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Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3293
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 4:11 pm: | 
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Richard Jones recently discovered a pamphlet entitled "The Worst Street in London", apparently published in the summer of 1901. It is the text of a speech given by a "Mr. Jack McCarthy" rebutting an article that had appeared in the Daily Mail describing Dorset Street as (you guessed it) "The Worst Street in London".
Jack McCarthy is described as a man "who holds a considerable amount of property in the neighbourhood [of Dorset Street, Spitalfields]". Could he be John McCarthy?
Many thanks to Richard Jones for sharing this piece with us, and to Nina Thomas for transcribing it for the Casebook. You can read it online at:
http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/the-worst-street-in-london.html
Stephen P. Ryder, Exec. Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
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Robert Clack
Chief Inspector
Username: Rclack
Post Number: 631
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 6:42 pm: |
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The Daily Mail letter wasn't the first time Fred A. Mckenzie wrote about Dorset Street. In May 1901 he wrote a letter to 'The Times' about conditions in Dorset Street. The murder referred too is Mary Ann Austin.
The Times
Monday 3 June 1901
DORSET-STREET, SPITALFIELDS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir, It is to be hoped that the public attention drawn on Dorset-street, Spitalfields, by the murder there will help on some needed reforms. To all save those of us who have had opportunity of studying this street and the courts around it at fast hand it seems impossible that such a breeding spot of crime should be allowed to continue. Although quite a short thoroughfare, it can boast of more deeds of violence than any other district in London. Its population largely consists of thieves and their associates. Policemen go down it in pairs. The mere knocking senseless and rifling the pockets of some half-drunken visitor in the open roadway is quite frequent. One alley is known among some of the older residents as “Blood Alley,” on account of the amount of human blood that has been shed there. There are few louses in Dorset-street which have not seen at least one murder, and one house is often declared to have had a murder in every room. How true that is I cannot say, but I do know that the same house has had a history which for shear horror surpasses almost everything in the criminal annals of this country.
The lodging-houses of Dorset-street are bad, but they are not the worst part of the street. Doubtless the owners of some of them do their best to preserve a show of orderliness. It is unnecessary to dwell on the evils fostered by the many double-bedded cubicles open to all who can pay the few pence necessary. Many lads, old enough to be free from school, break away from home and live in these lodging-houses. Thrown in association with criminals, they quickly become initiated in crime. Nominally they earn their living by chance work on the streets. Too often they are taught the craft of the petty thief. For some time one young man, a sort of captain among them, had quite a gang of organized pilferers drifting between Dorset-street and Notting-hill. He at last disappeared, but similar gangs still exist, and boys drawn from working-class homes are draws, into them and are made life criminals,
Women who find themselves homeless in London, often innocent and the victims of misfortune, get driven in such lodging-houses as these, for there is practically nowhere else for them to go. The result is obvious. The “furnished rooms” which nourish around Dorset-street are still more harmful than the lodging horses.
That such a place, within a mile of the Mansion-house, should be suffered to continue is no credit to London. Yet what is to be done? Doles are about as effective a cure for the ills of this black spot as cold cream would be a remedy for cancer. If private philanthropy could have made an end of Dorset-street it would have gone long ago. But property such as it is very profitable. In spite of long-continued shorts it has been impossible to discover the names of the freeholders of the land, or steps could be taken to rouse them to activity. What reforms are to come mast come from the various public authorities. May I suggest some obviously needed improvements?
First, much might be done to save the younger children of Dorset-street if the London School Board took special measures to enforce their attendance at school. Compulsory education is practically a dead-letter there. The children wander with their parents from one lodging-house to another, and so slip through the educational net. The driving of these children to school would admittedly be very difficult, and would require special school attendance officers.
More police are necessary. The police in this district have a rough time, and I understand that they show a larger proportion of wounds, disablements, and deaths from violence than any other metropolitan section. Their duties are rendered more severe by the fact that they are miserably undermanned.
Some slight effort might be made by the local authorities to enforce the laws against open immorality.
But the only adequate cure for Dorset-street is to sweep it away. Doubtless it is convenient for the police to have such a criminal centre, where they can continually lay hands on wanted men. But Dorset-street makes crime as well as shelters it, and its continued presence as now is a real danger to all London.
Yours faithfully,
FRED A. McKENZIE.
602, Birkbeck Bank-chambers, Chancery-lane, W.C. May 30.
Rob
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4869
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2005 - 6:44 pm: |
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Thank you Stephen, Richard and Nina.
I am gobsmacked that one person can type all that.
Robert |
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