Who was Jack the Ripper?

 

 

Jack the Ripper. The very name stirs up images of London alleyways, Scotland Yard inspectors with bull’s eye torches, and violent murder. Although the bare facts have not changed in over one hundred years of investigation, we are no closer to solving the case now than contemporary investigators were.

The Ripper crimes, those fearsome murders of prostitutes during the autumn months of 1888, remain unanswered. However, that is not due to a lack of evidence, or even suspects. Many theories abound: secret Masonic rituals, mad abortionists, deranged royals, and unscrupulous surgeons are all among the most popular theories as to why prostitutes were killed and then eviscerated in that Autumn of Terror.

 

Links are provided below to the four sections of this site.

 

Act I

The Crime Scenes

Act II

The Victims

Act III

The Suspects

Act IV

The Legacy


HELLO! Look, I can tell this page is getting hits. Please let me know who you are, what you are looking for, etc. I can't improve this site without YOUR help

Who am I?

My name is Terrence Bosky and I consider myself an amateur Ripperologist. Ripperology, is the study of the Ripper crimes. Some Ripperologists seek to identify Jack the Ripper, some use the Ripper crimes as a context to understand the seedy side of Victorian London, others (such as I) merely seek to keep afloat in the massive amounts of Jack the Ripper literature published each year.

Let me know what you think: boskyt@aol.com

Call me Ahab

Call me Ahab by Philip José Farmer

Call me Ahab, not Ishmael.
For I have hooked the Leviathan.
I am the wild ass's colt born to a man.
Lo, my eye has seen it all!
My bosom is like wine that has no vent.
I am a sea with doors, but the doors are stuck.
Watch out! The skin will burst; the doors will break.

You are Nimrod, I say to my friend, Chib.
And now is the hour when God says to his angels,
If this is what he can do as a beginning, then
Nothing is impossible for him.
He will be blowing his horn before
The ramparts of Heaven and shouting for
The Moon as hostage, the Virgin as wife,
And demanding a cut on the profits
From the Great Whore of Babylon.

Melville wrote of me long before I was born.
I'm the man who wants to comprehend
The Universe but comprehend on my terms.
I am Ahab whose hate must pierce, shatter,
All impediment of Time, Space, or Subject
Mortality and hurl my fierce
Incandescence into the Womb of Creation,
Disturbing in its Lair whatever Force or
Unknowing Thing-in-Itself croutches there,
Remote, removed, unrevealed.

Quid nunc? Cui bono?
Time? Space? Substance? Accident?
When you die--Hell? Nirvana?
Nothing is nothing to think about.
The canons of philosophy boom.
Their projectiles are duds.
The ammo heaps of theology blow up,
Set off by the saboteur Reason.

Call me Ephraim, for I was halted
At the Ford of God and could not tongue
The sibilance to let me pass.
Well, I can't pronounce shibboleth
But I can say shit!

Sir, I exist! And don't tell me,
As you did Crane, that that creates
No obligation in you towards me.
I am a man; I am unique.
I've thrown the Bread out the window,
Pissed in the Wine, pulled the plug
From the bottom of the Ark, cut the Tree
For firewood, and if there was a Holy
Ghost, I'd goose him.
But I know that it all does not mean
A God damned thing,
That nothing means nothing,
That is is is and not-is not is is-not
That a rose is a rose is a
That we are here and will not be
And that is all we can know!

The earth lurches like a ship going down,
Its back almost broken by the flood of
Excrement from the heavens and the deeps,
What God in His terrible munificence
Has granted on hearing Ahab cry,
Bullshit! Bullshit!

I weep to think that this is Man
And this his end. But wait!
On the crest of the flood, a three-master
Of antique shape. The Flying Dutchman!
And Ahab is astride a ship's deck once more.
Laugh you Fates, and mock, you Norns!
For I am Ahab and I am Man,
And though I cannot break a hole
Through the wall of What Seems
To grab a handful of What Is,
Yet, I will keep on punching.
And I and my crew will not give up,
Though the timbers split beneath our feet
And we sink to become indistinguishable
From the general excrement.

For a moment that will burn on the
Eye of God forever, Ahab stands
Outlined against the blaze of Orion,
Fist clenched, a bloody phallus,
Like Zeus exhibiting the trophy of
The unmanning of his father Cronus.
And then he and his crew and ship
Dip and hurtle headlong over
The edge of the world.
And from what I hear, they are still
F
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