Some Questions

[Tani]

I've never paid much attention to this letter, believing most/all to be fakes, but I have some questions about this letter on reading it with more interest,

1. He says 'from one women' [sic], implying that there were 2+? If this is the murderer this could be a reference, conscious or not, to the double murder of the night he killed Eddowes and took the kidney. It's an odd phrase to use otherwise. You can't take a single kidney from 2 women, so it's obvious 1 kidney is from 1 person, but here he implies there was more than 1 woman to have taken a kidney from, which he might have done. Thoughts?

2. How would he know how to preserve a diseased kidney? I assume lower-class Londoners at that time knew about meat preservation but would it work on organs, especially this one with Bright's disease?

3. If he's writing more or less phonetically, why is there a k in 'knif' yet no e, yet 'nise' has a final e, but he misses it again in 'whil'? Seems suspicious.

4. What does he gain by sending such a bizarre correspondence? I mean, if he's trying to prove a point it doesn't mean much. Certainly these days the genetic tests would confirm, but in the Victorian era when such organs were widely available at black markets it means little. That could have been any kidney and so many people were alcoholics at the time the appearance of the disease isn't quite as convincing.

[Abby Normal]

I've never paid much attention to this letter, believing most/all to be fakes, but I have some questions about this letter on reading it with more interest,

1. He says 'from one women' [sic], implying that there were 2+? If this is the murderer this could be a reference, conscious or not, to the double murder of the night he killed Eddowes and took the kidney. It's an odd phrase to use otherwise. You can't take a single kidney from 2 women, so it's obvious 1 kidney is from 1 person, but here he implies there was more than 1 woman to have taken a kidney from, which he might have done. Thoughts?

2. How would he know how to preserve a diseased kidney? I assume lower-class Londoners at that time knew about meat preservation but would it work on organs, especially this one with Bright's disease?

3. If he's writing more or less phonetically, why is there a k in 'knif' yet no e, yet 'nise' has a final e, but he misses it again in 'whil'? Seems suspicious.

4. What does he gain by sending such a bizarre correspondence? I mean, if he's trying to prove a point it doesn't mean much. Certainly these days the genetic tests would confirm, but in the Victorian era when such organs were widely available at black markets it means little. That could have been any kidney and so many people were alcoholics at the time the appearance of the disease isn't quite as convincing.

hi tani

1. a subtle yet good point. nice idea. it certainly leads to its credibility seeing the kidney taking was on the double event.
2. not sure if he did. it was preserved in "spirits". wast it common knowledge that alcohol or related could preserve meat/organs etc?
3. assuming its authentic letter- to me hes trying to prove hes the killer and also shock his audience. but why to lusk and the vigilance commitee? did the ripper know lusk? did he think he was seen or almost caught by the vigilance commitee? human organs werent "widely available". I doubt to even medical students..and ive never bought that argument that it was a hoax by medical students. to me the kidney portion points strongly to authenticity.

[Herlock Sholmes]

3. If he's writing more or less phonetically, why is there a k in 'knif' yet no e, yet 'nise' has a final e, but he misses it again in 'whil'? Seems suspicious.

Hi Tani,

Also no ‘y’ at the end of kidney. Plus he replaces the letter ‘e’ with an ‘a’ twice in ‘prasarved’ and yet he gets his ‘I before e’ correct in piece. ‘Sor’ and especially ‘mishter’ sound forced too. So it looks like the killer was deliberately trying to sound like an uneducated and possibly Irish man. ‘Sor’ and ‘mishter’ sound like a kind of music hall caricature.

Although we can’t definitively connect the two, the graffito also shows possible evidence of someone trying to pass themselves off as poorly educated. He spells ‘Jews’ incorrectly but gets seemingly more difficult words like ‘blamed’ and ‘nothing’ correct. With the addition of a double-negative of course to indicate poor grammar knowledge/local dialect. Then we have to consider that the writing was said to have been in neat handwriting….so someone who had had some schooling in penmanship perhaps? A contradiction?

Of course we have no way of knowing if either of these two were actually written by the killer so we’re absolutely speculating on this. A man from the ‘lower classes’ trying to sound like a poorly educated Irishman (in the case of the letter?) Or was it an educated man trying to disguise his level of education? Before anyone claims that I’m trying to fit this to suit Druitt it could also fit a local man with a decent level of education. Or was it simply a poorly educated man after all?

So, three paragraphs to say…we have no way of knowing.

[FrankO]

Hi Tani,

Here are my thoughts.

1. He says 'from one women' [sic], implying that there were 2+? If this is the murderer this could be a reference, conscious or not, to the double murder of the night he killed Eddowes and took the kidney. It's an odd phrase to use otherwise. You can't take a single kidney from 2 women, so it's obvious 1 kidney is from 1 person, but here he implies there was more than 1 woman to have taken a kidney from, which he might have done. Thoughts?

I'm Dutch, so English isn't my mother's tongue, but I've always read it as "I send you half the Kidne I took from one victim", just indicating that he killed more women.

2. How would he know how to preserve a diseased kidney? I assume lower-class Londoners at that time knew about meat preservation but would it work on organs, especially this one with Bright's disease?

I think he just used this general knowledge you suggest lower-class Londoners had at the time. And if not, then I think that any person interested enough in knowing how to preserve a kidney best could have found out anyway.

3. If he's writing more or less phonetically, why is there a k in 'knif' yet no e, yet 'nise' has a final e, but he misses it again in 'whil'? Seems suspicious.

It indeed seems a bit too much to be just 'somebody who was poorly educated'. Beyond that there's only speculation, unfortunately.

4. What does he gain by sending such a bizarre correspondence? I mean, if he's trying to prove a point it doesn't mean much. Certainly these days the genetic tests would confirm, but in the Victorian era when such organs were widely available at black markets it means little. That could have been any kidney and so many people were alcoholics at the time the appearance of the disease isn't quite as convincing.

I know I'm not the first to suggest this, but the fact that it wasn't signed "Jack the Ripper" stands out. My view is that, if "From hell" was from the killer, he might have been trying to tell that not this fellow signing off with "Jack the Ripper" was the real thing, but he was. And he then authenticated it by including the piece of kidney. So, basically, he was pissed off by this "Jack the Ripper" fellow, who tried to steal his thunder and he wanted to set the record straight.

The best,
Frank

[Michael W Richards]

I've never paid much attention to this letter, believing most/all to be fakes, but I have some questions about this letter on reading it with more interest,

1. He says 'from one women' [sic], implying that there were 2+? If this is the murderer this could be a reference, conscious or not, to the double murder of the night he killed Eddowes and took the kidney. It's an odd phrase to use otherwise. You can't take a single kidney from 2 women, so it's obvious 1 kidney is from 1 person, but here he implies there was more than 1 woman to have taken a kidney from, which he might have done. Thoughts?

2. How would he know how to preserve a diseased kidney? I assume lower-class Londoners at that time knew about meat preservation but would it work on organs, especially this one with Bright's disease?

3. If he's writing more or less phonetically, why is there a k in 'knif' yet no e, yet 'nise' has a final e, but he misses it again in 'whil'? Seems suspicious.

4. What does he gain by sending such a bizarre correspondence? I mean, if he's trying to prove a point it doesn't mean much. Certainly these days the genetic tests would confirm, but in the Victorian era when such organs were widely available at black markets it means little. That could have been any kidney and so many people were alcoholics at the time the appearance of the disease isn't quite as convincing.

Hi Tani,

1. I think that "one woman" line refers to the fact that he only took that specific organ from one victim. The press had given out far too much information about the murder details.
2. A medical student might address that, there is speculation that this was a hoax perpetrated by a medical student. The revelation of Brights disease being present isnt something that we can accept as a given, it was contested. As was the suggestion of gender.
3. There is conjecture that the spelling and tone of the note suggested an Irish writer, you might want to check out the story earlier that week about an Irish gentleman, wearing gloves, requested the address of Mr Lusk from a local shopkeeper. Interesting that the week he gets that parcel someone has asked for his mailing address a few days earlier.
4. Instill fear, a warning to someone who headed up a vigilance committee formed to look for the killer? Its also not the first note Lusk received that was, or could be construed as threatening.

Cheers