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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 **
Missing JtR Articles?
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: General Discussion:
Missing JtR Articles?
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 11:34 pm |        | I have a reference in "Howe and Hummel" by Richard H. Rovere (Farrar, Straus 1947) to an article in the New York Herald dated about 1888 entitled "Jack the Ripper Explained." The Herald was then in the care of the younger James Gordon Bennett who had a special affection for Howe and Hummel, at that time the most famous lawyers in the US whose reputation for Jury-fixing, Judge-bribing and general doing-anything-they-could-to-get-their-clients-off is unmatched even to today.
Has anyone ever heard of this?
Peter. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 14 December 2002 - 08:48 am | | Peter Birchwood--Two and half years later, I might have the answer--or I might be on to an entirely different article. Shortly after the murder of Alice McKenzie in 1889, a reporter for the New York Herald did a long article [six columns in length] about a Ripper suspect from Limehouse. What spurred the reporter's interest was a letter sent to Albert Bachert, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, allegedly from "Jack the Ripper", saying the murders would begin again in July. Bachert threw the letter away, thinking it was a hoax. But when McKenzie turned up dead, the story got around, and the reporter tracked down Bachert, who, being an engraver with a good visual memory, was able to somewhat reproduce the letter. The reporter then took this clue [the letterhead had the address to a hotel in Poplar, but this was heavily scratched out] and began to nose around. The remainder of the story is how he ended up tracking a sailor from nearby Limehouse named "Cornwall", and gives details of all the subsequent inquiries that convinced him that Cornwall was, in fact, the Whitechapel murderer. The story evidently ends with the Herald reporter, finding out that 'his man' had shipped out of London shortly before the Mary Kelly murder. Somewhat reminiscent of Sadler.
Unfortunately, I haven't actually managed to obtain a copy of the Herald article yet, but I do have an article titled "False Clues", which was a follow-up article which ran in the London magazine The Spectator on 27 July, 1889. This is a fairly long article as well, and is critical of the New York Herald piece. One point of note, but all the names & places in the Spectator article were changed to 'protect the innocent'---it's unclear if the same is true of the New York Herald article. I think it would be of great interest if one of our colleagues here with access to the Herald might hunt it down and post it. If not, I will probably have a chance to retrieve it at a later date. The piece evidently appeared on the Monday that preceded 27 July, 1889. It's also possible that it might be the London edition of the Herald--but I don't know this. RJ Palmer |
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