They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper

Nobody understood this better than the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. The right to rule was his blood’s ingredient, its lineage fermenting backwards for half a thousand years. Salisbury disliked democracy, considering property ‘in danger’ from it, and all ‘social legislation was necessarily a change for the worse’.

Victoria was very happy with Salisbury, and Salisbury would have done anything, anything, to protect the Crown. He would lie for it, cheat for it, empower the wicked to trample the innocent; he would incarcerate for it and, if necessary, put to death for it, exercising the full might of that pliable little strumpet he owned, called law.

It is rumoured in London that Sir Charles Russell has given up his brief for Lord Euston in the libel action connected with the Cleveland Street scandal and accepted one from the Prince of Wales. He will watch the case on behalf of Albert Victor, whose name has been persistently dragged into the affair. It is evidently Lord Euston’s tactics to cripple Editor Parke by heaping up costs by means of legal motions and other expensive processes.66

The above is a not inaccurate summary of developments (we will come to editor Parke and the ‘libel’ shortly). In escalating panic the government brought in its most enthusiastic Gunga Din. He was a society barrister and a personal friend of the Prince of Wales, the aforementioned Sir Charles Russell QC MP.

Russell had defended Euston before, and lost, and Edward before, and won. He was a formidable courtroom operator whose arrogance and ambition had modified his grasp on reality. I don’t know if barristers have to swear an oath to uphold what is true, any more than do prime ministers, but Russell had little care for truth, other than when it could act as a servant to himself. There was nothing Russell wouldn’t do for Russell. His entire career was a dedication to heaving his corpulent Belfast frame up to and beyond the next rung. Consequently, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the rabble fighting for their Crown, including appearing for the prosecution in the matter of a dangerous journalist.

Although this was the age of the telegraph and the fledgling electric light, it must be remembered that in certain areas we may still be supposed to be in the age of King Richard III. The mechanics were as crude and as transparently ugly: ‘Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous’ – as indeed had the top-hatted heirs of Shakespeare’s villainous hunchback.

The Parke referred to was Ernest Parke, a bit of a firebrand reporter on the Star who would later evolve into its most famous editor. At the time of the scandal Parke was thirty-one, and the Star less than two years old. Loud and radical and no friend of the Establishment, he was a new kind of journalist, in the vanguard of a new breed of mass-circulation newspaper. Like its proprietor, first editor and legend of Fleet Street, the great T.P. O’Connor, the Star was always ready to offer a hand to the underdog and a boot up the arse to his oppressor.

More often than not, it was Parke who put it in. His style was uncompromising and to the point. ‘The Metropolitan Police is rotten to the core’ was but one of his journalistic pronouncements (which doubtless endeared him to those he accused).67 Parke was passionate and enterprising, and worked at two newspapers to prove it. In parallel with his efforts at the Star, he was sole editor of a new evening newspaper called the North London Press. It stood apart from Fleet Street in more than just its title. Parke claimed to have the name of every pervert who had ever gone through the door at Cleveland Street, and, against the advice of men like O’Connor, declared that he would publish them.68 Such infatuation with what he perceived as justice may well have been admirable, but it was also dangerous, and Parke was rapidly moving out of his depth.

In another London postal district, ominous voices were murmuring. The owners of not a few of them were in possession of regular armchairs at clubs like the Carlton and Athenaeum: ‘The social position of some of the parties will make a great sensation, this will give very wide publicity and consequently will spread very extensive matter of the most revolting and mischievous kind, the spread of which I’m satisfied will produce enormous evil.’69

It’s hard to believe that this opinion was coming from the supreme officer of law in the land. It was the contribution of Lord Halsbury, the Lord Chancellor, giving his view on the contempt held for his own statutes by a certain class of upmarket bugger. In other words, ‘enormous evil’ did not reside in the illegality of sodomy, only in the dissemination of the news of it. As with gambling, a different law must apply. Halsbury was by now committed to the perversion of the course of justice, and was thus himself an accessory.

The facts are in the hands of the Home Office and of Scotland-yard, but as some of the greatest hereditary names of the country are mixed up in the scandal, every effort is being made to secure the immunity of the criminals. Indeed, I am credibly informed that

THE HOME OFFICE

is throwing obstacles in the way of prompt action on the part of Scotland Yard, and trying to get the persons concerned out of the country before warrants are issued. Very possibly, our Government of the classes is of opinion that the revelations which would ensue, were the criminals put on their trial, would deal a blow to the reign of the classes, and to the social influence of the aristocracy. Let them, however, understand that they will not be allowed to protect their friends. It would be really too monstrous if crimes, which, when committed by poor ignorant men, lead to sentences of penal servitude, were to be done with impunity by those whom the Tory Government delights to honour.70

When the maggots started spilling out of Cleveland Street there was a rush for the coastal ports. Prime Minister Lord Salisbury personally tipped off Lord Arthur ‘Podge’ Somerset (via Sir Dighton Probyn, Treasurer to the Prince of Wales) that, with great regret, Her Majesty’s Government was no longer able to bury a warrant for his arrest, and that it would be issued immediately – that is, immediately he was on the boat.

The gangplanks were bottlenecks of panicking homos. They cleaned out the lot. Charles Hammond, lessee of the brothel, was allowed to salvage his furniture before scuttling circuitously to Belgium with a youth. As soon as he was safely ensconced there, Permanent Secretary to the Home Office Sir Godfrey Lushington strolled out of the Athenaeum to procure a warrant for his arrest.

The Yard headed off to the Continent, forcing their quarry out of non-extraditable France, only to discover in Brussels that the British government had no enthusiasm for such extraditions. The Home Secretary, Matthews, was informed by the Prime Minister that he didn’t ‘consider this a case in which any official application could be made’. The Liberal MP and publisher Henry Labouchère had an alternative point of view. ‘If it had not been intended to extradite Hammond,’ he asked, ‘what was their object in hustling this man from France to Belgium?’ A good question, and while no one was answering it, Hammond and his boy took off for America with further judicial pretence in hot pursuit.

But no one was actually interested in arresting Hammond – he was the last thing the Establishment needed in court. Instead it was Inspector Abberline who was put up to take the flak. ‘Coming to the facts of the case,’ reported The Times, ‘the police had received all the information it was possible to obtain in this matter. Inspector Abberline had on that date [July 1889] all the information in his hands. But for some reason he did not act. Counsel considered that the whole cause of the mischief that had arisen through the spread of these disgraceful scandals, was the conduct of Inspector Abberline in allowing the man Hammond to leave the country. A more remarkable introduction to a prosecution in which it was suggested that the course of justice had been perverted never could be imagined.’71

Such sentiments were of course dwarfed by the concurrent scandal of the Ripper. Abberline was perverting the course of justice in precisely the same way ‘justice’ was made laughable in respect of Jack. Both the Fiend and the Arse-Seller were immune from Victorian law. What the authorities wanted from Hammond – and the only thing they wanted – was a clutch of letters he kept about his person, acquired no doubt through his connections with the Post Office trade. Having lost his income as a brothel keeper, the fear was that he’d create a new one through blackmail. These letters contained the goods on Somerset, Euston, P.A.V. et al., and were worth a good deal of money. They were also of inestimable value to anyone trying to prove the case.

A detective called Partridge was dispatched from London with instructions to ‘secure the letters at any price and at all hazards’. He at last caught up with Hammond in California, and got hold of the letters in the name of justice, at a price unknown. On his way back to England he ran into a man in San Francisco who introduced himself as ‘Tyrell’, and stated that he had been ‘sent out from London to aid Partridge’.

With the letters now in his possession, what aid Partridge might have needed is unclear. But after presenting ‘credentials and testimonials’, Tyrell gained Partridge’s confidence and the keys to the ‘zealously guarded’ box containing the letters, which mysteriously ‘disappeared one night’, along with Tyrell.

Like so many bits and pieces of unwanted history, Mr Tyrell and his stolen letters were never heard of again. His evaporation meant, of course, that those for or against the accused at Cleveland Street had either lost or secured irreplaceable evidence, depending on whose side you were on.

It was at about this time that someone walked into the Star offices and presented Ernest Parke with the journalistic equivalent of a Mickey Finn. The informant told him that, like ‘Podge’ Somerset, the Earl of Euston had made a run for it. This was sensational news, exclusive to the Star. But when editor T.P. O’Connor heard it, and more importantly, who had offered it, he declined to have anything to do with the story. Parke, however, fell for it, and published it in his own newspaper, informing his readers that Euston had fled for South America, and was heading for Peru.72

For Salisbury’s government this was manna from heaven – no seraphim could have dealt better news. By any standards, something remarkable had happened. Suddenly, it wasn’t a question of Euston raping boys, but the unspeakable outrage of a newspaper accusing him of going to Peru! A storm of indignation raised itself inside the political Establishment. Lethal nonentities reached for their wigs. How dare any man accuse another of going to Peru? He hadn’t even been to Ramsgate!

In reality, the only place Euston had been was to Boulogne, to visit fellow arse-artist Somerset, and coordinate their story.

Literally overnight, Parke was a pariah, a dangerous little North London Zola, menacing the freedoms of an unfettered press and clean sheets in general. Peru? The ignominy of it! The man must be crushed with the full wholesome mechanism of pure Victorian law.

Parke had been set up, sold a pup, conned by a breed we shall be hearing more from. I was certain that this bum steer could be sourced back to Scotland Yard, but it wasn’t until the 28 January 1890 edition of a conservative magazine called the Hawk turned up that I could confirm it:

It may be remembered that Parke said he had certain evidence to prove that he acted in good faith (as I believe he did), which, however, he could not bring forth without sacrificing confidences. I have no confidences placed in me, and so I am sacrificing nothing. It is alleged that the way the information reached the Star was by an officer employed at Scotland Yard. It is also said that having promised to supply Parke with proof when the time arrived, when called on by Parke to fulfil his promise, the officer said he was instructed by his superiors to give no more information.73

Scotland Yard made no comment. Euston sued Parke for criminal libel, and the guilty were back in business. It’s hard to believe that this actually happened. Even the sanctimonious voice of conservative Fleet Street could hardly believe it. ‘We have no sort of sympathy with the prosecutor, Lord Euston,’ wrote the Standard, virtually inviting prosecution itself, ‘who admitted quite enough about his own tastes and pursuits to show that he has very little claim to the respect of persons of decent life.’

(Not a lot of irony there, then? Euston was a bosom pal of the future King, actually becoming Edward VII’s aide de camp in 1901. But then, the Standard wasn’t in line for the throne, so nobody bothered with twaddle like that.)

The judge initially selected to hear the case was kicked off, and replaced by another of more ferocious disposition. Out of the Athenaeum shuffled yet another intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, the Honourable Mr Justice Hawkins, later Baron Brampton, a vengeful seventy-two-year-old Catholic with a profound affection for coin.

Hawkins was notorious for his greed. ‘On the make’ was what they said of him, this disagreeable feature of character ameliorated only by his fondness for the oiled rope. He was known as ‘Hanging Hawkins’, although he was said to have a quite energetic fear of death himself.74

On this mercifully non-hanging occasion, Hawkins was to represent the apogee of institutionalised corruption for and on behalf of the Victorian ruling elite. Never mind what Albert Victor and his homosexual associates had been up to, this was the judge who had recently put a schoolboy into prison for five years for doing the same thing. ‘I was horrified by the apparent brutality of the sentence,’ wrote an official who had been present at the Old Bailey, ‘and the thought that if the youth had belonged to a different class in society his offence would have been treated quite differently and never have been made public at all.’75

And that’s what this venal pantomime was all about. As far as Hawkins was concerned, it was making upper-class buggery public that was the very grave offence. Parke stood before this ancient bigot to hear what Disraeli had described as ‘Truth in Action’ – in other words the process of British law.

Ernest Parke, you have been convicted of an offence which deserves the most condign punishment. I must say that I think a more atrocious libel than that of which you have been guilty has never been published by any man in circumstances than those in which you have published this libel … You had nothing before you but the idlest rumours, suggesting to you that amongst other persons Lord Euston had been guilty of this abominable crime … This was a wicked libel, published without any justification whatever … I feel it my duty to pass upon you a sentence which I hope, besides being a punishment to you, will be a warning to others.76

Those last six words being the salient point. Twelve months for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The elation of the government was as spiteful as it was predictable. A reactionary weekly, the Saturday Review, positively levitated with glee: ‘The man Parke’s clients lust, first, for personal news, secondly, for dirty personal news, thirdly, for dirty personal news, if possible about persons with titles. He gives it to them; and the law has given him twelve months imprisonment. This is excellent. This man Parke is one of a gang.’ But not all were so partisan, and not a few knew exactly what this was about. ‘As we expected,’ wrote the editor of Reynold’s News,

the result of the trial of the young journalist Parke, has raised a storm of indignation not only at home, but abroad. The whole affair is considered part and parcel of the plan intended to whitewash the police and government from all participation in the frightful miscarriage of justice that has taken place … In his virulent address to the jury, and when passing what we can but consider a most vindictive sentence on the accused, Judge Hawkins emphatically declared that the libel was one of the grossest ever published without a single extenuating circumstance, and Mr Parke was made an example to others who dare tamper with the name of our virtuous and noble aristocracy. What, then, is the conclusion come to? Why, that the authorities were more anxious to conceal the names of those who patronised the horrible den of vice, than punish the principal patrons of the hideous place. Why were the wretched telegraph boys taken to the Old Bailey, whilst Lord Arthur Somerset, being duly warned of what had occurred, made his escape? All this requires, but we suspect will not obtain, satisfactory explanation.

This was the only part of this journal’s outrage that history confirmed. When the scandal finally bloomed into ritual debate at the House of Commons, it had already been controlled. By now Somerset had dissolved into the south of France, never to return. But here come all the Right Honourable Pecksniffs to yak it all over.

For the government, Attorney General Sir Richard Webster QC MP, also of the Athenaeum, spoke the only words of truth to come out of his mouth that night. ‘No good is done,’ he reminded the House, ‘by reporting cases of this description, and it is generally to the credit of reporters of the press, that they almost invariably refrain from reporting them.’77

Please bear this statement in mind.

In this instance, Webster was not alluding to Parke, but to the jailing of a pair of Cleveland Street victims, two boys hustled off in secrecy to serve relatively short terms of incarceration in exchange for keeping their traps shut.

Henry Labouchère, the aforementioned Member for Northampton, known to Queen Victoria as ‘that horrible lying Labouchère’, and to her son Edward, Prince of Wales, as ‘that viper Labouchère’, wasn’t so easily silenced. He’d come into that neo-Gothic marquee of duplicity burning with indignation at the jailing of Ernest Parke; and more than that, he had something to say about the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.

My first charge is that Lord Salisbury and others entered into a criminal conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. Instead of making every effort to punish offences, as far as I can see, every effort has been made to hush up the matter … Two boys have been sent to prison. Salisbury, and several other gentlemen ought also to be prosecuted. We have heard a good deal lately about criminal conspiracy. What is this case but a criminal conspiracy by the very guardians of public morality and law, with the Prime Minister at their head to defeat the ends of justice?78

You can’t really say it any clearer than that.

Labouchère’s use of the term ‘criminal conspiracy’ is interesting. It’s worth noting that not all conclusions of ‘conspiracy’ in respect of the events of 1888–89 are figments of modern imagination. This famous Victorian politician was arguing at the coalface of one such ‘conspiracy’, and it is his choice of word. Salisbury’s administration was in permanent ‘criminal conspiracy’, and as with the ‘nuclear industry’ of our day, telling the truth was not an option – it had to lie to survive.

Labouchère rehearsed his points, including the unusual protocol of a British Prime Minister tipping off a wanted criminal. ‘The importance of the point here,’ he said, ‘is why did Lord Salisbury interfere in the matter? Was it the responsibility of a Prime Minister and a Foreign Secretary to mix himself up in such matters? If he knew a warrant was going to be issued, surely the last thing a man in his official position should have done, was to communicate the fact to a friend of Lord Arthur Somerset?’ Then there was the associated peculiarity of the two boys, sentenced covertly and whisked away from the Old Bailey in secret.

Well, it was nothing of the sort, rejoined Webster: ‘The charge against Her Majesty’s Government is that it was agreed between the prosecuting and defending counsel with the knowledge of the Treasury Solicitor, that the accused should have light sentences as the price of silence, and that corrupt bargain was made with the knowledge of those in authority. I think the house will agree that, if true, more infamous conduct was never charged against persons in authority.’79

It was true. Half the Conservative House did agree, and the other half didn’t. Webster had, in fact, succinctly summarised the case he was put up to argue against (something he would do with less success in the ‘criminal conspiracy’ against the Irish Nationalist leader Charles Parnell*). With an appearance of ‘almost celestial virtue’ he repudiated the existence of this supposed ‘wicked and corrupt bargain’ between the courts and the Conservative government, at which a variety of Members rose, Ernest Parke’s boss T.P. O’Connor among them:

The Attorney General assumes an air of the most virtuous indignation because my Honourable Friend (Mr Labouchère) spoke for an arrangement between the prosecution and defence. The Attorney General is an experienced lawyer of many years practice, and he knows that arrangements of this kind are common … these arrangements between one side and the other are as common almost as criminal trials. In spite of all the Attorney General says, I maintain that there was such an arrangement here, and the object and meaning of it was to close the mouths of the persons in gaol, and in that way to save the criminals who their confessions might have exposed.80

The essence of the response from Sir Richard Webster was basically, ‘Not guilty, but I promise you we won’t do it again.’ It is axiomatic amongst lawyers that you do not propose a question to which you do not know the answer, and here Webster slipped. Referring to brothel-master Charles Hammond and his boy, who had come in for their share of invective, Sir Richard had this to say: ‘As to the circumstances under which Hammond did go to America, my own mouth is closed. I should be perfectly willing, and some day I shall be allowed, to state them. The Honourable and Learned Gentleman, the Member for South Hackney, knows them as well as I do.’81

The Honourable and Learned Gentleman in question was Sir Charles Russell, who immediately professed complete ignorance of the matter. ‘I know nothing about them,’ he said.

This was too ridiculous a falsehood for even Sir Richard Webster to swallow, and although Russell was on the same bent agenda, he replied, ‘The Honourable and Learned Gentleman’s memory misleads him,’ which is another way of saying, ‘You are lying like the label on a bottle of snake-oil.’

Indeed he was. Russell had appeared for a man called Newton (this on behalf of the Prince of Wales). On the application to move the case to the Queen’s Bench, Newton’s affidavit stated ‘that he had been a party to getting Hammond to go away on account of the blackmail he was levying on people in England’.

Who might these ‘people in England’ be? And rather than the police sending Partridge (and the mysterious Tyrell) to America with wads of cash, why wasn’t Hammond extradited from Belgium and prosecuted for the very serious crime of blackmail? It was a question for which the Establishment didn’t require an answer; and anyway, it was all over bar the shouting, the business of the House complete except for the ritual expulsion of Labouchère.

He was finally ordered out of the pantomime by means of a parliamentary device enforced from time to time against Members who persisted in telling the truth.

LABOUCHÈRE: I am obliged to speak frankly and truly in this matter. I assert, if I am obliged to do it, that I do not believe Lord Salisbury.

THE SPEAKER: I must call on the Honourable Member to withdraw the expression.

LABOUCHÈRE: I decline, sir, to withdraw.

And as a matter of fact he repeated it. The First Lord of the Treasury, the successful newsagent W.H. Smith, got to his feet.

‘It is my duty to move that Mr Henry Labouchère be suspended from the service of this House.’

MPs call themselves ‘Honourable’ because nobody else would. The House divided. There was a vote. Ayes 177, Nos ninety-six. The Ayes had it, and out Labouchère went.82