I need your help...

[Parker_Pyne79]

Hey guys,

So basically, I am going to start writing a short, non-fiction book about eight Victorian era murders, and I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me. As I said it won't be long, I just need some help with what to include, how to get info e.t.c.

Many Thanks,

Parker Pyne

[ChrisGeorge]

Hey guys,

So basically, I am going to start writing a short, non-fiction book about eight Victorian era murders, and I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me. As I said it won't be long, I just need some help with what to include, how to get info e.t.c.

Many Thanks,

Parker Pyne

Send me an email at editorctrip@yahoo.com

Cheers

Chris

[GUT]

If Christopher is offering help.

Take it.

Best advice I can give you.

[Ginger]

Hey guys,

So basically, I am going to start writing a short, non-fiction book about eight Victorian era murders, and I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me. As I said it won't be long, I just need some help with what to include, how to get info e.t.c.

Many Thanks,

Parker Pyne

Hey guy;

One of the more horrible murders of that or any age, and one which I think holds fascination to this day, is that of Miriam Angel by Israel Lipski, on June 28th, 1887. The poor woman was murdered by being forced to drink nitric acid, and all of the circumstantial evidence pointed toward Lipski. Problematically, though, he had no obvious motive for such an inhuman deed of cruelty, so that many felt that the case against him could not be proven. The case fascinated and divided London, and then the Anglophone world, with many of Lipski's defenders believing that he was being scapegoated because he was a German Jew. He eventually confessed after being convicted.

This is the case that gives significance to the cry of "Lipski", the Goulston Street graffito, and the recurring suspicions voiced against Jews and foreigners during the Ripper murders.

The Southland Times, of Invercargill, New Zealand, has a nicely detailed account in their issue 9645, published October 11th, 1887:


LONDON, Aug. 10. 1887

On the strength of purely circumstantial evidence, which was yet so clear and conclusive as to leave no doubt on the minds of Mr. Justice Stephen and a special jury, a young German Jew named Lipski has been convicted of and sentenced to death for a particularly ghastly and atrocious murder. Judging from appearances merely, Lipski would seem the very last person likely to commit such a crime. The papers describe him as a mild-looking, open-faced, young fellow of twenty-two, and the character he bore with friends and neighbours was excellent. The story of the affair is as follows: -

Israel Lipski

“The prisoner and his victim (a young married woman named Miriam Angel) lived in the same house in Batty Street, Whitechapel, Lipski occupying a top back room, where he carried on the trade of a manufacturer of walking sticks, having a man and a boy as his assistants. On the morning of the 28th of June the husband of Miriam Angel rose at six, and went to work, leaving his wife in bed. At seven o’clock Lipski let into the house the boy who worked for him, and then went out himself to make some purchases. Among these was an ounce of nitric acid or aquafortis, which he procured from an oilman in Backchurch lane. About nine o’clock Lipski asked his landlady to fetch him some coffee, it was duly brought but Lipski was not in his room, and on the landlady calling upstairs to him the boy replied that his master was not there. The theory of the prosecution was that just about this time Lipski had entered the room where Miriam Angel was in bed. About eleven in the forenoon the people of the house began to be uneasy about Mrs. Angel, who usually came down between eight and nine. Soon afterwards the handle of the door was tried, and it was found to be locked on the inside. The door was burst open, and the woman was found lying dead on the bed. A medical man, who was at once sent for, deposed that when he was called Miriam Angel had been dead about three hours. There was no rigor mortis. She was without clothes, and her hair was dishevelled; there were stains of nitric acid on her mouth, her face, her breasts, and her hands, which were covered by the burning fluid. The right eye was discoloured, and over the right temple was a patch of extravasated blood, where the muscle had been reduced to a pulp by the infliction of (the doctor held) at fewest four violent blows. Stepping over the corpse and looking down between the bed and the wall, in search of the bottle of poison which he naturally thought must be somewhere about, the medical man espied Israel Lipski lying in his shirt sleeves on his back, partially under the bed. He was unconscious, but on the doctor hitting him a smart slap on the face he opened his eyes wide. The police took him towards a window, and it was then seen that his lips were stained with nitric acid. He was asked in English and German what he had taken, but he made no reply. He was removed to the hospital, but, as from the first he had been the object of suspicion, the police never left him until he was formally charged with the murder, and a constable in plain clothes sat by his bedside day and night until he was convalescent. Meanwhile a post-mortem examination of the remains of Miriam Angel had been made. It was found that the back of the throat was charred, and that a considerable quantity of nitric acid had gone down through the larynx and the trachea into the stomach, indicating that it had been poured down the throat while the victim was in a state of insensibility. But how, it may be asked, did she become insensible? The doctor was of opinion that the four blows on the temple had been fully sufficient to stun the deceased young woman, and that it was not until she was stunned that the poison had been administered to her. It was estimated that half an ounce of aquafortis had been given to her, and that the immediate cause of death was suffocation by the acid going down the windpipe and closing the air passage. As regard Lipski, the medical evidence was to the effect that he had taken scarcely enough aquafortis to produce unconsciousness, but that the state of syncope was the result of mental perturbation. In fine, the hypothesis of the prosecution amounted to this: that there was a small window commanding a view of Mrs. Angel’s room; that the murderer, whoever he was, had seen Mrs. Angel in bed from that window; that he came downstairs and entered her room for an immoral purpose; that, foiled in his design, he dealt his victim the blows which had produced insensibility, and that he then poisoned her, and ultimately, frenzied by horror, remorse and shame, endeavoured to commit suicide himself. The bottle which had contained the nitric acid was found; but it is not known whether the key was in the door, which was found to be locked inside. If the key was there, there can be no possible doubt as to Israel Lipski having been the murderer of Miriam Angel. The assistant to the oilman in Backchurch lane swore that, to the best of his belief, the man who on the morning of the 28th June purchased from him a pennyworth of aquafortis was Israel Lipski, who explained that he wanted the stuff for the purpose of staining canes, and that the oilman’s assistant warned him that the acid was poisonous. This explanation was as feasible as it would have been had Lipski said at the oilshop that he was a copperplate engraver, and that he required the aquafortis to bite in a plate withal. But what did he want in Miriam Angel’s bedroom in his shirt sleeves and with a bottle of aquafortis upon him; and, if the key were in the lock of the door which was found to be fastened on the inside, who on earth except Israel Lipski could possibly have committed the murder? Stains of nitric acid were found on his coat, and, singularly enough, there were acid marks on the clothes of Miriam Angel’s husband; but these marks, it was suggested, might have been caused by their having come in contact with the coat referred to. How did they come in contact? One of the most damaging features of the evidence against Lipski is the falsehood he told about having had a sovereign in his pocket on the morning of the murder, when it was conclusively proved that when arrested he only had a few shillings from his landlady. Next in importance in the array of facts marshalled against Lipski, was his own extravagant and incredible version of the affair. It was Inspector Final, of the Metropolitan Police, who was on duty at the Leman Street Station when Lipski was brought in on the morning of the murder partially insensible, and it was this official who found in his pocket only three shillings in silver and a pawn-ticket. The Inspector visited Lipski at the hospital, where the prisoner made, through an interpreter, the statement that at seven in the morning of the 20th a man who had worked for him came to him and asked for employment, and that he told this person to wait until he had bought a vyce for use at his labour. He added that the tool-shop where he meant to buy the vyce was still closed; that as he was going along he met another German workman, whom he knew, at the corner of Backchurch lane; he then returned to the tool shop, which by this time was open, but he could not agree with the shopkeeper as to the price of the vyce, and came away without it. On his way home he again met the man whom he had seen at the top of Backchurch lane, and who also asked him for work. Lipski told this man that he was going to have his breakfast, but bade him come along a little later on to the workshop, when he promised to engage him. He returned to Batty street and asked the landlady to make him some coffee, and while it was being made he despatched the first man who had called on him at seven for some brandy. Down to this point Lipski’s statement is plain sailing enough, but now comes the extraordinary and incredible portion of the narrative. He stated that, coming upstairs to the first floor, the man who had been sent for the brandy, and the man from Backchurch lane, were opening a box in Mrs. Angel’s bedroom; that they seized him by the neck, threw him to the ground, forced open his mouth, poured poison down his throat, saying mockingly “There is your brandy.” Then they asked him whether he had any money, and he replied that he had nothing but the sovereign which he had given the first man to buy brandy with. “Where,” they proceeded to ask him, “was his gold watch?” He replied that it was in pawn, and indeed a pawn ticket for a watch was found in his coat pocket. They threatened him that if he did not give them the watch he would soon be as dead as the woman on the bed, meaning Miriam Angel, and according to his showing they crammed a piece of wood between his teeth to serve as a gag, knelt on his chest, and at last threw him under the bed, where he lay unconscious. It is but fair to the wretched man now in the condemned cell at Newgate to mention that Mr. Calvert, the honorary physician at the London Hospital, found on examining Lipski that there was an abrasion in the inside of his mouth, indicating that some foreign substance had been thrust in; but Dr. Redmayne, who had used the stomach pump on Lipski, said that the abrasion might have been caused by the instrument in question. Did he struggle while the stomach pump was being used? All that the defence could urge was that, although Miriam Angel had undeniably been killed by nitric acid, there was not sufficient evidence to show that Lipski was the man who bought the pennyworth of corrosive fluid on the morning of the murder, and there was an entire absence of motive so far as Lipski was concerned for the commission of so horrible a crime. The jury, however, took the view shadowed forth in his summing up by Mr. Justice Stephen; that the murderer of Miriam Angel entered her room under the influence of unlawful passion; that, baulked in his design, his passion turned to homicidal fury; and that in a reaction of shame and terror he had taken a dose of the same poison that he had given to his victim. If this theory was probable, continued the learned judge, the murder was much more likely to have been the work of one man than of two. So the jury thought; and they found that the one man was Israel Lipski, and that he was guilty of the cruel murder of Miriam Angel.”

Strange to say Lipski’s counsel was convinced that the condemned man was innocent and exerted himself to obtain evidence to prove him so. So urgent was he that the Home Secretary respited Lipski for a week in order to give his solicitor time to bring proof. Lipski, however, confessed that he did the deed before the week was out and was therefore executed. It was supposed that he must have surprised his victim asleep as she was a young woman of robust physique and more than a match for the puny wretch in a fair struggle.

[Parker_Pyne79]

I sent him an e-mail but he still hasn't replied?

[GUT]

I sent him an e-mail but he still hasn't replied?

Give him time, there are often problems when you are talking with people from all round the world, with time zones.

[Pcdunn]

Ginger, thanks for the account of the Lipski case, it was very interesting, and not one I've read before (though of course I have encountered his name in the course of reading about the Stride murder). Interesting how he tried to make himself the victim, but later ended up confessing to being the culprit. Interesting, too, how willing the Victorian jury were to put it down to animal passion, followed by guilt and shame. Sort of sums up that repressed age, doesn't it?

[Mayerling]

Ginger, thanks for the account of the Lipski case, it was very interesting, and not one I've read before (though of course I have encountered his name in the course of reading about the Stride murder). Interesting how he tried to make himself the victim, but later ended up confessing to being the culprit. Interesting, too, how willing the Victorian jury were to put it down to animal passion, followed by guilt and shame. Sort of sums up that repressed age, doesn't it?

Hi Pat and Ginger,

May I suggest you both read "The Trials of Israel Lipski" by Justice Martin Friedland of Canada, which was written back in the 1980s. Friedland did a thorough study of the case, and decided that the guilt of Lipski has still never been satisfactorily proven. His confession may have been "spiritually extorted" from him by a Rabbi who was trying to make Israel aware of the growing wave of open anti-Semitism in the East End of London due to his not being hanged after being convicted (the anti-Semites not caring about their own apparent dual standards, as Miriam Angel, the victim, was also Jewish). Israel may have sacrificed himself to return the area to a status quo situation, rather than allowing the bigots to say he was a Jew, so he got away with murder (etc.).

Israel (who was Polish in his background) was not in England very long, and his grasp of English poor at best. His defense team in court was "questionable". Aeneas MacKintyre, the lead barrister, was not involved in criminal cases but in commercial ones, and the junior barrister, Gerald Geoghegan, although when in command of himself was a good criminal lawyer, was beginning to go to seed due to a drinking problem, strangely enough due to feelings of guilt if he did not win acquittal or a non-death sentence (he would last a few more years, and would defend Dr. Thomas Neill Cream in 1892, and be one of the barristers arguing before the Privy Council for Frederick Deeming's death sentence to be delayed in the same year - but he would die, a possible suicide, in 1902).

Finally, Israel's biggest supporter was a strong one, but a questionable one - William T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. After his successful campaign against child prostitution (the "Maiden Tribute to Babylon" in 1884-85) Stead had to spend some months in prison due to his going the extra mile for his story and purchasing a child from it's parents for the proposed sex. He never really forgave the establishment for this jolt to his reputation (he purchased the prison uniform from the government, and every year on the anniversary of his incarceration beginning he'd wear the outfit througthout London going to and coming home from work!). Stead came away with a contempt for government laws and rules, and in the next few years began a campaign of what he termed reform. First was the Langworthy Divorce Case of 1886-87 where Mrs. Langworthy had no recourse to the law due to the selfish behavior of her husband Edward Langworthy, in defeating any attempts to bring the case regarding alimony to civil court. In this effort Stead succeeded, and he got Mrs. Langworthy her divorce with a large alimony amount. Then the Lipski Case came up, and Stead decided to go after a capital crime sentence.

As mentioned there were problems with Lipski's defense, and the so-called successful prosecution case hinged on the victim and defendant were both found in the locked room together, but it ignored that if Israel did kill Miriam, why didn't he try to leave the room? He was found under the bed, and he had been apparently trying to commit suicide with some of the remaining poison (nitric acid). The scenario did not make sense.

So Stead had some points to work with. Also, when Israel spoke to Polish speaking people who did speak English, he mentioned some men who forced him into the room, and had left him and Miriam in it as found. This point was not fully developed by the defense team. So when Home Secretary Matthews and Mr Justice Sir James Fitzjames Stephen reviewed the facts, they also had interogatories of questions given the two men who Israel had fingered. Stephen and Matthews actually had serious doubts now, and felt like reducing the sentence to life imprisonment, but then came word about Israel's confession, so they did not have to (but both men were dismayed about how close they came to changing the sentence).

Stead's involvement annoyed the Home Secretary and the trial judge, both of whom saw the journalist as a pushy attention getter (which he was). Stead was also (in actuality) an anti-Semite, and later blamed the failure of his involvement (indeed his involvement at all) on Israel, whom he termed a lying Jew. There is some evidence to suspect that Stead was hoping to change British law (in the wake of the Maiden Tribute and Langworthy successes, and the attempt with Israel) to a kind of public opinion appeal process, "trial by newspaper"! Maybe - I would not put it past Stead. Later on he would equally help sway public opinion against Charles Stewart Parnell over the O'Shea Divorce/Adultery issue, and against Oscar Wilde in 1895. Many admire Stead's advancements in reportage of the news (he was one of the first to use the personal interview with a news subject). I always found him a self-righteous, self-centered creep.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hey guys,

So basically, I am going to start writing a short, non-fiction book about eight Victorian era murders, and I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me. As I said it won't be long, I just need some help with what to include, how to get info e.t.c.

Many Thanks,

Parker Pyne

Hi Parker,

I can only suggest reading classic true crime collections by the master writers: William Roughead, Edmund Pearson, F. Tennyson Jesse, William Bolitho, Jack Smith-Hughes, Guy Logan, Geoffrey Dilnot, Charles Kingston. They give you an idea about how to write such accounts, and the first five on this list were quite erudite, even including bibliographies (they wrote from about 1914 to 1955 or so). I still like to read their accounts of crimes every now and then.

Jeff