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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 **
Jack the Radical?
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Research Issues / Philosophy:
Jack the Radical?
Author: R.J. Palmer
Sunday, 04 February 2001 - 11:23 pm |        | An interesting article --with some debatable details-- can be found at the following link.
http://www.libertyhaven.com/theoreticalorphilosophicalissues/libertarianism/jackradical.html |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 05 February 2001 - 01:47 pm | | Hi, RJ:
Thanks for alerting us to this article. I was interested in the characterization of George Lusk as a "Marxist." To my knowledge, there is no basis for this characterization other than that he was portrayed as a rabble-rouser in the 1988 Michael Caine TV film "Jack the Ripper." I do know that at the time the Caine film appeared one of his descendents vehemently denied that Mr. Lusk was anything like he was portrayed in the film. As far as I know, George Akins Lusk was a respectable local building contractor and held no Marxist views.
Chris George |
Author: The Viper
Monday, 05 February 2001 - 02:20 pm | | You are quite right, Chris. The following letter was published in the Daily Telegraph on the 15th October, 1988.
"Stepney swell travesty.
SIR - The review of the Jack the Ripper "epic" by Richard Last (Oct. 12) is sadly only too true. Having looked forward to it ever since it was mooted I was very disappointed to find that it was a dreadful travesy of the events in the autumn of 1888.
There were no riots in Whitechapel, only a feeling of fear and foreboding; gilded carriages were certainly not to be seen tearing through the sordid streets and alleyways.
My particular interest is the portrayal of George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee set up by a group of local tradesmen to assist the police to find the murderer, as a rough, uncouth, tramp-like man.
Actually he was a prominent builder and decorator who lived in Alderney Road, Stepney Green not far from the sites of the murders. One of his specialities was the redecoration and re-guilding of music-hall interiors. He was a Freemason and a member of the local authority.
I have a photograph (never published) of him and this shows a typical dignified, middle-class Victorian gentleman; clean-shaven but moustached, wearing a velvet-collared overcoat with a clean white handerchief in the breast pocket and holding a cigar in one hand and a stick in the other, and wearing a bowler hat.
I am able to give these details because I saw him on a number of occasions when I was a boy - he was my grandfather.
LEONARD ARCHER"
Regards, V. |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 05 February 2001 - 08:49 pm | | George Lusk's later residence and builder's premises in Caxton Street, Bow. Photograph courtesy of Paul Begg and Ripperologist
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