Originally posted by Phil H
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I don't think it's an alternative reading. It is the reading.
'Wages of sin' is an expression as opposed to literal financial gain.
The equivalent would be someone saying: 'living off the fat of the land" and meaning living comfortably rather than eating fat off the land.
It's an idiom.
The other thing that doesn't tally with Le Grand is this from Balfour:
The man was believed by all who knew him, and who knew the criminal classes, to be the most likely man in all England to commit such atrocities.
Except the detective agencies and the like which hired him? Taking Balfour at his word, evidently these people were hiring someone who they believed to be Jack The Ripper to snare Jack The Ripper.
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