Murder in Whitechapel
The murders of 1888 were unusual, and luckily never to be repeated in Whitechapel. And yet the failure to protect the community in that incident only magnified a problem that local residents had long realized. In parliament, the MP for Tower Hamlets, Whitechapel stated that:
The residents of Whitechapel and Spitalfields felt that they had not sufficient police protection. They thought that in a district where poor people abounded in greater proportion, and in, perhaps, greater wretchedness than elsewhere in England, adequate provision should be made for police protection there. They recognized the fact that the poverty in that district did result in vice and crime, and that although the police in Whitechapel were said to do their work very well, their number was certainly limited. He had the best authority for stating that trade, owing to the scare which the recent murders had caused, had been terribly depressed. In some cases the receipts of prominent tradesmen in Whitechapel did not now reach one-half of the sum they reached at the same period last year, which was not a prosperous year. As a matter of fact, many people did not care now to go into the streets after dark.1While the Jack the Ripper murders were certainly the most high-profile murders Whitechapel ever witnessed, interpersonal violence was common. And if politicians and social advocates believed crime found its epicenter in Whitechapel—what could the police do?
The case of Israel Lipski
The year before the Ripper murders, another Whitechapel Mystery put policing in the spotlight. In this case, it was a single woman, Miriam Angel, murdered in her own bed under mysterious circumstances. The prosecution alleged that the morning of June 28th, twenty-two-year-old Israel Lipski walked into the room where a pregnant Miriam Angel slept, struggled with her, knocking her unconscious before poisoning her with nitric acid and then attempting to kill himself with the same poison. Angel’s landlady and mother-in-law discovered the body after breaking in the locked door. She was lying on her bed, dead. The mystery of what might have happened was only revealed later, when a doctor and assistants arrived to investigate the dead woman. It was only then they noticed Israel Lipski hidden under the bed, in a faint but alive, with slight acid burns around his mouth.2 The medical staff and police jumped to the obvious conclusion: Lipski had killed the woman and then tried to take his own life.
Israel Lipski was tried at the Old Bailey for wilful murder of in July of 1887. Lipski himself told a different tale when he regained consciousness while in hospital. He claimed that he was a victim of two men who had initially approached him for work. That morning he left them to get his breakfast after sending his landlady for coffee. He gave them a sovereign to buy brandy. On returning, in the passage outside of the Angels’ room he saw the two men looking in a box through the open door. Spotting him they grabbed him by the throat, forced open his mouth and poured poison down taunting “that is the brandy.” After pinning his arms, they demanded money; claiming he had given them his last they demanded his watch chain. He had pawned the gold chain. They then put a piece of wood in his mouth and kneeled on his throat until they believed he was dead. They then threw him under Miriam Angel’s bed and left him.3 Most members of the press dismissed his account as “remarkable” or “extraordinary.”4
Lipski was found guilty and sentenced to death, which might have been the end of the story. But Lipski’s lawyer found an ally in the feisty editor of the Pall Mall Gazette who decided to turn the case into a crusade. Under the title “Hanging an Innocent Man,” the editor wrote of a rushed trial, a Judge who had a change of heart, and new exculpatory evidence.5 Some publications gave specific credit to the Pall Mall Gazette for its role in changing people’s attitudes. Freeman’s Journal acknowledged that before the expose, popular opinion was that Lipski was a killer, and deserved the sentenced passed down.6 When a surprise week’s respite was granted, the media was given full credit. “Lipski’s life has been saved for a week by ‘trial by journalism.’”7
But on the eve of his execution, Lipski added a final twist to the story. The young man dictated a confession to the Rabbi sent to comfort him.8 The confession was printed in full across a number of publications.9 The front page of the Pall Mall Gazette, the champion of Lipski who had once proclaimed Lipski innocent, titled the news of his confession “All’s Well that Ends Well.”10 Most journalists expressed themselves relieved that there was now no doubt that they were killing an innocent man.11 But Whitechapel residents could hardly feel satisfied. Either a young man had been railroaded through the justice system and two brutal murderers remained on the loose; or, a seemingly harmless young man could transform into a murderer without the least provocation. Neither would leave a local person feeling secure.