Tarlton Law Library
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     Like the course of time itself, the stream of Jack the Ripper publications shows no sign of coming to a stop, but it is possible to identify with precision the earliest Ripper book to come off the presses. This hastily composed little work, whose author wisely decided to remain anonymous, is The Whitechapel Murders, or Mysteries of the East End.¹ Published in 1888 after the "double event" but before the butchery of Mary Kelly, The Whitechapel Murders sets the pattern for many of its successors by blending fact and fiction.
     The narrative begins with the discovery of the body of Martha Tabram, whom the writer lists as the third victim of the Whitechapel murderer, following "Fairy Fay" (December 1887) and Emma Elizabeth Smith (April 1888). The motive of the assassin was bewildering, for the author, like many of the modern commentators, declined to attribute the acts of violence to sexual perversion. Instead, the pamphleteer quotes a journalist's assertion that Jack the Ripper is "another [John] Williams [the Ratcliff Highway murderer of 1811-12] in our midst. Hideous malice, deadly cunning, insatiable thirst for blood -- all these are the marks of the mad homicide."² Anticipating Leonard Matters's Dr. Stanley hypothesis, the author cites a theory that "the assassin was some impassioned being who thought he had some injury from the sex and class to avenge."³ Surely, the killer must be a foreigner, since "brutality in the shape of bloodthirsty hacking was an aggravation for which English society, with all its sins on its head, declines to be responsible."⁴ The police, however, won the author's support when, for fear of anti-Semitic outrages, they warned the Jews of the East End to stay away from the scene of the Nicholls murder. "To hate the Jew for his religion, to call him, misbeliever, cut-throat dog,' and spit upon his Jewish gabardine, even metaphorically, is bad enough, but to imply his readiness to murder, worse."⁵ Equally repellent to the writer of The

Whitechapel Murders was any tendency to discount the horror of the crimes because of the class from which the killer selected his victims. In his sympathy for the "unfortunates," the author shared the views of most East Enders, who were apparently franker than the demure inquest witnesses in acknowledging the profession of the dead women:
     "If any word was said to the prejudice of the unhappy victim [Nicholls] it was instantly met by such an emphatic expression of pity and compassion and charitable extenuation of the hapless woman's faults and frailties that the critic was abashed into silence."⁶
     The Whitechapel Murders reports public criticism of the London police and the resultant organization of vigilance committees, but the author's own views are moderated by a sense of the limited powers at the disposal of the police force. Noting that only the sanitary officials had the authority to inspect lodging houses, the author favored granting rights of entry to the police and advocated the registration of lodgers and prostitutes. In the absence of such reforms, London, once reputed to be the safest city in the world, would remain safest only for assassins.⁷
     The Whitechapel Murders pamphleteer dramatizes his support for the sorely tested bobbies by introducing a fictional police sleuth, Richard Ryder (Detective Dick), who is hot on the trail of the East End serial killer. Ryder's intrepid roof-top pursuit of a suspect is poorly rewarded: his quarry turns out to be Lanky Lang, a forger specializing in Russian rubles.⁸ Far from discouraged, Ryder shifts the direction of his investigations, donning a disguise that enables him to infiltrate a gang of pimps known as the High Rips and captained by Red Rip. Unfortunately, whatever their other social shortcomings, the High Rips prove to be innocent of participation in the Ripper crimes.⁹
     At the end of The Whitechapel Murders, the inquest on Catherine Eddowes has been convened and the unknown murderer remains at large:
     "The last freak of the lunatic, a scoundrel who signs himself Jack the Ripper,' is to threaten to begin shortly on Bryant and May's girls [matchstick makers], who have been too outspoken as to what they would do if they caught him.

     "It is to be heartily hoped that before this human ghoul can find another victim he will be caught, and receive the punishment he so richly merits.
     "Society must be protected against such miserable wretches, even when the poorest and most unfortunate members of its great conglomeration are their victims."¹⁰
     Ripperologists of our day continue to respond loyally to the early pamphleteer's call for the unmasking of Jack. If they have failed in this endeavor, it is not for lack of either ingenuity or ink.

* This article was previously published in an abridged version in Camille Wolff (comp.), Who Was Jack the Ripper: A Collection of Present-Day Theories and Observations 15-16 (London, Grey House Books, 1995)

1. The Whitechapel Murders, or Mysteries of the East End (London: G. Purkess, 286 Strand Nos. 1-6, 48 pages)[hereinafter The Whitechapel Murders]. Alexander Kelly's bibliography, which adopts The Whitechapel Murders cover illustration for its own, lists only the first five numbers of the pamphlet in the John Johnson collection of the Bodleian. I am grateful to my friend and bookseller Patterson Smith for securing a complete copy, which is housed in the Borowitz True Crime Collection at Kent State University Libraries.

2. The Whitechapel Murders, at 30.

3. Id at 3.

4. Id at 4.

5. Id

6. Id. at 23-24.

7. Id. at 6.

8. Id. at 11-12.

9. Another, more extensive fictional subplot focuses on the tribulations of Henry Brady, a young wastrel who stoutly refuses to join a plot to poison an uncle said to be hiding evidence of Henry's legitimacy. This tale breaks off abruptly near the midpoint of the pamphlet and is not tied in any fashion to the Ripper murders.

10. The Whitechapel Murders, at 48.