Cousin THE CASEBOOK Lionel’s Life Enter The Matrix and Career D. M. Gates and Adam Went Jeff Beveridge issue six February 2011 CK THE RIPPER STUDIES, TRUE CRIME & L.V.P. SOCIAL HISTORY FRIDAY THE 13TH! in Whitechapel a blow by blow account from J.G. Simons and Neil Bell Did George Sims LOSE IT? Jonathan Hainsworth investigates THE CASEBOOK The contents of Casebook Examiner No. 6 February 2011 are copyright © 2010 Casebook.org. The authors of issue six signed articles, essays, letters, reviews February 2011 and other items retain the copyright of their respective contributions. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication, except for brief quotations where credit is given, may CONTENTS: be reproduced, stored in a retrieval Refer Madness pg 3 On The Case system, transmitted or otherwise cir- culated in any form or by any means, Melville Macnaghten Revisited News From Ripper World pg 115 including digital, electronic, printed, Jonathan Hainsworth pg 5 On The Case Extra mechanical, photocopying, recording or Feature Stories pg 117 Tom Sadler “48hrs” any other, without the express written J.G. Simons and Neil Bell pg 29 On The Case Puzzling permission of Casebook.org. The unau- “Cousin Lionel” Conundrums Logic Puzzle pg 123 thorized reproduction or circulation of Adam Went pg 48 Ultimate Ripperologists’ Tour this publication or any part thereof, The 1888 Old Bailey and Press Wolverhampton pg 125 whether for monetary gain or not, is Criminal Matrix CSI: Whitechapel strictly prohibited and may constitute D. M. Gates and Jeff Beveridge pg 76 Miller’s Court pg 130 copyright infringement as defined in domestic laws and international agree- Undercover Investigations From the Casebook Archives Book Reviews pg 87 Matthew Packer pg 138 ments and give rise to civil liability and criminal prosecution. Collectors Corner Fragments of the East End Expert Advice pg 113 Andrew Firth pg 140 The views, conclusions and opinions expressed in articles, essays, letters and other items published in Casebook Examiner are those of the authors and Editor in Chief Don Souden Assistant Editors: Debra Arif, do not necessarily reflect the views, Publisher Stephen P. Ryder Ali Bevan, Andrew Firth, Mark Ripper conclusions and opinions of Casebook. for Casebook.org Acknowledgements: Suzi Hanney, org, Casebook Examiner or its editors. Features Editor Jennifer Shelden Arthur E. House, Jo Pegg and Neal Design David Pegg Shelden. Thanks for your help REEFER MADNESS: JTR AND REFRIGERATED RAIL CARS DON SOUDEN here are many reasons for the Considering the past century plus the new rotary web-presses could churn enduring popularity of the Jack of English history Holmes may have out 100,000 issues (not just pages) of an Tthe Ripper crimes and prominent been guilty of overweening optimism, entire paper an hour. among those is the sudden confluence but there is no question that the board Finally, not only could reporters of many separate elements of late 19th schools began to narrow the literacy telegraph the latest details of fast-break- Century technology that helped make gap between England and its neigh- ing stories to their editors to ensure up- Jack the first global celebrity criminal. bor to the north (in the 17th Century to-the-minute news was available, but And, sad as it is to label a murderer of only two places in the world had any- the inter-ocean cables that linked the helpless women a “celebrity,” that is thing approaching modern standards of many continents allowed those same what he was at the time: a household universal literacy—Scotland and New stories to be passed on to newspapers name (albeit one to instill fear in every- England). And, because of increasing in North America or Australia almost one) from one hemisphere to the other literacy, there followed the creation of as easily and quickly as they emanated and from England to the Antipodes and the penny—and later ha’penny— press. from Fleet Street. It was a wonderful all points between. With enough potential readers it made time for the press and lacked only the Most of these advancements have economic sense to publish inexpensive widespread use of half-tones rather than been proposed previously, but it can only newspapers. wood-cuts to approach modern newspa- help our understanding of the tumultu- Of course, such newspapers were per standards and it all helped make ous period to consider the great changes only possible because of other inventions Saucy Jack known world-wide. wrought by the Industrial Revolution. that expedited the entire production pro- Yet, there is one more factor to add We might well begin with what, in “The cess. Instead of setting type by hand, to this equation and one that often draws Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” Sherlock the same way Johannes Gutenberg had scowls of puzzlement from those in the Holmes called “Lighthouses, my boy! four-and-a-half centuries previously, the audience when I discuss the topic. That Beacons of the future!” He was referring Linotype machine allowed copy to be extra element is refrigerated rail cars to the new board schools, which he fur- prepared almost as fast as the operator’s (or refrigerated rail vans for those in the ther likened to “Capsules with hundreds fingers flew over the keys. In the same Mother Country) and without which the of bright little seeds, out of which will way, instead of the old flat-bed press lure and lore of Jack might never have spring the wiser, better England.” that might yield two pages a minute, penetrated further than a few urban THE CASEBOOK Examiner Issue 5 December 2010 3 centers. Indeed, it was the refrigerated 19th century the refrigerated rail car, there was another role the milk train rail car that helped create the universal using ice in storage bunkers for cooling, performed besides that to do with milk image of Jack the Ripper. was developed. That suddenly meant or the occasional pre-dawn passenger. The problem is that milk has always that, along with other perishable com- The milk train would also bring with it been a very perishable commodity under modities like meat, vegetables and fruit, bundles of the early editions of the daily most circumstances. Such that into the fresh milk could be collected daily from newspapers and they were dropped 19th century cities like New York or farms well out in the country. Not only off at every stop along the way as well. London actually had dairies—well milk- did that expand the marketing options for Thus, folks on the mid-western prai- ing facilities, anyway—within their agriculturalists everywhere, but it also ries, without a neighbor for miles, or urban confines. Oh, they may once have introduced something new to railroads— those in isolated New England villages, been in rural areas, but expanding city the phenomenon of the “milk train.” The got to read the latest news—about both limits soon subsumed them. I may be milk train would set out from an urban commodity prices and Jack the Ripper’s overly fastidious, but the idea of drink- rail center very early and once it got into depredations— almost quickly as those ing milk from cows kept in some filthy the country it would make many stops at in Aberdeen, if not London. It was the urban warehouse is not high on my list many small stations to pick up the new refrigerated rail car that enabled this to of gustatory treats and I doubt I am cans of fresh milk and to leave behind happen and to it goes much of the credit alone in that. yesterday’s now-empty cans. for having made Jack the Ripper a fiend But then, in the latter third of the That was all well and good, but known universally. A REFRIGERATED RAIL CAR. © ARTHUR HOUSE. Reefer Madness: JtR and Refrigerated Rail Cars Melville Macnaghten Revisited Part I: Tatcho’s Tale BY JONATHAN HAINSWORTH By the height of the Edwardian Era down to seven, then to a promising there was hardly a Jack the Ripper trio, and then to ‘the one and only Jack’ mystery at all, in contrast to how it had — took the decision to arrest the rich obsessed people in the previous late recluse seemingly on the very day he Victorian Era. True, the public were vanished from where he lived. This was denied the name of the Whitechapel in a well-to-do suburb six miles from assassin — but then what good would the crime scene, and ‘the police were it do to know? For the fiend was long, in search of him alive when they found long dead, and could never defend him- him dead’ (The Referee, July 13th 1902). self in a court of law — if he had ever In a final, orgiastic, spasm of been found sane enough to stand trial. ultra-violence the English gentleman Shockingly for the ‘better classes’ the murdered and mutilated his youngest vile killer was one of their own, rather victim, and then immediately killed than some foreign wretch professing himself (well, after quite a long hike, an alien creed; a respectable West End actually). Had the suspect been col- physician, a Gentile and a Gentleman lared — and it was apparently a very no less! close run thing — a nimble defense When did Scotland Yard tumble lawyer might have made a great deal of to this ‘demented doctor’, whose last this murderer’s previous incarceration, victim was himself? ‘twice’, in a madhouse, having mani- Tragically, for earthly justice, the fested a homicidal rage, though one police — though very successful at nar- apparently only directed against har- rowing dozens of dead-end suspects lots (The Referee, February 16th 1902).