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Chris Phillips
Police Constable
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 8
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2003 - 9:45 am: |       |
Here are a couple of items from 1891 in Dagonet's "Mustard and Cress" column in "The Referee". (Another, dated 1 March 1891, is already in the "Press Reports" section of this website.)
22 February 1891
[A fairly long piece prompted by speculation about Sadler, criticising the idea that he was the Ripper, because if the Ripper had behaved as Sadler did, "he would have been caught long ago". Continues:]
I have read everything connected with Jack the Ripper and his awful deeds with the closest attention from the first, because (and I am not ashamed to confess it) he is to me a most interesting and fascinating subject. I have my own theory about him; and I don't put him on board a ship, and I scorn the idea that he is given to staying at common lodging-houses and getting drunk. What my theory is I don't care at present to say, but there is just one part of it to which I may as well allude.
[He goes on to suggest that the Ripper was responsible for murders earlier than that of Nichols, though not those of Christmas week 1887 and August 7 1888. He attributes to the Ripper the murder of a person part of whose mutilated body was found in Bedford Square, certain parts of the body having been cut out; he dates this crime by memory to 1882.]
I have no doubt my friend Mr Superintendent Thomson will remember the circumstances, for he had a hundred men scouring the neighbourhood to discover the missing portions, and very dustbin and refuse heap for miles around was eagerly searched.
...
We haven't got Jack the Ripper yet. I don't think we shall ever get Jack the Ripper. He will probably pass into the Ewigkeit unsuspected with his friend and fellow-murderers, "the man in the billycock hat," and the Burton-crescent lady-killer."
10 May 1891
[Recounts a trip to Elstree, to see the scene of Mr Weare's murder, where the landlord of the Plough Inn gave him the latch and handle of the door of Probert's cottage]
It is added to my little private museum, which contains Lefroy's visiting card, Peace's spectacles, a blood-stained clay pipe supposed to have been dropped by Jack the Ripper, Harriet Buswell's pocket-handkerchief, and a magnificent collection of police photographs of persons found dead under suspicious circumstances. These things, and a few blood-stained knives and razors, are my own little private Chamber of Horrors, and I am always endeavouring to add to the collection.
Chris Phillips
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Chris Phillips
Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 18
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - 6:04 pm: | |
Cara Gilgenbach, the Associate Curator, Special Collections and Archives at Kent State University Libraries, has kindly provided a copy of the following letter to Sims from Melville Macnaghten from the Borowitz Crime Manuscripts:
11. 2. '07[?].
Dear Sims,
Yet another "light" in dark, & not
generally known, metropolitan spots has
flashed across my mind:-
Eyre Street Hill - Clerkenwell - where
there is a large colony of Italians who
are mostly ice-cream vendors by day,
&, not infrequently, stabbers & shootists
by night.
It may also save you the trouble of
research if I give you the times &
places of Jack ye Ripper's pleasantries.
(1) 31st. Aug. '88. Mary Ann Nichols, found
at Bucks Row with her throat cut &
slight mutilation of stomach.
(2) 8th. Sepr. '88. Annie Chapman found in a
back yard at Hanbury St. throat cut & bad
mutilation as to stomach & private parts.
(3) 30th Sepr. '88. Elizabeth Stride, throat
cut only (no mutilations) in Berners*
St. near Anarchist Club.
(4) 30th Sepr '88. Catherine Eddowes, found
in Mitre Square, throat cut, bad mutilation
of face, stomach & private parts
(5) 9th Novr '88. Mary Jeanette Kelly, found
in a room in Miller's Court, Dorset St.
with throat cut, and the whole face &
body fiendishly mutilated.
Don't forget "Dowt" - which her name
is Devereux - & don't trouble to reply
to this.
Yours always
M.L.Macnaghten
[* Written over another word - possibly "Hanb..."]
The descriptions of the victims correspond fairly closely to those given in the Macnaghten memoranda.
The date, I think, could be read either as "'01" or "'07". In a transcript from a bookseller's catalogue, also provided by Ms Gilgenbach, it is given as "01". However, I'm inclined to read it as "'07", particularly in view of the fact that Sims's article "Who was Jack the Ripper?", published in Lloyd's Weekly News on 22 September 1907, also contains a list of the victims which is rather more detailed, but similarly worded, even down to describing Kelly as "fiendishly mutilated". (A transcript and scan of the article is available in the "Press Reports" section of this website.)
However, any further thoughts about the date will be gratefully received.
Ms Gilgenbach hopes to make scans of the letter available on the Kent State University website.
Chris Phillips
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Chris Phillips
Sergeant
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 22
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 03, 2003 - 6:12 am: | |
John Ruffels suggests that the mention of "Devereux" in the final paragraph of Macnaghten's letter may be a reference to Arthur Devereux, an infamous trunk murderer who killed his wife and two of his children, and was hanged, in 1905. This would fit the later, 1907, date for the letter.
I don't really understand the grammar of that sentence of the letter, and the reference to "Dowt", but this is certainly the kind of macabre crime that would have appealed to Sims.
Chris Phillips
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Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 476
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 10:21 am: | |
The following poem is by the same George R. Sims (aka Dagonet) who was a contemporary journalist at the time the Ripper case and who received the "Littlechild Letter" of 1913 from Chief Inspector John George Littlechild naming Dr. Francis J. Tumblety as a "likely suspect." Sims wrote the poem in 1879. It was very popular and had a strong influence on the workhouse reform movement.
Christmas Day in the Workhouse
by George R. Sims
It is Christmas Day in the workhouse,
And the cold bare walls are bright
With garlands of green and holly,
And the place is a pleasant sight:
For with clean washed hands and faces,
In a long and hungry line
The paupers sit at the tables,
For this is the hour they dine.
And the guardians and their ladies,
Although the wind is east,
Have come in their furs and wrappers,
To watch their charges feast;
To smile and be condescending,
Put pudding on pauper plates,
To be hosts at the workhouse banquet
They've paid for -- with the rates.
Oh, the paupers are meek and lowly
With their 'Thank'ee kindly, mum's';
So long as they fill their stomachs,
What matters it whence it comes?
But one of the old men mutters,
And pushes his plate aside:
'Great God!' he cries; 'but it chokes me!
For this is the day she died.'
The guardians gazed in horror,
The master's face went white;
Did a pauper refuse their pudding?
Could their ears believe aright?
Then the ladies clutched their husbands
Thinking the man would die,
Struck by a bolt or something,
By the outraged One on high.
But the pauper sat for a moment,
Then rose 'mid a silence grim,
For the others had ceased to chatter,
And trembled in every limb.
He looked at the guardians' ladies,
Then, eyeing their lords, he said,
'I eat not the food of villains
Whose hands are foul and red:
'Whose victims cry for vengeance
From their dank, unhallowed graves.'
'He's drunk!' said the workhouse master,
'Or else he's mad, and raves.'
'Not drunk or mad,' cried the pauper,
'But only a hunted beast,
Who, torn by the hounds and mangled,
Declines the vulture's feast.
'I care not a curse for the guardians,
And I won't be dragged away.
Just let me have the fit out,
It's only on Christmas Day
That the black past comes to goad me,
And prey on my burning brain;
I'll tell you the rest in a whisper,
I swear I won't shout again.
'Keep your hands off me, curse you!
Hear me right out to the end.
You come here to see how the paupers
The season of Christmas spend.
You come here to watch us feeding,
As they watch the captured beast.
Hear why a penniless pauper
Spits on your paltry feast.
'Do you think I will take your bounty,
And let you smile and think
You're doing a noble action
With the parish's meat and drink?
Where is my wife, you traitors --
The poor old wife you slew?
Yes, by the God above us,
My Nance was killed by you!
'Last winter my wife lay dying,
Starved in a filthy den.
I had never been to the parish.
I came to the parish then.
I swallowed my pride in coming,
For ere the ruin came,
I held up my head as a trader,
And I bore a spotless name.
'I came to the parish, craving
Bread for a starving wife,
Bread for the woman who'd loved me
Through fifty years of life;
And what do you think they told me,
Mocking my awful grief?
That "the House" was open to us,
But they wouldn't give "out relief."
'I slunk to the filthy alley --
'Twas a cold, raw Christmas eve --
And the bakers' shops were open,
Tempting a man to thieve;
But I clenched my fists together,
Holding my head awry,
So I came to her empty-handed,
And mournfully told her why.
'Then I told her "the House" was open;
She had heard of the ways of that,
For her bloodless cheeks went crimson,
And up in her rags she sat,
Crying, "Bide the Christmas here, John,
We've never had one apart;
I think I can bear the hunger,
The other would break my heart."
'All through that eve I watched her,
Holding her hand in mine,
Praying the Lord, and weeping
Till my lips were salt as brine.
I asked her once if she hungered,
And as she answered "No,"
The moon shone in at the window
Set in a wreath of snow.
'Then the room was bathed in glory,
And I saw in my darling's eyes
The far-away look of wonder
That comes when the the spirit flies;
And her lips were parched and parted,
And her reason came and went,
For she raved of our home in Devon,
Where our happiest years were spent.
'And the accents, long forgotten,
Came back to the tongue once more.
For she talked like the country lassie
I woo'd by the Devon shore.
Then she rose to her feet and trembled,
And fell on the rags and moaned,
And "Give me a crust. I'm famished.
For the love of God!" she groaned.
'I rushed from the room like a madman,
And flew to the workhouse gate,
Crying, "Food for a dying woman!"
And the answer came, "Too late."
They drove me away with curses;
Then I fought with a dog in the street,
And tore from the mongrel's clutches
A crust he was trying to eat.
Back, through the filthy by-lanes!
Back, through the trampled slush!
Up to the crazy garret,
Wrapped in an awful hush.
My heart sank down at the threshold,
And I paused with a sudden thrill,
For there in the silv'ry moonlight
My Nance lay, cold and still.
'Up to the blackened ceiling
The sunken eyes were cast --
I knew on those lips all bloodless
My name had been the last;
She'd called for her absent husband
O God! had I but known!
Had called in vain, and in anguish,
Had died in that den -- alone.
'Yes, there, in a land of plenty,
Lay a loving woman dead,
Cruelly starved and murdered
For a loaf of the parish bread.
At yonder gate last Christmas,
I craved for a human life.
You, who would feast us paupers,
What of my murdered wife!
'There, get ye gone to your dinners;
Don't mind me in the least;
Think of the happy paupers
Eating your Christmas feast;
And when you recount their blessings
In your smug parochial way,
Say what you did for me, too,
Only last Christmas Day.'
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1567
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 3:57 pm: | |
Thanks for posting that, Chris. Great stuff.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 88
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 4:49 pm: | |
Chris,Thankyou so much for posting this.What a wonderful site this is with all these rediscovered
gems!My dear Dad used to love reciting this at Christmas and we all used to enjoy it hugely.I would never have guessed that our old friend
Sims scribed it.Can"t think how my Dad knew it though-maybe from his grandmother.Cheers Natalie. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1569
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 5:34 pm: | |
Chris, Natalie
I just thought I'd mention this, re workhouses : there's a very fine short story called The Paupers in "Q's Shorter Stories" by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
Nothing to do with JTR, but a fine story nevertheless.
Robert |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 478
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 7:13 pm: | |
Hi, Robert and Natalie:
Thanks, Robert, for mentioning the short story called "The Paupers" in "Q's Shorter Stories" by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. I think anything that adds to our knowledge of the social conditions of the day is valuable to our understanding of the case. Natalie, I am pleased that my posting of the poem brought back pleasant memories for you. 
All the best
Chris
|
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 89
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 10:16 am: | |
Hi Chris and Robert,thankyou Robert for this find
I have noted it down and will try to get it from the library[first].Like Chris I think it very helpful if it throws light on the period and a great bonus if its also a good read!Best Natalie |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1573
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 3:38 pm: | |
Hi Natalie
It's from the period, though the setting is rural - apparently Cornwall.
It's a sad, short story about a devoted couple who are forced to enter a workhouse - where they'll be segregated.
Robert |
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 93
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 4:01 pm: | |
Oh Robert My Dad would have just loved it.He and my mum loved to see themselves as the leads in La Traviata from time to time which used to have me squirming with embarrassment!Natalie |
Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 759
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 1:02 pm: | |
Re Chris Philips post above about the Borowitz collection, a full listing can be found at:
http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/truecrime/borocrime.html |
Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 760
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 1:11 pm: | |
Here's another of Sims' poems:-)
"Billy's Rose."
FROM DAGONET BALLADS, by G.R. Sims,
BILLY'S dead, and gone to glory- so is Billy's sister Nell :
There's a tale I know about them were I poet I would tell;
Soft it comes with perfume laden, like a breath of country air
Wafted down the filthy alley, bringing fragrant odours there.
In that vile and filthy alley, long ago, one winter's day,
Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient, Billy lay;
While beside him sat his sister, in the garret's dismal gloom,
Cheering, with her gentle presence, Billy's pathway to the tomb.
Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child,
Till his eyes lost half their anguish, and his worn, wan features smiled
Tales herself had heard haphazard, caught amid the Babel roar,
Lisped about by tiny gossips playing at their mother's door.
Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told
How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold,
Where, when all the pain was over-where, when all the tears were shed-
He would be a white-frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head.
Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Saviour's love,
How He'd built for little children great big playgrounds up above,
Where they sang and played at hopscotch and at horses all the time,
And where beadles and policemen never frightened them away.
This was Nell's idea of heaven- just a bit of what she'd heard,
With a little bit invented and a little bit inferred.
But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand,
For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land.
"Yes," he whispered, " I can see it - I can see it, sister Nell ;
Oh, the children look so happy, and they're all so strong and well;
I can see them there with Jesus- He is playing with them, too!
Let us run away and join them, if there's room for me and you."
She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spent
In the garret and the alley where they starved to pay the rent;
Where a drunken father's curses and a drunken mother's blows
Drove her forth into the gutter from the day's dawn to its close.
But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy,
"You must die before you're able all these blessings to enjoy.
You must die," she whispered, "Billy, and I am not even ill;
But I'll come to you, dear brother,- yes, 1 promise that I will.
"You are dying, little brother,- you are dying, oh, so fast;
I heard father say to mother that he knew you couldn't last.
They will put you in a coffin, then you'll wake and be up there,
While I'm left alone to suffer in this garret bleak and bare."
"Yes, I know it," answered Billy. "Ah, but, sister, I don't mind;
Gentle Jesus will not beat me; He's not cruel or unkind.
But I can't help thinking, Nelly, 1 should like to take away
Something, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day.
"In the summer, you remember, how the Mission took us out
To a great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about,
And the van that took us halted by a sweet bright patch of land,
Where the fine red blossoms grew, dear, half as big as mother's hand.
"Nell, I asked the good, kind teacher what they called such flowers as those,
And he told me, I remember, that the pretty name was rose.
I have never seen them since, dear- how I wish that I had one!
Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I'm up beyond the sun."
Not a word said little Nelly; but at night, when Billy slept,
On she flung her scanty garments, and then down the stairs she crept
Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn,
Running on and running ever till the night had changed to dawn.
When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away
All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay.
She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet,
But there came no flowery gardens her poor tearful eyes to greet.
She had traced the road by asking-she had learnt the way to go
She had found the famous meadow-it was wrapped in cruel snow
Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant blade
Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed.
With her eyes upcast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground,
And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found.
Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim.
And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb.
" Oh, a rose P' she moaned, "good Jesus- just a rose to take to Billy",
And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill
And a lady sat there toying with a red rose, rare and sweet;
As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly's feet.
Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret,
And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet;
But the poor, half-blinded Nelly thought it fallen from the skies,
And she murmured "Thank you, Jesus" as she clasped the dainty prize.
Lo! that night from out the alley did a child's soul pass away,
From dirt and sin and misery to where God's children play.
Lo! that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o'er the land,
And that morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.
Billy's dead, and gone to glory- so is Billy's sister Nell,
Am I bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell -
That the children met in heaven after all their earthly woes,
And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, " Billy, here's your rose?"
|
Natalie Severn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Severn
Post Number: 98
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 3:13 pm: | |
Thankyou Chris-Natalie. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 1582
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 - 4:25 pm: | |
Yes, thanks Chris. The poem should have pressed all the right buttons with the Victorians.
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3143
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 02, 2004 - 7:10 pm: | |
Another odd coincidence - "Times" Jan 6th 1892 :
Robert |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1146
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 5:42 am: | |
Hi Robert,
I don't expect that Hutchinson is a very uncommon name but still,
interesting find (again!)
Jenni
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Robert Clack
Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 321
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 9:21 am: | |
Hi Robert
That might be the George Hutchinson who also did some illustrations for the 1891 edition of "A Study in Scarlet".
Rob |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3145
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 10:22 am: | |
Could well be, Rob.
I was looking for the particular form "Geo", and this illustrator seems to have used it. Of course, it's highly unlikely that he's our GH.
Robert
|
Robert Clack
Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 322
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 11:18 am: | |
Hi Robert
I had a look at one of the illustrations he did and he signed Geo Hutchinson. He also added something after his name but quality of the illustration I got isn't very good, but the signature is clear enough to tell that it isn't our man.
Rob |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3148
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 12:33 pm: | |
Thanks Rob. That's a relief - we can't have a possible murderer sketching good old Holmes and Watson! 
Robert |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 981
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 11:37 am: | |
Hi, all
There is a webpage that gives George Hutchinson as a Sherlock Holmes illustrator, apparently the third artist to do drawings of Conan Doyle's famed detective. I also find that Hutchinson illustrated Jerome K. Jerome, Israel Zangwill, and Robert Louis Stevenson, and did illustrations for several magazines in London, including The Illustrated London News and The Idler. He was the London-based Nova Scotian artist George Hutchinson. See Wendy R. Katz and Lilian Falk, 'George Hutchinson, a Canadian Illustrator of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island'. Canadian Children's Literature, 2000, no. 96, vol. 25iv: 11-27. George Hutchinson was a maternal cousin of the American poet, Elizabeth Bishop, and an article by Sandra Barry, "An Artist In The House," provides further details on his life.
All my best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3151
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 3:09 pm: | |
Hi Chris
Thanks for those links about George Hutchinson. One has to feel sorry for Doyle's father!
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3153
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 4:23 pm: | |
Here is Sims's obit. "Times" Sept 6th 1922.
Robert |
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