Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #44: The Victorian Monster of Spring-Heeled Jack

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

From ghostly prankster to urban legend, Spring-Heeled Jack terrorized Victorian London with blue flames, metallic claws, and impossible rooftop leaps—so much so that a Ripper-era letter in 1888 claimed his name. This Short Suck traces the 1838 panic through hoaxes, aristocratic “bets,” and mass hysteria to ask what Jack revealed about a rapidly modernizing empire’s fears. Along the way, we connect the legend’s cultural footprint to later monsters—think Dracula—and even to cape-and-cowl vigilantes.For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On October 4th, 1888, police investigating the notorious Jack the Ripper murders in London received a letter. It was one of several purporting to be from the killer, but this one was different. It was signed Spring Heel Jack, the Whitechapel murderer. This was weird, and not just because getting a letter from a serial killer is pretty weird, but because it had been 50 years since the first appearance of the so-called Spring Healed Jack. first seen in 1838 reports of a mysterious leaping man in both national and local newspapers had fueled dozens if not hundreds of similar reports people who said they'd seen a horrifying figure that could breathe blue flames and slice people with his long metallic claws and then

right when he was about to be caught jump away sometimes impossibly 15 to 20 feet straight up into the air a serial killer invoking spring-heeled jack in 1888 revealed how how deeply the figure had embedded itself in the collective fear of Londoners, that perhaps Springheeled Jack was even synonymous with the concept of fear itself, the way Jack the Ripper wanted to be. So what was Spring Hill Jack? How did he come about in the first place? Was he real, invented, based on a real person, or a mass delusion?

Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty. right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. One more October, paranormal slanted short suck for you today. Another story also covered from a different perspective on

Scared to Death in episode 136, The Girl in the Cellar, released back on April 12th, 2022. Time to get a little more analytical with Spring Hill Jack today. But still going to be spooky, I think. Interesting, definitely. Many of the earliest sightings of spring Spring Hill Jack in the late 1830s in England described him as a ghost. If you're a scholar of horror or history, this might not surprise you. Indeed, you might already know that Victorians were obsessed with ghosts.

Spiritualism, seances, and ghost stories were common pastimes for the English, reflecting a society fascinated with the boundary between life and death, people wanting answers to the possibility of life beyond death, that religion alone was not satisfactorily providing for them. Ghosts appeared everywhere in literature, newspapers, and even in public discourse, serving as both entertainment

and a way to process continual grief and anxiety in a time when almost one in three children died before their first birthday. One in three. Death was so much closer to the average family back then, at least outside of the elderly, than it is now. For Victorians, however, ghosts weren't how we think about them today as see-through imprints of human figures, at least not all the time. They could

and often did look very different. For example, at the end of 1803, many people claimed to have seen or have been attacked even by a ghost in the Hammersmith area of London, a ghost believed by locals to be the spirit of a suicide victim. It apparently wore a calf-skin garment and had horns and large glass eyes, a pretty bizarre appearance for a ghost by modern-day ghost standards. So when spring hill jack appeared in january of 1838 and hopefully i said 1803 for that last example that's what it was uh yeah when spring hill jack appeared in january of 1838 there were some similarities he was said to look like an animal maybe a cow perhaps he wore a calf skin garment just like that hammer smith ghost other sidings that he had horns or that he wore cape or even had the

quote mark of the devil on him which meant different things to different people uh some said he had long metallic-looking claws. But in time, Spring Hill Jack would evolve to become something else entirely. Not a weird-looking ghost haunting a particular building or alleyway, but a societal menace, a leaping figure that could jump over 15-foot walls and scale buildings, and did so across practically all of England as it breathed fire and shredded people with its razor-sharp claws. Dozens, if not hundreds of people claimed to have had an encounter with him, some of them that even ended in death. So how did a strange, isolated ghost grow into a nationwide terror? What was it about Victorian society that allowed Spring Hill Jack to become something more

than a story, a seemingly real menace that persisted in the press for decades afterwards? Let's go back to the beginning. The story begins quietly enough on January 9, 1838 and smoggy Victorian London. That day, several column inches of the London Times newspaper for that date contained a report along with a letter concerning some strange events that had apparently taken place in Peckham, a quiet suburb of London. These strange events

had apparently made their way up to the very top to Samuel Wilson, Lord Mayor of London, and that was what the newspaper was describing. The report read, Mansion House. Yesterday the Lord Mayor said that he had received a letter.

I don't know what voice that is. Upon a subject, the odd nature of which had induced him to withhold it from the public for some days in the expectation that some statement might be made through a source of indisputable authority relative to the matter of which it treated. The following is the letter. To the right Honorable, the Lord Mayor, My Lord, the writer presumes that your lordship will kindly overlook the liberty he has taken and addressing a few lines on a subject which within the last few weeks has caused much alarming sensation in the neighboring villages within three or four miles of London. It appears that some individuals of, as the writer believes, the higher ranks of life,

have laid a wager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion, name as yet unknown, that he durst not take upon himself in the task of visiting many of the villages near London in three disguises, a ghost, a bear, and a devil, and moreover, that he will not dare to enter gentlemen's gardens for the purpose of alarming the inmates of the house. The wager has, however, been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses. At one house he rung the bell, and on the servant coming to open the door, this worse than brute stood in a no less dreadful figure than a spectre clad most perfectly. The consequence was that the poor girl immediately swooned, and has never from that moment been in her senses. But on seeing

any man screams out most violently, take him away! Dear God, there are two late. There are two ladies. which your lordship will regret to hear, who have husbands and children, and who are not expected to recover, but likely to become a burden on their families. This is very dramatic. For fear that your lordship might imagine that the writer exaggerates, he will refrain from mentioning other cases, if anything more melancholy than those he has already related. This affair has now been going on for some time, and strange to say, the papers are still silent on the subject. The writer is very unwilling to be unjust to any man, but he has reason to believe, that they have the history at their finger ends, but, through interested motives, are induced to remain silent.

It is, however, high-timed that such a detestable nuisance should be put a stop to, and the writer feels sure that your lordship, as the chief magistrate of London, will take great pleasure in exerting your power to bring the villain to justice. Hoping your lordship will pardon the liberty I had taken in writing. I remain. your lordship's most humble servant a resident of peckham my god these guys were dramatic back then oh i just started to think in the middle of reciting that letter that if i just traveled back in time to victorian england and like just somehow you know how to speaker which that alone would free people out obviously because that technology didn't exist yet but if i just played like one of just almost any episodes of time suck especially especially like

Ed Kemper or something or Albert Fish Just walked around playing I think people would literally just fall over dead Oh my! Oh the horror! The words, the vile, wretched words! And then like their just heads would explode. Seemed weak as fuck back then. Anyway, according to the article,

the Lord Mayor, just such delicate sensibilities, the Lord Mayor didn't think this was such a big deal. The rest of the article made this clear. Saying that the Lord Mayor expected, quote, any trick, practiced by fools. to be dealt with by the police. So basically like, yeah, yeah, if someone's fucking around,

the police will get him, leave me alone. He certainly didn't think it was any kind of a threat. Indeed, he said the cops excelled at preventing annoyance and didn't make any mention of defending anyone. And yet the writer of the article didn't seem so eager to agree with the Lord Mayor. Lord Mayor.

They pointed out that a gentleman had reported that servant girls in Kensington, Hammersmith, and Ealing, all areas in West London, were passing around, quote, dreadful stories of a ghost or devil who on one occasion was said to have beaten a blacksmith and torn his flesh with iron claws and in others to tear clothes from the backs of females. Apparently this was told to the Lord Mayor, who essentially said that anyone who'd experience

this should, you know, contact him directly. Basically like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, show me the money, show me the proof. Despite the article's ominous tone, though many seemed to agree with his healthy dose of skepticism, or at least appeared to initially, the following day, January 10th, London's Morning Chronicle ran a lengthy story debunking that Times report, referring to it as evidence of ridiculous superstition and attacking the credulity of those who believed it. What had really happened, the article alleged, was something similar to what had happened in nearby Barnes Commons some four months earlier. There, a large white bull had allegedly attacked several people, quote, particularly females, many of whom had suffered most severe.

from the fright to the point that no respectable female had since left home after dark without a male companion. No respectable. Oh my God, I would fucking just go crazy in Victoria England. I know he's just did another episode about it. Oh, no respectable female can be out tonight. The report added that in East Sheen, another rural suburb of London, a white bear, had carried out similar, quote, pranks, though there was no explanation for a different kind of attacker or

attackers that had chased a carpenter named Mr. Jones. Okay, we got, we got bulls and bears and devils attacking women in London. Oh my. Like the other article, which presented these sightings, is obviously silly, but then undercut its own point with unexplainable reports. This article would go on to describe what happened to, said Mr. Jones. Apparently, Jones was grabbed by a ghostly assailant, at which point, quote, two more ghosts came to the assistance of the first one. Jones' clothes were torn into ribbons and cast to the winds. Oh man, fucking ghost gang got him. The ghost, the first one, that apparently progressed into Heston, Drayton, Harlington,

and the neighborhood of the town of Uxbridge, before doubling back towards London at which point it visited Hanwell, Brentford, Ealing, Acton, Hammersmith, and Kensington. In those neighborhoods, some people got a glimpse of it, quote, at Hanwell, Brentford, Ealing, and Acton, he has been represented as clad in steel armor, And in addition to frightening various persons, severely injured a blacksmith. One female was stated to have been frightened to death at the idea of meeting him.

Frightened to death. Literally. That's what the article claimed. Well, these stories quickly spread. Of course they did. They're very sensational. They terrified many in London. One aspect that undoubtedly added fuel to the first of these claims was the setting of the first events,

semi-rural districts that surrounded the city in these places, stretches of wild. wild flower covered common lands, separated houses of size and importance, each standing in its own walled garden with shuttered windows and high iron gates. These were the homes of wealthy merchants who had given up the custom of living over their businesses in the city center and had begun to build true mansions in the suburbs, although a nicer place to live, but one that brought its own risks, a risk like burglaries. In the countryside, it was easier to sneak in, and once you were behind those walled gates, well, nobody from the outside, like a, you know, a law enforcement officer could see you. As a result, footpads, aka thieves, often lurked in the roads,

waiting to either jump someone directly or gain access to their house. That meant that few of these wealthy people went out without an armed escort, leaving only the most vulnerable to walk alone at night. Shopkeepers who had to stay late, those who worked far from home and had to make the long trek back through darkness, sex workers, people simply just sneaking around after dark, you know, doing whatever. Miscreants. Unrespectable. people, almost all these people had heard or even experienced a ghostly occurrence before this

for the logistical reason of just being out the middle of the night with no electric lampposts as well as the cultural reasons we mention up top, right? People are thinking about ghosts all the time they're on the dark, you know, a lot of shadows can turn into ghosts. But the stories that began to surface after the first accounts of this malevolent entity were

different. They were darker. More tied to Christianity in hell with reports of ghosts, an imp and a devil. They were all also violent intensely so. They weren't isolated to specific geographic areas like the Hammersmith Ghost. The January 10th article had mentioned a number of sidings in Richmond, Petersham, Kingston, Hamptonwick, Hampton Court, Teddington, Twigginham, Witten, and Hounslow, amongst others. In each instance, despite investigation, no perpetrator had been found, and that added more fuel to the fire as well. On January 11, 1838, a response to the original report was published in the Times.

once again the reporter's tone was jokey frivolous but also once again the article contained numerous reports from a variety of people some names some anonymous saying that they you know it had actual terrifying experiences with this mysterious entity they weren't joking the article put forth the theory that all of these sightings were due to an individual quote occupied and winning a wager by appearing in various terrific characters at night

in the villages around the metropolis others speculated that the monster could appear however it wanted, as a ghost, a bear, a devil, or that it was covered in a bear's skin, but if you push the bear's skin aside, you'd see a human body in a suit of armor with a long horn on its head, and the emblem of the king of hell.

Not sure what that emblem is, but it sounds pretty fucking metal. What he looked like, of course, was just one part of the puzzle. The other was even more mysterious and hard to answer. What did he want? Some Victorians thought it was simple.

Since he sometimes frequent in parks where sex workers met with their clients, you know, got it on. They assumed he was trying to restore a respectable reputation to these areas by scaring away these, these cretons, these filthy sex workers and their filthy clients. But nobody knew for sure. Throughout this media storm, the Lord Mayor remained unconvinced. His office put out a statement to the effect of,

I highly doubt that all this is happening and women are dying all over the place because they're so scared. Get the fuck out of here. Many others agreed with him. By mid-January, the newspapers, Greenwich, Woolwich, and Deptford Gazette, West Kent Advertiser, and Milton and Gravesend Journal, they'd all run extended pieces that summarized the mayor's correspondence and dismissed the various sidings as, quote, a great hoax that any sensible person would see through at once. And the more voices of skepticism that jumped in, the more it started to seem like a hoax put on by some fool, according to one paper, who, quote, under various disguises, has contrived to alarm the old and young of half the parishes around town. That was in an article in The Observer. But not everyone agreed with that. Some people said they were still seeing things, things they couldn't explain.

They wanted the government to actually do something about it. Always cracks me up when people want the government to handle like a literal monster. There's a monster There's a monster from hell or neighborhood Come on, what am I paying taxes for? Let's fucking get him in a cell Let's arrest this monster Arrest this ghost

This race is haunting me Why am I paying my property taxes If the government can't get this ghost out of my house On January 20th A letter was printed in the sun An evening paper of the time As well as in the Morning Chronicle And the morning herald

And the writer of that letter was the mayor's clerk And now finally the mayor was paying serious attention The clerk reported, A committee of gentlemen have spiritedly come forward for the purpose of raising a fund for securing these unfeeling wretches, alias ghosts, and visiting them with that severe punishment which they richly deserve. The Lord Mayor has kindly consented to receive subscriptions from ladies and gentlemen whose peace and comfort have been destroyed by these scamps,

and his lordship has already in his possession, subscriptions amounting to 35 pounds, around $4,000 in today's money, towards the expenses. We really need to bring back the word scamp, right? Scamp, maybe also Scalawag. This neighborhood has gone to hell. Nothing but scamps and scalawags these days. Now back to what the clerk wrote.

The liberal donation of five guineas has been forwarded to his lordship from Plutarch Dickinson, Esquire, whose daughter was nearly deprived of her senses by the sudden appearance of one of these ruffians enveloped in a white sheet in blue fire, on her return home last week from a party of friends. A donation of $3 has also been received from Mr. Benjamin Marsh of Hammersmith, whose son Timothy, a youth of nine years of age, was terribly frightened at the sight of a fellow dressed as a bear.

Fucking buck up, Timothy, you little fucking crybaby. You see a guy in name of a bear and you're terribly frightened? Ugh. Anyway, this report gave a newer, more specific theory than any reports that had come before it. That the government believed the rascals were young men connected with high families who are gambling to win 5,000 pounds.

A lot of money. They could kill or seriously injured 30 people. If that was true, that sounds even scarier than a ghost. A fucking gang of, you know, psychopathic rich kids. The letter ended by saying that anyone who turned in a quote rascal would get 10 pounds or $800, no small sum of money. I love rascal.

Some people do. still say rascal, but not enough. Rascals, scamps, ruffians, scalawags, behind this tomfoolery, all of this pushed the story in an interesting direction. Before we explore that direction, time for this week's first to two, mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space letter on Patreon, get the catalog ad-free, these episodes early, and more. Thanks for listening to those ads, and now let's check back in with Springheeled Jack's character development. Now this character or characters were definitely humanoid, though they had some animalistic features that could have been a part of a disguise. And all the

scaring wasn't supernatural, but rather part of a very dark bet, one with serial killery, perhaps even satanic undertones, reminiscent of deal with the devil narratives. Most importantly of all, there was the addition of a white sheet and blue fire, something that would become a mainstay of the spring hill jack legend the government was now at war with spring hill jack on january 20th it was reported that the superintendent ordered different police divisions including a horse patrol to go around figure out who the victims of the alleged spooking were many more victims had come forward although it was getting hard to tell who was a victim and who was just somebody easily spooked and frightened like some girl from the bretford neighborhood or brentford excuse me who uh freaked out when she ran into a white face cow like just just saw a normal dead-eyed grazing cow. It's like, oh, no! Swoon! Oh, I've swooned! Someone helped me! Another person said they had been frightened,

but then when pressed for details, admitted that the weird thing they thought they saw, now that they thought about it, they actually saw 16 years back. Okay? There would be no more reports until February 22nd, but it would be a doozy. The article published in the Times read,

Yesterday, Mr. Alsup, a gentleman of considerable property residing at barebind cotton. in Bearbind Lane, a very lonely spot between the villages of Bo and Old Ford, accompanied by his three daughters, waited upon Mr. Hardwick at Lampeth Street, police office, and gave the following particulars of an outrage committed on one of the latter. Miss Jane Alsup, a young lady, 18 years of age, stated that about nine, stated that at about a quarter to nine o'clock, pardon me, on the preceding night, she heard a violent ringing at the gate at the front of the house,

and on going to the door to see what was the matter. She saw a man standing outside, of whom she inquired what was the matter, and requested he would not ring so loud. The person instantly replied that he was a policeman, and said, for God's sake, bring me a light, for we have caught Spring Hill Jack here in the lane. She returned into the house and brought a candle

and handed it to the person, who appeared enveloped in a long cloak, and whom she at first really believed to be a policeman. The instant she had done so, however, he threw off his outer garment and applying the lighted candle to his breast presents it a most hideous and frightful appearance and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flames from his mouth

and his eyes resembled red balls of fire from the hasty glance which of fright enabled her to get this person she observed that he wore a large helmet and his dress which appeared to fit him very tight seemed to her to resemble white oil skin without uttering his sentence he darted at her and catching her partly by her dress

in the back part of her neck, placed her head under one of his arms, and commenced tearing her dress with his claws, which she was certain were of some metallic substance. She screamed out as loud as she could for assistance, and by considerable exertion, got away from him, and ran toward the house to get in. Her assailant, however, followed, and caught her on the steps leading to the half-door. When he again used considerable violence tore her neck and arms with his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head. But she was at length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. What the hell did happen here?

Well, apparently Jane's married sister, Mrs. Harrison, her Jane screaming, ran to the door, only to find her sister being dragged down the stone steps by this violent, crazily dressed stranger. Mrs. Harrison grabbed Jane, pulled her inside, spring-heeled jack, then knocked loudly two or three times, but after the women screamed for help, he bounded out of there.

Well, you know what? Good on Mrs. Harrison. Brave lady. Also, what kind of monster with magical powers? just flees after attacking one armed woman when a second unarmed woman appears. It's all very odd. Mrs. Alsup, Jane's dad, or excuse me, Mr. Alsup, Jane's dad, told the police that he thought there was more than one perpetrator since a man had run off to the field, leaving his cloak behind,

but then the cloak vanished, and he thought a second man must have grabbed it. He offered a reward of 10 guineas, about 12,000 pounds in today's money for the apprehension of the perpetrators. and the story more than any of the others sent London into a spring-heeled Jack Panic. Following day, February 23rd, the Clemsford Chronicle reported that a hobgoblin love it.

A quote, hobgoblin was making a tour of Essex and had appeared to a local butcher as an entity that looked like if all the ghosts of all the bullocks, sheep, pigs, and poultry he had slotted, had been rolled into one. Disturbing. Also, we need to add hobgoblin to a list of the,

list of old words that we have to bring back and use more today. Apparently the butcher ran and the attacker followed him until finally he managed to make it inside his house. By February 27th, the reporting was once again suggesting a gang, more precisely the Spring Hill Jack gang now. It was reported that one of the gang had turned up at the house of Mr. Ashworth of two Turner Street, Commercial Road, at around 8 p.m., asking for the master of the house. Before the boy who had answered the door could respond, quote, Jack had thrown off his cloak and presented a most hideous appearance. The screams of the poor lad having alerted the family, the villain, unable to accomplish any further mischief, succeeded in affecting his

escape. Three officers, Mr. Young, Mr. Guard, respectively superintendent and inspector of the K-division, and Mr. Lee, an ex-bow street runner, came to interview the family now. Apparently the policemen were confident that they could prove this was all a hoax. They said they had some suspects, three young men who lived in the area were already under suspicion for the Alsup attack. There was also an unnamed man who lived not far from the Alsup house, who claimed to be able to produce the parties concerned in the next day or so. Everyone was confident that the perpetrator or perpetrators would soon be found, and that they would be nothing more than a group of perverts. On March 1st, the morning herald announced the capture of a man named James

priest. For some time past numerous complaints. have been made to the police of Islington by respectable individuals of a fellow of frightful appearance attacking their daughters and taking in decent liberties with them, and in several instances some young ladies had been exceedingly terrified.

The wretch escaped the vigilance of the police until Tuesday last night, actually until Tuesday night last, some fun phrasing, when he followed a Miss Simmons and several other young women in a by thoroughfare in the above neighborhood and acted toward them in the most disgusting

manner. They ran away greatly alarmed, but the miscreant, ooh, another good one, miscreant, pursued them and dogged them about until their screams alerted Constable Ray of N-Division, who pursued him, and eventually overtook him, and he made of violent resistance, but he was secured and taken to a station house, where he gave his name as James Priest to blacksmith. His continent is most disturbing, and his appearance generally deformed, and calculated to excite fear and females. Yesterday morning he was brought to this office and examined before Mr. Rogers, another magistrate, when he was recognized as having been several times before in custody for similar conduct and was committed to the House of Correction and hard labor for three months.

He's a dirty, dirty miscreant. Locals hooted as priest was led to his lockup. Oh, so many hoots. Thinking undoubtedly, this was the person who had been terrifying people all across the suburbs of London and now they were safe. We got them, everybody! Suck it! Spray! ringhill jack you fucking scamp you you rascally hobgoblin miscreant but then the next day march first new reports of attacks came in there was still a ruffian afoot uh one said that a woman who had been walking when a man in a huge cloak suddenly appeared from behind one of the gates of the college of surgeons grabbed her by the waist and tried to stuff her inside his coat must have been must have been quite some coat or maybe she was like a very very tiny lady like a like a doll-sized lady or something

anyway she struggled to get away he intoned it's no use suffering on spring hill jack the woman screamed loudly and then the man punched him uh i'm sorry punched her and then he ran off most as soon as these attacks were copycats other perverts inspired by james priest but some seemed to think that james priest was just a run-of-the-mill pervert and that the real perpetrator or perpetrators were still out there the real spring hill jack behind these copycats this seemed uh to you even been confirmed by the government itself. Despite the capture of James Priest, the police continued their investigation into the mystery of the Alsup attack. Two men were arrested in connection with the attack, a bricklayer named Mr. Payne and a carpenter named Milbank,

who had been near the allsups at the time of the attack. Eventually, however, they were released, but the increased publicity from the police inquiry meant the legend of Spring Hill Jack was spreading further and faster than ever now. While police tried to put together how the perpetrators were making balls of fire appear, One theory held that you can blow air

into a tube full of wine, sulfur, some of their mystery ingredient after lighted on fire, the attacks continued. On February 28th, the woman named Lucy Scales reported that she was attacked near Limehouse. Lucy stated in her deposition to the police that she and her sister

were passing along Green Dragon Alley. That's a cool sounding alley. It sounded alley. Sounds like something straight at Harry Potter. When she observed a person hiding in the passage. She was walking in front of her sister at the time, and just as she came to the person who was wearing a large cloak, he spurreded, quote, a quantity of blue flame in her face, which left her temporarily blinded.

She was so scared that she instantly dropped to the ground and was seized with violent fits, which continued for several hours. The police thoroughly investigated this attack, but could not figure out how it had happened or who did it. Then on March 13th, the 13-year-old boy saw two cloaked figures that he claimed had blood-red faces. A report on April 4th in the morning post even carried the headline, Capture of Spring Hill Jack. though this again proved false. It was just a random Scalowac named Charles Grenville.

We'd like to wear a bright blue mask for fucking whatever reason. Less than a month later, after a period of calm, the examiner reported the arrest of an 18-year-old named James Painter now who was charged with having terrified the peaceful inhabitants of Kilburn Village by dressing up as a ghost. How was he arrested for that? Mr. James Painter, you dirty hobgoblin. I hereby charge you with the crime of being too spooky.

Many assume this was actually the real Spring Hill Jack now. Indeed, after the capture and arraignment of James Payne during April of 1838, reports of Spring Hill Jack did begin to dry up. But not entirely. And now before we explore more Spring Hill Jack siding. It's time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thank for listening to those sponsors. Now we return back to 1838 when Spring Hill Jack continues to bounce around

and terrify the fine, respectable folks of England. There were a couple of encounters in late April 1838 that placed him in Southend, Yarmouth, and Plymouth. But those contain odd details that hadn't surfaced in other Spring Hill Jack stories, like the fact that one woman's mouth was stuffed full of so much grass that she couldn't scream. What the hell?

Seems by this point any strange attack on a woman was just automatically attributed to Spring Hill Jack. And because stories of women being attacked sold well, right, bleeds at leads kind of thing. The Spring Hill Jack legend grew. In May of 1840, the examiner reported that Jack had reappeared, and now he was wearing a blue coat and dark glasses. The article said the Jack hidden doorways until a woman passed and proceeded to, quote,

jump from his hiding place and assault his helpless victim in the most shameful manner. In other words, he was committing rape. So silly that they couldn't make that more clear, right? Just too scandalous, too unrespectful or unrespectable to provide action. journalism in cases of sexual assaults. Someone might be deeply shocked and offended by reading the dreadful truth. Anyway, Jack's new stomping ground was apparently the neighborhood of College Grove, where he assaulted several other women around the time.

The next report would come in August of 1840, and was printed in the Bristol Mercury. A woman named Ellen Hurd was apparently attacked by a man on Park Street who cut off all her hair. What? After the attack, Ellen was reportedly so upset she was admitted to the, quote, lunatic wing of St. Peter's Hospital. All right? A lot of people back in England, they just couldn't handle much adversity.

Not that that would be really traumatic, but it's like they completely collapse if somebody scares them or, you know, cuts off all their hair, which again would suck, but that's just crazy that that would, you know, send you into a psychiatric facility.

Then at 1845, Spring Hill Jack allegedly caused a death of a 55-year-old man named Mr. Purdy, but in the strangest way, Mr. Purdy was apparently very sick, disoriented, wandered out of his house one night without his shirt on, believing that his donkey was on the loose. Right?

Just a shirtless guy wondered about looking for his donkey, as one does. A woman saw him and screamed, and then a young man, Henry Noble, quote, inflicted severe punishment on Mr. Purdy who died the next day. Apparently, he beat Mr. Purdy to death. He fucking hated it when shirtless guys looked around for don't know why he did that. Two years later, in 1847, there was another rash of sightings, leading to a 60-year-old man named in reports as Captain Finch being apprehended for an attack on a young servant girl named Louisa Hurd.

But he had a heart condition, and it was determined that he probably wasn't going around jumping from roofs. More like that Captain Finch was a serial flasher, or that he had tried to rape his victim, Louisa Hurd, and who then decided to report him and got linked with Spring Hill Jack when it was reported in the media. There were no more reported sidings until October of 1861, when a man who had charged his employees was setting fire to a haystack

received an odd letter that read in part don't blame your foreman William Robinson no longer for he is innocent as a child unborn for I done the deeds and my name is Spring Hill Jack

catch me if you can don't blame him no more for if you do blame the wrong man I am sure and I fear none of your police finding me out you see that okay that's what was written but this was not Spring Hill Jack

It was, of course, the aforementioned foreman The scallywag William Robinson What a fucking idiot Hey, don't Hey, don't blame If you blame someone, it better not be William Robinson Because he is definitely for sure innocent

And you gotta stop talking about how he might not be He for sure, I don't know who did it For sure, but he definitely didn't do it Kind of went hard on that A search of Robinson's house revealed similar paper you know he along with two other accomplices were found guilty there were no more sightings in 1872 and 1877 including a series of incidents at aldershot barracks one uh or there were more i think i might i might have said there weren't more there were more sidings in 1872

in 1877 including a series of incidents at aldershot barracks uh one of the biggest installations of the british army uh the world now reported on april 11th 1877 that for some time past, two sentries, right? Two guards on two outlying posts were frightened to death by the appearance at night of two spectral-looking figures. They identified these figures as Spring Hill Jacks, plural, because they were glowing with phosphorus and took tremendous springs of 10 or 12 yards at a time. Twelve yards? Fucking 36 feet! That is springy. Apparently neither figure attempted to attack the guards. They just scared them. And then mysteriously disappeared. it is supposed that the alarm has been caused by two practical jokers provided with powerful springs on the heels of their boots the writer concluded another i want some shoes like that no i don't actually maybe when i was younger right now if i had shoes that could spring me thirty-six feet to the air i would after one spring i would probably be in the hospital another article however said that one of the figures slapped a guard across the face with a death-like hand that was cold and clammy a bit more intense than your regular practical

joke. Encounters like this one would apparently continue for over a month, with the guards being given instructions to shoot Spring Hill Jack. It became close. But they never managed to shoot him. A year later, Spring Hill Jack would continue his assault on the army in Colchester by bonneting, which meant cuffing and throwing down guards wherever they were posted. Cavalry infantry and artillery were all alike impartially victimized. An article in Reynolds' newspaper reported. In our own cavalry barracks, the story told next day by the nerve-shadowed wrecks who had been on sentry duty the night before was that Spring Hill Jack came flying without any preliminary warning,

over the top of the stable buildings, dropped on their shoulders, knocked them down and was gone before they could recover their feet. Surprisingly, however, this formidable Spring Hill Jack would be captured. The evening standard reported on December 21, 1879, that a guard actually managed to shoot this ghostly visitor in the leg, though it did not report the perpetrator's name. A later memoir would say, was Lieutenant Alphrey, and the case seemingly never went to trial.

Why not? So much weird, mysterious shit attributed to the name of Spring Hill Jack. In our main source for today's episode, the mystery of Spring Hill Jack, author John Matthews, suggests that the military actually might have planted this story themselves in order to not make themselves look like idiots. As in, they never shot anybody, and some fucking bounty, scamp, rascal hobgoblin made fools out of them, and the ruffian got away with it. There would be only one more reference to Jack in the 19th century. On November 3rd, 1877, the Illustrated Police News reported that people living in the neighborhood of Newport near Lincoln were being disturbed each night by, quote, a man dressed in a sheepskin with a long white tail. This figure was reportedly leaping to heights of 15 to 20 feet, even jumping up to a window on the roof of one building. This got people in the area so worked up that some of them formed a large mob.

an angry mob, quote, on with sticks and stones. But they couldn't catch him. Oh my God, I can picture that. I'll just picture this fucking worked up mob. Where are you? Springhill Jack. Enough! Enough, you hobgoblin.

Show yourself, Ruffian! Just walking out torches and shit. And they sobered up and they went home. Author John Matthews, thanks to this event, was likely made up, actually, sadly. Since there were no other articles confirming the sidings and no witness reports, but let's pretend to happen because it's fun to think about.

For the rest of the 19th century, Spring Hill Jack lived on as an urban legend and soon became the subject of many penny dreadful stories, titillating fictional tales, Pulp Fiction published as serials. For example, Spring Hill Jack, The Terror of London by George Augustus Sala, a period of newspapers and 48 weekly installments. Sala did something different. He turned Jack into a superhero now, a rescuer of damsels in distress, and a persecutor of those in authority who abused their power.

in 1904 the character was revived in another penny serial novel titled the spring hill jack library then decades later in a nineteen forty six film uh made about spring hill jack titled the curse of the radens and the radens were this family other authors stuck with the tried and true version which jack was a terrifying menace these books would not identify themselves as fiction the way the penny dreadfuls did instead they would present themselves as a direct accounting of what had truly happened back in eighteen thirty eight even even though their authors often made up extra pieces of lore. The first of these books was published in 1928. It was called Stand and Deliver. And the book's author, Elizabeth Villiers, the pen name of Isabel Mary Thorn, included a full chapter about Spring Hill Jack. She claimed that a young woman named Mary Stevens,

employed as a servant at a townhouse called Lavender Sweep, was visiting her family when she realized how lady was getting and how she had better return home. She decided to take a shortcut along the charmingly named Pig, lane, which would bring her out on top of Lavender Hill, not far from the opening of the less pleasantly named Cutthroat Lane. As she reached this area, it started to rain, and Mary started to walk more quickly. But then Jack saw her, and Jack was quicker. A tall figure descended from the darkness to the left of the lane. It cleared the short gate with a single bound,

and wrapped its arms around Mary attempting to kiss her. She screamed. It let her go, laughed, and left back over the gate, vanishing into the night. Mary continued to scream until people came to help her, but nobody there could discover any trace of the perpetrator, though some people didn't believe Mary's version of events. It had to be confessed Mary Stevens was a perfectly sensible, highly respectable girl, not likely to suffer from hallucinations, wrote Villiers. And according to Villiers, an even more dramatic incident occurred the following night. A carriage returning home from London was damaged when its horses bolted along Streatham High Road just across the common land from Lavender Hill. Both the coachman and foot

were injured, and though the former had no idea would have frightened the horses, the footman declared that a, quote, huge creature, whether man or bird or beast, he could not say, leapt from the shadows on one side of the way and springing clean across the road, which was of considerable width and vanished over a high wall. Both Mary and the footman were sure that they had seen some kind of creature, and soon Villiers claimed more and more people started reporting that they had seen something they couldn't explain, not unlike what actually did happen back in 1838. In real life, nobody had been sure of what they'd seen. Was it a cow, a bear, a suit of armor, a guy, five guys, five guys cheeseburger, scallywag, hobgoblin, a dozen scamps,

eating five guys, French fries, sharing them with some ruffians. Anyway, if you remember, Jack Alsop's attack marked an infection point. After that, everyone agreed, or I guess, a turning point. After that, everyone agreed that it was a human in some strange disguise, probably multiple humans. And to explain why multiple humans would put in so much work to play what were then considered a series of pranks,

locals turn to the explanation of the bet amongst the upper-class young men. Villiers version, on the other hand, was Spring Hill Jack coming out of nowhere and leaving no evidence, only two deep, oddly shaped footprints

left to the sight of an attack on an old woman, urban legend material for sure. If Elizabeth Villiers did make up some of the stories in her book, she was definitely not the only person to do so.

Another would be the journalist and researcher Peter Haining, who until recently was the only person to write a full-length book about Jack, the legend and bizarre crimes of Spring Hill Jack, published in 1997, and he seems to have invented at least two of the most dramatic appearances. He claimed that the first Spring Hill Jack incident happened on October 11, 1837, to a young woman named Polly Adams, on her way to visit the Hog and Pleasure Fair, all right, held every year on this day in Blackheath.

hog and pleasure fair Sounds like a Renaissance fair mixed with some kind of furry or pig play convention Anyway, as Polly was hanging out in the rowdy crowded fair Excuse me, a nobleman she recognized grabbed her and pressed a drunken kiss to her mouth

Polly ran away the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears And later she would remember an odd detail His eyes bulged out so far That you could see white on every side of his pupil Polly decided to go home But as she passed a hill known as Whitfield's Mount A terrifying creature emerged from the grove of trees

on top of the hill. As Haney would claim, quote, the figure, appearing gigantic in the shadows, bounded towards her on legs that covered such distance with each stride that they scarcely seemed human. Behind it swirled a cloak, which billowed and flapped noisily. But above this cloak, it was the face which caught and held Polly's attention, a face with eyes that glowed like coals in a mouth which spat flashes of blue fire, a face from the very depths of hell. A moment more, and the figure was upon her. With a final leap that carried the creature almost over her and indeed blotted out everything except this frightful shape, he confronted her. There was the smell of sulfur and the warmth of fire on Polly's face and in her nostrils. The eyes which glared at her seemed to swim in flame

and when the creature breathed, blue fire flashed from between his lips. As Adam screamed, the figure gripped her shoulders with cold metallic fingers and laughed in her face. There was something strangely familiar about the laugh, and as she looked into the face of her attacker, she saw that its eyes bulged in a horrible way, just like the nobleman who had kissed her. The being then started tearing at her clothes, ripping her bodice, leaving her breasts exposed, probably started to pass out, but before she blacked out entirely, the dirty tit-crabbing scamp, let her go and vanished. This, of course, never happened in newspapers at the time, was never, you know, mentioned,

which, given all the coverage devoted to Jane Alsop's case, makes the idea that You know, something truly horrible happening to Polly Adams around this time was probably pretty unlikely. In addition, some historians have drawn links between Hainting's description and the purported appearances of the Marquis of Waterford, who was well known for his loud laugh and bulging eyes. That's not two qualities you probably don't want to be like well known for. That sucks for that guy. Hey, have you ever met the Marquist of Waterford? I don't think so. Oh, I bet you have laughs like this.

and his eyes bulge Oh God Yeah, that guy's so fucking annoying Yeah, no, I've seen that fucking weirdo The Marquis was frequently in the news In the late 1830s For drunken brawling, brutal jokes and vandalism And was said to do anything for a bet

His regular behavior And his contempt for women earned him the title of the Mad Marquis And it's also known that he was in the London area By this time, the first incidents took place Indeed, this was who Haney Would ultimately accuse of being Spring Hill Jack

this mad Marquis But in his telling Spring Hill Jack didn't just scare women He murdered them In Haining's telling On November 12th, 1845 Spring Hill Jack appeared

in the sordid streets of Jacobs Island A place well known For its population of sex workers And a variety of drug dens One of the worst If not the very worst slum In all of London

Spring Hill Jack was seen jumping from rooftop to rooftop Fire spewing from his mouth While his cloak flew behind him Then he jumped down to a corner A 13-year-old sex worker That's so fucking gross this poor girl named Mariah Davis

breathed fire on her face and threw her into a canal apparently an inquest said the official cause of Mariah's death was misadventure obviously this story seems even more unlikely than the accounts that came before it and it's also out of character for Spring Hill Jack, a character who wandered

upscale neighborhoods, not slums. Haney's final story about Spring Hill Jack took the legend into even more unfamiliar territory this time into a one last job plot. He claimed that Arthur Willis Ellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, was driven to come out of retirement to lead the charge and the hunt for Spring Hill Jack.

In January of 1838, and sensed by the reports of Jack's attack, the Iron Duke, then nearly 70, vowed to catch the villain himself. Apparently every night, quote, the Duke set out on horseback from his London home to patrol Spring Hill Jack's likely locations, with his trusty pistols at his sides. Apparently the side of this elderly man riding off to capture Spring Hill Jack warm the hearts of many Londoners, though old Artie never actually caught anybody. But again, this is probably just not true.

No letters of biographies suggested that the Duke was part of the hunt for Spring Hill Jack, and for that matter, the person haining accuses of being Jack, the Marquis of Waterford, married and settled in Curlmore House in 1842, and reportedly led an exemplary life until he died in a riding accident in 1859. Of course, it's much more likely that Spring Hill Jack

was, like any other urban legend, a process of relatively mild mass hysteria, assisted by a press, eager to make money and people eager for whatever morsels of fame and encounter with Jack might give them. Indeed, this is supported by the fact that Jack made dozens of appearances between 1830, or excuse me, 1938 and 1945 in the United States, belching flames and making gigantic leaps, then melting into the darkness of the night. Those years, of course, were a time of record high stress, so, you know, makes sense, World War II. so okay is spring hill jack nothing more than nonsense i don't know in nineteen seventy six at least a dozen residents of dallas dallas tex obviously saw a humanoid creature uh claimed to see a humanoid creature that allegedly leapt across an entire football field a hundred yards in just a few strides he was

reportedly ten feet tall thin had long ears not exactly the spring hill jack character we know but identified with him all the same, just as perplexing and mysterious. Let's say none of these reports are true, though, or at least that they're all at least greatly exaggerated. And just because Jack might be the product of mass hysteria, that does not mean the story of Spring Hill Jack is simple and not fascinating. For one thing, the story shows that 19th century England was full of pranksters and perverts,

and the line between practical joke and assault was pretty thin, with many, including the authorities, not knowing where one ended and the other began. Indeed, it seems like many of these Spring Hill Jacks were ultimately men who attacked local women, either scaring them or physically assaulting them, though they were also petty thieves in the mix, too. According to Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Dean of Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Foundation Professor of English at Arizona State University, and more importantly for our purposes here, the author of Monster Culture, Seven Theses, Monsters, aren't just whatever they ultimately reveal themselves to be.

instead they're quote embodiments of certain cultural moments of a time a feeling a place the monstrous body is pure culture and indeed that's why so many of us love them cohen goes on to argue that the monster is whatever exists in a culture that refuses easy categorization the things that don't make sense according to the social lines that we meet sacks have drawn to protect ourselves and in appearing these monsters ask us how we perceive the world and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place, Cohen writes. They ask us to re-evaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance towards its expression. They ask us why we have created them. So what would the British have had to suppress during this time period? Something that didn't fit the clean lines that society had drawn around humanity? Well, I have a theory, my own theory, not something written about in sources. We already established that early Victorians were captivated by ghost

stories and spiritualism. Emotionally, they used ghost stories to deal with things like high child mortality, while societally, ghost stories maintained the idea that there was still something fluid and irrational about life in an era that was defined by rapid scientific advancement and technological progress. At first, Spring Hill Jack was considered a ghost. Societally, he functions similarly to ghost stories in that he highlighted the tension between a rapidly modernizing world and the irrational, chaotic aspects of human experience. But ghosts are static. They appear.

Remind you of the unknown or your own mortality and then generally disappear. Spring Hill Jack did not disappear. Soon reports emerged that he was attacking, terrifying, threatening real people in real time, particularly women on the street. So what's to deal with that? In this context, Spring Hill Jack's attacks on suburban streets can be read much differently than a traditional Victorian ghost story. let's think about what kind of world

Victorians were living in in the 1840s apart from or you know late 1830s apart from scientific and technological advancement there was also a very different kind of advancement happening the advancement of the British Empire by this point the empire was huge spanning India parts of Africa especially South Africa the Caribbean and settler colonies like Canada

Australia and New Zealand all this territory means that the empire is heavily invested in trade especially cotton sugar and opium Britain is exporting industrial goods and importing raw materials, tying colonies tightly into a global capitalist system, but the same industrialization that's making it incredibly powerful also is fueling instability at home with factories, urbanization, social displacement, creating slums, crimes, social unrest.

At the same time, in order to justify dominating its colonial subjects, Britain has to suppress all that. It has to advocate for itself as a beacon of morality, cultural superiority, a civilized, place where the most civilized people live. And yet, as we already know from today's story, people are running rampant, playing pranks, assaulting women, robbing stately suburban homes. In other words, Britain's whole self-justification starts to look a lot shakier when life in cities is practically unmanageable, and that even bleeds over into the suburbs.

In this context, Spring Hill Jack represents those that the British don't want to think about because it doesn't suit their narrative. For example, the aristocrats, who are not in fact morally upstanding, like the young men from well-connected families, assumed to be in cahoots together in some kind of Spring Hill Jack-themed-themed, perverted gambling ring, which violates everything that Britain maintains about its upstanding upper class. Even Spring Hill Jack's physical attributes fit this. His impossible leaps over walls into fortified homes across neighborhoods mirror the ways in which the empire's orderly vision can't contain the very forces it claims to dominate, not even at home. His outfits represent his lack of boundaries, too, like the

bearskins a symbol of wildness over nice suits and expensive cloaks. This makes sense in the context of who's dealing with him as well. At first, Spring Hill Jack attacks almost everybody, but then the stories focus in on a symbol of the empire's perseverance via their fertility, literally the future of the empire, and a symbol of its protected innocence that, as it turns out, the empire cannot truly protect. Later, Spring Hill Jack's attacks on army guards also reflects a deep-seated anxiety about the ability of the British military to keep all of their subject under control. Later retellings of Spring Hill Jack would lose this cultural context. By the late 19th century, Gothic and supernatural fiction has undergone significant evolution.

Early Gothic work focused on suspense, ruined castles, often remote morally symbolic landscapes. By the time Irish author Bram Stoker's Dracula appeared in 1997, readers were increasingly familiar with these conventions and hungry for something that pushed the boundaries of fear, a real actual monster. The horror they craved it shifted from the abstract or purely moralistic to the intensely personal, often intruding on the domestic lives of its characters, even their sexual lives.

This is particularly apparent in Dracula. In the iconic novel, Stoker's blood-sucking vampire corrupts romantic relationships and exerts hypnotic control over young women. Bram was deliberate about this. He was catering to a readership eager to explore the intimate transgressive nature of monsters rather than their broad societal effects.

And yet, Spring Hill Jack is a kind of precursor to that figure. He wasn't like the 18th century monsters that came before him, beasts like dragons and mermaids that came from mythology or folklore, sea monsters portrayed on maps. He introduced the idea that monsters could affect everyday ordinary people, that nobody was safe behind high walls or on the roads they traveled every day. So if we hadn't had Spring Hill Jack, we may never have had Count Dracula.

and we may never have had the themes horror is defined by today. Shattered mental states, trauma, family dynamics, apparent and hit movies like Babaduke or Hereditary. Pretty interesting, right? Or also, there was a real unexplainable, honest-to-god monster that did terrorize some people in London, and then copycats that made the monster seem to be nothing more than a deviant prankster. Or are that, you scamps? You went there, neither was I, so who knows, Ruffians? Finally, will we ever see a resurgence of Spring Hill Jack's sightings?

Probably not. Nobody's claimed to have seen him or to have seen him in a real semi-credible way in decades, and culturally we have moved on to other monsters. But Spring Hill Jack still stands out as an important pillar in horror evolution. It may be gone, but he's helped shape nearly two centuries of monsters now, along with who knows how many new ones we have yet to create. And truly, last thing now, there are some who think that Spring Hill Jack not only influenced the later creation of Dracula,

but that he is a direct precursor and inspiration for Batman. Wealthy background, operating at night, using technology to fight, and a mysterious costume persona. So that is pretty cool. Even if Spring Hill Jack

was entirely made up, he did at least give us two other entirely made up, but badass figures that our culture loves today. And that's it for this. edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the bad magic catalog. Be for your episodes at Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time. New episodes

with the now long-running paranormal podcast, scared to death, Tuesdays at midnight, along with two episodes of nightmare fuel, fictional horror thrown into the mix each month. Thank you to Sophie Evans for the phenomenal initial research here. Very, very good stuff. And thanks to Logan Keith, polishing up the sound at today's episode, making the cool episode thumbnail art. Please go to badmagic productions.com for all your bad magic needs. Have a great weekend and happy Halloween.