The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free

request that the six complimentary copies, which I understand are usually presented to an author by his publisher, be sent to the club. Otherwise my autobiography may never penetrate to that backwater.
    â€”
    Since this autobiography will not be published until after my death I can allow myself entire freedom in writing, bearing in mind, however, that convention has set certain bounds upon what is permissible. This book is not intended to be read aloud to the family circle, but on the other hand I do not want it impounded by the police. But although I may have to touch delicately upon one or two matters, there is this point: I have no relatives and no one need suffer, therefore, as a result of the obloquy which (society being constituted as it is) will attach to my name. And I have been careful not to refer by name to any person who is, to my knowledge, at present living.
    As regards the ultimate publication of the manuscript: this has cost me much thought. But I am not without resource and a little ingenuity will, I think, overcome the difficulty. After all, there are such things as literary agents, and if my executor does not get involved over some difficulty with probate I see no reason why the plan which I have dimly evolved should not be successful. At least the manuscript should get as far as a publisher’s office if my executor honourably fulfills my instructions and does not allow curiosity as to what it is he is dealing with to master him. As to any profits arising from publication, these must go with my other assets which, having no relatives, I am leaving to a charitable institution connected with animals. At least that has been my intention; but recently it has occurred to me to alter my will and to leave everything to the Police Orphanage. The idea rather appeals to me.
    â€”
    Before closing this somewhat rambling preface it is necessary for me to say a few words regarding conversations in this book. Truthfully to reproduce these verbatim after a lapse of forty or fifty years is obviously impossible; but a book devoid of conversational matter is, to my mind, dull; it lacks anything approaching vividness. The conversations here are therefore “reconstructed,” being based upon the gist of the matter spoken of and clothed in the characteristic dictions of the people concerned as I recall them. In some special instances, however, the words actually used have remained fixed in my memory despite the passage of years; Mrs. Nicholl’s remarks about her canary, for example. And when I mention Martha Tabron’s ejaculation of “Oo Gawd!” which she managed to utter through my clenched fingers when the light caught the blade of my knife, I am reporting actual fact. She said exactly that, no less and—no more.
    â€”
    And a last word to the general reader. This is not put forward as a work of literature, but simply as a record of the main incidents of my early life. I make no pretence to any literary ability, and skilled writers are not made at the age of sixty-nine.

Chapter 1
    I was born at Tottenham, at that time a new suburb—if, indeed, it could have been called a suburb of London at all. My first childish recollections of the place are associated with bricks and mortar and muddy gashes cut into the green fields; our own house was, I think, quite a new one. It was a double-fronted, semi-detached house, the last of a row of six; its left side adjoined a field owned by a dairy farmer and into this field small parties occasionally came to picnic, lighting furtive fires in dangerous proximity to our wooden fence. When detected, the picnic parties were chivvied from the field by the farmer with whom my father was glad to co-operate fearing, as he did, that sooner or later his fence would be set on fire. This disaster never, in fact, happened; but many were the arguments carried on over our fence. Several of these ended by my father dousing the illegal fire with a pail of water and on