Magazine Articles 2011 : Reviews

[Howard Brown]

Thread for discussion of magazine articles that appear in the year 2011.

Tim Mosley's series The House That Jack Built in Ripperologist Magazine has been nothing less than spectacular in my opinion and a fine piece of scholarly work, witty and devoid of the dryness expected of a scholarly work.

[Chris G.]

Thread for discussion of magazine articles that appear in the year 2011.

Tim Mosley's series The House That Jack Built in Ripperologist Magazine has been nothing less than spectacular in my opinion and a fine piece of scholarly work, witty and devoid of the dryness expected of a scholarly work.

Definitely not dry, Howard, more on the wet and slimy side.

C

[Howard Brown]

CG:

I haven't been able to read many of the articles ( I ceased printing them out) since Christmas...and was hoping folks would chime in...and share their views.
I'll work on that Saturday.

[Paul]

CG:

I haven't been able to read many of the articles ( I ceased printing them out) since Christmas...and was hoping folks would chime in...and share their views.
I'll work on that Saturday.

Why not having the articles printed out mean that you can't read many of them? Is it because you used to read the pinted out mag when travelling to or while at work and can't otherwise read it on the 'puter?

[Howard Brown]

Dear Paul:

Printing them out was the way I got to read them at work...and because of some cost cutting ( ink being one of them for a while ) in addition to time spent trawling papers, I admit that I have had a hard time finding time to read more than a few. I will read them here on the computer, starting tonight and on Saturday. They come out very nisely in the PDF reader. Thats not a problem.

[Paul]

Dear Paul:

Printing them out was the way I got to read them at work...and because of some cost cutting ( ink being one of them for a while ) in addition to time spent trawling papers, I admit that I have had a hard time finding time to read more than a few. I will read them here on the computer, starting tonight and on Saturday. They come out very nisely in the PDF reader. Thats not a problem.

Printing them is expensive. And reading them on the computer isn't always easy or comfortable. But watch for possible solutions in the next issue.

[Howard Brown]

The only real hassle or setback for me if I don't print the magazines out ( The Rip and now, The Examiner ) is that I can't engage in "Read To Me Howie..." with whatshername in bed like I used to do... Now I have to find other stuff to do while in bed with her that is frankly yucky....yes, I refer to "talking" and this "cuddling" stuff. Where did this stuff come from,sir,I ask you ?

Printing those bad boys out was a good way to educate myself at work, because one machine requires minimal supervision...and I could sit down and read a magazine cover to cover before I had to get off me arse and set the machine up for another task.

[Howard Brown]

Moving right along....

If I may, lets begin with the recent editorial in The Examiner, written by Donald Souden, entitled, "Reefer Madness : JTR & Refrigerated Rail Cars".

The editorial, which covers an area or aspect of the Case near and dear to me, that of the newspapers and their role in how the phenomenon of JTR spread across the world, brings up one important method how this phenomenon, originating in an urban setting, made its way across the ocean to backwater and out of the way hamlets and villages all across the USA....and that way was via the milk trains.

True, while wire services in America's important urban areas like Philadelphia,Boston, or Chicago were capable of reporting facts ( and unfortunately mistakes and rumors ) at the speed British papers were...every urbanized American citizen from 1888 onward was just as informed or misinformed as the rank and file Brit reader was when it came to the ongoing stories surfacing in British papers, with few exceptions ...but in order for many Americans living in isolated, agrarian settings to get their hands on the printed word, there was the problem of the distance one had to travel to read a big city paper like the Inter Ocean, The Globe, or The Inquirer.

Thats where the milk trains come into play. Along with the foodstuff these trains delivered to the smaller towns along the East Coast and all across America, bundles of the latest papers were likewise carried along. From the depot to the local news vendor and then on to the rustic couple Ma and Pa Brown, who while in town by way of wagon for some vittles and feed...would also grab a copy of the latest metropolitan paper which covered the gruesome and ghastly accounts of the latest Ripper murder. One can easily envision Pa Brown reading these accounts by candle-powered light in their out of the way farmhouse on a cold Wintery night...at least I can.

As we study the newspapers...and we see time and time again how references to the Ripper surface in places we'd never think likely....but with the advent of the milk trains, we can now understand how this was possible.

Thanks to Donald Souden.

[Howard Brown]

Also within the latest Examiner, I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Firth's critique of the Definitive Story documentary on a number of issues...while not being overly concerned with the brouhaha over the suspect/witness issue to the point that it diminished the quality or overshadowed the intention of the documentary by Messrs Bennett, Begg and Leahy. Discussion will probably continue on the Forums, so please keep our intrepid photographer Andrew's comments in mind,should you read his article in this issue.

Jon Simons & Neil Bell's article on the sequence of events ( I have read this already, which tells you how fatigued the old man is over here...) regarding the murder of Frances Coles is not to be missed. Jon ( forgetting Monty here for a moment ) has a ken for these sort of delineations ( witness his work on the Whitechapel Who's Who here on The Forums ) and breakdowns and I found the collaborative effort simply terrific.
This was a labor intensive, high quality effort which deserves your attention.

Adam Went's work, which I just read and have followed here on the boards in its pre-article state, on Lionel Druitt is also pretty thorough, as AW sets out to put the legend of the Druitt-penned The East End Murderer : I Knew Him to rest.
Adam suggests that it would have been out of character ( or at least I interpret it that way) for someone like Lionel to have been responsible for writing an article which implicated a family member he may not have been that close to in the first place. It sounds reasonable enough to me. Fine work AW.


Next up, since everyone is glued to the thread now....I'll take some time and thoroughly read the recent issue of Ripperologist.

In the mean time, if anyone else has read any recent article ( I need to read Jon Hainsworth's latest on MLM), please don't be a schlub...share your thoughts on the thread !

[Adam Went]

Thanks for the comments, How.

"Cousin Lionel" was designed primarily as a biographical work, as many of us know of the connection between him, the Australian documents and MJ Druitt, but few of us know much about Lionel Druitt the man, so that was my major aim, and then perhaps some judgements about the document could be made by understanding something of the man who supposedly wrote it.

The short of it is that it makes no sense to me at all that the writing of such an incriminating document should fall to a cousin who lived on a different continent at the time of the Ripper murders, who's relationship was MJ Druitt was occasional at best, where it could just as easily have been written by one of the many Druitt relatives who still lived in England in the late 1880's. That's of course all aside from the fact that no solid evidence has ever come to light that such a document ever even existed.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Monty]

Jon Simons & Neil Bell's article on the sequence of events ( I have read this already, which tells you how fatigued the old man is over here...) regarding the murder of Frances Coles is not to be missed. Jon ( forgetting Monty here for a moment ) has a ken for these sort of delineations ( witness his work on the Whitechapel Who's Who here on The Forums ) and breakdowns and I found the collaborative effort simply terrific.
This was a labor intensive, high quality effort which deserves your attention.

And Monty should be forgotten too. Jon has amazing collative abilities and is an awesome researcher. As I've stated elsewhere, this really is Jons baby. I just provided a round or two of ammunition here and there.

I hope to here more from him in the future as I feel he has a lot to give to the field.

And for those who are interested, I've provided maps which may aid the reader when they journey with Tom Sadler.

They are on the Examiner thread.

Monty

[Monty]

It must be remembered Jon and How, that articles like this are built upon great work done by others.

Whilst we add our own pieces, we also add other peoples who kindly place this info in our hands. I've always maintained I walk in the footsteps of giants. When I mention that included in this article are the researched works of Debra Arif, Jake Luukanen and Gavin Bromley, well you will realise just how big those footprints are.

And Jon is too modest. His draft was pretty extensive and thorough. Amazing in its own right. This, I feel, makes a messy series of events a lot clearer. And in that puts Sadlers position into context with the series as well as the Coles crime also. That's Jons and his ability.

To those mentioned in the article and here, we thank you.

Neil

[Howard Brown]

In the recent issue (# 118 ) of Ripperologist Magazine, the article written by Jan Bondeson on "Boy Jones" is an interesting read. It casts some serious doubt as to the efficiency ( I believe most Americans,for example,believe its harder to get a camel through a USB port than to sneak into Buckingham Palace with the rigid,serious looking Beefeaters standing at the ready ) of the security who protect the King or, in this story, Queens Victoria and Elizabeth. Although the story of Boy Jones and his exploits was known to me, I had no idea that he succesfully entered the Palace on three separate occasions before Lord Melbourne had him shanghaied and jettisoned to Brazil. An enjoyable and informative story.

Eduardo Zinna contributed yet another Victorian fiction story, this time one written by the American author, W.C. Morrow, an Alabaman, whose featured story, The Monster Maker, appeared a year before the WM.
Eddie's biographical info mentions other stories written by the influential Morrow which I will,at some point, take a look at.

[Howard Brown]

Mike Covell's continuing venture into cyberspace
provided some nice links in issue 118 of Ripperologist ( which I don't think their editors will mind my mentioning them here...)

[Howard Brown]

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