Ripper victims were caught sleeping?

[phantom]

It's not the Mary Ann Nichols who was murdered. The woman on the right is William Nichols's second wife. The woman on the left is a relative. Standing behind the women is William Nichols on the right. The picture was on the front cover of The Whitechapel Journal a while back and accompanied an article by Andy Parlour, a descendant of the Nichols. I would have thought the copyright was his, it presumably being a family photo.

Thanks for the info Paul much appreciated!

Love your work by the way.
Any new books coming out soon?

Cheers
Jason

[Trevor Marriott]

All alternative possibilities have to be considered, Harry, and I'm sure compassionate coppers let sleeping people lie, but it's the idea that all four women were sleeping in the places they were found that almost everyone who's commented on this theory find it hard to accept. And that the Ripper just stumbled across four sleeping women in out of the way places. And that he stranged sleeping women before cutting their throats. And that Rubenhold claims all the women were lying down when killed. And, of course, that witnesses like Mrs Long, John Chapman, and Albert Cadosch,are not mentioned in Rubenhold's book at all. On balance, the 'nap' theory doesn't seem to be a likely possibility. And whilst it doesn't argue against the victims having been sleeping, Nichols and Chapman were looking for money, which given their options for getting it at that hour of the morning, being found dead in places known to be used by prostitutes is very suggestive.

She clearly has not, or does not want to consider that the reason why none of the victims were heard to scream was that the killer could have been someone skilled in the art of killing by cutting throats without enabling victims to scream i.e a military man or ex military man. But then again they could have emitted muffled screams which no one heard.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Sam Flynn]

Well, the only victims who apparently weren't overheard as they were being murdered were Nichols and Eddowes. However, Eddowes was killed in a remote corner of a largely deserted square, and although Bucks Row was residential, Nichols was slain at the remote end of it, somewhat removed from the houses. In both cases, there is a reasonable probability that any cries simply went unnoticed.

[PaulB]

It's not the Mary Ann Nichols who was murdered. The woman on the right is William Nichols's second wife. The woman on the left is a relative. Standing behind the women is William Nichols on the right. The picture was on the front cover of The Whitechapel Journal a while back and accompanied an article by Andy Parlour, a descendant of the Nichols. I would have thought the copyright was his, it presumably being a family photo.

Thanks for the info Paul much appreciated!

Love your work by the way.
Any new books coming out soon?

Cheers
Jason

Hi Jason, thank you. There is a new edition of the A to Z coming out next year from Mango with co-authors Debs Arif and Sean Crundall.

[PaulB]

She clearly has not, or does not want to consider that the reason why none of the victims were heard to scream was that the killer could have been someone skilled in the art of killing by cutting throats without enabling victims to scream i.e a military man or ex military man. But then again they could have emitted muffled screams which no one heard.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I'm afraid, Trevor, that there is an awful lot that she doesn't want to consider!

[caz]

We have to understand the rational behind the sleeping theory.
It is required as part of the over arching theory that they were not involved in casual prostition..

Their location must be explained away, and if the author is to maintain this illusion that they were not prostitutes, then she MUST exclude them from going to the murder sites with the killer.
Of course she does not mention the head and neck injuries to Polly or Annie, such would expose the sleeping claim for the work of fiction it is.
Therefore, do not even mention it, exclude it, pretend it never happened.

It amounts to intellectual dishonesty and bankruptcy, all this to cash in on current trends, and make a mint while doing it.

The approach of saying they were not prostitutes and therefore were INNOCENT is truly disrespectful of both the victims and prostitutes in general.
It is hardly a real feminist approach at all, just a closed ideological one.

Hi Steve,

In fact, it's like we have travelled back in time to the 70s, when the media made a big thing about some of Peter Sutcliffe's victims not being prostitutes and therefore INNOCENT in comparison. At least they got their facts right about which victims were clearly NOT soliciting!

The feminist approach would surely be to pity all those women in Victorian times [as well as today], and highlight the fact if they were unwillingly dependent - fully or partially - on men's sexual needs for their own financial ones. This author seems to be taking the opposite approach in trying to argue that the ripper's victims were not the victims of men in this way. Well lucky them if that was really the case, but it seems rather doubtful when I look at all the evidence.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

She clearly has not, or does not want to consider that the reason why none of the victims were heard to scream was that the killer could have been someone skilled in the art of killing by cutting throats without enabling victims to scream i.e a military man or ex military man. But then again they could have emitted muffled screams which no one heard.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trev,

An alternative possibility is that if the killer was unable to silence a victim physically before she could cry out, he could have shown her the knife and said: "If you make a sound, you're dead". She might then have hoped he just wanted a freebie.

The idea that they would have screamed if they'd been soliciting is not one the author's better thought out ways of thrusting better morals on the poor dears!

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Indeed the police actually say it is an area known to be used by prostitutes and their clients...
Of course that does not fit the narrative, and while it may be in an official police report, let's just ignore it, rather than try and contest it's accuracy.

Steve

Hi Steve. Do you have a specific citation in mind? I don't recall Helson, Spratling, nor Abberline specifically stating that Bucks Row was a known hot spot for prostitution, but perhaps I missed it. Most Ripper historians merely refer to its 'seclusion' or its proximity to Whitechapel Road. That she was soliciting is not based on any empirical evidence that Buck's Row was Nichols' usual patch, but is based on her activities and statements from earlier in the evening, 'what a jolly bonnet, etc.' Cheers.

[rjpalmer]

The feminist approach would surely be to pity all those women in Victorian times [as well as today], and highlight the fact if they were unwillingly dependent - fully or partially - on men's sexual needs for their own financial ones.
X

I liked the "feminist approach" of Walkowitz and Caputi in discussing the murders, and found their books valuable. But what I think is misguided in the feminist approach is when the author starts yammering about the 'patriarchal society,' when, in reality, the Queen was a woman (as far as I know). Some also utterly ignore the fact that the men of the East End had it as bad, or in some cases, worse than the women. They had no safety net either. Just the other day I was reading of an account of a once fairly well-known actor from the Pavilion Theatre who literally starved to death in Hanbury Street for the want of employment or a few pence. Few would bother to tell his story.

I forget his name off-hand, but sometime back one British criminologist did a study of Victorian convictions, and was able to demonstrate that men very frequently received much harsher sentences than women, even when committing the exact same offense. They received less sympathy. And while I don't have any empirical data, commonsense would dictate that men probably had a harder time than women when it came to begging, nor could they have readily resorted to prostitution, since the demand was less and it was illegal. As I say, l liked the work of some feminist historians, but let's remember that no one had any easy path in Queen Victoria's East London.

[Sam Flynn]

I liked the "feminist approach" of Walkowitz and Caputi in discussing the murders, and found their books valuable.

Likewise, Roger. I haven't read Caputi, but I certainly enjoyed Walkowitz's City of Dreadful Delight and Prostitution & Victorian Society a great deal. Both books succeed in being rigorously researched, informative and extremely well-written, without being in the least bit preachy.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Gareth. Yes, Walkowitz is excellent. Jane Caputi's book The Age of Sex Crime is more militant; it's an older book and not about the Ripper per se, but explores the apparent rise in crimes of this sort and discussed the 'sexualization' of women. She found some strange and interesting sources for her arguments.

Returning to Buck's Row, it is true that it would be mighty strange to sleep in front of the gates, but it's not exactly an ideal spot to fornicate, either. I've always assumed that Polly was trying to gain entry into the stables, but whether to 'hit the hay' or to 'roll in the hay' I cannot say, though I have my suspicions.

[jmenges]

Hi Steve. Do you have a specific citation in mind? I don't recall Helson, Spratling, nor Abberline specifically stating that Bucks Row was a known hot spot for prostitution, but perhaps I missed it.

One could be Emma Green, who when asked if there were "bad women" in the neighbourhood said that "Often women come by, but I don't believe there is a disorderly house in Buck's row."

JM

[rjpalmer]

Thanks, JM.

Mrs. Green's statement is valuable, but of course the original comment was that Rubenhold had ignored "official police statements." This made me prick up my ears, because 2 or 3 years ago I tried to find any specific police references to Buck's Row being a resort of prostitution and couldn't find any. Perhaps it exists and I missed it. And even if it doesn't exist, it doesn't mean that Nichols wasn't attempting to use the street for that purpose.

I imagine the area in front of the train station was well-lighted at night and may have been a popular pick-up spot, but I'd be happier if I could find some actual contemporary reference to it. The "evidence," if one can even call it that, is all indirect.

[Simon Wood]

Inspector Abberline, 19th September 1888 report—

"Bucks Row is a narrow quiet thoroughfare frequented by prostitutes for immoral purposes at night . . ."

A week after Polly’s murder two reporters from the Evening News spent the morning hours, from 1.00 to 11.00 am, watching Buck’s Row.

"[Buck's Row] is in every sense thoroughly respectable, every tenant being an old inhabitant, and of good class. In addition to well-to-do artisans, the row contains a mission hall, the factory of Messrs. Schneider and Sons, and the factories and warehouses of Messrs. Torr, and Browne and Eagle, together with the private residence of the Rev. Henry North Hall, the curate of St. Mary, Whitechapel."

[Sam Flynn]

A week after Polly’s murder two reporters from the Evening News spent the morning hours, from 1.00 to 11.00 am, watching Buck’s Row.

Perhaps their conclusions would have been more definitive if they'd observed what went on in Bucks Row before the Ripper murders.