Element 18-Women (& Children) Moving Away

[Anna Morris]

Today How posted a news clipping on a thread titled "The Moral Aspect of London". The clipping is about the truly unfortunate unfortunates from the East End wandering to west, north and south London, anywhere to get away from the Ripper. This is a very sad article about the bedraggled, poorly dressed East End women having no place in these other districts. It mentions the better dressed prostitutes in the West End and discussion by a few merchants of opening some empty buildings so the poor women could have a place to sleep until the Ripper scare died down.

Some time ago I also posted a couple small clips from the Welsh papers about East End women and their children flooding other areas that were ill equipped to handle the influx. I knew less of geography when I posted these items so can't say if the women went to the edges of London or out of London entirely.

Element 18 => The Ripper scare is a first in so frightening the possible victims that many moved from their home area in the East End where they were established and able to function, to places where they had no resources and the only positive aspect was supposed safety from the killer. So great was this exodus that it was noticed by people in the areas where the women, sometimes with children in tow, ended up. Then the press picked up the stories.

[Howard Brown]

One thing that comes to mind is that the migration of women involved in prostitution to another area of London in 1888 is unique in that today, when prosses are working an area where someone is picking them up from killing them....most of the girls still stay within that fishing hole even with the knowledge that women from the area are being picked off . The Green River Killer series comes to mind...and the Pickton Farm series in Canada. Just two of quite a few.

[Anna Morris]

One thing that comes to mind is that the migration of women involved in prostitution to another area of London in 1888 is unique in that today, when prosses are working an area where someone is picking them up from killing them....most of the girls still stay within that fishing hole even with the knowledge that women from the area are being picked off . The Green River Killer series comes to mind...and the Pickton Farm series in Canada. Just two of quite a few.

That is a real interesting observation. Perhaps the difference between then and now has to do with the living situations of the women. Lots of people in the East End were dossers. I think our federal government now calls such people "homeless" and that is a way they amass high figures for homelessness.

What if a SK was preying on actual homeless people in one of our big cities today? Might they wander away to other areas in noticeably large amounts?

Many women in 1888 Whitechapel were casual prostitutes or unfortunates. Prostitutes in the modern cases were a bit more professional and many, perhaps most, had better places to live than did Jack's victims. Some of the modern women may live in cheap motels but the doors lock. They are not dossing with hundreds of others and wondering if the Ripper might be dossing with them.

As bad as were the modern cases, women first disappeared. They usually went away in cars and were found later, sometimes much later. No modern SK has reached the level of phantom death as did JtR. The women were alive and seen on the street and then soon after they were found still warm but dead and mutilated. That is another Element. I cannot name any other killer who accomplished anything like this. No wonder women migrated. JtR then and now is like a phantom of the night more than a real person.