Customer Reviews

Ripper Notes: How the Newspapers Covered the Jack the Ripper Murders

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Incredible writings that left the boring fill-in uninteresting notes to one side.
Very informative,well written that both the layperson and the well-versed JtR person can relate to.
I don't know what words I can use to describe Ripper Notes, other than the most informative, factual and demonstrative magazine I have ever read.

January 2005 edition of Ripper Notes #21: How the Newspapers Covered Jack the Ripper. Quite an interesting look into how news sources of the time covered the murders and whom they did and didn't count as victims, suspects, and the gross errors they made or assumed in the covering of the cases.

1. Next day edition coverage of the death of Mary Jane Kelly. Wrong names, locales, and means of death abounded throughout.

2. How the Irish press covered the JtR murders. Very critical of the police force, Charles Warren and Mr. Matthews in particular.

3. Snippets involving Frances Tumblety as a politician in Montreal, Carrie Brown murder in NYC involving a request for the Lusk Letter from JtR, and Superintendent Arnold inadvertently 'eliminates' four suspects with an article about JtR still being at large in London.

4. Here's the real meat of the issue, covering 54 pages of the book. It's a reprinting of the Norman Hastings news accounts written in 1929 between September and November. Many now known myths/stories are included as facts in Hastings' lengthy presentations including 'Marie Jeanette Kelly', ghostly visitations, shiny farthings, and suspects. Hastings claims many more than the "Canonical 5" as victims of JtR including Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Francis Coles, and even the Whitehall torso. Also extends JtR career prior to just 1888 into a six year reign of terror with a focus on James Sadler and a shipboard cattleman as main suspects. Very interesting but now known to be quite unreliable.

5. Another article on psychic R.J. Lees

6. The Ghost Club and a JtR conference regarding paranormal aspects.

7. The Cloak and Dagger Club Christmas party.

This magazine usually carries 9-10 articles but with the length of Part Four, it reduces the amount of entries. That fourth chapter starts to drag on a bit but is still very interesting for any JtR enthusiast. Parts 6&7 were really pretty worthless and detracts from the rest of the magazine. Could have been done more wisely by combining them into one chapter and giving us another article on the newspapers instead. Virtually no mention of Det. Abberline in this issue. Still worth having for your collection.