Chapter Notes Some notes contain codes to the location of sources held at the British Archives. An initial abbreviation (list below) indicate where they are held. The detailed letters and numbers that follow indicate the reference files. Folio numbers are indicated by “f.” or “ff.” Hansard transcripts are historic collections of British Parliamentary debates widely available as print and online editions. Abbreviations used: CLRO Corporation of London Records Office; GB London Hospital Medical College; GLRO Greater London Record Office (now London Metropolitan Archives); HC House of Commons (Hansard); HL House of Lords (Hansard); HO Home Office (UK National Archives); LH Royal London Hospital Museum & Archives; MC London Hospital Medical College; MEPO Metropolitan Police (UK National Archives); PRO Public Record Office (now UK National Archives)
Chapter 1 1. The full title was Napoleon’s Book of Fate and Oraculum, and it was in use by all classes of Victorian London. It was a manuscript discovered in 1801 by a French military expedition in Egypt that Napoleon had translated. The explorer Sir Richard Burton described the English version as “a specimen of the old Eastern superstition presented to Europe in a modern and simple form.” Napoleon’s Book of Fate contained sections about “Dreams and Their Interpretation”; “Weather Omens”; “Astrological Miscellany and Important Advice”; “Chiromancy or Fortune Telling by the Hand”; “Celestial Palmistry”; “Observations on Moles in Men and Women”; “Temper and Disposition of Any Person”; “The Art of Face Reading”; and “Lucky Days,” among others. Richard Deacon (the pen name of Ripper author Donald McCormick), published a work on Napoleon’s oracle titled The Book of Fate: Its Origins and Uses (London: Frederick Muller, 1976). 2. The Star, October 29, 1888; Daily Telegraph, October 30, 1888. 3. White was adept at conjuring tricks himself. In a notice on his retirement in the East London Observer, October 16, 1900, it was said that “many a thief who considered himself an expert in palming has had reason to regret that Mr. White was a professor in the art of legerdemain.” 4. The Times, June 9, June 16, June 24, 1884. The relevant section of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 stated, “Every person professing to tell fortunes or using any subtle craft, means or device to deceive and impose on any of Her Majesty’s subjects shall be deemed a rogue and vagabond.” 5. The trial of Helen Duncan in 1944, regarded as the last English conviction under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, was not the sole grounds for the repeal of the act and replacement with the Fraudulent Mediums Act. The Duncan case was one of many that brought legal change for mediums. Spiritualist associations had fought a long campaign that began in the Victorian period. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had an interest in Jack the Ripper, as a spiritualist led a del-
egation to the Home Secretary in 1930 urging change in the law. 6. Gerald Gardner, Witchcraft Today (London: Rider, 1954). 7. According to a 2002 briefing report for the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament, “The Witchcraft Act 1735 was originally formulated to eradicate the belief in witches and its introduction meant that from 1735 onwards an individual could no longer be tried as a witch. It was, however, possible to be prosecuted for pretending to ‘exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, or undertake to tell fortunes.’ Supposed contact with spirits fell into this category.” 8. HO 144/221/A49301C, ff. 116–18. 9. HO 144/221/A49301C, f 147. For further reading on the 1887 American exhibit in London of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody see Louis S. Warren, “Buffalo Bill Meets Dracula: William F. Cody, Bram Stoker, and the Frontiers of Racial Decay,” The American Historical Review, October 2002, http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/107.4/ah04 02001124.html (accessed March 27, 2011). 10. David Mayall, Gypsy-Travellers in Nineteenth-Century Society (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1988). David Mayall, English Gypsies and State Policies (Hatfield: Gypsy Research Centre, University of Hertfordshire Press, 1995). 11. The term “gypsy” is derived from “Egyptians.” A historical variant spelling is “gipsy.” 12. Evening News, October 9, 1888. 13. For further details on Inspector Edmund Reid, see Stewart P. Evans and Nicholas Connell, The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper: Edmund Reid and the Police Perspective (Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2009). 14. There is a legal obligation for a person in some way related to a victim to identify the deceased with a written statement to the Coroner’s Office. Mary Malcolm’s testimony therefore took precedence until disproved by that of Stride’s estranged partner Michael Kidney. Dave Yost with Stewart P. Evans, “The Identification of Liz Stride,” Ripper Notes,
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