Author: stephen borsbey
Tuesday, 05 December 2000 - 03:55 pm |        |
i have just read the above book by jack london
from 1902 which is only 14 yrs after the ripper murders.conditions in the east end would not have changed that much.! i have come to the conclusion that anyone who moans about THIER LOT in 2000 a.d. (myself included). should be made to read this book.
the conditions people had to bear were amazingly cruel......regards steve. |
Author: JOHN SMITHKEY III
Saturday, 30 December 2000 - 02:39 am | |
That's a very good observation Steve! I too, have read the People of the Abyss while doing the background research on my book. While in London, I had the pleasure of taking a Jack The Ripper Walking Tour hosted by Donald Rumbelow. During his tour he points out that when Jack London arrived in the east end to start his project, there were some social reforms already in place!!
In other words, Jack London's writings about the conditions of the east end took place AFTER the reforms for improvement were in place. We can only imagine with sorrow (as well as horror) what the lives of the people of the east end must have been like before attempts at social improvements were put into practice. After reading London's book, we should indeed sit back and think, and perhaps do a little less moaning. Steve,you made a good observation! If you're interested, there is another book I would like to recommend by Arthur Morrison titled "A CHILD OF THE JAGO". This is based on a true childhood of someone growing up a certain area of the east end known as the jago. |
Author: Scott Quigley Nguyen
Monday, 19 February 2001 - 01:26 am | |
| Also read People of the Abyss. One must understand the social conditions of the area to understand why these women were on the streets when they were. The book can be found online as well. |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Tuesday, 20 February 2001 - 04:42 pm | |
Here within the walls of "CASEBOOK" are a few commentaries on Victorian life, especiaslly one or two by social commentators of the time.
Always by what I have reads by modern commentators has always feeling disconnected from it all, feeling sure that no-one gave a damn about the value of human life during our specific chosen period.
What I read mad me bawl my heart out, me a 31 year old who in his youth got into pub brawls and didn't give a crap about anything. I suggest everyone who reads this seeks out the commentry for the 19th Century within these pages. I defy you to shed a tear like I have done. There were humans with our attistudes then, I promise.
Tris |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Tuesday, 20 February 2001 - 04:49 pm | |
In future will someone make me spell check. I sounded like a real idiot there, if not a drunk. Serves me right for typing damn too fast.
Hope you all got what I was on about, even I lost the track when reading it back to myself. Just goes to show I should have listened to my English teacher.
tris. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 20 February 2001 - 05:07 pm | |
Sear Tris,
Soory far me gigguls.
Luv,
Rosamundii |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 21 February 2001 - 03:50 am | |
Hi Tris,
Don't worry, I'm sure we all got the gist. IMHO, correct spelling, grammar, punctuation etc, are far less important when it comes to writing from the heart and soul.
Hi Rosemary,
I must be the original dyslexic agnostic insomniac - I laid awake all last night wondering if there was a Dog - called "Skip". :-)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 21 February 2001 - 07:55 am | |
Just a small point on 'the Jago'. It was Arthur Morrison's fictionalising name for 'the Nichol', around Old Nichol Street (off the north end of Brick Lane, within very easy walking distance of JtR's stamping ground). It was gangs from the Nichol who were suspected of 'blackmailing' street prostitutes and killing Emma Elizabeth Smith. Arthur Harding, the gang leader who flourished c.1910, came from the Nichol. His memoirs ('East End Underworld', ed. Raphael Samuel)give interesting next-generation garbling of Ripper memories, . And despite rebuilding and some excellent Herbert Morrison period council housing, it remains an area where crime may be taken for granted. About ten years ago I was carrying out a very specific commission for a friend to go to a birdshop in the Nichol and get a male white budgy with red eyes. The shopkeeper instantly (and rightly) said, 'Oh, yeah. On holiday in Parkhurst, is he?'(For Americans - Parkhurst is a maximum security prison on the Isle of Wight).
Martin F |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 07:54 pm | |
Minor point but you might find it amusing. Arthur
Morrison wrote those Martin Hewitt detective
stories in the 1890s. One of them makes a reference to the Whitechapel murders, where there
is a reference to candles left near some bodies
of the victims for ritual purposes. I can't recall the name of the stories, but it was in the
selection of Hewitt stories that Dover publications put out in the last twenty years. |
Author: Avril Sprintall
Sunday, 25 February 2001 - 05:04 pm | |
Has anyone read M J Trows The Many faces of Jack the Ripper?
It gives a fascinating insight to the areas around Whitechapel in 1888 and now.
When I last went to Whitechapel I found the book a great help locating specific areas of "interest". |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 26 February 2001 - 08:44 am | |
Yes. Mei Trow's work is always fun - I only wish he'd kept the batty Sherlock Holmes going in his marvellous Inspector Lestrade novels.
There's a lovely little point to add to his splendid spoof identification of Fred Charrington as the Ripper. It is a fact that at the time of the Ripper murders Charrington was out of the news, as the papers noted, because had just closed down his temperance activities for the time being and said he proposed to concentrate more on stamping out prostitution and brothels....!
Martin Fido |
