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Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 418
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 12:20 pm: |       |
Extract from
An Actor's Daughter
Book by Aline Bernstein; Knopf, 1941
This gives a personal account of the terror the Ripper murders caused:
There was raging in London at that time a series of murders, gory and all alike, the work of a maniac or degenerate. The murders were not confined to one neighbourhood or one class, but broke out in all parts of London. The murderer was the original Jack the Ripper, named for his practice of tearing the knife across his victim's throat. His name alone was enough to strike terror into the heart of a child. He lived with me. I could forget him sometimes during the day, but at night he was in everything. When I had gone to bed, and the window was opened and the light was out and the door closed, I was hurled into a world of mortal terror. I did not know which was less awful, to sit up straight with my knees drawn up under my chin, to see him in the folds of the curtains, to watch for him creeping from behind the sofa, the chairs, or raising his dreadful head from the little black iron bin that held the coals and could not possibly hold a man, or to pull the bedclothes over my head and imagine him everywhere. I dared not fall asleep for fear of his hand on my throat. People collapse from much less terror, and it is a wonder I did not get sicker than I was; stranger still, I never told. I must have been fascinated by the intensity of my terror, for my imagination was enormously stimulated. I stayed awake until daylight, then all the frightful objects in the room were once more plain tables, chairs, or piles of my own clothing. With the light, I would have a couple of hours of heavy relaxed sleep, until the housemaid came in to close the windows and make up the fire. The rattle of the coals in the scuttle was music, so were the early morning sounds of horses' hoofs and the wheels of the milk carts on the cobblestones. Occasionally on those horrid nights the stillness was broken by the sound of a cab, a comforting link between me and the world, for one who rode in a carriage was a gentleman; it was unthinkable that Jack the Ripper could do anything but prowl and skulk in the shadows.
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 224
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 4:30 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
That sums up the terror that The London ripper , had over the population, My grandmother was 9yrs at the time, and she told me that a good way for her father or mother to get her and her sisters in from the street for bed , was to mention the London boggie man , and that brought them in, even tho they lived 20 miles south of London, the fear this maniac caused was widespread,
Richard. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 225
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - 4:33 pm: | |
Sorry Chris,
Bogey Man. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 423
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 7:42 am: | |
Hi Richard
It was a similar story that actually got me first interested in Jack
My grandmother was born in 1893, five years after the murders but she clearly remembered when she ws about four or five, her mother using the same ploy. If she was out playing and was slow coming in, especially as it was getting dark, her mother would say "If you don't come in, Jack the Ripper will get you"
The family lived in Surrey, well to the south of London, so were not in the immediate area
Regards
Chris |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 626
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 9:02 am: | |
Richard, Chris - likewise with mine - born 1900 and raised in Guildford.
Robert |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 229
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:29 am: | |
Hi guys,
My grandmother, lived in Redhill, surrey, so I guess we originate from the same area.
The widespread fear that was present, at the time even inspired young children, to come of the streets, so back to the alleged spitting on the grave, [if true?] one can imagine the fear and horror of two teenage girls, who may have witnessed a act of such revulsion, they would have been to petrified to part with that imformation to the authorities,Well that is my opinion.
Richard. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 433
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 6:36 am: | |
Hi Richard
Small world indeed! My grandmother was living as a child in(and I was born in) Merstham. I know that area real well and went to school in Reigate!
Regards
Chris
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 230
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 3:23 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
How strange, I was born in Reigate, attended St Marys Prep, between 1954-57, when my family moved to Horsham, I was married at St Marys, The Reverant Hobson who was my ex head master, was a vicar at the church.
I live in Horley now, but my childhood and teenage life was spent in Reigate.My wife came from Gatton park Redhill, and all of her family live in the Merstham, and Redhill District.
Small world indeed Chris.
Richard. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 435
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 4:24 pm: | |
Hi Richard
I know St Mary's well as I went to school at RGS next door!
Very small world!
Chris |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 232
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 4:46 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
I was being aimed at Grammer school, as that was part of St Marys prep, but as we moved area , I had the rest of my education elsewhere, still the education St marys gave me was a great help in the rest of my school years.
We must have breathed the same air Chris, it certainly has remained in our lungs.
Regards Richard. |
Chris Scott
Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 455
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, September 01, 2003 - 1:34 pm: | |
Found another account of the fear inspired by Jack at the time:
A London Family, 1870-1900: A Trilogy
Book by M. V. Hughes; Oxford University, 1991
pp362
After the lapse of over forty years Jack the Ripper has become as legendary as Dick Turpin, and to many he is almost a joke. No one can now believe how terrified and unbalanced we all were by his murders. A thriller in a book is quite different from a thriller round the corner. It seemed to be round the corner, although it all happened in the East End, and we were in the West; but even so, I was afraid to go out after dark, if only to post a letter. just as dusk came on we used to hear down our quiet and ultrarespectable Edith Road the cries of newspaper-boys, in tones made as alarming as they could: 'Another 'orrible murder! . . . Whitechapel! . . . Murder! . . . Disgustin' details . . . Murder!' One can only dimly imagine what the terror must have been in those acres of narrow streets, where the inhabitants knew the murderer to be lurking. John Tenniel departed from his usual political subjects for Punch in order to stir public opinion by blood-curdling cartoons of 'murder stalking the slums', and by jeers at the inefficiency of the police. From all the suburban districts police were hurried to the East End, and yet we would read of a murder committed within a few moments of the passing by of a policeman. Naturally, I suppose, the murderer knew the time of the policeman's beat, and waited till he had passed. Some sensible fellow thought of making the police more stealthy by putting india-rubber on their heels; and it was this that started the widespread use of rubber-heels by the public at large. Another strange by-product of the crimes was the disuse of black-bags for the ordinary professional or business man. A suspect had been described as 'carrying a black bag', and no one cared to be seen with one, not from fear of arrest, but simply from the ugly association--a curious instance of the whimsical way in which trade can suffer from a sudden drop in demand. The press was full of theories about the murderer. One idea was that he must be a sailor, because he could join his ship and get away quickly; another was that he must be a madman, because he hid so cunningly (though why this ability should be a sign of mental derangement I could never see); another strong suspicion was that he must be a doctor, because of the skill and rapidity with which the mutilations were performed, and also because of the uncanny disappearance of the man in a few seconds after the deed, for a doctor carrying a black bag of instruments was a familiar figure anywhere at all hours, and might easily masquerade as a passerby and natural first-aider. Horrible though the murders themselves were, I think it was more the mysterious disappearances that affected people's minds, giving a quality of the supernatural to the work--declared, of course, by some to be a judgement on vice. The murders stopped completely after one of surpassing savagery, looking as if an avenger had been seeking a special victim and had found her at last.
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