Kansas Physician Confirms Howard Report

[Mayerling]

Hi TradeName,

The New York City Police Department does save many objects involved in their best known or more interesting cases to this day, but to see them you need special permission of the Police as they are in one of the Precincts. The New York City Fire Department does have a Fire Department museum, although it has moved from the locale I used to visit in lower Manhattan.

I saw some of the Police Department items of interest in the lobby of Surrogate's Court back in the early 1980s when I worked three blocks away. Among other things was the twisted cord or rope of sheets that was supposed to be made and used by Abe Reles (the criminal testifying against "Murder Inc." in 1942) when he fell out of the window of the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island where he was supposedly was being protected by policemen. Nobody actually believes Reles was really trying to flee the room using that makeshift "ladder", but believe the cops took bribes and allowed Abe to be thrown out of the window by hoods paid to do it. As a result there was a dark humor joke that Reles was the "canary" (stool pidgeon) who could "sing" (give testimony) but could not fly!

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks, Jeff.

Here's another book with a couple of illustrations related to the NY Police museum.


Our Police Protectors: History of the New York Police (New York: 1884), Pages 408, 422
by Augustine E. Costello


For some reason our old friend W. T. Stead wrote a book about New York City, with a section on police corruption drawn from the hearings of a state senate committee. One of the witnesses was the author of the book above.

Satan's Invisible World Displayed: Or, Despairing Democracy (New York: R. F. Fenno, 1897), link
by William Thomas Stead

Pages 116-126

The most remarkable case of police brutality to prisoners under arrest, and which is one the best attested in the collection, is that of the Irish revolutionist, Mr. Augustine E. Costello.

The story of Mr. Costello was wrung from him very reluctantly. He was subpoenaed on behalf of the State, and confronted with the alternative of being committed for contempt of court or of being committed for perjury. Mr. Costello, being a revolutionary Irishman, had a morbid horror of doing anything which could in any way lead any one to accuse him, no matter how falsely, of being an informer. The prejudice against the witness-box often appears to be much stronger on the part of Irish nationalists than the prejudice against the dock. Mr. Augustine E. Costello is an honorable man of the highest character and the purest enthusiasm. He was one of those Irishmen who, loving their country not wisely but too well, crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of righting the wrongs of Ireland. His zeal brought him into collision with the Coercionist Government that was then supreme. He was convicted and sentenced to twelve years' penal servitude. He was a political offender, the American government intervened on his behalf, and the treaty known as the Warren and Costello Treaty was negotiated, which led to his liberation before his sentence had expired. During his incarceration in this country he was confined in several prisons, both in England and Ireland, and thus had a fair opportunity of forming a first-hand estimate of the interior of British jails and the severity of our prison discipline. He was treated, he reported, with a great deal of rigor, but he was never punished without warrant of law, and was never pounded or assaulted. It is characteristic of the Irish political convict that, when Mr. Costello was asked about this before the Lexow Committee, he carefully inquired whether his answers would more or less justify "the people on the other side," and it was only on being assured that it would do no such thing that he reluctantly admitted that he had never experienced as a convict in British jails anything like the brutality with which he had been treated by the New York police.

Mr. Gostello's story in brief is this. About ten or a dozen years ago he was on the staff of the New York Herald. By his commission he was attached to the police headquarters, in which capacity he was necessarily brought into the closest relations with captains and inspectors. He discharged bis duties with satisfaction to bis employers, and without any complaint on the part of the police. Two lawyers of good standing, who were called as witnesses, testified that they had known him for years as a thoroughly honorable man, a newspaper man of talent and ability; one whose word they would take as soon as that of the President of the United States. Every one who knew him spoke in the highest terms of his veracity and scrupulous regard for accuracy.

Mr. Costello in 1885 conceived the idea of publishing a book about the police under the title of "Our Police Protectors." His idea was to hand over eighty per cent. of the profits of the work to the Police Pension Fund, retaining twenty per cent. as compensation for his work. The book at first was very successful. The police sold it for the benefit of the Pension Fund, and the profits were duly paid over by him to the fund in question. But just as the book was beginning to boom, the Superintendent of Police brought out a book of his own, entitled "The Great Criminals of New York." No sooner had it appeared than the police withdrew all their support from Mr. Costello's book, declared they had nothing to do with it officially, and left him stranded with the unsold copies on his hands. Mr. Costello appears to have regarded this as natural under the circumstances. He entered no complaint of the way in which he had been thrown down over "Our Police Protectors" by the department, for whose Pension Fund the book was earning money, but at once set himself with a good heart to bring out another book of a similar character about the Fire Department.

Mr. Croker, who was then a Fire Commissioner, and his two colleagues gave Mr. Costello a letter certifying that the Fire Department had consented to the publication of his history in consideration of his undertaking to pay into the Fire Relief Fund a certain portion of the proceeds of the sale of the book, for the publication of which Mr. Costello had been given access to the records of the department. Armed with this letter, Mr. Costello set to work. He printed 2,500 copies of the book, with 900 illustrations. The book itself was bulky, containing as many as 1,100 pages,and costing nearly $25,000 to produce, an expenditure which he had incurred entirely on reliance upon the support of the Fire Department promised him by the letter written by Mr. Croker and his fellow commissioners. But again an adverse fate befell the unfortunate Costello. Just as the book was beginning to boom, another man named Craig, who had a pull at the fire headquarters, got out a very cheap book, called the "Old Fire Laddies," which he ran in opposition to Mr. Costello's expensive work. The fire officials backed the man with a pull against Mr. Costello, who had no pull. Friction arose, and the Fire Department withdrew the official letter on the strength of which Mr. Costello had gone into the work.

But the power of the pull was to make itself felt in a still more painful fashion. Mr. Costello had several agents canvassing for orders for the book, and for advertisements. He did his best to obtain from those agents the Croker letter, and succeeded in doing so in all but two or three cases. As he had already spent his money, the only thing he could do was to continue to push his book. His agents, no doubt, when canvassing made as much capital as they could out of the credentials which Mr. Costello had originally received from the Fire Department. This was resented, and it seems to have been decided to "down" Costello. The method adopted was characteristic. The Fire Commissioners and the police were two branches of Tammany administration. When Mr. Costello's canvassers were going about their business, they were subjected to arrest. He had as many as half a dozen of his canvassers arrested at various times. They were seized by the police on one pretext and another, locked up all night in the police cell, and then liberated the next morning, without any charge being made against them. The application of this system of arbitrary arrest effected its purpose. The terrorized canvassers refused to seek orders any longer for Mr. Costello's book. One or two, however, still persevered. In November, 1888, two of them, who had retained the original certificate, were arrested in the First Precinct at the instance of Captain Murray of the Fire Department, who said that they were professing to be connected with the Fire Department, with which they had nothing to do.

Mr. Costello, accompanied by his bookkeeper, Mr. Stanley, went down to the police station to endeavor to bail his canvassers out. Mr. Costello had no fear for himself, as he believed Captain McLaughlin was his friend—-a friendship based upon the captain's belief that Mr. Costello's influence had counted for something in securing his captaincy. Mr. Costello complained of the repeated arrests, and declared that he would not let it occur again if he could help it. Captain McLaughlin showed him the books that had been taken from the imprisoned canvassers, in one of which there was a loose paper containing the memorandum of sales made on that day, and a copy of the Croker letter. Mr. Costello at once took possession of the letter, which he had been trying to call in for some time. He showed it to the captain and then put it in his pocket, telling the captain that if it was wanted he would produce it in court the next day. The captain made no objection, and they parted, apparently on friendly terms.

Mr. Costello had supper, and then went off to the police headquarters at seven o'clock, in order to secure an order for the release of his canvassers. Suspecting nothing, he walked straight into the office, where he found himself confronted by Inspector Williams. This inspector was famous for two things: he had the repute of being the champion clubber of the whole force, and it was he also who first gave the sobriquet of "Tenderloin" to the worst precinct in New York. The origin of this phrase was said to be a remark made by Inspector Williams on his removal from the Fourth to the Twenty-ninth Precinct. Williams, who was then captain, had said, "I have been living on rump-steak in the Fourth Precinct; I shall have some tenderloin now." Mr. Costello picked up this phrase, applied it to the Twenty-ninth Precinct, coupling it with Williams' name. Williams never forgave Costello for this, and on one occasion had clubbed him in Madison Square.

When Costello saw the inspector, he felt there was a storm brewing, for Williams was in one of his usual domineering moods. The moment Mr. Costello entered, the inspector accused him of stealing a document out of Captain McLaughlin's office, and detained him for five hours. It was in vain that Mr. Costello explained that the document which he had sent home by his bookkeeper, and placed in his safe, was his property, and would be produced in court when it was wanted. During the five hours that he stayed there he noticed what he described as "very funny work" going on. The inspector was telephoning here and there; detectives were coming in and whispering, as if receiving secret orders; and at last, at midnight, two detectives came in and whispered a message to the inspector. Thereupon Williams turned to Costello, ordered him to accompany the detectives, and consider himself under arrest. A foreboding of coming trouble crossed Costello's mind. He asked his bookkeeper to accompany him, as he felt that there was something going to happen and he wanted him to be an eyewitness. This, however, did not suit his custodians. On their way down to the police station one of the detectives said to Stanley, "You get away! We do not want you at all." Costello said, "Well, if you have to go, you might look up Judge Duffy. I may want his services as well as these men." Stanley left, and Costello, with the two detectives, made his way to the police station.

It was getting on to one o'clock in the morning. Costello was carrying an umbrella, as it was raining, when they came in front of the station house. The door was wide open, and the light streamed on to the sidewalk. Just as he was placing his foot on the step he saw two men come toward him. The bright light cast a shadow, and in that shadow he saw Captain McLaughlin raise his fist and deal a savage blow at his face. He instinctively drew back his head, and the captain's brass-knuckled fist struck him on the cheek-bone, knocking him down into the gutter. The detectives stood by, indifferent spectators of the scene. As Costello lay half-stunned and bleeding in the muddy gutter, Captain McLaughlin attempted to kick him several times in his face. Fortunately, his victim had retained hold of his umbrella, and with its aid was able to keep the captain's heavy boots from kicking him into insensibility.

He struggled to his feet, when Captain McLaughlin went for him again. What followed is best told by the transcript from the evidence before the Lexow Committee:

"Augustine E. Costello examined by Mr. Moss. I said to Captain McLaughlin: 'Now, hold on; I am a prisoner here; this is a cowardly act on your part; if I have done anything to offend the laws of the State there is another way of punishing me; this is not right.' You could hardly recognize me as a human being at this time; I was covered with blood, mud, and dirt, and had rolled over and over again in trying to escape the kicks that were rained at me. I hurried myself as fast as I could into the station house, thinking that would protect me; all this time I was being assaulted, the two detectives stood over me.

"Q. What were their names?

"A. I cannot recall it just now, but I can get their names later on; two wardmen of that precinct; there was a second man with the man who assaulted me; that man, I may tell you, was Captain McLaughlin.

"Q. What do you mean; on the sidewalk?

"A. On the sidewalk; the man with him, standing right off the curbstone on the street; and when I got into the station house, I asked to be allowed to wash the blood off myself, and I was feeling more like a wild beast than a human being.

"By Mr. Moss: Tell us what he did?

"A. McLaughlin put himself in all sorts of attitudes and tried to strike me, and I dodged the blows.

"Q. Was that in the general room of the station house?

"A. Yes. Captain Murray, of the Fire Department, was present at the time; he made the complaint against the two men.

"Q. You were a prisoner, and standing in the middle of the station house floor while McLaughlin was raining blows at you?

"A. Yes. 'Now,' I said to him, 'McLaughlin, look here, I never felt myself placed in the position that I do to-night; no man has ever done to me what you did to-night, and I advise you to let up. Standing here, if I am assaulted again, you or I will have to die; one man of two will be taken out of this station house dead, and so, stop.' At this time I had my fighting blood up, and had recovered from the collapse I was thrown into. I said, 'You may think me not protected here; but I have a good strong arm, and if you assault me again, as sure as there is a God in heaven, I will never take my handa from your throat until you kill me or I kill you.' He kept on blustering, but never struck me again. Q. What was the nature of the punishment? "A. He had brass-knuckled me (Vol. iv., p. 4,527). "Q. You say he desisted at that moment? "A. He desisted at that moment when I said he or I would have to die if he did not stop. I was then allowed to go into his private room and wash some of the mud and gutter off my face and hands. I could not wash the blood off, because that was coming down in torrents; and when I was going downstairs, somebody kicked me or punched me severely in the back and I feel the effects ofthe effects of it yet at times, and I suppose I always will. Then I was thrown into a cell bleeding, and by this time a second collapse had come over me, and I must have fainted in the cell.

"Q. Did McLaughlin go into the cell?

"A. No; he came down after me, after I was locked up, and made it clear he gloried in the fact that I was in that condition. So, fearing that some one would open the cell door during the night, when I would be in a faint—-because I felt very weak from the loss of blood—-I took out my notebook and wrote in it, 'If I am found dead here to-morrow, I want it known I am murdered by Captain McLaughlin and his crowd.' I hid that in my stocking, that piece of bloody paper. I kept it for a long time, and I tried to find it to-day, but could not put my hands on it, and am very sorry I cannot put my hands on it.

"Q. Were you persecuted any more that night?

"A. I was persecuted in a way that they would not give me any water.

"Q. Did you call for water?

"A. Yes, and it was denied me; everything was denied me. From loss of blood and all that I became unconscious; and about five o'clock in the morning, when I could get a little rest, I was routed out from my bed and told to get ready; then I asked the privilege of getting something to brush off my clothes and my shoes, and after paying a little for it, I did get it; and I was taken out by these two same men that had arrested me. Now, before I proceed any further, will you let me go back a little?

"Q. Yes.

"A. All the five hours I was kept a prisoner at police headquarters with Inspector Williams standing over me, I might say, with drawn baton, two detectives were up at my house, which shows this was a put-up job and conspiracy to degrade me; from quarter after seven or half-past seven, from the time this happened, two detectives were up at my house bullying my wife and scaring her to death, and all this time they knew I was down in the hands of Inspector Williams. Inspector Williams told me this with great glee as I was about to be taken away. I said, 'You must have no heart.' I said, 'I don't mind the persecution I have been subjected to, but I don't wish to have that inflicted on my wife and children; they will go crazy. I beg you to telephone the station house, and have those brutes taken out of my house;' and he did, but they were there up to midnight, and all these five hours in my house bullying my wife and sending my children into hysterics.

"Q. You went to court the next morning, did you?

"A. Yes, sir. I begged then of the men that they would allow me to buy a pair of glasses more or less to conceal my lacerated face. I was in a terrible state. They refused until I got very near the place and I said, 'I will make trouble for somebody if I go in this condition;' and they let me buy a large pair of blue goggles, and I sent for Counselor Charles T. Duffy, who is at present justice of the peace in Long Island City, and I told him what happened to me, and he said, 'These people are too much for me; I will go and get somebody to assist you. What do you think of Mr. Hummel?' I said, 'Do what you like about it; have Mr. Hummel.' I paid him a retainer fee, and he said, 'These are infernal brutes, and we ought to break them.' I said, 'I am prepared to do what you tell me.' When the case was brought up it was laughed out of court; there was no case for me or my men. They first had me to get bondsmen before the thing was tried; but there was no case tried—-there was no case to try. Hummel said, 'What have you against this man; he has not destroyed any documents.'"—Vol. iv., p. 4,520.

Mr. Costello was taken home, and laid up in bed for five days. His face had to be sewn up. The doctor, who, by the bye, was Mr. Croker's brother-in-law, certified that the injury of the face had been produced by brass knuckles, the cut being too severe to have been produced by the simple fist. He was threatened with erysipelas, but fortunately recovered.

I should have mentioned that while Mr. Costello was being taken into the station house all bloody and muddy, his bookkeeper came to obtain access to him. Captain McLaughlin stopped him, pulled open his overcoat, and searched his pockets.

"What is this for?" cried Stanley. The captain made no answer, but continued the search. "What does this mean?" angrily asked Stanley.

"You know d--- well what it means," was the reply.

"I do not understand you," said Stanley. "What is it for?"

"Open the door," said the captain to an orderly, "open the door." The orderly opened the door. "Now," said the captain, "get the hell out of here!" and the bookkeeper was promptly forced right out, and left on the sidewalk to reflect upon the irony of events which had subjected the author of "Our Police Protectors" to such treatment.

It is a very pretty story, and one which naturally provokes the inquiry as to how such things could be practiced with impunity. Mr. Costello himself said that if there had not been so much Celtic blood in his veins, there would have been several funerals in New York, for he was not only a Celtic Irishman but a Catholic Irishman, and murder was repugnant both to his religion and to his nature. Other redress than that which could be gained by your own right hand it was impossible to obtain, for it was this witness who made the famous remark previously quoted. Senator O'Connor asked him, "Did you ever take any proceedings against these men?" and the witness replied, "I never did, sir. It is no use going to law with the devil and court and hell!"

---end

Links to the committee hearings.

Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the New York Police Department, Volume 1 (Albany: 1895), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Dept. of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor


Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the New York Police Department, Volume 2 (Albany: 1895), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Dept. of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor


Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the New York Police Department, Volume 3 (Albany: 1895), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Dept. of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor


Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the New York Police Department, Volume 4 (Albany: 1895), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Dept. of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor

Report and Proceedings of the Senate Committee Appointed to Investigate the New York Police Department, Volume 5 (Albany: 1895), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Dept. of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor


Index to the Testimony and Proceedings of the Lexow Committee Investigating the New York Police Department, Volumes 1-5 (New York: 1899), link
by New York (State). Legislature. Senate. Committee on Police Department of the City of New York, Clarence Lexow, Jacob Aaron Cantor

[Pcdunn]

Fascinating account.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-03-08/ed-1/seq-34/#date1=1914&index=0&rows=20&words=old+Old+Shakespeare&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=New+York&date2=1917&proxtext=Old+Shakespeare+&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

The above is link to the March 8, 1917 The Sun from New York City, in which I stumbled across the story "Confessions made by Innocent Men. / Some due to "third degree" methods of police / Others Freaks " -- sort of ties in with the bad cops accounts you've mentioned.

I was also interested in the use of the phrase "third degree" -- familiar to any fan of gangster films from the Thirties.

[Mayerling]

Fascinating account.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-03-08/ed-1/seq-34/#date1=1914&index=0&rows=20&words=old+Old+Shakespeare&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=New+York&date2=1917&proxtext=Old+Shakespeare+&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

The above is link to the March 8, 1917 The Sun from New York City, in which I stumbled across the story "Confessions made by Innocent Men. / Some due to "third degree" methods of police / Others Freaks " -- sort of ties in with the bad cops accounts you've mentioned.

I was also interested in the use of the phrase "third degree" -- familiar to any fan of gangster films from the Thirties.

I don't know where the phrase came from. I keep thinking it is based on first degree crimes and second degree crimes and third degree crimes (first degree are usually death penalty crimes - now life imprisonment with little chance for parole - while second degree crimes mean imprisonment for long periods of sentenced time, but distinct chances for parole, and third degree are for lesser periods of time with distinct chances for parole. But how the third degree (meaning the third type of crime - say a manslaughter situation) translated to savage police manipulation and beating I can't guess.

The article in the paper you sent to us mentioned the death of "Old Shakespeare" and the conviction and imprisonment of "Frenchy" the Algerian that Thomas Byrnes caught. Frenchy was eventually released. However, in an essay in 1938, in his updated volume "Studies in Murder" Edmund Pearson, discussed the conviction of Frenchy in discussing convicting innocent people of homicide or other crimes. He told the story of Frenchy's release, but he spoke to the A.D.A. who got the conviction of Frenchy in 1891. This was a respected New York City Attorney Francis Wellman. Wellman (according to Pearson) could not believe Frenchy was innocent.

I add this: Edmund Pearson was one of the people who made true crime writing an art form with decent pretense to scholarship. But he was a lifetime believer in punishing the guilty and using the death penalty when called for. It's rare to find him showing sympathy for any well known killers that he chronicled. One was Dr. Crippen, whom Pearson felt was guilty of killing his wife, but whom he felt sorry for. Somehow, though not all the time, I get the impression that Pearson was more inclined to sympathy for middle and upper class types. Again, though, he rarely shows such sympathies for most of his subjects, and many are in those classes.

Jeff

P.S. The article on confessions was on a page showing photographs of artwork of dogs that belonged in the vacation home (in North Carolina) of Clarence Mackay. Mackay was the son of one of the owners of the Comstock Lode in Nevada, and his father built up a vast international telegraph communications network. Clarence inherited this. Mackay is best remembered now because his daughter was the second wife of songwriter Irving Berlin, a connection Clarence Mackay disliked because of Berlin's trade, and his Jewish ancestry. But when Mackay's communication empire collapsed in the Wall Street Crash, Berlin had the personal satisfaction of "bailing out" Mackay.

[Pcdunn]

Thanks for your interesting insights, Jeff.
I also noted the mention of "Old Shakespeare", as I'm intrigued by the American connection (or not, as it may be) to Ripper-like murders. Did you know articles on the case talk of "Frenchy 1" and "Frenchy 2"? Apparently the police were initially confused, but ultimately cleared one of them altogether. Given this confusion, though, it's hard to imagine any justice was involved in the Brown case.

[Mayerling]

Thanks for your interesting insights, Jeff.
I also noted the mention of "Old Shakespeare", as I'm intrigued by the American connection (or not, as it may be) to Ripper-like murders. Did you know articles on the case talk of "Frenchy 1" and "Frenchy 2"? Apparently the police were initially confused, but ultimately cleared one of them altogether. Given this confusion, though, it's hard to imagine any justice was involved in the Brown case.

Wolf Vanderlinden did a three part essay on "Old Shakespeare" in "Ripper Notes" when it was being published. Usually it just is mentioned, due to Byrnes boasting that he would find the killer if Scotland Yard did not (meaning if the Ripper came to New York).

Wikipedia has an entry for Byrnes, and for the phrase, the "third degree". Although the actual derivation of the term is not really known, they mention it was attributed to Byrnes, and he may have been purposely punning on his own last name: that he gave people he suspected "third degree" Byrnes!

Jeff

[GUT]

I was always told that third degree, came from third degree burns, I'm going to grill him, or burn him that bad.

[TradeName]

An article by a reporter who claims that there were discrepancies between the evidence presented at Frenchy's trial and what he observed at the scene of the crime,

The Coming Nation (Chicago), March 8, 1913, Pages 7-8, 11

Can a Man be "Railroaded"?

by Charles Edward Russell


The Chicago Federation of Labor, at its regular session on January 5 of this year, adopted resolutions against the conviction at Indianapolis of the thirty-eight labor leaders lately on trial there.

In these resolutions the opinion was expressed that the condemned men had been unfairly tried and “railroaded” to prison.

At this, a great many newspapers in the United States exclaimed in protest, declaring the idea that in this country a man could by any possibility be “railroaded" was ridiculous and preposterous. According to these newspapers, justice in this country is so secure, immaculate and well-administered, and the rights of accused persons are so abundantly guarded, that even the humblest, the most obscure, or the most obnoxious, could be practically assured of a fair and even handed trial, without fear or favor.

Therefore, the men at Indianapolis had not been "railroaded"; they could not have been; the charge that they had been was reckless, absurd, and reflected dishonor upon the cause of organized labor.

It is chiefly for the benefit of editors that have made these assertions that I produce the record that follows.

Also, for the benefit of other gentlemen that sneer incredulously at the statement that a great newspaper can be controlled by outside forces to the suppression of actual and pertinent facts or to the creation of a totally false impression concerning a matter of importance.

I have heard men now in the newspaper business declare that newspapers are not edited by their balance sheets and that any respectable newspaper will always put the truth above any question of profits.

It is to these that I dedicate this previously unprinted chapter of history, and when I have finished with it I shall be pleased to have their opinions about it.

I have not written this story before, because for s long time I had no chance, and when I had a chance there was nothing to hang it on. But when a host of newspapers gravely assert that to “railroad” a man-is impossible, I have not merely justifination for the record, but to my mind the record is demanded.

We will begin by going back to the years 1888, I889 and 1890 and to the famous series of puzzling crimes that were known as the “Jack the Ripper” murders.

All London, all England, and finally all the world were startled by these amazing exhibitions of depravity, the boldness with which they were perpetrated, the apparent ease with which the murderer defied detection. The most experienced detectives in England, the ablest men of Scotland Yard, were long employed in vain upon the mystery, and while they were at work the murderer repeated his crime almost before the eyes of some of them, and still he escaped.

The circumstances in each case were nearly identical. The victim was always a poor outcast woman of the streets. In a dark angle of some East End thoroughfare, or under a railroad arch, her body would he found stabbed to death and in every case mutilated in a certain way; mutilated with a very sharp instrument; mutilated apparently by some person with an accurate knowledge of anatomy.

In each ease on the wall above the body would ne found a cross, scratched there with the point of a knifé.

In each case the murder occurred after midnight and before dawn.

The streets of London are the best policed streets in the world. The East End, a region of great poverty, is thickly inhabited, and its thoroughfares are seldom empty. And yet although each of these murders was committed in a street, although in four of the seven instances the body was still Warm when it was discovered, although in one case the very footsteps of the murderer were heard departing, no one ever saw the fiend at his work.

More than once, however, some vague description of him was obtainable. The woman associates of the victim, skulkers and outcasts like herself, would see her walking away with a man that apparently she had captured in her way of gaining her livelihood. The next they knew of her she would be lying dead and mutilated. They had taken no particular notice of the man; it was the usual thing with this terrible sisterhood; but such accounts as they could give of him usually agreed in this, that they thought he was a sea-faring man, and from their impressions the police seemed to think that he was either a stoker or a man from a cattle ship. Several arrests were made of such men; one, an unfortunate American employed on a cattleship, was arrested every time he came to Liverpool—-arrested on general principles and because nature had given to him a singularly harsh and forbidding countenance. Nothing came of these arrests except some derision for the helpless police.

Meantime the murders continued.

The head of the detective branch of the New York police department was then Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, a very able man in his line, the greatest policeman and the greatest detective genius I have ever known. He was credited with the unraveling of a great number of dark mysteries and he had a service record almost singularly clean. The famous Lexow Committee, which uncovered so much monstrous graft in the department, harrowed his career from end to end, and could find nothing wrong therein. Even when he was a police captain and unknown he refused to have anything to do with graft or any place in the police camorra. I know myself of cases where he might have had a very considerable reward under circumstances that would have been absolutely safe and he rejected it on principle. About this Abe Hummel and others will readily corroborate me.

Byrnes stood very well with the great financial powers and with good reason. He had been to them of inestimable service. He kept every low crook and small thief out of Wall Street; he established at Fulton street a dead-line below which no recorded criminal could go on any pretense. He caught men that were wanted by influential business men; he made such obnoxious persons confess; he recovered money that had been stolen by defaulters; he attended to blackmailers and suppressed them without publicity; he knew family secrets and never divulged them. More than one millionaire in New York had reason to feel grateful to Thomas Byrnes. He said that their friendship enabled him to make money in ways that would be called legitimate. I have reason to believe that this statement was absolutely true. He knew that graft was going on in the department; he knew all the ramifications of the system as it existed in his day; but he had no part in it. I believe that also to be absolutely true, and in view of what happened afterward I think it is important.

The one thing that Byrnes cared for more than anything else was his reputation as a detective. He had been called “the world’s greatest thief-catcher,” and he enjoyed the title. The newspapers made much of him, partly for a reason I will disclose later, and he enjoyed their attentions. He had been offered a decoration from the king of Italy and had declined it, and he enjoyed the space the newspapers gave to that episode also.

When the “Jack the Ripper” crimes had become an international topic and the failure of Scotland Yard and the English detectives to solve the mystery was apparent, Byrnes was interviewed often about it. He was interviewed by American journals and by English, and to all he made the same declaration, that the detection of the murderer ought not to be diflicult, and that if “Jack the Ripper" should appear in New York he would be caught within 48 hours. He said this with emphasis and repeatedly; the remark was cabled to the London papers; they bitterly resented the implied reflection upon the detective ability of the London police; their acrid comments were cabled back to this country and the controversy assumed international importance.

Six or seven months had passed since the latest of the “Jack the Ripper” murders in London, and the crimes had slipped out of the horizon of public attention, when the whole ghastly business was suddenly and sharply revived by the murder of “Old Shakespeare” in the East River Hotel, New York City, in April, 1891.

“Old Shakespeare” was one of a horde of dissolute women that in those days infested the region between Chatham Square and the East River, where she had been for years a familiar figure in the lowest strata of the underworld. She might have been deemed to be about sixty, though how much of her aged appearance was due to years and how much to dissipation no one could guess; but her hair, at least, was quite gone gray. She was rather undersized, thin, badly dressed, marred and scarred with drink, and with the relentless hardships of a life which traveled one round between the work house and the streets. Her real name We were never able to learn; “Old Shakespeare” she was dubbed because whenever she reached a certain stage in her intoxication she would stand at a street corner or in the back room of a boozing den and by the hour recite passages from Shakespeare’s works; a fact that led imaginative reporters to create for her a story that she had been well educated and of a wealthy family. But the truth was that she had long been a wardrobe woman in a theatrical company and had picked up most of her Shakespearean lore while standing in the wings.

The East River Hotel was a dismal old resort of the kind that has since been known in New York as “Raines Law.” It stood on a corner almost nnder the Brooklyn bridge, and being a place Of some size as well as great age, was probably at one time in its career a respectable caravansary. At this time it was sunk to the level of the lowest assignatlon house and was frequented by the unfortunate Women of the district. I have known many tough places in New York, but I have not seen one ddirtier or gloomier or more repulsive.

Into this place a little after 12 o’clock one night came “Old Shakespeare,” who was well known there, and a man she had apparently picked up in the streets, who was a stranger. They went to a corner room on the top floor. Nothing more was heard of either of them until about 5 o'clock, when the man came down stairs and left the hotel. He did not return.

About noon an employee of the hotel knocked at the door of the room that the couple had occup1ed. She found the door unlocked and opened 1t. “Old Shakespeare” was lying on the bed, partly dressed. She had been stabbed to death and mutilated. She had been mutilated in exactly the same way that the victims of “Jack the Ripper” in London had been mutilated. The mutilation had been done with a very sharp instrument. And on the wall directly over the body as it lay on the bed was scratched with the point of a knife a cross.

So here was “Jack the Ripper.” or something very like him, come to New York.

I arrived at the scene half an hour after the alarm had been given, and before anything in the room had been disturbed. With others I made a careful examination of the premises, about which I am to tell more hereafter. The outlines of the story having been ascertained, the next thing was to examine the people of the hotel as to the man that had gene Wlth the old woman to the room where she had been killed. It appeared that only two had seen him, the night clerk that had assigned him the room and a watchman that had a glimpse of him as he went down the stairs in the morning. Neither had noted him with any attention, but they agreed that he was to all appearances a sea-faring man. He wore a cap, such as stokers on steamships often wear, and a dark blue flannel shirt under a seaman’s jacket. He was about 28 or 30 years of age, well set up, ruddy of face or sunburned, and he had a short, light mustache. He had walked calmly and quietly out of the place and disappeared.

A general alarm was sent out for the arrest of this man, and for the next ten days we diligently pursued one clue after another in the search for him. Inspector Byrnes indicated his extraordinary interest by a step that was with him unprecedented. He left his ofiice at Police Headquarters and came to the Oak street station (in the precinct of which the East River Hotel was situated) to direct in person the search for the assassin. The newspapers were calling upon him to make good his promise and to capture this “Jack the Ripper” within forty-eight hours; and he had on the case the best men of a force of which he was exceedingly proud.

The murder was done early on a Friday morning; the woman had been dead more than six hours when her body was discovered. At 6 o’clock on Saturday night, which was well within the limit of the time set by the inspector, an arrest was made. At 8 o'clock on Sunday night we were recalled from the pursuit of the sea-faring man to the Oak street station to hear an official statement that this arrest was of the murderer and that the mystery was solved.

Among the poverty-stricken and wretched creatures that dwelt about that district was a tall, swarthy, grizzled French Arab, by name Ben Ali, but known to most of the inhabitants only as “Frenchy.” He had been a year or two in the district, where he had picked up the scraps of a living by peddling fruit, working as a porter and cleaning cellars. To the habitues of the neighborhood he was something of a butt for coarse wit, being well known to be a goodnatured, harmless, spiritless vagabond, mildly addicted to drink when he could get it, to cigarettes and to the society of the courtesaus, many of whom had rooms in that forlorn region.

At 6 o'clock on Saturday night this man was in the street, leaning against the wall of the East River Hotel, hands in his pockets, idly smoking a cigarette. The police were making many arrests; what is known as the drag-net was being freely operated; and it gathered in Ben Ali with the others. Twenty-four hours later he was announced to us as the murderer of “Old Shakespeare,” and the fiend that had mutilated her body.

I confess the thing looked strange from the beginning. How did this man come into the case? Certainly he was not the man that “Old Shakespeare” had brought to the hotel. He was not the man that at 5 o’clock the next morning had stolen out of the place. True, he had slept in that hotel that night; he often slept there; but he had slept in another part of the house, around the corner far away; and there was nothing to connect him in any way with the murdered woman. Yet it soon appeared that the theories of the police had definitely fastened upon him as the murderer, and all search for the seafaring man was abandoned. The assassin had been caught; our “Jack the Ripper” was in the toils, After the sea-faring man had left the old woman "Frenchy” had stolen out of his room, crept through the halls around three sides of the house, murdered his victim, and returned to his bed and sleep, from which he was aroused by the chambermaid about 10 o’clock. So went the proclaimed theory of the police.

The coroner’s inquest came on soon after, and it then appeared, to the astonishment of every reporter that had worked on the case, that the police had been able to gather some testimony tending to support this extraordinary theory. It was all testimony from the people of the underworld; it came, all of it, from those that daily drew their breaths by police permission, that lived under the shadow of the prison, from which they were kept only by police connivance. We knew, therefore, how much credence was to be given to such testimony, but how could the average citizen, that made up the coroner ’s jury, and would make up the trial jury when this man should come to his account, how could he understand the peculiar and intricate system under which vice flourished by police consent and the stool pigeon was the Chief Inspector’s right bower?

So one after another they went on the stand, these witnesses, and told how “Frenchy” was a man of quarrelsome disposition and dangerous character; and how he had known “Old Shakespeare” and had some grudge against her; and on that showing he was held to the grand jury.

He knew scarcely six words of English; he had in the whole country, so far as we could discover, but one friend and compatriot, a man as destitute and unprotected as himself; his native tongue was a patois, partly French, partly Arabic, and partly some thing one speaking ordinary French had about as little chance to converse with him as one speaking only English. To get from him anything like a coherent story, to get answers to the simplest questions, was one of the most difficult tasks that can he imagined. Some of the most expert polyglots in New "York were balked by the difficulties of his dialect.

When he was arraigned the court, as he was absolutely destitute, must needs appoint counsel for him, and we had some curiosity to see who would be selected for this oflice. Howe & Hummel had been understood to be in line for it, but when the choice was made it fell upon a firm of young lawyers not before known to fame. Afterward I was told that Howe & Hummel had declined to accept the defense. Previously they had been the chiefest police attorneys in New York. Thereafter they received very little police work.

Ben Ali was indicted for murder in the first degree.

The trial came on in July. Some time before the date of it Inspector Byrnes came in person to the office of one of the most influential and respected of the newspapers of New York. I saw him there. I saw him in long and earnest consultation with the powers that controlled that journal. It was the only time in my experience that I knew or heard of a personal visit from him to any newspaper office.

Immediately after he had departed an order was issued to sub-commanders and reporters not to publish anything detrimental to the police case or favorable to “Frenchy.”

I do not know- what other newspaper otfices Inspector Byrnes visited, but there was no reason why he should single out one for his attentions, and I do know that from that time on he had no occasion to complain about the attitude of the New York press about the case.

Inspector Byrnes stood very well with the powers that controlled the New York newspapers; the reason why I may as well explain here with an incident.

About a yeur or so before the murder in the East River Hotel the New York World, which was at times (in Mr. Pulitzer’s absence) very loosely managed, printed a gross and coarse libel on the most respectable and respected Chinese merchant in the city. It was a thing without basis and utterly indefensible, and the circumstances were so wanton and apparently malicious that the management felt greatly alarmed when the merchant brought suit and demanded heavy damages.

The World sent for help to Inspector Byrnes. Many another newspaper in the like circumstances was wont to cry for help in the same quarter. The merchant was doing business in Pell street, the heart of the Chinese region, over which the police exercised a dominion utterly inexplicable to you law and order folks; I can only intimate to you what it was like by saying that not a potentate on earth was endowed with such power over his subjects.

Inspector Byrnes, on behalf of the New York Wggrld. pulled some of the strings that lay in his hands and led to Chinatown, and within three hours thereafter the merchant, pale and trembling, was in the otfice of his attorney commanding him to discontinue the suit.

The attorney had a contingent fee in the case, knew quite well how impregnable were the facts, and declined to discontinue. The terror-stricken merchant pleaded in vain until he had produced $500, and for that sum the attorney consented to give up what he knew was a good thing.

This was one reason why Inspector Byrnes stood well with the press. He stopped libel suits for them, and libel suits were the bane and horror of every New York publisher.

They ate up the profits.

As to the true nature of the situation concerning Ben Ali I may tell here another illustrating incident. T had been in charge of the story for my newspaper and there was assigned to assist me a clever reporter whom I shall call Carl Slater, which was not his name. With me he had carefully examined the East River Hotel and knew pretty well what had happened there. We had at that time in New York some of the most loathsome dives on the face of the earth, I suppose, and operated (under corrupt league with the police) in a manner of boldness that would appear to you as impossible. The worst of all was a dreadful place in Bleecker street that was known as The Slide, and was the headquarters of a gang of the most depraved and abominable creatures that can be imagined. The proprietor was one Frank Stephenson, and although the character of his resort was perfectly well known and used to be shown to visitors as the worst place in New York, he continued for years to operate it without the least interference from the police.

A few weeks before the murder the newspaper on which Slater and I were employed had grown weary of the moral stench of The Slide and had sent Slater to investigate it and describe it. He wrote a description that compelled the police to raid the place, and Stephenson the proprietor, was now under indictment and about to be tried.

One dav Slater got a subpoena from the District Attorney’s oflicc, requiring him to appear at the Stephenson trial and testify as to what he had seen there.

For strong personal reasons he was loath to undergo this publicity, which, considering the chsracter of the place, would have been disagreeable enough anyway, but a subpoena from the District Attorney's oflice was not to be trified with. He determined, nevertheless, to make a desperate play, and went to see the prosecuting officer in charge with an earnest plea that for family reasons and others he be excused from appearing in the Stephenson case.

"Can’t let you off," said the prosecutor, brusquely. “This is a matter in which the good citizen must sink his personal preferences for the good of the community. It is a matter of the plainest duty on your part, and you will have to appear and testify."

“I think not,” said Slater, coolly.

“Why not, sir?” asked the prosecutor, somewhai incensed.

“Because,” said Slater, “I was employed on the murder in the East River Hotel. I examined the premises shortly after the murder was discovered. l know that much of the testimony given at the coroner’s inquest is, let us say, erroneous. If I am compelled to testify in the Stephenson case I shall also demand to be called in the trial of :Frenchy," and my testimony will be very diiferent from some that has been outlined so far.”

The prosecutor thought for a moment in silence. On the desk in front of him was a row of electric buttons, with which he summoned his assistants. Without a word he projected his forefinger and pressed the button that bore the name of the attorney having the Stephenson case in charge. This gentleman appeared at the door a moment later.

“Mr, L—---,” said the prosecutor, “we shall not need Mr. Slater in that Stephenson case. Wish you good day, Mr. Slater."

When Ben Ali’s trial came on testimony was introduced to show that on the floor under the bed on which “Old Shakespeare” lay dead was a pool of blood. This was true.

That this pool of blood had been stepped in by some one and bore around its edges the marks of human feet. This was absolutely untrue when I saw it. The edge of the pool all the way around was perfectly smooth and unbroken.

That the person that had stepped in the blood had been in his stockings and without shoes and that from the edge of the blood to the door of the room and in the hall outside of the door were the marks of his blood-stained tracks. This was absolutely untrue when I saw the place; there were no such tracks.

That on the handle of the door of the room and on the lintel near the door were marks of a bloody hand[?] but We had made close and diligent examination of the door handle and of the woodwork in the room and we found no such marks.

That there were signs of blood-stained footsteps in the hall near the room occupied by “Frenchy,” on the floor of that room and the marks of bloody hands on the bedstead that he occupied. We had examined that room thoroughly and made no such discoveries.

That on the knife taken from “Frenehy” at police headquarters and on the half-hose that he wore were blood spots. This I do not know. I never saw the knife nor the half-hose. But I know that the incisions on the body were made with a sharp instrument and it appeared that the knife taken from “renchy" was an ordinary pocket-knife, and dull.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution was a chemist from Philadelphia, of whom we had not heard before, and have not, I think, heard since. He swore that there had been delivered to him blood stained splinters purporting to come from the floor of the hall, from the lintel of the door, from the floor of “Frenchy’s” room; blood-stained threads from “Frenchy’s” half-hose; specks of blood taken from “Frenchy’s" knife, and scrapings from “Frenchy’s" finger-nails, and he had identified the blood corpuscles from all these exhibits with the blood of the victim. He had a screen in court, and threw upon it lantern slides of the blood corpuscles, even going so far as to point out in all the exhibits what he declared were indications of the last meal of which “Old Shakespeare” had partaken, naming the viands. All this was well enough, so far as it went; but there was nothing to show conclusively that the blood-stains were on the half-hose, the knife, the floor or the bed stead when “Frenchy” was arrested.

Anything might have happened in that hotel after the reporters had finished their examination and gone away.

At the time of the trial I was at work in a Southern state on a very different kind of a story, and got from the newspaper dispatches only fragmentary and unsatisfactory accounts of the testimony. 1 looked daily for the appearance of evidence that would show how different was the appearance of the floors and the rooms, when the reporters examined these things, from the account of them given by witnesses for the prosecution. I could not flnd it. When I returned to the city and the trial was over I learned that there had been no such testimony presented.

The case went to the jury, and after a short deliberation a verdict was returned of guilty of murder in the second degree.

Now here was a most extraordinary circumstance to start with. Murder in the second degree means murder committed without premeditation, under a sudden impulse of great passion. Yet according to the theory of the prosecution, this man had waited until “Old Shakespeare ’s” companion had left her and then had crept around three sides of the house in his stocking feet, stolen into her room and coldly stabbed her to death as she slept, afterward fiendishly mutilating the body. If that did not indicate premeditation, what would?

A verdict of murder in the first degree would have carried with it a sentence of death. A verdict of murder in the second degree meant a sentence of imprisonment for life.

Here was a crime obviously committed either by the "Jack the Ripper” that had terrified London or by one that had read of “Jack the Ripper’s” crimes and was carefully and to the last detail imitating them. How could such a crime be supposed to be committed by one under the impulse of a blind and sudden passion?

Moreover, “Frenchy” could not read a word of English; he had no newspapers in his native patois; only his one compatriot would have been able to explain to him the details of the “Ripper’s’ ’ crimes, and this compatriot had never heard of them.

Murder in the second degree for a “Jack the Ripper.” How does that strike one?

Friendless, old Ben Ali was taken to Sing Sing and locked up. The rest of his story is no less remarkable. After two or three years he was transferred to the state asylum for the Criminal Insane at Matteawan, where he would have very much better treatment than at Sing Sing. This was done on the assertion that he had developed insanity. A prisoner at Sing Sing might develop anything. After a few years at Matteawan he was quietly shipped back to his native Arabia, where, at last accounts, he was still living.

About the time of his transfer to Matteawan I took to Arthur Brisbane the facts that I have related here. Brisbane was then in charge of the New York World one day in the week-—the issue of Monday. He was at that time independent radical and not subject to control. He prepared a vehement protest and printed it with a signed statement from some of the reporters that had worked on the case. One such publication does no good; it must be followed and repeated and insisted upon if it is to accomplish anything. The World for the rest of the week failed to mention Brisbane ’s protest, and Ben Ali went the way appointed for him.

l now desire to point out some salient facts.

We are told that the high character of ministers of justice and the purity of our courts are sumcient safeguards against the “railroading” of anybody, and it is idle to suppose that even if a man were the victim of a conspiracy against his life or liberty, such a conspiracy could be carried out through the courts.

Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw.

The judge before whom the case was tried was that grim Recorder Smythe, whose name is still a synonym for stern, upright, immaculate, incorruptible justice, whose memory is honored in tablets recounting his long and spotless career on the bench.

The district attorney that tried the case was a man of high character and unimpeachable honor, a brilliant product of a great university, who would be deemed incapable of misusing his office.

The newspapers that were silenced about the case were the most famous and best reputed in the United States, and any one of them would have indignantly denied that it could be swayed to do injustice to anybody.

More than one of these newspapers was at the very time engaged in vociferously asserting its devotion to truth, justice, righteousness, the righting of wrongs, the protection of the weak, the purging of the public service.

And among them all a man was condemned and sentenced and sent to prison for a crime with which he had no more to do than you had.

How say you by that!

This man was poor and obscure, but without personal enemies, vindictively determined to send him away. Suppose another man to be poor, obscure and obnoxious to powerful interests that had the strongest reasons to desire his punishment. What should you say then?

There is still another chapter to this story.

A few weeks after “Frenchy” had been convicted and sent to Sing Sing there came to the editor of the newspaper with which I was then connected a letter about which I have not ceased since to speculate. It bore the postmark of Calcutta, India, was written in the English style of penmanship, and in firm, even, smooth strokes, as if by a person of education. It was unsigned and without an address. It said that the writer had been a stoker on a tea steamer that at the time of the murder in the East River Hotel had lain at the tea ship wharf, which was just above Roosevelt Slip, and only a stone’s throw from the hotel; that early on the morning of the murder another. of the stokers had come on board and the writer of the letter had observed him to be earnestly engaged in washing his hands, which seemed to have on them spots of red; that he had watched this stoker subsequently, and found he acted strangely, and was of an unsociable and moody nature; that the steamer had put to sea on the morning of the murder and had proceeded to Chins by way of the Suez canal; that at Colombo the stoker that had come aboard so suspiciously that morning in New York had left the ship without warning and disappeared; and that the writer was convinced that this man was the murderer of “Old Shakespeare.”

I was only a reporter, and the sole function of a New York reporter is to cover the assignments that are given to him and ask no questions concerning the policy or practice of the commanders on the quarter deck. I have therefore imperfect knowledge of what was done with this letter. In justice to those at that time my superiors I ought to say that I believe they tried to do what they could to ascertain if the writer were telling the truth. It was the blindest of leads at best. I know that in our department, which was limited to the city, we verified the fact that the vessel named had lain, as the letter said, at the tea ship wharf above Roosevelt Slip; that she was there on the night of the murder in the East River Hotel; that she sailed that morning; that she was due to call at Colombo. Beyond that I never had accurate knowledge. The steamer never returned to New York, and, I believe, was wrecked in a typhoon in the China Sea.

But observe the probabilities and then the speculations that pertain to that letter. The man that entered the East River Hotel with “Old Shakespeare” that night was a sea-faring man; the hotel people that saw him thought he might be a stoker. The few women that in London caught a fleeting glimpse of “Jack the Ripper” believed that he was a sea-faring man; the police surmised from what they said that he was a stoker. In that letter from Calcutta, then, did we hold in our hands a veritable message from the nameless fiend that had committed so many horrible crimes? Had he read in England the boast of Inspector Byrnes? Had he determined to accept the challenge and fool the best detective in America, as he had fooled the best detectives in England? Had he chosen the surest way to come here without observation, which was in the role, perhaps easy to him, of a stoker? And had he then committed his frightful crime, left his indubitable trade mark upon it, and disappeared? Had he learned months afterward that an innocent man was in peril for this crime and had he tried in this way to save poor old “Frenchy”?

Was he indeed a stoker? And was the stoker’s way of life, working in almost unendurable heat and misery, working under conditions that very often result in suicide or insanity, had all this produced in his brain cells the strange and portentious disorder that was responsible for a monster so cunning and cruel? Was “Jack the Ripper” so clearly and memorably a direct product of our industrial conditions? And did we stand there right on the verge of the full explanation of all the mystery?

To most of these questions there will never be any answer. But at least it is true, and may be significant as well, that if, as every circumstance showed, “Old Shakespeare” was a victim of the same “Jack the Ripper” that had terrified London, she was his last. From that time the world heard no more of him, and his secret, whatever it was, went its way into the historic mysteries of crime.


----end

Link to an article by one of the prosecution's expert witnesses.

Collected Essays and Articles on Physiology and Medicine [1855-1902], Volume 2 (New York: D. Appleton, 1903), Pages 175-181
by Austin Flint

Some Medico-Legal Points in the "Frenchy" Murder Trial

Published in the "New York Medical Journal" for July 11, 1891

[Pcdunn]

Tradename,

Thank you for the long article about "railroading" innocent men for crimes, and the discussion of the Ripper crimes and Carrie Brown's murder.
I need to re-read it more carefully when I have more time, but I was struck by the mention of "a cross marked above the head of each victim" in both the Ripper crimes and in Brown's case.

This is probably made up, as the writer states they were "on the walls" (and we know most of the C5 didn't have walls near their heads), but I wonder if this wasn't found in Carrie's murder.

What do you all think?

[Mayerling]

I did not comment yesterday, but I found Charles Edward Russell in Wikipedia. An impeccable character himself - reporter, writer, biographer (and a Pulitzer Prize Winner in 1927 for a biography), and a spokesperson (and political candidate) for Socialism. He was quite a figure in his day (he died in 1942). So his comments are worth considering, though I wish he said which newspaper got the letter, or what the name of the ship that was lost in that typhoon was. I imagine he found the Ali case a classic example of railroading.

Jeff

[TradeName]

I haven't seen anything else about a cross scratched on the wall at the East River Hotel.

Here's an article about Frenchy's pardon which mentions that affidavits from reporters who had seen the crime scene were a factor.

New York Sun, April 17, 1902, Page 2, Column 1

Governor Pardons Frenchy

Arab Convicted of Murdering Old Shakespeare in 1891

Amer Ben Ali, alias George Frank alias
"Frenchy," convicted on July 10, 1891 of
murder in the second degree and sentenced
to State prison for life for killing Caroline
Brown, better known as "Old Shakespeare"
in a room of the East River Hotel, at Water
and Catherine streets, on the night of April
24, 1891, was pardoned by Gov. Odell yesterday.
"Frenchy" is now confined in the
State Hospital for criminal insane at Dannemora.
The first news that he had been
pardoned was carried to the hospital last
evening by a correspondent of THE SUN.
The Arab had been locked in his cell for
the night, and the Superintendent concluded
it would be better not to tell him of
the good news until this morning.

The crime, for which this illiterate Arab
from Algiera has spent nearly eleven years
in prison and more than a decade among
criminal lunatics, was one of the most
famous in the history of crime in New York.
It occurred at the time that "Jack the
Ripper" was abroad in London killing and
then mutilating the bodies of the outcasts
of Whltechapel. He came and murdered,
went his way, and murdered again, and
Scotland Yard discovered not so much as a
trace of his footprints. One morning the
cable despatches to the New York papers
told the story of one of the Ripper's most
revolting murders. Byrnes was in Mulberry
street then and he was asked that
morning what would happen if "Jack the
Ripper" were to ply his trade In New York.

"He would be caught within twenty-four
hours," was Byrnes's reply.

His words were hardly in type before he
was called upon to make them good. An
old piece of the flotsam and jetsam of the
waterfront who had drifted along the East
River shore for years went into the East
River Hotel with a man about 10 o'clock
on the night of April 23, 1891.
The couple were assigned to room 31, and
the clerk remarked that "Old Shakespeare"
had finally landed a fish. The body of the
woman was found next day horribly mutilated
in the room to which she and her
companion had been assigned. The man
had disappeared and no one had seen him
leave the hotel.

Brynes left Mulberry street to take
personal charge of his sleuths.
Finally, several days after the murder, he
arrested "Frenchy," a seller of fruit, with
a stand not far from the scene of the crime,
charged him with the murder and secured
a conviction in the second degree. It was
established that the man had occupied a
room directly across the hall from Room 31
on the night of the murder, and the police
said that on the walls of that room and on
the door bloodstains were found. Expert
chemists testified that the scrapings from
beneath "Frenchy's" finger nails showed
on analysis that they contained the same
substance found in the stomach of the
murdered woman.

And so the Algerian who couldn't speak
a word of English was sentenced to life
imprisonment. After a few months in
Sing sing, his mind gave way and he was
sent to tne State Hospital for Criminal
Insane at Matteawan. From there he was
transferred to Dannemora about eighteen
months ago.

"Frenchy" owes his pardon to the efforts
put forth by Ovide Robillard, the French
lawyer of 35 Pine street. In 1897, the French
Consul-General of New York asked Mr.
Robillard to take up Ben Ali's case. In
October of that year a petition for the
man's pardon containing 5,000 names
was presented to Gov. Black, who refused
to interfere. Another appeal was made to
Gov. Roosevelt with the same result.

Then Mr. Robillard secured the affidavits
of several newspaper men, who
reported the case and who reached the
East River Hotel before the police, in
which it was stated that there were no
blood stains in "Frenchy's" room or on
the room door when the reporters examined
them. That was in the nature of
new evidence and more followed when
Mr. Robillard found George Damon of
the firm of Damon & Peet, manufacturers,
in Beckman street. Mr. Damon told of
having had in his employ at his place in
Cranford, N. J., a man whose first name
was Frank, whose appearance tallied
much better than Frenchy's did with that
of the man who went to the hotel with
"old Shakespeare."

Damon said that Frank was not at home
on the night of the murder and disappeared
the day the case was reported in the papers.
After he disappeared there was found in
his room over Damon's stable a blood-stained
pair of troupers and shirt and a
key with a tag attached bearing the number
31. The key was like those to the rooms
of the Eas River Hotel. After reviewing
all this new evidence, Gov. Odell concluded
that the man ought to be pardoned. Mr.
Roblllard said last night that "Frenchy,"
who has always asserted his innocence,
will probably be sent back to Algiers, where
he left a wife and children, at the expense
of the French Government.

----end

[Mayerling]

I haven't seen anything else about a cross scratched on the wall at the East River Hotel.

Here's an article about Frenchy's pardon which mentions that affidavits from reporters who had seen the crime scene were a factor.

New York Sun, April 17, 1902, Page 2, Column 1

Governor Pardons Frenchy

Arab Convicted of Murdering Old Shakespeare in 1891

Amer Ben Ali, alias George Frank alias
"Frenchy," convicted on July 10, 1891 of
murder in the second degree and sentenced
to State prison for life for killing Caroline
Brown, better known as "Old Shakespeare"
in a room of the East River Hotel, at Water
and Catherine streets, on the night of April
24, 1891, was pardoned by Gov. Odell yesterday.
"Frenchy" is now confined in the
State Hospital for criminal insane at Dannemora.
The first news that he had been
pardoned was carried to the hospital last
evening by a correspondent of THE SUN.
The Arab had been locked in his cell for
the night, and the Superintendent concluded
it would be better not to tell him of
the good news until this morning.

The crime, for which this illiterate Arab
from Algiera has spent nearly eleven years
in prison and more than a decade among
criminal lunatics, was one of the most
famous in the history of crime in New York.
It occurred at the time that "Jack the
Ripper" was abroad in London killing and
then mutilating the bodies of the outcasts
of Whltechapel. He came and murdered,
went his way, and murdered again, and
Scotland Yard discovered not so much as a
trace of his footprints. One morning the
cable despatches to the New York papers
told the story of one of the Ripper's most
revolting murders. Byrnes was in Mulberry
street then and he was asked that
morning what would happen if "Jack the
Ripper" were to ply his trade In New York.

"He would be caught within twenty-four
hours," was Byrnes's reply.

His words were hardly in type before he
was called upon to make them good. An
old piece of the flotsam and jetsam of the
waterfront who had drifted along the East
River shore for years went into the East
River Hotel with a man about 10 o'clock
on the night of April 23, 1891.
The couple were assigned to room 31, and
the clerk remarked that "Old Shakespeare"
had finally landed a fish. The body of the
woman was found next day horribly mutilated
in the room to which she and her
companion had been assigned. The man
had disappeared and no one had seen him
leave the hotel.

Brynes left Mulberry street to take
personal charge of his sleuths.
Finally, several days after the murder, he
arrested "Frenchy," a seller of fruit, with
a stand not far from the scene of the crime,
charged him with the murder and secured
a conviction in the second degree. It was
established that the man had occupied a
room directly across the hall from Room 31
on the night of the murder, and the police
said that on the walls of that room and on
the door bloodstains were found. Expert
chemists testified that the scrapings from
beneath "Frenchy's" finger nails showed
on analysis that they contained the same
substance found in the stomach of the
murdered woman.

And so the Algerian who couldn't speak
a word of English was sentenced to life
imprisonment. After a few months in
Sing sing, his mind gave way and he was
sent to tne State Hospital for Criminal
Insane at Matteawan. From there he was
transferred to Dannemora about eighteen
months ago.

"Frenchy" owes his pardon to the efforts
put forth by Ovide Robillard, the French
lawyer of 35 Pine street. In 1897, the French
Consul-General of New York asked Mr.
Robillard to take up Ben Ali's case. In
October of that year a petition for the
man's pardon containing 5,000 names
was presented to Gov. Black, who refused
to interfere. Another appeal was made to
Gov. Roosevelt with the same result.

Then Mr. Robillard secured the affidavits
of several newspaper men, who
reported the case and who reached the
East River Hotel before the police, in
which it was stated that there were no
blood stains in "Frenchy's" room or on
the room door when the reporters examined
them. That was in the nature of
new evidence and more followed when
Mr. Robillard found George Damon of
the firm of Damon & Peet, manufacturers,
in Beckman street. Mr. Damon told of
having had in his employ at his place in
Cranford, N. J., a man whose first name
was Frank, whose appearance tallied
much better than Frenchy's did with that
of the man who went to the hotel with
"old Shakespeare."

Damon said that Frank was not at home
on the night of the murder and disappeared
the day the case was reported in the papers.
After he disappeared there was found in
his room over Damon's stable a blood-stained
pair of troupers and shirt and a
key with a tag attached bearing the number
31. The key was like those to the rooms
of the Eas River Hotel. After reviewing
all this new evidence, Gov. Odell concluded
that the man ought to be pardoned. Mr.
Roblllard said last night that "Frenchy,"
who has always asserted his innocence,
will probably be sent back to Algiers, where
he left a wife and children, at the expense
of the French Government.

----end

Interesting that there was a petition with 5,000 signatures on it for Ali's release from 1897 onward, and Governor Theodore Roosevelt was one of those who refused to release Ali. TR was a firm believer in using the death penalty when (in his opinion) merited. In 1899 a Mrs. Martha Place killed her step daughter with an axe and seriously injured her husband, and TR refused to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment, as a petition requested. She was the first woman in New York State executed in the electric chair.

Oddly enough, crime historian Edmund Pearson once said that TR's favorite piece of doggerel poetry was the "Lizzie Borden" quadrain: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty wacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty one!"

In his own career TR had been New York City Police Commissioner, and had (as a rancher in the Dakotas) once been on a ten day tracking down of horse thieves. Ironically the closest he came to a murder case in his own life (besides the assassination of President McKinley, which elevated him to the White House in 1901, and the attempt on his life by John Schrank in the 1912 Presidential campaign, and a murder of one of his exploration party by another man on the "River of Doubt" trip in 1914*) was the Roosevelt-Crane-Becker incident in 1895. TR was upset when the novelist Stephen Crane came to the defense of a prostitute who Crane was walking with one night, who was beaten and arrested by P.O. Becker. Becker, a decorated cop, was defended in his actions by Roosevelt (who was a notorious prude), and Crane (who had the guts to defend the woman in court) was attacked by Teddy for his low companions and friends. The court did not find against Becker, and Crane left New York City for his safety.

[*The murder was the result of a quarrel about pilfered stores by the perpetrator. The perpetrator ran off into the rain forest. The others in the group had a make-shift court on the incident, and decided that they could not waste time seeking the man. Moreover the area had very dangerous tribes in the forests, and the best bet was to press on leaving the perpetrator to fend for himself (which under the circumstances was as hideous a punishment as might be thought up). As they were headed downstream in their canoes, the man reappeared and begged them to take him with them rather than leave him behind. But they had realized they'd have to tie him up and watch him like a hawk, and that would be an added burden to their exploration party dangers. They left him crying on the bank of the river. Presumably he met his end in the hands of the natives.]

During the Spanish American War Crane was one of the leading newspaper reporters in Cuba covering the war - and he purposely wrote of how the enlisted men in the various units (including the "Rough Riders") were faring - ignoring the publicity hog Roosevelt. TR did not have to worry - Crane's fellow correspondent Richard Harding Davis covered TR in his prose. In 1912 when TR was the Progressive/Bull Moose candidate an embarrassment arose that he ignored: Now Lieutenant Charles Becker, head of the anti-gambling squad, was arrested for taking bribes and for arranging the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal (who had just given a sworn written statement about Becker's criminal activities to D.A. Charles Whitman - in the presence of Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York Tribune).

Becker, after two trials, and two appeals, was executed in 1915 for the Rosenthal murder. Although there is still doubt about his guilt (see Andy Logan's book, "Against the Evidence") he remains the highest ranking police official ever executed for murder in the U.S. Roosevelt barely mentioned the fact he once championed the man. Unfortunately, Stephen Crane died in Europe in 1900, so he never knew his view of Becker would be vindicated.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

"Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw."

This is very interesting, indeed. Last year I did some research into the children abused and murdered in NYC in 1915. Byrnes was also the police commander then. And there was also some controversy over the man he turned over to the courts, who was imprisoned, and eventually released.

The author of the second article strikes me as an excellent example of a journalist worried about the influence of modern industry, with his speculation that being a stoker drove the man to becoming a serial killer!

[Mayerling]

"Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw."

This is very interesting, indeed. Last year I did some research into the children abused and murdered in NYC in 1915. Byrnes was also the police commander then. And there was also some controversy over the man he turned over to the courts, who was imprisoned, and eventually released.

The author of the second article strikes me as an excellent example of a journalist worried about the influence of modern industry, with his speculation that being a stoker drove the man to becoming a serial killer!

Well, Russell being a Socialist, he would have a view of industrialization that would not be favorable. I again refer you to the Wikipedia article on him.

I still can't understand his failure to name the ship lost in the typhoon - what would have been the harm? Whenever I see that kind of a vague, supposedly specific detail given (many times like Russell used it here - to reassure us that "Providence" via the typhoon drowned the real killer, though forget "Providence" also killed the rest of the crew), I find it suspicious and begin to wonder what actually are the facts in the whole story.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

I consider the story of the letter, and the speculation that it was written by Jack, and not by a third party observer, to be creative writing.

But isn't there some idea that Jack might have escaped to Latin America, related to another suspect theory? I know I read something here about it...