Did the inhabitants of the East End in 1888 know/suspect who the killer was?

[RockySullivan]

http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media...orley/117.html

thanks this very iiinteresting and ties in nicely with the subject of the thread at hand:

"They later reported that they accused him because he looked like the Ripper, with his shiny black bag. According to a story told by Dr Dutton, Levisohn was reported to have told Inspector Abberline that Klosowski was not Jack the Ripper, and that he should investigate a Russian barber's assistant in Walworth Road about the Ripper murders."

[curious4]

Whitechapel wasn't completely full of the poorest of the poor. There were also tradesmen and artisans, small business owners and small shopkeepers, even professional people, as well as a poverty-stricken underclass. Whitechapel was a more mixed area than is generally known though it was a poor locale, certainly. However,not every Whitechapel/Spitalfields resident was illiterate either. There would have been some with enough skills to write a letter and post it to Scotland Yard.

Hello Rosella

True. I was thinking more of the people who lived in doss houses. All crammed in together and passing on what they had heard or seen. Certainly those who were better off would have been able to write.

Best wishes
C4

[Mayerling]

Hello GUT

i'm not so sure that anyone from the East End would have dared to accuse a Toff. In the first place they most probably wouldn't have been believed and if they were reasonably respectable would most likely have a family member "in service". Downton Abbey it wasn't. I believe the BBC is coming out with a more honest programme about what is was like as a servant. It would only take one family member to come with an accusation and anyone connected with them would lose their jobs. At once. No inquiry. Most probably they'd have one of his Lordship's friends round with the horsewhip. And in the light of what is happening in the UK at present, they probably (and rightly) believed that he would not be punished. The gap between the"highest in the land" and the poorest in the East End was colossal.

Best wishes
C4

I'm inclined to agree on this point. I know of a notorious case, earlier in the 19th Century, where this was shows. In 1815 a servant girl, Elizabeth Fenning, was arrested for attempted murder - she had been making dumplings for the dinner of the family that hired her, and several became sick. Arsenic was found in some of the dumplings. Fenning denied putting it in the dumplings, and no arsenic could be traced to her. She had a good character, but it meant for little at her trial and she was convicted and hanged. Many Londoners believed she was the victim of circumstances or was set up as the fall guy for the attempted murders. Later commentators tend to feel she was innocent as well.

Jeff

[Pierre]

There are lots of references, especially in the older(ish) books to people who knew, or thought they knew who the killer was, so why did they not go to the police with information? If the killer was attached to one of the many vicious criminal gangs which have flourished in the East End since the Middle Ages, when it was called Alsatia, up until the Krays and beyond, perhaps people knew but were too afraid of what the gangs would do to them and their families if they went to the police. Or did they suspect someone from the "ruling classes" and feel that it was hopeless to try to stop them.

It seems to me that living as closely as they did, they must have had some idea of who was responsible. Relations with the police were not of the best. I had a friend who was a district nurse in the area in the 1960s and she often said that she heard things but going to the police would effectively prevent her from continuing with her job, which was an important one for the health of the mothers and children she cared for. There is a long tradition of keeping silent. Would this have hindered the police in their efforts?

Best wishes
C4

No, they didnīt know him. He didnīt live in Whitechapel.

Regards Pierre

[curious4]

No, they didnīt know him. He didnīt live in Whitechapel.

Regards Pierre

Hello Pierre

He didn't have to. There were many visiting the East End, some rented rooms to change their clothes down to something less affluent. The Prince of Wales was one. Then there were the many "slummers" looking for excitement and finally the "Do-gooders".

Best wishes
C4

[RivkahChaya]

Stuff can go on under people's noses, and either for personal protection, they are willfully ignorant, or they really are so wrapped up in their own lives, they don't know what's going on.

Michael Moore once did a segment of his show TV Nation, where he explored the phenomenon of people saying they never suspected a thing, he was so quiet, he seemed nice, etc., when a neighbor is arrested for some horrible crime.

Moore rented a house in a middle class neighborhood, and slowly started doing weirder and weirder things. First, it was the sound of power tools at night, then, he painted half the garage door, and left the other half unpainted, then he started having 50-gallon drums delivered every Monday, and picked up every Friday. He poured stage blood all over a mattress and left it out for trash pick-up. Finally, he started digging up the yard with a back-hoe.

This was over a three or four week period.

Afterwards, the TV crew went and interviewed all they people on the block, who all said they hadn't noticed anything strange going on.

So someone could have been coming with bloody clothes and a pocket full of intestines, while there was screaming in the streets over another horrible murder, and it might be that no one paid any attention whatsoever.

[RockySullivan]

No, they didnīt know him. He didnīt live in Whitechapel.

Regards Pierre

Glad we sorted that out!

[SirJohnFalstaff]

There are lots of references, especially in the older(ish) books to people who knew, or thought they knew who the killer was, so why did they not go to the police with information? If the killer was attached to one of the many vicious criminal gangs which have flourished in the East End since the Middle Ages, when it was called Alsatia, up until the Krays and beyond, perhaps people knew but were too afraid of what the gangs would do to them and their families if they went to the police. Or did they suspect someone from the "ruling classes" and feel that it was hopeless to try to stop them.

It seems to me that living as closely as they did, they must have had some idea of who was responsible. Relations with the police were not of the best. I had a friend who was a district nurse in the area in the 1960s and she often said that she heard things but going to the police would effectively prevent her from continuing with her job, which was an important one for the health of the mothers and children she cared for. There is a long tradition of keeping silent. Would this have hindered the police in their efforts?

Best wishes
C4

I think it's quite possible some people knew who he was, but the truth, surrounded by all the crazy rumours, might have been overlooked.