I am a little late in getting this up today because I’ve been working on the final draft of my new solution to the Jack the Ripper mystery. All the writing is completed but I’ve just had to finish my references and bibliography and get the whole in a format compliant with Amberley’s house rules. This is the boring bit of historical research and writing: reformatting and looking for grammatical mistakes!

It is much more fun to read the old newspapers and delve in the archives for new stories and today I’ve gone back to the London newspapers in September 1888 in the week before the so-called ‘double event’ when the ‘Ripper’ struck twice in one night. On the last night of September 1888 he killed Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street before moving on to murder Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square about an hour later. By killing once in H Division’s patch and then straying over the City border he now had two police forces hunting frantically for any leads that might catch him.

Meanwhile the business of the Metropolitan Police courts went on as normal.

Most domestic violence was between parents and children or husbands and wives (or partners, as not all working class that cohabited were married). At Marlborough Street however a brother was accused of beating up his sister, both being in their early twenties and living at home. John Harrington (a porter)  was actually homeless when he was charged before Mr Newton. His mother and sister had actually moved house to ‘get rid’ of him his sister, Annie, explained.

But Tuesday morning, the 25 September 1888, she’d come home at 2 in the morning from ‘a concert’. Harrington was in the house and tried tried to prevent his mother from letting Annie in. Ellen Harrington was having nothing to do with it however and opened the door to her daughter. John piled into her, calling her names and complaining that she was drunk again and hadn’t given him money she owed him. It ended with him striking her several times.

In court Mrs Harrington declared that she’d had enough of both of them and wished they’d finally leave home. She said she’d be ‘glad to get rid of both son and daughter, and be left in peace to do the best she could’. She lamented that she’d brought them up well and they’d had a good education, her daughter ‘having reached the seventh standard’ but now they only repaid her by quarrelling.

She admitted her daughter was ‘like a maniac’ when she’d been drinking For his part John said his sister had started the fight, and had attacked him with a fork. All he’d done was point out that it was late, she was drunk, and the household had been disturbed by her. The court’s gaoler pointed out that while he’d never seen John before, Annie had been up a few times for disorderly behaviour.

It was a family squabble and it really shouldn’t have reached the courts at all. Mr Newton effectively bashed their heads together and told them to behave themselves in the future. Both Annie and John were  bound over the keep the peace towards each other, and liable for £5 each if they ended up back in his court.

After all in the autumn of 1888 there were much more serious crimes happening in the Victorian capital.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 26, 1888]