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Thompson had been homeless for the three year prior to the murders. As to his appearance, just before the murders, Thompson came to money intermittently, three or four times, in his vagrancy years. A recent sum came from his publisher in September 1888. His publisher, seeing Thompson’s derelict condition of dress told him to clean himself up and buy a new suit with his money. His publisher, Wilfrid Meynell also paid Thompson’s opium debts. Thompson used the money to buy a suit, a long dark overcoat, and a wide felt hat. During the murders he received another sum of money. The payment by Meynell was for a further essay by Thompson for the publisher’s magazine. Thompson’s essay came out November 1888 edition. Thompson was his typical, calculating self, when he wrote, in this essay, on the eve of the Kelly murder,
'He had better seek some critic who will lay his subject on the table, nick out every nerve of thought, every vessel of emotion, every muscle of expression with light, cool, fastidious scalpel and then call on him to admire the "neat dissection"'
Thompson’s mind was stable enough in 1888 to form a relationship with a publisher and write and deliver sophisticated essays, which were remarkable in the range of writers, and poets he referenced, purely from memory, including lengthy word-for-word quotes.
When Thompson saw in 1888, prior to the Ripper murders, that his poems were published, it gave him renewed hope that he could escape the streets. It may have given him the impetus to no longer take laudanum. We know that Thompson was essentially free of the drug in the years immediately after November, when Meynell put him the monastery. Not only the use of laudanum but also its withdrawal holds side affects. An abrupt withdrawal, after long-term usage, causes hyperaesthesia. This is when the former addict's senses become highly receptive. Noises become intensified and even the skin becomes highly sensitive to touch. Other symptoms attributed to abrupt withdrawal are an increased sex drive, nightmares and hallucinations of smell and disturbances of vision. In withdrawing from long-term opium use, physical symptoms can last for weeks with mental symptoms lasting indefinitely. Thompson, during the murders had new clothes, had withdrawn from opium, and had coins in his pocket. He also had charming news of becoming a published poet. Could he have lured a prostitute who was otherwise expecting the Ripper to be a big hulking butcher or foreign sailor? I think so.
'He had better seek some critic who will lay his subject on the table, nick out every nerve of thought, every vessel of emotion, every muscle of expression with light, cool, fastidious scalpel and then call on him to admire the "neat dissection"'
Thompson’s mind was stable enough in 1888 to form a relationship with a publisher and write and deliver sophisticated essays, which were remarkable in the range of writers, and poets he referenced, purely from memory, including lengthy word-for-word quotes.
When Thompson saw in 1888, prior to the Ripper murders, that his poems were published, it gave him renewed hope that he could escape the streets. It may have given him the impetus to no longer take laudanum. We know that Thompson was essentially free of the drug in the years immediately after November, when Meynell put him the monastery. Not only the use of laudanum but also its withdrawal holds side affects. An abrupt withdrawal, after long-term usage, causes hyperaesthesia. This is when the former addict's senses become highly receptive. Noises become intensified and even the skin becomes highly sensitive to touch. Other symptoms attributed to abrupt withdrawal are an increased sex drive, nightmares and hallucinations of smell and disturbances of vision. In withdrawing from long-term opium use, physical symptoms can last for weeks with mental symptoms lasting indefinitely. Thompson, during the murders had new clothes, had withdrawn from opium, and had coins in his pocket. He also had charming news of becoming a published poet. Could he have lured a prostitute who was otherwise expecting the Ripper to be a big hulking butcher or foreign sailor? I think so.