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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Also In 1888
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: General Topics:
Also In 1888
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Wednesday, 10 January 2001 - 03:22 pm |        | I was watching the History Channel, and it transpired that there was a huge blizzard in the Northeast of the United States in the Winter of 1888. I don't know whether this snowstorm happened in early 1888 (January/February), before the murders, or in late 1888 (November/December), after the killings, but it occurred to me that, if it happened in January or February, an even stronger case might be made for a suspect such as Dr. Tumblety, the American doctor, seeing as how a sense of lack of control (in this for instance, a lack of control over a paralyzing snowstorm) over an element in a serial killer's environment, usually one which occurs in a place that the killer calls home, can really set him off.
Just one more reason it was simply "bound to happen" in 1888.
Can anyone think of any more simple, but terribly stressful (to a control freak), events, in 1888, or even in 1887 or 1886? These might help us see which of our suspects was most likely to have gone over the line that autumn, by providing us with a list of things that might have made him, in particular, just want to rip someone's head off and gut her. Maybe there was a bad crop of oranges or an embargo of SPanish and/or US crops that forced an "orange lady" to be boldfaced about her real wares (the "Spanish and/or US crops being Valencia and Florida oranges and other citrus fruits). Perhaps the extraordinarily cold weather wilted the fruit on the vines and caused some monumentally-naive psychopath to finally understand what his sister or mother or lover was doing when she said she was night-costermongering -- without any fruit in tow. |
Author: The Viper
Wednesday, 10 January 2001 - 07:39 pm | | Sarah,
1888 was a very wet summer, at least in the U.K. Early August was abysmal and substantial flooding was registered in London, the Isle of Dogs suffering especially badly. These events were well documented in the East End press. There is no sensible reason why this should have any bearing on the Whitechapel murders.
Regards, V. |
Author: Diana
Wednesday, 10 January 2001 - 08:37 pm | | | Jack wasn't sensible. Who knows? And apropos of that, has anyone checked the phases of the moon on the murder nights? Some people seem to go coo-coo on the night of a full moon. |
Author: Ashling
Thursday, 11 January 2001 - 07:39 am | | Sarah: I posted about the 1888 Blizzard on the Ada Wilson board last year. It happened the week of March 10, 1888. Here's a link:
http://home.att.net/~noreaster909/pages/s1888.htm
Ashling |
Author: Ashling
Thursday, 11 January 2001 - 07:51 am | | Diana: Yes they have. No full moons on the nights the Big 5 were killed. That info is available, among other places, on the Casebook Productions web site. I played a small part in helping Dave Yost collect the data. The URL is:
http://www.casebook-productions.org/explore/sr_mp.htm
Ashling |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Thursday, 11 January 2001 - 12:40 pm | | To All:
Thank you. Perhaps my suggestion should go a bit more like this, then: How does one create a link to a fact such as the "wet year" fact and the "Ada Wilson Blizzard of '88" fact, so that all of these "Environmentally Related Facts" could be reached from one place (namely, this one). I ask because I happen to (politely) disagree with Diana's contention that Jack was "not sensible," which I interpret as meaning that he was a man so caught up in his psychopathic haze of hatred, or so mentally disturbed from birth, or both, that he did not notice what was happening about him.
I happen to believe that Jack was fully conscious of what was going on in the world. That is how he escaped capture. No head-in-the-clouds type would be aware enough of other people to want to taunt them by leaving his victims in the open air. A head-in-the-clouds type (Denis Nilssen (sp.?), e.g.), would be unsure enough of what his neighbors had and hadn't seen that he would have been compelled to hide the bodies under the floorboards, down the toilet, etc. He would also, as Nilssen, probably feel compelled to bring the victims into a hiding-place whose every nook and cranny was totally known to him, such as his own apartment or house. This would be the only environment he would be comfortable with. He would only maybe use his car, and that would be a big maybe, because there are so many windows to look into with a car, and what if the police see the victim, and stop him. What if he is forced to take a route that is unfamiliar to him, and he gets lost, and has to stop the car and consult a map? What if some good Samaritan stops to give him quicker directions than the map would, and gets in the way? THen he'll have to kill the Samaritan, too, and that's one more person than he planned upon killing, so he's got to use ad hoc supplies, like the same rope or knife, etc., as he used for the intended victim. And then... But you see why I ask. The head-in-the-clouds, space-cadet kind of killer does not do his killings outside the home. He would be too anxious. The victim would get away, if he messed up and didn't finish the job. The victim would tell the police, and he would be caught.
Now, this is not to say that JtR didn't start as a space cadet. He could have "done" THe first two females (the ones who lived long enough to tell tales) away from home, convinced that he really did want to be a modern-day member of the Hell-Fire Club, a highwayman who never let an old flame live. But they lived, and so he waited a while to get back to taking the gal up to her room. He waited, after brutally assaulting Ada Wilson & Co., for a bit, for five more attacks, each time improving his style and his breadth and scope of mutilation, until the piece de resistance, Mary Jane Kelly, at which point he felt he could go no further. The police still did not appreciate that hounding a "self-made gentleman" (and landed gentry were, after all, the only folk allowed entry to such horrormakers' houses as the Hell-Fire Club), was really not at all fine or right, after he realized that the police would never recognize his inborn regality, he stopped killing, and, perhaps, did himself in, or, perhaps, went off to some tiny tropical locale or back to America, where his skills might, just might, be appreciated.
So you see, a man who was always checking the newspapers for signs that the World Had Recognized His Talent And Station, might have occasionally glanced at newspapers before the time of the killings, if only to wonder why he had not yet made the Society pages, and to damn the world for not realizing Who He Was and To What He Was Entitled. Let us remember that we are not dealing with a scared, confused boy who accidentally shoots a rival gang member in a heated gunfight. We are not even dealing with someone who actually believes that killing whores is his way into the Kingdom of God. We are dealing with a man who, whether the Letters were written by him or not, had his "best intentions" summed up by the writer of the Dear Boss Letters: "I am down on whores [and] I shant quit ripping them until I am buckled." This is the straight line from "A" to "B" that we all know is JtR's motive and motivation. He hates whores. He kills what he hates. He wishes to avoid capture. He is a showman. He is terribly cavalier about taking the lives of others. He believes he is above the police ---(not necessarily above the law. I won't bring Nietzsche into this. He's been dragged through the mud too many times already.)---, socially ---( I am not prepared to say "philosophically." It would be difficult for me to believe that this man's philosophy extends beyond plea-bargain-style blather to calm the masses and make them believe that the Devil is not, in fact, stalking their less-fortunate sisters in Whitechapel.)--- and therefore believes that it is perfectly all right for him to taunt them. He is probably not as intelligent as he believes, and was doubtless ecstatic with his own perceived power over persons he'd never met when the letters started pouring into Scotland Yard and the press, much better and more eloquent and full of exculpatory mental illness than he could have ever thought of.
That's all for now,
Sarah |
Author: stephen borsbey
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 03:35 pm | | also in 1888 the following happened.
john boyd dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre
the great eastern is broken up on merseyside
the miners federation of uk is founded.
the bryant and may match girls strike in july. eastmans kodak box camera invented.
the lawn tennis association founded.
the local government act est. county councils
just thought you might be interested. steve. |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 15 June 2001 - 07:15 pm | | Hi, Steve:
Thanks. There are several that you listed that I did not know.
Chris |
Author: Harry Mann
Saturday, 16 June 2001 - 04:53 am | | Steve,
Also in the late 1880's,the first buildings incorporating the 'flats'style of accomodation came into being in London.
H.Mann. |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 16 June 2001 - 08:17 am | | What about Albany, Harry?
Martin F |
Author: stephen borsbey
Saturday, 16 June 2001 - 04:35 pm | | | thanks chaps. i think its interesting to know the social conditions that existed at the time of the ripper.not that any of them would have cramped his style, |
Author: Harry Mann
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 05:06 am | | Martin,
My information came from a book from the local library.It was a book about Victorian London.
If by Albany you mean the realm of England,I have no information on that score.
Regards,
H.Mann. |
Author: Jim Leen
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 02:32 pm | | Hello Everybody,
Another couple of events;
The Communist manifesto was revised and reprinted.
A new Kaiser.
Dropping of the pilot, i.e. Bismark (I think.)
Glasgow Celtic formed.
Thanking you
Jim Leen
PS, RIP Alma! |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 02:57 pm | | Jim, Bismarck, who helped Wilhelm II get the real
imperial power while his father Friedrich III
was dying of cancer (Friedrich was a Liberal, and
Bismarck hated him)was not initially dropped in
1888. Wilhelm dropped Bismarck as Chancellor in
1890, having gotten tired of the "Old Man". That
that "Old Man" was one of the political geniuses
of the 19th Century never got into Wilhelm's
head.
I read A.J.P. Taylor's book about Bismarck two
decades ago. I am glad to say the "Iron Chancellor" was able to give a little back to the
idiot who now reigned in Germany. Bismarck confronted Wilhelm in his own office on their last
official meeting, and he remembered some foreign
leader (possibly the Tsar, Alexander III, who
disliked Wilhelm) had sent him a letter that
insulted Wilhelm. As the meeting reached a
crescendo of name calling and shouting, Bismarck
suddenly pretended that he had forgotten to hide
a document, and tried to "hide" the letter.
Wilhelm demanded to see it, and Bismarck "reluctantly" handed it over. The "Iron Chancellor" had the pleasure of seeing the Kaiser's face turn beet red as he read the insults. Nice payback that.
Jeff |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 05:05 pm | | Hi, all:
Bismarck's death, of course, is, according to the Littlechild letter, the reason why journalist Thomas J. Bulling lost his job at the Central News Agency.
Littlechild wrote, "One night when Bullen [sic] had a 'few too many' he got early information of the death of Prince Bismarck and instead of going to the office to report it sent a laconic telegram 'Bloody Bismarck is dead.' On this I believe [his boss] Mr Charles Moore fired him out."
If the story related by Littlechild is correct, and that Bulling was fired for sending the telegram, this occurred on or after July 30, 1898 when the former German Chancellor died on his estate near Hamburg. I personally would like to verify that Bulling was sacked in the circumstances stated but so far have been unable to do so. If Littlechild is correct, Bulling was with the Central News Agency for almost a full decade after the Whitechapel murders.
Chris George |
Author: Michael Lyden
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 05:36 pm | | Hello all,
I must quickly mention that two big heroes of mine were born in the year 1888.
1.Scottish TV.pioneer John Logie Baird.
2.British Comic genius Will Hay.
Regards,
Mick Lyden |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 17 June 2001 - 09:48 pm | | The following people were born in 1888.
T.S. Eliot
Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia)
Thomas Sopwith (of aviation fame)
Katherine Mansfield
The dead of that year include (besides the
Ripper's victims)
Edward Lear
General Philip Henry Sheridan (of U.S. Civil War
fame)
Kaiser Wilhelm I of the Second German Reich
Kaiser Friedrich III of the Second German Reich
(Friedrich, with throat cancer, had a three
month reign).
Former New York Senator and Republican Boss, Roscoe Conkling (the most famous victim of the
"Blizzard of 1888").
Theodore Fontane (German novelist, "Effie Brest")
Jeff |
Author: stephen borsbey
Tuesday, 19 June 2001 - 02:55 pm | | here is more info on 1888.
august 11th...charles parnell initiates action against the times claiming 100,000 in damages
he got 5000 in 1890.still a lot in those days.death of matthew arnold poet.1822-1888.
but for myself whenever i see a coin or a building with the year 1888 on it i will
always be reminded of the terrible ripper
murders. |
Author: Mark List
Tuesday, 19 June 2001 - 04:01 pm | | In 1888, all this happened:
(Number 8 is quite interesting)
1. Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany dies after a 27-year reign, during which he saw the unification of Germany and the birth of Germany's welfare state.
2. The Ndebele king accepts a British protectorate, giving Cecil Rhodes exclusive mining rights in West Africa. The Ndebele will rebel against British rule in the next decade.
3. American voters elect Republican Benjamin Harrison president, ousting Grover Cleveland.
4. Brazil frees its remaining slaves, with compensation to masters.
5. Croatian-American Nikola Tesla invents an alternating-current electronic motor. He also develops early radio technology, but he gets little financial reward for his achievements.
6. American socialist Edward Bellamy writes Looking Backward, a utopian science-fiction novel depicting the United States in the year 2000; in Bellamy's world, all industry had been socialized, and wealth is equitably distributed.
7. A Belgian woodcarver publishes the song L'Internationale, with lyrics written during the Paris Commune uprising: Arise, ye prisoners of starvation/ Arise, ye wretched of the earth.... The song is adopted by the Communist Party.
8. Five London prostitutes die (they ate poisoned grapes and were then disemboweled). Jack the Ripper is blamed, but the killer is never caught; the rumor later circulates that Queen Victoria ordered the murders to distract attention from a scandal involving her son, Prince
Albert.
9. Auguste Rodin finishes his sculpture The Thinker.
10. George Eastman invents the Kodak camera, making it possible for anyone, not just professionals, to take photographs. |
Author: Eduardo Zinna
Wednesday, 20 June 2001 - 11:33 am | | | In 1888 Oscar Wilde invited W. B. Yeats for Christmas dinner. |
Author: stephen borsbey
Tuesday, 28 August 2001 - 03:05 pm | | hi folks, just realised that on march 10
1888 it was edward and alexandras silver wedding celebrations they were married in 1863.does that mean anything?? ah well never mind. |
Author: E Carter
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 06:04 pm | | | Stephen, your thoughts may well be right or wrong but they are new therefore priceless. And I do mind at all so Thank-you, ED. |
Author: E Carter
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 06:10 pm | | | I recently brought a book about addiction; I'v just brought another! |
Author: E Carter
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 06:36 pm | | LIFE IS HOW YOU SEE IT!
Several years ago after a mad party, I made my way home in an abosulte blurr. Waking the next morning I found myself covered in dew only to realize that I was lying in a field--next to a football pitch--in Hackney Marshes; a game in progess. Local football supporters were standing around staring at me, as I woke up in a haze. The only answer seemed to me at the time was to to ask 200 people what the f***ing hell they were doing in my bedroom! ED It gave me the edge in a very very difficult situation! |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 08:40 pm | | Dear Ed,
Your public life is your own affair!Your book addiction is very funny...I suggest you have your Prefaces removed.
Rosey:-) |
Author: D L Lewis
Thursday, 30 August 2001 - 10:52 pm | | Just on Jeff's story on Bismarck - another thing Bismarck used to do is stay up with insomnia, writing his enemies down, and noting what he'd like to do to them.
Where was he in August, October and November, 1888? |
Author: Stepan Poberowski
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 04:52 am | | BBCNews, Thursday, 24 May, 2001
Kaiser Willhelm II pictured in Turkey
Letters indicating that Germany's last emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II was blackmailed by a prostitute with whom he had sado-masochistic sex, have been unearthed.
The German weekly, Die Zeit, discovered the bundle of letters in an archive belonging to the Bismarck family.
It appears that a high-class prostitute Emile Klopp - known as "Miss Love" in the letters - had threatened to go public about the details of her kinky liaisons with the then prince, but was silenced by a cash settlement.
The revelations may have influenced a political struggle between the kaiser and the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck - who hated the emperor - and, Die Zeit speculates, may even have forced Bismarck from power.
"Spicy stories"
Miss Love claimed to have in her possession six letters from Wilhelm, who was Queen Victoria's grandson, which described the nature of their relationship "in a particularly spicy way".
"Love indicated, that some very peculiar inclinations towards complication of the usual coitus were revealed in the letters - for example, tying the hands together," wrote Wilhelm von Bismarck, Otto von Bismarck's son, who was eventually commissioned with sorting out the embarrassment.
Love claimed that after being introduced to Prince Wilhelm in Strasbourg, he had brought her to Potsdam, where he had set up a flat for her near his palace.
Price of silence
While he had been well-known for his conquests and "adventures", the Love affair was considered by the Bismarcks as particularly "fatal".
"Nowadays, these matters cause more of a stir than they used to, because the press is much more wide-spread and mean-spirited than before and because the German Kaiser is more in the public view than any other person or monarch," bemoaned Herbert, Otto von Bismarck's other son.
In 1888, Love apparently threatened to have the letters published in France - Germany's enemy - after she believed she had been spurned.
The crisis was managed by Wilhelm von Bismarck and in time-honoured fashion money was the way to stop this potential disaster.
Wilhelm von Bismarck paid 25,000 marks - now worth around DM 500,000 ($220,000) - in return for the letters.
"It is hair-raising to put something like that to paper," he said on finally receiving them.
He put them in a sealed envelope and sent to the kaiser but to this day they have not been seen again.
Power struggle
But, while Love may have been silenced, the reverberations from the affair may have been felt for years to come, speculates Die Zeit.
"The Bismarcks saw in this the confirmation of what they judged to be a lack of character in the ruler," a Die Zeit journalist wrote.
"And vice versa, Wilhelm II now had to live with the knowledge that his great adversary knew more about his private life than he could have wanted," Volker Ulrich wrote.
As the revelations of the Love affair occurred at the height of a power-struggle between the chancellor and the kaiser, it could even have influenced Bismarck's demise. |
Author: Stepan Poberowski
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 04:53 am | | BBCNews, Thursday, 24 May, 2001
Kaiser Willhelm II pictured in Turkey
Letters indicating that Germany's last emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II was blackmailed by a prostitute with whom he had sado-masochistic sex, have been unearthed.
The German weekly, Die Zeit, discovered the bundle of letters in an archive belonging to the Bismarck family.
It appears that a high-class prostitute Emile Klopp - known as "Miss Love" in the letters - had threatened to go public about the details of her kinky liaisons with the then prince, but was silenced by a cash settlement.
The revelations may have influenced a political struggle between the kaiser and the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck - who hated the emperor - and, Die Zeit speculates, may even have forced Bismarck from power.
"Spicy stories"
Miss Love claimed to have in her possession six letters from Wilhelm, who was Queen Victoria's grandson, which described the nature of their relationship "in a particularly spicy way".
"Love indicated, that some very peculiar inclinations towards complication of the usual coitus were revealed in the letters - for example, tying the hands together," wrote Wilhelm von Bismarck, Otto von Bismarck's son, who was eventually commissioned with sorting out the embarrassment.
Love claimed that after being introduced to Prince Wilhelm in Strasbourg, he had brought her to Potsdam, where he had set up a flat for her near his palace.
Price of silence
While he had been well-known for his conquests and "adventures", the Love affair was considered by the Bismarcks as particularly "fatal".
"Nowadays, these matters cause more of a stir than they used to, because the press is much more wide-spread and mean-spirited than before and because the German Kaiser is more in the public view than any other person or monarch," bemoaned Herbert, Otto von Bismarck's other son.
In 1888, Love apparently threatened to have the letters published in France - Germany's enemy - after she believed she had been spurned.
The crisis was managed by Wilhelm von Bismarck and in time-honoured fashion money was the way to stop this potential disaster.
Wilhelm von Bismarck paid 25,000 marks - now worth around DM 500,000 ($220,000) - in return for the letters.
"It is hair-raising to put something like that to paper," he said on finally receiving them.
He put them in a sealed envelope and sent to the kaiser but to this day they have not been seen again.
Power struggle
But, while Love may have been silenced, the reverberations from the affair may have been felt for years to come, speculates Die Zeit.
"The Bismarcks saw in this the confirmation of what they judged to be a lack of character in the ruler," a Die Zeit journalist wrote.
"And vice versa, Wilhelm II now had to live with the knowledge that his great adversary knew more about his private life than he could have wanted," Volker Ulrich wrote.
As the revelations of the Love affair occurred at the height of a power-struggle between the chancellor and the kaiser, it could even have influenced Bismarck's demise. |
Author: E Carter
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 02:11 pm | | | \Book addiction? |
Author: E Carter
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 02:14 pm | | | Rosie, above, I have given you the name of the Whitechapel person of interest, again, low self-esteem was a problem in recognition! ED. |
Author: E Carter
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 02:32 pm | | | Or, low self esteem! |
Author: E Carter
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 02:33 pm | | | Do you recognize low self esteem? ED |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 06:46 pm | | Dear Ed,
Sorry Ed, I don't recognise the term "self esteem"
high, low, or fair to middling.Is that OK with you?
Thomas the Doubter thinks you are on crack...he bases this belief on the innate desire to believe that anyone who does not think as he does is a crackpot (denoting a person on a pot smoking crack cocaine).
Do you think Jack was on opium?
Rosey :-) |
Author: E Carter
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 03:52 pm | | At great risk of being called an 'asylum attendant'-- and after many years of training-- I will explain this.
No, I believe that the murders were based on 'folie a deux'.(follie of two) Jack the Ripper developed a psychotic paranoid delusional state focused against certain women.
(A paranoid delusion is a fixed false belief where the person is unaware that their ideas are delusional.
Mistakenly, Phillip Sugden describes 'follie a deux' as one psychotic illness shared by two people.
When in fact it normally occurs when the thoughts of a paranoid person influences another's actions with false beliefs.
For example, if I became paranoid/delusional(no humor please) then claimed that the man over the road was surveying our house, my wife would soon begin to observe the house that I claimed was watching us.
This would be classic folie a deux!
My delusional state has then created neurotic behavior with in my wife.
Though outwardly, she might say 'don't be so stupid'! Insecurity concerning our safety would compel her to sneak the curtains back and check the house across the road just to check.
The scenario of the Whitechapel murders is a in a way much the same; paranoid state influencing the Berner Street anarchists who believed that psychotic ideas were, or could well be, very sane. ED
You all know who Jack the Ripper is just a case of putting a name to the nickname! ED |
Author: Adrian morris
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 05:24 pm | | In 1888 the Scottish/Irish football (soccer( team - Glasgow Celtic came into being.
ADRIAN. |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Tuesday, 23 October 2001 - 08:25 pm | | Wow! I go away for a while and we come up with the Kaiser as a possible suspect ... But, seriously, look at him. There's the furry hat that might be mistaken for a wideawake hat, the vague "foreign-lookingness" that the few witnesses who could remember seeing Jack recalled sensing, the moustache shape and color, the German accent that would be easy to mistake for a Yiddish inflection if one were not accustomed to hearing either (Yiddish is, in fact, a "working-class" dialect of Medieval High German, written out in the Hebrew alphabet instead of in the modified Roman one employed in writing out regular German)... Also present is the military uniform that Pearly Poll claimed to have seen, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Kaiser carried a short, curved ceremonial sword that would have looked, in size, shape and such, a great deal like the knife exhibited as Jack's in that glass case at, I belive it was Scotland Yard, but it might have been Madame Tussaud's or some other place where horrors are exhibited....
Of course, this is all speculation, and wild speculation at that, and mostly in fun... But, even though I don't generally say "I told you this might work for something," I must say, it has worked at least as a form of intellectual knuckle-cracking. It frees the mind to wander to other districts of town, and even to take a train or carriage or steamer to other parts of The World at the Time of the Whitechapel Murders, in order that we might clear our minds and wander back to our Abberlinian CID and bring good ol' Inspector A. something new, however inconsequential (BTW, I hear Johnny Depp is predictably awful in From Hell, as one might expect given his oh-so-stellar performance in Sleepy Hollow. The flick is supposedly full of 1888 Whitechapel/Spitalfields night's-lodgings/backalley pence-prostitutes with perfect teeth (in London. In 1888.) and sunny dispositions and Audrey Hepburn Cockneyisms/accents and perfect hair colorists (and since when did Mary Ann Nichols have RED-DYED HAIR???? Since when did she spend her doss on anything but booze?) and hearts of gold. And the rings are in it. (I know, I know, it's based on the graphic novel, but come on, they could have messed with it just a little....))
Well, TTFN,
Sarah |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Wednesday, 02 January 2002 - 06:53 pm | | UPDATE
*********************
I have been using my old secondhand _Chambers'_ to figure out who might be a new suspect, and what was happening in 1888, and around then.
I have come up with a rather chlling new hypothesis:
Jack didn't become a famous serial killer until he got into the newspaper.
The newspapers of London seemed not to publish anything about serial murder, nor anything about poor people, nor anything about women, nor especially about the serial murder of poor women, until JtR hit the news.
_Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde_ had just hit the theatre of the West End with a resounding smash.
Very little actually happened *in* 1888 (so far as my admittedly-not-completed studies show). People published books, were knighted, were born and died, but those are "everyday" items that would, I imagine, be relegated to announcement in some sort of newspaper column/s. Scientific discoveries were made, but I imagine the _Illustrated London News_ wouldn't get much of a buzz out of publishing a picture of a test tube, a new fish or tree, a spectrograph, or a physics equation. There were a few battles, but nothing that anyone was covering on the front, so far as I can see.
It was a SLOW NEWS DAY, all year, except for the Blizzard. And who wants after-reports of people frozen to death, etc.? That's not sexy. That's not hip. That's not raw and hard-boiled. There was something downright *French* about cold, white faces with blue lips slowly falling asleep and expiring!
Waht to do? Well, I know that, right now, in the United States, there are two annoying-to-chilling (usually TV)journalistic practices that might be responsible for the "creation" of JtR.
One of these is the tendency to follow up a review of a fictional acted-out entertainment, such as a play or movie, with, "And here's the real thing/ A thing so similar it might as well be the real thing" as the next news story covered that night.
Another is, on what people know is going to be a very dry, run-of-the-mill news week, a serial criminal whose signature is especially ear-catching, or who has a readily-identifiable trait (tattoo, limp, stutter, skin color), or who is especially brutal in a psychologically-interesting way, is profiled, and, if and as the week's news continues to be dull, the criminal is covered again the next night, etc. They might leave off if he leaves off committing crime, then start up again as dullness of news and commission of similar crimes allows.
So, what I want to know is, is it possible that, because 1888 was, figuratively, a "slow news day," the press decided to try something new? Was it so, then, that the reform movement/s had gotten so trendy that some everready journalistic neophyte decided to use the "sexiness" and allure of a bizarre crime/ series of crimes to add zip to the tabloid's cover and vigor to his own career, by connecting the horrors of poverty and having to sleep alone in the cold, with the Monster With The Scientist's Black Bag -- The Real Thing, from _Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde_, and create for himself a Frankenstein's Monster by printing the Dear Boss Letters, thereby adding credibility to his story (after all, it would then read as upperclass-white-man-oppresses-poor-white-woman-by-promising-medical-care-and-then-killing-her,-the-evil-Sawbones! He would symbolically be carrying Gladstone's bag of tricks, in a political sense). It would read as an allegory of Poverty versus Affluence, of the Killing of the Innocent Poor of the East End by the Rich White-Slave Traders.
It could be that JtR is an amalgam of Theatre Review, Reformer's Soapbox, Slow News Day, and one reporter's soaring, vulture-like ambition...
Sound like human nature...?
Well, it does to
me,
Sarah |
Author: Monty
Thursday, 03 January 2002 - 07:59 am | | Sarah,
How do you become a "famous serial killer" without being in the media ??
Word of mouth ?? Recommendation ??
Monty
 |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Saturday, 05 January 2002 - 11:43 am | | Sarah, you are absolutely right about the year
1888. I wrote an essay about it. It was not
an exciting year except for the following events:
1) the Blizzard of 1888 in the northeast U.S.
2) the death of Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, followed by the coronation and death of the
cancer-ridden Kaiser Frederick III, to be
succeeded by Kaiser Wilhelm II (the Kaiser in
World War I).
3) the election for the Presidency between Grover
Cleveland (the incumbent) and Benjamin Harrison.
Cleveland won more popular votes, but Harrison won
enough electoral votes to become President.
The literary and theatrical highlight of the year
appeared to be Gilbert and Sullivan's Yeoman of
the Guard (produced in October 1888).
The obituaries of 1888 included some well-known
people:
Edward Lear,
Louisa May Alcott and her father, Bronston Alcott,
former U.S. Senator and political boss Roscoe
Conkling,
Union Cavalry Commander, Philip Henry Sheridan,
Controvertial French General Achille Bazaine,
Poet and philosopher Matthew Arnold,
Controvertial British General, Lord Lucan,
Former Mayor of New York City and Governor of
New York State (the last to be both) John T. Hoffman,
German novelist Theodore Fontane
It was definitely not a banner year - even the
criminal events were second-rate (except for the
the Ripper). The most important crime in London
prior to the autumn of terror was some event called the Regent's Park Murder, where a gang
attacked and killed the wrong man (it was during
the summer). The major issue was involving punishment, as most of the gang members were
juveniles. In France, the most notorious known
murderer in the world, Prado, was tried and
guilloutined in late 1888.
The only other major event was that, as a result
of a quarrel with his roomate Paul Gauguin,
Vincent Van Gogh cut off the lobe of his ear in
November 1888. One of two notorious mutilations
that month.
So it was a really mild year. If it had been like
1929 or 1912 or 1914 one wonders how many people
would still be discussing the Ripper's mysteries.
Jeff |
Author: graziano
Saturday, 05 January 2002 - 01:02 pm | | "It would be as an allegory of Poverty versus Affluence, of the Killing of the Innocent Poor of the East End by the Rich White-Slave Traders."
All these Capitals, Sarah, are you german ?
180 (three times treble twenty) for the motive.
But it was not the creation of a news seeking journalist.
It was the work of "Jack the Ripper".
Just one more argument.
Jack did not kill the Innocent People of the East End.
He chose his victims among the representatives of one of the wounds of the capitalistic society (you know, this kind of society based on homo homini lupus): the exploited prostitutes.
He did not choose them among the most beautiful, gracious or useful to their own family (remember there were a lot of "normal" mother's family who prostituted occasionnally just to be able to grow up the children).
He took what we could call the least useful to others.
Two of them were in fact already dying.
If we think at what could have been the future of Tabram, Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes (you may add McKenzie), we may say they were already irremediably lost (socially speaking).
Was Jack so blind-striking after all ?
Was Jack so monstruous ?
Reflections, reflections.
Bye. Graziano.
P.S.: If 1888 was so tedious, what about 1887 ? |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 05 January 2002 - 07:56 pm | | | Graziano, It really does not matter on which rung of the social ladder Jack took his victims from.They had as much right to live as anyone else including the highest in the land.One should never judge a person solely by their social standing.A person should be judged by what is in their heart and not by the school they attended or the amount of money that they may or may not have in the bank. |
Author: graziano
Sunday, 06 January 2002 - 05:01 am | | Yes, Ivor, certainly.
Once again you state a very sensible and sensitive thing with which I perfectly agree.
But I was not explaining my thoughts.
Just Jack's.
Bye. Graziano. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 06 January 2002 - 08:52 pm | | | Hi Graziano, Thank you for making the point clear to me. |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Wednesday, 09 January 2002 - 05:50 pm | | Actually, 1887 and 1889 ***were*** a lot more exciting. I probably wouldn't have noticed how dull 1888 was if I hadn't had the relative spice of the other '80s years to compare it with (see especially 1884 -- AMAZING stuff!!!) All sorts of scandals and intrigues were set upon the public stage both in the previous year, and in the year afterward.
Secondly,
Graziano: I don't think Jack picked on people who wouldn't be missed. I think he did do a certain amount of stabbing in the dark, pun intended. I have pretty much done away with my "childish toys" -- my ideas that some enraged husband did it, to anyone with his wife's name and/or features, who lived within a certain radius (see Chapman/Kosminski/Koslowski and Barnett). Or that some guy whose maybe-it's-his-maybe-it's-not-his journal was ostensibly found in the floorboards of some house he lived in then with his infamous and well-profiled-in-the-papers-because-their-name-was-already-connected-with-a-famous-murder family did it, and his cheating, lying, personality disordered, arsenic-happy wife is totally innocent, even though she had motive, means, and opportunity, and was generally evil and manipulative and fomented division and hatred and the nursemaid hated her, etc.
I have also rejected the idea that an actual doctor did it.
I am, because it is my duty as a Jew to be so, still open to any *likely* Jewish suspect; for Moses Maimonides said that "You shall go out of your way to make way for the Gentile who walks down the road with a heavy burden upon his back; but so, too, shall you go out of your way to find out and turn in to the authorities of the law of the land in which he dwells, any Jew who commits murder." It is thought that to befoul any other nation with the sinner among the people that is Chosen is a worse sin than to befoul that nation with a killer of its own predominant religion.
So if anybody has any Jews, please send me an e-mail at: Loonglow@aol.com
I'm serious. I need to know so I can do my duty.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is not that the papers killed anyone. I know that the one with the knife is the killer. I'm dense, not stupid. What I mean is precisely what Monty said:
You can't become a "famous serial killer" without the media. It's like trying to become a "critically-acclaimed playwright" by performing your plays for your family in the basement using handpuppets.
What I mean is that the Idea of "Jack the Ripper." (and no, I'm not trying to be German -- I'm using an eighteenth-century-ism -- the capitalization of all Important Words in a Sentence, especially one about an Issue -- to make a point about the relatively-primitive state of the mass media then as compared with now) Sorry, I meant to say that maybe the Idea of "Jack the Ripper" was a constructed one -- just like the Idea of "Ziggy Stardust." After all, if there were really some guy out there named "Jack the Ripper," or maybe "Jack das Ripper," we could just look up "Ripper, Jack d." in the telephone directory and there he'd be!
But the name is not a real name, as we all know. So Jack, if he was, indeed, the one writing the Dear Boss letters (or even if not), has self-consciously made up a name, and the papers have, self-consciously, out of all the confession-letters they have received, printed his. They both made what writers and other artists call "character-building choices." These are the choices writers, actors, etc., make when making up who they are as their characters. They are, in a sense, editorial decisions.
Now, even if "Jack the Ripper," the Dear Boss letter-writer, was *not* the Whitechapel Murderer, we still have "character-building choices," choices of persona in this case. Each cut and throttling, each location and staging, each scratch and sexual position, each clue left and each clue taken, each facet of the killer's modus operandi and of his signature, tells us something about his "directing style," about what props he had on hand. Each time a "reviewer" (reporter) gets sloppy and tells the world that there were "two brass rings" onstage when there weren't any onstage or in his "directorial vision," he gets angry, like some twisted version of a theatre primadonna. He must have approved of the Dear Boss writer, because he didn't balk (so far as we know. I'll have to get Letters From Hell and find out) at what Dear Boss-guy wrote.
The point is, they each created visions of what they wanted their Whitechapel Fiend to be like, and then they edited him and created him in that image, drawing clean, well-kept prostitutes upon the pages of the Illustrated News in that fated Slow News Summer, prostitutes whose illustrations, anyway, became more and more beautiful and graceful as the Jack the Ripper Story sold more and more copies. The Jack we see in the papers is somewhat divorced from the Jack we see when we look at the morgue photos and imagine the man who did that to those women. The reality is not the art, but try telling that to the press or to the hundreds of budding Jacks all over the USA. Try telling that to the people who aren't hardcore about Jack, but believe what the glossy, made-over comic-book-come-to-life, _From Hell_, says, because the media says it.
Sarah |
Author: Vaughan Allen
Thursday, 10 January 2002 - 07:58 am | | Sarah,
broadly I agree with you...therr is a distinction to be made between 'JtR', which may well have been an invention of certain people at the Central News Agency, and the Whitechapel Murderers.
I don't believe however we are talking about someting so simplistic as a 'slow news year'. Rather there was a confluence of cultural themes, including (as you say) Jekyll and Hyde and the growing popularity of gothic horror (from Poe onwards, culminating in the publication of Dracula in 1897--a book which Stoker began writing in 1890 (Stoker being a Secretary to the great actor Henry Irving and based at the Lyceum Theatre in London), and can thus be said to be influenced by the WM scares), but also more important elements such as the rise of the populist press, and the spread of 'popular' entertainment such as the music hall.
One of the most obvious pieces of packaging has been the teleological build-up towards MJK (RIP), where the sequence is seen to have ended. IN fact, of course, the murders went on, though whether by the same hand or another is impossible to say. THe JtR murders, though, are defined, circumscribed, within a particular discourse that sees an end with MJK (RIP).
Incidentally, whatever you think of the film of 'From Hell', the comic-book's footnotes and epilogue (which focuses on the history of ripperology and suggests we should leave the death of MJK (RIP) as 'an over-determined suicide') are both quite superb.
Vaughan |
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