Tumblety/Lusk Letter Connection

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Tumblety/Lusk Letter Connection

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Author: Christopher T George Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 01:04 pm
Hi, Martin, RJ, and Ashleah, It is the contention of Tom Wescott and myself that in both the Lusk letter and the Openshaw letter, which we believe were both written by the same individual, possibly Roslyn D'Onston, there is a certain "staginess" and a definite tongue-in-cheek deportment of the writer or writers. Thus, Martin's contention that the writer in the Lusk letter is using a stage Irish delivery, popular both in the music hall of the day, as well as in cartoons that appeared in Punch and other publications, is right in line with our theory... even if he might not go as far as suspecting D'Onston of being responsible for these missives. In the Openshaw letter, it might even be considered that the writer is mimicking a stage Cockney, with the misplaced aitch when he says he is going to "hoperate" near the London "ospitle" in saying, "Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to your ospitle. . ." along with the evidently purposeful misspelling in the ending rhyme, "O have you seen the devle / with his mikerscope and his scalpul / a-looking at a kidney / with a slide cocked up." All this when the correspondent is perfectly well able to spell "hospital" and "Pathological" on the envelope, which reads: Dr. Openshaw Pathological curator London Hospital Whitechapel Even if Tom Wescott and I are mistaken, and the writer was not D'Onston, he or she at the least appears to have been a joker and an observer of regional dialects and how they were used in society of the day, on the stage and in print. Best regards Chris George
Author: Ashleah Skinner Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 01:28 pm
If the lusk letter and openshaw letter are by the same hand then the misspelling of the word in the letter but the correct spelling on the envelope could back up a theory that the dear boss letter is by the same person but hiding their idenity pretending to be Irish which would cause police to look for someone Irish when the person may be a cockney (like me)
Author: Christopher T George Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 02:04 pm
Hi, Ashleah: You could be exactly right that the Dear Boss letter writer was trying to hide their identity as were the person or persons who wrote the Lusk and Openshaw letters. Note though that Dear Boss is written in a precise "clerkly" hand although those other two missives are written in a very disorderly fashion which might argue that they were by someone else. My inclination is to think (although I may be wrong) that Dear Boss and Lusk/Openshaw were written by different people. Another aspect to note is that although one of the arguments given for the authenticity of the Lusk letter is that it is not signed "Jack the Ripper," unlike the September 25, 1888, Dear Boss letter, the Openshaw letter is signed "Jack the Ripper." So if Tom Wescott and I are correct and the Lusk and Openshaw letters are by the same person, this negates that argument that the writer was not laying claim to being the Ripper. Best regards Chris George
Author: Garry Wroe Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 02:38 pm
Hello All. Given that the police, press and public all believed the original Dear Boss letter to be genuine and that almost all subsequent hoaxers signed their handiwork with the Ripper cognomen, the singular feature of the From hell letter is that it makes no mention of Jack the Ripper. Despite the fact that its author was aware of the theft of Eddowes' left kidney and may therefore be presumed to have had specific knowledge of the case, he/she nevertheless neglected to use the killer's so-called 'trade name'. This, it could be argued, provides powerful evidence that the From hell author knew the Dear Boss letter to be the work of a hoaxer. If so, it would appear highly likely that the From hell letter indeed emanated from the killer. Regards, Garry Wroe.
Author: Christopher T George Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 03:31 pm
Hi, Garry: Read the second paragraph in my post of Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 02:04 pm above. Best regards Chris
Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 04:30 pm
There was no consensus that the original 'Dear Boss' letter and the postcard were genuine, as witness the following from the The Star editorial of 4 October 1888:- "By the way, why does our friend, the D.T., print facsimiles of the ghastly but very silly letters from 'Jack the Ripper'? We were offered them by the 'Central News,' and declined to print them. They were clearly written in red pencil, not in blood, the obvious reason being that the writer was one of those foolish but bad people who delight in an unholy notoriety. Now, the murderer is not a man of this kind. His own love of publicity is tempered by a very peculiar and remarkable desire for privacy and by a singular ability to secure what he wants. Nor is there any proof of foreknowledge of the Mitre-square crimes [sic], beyond the prediction that they were going to happen, which anybody might have made. The reference to ear-clipping may be a curious coincidence, but there is nothing in the posting of the letter [sic] on Sunday. Thousands of Londoners had details of the crimes supplied in the Sunday papers." On 7 October 1888, in The Referee, George R. Sims dismissed the writer of this correspondence in the following terms:- "A gruesome wag, a grim practical joker, has succeeded in getting an enormous amount of fun out of a postcard which he sent to the Central News. The fun is all his own, and nobody shares in it, but he must be gloating demonically at the present moment at the state of perturbation in which he has flung the public mind. Grave journals have reproduced the sorry jest, and have attempted to seriously argue that the awful Whitechapel fiend is the idle and mischievous idiot who sends the blood-stained postcards to the news agency. Of course the whole business is a farce. The postcard is an elaborately-prepared hoax. To imagine a man deliberately murdering and mutilating women, and then confessing the deed on a postcard, is to turn Mr. W.S. Gilbert loose upon the Whitechapel murders at once..." The astute Sims went on to explain his own theory that:- "It is an idea which might occur to a Press man perhaps; and even then it would probably only occur to someone connected with the editorial department of a newspaper, someone who knew what the Central News was, and the place it filled in the business of news supply..." Nor, of course, were the police convinced that the letter was from the actual killer. On 10 October 1888, Warren wrote to the Home Office with his opinion of the 'Dear Boss' letter:- "At present I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case." Many of the hoax letter writers during the first two weeks of October 1888, prior to the receipt of the letter and piece of kidney by Lusk, were not signed 'Jack the Ripper', such names as 'The Butcher', 'Ripper', 'George of the high Rip Gang', 'Jack the cunquerer', 'Leather-Apron', 'The Whore Killer', 'Bill the Boweler', 'Mr Englishman', 'A.R.M.' and another unsigned. 'The Whore Killer' letter of 6 October 1888 threatened more murders and included the words, "I will send you the heart by parcels post", and, as we know, in the next murder, that of Mary Kelly, the heart was missing. In my opinion there is no 'powerful evidence' at all that the 'From hell' letter was genuine, and, as I have shown, there were widely published contemporary statements that the 'Dear Boss' letter was, indeed, the work of a hoaxer. Also, in my opinion, it is highly unlikely that the 'From hell' letter was sent by the killer. In all probability George Lusk's suspicion that the piece of kidney was sent to him as a practical joke by someone in the London Hospital was correct.
Author: Christopher T George Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 04:39 pm
Hi, Stewart: Thank you for your very informative post which puts things in perspective in regard to how the police and the press viewed the Dear Boss letter. Best regards Chris George
Author: Richard P. Dewar Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 04:42 pm
Hi Stewart, I am of the same opinion but those wanting to entertain more exciting and romantic notions about the Whitechapel killings prefer to believe that the murderer was a letter writer. I am of the opinion that in the From Hell letter the author may have scribbled "Sir" rather than the heretofore consistently stated "Sor." The pen flourishes, to my eye, make it virtually impossible to state with any certainty the spelling of that greeting. To all, I would highly recommend Stewart Evans/Keith Skinner's book "Letters From Hell" which offers a narrative, text of actual letters sent purportedly by the killer, and in some cases photos of the infamous writings. Many of the myths about those letters, sometimes propounded by posters on this website, would be dispelled with the information contained in that book. Regards, Rich
Author: Stewart P Evans Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 05:53 pm
Rich, Many thanks for the kind words. I guess that there is nothing wrong with exciting and romantic notions, and they add colour and interest where there is a distinct lack of clear facts. As regards 'Sir' v. 'Sor' I did at one stage read it as 'Sir', but the factor that clinched it for me as 'Sor' was that in every word where a lower case 'i' is used it is dotted, and there clearly is no dot above the 'i/o' of 'Sor'. The 'Lusk letter' itself is one of the many minor mysteries of the Ripper case, for the whereabouts of the original is unknown. All we have is an 1888 photograph of the letter. The best information to hand seems to indicate that this letter was sold to a Canadian collector in the 1960's. Best Wishes, Stewart
Author: Christopher T George Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 07:01 pm
Hi, Rich: The popular myth, that has existed and grown since 1888, despite the excellent book by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner, is that Jack was a letter writer, and that he wrote on walls and such. But like most myths and legends, the popular belief does not make it so. The only "message" the Whitechapel murderer may have had could have been in the murders themselves, and that could have been by turn a message for himself alone. Best regards Chris George
Author: Ashleah Skinner Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 07:49 pm
Stewart that information is true and many noted Ripperologist believed it the lusk letter to be a medical hoak until Nick Warren piece changed that view even though no substancial evidence exsists
Author: Garry Wroe Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 08:52 pm
Hi Chris. The problem that I perceive re your second paragraph is that one must assume a link of common authorship between the Lusk and Openshaw letters in order to insinuate a default Ripper signature on the Lusk letter. Rightly or wrongly, I simply see no evidence to support such a conclusion and therefore maintain the viewpoint that the From hell author made no mention of Jack the Ripper. Of course, it may be the case that you are aware of evidence that supports a link between the Lusk and Openshaw letters. If so, I for one would certainly be interested in seeing it. Cheers. Hello Stewart. I'm sorry that our first exchange has to be in disagreement, but I cannot concur that there was a lack of consensus regarding the veracity of the Dear Boss letter. Certainly, as is ably demonstrated in your above posting, there were those who dismissed this missive as a hoax. But these were in the minority. Once the police went public with the Dear Boss facsimile, the majority of journalists and their readership referred to the letter as having emanated from the killer. I would also dispute that 'many' of those letters received post-Dear Boss and pre-From hell made no reference to 'Jack the Ripper'. Of those that did not, most alluded to either Jack or the Ripper or Ripping, the inference being that they had been influenced by the Dear Boss letter and/or the subsequent postcard. I am, of course, aware that the vast majority of the letters received by police in 1888 have been lost and are therefore no longer available for scrutiny. Were this not the case, their existence could well demonstrate that I am wrong in my belief that the Dear Boss letter exerted a profound influence on subsequent Ripper-related correspondence. But, having examined the surviving letters in some detail, I can only base my assessment on what I have seen. Best wishes, Garry Wroe.
Author: Martin Fido Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 10:46 pm
Fascinated to see from Stewart's long and informative posting that a contemporary commentator thought the Dear Boss letter was obviously in red pencil. This was exactly the conclusion I came to on first seeing the original, with regard to the post script - (not the main body of the text, which is clearly ink). This was agreed by Robin Gillis (then archivist at Scotland Yard) who joined me in peering at it through a magnifying glass. And the A-Z entry thus descibes it as a postscript in red crayon. But I believe I have heard since then that more expert eyes have examined it and concluded that Robin and I (and The Star leader writer) were wrong, and the postscript, too, is in red ink. Have I heard this rightly or wrongly? Stewart and Keith will surely know? All the best, Martin F
Author: Ashleah Skinner Tuesday, 30 July 2002 - 11:37 pm
Hi a lady called Anna Koren who is the worlds top document examiner looked at the dear boss letter positively saying that it was done by paint! She is the best and more experted than us so i think that opinion will lead to intense debate and also on the inquest paper by Joseph Barnett the b he done is similar to the Bs in the Dear Boss letter!
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 01:59 am
Garry, There certainly was no consensus that the 'Dear Boss' correspondence was genuine, that is demonstrated clearly by the references I have posted, and there are others. I was disagreeing with your previous post which stated "Given that the police, press and public all believed the original Dear Boss letter to be genuine..." (emphasis mine). This, obviously, is not the case. Nor is it the case that nearly all subsequent hoaxers signed their handiwork with the Ripper cognomen, again this is shown by the other names used in the two week period prior to the receipt of the Lusk letter. I do agree that the majority were influenced by the 'Dear Boss' correspondence, but that is not what you originally said. You stated that "all" the police, press and public believed it to be genuine. For my part I did not say that "'many' of those letters received post-Dear Boss and pre-From hell made no reference to 'Jack the Ripper'." What I did say was "Many of the hoax letter writers during the first two weeks of October 1888...were not signed 'Jack the Ripper'..." and I gave ten examples to prove that. Indeed, some of the letters using different names still made 'Dear Boss' references and around thirty did use the nickname 'Jack the Ripper'. Five make no mention of 'Jack the Ripper' or 'ripping' while the 'Mr Englishman' letter of 13 October 1888 specifically states that the letter 'signed Jack the Ripper' was a trick. After 16 October 1888 the signature 'Jack the Ripper' and 'Dear Boss' references proliferated, the name had gripped the public imagination. So, whilst I would agree that the 'Dear Boss' letter was hugely influential (I have never denied this and have always made the point that it was), I would disagree that all the police, press and public believed it to be genuine and that 'almost all subsequent hoaxers signed their handiwork with the Ripper cognomen'. Sorry if I appear to be arguing semantics here, but your previous statement was used to buttress the idea that the 'From hell' letter was from the killer as "the singular feature" of it was "that it makes no mention of Jack the Ripper". Your own conclusion was that: "This, it could be argued, provides powerful evidence that the From hell author knew the Dear Boss letter to be the work of a hoaxer. If so, it would appear highly likely that the From hell letter indeed emanated from the killer." Sorry, I simply cannot agree with you in that conclusion. I was not aware that "the vast majority of the letters received by the police in 1888 have been lost and are therefore no longer available for scrutiny", and I would be interested to know your source for this statement. Martin, I was aware that you and Robin had reached the conclusion that the 'Dear Boss' postscript was in 'red crayon', although the main body of the letter was in red ink. I am not aware that 'more expert eyes' had examined it and concluded that you were wrong. However, Keith, Richard Sharp and I did examine the original letter with a powerful glass and concluded that the postscript was, in fact, in ink, although a different ink to the rest of the letter. I have to admit that it was difficult to tell as the postscript has faded badly but appears to have 'bled' into the paper, something that crayon would not do. Also, if you take a look at the 1888 colour facsimile of the 'Dear Boss' letter, the stroke of a pen nib may be discerned. Best Wishes, Stewart
Author: Martin Fido Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 06:06 am
Hi Stewart, I think that yours, Keith's and Richard's were the more expert eyes of which I recollected hearing. Not wishing to be argumentative about it, but are you sure wax cannot bleed into paper over a period of time and/or under temperature changes? I should have thought this would be determined by the density of the wax and the fineness or coarseness of the paper's 'weave'. Hi Ashleah, Beware of overstating Anna Koren's position. She is a graphologist rather than a document examiner: i.e., she claims to be able to discern a writer's character from his or her handwriting. While this can be done to a certain extent in extreme cases - (the visible tremor in the handwriting of some elderly people, for example; or the pernicketty aestheticism of the writer Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) who used multi-coloured inks and a very careful italic script) - in most instances the "skill" is regarded by most informed people as being about as scientifically valid as reading fortunes in tea leaves. In one of Anna Koren's books - (it may for all I know be the only one) - she discerns a prophetic guitar shape in the way Elvis Presley formed his capital E's. This illustration can usually be guaranteed to reduce sensible people to helpless laughter. In the same book, Ms Koren explicitly denies being a document examiner - one whose expertise lies in comparing handwritings to determine whether the same person wrote different documents and exactly what type of writing equipment was used. She was called into the Ripper business by Paul Feldman, who gave her an extravagant commendation. She is certainly not the world's leading document examiner, and you can judge for yourself just how useful she is to us in the section of Paul's Maybrick Diary video where she explains why she thinks the diary's handwriting is that of someone under extreme mental stress. Three very much better document examiners who have looked at various Ripper documents are Sue Iremonger, who was called in by Shirley Harrison to look at the Maybrick Diary and subsequently took an interest in the Ripper letters; Audrey Giles, a document examiner who did much work for Scotland Yard and/or the Home Office, and was called in by the Sunday Times to examine the Maybrick diary and by Stewart Evans to examine the Littlechild letter; and Maureen Owens, a former document examiner for the Chicago Police and president of a prestigious American document examining body who was called in by Kenneth Rendell to examine the Maybrick diary. All three came to rather different conclusions from Anna Koren. All the best, Martin F
Author: Garry Wroe Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 11:27 am
Hi Stewart. Many thanks for your lengthy and detailed response to my previous posting. And yes, I will readily concede that you are correct in repudiating the notion that all police, press and public believed the Dear Boss letter to be genuine. With the benefit of hindsight, I might have more accurately represented my position in this context by inserting the word 'virtually'. But even in the light of this amendment, I suspect, with the greatest of respect, that you will not alter your stated view. As such, I will simply say that, irrespective of what Anderson, Swanson, Abberline et al later stated as their belief, the Dear Boss letter (and 'saucy jacky' postcard) must in the initial stage have been viewed by senior officers as possibly authentic, otherwise why go to the time, trouble and expense of organizing and distributing facsimile posters? As far as I am aware, no other Ripper communication elicited such a response, a reality that suggests that the Dear Boss letter was taken somewhat more seriously than might be inferred from your previous posting. The fact that a facsimile poster was circulated, I would suggest, was sufficient to convince many journalists that the Dear Boss letter was indeed being taken seriously by those leading the Ripper investigation. This led the majority of reporters (in other words, a consensus) to state unequivocally that the letter had emanated from the killer and thereby fostered a similar view within the general public. There were, beyond dispute, those who failed to acquiesce in this respect. But these were clearly in the minority - hence my contention of a consensus belief in the Dear Boss letter's probity. Let us remember, too, that divisional forces continued to submit to the Met reports attaching suspicion to individuals whose handwriting style resembled those of the Dear Boss and 'saucy jacky' communications. One such report, I seem to recall, emanated from a Yorkshire police force. And this submission may in no way be taken in isolation. So, notwithstanding the private beliefs of Abberline and other senior officers engaged directly on the manhunt, there certainly appears to have been a widespread assumption that the Dear Boss author and the Whitechapel Murderer were one and the same. And this, for me, Stewart, is the issue at hand. Given the near-certainty that most of the hoax Ripper letters originated from ordinary members of the public, and that the vast majority of the same general public further assumed the veracity of the Dear Boss letter, the notion that a hoaxer would go to the extraordinary length of procuring a left human kidney but would then fail to adopt the Ripper cognomen in a concomitant letter strikes me as most improbable. You, of course, might counter this viewpoint by stating that many hoaxers during the relevent timeframe made no direct reference to Jack the Ripper. I, however, would respond that the majority of these authors nevertheless used phraseology that was clearly inspired by either the Dear Boss letter or the 'saucy jacky' postcard or both. Thus the From hell letter, to my mind, assumes a near-unique status when taken in its proper context. With reference to the lost Ripper letters, it was estimated that, during the month of October 1888 alone, the Met and Central News Agency were receiving upwards of sixty 'Jack the Ripper' letters (as distinct from general case-related communications) per day. Although this rate did diminish over time, such letters were not unheard of two years later. Bearing this in mind, I was rather surprised on examining the letters folders at the PRO, Kew, to find but a fraction of the anticipated volume. On speaking to one of the archivists, I was told that a number of the letters were suspected to have been stolen. Indeed, such was the problem of theft at Kew that it had proved one of the factors that led to the decision to microfilm the entire archive. If memory serves me correctly, I also believe that most, if not all, of the letters received by the City Police were lost due to WW2 bomb damage. But if you think that I am in error here, I would certainly welcome any clarification you'd care to offer. Best wishes, Garry Wroe.
Author: Christopher T George Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 12:21 pm
Hi, Garry: In a sense I see where you are coming from in your belief that the Lusk letter carries a cachet of authenticity because it is not signed "Jack the Ripper" and that it was accompanied by a human organ. However, as Stewart rightly points out, although many of the letters were signed "Jack the Ripper" not all letters are signed in that way. Moreover, as you are aware, Dear Boss threatened to clip the lady's ears and send them to the police, so the fact that a human organ was actually sent through the post to the head of the local vigilance committee should not be too surprising. Neither the lack of signature nor the human organ are strong arguments for authenticity therefore. In fact, the belief that the half a kidney could have been a prank is equally compelling unless, that is, we can prove for certain that the kidney came from Eddowes. Best regards Chris George
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 12:26 pm
Martin, Regarding the 'red crayon' question, on close examination of the original letter it does appear to be ink and not wax. As you know a facsimile was made of the letter in 1888 and the result was thus:- The lines can be seen to vary in thickness as with the nib of pen, an effect that would not be produced with a crayon. It would be interesting to have the original properly tested.
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 12:34 pm
In the above, the underlining of 'ha ha' has been done firmly and this line shows the varying thickness created by the use of a nib:- Best Wishes, Stewart
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 02:05 pm
Hi Garry, As with all contentious points in this case we could debate forever the pros and cons of this issue. The consensus was far from general. The later views of Anderson, Swanson and Abberline do not come into this question and I was not calling them in support. What I did cite was Warren's letter of 10 October 1888 to the Home Office which contained the following comment:- "At present I think the whole thing a hoax but of course we are bound to try & ascertain the writer in any case." This was six days before the receipt of the Lusk letter and obviously shows that at the very top the Metropolitan Police thought the letter to be a hoax. That is unequivocal. The 'Dear Boss' letter was the second purporting to come from the killer and was, because of the 'catchy' nickname and sensational content, the one that really caused the flood of hoax copycats. The police may have been wrong in publishing it, but they probably had no choice in the matter as the Central News Agency was already touting it around the newspapers. As Warren indicated, whether genuine or not it was incumbent upon the police to try to identify the writer and take him to court if possible as a warning to imitators. At any rate, then, as now, it may be viewed as possibly authentic, as may be the case with other letters. I presume that by 'divisional forces' you mean provincial forces, and, yes, they continued to submit reports to the Met about the handwriting of suspicious individuals as they had been circulated with the facsimiles of the letter and postcard. I appreciate that the issue for you, in support of your conclusions about the 'From hell' letter, is that many assumed the 'Dear Boss' correspondence to be genuine and I would agree with that. As I pointed out, my original disagreement was with your original claim that all the police, press and public believed the original Dear Boss letter to be genuine. That is a sweeping statement and is incorrect. I think that we more or less agree now that we have stated our own positions. There is no such thing as 'near unique'. Something is either unique or it is not. The four following letters make no direct reference to 'Jack the Ripper' and are not clearly 'inspired' by those two early communications. (1) October 1st 1888 Mr Star, as you take greate interest in the Murders i am the one that did it wouldent you like to see me but you shant just yet I mean to do some more yet I have done 6 I am going to do 14 More then go back to america the next time I shall do 3 in one night i dont live a thousand miles from the spot not in a common lodging house Yours in luck THE BUTCHER (2) [4 October 1888] I beg to inform the police I am the Whitechapel murder I intend to commit two murders in the Haymarket tonight take a note of this Whitechape is to warm for one now my knife has not been found yet for I still have the knife I intend to keep it untill I finish 20 then try & find me (3) Friday Oct5/10/8 A WARNING At midnight - a woman will be murdered at the High Level St. Be on you guard Leather-Apron (4) [6 October 1888] Dear Sir I don't think I do enough murders so shall not only do them in Whitechapel but in Brixton, Battersea & Clapham. If I cant get enough women to do I shall cut up men, boys & girls. Just to keep my hand in practice. Ha! ha. You will never find me in Whitechapel. By the discription in the papers 5 ft 7 inches is all wrong. Ha! Ha. I expect to rip up a woman or to on the Common at Clapham Junction one day turn next week. Ha.ha.ha. I will send you the heart by parcels post. Ha!Ha! By by Dear Sir Yours when Caught The Whore Killer Sir Charles Warren .B. Great Scotland Yard W.C. Now the idea of sending a body part could be said to have been 'inspired' by the 'Dear Boss' letter which had threatened to '...clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers...', and this did become a recurring theme. As George Lusk himself thought, the parcel he received on 16 October 1888 could well have been sent to him 'as a practical joke by someone in the London Hospital'. For there it would have been easy for a staff member to obtain a section of human kidney for such a purpose. You have still not given the source for your statement that "...it was estimated that, during the month of October 1888 alone, the Met and Central News Agency were receiving upwards of sixty 'Jack the Ripper' letters...per day." There is no official comment on the amount received and an examination of the file does not reveal any significant or apparent gaps, there being 210 communications in the file. The letters were accessed before they went to Kew and although certain documents are known to have disappeared from the files, there is no indication that the letters suffered the same fate. An exception is the 'Dear Boss' letter and the 'saucy Jacky' postcard which disappeared many years ago. As we know, the original 'Dear Boss' letter was anonymously returned to New Scotland Yard in 1987. It would appear that all the letters received by the City Police survived, unlike the files on the murder investigation. In conclusion, as I have often stated, if any communication was received from the actual killer, then the 'From hell' letter was the most likely to be the one. However, in my humble opinion it, too, was a hoax. Best Wishes, Stewart
Author: Garry Wroe Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 02:29 pm
Hi Chris. Many thanks for your reply. I suppose this is one of those issues that will never inspire unanimity - which is why the thoughts of people such as yourself and Stewart are gratefully received. Bye, Garry Wroe.
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 02:49 pm
Here is a photograph of the postscript on the original 'Dear Boss' letter as it looks now:- The deterioration is quite bad.
Author: Garry Wroe Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 03:32 pm
Hello Stewart. Many thanks for your reply. Patently, the time has come to agree to disagree over our respective positions regarding the From hell letter - though I'm not so dogmatic that I'd ignore the merits of any sensible counter-argument. Please don't think this a cop-out, but I effectively gave up my Ripper researches in 1995 and, through necessity, discarded a mountain of documentation shortly thereafter. As such, I am trusting to memory with regard to the 'sixty letters a day' contention. But I do recall that this information emanated from a number of the more dependable newspaper sources. I also clearly recollect that the Central News Agency claimed to be in daily receipt of approximately forty 'Jack the Ripper' letters throughout the month of October. Whether you would regard these as reliable sources is, of course, another matter. I'm only sorry that I can't be more specific. But if this information was accurate, a substantial number of these letters have clearly gone missing. Best wishes, Garry Wroe. PS. Sorry, but technical problems forced me to close before addressing the issue of the four textual examples in the previous posting. Briefly, whilst the first refers to the author returning to America (and an American connection was posited re the Dear Boss letter), the final example contains 'ha-ha' - no explanation required. To my mind, therefore, these two examples were clearly influenced by the Dear Boss letter.
Author: Stewart P Evans Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 05:07 pm
Hi Garry, I agree to disagree. The American reference was suggested by Wynne Baxter in his summing up at the Chapman inquest, which is where the 'Dear Boss' hoaxer presumably drew his inspiration. 'Ha, ha', is a common humorous or mocking term and need not have been inspired by the 'Dear Boss' letter, but even if it was, it was only a part of a letter which patently did not purport to come from 'Jack the Ripper'. It's a pity that you did not retain your documentation as you are obviously knowledgeable on the case and very interested in it. Best Wishes, Stewart
Author: Ashleah Skinner Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 08:02 pm
I believe that at one stage the Metropolitan Police charged a 21 year old namely Maria Coroner on 21 October 1888 for sending 'hoax' letters signed 'Jack the Ripper' to a Cheif Constable threatening that the Ripper is coming to Bradford 'to do a little business' moreover she is the only person officially named as sending the Bogus JTR letters.
Author: Garry Wroe Wednesday, 31 July 2002 - 08:09 pm
Hi Stewart. Many thanks for your kind comments. I have to confess that I do on occasion regret disposing of my research material, especially since I feel sure that there are those 'out there' who could put it to good use. And to be honest, it is only since Stephen recently placed my manuscript on this site that my case-related interest has been rekindled. I'm amazed at how things Ripper have progressed over the last few years - so much so that I frequently feel anything but knowledgeable. Regards, Garry Wroe.
Author: Martin Fido Thursday, 01 August 2002 - 06:39 am
Hi Stewart, Many thanks for the response and facsimile postings - especially that of the original as it is now. Looking at the 1888 facsimile I couldn't imagine how on earth Robin and I had ever thought it was crayon, but was also astonished to see writing without any of the breaks and uneven pigmntation which had led us to examine it in the first place. I agree it would be useful if the experts could take a close look at it: pity the lads at the Yard didn't do so in the year or so for which they held the letter and other material mailed anonymously in 1987 for further investigation. Or perhaps they did, and finding the results to agree with your observation of the facsimile didn't bother to state what had never been doubted! All the best, Martin
Author: Garry Ross Thursday, 01 August 2002 - 10:06 am
Hello Martin, on the wax question...hot wax would bleed into the paper virtually seconds after application and would give a light pink shadowy layer around the letters making them 'merge' together slightly and after time the main body of the strokes would have cracked. Pieces would have broken away with the folds in the paper too. A lot of historical documents using wax seals also have this cracking around the seals too and the edges are slightly lifted away from the paper/parchment. I can understand why you thought it could have been some sort of wax after years of wear and tear. take care Garry
Author: John Dow Friday, 02 August 2002 - 10:36 am
I'm off at a tangent here The Littlechild letter says, regarding Tumblety: "there being a large dossier concerning him at Scotland Yard" Has anyone researched this "dossier", and if so - what's in it? John
Author: Christopher T George Friday, 02 August 2002 - 11:02 am
Hi, John: Certainly you will not be by any means the first person here to "go off on a tangent." In regard to the "large dossier" on Tumblety mentioned by Littlechild in his 1913 letter to George R. Sims, as you may know, the suspect files are missing from the Metropolitan Police files (MEPO) at the Public Record Office. It is assumed though by many of us who have considered Dr T as a suspect that the dossier mainly involved his Irish Fenian activities, which would have been kept by Special Branch. Littlechild was head of Special Branch, which had as its main task counterespoinage against the Irish nationalists. Stewart Evans has said that he doubts if such a file, even if it still exists, would be made public, the reason being that descendents of some people who have worked for the British may still be doing so and making the file public may jeopardize them. I hope this answers your question, John. Frustrating being a Ripperologist, isn't it? All the best Chris George
Author: John Dow Friday, 02 August 2002 - 11:40 am
Aye, that's the answer I've been kinda dreading Can't say I'm hugely surprised though ;-) John
Author: Tom Wescott Friday, 02 August 2002 - 03:34 pm
Garry, et al, Chris George drew my attention to this thread, and I am most grateful as the discussion is very interesting. As to the Lusk letter not ending with the familiar signature such as the 'Dear Boss' letter, I have pointed out in an article I wrote long ago for Ripper Notes that the odd inclusion of the word 'signed' is most likely intended to refer to the accompanying kidney, and suggest that no signature is necessary. I will also point out that prior to this letter Lusk received a postcard in the same hand (the 'Box of Toys' postcard) that also did not contain a signature, but DID begin with the words 'Say Boss...', indicating a clear influence of the 'Dear Boss' letter. Yours truly, Tom Wescott
Author: Garry Wroe Friday, 02 August 2002 - 05:03 pm
Hi Tom. I don't recall ever having seen the Box of Toys postcard. But if, as you seem to believe, its author was also responsible for the From hell letter, then both, in my opinion, are liable to be crank communications. It would be fascinating if someone could run a scientific comparison between the two samples. My interpretation of the word 'signed' is, I'm afraid, somewhat more prosaic than your own. For me, it simply indicates an individual who was unaccustomed to letter writing. It is interesting to note that, even today, one often sees the word 'signed' or 'signature' when dealing with bureaucratic documents. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the From hell author had been in the army, for example, or had signed delivery dockets on a regular basis. This is pure speculation, of course, but it does offer a reasonably plausible explanation for the inclusion of 'signed'. All the best, Garry Wroe.
Author: Tom Wescott Friday, 02 August 2002 - 06:12 pm
Garry, It is not that I believe the Box of Toys postcard and the From Hell letter were from the same hand, it is that Lusk believed it that matters. Other contemporary personalities commented on it as well. And this point alone does not necessarily mean either were a prank. Unfortunately, neither the actual BOT postcard nor a facsimile are known to exist. Yours truly, Tom Wescott
Author: Garry Wroe Friday, 02 August 2002 - 07:46 pm
Hi Tom. Many thanks for the above information. I did, over a period of years, research the Ripper case in some depth and still find it strange that I have no recollection of the postcard to which you have alluded. Still, you live and learn. There are those, of course, who believe that the killer was responsible for none of the so-called Ripper letters - and they may well be right. But having said this, the manner in which the victims were left (skirts raised to the waist and legs splayed wide apart) suggests to me an offender who delighted in the shock-value of his crimes. In the modern age, this is precisely the type of offender who experiences the urge to communicate with the press or police. Hence, until someone is able to provide a persuasive argument to the contrary, I will continue to view the From hell letter as almost certainly genuine. Best wishes, Garry Wroe.

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