Fin vs History - Murder has never been so smelly | Jack The Ripper: London in 1888 (Part 1/3)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

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Today there's been a murder. There's been several murders. Today we're talking about Jack the Ripper. Victorian serial killer. Yeah. We think. Yeah, we don't know. What do you mean?

He could be from a different time. No, I think he was Victorian. I think we can safely say that it happened. He's still potentially on the loose. We don't know. That's why we're doing this so early on in this podcast. This man is still out there. If he's Japanese, I mean, they live to 140.

It's true. His steady diet of raw fish has kept him going. I mean, I'll tell you what, actually, if they are still alive, it's probably a Japanese, Japanese. Well, because it's a Japanese woman. Yeah, right. Because no one lives older than them. Exactly, it probably is.

I would be checking the blue zones for Jack the Ripper. You know the blue zones? No. Do you not know about blue zones? Blue zones, there's like four or five areas in the world that this guy's had this written this book on where people, there's more people who live over 100 than anywhere else. I thought you were going to talk about Nazi war criminals Argentina

Argentina, the Vatican, Austria So it's like Sardinia, Okinawa in Japan someplace in like California where everyone lives over, so it's studying wider these people and it's nearly always Walking up a hill and having friends Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, friends and olive oil I thought Friends olive oil and like squash, eating lots of squash

I'd say listen, we're not going to, this could be a three-part two Yes I'm not going to, I'm going to hold my keep my pen dry yes but keep your panties dry keep my pants dry I'm gonna try and keep my pants dry because it's an incredibly exciting time period finally finally I feel like I'm on solid fucking ground yeah Victorian era what would you

so what was your relationship with Jack the Ripper before this episode um well I didn't really know much about him all I knew is that I didn't like people who liked him yeah yeah and the tour guides I would see them and I'd sort of fantasize about killing them like it was maybe that is that the point I reckon that's what happened to Jack the Ripper actually He saw a Jack the Ripper tour guy I'm going to kill a lot of people

Because fuck these people These are my fans, God I can relate to that actually People were so into it And into it in such an intense way That I always overlooked it as a subject When people are too into it You're like, I can't be asked

Yeah It always felt a bit lame to be into it I didn't know why How they could be that much there He just seemed like a guy His numbers weren't even that good No no I mean It's peanuts

It's peanuts compared to Mao Hitler, Stalin The real goats the goes of the game. But studying this for this episode, and I did go on the Jack, the Ripper tour yesterday, and I've lived in the East End

for like five years now. So you're a suspect. I am a suspect. It's potentially me. Hiding and played site. But I will concede that it is actually very interesting. It's very interesting, but I also would like to stress

that the people that like this a lot and are commenting, I want nothing to do with it. Well, yeah. So what else is like that? Is it's people, it's steam... Is it British NFL fans? Like, NFL's interesting, but...

A bit like that. It's, uh, it's, it's the steampunk, goth music thing. It's on the pipeline of Doctor Who. Oh, get in the bin. But it's sort of a, a vein of distinctly British autism, would you say? I know there's a lot of Americans who like it. But it's in that vein of the jaunty sort of like mega fan. You know, like British nerds.

There's like, what is it? It's Doctor Who. It's a comic book guy from The Simpsons. Jack the... And they're the guy. Like me lady? Yeah. It's all people who speak like that, I think, can get at the bin.

Yeah. And I think in general, I've overlooked the Victorian age as something interesting because I guess now it's one of the lamest things to be into aesthetically. Like, we're in the top hat now. The steampunk thing. The steampunk thing is lame. But that means that I have overlooked it often as actually a very interesting time. But also, you are from the Victorian period.

And this is what I love about when I was researching this, I finally, having spent episodes in the Middle Ages, in the ancient world, I finally feel at home in the Victorian... The world makes sense. It makes complete sense. It makes more sense then than it did now. Any woman who is living with a man

and they're not married, she's officially classed as a prostitute. Yeah, a fallen woman. It makes so much sense. I know where I stand. Yeah. How long have you been with your girlfriend? I'll be five years.

Do you live together? Yes. Are you married? No. She's a prostitute. It makes so much sense. Yeah. The world is in harmony.

Well, in many ways, we've overcomplicated things. don't you think in the modern world I think there's two types of women married women

and prostages it was a lot simpler why have we made it so complicated who are these working mothers of three

what is it just simplify it I'm like Russell Crow married woman or hoar I'm like Russell Crow

in that meme I'm fucking out you've got three kids but you work streamlining and prostitute this is

this look and then there was like there was the posh end of London where everyone wore top hats and it was rich and then you if you wanted a bit of fun you'd go into a slum where everyone's poor and you'd get a bit of people there had top hats but with a little

jaunty little bit of little flap yeah yeah well it was a period where homeless people in the east end dress better than billionaires now yeah yeah exactly you know they're covered in in in filth but they wore like waistcoats they had handkerchiefs I mean I grew up using a handkerchief doesn't surprise me yeah But now that's kind of laughed at. Well, yeah. Well, can you not bring your snotty rag out with you, please? I quite like the, I felt like a snooker referee polishing a ball.

Yeah. To blow my nose. If you're only using it to polish your balls, then that, that, no, but that actually makes it. I must stress. That's what I was doing. I never need to blow my nose. I think, because my granddad had a handkerchief. And I just think, I often, if I need to blow my nose, often I'll have to blow my nose a lot.

Right. I maybe, some days I think I've blown my nose a hundred times. Really? So a handkerchief That poor fucker It's going to be like one of Jack the Ripper's victims After I'm finished with it

So It's going to be like Mary Jane Shelley Just absolutely That's the other thing That's the other thing Right Is that we All of us have grandparents

Who were raised by Victorian parents It's true The lineage is there And also we've lived in London For years now And this depiction of London It just all makes sense But it's also

What's fascinating about this Is that When I've chasted to women I know about this podcast they've gone oh I'm excited for you to do something that's not a war because war's a very male interest and then they've suggested Jack the Ripper

I'm like do you know what this was this was the brutal slaying of five five processes it this is it but it feels like it's a topic that that crosses gender lines it does cross gender lines but the female fixation with true crime is interesting compared to the male

fixation with war crimes and genocide yes yes yeah that's the big gender split That is actually, those are the two genders. It's war crimes or true crime. Yeah. I'm doing a bit about it on stage at the moment, but it is funny that that's how it's split. And neither of us can take the high horse, right?

No, no, no, no. You know, you can judge your girlfriend. Because there's always like, people always joke about, you know, oh, but you girlfriend getting to sleep, you can't listen to, go to sleep without listen to a woman getting cut up by men, you know, and then you'll roll over and listen to the systematic erasure of a race. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is true crime on a bigger scale.

That's what we listen to. It's war crimes. So don't turn your nose up at women who listen to true crime. It's just we do it on a bigger scale. That is true, actually. That's true. But this, I'm just fascinated. Is Amanda into true crime?

She's more into like the, you love islands, you're below decks. Right, right, right. True boring. Truly boring. Reality. Maths, she began to maths. What's good about this topic as well is it is sort of the beginning of so much stuff, Jack the Ripper.

It's the first crime scene photos, the beginning of sensationalism, sensationalism in the news, the first true crime, the kind of first serial killer. Even though his numbers are poor, he's the first to ever do it.

It's Stanley Matthews. You know, like Stanley Matthews was the first person to do a step over. And it was like, oh my God, he's like, burn him, burn him!

Which! Yeah, yeah. This is back when people are wearing construction boots to play football. Yeah, yeah. You know, he is the first to do it. Yes. And also it's the, you know, this is the start of the long road to

Jerry and Kate McCann. Right. And it is a long road. It's a long road. It's a lumpy, bumpy road. Like the first crusade was the long road to 9-11. The first crusade was the long road to the Algarve in 2003. Wait, so what's the link? What were you saying? I'm saying the kind of fascination with unsolved murders, right, right. Right. Right. Which is a huge public interest, conspiracy theories. This starts here, really. This is the first. first, this is the first case that at the time is basically a tabloid sensation. Well, it's fascinating how, yeah, the... I should also stress, Jerry McCann could be Jack the Ripper.

Everyone, Madeline McCann. Everyone is out there. Everyone, everyone is a suspect. Yeah, Jack the Ripper could have taken Maddler-McCand. Who knows? A Japanese woman could be behind all these crimes, and that's what we're going to delve into in this series. But what's absolutely fascinating, yeah, and we'll get onto it properly, is the...

That's quite a big claim for this focus. we may not but how like the fascination with Ripper has been there from the start and has never saw the first Ripper tour in the East End

happened after the second murder that's crazy so it was during the Ripper Murders I went to Ripper tour yesterday there's been a people have been doing that since it the first or second murder wasn't even a full tour

it wasn't yeah but they were just looking around there she died there the blood's still there yeah and everyone's like oh yeah this is what is also weird about this is that

this is the brutal killing of five prostitutes which again it is contested but I'm using the language of the time okay I'm using not using today's language these were the brutal murders don't worry this is just what I think personally

yeah yeah yeah this is the brutal murder take this is the picture of salt this is just what I believe personally this is just concurrent with my set of values I'm paraphrasing with what they said but it's also exactly what they said this is the brutal murder of five prostitutes five women and now there is a you know a man on top hat and I imagine a pending

autism diagnosis, taking tourists around London. And it's, I mean, you'll tell us about the tour, but I imagine it's quite sort of performative in kind of a lame magician way. Like it's, oh, spook. Yeah, he was like a sweet musical theatre guy. He had a wicked t-shirt on. So he used to work in the London dungeon. He's in the kind of, which I guess there's that whole industry, the sort of like, I don't

know, top hat industrial complex. I don't know what is it. Yeah, because who's buying top hats now? I don't know what the, there's that whole tourism around jaunty London, isn't there? you could, so he's popped from the London Dungeon to Jack the Ripper, he worked at Madam Two Swords, like there's just, I don't know what that is, but there's that whole kind of industry.

What's interesting is this is, ultimately, this is a serial killer, this is five dead bodies? And why is that fine? And yet, when I go and look around a concentration camp, there's not someone in an arts uniform going, come with me through the gate, the oven, you know, like, why is it,

why is that fine? And what's the difference? Yeah, I guess it's the scale. and I guess because we know who done it right if we didn't know

who did it if it was like a mystery who did the Holocaust I don't know who did it still debated still debated who killed 6,000 Jews yeah

paraphrasing paraphrasing but because if we didn't know who did it maybe you would have George people in Nazi uniform maybe that's the only

here's some suspicions about it could be you know the first suspect Adolf Hitler wrote an entire an entire treaty on how to murder Jewish people

but I suppose it's yeah is it just the fact that it's unsolved that makes it like almost romantic and cutesy well no it's

it's five people as opposed to six million isn't it that's that's part of it yeah but what's that Stalin quote one death of tragedy any more is a statistic yeah but you know

a tragedy is a better story than a statistic is it not it is yeah so he was probably a true crime fan right okay I got you yeah So we should, I mean, what's also funny about the kind of cutesy nature of the tour is that I can't imagine a less cute place and time to live than the East End of London in the 1880s. So a bit of context, I guess, is that at this point, the slum was at its peak pretty much.

Let me just, let me just, for the Thicko's listening, this is Jack the Ripper murder has happened in the autumn of 1888. Right. So for context, that is after the domestication of the pig. pigs are in farms They are tamed There's no wild hogs running around There's few feral hogs in this country Very few feral hogs

It is before And I think this goes without saying Hashtag me too Yeah just There is no way I mean you could brutally murder For prostitutes And then run a sort of cutesy

Walking tour nowadays Yeah Harvey Weinstein They wouldn't have bat on an eyelid Of him back then He'd be a feminist back then Harvey Weinstein to them Is a sort of a shit pound shop Jack the Ripper

Well no to them he's like a feminist campaigner because of how well he treats women back at that time it's like are you a Nancy boy why are you treating them so well so they would have heard of hashtag me too and gone oh did Harvey Weinstein

start that hashtag and you'd be like well sort of not directly but yeah I mean arguably he's done a lot for feminism Harvey Weinstein if you think about you could die in that hill yeah you could try and claim that

the dominoes that he set off yeah yeah in the same way that the pilot of the first plane did quite a lot for infrastructure in Afghanistan. Yeah. Why? Because he starts 9-11, which then they then bomb a lot of Afghanistan, which creates jobs. Bombing creates jobs, and it's never forget that, because they have to rebuild. Right.

There's a long road. So is Afghanistan in a better position now because of 9-11? I'd say the women are in a similar position. Yeah, that's pretty consistent. The roads are safer. tell you that much the roads are safer and the food's taste here

parking is brilliant you can park anywhere and everyone's within the lines no one's parking three metres from the curb in Afghanistan so the eastern of London right so obviously

London is the centre of the world at this point it's kind of the height of the British Empire still is the center of the world it's the richest city in the world many ways.

By far the biggest city, it's this kind of heaving industrial city. Biggest, best, we win. Yes. Because I actually watched a film last night

about Romania in the 1800s, so a similar time. Christ, the things you do for fun will never not amazed me. Yeah, it's basically still the middle ages. It's the feudal system.

Yeah. So there's not really a city quite like this. It's lurching into life. It's every year. Like, to be honest, one of the most interesting things I heard in the rest of history

was saying that, because we think in general that time is moving quicker or like things are getting invented at a quicker rate right you feel the last five years it's maybe quicker than the five years before that and that's kind of the view you know accelerated reality exactly but if you think about it maybe it's ebbs and flows because you could argue that over the industrial revolution that hundred year span probably was more things changed than in the last hundred years you could make an argument people go from being farmers yeah to having a really terrible time

in Birmingham, basically. Yeah, but the amount of change that's happening, it's, it's, like I feel London's definitely not changing as much as it was then. Think about the five-year periods that are happening. Right. Like, at this point, five years from now, it's constantly just growing and changing, you know?

Well, the East End, the one thing that's constant is that the East End is very smelly. The East End has, has, and will I think always be the smelliest part of London. Now, I'm not saying that as a pejorative. nowadays it smells very delicious yeah great curries spices curries

so it was quite a small area it was in Whitechapel a lot of this happening 80,000 people crammed into the poorest slum in Europe as well so this is like one of the shits places

to live in the world 1880s East End that's where in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution they set up all the genuinely the smelliest factories

so tanning or tannery which is making leather into I don't know what you make leather jackets I don't know why you to tan it Yeah but anyway It involves piss

Right yeah So you have to piss on it I think Do you know why the East is poorer than the West in London Why the rich people live in the west of London I think it's because the East smelt so bad And anyone with any kind of money would Sort of but it's actually because the prevailing wind Is East

So the smells the city of London All drift towards the East Yes So the rich people would go Westminster and move that way And their farts would end up So east you're just downstream of all of the fucking stink of London. And that's why they put the factories there

because they were like, this already smells or farts. We might as well mingle the rich people's farts with all the smelly industry. Because it was the Industrial Revolution, it's like modern depravity. No one had really seen this kind of level of... Smell.

Human waste and industrial effluent due to the lack of proper sewage systems with the most notorious stench being associated with the quote, great stink of 1858, a period of extreme heat that caused the terms to become incredibly foul-smelling due to the large amount of sewage dumped into it.

So, yeah, the East End is also, at this point, the East India docks, the East End docks, are functioning. And so it's where anyone arrives. Any immigrants, they arrive. Immigrants, obviously, poor. They settle where they arrive. It's the kind of... Yeah, because I was asking the tour guide why it's like the poorest slum in Europe,

and one of them in the world, when it's one of the richest countries. And it's probably because a lot of people are going, they think they can get jobs there and because it's relatively relative religious tolerance in the UK at this time it's kind of like getting out of that yeah relative it's quite a low bar it's quite a low bar I mean in Russia the Jews are escaping pogroms yeah there's like a lot of French Huguenots in the east end of London so French Huguenots are French Protestants they're the only good French people they they come over yeah to eat slightly less pastry

and do about an hour with more work in silk they make silk they make silk they make silk And in Spitalfields, the French Huguenot know houses are now going for about 2 million to 4 million. They were beautiful houses, but they did become dilapidated slums. And a lot of the murders took place around these Huguenot houses. They were like shit houses and now they're worth millions. Millions. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you. Your regular side listens to classical music.

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Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Oh, hey! The Conjuring, last rites. Only in the theater, September 5th. Then in the 1880s, I want to say, Nicholas, or is it Alexander?

It's the second? One of them gets assassinated in Russia, and then this sets off a wave of pogroms, which is essentially, like, riots, anti-Jewish riots. Yes, in like 1905, those? No, well, there's a civil war riots. This is earlier than that. Yeah, Alexander II of Russia assassinated by anarchists. But pogroms are happening consistently.

Yeah, I mean, you could drop a pin in history. There's a Jewish pogrom. Yeah, something bad's happened. Should we go on another massacre of the Jews? Yeah, it'll be their fault. Let's clear them out of here. But there's a settlement of the pale, which is Russia had moved into,

this is post-K Crimean War, Russia had moved in. into Eastern Europe claiming that territory. There's a lot of Jewish people there, Ashkenazi Jews that move there after the Crusades. So they then kick off after the Zahs assassinated. Ashkenazi Jews, a lot of them go America, South Africa, but then a lot of them get to England, hoping to get to America, and then they can't afford to.

And it's too smelly, and they go, fuck it, we'll just stay here. So they arrive in the East End, and there's that thing, as I said, about settling where you arrive. So you've got Jews, you've got Irish. A lot of Irish in the East End. Nearly everyone is homeless in the East End. It's crammed in, 80,000 people crammed into like, I don't know, fucking 10 streets pretty much in Whitechapel. And if you, so a lot of drunk homeless people.

And it's like, just think about what happens if a woman, you know, divorces her husband or something and can't, it's 50, can't find another person. She will just become a homeless person in East London. Like, what else do you have to do, apart from just, you know. Be a prostitute. Be a prostitute. There's nothing else as an option. And so the option is to stay, where to stay if you're a homeless person. You have kind of like three tiers of places you can.

shelters almost. Yeah. There's the Doss House, which was for four pints, which was just like an incredibly smelly bed. Yeah. Right? So it's just a big dorm room.

Stinky bed. But they don't change the sheets. So it's pissed, blood, come all over the sheets. Yeah. That's four pence. Three pints would be the coffin beds. Can you get a picture of coffin beds up,

please? This is like a racing car bed for a kid. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd all sleep in coffins. And often they'd put the lids on the coffins. Yeah. Because there'd be no roof.

Someone was snoring. But there'd be a hole in the, the roof so you're literally in a coffin being rained on well i don't you know i think i wouldn't it doesn't look too and that's a salvation army shelter yeah it's just sleeping in a coffin which is where this their headquarters was in the east is still in the east end of london i think um and then uh my favorite for two pence is the rope i think it's a hang rope yeah so this is actually this is often for drunk people but it's the cheapest shelters you could get if you really couldn't find anywhere else, you would just have a long rope and then you, often your family, would just lie on the

rope, just sort of lean on it? I mean, I don't really understand. Like, I've had some bad night sleep. I've been in some uncomfortable beds. But, you know, sometimes if you're a friend's sleep over and then you're one of the last people to get a bed, you end up sleeping in some weird places, you sleep on the floor, you sleep between sofa cushions. But I've never slept standing up leaning on a rope. Yeah. And bear in mind, this person will be sleeping on a rope and then they will go into a brutal 12-hour factory shift. Pissing on leather or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or if they're lucky. If they're lucky. So basically, Whitechapel, Spitterfields, the East End. But this is where the term hangover comes from. Oh, really? Because you're hanging over the road. Yeah, because people are so... This was mainly for pissed up homeless people.

But bear in mind, everyone is fucking battered. Everyone's pissed. Because every time you have money, you spend on alcohol because there's no hope. This is what I like about the Victorian ways of classifying people. If you're poor, you're pissed, drunk, violent, and you're immoral. Yeah. Just for being poor, yeah. If you're a woman who you're not married, you must be a prostitute.

It's just like, it's very binary. It's an autistic classifying of people. There's even maps. I watched a documentary that had a map of the East End, and people had coloured in the streets based on a key of working class, i.e., violent, drunk, immoral. Red, nice street, good people. They just, they classify, because this is the age,

of sort of Darwin and classifying species records, archives. Yeah, the whole spicy race stuff is starting to start here. Don't worry, we'll get to that.

Don't worry. That's my mastermind topic. What phrenology? The study of skulls. And we will, on Patreon, be doing a live phrenology test as a whole three of us. We're going to see who's the most Neanderthal.

We're going to class the production team by the size of skull. I already know where Horatio is going to be. Smallest headwinds, I think. Anyway. So, yeah, this is the start of classifying people by class.

Class is sort of never really this is the beginning of the peak of the British class system in that you are, social mobility is bad. Yeah, but when you say that, it's the peak of the class system we know and love today.

Yeah. But, I mean, before then it was the feudal system. Yeah. So I guess it's the modern class. Yeah. Well, because before there was two classes, was the not? Yeah.

It was sort of you're a peasant. Or you're a nobleman, really. Yeah. So now there's the birth in the middle class. Well, in that day, all women were prostitutes. You either prostitute or not. Right, right, right. Now, in the Victorian era...

So it's started... This classism has actually started fragmenting a bit. Because now it's nowadays, and it's not even a prostitute. A sex worker. Yeah. And I've got no grip on reality. I'm dizzy. So you know the campaign stop online hate that they have advertised in between...

I'm aware of it, yeah. So this is not that kind of... I don't like a lot of our stuff. They keep messaging me. We've come along. way. Basically, the East End, very smelly, very cramped, factories, everyone is drunk, everyone's pissed. There is kind of bubbling away anti-Semitic sentiment because the Jews are... Because it's a period in human history. Because it's, everyone's alive. And so there's some Jews

there and they go, that's a bit annoying, they're doing all right. But also the Jews are doing well in a time when British people, the economy's through the floor. I mean, they do so well that they leave the East End. There's not really much Jewish communities. No, they all go north. They're all in North London now. Yeah. Yeah. But they, there's also, because people flee there from the pogroms, they go there because there is like a Jewish soup kitchen, there's a Jewish tailor's, there's trade established. They stick to their own.

The British people don't like that. They're not integrating all that stuff. Yeah. And then they integrate in the north and then all these people are. It's opposed to Jews run the media. It's Jews run the soup kitchens. Yeah. It's that sort of.

It's the same sort of idea. And see how well they've done over 100 years. They were, they stitched up the soup kitchens and now they run everything. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. So the East End is smelly, basically. It's smelly. It's full of immigrants. Yeah. And those things aren't related.

I must stress. Correlation is not causation. Yeah. And this is the scene with which Jack the Ripper enters. Yeah. But it must also be stressed. There are murders all the time in the East End London. But it's building up because the slum is getting more and more crowded.

And then you say slum, like it's, there are slums. Yeah. It's not like slum. Yeah, sorry, no, no. It's an actual slum. The whole thing is classed as a slum. Yeah. And there's a thing called slumming.

Yeah. Where rich people from the West, as a kind of like a fun escape room will go to the east and like, oh, it's smelly here, isn't it? And try and get out. And then they get out. Really? Yeah, there's a whole kind of internal London-centric voyeurism and tourism to how bad the East ended.

And I live there. And you live there. Yeah. Well, now. that's just become gentrification, is it? It's cool to live somewhere smelly, and there's graffiti, and... I think the word slum probably was invented around this time to talk about the East End. It could easily be one of the first...

East End's bracket slum. Yeah. So, we should also probably talk about the police force. Yes. Because the police force is a new concept. 1829, Robert Peel builds the police. It ends the police. Before that, there were things called Night Watchmen, who were just a...

basically like a local counsellor who'd walk the streets and he was only trying to stop an active crime. There was no sense of like prevention or investigation afterwards. It was like an eclipse basically. If you walk past a murder, you'd be like, stop that and that was his job. Right.

But quite a lot of the time, they were pissed. Yeah. So they weren't doing anything. Okay. So this is when you're opening up an organized police force for the first time. An organized police force has been around for 50 years at this point. The Metropolitan Police, people don't like them. But it is interesting that this is,

this is literally the cutting edge of civilization is London at this time. All these things are new. They're never been done before and it's people covered in shit still. Yeah, everyone's covered in shit. The police are... It is funny that, I don't know,

like Britain's period as the global centre, it's still like, the main history is like how awful it was to live there. Yes, yes. You don't do that when you're talking about the Romans, do you? Or like, like, the top or the ancient Greece. It's not like...

But if you think we live in the... kind of age of the American Empire or the kind of Yeah, I guess the drug crisis, fentanyl. You look like Baltimore and fentanyl. That's basically, you know, it's because they're expending money abroad. They're not spending it in their own, in their own. There's more points about the Great Stink.

It's a combination of untreated human waste. Primary human expert from overhauling sewers mixed with animal carcasses, industrial waste and other debris dumped to the Thames. But, you know, a lot of this, you have to work, a lot of this stuff, they have to work out, as I keep saying. Yes, yes. You have to work out that if you shit in the river that runs through your city, and throw all of your animal waste,

it's not going to smell great. And, you know, we worked this out in the 1860s. Greece yet to solve that equation. Grease are yet to solve that problem. The Great Stinkorids also known the country of Greece. There's not one episode they haven't caught strays, the Greece. The Greece. Well, it could be France, couldn't it?

The Great Stink. Yeah. France or Greece. So, the police are a new thing. They're also, there's a related, now this, I found this very funny. the police have a quote

difficult relationship with prostitutes which as we've discussed is any woman who's not married part of the reason the prostitutes are like is that half of them are not prostitutes and they keep being classified just because they haven't married

their boyfriend and if they get picked up at night drunk well you're a prostitute you're going in there was also there was a thing called the Great Diseases Act where basically everyone had venereal disease in the East End and because everyone was a prostitute I guess

so the police then under public health grounds started arresting prostitutes and you would put actual sex workers and they'd be taken to a doctor and then tested for VD for neural disease and if they have neural disease they were then jailed for a year

if you were caught with an essay. If you were caught with an essay STD in London in the 1870s, you were banged up. Wow, yeah. It really is all different now, isn't it? Because now you go to SDD clinic and it's all trying to be sex positive. You wear a ribbon or whatever. I don't really understand.

But then you go to SDD clinic and you might be thrown in jail. Yeah. Yeah. But also, for being a slag. If you go to jail being a slag, that's better than you're where you live. Which is a pissy bed or a rope. So you're like, well, at least it's a fucking bed.

At least it's not hanging on a rope. So, yeah, I'll get VD. Yeah. So there's also in the 18. in the 18, just before the Jack the Ripper murders the police get rid of their commissioner and they bring in a new guy

called Sir Charles Warren who's an empire man and you're like this he was tasked You know this? Very dangerous He was tasked with in his previous career

finding out proving the Bible was real Okay So he was sent to Jerusalem on something called the Palestine Expeditionary League I think And he was basically

tasked with finding ancient Jerusalem and the old city walls and stuff. No one had done that yet because it's all been Turks just telling rugs and shit. And he actually, he decided to dig under the city and he found the ancient irrigation systems and

the old city walls. Oh, so it's all the places from the Bible. He was trying to say that they... He was basically found the old, the biblical Jerusalem. Fine, fine. Okay, nice. So, yeah. In the late 18th century historians estimate more than one in five Londoners contracted syphilis by 35.

Yeah. That number has only risen in time. So do they have any contraception as well? Like if you're a sex worker, pissed, getting fucked all the time. Yeah. Like, how do you stop just having kids all the time?

Yeah, I don't know. Well, I don't know what the thing is. I guess contraception is the fact that you have the kid, but the kid dies immediately. So it's like after the fact,

isn't it? The morning after pill was the morning after the birth. Because I think... Or you just get a rolling pinners. Because in the East End, I think there's a large, basically...

Yeah, you could use fish intestine condoms. Right, because it's pretty smelly, isn't it? Yeah. That's the other reason that it's smelly is that people are using fucking fish inards to fuck with each other. And on this tour, I was asking about

how, like, it would go down. These basically homeless prostitutes, how do they have a room to have a bit of... There was not really brothels. Instead, it was all pitch black, by the way. Right. So there's a couple of gas lamps, but they're often broken,

people wouldn't take care of them. These really tight anyways, it was, at night, you couldn't see a fucking thing. So you're basically like a dog You're being guided by your smell Yeah and you're just hearing But that's the other funny thing People chucking the shit out of the windows

And then The other funny thing is that people would shout Murder Like it's so melodramatic Yeah There would be a little boy Well there's Cockney East And rhyming slang

There is always a jauntiness To all these stories Yeah You might be covered in shit But you've got a top house We're poor but we're happy We're happy There's a lot of singing actually

We're in Londoner Yeah But like what would happen If you got a prostitute basically you go down to a dark square or alleyway pitch black and then you just shag against a wall But again it's completely pitch black So you've got no idea

You might actually just be fucking the inside of a fish Doesn't matter Well you got off you go do you want to go You'd pay two pence You go down an alleyway You put a fish intestines on your cock And you just shagg anyone It could be anyone

To be fair I'm imagining The inside of a fish to feel quite nice So I'm imagining people Are just fucking fish in streets And thinking that's contraception Yeah But so the police why

I was saying this guy Charles Warren takes over the police force because the other guy, the previous guy had been fucking it somehow, you know, basically Empire Man, he'd found the ancient Jerusalem, blah, blah, blah. He comes into London and bear in mind people are being murdered a lot. There's a lot of murder, particularly the East End, everyone's drunk, there's prostitution, there's murder.

His first thing is, what, dogs not on leads? There's a lot of fucking dogs not on leads down here. Yeah, because there's lots of unsafe dogs, right? so he basically starts a state sanctioned war on dogs right um similar to like the males war on sparrows right basically and so there are people being murdered that's being reported in the press and he's like well fuck all that we've got to get these dogs we've got to get them on lead so much like a woman who wasn't married was a prostitute a dog that wasn't on a lead was a dangerous dog so they just killed dogs they basically sent squadrons of police forces with

transoms to beat up dogs and a dog got beaten to death and there was like outcry because it was just like a schnauzer or something and Warren said if it's not on a lead it's a dangerous dog if you're a woman you're not married

you're a prostitute if you're not in a lead you're a dangerous doc you know it's just it's really sorting everything into so hang on this is other methods of contraception

that Charlie's brought up Charlie's on a satellite delay from what we're talking about vaginal douches sponges soaked in oil vinegar, lemon juice or cedar oil oral contraceptives

including Queen Ad's Queen Anne's lace seeds. Lead. Well, that is a form of contraception. You're just killing yourself, aren't you? You're poisoning your wound. Oh, what birth control are you on? Oh, I kill myself after I have sex.

That's what I do. I'm drinking mercury, actually, at the moment, to make sure that I don't see the next year. Withdrawal, which required a performance from the husband. Is that just pulling out? Is that... I don't know why AI is being so cute with it, though. Withdrawing...

A performance from the husband. All right, yeah. He's pulling it out jizzing on the street. I guess you can be quite sort of flamboyant with it, can you? Ha ha! I mean, I'm a head... Because I'm a Londoner. Yeah, I'm a poor, but I'm out of little spraying jizz.

Quite Dickensian flourish at the end of it. It also got your rhyming sound of cum. Is it like, you know, big old prince's tum-tum? Or like... I've got a load of Prince's tam-tum on my shoes. But I imagine the handkerchief, which was also a cum-rag. I guess so.

Do you reckon it was left pocket, cum-rag, right-pocket? it's not. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. I'd be honest, I think they're past the point of distinguishing at this point. In the east end, any way. They're bigger fish to fry. Well, they're no fish. Bigger fish to fuck, as well. They're bigger fish.

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they're just not in the canonical five You know so when people talk about the canonical I don't understand why the word canonical is used so much It's because think about the kind of people who are into it Right Right yeah okay Because the glasses is there Yeah you're going to say canonical

Yeah that is though you're right You're right She's actually the third member of the canonical five An unwedged nerd You'll say canonical twice a day Yes you're right actually Did you wedge your tour guide Yeah I had to at the end

He asked for a tip and I wedged him As a member of this podcast any tour guys you go on as research the guide needs to be waged at the end of it but it was a good tour so I was apologised to him I said I have to do this but I don't feel good about this please sign around and that's actually another another way that victorian went to sleep in the east end what being wedged being hung by their wedging if you were really poor it was just 50 pence and you'd just be hung up by the back of your pants like that if you were really pissed um so we should get to the first murder really so yeah so um but the

Whitechapal murder inquiry was open like in 1887 so a year before the murders. Because there are a lot of women who are in Whitechapel. Yeah, but it's building. So it's not like it's this complete blood bath the whole time. It's like the slum is growing so much every year. We're really hitting the zenith and it's just two people living

onto each other. Now the murders are really kicking into gear. Right, I see. So they open up an inquiry. There's lots of murders. There's something that could possibly Jack the Ripper. There was this one woman who was like, you know, she had a fucking rolling pin up a vagina beaten to death. But like Kinger from Big Brother

Yeah, exactly And then on her hospital bed She said it was like two or three guys And basically the canonical five Are five murders that took place Over the period of like two, three months, right? Autumn 1888 And they all have the same sort of style

Yeah Which is wounds A throat slit all the way back to the bone Yeah And then creative Use of organs Yeah there's a sort of I guess a knife point signature

Yes, exactly. So a lot of them could be Ripper, but he's got his own calling card. Yeah. You know. But there's... He gets cute with it in a way. There's generally established five victims.

And then there's... But there's so many other women that are being killed just sort of around the time. Yeah. That there's a kind of, yeah, you can... But he's got his trademarks, you know? That's not a Ripper killing. You're looking at a woman.

He's got, like, been beaten to death by a frying pan. It's like, that's not Ripper. Who cares? Um, so, the first, the first murder happened. I think on August the 31st. This is Mary Ann Polly Nicholas, who was a prostitute,

whose nickname was Nichols. I can see a man in a top hat commenting. Ah, Nichols! I can see that happening. Her nickname was Pretty Polly, but I think that might have been sarcastic. She was a... It was after she was found.

I think she was like a 50-year-old prostitute, right? I don't know how old she was, actually. They're all in their 40s, actually. Right. So she, August 31st, Bank Holiday. Yeah. August bank holiday. We've all got a bit out of hand on a bank holiday.

Mary Ann Nichols was found murdered at 3.40 a.m. On Bucksrow, now Doorward Street. Derwood Street. Dirt Street, which I used to get to Whitechapel to come to this podcast today. It's a temporary entrance to Whitechapel at the moment where you go around the back. I literally passed where she... So this is around the back of the tube. Yeah.

Like literally today. So I literally stepped over where her body would have been to get here. Wow. And you didn't do anything. Don't... What, to stop it? Yeah. It's too late, Finn.

There's a Japanese woman still on the loose. ratio on the streets of London the streets of London so on the Ripper tour it's the tube open at this point in 19th century when did the tube open? The tube is open yeah I don't know if the Whitechapel station is

yeah because it's open in the 1860s so all of these things yeah and at this point they're using steam underground yeah but it's sort of like the district and circle lines there are open parts to it yeah to let the steam out

the tube yeah Christ it must really yeah I mean if you get cold it could be fucking hell yeah so it's one of those ones. Underground? Yeah. God. But all of this stuff is starting at this point.

Can you get a bit of a bio up against Mary Ann Nichols? Against Mary Ann Nichols. Sorry, get a bio up for... She's a whore! She's the argument against... In defense of Joe the Ripper, what's Mary Ann Nichols done to deserve this? I'm married at 40. I'm married at 40,

so obviously Ripper's gone. I'm here to clean up the streets. It's sort of a taxi driver element, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, Ripper's kind of I imagine before he goes out and kills her, You're staring in the mirror. Or you're saying there's sort of in-cell vibes to Jack the Ripper.

You're talking to me? Are you talking to me? Yeah. I mean, is, yeah. Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? So, Mary Ann Nichols, Polly,

first murder, bank holiday, 1888. She was last scene, so this was on the Ripper tour, is on the brick lane. There's a pub called the frying pan.

It's now like one of those cheap noodle places, like a shitty, it's called like Udels or something. Oodles of Noodles. Yeah, one of those ones. Yeah. But you can still, and I'll put a photo up, you can still look at the top of the building

and there's the old emblem of the frying pans. She was an absolute piss head, right? Mary Ann. Yeah. Loved a drink. Reckhead. Absolutely loved a drink. And I think her husband left her because she was such a drunk.

Right. So she basically, if you were out, if you were an alcoholic, divorcee, you would just return to sex work. Yeah. in the Victorian time. You'd struggle to have a bottomless brunch in these days because it was dangerous

to be a woman that pissed. Yes. Because now, you know, girls, botless brunch, they feel very free of not getting ripped to shreds. Well, bottomless brunch is what

Jack the Ripper called his spray. Because he was cutting the bottoms off of five women. Off ladies who brunch. So the main pattern is that these are all ladies who brunch. These are all

your ass queens. They're all kind of like... Well, well, behave women don't make history. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, clearly.

They don't live long enough. Um, so Mary Ann Nichols is having some prosceco and some poach day. It's, you know, I'll be out all day. She said that to husband. And he's thinking,

thank fuck for that. You and your girlfriends are going to go and, um... But she was just loud, out, love gin, shouting outside the frying pan pub. And the last time she was seen, was walking away with the bloke away from that pub and then she was found later a couple streets over.

Yeah, throat slag to shit. Now, there are, there are... Small intestines on her shoulder? Is it that, does that happen yet? Or maybe that's the second one. But basically, my understanding is that as the victims, as the murders pile up, every time there's kind of a more like performance art

piece to the body. Apart from the third one. But we're up to that. Yeah, throat slit. I mean, there are photos. These are the first crime scene kind of photos. right? Yes but this is not the first crime scene photos

these are photos in the morgue right okay but at the end we are the first crime scene photo which is still even for modern standards completely fat yep it's pretty bad

yeah it's pretty bad well I guess part of what makes Ripper so fascinating for true crime people is just the brutality of the murders it's like even with like the golden age of serial killers

in the 70s he does kind of hold up against some of them he holds up against Dharma and all that lot like the stuff he was doing is still by today's standard it's pretty grim

pretty brutal yeah um it's it's knife right yeah there you go that that photo yeah so so the photo of the it's kind of like i mean yeah because you can't really get a sense of of how fucked up she is apart from the last one most of them are a little disappointing yeah because uh they all look kind of quite serenely asleep yeah they look like my father-in-law on christmas day at about four o'clock kind of, you know, just sort of drooling, um, pissed, full. Um, to be honest, that could have been any day that she left the pub.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah. On a rope, just a bit. You know, bit full. She had too many porks. Yeah, it feels like, you know, girls can't have fun anymore. It was sort of like the, the feeling, you know.

Could a girl not have a drink, you know, without getting her head chopped off? Well, no, no, no, no, they can't in 88, because as I've said, she's prostrate. Um, um, Yes. It was hard to have a laugh as a woman back there because if you were, it was like

you were really running risk for getting chopped up. Yeah, I mean, now, you know, people are like, oh, you know, take care of the way home. Back then,

they're like, fucking good luck, mate. I won't, I'll say bye now. I say bye for good. Because there's just no lights as well. You're just walking done

on alleyway. There's no lights. And there's no police. The policemen have been pissed themselves. And also... And they don't care. They don't care

because they don't care because they don't care because they'll also, I've got to say this earlier, they would also take sexual bribes to keep them on the street. So if they found you with a venereal disease and they couldn't, and they wanted to fuck you, they basically were like, well, if you suck me off, I won't arrest you. Well, they'd suck them off and then be like, you're arrested for prostitution. That's disgusting.

You're disgusting. And she's like, oh! I've got you. I've got you good. Yeah. This is a sting operation. I mean, yeah, and the Mets relationship to women hasn't really got any better. No.

150 years since. This is the beginning of all those WhatsApp chats that are in the news now. So, yeah, basically, if you're a drunk woman in Brick Lane in 1888, I mean, your best hope is a lock-in. Right. Stay in the pub until it's dawn and then make a run for it. But then, bear in mind, you're going back into a 15-hour shift at a match factory. Yeah, it's pretty fucking grim.

So Merrieneckles was found by Charles Allen Lechmere, a carman, at around 3.40 a.m. in Whitechapel. Letchmere was walking to his job in broad seat. Yeah, he was like a cabby basically when he found her lying on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance. Lechmere and Robert Paul who was walking behind Lechmere knows. Lechmere standing over the woman. Right, yeah.

Is there any actually photos of Jack there is? Well, no, because no one knows who he is. I reckon that would have cracked the case if there was a fucking photo of him. Right, that's the producer of our history podcast. I thought they knew... No, yeah, that's kind of the big thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So you got away with it? Well, yeah. Yeah. Jesus Christ. That's our producer who 50 minutes into Jack the Ripper going, well, they'll have a photo of him. So Mary Ann Nichols, first victim, found by a carman, a cabby.

A taxi guy. Yeah. Around 3.40 a.m. Apparently, the cut was very fresh when he found us. It was pretty soon after she died that he found her. Yeah, which is suspicious. And it's happening quite a lot. with a lot of these

it's often like an hour sometimes arguably maybe even five minutes one of them after she died someone's fucking a fish around the corner and then walks around

and goes about it's kind of amazing he managed to get away with all of them especially when it was the biggest news story or she or she girl bosses can do it too

so Anne Nichols has been at an all day brunch she's come around the corner yeah some absolute mad cunt as disembald her and then hit her for six

he's absolutely knocked her for six the next morning they're like you plenty you're a lot last night didn't you fuck me marianne and then I don't know with the news did this because I guess it was already building with the Whitechapel murders so there's already a lot of stuff about the crime well what we'll do in the next episode is talk about the press I think before we get back into it

but yeah what would have happened is that the taxi man will have gone murder like that murder in London would have done that bleh blah I don't care shut up I'm trying to get to sleep on this rope. So he would have shouted murder.

A policeman arrived. A policeman had been being lost off by one of the prostitute protection racket. Hang on, can you not interrupt me. I mean, essentially this awful prostitute I was going to settle jail immediately afterwards. What I found interesting was that crime writers like Conan Doyle actually knew more

because they were more intelligent than police officers. I think one of the police officers in the Ripper case, I don't know if he's hit on the beat yet, it's genuinely called William Thick. That's how That's how uphill The police four's had it

Was it the quick get thick on it So thick just thinks she's asleep Right She walks in and just thinks this woman's tripped over And fall in her head or something She's a complete thicker We got thick on the case Don't worry, thick's on the case

He walks into a wall and trips over Or something, knocks himself out He finds Maryanne Nichols God, that's a bad hangover He says, she's done a lot to drink There's many prostitues around it I don't have been white horny. And then what would have happened is that there's,

the police would have, the newspapers would have picked up on it. And the next morning there'd be a little boy, a little like urchin. Read all about it. Murder in the streets of Whitechapel, murder! And then we'll talk about the newspapers in the next episode. But this starts, begins to start the...

It begins to start. And it really gets going after the second murder. So we'll get to the second murder in part two. Which, if you're listening to this, will be all available on the Patreon now. Along with... along with probably a part of three about the really suspects.

Yes. So all those episodes are up now on the Patreon. For three pounds a month, you can become a truth there. There's also... For throppence. Just threpanes.

For throppence, me lord. Just pay a threpanes for a patron. There's three tiers. There's men, there's married women, and there's prostitutes. Those are the different categories of... Yeah, if you pay three out a month,

you are a prostitute. You know, we're grateful, but you will be going to send to jail for people. And if you have a neural disease, you will be banned from the patron. This is a clean ship we're running. You'll be banged up. but there's also

there's not just a weekly bonus episodes there's our rise of the Nazis series there's our very ignorant even by our standard series on the Middle East yeah

but that's all there on the Patreon but an incredibly ignorant community is forming as well yeah real real thickos there under every episode

going I know nothing if you want to be part of one of the worst communities in London or in the world then please join up don't meet up you won't be safe

none of you'll be safe one of them is Jack the Ripper I'm sure But anyway, either way, thanks so much for listening. And we will see you for part two next time. Goodbye.