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Robert McLaughlin has very kindly supplied me with the Kit Watkins article from 1892 which is below, detailing her visit to some of the murder sites
Toronto Mail
27 February 1891
The Leadenhall Market just across the way was a pleasant place to saunter in. There were rows upon rows of black game, trays of snipe and strings of ptarmigan. In the fruit stalls were great strawberries, shiny chestnuts and pineapples arranged in semicircular rows. The fishmongers display.... as large as little apples; baskets of round, plated huge salmon, and fat turbot, and piles of black soles; and as for the poultry shops, with the chickens and turkeys all dressed and ready for the spit, they were a wonderful sight. But it was getting late and we wanted to go down Whitechapel way, so we took a bus and soon were jolting down the main road.
The change in the streets and people was wonderful. Here, as we walked up through the courts and slums made so infamously famous by that wretched murderer of wretched women, one could see on every side the depraved, vicious faces, the skulking walk, the suspicious eyes and retreating forehead and chin that betoken, if not crime, at least fatal weakness. We passed through Buck's Row, where one unfortunate was done to death, and went up Hanbury Street; a foul, stinking neighbourhood, where the children are stunted little creatures with vicious faces, old features, and where the women's faces would frighten one far more than would the worst specimen of man I have ever seen. Here you go through a cat's meat shop, and come into a narrow yard, in one corner of which another wretched victim was found murdered. But the most fearful of all these fearful places is Dorset Street, Spitalfields, where, in a dismal court, the entrance to which is so narroe that but one can pass at a time, the woman Kelly was so terribly butchered some years ago. Murder broods over the place. A woman who is a called "Lottie" lives in the room where the crime was committed, a dark, narrow room opening on the court, with no communication with the upstairs part of the tenement house. "I was her friend," said Lottie, speaking with difficulty because of a broken and battered nose given her by a kick from her husband's heavy boot, "and two nights before the murder she came to my room. I was living farther up the court then, and 'Lottie,' says she, 'I'm afraid to be alone tonight because of a dream I had that a man was murdering me. Maybe I'd be the next.' She said it with such a laugh, ma'am, that it just made me creep - 'they say Jack's busy again down this quarter,' and sure enough, ma'am, she was the next. I heard her through the night singing - she had a nice voice - 'The violets that grow on mother's grave' - but that was all we 'urd."
The woman seemed to have no repugnance to sleeping in the room, although the black stains on the walls, and the mark of a man's head near the window, were gruesome sights. She began a graphic description of the murdered woman's appearance, but we stopped her. Other women began to gather presently, and they grew voluble and seemed to gloat over the hideous details like birds of prey. They had hard, hard faces with an evil look on them - the demands for money for beer, the curses, profane language, jokes about the awful fiend who had done his deadly work there; the miserable, shrewd faced children listening eagerly - it was all horrible beyond expression. There was a sort of apathetic, matter of fact wickedness about the women that had a fearful aspect. There was no flaunting, no sign of feeling because so many of their number had met with dreadful deaths. There was only a dull, everyday sort of expression of immorality on their faces and in their manners, as though such things as vice and murder were common matters and to be expected at any time, that was inexpressibly shocking. The only sign of feeling shown was when the beer appeared, and they all clustered greedily round to drink it. Gladly we made our way from that wretched court and went up the street past the crowded gin shop at the corner, which was filled with "gay" women and vicious men, and awful child faces. We watched a woman with a wan baby in her arms take off its miserable underskirt, leaving it in a thin cotton wrapper, its poor shoes and ragged socks, and cross hurriedly to the pawnbrokers opposite. "Maybe she is hungry," said my friend, as she fumbled in her cloak pocket for stray pennies: "let us wait a minute." She came out, the wretched, shivering baby crying with cold and want, and with the few halfpence she got for the child's things, she went into the public house and called for drink. It was a dreadful, dreadful sight, and will give a feeble picture of the misery and want caused by the demon drink.
Further up we saw a comical little boy,a dirty, ragged little "Sheeny," standing gravely before a big looking glass which had just been unpacked and was standing outside a second hand dealer's shop, and washing his face by spitting on a filthy handkerchief, and rubbing the same all over his cheeks and nose and eyes. "Oh, such a dirty little boy as never yet was seen." Sure enough he was, and a comical imp too, for when he had finished "cleaning himself" he began to dance slowly, a sort of Spitalfields can-can, until one very high kick sent him flying backwards into a gutter. An old woman sat on a doorstep opposite Spitalfields Church, and never shall we forget her face. You could trace her whole history in it. She had been pretty once, and then no doubt there was the gay life on the Strand, and about the clubs - at the Argyll Rooms, perhaps, when that place was flourishing - the theatre suppers and champagne; the gradual descent to Leicester Square, and tripe suppers with hot gin and water; then citywards and eastwards to Liverpool Street, and finally here she is, old, ugly, repulsive; her features coarsened by drink and debauchery, yet with an awful despair on them; the mouth, thin lipped and drawn; the eyes sunken and bleared, with reddened lips without eyelashes; the cunning, vicious soul looking out greedily, suspiciously, at every one; the hungry, bird of prey peaked nose, that once had been a beautiful aquiline; the despairing droop of the shrunken figure, the entreaty for money to "buy a dram" as we passed; the envious clutching and feeling of one's dress. "You're rich ladies. I was once like you, Help a poor old body, do 'ee now." It was the picture of the end of a shameless and degraded woman, with, through it all, the mark of the purity that should have been hers, the mark of her sex, for all she seemed a sexless thing; something that told us she had been a mother; the mark of womanhood, degraded indeed, and fallen, but still womanhood, made a sight one shall not soon forget.
But let us leave these dreadful places forever, and turn to the healthy, bright, busy streets again, and try to shake off the feeling of horror and dismay that oppresses one. We go on and on, till here we are in pleasant Cheapside again, and there, straight before us, is s shining sign with "Dombey & Son, Tailors" on it, and we laugh and talk of pompous old Mr. Dombey, and peep in and wonder which is "Son" and if ever he had a Pipchin to take care of him when he was young; and we pass old Bow Church and wait to hear the bells, which tell us to take a hansom and drive as fast as we can to the "Lyric" to see the Mountebanks. So we go and spend a very pleasant evening indeed, and wonder why people enjoy the play better when they are sucking oranges, and why it is that you see so many Gamp-like women in London, for you foolishly thought that class was quite extinct - and as the play goes on you laugh with the rest, and forget there are such dark and fearful places as Whitechapel, and yet as you go home hungry to supper, you acknowledge to yourself that of all the proverbs that have ever been handed down, surely the truest and oldest must be "One half of the world doesn't know how the other half lives." No, nor how it dies either.
Toronto Mail
27 February 1891
The Leadenhall Market just across the way was a pleasant place to saunter in. There were rows upon rows of black game, trays of snipe and strings of ptarmigan. In the fruit stalls were great strawberries, shiny chestnuts and pineapples arranged in semicircular rows. The fishmongers display.... as large as little apples; baskets of round, plated huge salmon, and fat turbot, and piles of black soles; and as for the poultry shops, with the chickens and turkeys all dressed and ready for the spit, they were a wonderful sight. But it was getting late and we wanted to go down Whitechapel way, so we took a bus and soon were jolting down the main road.
The change in the streets and people was wonderful. Here, as we walked up through the courts and slums made so infamously famous by that wretched murderer of wretched women, one could see on every side the depraved, vicious faces, the skulking walk, the suspicious eyes and retreating forehead and chin that betoken, if not crime, at least fatal weakness. We passed through Buck's Row, where one unfortunate was done to death, and went up Hanbury Street; a foul, stinking neighbourhood, where the children are stunted little creatures with vicious faces, old features, and where the women's faces would frighten one far more than would the worst specimen of man I have ever seen. Here you go through a cat's meat shop, and come into a narrow yard, in one corner of which another wretched victim was found murdered. But the most fearful of all these fearful places is Dorset Street, Spitalfields, where, in a dismal court, the entrance to which is so narroe that but one can pass at a time, the woman Kelly was so terribly butchered some years ago. Murder broods over the place. A woman who is a called "Lottie" lives in the room where the crime was committed, a dark, narrow room opening on the court, with no communication with the upstairs part of the tenement house. "I was her friend," said Lottie, speaking with difficulty because of a broken and battered nose given her by a kick from her husband's heavy boot, "and two nights before the murder she came to my room. I was living farther up the court then, and 'Lottie,' says she, 'I'm afraid to be alone tonight because of a dream I had that a man was murdering me. Maybe I'd be the next.' She said it with such a laugh, ma'am, that it just made me creep - 'they say Jack's busy again down this quarter,' and sure enough, ma'am, she was the next. I heard her through the night singing - she had a nice voice - 'The violets that grow on mother's grave' - but that was all we 'urd."
The woman seemed to have no repugnance to sleeping in the room, although the black stains on the walls, and the mark of a man's head near the window, were gruesome sights. She began a graphic description of the murdered woman's appearance, but we stopped her. Other women began to gather presently, and they grew voluble and seemed to gloat over the hideous details like birds of prey. They had hard, hard faces with an evil look on them - the demands for money for beer, the curses, profane language, jokes about the awful fiend who had done his deadly work there; the miserable, shrewd faced children listening eagerly - it was all horrible beyond expression. There was a sort of apathetic, matter of fact wickedness about the women that had a fearful aspect. There was no flaunting, no sign of feeling because so many of their number had met with dreadful deaths. There was only a dull, everyday sort of expression of immorality on their faces and in their manners, as though such things as vice and murder were common matters and to be expected at any time, that was inexpressibly shocking. The only sign of feeling shown was when the beer appeared, and they all clustered greedily round to drink it. Gladly we made our way from that wretched court and went up the street past the crowded gin shop at the corner, which was filled with "gay" women and vicious men, and awful child faces. We watched a woman with a wan baby in her arms take off its miserable underskirt, leaving it in a thin cotton wrapper, its poor shoes and ragged socks, and cross hurriedly to the pawnbrokers opposite. "Maybe she is hungry," said my friend, as she fumbled in her cloak pocket for stray pennies: "let us wait a minute." She came out, the wretched, shivering baby crying with cold and want, and with the few halfpence she got for the child's things, she went into the public house and called for drink. It was a dreadful, dreadful sight, and will give a feeble picture of the misery and want caused by the demon drink.
Further up we saw a comical little boy,a dirty, ragged little "Sheeny," standing gravely before a big looking glass which had just been unpacked and was standing outside a second hand dealer's shop, and washing his face by spitting on a filthy handkerchief, and rubbing the same all over his cheeks and nose and eyes. "Oh, such a dirty little boy as never yet was seen." Sure enough he was, and a comical imp too, for when he had finished "cleaning himself" he began to dance slowly, a sort of Spitalfields can-can, until one very high kick sent him flying backwards into a gutter. An old woman sat on a doorstep opposite Spitalfields Church, and never shall we forget her face. You could trace her whole history in it. She had been pretty once, and then no doubt there was the gay life on the Strand, and about the clubs - at the Argyll Rooms, perhaps, when that place was flourishing - the theatre suppers and champagne; the gradual descent to Leicester Square, and tripe suppers with hot gin and water; then citywards and eastwards to Liverpool Street, and finally here she is, old, ugly, repulsive; her features coarsened by drink and debauchery, yet with an awful despair on them; the mouth, thin lipped and drawn; the eyes sunken and bleared, with reddened lips without eyelashes; the cunning, vicious soul looking out greedily, suspiciously, at every one; the hungry, bird of prey peaked nose, that once had been a beautiful aquiline; the despairing droop of the shrunken figure, the entreaty for money to "buy a dram" as we passed; the envious clutching and feeling of one's dress. "You're rich ladies. I was once like you, Help a poor old body, do 'ee now." It was the picture of the end of a shameless and degraded woman, with, through it all, the mark of the purity that should have been hers, the mark of her sex, for all she seemed a sexless thing; something that told us she had been a mother; the mark of womanhood, degraded indeed, and fallen, but still womanhood, made a sight one shall not soon forget.
But let us leave these dreadful places forever, and turn to the healthy, bright, busy streets again, and try to shake off the feeling of horror and dismay that oppresses one. We go on and on, till here we are in pleasant Cheapside again, and there, straight before us, is s shining sign with "Dombey & Son, Tailors" on it, and we laugh and talk of pompous old Mr. Dombey, and peep in and wonder which is "Son" and if ever he had a Pipchin to take care of him when he was young; and we pass old Bow Church and wait to hear the bells, which tell us to take a hansom and drive as fast as we can to the "Lyric" to see the Mountebanks. So we go and spend a very pleasant evening indeed, and wonder why people enjoy the play better when they are sucking oranges, and why it is that you see so many Gamp-like women in London, for you foolishly thought that class was quite extinct - and as the play goes on you laugh with the rest, and forget there are such dark and fearful places as Whitechapel, and yet as you go home hungry to supper, you acknowledge to yourself that of all the proverbs that have ever been handed down, surely the truest and oldest must be "One half of the world doesn't know how the other half lives." No, nor how it dies either.
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