney given what is known. Openshaw certainly could not do it, and he saw the damn thing.

Personally I agree with people like Lusk and Swanson that it probably was a hoax by a medical student - several other letters clearly showed that seemingly ordinary and respectable people could go to great lengths and display quite morbid tendencies, . . .

You know . . . I tend to lean that way. I really am on the fence, but the fact the artery was trimmed up and NO MORE LETTERS with bits 'n pieces followed strikes me as just too coincidental.

Yours truly,

--J.D.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

The kidney had been preserved in wine - not medical spirit - but Swanson concluded in his report that such a kidney could easily be 'obtained from any dead person upon whom a post mortem had been made'.
I am no medical expert and certainly have no experience how to establish the origin of a kidney, but all medical men involved came to the conclusion that it was human. Some of them even went as far as establishing that it was from a human adult or full grown human being. I have no idea how they came to this conclusion but it is a very specified statement.
Openshaw, however, admitted that he could not determine if it was from a woman or a male. And since it had been preserved in wine, he couldn't established how long it's been since it was removed from the body.

Personally I agree with people like Lusk and Swanson that it probably was a hoax by a medical student - several other letters clearly showed that seemingly ordinary and respectable people could go to great lengths and display quite morbid tendencies, just for the sake of the thrill and without any necessary motive. The feeling and excitement of being a part of the police investigation is generally 'motive' enough, plus that some gets the chance to fulfill their inner macabre fantasies. Many of the so called Ripper letters are quite bizarre and morbid, some are laughable while some are more disturbing (if we exclude the kidney many are in their content even more bizarre and revolting than the From hell letter).

The only thing that I really might find compelling and interesting is the fact, that - during a time when most people were very much ispired and taken by the new exciting name Jack the Ripper (and copied ech other and things in the press) - this letter writer chooses to NOT sign the letter Jack the Ripper or give himself another taunting trade name. What he (or she) does, is running his own race and completely doing his own thing.
However, it is no evidence of that the letter might be genuine, only that it's an interesting detail.

As for the spelling mistakes, one must note that although many indicates an Irish (or attempt of Irish) accent, a couple of very difficult words to spell if you have insufficient writing skills - like 'signed' - are correctly spelled. While some spelling errors and the word 'Tother' (possibly a merge of 'the' and 'other') seems constructed and a bit 'over the top'.
But again - we will never know.

All the best