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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1243
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 11:53 am: | 
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Found this description of a book on Ebay:
INQUEST [AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY]
By S. INGLEBY ODDIE
Ingleby Oddie was a coroner for Central London who was clearly fascinated by all aspects of crime. In this rare autobiography he relates how he was called to the Bar in 1901 and how he became a member of "Our Society" - a London dining club which met to discuss murder cases. In a chapter entitled The Ripper and other Crimes he relates how in April 1905 he was taken around the Ripper murder sites by Dr Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon - along with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others. There are some good descriptions of the murder sites - including the interior of Millers Court, etc. Arthur Diosy was also a member of "Our Society" and Diosy's "Black Magic" theory is discussed.
Other chapters include the Brinkley Murder, the Crippen Case, Trial of Steine Morrison, Norah Upchurch murder etc. Ingleby Oddie was personally involved in some of the cases he writes about.
This is a hardback book with black boards. published by Hutchinson, London, 1941. 2nd Impression. Illustrated with photographic plates and indexed. 255 pages. The boards are worn along the edges and the title faded on spine. There is some light foxing, o/wise the contents are tight and complete.
Anyone interested can find the item at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2240&item=6902734370&rd=1 |
Kelly Robinson
Sergeant
Username: Kelly
Post Number: 38
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 12:17 pm: |
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You just upped the bidding on this one.
E-bay loves you!
Kelly
"The past isn't over. It isn't even past."
William Faulkner
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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3116
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 12:43 pm: |
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Here's a transcription of the Ripper chapter from "Inquest", for anyone interested:
Inquest
By S. Ingleby Oddie
Hutchinson & Company, 1941
The Ripper and Other Murders
In 1888 occurred the series of crimes called the "Jack the Ripper" murders. They all took place in the East End of London, and all the victims were prostitutes ; and here let me say that the secrecy and solitude of this profession often renders detection of these murderers quite impossible.
There were seven Ripper murders altogether ; six occurred within quite a short period and the seventh two years later. In nearly every case the throat was cut and the bodies were mutilated. The abdomen was slit open in the middle line, and certain of the viscera were removed. One curious feature was that on the ground in the quiet courtyards where some of these murders were committed there was sometimes found a singular collection of articles placed by the side of the body, such as farthings, a match, a comb, and other trivial things.
On one night two of these murders were committed within four hundred yards of each other, and some writing was found chalked up on a wall about Jews. The audacity of the murderer was astonishing, for whilst all London was agog with excitement, and all the police were on the qui vine, and hundreds of amateur detectives were prowling about the East End every night hampering the police, the murderer still continued his ghastly work undaunted-and always in the same locality and upon the same class of women, and with the same technique.
Many were the arrests, and many the theories, and many the bogus confessions by the weak-minded who are always so ready to claim public attention in this way. But the murderer was never caught. He was only seen on one occasion, and the mystery remains unsolved to this day, despite many proffered explanations.
Then suddenly the murders ceased, and they have never recurred. The most reasonable theory to my mind is that the man was a homicidal lunatic with some anatomical knowledge, acquired either as a butcher or a medical student, who obtained physical gratification from murdering women and slashing their bodies about with a knife. As his insanity increased he became suicidal and probably jumped into the Thames, just "a man unknown" of whom so many are fished out of the water by the Thames Police. That he was insane is, I think, certain. The very ferocity and frenzy of his methods point to that conclusion, as do the slashings of some of the bodies and organs and the disposition in some cases of viscera and small articles arranged, as I have said, in a kind of order by the side and at the feet and head of the victims.
In the Mitre Square murder, which he _ must have accomplished in the astonishingly short time of eleven minutes, he cut the throat, opened the abdomen, removed one kidney, the uterus, and the left colon. Then he cut off the tip of the nose, made vertical slits under each eye, notched the liver, reflected a triangular flap of skin from each cheek, and ended by arranging a thimble, a-comb, an empty mustard tin and a farthing on the pavement at the poor woman's feet. A portion of this woman's apron was missing, but it was found blood-stained in an adjoining stairway on the wall of which was chalked up : "The Jews are not the ones to be accused for nothing", the writer having evidently wiped his bloody hands on the torn-off piece of apron before writing.
On this same night he had already murdered another woman in Berners Street a mile away, but had been disturbed there and consequently had not had time to complete the ritual of mutilation.
Dr. Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon, was a friend of mine, and it was from him that I obtained these gruesome details. He was good enough to offer to show me the scenes of these horrible murders, and very kindly allowed me to bring some friends. So on 19th April, 1905, we all met at the Police Hospital, Bishopsgate. The party consisted of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Churton Collins, H. B. Irving, Dr. Crosse, myself, and three City detectives who knew all the facts about the murders.
We were shown the actual places where each crime was committed, and en passant got a very interesting sight of the East End Jews in all the excitement of the eve of the Passover. The crowd of alien Jews in Petticoat Lane was amazing. It was impossible to hold up an umbrella, so dense was the crowd, and it was most difficult for our party-to keep together. There was no wheeled traffic at all, for-the whole street was packed densely from side to side and from end to end with masses of excited foreigners buying and selling strange articles of food, howling, shouting, laughing, and pushing one another about.
Most of the married women wore black wigs, the idea being that they should conceal their charms from the eyes of all save their lawful husbands. Many of the women carried hens under their arms, on their way to a booth where we saw them pay a halfpenny each to have the hen's throat cut by a priest according to ritual with a clean knife without a notch in the blade which was carefully shown to and inspected by all his patrons. There were other booths where fowls could be plucked for a small charge, and others where unleavened cakes could be bought, and we--actually saw a cattle stall in Whitechapel containing fifteen cows. Here came Jewish girls with jugs and with instructions from priests and parents to see that the cow was milked direct into their clean jugs. Thus, I thought at the time, does Moses still act as unqualified assistant to the Medical Officer of Health in the East End of London.
The scenes of the murders all presented one common characteristic. They were all as dark and obscure and secret as possible. Nearly all of them, however, were evidently selected as being places from which it would be easy to slip away unobserved. In Bucks Row, for example, there were easy alternative exits. In Mitre Square there were no less than five. In Hanbury Street the scene was the backyard of a common lodging-house, approached by a passage but giving a ready exit into any one of three neighbouring backyards, and thence into the street. Castle Street was similarly chosen for the same reason, and although Miller's Court in Dorset Street seemed to be a trap, yet one had to remember that in this case the Ripper went into the victim's own single room instead of conducting his operations, as in other cases, in the open street. This latter place was a dismal hole seen on a dark, wet, gloomy afternoon. It consisted of one very small room, with a very small window, a fire, a chair and a bed. It was sombre and sinister, unwholesome and depressing, and was approached by a single doorstep from a grimy covered passage leading from Dorset Street into a courtyard. Indeed, it was just the sort of mysterious and foul den in which one would imagine dark, unspeakable deeds would be done. Yet it was only a stone's-throw from the busy Whitechapel Road.
It was here that Mary Ann Kelly was done to death. She was seen to enter the courtyard about midnight accompanied by a man with his overcoat collar turned up, thus muffling his face. Later she was heard carousing, evidently drunk, and she was singing "The violet I plucked from my dear mother's grave" at about 2 a.m. Later still a cry of murder was heard in the room above coming from Kelly's den, but it excited no alarm, not being in the least unusual.
The next morning her body was found amid a scene which for sheer horror beggars description. A rude curtain had been stuck up with a couple of forks over the single window, so that the monster inside might for once enjoy a complete and undisturbed orgy. The fiend had literally ripped poor Mary Kelly's body to pieces. Every organ had been dissected ; but I will not inflict on my readers the details of the shocking, grisly operation which was performed in that charnel house that night.
I saw the police photograph of the mass of human flesh which had once been Mary Kelly, and let it suffice for me to say that in my twenty-seven years as a London Coroner I have seen many gruesome sights, but for sheer horror this surpasses anything I ever set eyes on.
It is easy to imagine and to draw a mental picture of the scene enacted in that room that night. The lamp appeared to have been knocked over, or to have burned out, for the fireplace showed signs of a very large fire, having burnt there, doubtless to provide the murderer with the necessary light he would require for his operations after the lamp was extinguished. This fire must have been a fierce one, for the spout of the kettle had fallen off owing to its having boiled dry and the solder having melted. The hat and clothing of the poor woman had been used to feed the flames. A couple of clay pipes were found inside the fender, and one can picture the scene with the murderer and his victim carousing by the fireside, the kettle on the hob, the frequent renewal of the jovial glass, the friendly pipes, the pathetic song, and the fiend every now and again taking a sidelong glance at his victim, all unconscious of her approaching doom.
For some months after this the "Ripper" rested. Such a repast took time to digest. But again he. must have felt the insane impulse to kill, for a second series began.
Castle Street was the scene of an undoubted "Ripper" crime. A murder under a railway arch was perhaps doubtful, but the discovery of the headless trunk of a young woman under another railway arch was evidently his handiwork. There was the same abdominal cut, the same evisceration, the same cutting of the throat and the same mutilation. Her legs had been amputated at the knee joints and the body was nude. Therefore it had probably been brought to the spot in a sack and shot out in the darkness.
All the scenes of these murders were dark, secret places. Perhaps the murderer became familiar with them because he was taken there by women who knew and used them for their own purposes. He was probably disturbed at times, thus saving many lives, but it left him with an intimate knowledge of this circumscribed area. However, he could not have been taken by his victim to the scene of this last murder. He must therefore have been acquainted with the spot.
Did he live in Whitechapel ? Most probably not, but he may well have gone there by daylight to examine the locality with a view to his coming exploits.
Amongst the theories put forward was one by Arthur Diosy, a member of "Our Society". He thought the murders were the work of some practitioner of "Black Magic". According to him, amongst the quests of these people in the East is the elixir vitae, one of the ingredients of which must come from a recently killed woman. Diosy got quite excited when he heard of the bright farthings and burnt matches which he said might have formed the "flaming points" of a magical figure called a "pentacle" at each angle of which such points were found, and according to ritual certain "flaming" articles had to be thus disposed. Diosy said later that he had paid a visit to Scotland Yard to place his theories before the authorities, but had been received without enthusiasm, as one can well understand.
There seems little doubt that the real explanation lies, as I have said, in some insane medical man, possibly a Russian Jew living in the East End, who was a lust murderer, a Sadist, whose insanity increased until it culminated in the wild orgy of Dorset Street and was followed by his own suicide in the Thames.
Stephen P. Ryder, Exec. Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
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Maria Giordano
Sergeant
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 38
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 5:53 pm: |
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I wonder if the Castle Street reference is to the "Pinchin St. torso" as we now refer to it?
I don't remember the torso being mutilated in the way it's described here.
Adding victms after Kelly bothers me but leaves room for suspects like Kosminsky and La Bruckman.
Mags
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David Andersen
Sergeant
Username: Davida
Post Number: 23
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 9:11 pm: |
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This is wonderful stuff. How interesting that the writer can repeat so many canards. His suspect is an obvious composite of MacNaghtens three suspects. The Russian (?) -Ostrog. The Jew -Kosminski and the suicide in the Thames - Druitt.
Regards
David
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Scott Suttar
Detective Sergeant
Username: Scotty
Post Number: 52
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 04, 2004 - 3:19 am: |
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Fabulous story.
I was particularly interested in this sentence: "A rude curtain had been stuck up with a couple of forks over the single window, so that the monster inside might for once enjoy a complete and undisturbed orgy." I should think that this is the author's interpretation of what he was told. Worth noting though that his source was apparently either; "Dr. Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon", or "three City detectives who knew all the facts about the murders. ". I had never read about the curtain being held up by forks before, nor the contention that the killer put it up.
Scotty.
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Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 322
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 04, 2004 - 5:01 am: |
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Yes - brilliant stuff. I particularly like the concept that the killer's insanity "increased until it culminated in the wild orgy of Dorset Street and was followed by his own suicide in the Thames" - but that he murdered someone else two years later!
Chris Phillips
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Alan Sharp
Chief Inspector
Username: Ash
Post Number: 606
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 04, 2004 - 11:19 am: |
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Maria
The Castle Street reference actually refers to Castle Alley and the murder of Alice McKenzie. The text here is ambiguous but I don't think the intent was to imply that it was the same murder as the "murder under a railway arch". |
Maria Giordano
Sergeant
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 39
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 04, 2004 - 11:24 am: |
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Thanks, Alan. I usually post from work. Guess I'm going to cary a copy of the A-Z around with me.
Mags
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1335
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - 4:59 pm: |
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Below is a section from the Pall Mall Gazette of 3 December 1888 in which Diosy claims he was the first to tell the police about the occult connection and gives the date when he contacted the police as 14 October. The "ingenious contributor" referred to is Roslyn D'Onston who published an article in the Pall Mall Gazette under the nom de plume "One Who Thinks he Knows"
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Andrew Spallek
Chief Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 571
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 12:16 pm: |
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This is indeed interesting.
Which murders does Oddie include as Ripper murders? He says there are 7 -- 6 occurring within a short time and one two years later. It would seem that the 7th murder would have to refer to Coles. Who are the other 6? He alludes to Bucks Row, Hanbury Street, Berner(s) Street, Mitre Square, Dorsett Street -- that surely includes Nicholls, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and Kelly. That's 5 of the remaining 6. The author talks about a "rest period" for the killer of "several months" before a "new series" of killings began." The author goes on to say: Castle Street was the scene of an undoubted "Ripper" crime" At first I thought he was including McKenzie (Castle Alley), as this would fit the time frame of a "rest" of several months. But he goes on the certainly include the Pinchin Street Torso. So McKenzie must be excluded to keep the number at 7, assuming Coles to be the last, "two years later." But since he never really describes the Coles murder, he may be confusing the dates of Coles and the Pinchin Street victim. Therefore, I conclude that:
-- If "Castle Street" is a mistake for "Castle Alley" his victims are: Nicholls, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, McKenzie, Pinchin Torso.
-- If "Castle Street" is not a reference to McKenzie, then the victims are: Nicholls, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Pinchin Torso, Coles.
With regard to the Pinchin Torso, the wounds are indeed much as Oddie described: legs (but not arms) and head amputated, abdominal incision, throat cut (obvious from decapitation).
Another interesting element regards his explanation of the cessation of the murders. Oddie speculates that the murderer committed suicide by drowning himself in the Thames. Is this a reference to Druitt or a doctor found in the Thames at nearly the same time as Druitt? It can't be since he includes a murder two years later in the series. Or was it just a euphemism to refer to suicide in terms of drowning in the Thames -- perhaps because that was the most common method?
Andy S.
(Message edited by Aspallek on August 26, 2004) |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 867
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 12:38 pm: |
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Hi, Andy & Chris
On 16 October, two weeks after the "Double Event," Robert D'Onston Stephenson wrote to the City of London Police from "50, Currie Wards, The London Hospital E." See my dissertation, "LETTER FROM THE SICKBED: D'ONSTON WRITES TO THE POLICE".
The queer name "Diosy" probably indicates that he and D'Onston are one and the same, and that either he misremembered the date he wrote to the police, or else the Pall Mall Gazette got the date wrong.
In his letter to the City of London Police, D'Onston did not at this date fully expound his theory on black magic but rather just hints at it in angling for a meeting with them:
"I can tell you, from a French book, a use made of the organ in question--'d'une femme prostituée,' which has not yet been suggested, if you think it worth while."
D'Onston would expound on the black magic theory in his Pall Mall Gazette article of 1 December. He contacted Scotland Yard as well, so perhaps the Ingleby Oddie reminiscence confuses and combines all these notions about D'Onston's involvement in the case.
On the other hand, Chris, perhaps through census records you can prove that Diosy and D'Onston were in fact two different individuals who happened to be both rowing up the River Styx together? 
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 453
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 1:10 pm: |
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There's an Arthur Doisy, aged 34, listed in the 1891 Census, living in Kensington. |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1336
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 2:32 pm: |
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Hi Chris
Arthur Diosy certainly did exist.
The English Order of Christ in the 1890s.
Source: Vane Bt. KCOC. Sir Francis Fletcher, Agin the Governments, Sampson Low, London 1929, pp 81 - 83.
Sir Francis Vane wrote his biography in 1929. He was born in 1861 and died in 1934.
An extract from the above says:
The men who helped me most in this adventure of reviving Chivalry as a practical scheme, were Arthur Diosy, Sir Arthur Trendall, and Sir Philip Cuncliffe Owen. Arthur Diosy, whose energy was dynamic, was the son of Martin Diosy, the Hungarian patriot, who came to England
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1337
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 2:38 pm: |
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From the Churchill Papers archive
Letter from Arthur Diosy (83 Sloane Street [London]) to Mrs George Cornwallis West [Lady Randolph Churchill] in which he thanks her for a copy of her article about her journey in Japan in the Pall Mall Magazine [see CHAR 28/85/46-52], says that he would have liked to be able to assist in the correction of some Japanese words and comments on the truth of his predictions about the rise of Japan. 05 Jul 1904
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1338
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 2:45 pm: |
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I have found Diosy's parents and sister in 1881 but can find no trace of him
Chris
M. DIOSY Head M Male 63 Hungary General Merchant
L. DIOSY Wife M Female 44 France
Clara DIOSY Dau Female 15 London, London, Middlesex, England Scholar
E. DACK Ser U Female 38 Norfolk, England Cook
Julia COOK Ser U Female 28 - , Gloucester, England Housemaid
Emma JAMES Ser U Female 30 - , Gloucester, England Parlour Maid
H. LASOUR Ser U Female 50 France Sempstress
Source Information:
Dwelling 15 Pembridge Villas
Census Place London, Middlesex, England
Family History Library Film 1341006
Public Records Office Reference RG11
Piece / Folio 0029 / 11
Page Number 18
(Message edited by Chris on August 26, 2004) |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 869
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 3:01 pm: |
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Hi, Chris and R.J.
Then this is certainly interesting because the Pall Mall Gazette notice of 3 December 1888 that you found, Chris, which names Arthur Diosy as a "contributor" who identified the nationality of the Whitechapel murderer would seem to throw into doubt the authorship of the anonymously written 1 December Pall Mall Gazette article usually attributed to D'Onston in which the writer theorizes that the murderer was a French necromancer. Hmmmmm.....
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1339
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 3:01 pm: |
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1871 census
1 Blomfield Street, Paddington
Head:
Martin Diosy aged 51 born Hungary - merchant
Wife:
Leonie Diosy aged 35 born France
Son:
Arthur Diosy aged 14 born London
Daughter:
Clara Diosy aged 5 born London
1891 census
7 Lansdowne Road, Kensington
Head:
Arthur Diosy aged 34 born Paddington - manager to importer of provisions
Wife:
Emma F Diosy aged 32 born Caernarvon, Wales
Daughter:
Sybil D.G.M. Diosy aged 7 born Kensington
Mother in law:
Emma G Hill aged 56 - living on own means
Three servants are also listed
1901
Braemar House, Bayswater Road, Paddington
Head:
Maximilian Biedermann aged 55 born Austria - Stockbroker
Wife:
Leonie Biedermann aged 62 born France
Stepson:
Arthur Diosy aged 44 born London - Provision Merchant
(Listed as married)
Arthur Diosy's marriage to Emma Florence A Hill was registered at Kensington, June 1882 (Vol 1a page 210)
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 454
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 3:31 pm: |
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C.G.-- (Thanks for the link to your article, by the way). I'm not sure. The piece is confusingly written, but I think I tend to agree with Chris Scott's interpretation; Diosy is evidently stealing the fire of "One Who Knows" by claiming that he already told the police of a similar theory back in October...thus Doisy is "aggrieved." I don't think it means to suggest that he was the one who originally wrote about the "necromantic motive." But why this strange reference to Doisy? Was his theory, perhaps, printed elsewhere at the time? Or does it mean he wrote a nasty letter to the Pall Mall Gazette saying that he came up with it first?
(Message edited by rjpalmer on August 26, 2004) |
Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 260
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 3:41 pm: |
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Wasn't Arthur Diosy an author of some minor note? I swear the name was familiar to me from early Weird Tales type publications. But then based upon some other weird things I remembered incorrectly lately (even with the jury still being out on a couple) I wouldn't be surprised if my brain invented that idea on it's own.
Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 455
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 11:22 pm: |
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Hi all,
In Peter Costello's THE REAL WORLD OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE TRUE CRIMES INVESTIGATED BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1991), p. 57 - 69 deals with Jack the Ripper. Beginning on page 61 is an account of the walk through Whitechapel in 1905.
"Among the members of the Crimes Club [now known as "Our Society - J.I.B.] there was so great an interest in the case that Ingleby Oddie, then a lawyer, arranged with Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, the City of London Police Surgeon, to visit the scenes of the murders with Churton Collins, H.B. Irving, Dr. Crosse, and of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
They were to be guided by Dr. Brown himself and by City of London Police detectives familiar with the details of the crimes. In this they were lucy. Brown was one of the doctors who had been called to Mitre Square to examine the body of Catherine Eddowes, on which he later performed the post-mortem. He told the Coroner that some anatomical knowledge was displayed by the killer's work, but whether this was from medical training or skill in cutting up animals was not clear. THe entrails had been removed and deliberately placed on the right shoulder - which as since led some writers to see in this an example of Masonic ritual murder. Brown's notes on his post-mortem as well as a set of mortuary photographs survive, from which the horror of the crimes can clearly be seen. From him Conan Doyle would have gained a direct and grim idea of the real nature of the murders."
Most of the passage is a repeat of the account of Ingleby Oddie. On page 63 is this remark:
"According to John Churton Collins in his diary record of the walk:
"Conan Doyle seemed very much interested, particularly in the Petticoat Lane part of the expedition, and laughed when I said, "Caliban would have turned up his nose at this.""
On the same page is another reference to Collins comments.
"Churton Collins records what he and Conan Doyle saw in Miller's Court where Mary Kelly died:
"This latter place was a dismal hole seen on a dark, wet, gloomy afternoon. It consisted of one very small room, with a small window a fire, a chair and a bed. It was sombre and sinister, unholesome and depressing, and it was apporached by a single doorstep from a grimy covered passage leading from Dorset Street into a courtyard.""
On page 64, these comment (including another quote from Churton Collins) was put down.
"Dr. Gordon Brown, the Crimes Club guide, had been the doctor who attended the corpse of Catherine Eddowes at Mitre Square. According to Churton Collins in his diary the next day:
"He was inclined to think that he [the murderer] was or had been a medical student, as he undoubtedly had a knowledge of human anatomy, but that he was also a butcher, as the mutilations slashing the nose, etc., were buthers' cuts.""
"Yet curiously (for remember we are in 1905) Dr. Brown concluded that there was absolutely no foundation to the theory that the Ripper was a homicidal maniac doctor, whose body had been found in the Thamesm though this was the theory at Scotland Yard. he was more of the opinion that the murderer suffered from a sort of homicidal satyriasis - that sexual pervrsion had led to the murders."
On page 65 Arthur Diosy is referred to as "the Hungarian authority on things Japanese", and his theory of the cons and Black Magic is mentioned.
Interstingly enough, Conan Doyle's fellow Victorian-Edwardian detective story writer, Arthur Morrison, mentioned in one of his Martin Hewitt stories the "Black Magic" theory...but only in passing. It must have been discussed a bit in the 1890s - 1900s (certainly by Diosy, and maybe by D'Onston Stevenson, but enough to attract Morrison's attention).
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 870
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 27, 2004 - 8:30 am: |
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Hi, Jeff, Chris, and R.J.
Thank you, Jeff and Chris, for those additional pieces of information.
R.J., you could possibly be right that D'Onston and Diosy had rival theories about the identity of the Whitechapel murderer and that Diosy had written a letter to the editor about D'Onston's anonymously written article of 1 December in the Pall Mall Gazette, claiming that he came up with the theory first, that the victims were killed for an occult motive and that the muderer was French.
You might also be right that Diosy had published his theory elsewhere and that he had communicated with Scotland Yard about it. It's unclear, however, given the anonymity of the authorship of the 1 December article, which leaves open the possibility that Diosy wrote it and not D'Onston.
Chris, you might have identified the right Diosy in the census. However, the stated occupations in the 1891 and 1901 censuses, "manager to importer of provisions" and "provision merchant," respectively, do not seem to jive exactly with the man being an author as well as an authority on things occult, Hungarian, and Japanese!
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 457
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 27, 2004 - 11:06 pm: |
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Regarding my comment about Arthur Morrison (see my last message above), Morrison became an expert on Oriental porcelain and china after 1912 or so. Possibly his hobby brought him into contact with Diosy, due to their interests about Japanese culture. And this may explain that story by Morrison in his tales about Martin Hewitt regarding the Ripper and Black Magic.
Jeff |
AIP
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 5:51 pm: |
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Sir Max Pemberton described Diosy's visit to Scotland Yard with his theory -
"One night Arthur Diosy walked into Scotland Yard, and being asked his business, declared that he had a theory about the Ripper murders which somebody in authority might like to hear. An inspector received him with great courtesy, as Scotland Yard always does, and told him that he was the two thousandth or so who had come with such an idea.
'Very well,' said Diosy, 'I will write down two words on a piece of paper, and if you find them interesting you shall hear the rest.'
The inspector agreed and the words were written. Five minutes afterwards Diosy was telling his story to one of the C.I.D. men engaged upon the case.
In effect his theory as I had it from him was this.
He believed the person who committed the Ripper crimes, the maniac who cut so many wretched women to pieces, was the victim of Black Magic. He declared that the concomitants of the crime proved this beyond a peradventure. In every case, he declared, even when one of the murders was committed in the open street under the very nose of a policeman, there had been a pentagon of lights. In the street case, this pentagon had been formed of the stumps of five matches; in the houses themselves candles had been used. These lights were supposed to bestow invisibility upon the particular person favored of the devil, and so one murder was committed while a policeman stood but a few yards away. Goats' hair was found, I believe, in almost every instance, and all students of Black Magic will understand the significance of that. There were various other clues, but they are too intricate to be enumerated by the uninstructed; yet they seemed to have convinced the police that there was a great deal in what Diosy said and I am told that they began to make enquiries among those who vended books on Black Magic and among those who were their customers. In the end, Diosy averred that the names of five men were marked down and that one of them certainly was Jack-the-Ripper. Unfortunately, the matter ended there and 'the One' was never taken."
A tall story, and if Pemberton is correct we can only assume that the police were only humoring Diosy.
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AIP
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 6:50 pm: |
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Arthur Diosy (1856-1923) has had a biography written on him -
Biography of Arthur Diosy, Founder of the Japan Society by John Adlard, published in 1991 by the Edwin Mellen Press Ltd., ISBN 0773497587. |
AIP
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 5:18 pm: |
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Arthur Diosy a writer and lecturer on Japan and the East in general, and as he was supposed to have caused the Anglo-Japanese Treaty he was called the 'Japanner.' He founded the Japan Society and spoke the language fluently. He also spoke half a dozen other languages. One of his works was The New Far East. He was a great traveller. He was described as "a dark little man of much energy, whose mustache was a thing of beauty."
A Jack the Ripper theorist he was a member of 'Our Society', 'The Crimes Club', and is mentioned on pages 159-160 of The True Face of Jack the Ripper by Melvin Harris, who pointed out this article in The Pall Mall Gazette many years ago. Melvin Harris pointed out at the time that Diosy claimed he had reported his theory to the police two days before D'Onston's letter. |
Tracy Martin
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 8:32 am: |
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Hi, I wondered if anyone could help me - I believe Norah Upchurch was my great aunt and I want to try and find a copy of Ingleby Oddie's Inquest book to read about the case. How can I get hold of it and is there any other information that I can find, Norah's real name was Annie Louisa Upchurch and I don't really know where to start. I would appreciate any help.
Tracy |
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