Jack the Ripper's East London

Last week I bought in Baker Street a little, tiny red booklet by the Louis' London Walks, "The Jack Ripper Walk", which I took today as my companion through the East End of  London. It was certainly not quite a stroll though, since the weather was cold and the sky was overcast and unfriendly.

Absolutely nothing has been spared that may enlighten how that terrible neibourhood must have looked like. Just the myth seems to survive _or even maintained, I would venture to say. There is not the single trace nor indication of the heaps of dark alleys, slums and shabby holes, obscure corners and sordid pubs that was that part of East London. Even today, people congregate themselves around the bullicious Whitechappel and Commercial streets or into the Spitalfields and Petticoats markets. (Surprisingly, Brick Lane was deserted by 11 am). The old places where the action took place (Mitre Square, Goulston, Old Castle, Gunthorpe, Angel Alley, Fashion and Thrawl, Fournier, etc., streets) are unattractive and dull, and lay inconspicuously silent for anyone unaware of their significance.

In Artillery Lane, my guide points out the house at no. 56, dating from 1756, as a fine example of the style of housing of the time, but still, what I see and can imaginate leaves me cold. Neither the sight of the short and narrow Artillery Passage feels touchy, which looks in my eyes more like a cozy hidden street in Chambery or Anncey (French Savoy), rather than a frighten passage in Medieval London.

The no. 29 of Hanbury Street, place where Annie Chapman was killed does not exist today. The Providence Row Night Refuge and Convent, in Crispin St., where Annie stayed by the time she was murdered, is now a housing for students of the London School of Economics in Holburn. Right across to it, it stands a parking lot, in White's Row. In 1888 that was the place, however, of a mould of diseased flats and narrow alleys. Precisely there, in one called Miller's Court lived Mary Jane Kelly. Apparently Jack the Ripper "worked" the whole night on her to the light of a large log fire. It was the most elaborated and gruesome of all mutilations.

On another hand, Catherine Eddows, who was 46 years old, was slaughtered in barely twenty minutes. Her body was found in Mitre Square, an unnoticeable place today, unless you look to the right up the modern St. Mary's Axe. Also the Gunthorpe Street and Passage, where Martha Turner's body was found, and the Angel Alley, where Martha's friend, Pealy Poll, used to work, are forgotten places now, deprived of significance. In between both places it is now the white-walled and luminous Whitechapel Art Gallery. (By the way, I bought there Jack London's The People of the Abyss).

In Goulston Street, there was a passage where a piece of Catherine's dress, stained in blood, was found. Today, the passage is blocked. Even the "world-famous" Tubby Isaacs stall on the corner looks like falling apart.

Regarding pubs, I did not look for the Still and Star Pub in Little Somerset Street, and the interesting Hoop and Grapes Pub was closed, as it was Sunday. I did have half a pint, however, at The Ten Bells, on the corner of Wilkes with Commercial Street, right across Spitalfields. Looked kind of crappy to me and, curiously enough, small children are not allowed.

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I must say that the question of who was Jack the Ripper bears no interest to me. Who knows? Maybe, they actually knew who this guy with a dark moustache "wearing  a tweed-jacket, deer stalker cap and red neck scarf" was; maybe several intrigues, interests and circumstances diverted the Metropolitan Police or Scotland Yard from it. It is plausible, I think, this case be corroded by falsehood and hypocrisy, and the truth remain forever buried. Maybe he was more than one. Could it also be plausible that the murders were planned with any purpose, from personal to public affairs? In that case, by whom or whom(s)?

This second plausibility carries the real important question: why? The murders of 5 prostitutes are circumscribed in a very short period of time, with two other murders spaciated a little before and after those five. Why? What reason might an apparently anonymous man have to kill those women in that time, in that area and in that horrific manner just to vanish afterwards? The profile of a serial killer just does not work that way, does it?

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