In his weekly column in The Referee on Sunday the 7th of October, 1888. the journalist George Sims gave his opinion on the impact that the Dear Boss letter had had on society as a whole and on the East End of London in particular.
The “Dear Boss” letter, which was signed “Jack the Ripper”, had been made public earlier that week and the name used as the signature had well and truly caught the public imagination.
George Sims, with his usual sardonic humour, launched into a blistering attack on what he termed “the sorry jest”:-
JACK THE RIPPER HERO OF THE HOUR
Jack the Ripper is the hero of the hour. A wag, a grim practical joker, has succeeded in getting an enormous amount of fun out of a postcard which he sent to the Central News.
The fun is all his own, and nobody shares in it, but he must be gloating demoniacally at the present moment at the state of perturbation in which he has flung the public mind.
Grave journals have reproduced the sorry jest, and have attempted to seriously argue that the awful Whitechapel fiend is the idle and mischievous idiot who sends bloodstained postcards to the news agency.
Of course the whole business is a farce.
The postcard is an elaborately-prepared hoax.
To imagine a man deliberately murdering and mutilating women, and then confessing the deed on a postcard, is to turn Mr. W. S. Gilbert loose upon the Whitechapel murders at once.
LOTS OF THEORIES
Everybody has a private theory of his own with regard to these crimes, and naturally I have mine.
In all probability mine is as idiotic as the coroner’s.
But this is such an unpleasant subject – it is becoming such a dangerous subject – that I will spare the public my private views upon the matter, and try and get to something more cheerful as speedily as possible.
Bloodshed always has an immense fascination for ordinary mortals.
Murders and battles are the things to hurl the circulation of a newspaper sky high, and the Whitechapel lady-killer’s essays in lightning surgery have become as a boon and a blessing to men of the Press, who were weary of concocting in the office letters on various subjects of domestic interest, and trying to make them look like genuine outside contributions.
A DANGEROUS SUBJECT
I have said that this series of murders is a dangerous subject to discuss, and I honestly think so.
The enormous publicity and the sensational turn given to these atrocities are bound to affect the public mind, and give ill-balanced brains an inclination towards bloodshed.
There will be for some time an epidemic of savage butchery, and the unfortunate women who have furnished the lightning anatomist with his subjects will be especially liable to murderous attack.
RIPPERISM IN PRACTICE
Jack the Ripper – now that Leather Apron has retired Jack is the hero of the situation – has already fired the imagination of a vast number of idiots and ruffians.
Men with knives in their hands, threatening to “rip” a lady are to be heard of all over the country already.
Not only has Ripperism been put extensively into practice, but vast numbers have yielded to its fascinations in theory.
The newspapers, ever ready to take occasion by the hand and make the bounds of fooldom wider yet, have allowed Colney Hatch, Hanwell, and Earlswood to empty the vials of idiocy upon the head of the general reader.
Every crackpot in the kingdom who has a whim, a fad, a monomania, a crotchet, or a bee in his bonnet is allowed to inflict it upon the public under the heading of “The Eastend Horrors.”
ENGLAND IN DANGER
It is impossible to read the puerile twaddle, the utterly inconsequent nonsense which is served up in a mixed heap for our breakfast every morning in the Daily Telegraph without feeling that England is indeed in danger.
Any country inhabited by a race which could write such letters and make such suggestions as those which appear in the Telegraph would be in danger.
WASTE SCRIBBLE OF FRIVOLITY
The School Board has much to answer for.
Many people foresaw a danger in placing the pen within the reach of everyone.
It was felt that the indiscriminate use of a weapon far more dangerous than the revolver, far more murderous than Jack the Ripper’s knife, would lead to much discomfort and confusion; but the greatest pessimist among the anti-educationists never imagined that the great newspaper Press of the country would make itself a dustbin for the reception of the waste scribble of irresponsible frivolity and bumptious ignorance.”