Crime and Punishment: The Horrors

In 1888 the darkened streets of Whitechapel became the setting for a series of grisly murders. The victims were prostitutes who worked in the impoverished area; they were thought to be drunk at the time of their deaths. The murders sent shockwaves throughout civilised society: a capable of the most grotesque mutilations was on the loose, taunting police by sending them letters and postcards. Indeed, the murderer was never caught.

The ` Murders’ as they have come to be known, after the signature supplied on one of the letters, were seen as symbolic of the degradation and bestial nature of some inhabitants of the East End. For the residents of genteel neighbourhoods, missions and almshouses within the area, this highlighted the consequences of the poverty around them. On 20th July 1889 Reverend Samuel Barnett, the warden of Toynbee Hall (a university settlement in the heart of Whitechapel), wrote a letter to The Times on the squalor of the neighbourhood. The Under Secretary of State responded to Barnett’s comments in a letter dated 5th August 1889.

Read both of the letters and answer the questions below. Paul’s thoughts on the letters are also available for your consideration:

• What significance did the Jack the Ripper murders have for Reverend Samuel Barnett? • What are his suggestions for the general improvement of Whitechapel? • Does the Under Secretary of State agree with Barnett’s judgements and remedies? • In what different ways can the motives of Samuel Barnett and the Under Secretary of State be read? • What, for Samuel Barnett and the Under Secretary of State respectively, were the underlying causes of immorality and vice in Whitechapel? • Which of the two men would you say was the more socially liberal?

Poverty, Wealth and History in the Crime and Punishment Assessment -2- Samuel Barnett’s letter to The Times, July 1889

Whitechapel Horrors

To the Editor of The Times

23rd July, 1889

Sir,

When the series of murders occurred last year you allowed me to point out that the act of some maniac was a less evil than the state of life shown to be common in this neighbourhood.

At the time I was encouraged to hope that the freeholders of a large property which is the heart of this criminal quarter might have applied, or have put it in the power of others to apply some radical remedy, by closing as leases fell in the houses in which men and women live as beasts, where crime is protected and where children or country people are led on to make the neighbourhood distasteful to the wicked or by getting the Parliamentary powers to clear the district as one morally insanitary.

Nothing has been done, though many were ready with time and money, if the freeholders would have moved. The houses in the hands of the same occupants offer almost every night scenes of brutality and degradation. A body of inhabitants-residents at Toynbee Hall and others have patrolled the neighbourhood during the last nine months on many nights every week between the hours of 11pm and 2am. Their record tells of rows in which stabbing is common, but on which the police are able to get no charges; of fights between women stripped to the waist, of which boys and children are spectators; of the protection afforded to thieves, and of such things as could only occur where opinion favours vice. The district in which all this happens is comparatively small; it forms, indeed, a black spot, three or four acres in extent in the midst of a neighbourhood which in no way deserves the reputation for ill-conduct.

A district so limited might be easily dealt with, and its reform is more important than even the capture of a murderer, who would have no victims if they were not prepared by degradation. Its reform will be possible when public opinion will condemn as offenders those who directly and indirectly live on the profits of vice.

I am truly yours,

Samuel A. Barnett St Jude’s, Whitechapel, July 20

Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London Crime and Punishment Assessment Under Secretary of State’s letter, August 1889 -3-

4 Whitehall Palace 5th August, 1889

Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 27th, on the subject of the Revd S.A. Barnett’s recent letter to The Times respecting the condition of Whitechapel, I have to acquaint you, for the information of the Secretary of State, that anything Mr Barnett writes on such a subject is entitled to respect, for no one who knows the work which the vicar of St Jude’s has done, and the spirit in which he doses it, can entertain anything but sentiments of regard for him and sympathy with his aspirations.

Practically what he says is this: Vice of a very low type exists in Whitechapel; such vice manifests itself in brawling and acts of violence which shock the feelings of respectable persons: these acts of violence are not repressed by action taken either before the police or magisterial authorities. Clear out the slums and lodging houses to which various persons resort, and vice will disappear, respectability taking its place.

There is no doubt whatever that vice of a low and degraded type is only too visible in Whitechapel. The facility with which the Whitechapel murderer obtains victims has brought this prominently to notice, but to anyone who will take a walk late at night in the district where recent atrocities have been committed, the only wonder is that his operations have been so restricted. There is no lack of victims ready to his hand, for scores of these unfortunate women may be seen any night muddled with drink in the streets and alleys, perfectly reckless as to their safety, and only anxious to meet with anyone who will keep them in plying their miserable trade.

There is no doubt that brawling and fighting do go on, repressed as far as possible by the police, but it must be remembered that these women do not care to be protected against those who assault them, very seldom have recourse to the station to complain, and still more seldom appear at any police court to prosecute any charge which they may have lain before the police.

It is also true that common lodging houses are not all that they might be in the way of discouraging immorality, although I do not think that so much of the reproach in this respect which is generally levelled at them in reality is attributable to them. On this subject I have already expressed my views in my letter of 26th December 1888. Much however of the immorality which goes on finds its place in the low lodgings which are let to prostitutes by the day or week, where they take men home, and with reference to which the law is practically powerless. These are the houses from which no charges are brought before the police, and to these much more than to the common lodging houses is the violence conjoined with immorality attributable.

That respectability would be benefited by cleaning out such localities admits of little doubt, that the moral atmosphere of Whitechapel would be purified by the substitution of better lodging houses for the dens at present to be found there is perfectly clear; but this

Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London Crime and Punishment Assessment would not remove vice, it would only delocalise it, and transfer it to some neighbouring -4- parish at present not quite so disreputable as some parts of Whitechapel.

I do not meant to say that this might not be a gain. It certainly would be a gain to Whitechapel, and it may be said that if other parishes took similar steps, similar steps would follow within their limits. But the questions still remains, ``What is to become of the residuum of vice which is thus moved on?’’ I do not believe in such a transfer of a vicious population as likely to remove vice generally from the metropolis, and I suspect it may be taken as a fact that whenever landlords or lodging house keepers can secure their rents they will not hesitate in taking it from prostitutes with as much readiness as from persons of a different class.

Behind the whole question lies the larger matter of street prostitution generally, and until that is taken up and regulated (objectionable as this may appear to a public which confuses between liberty and licence) the mere multiplying of comfortable lodging houses will not have any appreciable effect in diminishing the numbers of and evils resulting from a class who do not want comfortable lodging houses, and the scene of whose operations is on the streets.

From Sir, Your most obedient servant, The Under Secretary of State

Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London Crime and Punishment Assessment Paul Johnson’s Answer -5-

These are enormously revealing letters that can be interpreted in two very different ways. In one reading, the concerned and progressive reformer — in this case Samuel Barnett — calls for public action to counter an obvious social ill. The public servant, sitting in his central government office, produces the all-too-common list of reasons why, in this case, no government action can or should be taken. But in a different reading, Barnett can be seen as a selfish local campaigner trying to obtain public money for the pursuit of his own narrow moral agenda, while the public servant takes a broad liberal view about the diversity of individual lifestyles, and about the need to balance the interests of all communities.

By 1889, the date of these letters, Barnett had become a very well-known figure through his highly publicised (and self-publicised) Anglican mission to the poor of the East End, both as vicar of St Jude’s and as warden of Toynbee Hall. The Whitechapel murders of 1888 seemed fully to confirm his claims about the immorality, vice and criminality of many residents, and further strengthened his resolve to improve the local area. He thought nothing other than a `radical remedy’ would suffice, and in his letter he reminds the reader of his three preferred action plans:

1) that the landlords (the `freeholders’) of the worst properties should simply refuse to renew the leases of tenants of bad character; 2) that landlords should employ watchmen (effectively private policemen) to enforce order in the neighbourhood; 3) that parliament should sanction (and finance) wholesale demolition and slum clearance for the entire district, covering three or four acres.

The Under Secretary of State at the Home Office (the second highest public servant in the government department responsible for law and order) responds with two arguments. Firstly, he claims that the police and magistrates are doing as good a job as they can to repress violence and disorder in Whitechapel, but that they cannot force individuals to seek legal sanction for redress against assault or other acts of criminality. Unless prostitutes or keepers of lodging houses voluntarily bring complaints to the police, and agree to go to court as witnesses, there is little that the police can do to `clean up’ the district. Secondly, he argues that much of the problem lies with the landlords, who are more interested in the ability of their tenants to pay the rent than they are in their moral character. This is a fairly typical government response, since it defends public employees (police and magistrates) against accusations that they are failing to do a good job and identifies some other factors entirely beyond the control of government (in this case, landlords and the operation of the housing market) as the underlying cause of the problem.

But these letters are open to a completely different interpretation. Barnett’s letter to The Times presents an extremely hostile stance towards the inhabitants of some streets around Toynbee Hall. He describes a `criminal quarter’ in which `men and women live as beasts’, in which `almost every night’ there are `scenes of brutality and degradation’. He concedes that the primary problem relates to a small area within `a neighbourhood which in no way deserves the reputation for ill conduct’, but he makes no attempt to draw distinct boundaries — either in terms of geography or behaviour — around the area he believes to be `morally insanitary’. Over the previous nine months he and his co-residents at Toynbee Hall had been operating as moral

Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London Crime and Punishment Assessment vigilantes, patrolling the streets at night in an attempt to impose their version of propriety on -6- the local inhabitants, but success had clearly been limited. Now he was calling for an upsurge of public opinion to force landlords and government to apply a `radical remedy’ and physically remove the degraded population.

The focus of Barnett’s attention was Whitechapel because the success or failure of Toynbee Hall would be determined by the impact it had on the moral and physical welfare of the surrounding population. The Under Secretary of State, by contrast, was responsible for law and order across the whole of London, and so in his response he takes a much more rounded view. He agrees that removing criminals and prostitutes `would be a gain to Whitechapel’, but it would not solve the problem. It would merely `delocalise it, and transfer it to some neighbouring parish at present not quite so disreputable’. Thus Barnett’s proposed solution to immorality and vice is in fact no solution at all, since it would relocate the symptom without eradicating the cause.

In fact the Under Secretary goes much further than Barnett in attempting to identify the underlying cause of immorality and vice in Whitechapel. The problem, he says, is street prostitution. At the time, soliciting for trade by prostitutes was illegal, but prostitution itself was not. This placed prostitutes in an ambiguous position with respect to the law, and so generally prostitutes, their pimps and their clients attempted to avoid all contact with the police. The Under Secretary argues that street prostitution should be regulated by the government; in this way it could be properly monitored and controlled by the police, and prostitutes could gain legal protection from exploitative pimps and violent clients. The barrier to progress in this direction, in the eyes of the Under Secretary, is a reactionary public opinion which `confuses between liberty and licence’ — in other words, thinks that official regulation amounts to moral approval. Thus the civil servant appears to take a much more balanced and socially progressive stance than does Barnett, the well-known social reformer. In fact, we can see just how progressive were the views of this late-Victorian civil servant by reflecting on the fact that the debate over public regulation of prostitution remains unresolved more than 100 years later.

Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London Crime and Punishment Assessment