How Crimes Against Women Are Dealt With In 1888 And Today
Reading through newspapers published around the the time in which my tour is set can be enlightening.
Anything that is written that sheds light on how society regards any crime against women focuses my attention. Obviously since my tour is all about a series of brutal attacks on women in the East End of London in 1888.
Attitudes to women a century and more ago were very different to our present attitudes. It is a very long time since anybody has said the wife beating is considered the prerogative of the husband. That was exactly how Jack London explained attitudes to domestic violence in his book The People of the Abyss.
If you are brought up in a society that regards wife beating as the prerogative of the husband then that must affect the way everybody including magistrates and police officers looks at crimes against women.
And even in our more enlightened times things are far from perfect.
The London Metropolitan Police commissioned Louise Casey to investigate after one of its officers abducted Sarah Everard, taking her from a London street in March 2021, before raping and murdering her.
The 363-page report details disturbing stories of sexual assaults, usually covered up or downplayed, with 12% of women in the Met saying they had been harassed or attacked at work, and one-third experiencing sexism.
The report concluded that the Metropolitan police is broken and rotten, suffering collapsing public trust and is guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.
In a world in which wife beating is considered the prerogative of the husband can we expect that the Metropolitan Police would have been any better than it is today?
One crime against a woman that was reported in the Sunday People on Sunday, the 23rd of December, 1888 shows that misogyny was alive and well.
The report appears on page 9 and is headed “Extraordinary Outrage at Dalston”.
At the Dalston Police Court a 40-year-old woman appeared before the magistrate, Mr Horace Smith.
The woman, Sarah Dalhar, said she had no home and no occupation. The prisoner- because that is what she was - said she was a lone but respectable woman, her late husband having been in a good position in life, she did not know how she got down the muse, but she had been very badly treated, and two rings she was wearing had been stolen.
Now this is how this crime was reported in the paper.
“Sarah Dalhar,was charged with being drunk on Wednesday, before Mr. Horace Smith, a woman of shabby genteel appearance who gave the name of Sarah Dalhar. 40 and said she had no home and no occupation was charged with being drunk and incapable under the following extraordinary circumstances.
Police constable 434 N deposed that at 1 o'clock on Wednesday morning, he was on duty in Shacklewell Lane, when he heard screams proceeding from the mews in Dunn Street, Dalstan. On hastening to the spot, he found the prisoner lying on a costamonger's barrow in a state of complete nudity.
Mr. Smith asked, did she complain of being ill used?
The constable said she was drunk.
She bore signs of severe ill treatment about the face, and her left eye was almost closed.
A person who said her house abutted on the muse now came forward.
She was not asked her name.
She said that soon after midnight, whilst she was in bed, she heard fearful screams, proceeding from the meuse.
It was some time before she had the courage to move.
At length she went into the room of a lodger whose window overlooked at the muse.
There she saw a woman lying on a barrow and two men standing over her.
She could not see well what they were doing, but she had an idea that Jack the ripper was at work as the screams continued and the woman was evidently struggling, the witness induced her lodger to open the window.
She then called out, and the men ran away.
She went with her friend into Shacklewell lane, and there they saw the constable, whose attention they called to the screams.
They went round with the officer and helped to dress the woman.
The prisoner said she was a lone but respectable woman, her late husband having been in a good position in life, she did not know how she got down the muse, but she had been very badly treated, and two rings she was wearing had been stolen.
Mr. Horace Smith said he must hear more of this, and he put the woman back for inquiries.”
So there it is. The woman is to be put back for inquiries. She is the prisoner. She is to be charged with being drunk and disorderly.
The police officer whose beat patrol meant he was never more than 300 yards from where this woman is screaming as she is brutally beaten. The police officer who claims he ran there when he heard her screams. He is not to be investigated.
Not to be investigated even though two people contradicted his claim to have arrived as a result of the woman’s screams.
A woman whose name was not even taken explained it very differently.
She explained that it was “soon after midnight, whilst she was in bed that she heard fearful screams.” And then it was sometime “before she had the courage to move.”
She then goes to the room of a lodger and from the window of that room they see a woman who is still screaming and struggling against two men.
The lodger opens the window and the woman called out, and the men ran away.
Then she went to Shacklewell Lane, and there they saw the constable, whose attention they called to the screams.
This screaming had been going on for some time what was the Policeman doing?
I once walked the beat that PC William Smith walked. It was at the centre of his beat where Elizabeth Stride was discovered at the centre of the rectangle that he patrolled. The total distance was half a mile and a gentle stroll took less than eleven minutes.
It’s interesting that PC William Smith failed to hear the shouts of the men who discovered Elizabeth Stride’s body in Berner Street. PC William Smith’s late arrival at the party like the late arrival of PC 434 N was not questioned by the magistrate in the case.
The evidence given by PC 434 N makes no mention of the two witnesses who called him too the scene of the crime.
What he said was that at 1 o'clock on Wednesday morning, he was on duty in Shacklewell Lane, when he heard screams proceeding from Dunn Street. On hastening to the spot, he found the prisoner lying on a costermonger's barrow in a state of complete nudity.
Does the magistrate bother to question this major discrepancy between these two versions of events? Of course not she is the prisoner who the police officer said was drunk and disorderly.
There is no surprise here this is a society where middle aged women who lose there male protector for whatever reason are rendered homeless.
To be made the plaything of the the local lads who lacking a wife to beat will entertain themselves by claiming the prerogative of beating any convenient female who spends her nights trembling on the streets of the richest city in the world.
And the men, magistrates and police officers both senior and junior will always find these women guilty.
The attitude of these pillars of society is amply displayed in this compassionate description of the victims of Jack the Ripper.
They “belonged to a very small class of degraded women who frequent the East End streets after midnight, in hope of inveigling belated drunkards, or men as degraded as themselves.”
They were the words of Dr Robert Anderson, Assistant Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Force. Robert was able to give this description without ever having met Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes or Mary Jane Kelly.
And so the 40-year-old Sarah Dalhar homeless and alone will be dragged about, flung onto a costermonger’s barrow which one of the merry japesters trundles into Dunn Street while his comrade-in-arms wins her compliance by well aimed blows at her face.
Oddly when the magistrate asked, did she complain of being ill used?
The constable’s reply was not that, “She bore signs of severe ill treatment about the face, and her left eye was almost closed.”
No the constable replied “she was drunk.” Which could be considered an odd reply to the question “Did she complain of being ill used?”
But evidently not odd to the magistrate who was considering what sort of punishment this 40-year-old homeless woman should receive.
As the poet Percy Byshe Shelley wrote “Hell is a city much like London.”
Thank you for listening. I hope I’ll get to meet you on one of my walks Thursdays and Fridays at 7 in the evening. This is Richard Walker saying goodbye.