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found. One possible clue was the sighting of a man who, according to Abberline, ‘passed down Buck’s Row while the doctor was examining the body’. It is not stated in which direction he was heading. Patrick Mulshaw, a nightwatchman at a sewage works supposedly in Winthrop Street, claimed that a man passed by him sometime after 4.00am. Mulshaw gave no description of the man, other than he had spoken, saying: ‘Watchman, old man, I believe somebody is murdered down the street’. As well as being a strikingly odd turn of phrase, it has been noted by researcher John Carey (in Ripperana 36) that it also seems strange that the man was heading away from the murder scene, given that general curiosity drew most of those in the area to go and gawp at the body.

Driven to make their own investigations due to police reticence in supplying information, the press sought another man. Local prostitutes had told the police about a man who had, for some time, been demanding money with menaces from them.They called him ‘Leather Apron’. Journalists got hold of this information and newspapers, particularly The Star, began to carry descriptions of him and his crimes. He was supposedly a Jewish slipper maker with black hair and moustache, aged about 40, wearing a close-fitting cap and, of course, a leather apron. He usually carried a large knife and frequently threatened his victims with the phrase, ‘I’ll rip you up!’ The reports added to this some pure stage villainy: ‘His eyes are small and glittering. His lips are usually parted in a grin which is not only not reassuring, but excessively repellent.’ At some point the ‘monster’s’ real name became known. He was John Pizer, a Polish Jewish boot finisher. Further gloating press coverage not only helped to convince fearful locals that ‘Leather Apron’ and the Whitechapel murderer were one and the same, but also stirred up considerable anti-Semitic feeling in the area. Police enquiries concerning his whereabouts uncovered some sightings.Timothy Donovan of Crossingham’s Lodging House confirmed that he had seen him there sometime before the murders commenced and had thrown him out for threatening a woman. He was also said to frequent the Princess Alice pub in Commercial Street but now seemed to have vanished. The Police tried to calm the situation, and Inspector Helson’s weekly report to Scotland Yard (7 September) said that they were merely trying to find Pizer in order to establish his whereabouts on the night of Nichols’ murder for ‘at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him’.

The inquest into Nichols’ death opened on 1 September. It was held at the Whitechapel Working Lads’ Institute and headed by Wynne Baxter. With adjournments it ran over four days (reconvened 3 September, 17 September and 23 September). During his summation, Baxter criticised the police for not noticing the mutilation of the body sooner and complained about the lack of proper mortuary facilities in Whitechapel. Despite the police’s best efforts over the previous three weeks, the jury’s verdict was ‘Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown’.The foreman of the jury commented that if a reward had been offered the killer would probably have been caught. He blamed class bias for, if the victim had been rich, a reward would certainly have been offered.

Nichols was buried on 6 September at the City of London cemetery in Ilford. The mourners included her father, her husband and her eldest son. Police and the undertaker conspired to keep sightseers away so the cortege could leave Whitechapel unhindered.

‘Cool Impudence and Reckless Daring’

‘Human kind cannot bear very much reality’

T S Eliot, Four Quartets: Burnt Norton

Annie Chapman

One needs look no further than Annie Chapman for a prime example of the misery of those women’s lives who crossed Jack the Ripper’s path. She was known to many of her acquaintances as ‘Dark Annie’ – allegedly because of the dark moods that frequently gripped her. Her life certainly gave her good reason. She was born in 1841 to George Smith, a private in the Lifeguards, and Ruth