Other “Whitechapel Murder” letters in the Corporation of London Records Office include a postcard dated October 3rd, with the anonymous sender using many of the same threats, words, and phrases found in Ripper letters at the PRO: “send you my victims ears”; “It amuses me that you think I am mad”; “Just a card to let you know”; “I will write to you again soon”; and “My bloody ink is running out.” On October 6,1888, “Anonymous” offers a suggestion that the killer might be keeping “the victims silent by pressure on certain nerves in the neck,” and adds that an additional benefit to subduing the victim is that the killer can “preserve his own person and clothing comparatively unstained.” In October 1888, an anonymous letter written in red ink uses the terms “spanky ass” and “Saucy Jacky” and promises to “send next ears I clip to Charly Warren.”
An undated letter includes a bit of newspaper attached by a rusty paperclip. When my co-worker, Irene Shulgin, removed the clipping and turned it over, she found the phrase “author of works of art.” In a letter dated October 7, 1888, the writer signs his name “Homo Sum,” Latin for “I am a man.” On October 9, 1888, an anonymous writer takes offense, once again, at being thought of as a lunatic: “Don’t you rest content on the lunacy fad.” Other anonymous letters offer tips to the police, encouraging officers to disguise themselves as women and wear “chain armour” or “light steel collars” under their clothes. An anonymous letter of October 20, 1888, claims the “motive for the crimes is hatred and spite against the authorities of Scotland Yard one of whom is marked as a victim.”
In a July 1889 letter a writer signs his letter “Qui Vir,” Latin for “Which Man.” In a letter Sickert wrote to Whistler in 1897, he rather sarcastically refers to his former “impish master” as “Ecce homo,” or “behold the man.” In the “Qui Vir” letter, which is at the Corporation of London Records Office, the writer suggests that the killer is “able to choose a time to do the murder 8c get back to his hiding place.” On September 11,1889, an anonymous writer teases police by saying he always travels in “third class Cerage” and “I ware black wiskers all over my face.” Approximately twenty percent of these Corporation of London Records Office letters have watermarks, including, as I mentioned, the Joynson Superfine. I also found a Monckton’s Superfine watermark on a letter signed “one of the public.” A letter Sickert wrote to Whistler in the mid to late 1880s also has a Monckton’s Superfine watermark.
Certainly, I wouldn’t dare claim that these letters were written by Sickert or even Jack the Ripper, but the anonymous communications fit the profile of a violent psychopath who taunts police and tries to insert him-or herself into the investigation. Watermarks and language aside, the problem of handwriting remains. The amazing variety found in the Ripper letters has been a source of hot debate. Many people, including forensic documents examiners, have argued that it is not possible for one person to write in so many hands.
This is not necessarily true, says paper historian and forensic paper analyst Peter Bower, one of the most respected paper experts in the world, and perhaps best known for his work on the papers used by artists as various as Michelangelo, J.M.W. Turner, Constable, and others – as well as for determining that the notorious Jack the Ripper diary was a fraud. Bower has assisted in our examination of the Ripper/Sickert letters. He says he has seen “good calligraphers” who can write in an incredible number of different hands, but “it takes extraordinary skill.” His wife, Sally Bower, is a much respected letterer, or person who designs and draws lettering. Although she is not a handwriting expert, she has a different perspective because she is an expert in how a person forms the letters strung together in words. When she looked through Ripper letters with her husband, she immediately connected a number of letters through quirks and how the hand made the writing. I have no doubt that Sickert had an amazing ability to write in many different hands, but his disguised writings are becoming less concealing as the investigation progresses.