THE FIRST DAY Chapter Three

I know the few men of Company A, 6^th Virginia cavalry, were shocked when,  at about 4:30 that Tuesday morning, 9 June, 1863, Federal cavalry appeared without warning out of a pea soup fog In the shrouded anonymity there was no mercy except that provided by sheer chance. 

Some of the rebel pickets were paralyzed with fear when the madmen in blue came bursting toward their dugouts in the tree line, sabers slashing. Others panicked and went scampering to the rear on foot. Behind the blue attackers Federal cavalry formations galloped through the muddy water of Bevery's Ford  (above), crossing the Rappahannock, the infamous “Dare You Yankees to Attack Line”,  intending to clear a path 10 miles south to Culpeper, where they expected to find J.E.B. Stuart's 7,000 man rebel cavalry corps gathered for a raid. But Stuart was far closer than that. And soon it would the Yankees turn to be surprised.

The Federals at Beverly's Ford - named for early landowner Robert Beverly – were the 5,000 man division under 37 year old General John Buford (above), a West Pointer, who had been superseded as over all commander of the Army of the Potomac cavalry corps.  

But Buford was a cautious commander before a battle.  He had scouted the approaches to river days earlier, and the enemy picket positions. According to General Pleasanton's plan, Buford's troopers were right on time and expected to reach Culpeper by 9:00 a.m. that morning.

What the plan had not allowed for was the determination of Captain Bruce Gibson's company, camped in the wooded hillocks above the river (above).  Despite having left their horses loose to graze overnight, about 100 of Gibson's men managed to get mounted – a few bareback – and delay the 2 regiments of federal cavalry under Colonel Benjamin “Grimes” Davis. And as the Beverly's Ford Road gained altitude above the Rappahannock,  the fog thinned along with Confederate confusion.

Within half an hour, the entire 6^th Virginia regiment was throwing itself against the Union troopers, and dozens of fierce battles involving half a dozen men at a time sparked along both sides of the road. It was, to borrow the title of a favored Army of the Potomac march, “Hell Along the Rappahannock”. 

But when the Federal cavalry broke out of the woods, they found themselves facing a low hill,  atop which was line of cannons around Saint Jame's Church (above). As was his nature, Colonel Davis immediately lead a charge straight up the slope against the rebel cannon. The grapeshot cut down horses and men of the 6^th Pennsylvania and 6^th regular cavalry, as well as Colonel Davis. But the guns were overrun.

However, without a commander, the Federals could not organize a defense, and a new rebel cavalry regiment charged to retake the guns and drive the Federals back. By now Buford had joined his spearhead, and rather then launch another frontal assault, he moved his troopers around the rebel left at Yew ridge, only to find dismounted rebel cavalry behind a stone wall. Removing them would take some time.

Meanwhile, 4 miles to the southeast, General David Gregg (above) was 90 minutes late crossing the Rappahannock at the little 19^th century industrial park called Kellysville. 

Two regiments of Federal cavalry and a brigade of infantry crossed Kelly's Ford (above), also looking to reach Culpeper by 9:00 a.m..  But they found their chosen road already blocked by alerted rebel cavalry. Rather than fighting his way through, General Gregg decided to look for another route.

By the time Buford's men finally carried the stone wall – well after 9:00 a.m. - and pried the rebels out of their position around St. James Church, he had realized Stuart's cavalry corps was not 8 miles to the south, but right in front of him, and gathering. Buford was smart enough to still wonder about the location of the rebel infantry. He knew A.P. Hill's corps of 21,000 rebels were still 35 miles to the east at Fredricks Crossing. But that left 2/3rds of the rebel army missing - where were Longstreet and “Old Baldy” Ewell's 42,000 men?  About 11:00 a.m. Buford decided to push 2 regiments ahead, hoping to uncover rebel infantry. 

Waiting across the field, General J.E.B.  Stuart (above) was prepared to crush the charging Federals between his 6^th and 12^th Virginia regiments, and White's 35^th Virginian cavalry battalion.

Buford’s men were spared this fate because General Gregg had finally reached the rear of the rebel line at Brandy Station -  on the Orange and Alexandria railroad line -   and then turned west to the northern foot of Fleetwood Hill (above).  The view from this low ridge was so dominate that just days before General Stuart had used it as a viewing stand for a grand review of his entire cavalry corps. Had Gregg gained the crest of that hill, J.E.B. Stuart's entire command would have been crushed between the Federal wings. Stuart was saved that fate because of one odd little Confederate cannon.

Almost all of the guns lined up to defend St. James Church were standard cannons that fired 12 pound shot. 

But there was also at least one 1841 howitzer that fired a 6 pound shell (above). It's bronze barrel was less than 5 feet long,  the top of it's large wheels stood no more than 3 feet high and it weighed less than 800 pounds and could be pulled by a single mule. But it required a crew of 6, like a standard 12 pound Napoleon. The Federals had only 6, and the rebels only 23. This particular little gun was under the charge of Lieutenant John Carter. When his irregular ammunition had run low, Carter had been forced to withdraw his little howitzer and its crew to the rear. He wrote later, "As we came near Fleetwood Hill...the whole plateau east of the hill and beyond...was covered with Federal cavalry.”

There were no rebel troops on the hill except Major George Brinton McClellan – first cousin to the hesitant Federal General, and his staff. McClellan had already dispatched one warning to Stuart of the federal division a mile and a half in his rear. But Stuart had not responded. So McClellan now ordered Lieutenant Carter to drag his howitzer up the hill, and open fire. Without explaining that he had only one round of high explosive left, Carter's 6 man gun crew did just that.

And that one shot caused the advancing Federals to pause. They suspected there must be more rebel howitzers on the reverse slope, ready to lob explosives into their crowded ranks. So they waited while their own artillery could be brought forward. And that was just enough time for a second warning from McClellan to reach Stuart, punctuated by Carter's desperate single shot.

Without pausing a moment, Stuart wheeled around the force he had intended to crush Buford, and sent them galloping back to Fleetwood Hill to stop Gregg. The weary rebel troopers reached the summit just as the Federal troopers did. 

In the clash of colliding regiments rebel numbers drove the union cavalry back down the slope. But they quickly returned. In the words of one of the rebel gunners, over the next 4 hours, “The two forces met with a crash that could have been heard miles away...Back and forth they swayed across the slope of Fleetwood Hill."   It was a form of warfare that had more in common with WWII era fighter plane dog fights than Napoleonic cavalry charges. The battle devolved into individual combats, in which casualties were surprisingly low, and unit cohesion difficult to maintain.  About 5:00 p.m., General Pleasanton decided to pull his men back north of the Rappahannock, and the battle faded into the twilight and the river..

Some 17,000 troopers had fought over 70 square miles of Virginia countryside, in the largest single cavalry engagement on north American soil. The Federals had suffered causalities of just under 900, while Stuart reported under 600 dead, wounded and captured. General Stuart held the field of battle, a traditional talisman of victory. But as one of his subordinates said, “Brandy Station made the Federal Cavalry.” The Yankee professionalism and skills could no longer be doubted.  But the ultimate measure of the success in this particular battle went to Stuart. The Federal cavalry had detected no rebel infantry, anywhere.

The next morning Wednesday 10 June, 1863 the lead regiments of Richard “Baldy” Ewell's Corps began marching toward Chester Gap, gateway to the Shenandoah Valley. They were unimpeded, and Army of the Potomac commander, General Hooker was totally unaware they were on the march..  Five days later “Old Pete” Longstreet's Corp would cross the upstream fords of the Rappahannock, screened by Stuart's cavalrymen. The first day of the battle of Gettysburg was now less than 3 weeks away.

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AUTOMATIC GUN CONTROL

I hate to call it an average day, but it was. Just about a quarter past ten that gray Thursday morning, it was a bitter 18 degrees Fahrenheit, usual for Chicago in February. The day before an inch of snow had fallen, but as Elmer Lewis struggled eastbound through traffic on North Webster Avenue, his greatest obstacle was his own Nelson-LeMoon delivery truck. As he entered the intersection with North Clark Street (above), a four door Cadillac sedan heading south ran the light. Lewis swerved onto Clark, but the truck's solid rubber tires slid on the cold pavement and Lewis' truck tapped the steel bumper of the big passenger car. Seeing the Cadillac was a police car, Lewis pulled over in front of 2156 North Clark Street. But the uniform cop driving the big Cadillac just smiled, showing a gap in his teeth, and drove on. No damage done, Lewis proceeded to complete his delivery for the Beaver Paper Company, and the cop proceeded with the murder of seven men in less than six seconds.

When the technocrat Colonel John Thompson (above) resigned from the U.S. army in 1914, it was with the specific intent to get rich. He immediately found employment building factories for Remington Arms Company, but also found time to form a partnership with John Blish who had invented a unique breech system for an  automatic weapon. Together, as the Auto-Ordinance Company, they spent five years in raising money and development. Their final design was just under three feet long and just under 11 pounds in weight. It fired a heavy .45 caliber lead bullet at 935 feet per second. And it could fire one thousand of those rounds a minute. But the design was finished too late to profit from the First World War.

One block further south, the sedan pulled to the west side curb in front of 2122 North Clark Street (above). The bottom half of the front window of the nondescript single story building identified it as the SMC Cartage Company. A new driver slipped behind the wheel and left the engine running. Four men climbed out. The two in police uniforms were carrying shotguns. They were followed by two civilians wearing heavy overcoats. The uniformed officers purposefully strode through the unlocked front door. Past a tiny office was a second door, and through that was the 110 foot long garage. Parked head-in facing the west wall were three delivery trucks. Scattered beyond were three more trucks and two cars. A mechanic worked over one of the trucks, his dog, a German Shepard named “Highball” was tied to the bumper. Beyond, six men wearing overcoats, were smoking, drinking coffee and talking. The cops yelled for the men to put their hands up- this was a raid.

Initially Auto-Ordinance sold the guns for $200.00 each, with a standard 20 round “stick” magazine, or optionally circular magazines, of 50 rounds and 100 rounds each, for another $20 - $25. Because the gun was so expensive, at half the price of a new Model T Ford, police departments, government guards, corporate strike breakers and messengers, even the United States Marine Corps, could not afford many. Also war surplus weapons had depressed the market. The gun was heavy and was inaccurate at anything over 50 yards. The company also felt the need to provide buyers with a disclaimer: “Thompson-guns are sold you with the understanding that you will be responsible for their re-sale to those on the side of law and order.” By 1925 Auto-Ordinance was reduced to marketing the gun at $175 to western ranchers and farmers, available at gun shops, hardware stores, and by mail. Still, by 1928, sales were so bad John Thompson was replaced as Chief Executive Officer of Auto-Ordinance.

The police officers ordered the men, including the mechanic, to line up single file and put their hands against the north wall of the garage. While one officer held a shotgun on the seven, a second patted them down for weapons, tossing their handguns to the floor. The men peacefully complied probably because police “shakedowns” like this were common. The men in the freezing garage this morning probably assumed once these rouge cops realized who they were rousting, apologies would be offered. They probably thought that - right up until they heard the bolts on two Thompson machine guns being pulled back, in preparation for firing.

In November of 1925 Auto-Ordinance shipped one Thompson Machine gun with the serial number of #2347 to Mr. Les Farmer, a sheriff's deputy in Marion Illinois. He was a known member of a St. Louis mob called “Egan's Rats”. On Monday, March 28, 1927 two former “Rats” members, Fred “Killer” Burke (above), and Gus Winkler, used the gun in the ambush of three gangsters in Detroit, Michigan. At 4:45 that morning Frank Wright, Joseph Bloom and George Cohen knocked on the door of Room 308 of the Milaflores Apartments. Abruptly the stairwell door at the end of the hall swung open, and Burke blasted a machine gun down the hallway. Two of the men died instantly, literally cut to pieces. Frank Wright, died 20 hours later. His only comment was, “The machine gun worked. That's all I can remember.”

Standing about  ten feet from the wall, the two men in overcoats pulled Thompson machine guns. One gun had a 50 round circular magazine, the second a 20 round stick. When they they pulled the triggers, the two guns fired their 70 rounds within six seconds. Yes, it was that quick. In that frighteningly short time each of the seven victims received at least 15 wounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CxI2qhRk38&feature=channel_page

On the first day of July, 1928, brutal crime boss Frankie Yale, aka “The Beau Brummnel of Brooklyn”, was caught alone on New Urecht Avenue when a Buick sedan pulled up next to him. From the front and back passenger seats gunmen opened fire with Thompsons. The body of Frankie's Lincoln coup was armor plated, but not the windows. Still, he was able to accelerate away from the gunfire. The assailants caught up with him at 44^th street, where shotguns joined the volley of fire. Hit in the back of the head, Frankie crashed into the fence of the brownstone apartment building at 923 44^th street. When examined by police, Frankie was adorned with a 4 carat diamond ring and a large hole in the back of his head (above)..

At the end of the line, 40 year old Pete “Goosy” Gusenberg staggered to his left and fell face down on the seat of a wooden chair. Forty-two year old James (Kachellek) Clark dropped forward onto his face against the wall. Optician Dr Reinhardt Schwinner, business manager Adam Heyer (aka John Snyder), nightclub manager Albert Weinshank, and 39 year old mechanic John May fell onto their backs. The final victim, 37 year old Frank “Hock” Gusenberg, dropped face down. One police officer then stepped forward and delivered two point blank shot gun coupe de grace to John May, obliterating his face. The four intruders then purposefully strode back out of the front door, pantomiming an arrest. The Cadillac sedan then continued south on North Clark. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was over. From start to finish it had taken less than five minutes.

On October 19, 1928, Auto-Ordinance shipped three Thompsons, (serial numbers #6926, #7580, #7699) with three 50 round magazines to Peter Von Frantzius Sporting Goods, 608 Diversey Parkway, Chicago. The shipment was recorded as received on October 23^rd; and according to records trans-shipped that same day to a Railway Express warehouse in Elgin, Illinois, where it was to be picked up by a private customer, Victor Thompson, who resided at the Fox Hotel, in that city. However the package lay unopened and unclaimed in the warehouse until authorities opened it in the summer of 1929. The box which should have contained three Thompson machine guns and magazines, was filled with packing material and four bricks.

The first police officer on the scene, Sargent Thomas Loftus, found Frank “Hock” Gusenberg,

trying to climb into one of the straight back chairs next to his brother's body. Loftus had grown up in the same East Side neighborhood as Frank. His childhood friend was now bleeding profusely from 14 bullet wounds, but still recognized him. Loftus asked, “Who did it?” Gusenberg wheezed “I won't talk,” and then urged Loftus to take him to a hospital. Hank Gusenberg died three hours later in Akexian Brothers Hospital. Highball, the now abandoned German Shepard, was so excited and unruly, he had to be destroyed.

From the beginning it was called “The Massacre”. Eight months afterward deputy police commissioner John Stege told a reporter, “When a representative of the Auto-Ordnance company...said he wanted to help me in tracing the guns...I told him the help he could give me was to go back and close the gun factory. The weapons are absolutely of no value to...anyone other than criminals We would never dare use one of them,” he added, because “too many innocent people might be killed.” The Chicago Tribune interviewed Mr V.A. Daniels, who admitted reselling Thompsons to criminals for two hundred dollars profit apiece. “It's no problem to buy machine guns. All I had to do was to send to New York for them and they shipped them to me.” Auto-Ordinance was so eager to makes sales, that even after a $180 check from Daniels bounced, they allowed him to continue buying   Peter Von Frantzius, whose store had facilitated the transfer of at least three machine guns to Chicago mobsters, and charged just $2 to file down the serial number on any weapon, admitted under oath he felt no moral responsibility. He said all he cared about was making money. 

On December 14, 1929, 11 months after “The Massacre”, a minor traffic accident in St. Joseph, Michigan lead to the death of police officer Charles Skelly. The shooter's car was later found abandoned, and the registration traced back to a Fred Dane. When police searched his home they found Dane gone, but under a bed, in a large trunk, they found two Thompson machine guns, serial #2347 and #7580. They also found information indicating that Fred Dane was really Fred “Killer” Burke (above).

Peter Von Frantzius admitted selling the three missing Thompsons to Frank V. Tompson (above), who claimed to have resold them to James “Bozo” Shupe. Shupe refused to talk to authorities, and he and a friend were killed in a shootout on July 31, 1929, outside of a tobacco store on West Madison Avenue

Once Fred Burke was identified as the fake police officer who waved on truck driver Elmer Lewis, the two Thompson Machine guns found in Michigan were sent to Chicago to be tested by ballistics expert Calvin Goddard (above, left). Examining ejection markings on shell casings, Goddard proved both guns had been used in “The Massacre:, and that gun  #2347 had also killed Brooklyn's Frankie Yale and was used in the 1927 “Milaflores Massacre” in Detroit. In addition, ammunition found at Burkes' home and produced by the United States Cartridge Company during 1927-28 was also proven to having been used in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Eight months after “The Massacre” the stock market crashed, and unable to effectively stop the Great Depression from engulfing the nation, the Republican dominated 71^st Congress of 1929 -1930 was replaced by the divided “do nothing” 72^nd Congress, (271 Ds to 271 Rs in the House and 48Rs to 46Ds in the Senate). This logjam produced the November 1933 Democratic sweep, propelling Franklin Roosevelt (above) into the White House, with the Democratic dominated 73^rd Congress (311 D's -114 R's in the House, 60 Ds to 35 Rs in the Senate). And it is interesting to note the the first two pieces of legislation introduced by this public mandate were not geared toward solving the financial crises, but first the repeal of Prohibition, and second The National Firearms Act (NFA), the law that removed the Tommy Gun from the market place.  

It did not make the gun illegal. It simply taxed it out of existence. Under the NFA any gun that fired more than one bullet with one pull on the trigger, now carried a tax of $200 – thus more doubling the price of the weapon. When added to the Thompson's weaknesses – its inaccuracy and its weight – the tax drove Auto-Ordinance to the brink of bankruptcy. It is interesting that ten years after “The Massacre”, as the United States was gearing up for World War Two, a new company, Savage Arms, took a fresh look at the Thompson design. They discovered that by removing John Blish's ingenious breech system, the weapon remained fully automatic, but this significantly reduced the price of manufacture.

The garage at 2122 North Clark Street eventually became an antique furniture store, before, finally being torn down in 1967. Today it is a parking lot. Fred Killer Burke (above) died in a Michigan prison. And the gun he made infamous is still sold by Auto-Ordinance, who are still profiting from selling a weapon of mass destruction which in comparison to modern assault weapons is now seen only as a romantic anomaly.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Three

I have to keep reminding myself, how small the place was. It was less than a mile via Whitechapel Road between Aldegate (above, middle left) and the London Hospital (above, upper right). And from a midway mark on that road, less then a twenty minute walk in any direction encompassed all of Whitechapel, Spitafields and Waping, the three poorest parishes in London. 

Contained within that tiny circle were some 800,000 hungry, exhausted, sickly, desperate people, living short, brutal, filthy lives. Capitalism offered them few opportunities, and the ones it did demanded first that they take advantage of each other. Religion offered only the peace of resignation. Justice was a tool  the powerful used to remain poweful .

Life, liberty and happiness were available only if you could afford them. And the wealth of those that could rested largely on the backs of the people of the East End of London. The Victorian age was defined by its hypocrisy, the sins of its age no less gilded in London, than in Mark Twain's America.

Thus it was a short sad walk pushing the police ambulance from George Yard, a few block where Wentworth began Montague Street where the mortuary (above, green box, lower left) a half block from the Whitechapel Union Workhouse. 

About 7:00  that morning the cart was admitted through the Eagle Place gate (above) and then had to wait while the gate keepers sent for Robert Mann, the 53 year old workhouse inmate who was authorized to open the mortuary for incoming bodies.

In his life Robert Mann had been a dock worker, but either through injury or illness,  Robert's mind was injured and left easily confused.  He was no longer able to hold a job. He had lived in the Workhouse for almost a decade now. He helped in the kitchen, and in the men's ward of the hospital, mopping up, removing waste and bodies. That Tuesday afternoon, Robert opened the mortuary a second time to admit two nurses. They stripped and washed the body of the unknown murder victim, and were the first to clearly see the brutality done to her. 

When they were finished the nurses stood by while a photo was taken of the victim's pale blood drained face. Then they left the body under a sheet on the dissecting table in the post mortem room and Robert Mann locked the door behind them.

During late Tuesday afternoon, 7 August, 1888, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid had gone back to the Blackwell Building on George Yard (above), and started knocking on doors. First he re interviewed the Hewitts, the building superintendent and his wife, who lived on the ground floor. They confirmed what they had told Constable Barrett. The dead woman had never been a resident, and had never before been seen about the building. 

Inspector Reid then spoke to the woman in Apartment 37, Louisa Reeves, the wife of John Saunders Reeves, who had found the dead woman at 4:45 or 4:50 that morning. Lousia Reeves told Detective Reid there had been several fights on Wentworth street that Monday night, as was to be expected, what with it having been a “Bank Holiday”. It was the last holiday of the summer. The couple had heard the first shouting about 11:30, and then again half past midnight, and then a third fight broke out about 1:00 am. The couple had watched from their balcony overlooking Wentworth Street, while the police broke up all three brawls. one after another.

The resident of Apartment 35, Mr. Alfred George Crow, made his living as a licensed driver of a hackney cab. The Bank Holiday had been a busy work day for the 25 year old, and he did not get home until 3:00 am on the morning of Tuesday, 7 August. He had seen a “person” on the stairs, whom he assumed was sleeping. Since this was not unusual,  he took little note of it, going straight to bed. He did not realized a murder had occurred until 9 that morning, when he had gotten up, and gone out to buy either food or gin.

At 7:30 that night, Inspector Reid caught Mrs. Elizabeth Mahoney returning from her job at the Stratford matchbook factory, just behind the Workhouse. The 25 year old soft spoken woman and her husband John lived in Apartment 47, directly above Alfred Crow. She said they had spent the day celebrating with her sister, and had not returned home until about 1:40 that Tuesday morning. Elizabeth had paused in their apartment just long enough to take off her hat and cloak, before going downstairs again to buy some dinner (or gin) at a chandler's shop one block north on Thrawl Street (above). Elizabeth said the errand had taken no more than five minutes, before she came home again, climbing the same staircase just before two in the morning. She saw no one on the stairs, she said, living or dead, and did not learn of the murder until ten that morning.

Inspector Reid took note that no one heard any screams or shouting after one that morning, despite the Hewitts apartment being at the foot of the stairwell. And given Mr. Crow's and Mrs. Mahoney's testimony, the murder must have occurred between 2:00 am and 3:00 am. Because of the lack of calls for help, it seemed likely that the victim had known her killer. But until he knew the name of the first, he had little chance of finding the name of the second.

Reid wrote up a description of the victim, and had it dispatched to the news papers, who would publish it the next morning. The female victim was about 37 years old, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with dark hair and a dark complexion, wearing an old dark-green skirt, brown petticoat, long black jacket, brown stockings, a black bonnet, and side-sprung boots. It was a proven, plodding police approach. But Inspector Reid was about to be offered a short cut that would throw his case completely off track.

The red herring appeared in the form of Police Constable Thomas Barrett, who showed up early for his  Tuesday evening tour at the Leman Street station.  Speaking to Inspector Reid, Barrett said he was bothered by an incident which occurred while he was walking his beat at 2:00 am on that Tuesday morning. He spotted a soldier loitering on Wentworth street (above), near the entrance to George Yard. Barrett thought he might be a guard to insure no interference with a robbery going on in the alley. When Barrett asked what he was doing there, the soldier confessed to “waiting for chum who had gone up the alley with a girl.” Because he believed the soldier, and because of the directive regarding street walkers, Barrett merely told the soldier to move along, and then continued his patrol. 

 Barrett described the soldier as a Private between 22 and 26 years of age, about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with fair complexion, dark hair and a small brown mustache turned up at the ends. He was also wearing a good conduct badge. It had happened three hours before the body was discovered, but Barrett was sure he could recognize the soldier again. Might it not have something to do with the murder? Desperate for a lead, Reid thought it might.

On Wednesday, 8 August, Reid escorted Constable Barrett to the Tower, where members of the Guards were paraded for his inspection. Looking for the soldier he had encountered outside of George Yard Tuesday morning, Barrett picked out one man, and then another. Under questioning, both men proved to have separate but equally iron clad alibis  Reid was frustrated, but not surprised. The lead had led nowhere. 

That same morning, Wednesday, 8 August, 1888,  Dr. Timothy Robert Killeen walked the five blocks from his surgery to the Old Montague Street Mortuary to autopsy the body of the woman from George Yard. He was supposed to be assisted by a nurse from the Workhouse hospital ward, but none showed up. So the doctor relied on mortuary worker Robert Mann and his assistant James Hatfield, a 68 year old resident of the Workhouse. 

As usual for the Montague Street mortuary dissecting room (above) , conditions were horrible. The lighting was bad, the room un-vented,  and there was no ready source of water. Luckily it had been a cool summer, because every surgeon in Whitechapel dreaded doing an autopsy there in August.

Dr, Killeen now counted 22 stab wounds (above). The left lung had been penetrated in five places, the right lung in two places. The victim's fatty heart had also been pierced. The liver had been penetrated five times, the spleen twice, the stomach six times. 

All but one of the wounds had been inflicted by a pen knife, held, deduced Dr. Killeen , by a right handed person. But for some reason, on the death certificate (above), Dr. Killeen omitted any details of the savage wounds to the victim's throat, or the slice made just above her pubic bone.

Perhaps the savagery of the assault on the woman was affecting him. Perhaps it was the stench and dirty conditions in the mortuary. Perhaps after three years laboring in the cesspit that was Whitechapel he was finally feeling overwhelmed. If it was the latter, Dr. Timothy Killeen would be far from the first or the last doctor to be "burned out" in Whitechapel. Within the year, Dr, Killeen would return to his family home north of Limerick, Ireland. He never wrote about his time in Whitechapel, nor his brush with the murderer who would become known as Jack the Ripper.

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