"Do not kill" – the Old Testament teaches. But people have been acting exactly the opposite for three thousand years in a row. Nowadays, a killer who poisoned a dozen people will not even fall into national news, and several thousand victims of local war (by medieval standards are very decent) will be a good reason to accept the next formal resolution of the UN. So why are historians, forensics and secret lovers constantly return in 1888 – to an ordinary murder series of murders by today's standards?
However, now the reason for the next return is truly rare. As we reported recently in the news, the secret of the personality of Jack the Ripper is revealed! For this occasion, we decided to once again recall all the circumstances of those long -standing events and the rumors and legends associated with them. Colleagues from the magazine "World of Fantasy" kindly shared with us a large-scale study dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the fateful for London of the year. Only now we will look at the whole story in a new way. After all, the mysterious attacker now has a name.
At the bottom
► East End in 1882.
Victorian England … a symbol of progress; Not an era, but an endless technological and triumph of human genius: the London metro, the theory of the evolution of Darwin, the first international exhibitions and compact cameras, electric lighting of streets, the time of time, Holmes and Watson, a journey in the projectile from the ground to the moon, steampunk, dieselpank ..
But even in the case of the Sun, scientists are more interested in not his rays, but the spots on it. And it is not surprising that one of the most iconic personalities of the late 19th century was a completely unknown person. Neither a name nor a photograph is one nickname that all the more or less educated people from the land of Franz Joseph to Burkina-Faso know today.
His “hunting grounds” became the Whitchel region in London East Ende, from the 17th century, nicknamed the oasis of prostitution. Even in the progressive XIX century, this place was a real cloak. Emigrants, mainly Jews and Irish lived here (today, by the way, natives of Bangladesh settle in East End). It was this area that Jack London described in the “people of the abyss”: work houses, monstrous poverty, overnight on the street … In October 1888, the police calculated that 62 brothels and 1,200 prostitutes are operating in the tiny Whitechepel (with the population of the entire East Est. Half a million people). Imagine the overpopulation of this area in 1888, if only about 200 thousand people live in it now.
► Caricature from Punch magazine (September 1888), ridicuating the helplessness of the police.
The roads were not paved, at home – small and without foundations. The drain and sewer systems were absent almost everywhere. Cows and pigs grazed in the backyards. The townspeople cooked giblets, drowned lard. "Fragrances", which hung in the air, would give a hundred points ahead of the atmosphere of the most dense barbaric settlements.
Did you know that ..
[[Bullet]] In Michael Dibdin’s novel “The Last History of Sherlock Holmes”, Watson finds out that the Ripper is Holmes.
– Fifteen years after Jack's crimes in Whitechepel, Mr. Richter rented a room. He is better known to us as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And a few years before the atrocities of the gip in Whitechepel, the famous man-slope performed.
-Oddly enough, in the midst of events on the streets of the East End it became … safer. The district was left by many criminals who were afraid that they would hang the giping of the gip, the police switched to an enhanced regime of work, and vigilant citizens pounced on everyone who caused at least the slightest suspicion.
– The last murder took Royal Victoria out of himself. She arranged for the prime minister and invited him to reform the police. Soon, the criminal department appeared in Scotland Yard and the fingerprints of fingerprints began to be compiled.
– In 2006, the BBC History Magazine magazine appropriated the rank of “worst British in history” to the rider.
– A pub, called The Ten Bells, where some of the victims of the gip had spent time, still exists. Half a century ago they wanted to rename it into Jack The Ripper, but under pressure from feminists were forced to return the historical name.
Ripperology
Researchers (ripperologists) calculated that more books have been written about Jack of the Runaire than about all American presidents combined. It is believed that the Ripper appeared suddenly, committed five murders one bloodier than another (the last victim was literally torn to pieces), and then also unexpectedly disappeared. This is not entirely true. In the overpopulated East End, the murders were familiar like a street stink. For example, twenty -five days before the first “performance” of Jack in Whitchepel, a prostitute Martham was stabbed to be stabbed (39 stab wounds in “Body and Intimate places”).
► Typically, the gip is depicted in a raincoat, cylinder and with bag. However, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle admitted that Jack could be a midwife. The police were looking for a man, and blood spots on her clothes would not cause suspicion.
The gip stood out by killing for no apparent reason; bold, cruelly, in a single manner. The throat was cut from left to right, while the victim’s head leaned to the right, and a significant effort was applied to the knife (the wounds were very deep). After that, the abdominal cavity was opened, some organs were cut out and carried away with them. The fact that the killer, apparently, managed not to get dirty in the blood and go unnoticed, partially explains another nickname – “Leather apron”.
THIS IS INTERESTING: Later, the police caught John Pizer – a blackmailer of prostitutes, known under the nickname "Leather apron".
In all cases, there were few blood, which gave the ground for two assumptions: either the women first strangled (which explains the lack of screams for help, because in some cases the constitu were on the neighboring streets and were late for a matter of minutes), and then they cut, or crimes were committed In another place (a house, a moving carriage), and the bodies were thrown into deserted streets.
By the fruits they will recognize them ..
► Detection of Mary Nichols.
On Friday, August 31, 1888, a certain Charles Cross was walking around the Whitechepel district at four in the morning (normal time for the start of a working day or end of working night in East End). Near the stable, he noticed a woman lying on the road. The skirt was lifted, from which Cross concluded that the lady was raped. He called another passerby. Together, the men corrected the victim’s skirt (not one in the dark noticed that she was dead) and went in search of a policy.
Constable John Neil brought the lantern, and only then it became clear that the murder occurred. Dr. Rice Llevellin, who arrived at the crime scene, discovered that death came from two huge incisions on his throat, from ear to ear, and this happened a maximum of half an hour ago, since the body was still warm. A little blood flowed out, most of it was absorbed into clothes.
There were no traces of blood on the chest. Therefore, the victim did not die standing (otherwise blood from the cut throat would hit clothes), but on the ground. This version is confirmed by the fact that she had a bruise on her left cheekbone, there were no five teeth and her tongue was wounded. Probably a woman was dumped to the ground with a strong blow and only then stabbed. Inspection of the body in the morgue revealed another strangeness – the abdominal cavity of the victim was opened.
The investigation showed that the “first swallow” of the gip was Mary Ann Nichols Soroka Sorok. She had a husband and five children, but Polly, as her friends called, drank and spent the last years of her life “at the bottom” of society. On the night of death, she did not have enough money for an overnight stay. She went to the street, telling her friends that four pence would soon work with the help of her new hat.
► Mary Ann Nichols and her grave these days.
Recognition or Pasquil?
The newspapers excitedly told people about the Whitechepel killer. People were not slow to react. Every day the police received “sincere confessions” of mentally unhealthy personalities, denunciations of neighbors and advice on investigating. Only a few letters are considered relatively genuine. The first came on September 27, began with the words "Dear Boss" and was signed "Jack Ripper". The second postcard dates back to the first of October. The third letter, entitled “From hell”, came on October 16, along with part of the kidney Eddose (the rest of the maniac allegedly fried and ate). Today, many believe that these letters were evil draws. It is possible that the nickname "Jack Ripper" was invented not by the criminal himself, but by some bored boob.
The next victim of the killer was Annie Cupman – a homeless drunkard, painful and syphilis. A few days before her death, she fought with a woman because of a piece of soap, received a bruise under her eye and lost her “product”. For this very reason, on September 7, 1888, she did not have money for the night. Annie wandered through the streets in search of a "client". The last time she was seen at five in the morning talking to some man (the witness caught only one of her remarks: “No”).
► Annie Cupman and the place of her murder (reconstruction on police sketches).
At six o'clock her body was found in the backyard of house number 29 in Hanbury Street, next to the market. In the morning it was quite lively here – people went to work, there were wagons with goods along the roads. The windows of residential buildings overlooking the courtyard remained open at night. It was already light on the street. Incredibly, no one noticed anything suspicious.
Annie's throat was cut so deeply, as if the killer wanted to separate his head from the body. The insides were neatly removed and laid out next to the body. The work was carried out with a long thin knife – most likely, a special tool for opening. The killer took the uterus with him.
► House No. 29 in Hanbury Street, our days.
Dr. Filips, who examined the corpse, said that the internal bodies were prepared very professionally. He himself would have demanded for this at least a quarter of an hour in a calm atmosphere, and most likely about an hour. This fundamentally changed the matter, since the good medical education at that time was not available to everyone. Other surgeons subsequently agreed with his point of view, but they believed that a less qualified medical student or butcher could be a rifle.
If at the morning of the morning of September 30, 1888, the Russian Jew Louis Demshits did not light a match on the corner of Datfield and Berner Street, he would sleep calmly for the rest. However, fate ordered otherwise, and the man saw a “long Liz” (Elizabeth Strage) lying back on the ground. Blood flowed from her throat, as if the murder occurred just a minute ago. Demshits involuntarily frightened the killer, preventing him from opening the victim's stomach.
► MTR Square (from the place where Eddose was killed) today.
A similar “surprise” expected Constable Edward Watkins forty -five minutes later. By patrolling Meter Square, a quarter of a mile from the place of the previous crime, he discovered the gutted corpse of Katherine Eddose (this time the maniac took the uterus and kidney). Understanding that there was a double murder, the police arranged a raid in the area, but did not find anyone. It was almost unbelievable, because at the expected crime time the area was patrolled by at least three constables. There was no more than fifteen minutes about everything about everything about everything – and he needed a light source to cut out organs from Eddow.
► In 2006, according to the testimony of witnesses and the conclusions of the 19th century detectives, a trifling photobot was compiled.
For both cases, the police had witnesses who showed that they saw prostitutes who talked with a man shortly before his death. Descriptions of the stranger as a whole coincided: dark clothes, felt hunting hat (well known as Holmes headdress), mustache and bag in his hand.
Graffiti
The night of September 30 was long. Without five three constable Alfred Long found a piece of a bloodied apron near the wall with the inscription with the chalk “Jews are not the people who can be blamed for anything”. They wanted to photograph her, but the commissioner Charles Warren ordered to erase the evidence – they say, she could provoke pogroms. This is the fact that the word “Jews” was written with a mistake, supposedly characteristic of the Masons, gave rise to the legend that the Ripper belonged to the “bed of masons”, and Warren also defended it.
The fifth and last, according to the canonical version, the sacrifice of the Ripper – Mary Jane Kelly. The girl was twenty -five years old, she was distinguished by an attractive appearance and therefore, unlike most of the poor priestesses of love, she could rent a room. London was excited by the four previous killings. The streets of the East End were intensively patrolled, the prostitutes avoided getting to work at night, so their own housing was for Kelly as well as.
► Reconstruction of Mary Kelly's appearance.
On the morning of November 9, the owner of the house No. 13 at Millers-Curt sent his assistant Thomas Boer to take a rent from Kelly. When no one spoke to the knock, Borer looked out the window … Urgently caused constraints took what was left of the girl. The gip had a lot of time to literally turn it inside out. Internal organs were laid out around the room. The heart was absent.
► Mary Jane Kelly. She was allegedly seen in a pub on the night of the murder, so there is a version that another prostitute was killed instead of her.
Dozens of people came under suspicion-from poor Jews-Oon-Senovants to members of the royal family. The reasons for the murders are also called different – from the attacks of the Russian "security agents" to the satanic rituals. The exact number of victims is unknown: alternative theories offer a number from 4 to 15. A good hundred books have been written about this, where there are a variety of ideas. In 1996, a job accused of murders … Lewis Carroll was released.
Jekyll Ripper
In the midst of the crimes of the Ripper in London, the play by Robert Lewis Stevenson “The Strange History of Dr. Jekille and Mr. Hayd” was staged. The main role was played by actor Richard Mansfield, and he did it so well that one of the spectators, impressed by the stage transformation of a gentleman into a maniac, sent a denunciation to the police, accusing Mansfield of the fact that he was Jack the Ripper.
► Jackill and Hyde performed by Mansfield.
Glory to Herostratus
Being mostly a mass cultural phenomenon, Jack the Ripper often looked into science fiction. Some writers use the laws of the genre for another "unraveling" of the famous killer. For example, Robert Blokh (follower of Lovecraft and the author of “Psycho”) in the story “Your Twitter Forever” (1943) introduced Jack with a black magician who committed murders in special places and in a particular sequence to receive a gift from the darkness of eternal life.
In another story – “Juliet toy” (1967) – the flea beat the sudden disappearance of the gip after the fifth murder. It turns out that his grandfather dragged him into a distant future to give his Victorian Doctor his granddaughter-Sadist. In addition, the flea wrote the novel "The Night of the Ripper" (1984) – a good example of "Crime Fantasy".
► "Time after time" – book and film.
In the novel “Ripper” (1994), Michael Slade developed the idea with ritual killings, and in the book of Karl Alexander “The Time after Time” (1979), Herbert Wells creates a real time machine. Jack the Ripper fraudulently goes to her to the future. The famous writer has to catch him in 1970, where he seems to be Sherlock Holmes, hoping that this character is forgotten by everyone. The book was well filmed. Wells was played by Malcolm MacDowell.
Chris Elliot in the novel Schroud of the Thwacker (something like the “secret of the colleague”) was spoiled by the Ripper, placing him in New York 1882. Instead of cutting his victims, the maniac beat them on the head with a bag of apples. And in the film comedy “Amazons on the Moon” (1987), a gip is … a disguised Lokh-Nesky monster.
► Doctor Who fights the Ripper in the novel "Matrix" (1998).
Robert Ascrin co -authored with Linda Evans devoted two books to Jack: “Time Ripper” (2000) and “The House that Jack built” (2001), where the time scouts go to the Victorian London, and the cult maniac finds the portal and penetrates the future.
► Film "From Hell" (2001) – a film adaptation of the graphic novel of the Alan Moore of the same name. Inspector Abberline (Depp) against Jack – Royal Surgeon.
Films rarely allow liberties regarding the history of Jack the Ripper. Usually everything is limited to a detective thriller – such as “from hell” (2001) – the film adaptation of the graphic novel of the Alan Moore of the same name. In the comics, the gip is a welcome guest. He often appears in the manga, Batman (Gotham by Gaslight) chases him, and in the Marvel universe, Jack, who emigrated in the United States, revives the demon to sacrifice people to him.
► Fandorin catches the gip in the "Decorator" (1998). ► Scott under the influence.
Not far behind comics and TV shows. In Babylon 5 (episode 2/21), it is stated that at the end of 1888, Jack stole Vorlonians from the ground to make it their inquisitor named Sebastian. And in the Star Way (episode 2/14, “Wolf in the shepherd”) it is said that for the crimes of the Ripper on Earth, as well https://sister-site.org/yummy-wins/ as for a series of murders of women on other planets, the electromagnetic essence of Reyak (Red Jack ”is responsible for the electromagnetic essence , an alien "Ghost", feeding on human fear. Interestingly, the aforementioned Robert Bloch wrote the plot of this episode.
* * *
The Ripper was not the first serial killer in the world. But he became the first maniac to operate in a large city at the very time, when the law enforcement services stopped walking along night streets with the blocks and declare time, and began to really catch criminals.
In addition, the image of the gip to a fair amount was created by the press. At the end of the 19th century, Britain experienced a newspaper boom. Printed publications turned into powerful socio-political force, and journalists, hunting to sensations, made a real reality show from the crimes of the Ripper. Each murder, every police mistake was carefully tracked and came to the public. It was journalists who made from the ordinary maniac a world "superstar".
Very soon, we will return to Jack the Ripper and his affairs again and light another line of this terrible image. Stay in touch!