Home > Work > The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
81 " Filthy canvas smocks and smeared aprons were the only fashion; the sootier and blacker, the harder the worker. "
― Hallie Rubenhold , The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
82 " More than 650 died in the tragedy, the greatest loss of life sustained in any Thames shipping disaster. "
83 " Catherine, whose body had been ravaged by childbearing, physical labor, and poor nutrition, had, at forty-two, lived the average number of years for a woman of her class at that time. "
84 " Polly, quite unusually for her gender and class, was permitted to remain in school until the age of fifteen. "
85 " She had been brought into the world along the Street of Ink, and it is to there, riding on its column inches, its illustrated plates, its rumor and scandal, that she would return: a name in print. "
86 " The only means by which she could then sustain herself would be to resort to the profession she had been accused of practising. "
87 " January 16, 1864, eighteen-year-old Polly and her beau were married at St. Bride’s, also known as “the Printer’s Church.” William proudly entered that precise profession as his on the register. "
88 " Las cartas estaba en contra de Polly, de Annie, de Elizabeth, de Kate de y Mary Jane desde el día que nacieron. Empezaron sus vidas de manera deficitaria. No solo la mayoría había nacido en familias de clase trabajadora, sino que habían nacido mujeres". "
89 " As a result, between 1851 and 1891, nearly 43 percent of British women between the ages of fifteen and twenty entered this occupation. "
90 " Para examinar a este prodigio de la maldad hemos pasado por encima de los cuerpos de las mujeres que asesinó. De hecho, a algunas de ellas se les ha dado una patada al pasar junto a su cadáver". "
91 " Much as anticipated, three months after the nuptials, Polly was expecting the couple’s first child. On December 17, 1864, the cries of William Edward Walker Nichols filled the rooms of 17 Kirby Street.7 By the autumn of 1865, Mrs. Nichols was pregnant once more, and the need for larger accommodation grew as obvious as her maternal belly. "
92 " The family, now six in number, took a house at 131 Trafalgar Street, on what was described as “a terrace of two-story brick cottages.” Although the road and its dwellings had been constructed relatively recently, shortly after 1805, they had not weathered the passage of sixty years especially well. "
93 " Alfred and the three youngest were sent to Bermondsey Union Workhouse as orphans. Thomas joined them there the following day. "
94 " Mrs. Beeton, in her Book of Household Management, published in 1861, suggested that a maid-of-all-work should receive annual pay of nine to fourteen pounds; if the employer supplied the maid with an allowance to purchase her own tea, sugar, and small beer, this figure was reduced to seven and a half to eleven pounds. "
95 " In early June, the London Fever Hospital proclaimed a crisis when ‘upwards of 100 patients’ were admitted for scarlet fever alone. What then exacerbated the situation was the arrival of a second epidemic: typhus "
96 " Less than an hour later, when George had still not appeared, the landlady went upstairs and, much to her horror, discovered Leyland’s valet “with his throat cut, in a shocking manner, with a razor lying by him covered with blood.” George was dead by the time he was found, on the floor, “with only his shirt and drawers on.”11 "
97 " In the span of only three weeks, death had carried away four of the Smiths’ six children. The enormity of such a tragedy is almost inconceivable to modern, Western sensibilities, particularly as their lives might have been spared had they lived in an era of antibiotics. "
98 " certainly Elisabeth strove to be all of those women—everyone and no one. She was anonymous: a woman with a mutable story, a changeable history, someone who had recognized that the world didn’t care about her, and chose to use that as a weapon in order to survive. "
99 " Bare-knuckle boxing had been big business in England since the eighteenth century. "
100 " suicide by cutting his throat with a razor while labouring under temporary insanity. "