The Five

 

To begin, I’m not a True Crime fan. Far from it. I can think of innumerable pursuits more palatable than consuming a steady diet of the misery of others.

That said, I am a fan of history. What’s more, I have a desire to understand, in as much as it is possible to do so, the subtext of the literature of its time, be it fiction or non-fiction. Nothing exists in a bubble. It goes without saying that Jack the Ripper was foremost in peoples’ minds in the autumn of 1888.

How could they not have been? The Whitechapel Murders were splashed across every newspaper in London as Jack terrorised that now famous district. Regardless that terror, not everyone residing there could escape it: Where might the poor go, one could ask? Poverty limited their choices. They must live where they could afford to, even if they could afford to live nowhere at all.

Which brings us to the “canonical five.” Five hapless women fell to Jack’s gruesome pursuit, becoming the stuff of legend. Jack might be more famous, but let’s face facts: even to this day, we know little, if anything, about history’s most famous serial killer. We know a great deal more about those five women who were his victims, perhaps more now than we did then.

Which brings me to Hallie Rubenhold’s 2019 study of Jack’s victims. Her book, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, is not another exploration of the Whitechapel Murders (there are quite a few of those already); it is a forensic dissertation on the lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, insofar as she was able to piece together as accurate a biography of each as is possible, given how little might be known about any woman in the latter Victorian era.

National Police Gazette illustration, 1889

Let’s be clear: this is not a book about the murders. They are biographies, from birth until their last sightings. There are brief afterwards, where their next of kin, or closest acquaintances, identified the bodies. But there is no speculation as to how each met their end; no imaginings on how Jack stalked then, approached them, whether they were even aware of his very presence. Any such scenes would be pure fiction; and Ms. Rubenhold had no desire to pile on more speculation than already has been. Ms. Rubenhold had one goal, to give these women the fair trial they deserved when they passed, and not the derision they received in the court of public opinion.

In short, each was painted a prostitute. They were not, most likely. Only two of the five can concretely be proven to have engaged in sex work, ad only one was what one might officially be called a bonified prostitute. The others were only guilty of misfortune and, in some cases, addiction. Each began what one might call a promising life. And it was only by circumstance that they found themselves living a life of poverty in one of the worst slums in London at then time.

Each led an interesting life, each unique from the others. Thus, each biography does not cover the same ground. Mary Ann married, had children, and likely found herself on the street owing to her husband’s infidelity, regardless his citing her alcoholism as the reason for their estrangement. Annie was the daughter of a soldier, married a coachman, and was not a member of the labouring class, but she too had a weakness for alcohol, which became her undoing. Elizabeth was not English, but Swedish, a “fallen” woman who had to emigrate to escape a life of judgemental scrutiny, having contracted venereal disease (likely contracted from her employer, not that she could ever have accused him of that). She most certainly suffered from mental issues at the time of her death due to syphilis. Catherine was a free spirit: a bit of a gypsy, a busker, and a bit of a con artist. Little, if anything, is known of Mary Jane. That was probably not her real name. She told everyone she knew a different origin story. She was one a posh call girl. But after being betrayed by her madam, she found herself in ever diminishing prospects.

They had, for the most part, little in common. Poverty, at the time of their death, is the only thing that bound them as a group. Alcohol was prevalent. “Sleeping rough” (on the street, under the stars), on occasion, was also shared (except Mary Jane), when they could not scape together the few pence needed for a bed, when the workhouse was filled to capacity. Why then did Jack targeted them? One wonders.

Ms. Rubenhold could have added more material to this work; she might have included those other victims who are not canonically considered Jack’s victims; she might have detailed Emma Elizabeth Smith’s life, so too Martha Tabram’s, and Rose Mylett’s, and Alice McKenzie’s, and Francis Cole’s. They may very well have been Jack’s victims. But thy were not officially linked with Jack. So, she limited herself to those famous five.

Dorset Street, Spitalfields, London, 1902

What I found most interesting was how Ms. Rubenhold drew on not just these women’s lives, as records illuminate, but also censuses, and other sources, both contemporary histories and historical ones, giving us a more detailed picture of what life was like for labouring classes, for household servants, for soldiers and coachmen and tinplate artisans, what life was like in debtors’ prisons and workhouses, and indeed, what it was like for those who had little choice but to find shelter under eaves and alongside the sewage flowing in the gutter.

The Five has found its way onto many lists detailing the best Ripper books. Most concern themselves on the actual murders and the investigation, I imagine. I can’t say for certain if that is the case. Few, I believe, concern themselves with the actual lives of the victims, except in the most cursory fashion. This one does. And thus, Mr. Rubenhold’s book may be the only one to fill in thos glaring gaps the others leave wanting.

It's not a literary work. I was not swept off my feet by her mastery of poetic prose. She is not lacking in skill, either. All in all, it is a good dissertation, which is, what I expect, what she was aiming for.