Robert D'Onston Stephenson

Robert D'Onston Stephenson (aka Roslyn D'Onston) (20 April 1841–9 October 1916) was a writer and journalist, chiefly known for having been made a potential suspect in the Whitechapel Murders investigation, and for his personal theory regarding the identity of the murderer.

Involvement in the investigation

Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim generally acknowledged to have been killed by 'Jack the Ripper', was found about 150 yards from the London Hospital, on 31th August 1888. Stephenson had been staying at the hospital since July. His profession, and his private studies of the 'occult sciences', made him take a more than average interest in the evolving murder series. At the London Hospital the murders were, as elsewhere, the major subject of conversation. After witnessing one Doctor Morgan Davies performing a demonstration of how the murderer may have been subduing and killing the victims [Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack The Ripper Sourcebook, p. 669. ISBN 978-0786709267] , Stephenson found Davies' behaviour suspicious, and brought the story on, to one George Marsh, an ironmongery salesman professing to be an amateur detective. [ibid., p. 671.] George Marsh, on his side, found Stephenson to be the more suspicious character, and went to the Scotland Yard. One of the officers, Inspector Roots, immediately recognized the 'suspect description' as being a man he had known for 20 years - Robert D'Onston Stephenson: "a travelled man of education and ability, a doctor of medicine upon diplomas of Paris and New York: a major from the Italian Army - he fought under Garibaldi: and a newspaper writer"." [ibid., p. 673.] Stephenson was cleared of suspicion without further ado.

Analysis of a singular clue

Stephenson's interest in the crimes eventually led to an article in the Pall Mall Gazette, presenting his own theory about the motivation and identity of the murderer, based upon the character of the crimes and a possible clue found in Goulston Street. After the murder of Catherine Eddowes on 30 September, in Mitre Square, a piece of her bloodied apron was found under a sentence neatly written in chalk, at the entrance of a 'model dwelling' with Jewish tenants. A written copy was taken down, registering the writing as saying": "The Juωes are the men that Will not be Blamed for nothing". Two weeks later, after noticing that the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, had been claiming that "no language or dialogue is known in which the word Jews is spelled JUWES", Stephenson wrote a letter to the City Police, explaining that a similar word may indeed exist. [ibid., p. 668.] Six weeks later an expanded version of Stephenson's explanation was published in the Pall Mall Gazette.

"To critically examine an inscription of this kind, the first thing we naturally do is not to rest satisfied with reading it in print, but to make, as nearly as we can, a facsimile of it in script, thus (...) Inspection at once shows us, then, that a dot has been overlooked by the constable who copied it, as might easily occur, especially if it were placed at some distance, after the manner of foreigners. (...) Therefore we place a dot above the third upstroke in the word Juwes, and we find it to be Juives, which is the French word for Jews." [Pall Mall Gazette, 1st December 1888. [http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/collected-donston.1.html (Casebook.org)] ]

Stephenson found the grammatical construction of the sentence under examination to be distinctly French in two points - first, in the double negative contained; and, secondly, in the employment of the definite article before a second noun. Thus strengthening his conclusion, that the murderer would have to be of French-speaking origin.

See also

French articles and determiners

Jack the Ripper suspects

Jack the Ripper

Bibliography

[http://kobek.com/crowleyripper.pdf The Collected Short Work of Roslyn D'Onston (Stephenson) (kobek.com)]
[http://kobek.com/patristic/patristicgospels-one.pdf The Patristic Gospels by Roslyn D'Onston (Stephenson) (kobek.com)]

References