Jack the Ripper's Blog
Well, not really. I watched Ivor Novello in Hitchcock's early classic, The Lodger the other night (to the sound of Tavener's Veil of the Temple) and was thinking about the way that blogging is actually not that new. A separate thought about Bacon codes--complex, insinuating codes that probably don't require cognitive effort greater than text messaging, but which I've taught to decision analysis classes--led me, on the back of those thoughts, to John Wilding's old book about the Ripper.
I made a reasonable amount of money out of the sad deaths of prostitutes in Whitechapel when I first arrived in London. The Ripper mystery was something I knew about, after all. It was of a piece with the London Monster of 1788, whom I learnt of in the Alps whilst skiing years ago with a beautiful, clever woman, and with Spring-heeled Jack, of whom I have written before (often in connection with sad modern cases).
I could never claim to have known as much as the pedagogues who peppered the corners of Mitre Square in the summer--it reminded me of nothing so much as a dark version of the scene in Life of Brian when the mistaken messiah wanders into a courtyard of religious nuts declaiming loudly. But I did know about the demographics and context of the nineteenth century east end, and it did me no harm. It earned me a lot, in fact.
Anyway, I recalled something the other day about how one of the creepier suspects (admittedly a long shot), JK Stephen, maintained a self-published magazine whilst not doing particularly well at the Bar. Stephen was an Eton and Cambridge man, who became very much involved with the Duke of Clarence at university. The man marked out as a future King of England seems to have fallen for Stephen, who does not seem, frankly, to have been worth it.
Stephen later sat in the middle of a huge web of connexion, extending from his chambers in Chancery Lane, which may have taken in Montague John Druitt, (a Ripper suspect, unfairly), the Duke of Clarence, and Walter Sickert. His Uncle would preside over the travesty trial of Florence Maybrick that would lead in part to the creation of the Court of Appeal.
Anyway, Stephen ran a self-published magazine, not that different from a blog, called The Reflector, from Chancery Lane. In it, he played word games, mostly acrostic. In the summer of 1888, whilst Clerk of the Assizes for the South Wales Circuit, he invented riddle after riddle as his mind broke down. He became an unbalanced man-child obsessed with mental games just before the murders of which journalists would later accuse him.
Stephen produced 17 editions of his paper log--what would one call it, a 'plog'?--before finally going mad at around the time of the end of the Whitechapel murders. His women-hating career exposes a central point, which it is hard to gainsay. That is, and Hitchcock later brought this out, that the surprising thing is that anyone could have been expected to notice the elements of misogyny and woman-hatred implicit in English society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, given how many suspects like Stephen there are. Some may try their best; but most men really were that bad back then, especially in the 'upper ranks' of the society.
All of which left me wondering--what if he had continued in plogging, or been transplanted to a world in which he could have followed out his anger and perhaps resolved it on the internet? If he had been driven to kill, or to salivate at killing, would he have been made ashamed by the different standards on the internet? Is the internet, by virtue of its capacity to absorb the strange, a social tool that keeps these horrors off the streets, or something that encourages them?
Friday night thoughts in October. Normal service will be resumed when I get back from an employment tribunal thing to-morrow.
All these questions. The irony is, that the extract I read from Stephen's Reflector were interesting reading,. The old Daily Express, and John Wilding, certainly knew how to write a story.
Well, not really. I watched Ivor Novello in Hitchcock's early classic, The Lodger the other night (to the sound of Tavener's Veil of the Temple) and was thinking about the way that blogging is actually not that new. A separate thought about Bacon codes--complex, insinuating codes that probably don't require cognitive effort greater than text messaging, but which I've taught to decision analysis classes--led me, on the back of those thoughts, to John Wilding's old book about the Ripper.
I made a reasonable amount of money out of the sad deaths of prostitutes in Whitechapel when I first arrived in London. The Ripper mystery was something I knew about, after all. It was of a piece with the London Monster of 1788, whom I learnt of in the Alps whilst skiing years ago with a beautiful, clever woman, and with Spring-heeled Jack, of whom I have written before (often in connection with sad modern cases).
I could never claim to have known as much as the pedagogues who peppered the corners of Mitre Square in the summer--it reminded me of nothing so much as a dark version of the scene in Life of Brian when the mistaken messiah wanders into a courtyard of religious nuts declaiming loudly. But I did know about the demographics and context of the nineteenth century east end, and it did me no harm. It earned me a lot, in fact.
Anyway, I recalled something the other day about how one of the creepier suspects (admittedly a long shot), JK Stephen, maintained a self-published magazine whilst not doing particularly well at the Bar. Stephen was an Eton and Cambridge man, who became very much involved with the Duke of Clarence at university. The man marked out as a future King of England seems to have fallen for Stephen, who does not seem, frankly, to have been worth it.
Stephen later sat in the middle of a huge web of connexion, extending from his chambers in Chancery Lane, which may have taken in Montague John Druitt, (a Ripper suspect, unfairly), the Duke of Clarence, and Walter Sickert. His Uncle would preside over the travesty trial of Florence Maybrick that would lead in part to the creation of the Court of Appeal.
Anyway, Stephen ran a self-published magazine, not that different from a blog, called The Reflector, from Chancery Lane. In it, he played word games, mostly acrostic. In the summer of 1888, whilst Clerk of the Assizes for the South Wales Circuit, he invented riddle after riddle as his mind broke down. He became an unbalanced man-child obsessed with mental games just before the murders of which journalists would later accuse him.
Stephen produced 17 editions of his paper log--what would one call it, a 'plog'?--before finally going mad at around the time of the end of the Whitechapel murders. His women-hating career exposes a central point, which it is hard to gainsay. That is, and Hitchcock later brought this out, that the surprising thing is that anyone could have been expected to notice the elements of misogyny and woman-hatred implicit in English society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, given how many suspects like Stephen there are. Some may try their best; but most men really were that bad back then, especially in the 'upper ranks' of the society.
All of which left me wondering--what if he had continued in plogging, or been transplanted to a world in which he could have followed out his anger and perhaps resolved it on the internet? If he had been driven to kill, or to salivate at killing, would he have been made ashamed by the different standards on the internet? Is the internet, by virtue of its capacity to absorb the strange, a social tool that keeps these horrors off the streets, or something that encourages them?
Friday night thoughts in October. Normal service will be resumed when I get back from an employment tribunal thing to-morrow.
All these questions. The irony is, that the extract I read from Stephen's Reflector were interesting reading,. The old Daily Express, and John Wilding, certainly knew how to write a story.
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