R.L.S., H.J., & E.H.: a questions of sources and results

[Fisherman]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

I think you are correct in essence, Chris. However, I can accept that the people can feel some sort of kinship and misidentify a justification for foul deeds in a society where deviations that were earlier suppressed as cultural markers, are suddenly allowed to get manifested.

It kind of touches on how Phillips was unwilling to divulge the details of the Chapman murder at the inquest, partly for reasons of not wanting to spread the disease, if you will.

In that sense, I do think that subjecting society to worse and worse stories about extreme violence, will eventually result in a more violent society. Much was feared when television made itīs entrance, but nothing much happened from the start. It was not until the generations that were brought up with television finally grew up that television-induced violence became part of society.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Fisherman;405310]

Much was feared when television made itīs entrance, but nothing much happened from the start. It was not until the generations that were brought up with television finally grew up that television-induced violence became part of society.

Of which Lechmere now is a journalistically constructed part.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

Literature is one thing, the past is another. History must not be allowed to be literature. It must be history.

Regards, Pierre

[ChrisGeorge]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

Literature is one thing, the past is another. History must not be allowed to be literature. It must be history.

Regards, Pierre

All very fine, Pierre. And yet numerous people do conflate figures in the contemporary literary, theatrical, and art worlds plus other murderers of the day, or else, as we have seen, witnesses to or observers about the case, or else Royals of the time, or Royal doctors of the day, with what was happening in the East End of London at this date whether you like it or not.

Best regards

Chris

[Abby Normal]

I think you are correct in essence, Chris. However, I can accept that the people can feel some sort of kinship and misidentify a justification for foul deeds in a society where deviations that were earlier suppressed as cultural markers, are suddenly allowed to get manifested.

It kind of touches on how Phillips was unwilling to divulge the details of the Chapman murder at the inquest, partly for reasons of not wanting to spread the disease, if you will.

In that sense, I do think that subjecting society to worse and worse stories about extreme violence, will eventually result in a more violent society. Much was feared when television made itīs entrance, but nothing much happened from the start. It was not until the generations that were brought up with television finally grew up that television-induced violence became part of society.

Great post Fish

I didn't really get into much detail and as I stated previously, I don think it would really be that much of an inspiration as obviously serial killers real inspiration comes from a much darker and deeper space. However, I agree with what you say here, as I think the rise of the serial killer phenomenon might have some correlation to the industrial revolution, the increase of leisure time, newspapers and fantastical stories.

I was just responding to mayerlings question as it always struck me as interesting of the comparison of the Jekyl and Hyde story coming right about the time of the rippers murder.

[Mayerling]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

Maybe you are right Chris, but I tend to think the placement of a crime in it's time frame is sometimes as important as the actual mechanisms and causes of the crime. In 1910 Crippen's capture involved Marconi's wireless telegraphy on a steamship, and it made an interesting wife murder case even more interesting as a result. Similarly the 1845 "Salt Hill Murder" of the ex-Quaker, John Tawell, was (I hate to use this term but it's appropriate) enhanced by his being the first murderer/poisoner captured with the use of telegraph (although - to be fair - it is the Wheatstone and Cooke 1837 telegraph machine, not Samuel Morse's 1844 version). Had these two murders not been the first involving the technological innovations, they would have been somewhat lesser to historical memory than other homicides of similar natures.

The interesting thing (when you brought up H. H. Holmes, who would actually not start building that "Murder Castle" in Chicago until 1892, in time for the World's Columbian Exposition) is that there is something a bit different in the air about the crimes of the late 1880s and 1890s in Europe and the U.S. and the British Empire. There is an interfacing of technologies in travel, in communications, even in killing (Holmes will frequently use gases to asphyxiate his victims, including two children in a sealed Saratoga trunk). You can reject or mull over these killings - one of which I admit will stretch back into the late 1870s:

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream: Starts out with his career in Scotland as a medical student - possibly some poisoned women there, including his wife. Moves back to Canada, and sets up on the boarder with the U.S. and practices abortions (and probably sadistic killings of women). Moves to Chicago in 1880, and will poison Daniel Stott. Goes to prison, but released in 1891. Travels to England, and poisons two prostitutes (fails in attempt on third known victim). Leaves England in January 1892, and returns to Canada to collect an inheritance. Returns to England in April 1892, kills two more prostitutes, but is now known to police, and is arrested, eventually tried, and eventually executed in November 1892.

Reginald Birchall: Not usually discussed on this website but the "Blenheim Swamp" Mystery of 1890 was a big international crime story. Birchall (a one time student at Oxford, but a "bad'un", who was expelled), put advertisements about how he needed a partner or partners in a proposed sure-fire successful farm in Canada. He had been in Canada before this with his wife, posing as "Lord and Lady Somerset", and pulling off some frauds under those names. Birchall lured two men by his add, and would try to kill both. One (Frederick Benwall) was unlucky enough to enter "Blenheim Swamp" alone with Birchall (to see the proposed site for the farm) and was shot and killed. The other was walking one evening alone with Birchall over a bridge that spanned Niagara Falls, and noted Birchall pushed against him several times. On an alert now, this fellow noticed some tourists coming into view (which Birchall blanched and noticed too) and took advantage to run off the bridge - and then to put as much distance between himself and Birchall. Birchall got caught because the detective working the case noted Birchall had said he barely knew Benwall, but then referred to him (to Mrs. Birchall, who was at the police interview) as "Fred", not "Benwall". This led to examining Birchall's background and eventually finding the other potential victim. Convicted and executed for the crime, many felt that Birchall had been doing this for several years and others may have been lured to the swamp or the falls to their doom (but nothing has been shown about this).

3) Frederick Deeming: Even before the first established known murders, at Rainhill, near Liverpool, Deeming as a con-man had gone to Australia, South Africa, Suez, and the Continent, and later to South America. Rumors of other disappearances and murders were to crop up which at this date we just can't say yeah or nay about. However, after a spell in prison in 1890-91, Deeming went from Hull to Rainhill, and eventually killed his wife and four children at Dinham Villa there, burying them under the floor. He would also marry his second victim wife in Rainhill, and leave by boat for Australia (the colony of Victoria), and kill his second wife in Melbourne, again burying her corpse under his rented house's floor. He was in the Southern Cross area across the continent of Australia when he was arrested after Emily Deeming's body was dug up in Melbourne. By the time he returned to Melbourne the bodies of Maria Deeming and their four children were found too. International interest in this case was as big (if not bigger) than that in the Birchall Case, and as it would shortly be in Cream's 1892 trial at the Old Bailey. Rumors about the other murders Deeming may have had a hand in in his pre-1891 career included the Whitechapel Case (L.C. Douthwaite later said Deeming was in prison when the Ripper was active, and could not have been the Ripper - but Douthwaite's list of killings in Whitechapel went into Francis Coles in February 1891, when Deeming was in prison in Hull. If you don't think Coles was a Ripper victim - and many don't - Douthwaite's statement is worthless. Unfortunately it was republished by Tom Cullen in his book "Autumn of Terror" in his discussion of Deeming. There may certainly be other reasons for rejecting Fred Deeming as the Ripper (his propensity for hiding his corpses, for one) but this Douthwaite-Cullen suggestion is not worth considering unless you prove the Ripper killed Coles.)

I could also add two French killers of the same period: Henri Pranzini and Prado both of whom crossed and recrossed borders in their crimes - Pranzini would be possibly responsible for a murder of a Russian's general's mother (for robbery) before he turned up for the murders that brought his career to an end in Paris in 1886. Prado was involved in the murder of a woman in Paris, but he created a straw man figure who turned out to be himself. This involved the Surete criss-crossing Europe tracing the fictitious Count he created before bringing the crime back to him. Also, there was a rumor (although one wonders if it was true) that Prado was an illegitimate son of a Peruvian statesman and President. Prado was executed in December 1888 (that year, he was the best known or named criminal in the world. Among those outside the prison when he was executed was painter Paul Gauguin, still wondering about that nut of a roommate who had cut off his earlobe and given to him and his whore (which was the second famous "mutilation" of November 1888).

Peltzer Case in Belgium, which may have influence Prado's attempt at a straw man. Better organized, the Pelzer Brothers arranged the murder of the husband of a woman the older brother wanted to marry, and then had the younger one pretend he was one "Harry Vaughn", an Englishman trying to help create a new shipping line, and going to Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Holland in his long business trips. It almost worked, but an error about the placement of the victim's body, and the arrogance of the older brother to the Belgian police chief handling the case, made the police re-examine there information and realize they'd been fooled. Both brothers got long prison sentences (the death penalty had been abolished in Belgium by 1882.

Yes, one can ignore events or developments in technology and culture in a period, but I think it is wise not to totally do so.

Sorry about the overuse of the Darkening for emphasis - something unexpected went wrong, and I can't fix it.

Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

you do realize we were talking about how contemporary fictional stories may or may not inspire real killers and not saying that real writers/artists are Jack the Ripper?

[DJA]

Now if it connects (weirdly as it might) to the Spinoza business then:

1) the bulk of the world Jews will not be blamed for what they think Spinoza's ideas are worth - nothing.
2) the Jews (in 19th Century Britain and the world) are not to be blamed for what Jack did when influenced by Spinoza.
3) the "Judges" (here the rabbis) should not be blamed for what happened in Whitechapel, or present day ones for what was done to Spinoza.


Jeff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_School_of_Jewish_Studies

When you have neighbors like Adler and Montefiore there is plenty of room for thought. Both pro and con. Comparative thinking really.

[ChrisGeorge]

Yes "Jekyll and Hyde" and Sherlock Holmes plus Van Gogh and Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson were all at the time of the Ripper murders, and H. H. Holmes was getting ready to "off" people in this Murder Castle, but what does this all mean???? Sorry. Sheer coincidence, that's all. Although nonetheless, of course, people with wild and crazy theories will continue to put forward their crackpot ideas. Frankly, this is one reason why I don't frequent the forums as much as I used to. I have better things to do than to listen to nonsense.

you do realize we were talking about how contemporary fictional stories may or may not inspire real killers and not saying that real writers/artists are Jack the Ripper?

Hi Abby

While I grant that fictional stories might have inspired real killers, I don't see it in the Ripper case, not even in the case of "Jekyll and Hyde."

I am talking about how people today suck all this stuff up and think they have a viable theory involving, say, Robert Lewis Stevenson or Vincent Van Gogh, or some other luminary or murderer of the day. On little or no evidence whatsoever.

Best regards

Chris

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby

While I grant that fictional stories might have inspired real killers, I don't see it in the Ripper case, not even in the case of "Jekyll and Hyde."

I am talking about how people today suck all this stuff up and think they have a viable theory involving, say, Robert Lewis Stevenson or Vincent Van Gogh, or some other luminary or murderer of the day. On little or no evidence whatsoever.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris
Thanks! I agree with both points.

[Mayerling]

QUOTE=Mayerling;405296



Hi Jeff,

Judges where men exclusively.

Regards, Pierre

Hi Pierre,

Yes, but not in the Jewish Bible - the Book of Judges in the Old Testament has Deborah as an exception to the rule. So Judges (especially Jewish ones) are not exclusively male.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Abby

While I grant that fictional stories might have inspired real killers, I don't see it in the Ripper case, not even in the case of "Jekyll and Hyde."

I am talking about how people today suck all this stuff up and think they have a viable theory involving, say, Robert Lewis Stevenson or Vincent Van Gogh, or some other luminary or murderer of the day. On little or no evidence whatsoever.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,

I agree that the tendency to push together some theory of a prominent figure of some sort in Victorian England or Europe is overdone. Lewis Carroll, Vincent Van Gogh, Walter Sickert, the Duke of Clarence, it is just overdone. I really suggesting anything like that, and certainly never would have suggested it for Stevenson due to his health problems (in fact, by 1888 he, Fanny, and her son Lloyd Osbourne were safely ensconced in Samoa for Stevenson's recovery). My view is that people can pick up ideas, even from fiction. For example, at the time of the 1930 "Blazing Car" murder by Alfred Rouse, it turned out that there had recently been a similar killing in Germany that Rouse may have read or heard about, and that there was a novel about spies where a murdered spy is burned up in an arson fire in his car (I think the title was "The "W" Plan").

The possibility of an idea's germ being laid that way intrigues me. Hence my curiosity about the closeness in time of the publication of "A Study in Scarlet" in Beeton's Christmas Annual of December 1887, and the Whitechapel Murders the following summer into fall, in particular regarding that "Rache" clue on a wall and the "Juwes" clue on Goulston Street's wall. But to be fair, if you read that piece of mine in "Who Was Jack the Ripper?", I pointed out that Conan Doyle himself was influenced by an 1882 murder (in Dalton, England) of a Constable by one Thomas Orrock, where a vital clue was a chisel found near the dead man with the letters "R" "O" "C" "K" on it, that everyone assumed meant "rock". Only later did the police find that two other letters (and "O" and an "R") proceeded these four, and thus created the name of the killer on the chisel. They had not been seen because they had been worn down - a magnifying glass was needed to see them.

So it's a two way street, with real events being used by writers for their effects in their writings, but also for the writings to give some ideas to readers. My real problem with this is the difficulty, even if it is a truthful connection, of linking it to anyone specifically.

I am now looking into "Dr. Jeckyll...." because of it's appearance in 1886, and it's view of the two sides of a human personality. Also it's translation by Mansfield into a highly successful stage work. Under the circumstances it looks promising - but I can't tell how. Oddly enough, in 1888, Stevenson wrote (with his step-son Lloyd) another novel that deals with dead bodies and what to do with them - "The Wrong Box". But it is a comic novel (it was later turned into a successful film with Michael Caine and Ralph Richardson).

By the way, 1888 was not a really banner year for literature. The best known work to be produced (in terms of lasting popularity) was General Lew Wallace's novel "Ben-Hur, A Story of the Christ". Even a major talent like Henry James was only producing the minor novel, "The Rejuvenator". Mark Twain was working on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", but it would not be published until 1889. Tolstoi was active but I don't recall any major work that year (if you know of one, let me know). Jules Verne had just written "Robur The Conqueror" ("The Clipper of the Clouds") about heavier-than-air flight in 1886. I think his major works for 1888 were either his American Civil War novel ("North and South") or his novel regarding Norway's desire for independence from Sweden ("The Lottery Ticket").

Some literary passings of note: Edward Lear died. So did Louisa May Alcott (shortly after the death of her transcendentalist philosopher father Bronson).
One party whose mental activities in 1888 I would have wondered about seriously was the dying Wilkie Collins (he would die in 1889), who actually might have taken an interest in the Whitechapel Case, but (to be honest about it) may have been in too dense a cloud of opium induced mental confusion by this time to have any grasp on what was going on.

Jeff

[Pierre]

Hi Chris,

I agree that the tendency to push together some theory of a prominent figure of some sort in Victorian England or Europe is overdone. Lewis Carroll, Vincent Van Gogh, Walter Sickert, the Duke of Clarence, it is just overdone. I really suggesting anything like that, and certainly never would have suggested it for Stevenson due to his health problems (in fact, by 1888 he, Fanny, and her son Lloyd Osbourne were safely ensconced in Samoa for Stevenson's recovery). My view is that people can pick up ideas, even from fiction. For example, at the time of the 1930 "Blazing Car" murder by Alfred Rouse, it turned out that there had recently been a similar killing in Germany that Rouse may have read or heard about, and that there was a novel about spies where a murdered spy is burned up in an arson fire in his car (I think the title was "The "W" Plan").

The possibility of an idea's germ being laid that way intrigues me. Hence my curiosity about the closeness in time of the publication of "A Study in Scarlet" in Beeton's Christmas Annual of December 1887, and the Whitechapel Murders the following summer into fall, in particular regarding that "Rache" clue on a wall and the "Juwes" clue on Goulston Street's wall. But to be fair, if you read that piece of mine in "Who Was Jack the Ripper?", I pointed out that Conan Doyle himself was influenced by an 1882 murder (in Dalton, England) of a Constable by one Thomas Orrock, where a vital clue was a chisel found near the dead man with the letters "R" "O" "C" "K" on it, that everyone assumed meant "rock". Only later did the police find that two other letters (and "O" and an "R") proceeded these four, and thus created the name of the killer on the chisel. They had not been seen because they had been worn down - a magnifying glass was needed to see them.

So it's a two way street, with real events being used by writers for their effects in their writings, but also for the writings to give some ideas to readers. My real problem with this is the difficulty, even if it is a truthful connection, of linking it to anyone specifically.

I am now looking into "Dr. Jeckyll...." because of it's appearance in 1886, and it's view of the two sides of a human personality. Also it's translation by Mansfield into a highly successful stage work. Under the circumstances it looks promising - but I can't tell how. Oddly enough, in 1888, Stevenson wrote (with his step-son Lloyd) another novel that deals with dead bodies and what to do with them - "The Wrong Box". But it is a comic novel (it was later turned into a successful film with Michael Caine and Ralph Richardson).

By the way, 1888 was not a really banner year for literature. The best known work to be produced (in terms of lasting popularity) was General Lew Wallace's novel "Ben-Hur, A Story of the Christ". Even a major talent like Henry James was only producing the minor novel, "The Rejuvenator". Mark Twain was working on "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", but it would not be published until 1889. Tolstoi was active but I don't recall any major work that year (if you know of one, let me know). Jules Verne had just written "Robur The Conqueror" ("The Clipper of the Clouds") about heavier-than-air flight in 1886. I think his major works for 1888 were either his American Civil War novel ("North and South") or his novel regarding Norway's desire for independence from Sweden ("The Lottery Ticket").

Some literary passings of note: Edward Lear died. So did Louisa May Alcott (shortly after the death of her transcendentalist philosopher father Bronson).
One party whose mental activities in 1888 I would have wondered about seriously was the dying Wilkie Collins (he would die in 1889), who actually might have taken an interest in the Whitechapel Case, but (to be honest about it) may have been in too dense a cloud of opium induced mental confusion by this time to have any grasp on what was going on.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I donīt know your background, perhaps it is the field of achademic literature. You seem to be very interested in how literature can create a starting point for understanding and interpreting the Whitechapel killer, rather than the Whitechapel murders. Is that correct? Or do you think that there is something to learn about the murders from the type of literature you are discussing here? If so, what can be learned?

My own interest is within sociology (apart from history) and as I see it, there is much more to learn about the killer and the murders from sociological perspectives than from literature written in Victorian times - and I also say this as an historian (!).

If you analyze the murders, using for example sociological theories about how knowledge is internalized / learned and how practice is externalized, you understand, on an individual level, that the structural networks and systems of society which bring about this learning and which allow for / make possible this practice, are useful for understanding the murders and also the killer. How?

Firstly, we can forget about inspiration from one or two books, and look at societies where people like the Whitechapel killer lived, where things similar to the things he did were done.

We can study learning processes and what types of knowledge people had. If you think that the killer had the knowledge and pratical ability for disembowelling and nosecutting, which he obviously had, he must have learned it somehow in some society and some situtation.

So, in what types of societies and situations in Victorian times, did people disembowel people, and in what types of societies and situations did they cut off noses?

And what social meaning had these types of practises? How can it be understood from a cultural perspective? And how can it throw light on the Whitechapel murders - and the killer?

Learning such behaviour is a long process. You see it being done, and/or having been done to people, you hear about it and think about it. Since you experience it in different ways, you learn how it is done. When you have done it yourself one time, you are able to do it several times.

But reading about murder and mutilation in a book is very far from knowing and practising murder and mutilation. It is a different thing if you see a murdered and mutilated body in real life, and if you also understand it as a cultural practise in your own immediate situation, you understand why it was done. That is something you do not get from literature.

But perhaps you have some other thinking about this?

Regards, Pierre

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff,

I donīt know your background, perhaps it is the field of achademic literature. You seem to be very interested in how literature can create a starting point for understanding and interpreting the Whitechapel killer, rather than the Whitechapel murders. Is that correct? Or do you think that there is something to learn about the murders from the type of literature you are discussing here? If so, what can be learned?

My own interest is within sociology (apart from history) and as I see it, there is much more to learn about the killer and the murders from sociological perspectives than from literature written in Victorian times - and I also say this as an historian (!).

If you analyze the murders, using for example sociological theories about how knowledge is internalized / learned and how practice is externalized, you understand, on an individual level, that the structural networks and systems of society which bring about this learning and which allow for / make possible this practice, are useful for understanding the murders and also the killer. How?

Firstly, we can forget about inspiration from one or two books, and look at societies where people like the Whitechapel killer lived, where things similar to the things he did were done.

We can study learning processes and what types of knowledge people had. If you think that the killer had the knowledge and pratical ability for disembowelling and nosecutting, which he obviously had, he must have learned it somehow in some society and some situtation.

So, in what types of societies and situations in Victorian times, did people disembowel people, and in what types of societies and situations did they cut off noses?

And what social meaning had these types of practises? How can it be understood from a cultural perspective? And how can it throw light on the Whitechapel murders - and the killer?

Learning such behaviour is a long process. You see it being done, and/or having been done to people, you hear about it and think about it. Since you experience it in different ways, you learn how it is done. When you have done it yourself one time, you are able to do it several times.

But reading about murder and mutilation in a book is very far from knowing and practising murder and mutilation. It is a different thing if you see a murdered and mutilated body in real life, and if you also understand it as a cultural practise in your own immediate situation, you understand why it was done. That is something you do not get from literature.

But perhaps you have some other thinking about this?

Regards, Pierre

Okay Pierre, this is my personal set-up here.

1) I was a history and political science major in a college in New Jersey, and went on for a law degree in a law school in New York City. I never practiced law, but was a civil servant.

2) I love reading, and I might have had a minor in English in college, but I never got all the required courses.

3) My interest in the Whitechapel Murders is of a historical nature. By 2017 I do not really feel the identity of the brute will ever be absolutely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But that does not mean the case is without any interest to me at all - the cast of characters, and the events (grisly or not) that tie in with it, plus the setting in Victorian England, all fascinate me.
Hence when I traipse these threads my comments (when not being somewhat attempts at humor) are to correct or explain a historical aspect or trend.

4) As a side issue, since I really feel certain we won't ever prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the killer's real identity (anymore than historians of the politics of Georgian England in the 1770s are totally sure Sir Philip Francis wrote the notorious classic "Junius" letters about the politics of his day), I have never felt it necessary to push one of the "candidates" or one that I found (unless I am spoofing, as I have once or twice). In one of my first published essays, about Frederick Deeming, I entitled it "The Original Suspect", but while I dismissed some evidence against Deeming being the Ripper (that business from L.C. Douthwaite's comments in his book "Mass Murder") I actually pointed out that even if one accepted point by point what evidence one could muster, it was a shabby case against Deeming being the Ripper at best.

This does not mean I dismiss really first rate research attempts on subjects like Montie Druitt or Doc Tumblety or Roslyn D'Onston Stevenson. Each subject is quite interesting in his own right (as are figures like Kosminski, Deeming, Prince Eddy, Sickert, Maybrick*, Cream, Chapman, or Bury). Some ideas strike me as ridiculous (Vincent Van Gogh?), but I can appreciate the better suspects. Think of it this way (if you can) - by all the digging being done on this case and it's victims and suspects how much better are we understanding life in the Victorian world of 1888 Whitechapel, London, Great Britain, Europe, the World. It's expanded thus.

The only thing I ever found distasteful actually is the emphasis on the s.o.b. who did most of these atrocities (especially that on Mary Kelly). He (or she, if it was a woman) does not deserve center stage having caused such agony and horror. Therefore I have slowly slid into referring to the case as "The Whitechapel Murders", not "the Jack the Ripper Case" (restricting my use of the term to just a referral in passing to the killer). Personally I would really like to call the entire field "Whitechapel Studies", in order to partly honor the victims.

I don't know if any of this has helped you in understanding me, but it should make my point of view clearer to anyone reading this. Was there any book or play that fully guided the creep in what he did? No there wasn't. But an idea snatched from reading or a night at the theatre is another matter - it is an idea he or she could use in what already a festering plan. No more or less.

By the way, you mentioned "in what types of [Victorian] societies and situations did they cut off noses?" I can't think of any in Europe except for this. You are aware that the "nose" is a literary symbol for the male penis. Cutting off a nose in literature is like emasculating a man. And it actually does appear in 19th Century literature - Dostoievksi's short story satire, "The Nose", where a man finds his nose missing, everyone jeering at him, and later finds the nose has taken on a life of it's own.

[*Regarding James Maybrick, I am not one who believes that diary is genuine, anymore than if a letter addressed to his brother or to Mr. Valentine by Montie Druitt turned up "all of a sudden" in somebody's long lost desk, confessing his guilt - it's too convenient (in my opinion). But the Maybrick Case is interesting in it's own way (try reading Trevor Christie's old study, "Etched in Arsenic" if you are interested), about attitudes in Britain to Americans who become residents by marriage (Florence Chandler was from Alabama before she married James Maybrick), about servants real feelings concerning employers in households, about patent medicine dangers, about the legal world (with the faltering Justice Sir James Fitzjames Stephen trying the case after a nervous breakdown, and making a hash of it, and with Florence's barrister, Sir Charles Russell, being as unsuccessful saving her from a guilty verdict as he was in prosecuting and convicting Adelaide Bartlett in 1886 (when Russell was Attorney General) in the murder of her husband Edwin Bartlett by poison (and the evidence against Adelaide was stronger!). If the diary reopens interest in this fascinating case I'm for it.]

Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Okay Pierre, this is my personal set-up here.

1) I was a history and political science major in a college in New Jersey, and went on for a law degree in a law school in New York City. I never practiced law, but was a civil servant.

2) I love reading, and I might have had a minor in English in college, but I never got all the required courses.

3) My interest in the Whitechapel Murders is of a historical nature. By 2017 I do not really feel the identity of the brute will ever be absolutely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But that does not mean the case is without any interest to me at all - the cast of characters, and the events (grisly or not) that tie in with it, plus the setting in Victorian England, all fascinate me.
Hence when I traipse these threads my comments (when not being somewhat attempts at humor) are to correct or explain a historical aspect or trend.

4) As a side issue, since I really feel certain we won't ever prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the killer's real identity (anymore than historians of the politics of Georgian England in the 1770s are totally sure Sir Philip Francis wrote the notorious classic "Junius" letters about the politics of his day), I have never felt it necessary to push one of the "candidates" or one that I found (unless I am spoofing, as I have once or twice). In one of my first published essays, about Frederick Deeming, I entitled it "The Original Suspect", but while I dismissed some evidence against Deeming being the Ripper (that business from L.C. Douthwaite's comments in his book "Mass Murder") I actually pointed out that even if one accepted point by point what evidence one could muster, it was a shabby case against Deeming being the Ripper at best.

This does not mean I dismiss really first rate research attempts on subjects like Montie Druitt or Doc Tumblety or Roslyn D'Onston Stevenson. Each subject is quite interesting in his own right (as are figures like Kosminski, Deeming, Prince Eddy, Sickert, Maybrick*, Cream, Chapman, or Bury). Some ideas strike me as ridiculous (Vincent Van Gogh?), but I can appreciate the better suspects. Think of it this way (if you can) - by all the digging being done on this case and it's victims and suspects how much better are we understanding life in the Victorian world of 1888 Whitechapel, London, Great Britain, Europe, the World. It's expanded thus.

The only thing I ever found distasteful actually is the emphasis on the s.o.b. who did most of these atrocities (especially that on Mary Kelly). He (or she, if it was a woman) does not deserve center stage having caused such agony and horror. Therefore I have slowly slid into referring to the case as "The Whitechapel Murders", not "the Jack the Ripper Case" (restricting my use of the term to just a referral in passing to the killer). Personally I would really like to call the entire field "Whitechapel Studies", in order to partly honor the victims.

I don't know if any of this has helped you in understanding me, but it should make my point of view clearer to anyone reading this. Was there any book or play that fully guided the creep in what he did? No there wasn't. But an idea snatched from reading or a night at the theatre is another matter - it is an idea he or she could use in what already a festering plan. No more or less.

By the way, you mentioned "in what types of [Victorian] societies and situations did they cut off noses?" I can't think of any in Europe except for this. You are aware that the "nose" is a literary symbol for the male penis. Cutting off a nose in literature is like emasculating a man. And it actually does appear in 19th Century literature - Dostoievksi's short story satire, "The Nose", where a man finds his nose missing, everyone jeering at him, and later finds the nose has taken on a life of it's own.

[*Regarding James Maybrick, I am not one who believes that diary is genuine, anymore than if a letter addressed to his brother or to Mr. Valentine by Montie Druitt turned up "all of a sudden" in somebody's long lost desk, confessing his guilt - it's too convenient (in my opinion). But the Maybrick Case is interesting in it's own way (try reading Trevor Christie's old study, "Etched in Arsenic" if you are interested), about attitudes in Britain to Americans who become residents by marriage (Florence Chandler was from Alabama before she married James Maybrick), about servants real feelings concerning employers in households, about patent medicine dangers, about the legal world (with the faltering Justice Sir James Fitzjames Stephen trying the case after a nervous breakdown, and making a hash of it, and with Florence's barrister, Sir Charles Russell, being as unsuccessful saving her from a guilty verdict as he was in prosecuting and convicting Adelaide Bartlett in 1886 (when Russell was Attorney General) in the murder of her husband Edwin Bartlett by poison (and the evidence against Adelaide was stronger!). If the diary reopens interest in this fascinating case I'm for it.]

Jeff

Hi Mayer
a while back we were discussing the closing of the anatomical "Venus" display at a museum in London just prior to the start of the torso cases.
and wondering if this might have had any impact or inspiration on the killer.