BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty - Three

 

I think the people of Whitechapel were some of the poorest and the hardest working citizens of London. Consider the ambitious John “Jack” McCarthy. He chose to live in Whitechapel, starting by renting a tiny storefront at 26 Dorset Street where he ran a grocery. 

The small grocery (above, left)   did well enough that in 1877 "Jack" McCarthy married, and after a few years he bought the entire 2 story brick building, and the identical structure at Number 24...

...the other side of the four foot wide arched entrance to Miller's Court. McCarthy moved his family – 4 children by 1888 - into the top floor of Number 26, and re-opened his grocery on the ground floor (above, left).  He kept Number 24, renting 2 rooms on the second floor to tenants, using the ground floor front for storage, and subdivided the ground rear into a 10 foot by 12 foot room....

...which he gave the address of 13 Miller's Court. “Lucky” 13 provided Jack with 23 pence a week in rent. That was how you made a profit in Whitechapel.

Plowing such profits back into his business, Jack McCarthy bought the doss house at number 30 Dorset street, and his business became known as McCarthy Rents. In March of 1882 he partnered in staging a prize fight at St. Andrew's Hall. But a dispute over profits lead to another fight, this one between the promoters, which lead to an arrest, and a fine for Jack. It is unclear if any money's were made, but Jack did not repeat his venture as a fight promoter. However it did show that Jack McCarthy was always on the look for a profit.

On Friday, 9 November, 1888, Jack McCarthy was going over his account books for his store at 24 Dorset Street.  About 10:30 that morning Jack ordered his employee, Thomas Bowyer (above), to walk 10 feet back to 13 Miller's Court, and collect the rent for that 8'X8' room - which was 2 weeks in arrears.  Bowyer was called “Indian Joe” because he had served in India. He was now surviving on his military pension, and reduced to living on Dorset Street. McCarthy reminded Thomas that if there was no answer to a knock at the door, he was to look in the window, to confirm if the couple renting the room, Mary Kelly and Joseph Barnett, were inside, hiding or sleeping off a drunk.

That same morning, in the House of Commons (above), Home Secretary Henry Matthews rose to announce the resignation of Sir Charles Warren as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It would be tricky giving this a positive spin, particularly since Matthews had voiced unlimited support for Warren just days eraeler.

The liberal press hated Warren as a reactionary martinet who had crushed the “Bloody 13 of November 1887 Trafalgar Square” demonstration. But the Conservative press saw Warren as a hero, and rumors were already circulating that Warren's one time Assistant Commissioner James Munro, had been colluding with the Home Secretary, to undermine his boss. 

Although Henry Matthew's boss, Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (above), was not permitted to sit in the Commons – as the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Gascoyne-Ceicil sat in the House of Lords – Matthews knew the Prime Minister was watching him closely. 

So after reading the exchange of letters with Warren from the day before, in which Warren had resigned – again -  Henry Matthews (above) assured the Commons, “...the differences of opinion between Sir Charles Warren and Mr. Monro, had nothing to do with...parting with an officer so distinguished and so zealous in the discharge of his Office...I wish to add...The advice which I have sought from Mr. Monro was confined to the general question of the organization proper for the Department...”

It was doubtful anyone in the Commons believed that lie, but nobody had proof. So only Liberal M.P, Robert Cunninghame-Graham (above) rose to question Matthew's statement. Cunninghame-Graham had spent six weeks in jail after the police riot on Bloody Sunday, and he asked what Warren's use of the word "again" refereed to. “Do I understand that it is not the first time that his resignation has been placed in the hands of Her Majesty’s Government?”  The Home Secretary dodged the question saying only, “There have been previous differences of opinion which led to Sir Charles Warren tendering his resignation.” But the Home Secretary refused to provide details.

Liberal M.P. Henry Labouchere (above), who had tried as recently as march to eliminate the House of Lords entirely, asked, “What is the precise position which Mr. Monro holds now?” 

Matthews now lied to Labourchere as smoothly and as easily as a politician – which he, of course was.  Matthews said, “Mr. Monro fills no office of any kind, and is in no way connected with the Department.” 

Above all, Matthews avoided any mention of the “Special Irish Branch” of the police, which James Munro (above)  still headed. Munro's use of spies and political sabotage campaigns in Ireland and even in London, must not even be hinted at. Nor could there be any whisper of Matthews' instructions to Mr. Munro and his replacement Mr Anderson, to “consult” with Matthews behind Sir Charles' back. So the lie was not revealed.  The scandal, such as it was, would end with Sir Charles' resignation.

At about 10:40 that same morning, “Indian Joe” walked out the front door of McCarthy's grocery at 24 Dorset Street and turned right into the 4 foot wide 5 foot long alley leading to Miller's Court (above, center archway). 

The whitewashed and cobblestoned Court was little more than 10 feet wide by 20 feet long.  As you entered, on the left side was Number 1 Miller's Court, with number 2 directly above it, each the standard Whitechapel 8 foot by 8 foot room. Numbers 3 through 6 finished the left side of the court, before 3 private toilets, or outhouses. On the right side were numbers 9 through 12, as well as a water tap and a dustbin. Opposite Number 13, on the ground floor, stood a single gas lamppost

Thomas Bowyer did not know the 25 year old woman who rented Number 13 (above)  as Mary Kelly, which was not surprising. Among her many aliases were Marie Jeanette Kelly, Mary Jeanette, Black Mary, Ginger and Fair Emma. 

Born in Ireland and raised in Wales, Mary Kelly spoke fluent Welsh as well as English. She was handsome and well spoken, and “much superior to that of most persons in her position in life." But she was also an alcoholic. Jack McCarthy tactfully described her as “noisy” when drunk.  A friend described her as “ a good, quiet, pleasant girl, and was well liked by all of us." “She was not a notorious character”, said another. 

“Indian Joe” said later, “Knocking at the door, I got no answer, and I knocked again and again. Receiving no reply, I passed round the corner by the gutter spout where there is a broken window...I put my hand through the broken pane and lifted the curtain. I saw two pieces of flesh lying on the table (above)...The second time I looked I saw a body on the bed, and blood on the floor.”

Thomas Bowyer ran back into McCarthy's shop, where he told him, “"Governor, I knocked at the door and could not make anyone answer. I looked through the window and saw a lot of blood." Looking into the man's face, McCarthy's reaction was understandable. He said, “You don’t mean that, Harry.” 

Both men returned to the tiny apartment, where Jack McCarthy pushed aside the curtain. “The sight that we saw I cannot drive away from my mind," he said. "It looked more like the work of a devil than of a man...I hope I may never see such a sight as this again.”

One writer described what they saw.  “The wall behind the bed was spattered with blood. On the bedside table was a pile of bloody human flesh. And there on the bed, barely recognizable as human, lay the virtually skinned down cadaver of Mary Kelly.” McCarthy told Thomas to go straight to the Commercial Street police station. Pausing only to lock up his store, Jack McCarthy followed him.

At the Commercial Street Station (above), Detective Inspectors Walter Dew and Walter Beck were on duty when Thomas Bowyer ran in.  Drew wrote later, “The poor fellow was so frightened that for a time he was unable to utter a single intelligible word. At last he managed to stammer out something about "another one. Jack the Ripper. Awful. Jack McCarthy sent me."” A moment later Jack McCarthy arrived, and all 4 man then returned to Dorset Street.  

Beck looked into the room, and then told his partner, "For God’s sake, Drew, don’t look."  Drew looked anyway. 

Fifty years later he wrote, “...the old nausea, indignation and horror overwhelm me still… No savage could have been more barbaric. No wild animal could have done anything so horrifying...…the poor woman’s eyes. They were wide open, and seemed to be staring straight at me with a look of terror."

The Government may have made peace with the Sir Charles Warren scandal, but Jack the Ripper had made no truce with his own demons. And he was intent up sharing them with the entire world.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Fourteen

 

I think modern readers will be surprised to learn that congestion on surface streets had driven Londoners underground as early as January of 1863, when the first subterranean coal burning, smoke belching steam engines began running on the 4 mile Metropolitan Line, connecting Paddington, Euston and King's Cross railway stations. The Underground's passengers were willing to breath so much smoke and foul smelling fumes, the management encouraged employees to grow beards to act as air filters. Then they gave up and started calling the atmosphere “invigorating”. 

The soot, smoke and burning embers did not matter. More than 11 million Londoners – out of a population of 3 million – hacked and coughed up the 2 pence for tickets for the underground during it's first year of operation. 

After that, a dozen private companies started raising money and digging tunnels beneath the streets, fighting, merging and suing each other until there were only two left.  

The first construction method was “cut and fill”, used a decade earlier for the new sewers. A trench was dug down the middle of a street and tracks were laid in it (above). Then it was lined with bricks, and covered over. 

But in 1866 “the shield” revolutionized subway construction. A circular metal ring was hammered into the face of the tunnel. “Navies” then dug out the soil within the shield (above), which protected them during their work. Brick layers followed closely behind, lining the tunnel as they progressed. Thus was born “The Tube”, aka the London Underground.

The public fell in love with mass transit, and in 1887 the "North Metropolitan Tramsway Company" began laying tracks down both sides of the 100 foot wide Commercial Street (above). Historian Bernard Brown noticed one oddity of this project. "'The work continued day and night until completion in November 1888. During  the construction... Martha Tabram, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were murdered...15th November 1888, a week after the last murder, the Commercial Street tramway finally opened with a line of brown painted horse trams running between Bloomsbury and Poplar (fare 3 pence).

The construction was aided by the hard chalk soil of southern England, which made tunneling easy, and a “laissez faire” labor market, which made replacing injured or killed workers just as easy. But the mindless competition between Met trains and District lines produced expensive duplication and delayed the first underground service for Whitechapel until 1876. 

The Whitechapel Station (Above, left), next to the Working Lads Institute (above, right) and across Whitechapel Road from the London Hospital, made attending the Coroner's Juries investigating the Whitechapel murders, convenient for members of the press and public.

Attendance to the coroner juries had been growing since the August murder of Martha Tabram, and on Monday, 10 September, 1888, the upstairs meeting room of the Working Lads Institute (above) was jammed. The first witness at the Annie Chapman inquest was John Davis, who recounted his discovery of the body. But the second witness was the widow Amelia Palmer, who had known the 47 year old “Dark” Annie "a short plump, ashen-faced consumptive"  for 5 years, and had last seen her on the afternoon of Friday, 7 September, in the kitchen of the Dorset Street doss house where they both slept.

In the slang of Whitechapel the short, cramped brutal east/west block between Commercial and Crispin Streets (above) was known as Doss Street- a doss being a cheap bed, originally just a bundle of straw thrown on the floor. 

On an average night 1,200 men and almost as many women were sleeping in the stinking filthy dormitories along Dorset Street (above). The only business on the street not making a profit by renting coffin spaced “beds” at 8 pence a night was a grocery store at number 7 and the Blue Boy pub at number 32.

As Manhattan had it's Needle Park in the 1960's, Whitechapel had it's “Itchy Park”, opposite the eastern end of Dorset Street,  across Commercial Street, in what had once been the graveyard of Spitalfields Christs' Church.  There gangs waited even in daylight - "mug hunters" -  who watched in the dark for a robbery victim's face to shine, which gave rise to the term mugger -  "demanders" - who bullied their victims -  or "Bludgers" - who beat or garroted any man woman or child who might have money in their pockets,   It was the darkest dark corner of Whitechapel, and Bobby's were assigned the night beat on Dorset Street only in pairs.

According to the pale, dark haired Amelia Palmer, Annie Chapman (above) had been ill for years, and most Fridays she sold crochet work and flowers to earn money for food, a doss for the night and alcohol.

But this Friday Annie (above) was so sick she did not have the strength. Amelia said her friend had put on a brave face, insisting, “It's no good my giving way. I must pull myself together and get out and get some money or I shall have no lodgings.”

Mrs. Palmer was followed on the stand by Timothy Donovan, who worked at a the 35 Dorset Street doss house. At about 2:30 pm that Friday Annie Chapman told Donovan she had spent part of the week in a charity infirmary, and he had then given her permission to use the kitchen. 

She was still there, eating a potato, 12 hours later at 1:45 a.m. Saturday morning.  When she confessed to not having the 8 pence for her “bed”,  Donovan had chastised her, saying “You can find money for your beer, and you can't find money for your bed." 

After stalling for a few minutes, Annie gave up. She said, "Never mind, Tim; I shall soon be back. Don't let the bed." The last he saw of her, Annie Chapman was heading off to earn eight pence 

When Coroner Wayne Baxter (above) asked where he expected Dark Annie to find the money, Donovan replied with the mantra of capitalism concerning the source of all profits: “I do not know”, meaning, “I do not care.”

And finally there appeared before the coroner's jury this first day the most controversial witness – and certainly the most opinionated - Doctor George Bagster Phillips (above). He was a 53 year old physician for the power structure, who had already spent half his life as a respected doctor and since 1865 the official surgeon for Whitechapel “H” division of the Metropolitan police. It was Dr. Phillips who gave physicals for the staff at both the Leman and Commercial streets and the Arbour Square “H” station houses, even giving them their smallpox inoculations in 1871.

Dr. Phillips contended that he reached his own conclusions, and "...ignored all evidence not coming under my observation." The failing of that self imposed limitation would only become evident with time. At 2:30 on the afternoon of the murder – less than 8 hours after his first cursory examination in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street - Phillips performed his autopsy at the Montague Street mortuary. He found the victim's face swollen, from new and old bruises. But the throat had been slashed, left to right, he thought, leaving “two distinct cuts” two inches apart which had reached her spine.

Dr. Phillips offered the opinion that Annie was not a drinker, and she had no alcohol in her stomach. What had slurred Annie's speech and caused her to stagger, said the doctor, was damage to her brain caused by the loss of oxygen over years of suffering from an advanced case of pneumonia - modern day COPD.  She had very little food in her stomach, and was also suffering from malnutrition. In short, when she had been murdered, Annie Chapman was already within weeks of dying.

As to what specifically had killed her that morning, Dr. Phillips was equally certain. The murderer had first strangled Annie, perhaps with the handkerchief found around her neck, if not to death at least until she was unconscious . This caused her face to swell up and her tongue to protrude. Only then had the murderer slashed her throat, grabbing her by the chin with one hand and swinging the knife left to right with the other. This had happened 2 to 3 hours before examination, at 6:30 that morning – putting time of death between between 3:30 and 4:30, the morning of Saturday, 8 September, 1888.

After death, said Dr. Phillips, the victim's legs were shoved apart. Her dress was pushed up above her waist, and the killer had sliced her abdomen fully open. The intestines had been cut free from the colon, lifted from the body and placed or tossed over her right shoulder. The uterus “and its appendages”, the upper portion of the vagina and 2/3^rds of the bladder were all removed. And they were gone. Said Doctor Phillips, "Obviously the work was that of an expert - or one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife."

And with that horrifying testimony, the jury adjourned, not to reconvene until Wednesday, 12 September. The certain Dr. Phillips did not return for a second day of testimony, so he missed the witnesses who destroyed his positive time of death estimate.

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