Ripperologist 130: February 2013

[mklhawley]

I just wanted to pop my head in to praise the Waxworks article.

This peculiar establishment is regularly mentioned in Ripper books, as a way of indicating how the crimes grabbed attention at the time. It's almost become a stock line, one which we may skim over.

This article shed an interesting light on the subject. It was wonderfully researched and presented in a thoroughly entertaining way.

In the absence of blockbuster articles presenting brand new and startling research (which are - by their nature - rare), this is exactly the sort of article I love to read.

DavidGB

Thanks David,

Now when people are on the Ripper tour, enroute to the Nichols murder scene and walk by the MacDonalds on Whitechapel Road, they can say, "That's where the Chamber of Horrors wax museum was that immortalized six of the Ripper murders sometimes only hours after the poor unfortunate was murdered." and then go in an have a McFlurry.

I was surprised to find out the the Parisian murderer of 1887, Henri Pranzini, who murdered the three women by cutting their throats and mutilating their body, was one of the main attractions of the waxworks.

Sincerely,

Mike

[ChrisGeorge]

Thanks David,

Now when people are on the Ripper tour, enroute to the Nichols murder scene and walk by the MacDonalds on Whitechapel Road, they can say, "That's where the Chamber of Horrors wax museum was that immortalized six of the Ripper murders sometimes only hours after the poor unfortunate was murdered." and then go in an have a McFlurry.

I was surprised to find out the the Parisian murderer of 1887, Henri Pranzini, who murdered the three women by cutting their throats and mutilating their body, was one of the main attractions of the waxworks.

Sincerely,

Mike

Hi Mike

I also found to be interesting your discussion of the Pranzini exhibit in the 1888 Whitechapel Road waxworks show as a possible inspiration for the Ripper in his ghoulish "work", and the possible parallel that a wax museum might have provided an incentive for the murder spree of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. A question that is not unincidentally reminiscent of today's debate about the extent to which violent movies and video games inspire bloodletting in our day.

Best regards

Chris

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike

I also found to be interesting your discussion of the Pranzini exhibit in the 1888 Whitechapel Road waxworks show as a possible inspiration for the Ripper in his ghoulish "work", and the possible parallel that a wax museum might have provided an incentive for the murder spree of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. A question that is not unincidentally reminiscent of today's debate about the extent to which violent movies and video games inspire bloodletting in our day.

Best regards

Chris

By the way Chris, your blog was very helpful. If anyone has not seen it, it is a wealth of information. Thank you.

Also, to Howard at JtRForums: Thank you for the kind words.

[Phil H]

Can I add my heartfelt congratulations to Scott Nelson on his artlcle on David Cohen.

I have just read it through and iIfind it stimulating and fascinating. It needs and deserves much deeper study which I will give it.

It brings together a number of known strands (Anderson, Swanson, Sangar and Cox), without inconsistency, simply and credibly. It makes no huge logical jumps, despite containing a good deal of (proper and well-done) speculation and conjecture. It even goes some way towards confirming Martin Fido's conjectures of 25 years ago. I am almost as excited after reading Scott's article today as I was after reading Martin's book in 1987!

In particular I think it gives us good grounds for not dismissing the Swanson marginalia, the alleged unsuccessful identification at the Seaside home; and some room for believing that there could have been a (German) Jewish witness apart from Lawende or Schwartz (Polish and Hungarian).

Like others, I will have to think about the Cohen/Kosminski link in terms of name and analyse Scott's reasons in more detail.

Well done, Scott - now for the waxworks!!)

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

By the way Chris, your blog was very helpful. If anyone has not seen it, it is a wealth of information. Thank you.

Also, to Howard at JtRForums: Thank you for the kind words.

Thanks for the nice compliment about my JTR blog. I am long overdue to write another post and hope to have one up soon. Thanks in that respect for the nudge, my good friend.

Cheers

Chris

[Beowulf]

Hi Mike

I also found to be interesting your discussion of the Pranzini exhibit in the 1888 Whitechapel Road waxworks show as a possible inspiration for the Ripper in his ghoulish "work", and the possible parallel that a wax museum might have provided an incentive for the murder spree of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. A question that is not unincidentally reminiscent of today's debate about the extent to which violent movies and video games inspire bloodletting in our day.

Best regards

Chris

Mike, This post says it all, what a wonderful article you wrote.

It makes one think of the Whitechapel murderer, convoluted of mind standing before his own 'exhibits', exhilarated.

An important event of the time, should not be left out when one considers the atmosphere of Whitechapel.

[Phil H]

It makes one think of the Whitechapel murderer, convoluted of mind standing before his own 'exhibits', exhilarated.

But also someone else who then tries to copy the Ripper's work, or is inspuired to go further.

Might that explain eddowes and kelly?

Barnett or Flemming (just examples) could equally well have stood in front of the same exhibits and thought....

Phil

[Ozzy]

It was great to see a couple of names amongst the letters that I'm familiar with outside of the world of the Ripper.
Peter Blau from Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press (Sh. Holmes) and
Rosemary Pardoe from The Ghosts and Scholars MR James Newsletter

The real surprise was the article by Pauline Morgan. I live about a couple of miles from her here in Devon. As Adam said 'Small world'.

I did mean to say how much I enjoyed the Lydia Manton piece from 129 after I read it but didn't. So thanks to Robert Linford, David O'Flaherty and John Savage for that piece.

[mklhawley]

Mike, This post says it all, what a wonderful article you wrote.

It makes one think of the Whitechapel murderer, convoluted of mind standing before his own 'exhibits', exhilarated.

An important event of the time, should not be left out when one considers the atmosphere of Whitechapel.

Thanks Beowulf. When there were large crowds outside on Whitechapel Road each night and the fact that the very first Pranzini-style Ripper murder occurred less than 100 yards away, it's difficult not to see this place involved in some way.

Phil, that's quite the possibility.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Robert]

Hi Ozzy

Re Lydia, thanks from David, John and me.