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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 **
Validating the Lusk Letter
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Letters: General Discussion:
Validating the Lusk Letter
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 08 March 2001 - 12:10 pm |        | Hi All,
Another point, which I think you made, Tom, in your very interesting Ripper Notes article, was the fact that the Lusk kidney sender could not have been sure that his little game would receive any publicity. Forgive me if I got this wrong or if an earlier post has already pointed this out - I'm tired and I shouldn't really be posting anything right now.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Tom Wescott
Thursday, 08 March 2001 - 09:45 pm | | Caz,
You're comparing apples to oranges here. With the Lusk kidney, the sender (whom I believe was the Ripper) had a primary motive of getting at George and his merry band of vigilantes as they would indeed have been a major thorn in his side. They had a repoire with the girls of the street that the cops didn't, and spent their time hanging out in bars as the evidence suggests Jack did. It makes sense for Lusk to have received the kidney if it came from Jack. However, if you are to claim a hoaxer sent it you would have to believe that he was miraculously able to obtain a kidney without stirring anyones suspicions, compose a message that was supposed to appear to be the polar opposite of the 'Dear Boss' letter, and then send these to a common working man who was UNDER NO OBLIGATION to do anything further with it. Of course, the odds were that he'd take it to the cops, but I imagine a hoaxer would have sent the package directly to the police or press. In the case of Marsh's stranger, assuming he was either the hoaxer or the Ripper, I doubt the idea would cross his mind to walk into a store, ask an address, leave without further interruption, and then assume anything big would be made of it. The Ripper would have been far too cowardly for this, and a hoaxer wouldn't have wanted to waste his time. I'm glad you brought up that point from my article, though. I can see where it might have appeared I was contradicting myself.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 08:49 am | | Tom--Thanks for your response. You're not rambling at all and I enjoy hearing your thoughts & objections. I'll have to chase down that Ripper Notes article.
But one thing. What is your source for Ostrog being illiterate? Though a confidence man & thief, I am under the impression that he was a man of some ability--and one Judge that sentenced Ostrog to prison even made a statement to that effect. On one occasion, Ostrog defended himself. Oscar Browning (of Eton) gave Ostrog 'the run of his library', and the Jack the Ripper A-Z writes "Ostrog now wrote to a one-time friend that he was returning to Russia and could be contacted via a Mr. Carl Swedenburg, Poste Restante, Berlin." (p 330/1991 Edition). This sounds like a literate man to me. Am I missing something?
As to people's impressions of handwriting, I must admit openly that I cast a very cold eye. One rather esteemed handwriting expert once said that he would 'stake his reputation' that the Dear Boss letters were written by Neill Cream. Paul Feldman says they strongly resemble the writing of James Maybrick in his letters. Your point about the 'box of toys' is a solid objection, but without being able to compare the handwriting in the two missives, I think I'd have to say that this is open to interpretation.
Incidently, I personally haven't dismissed the Lusk kidney as a hoax. It might be. I'm still undecided, but tend to think there is a chance that it is not.
Best wishes,
R J Palmer |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 09:13 am | | RJ -
Unfortunately, Tom's article is not reproduced on the CP website (http://www.casebook-productions.org), but as editor of the journal in question, I can send you a copy of the January issue if you e-mail me privately. Better yet, why don't you pull up your socks, do the decent thing and take out a year's subscription? Only $25, and you get the best writing this side of "Ripperologist." (hmm - maybe I should use that for my next advertising campaign).
I tend to be of the opinion that the LK was a hoax, and you can see my thoughts in "Another Look at the Lusk Kidney," published in RN Vol 1 No. 4 (a transcript of which is available at the CP website). |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 09:36 am | | Christopher-Michael-- Gosh. O.k. You caught me. I've been planning on subscribing for sometime. It was more of a case of absent-mindedness and procrastination more than anything else. :-). Next I imagine that Paul Begg will hit me up(!) But consider it done.
Best wishes,
R J Palmer |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 10:54 am | | Hi Tom,
I don't know why you thought I was pointing out a contradiction in what you had written - I wasn't. I was actually supporting your argument that it seems unlikely that a hoaxer would go to the trouble, as I think RJ was talking about, of combining a phoney Irish accent, for Emily, with his phoney Irish letter, for Lusk, to achieve some effect, when there was no guarantee that the two events would ever get to be reported, let alone connected, seeing that, as you pointed out, Lusk was UNDER NO OBLIGATION to do anything further with it.
Of course, a hoaxer could have been playing such games for his own amusement, not caring whether he had an audience of none, one or the whole world. But I can't help thinking there was something more of a personal grudge thing going on = a package meant for Lusk's eyes, and the hell with whatever he decided to do with it afterwards.
Hope that made better sense.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 01:42 pm | | Hi, Tom,
Please dispell this notion that Lusk and his committee were vigilantes in the sense of American vigilantes ready to string the killer up. Neither were they, as you or someone else categorized them, laborers. (That term may have been used recently in the chat room not here, I think.) The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was made up of small businessmen like George Lusk, who was a building contractor. This is shown by the list of those who served on the committee, as reported in the press. They were an adjunct to the police and probably would have acted within the bounds of the law. They were certainly not rabble-rousers as portrayed in the 1988 Michael Caine film, uncouth laborers salivating to get a piece of Jack--a portrayal that greatly upset George Lusk's descendents.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Tom Wescott
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 02:41 pm | | Chris,
I was only having fun with the 'merry band of vigilantes' statement. I suppose I should make myself more clear by stating that ALL vigilance committees were a thorn in Jack's side, and since Lusk was the leader of the most publicized and well-known, he would have represented vigilance committees as a whole in the Ripper's mind. It doesn't take any stretching to reach that conclusion. And, there were vigilance committees comprised of casual laborers, although Lusk's was not one of them. I apologize for leaving the impression that I thought Lusk and his men were public assassins (they didn't need a committee for that as the mobs proved) or that they represented the vigilance movement in Whitechapel as a whole.
Caz,
Thanks for the back up. 
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 09 March 2001 - 06:06 pm | | Hi All,
The "box of toys" postcard smacks of the writer having a deep contempt - or subconscious fear perhaps? - for the vigilance people, who have set themselves up as 'toy soldiers', playing at 'copper games' and, as Tom says, at least trying to be a thorn in Jack's side. If not Jack, the author expresses the sentiments, which Jack might well have had, rather well, don't you think?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Alkhemia
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 12:05 am | | Hello everyone:
While looking at the Lusk letter, a thought occurred to me that I thought I'd share with the group. The following is pure speculation on my part and may not amount to much, however, I don't believe I have seen this point addressed elsewhere on these boards.
If you accept that the author of the Lusk letter is a literate man trying to sound illiterate (a point that I am not totally convinced of), then would it be reasonable to assume that the author was trying to disguise himself further by writing with his non-dominant hand? I am a bit ambidextrous, and when I try to write with my left hand, I get a sample similar to the writing on the Lusk letter. For instance, it has been suggested that Patsy Ramsey (alleged of killing her daughter in the U.S.) used her left hand to write ransom notes and to make the handwriting of those notes difficult to identify.
If "Jack" was ambidextrous to an extent, could that explain why some of the wounds on the victims aren't consistent with his M.O.?
Again, just speculation..... |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 07:37 am | | Hi Alkhemia,
I'm sure this must have come up before, but I couldn't begin to tell you where or when. I was meaning to ask about the possibility that the Lusk letter was written by the left hand of a right-handed person, or vice versa, but I just assumed this would have been going over old ground. Perhaps someone could summarise for us both what, if anything, came out of any such discussion.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Diana
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 01:18 pm | | | A very interesting speculation. Most lefties have a problem establishing slant to their writing. The Lusk Letter has varying slant. Some letters tend to stand straight up, others slant. The other problem is smudging. We all write from left to right. If I am using my right hand my hand is moving along the page ahead of the pen. If it touches or brushes the paper there will not be a problem because it is touching an area that has not yet been written on. However, if I am writing with my left hand, my hand will come along behind the pen. If I am not an experienced left-handed writer I will cause smudges and smears when my hand passes over what I have just written. Given the pens in use at the time this problem would have been exacerbated. I just looked at the LL again. There is a lot of discoloration (ooze from the kidney?) but none of the ink appears smeared. |
Author: Tom Wescott
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 03:51 pm | | Hello all,
Diana is correct, the 'From Hell' letter was written with the right hand. As to whether it was written by a left-handed person is hard to say. What is obvious, though, is that the person writing it was trying very hard to disguise their education, nationality, and handwriting. I believe it was quite possibly from the same author as the 'Dear Boss' letter.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Author: Alkhemia
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 06:33 pm | | Hello everyone,
Please forgive me if, as Caz points out, this is an area that has been covered before and I have missed it.
Tom: You say that the letter is written with the right hand, but how do we know (or speculate) this is true? I'm not challenging your assertion per se, I just want to be educated as to how this conclusion was arrived at. Needless to say, I'm not a graphologist. :-) Now, I'll have to go back through the posts and read why you believe the LL and the "Dear Boss" letter were authored by the same person....
Diana: For what it is worth, I asked my husband (who is a leftie) to write a few sentences with his right hand using an antique fountain pen on good-quality paper. His writing slanted almost completely toward the left while mine (using my left hand) slanted to the right and straight up. Perhaps it was the angle that I held the pen at, but I didn't notice any ink smudges, either. I realize this proves absolutely *nothing* and is probably an exercise in futility - but I don't think it is impossible.
That being said, I'm looking at a larger copy of the LL and it appears that the "i" in "signed" is smudged as well as the "a" in "may" and the "k" in "took." Are my eyes fooling me or might that be discoloration from the 'kidney'? |
Author: David Radka
Thursday, 19 July 2001 - 08:42 pm | | Does anyone know anything about George Lusk's ethnicity? What kind of name is Lusk, Welsh, Irish--? I know he was a Freemason, which means he wasn't Catholic--but after that i'm stumped.
Thanks for any help!
David |
Author: The Viper
Friday, 20 July 2001 - 02:44 am | | David,
A discussion last October on a board called Ripper Suspects/General/What about Emily Marsh's Irishman? established that George Lusk was born in Stepney. This does not, of course, establish his ethnic roots, but it does suggest that he was a local man through and through. His wife (maiden name Price) was born in Stepney too, and all his seven children were born in various parts of East London.
Regards, V. |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Friday, 20 July 2001 - 11:20 am | | Hi All,
David, one of my colleagues at work has the surname of Lusk. I've no idea if he is a descendant of our George or not, but I will try to find out something of his ethnicity.
Cheers,
Jim |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 20 July 2001 - 12:53 pm | | Hi, David:
The name "Lusk" could be short for a Jewish or Eastern European name such as "Lobulsk." However, we should note that, as documented in Skinner and Evans's The Ultimate, when George Lusk wrote to Sir Charles Warren about whether a reward should be offered, he proudly stated that he was a vestryman of the local Anglican church. This would almost undoubtedly make him a Protestant and his heritage probably, I should think, Anglo Saxon. Also the name "George" I believe is less likely the name of a Jewish male. If I am mistaken about that, anyone, feel free to correct me. Lusk's middle name "Akins," which is obviously a family name, certainly sounds English and not foreign. David I hope this helps.
Best regards
Chris George |
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