Lying at this time??

[Lika]

I've read in a book that Cream said "I am Jack" while just about to be hanged.Im not sure someone would lie at such a moment.But maybe he didnt even refer or mean that.Is there a possibility he had a false name or something?

[m_w_r]

Hi Lika -

Actually, if the records are to be believed, people say all kinds of odd things at times like these.

Oliver Cyriax thinks that Cream had (rather appropriately) an orgasm on contact with the rope. If my understanding of whatever it is that is going on in The Naked Lunch is the correct one, a male victim of hanging may develop an erection after the drop has taken place. This timescale would seem to eliminate the possibility of speech, however. Nonetheless, it seems possible that Cream was an early riser. Cyriax ventures that Cream's remark about his physical response to his situation, "I am ejac-", was cut off when the trap door fell.

Regards,

Mark

[George Hutchinson]

A very interesting question. Like Mark, I had always heard this was probably referring to him saying 'I am ejaculating' - but, likewise, the erection and ejaculation was supposedly a by-product of the actual hanging, not the procedure leading up to it. It has however been suggested that it can be caused through terror. I'm of the opinion that if terror is great enough to cause such an act then the protagonist is probably beyond passing comment on it.

On the subject of judicial hanging causing erections, the case of Dr Pritchard in 1841 (?) did cause an anecdote of an official who saw the body after the execution commenting on the size of his member with the words "Aye, ye should've seen Pritchard's". Also in more modern times the rather unpleasant assistant executioner Syd Dearnley lost any further opportunities of working with Albert Pierrepoint when he made inappropriate comments about the magnitude of a hanged man's appendage as he was removed from the gallows.

Back to Cream, the other suggestion which I now find more plausible is that he was grasping at straws and was indeed in the process of saying 'I am Jack the Ripper' in a desperate attempt to gain himself some extra seconds to make a confession.

Finally, we have to consider that different versions have him cut off at various places : 'I am Ja-', 'I am Jack-' and 'I am Jack the-'. It's possible he only got as far as 'I am J-' and could have been about to say anything. And, of course, it might not have happened at all!

PHILIP

[Mayerling]

A number of years ago I wrote an essay in RIPPER NOTES about Cream and that alleged comment of his. I pointed out that one aspect of the story that was available for the public to be aware of was that John Billington, the executioner in 1892, like practical joking, and the whole situation of a vicious poisoner being hanged, confessing that he was an equally vicious mutilator killer, and that if the executioner knew that the killer was about to reveal this he would have stopped the execution, but didn't think fast enough, leads to a crazy situation:

1) A vicious killer is confessing he is another vicious killer
2) If he is the other vicious killer he deserves being executed
3) But because the executioner is not thinking clearly, the vicious killer is executed before he can be heard and executed for being the other vicious killer.

That chestnut of a story has now survived over 100 years. I still think John Billington must be chuckling to himself about his inventiveness.

Jeff

[Robert]

I've heard of premature ejaculation, but you can't leave it much later than that.

[ChrisGeorge]

A very interesting question. Like Mark, I had always heard this was probably referring to him saying 'I am ejaculating' -

Even given a physician who would use the technical term for such a process, this would be a very odd thing for Cream to have said in the circumstances. I think that idea is doubtful at best.

Chris

[c.d.]

Ejaculating as he was being hanged? What a paradox -- coming and going at the same time!

c.d.

[Lika]

If I'de be in that kinda situation I would defo say something more useful than confessing to ejaculate.
I wouldnt think "Ok what should my last words be...?Something goin on down there"
"Hey executioner I am Eja...."
*dies*

Im not sure that whoever the ripper was the person knew he would be a legend.However if he knew though that would make sense in my eyes.Confessing while facing death.

[halomanuk]

Cream's M.O was a poisoner,the same as George Chapman,so again i would find it very strange to go from the ferocity of the 1888 murders to poisoning,just doesn't add up.
As for what he said on the scaffold,it could have been anything alas.

[Shelley]

It doesn't add up, going from poisoning to ripping, it is a different mind set entirely. Cream may have been indignant at his life being cut short upon the scaffold, a shocker of a statement to ears that can hear, especailly about the notorious & famous murderer of London's Whitechapel slums, it is indeed a grade better, than just a Sneer.

[Normy]

Surely 'hang on a second' would have been more appropriate.

Normy

[YankeeSergeant]

Cream

If indeed Cream was confessing to being Jack the Ripper I rather think it was a ploy to delay his execution. The other sounds like lines from a really BAD porn movie.

[DirectorDave]

Finally, we have to consider that different versions have him cut off at various places : 'I am Ja-', 'I am Jack-' and 'I am Jack the-'. It's possible he only got as far as 'I am J-' and could have been about to say anything. And, of course, it might not have happened at all!

'I am J-'


I am going to favour "I am just a patsy".

[Cogidubnus]

"I am jerking you off"

All the best

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

If indeed Cream was confessing to being Jack the Ripper I rather think it was a ploy to delay his execution.

So here's the next obvious question:

Would it have delayed his execution?

He is on the scaffold, and just about the only thing that can buy him time, other than the voice of G-d proclaiming him innocent, is for it to be necessary to keep him alive because the justice system needs him.

People in the US have done this. Henry Lee Lucas kept confessing to crimes as a way of delaying execution, and in the end, probably confessed to 300 murders, that he didn't actually commit.

If Cream had any information that would help the police with another trial, he would have used it already.

So, perhaps he has the crazy idea, which may or may not have worked, but he was really desperate, to confess to a crime so notorious, that even though he was already under sentence of death, the public would want to see him tried and convicted for it. The Ripper crimes is an obvious choice.

I don't know what his eventual plan was. To get to live six more month, which is better than nothing? To escape during his Ripper trial? That his sentence for the poisonings would be commuted to life, in order to free him up for the Ripper trial, and then, because he wasn't actually the Ripper, and could prove it, he would be acquitted, and he would get to live a long life, albeit in prison?

I imagine some pretty crazy things go through your head when you are standing on a scaffold, and yes, some of them might induce you to tell a blatant lie.