BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty-Two

I have to say that Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was not lacking suggestions as to how to catch the Ripper. Queen Victoria – yes, THE Queen Victoria - suggested the Ripper might work on one of the cattle boats that docked in London every Thursday and Friday. It was investigated.

It was suggested that East End boxers might be dressed as women and sent out as decoys. No boxers volunteered. Mr Fred Wellsely wrote the Times, suggesting the police should be mounted on bicycles, to cover more ground. It was never acted upon.

Congregationalist Dr. William Tyler, reverend of the King Edward Street Mission, assured a meeting of the Young Men's Christian Association that the murders were, “largely brought about by the wholesale importation of the scum of other countries.” Closing the borders was considered an over reaction. It was often suggested that a reward should be offered. The government always said no. 

 Mr. Percy Lindly, wrote the London Times on Sunday, 1 October that, “...as a breeder of bloodhounds...I have little doubt that had a hound been put on the scene...it might have done what the police have failed to do.” The police were receiving 1,200 letters a day offering suggestions, and 800 of those mentioned bloodhounds

And it wasn't that Sir Charles had no ideas of his own. He did a house-to-house search of Gouldston Street - over 2,000 people were questioned, 300 were “investigated” and 80 were detained. The effort produced nothing. Elsewhere in Whitechapel, 76 butchers and animal slaughterers were asked about their employees, going back 6 months. Nothing, again. Doctors were investigated. Again, nothing.

But always fueling the public's frustration was Sir Charles’s huge ego. On 12 October The Paul Mall Gazette, declared that washing the message off the wall above the bloody apron provided “...the last conclusive demonstration...of the utter unfitness of Sir Charles Warren....” And when the Home Secretary reaffirmed his confidence in Warren, the Gazette pounced. “Mr Matthews is satisfied with Sir Charles Warren," said the newspaper, "But he is alone in his satisfaction.”

And when the Whitechapel District Board of Works passed a resolution urging “Sir Charles Warren...to regulate and strengthen the police force...", Sir Charles took the opportunity to respond in a lengthy written lecture about the difficulties of police work, before adding, “I have also to point out that the purlieus about Whitechapel are most imperfectly lighted...” It other words, the murders were in part the board's fault. 

The London Daily News responded to “the oracle of Scotland Yard”, by asking that if the problem was lack of lighting, “why he waits until he is challenged...then only delivers this important suggestion by way of a crushing retort?”

It was arrogant public relations disasters such as these which drove Home Secretary Henry Matthews to push Warren to at least try one of the public's suggestions. So after the “double event” Warren contacted North Yorkshire dog breeder Mr. Edwin Brough, in Scarborough. Doubtful as well about how the dogs would do on the crowded streets of London, Mr. Brough still sent two of his best bloodhounds – Barnaby and Burgho – for a series of tests in Regent's Park, “as much to please the public as for any other reason”. 

After endless calls for Warren to “do something”, as early as Monday, 8 October, the Daily Telegraph threw cold water on the new project, pointing to the many ways criminals might avoid the dogs, by using “...'buses, and trams, and there are the railways to be reckoned with.”

Days were spent with the dogs chasing human prey around Regent's Park. Once Sir Charles himself was even run to ground. On 20 October the Boston Police News reprinted a story describing “Sir Charles Warren, in his tight military dress...puffing and blowing with his excretions”, after running from the dogs. “He was very mad when the evening papers came out with reports of his mornings doings, which doubtless, were also read and noticed by the murderer.”

The truth was the dogs worked better than expected, but still regularly lost the trail when it was crossed by many other human paths. Still, Warren issued orders that after the killer struck again – as everyone was certain he would – the victim's body should be undisturbed until the dogs could collect “the killer's scent.”

But the real problem with the dogs was the marking of territory. Warren did not want to pay for the dogs out of his own budget, and the bookkeepers at Scotland Yard (above) didn't either. They sent the bill to the Home Office. It was the Home Secretaries' idea, wasn't it?  But the Home Office accountants saw no reason they should pay for this harebrained idea either. 

And while the bureaucrats were passing the bill back and forth, Mr. Brough decided he could wait no longer to be paid. At the end of October Burgho was shipped to participate in a Dog Show in Brighton, while Barnaby returned to his kennel in Scarborough. But nobody told Scotland Yard.

The scorn continued to pile upon Sir Charles. Two wits, Geoffrey Thorn and Edmond Forman, wrote a parody of the popular tune, “Who Killed Cock Robin”. “I said to the Home Secretary, I broke his neck, I killed Cock Warren...Who saw him die? I said the “Pall Mall”, for I'm not his pal. I saw him die, and the “Globe” and the “Star” fell a sighing and sobbing... And the un-muzzled dogs fell a sighing and a sobbing, When they heard of the death of poor Cock Warren...

"Who'll have his place? I said Munro (above), I'll boss that show, I'll have his place, And the bobbies and the tarts fell a sighing and a sobbing...Who'll toll the bell? Mathews" said all, For he's next to fall, He'll toll the bell. And then even he fell sighing and a sobbing, When he thought of the death of poor Cock Warren.”

Other wits rewrote a poem on hunting, to read, "So when Warren (Sir Charles), Makes a miss, he may halt

And declare, with some snarls, That 'twas Matthews's fault.  Matthews vowing 'twas not, But 'twas Warren's bad shot.  Then perhaps both come hard, Down on poor Scotland Yard. But whosever the miss, And whatever is said, One is certain of this -- That a criminal's fled." 

On Saturday, 13 October, Mr Edward Pickersgill, Liberal M.P from Bethel Green, told a crowd gathered to call for more police, “Sir Charles Warren was doubtless a brave soldier...but he knew nothing whatever about the duties of policemen, and ought never to have been put in the position he now occupied.” After waiting for the cheers to die down, Pickersgill blamed Warren for “the demoralization and the corruption of the Metropolitan Police force,” This conclusion was met with loud applause.

Desperate to defend himself, Sir Charles sought out the friendly pages of “Murray's Magazine, a Home and Colonial Periodical for the General Reader”. Scotsman John Murray had been a Royal Marine, and found all his editors at Oxford. Being dedicated to “useful and entertaining” information, but offering “nothing offensive”, the subscription numbers barely rose above 5,000 copies each month. Sir Charles’s November 1888 article, “Policing the Metropolis”, was at once boring, infuriating, self-serving, self-congratitory, self pitying, pedantic and absurd.

“London has for many years past,” he began, “been subject to the sinister influence of a mob stirred up into spasmodic action by restless demagogues...It is to be deplored that successive Governments have not had the courage to make a stand...and have given way before tumultuous proceedings which have exercised a terrorism over peaceful and law-abiding citizens....The whole safety and security of London depends...upon the efficiency of the uniform police constable...the primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime , the next that of detection and punishment....criticism leveled at police…is based upon absolutely incorrect premises...If the people of London choose to create panics and false alarms, they must prepare themselves for some extra safeguards than the present number of police..."

The Daily News was not impressed. “Sir Charles Warren's splendid endowment of self satisfaction has never been so conspicuous” they said, “as...his article in the new number of Murray's Magazine... The inferential boasting is particularly striking...everyone and everything is wrong excepting Sir Charles Warren...His "poverty of originality" is shown...hundred letters on the Whitechapel murders have contained no more than four proposals...four more than occurred to the police.”

“The Star” had been gunning for Warren since the suppression of the protest in Trafalgar Square. Now, sensing their prey was wounded, they described Warren's article as “a comic interlude”, deciding “the problem is...reduced to very simple proportions....Are we going to stand for...our reactionary monomaniac in Scotland Yard?” They called his lecture, “Warrenism...The whole gospel of military despotism...of grapeshot and bludgeon...Sir Charles (above) seems to have some dim idea of isolating our criminal characters in a kind of burglars' retreat. Why not send him down to organize and manage it?”

It was the kind of stupid arrogant statement Charles Warren had made before – the self-satisfied arrogance typical of a “Gilded Age” upper crust Victorian ruling class bureaucrat   But of course a Conservative Government was not going to fire Sir Warren because he was a fair representative of their base. They might, however, fire him if he was embarrassing the leadership – which he was. 

On 8 November, Home Secretary Henry Matthews (above) sent Sir Charles a copy of a nine year old Home Office order that department chiefs were not to issue statements without first receiving his approval. Matthews ordered Sir Warren comply with that order in the future.

As expected Warren (above) wasted no time in refusing to take orders. That same day his reply arrived in Whitehall. "Sir....had I been told that such a circular was to be in force, I should not have accepted the post of Commissioner of Police. I have to point out that my duties...are governed by statute, and that the Secretary of State...has not the power...of issuing orders for the police force. This circular...would...enable every one anonymously to attack the police force without...permitting the Commissioner to correct false statements, which I have been in the habit of doing...for nearly three years past...I entirely decline to accept these instructions...and I have again to place my resignation in the hands of Her Majesty's Government."

Warren (above, left) was, of course, technically correct. His position was governed by law. But he served at the pleasure of the Home Secretary, who was now very displeased with his argumentative, arrogant jackass of a Police Commissioner. Sir Charles had threatened to resign too often. This time the Home Secretary had a replacement all lined up. Still, Henry Matthews waited until morning to send his reply. “In my judgment the claim ...to disregard the instructions of the Secretary of State is altogether inadmissible, and accordingly, I have only to accept your resignation.”

It was done. With that act, one of the primary sparks that ignited the Jack the Ripper case was dampened down. It would take a little while for the  loss to be seen and felt because Sir Charles' resignation was accepted on the very morning that yet another  victim would be found horribly mutilated in the very heart of Whitechapel.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty-One

I was amazed to discover that London in 1888 - a city of 5.6 million people - had only 63 recorded murders – including 9 abandoned newborns and the 5 victims of Jack the Ripper. That is a rate of less than 1 murder for every 200,000 people. In modern day London (2014) there are more than 16 murders for every 200,000 people – about the same number as New York City, but less than the 13 in Los Angeles or the 23 murders per 200,000 residents of Houston or Dallas, Texas.

Of course a lot of murders went unrecognized in 19^th century London. Was a death murder by poisoning or a result of ingesting spoiled meat or polluted water? The police had no way of telling, and coroners were not required to have a medical license until well into the 20^th century. Suspicious deaths of professionals and the wealthy were investigated. 

But a worker on the London docks, a scullery maid, a “hawker” who sold trinkets in the street, a porter at the Spitafield Market or a middle aged prostitute, when these working class were mugged on Whitechapel Road, garroted into unconscious, knocked senseless outside a pub or left bleeding and robbed in a dark alley, these crimes were rarely reported to either the police or the newspapers. One researcher has discovered that according to official records, no women in Whitechapel had their throats slashed during all of 1886 or 1887. That contention seems so unlikely as to be absurd.

It wasn't that the officials did not know what they were dealing with, even if they could not give it a name. “The Spectator” had speculated as early as the middle of September, “...the motive was blood thirst,— that is, the crime itself was its own impelling cause”. The magazine added that knowing the details of the victim's life was “...of comparatively little use, for it usually helps only to detect motive, and here the motive is...useless as an aid to identification” But, The Spectator admitted, there were a few things that were know about the killer. “He must...know that district of Whitechapel well...And he is not a man to excite by his mere appearance...or his victim would not have gone with him...Those seem the only facts fairly clear, and they...scarcely help the police, and they do not help the population at all...” But this last time, the killer had left a new clue behind.

The latest victim was Catherine Eddowes,  a 46 year old cheerful prostitute who was a loud and argumentative drunk, and had been in police custody at the Bishopgate station until 1:00 a.m. that Sunday morning. As she left the station house, her last words to the desk sergeant were a cheery “Goodnight, old cock.” She was a ten minute walk from Mitre Square. At 1:45 that Sunday morning she would be found in the square, killed in the now classic Ripper fashion. She had been first strangled from the front, and once unconscious or dead was lowered to the ground where her throat was slashed. Then and only then was she mutilated.

Her inquest started on Thursday, 4 October, and Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, the City Police Surgeon described the condition of her body. “She lay on her back. Head turned toward her left shoulder. Arms at her side...Clothes were pushed above her abdomen, Thighs were naked..Abdomen exposed. Bonnet at back of her head...

"Face disfigured. Throat was cut. Intestines were drawn out and placed over right shoulder. Another section of intestines were placed between left arm and body. Clotted blood on pavement near left side of neck...Fluid blood under neck and right shoulder.” Dr. Brown did not share with the public that her vagina, her womb and part of one kidney had been removed and taken away by the killer. But he did add, “My attention was called to the apron - it was the corner of the apron with a string attached...”.

City of London Detective Sergeant Daniel Halse had also noticed the apron, because “a piece of her apron was missing. About half of it. It had been cut with a clean cut.”  They were ubiquitous in Whitechapel, (Above, left) used by the working poor women to protect their dresses. Dr. Brown even had the opportunity to compare the section found on the dead woman, with another piece of white cloth found on Goulston Street, in Whitechapel. “I fitted the piece of apron,” he told the inquest, “the seams of the borders of the two actually corresponding - some blood and apparently fecal matter was found on the portion found in Goulston Street"

Goulston Street was a north south byway which connected the east west running Wentworth to the Aldegate High Street.  Like George Yard, it had undergone a slum clearance project, with the worst slums on its northern end cleared out and replaced in 1887 with the Brunswick Buildings, new “model dwellings”. 

And it was in the open entryway of numbers 108 to 119 Brunswick Buildings on Goulston (above), near the corner of Wentworth, that the majority of the white cloth apron had been discovered just before 3:00 a.m. that Sunday morning by Police Constable Alfred Long – 1 hour after Catherine Eddows was discovered murdered, and no more than 1 hour 15 minutes after the murder had been committed.

PC Long had passed this same doorway at about 2:20 a.m. while walking his beat, and he was positive the bloody cloth had not been there, then. A careful reading of all accounts makes it clear the apron was not far inside the doorway, but in the open, visible to anyone.  Other police officers, moving by prearranged plan to blanket the area between the murder scene and Whitechapel, questioned all the men they saw, and saw no one suspicious. 

Specifically, Detective Sergeant Halse had come down Goulston, passed the same doorway about 2:25 a.m. and also saw nothing and no one. So the killer had come this way sometime between 2:30 and 2:55 a.m. It reinforced the belief that the killer had escaped Mitre Square -  just over the border of the City of London - by retreating into Whitechaple, where he felt safe. Where he lived.

The most direct route would have been to exit Mytre Square (above, lower left)  next to the Great Synagogue, then turn south on Duke Street to Aldegate High Street, turn right and walk past the Aldegate East Underground Station before turning left, heading north up Goulston street to where the apron was found (above, red dot).  That path was the most public, the mostly heavily covered by police. 

Or the killer might have gone north on Duke Street, cut east to Houndsditch Street, jogged south 1 block to Grave Lane,  then south to the short New Goulston Street, or jogged north to Turn Alley, ending opposite 108-119 Goulston Street (above, blue circle). However he had jogged, turned and hidden in the dark, he had remained unseen while the alarm was raised all around him.  Walked briskly he could have covered the distance in about ten minutes. Moving carefully, Detective Halse had done it in 20 minutes. And we know he beat the Ripper to the Goulston Street because the bloody apron fragment was not there when he passed the spot at about 2:15 a.m..

The most logical explanation for taking the apron was to carry away his trophies, the organs stolen from Catherine Eddowes. But the missing organs were never found - overlooking the infamous kidney mailed to George Akin Lusk (above), the 49 year old self-made Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, which was probably just another journalistic publicity stunt.  The organs were in that entryway and stairwell with the killer, sometime between 2:20 a.m. and 2:55 a.m. - a 35 minute window. 

And they left with the killer. Only the bloody apron fragment remained behind. But how did he carry the organs after he left this entryway? Did he live in the new buildings? Every resident was questioned, all the apartments and buildings were searched. It seemed clear the killer paused here, to transfer his stolen goods to another container or bag. But where did he go from here?

The question was never fully asked because of what PC Long discovered next.  Scrawled on the door jam above the bloody apron was a message written in chalk - “The Juwes are not the men that will be blamed for nothing.’   What it meant was not and is not clear, other than being antisemitic and written by a non-native English speaker. And different officers remember the wording differently. 

They reacted to the message differently, as well.  Basically, the City of London Police wanted the message left right were it was until it was light enough to be photographed. The Metropolitan Police, in whose area this was,  wanted it washed away, at once.

In a couple of hours (it was not approaching 4:00 a.m.)  Goulston Street would be filling with Jewish and Gentile peddlers and Gentile and Jewish customers.  When they heard about the murder and saw the writing, a riot would be a real possibility. Except of course for other nasty writings scattered around Whitechaple. 

The issue was settled at about 5:15 a.m., when Sir Charles Warren, head of the Metropolitan Police arrived on Goulston Street (above).  He ordered the writing to be washed away at once. And that was when all hell broke loose, breaking right on top of Sir Charles' head.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty

I do not believe Elizabeth Stride(above)  was murdered by Jack the Ripper. But that begs the questions, if not “The Ripper”, then who and why was “Long Liz Stride” murdered? Well, I believe the motive for the murder was that Elizabeth Gustafsdotter was a liar. She lied about every detail of her life, and often to no advantage other than obfuscation. She claimed to have given birth to nine children. She had none. She claimed to clean house for a wealthy West End family. She occasionally cleaned rooms in a doss house. She claimed to have been brought to England by a wealthy man. She was a common prostitute in Sweden before London. But Elizabeth was a handsome woman, with light gray eyes, dark brown curly hair, a pale complexion. and a kind and gentle manner when she was sober - all of which made her lies easier to believe.

Her favorite lies were that her husband and children had drown in the 1878 sinking of the “Princess Alice” (above), and that she had been born with a cleft palate. Her husband – John Thomas Stride - actually died of a heart attack in 1881 – at least six years after they separated. During her autopsy, doctors made a special examination of the roof of her mouth, and found no cleft. Being in a relationship with such a liar is exhausting for a sober man or woman. A romantic might want to believe, but the longer it takes for the veil over their eyes to fall away, the greater their anger at the liar.

The truth is Elizabeth had been a domestic servant since she was 17 years old, and since 1862 employed by Mr. Lars Frederick Olafson, in the port of Gothenburg, Sweden (above).  Abruptly, in March of 1865, Elizabeth Gustafsdotter registered as a prostitute, had the first of several treatments for venereal desease and in April she gave birth to a still born girl.  In July of 1866 Elizabeth moved to London, settling, as most poor immigrants did, in the poverty plagued East End.

When the 26 year old married John Stride in March of 1869, Elizabeth (above in 1872)  probably did so as his partner in managing a coffee shop in Poplar (above), near the new East India docks. The two partnered in several coffee shops until 1875, about the same time they parted ways. 

What Elizabeth did and where she lived for the next six years is a mystery, but my guess is she was a full time prostitute in one of the hundreds of legal Whitechapel bordellos (above), probably under one of her pseudonyms. The three we know of were Annie Morris, Wally Warden and Annie Fitzgerald.  

Then, probably in the fall of 1881, Liz got sick enough she could no longer work. At the end of December she was treated for bronchitis in the Whitechapel infirmary. In January of 1882 she moved into the Workhouse. Later that year she began living “off and on” at a doss house at 32 Flower and Dean Street (above). The following year, for the first time, she moved in with Micheal Kidney.

Iin 1888, the 36 year old Micheal Kidney  (above) was 9 years younger than the then 45 year old Elizabeth Stride. He was a dock worker, living at 38 Dorset Street. The job required a strong back and a willing mind. But it was not full time employment for Micheal. He suffered from “lombago” and was an alcoholic, perhaps as self medication for his back pain. But whatever the justification, excessive alcohol consumption gave him something in common with Long Liz Stride. The record does not mark Micheal as a particularly violent man, drunk or sober. I don't believe he beat Elizabeth Stride. But she was a loud and often abusive violent drunk. And with Elizabeth at least a part time prostitute, the couple were not sexually exclusive. But it seems Micheal Kidney wanted to believe they were emotionally exclusive.

The only record we have of how Micheal Kidney felt about Elizabeth was what he said at her inquest. When asked about the many times she left him, Micheal said, “She always returned without me going after her. I think she liked me better than any other man." He added, “I treated her the same as I would a wife.” As to the last time he had seen her, the week of her death, Micheal insisted, “I do not believe she left me on Tuesday to take up with any other man.”  . The newspapers described him as “morose”, “rough-spoken” and occasionally “incoherent” after her death - which might be another way of describing an harassed man in mourning.

But like a man waking up from a bad dream, Micheal also displayed at the inquest a belated recognition of Elizabeth's faults. When asked if she was Swedish, Micheal said , “She told me she was a Swede...She said she was born 3 miles from Stockholm...but I have grave doubts about that.” He testified that “She told me she was a widow”, and that “She told me” the couple ran a coffee house. He knew Elizabeth was a constant liar. But he wanted to believe her. But what or who was it that awakened Micheal Kidney to reality? 

His name was Isreal Schwartz. He was a recent immigrant, an Hungarian Jew, who spoke very little English. He worked in the Yiddish Theater at the Pavilion on Commercial Road (above). With his wife and 2 children, Isreal had lived on Berner Street until that Saturday, 29 September, 1888. While he worked that night his wife had moved the family to their new apartment at 22 Back Church Lane, which was one block to the west. And forty-five minutes into that chilly Sunday morning, 30 September, Isreal Schwartz walked down Commercial Street and decided to check the Berner Street address, to see if his family needed help. They were already gone, but because of his choice, Isreal Schwartz walked straight into the murder.

As he approached the open gate beside the International Working Men's Educational Institute at 40 Berner Street,  Isreal saw a woman standing just inside the gateway to Dutfield's Yard. A man stopped and spoke to her.  The man then grabbed the woman. She called out. The man turned the woman around, with her back to him. She called out again. The man shoved her to the ground, back inside the yard. 

Mr. Schwartz crossed away from the confrontation, to the east side of Berner Street. But within a few steps he heard more noises (shouting?). He turned to look, but a man smoking a pipe suddenly stepped out of the dark and shouted something, startling Mr. Schwartz. The man who had attacked the woman now pointed at Mr. Schwartz and shouted something that might have been “Lipski”.   Isreal Schwartz broke into a run, heading south on Berner Street, being chased by all the horrors of the pogroms and Whitechapel anti-semiticism until he found shelter under the railroad aqueduct arches. When he felt safe he headed to the new apartment.

Less than ten minutes after Isreal saw this woman pushed to the ground, Elizabeth Stride would be found on the same spot, with her throat slashed. I believe the woman Isreal Schwartz saw attacked was Liz Stride. And the noises that caused Isreal to look back were, I think, a killer venting his rage at the woman as he cut her throat. Schwartz described the attacker as about 30 years old, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, with broad shoulders. He had a fair complexion, dark hair and a small brown mustache. At the time investigators thought Isreal Swartz was a reliable eye witness. But what does that mean?

Doubts have been raised about eye witness reliability since Hugo Munsterberg's 1907 book “On the Witness Stand.” Yale Professor Edwin Borchard identified false eyewitness memory as the leading cause of wrongful convictions as far back as 1932. And according to a 2010 column in Scientific American, “...73 % of the 239 convictions overturned through DNA testing were based on eyewitness testimony. One third of these...rested on the testimony of two or more mistaken eyewitnesses.” The authors then list the reasons for eye witness unreliability - extreme stress, presence of weapons, disguises, racial disparity and brief viewing times.

Having experienced the pogroms, Isreal Schwartz was already suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as his behavior at the murder scene clearly shows. Further, the sudden emotional crises gave him tunnel vision. There was also the racial disparity between himself and the perpetrator. And Mr. Schwartz had at most one or two seconds on a badly lit street and from some distance, to make his identification. And when you add that his description was made through an interpreter, it becomes impossible to find any reliable element in his description of the killer. His statement only proves when, where and how the murder happened. And none of what he reliably saw fits the method used to murder Martha Tabem, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman or Catherine Eddowes.

To many people in Whitechapel that Saturday had an anxious air. The solid gray overcast kept the temperature down to a chilly 68 degrees Fahrenheit, but held that level even after the unseen sun set at 5:42 p.m. Then about 10 minutes before 10:00 p.m. a cold front slipped through and the clouds dumped the moisture they could no longer hold. About 11:00 p.m. laborers J. Best and John Gardner ran into Elizabeth Stride in the doorway of the Bricklayer's Arms Pub, a few hundred yards across Commercial Road from Berner Street.  Both men knew Long Liz,  but not the man with her. He was about Liz's height, with a black mustache and “weak sandy eyelashes”, wearing a mourning suit, a "billycock" - aka a derby hat - and a coat. According to Best, “It was raining very fast and they did not appear willing to go out. He was hugging and kissing her, and as he seemed a respectably dressed man, we were rather astonished at the way he was going on at the woman."

At about 11:45 p.m. worker William Marshall was  standing in the doorway of 64 Berner Street, south of Fairclough, when be spotted Elizabeth Stride across the street, sheltering in the doorway of number 63 Berner. She was kissing a man wearing a short black cutaway coat. Marshall heard the man say, “You would say anything but your prayers.” The rain ended just before midnight, dropping 3 tenths of an inch.  

An hour after the last sighting, about 12:35 a.m., now Sunday, 30 September, 1888, Police Constable William Smith noticed Elizabeth Stride and a man “acting like two lovers”, across the street from the Workers Club. He describes the man as clean shaven, about 28 years old, wearing dark clothes and standing about 5 feet 7 inches tall.  Less than ten minutes later Isreal Schwartz see's Elizabeth Stride assaulted in the entry way to Dutfield's Yard. Ten minutes after that she is found dead in the Yard.

If the police had not been expecting another Ripper murder, who would have been their number one suspect? Who had the strongest motive for cutting off the endless stream of lies spilling from Long Liz Stride? Who would have been most hurt by her affectionate treatment of another man that night? Was Micheal Kidney on Berner Street that Saturday night and Sunday morning? Had he been stalking Elizabeth off and on since Tuesday, when she failed to return home as he expected? Until somebody invents a time machine, we will never know. And it is doubtful, even then -   since we now know that even an eyewitness to history cannot be trusted to see anything but what they think they see.  But it seems clear to me, Liz Stride's killer was not Jack the Ripper.

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