Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Kit Watkins article

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Kit Watkins article

    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.

  • #2
    One section puzzles me:
    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.
    On looking at the article again the "mark of a man's head" may read "the mask of a man's head.." (see below) but in either case I am not sure of the meaning of this phrase
    Chris
    Attached Files

    Comment


    • #3
      It definitely says "mask of a man's head", Chris. Either it's a flight of fancy ("See that stain on the wall - I've heered it said rahnd 'ere that it's the fice o' the Ripper isself..."), an ornament of some description (one of Lottie's "heirlooms", maybe), or perhaps a milliner's "dummy" head - was Lottie or one of the other incumbents, past or present, a hat-maker? Taking speculation further - could this even have been a crappy, homespun attempt at a "Chamber of Horrors"?

      Either way, one struggles to find a simple explanation for it - unless it's purely journalistic licence, of course.
      Kind regards, Sam Flynn

      "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

      Comment


      • #4
        She may have kept something in the window to make it appear that there was a man in the room - in case the Ripper returned. Quite why it should be gruesome, I've no idea, unless she thought a bust of Merrick would frighten Jack off.

        Comment


        • #5
          I think that Lottie was what we used to call 'coming the old soldier'...

          Comment


          • #6
            One thing that does ring true is how cheap drink ruined everyone it touched. When I read these articles--and all the other, earlier stuff coming out of Mayhew etc--it strikes me that cheap gin had the same effect on these people that crank etc has on inner US cities now. Everything is degraded to a point beyond our nice middle-class belief. People live in conditions that are worse than our worst nightmares.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Chava View Post
              One thing that does ring true is how cheap drink ruined everyone it touched.
              Not for nothing was gin called "mother's ruin" in rhyming-slang.
              Kind regards, Sam Flynn

              "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

              Comment


              • #8
                Must be like cheap vodka in Russia. The problem is not in the bottle, but rather in the reasons why people need it so badly.

                Comment


                • #9
                  It is interesting to see the use of the term 'gay' in its original form.
                  I think that this article shows really well the other side of the 'chirpy' cockney image. The women of this article are hardened by drink and we can not forget that these are the same type of women that the Ripper struck, whatever we like to think of them.
                  In order to know virtue, we must first aquaint ourselves with vice!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sam Flynn View Post
                    It definitely says "mask of a man's head", Chris. Either it's a flight of fancy ("See that stain on the wall - I've heered it said rahnd 'ere that it's the fice o' the Ripper isself..."), an ornament of some description (one of Lottie's "heirlooms", maybe), or perhaps a milliner's "dummy" head - was Lottie or one of the other incumbents, past or present, a hat-maker? Taking speculation further - could this even have been a crappy, homespun attempt at a "Chamber of Horrors"?

                    Either way, one struggles to find a simple explanation for it - unless it's purely journalistic licence, of course.
                    maybe it means the silhouette of a mans head near a window?

                    EDIT>>> And not a window in the room. A window in another flat.
                    Oh I just noticed its the window.. But it would still work if a man was standing outside the window. I think thats it.
                    Last edited by Mitch Rowe; 03-28-2009, 08:58 AM.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by DVV View Post
                      Must be like cheap vodka in Russia. The problem is not in the bottle, but rather in the reasons why people need it so badly.
                      David

                      It's a little known fact but beer was not classed as an alchoholic drink in Russia until the mid 1990s. Previously it was said to be good for recovering alchoholics.

                      Sam

                      Where's the rhyming slang in 'mother's ruin'?
                      allisvanityandvexationofspirit

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Architectural "Mask"?

                        Originally posted by Chris Scott View Post
                        One section puzzles me:
                        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.
                        On looking at the article again the "mark of a man's head" may read "the mask of a man's head.." (see below) but in either case I am not sure of the meaning of this phrase
                        Chris
                        I was puzzled by this same passage. The modern transcript, which says "mark", made me wonder if some poor guy had been thrown head-first into the wall during a fight- if so, there could have been a dent or depression left on the wall, especially if it were made of plaster. This could have happened before or after Mary, and from all we know of Dorset street seems highly likely.

                        But as the old newsprint version does say "Mask", I'm thinking it's either a typo, or, just possibly, Kit Watkins could be using a somewhat obscure "architectural" meaning for "mask". "Mask" is also the term for a decorative figure in the shape of a Head, seen on old Furniture, Architecture, even Weaponry. (They're often in the shape of a knight or warrior in a helmet. They were sometimes placed over Doorways or Mantels; other times you see them as figural Furniture hardware.)

                        Though I can't help doubting that there were ANY gratuitously decorative "accents" in the bleak dwellings of Miller's Court, perhaps it's possible that there was a figural accent of some sort left over from long ago when the building was new & Mary's "room" had another use? I suppose such a "mark" could have been made of wood or plaster, located up high on the wall by the windows. It would most likely be in very shabby condition, like everything else. However, I don't recall any other such reference to a decorative feature in Mary's room.

                        (Makes Mary's room even creepier, somehow, doesn't it? Like she was always being watched!)

                        Kit Watkins was an astute observer and she certainly had an educated vocabulary, so she might have known & used such an obscure word... But the simplest answer is still that it's a typo. Is there another original print version that we could compare it to?

                        - Best Regards, Archaic

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          If Kit Watkins' handwriting was as poor as is made out elsewhere, (two typesetters alone, allegedly, worked on her transatlantic letters because her writing was so hard to read) the lord alone may know what she meant

                          Fascinating article though

                          All the best

                          Dave

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X