LOOKING FOR THE GREAT ALEXANDER

 

I suppose you could call it the Melting Monarch's Mummy Trick, or the Ebbing Emperor Illusion – except this was no illusion. On what would be latter be 11 June, 323 B.C.,  Alexander III of Macedonia died in Babylon, probably after being poisoned,  since assassination was the normal recall procedure in Macedonian politics. 

Very long books have been written about who poisoned Alexander and why, and you might find that interesting. I did. But the death of Alexander the Great was just the prologue to the second greatest act of prestidigitation in world history, when the mummy of the most famous man since Adam vanished from the center of one of the largest cities in the civilized world, from one of the most famous and often visited mausoleums in the world. 

One day he was there, and the next – poof - he was gone, never to be seen again. And it wasn't that anybody forgot about him. The day his corpse went walk-about, he was still the best known conquer in history. He was “The Great” with a capital “G”, for heavens sake. And then he was gone. And he is still gone. It must be a mystery; right?

His body lay in his tent for three days, unattended. Sound familiar?  His loyal follows paid no respects to the man they had followed into the mountains of Afghanistan and the plains of India because they were too busy arguing over who should inherit what parts of his empire and his fortune.  Alexander himself thought the best way to enhance his image would have been for his body to be thrown into the Euphrates River, so he would simply disappear- very mysterious. 

Instead, eventually, he was mummified after the Egyptian fashion, and placed in a casket carved to bear his image. This was supposedly then placed inside a gold sarcophagus, which would have made it very, very heavy. The intent was to ship his body back to Macedonia, where he would be buried next to his father.  But somewhere in Syria the procession was waylaid by cavalry under the command of Ptolemy, whom Alexander had assigned to run his province of Egypt.

After slaughtering the funeral procession, Ptolemy hijacked the mummy to the Egyptian holy city of Memphis, about 160 miles south of his new capital which Alexander had ordered built, and had named “Alexandria”. Under Macedonian tradition, by burying Alexander's corpus delicti,  Ptolemy was laying claim to his empire. But after twenty years of fighting, Ptolemy gave up his dreams of world-wide glory and had himself just crowned Pharaoh of Egypt. And the late Alexander the Great took up residence in the temple of Ptah in Memphis.

He stayed there for about fifty years before the son, Ptolemy Soma , had him shipped down river to Alexandria (above), where he was given his own tomb inside the Brucheum, the Greek quarter of the city. Then in about 210 B.C. the grandson, Ptolemy Philopater, built a larger shrine, the Mausoleum of the Ptolemies (later called just The Soma - Greek for "the body"), to house the mummies of his parents, grand and great-grand parents as well as the mummy of Alexander.

The new temple, designed to look as old as the ancient temples still dotting the landscape, stood at the corner of The Street of Soma and Canoptic Street – the 42^nd Street and Fifth Avenues of ancient Alexandria. Down the street from this temple of the divine were the Royal Palaces, what was left of the famous Library of Alexandria and the Temple of the Caesar's. 

For the next five hundred years they dragged the corpse out for special occasion, and for viewing by visiting dignitaries, including a Who's Who of classical Rome - Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, Caesar Augustus, and one Roman Emperor after another. This dressed-up desiccated carcass had become an object of veneration, made divine by the faith imparted in the cadaver by the thousands who prayed and offered sacrifice to it. 

To facilitate them, the ninth Pharoh to bear the name Ptolemy - A.K.A. Hook Nose Ptolemy -  had the gold sarcophagus melted down, and Alexander's mummy was then encased in glass - which had been around in Egypt since 3,400B.C.E. -  the better for the tourists to see. The gold, went in the Ptolemy 9's  purse.

But it was not faith alone that persevered Alexander's corpse, it was also the tourist industry, which sprang up to serve the faithful and the curious who visited The Soma. There were hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops - everybody wanted souvenirs. When they caught Caesar Augustus trying to slip Alexander's nose into his pocket, he claimed it broke off by accident. They still made him leave it behind. 

The Emperor Caligula (above) was brazen enough that he broke the glass and walked out with the breastplate ripped right off of Alexander's chest. In the second century A.D., to protect the taxes produced by this industry, the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus closed The Soma to all but the richest visitors. Average folks still came to look at the building, but not as many.

You'd would think it would be easy to locate such a famous spot, even 2,000 years later, but just after daybreak on 21 July, 365 A.D. there was an 8.3 earthquake off Cyprus, 400 miles to the northwest. The shaking and tsunamis slammed into Alexandria, killing about 5,000 people, knocking down 50,000 houses and dropping the level of the entire coast about 20 feet. Needless to say, the morning after that morning, The Soma lost its importance to the city.  Probably Alexander's mummy had slipped into the harbor and most likely the survivors had more important things to worry about other than the dried out carcass of a long dead now heathen monarch.

The only reason to suspect The Soma and the corpse survived this temblor is the reprobate philosopher Libanius. He had resisted conversion to the new political correctness of Christianity.  For committing that sin he had been exiled from Constantinople. Yes, he was a pagan. But the dirty little secret of Christianity is that even pagans were appalled by the sins usually attributed by Christians to the pagans; sins like lust and greed. 

In describing greedy Christians in about 390 A.D. Libanius asked (above), “Who could be the friend of such as these? When they behave like this for money's sake, would they keep their hands off temple offerings or tombs?...And this evil...is universal, whether you mention Paltus or Alexandria where the corpse of Alexander is displayed..”  And that is the only mention of the tomb of Alexander after the earthquake of 365 A.D.   And since there is no record that Libanius ever visited Alexandria after his exile, I find this less than convincing, especially considering that Libanius died not long after writing this passage. Had he lived, maybe he would have corrected it.

There is a theory floating about that, in order to revitalize the local tourist industry the corpse of Alexander was re-named as the corpse of the Christian Saint Mark, and The Soma as the Church of St. Mark.  Why Christians would have done something like that, I have no idea. It just seems to me to be a lot of trouble to go to. 

After 365 A.D. the tourist industry of Alexandria certainly needed a new Alexander The Great, but the two things ancient Alexandria had after the earthquake was dead bodies, and salvaged stones for building new temples. And while it might be emotionally satisfying to blame religious fanatics for the loss of the Alexander's corpse, and it might be appealing to suppose Alexander the Great still exists, buried under St. Mark's square in Venice (above), it is far more likely that he ended up in the harbor of Alexandria, soaking like a packet of old freeze dried coffee, slowly losing his effervescence.

The real magic trick of history is that in the face of overwhelming evidence each generation continues to labor under the delusion that they invented sin and mystery, or at least identified it better.  And this column is certainly proof of  that.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty - Six

 

I suppose the greatest problem with the real Jack the Ripper story is that the ending is unsatisfying. A poet of the age predicted, "They've captured Leather Apron now, if guilty you'll agree; he'll have to meet a murderer's doom, and hang upon a tree" But the Aaron Kominski never stood  trial and was never even publicly identified as the Ripper.

But then, that is the horror of real murder.  The victim cannot be recovered, nor can the victim's loved-ones be made whole. The horror of a real murder usually dies only when the killer, and all those who loved the victim and their friends and family, also die.

Not so with Jack the Ripper. His horror has so far survived 130 years after his last victim bled out in a dark and dirty corner of dark and dirty Whitechapel.  Part of the reason for the longevity of his horror is the photo (above) taken in the tiny sad little room at 13 Miller's Court, Dorset Street. 

Part of the reason is that the newspapers sold 1 million additional papers a day during the “Autumn of Terror”: - August through November of 1888. 

And part of the reason is that the fictional Jack the Ripper has proved too profitable to let him die. But the police in 1888 were dealing with a real killer.

Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (above, front center), one the smartest officers in Whitechapel,  reminded readers in his memoir what the police knew by middle of October, 1888.. “The perpetrator,” he wrote, “...was in the habit of using a certain public-house, and of remaining there until closing time...all of the victims were all of the same class... and living within a quarter of a mile of each other; all were murdered within half a mile area; all were killed in the same manner...he (the killer) lived in the district.” So the police - well at least those below the management level - were not fools. They knew who they were looking for. But publicly identifying and arresting him was not their top priority.

After the Hanbury Street murder of Annie Chapman on 8 September, Whitechapel and Spitafield were flooded with uniformed Constables and plain clothes Detectives, even employing the Whitechapel Vigilantes. As Commissioner Sir Charles Warren had said in his petulant self defense published in the November Murray’s Magazine, “...the primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime...” And that was what the police concentrated on – preventing the killer from killing again. And they did.

For 14 days – Friday, 15 September, to Friday, 28 September – Kosminski found the police foiling his searches for another victim, until he was forced outside his hunting grounds to Aldegate, where the public/police net was thinner.

There, in the early hours of Sunday, 30 September,  he murdered Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. But even then Warren's plan worked. 

The police were able to focus on Aaron Kosminski, living with his brother just down the block from the Goulston Street entryway (above) where Eddowes' bloody apron was found.  Then, during all of October, the “tails” which Chief Inspector Donald Swanson pinned on Kosminski kept him from claiming another victim - 

...at least until 8 November when Kosminski was able to isolate Mary Kelly in her room  – the only murder to take place indoors - and the only murder to have begun earlier in the evening, before the pubs had closed.  And even then he did not kill until closer to dawn, when Kelly's singing, as reported by a neighbor, finally stopped.

The police never had enough evidence to arrest Aaron Kosminski, in much the same way the police were never able to arrest Arthur Leigh Allen of killing at least five victims between December 1967 and October 1969 in California, under the moniker of "Zodiac".   But if, back in 1888, Aaron Kosminski was still alive and no longer killing, why? First there was Abraham, Aaron's older brother. Living with the first paternal role model Aaron had known since his father's death in 1874 would have been a stabilizing influence. 

And second, whoever the Ripper was, he was insane but he wasn't nuts. He did not want to get caught. He had always retained enough control to avoid witnesses and the police, to delay his gratification until the he was certain of his own safety. Even his method of killing was designed to protect himself.

 

And third, accepting Special Agent Douglas' modern profile, the Ripper was extremely passive until the assault. He needed the prostitute to initiate contact. He needed alcohol to lower his own inhibitions. And he needed the victim to be unconscious or dead before he could show the knife and penetrate her with it. To such an individual, being constantly followed by detectives would have fueled a raging  paranoia, as would have his arrest on a Saturday in December of 1889 for walking an unmuzzled dog in Cheapside. 

Cheapside was not in Whitechapel.  Charles Dickens called Cheapside (above)  “...the busiest thoroughfare in the world..." The Cheapside Street market had been in existence for hundreds of years, but during Victorian times, says Dickens, it was “...almost monopolized by men's shops: hosiers and shirt makers, tailors and tobacconists, and above all by jewelers.” 

In fact, says Dickens, “The stranger will be particularly struck with the absence of women...in Cheapside (above)...there is scarcely a woman to be seen to every hundred men.” It would appear an odd place for a homicidal maniac with a particular hatred for women to be walking his dog, muzzled or unmuzzled. What had he been doing to inspire the police to arrest their prime Ripper suspect for such a petty crime?  We will never know.

Having been arrested, the 23 year old Aaron Kosminski made a competent presentation in court. He argued that since he did not own the dog he was not responsible for muzzling it. Like arguing a parking ticket in court, logic was of course no help  But when the magistrate found him guilty and assessed a 10 shilling fine, Aaron was quick enough to argue that it was the Jewish sabbath, and his faith forbid him from handling money. He presented a normal and passive enough image that he was allowed to go free, returning on Monday to pay the fine. 

So this was the man who convinced Mary Jane Kelly to open her door to him, convinced Annie Chapman to go to the back yard with him, and convinced Martha Tabram to lead him up the unlighted stairs in George Yard. Martha's trip to her own death may have been the longest of all the victims, requiring the greatest confidence that the man who was about to murder her, posed no threat whatsoever.

Seven months later after this arrest, on Saturday, 12 July, 1890,  Aaron Kosminski was meekly led by his brother-in-law to the Mile End Workhouse (above), where he was described as having been “insane for the last two years.”  It must have been hard for a Jew to turn their own blood relative over to the charity of Christians, but Arron was hearing voices, had stopped washing and refused food from any person's hand because he feared being poisoned, preferring to eat discards from the gutter. However 3 days later, either because the doctors suspected he was malingering, or because he fooled them, his brother Abraham had to take him home again.

It was not to last. On 4 February of 1891 the police brought  Aaron Kosminski back to the Workhouse. The same issues were mentioned – not working, not washing and eating from the gutter – but this time the police added he had threatened his sister Martha with a knife. Three days later, on 7 February, 1891 Aaron Kominski  was transferred to the Jewish wing of the infamous long corridors of the Colony Hatch Asylum for the “pauper insane” in Barnet, North London (above). The paperwork justification for transfer has not survived the century, but we do know Aaron Kosminski arrived with both hands tied behind his back.

Colony Hatch adhered to the Victorian belief that all problems are better with regimentation - from morning calisthenics to regimented meals. The 2,000 patients were also expected to work, in the tailor shop, the garden or just washing floors. Since most of the patients came from the East End the asylum had a kosher kitchen and a Yiddish interpreter. The records at Colony Hatch have survived and they detail Aaron's 3 year transgression from “apathetic” to "Incoherent, at times excited and violent." The staff noted, “He declares that... he knows the movements of all mankind, he refuses food from others because he is told to do so, and he eats out of the gutter for the same reason”

Eventually the violence became predominant, and Aaron  Kosminski's last stop was the complex of buildings at the Levesden Asylum For Imbeciles in Abbots Langley, 20 miles northwest of London (above). 

Aaron survived here for a quarter of a century, having spent most of his life institutionalized. Toward the end the staff noted, "Patient does not know his age or how long he has been here." 

Aaron Kosminski died of a gangrene infection at the age of 54 years, on Monday, 24 March, 1919 (above).  At the time of his death he weighed just 96 pounds. But he lived longer than any of  his victims, and even his nemesis.

Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (above) retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1896, with over 50 awards and commendations, including being named a Druid of Distinction, Reid moved to Hampton-on-Sea, atop the chalk cliffs of England's east coast. Here he worked at becoming an English eccentric.

He renamed his home “Reid's Ranch”, and painted the outside walls with castle battlements and cannon aimed at the ocean. He opened a stand in his garden shed (above), from which he sold postcards – mostly featuring himself - sold lemon-aide and wrote crank letters to the local newspaper. He died at the age of 61, on 5 December, 1917, the same year he finally married.

Thus I end my version of the story of Jack the Ripper – just another human being,  more unhappy and violent than most, but just another human being.

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BLOODY JACK Chapter Twenty - Five

 

I consider it one of the most gruesome crime scene photographs ever made, and it was the first. Taken inside Mary Kelly's sad little room at 13 Miller's Court on the cold Friday morning of  9 November, 1888,  it is grainy, blurry and more than a century after it was taken, it still chills the soul.  It is the only photo of a “Jack the Ripper” victim “in situ”.

It is invaluable, because a mere description of the horror which had escaped this killer's mind may disturb you intellectually, but only when you look closely at this photo do you comprehend the emotional violence unleashed. And it would never have been made if Sir Charles Warren's Metropolitan Police had been the well oiled machine he kept telling the public they were. 

Inspectors Beck and Dew had arrived in Miller's Court (above) a little after 11:00 a.m.  By 11:30 police surgeon Dr. George Bagster Phillips had arrived, along with most of the Whitechapel brass, and even a few officers from the City of London police. But still no one had entered the room. There were standing orders from now ex-Commissioner Sir Charles Warren not to disturb the crime scene at the next Ripper murder until the bloodhounds – Burgho and Barnaby – had arrived to collect the killer's scent. And just peaking in the window, nobody had any doubt that this was another Ripper murder.

However, the accountants at Scotland Yard and the accountants at the Home Office could not agree on who was going to pay for the dogs, and eventually their owner, Mr Edwin Brough, grew so disgusted that Burgho was now in Brighton, competing in a dog show, and Barnaby had been returned to his home kennel, where he was, in all probability at that moment licking his own private parts and dreaming of chasing down Irish politicians seeking self rule.

Evidently, Sir Charles had been doing the human equivalent of the same thing - too busy defending himself in magazines and threatening to resign to have taken the time to tell the Constables and Detectives of Whitechapel Division that the dogs were not coming. So the officers were left holding back the growing crowds outside of the crime scene in Miller's Court for 2 hours (above), waiting for the dogs which were not coming, while inside number 13, Mary Jane Kelly's corpse was starting to decay.

It was not until 1:30 that afternoon that Whitechapel Division Superintendent Thomas Anderson got fed up with waiting and asked Jack McCarthy for permission to knock the door down. The exasperated McCarthy said yes, do it, for God's sake. But Anderson still dare not disobey Warren, so he quietly asked the London Police, if they wouldn't mind. And they did not. So it was a City of London Police Constable who went at the flimsy door with a sledge hammer, or an ax. 

The blaze was still going in the fireplace.  Mary Jane Kelly's clothing was neatly folded on the room's only chair. Her boots had been placed to dry in front of the fire place. The rest of the room looked like an abattoir.

The London Police justified breaking down the door because they wanted to photograph the scene. Sir Charles Warren had stopped them from photographing the “The Jewes are not the ones...” message just above the bloody apron found on Goulston Street. But Warren was not here. He was finally gone. 

The London Police took two images of the scene, a close up of the lumps of breast and organs left on the table (above)....

...And the second image of the victim's corpse sprawled on the bed (above). Several Whitechapel Detectives ordered their own copies of the photos, and those -   in private hands -  eventually ended up the Scotland Yard files. But it was only because Sir Charles Warren's resignation had been accepted that morning,  that the photographs were even taken.

On Tuesday, 13 November, 1888 the young and ambitious Robert Gent-Davis, representing the Kennington section of London,  rose in the House of Commons (above) to ask a public question of his party's leader, Home Secretary Henry Matthews. 

Supported by his recently acquired South London Standard newspaper, the 27 year old Conservative had burst upon the political scene in 1885  like a Guy Fawkes sky rocket   Liberals had immediately challenged Robert's election under the new campaign finance law. 

Gent-Davis had won the case, but the testimony hinted his wealth was all bluff and bluster. This was confirmed in February of 1888 when a court ordered Robert to pay a client 1,500 pounds owed him from an escrow estate Robert had managed. When Robert failed to produce the funds, the judge ordered him jailed for contempt of court. Robert then claimed immunity because of his position in Parliament, but that bluff was sure to fail, and without support from the Conservative Party leadership he was going to jail. So Robert decided to save himself by running yet another bluff.

Robert asked if Mr. Munro (above) had resigned as Assistant Commissioner of Police back in August because the Criminal Intelligence Division had been taken away from him  Of course, Munro had resigned because his boss, Commissioner Sir Charles Warren, had wanted him to give up his command of the super-secret and illegal black ops Section “D”  of the C.I.D. - the Irish Section. And when Matthews brushed the question aside, Robert raised his bet. He now asked that all correspondence between Munro and the government “be laid upon the table”, meaning the opposition Liberal Party could read it. That would blow the whole game up.

Of course Robert Gent-Davis didn't know what the whole game was. He was a “back bencher” and the leadership would never have entrusted him with knowledge of the illegal smear campaigns against Irish politicians, or illegal secret payments to London newspapers and Liberal politicians. Because that was all illegal. So Home Secretary Henry Matthews (above)  looked dismissive, promising to release the papers - eventually.  Gent-Davis smirked his reply, “Then I am afraid, Sir, we must get them to-night”.  He then sat to cheers from back benches of the Liberal party. 

But he did sit. Because he was bluffing. He had no proof. The brains behind the Conservative Party had judged Gent-Davis as a bluffer.  And Matthews never did lay the papers on the table. And on 27 November, 1888, Robert Gent-Davis went to jail for contempt of court, and was forced to resign his seat. Once again the Conservatives had weathered a storm that threatened to sink their boat, not because of their own strength, but because of their opponents' weaknesses.

It seemed to have very little to do with Jack the Ripper. But the politics is what had made a sad homicidal madman into a legend.

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