Otherness in the Victorian Gothic: The Perception of Crime and Foreignness in 1880s

London’s East End

Scott Abel

As Boyer pulled aside the muslin curtains of Room 13 at Number 23 Dorset Street

of Spitalfields, he discovered the disfigured and naked body of Mary Kelly who her killer

slashed open resting her bloodied breasts, dripping intestines, and rotting liver on a table

as if they were the murder’s playtime toys. The focal-point of fiendish slaughterer’s

masterpiece was the emptied yet mangled corpse of the victim lying on her blood-stained

bed.1 How could any human being, nevertheless an Englishman, commit such ghastly

horrors as the Whitechapel murders of 1888? To many Britons, a foreign-born

megalomaniac or merely a man of non-Anglo-Saxon ethnicity slaughtered multiple

women in London’s East End. The ensuing response to the killings often blamed ethnic

minorities or foreigners, overtly and subtly, including Jewish immigrants from Eastern

Europe and other non-English individuals for the crimes committed in the East End.

More than one hundred years after the final victim died historians Judith Walkowitz and

Drew Gray examined the social and cultural context of crime during the late 19th century

with focuses on the unfair perceptions of women and the working class of London. The

historians examined the hysteria regarding the “Jack the Ripper” murders as directed

falsely against of non-English residents within a cultural and social context. The

irrational blaming of perceived foreigners exemplified British xenophobia that distracted

the British public from the actual causes of crime in the East End such as the immense

poverty and overcrowding experienced by its inhabitants.

1 “Another Whitechapel Murder,” The Times, November 10, 1888, page 7.

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The Jack the Ripper murders of Whitechapel in 1888 horrified London’s East End

as the mysterious butcher eluded the Metropolitan police while carrying out his vicious

attacks on sex workers. The serial killer slit the throat of his first generally accepted

murder victim, Polly Nichols on August 31, 1888 and then Annie Chapman on

September 8, 1888. He slaughtered both Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on

September 30, displaying considerable skill through his navigation the streets of

Whitechapel, removing some of the latter victim’s organs, and all while evading police.

The finale of the Whitechapel murders was the gruesome murder and mutilation of Mary

Kelly. Even shortly after the last murder, tourists visited the murder scenes, but

ultimately fear spread throughout the community as the murders puzzled police.2 The

unsolved murders exacerbated social and ethnic tensions within the East End through the

fear and paranoia of it inhabitants.

Judith Walkowitz contextualized the Jack the Ripper murders within narratives of

sexual danger that reinforced patriarchal tendencies of Victorian society. The murders

fell directly into the dark fantasies of the Victorian gothic imagination that played out

daily from the penny presses such as William T. Stead’s Pall Mall Gazette. The penny

presses marginalized women in Victorian society even further as curiosity over the

assailant’s identity trumped concern for the victims or the safety of potential victims.3

The press coverage depicted the East End, notably from outside its boundaries, as

practically foreign with vast numbers of immigrants dwelling in its crime-infested alleys.

Middle-class watchers of the East End viewed it as teeming with Jews from Eastern

Europe throughout the 1880s. According to the same perspective, many of its residents

2 Drew Gray, London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City, (London: Continuum, 2010), 43-46.3 Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 191-192.

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survived through a life of crime, which made the East End, particularly Whitechapel the

byproduct of immorality that excited and frightened London’s wealthier inhabitants.4

Walkowitz placed the general middle classes’ perception of foreignness and criminality

side-by-side as a means for reinforcing patriarchy through the protection of women from

the immoral foreigners.

The perceived foreignness and immoral filth of the East End throughout the

middle classes distracted the general public from addressing the root causes of crime or

alleviating suffering. Rather, the stigmatization of the East End spread beyond the mere

territoriality to the residents themselves, especially the victims of the murderer. Their

deaths symbolized of the immorality, particularly prostitution that made their demise

almost righteous. The Victorian-era reformers, including Josephine Butler and William

Stead misunderstood the nature of the crisis following a paradigm that judged the victims

negatively. The depiction of Jack the Ripper as a deviant filled the gothic fantasies and

sexual imagination of Stead’s writers and readers searching for meaning out of the

horror.5 Walkowitz analyzed the media response, particularly from the middle classes’

perspective as employing the narrative of murder and mayhem for voyeurism and moral

judgment rather than any real attempt to fix the poverty of the East End.

Walkowitz examined police and popular reaction to the murders in Whitechapel

within the context of the hysteria and fear, particularly in regard to those deemed foreign.

The criminal investigation revealed the prejudices of British society, particularly

London’s police and residents in the 1880s. The police, local daily newspapers, and

vigilantes focused on Jews from Eastern Europe as potential assailants. The Pall Mall

4 Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight, 193.5 Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight, 194-201.

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Gazette indentified the murder as Jewish or of Jewish descent with only the minimal

amount of evidence to support of such a claim and then proclaimed that their narratives

were merely fiction or speculation. The Star accused John Pizer of Annie Chapman’s

murder and without any actual physical evidence. Pizer vindicated himself after the press

slandered his name. The false accusations resulted in the indiscriminate robbing and

beating of Jews. “Lipski” became an epithet against Jews as the name of a convicted

man for the murder of his landlady in 1887. Even after investigators discredited evidence

that Jack the Ripper was Jewish, locals and police still assumed the murderer was Jewish,

Regardless of a lack of proof for anti-Jewish activity, mobs rioted against Jews in

response to the murders.6 East Enders blamed the Jewish community as a whole for

hiding the culprit while the local newspapers spurred them on through the old prejudices

against Jews and foreigners in general.

The prejudices against Jews and non-ethnic English existed in the more

prosperous communities, too as they suspected them of radicalism and challenging the

existing order. The Times published a suggestion that a Jewish man killed his victims as

atonement for their intimacy, which earned criticism from the Anglo-Jewish community

for spreading baseless allegations. People within the elite and middle class from the

West End feared the possibility of Jewish socialists and zealots spreading dangerous

ideas. The police eventually realized the folly and cost of focusing on the Jewish

community as a drain on resources only after losing precious time. Anti-Semitic beliefs

rose with the discovery of victims bodies outside buildings associated with Jews.7 Anti-

Semitism often prevailed within British institutions, which promoted the concept of

6 Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight, 202-204.7 Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight, 204.

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foreigners as criminals and distracted potential reformers from poverty as a cause of

crime.

The Times, a London newspaper, reinforced anti-Semitic and anti-foreign

attitudes of the population through inflammatory language that spurred further distrust in

the latter groups and hysteria in the former. The Times spread the notion of a serial killer

without significant evidence that certain murders were connected by connecting the

murder of Mary Ann Nichols to the deaths of Martha Turner and another unnamed

victim. The article stressed the nature of the crime as sudden and the victim as without

enemies, which meant that the criminal struck her without personal vindictiveness

reinforcing the apparent randomness of the killings.8 In the murder of Annie Chapman,

The Times speculated her seizure as “Judas-like,”9 which linked the Jewish community to

the murders through inflammatory language. The Times mentioned the detention of John

Pizer in the suspicion of Chapman’s murder because he reportedly wore a leather apron.

Emanuel Voilenia, a half-Spanish and half-Bulgarian migrant reported seeing a man

make death threats against a woman he identified as Pizer from a group of mostly “Jews”

brought into a police yard. However, Voilenia failed to identify Chapman’s body as the

woman he saw resulting in Pizer’s released.10 The Times associated the Whitechapel

murders and the community itself with a sense of foreignness by depicting the witnesses,

suspects, and even other people in the investigation as not ethnically Anglo-Saxon. The

Times stoked fears of immigrants by neighbors in the East End through naming foreign-

soundings suspects in the investigation.

8 “The Whitechapel Murder,” The Times, September 3, 1888, page 12.9 “The Whitechapel Murder,” The Times, September 27, 1888, page 5.10 “The Whitechapel Murder,” The Times, September 12, 1888, page 6.

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Drew Gray focused attention on the East End and the people living within its

boundaries through a social and cultural examination. Gray focused particular attention

on the Jewish community of London’s East End in relation to the rest of London’s

population as a community vulnerable to the prejudices of other groups. During the late

19th century, unfavorable in conditions in Eastern Europe prompted the emigration of

many people to Great Britain resulting in 100,638 Russian and Romanian immigrants

living in England and Wales according to the 1871 census.11 The czars of Russia

persecuted Jews living within their territory prompting migrations to other locations such

as London, England where national policy avoided direct persecution. The presence of a

Jewish immigrant community in the East End attracted more immigrants because of their

cultural and linguistic similarities, along with the possibility of employment by Jewish-

owned enterprises. Despite the established presences of a Jewish community, a majority

of immigrants lived in dire poverty and found undesirable work for their survival.12 The

Jewish community in the East End was vulnerable to isolation from the rest of the city

because of their distinct culture and deep poverty.

The broader British society often regarded Jewish community’s cultural

distinctness with suspicion during the late nineteenth century as part of mistrust toward

foreigners. In 1887, E. W. Robinson of The Graphic associated the Jewish community

with sailors armed with knives as part of a larger nondescript group of dangerous people

living in the East End. The British middle class represented poor Jews negatively across

the board as greedy money-lenders and criminals based on reinvented medieval anti-

Semitism. Even the creator of Peter Rabbit, Beatrice Potter looked down upon Jews as

11 Gray, London’s Shadows, 69.12 Gray, London’s Shadows, 70, 72.

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profit-seeking gamblers, despite living in an era of rife with greed. 13 Arnold White

stereotyped Jews of the East End as filthy, but his argument fell apart when Member of

Parliament Sir Samuel Montagu showed the importance of ritual cleanliness within that

community. White also published a pamphlet in 1886 demanding restriction on

immigration, while the Pall Mall Gazette blamed Jewish migrants as a bigger factor than

all others for the poverty in the East End by pushing down wages.14 The Pall Mall

Gazette attempted the creation of a sectarian division with the East End through blaming

Jews for social ills to keep the neighborhood divided. Anti-Semitism was prevalent

throughout the wealthier neighborhoods of Great Britain, which often perceived the

Jewish community as criminal within the larger context of suspicion toward the non-

English ethnicities and a factor in the creation of poverty.

The Jack the Ripper murders exposed the vulnerability of the Jewish community

to people looking for scapegoats because of their cultural differences and the location of

the community within the East End. The perception of foreignness by Londoners of Jews

and other ethnicities regardless of their nationality led to common mistreatment. During

the height of the fear during the murders, violence against Jews became more common as

people desired an outlet for their vulnerability.15 The last known people to witness the

victims Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on September 30, 1888 were Jewish,

possibly witnessing the murderer himself on both occasions. Lewis Diemschutz

discovered the murdered body of Elizabeth Stride moments after her death narrowly

missing the murder itself.16 Police Constable Long found a piece of apron later identified

as belonging to Eddowes slightly before 3 a.m. with “Juwes are men who will not be 13 Gray, London’s Shadows, 63-66.14 Gray, London’s Shadows, 66-68.15 Gray, London’s Shadows, 71.16 Gray, London’s Shadows, 41-44.

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blamed for nothing” written in chalk above it. Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren

ordered the message erased before the incitement of anti-Semitic riots.17 Members of the

general public drew connections between the investigation and the Jewish community

emphasizing, possibly including the assailant himself, the imaginary threats of the East-

End Jews. Warren realizing the possible consequences if more Jewish-related material

reached the presses, ordered the destruction of the evidence for the sake of the East End

Jewish community.

Gray established in London’s Shadows that the poverty experienced in the East

End and the glamour of the West End revealed the social disparity of Victorian society.

The social disparity powered the engine of progress for Great Britain’s prosperity through

the employment of inexpensive labor. Despite the pride of British imperial power

throughout the globe, immense poverty existed a short distance from the halls of power in

the empire’s capital. Many in London preferred the neglect of the East End and its

poverty blaming a “criminal class” as responsible for the ailments of urban society. After

the Jack the Ripper murders, Charles Booth examined the East End through the

sociological perspective in 1889 and discovered poverty much worse than he anticipated.

After Booth’s “discovery,” middle class reformers increased their attention toward the

East End’s poverty but it was already too late for the five victims of the 1888 serial

killer.18 Foreigners and non-Anglo-Saxon residents of London received much blame

rather unfairly for the existence of crime in the capital during the 19th century when

poverty and apathy were the culprits for criminality in Gray’s work.

17 Gray, London’s Shadows, 45.18 Gray, London’s Shadows, 63, 231-238.

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During the 1890s, a significant number of the charges against Jewish Londoners

involved non-violent crime usually involving some form of deception fitting within a

stereotype of criminal immigrants or ethnic minorities. In one particular instance, a

banker named Mr. Mead received a fraudulent letter requesting funds for Rev. John

Box’s Baptist Chapel for which he returned ₤5 to the stated address. Rev. Box denied

sending the letter and a postman recalled delivering the letter to a man who signed his

name E. Charig rather than John Box. Police Detective John Gill stated his belief that the

handwriting of the forgery and Charig’s handwriting matched. The magistrate released

the accused, Nathan Charig who was Jewish, on the account of his good character.

Charig was poor and lived in tenement housing with weekly rent while his landlady

testified that he had no regular job.19 Though people accused Nathan Charig of deceit, he

accumulated enough respect from his neighbors to avoid a prison sentence despite his

poverty, while the prosecution lacked evidence that Charig belonged to a criminal class.

In another more complicated case, prosecutors accused Jewish men from foreign

countries of another forgery crime. The prosecution alleged that Gerson Czernechoski,

age 37 and Hyman Silverman, age 60 of illegally possessing thirty-five counterfeit

Russian Rubles with intent of fraud. Both of the prisoners had lawyers to defend them in

court against an accusation by Philip Cohen, who claimed they tried to sell the notes to

him for ₤20. Czernechoski’s lawyer accused Cohen in the cross-examination of

contacting Harris Isaacs to frame his client with the possession of the fraudulent

banknotes to receive a reward from the Imperial Russian Embassy or Consulate. Cohen,

of course, denied the accusations. Another witness for the prosecution, Daniel Goldberg

19 “Trial of Nathan Charig (26), April 1889 t18890408-389).” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18890408-389&div=t18890408-389&terms=jew#highlight (accessed November 29, 2011).

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testified that Silverman and Czernechoski offered the sale of forged bank notes to him.

Goldberg, like Cohen, informed the police of the forgeries and returned to Whitechapel to

meet Sergeant Foster and Constable Enright, who later arrested the two on suspicion of

forgery.20 Cohen and Goldberg showed that some Jewish residents of Whitechapel

actively worked with the police rather than against them as criminals according to their

testimony. The nature of the crime forgery, certainly not a foreshadowing of mass

murder, revealed a theme of nonviolent crime accusations against members of the Jewish

community in Whitechapel.

The defense of the prisoners involved a significant number of Whitechapel

residents who testified on their behalf, which showed a communal solidarity of the

Jewish community in a crime whose victims were subjects of the Russian Czar and

possibly the accused themselves. Sgt. Foster discovered the forged bank notes in a baby

carriage after the arrest of Czernechowski, but members of the community defended the

prisoners. A restaurant proprietor and his wife overheard Cohen’s conspiracy to plant the

notes on Czernechowski and frame him for the reward money. Nineteen witnesses,

usually from within the Jewish community, testified for the defense, placing Cohen as the

real culprit for framing Czernechowski and Silverman for the reward. Multiple witnesses

established that Czernechowski possessed no time for the placement of forged notes in

the baby carriage and that Cohen was also at the crime scene. The court found the

prisoners not guilty of any crimes because the immigrant community sought justice in the

case even when several witnesses spoke English so poorly as to require a translator.21

20 “Trial of Gerson Czernechomski (37) and Hyman Silverman (60) October 1885 t18851019-997,” Old Bailey Proceedings, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18851019-997&div=t18851019-997&terms=jew#highlight (Accessed November 29, 2011).21 “Trial of Gerson Czernechomski (37) and Hyman Silverman (60) October 1885 t18851019-997,” Old Bailey Proceedings, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18851019-997&div=t18851019-997&terms=jew#highlight (Accessed November 29, 2011).

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The trial of Czernechowski and Silverman showed that crimes happened within the

Jewish community, but the community hardly threatened London. Members of the

Whitechapel community sought justice even for their own beliefs and sense of

community and were not a criminal class outside respectable society.

The aforementioned accused Jewish Londoners were innocent and escaped prison

sentences or hard labor through their community who used the court system to defend

against false accusations in a judicial manner, but elites still feared the creation of a

rebellious underclass that threatened their authority. The immigrants from Eastern

Europe employed the increased mobility of the Industrial Era by moving to London,

which created a perceived threat to the establishment by adding a new unknown

population in the capital.22 Hours before the murder of Elizabeth Stride, The

International and Education Club held a discussion on “Judaism and Socialism.”23 Similar

discussions stoked the fears of the British elite that immigrant communities plotted the

overthrow of the native British social order. The spread of fear by the middle class

moralists regarding the murders and crime in general, as in Gray’s argument, legitimized

their needs and ideals.24 The potential social upheaval by immigrants or non-Anglo-

Saxons, regardless of the probability of such an event, signified another reason for the

suspicion of the immigrant communities by the upper strata of British society that spread

fear to the working classes to reinforce its preconceived notions about the East End and

maintain social divisions for the preservation of the status quo.

Londoners unfairly blamed non-Anglo-Saxon residents and immigrants for the

poverty, crime, and misery of the East End in support of the existing social order, but

22 Sean Farrell’s Victorian Britain Lecture, November 30, 2011.23 Gray, London’s Shadows, 41.24 Sean Farrell’s Victorian Britain Lecture, November 7, 2011.

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ultimately the immigrant community, such as Eastern European Jews, hardly threatened

the status quo of London. At worst, impoverished immigrants committed petty larceny

or fraud, but a significant proportion of the immigrant community obeyed laws and

fought for justice. Walkowitz and Gray established the social and cultural context for the

Jack the Ripper slayings of 1888 through the public reactions to the location of the

slaughter and the residents living in fear there, which unfairly stigmatized the population

of Whitechapel as immoral rather than fixing the poverty that caused criminality. For

Walkowitz, the murders reinforced the patriarchal system and weakened the feminist

movement, while they bolstered notions of a devious criminal class as responsible for the

social problems in Gray’s arguments. Immigrants and other people viewed as foreign

played an important role in the arguments of both Walkowitz and Gray who portrayed

them as the most isolated of communities in the neglected East End.

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Works Cited:

Primary Sources:

The Times, September to November 1888.

Old Bailey Proceedings Online, www.oldbaileyonline.org, accessed 29 November 2011.

Secondary Sources

Gray, Drew. London’s Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City. London: Continuum, 2010.

Walkowitz, Judith. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

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