Dissecting Jack-the-Ripper : An Anatomy of Murder in the Metropolis (original) (raw)

2016, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés

murders in the light of the new medical information introduced. This, it will be argued, facilitates a cold case review. Section 4 builds on that revisionist approach by concentrating on the medical fragments of the fifth murder victim's life. It will be argued that Mary Jane Kelly's killing could have been crucial to the social camouflage of Jack. Attention is paid to her links to the others murders, including Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim, whose connection to Dorset Street was not obvious at the time and therefore requires historical scrutiny. This article's anatomy of murder in the metropolis is, hence, all about dissecting Jack-the-Ripper's medical disguise to expose his dreary but deadly cover story to public scrutiny for the first time since the late-Victorian era. Death on Dorset Street : Remapping the Medical Scenery 2 The term 'East-End', as the name implies, has been used to describe an area of the capital city that runs eastwards outside the medieval wall of the old City of London, down towards the large docks north of the River Thames. In Victorian times it became synonymous with derogative slang, 'the blackspot'. Charles Booth in in his Life and Labour of the London People called it a place of "misery, vice, and a cesspool into which the most degraded had sunk". 3 The East-End was filled with parishes in which economic deprivation was deep. 4 It was riddled with death, dearth, and disease, where criminal activities of all descriptions defied the rule of law. Popular penny-dreadful novels of the period often featured sinister characters walking its streets. These were dangerous assailants, the vicious and semi-criminal. Few denied that the dirty slums were crisscrossed by a dense network of alleyways, courtyards, and poorly constructed lodginghouses that fronted brothels. Overcrowding was common and life-expectancy low. The East-End certainly had a distinctive street-culture of bar brawls and prostitutes fighting to protect their pitches. Most nights, rough justice broke out on nearly every streetscene. The presence of so many large workhouses-at Lambeth and Whitechapel in particular-located next door to imposing infirmaries along the Mile End Roadsymbolised inescapable destitution. 5 At the life-cycle crises of birth, in pregnancy, and old age, few of the poorest had any money for basic healthcare. Poor Law institutions became a last resort call in the makeshift economy of the labouring poor. 6 For others, two doubledip recessions in 1876-1884 and again in 1893-1895 caused employment levels to plummet, cheapening piece-labour, and reducing wages below subsistence levels. During the 1880s, the East-End was not somewhere from where it was possible to work one's way out. The area was one huge poverty trap. Those who fell from relative poverty to absolute poverty could never hope to reverse their dire economic plight. If Jack-the-Ripper wanted to get away with murder, then in the East-End there were plenty of potential female victims living very vulnerable lives on the outer margins of respectable late-Victorian society. 3 All commentators on the Jack-the-Ripper case files agree with Paul Begg that : "It has to be acknowledged that Dorset Street features prominently in the story of most of the victims". 7 At least four of the five iconic fatalities known to have been brutal murders committed by the same serial killer happened along this street-scene and this is therefore a location that merits being revisited with fresh historical eyes. Before embarking on a sightseeing tour of the street-scene, there are three things that need to be kept in mind. Firstly, there was something about this street-scene that a murderer like Jack valued