GREAT LONDON MYSTERY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22094, 27 April 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

GREAT LONDON MYSTERY

GREAT UNSOLVED

SHORTLY after three o'clock on the morning of August 7, 1888, a man named Albert Crow, who followed the calling of a cab driver, was ascending the staircase of Georgia Buildings, Whitechapel, on his way to bed when he noticed the figure of a woman curled up in a corner of the first landing. Mr. Crow had lived in Georgia Buildings for some time —a privilege which appears to have given him a quite unusual tolerance for the whim-

DR. HAROLD DEARDEN Suggests a Solution

sicalities of his fellow-creatures. " Let recumbent ladies lie" was clearly one of his mottoes. He continued placidly on his way to bed.

Some two hours later, however, another tenant, Mr. John Reeves, was descending the stairs with the intention of going out to look for a job, and ho also noticed the woman. But he observed, in addition, one feature about the huddled-up figure which had entirely escaped the attention of the easy-going Mr. Crow. The woman, to use his own words, " was lying in a lake of blood." He stepped gingerly over to see what had happened. What had actually happened was to be made distressingly clear during the next three months. «

That anonymous but singularly capable slaughterer Jack the Ripper had made his debut. Martha Turner, like all those other drab women who subsequently helped to make the nickname of her murderer almost a synonym for horror, had been leading what is commonly referred to, for some inscrutable reason, as a gay life. Her injuries were identical with those of her fellow-sufferers and it is impossible to avoid some reference to them.

In every case the throat was first cut from behind with a very keen blade, and the appearance of some of these injuries pointed strongly to the supposition that the murderer was ambidextrous.

This first wound alone would have instantly prevented any outcry and inevitably resulted in death; but the murderer was not one to be satisfied with death only. His victim was next subjected first to a phase of demoniac ferocity, accompanied by multiple and indiscriminate stabbing, and thereafter to a phase of restrained and deliberate bestiality associated with quite indescribable mutilation. Certain indications in this latter phase pointed clearly to a knowledge of anatomy on the part of the operator. The death of Martha Turner aroused no more than passing interest. In those days the inhabitants of Whitechapel were accustomed to behave with such uniform spontaneity and forcefulness that a death by violence in the neighbourhood was regarded by police and public alike as very little more than a boyish prank.

But a month later Mrs. Nicholls, 43 years old, was found lying, butchered like her predecessor, in the open gutter of a byway off Spitalfields known as Buck's Row. This second murder created a considerable sensation, which was fanned into a display of absolute hysteria about a week later by the discovery of j T et a third victim in a yard behind a lodging-house within a stone's throw of Buck's Row.

Another victim, Mrs. Chapman, aged 49, had suffered precisely as had her predecessors, but in her case the contents of her pockets, pitifully valuless as they were, had been laid out at her feet with orderly precision in a rough but definitely geometrical design. With the occurrence of this third crime it was impossible for police or public to avoid the conclusion that a " killer " of inhuman ferocity and cunning was at work in their midst. The yard in which Mrs. Chapman was discovered at five in the morning was immediately overlooked by the windows of a lodging-house. Sixteen tenants lived there and, since the movements of any one of them was entirely unpredictable at any hour of the day or night, the daring and efficiency of the pei'petrator of such a crime were manifestly appalling. The East End of London was panic stricken. Vigilance committees were formed and police arrested people with the most praiseworthy eagerness and impartiality, but all these efforts were utterly fruitless. There was, however, ono man in Whitcchapel whose efforts at this juncture wero supremely successful the keeper of the lodging-house which overlooked the scene of the crime. This astute gentleman announced his readiness, in return for a small fee, to welcome to his house any who wished to enrich their memories with the spectacle to be obtained through the grimy windows at the back. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder; hundreds flocked to take advantage of this ofler.

About a month later a certain East End social club engaged a hall ,in a building just off the Commercial Road for a dance. It was a Saturday night, and about one o'clock in the morning the steward of the club, whose duties as a hawker had unavoidably prevented bis earlier arrival, drove his smart little donkey and cart into the yard at the back of the premises with the intention, 110 doubt, of making up for lost time. His donkey shied at something, and a moment later the steward's hopes of a stimulating evening were fulfilled beyond his wildest dreams.

Mrs. Stride, aged 48, had sought the seclusion of that little yard for the last time. The foid ritual which usually characterised the activities of her recent companion had evidently been interrupted. It is not unlikely that he was actually at work when the patter of the donkey's hooves at the entrance to the yard forced him to stop. He was at work again, however, within a very few minutes in Mitre

Who Was Jack the Ripper?

Square, Aldgate, about half a mile away, and it is clear that no amount of haste and eagerness could interfere at any time with his genius for organisation.

A policeman on his normal beat passed through Mitre Square every 20 minutes, during one of which intervals Catherine Eddowes, aged 45, was punctiliously dealt with according to routine. It was after this double crime that the title Jack the Ripper was first evolved. A postcard was received by the Central News Agency, signed in that name. Tlje writer apologised for the incompleteness of his work on Mrs. Stride and undertook to do better next time.

This promise was so richly fulfilled less than five weeks later on the person of a certain Miss Kelly that it is difficult to regard it as a vulgar hoax.

Miss Kelly occupied a room in Meller's Court, off the Commercial Road. She was only 24 years old and distinctly pretty, with an incorrigibly happy-go-lucky disposition. In the early part of November, 1888, she was hopelessly behind with her rent. At ten-thirty on the morning of the ninth of that month an emissary from her landlord called round to deliver an ultimatum.

Miss Kelly's room was on the street level; there was no glass in the window, so the emissary, presumably wishing to introduce as little formality and unfriendliness as possible into what was inevitably a somewhat unpleasant errand, just pushed aside the sacking which safeguarded her privacy and looked in.

It is unlikely that he ever forgot what ho saw. Miss Kelly's companion of the night had enjoyed what was for him a unique period of immunity from interruption, and it is sufficient to say that he had taken the fullest advantage of it. One feature of the aspect of that room must be referred to. That passion for geometrical design which had induced him to arrange the contents of Mrs. Chapman's pockets in an orderly manner at her feet was expressed here with such wild and freakish elaboration as to challenge the grotesque exuberance of a nightmare.

This was the last crime of the series. It has been suggested that cither George Chapman or Neill Cream, both of whom were actively engaged in homicidal enterprises during approximately the same period, may have been Jack the Ripper, but neither of these notions seems to me to be plausible. Chapman invariably married his victims and methodically poisoned them at home over a period of months. It is hard to believe that a professional killer of such essentially sedentary habits would fill in his sparse leisure by rushing about WhitechapeJ in circumstances of unimaginable discomfort.

As for Neill Cream, he was in gaol in America when these crimes were committed, which must surely be regarded as a fairly sound alibi. My own view is that Jack the Ripper was some doctor or medical student who was periodically overwhelmed by a sexual impulse of an abnormal character. The element of cruelty is a well recognised characteristic of many such conditions, and those afflicted in this way will undoubtedly run the most fantastic risks in the gratification of their appetite.

The frenzy which accompanied the killing of Miss Kelly, exceeding as it did in intensity and duration any previous indulgence, may well have been too much for the already unstable mentality of the killer. And if that banquet of horrors did indeed lead to definite insanity his confinement in an asylum would automatically put an end to his murderous career.

I have a somewhat bizarre reason for adhering to this theory. In November, 1918, a fellow unfortunate and myself were celebrating the former's 40th birthday in a dug-out on the Somme, and our joint comments on the unsuitable nature of the circumstances prompted him to say that this was the second birthday that had been spoiled for him.

" Jack the Ripper did in my tenth birthday," he said, and proceeded to tell me the following anecdote.

His father had at one time been the proprietor of a private lunatic asylum on the outskirts of London. He was a widower, and on the evening of November 9, 1888, he had promised to take the boy to the pantomime to celebrate the occasion.

Suddenly, while they were at dinner, the whole house was thrown into commotion by the unexpected arrival of a violent and noisy patient. Left alone at the table, the boy peeped round the door into the hall and caught a momentary glimpse of the gaunt and dishevelled figure of a man amidst a huddle of attendants.

It was an unprecedented thrill, but his birthday was none the Jess ruined, for the visit to the pantomime was cancelled. Later on he had seen a good deal of this newcomer, who was, he gathered, the son of one of his father's oldest friendfs. He remembered him then as a smiling and gently demented individual who played with him in his father's garden and was his constant and tireless companion. " He had, it appeared, a marvellous gift for drawing and would cover literally reams of paper with fantastically conceived but perfectly executed pictures of tiny animals, birds and butterflies, which miraculously ran or marched or flow to form a definite orderly design. And in the execution of this delicate task he showed equal ability with either hand. " Of course," said my friend, " I was too young then to think anything about it, and by the time 1 was old enough to ask questions my father was dead and I was living with an uncle abroad. Hut the last murder was on the night of November 8, remember. Looks queer, doesn't it? " I was forced to admit that it did. " Anyway," ho said finally, " Jack the Ripper or not, ho was a grand companion for a rather lonely kid.