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RipperHistorian
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, March 14, 2004 - 10:44 pm: | 
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Some Questions:
1) How was mail sent in 1888? Did the sender deposit the mail in a mailbox or did they have to go to a post office and pay on the spot?
2) Was it well known that a kidney was removed from one of the victims before the Lusk Letter arrived?
3) What percentage of the average population would have known that organs could be effectively preserved in alcohol? What types of jobs would have involved this?
4) If it was a practical joke, do you really think that the prankster would have bothered to send a kidney that had not been injected with fluid from the lab? Isn't getting a fresh kidney a lot of work to go through for a practical joke, one for which nobody ever took credit for?
Seems to me that if any Ripper communications were real, this one would be the best choice:
There was a fresh human kidney, it was sent to somebody personally involved in the search and not to the press, and there is no indication that it was written to be published; it was written only to Lusk.
Hope you can help answer my question
Thanks
Tim |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1271
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 7:39 am: |
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Can some kind soul help with any of the following questions regarding the Lusk letter?
1) Am I right in saying that the original letter is no longer in existence, or at least its whereabouts are not known?
2) If no longer extant, when was the letter photographed?
3) When was the last known occasion when the original letter was still in the files?
4) In which publication was the copy of the Lusk letter first made public and what was the origin of the publication? (i.e. was a photograph of the letter kept in the police files?)
The original two communications (The Dear Boss letter and the Saucy Jacky postcard) were published in facsimile in contemporary papers and on posters but, as far as I known, the From Hell letter was not publicly reproduced at the time,.
I would be grateful for any help on these matters
Many thanks
Chris
(Message edited by Chris on June 23, 2004)
(Message edited by Chris on June 23, 2004) |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1272
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 7:48 am: |
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Re: the above. Of the books I have the earliest copy I can find of the Lusk letter being reproduced in facsimile is the book by Dan Farson (1972), but he does not quote his source for the image of the letter
Chris |
SPE
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 9:19 am: |
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Chris,
1) The whereabouts of the original letter is not known. It has been stated that it was bought by a Canadian collector in the 60's but there is no evidence to confirm this.
2) The letter was photographed by the City Police (on loan from the Met Police) between 20 and 24 October 1888 and returned to the Met Police (see HO 144/221/A49301C, ff. 162-170).
3) It is not known when the original letter was last in the files.
4) There are only two known copies of the Victorian photograph of the letter. Obviously any publication of the letter may have been produced from a photograph and not the original letter. It appeared in the London Hospital Gazette of April 1966. Most probably this was reproduced from the original photograph in the possession of the Royal London Hospital.
Best Wishes,
SPE |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1273
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 10:32 am: |
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Hi SPE
many thanks for this very useful information
can you tell me anything about the origin of the statement about the Canadian collector as that particulary intrigued me!
thanks again
Chris
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John Ruffels
Inspector
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 251
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 11:11 pm: |
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Welcome back SPE! Trust you are enjoying the English sunshine? Good to see your smiling initials and learned words upon the page.
I was going to look up THE ULTIMATE SOURCEBOOK for Chris, but now I won't.
JOHN RUFFELS. |
Monty
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Monty
Post Number: 1210
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 3:25 am: |
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SPE,
No comment about this thread......
......Just echoing Johns words.
Monty
Sminky pinky !
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John Ruffels
Inspector
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 252
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2004 - 8:57 pm: |
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Dear Ripper Historian
I'll try to address a couple of your enquiries.
1) You only went to a P.O. counter to purchase the stamps, then you affixed the stamp and posted in the post-box yourself. That is usually for letters. If you are talking parcels,
unless you worked for a large business with its own copy of the stamp charges, and a set of scales, you had to present yourself at the counter to have the article weighed and assessed for stamps. Large businesses still had to lodge their parcels over the counter at the P.O.
2)To my knowledge, the only people who would have known the Ripper victim was missing a kidney, would have been the doctor, the mortuary attendant,the investigating police and favoured journalists.(It is possible later in the day close relatives of ALL of the above would have known).
3)Very few medical students and body snatchers, general medical practitioners and mortuary staff.
Oh, and writers of detective stories.
4)Yes, it would have been a lot of bother to go to, just for a practical joke.But, who knows what
pranks medical students got up to in those days. |
Jim DiPalma
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jimd
Post Number: 83
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 25, 2004 - 10:23 am: |
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Hi All,
Sorry, John, I beg to differ:
>2) Was it well known that a kidney was removed from one of the victims before the Lusk Letter arrived?
Someone asked this same question a few years back on the old boards, and a quick trawl through the Press Reports page showed it was widely reported in the press coverage of the Eddowes inquest that a kidney had been removed. Some papers even included the detail that it was the left kidney that had been removed.
So, it was public knowledge, which doesn't necessarily mean that the Lusk letter was a hoax. It could still have been a genuine communication from the killer.
Cheers
Jim |
SPE
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 1:42 pm: |
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Chris,
As the information regarding the disposal of the Lusk letter is unconfirmed from verbal sources, and involves certain allegations against officials I am unable to reproduce it in a public forum. However, I repeat, there is no evidence to support this story.
I hope this helps.
Best Wishes,
SPE |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2918
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 04, 2005 - 1:44 pm: |
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Is anyone able to inform me about the letter that Lusk received some time prior to the kidney package purporting to be from Jack the Ripper?
Beginning:
'Say, Boss, you seem rare frightened...' |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2926
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:02 pm: |
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Sorry, Robert, this is the thread I meant, which I should have said.
I'll send you the other reference for the 'nother victim asap. |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 5356
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:20 pm: |
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OK, AP, here's the item.
 |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 2689
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:27 pm: |
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I will look in the "Letters from Hell' book later Ap.
Meanwhile I noticed a letter signed 'The Whore killer" all about Battersea/Clapham/Clapham Junction and Brixton where the writer who claims to be JtR says he intends cutting up men as well as boys and girls.He says he"ll send the heart by parcel post and this letter was recieved before the famous from hell one received 16th oct.So its a earlier reference to sending body parts.
Interesting he has chosen the Cutbush boys neighbourhood! |
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