Hi folks,
All the stuff on the thread about Victorian Freemasons and their
place in the establishment of the time reminded me of the
movie "Murder by Decree". In it, Holmes (played by Christopher
Plummer) and Watson, investigate the Ripper murders. In one part of
the film, Holmes deduces that the inscription found on a Whitechapel
wall "the jewes are not the ones who will be blamed for nothing"
doesn't mean that the jews of the East End are to blame for the
murders, but rather that there is a conection with the Freemasons.
This indeed turns out to be so when later on in the film he is taken
to a Masonic temple and is confronted by Sir Charles Warren who warns
him to leave the case alone.
I've seen the movie a few times and always found it entertaining.
Holmes uncovers a conspiracy which goes right to the heart of British
society, and while he solves the case, he can't ever make his
findings public for the good of the realm. The neat bit about the
film is that the Freemasons are not the villans per say. The villans
are the Establishment, most of whom happen to be Freemasons.
While on the subject of the Ripper murders, a letter supposedly
written to the pathologist involved in the case was recently
published in the British press. Even if its a fake it is interesting
reading. It is written in rather poor English, lending credence to
the idea that the Ripper was working class. I also read somewhere
recently, that the latest theory about the Ripper's identity is that
he was a Jewish butcher because there was something about the way the
victims were killed or mutilated which was similar to Jewish ritual
butchery practices. When I read this I was quite surprised, as I
thought the old idea of the Ripper being Jewish was just Victorian
anti-semitism but there might be something in it. From the published
pictures I've seen the mutilations look a lot more like the work of a
butcher than a surgeon, although who knows what a maniac would do!
So the body of evidence points against the Ripper being one of upper
or middle class gone bad, unless of course he was really Mr Hyde.....