Confessions of a Ripperologist
John Malcolm. Revised e-text version, 2007.
Full text below.
PART FOUR: LAST WORDS (for now!)
“…my apology for thus repeating myself again and again must be that it is
only by constant repetition that venerable traditions can be overcome, and
stupid satisfaction with the present state of things can be disturbed.”
This bunch is all you need to be on my side: (If you haven’t yet read these
books, or even if you have, I implore you to read or re-read them…I don’t want
to come off as a politician, but apparently it has gotten into my blood,
contradicting a maxim of mine that has been that an “honest politician” is an
oxymoron.)
The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper
The Jack the Ripper A-Z
The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper
The Lighter Side of My Official Life
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook
London’s East
End: Point of Arrival
A Child of the Jago
East End 1888
The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870-1914
The Trials of Israel Lipski
The News from Whitechapel
Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives
Serial Murderers and their Victims
Ripperologists.
“This hunt for ‘Jack the Ripper’ became quite a mania with a certain class of
busybodies.”
“I dislike this term ‘doctrinaire,’ but I use it to describe those who act upon
theories without reference to facts, and for the word in this sense I can find
no Saxon equivalent. ‘Fool’ is quite too general- it represents an entire
species- and, moreover, it is not polite.”
The Knights of the Round Table have again taken up their quests for the Holy
Grail, and the hopes are high…and it seems they will never die. They have taken
up arms against hidden history and, unfortunately, sometimes against one
another and also against themselves. But a noble and honorable cause begs out
the best and the worst of all warriors and warriors are we.
“Because newspapers often borrowed heavily from rivals or bought copy from one
of the news agencies, many passages in Ripper stories had a familiar ring.
Drawing on second-hand reports, rumors, interviews and accounts found in other
papers, reporters cobbled together disjointed articles that often contained
internal contradictions.”
And authors? “Enthusiasts”? Who, US?,…We’ve all been guilty of borrowing
and cobbling, so what?
The Industry.
Paying ridiculous amounts of money for Ripper media and ephemera comes with the
territory, but arming one’s self properly when entering the trenches is a
matter of life and death for the Ripperologist. This of course means frequent
dedicated financial contributions to the machine of which we rely on for vital,
perpetual updates. We are all virtual entrepreneurs feeding off of each other,
some to the extent of cannibalism, others happily and obliviously practicing
self-abuse. (Such as myself?)
The majority of written works on the murders tend to be factual accounts bound
together with some theory as to the identity of the killer or killers. Almost
any of the books that put forth a preferred suspect are convincing, to varying
degrees, but often they are misleading. It seems “Ripper” authors and “experts”
have been breeding like rabbits for the past dozen or so years and it can
become quite expensive trying to keep up. The competition can be fierce and
sometimes downright cut-throat; and so wrestling over facts, probabilities and
possibilities is not only par for the course, it becomes a huge battle of egos
and one very difficult to avoid. Why this has evolved into such a phenomenon,
don’t ask me. But the stakes have been raised to the point where people’s
livelihoods and reputations have been put on the line. And bad blood is not
uncommon.
A basic difficulty I have, as is surely apparent by now, is how some of the
experts that we rely on can carry on with careless and sometimes almost
ignorant attitudes towards different aspects of a subject that they purport to
know so well. And again, this happens most often as popular suppositions are
haphazardly and sometimes wrongly ascribed as facts.
Do some of these authors/enthusiasts expect that their “insights” should be
given more consideration, albeit with a hundred years of hindsight, than the
professionals that were in their positions, not because they were trying to
capitalize on the sensation of the murders, but because it was their duty and
within their respective areas of expertise? Accusations of “arrogance” and/or
“self-promotion” directed toward senior officials seem to be outdone on
occasion by some of our loudest, modern day, self-confessed “experts” who seem
to think that the bulk of their disciples are idiots. I don’t understand how their
feeble literary bodies can support the enormous weight of their gigantic,
bloated heads. Speaking with a confidence that belies their speculative
assertions, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the deceptive and the
delusional. And who are these monsters that I speak of? Only the demons of my
own device.
Addenda ad Nauseum
To demonstrate the range of “Ripper” books that keep showing up, I’ll take two
recent examples- one, by an ex- “murder squad detective”, the other by a truly
dedicated researcher. The author of the first is currently on some kind of
“world tour” of universities, radio shows, etc, to promote his “new theory”.
Great, like we’ve never heard that one before; this new book, a “21st
century investigation”, which comes in at over 300 pages, is both a testimonial
to Stephen P. Ryder’s Casebook: Jack the Ripper, which seems to be the
sole source used to create this entire project, and a glaring example of
spur-of-the moment exploitation. With a completely shocking deficiency in terms
of an understanding of the current state of our knowledge of the Whitechapel
murders, this book would have been a novel idea twenty-five years ago, but
today it is something less than out-dated and redundant. This “new theory”,
arrived at via mysterious “new information”, sadly adds nothing, save a few
more quid in the bank account of an “enterprising journalist”. Oh yes, this
“new theory” is well over a hundred years old and had been inquired into by
Queen Victoria herself. This is not news to me or anyone else who has really
done their homework;
On the other hand, Will the Real Mary Kelly…?, by the indefatigable
Christopher Scott, coming in at half the size and less than half the price, is
ten times as valuable. Although Mr. Scott cannot boast of any startling new
theory and the information contained is strictly put together for the
well-schooled Ripperologist, it’s something we could use more of- a logical,
informed, up-to-date and thoughtful examination of a particular aspect (the
hunt for biographical information and an analysis of Mary Kelly as a person and
victim; Neal Sheldon has quietly and without fanfare done this in the past with
other victims of the Whitechapel murderer).
The Ripper magazines are still bulging with new findings and up-to-the-minute
reports and analysis (although sometimes the perfect prescription for
insomnia); so please, before you throw your hat into the ring, at least do
some research!
We need to be asking new questions, as well as searching for old answers.
21st
Century East London and the Ten Bells Public House.
One
of the few remaining remnants of Jack the Ripper’s London, the
Ten Bells (rumoured to be the last drinking spot of Mary Kelly) still stands…it
has been a sanctuary and “home away from home” for me;…
Herds of wide-eyed tourists are pushed and prodded day and night and dared to
enter the world of Victorian murder and madness; an endless supply of
enterprising guides of varying integrity begging for your coppers in exchange
for a chance to walk in the footsteps of our hero from Hell.
Today, East London seems not to need or want to be reminded of its
sordid past. Many of its inhabitants are oblivious, in the past some even
embarrassed or maybe even ashamed of it. Being an outsider, I really don’t
understand or know how to explain this. Maybe this is a long-buried bad
conscience finally manifesting itself. The surviving descendants of those who
endured the hardships of previous generations who have remained have much to be
proud of, in spite of Jack the Ripper. Cockney London and its unique depth of
character lives on, although somewhat tainted by the recent influx of young,
trendy and upscale action-seekers, who have no concept whatsoever of the
district’s past. (Not quite the Victorian West-enders who chose “slumming” as a
pastime though.)
I learned my very first lesson about the East
End of recent times on my first
excursion to the Ten Bells in 1995.
I had studied maps and at the time had read more than a handful of books about
Jack the Ripper and, as most London tourist guide books suggested, was a bit
wary of wandering the streets of Whitechapel alone, especially at night, but I
took the necessary precautions and ventured out daily only to return to my room
in central London by dusk. (This routine lasted only a few days, for after
recovering from my initial paranoia, I came to the realization that, especially
along the main streets, the bad reputation was a bit overblown.) I had read
something somewhere about the Ten Bells being an attraction for those
interested in the story and that souvenirs could be had. It was not to be
entirely what I had expected. In fact at the time it was an attraction to
Ripper buffs mainly in the form of the climax of nightly guided “Jack the
Ripper” tours through the main thoroughfares and not so much for the odd
solitary daytime visitor. There were only a few tours back then, but in a short
time, the vultures of capitalism swarmed in to devour every scrap that was to
be had and although measures have been adopted to curb them, they still circle
above, waiting patiently for their moments to pick the bones of unwary
travelers.
On arriving at my chosen destination for the first time (very early in the
afternoon), I immediately noticed a nearly empty bar and a strange, slightly
uncomfortable air about the place. Standing out from the few locals was a very
attractive young woman who rather incautiously approached me and asked, in an
out of place accent, if I was aware of “what happens here”…She said she was from
New York and was waiting for the lunchtime crowd of “suits” to arrive, for whom
she was to perform a “full strip” in the tiny space in the middle of the floor,
on an even smaller fold-out stage. This was a twice-a-day treat for the local
office workers and so I learned to adjust my visiting schedule accordingly.
The transformation from an “exotic dance” bar to a candle-lit remnant of the
past designed to prod the imaginations of the mostly foreign tourists who were
steered, like clockwork, into its memories was smooth and somehow impressive.
To watch these crowds night after night was, and still is, if to a lesser
degree, interesting in itself. Nowadays the strippers are gone, the tours
allowed into the pub are restricted and the place has become a trendy plot in
an increasingly trendy area. All signs of Jack the Ripper and his murderous
exploits have been removed…in that I have mixed feelings.
And on another occasion:
“Are you looking for some business?”
“What was that?” was my reply, not quite understanding the question.
“Are you looking for some business?” she pleasantly repeated.
Trying to mask my embarrassment, I said “Not at the moment, thank you.” Or
something to that effect.
“Have you got a light?” she asked, slightly embarrassed, herself.
“No, sorry.”
I continued walking toward the City Darts (formerly and currently the “Princess
Alice”) from the Ten Bells, feeling a bit bad about not being much help to her
cause in any way and now totally aware of my ever-present naivety. She was by
no means unattractive, old or wretched in appearance in any way; it was daytime
and on the open sidewalk in Commercial Street…it was a surreal moment, one of a
countless number of surreal moments I’ve had the pleasure (and sometimes not)
of experiencing whilst wandering through the streets of what is left of the
heart of the East End. It was not my last or most surreal encounter with a
“fallen woman” in Whitechapel either, for I have also seen the lowest of the
low creep from the gutters after dark and spring into my face spewing one-word
descriptions of unmentionable services at dirt-cheap rates; fortunately I’ve
managed to escape these particular encounters (at least physically) unscathed.
And alas, at least in some respects, the Song Remains the Same.
Abstract Bibliography and Sources List.
These are the bricks in the wall of Jack the Ripper that has been building up
around me since I first heard of “Mary Kelly”. Most are dedicated specifically
to the Whitechapel murders, but those on the periphery are equally important.
This is how I would break down what I’ve perused so far-
The top: That which I’ve found most impressive, influential, enlightening, or
those I’d first choose to have crammed into my casket with me:
The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden (1996)
Jack the Ripper: The Facts by
Paul Begg (2004)
Jack the Ripper Walk
(Louis London Walks) (1998)
The Pocket Essential Jack the Ripper by Mark Whitehead and Miriam Rivet (2001)
The Jack the Ripper A-Z by
Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Keith Skinner (1994/1996)
The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund (1999)
The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow (1975/1988/2004)
Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts by Paul Begg (1995)
The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper by Martin Fido (1993)
Who Was Jack the Ripper? compiled
by Camille Wolff (1995)
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden (1994/2002)
The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook/Companion by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner (2000)
Murder Casebook: Who Was Jack the Ripper? by Paul Begg (writer)(1991)
Jack the Ripper/A Bibliography and Review of the Literature by Alexander Kelly (1973)
The News from Whitechapel: Jack the Ripper in the Daily Telegraph by Alexander Chisholm, Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
and Dave Yost (2002)
Criminals and Crime by
Sir Robert Anderson (1907)
The Lighter Side of My Official Life by Sir Robert Anderson (1910)
Rothschild Buildings by
Jerry White (2003)
East End 1888 by William J. Fishman (2001)
The East End/Four Centuries of London Life by Alan Palmer
(2000)
The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870-1914
by Lloyd P. Gartner (1973)
London’s East End: Point of Arrival by Chaim Bermant (1976)
A Child of the Jago [a
novel] by Arthur Morrison (1996)
The People of the Abyss by
Jack London (1907)
The East End Then and Now edited
by Winston G. Ramsey (1998)
East End Jewish
Radicals 1875-1914 by William J.
Fishman (1975)
The Trials of Israel Lipski by
Martin L. Friedland (1984)
The Streets of East
London by William J. Fishman/Nicholas Breach (1992)
Sexual Homicide/Patterns and Motives by Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess and John E.
Douglas (1995)
Serial Murderers and their Victims by Eric W. Hickey (1997)
The Middle: That which may have enhanced or reinforced, without leaving me
feeling ripped off (some of these are much better than others):
Jack the Ripper, in Fact and Fiction by Robin Odell (1966)
Jack the Ripper/Summing Up and Verdict by Colin Wilson and Robin Odell (1987)
The Mystery of Jack the Ripper by Leonard Matters (1948/1964)
Will the Real Mary Kelly…? by
Christopher Scott (2005)
Jack the Ripper: A Cast of Thousands [E-book} by Christopher Scott (2004)
The True Face of Jack the Ripper by Melvin Harris (1995)
The Harlot Killer [mostly
fictional stories] edited by Allan Barnard (1953)
Jack the Ripper/The Simple Truth by Bruce Paley (1996)
The Identity of Jack the Ripper by Donald McCormick (1970)
Jack the Ripper by Daniel
Farson (1973)
From Hell…The Jack the Ripper Mystery by Bob Hinton (1998)
Jack l’Eventreur by Jean
Dorsenne, translated by Molly Whittington-Egan (1999)
Jack the Ripper/One Hundred Years of Mystery by Peter Underwood (1990)
The Ripper Legacy by
Martin Howells and Keith Skinner (1987)
Jack the Ripper or When London Walked in Terror by Edwin T. Woodhall (facsimile 1997)
Jack the Ripper/ Through the Mists of Time by Peter Hodgson (2002)
The Jack the Ripper Handbook/A Reader’s Companion by Ross Strachan (1999)
Jack the Ripper: Anatomy of a Myth by William Beadle (1995)
Alias Jack the Ripper/Beyond the Usual Whitechapel Suspects by R. Michael Gordon (2001)
Jack the Ripper/First American Serial Killer by Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey (1996)
Jack the Ripper: An American View by Stephen Wright (1999)
Jack the Ripper/The Murders and the Movies by Denis Meikle (2002)
Jack the Ripper/100 Years of Investigation by Terence Sharkey (1987)
The Lodger/The Arrest and Escape of Jack the Ripper by Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey (1995)
Jack the Ripper/A Reference Guide by Scott Palmer (1995)
The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper by Nicholas Connell and Stewart P. Evans (2000)
When London Walked in Terror by Tom A. Cullen (1965)
Who Was Jack the Ripper? by
Winston Forbes-Jones (1988)
Jack the Ripper/The Definitive History by Paul Begg (2003)
Jack the Ripper and the London Press by L. Perry Curtis, Jr. (2001)
Jack the Ripper/An Encyclopedia by John Eddleston (2001)
Prisoner 1167/The Madman Who Was Jack the Ripper by James Tully (1997)
Jack the Ripper/Letters from Hell by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner (2001)
The Many Faces of Jack the Ripper by M. J. Trow (1997)
An Illustrated Guide to Jack the Ripper by Peter Fisher (1996)
Jack the Myth by A. P.
Wolf (1994)
Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth by Melvin Harris (1987)
Jack the Ripper/The Inquest of the Final Victim Mary Kelly by John Smithkey III (1998)
Jack the Ripper/Opposing Viewpoints by Katie Colby-Newton (1990)
The Highways and Byways of Jack the Ripper by Peter Riley (2001)
Will the Real Jack the Ripper by Arthur Douglas (1979)
Jack the Ripper/Crime Scene Investigation by Dr. David J. Speare (2003)
Jack the Ripper/His Life and Crimes in Popular Entertainment by Gary Coville and Patrick Lucanio (1999)
Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation by Trevor Mariott (2005)
Jack the Ripper/The Mystery Solved by Paul Harrison (1991)
In the Footsteps of the Whitechapel Murders by John F. Plimmer (1998)
London’s Underworld by
Henry Mayhew (1983)
40 Years of Scotland Yard by
Frederick Porter Wensley (1933)
Sir Robert Anderson/A Tribute and Memoir by A. P. Moore-Anderson (1919)
Sir Robert Anderson and Lady Agnes Anderson by A. P. Moore-Anderson (1947)
The Story of Scotland Yard by
George Dilnot (1927)
The Story of Scotland Yard by
Sir Basil Thomson (1936)
The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard by Martin Fido and Keith Skinner (1999)
Mindhunter by John
Douglas and Mark Olshaker (1996)
London…The Sinister
Side by Steve Jones (1998)
Victorian London Street Life by John Thomson
(1994)
The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton (2000)
Tales of Mean Streets [a
novel] by Arthur Morrison (1997)
Scenes…From a Stepney Youth by
Charles Paulsen (1988)
Survey of London vol. XXVII/Christ Church and All Saints Spitalfields (1979)
East London by Sir Walter Besant (1901)
Trial of George Chapman edited
by H. L. Adam (1930)
Journey through a Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff (1996)
Charles Booth’s London selected
and edited by Albert Fried and Richard M. Elman (1968)
The Victorian Underworld by
Kellow Chesney (1970)
The Cases that Haunt Us by
John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (1997)
Whoever Fights Monsters by
Robert K. Ressler and Thomas Shachtman (1997)
Bloody Business/An Anecdotal History of Scotland Yard by H. Paul Jeffers (1999)
Journey into Darkness by
John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (1997)
Dark Dreams/Sexual Violence, Homicide and the Criminal Mind by Roy Hazelwood (2001)
I Have Lived in the Monster by
Robert K. Ressler and Thomas Shachtman (1997)
A History of British Serial Killing by Martin Fido (2001)
My East End/A History of Cockney London by Gilda O’Neill
(1999)
City of Dreadful Delight/Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian
London by
Judith R. Walkowitz (1992)
This Bright Field/A Travel Book in One Place by
William Taylor (2000)
Troubled Eden/An Anatomy of British Jewry by Chaim Bermant (1970)
London’s East End/Life and Traditions by Jane Cox (2000)
Children of the Ghetto [a
novel] by I. Zangwill (1895)
The Rich and the Poor/Jewish Philanthropy and Social Control in
Nineteenth-Century London by Mordechai Rozin (1999)
Jewish London: An Illustrated History by Dr. Jerry Black
Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor/Annual Reports
1884-1892 vol. III (c.
1893)
A Century of Social Service 1859-1959/The History of the Jewish Board
of Guardians by Vivian Lipman
(1959)
The bottom: That which…well…maybe stray too far from the path…
The Diary of Jack the Ripper/The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick
by Shirley Harrison (1995)
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution by Stephen Knight (1988)
The Ripper and the Royals by
Melvin Fairclough (1995)
The Jack the Ripper Whitechapel Murders by Kevin O’Donnell (1997)
Jack the Ripper “Light-hearted Friend” by Richard Wallace (1996)
Jack the Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals by Ivor Edwards (2001/2002)
The Diary of Jack the Ripper/The Discovery, the Investigation, the
Debate narrative by Shirley
Harrison (1993)
Jack the Ripper/A Psychic Investigation by Pamela Ball (1998)
Murder and Madness/The Secret Life of Jack the Ripper by Dr. David Abrahamsen (1993)
Portrait of a Killer/Jack the Ripper Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell (2002)
Jack the Ripper Revealed by
John Wilding (1993)
Other Sources (All thoroughly abused and highly recommended):
Ripperologist magazine,
edited by Paul Begg
Ripper Notes magazine,
edited by Dan Norder
Ripperana magazine,
edited by Nick Warren
The Journal of the Whitechapel Society 1888 edited by Adrian Morris
Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders PRO packet introduced and selected by Stewart P. Evans
and Keith Skinner (2002)
Jack the Ripper/Whitechapel Map (and booklet) 1888 by Geoff Cooper and Gordon Punter
(2003)
And the absolute best source, bar none:
Stephen P. Ryder’s website Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Post Script:
At times I am subject to alternating
fits of extreme paranoia and delusions of grandeur- and as I struggle to
comprehend and balance these two opposing viewpoints, it becomes clear that I
am not totally competent to accurately and objectively analyze the results; but
here are a few examples born of my condition:
I often find myself with my shorts in a bunch, for entirely selfish reasons,
when my voice gets drowned out by the din of Ripper chatter, when so much of
it, to me, is pure bollocks…
When I walk through the streets of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, incredibly
strong feelings that occasionally verge on hallucination nearly overcome me and
my head floats, as if detached, above my body as I glide through a movie that I
have seen over and over again; it’s always different, but everything’s the
same. I know the place well, but I don’t always recognize it. I’m not one to
subscribe to the ideas of reincarnation or clairvoyance and one not ready to
buy into the theory of a master plan…I really don’t completely believe in
much of anything- this, of course, allows my imagination the freedom to go
wild…Only problem is that sometimes I can’t turn it off.
When speaking of my attempts to seek professional guidance (through the land of
Ripperology, I mean), I have been a bed-bug to some and a wannabe to others,
but I believe, if I believe anything, that I have been true to myself and to
whomever may be kind enough or patient enough to listen to and think
about what I have to say. Sadly it may not always be possible for me to carry
on a prolonged or civil discussion with those who I do not trust, my lack of
patronizing diplomacy an admitted, but not necessarily negligible deficiency,
but I’m always in the mood to let you know what I think about Jack the Ripper.
The bottom line, as of this writing, is that we don’t know and may never know
with certainty, the identity of the criminal or criminals who were responsible
for the horrible murders of 1888-91. We have facts to work with, and many
educated and insightful minds to discover, speculate on and decipher any clues
that may show up. The inferences that can be drawn vary wildly from remote
possibility to overwhelming probability. But wherever our inclinations reside,
we must not forget or deny that they do fall somewhere between the definite and
the definitely not, until they can be proven, beyond a doubt.
“You know something, man? I know something that you don’t know- that’s right,
Jack, the man is clear in his mind but his soul is mad” –Dennis Hopper as a
photo journalist in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Yes, everyone, it has to be obvious by now- I’m Jack the…
To be continued…
