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Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.

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Speaker 1: The story was already coming into focus. It was Friday,

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Speaker 1: August thirty one. One of the newest papers in London,

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Speaker 1: The Star, had an incredible report published on page three

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Speaker 1: of its evening edition. Polly Nichols had been killed in

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Speaker 1: the cold hours of that morning, but a journalist for

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Speaker 1: the paper had already been allowed into the mortuary where

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Speaker 1: her body was waiting to be examined, a day before

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Speaker 1: the doctor would conduct Polly's full autopsy. The horror and

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Speaker 1: sensation caused by Martha Tabram's death had just begun to

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Speaker 1: calm when, in the words of the paper, another discovery

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Speaker 1: is made, and one even more shocking. The paper had

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Speaker 1: no qualms about blasting out the details of her murder either,

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Speaker 1: Like other sensationalist stories of the day had meant to

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Speaker 1: draw in readers by horrifying them by provoking outrage. The

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Speaker 1: Star didn't publish the author's name, but the choice of

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Speaker 1: words would leave a terrible legacy. It described the cut

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Speaker 1: of Polly Nichol's throat, It described the bruises on her hands,

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Speaker 1: It described the bruises on her body, and the missing teeth,

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Speaker 1: but most significantly of all, the lower part of her abdomen,

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Speaker 1: it wrote, was completely ripped open. There was so much

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Speaker 1: more to who she was, but to the journalist, the

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Speaker 1: important thing was that the story reached print as soon

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Speaker 1: as possible. No one who examined the body had ever

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Speaker 1: learned the woman's name, yet all they had to go

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Speaker 1: on was her clothes. The article in the Star described

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Speaker 1: what she was wearing, including her bonnet faced with black velvet,

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Speaker 1: and her petticoat marked with Lambeth Workhouse on it. But

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Speaker 1: it was the cuts that were described at length and

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Speaker 1: in the most lurid terms. To the journalist, it was

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Speaker 1: more important to turn the stomachs of middle class readers

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Speaker 1: in Westminster than to tell the story of the woman

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Speaker 1: who lived in Whitechapel. And if there was anything that

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Speaker 1: could chill the spirits of London readers more than one

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Speaker 1: horrible murder, it was three easy enough to draw a

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Speaker 1: line from one to another. After all, the article declares

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Speaker 1: such a terrible murder and a quote could only be

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Speaker 1: the deed of a maniac. Same for the thirty nine

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Speaker 1: stabs that killed Martha Tabram. What about the other woman,

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Speaker 1: Emma Smith, who had been killed in Whitechapel that April,

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Speaker 1: just two streets over from where Martha's body had been found. Yes, indeed,

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Speaker 1: all this leads to the conclusion. The article ends that

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Speaker 1: there is a maniac haunting Whitechapel and that the three

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Speaker 1: women were all victims of his murderous frenzy. It was

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Speaker 1: a terrifying claim, and it did its work too. From

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Speaker 1: this moment forward, fear would ripple out to newsreaders around

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Speaker 1: London and beyond. Everywhere that had been reached by sensationalist

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Speaker 1: articles like Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon would find itself

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Speaker 1: visited by the story of Polly nichols murder. The story

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Speaker 1: would travel and fast. So it's probably worth noting that

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Speaker 1: even from the very beginning, the truth of the story

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Speaker 1: was mixed with dramatic lies. For instance, lies about Emma Smith.

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Speaker 1: It was true that she was a woman who had

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Speaker 1: been murdered in White Chapel in April, but the article

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Speaker 1: published in The Star connecting her killing to the deaths

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Speaker 1: of Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols by saying that Emma

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Speaker 1: and I quote died without being able to tell anything

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Speaker 1: of her murderer In fact, this was patently false. Emma

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Speaker 1: had suffered a brutal attack in the street. Afterwards, she

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Speaker 1: was able to make her way back to the lodging

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Speaker 1: house where she was staying. There, she told other lodgers

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Speaker 1: what had happened to her. They helped her to the hospital.

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Speaker 1: Along the way, she told the women helping her that

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Speaker 1: she was attacked by three men and one of them

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Speaker 1: was only nineteen years old. Emma even pointed out the

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Speaker 1: place where she was attacked as they passed by, and

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Speaker 1: she talked with the doctors who treated her wounds. All

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Speaker 1: of this had reached the papers within a week of

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Speaker 1: her death, after the inquest held by coroner Win Baxter,

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Speaker 1: was reported in major newspapers like The Times of London

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Speaker 1: and the front page of Lloyd's Weekly News. Of course,

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Speaker 1: almost five months later, it was more profitable for The

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Speaker 1: Star to leave out those details and replace them with

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Speaker 1: the suggestion of a mysterious killer who had already taken

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Speaker 1: three lives. It conjured up the image of a figure

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Speaker 1: haunting White Chapel who would never really leave. It didn't

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Speaker 1: hurt the paper if it brought in some cash in

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Speaker 1: the process of spinning up a false narrative of events.

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Speaker 1: The thing is, though Emma's murder was horrible enough, there's

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Speaker 1: no question that her death, along with Martha Tabraham's and

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Speaker 1: now the murder of Polly Nichols, were a terrible sign

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Speaker 1: of life in East London. No price can be put

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Speaker 1: on any human life, but an evening issue of the Star,

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Speaker 1: well that was just one halfpenny. This is unobscured. I'm

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Speaker 1: Aaron manky Wind. Baxter looked refreshed. He was newly back

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Speaker 1: home from his Scandinavian holiday when he walked into the

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Speaker 1: large library of the Working Lads Institute of Whitechapel on

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Speaker 1: September one, and it was certainly time to get to work.

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Speaker 1: There was an inquest to supervise, after all, but he

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Speaker 1: couldn't do that with thout a dash of style. The

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Speaker 1: East London Observer reported the Baxter stroll to the inquest

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Speaker 1: in a pair of black and white checked trousers, dazzling

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Speaker 1: white waistcoat, a crimson scarf and a dark overcoat. It

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Speaker 1: was one of the moments that would lead to the

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Speaker 1: Corners slowly building a reputation for being something of a showman,

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Speaker 1: something of a personality. After all, if you remember when

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Speaker 1: Baxter from his role in solving the Brighton railway murder.

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Speaker 1: His family had a history in the news business. If

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Speaker 1: anyone could have known the power of the press to

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Speaker 1: lift a Sussex corner to even greater heights, it would

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Speaker 1: have been Win Baxter. But the family at issue in

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Speaker 1: the inquest wasn't Baxter's. The doctor who had examined the

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Speaker 1: body of Polly Nichols gave testimony at the inquest, so

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Speaker 1: did the first constable who found her. But it was

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Speaker 1: a man named Edward Walker who spoke first because he

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Speaker 1: was Polly's father. Edward viewed her body and confirmed her

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Speaker 1: identity with immense grief. He was a gray headed, gray

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Speaker 1: bearded man, according to the papers, with his head lowered

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Speaker 1: and his hands behind his back. He entered his testimony

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Speaker 1: into Win Baxter's inquest records. Later that day, after the

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Speaker 1: official statements, Detective Frederick Aberline brought Polly's husband to do

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Speaker 1: the same. We can only imagine the weight of shock

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Speaker 1: and grief that hung over both of them. Together, the

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Speaker 1: two men began to provide Win Baxter and the Scotland

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Speaker 1: Yard detectives with the outlines of Polly's life. Here's historian

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Speaker 1: Paul Beg. Maryanne Nick was born in eighteen forty five

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Speaker 1: near Fleet Street, which is where lots of newspapers were

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Speaker 1: located until relatively recently. She was the middle of three children.

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Speaker 1: The others were brothers, one older and the other younger,

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Speaker 1: and she married a man called William Nichols in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four. He was a printer, and they would have

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Speaker 1: five children, and they lived quite comfortably in a block

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Speaker 1: are flats or apartments as you might call them, known

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Speaker 1: as peabody buildings, which just was somewhat upmarket place. You

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Speaker 1: had to have certain qualifications to be allowed to live there,

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Speaker 1: and they had shared toilet facilities, they were cooking facilities,

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Speaker 1: There was a close washing area. You could even book

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Speaker 1: and have a hot bath every day if you liked so.

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Speaker 1: There were facilities for personal hygiene, and most of those

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Speaker 1: things were things that people in the surrounding houses didn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily endure. So you can see that they were a

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Speaker 1: little bit upmarket, paying a modest rent for this kind

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Speaker 1: of establishment. But about the couple separated, the precise circumstances

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Speaker 1: aren't properly understood, but William Nichols said that Mary Ann

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Speaker 1: began drinking heavily, and had left him on several occasions.

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Speaker 1: Then she left him for good. It was a picture

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Speaker 1: of life that in some ways was very different from

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Speaker 1: Polly's East End neighbors. When Polly moved into a Peabody

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Speaker 1: building with her husband and five children, it was a

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Speaker 1: sign that they were doing well, at least financially. He

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Speaker 1: was a printer as machinist like the young man killed

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Speaker 1: in the Regent's Park murder. And if he was employed

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Speaker 1: by any of the newspapers whose presses were running day

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Speaker 1: at night, well he probably had regular work. But money

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Speaker 1: isn't everything. At the inquest on her death, Polly's husband

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Speaker 1: emphasized that she was a hard drinker. In a counterpoint,

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Speaker 1: Polly's father emphasized that her husband left her, took another

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Speaker 1: woman to live with, he said, and turned nasty when

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Speaker 1: the marriage fell apart. Polly lived with her father for

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Speaker 1: a while, but things weren't happy in his home either,

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Speaker 1: and Polly continued to drink. The four youngest children stayed

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Speaker 1: with Polly's husband, the oldest went to live with her father.

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Speaker 1: In the following years rather than live with either man,

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Speaker 1: Polly was in and out of London workhouses. For a

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Speaker 1: few years, she lived with the widower and his three

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Speaker 1: children in Walworth, a bit south of the River Thames.

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Speaker 1: But even if she saw the potential of starting a

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Speaker 1: new family with this man beyond the reach of London

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Speaker 1: central streets and East End alleyways, well, tragedy followed her anyway.

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Speaker 1: Polly's brother died horribly in six On an ordinary evening.

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Speaker 1: As he was talking with his wife and getting ready

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Speaker 1: for bed, his paraffin lamp exploded as he tried to

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Speaker 1: put it out. He was covered in severe burns and

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Speaker 1: never recovered. If Polly was as devastated by her brother's

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Speaker 1: death as we can imagine, then it's easy to see

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Speaker 1: why things might have fallen apart again. She left her

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Speaker 1: new partner within a year. At the beginning of eight

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Speaker 1: Polly Nichols had a placement as a servant, but that

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Speaker 1: didn't last long. In July and August, in the days

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Speaker 1: leading up toward death, she was in the East End,

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Speaker 1: scratching out what money she could and taking shelter in

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Speaker 1: any place that would give her a bed for just

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Speaker 1: a few pence. But on the night of her murder

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Speaker 1: she didn't even have that. The Deputy keeper of a

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Speaker 1: lodging house on Thrall Street found her in the kitchen

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Speaker 1: an hour after midnight. He asked her for fourpence to

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Speaker 1: pay for a bed, and when she told him she

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Speaker 1: didn't have the money, he put her out on the street.

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Speaker 1: He said, she looked at him and laughed. She pointed

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Speaker 1: at her bonnet faced with black velvet, and said, I'll

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Speaker 1: soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet

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Speaker 1: I've got now. The last time she was seen alive

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Speaker 1: was at two thirty that morning. A friend ran into

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Speaker 1: her in the streets and tried to get her to

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Speaker 1: come back to a lodging house for the night, but

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Speaker 1: Polly refused. I have my lodging money three times today,

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Speaker 1: she told the friend, and I have spent it. It

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Speaker 1: left her with nowhere to go, nowhere but the streets

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Speaker 1: of Whitechapel. Let's be honest, true crime cells. It was

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Speaker 1: as true then as it is today. But the publishers

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Speaker 1: of London's papers weren't the only ones who saw the

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Speaker 1: news of Polly's murder in terms of pennies and pounds.

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Speaker 1: There were other east Enders who spent their time thinking

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Speaker 1: about the bottom line as well. That included the clothing

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Speaker 1: manufacturers L. M. P. Walter and Son. Their shop was

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Speaker 1: on Church Street in spittle Fields and they were part

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Speaker 1: of the industry that had been at the center of

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Speaker 1: Britain's industrial expansion. In five they build themselves as the

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Speaker 1: largest manufacturer of juvenile clothing in the Kingdom. They were

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Speaker 1: selling clothes across Britain, but especially for every foreign and

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Speaker 1: colonial market. They said they were hoping to sell their

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Speaker 1: check trousers and white waistcoats to the wind baxters of Canada, Australia,

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Speaker 1: India and South Africa. Now they saw all of that

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Speaker 1: under threat because three women had just been murdered in

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Speaker 1: their neighborhood. Tucked in the government records is a letter

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Speaker 1: from those manufacturers that reached the Home Office on the

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Speaker 1: day after Polly nichols murder. It begged for the government

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Speaker 1: to take action. They explained how terrified they were. They

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Speaker 1: had just hired a night watchman to protect their shops

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Speaker 1: and their workers. After all, if a killer roamed the streets,

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Speaker 1: their employees might not show up to work. They urged

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Speaker 1: the Home Secretary to follow the same course that had

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Speaker 1: led to the capture of the Brighton Railway murderer to

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Speaker 1: issue a reward. They seemed to say that enough incentive

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Speaker 1: could bring the hidden aspects of the mystery to light.

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Speaker 1: After all, who better to know how far money could

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Speaker 1: go in Whitechapel than the owners of its powerful and

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Speaker 1: profitable businesses. People, that is, like the American businessman George Peabody.

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Speaker 1: He had begun like the Bryant family, whose grocery business

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Speaker 1: had turned into a successful match factory. George Peabody, though

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Speaker 1: was actually from Massachusetts. His career started when he opened

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Speaker 1: a dry goods store with his uncle in Washington, d c.

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Speaker 1: By the eighteen eighties, though, he followed the Bryants on

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Speaker 1: a path to power, from merchant to broker to international banker.

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Speaker 1: And if you were an international banker, there was no

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Speaker 1: better home than London. In the decades after he founded

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Speaker 1: his London firm, George invested in all sorts of endeavors.

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Speaker 1: He invested in American railroads. He gave thousands to a

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Speaker 1: young explorer named Elisha Kent Kane, who set off in

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Speaker 1: search of the lost Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin. George

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Speaker 1: Peabody even served as the director of the Atlantic cable

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Speaker 1: company that connected the United States and the United Kingdom

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Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty eight. But George Peabody read the papers too,

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Speaker 1: so he was confronted on a daily basis with the

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Speaker 1: failures of a growing London to provide for its poorest citizens,

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Speaker 1: and he started to think of ways to offer what

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Speaker 1: he thought the city lacked. But his idea arrived at

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Speaker 1: something of a bad time. You see, he wanted to

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Speaker 1: make a charitable gift to London. In eighteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: during the American Civil War, and despite Britain's official declaration

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Speaker 1: of neutrality, most British merchants and officials supported the Confederacy.

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Speaker 1: They didn't care how cotton was produced, as long as

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Speaker 1: it was cheap and reached British ports in high stacks

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Speaker 1: suppressed bales. After all, clothing manufacturers like L. M. P.

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Speaker 1: Walter and Son wanted to keep their British mills running.

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Speaker 1: So George Peabody tiptoed carefully through the political minefield. He

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Speaker 1: talked with his friends about the project and eventually abandoned

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Speaker 1: his first plan to build public water fountains throughout the city.

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Speaker 1: Then he thought of funding schools, but on the advice

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Speaker 1: of the Seventh Earl of Shaftsbury. He landed on exactly

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Speaker 1: what the poor needed most better. How's in Throughout the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, George Peabody poured millions into the model housing

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Speaker 1: that would first be built in London's East End. It

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Speaker 1: was supposed to create a kind of lifestyle for east

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Speaker 1: Enders that would trim embarrassing situations from the national landscape.

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Speaker 1: For his gift, George Peabody was celebrated in the London

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Speaker 1: papers for unprecedented munificence. Queen Victoria even sent him a

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Speaker 1: personal portrait in gratitude. But as Polly's life details show us,

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Speaker 1: if the idea was to help the very poorest Londoners,

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Speaker 1: that got lost somewhere along the way. Here's historian Dr

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Speaker 1: Drew Gray. This is part philanthropy, but obviously you're making profit,

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Speaker 1: hopefully but a small profit out of this. So there's

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Speaker 1: the Rothschild Buildings in Florendine Stream which built but many

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Speaker 1: of these places, whilst the emphasis is on rehousing the pool,

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Speaker 1: they only really accommodate the working class who could guarantee

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Speaker 1: to pay the rent, the check that the men are

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Speaker 1: in work. They're checking that the children at school, that

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Speaker 1: the rooms are clean and tidy. And if you fail

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Speaker 1: in any of these areas or you can't pay your rent,

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Speaker 1: then you're going to be evicted. So and that, and

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Speaker 1: that's very difficult to guarantee for people at the very

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Speaker 1: bottom end of society, people who are the casual poor,

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Speaker 1: who don't have regular jobs, who are alive, for example,

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Speaker 1: on work at the docks, on picking up work on

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Speaker 1: a daily or a weekly basis. Now you can't guarantee

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Speaker 1: that you can pay your rent, so you're not going

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Speaker 1: to get into a models ready, and they are actually

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Speaker 1: the people that really need is decent housing. And it

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Speaker 1: was on the steps of a model dwelling in George

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Speaker 1: Yard Whitechapel where Martha Tabram's body was found at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of August. But if you'll remember, it wasn't because

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Speaker 1: she lived there. Just like Polly Nichols, Martha Tabram was

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Speaker 1: killed at a time in her life when even the

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Speaker 1: buildings meant to help London's poor were still a class

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Speaker 1: above her own. In response to their fears, the clothing

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Speaker 1: manufacturers L. M. P. Walter and Son received a nice

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Speaker 1: note back from the Home Secretary's office. It described in

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Speaker 1: gentle terms that the practice of offering rewards had been discontinued,

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Speaker 1: and in what would increasingly appear to be a deep

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Speaker 1: misunderstanding of the situation, the Home Secretary said that the

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Speaker 1: murders of women in the East End did not disclose

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Speaker 1: any special ground for departure from the usual custom, as

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Speaker 1: if there was anything usual about the murders. Of course,

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Speaker 1: for some the killings in Whitechapel weren't just a threat

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Speaker 1: to business or a minor administrative irritant. They were deeply personal.

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Speaker 1: Polly's father and former husband both received some brief notoriety

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Speaker 1: and some deeply galling attention when Baxter and Scotland Yard

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Speaker 1: called them into the Inquest to come terribly face to

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Speaker 1: face with Polly one last time, and that was where

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Speaker 1: they divulged the details of their personal pain. Journalists ran

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Speaker 1: back and forth between Polly's husband and father, collecting contradictory

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Speaker 1: statements about the greatest griefs and losses of their lives.

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Speaker 1: They were picked over and passed for anything useful, first

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Speaker 1: by the corner, then by the police, and then by

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Speaker 1: the papers, with the neighborhood gossips left to pick at

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Speaker 1: the scraps. And that's how it was for most east Enders.

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Speaker 1: Their contact with government officials didn't result in courteous correspondence.

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Speaker 1: Not everyone in Whitechapel found their way into a Peabody building.

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Speaker 1: The Peabody buildings helped the reputations of men who got

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Speaker 1: their names put on city blocks and helped many of

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Speaker 1: their bank accounts too. They did help the people who

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Speaker 1: could already afford them, but for the truly desperate it

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Speaker 1: was just one more example of a better life that

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Speaker 1: was out of reach. Here's Dr Gray once again. The

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Speaker 1: model dwelling movement is definitely a good thing, and you

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Speaker 1: can see many of the model dwellings people of the

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Speaker 1: buildings are still existent in London today. They built them

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Speaker 1: very well, the beautiful examples of Victorian engineering building, but

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Speaker 1: they weren't pace here. So many other people in the

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Speaker 1: East End will have been forced into you know, poor

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Speaker 1: crowded housing, and we see terrible examples of people living

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Speaker 1: all the way down to two sellers where they're living

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Speaker 1: in sort of stigen conditions in dark, unlit, damp basements,

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Speaker 1: all the way up to living in attic spaces, whole

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Speaker 1: families in one room and no sanitation. You know, you

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Speaker 1: might have shared pilate facilities in the yard at the back,

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Speaker 1: so very poor, very cold in winter, very hot in summer.

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Speaker 1: So you see lots of images of white chapel, of

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Speaker 1: people outside, people being outside, because you wouldn't want to

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Speaker 1: be inside. Because also your inside space is also probably

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Speaker 1: your workshop space. So people who are working piece workers

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Speaker 1: and cobbling or building matchboxes are going to do that

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Speaker 1: at home. So you've kind of got to get the

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Speaker 1: kids out from under your feet in order to turn

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Speaker 1: them your space into a into a workspace during the day,

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Speaker 1: Families sharing beds. These these conditions were shocked the middle

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Speaker 1: classes when they came to investigate. That shock was strong

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Speaker 1: enough to launch the whole model dwelling movement. But the

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Speaker 1: Model Dwellings were just one of the major efforts by

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Speaker 1: well to do Londoners to reshape the East End and

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Speaker 1: to change the people there in the process. But others

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Speaker 1: took a very different approach to reforming life in the

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Speaker 1: East End. They chose to send an army. Things hadn't

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Speaker 1: exactly gotten better. Yes, Charles Warren had been a hero

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Speaker 1: of the British Empire when he was selected in eight

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Speaker 1: six to become the new Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police

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Speaker 1: and that wasn't just because of his excavations on the

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Speaker 1: Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The engineer had also proved himself

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Speaker 1: to be a warrior and an investigator too. As an

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Speaker 1: engineer and a surveyor, he had been sent to South

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Speaker 1: Africa to draw the lines of the British crowns claim

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Speaker 1: to the land and of course the diamonds that had

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Speaker 1: been discovered there in eighteen sixty eight, and then to

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Speaker 1: keep both. The people who resisted English control were killed.

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Speaker 1: For some of that fighting, Warren commanded a regiment of

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Speaker 1: volunteers aptly named the Diamond Fields Horse. One historian writing

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Speaker 1: about the period put it in stark terms, white man's dreams,

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Speaker 1: black man's blood, and Warren spilled some of his own

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Speaker 1: blood too. After that, Warren was appointed Special Commissioner to

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Speaker 1: investigate what they called native questions. It was the first

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Speaker 1: inkling of that future period when he would become the

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Speaker 1: Police Commissioner of London in his own native land. His

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Speaker 1: greatest achievements in crime solving, though, came when he was

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Speaker 1: sent to the Sinai Peninsula in search of a lost professor.

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Speaker 1: The man who had disappeared was an archaeologist who has

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Speaker 1: served with the Palestine Exploration Fund, just like Warren had,

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Speaker 1: making him an agent of the Crown. Warren was able

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Speaker 1: to pick up the man's trail and find his bones too.

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Speaker 1: They were just covered in a gully, along with the

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Speaker 1: remains of five others. Then Warren criss crossed the desert

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Speaker 1: until he had built a case against a group of

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Speaker 1: Bedouin men, getting them convicted for murder. Five were executed

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Speaker 1: and eight more were imprisoned. Warren was heralded as a

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Speaker 1: hero detective. Along his way to his post with the

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Speaker 1: London Police, Warren was made a Fellow of the Knight Society,

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Speaker 1: a Night Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael

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Speaker 1: and St George, and a Knight of Justice of the

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Speaker 1: Order of St John of Jerusalem. A mouthful, I know,

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Speaker 1: but if a police career could be built on imperial

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Speaker 1: titles and accolades, while Warren had them in spades. Of course,

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Speaker 1: when he stepped into the role of London's Police Commissioner,

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Speaker 1: he found himself handling a delicate situation. After the previous

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Speaker 1: commissioner had failed to stop those West London riots in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighties six, Warren knew that he was expected to

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Speaker 1: bring something different his military style, his military discipline, and

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Speaker 1: his ability to beat down rebellious people and bring them

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Speaker 1: under control. Here's historian at would when Warren was appointed,

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Speaker 1: immediately brought an increased drill training to get the Bobbies

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Speaker 1: in the Beating better shape. He wrote to the government

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Speaker 1: asking for better uniform and boots because he realized from

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Speaker 1: his military pass that the men needed to be equipped

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Speaker 1: as best as possible. So Warren increased of fitness and

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Speaker 1: the efficiency of the uniformed officers an effectively molded them

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Speaker 1: into a kind of army. He left the detective department

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Speaker 1: to his assistant commissioners and his appointment was where received

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Speaker 1: at first. But the problems began when Childers lost his

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Speaker 1: post as Home Secretary following a general election and a

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Speaker 1: man named Henry Matthews was appointed. And whereas Warren and

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Speaker 1: he joined Shilders backing right from the start, the commissioner

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00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: would be unsure whether he could rely on Matthews for support. Yes,

401
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: it seems that in eight eight Charles Warren found that

402
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:45,719
Speaker 1: he was often treated like the clothing manufacturers of Whitechappel.

403
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 1: The new Home Secretary developed a habit when it came

404
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: to Warren and the London Police polately yet firmly telling

405
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: the military man that he could not have his own way.

406
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he was alone, though there were plenty

407
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 1: of officers in the Metropolitan Police who wrote Imperial military

408
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: experience to their posts. The senior post in the right

409
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: from the start were usually filled by the military or

410
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,159
Speaker 1: legal men who had never served in the police, and

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Speaker 1: the first commissioners actually were Charles Rowan, who had fought

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Speaker 1: in the Napoleonic Wars and at Waterloo, and Richard Maine,

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Speaker 1: who was a barrister. Mains eventual replacement, Edmund Henderson, who

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Speaker 1: we just spoke about, was lieutenant colonel in the British Army,

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Speaker 1: and all the assistant commissioners were also military men, because

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Speaker 1: it was generally believed that this was required to maintain

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Speaker 1: discipline over the rank and file police officers. And of

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00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: course Warren knew exactly why he was picked the hands

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00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: off approach of the last police commissioner in eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: so Warren determined that he would not make the same mistake.

421
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: London under his watchful gaze would be different, and in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighties seven he had a chance to show exactly

423
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Speaker 1: what he meant because despite model dwellings and more, there

424
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Speaker 1: were still throngs of Londoners left to starve. Here's Dr

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Speaker 1: Louise Rath. As somebody said on observing the dockers at work.

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Speaker 1: There's this huge contradiction because they're unloading the wealth and

427
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,199
Speaker 1: the riches and the silks and the spices and the

428
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 1: teas and all this wonderful, luxurious stuff, and they're touching

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Speaker 1: all things and tasting none. They're dealing in these goods

430
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: they can never ever afford them. Their unloading tea that

431
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: they will never taste. They're unpacking spices that they will

432
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: never be able to enjoy, silks that their wives will

433
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: never be able to wear. So there's this immense it

434
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: seems to modernize, immensely hypocritical division. Here we are this

435
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: incredibly rich, I mean mostly because we stole and stuff

436
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: from other people around the world. But you know, that

437
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: is how the British do things. It's a little tradition

438
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 1: of ours to do that. But we have become incredibly

439
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: rich off the backs of other people, including our own

440
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: poor people. So they are the engine of our prosperity,

441
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: and they're not getting to share in it whatsoever. We

442
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 1: treat them almost like machinery. You can process things, you

443
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: can produce our wealth, but it's nothing to do with you.

444
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: You don't get a share in it whatsoever. London's poor

445
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: and working people had made it clear that this arrangement

446
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: wasn't up to snuff, but that message hadn't gotten through,

447
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: so they had to send it again and again. Socialists,

448
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: trade unionists and Irish workers advocating for Home rule, all

449
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,919
Speaker 1: of them marched regularly through London streets. But when Charles

450
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: Warren arrived, the Home Secretary was quick to set expectations.

451
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: He declared, I think you have seen the worst of

452
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: the socialist meetings. Warren was determined to live up to

453
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: that promise. For months, he sent his newly drilled troops

454
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 1: to arrest public speakers, cracked down on homeless Londoners, and

455
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: break up meetings. Think about that for a moment, a

456
00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: community crying out for justice and dialogue with its leaders,

457
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: only to have the police sent in like troops in

458
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: a military campaign. Although the government could have responded by

459
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: listening and making changes, they chose to defend their flaws

460
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: with force, and in November of eighteen eighties seven, Charles

461
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,199
Speaker 1: Warren put an all out ban on public meetings in

462
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: Trafalgar Square. The thing is these arrests and the band

463
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: that followed were explicitly illegal. British law protected the rights

464
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: to assembly and public speech. After the eighteen eighties six meetings,

465
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: the government had tried to prosecute the public speakers at

466
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: the park rallies, but they had failed and the protesters

467
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: had been vindicated in arrest after arrest, the cases against

468
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: public speakers and organizers were dismissed in court, which made sense,

469
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: after all, nothing they had done was illegal. But Charles

470
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: Warren was determined to put a stop to these meetings anyway,

471
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: the law be damned, and he had the authority and

472
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 1: the forces to do it. So when a group of

473
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:59,199
Speaker 1: demonstrators rallied at Trafalgar Square on November thirte of eighteen

474
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: eighties seven, they met a fearsome sight. One thousand, five

475
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: hundred troops of the London Metropolitan Police already occupied the square,

476
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: and as the marchers came near, they realized that there

477
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: were also another two thousand constables in the nearby neighborhoods

478
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: and three hundred horsemen to Warren was there, of course,

479
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: once again he was on horseback and ready for bloodshed.

480
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: So when the march arrived at the square, the police

481
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: were ordered to charge. They lead with their batons, beating

482
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: and battling the marchers as they arrived, and as the

483
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: ten thousand demonstrators scattered, they were met in the surrounding

484
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: streets by more waiting police. They were beaten there as well,

485
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: in Piccadilly, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury and beyond. Hundreds were badly injured,

486
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,479
Speaker 1: some of them trampled by police horses. By the end

487
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: of that night, fifty had been arrested, seventy five had

488
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: been admitted to the hospital, and three of the marchers

489
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: were dead. And with so many killed and wounded, the

490
00:28:55,120 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: day would take on an infamous name, Bloody Sunday. The

491
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: radical press condemned the police violence. For instance, W. T.

492
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: Stead turned his pen from the conditions of the Maiden

493
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: Tribute to the predatory violence of the powerful, and under

494
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: his direction, the pall Mall Gazette targeted Charles Warren and

495
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary for an all outlashing. After all, they

496
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: had been willing to del uge London with blood in

497
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: an illegal act of militant assault on the city citizens

498
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: at least that was how instead put it, and they

499
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: published eyewitness accounts of mounted police running down people on

500
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: the streets without provocation. But papers like The Times, which

501
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: circulated among upper class readers, were happy to cheer lead

502
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: the bloodshed. They praised Warren for using a firm hand.

503
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: The Daily News called the mounted police gallant. The wounded

504
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: and dead were simply the price to pay for a

505
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: little more quiet between the city's grandest buildings. Warren marked

506
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: it down as a military victory. Others did the same.

507
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: In the spring of eighteen eighty eight, he was honored

508
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: with admittance to an elite London club, the Athenaeum. He

509
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: was also admitted to another order of Knighthood. All in all,

510
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: he was generally praised and petted by those with power,

511
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: at least for a while. That's why when the Regent's

512
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: Park murder sent a chill across London, it wasn't enough

513
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: to shake Warren's reputation. But then came Martha Tabram's murder,

514
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: and then Polly Nichols. Things were becoming unsettling. Many readers

515
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: were happy enough for Warren's police to kill poor demonstrators

516
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: when they stepped out of their place. That idea came

517
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 1: from the general belief that London would be all right

518
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: if the poor just stayed where they belonged. All of

519
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: these dead women were telling a different story, though, and

520
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: radical papers like The Star were happy to speculate about

521
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: what that story was. But their guests relied less on

522
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: the evidence that the coroner and detectives would uncover and

523
00:30:52,840 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: more on something else, London's oldest and deepest prejudice. The

524
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: inquest wasn't over after the first few days. Much of

525
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: Polly Nichols's life had become clear to Win Baxter, and

526
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,560
Speaker 1: it was clear that she had been viciously murdered, but

527
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: the question of who had done it and why hadn't

528
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 1: comment to focus after interviews with women who had known

529
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: her in the London workhouses and lodging houses, so Baxter

530
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: postponed the inquest for two weeks. When Polly's coffin rolled

531
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: down the street, followed by coaches carrying her father, her

532
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: ex husband, and her children, thousands lined up to watch

533
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: them pass. A tight police escort was commanded to make

534
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: sure that no one in the crowd got too close.

535
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: The reporting in the newspaper and the talk in the

536
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: streets had already put all eyes on Whitechapel. If Win

537
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: Baxter thought that a couple of weeks would give time

538
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: for Scotland Yard to do more digging and come back

539
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: with all the questions answered, his hopes were set too

540
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: high even for someone like Detective Inspector Frederick Eberlin, and

541
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: those weeks when the inquest wasn't in session were also

542
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: eventful ones. While Baxter wasn't at work putting together the

543
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: official account of what happened to Polly Nichols, the writers

544
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: publishing stories in The Star were only too happy to

545
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: start filling in the gaps with some investigating of their own.

546
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: And this is the point where things start to get

547
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: really dark, because of course the writers at the Star

548
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: already had an operating theory the maniac at large in Whitechapel.

549
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: The London Coroner might have wanted more investigation to be done,

550
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: but the journalists from the Star went out through the

551
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: neighborhoods in Whitechapel and started collecting their own reports the

552
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: rumors and anxieties of the people they met there. So

553
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: on September fifth and sixth they published a series of

554
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 1: stories about a man they called Leather apron and the

555
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: story was chilling. They said he was a strange character

556
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: who prowls Whitechapel after midnight, a more ghoulish and devilish

557
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: brute than can be found in all the pages of

558
00:32:54,600 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: shocking fiction. Here's historian Paul Beg once again. He was

559
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: portrayed in The Star as a Jewish criminal, almost sort

560
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: of in the in the tradition of Dickens Fagin. The

561
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: Star reported that he moved through the streets at night.

562
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: He was strangely silent, very menacing and threatening the prostitutes

563
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: with a sharp leather knife as a knife to cut leather,

564
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: not a knife made out of leather, as the Star

565
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: reported his uh It said, his expression is sinister and

566
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: seems to be full of terror for the women who

567
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: described it. His eyes are small and glittering. His lips

568
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: are usually parted in a grin which is not only

569
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: not reassuring, but excessively repellent. I mean, so that they're

570
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: really going overboard in their description of this sort of

571
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: nightmare creation. And they also described features which are ster

572
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 1: up stereotypically Jewish, so it was quite obvious what they

573
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: were aiming at. It's obvious to us now that the

574
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: star was claiming the maniac killer was Jewish, but it

575
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: would have been even more obvious to readers at the

576
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: time because these vicious racist lies have a dark history

577
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: in England, reaching back hundreds of years well into the

578
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, like in eleven eighty nine, when rumors of

579
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 1: Jewish counterfeiting led to a wave of massacres in which

580
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: British Christians killed ten percent of their Jewish neighbors, or

581
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: in twelve seventy eight, when rumors that Jewish money changers

582
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: were cheating on the weight of their pennies led to

583
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 1: a mass execution. Nearly three hundred Jewish Londoners were drawn,

584
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: hanged and burned, men and women alike. Another six hundred

585
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: were imprisoned. In some places, these attacks were led by

586
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: angry peasants, while others, like an assault on the Jewish

587
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: community in York, were led by the Yorkshire gentry. And

588
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 1: all of that violence was in a context in which

589
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 1: English Jews were the subjects of a royal charter that

590
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: made them the property of a king. A twelve seventy

591
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,879
Speaker 1: five law even required every Jew in England to wear

592
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: a large, yellow felt badge. Sounds familiar, right, The thing

593
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: is this government racism was based on popular racism against

594
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: English Jews. There were plenty of medieval Christian stories that

595
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: marked Jews as less than human, tales that made their

596
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: Jewish neighbors out to be devils, animals, vampires, exactly the

597
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: kind of descriptions being published about Leather Apron in The Star.

598
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: The worst of these stories said that English Jews were

599
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: taking young Christian boys and re enacting the torture of

600
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: Christ on them. It was a lie, of course, but

601
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: such a popular one that historians today have even given

602
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: it a name, the ritual murder libel. When a Christian

603
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: boy was found dead in a well and twelve fifty

604
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 1: five nine English Jews were arrested and nineteen of them

605
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: were executed in retribution. In twelve ninety, when there were

606
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 1: fewer than two thousand Jews in England, the hate was

607
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: so deep that Parliament and the King got together and

608
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: wrote a law expelling all of them. That's a dark,

609
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: dark history of fear and violence. And for some reason,

610
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 1: it was that racist history of anti Semitic fear that

611
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: The Star decided to print on its pages. It was

612
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: all too easy for English Christians to believe that a

613
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: Satanic cabal of monsters and vampires was murdering English women

614
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: and children. And yes, Charles Dickens had revisited those fears

615
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties when he made his predatory ringleader

616
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: of child thieves a Jewish fence named Fagin. It was

617
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: just a new twist on an old prejudice. So deep

618
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: seated racist hatred was turning the press again in the

619
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,320
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties. It was a medieval fantasy of Christian martyrdom,

620
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: fueled by new sensationalist stories and mutating into the shape

621
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: of a modern day conspiracy theory. Here's Dr Drew Gray

622
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 1: to add some context. English people weren'tess You're associated with knowledge.

623
00:36:52,880 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: You associated foreigners with knives, Portuguese sailors, um Jewish barber's shoemakers,

624
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: Native Americans escaping from buffalo bills, Well West traveling show.

625
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: So it was easier for people in London in the

626
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: nineteenth century to believe that Jack the Ripper was a foreigner.

627
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 1: He was a crazed immigrant, someone identified as other, rather

628
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: than an indigenous resident of White Chapel. I think those

629
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: are all things which it's the presence of large numbers

630
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: of Jews in that area, and the prejudice and the

631
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: anti Semitism which is definitely rife in Victorian London, which

632
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: helps to concentrate, which helps to allow someone like the

633
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: Style to point the finger at another ape. And as

634
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: we've seen, there were plenty of Londoners who were just

635
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: fine with the police treating the East End like military

636
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: forces occupying a foreign country. That was at least partly

637
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: because the East End was the Jewish side of town.

638
00:37:57,239 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: The story is flogged by the Star were nothing more

639
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: than shous gossip based on rumors collected in the neighborhood.

640
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: It was nothing the police could go on. And in

641
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: the middle of all of that, on September seven, the

642
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: day after Polly Nichols was buried, two detectives wrote a

643
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:16,839
Speaker 1: report on the state of the police investigation and their assessment. Yes,

644
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: they wrote, they knew about the rumors against a man

645
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: named leather Apron, and yes they were working to find

646
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: someone who used that nickname, But they continued, at present

647
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: there is no evidence whatsoever against him. In fact, no

648
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: evidence had been found to connect the crime to any suspect.

649
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: But even though they were left without leads, their report

650
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,479
Speaker 1: offers a glimmer of hope, almost as if to say,

651
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: don't worry. The report concludes that Inspector Frederick Aberline from

652
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard Central Office was on the case. He would

653
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: assist the White Chapel detectives and sorting things out. It

654
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: was true that they hadn't found evidence yet. The rest

655
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: assured that the best minds were already at work and

656
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 1: that would satisfy people for a while. But if the

657
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: lack of ev was a concern to those Whitechapel detectives

658
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 1: on September seven, it was only the shadow of things

659
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: to come. Soon enough, it would snowball into an overwhelming

660
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: crisis because the murders were far from over. He was

661
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: already on Hanbury Street. It was in the cold morning

662
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: hours of September eight, just as daylight was breaking into

663
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: the White Chapel streets. One of the divisional inspectors for

664
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: Whitechapel was taking stock of what the morning might bring

665
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: when he saw men running. To his surprise, they were

666
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: pounding the street toward the police station on Commercial Streets.

667
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: He waved them down and when he asked them what

668
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: they were doing, he got a startling reply, another woman

669
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: has been murdered. They led him to number twenty nine.

670
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: The inspector had to press through a group of onlookers

671
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: in the passage before he was then led into the backyard.

672
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 1: That's where he saw her body. The site was so

673
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: terrible that he immediately asked for some sackcloth to cover

674
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: her and set about clearing away the crowd that had gathered.

675
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: He also sent someone for the Divisional Police Surgeon, Dr.

676
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: George Baxter Phillips, whose medical office was just a few

677
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: blocks away at two Spittle Square. More officers arrived to

678
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: help control the scene, and an ambulance was on the way.

679
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: The surgeon arrived at six thirty am, pulled back the

680
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: sacking to examine the body and got to work. His

681
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 1: observations and the inspector's notes together give us a gruesome

682
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: picture of the scene. The body of the woman was

683
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: left lying on her back at the bottom of the

684
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: stairs that led to the house's back door. A jagged

685
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: cut had split her throat, blood was pooled around her shoulders.

686
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: Her legs were pulled up, and her abdomen had been

687
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: opened wide. Her stomach and intestines had been partially removed.

688
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 1: The surgeon, Dr. Phillips observed that it looked like she

689
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: had been choked to unconsciousness before her killers started cutting.

690
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: Her tongue was sticking through her teeth, and her face

691
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: was swollen. Feeling the temperature of her body, Dr Phillips

692
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 1: estimated that she had been dead for roughly two hours

693
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: before he arrived. On the back of the house, blood

694
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: had splashed on the wall, and blood had been smeared

695
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: at the base of the fence that separated the yard

696
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: from the property next door. By the look of it,

697
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: they guessed that the woman had entered the yard alive

698
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: and had been killed right there where they found her.

699
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: The other thing they noticed a few small items were

700
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: laid out in a line next to her body, a

701
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: scrap of cloth, two small combs, and a piece of

702
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: envelope stamped with the mark of a military regiment containing

703
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: two small pills, oh and something else. A short distance

704
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: away in the yard, near a water tap, they found

705
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: a leather apron. When he questioned the residence of the house,

706
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: the inspector learned that one of the men who lived there,

707
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: John Davis, had been the first to spot the body.

708
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: The clock chimes woke him at five am, and he

709
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: had a cup of tea and then went downstairs. The

710
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 1: front door had been left open all night, which he

711
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,280
Speaker 1: said was typical, so nothing disturbed him, that is until

712
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: he went through the house and opened the back door.

713
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 1: He spotted the dead woman's dark shape at the bottom

714
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: of the steps. Even in the dim pre dawn light,

715
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: it was easy enough to see the violence she had suffered. Terrified,

716
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: he ran for help. Three men in the street heard

717
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: him calling and followed him back to look at the

718
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:23,880
Speaker 1: body in his yard. When they noticed the blood on

719
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: her face, they scattered for the police. One of them, though,

720
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: had stopped at a pub for a glass of brandy.

721
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:33,240
Speaker 1: All four men who saw the body before the police

722
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: arrived would later describe the terror that had overtaken them.

723
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 1: Not all of them found constables, but they certainly told

724
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: anyone they could find about what they had seen. By

725
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: the time the ambulance arrived, really nothing more than a

726
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: stretcher to carry the body away, there was a crowd

727
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: of curious east Enders pressing in around twenty nine Hanbury Street.

728
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: They had to be held back by a line of constables.

729
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: Writers and journalists who had caught the scent were in

730
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: the muddle of ts and later illustrations printed in the

731
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: papers showed a row of helmets over grim mustaches pressed

732
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: back against the door of the house. Another drawing shows

733
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: an officer in turn pressing back the eager onlookers with

734
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: an outstretched arm while the shrouded corpse is carried away.

735
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: Dr Phillips ordered the body taken to the same mortuary

736
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: where Polly Nichols had been a few days before on

737
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: Old Montague Street. He would arrive later in the day

738
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: to conduct a full postmortem examination. As the police set

739
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: out on their hunt for traces of the killer, the

740
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 1: other residents of the street were told to appear at

741
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: the inquest to give statements. Constables were sent to various

742
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 1: lodging houses and pawnbrokers in the neighborhood. They asked about

743
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: anyone who had come in smeared with blood or blood

744
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 1: stained clothes, but none of these efforts turned up any leads.

745
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: A report file that day said that every possible enquiry

746
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: is being made with a view of tracing the murderer,

747
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 1: but up to the present without success. Again and the

748
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: White Chapel Inspectors requested that Frederick Abberline assist them. He

749
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: was already at work on the bucks Row murder. The

750
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: death of Polly Nichols, and at the very least the

751
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: police were sure of one thing. This new killing was

752
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: by the same hand. But when it came to finding

753
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: even the smallest clue to lead them forward, the police,

754
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: just like the rest of White Chapel, found themselves at

755
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: a loss. It was not his first examination, but it

756
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: may have been the worst. Dr George Bagster Phillips had

757
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 1: been a surgeon in Whitechapel for twenty three years. If

758
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: the pictures are anything to go on, he was slightly jolly,

759
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 1: with wavy sideburns and a short beard running under his chin.

760
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: One of the police officers who knew him said that

761
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 1: he looked, for all the world as though he stepped

762
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 1: out of a century old painting. An old fashioned man,

763
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: they said, in both his personal appearance and his dress.

764
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: Despite being the opposite of Coroner when Baxter in his

765
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:07,240
Speaker 1: approach to fashion, Doctor Phillips was nevertheless charming and popular

766
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: with his colleagues, and by all accounts with the public too,

767
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: who came into his office for surgery. But in the

768
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: afternoon of September eighth, he could only have looked grim,

769
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: and his office that day was the mortuary, where he

770
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: made a thorough examination of the woman who had been

771
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: killed just hours before. He considered the wounds and began

772
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: to think about what would lead someone to act this way.

773
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,239
Speaker 1: It was true that the stomach and intestines had been

774
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 1: divided and moved out of the body, but there was

775
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 1: something else too. Doctor Phillips noticed that while the cut

776
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: on the throat was jagged, the cuts through the abdomen

777
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:46,760
Speaker 1: were clean and deliberate. And what's more, the woman's uterus

778
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: was missing. He guessed that the same knife had been

779
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: used to make all the cuts, something very sharp with

780
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: a thin, narrow blade. He thought of the kind of

781
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: knife that he used when performing a post mortem. Thinking

782
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: about his own skill as a surgeon, Dr Phillips guests

783
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 1: that he could not have performed all of the mutilations

784
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: to the woman's body in less than a quarter of

785
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: an hour. He began to guess that, just maybe that

786
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: was the whole object of the operation, That these injuries

787
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,360
Speaker 1: to the woman's dead body were signs that the killer

788
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: had anatomical knowledge, that possessing a certain portion of the

789
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: woman's body was the murderer's goal. In short, he began

790
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: to piece together what we might call a criminal profile.

791
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: The Star and other London papers had their own ideas

792
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: about who the killer might be, and those notions were

793
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: sweeping through their London readership. From the body of the

794
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 1: dead woman on the mortuary table in front of Dr Phillips,

795
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,919
Speaker 1: a different kind of story had emerged. In the days

796
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: to come. These two competing stories, the journalistic monster and

797
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: the experienced surgeon, would compete in the public eye. They

798
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: would tangle and wrestle for the upper hand, just as

799
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: Scotland yard detect times wrapped their brains and scoured the

800
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: streets of Whitechapel looking for leads, and the winner would

801
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: become the face of a killer. That's it for this

802
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor

803
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: break for a preview of what's in store for next week.

804
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: The papers across London trumpeted the murder scene at the

805
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 1: end of Act one as the most powerful and horrible

806
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: thing ever seen on the modern stage. The Star proclaimed

807
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: the show's Mr Hyde and odious monster, with brutality in

808
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: every line and look and gesture. By the time a

809
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: woman in the real London was actually killed in the

810
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 1: yard behind Hanbury Streets, the play had been drawing London

811
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: crowds for a month, getting people out of their homes

812
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 1: for a night of voyeuristic pleasure. And when the papers

813
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: turned around and started reporting a real murderer in the

814
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: same terms, well it started to blur the lines between

815
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: fiction and reality. And if the killings were in a

816
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: sense Jackal and Hyde brought to life, well why shouldn't

817
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: eager thrill seekers flocked to that scene as well? It

818
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 1: was our first glimpse of a pastime that would endure

819
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: all the way to modern times ripper tourism had begun.

820
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: Un Obscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced

821
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership

822
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season

823
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: is all the work of my right hand man Carl

824
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack.

825
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links

826
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: to our their shows over at history unobscured dot com

827
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: and until next time, thanks for listening. Unobscured is a

828
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey. For more

829
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,399
Speaker 1: podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit i Heeart Radio app

830
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

831
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: H