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I S S U E N O . 2

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INSIDE

HISTORY

C R I M E A N D T H E U N D E R W O R L D

THE

TRIALS

OF

LIZZIE

BORDEN

* Stand and deliver: Dick Turpin * the real peaky blinders * h.h Holmes * ANgels in The House*

*Bootlegging and prohibition * Al Capone * burke and hare * The evolution of the Crime investigation *

*Peine Forte Et DURe * The Morellos * How to get away with murder in the middle ages *

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Avampato

Christa

Stephen Carver

Dr

Nell Darby

Dr

Rebecca Frost

Dr

James

Mallory

Kevern

Nick

Ruggiero

Anthony

O'Shaughnessy

Patrick

Smith

Conal

Walsh

Robert

Elliott Watson

Dr

John Woolf

Dr

is no escaping the fact that crime has always been

There

part of history. Wherever there is an opportunity then

a

are always those who aim to benefit from it. For

there

issue of INSIDE HISTORY, we have aimed to enter

this

Rebecca Frost investigates the evolution of the myth

Dr

the notorious H.H Holmes. How many did he

behind

kill and how much of what he did (or even, did

actually

do) was the work of his own imagination? Was he

not

for helping to create his own sensationalism

responsible

stories written about him?

the

media, since the early days of the printing press, has

The

been keen to report on murders. Lizzie Borden's

always

was no different. Yet, her particular case raises a

case

of issues. Despite being found innocent of the

number

of her father and stepmother, Borden faced

murders

trials following her acquittal. From her own

many

to media frenzy and of course, the

community,

of history.

perception

criminals have never needed the media to help

Some

to become part of the public imagination. Over

them

they can become glamorous based on the work of

time

writers eager to tell a story. Dick Turpin is one

fictional

case. The image of Turpin is often portrayed as the

such

highwayman, feared by the wealthy and

gentleman

by women. The real Turpin is a completely

adored

story as Dr Stephen Carver will reveal.

different

has unfortunately become a form of

Crime

with many television channels dedicated

entertainment

time to documentaries and movies about famous

air

There is of course an issue with this. How

criminals.

do we really know about these people? How can

much

the fact from the fiction? As historians our job is not

tell

the deeds of these individuals but to pursue

glamourise

truth with the evidence at hand. I only hope that we

the

us as we take you from the Middle Ages right up to

Join

20th Century on this journey of historical crime and

the

Underworld. As Nick Ross from Crimewatch used to

the

"Don't have nightmares...sleep well."

say:

A NOTE

BY THE

EDITOR

"DON'T HAVE NIGHTMARES...

SLEEP WELL"

Nick Ross. BBC Crimewatch Presenter

the criminal underworld throughout time.

E D I T O R

Nick Kevern

C O N T R I B U T O R S

have managed to do just that.

@inside__history insidehistorymag @InsideHistoryMag

to get away with murder in the

How

Ages

Middle

Turpin: The Not-So Dandy

Dick

Highwayman

man: The Evolution of the mth

Self-made

H.H Holmes

of

the St Valentine's Day Massacre

How

the Jazz Age

killed

changing world of Crime

The

Investigations

10

18

22

30

36

40

I N S I D E H I S T O R Y

07

30

I S S U E 0 2 / C R I M E A N D T H E U N D E R W O R L D

C O N T E N T S

07

12

26

48

48

53

26

22

Crushing the Confession

Burke and Hare: Dealers in Death

Angels in the House

The trials of Lizzie Borden

The Morellos: Families at War

The REAL Peaky Blinders

12

18

Prohibition in New York City

44

40

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HOW TO GET AWAY

WITH MURDER IN

THE MIDDLE AGES

WORDS BY CONAL SMITH

Watch any film or TV series set in the middle ages, or

a middle ages-esque environment such as Westeros,

and you are likely to come across barbarism. Heads

are chopped off and men are hanged for anything,

including the smallest of crimes. While there may be

some exaggeration, go back to the middle ages and

almost all serious crime was certainly punished in this

way. Murder, serious theft and burglary of goods over

12 pence(!) were capital offences for anyone over the

age of 10. Here, however, are a few ways that a crafty

criminal could try to avoid the noose.

Although in some cases it was possible to claim

sanctuary indefinitely, it was more common that a

criminal would need to make a choice within 40 days.

Either they must opt to go into permanent exile,

receiving safe passage as they left the country, or

they had to present themselves to a court. Presenting

one’s self to a court meant facing the full force of the

King’s justice, and so the option of fleeing England to

start a new life overseas could be a route to avoiding

this.

Plead benefit of the Clergy

If you were a member of the clergy (priest, monk or

nun), you escaped the King’s justice automatically.

Instead of being tried in the King’s courts, you would

be tried by your fellow churchmen in a Church court.

Here punishments tended to focus more on penance

than punishment. Though standing in the village

square in nothing but your small clothes sounds far

from pleasant, it certainly sounds preferable to

hanging. Surely this was only open to real members

of the clergy though?

Wrong. ANYONE could claim benefit of the clergy.

The ‘proof’ if one can call it that was merely the ability

to read a passage in latin. Still think that sounds

tough as you had to learn Latin? Wrong again. There

was a set passage, which became known as the ‘neck

verse’ that was used to test this. Hence, even if you

could not speak latin, you could learn psalm 51 by

heart and then simply recount it when the bible was

placed in front of you to test whether you were

indeed clergy. While you might not completely get

away with murder, being liable for a Church

punishment, a simple bit of preparation was a

surefire way to avoid execution for murder. This route

even went on far beyond the middle ages, not being

finally abolished until 1823!

Sanctuary

Even if you had not put in the requisite preparation

to plead benefit of the clergy, the Church still

provided a clear route to avoiding the death penalty.

There was a legal ability to claim sanctuary in a holy

place, until its abolition in 1624. If a criminal was able

to reach a Church or Cathedral, their pursuers were

not able to enter a holy place and arrest them,

something which could be seen a desecrating a holy

site.

8 / CRIME AND THE UNDERWORLD

There was a legal

ability to claim

sanctuary in a holy

place, until its

abolition in 1624.

Victory taken

as clear proof

of innocence

Trial by Combat

A far riskier route, but one which could see you

serving no punishment whatsoever, was dependent

on presenting yourself to the authorities. Once

arrested, if there was some element of doubt over

your guilt you could request trial by combat rather

than the more common trial by jury. This system was

in place from the Norman Conquest and meant that,

so long as your accuser was not someone deemed

unable to fight (through age, sex or disablity), you

could challenge them to single combat. In a 60 foot

square arena, the two of you would engage in a fight,

either to the death or until one of the participants

yielded, with a victory taken as clear proof of

innocence; for the authorities this also had the

benefit of sometimes avoiding the need to employ a

hangman!

The three possibilities hitherto described are some of

the purely medieval routes of escape available to you,

but there were also some routes that continue to be

employed far beyond the period and even in some

cases up to this day.

In the first instance of course there is the simple

route of fleeing as far and as fast as possible. While

there were medieval methods to catch a fugitive,

such as the hue and cry, the reach of these attempts

were geographically very restricted. Secondly, one

could admit guilt, but then try and obtain a royal

pardon. For those who could afford it this could

sometimes be bought. However, more common in

the Later Middle Ages are the many violent criminals,

including murderers, who received a royal pardon in

return for military service overseas. If a guarantee of

hardship and risk of violent death did not appeal, the

modern mafia staple of witness intimidation would

also have been available to you dependent on wealth

and influence, particularly given the lack of forensic

evidence to ensure a conviction without sworn

testimony.

So there you have it, if you committed a murder in

the middle ages there may have been no way of

guaranteeing escaping the long arm of the law.

However, there were plenty of options to choose

from in an attempt to avoid swinging for your crimes.

Conal Smith is part of the

editorial team at the

VersusHistory Podcast

WORDS BY NICK KEVERN

CRIME AND THE UNDERWORLD / 9

CRUSHING THE

CONFESSION

WORDS BY PATRICK O'SHAUGHNESSY

IMAGE: WIKIMEDIA

O'Shaughnessy is the Head of History at a

Patrick

international school in the Middle East.

prestigious

is a Co-Editor of the Versus History Podcast and

He

writes on various subjects related to History.

regularly

is currently writing a book which focuses on

Patrick

causes and events of the American Revolution.

the

If your English ancestors stood trial for a crime in a

court of law before 1772, the sentence - if convicted -

could be extremely severe. For instance, when the

Gunpowder Plotters were convicted of ‘high treason’

against King James I in January 1606, they were

publically hung, drawn and quartered before of a

hostile and highly unsympathetic crowd in London.

The potential punishments for those convicted of a

crime during both the Tudor and Stuart eras (1485-

1714) could include - but were not limited to - being

beheaded, death by hanging and being put in the

stocks, depending on the severity of the crime that

one was found guilty of committing. Capital

punishment was constant during this time of great

political, social and cultural flux. Following the demise

of the Stuart dynasty in 1714, the punishment dished

out to offenders during the reigns of the first three

Georgian monarchs who reigned between 1714-1820,

could still involve the death penalty. By 1800, the

application of the death penalty was extended to

cover over 200 different crimes, including theft.

Transportation of convicted felons was also used until

1867, during the reign of Queen Victoria. As Historian

E.P Thompson argued, ‘The commercial expansion,

the enclosure movement, the early years of the

Industrial Revolution - all took place within the

shadow of the gallows.’ It is clear, therefore, that the

huge societal shifts which were taking place in

Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries did not

axiomatically lead to changes or reform in the

criminal justice system.

The application of capital punishment and the

banishment of convicted criminals to distant colonial

outposts is generally well known and documented.

However, a lesser-known, but perhaps equally

barbaric feature of the criminal justice system until

1772 was an inherent part of the prosecution stage,

rather than the punishment decreed as part of the

sentence. If prosecuted in a court of law for a capital

offence (e.g: murder or treason) during the reign of

King George III (1760-1820) or a monarch preceding

him, your English ancestors would have been faced

with a simple choice. To plead ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ of

the stated crime in a court of law. Right? Actually, it’s

wrong!

The choice of plea facing the accused at the start of a

trial was not a simple binary between ‘innocent’ on

the one hand and ‘guilty’ on the other. There was a

THIRD option. This is where things get slightly

complex but very interesting. We can safely assume

that a plea of ‘guilty’ in a trial for a capital offence

would have meant almost certain conviction, death

and the subsequent forfeiture of all land and property

owed to the Crown. A plea of ‘innocent’ would have

either resulted in the previous outcome or if one was

lucky, an acquittal (although this was unlikely in

treason cases as these were often a fait accompli).

The third option would have appealed to those with

significant estates and wealth. To avoid the seizure of

all property and estates by the Crown, the accused

could refuse to enter a plea at the start of the trial

when requested to do so. This could result in what

was known as ‘peine forte et dure’. In English, this

meant ‘hard and forceful punishment’. When this

eventuality occurred, the courtroom proceedings

were suspended, as a plea was necessary to proceed.

The defendant was subsequently subjected to a

process of crushing by increasingly heavier rocks,

hence the ‘hard and forceful punishment’ element.

The process was designed to elicit a plea - either

‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’ from the defendant - which

would then result in the process of crushing being

terminated and the courtroom trial being resumed.

However, the process of ‘peine forte et dure’ did not

often result in a plea being entered, as one may think,

despite the obvious excruciating and slow death that

would result. The reason for this is to do with the

forfeiture of wealth, assets and titles to the Crown

that a ‘guilty’ verdict in a court of law would entail.

Indeed, if the accused were to perish during the

‘crushing’ process, they would technically die as an

‘innocent’ person. Therefore, the ‘next of kin’ could

inherit the wealth of the deceased, rather than it

being seized for the Crown.

During the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in the

British Colony of Massachusetts, an elderly individual

named Giles Corey, who was born in Northampton in

1611 and emigrated to the American colonies in his

younger years, refused to enter a plea to the court in

his trial for alleged witchcraft. Corey was subjected to

the brutal process of peine forte et dure and was

subsequently crushed to death. Legend has it that

Corey endured the entire crushing process in silence.

Whether or not this is true, Corey died an innocent

man in the eyes of the court and could, therefore,

bequeath an inheritance to his immediate family. The

awful spectre of this elderly colonist being crushed to

death may well have been one of the causal factors

behind the eventual conclusion of the Witch Trials in

Salem, along with the growing accusations of

witchcraft aimed at women at the apex of the social

hierarchy. Whatever the truth, the history of peine

forte et dure demands attention as a more brutal part

of Britain’s legal and judicial history.


DICK TURPIN:

THE NOT SO

DANDY

WORDS BY DR STEPHEN CARVER

HIGHWAYMAN

In popular history, the name ‘Dick Turpin’ evokes a

character at once handsome, brave and funny, his cry

of ‘Stand and deliver!’ once causing many a lady

traveller’s heart to flutter. Not as famous as he was in

the seventies, perhaps, when he had his own TV

show, but he remains a real Jack Sparrow, with a set

of adventures ingrained in the national psyche, most

notably his famous ride from London to York in a

night on the equally legendary Black Bess. Like a

Georgian Jesse James, the ‘gentleman highwayman’

is the outlaw king and a symbol of rebellious

Englishness. The reality was, of course, much less

glamorous.

The best original biographical source is a chapbook

entitled The Genuine HISTORY of the LIFE of

RICHARD TURPIN, The noted Highwayman, Who was

Executed at York for Horse-stealing, under the Name

of John Palmer, on Saturday April, 7, 1739 as told by

Richard Bayes and recorded by one J. Cole in

conversation at the Green Man in Epping Forest. Not

that such ‘histories’ are exactly accurate, but this one

was at least based on contemporary witness

testimony and an account of the trial is also

appended.

According to Bayes and Cole, Turpin was born in

Hempstead in 1705. He was taught to read and write

by a tutor called James Smith, then apprenticed to a

butcher in Whitechapel. There he married a local girl

called Elizabeth Palmer, or Millington, depending on

which chapbook you believe. The couple set up in

business in Sutton, but the meat trade was no longer

guilded and unregulated competition was fierce.

Turpin took to stealing livestock until he was spotted,

and a warrant drawn up. Evading capture, he next

briefly tried his hand at smuggling before falling in

with a band of deer poachers known as ‘Gregory’s

Gang’ after its leaders, the brothers Samuel, Jeremiah

and Jaspar Gregory. The gang soon diversified into

housebreaking around Essex, Middlesex Surrey and

Kent, stealing horses, sexually assaulting

maidservants and demanding valuables with

menaces. As a contemporary newspaper reported:

"On Saturday night last, about seven o’clock, five

rogues entered the house of the Widow Shelley at

Loughton in Essex, having pistols &c. and threatened

to murder the old lady, if she would not tell them

where her money lay, which she obstinately refusing

for some time, they threatened to lay her across the

fire, if she did not instantly tell them, which she would

not do."

Beatings, rapes, scaldings and severe burns were

favourite forms of persuasion, until, pursued by

dragoons with a £100 reward on each of their heads,

several of the gang was cornered at a pub in

Westminster. The youngest, a teenager called John

Wheeler, turned King’s evidence and his compatriots

were hanged in chains. Descriptions of the remaining

outlaws were quickly circulated, including: ‘Richard

Turpin, a Butcher by Trade, is a tall fresh colour’d Man,

very much mark’d with the Small Pox, about 26 Years

of Age, about Five Feet Nine Inches high, lived some

Time ago at White-chappel and did lately Lodge

somewhere about Millbank, Westminster, wears a

Blew Grey Coat and a natural Wig’.

"Beatings, rapes, scaldings

and severe burns were

favourite forms of

persuasion, until, pursued

by dragoons with a £100

reward on each of their

heads, several of the gang

was cornered at a pub in

Westminister"

On the run, Turpin held up a well-dressed gentleman

who turned out to be the highwayman, Tom King.

They rode together for three years, living in a cave in

Epping Forest until their hideout was discovered by a

bounty-hunting servant who Turpin murdered. On

the run again, Turpin stole a horse near the Green

Man, at which point Richard Bayes became directly

involved in his own story, tracking Turpin and King to

the Red Lyon in Whitechapel. Turpin took a shot at

Bayes, hitting King instead and escaping in the

confusion. King lived for another week, during which

he cursed Turpin for a coward and gave up all their

secrets. Bayes found the cave, but Turpin was long

gone.

Becoming ‘John Palmer’, Turpin relocated to

Yorkshire as a ‘horse trader’, although he was really

stealing them from neighbouring counties.

CRIME AND THE UNDERWORLD/ 13

The closest we get to ‘Black Bess’ is a black mare

owned by a man called Thomas Creasy that Turpin

stole in York during this period. Returning home

drunk from a shooting party one day, Turpin shot a

cockerel belonging to his landlord for a lark. His

neighbour, a Mr. Hall, witnessed the event and

declared, ‘You have done wrong, Mr Palmer in

shooting your landlord’s cock’, to which Turpin

replied that if he stood still while he reloaded, he

would put a bullet in him too. Hall told their landlord

and Turpin was arrested. Being new to the area,

Turpin could not provide any character witnesses,

and although he claimed to be a butcher from Long

Sutton, something about his vague backstory did not

ring true with the examining magistrate. He was

detained while more enquiries were made in

Lincolnshire, revealing that ‘John Palmer’ was a

suspected horse thief. He was transferred to a cell at

York Castle while further investigations were

conducted.

his corpse being borne through the streets like a

martyred saint, before it was buried in lime to render

it useless for surgical dissection. He supposedly lies in

the graveyard of St George’s Church, Fishergate,

although the headstone that now graces the spot

was not there when an aspiring young novelist from

Manchester called William Harrison Ainsworth looked

for it in 1833.

By then, Dick Turpin had been largely forgotten. As

the eighteenth century progressed, turnpikes,

traceable banknotes, and expanding cities had

encroached into the traditional hunting grounds of

highwaymen and in 1805 Richard Ford’s newly

founded Bow Street Horse Patrol finally wiped them

out. For Ainsworth’s generation, highwaymen

belonged to a vanished world, and were therefore

ripe for romantic resurrection.

The highwayman Dick Turpin, on horseback, sees a phantom riding next to him. Lithograph by

W. Clerk, ca. 1839. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

Because Georgian prisoners had to pay for board and

lodgings, Turpin wrote to his brother-in-law in Essex

asking for money, but when the letter arrived

postage was owed which the recipient refused the

pay. It was returned to the post office at Saffron

Walden, where Turpin’s former tutor was now the

postmaster. Smith recognised the handwriting and

informed the authorities. Turpin was indicted for

stealing the black mare, and then identified in court

by his old teacher.

Turpin was hanged at Micklegate Bar in York on

Saturday, April 7, 1739. He was thirty-three years old.

Contemporary accounts agree that he died bravely

and with style, having bought a new frock coat and

shoes for the occasion. As Georgian hangings had a

short drop, he took about five minutes to strangle

under his own body weight. Bayes and Cole describe

Turpin was hanged at

Micklegate Bar in

York on Saturday,

April 7, 1739.


Richard Turpin shooting a man near his cave in Epping Forrest. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

Ainsworth is the real reason we have the version of

Dick Turpin we do in popular history. Turpin was the

hero of his boyhood, and he and his brother grew up

listening to their father, a prominent lawyer, spin

fireside yarns of ‘Dauntless Dick’ which the boys

would then embellish and enact in the family’s

overgrown back garden. He therefore wrote the

highwayman into his breakthrough novel Rookwood

in 1834. This tidy little gothic romance was an

overnight sensation, making its author a literary

celebrity and inspiring a national craze for Georgian

outlaws. As far as Ainsworth’s massive audience was

concerned, Turpin was the hero of Rookwood, to the

extent that the section entitled ‘The Ride to York’ was

often published separately, cementing the entirely

fictional event to the original’s biography. Ainsworth

based the episode on another apocryphal story in

which Turpin supposedly rode so quickly from a

robbery at Dunham Massey to Hough Green that he

was able to establish an alibi. The original ‘Ride to

Jack Sheppard in Bentley’s Miscellany, which ran

concurrently with Dickens’ Oliver Twist. The original

Jack Sheppard was another unremarkable Georgian

thief who achieved some notoriety in his own day by

escaping from Newgate. Jack Sheppard was another

bestseller but this time the critics turned on

Ainsworth, triggering a moral panic about the

supposedly pernicious effects of ‘Newgate novels’ on

young working-class males. When the valet François

Courvoisier murdered his master, Lord William

Russell, allegedly after reading Jack Sheppard, the

charge against Ainsworth seemed incontrovertible

and his status as a good Victorian and a serious

literary novelist never recovered. This is why we know

a lot more about Dick Turpin than we do him.

But that, as they say,

is another story…

The highwayman Dick Turpin, on horseback, arrives at a tree from which two bodies have been

hanged. Lithograph by W. Clerk, ca. 1839.. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

York’ comes from a legend about the seventeenthcentury

highwayman John Nevison, or ‘Swift Nick’,

which goes back to an account by Daniel Defoe in A

tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain written in

1727.

Dr Stephen Carver is the

Author of THE AUTHOR WHO

The sincerest form of flattery followed, as Turpin was

rehabilitated as a national treasure, inspiring a run of

highwayman plays, novels and penny dreadfuls that

flourished well into the 1860s. After being a footnote

in eighteenth century history, Turpin’s fame was

assured by his nineteenth century fictional

doppelgänger. Almost everything we think we know

about Dick Turpin in national myth comes from the

pages of Ainsworth’s book.

AND WORK OF W.H.

LIFE

published by

AINSWORTH

& Sword books.

Pen

£25.00

RRP:

@drstephencarver

OUTSOLD DICKENS: THE

After an unsuccessful follow-up novel, Ainsworth

returned to the Newgate Calendars in 1839, serialising


FULL PAGE AD.indd 1 19/08/2019 11:40

BURKE

DEALERS IN

DEATH

WORDS

BY

ROBERT WALSH

HARE

The crimes of William Burke and William Hare are

part of Scotland’s history, living on in popular culture

even today. The subject of films, books and

documentaries, their legacy has long outlived them

and their victims. They also inspired works by Robert

Louis Stevenson and Dylan Thomas. A feature film,

not the first, was made as recently as 2010. Even Sir

Walter Scott (author of Ivanhoe) had an opinion:

“A wretch who is not worth a farthing when alive,

becomes a valuable article when knock’d on the head

and carried to an anatomist.”

In Edinburgh’s West Port district they murdered

sixteen people between November 1828 and

November 1829, selling their corpses to distinguished

surgeon and anatomist Robert Knox. Knox’s full

culpability will always be debated, Burke and Hare’s is

undoubted.

Surgeons always needed cadavers. Bodies of

executed convicts, their principal source, were simply

too few even when dissection formed part of the

death sentence and executions were common. Burke

and Hare briefly solved that problem. Body-snatchers,

grave-robbers and ‘resurrection men’ (resurgam

homo to be exact) found a solution not on the

ground, but under it. Burke and Hare, however, went

even further. In 1995 book Murdering to Dissect:

Grave-robbing, Frankenstein and the Anatomy

Literature, historian David Marshall remarks:

“Burke and Hare took grave-robbing to its logical

conclusion: instead of digging up the dead, they

accepted lucrative incentives to destroy the living.”

Edinburgh Medical School was and remains a highlyrespected

institution, but it had its dark side. Knox

was only one of several surgeons who bought

cadavers without asking where they came from.

Often lacking any other source, Knox and his

colleagues had little choice.

Edinburgh folk of the time were often staunchly

religious and, if not religious, certainly superstitious.

Their belief that a person’s body should remain

interred until the Resurrection made them hate and

fear body-snatchers. The body-snatchers in turn had

a lucrative racket where Edinburgh’s highest society

did brisk business with its lowest.

The fresher the cadaver, the more men like Knox

were prepared to pay and in cash. More could be

learned from fresh cadavers than decomposing ones.

In a society where life was often cheap, death could

be lucrative. A fresh body could fetch twenty guineas.

Families of hanged felons often claimed the body for

burial and sold it to surgeons instead.

The result was an epidemic of grave-robbing. Several

graveyards built watch-towers and employed guards.

Some families, knowing body-snatchers preferred

fresh bodies, rented huge stones. Placed over a new

grave, they prevented it being plundered. Others

used ‘mortsafes,’ iron cages rendering coffins

impregnable.

" The fresher the cadaver,

the more men like Knox

were prepared to pay and

in cash."

Based in a dingy boarding house in Tanner’s Close,

the pair’s first sale wasn’t their first murder. Lodger

‘Old Donald’ had died owing four pounds in rent, a

considerable sum for the time. A late-night visit to

Surgeon’s Square netted seven pounds and ten

shillings, around one thousand pounds today. It was

their first of many encounters with Knox.

‘Old Donald’ had proved worth more dead than alive

but, like their customers, Burke and Hare had a

supply problem. Natural death wasn’t reliable but

serial murder was, especially of people who were

readily missed. With poverty endemic in 1820’s

Edinburgh there were plenty of vagrants, tramps,

drifters and prostitutes. Having already sold the

naturally-deceased their stock-in-trade was entirely

unnatural thereafter.

Victims were lured to Tanner’s Close, plied liberally

with alcohol and suddenly ‘burked.’ ‘Burking,’ a term

used today, smothered the victim’s nose and mouth

until they suffocated. Working together, one

restrained the victim while the other suffocated

them. The victims died quickly with no visible signs of

violence to arouse suspicion, not that their customers

were especially fussy. It also provided fresh,

undamaged cadavers sold at higher prices.


Knowing they could hang for their first murder ( a

miller named Joseph in January 1829) Burke and Hare

had no qualms about fifteen more, selling their

victims to Knox at considerable profit. Their wives also

participated, helping lure victims to Tanner’s Close.

One after another their victims vanished. The more

they killed the more brazen they became, even

murdering a respectable, middle-class victim and

one of McDougal’s relatives. Their last victim was

Margaret Docherty on October 28 1829. The

interference of fellow lodgers Ann and James Gray

ended their killing spree.

The Grays became suspicious when Burke wouldn’t

allow anyone into his room. Sneaking in while Burke

was distracted they discovered Docherty’s body,

informing police even after McDougal offered them

£10 a month as a bribe. By the time police arrived

Docherty had already been sold, but Burke and his

wife told conflicting stories. Both were detained and

Hanged on 28 January 1830 Burke’s skeleton remains

on display at, ironically, Edinburgh Medical School.

Perhaps as many as 40,000 people attended his

execution with soldiers on hand to prevent disorder.

Hare and his wife vanished into obscurity as did

Burke’s widow. The disgraced Knox left Edinburgh,

dying in London in 1862.

Shortly after Burke’s dissection, MP Henry

Warburton’s Anatomy Bill failed to get through

Parliament. In 1832 his second attempt succeeded

after John Bishop and Thomas Williams were hanged

for a similar crime. Warburton’s 1832 Anatomy Act

granted anatomists unclaimed bodies from

workhouses and hospitals, also ending dissection of

executed convicts. Bishop and Williams had attracted

similar notoriety and a grim nickname; The London

Burkers.

William Burke murdering Margery Campbell - the last of the Burke and Hare murders

Credit: WikiMedia

Docherty’s body was discovered at Knox’s dissecting

room the next day. She was identified by the Grays as

the missing woman. Hare and his wife were also

arrested.

The trial was a public sensation and Burke might

have won had Hare not turned King’s Evidence to

cheat the hangman. In return, Hare was released.

Tried on Christmas Eve, 1829 and convicted on

Christmas Day, Burke was condemned to hang.

Passing sentence, Lord Justice-Clerk David Boyle

added an ironic stipulation:

Walsh is the

Robert

of MURDERS,

Author

AND

MYSTERIES

IN NEW

MISDEMEANORS

published by America

YORK

Time

Through

£18.99

RRP:

“Your body should be publicly dissected and

anatomised. And I trust, that if it is ever customary

to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in

order that posterity may keep in remembrance your

atrocious crimes.”

@ScribeCrime


The execution of William Burke . Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

ANGELS IN THE

HOUSE:THE NOT SO

ANGELIC VICTORIAN

HOUSEWIVES

WORDS BY

DR JOHN WOOLF

Angels in the House: subservient and submissive,

demure and deferential. The ideal Victorian woman

lived safely ensconced in the heavenly homestead: a

refuge from the rambunctious world outside. Snug in

domesticity she cared for home, husband and child.

She was morally superior, passive and ‘passionless’;

her beauty reflected in ‘domestic pictures’ that

portrayed her as angelic, supportive and subservient

to the husband who, in all things, she willingly and

lovingly deferred…That anyway was the theory—a

pervasive form of patriarchy that permeated

Victorian society and culture. But of course the reality

was more complex. And in the underworld of crime

and corruption women played their part…

Cue the Forty Thieves later known as the Forty

Elephants: a syndicate of working-class women who

stole, blackmailed and extorted their way to notoriety.

Operating from the 18th and into the 20th century, it

was around 1890 that the gang fell under the

five years for her crimes.

Mary’s successor at the helm of the Forty Thieves was

Alice Diamond. Born inside the workhouse, Alice rose

through the criminal ranks to lead the gang with

military precision. She expanded their operation

beyond London; the motley crew (known for their

bewitching looks) travelled the country stealing and

plundering and hiding their loot up their skirts and

knickers.

All the while other women continued to subvert the

stereotype of the Angel in the House. Female

offenders were mainly responsible for minor crimes

such as theft and public disorder. There was a high

rate of female re-offending. Many were forced into

crime through abuse, poverty and destitution; sexual

exploitation was rife. And while women made up only

a small proportion of convicted offenders, their role in

crime was disproportionately discussed. In the press,

leadership of Mary Crane AKA Mary Carr, Polly Carr,

Polly Pickpocket, Handsome Polly and Queen of the

Forty Thieves. In Scoundrels and Scallywags, and

Some Honest Men (1929), Detective Tom Divall wrote:

‘She had rather small features and a luxurious crop of

auburn hair, but she was the most unfeeling criminal

that ever lived. She participated in child stealing,

enticing men into filthy and foul places, and in fact in

everything too horrible to mention. She had been an

artists’ model, and if she had stuck to that business

she might have done well and lived in luxury’.

Instead she wound up behind bars. Charged with

theft on numerous occasions, an 1896 conviction saw

her sentenced to three years penal servitude for

kidnapping a child. After her release Mary resumed

fencing stolen goods and in 1900 received another

the female criminal was depicted as the antithesis to

the Angel in the House: cold, calculating,

promiscuous and monstrous; in medical and legal

circles, she was morally corrupt and mentally

deficient.

Some women began writing about crime, taking aim

at the supposedly safe domestic sphere. Mary

Elizabeth Braddon’s sensational novel Lady Audley’s

Secret (1862) placed crime at the heart of the hearth,

provoking the worrying question: what if the Angel in

the House was secretly a Domestic Devil?

Such a concern captured the Victorian imagination.

And with poison in abundance—arsenic being

particularly ubiquitous in the first half of the century

— the potential for a domestic goddess turned

demonic murderess remained in the realm of

possibility.

CRIME AND THE UNDERWOLD / 23

John Woolf is the author of

Dr

FRY’S VICTORIAN

STEPHEN

and THE WONDERS:

SECRETS

THE CURTAIN ON THE

LIFTING

SHOW, CIRCUS AND

FREAK

AGE

VICTORIAN

Amelia Dyer (below) the

‘Baby Farmer’ poisoned,

starved and strangled

infants in her care—

killing around 400 in a

thirty-year period.

Were there not numerous cases that proved the

point? The twenty-two-year-old servant Eliza

Flemming executed for poisoning her master and his

family in 1815; Sarah Chesham executed for poisoning

her husband in 1851 And in 1873 Mary Ann Cotton

was sentenced to death for the destruction she

wrought with arsenic.

Previously a Sunday-school teacher and nurse, Mary

Cotton murdered a total of twenty-one people

between 1865 and 1872, making her far more prolific

than Jack the Ripper. She hid behind the image of

the Angel in the House to mercilessly murder three of

her four husbands, eleven of her thirteen children,

plus her lovers and her mother. Mary moved across

the north of England collecting the insurance after

the slaughter of her nearest and dearest. And on 24th

March 1873 she drew her last breath at the gallows in

Durham County Gaol: ‘She clasped her hands close to

her breast, murmured in an earnest tone, “Lord, have

mercy on my soul”, and in a moment the bolt was

drawn’.

Mary Cotton murdered a total of

twenty-one people between 1865

and 1872, making her far more

prolific than Jack the Ripper.

Cotton was by no means the only female serial killer.

Amelia Dyer the ‘Baby Farmer’ poisoned, starved and

strangled infants in her care—killing around 400 in a

thirty-year period. She too met her fate at the gallows

on 10 June 1896. Her last words: ‘I have nothing to

say’.

Dyer joined the pantheon of female murderers

executed for their crimes. And she emphatically

disrupted the Victorian notion of the Angel in the

House. It was always just a theory, and one which was

neither universal nor constant, but this maleconstructed

ideology captured a supposed ideal. It

was, however, bloodily subverted by the female

murderers and criminals who dispensed with the

Angel in the House and, in so doing, provoked fear

and loathing throughout Victorian society.

@drjohnwoolf


IMPROVE YOUR

BOOKSHELF WITH

INSIDE HISTORY

Affiliated with

www.insidehistorymagazine.co.uk/bookstore

SELF-MADE

MAN

THE

EVOLUTION OF

THE MYTH OF

H.H HOLMES

WORDS BY DR REBECCA FROST

On May 7, 1896, a man who had gone under the

name of H. H. Holmes was executed for the murder

of Benjamin F. Pitezel. That murder, and Holmes’

execution, both took place in Philadelphia, PA,

although he is today associated with Chicago and

the White City of the Columbian Exposition, thanks

to Erik Larson’s 2003 book. Although Holmes was

only ever put on trial for this single murder, Larson

presented Holmes – birth name: Herman Webster

Mudgett – as a serial killer who lured guests of the

Fair to his Murder Castle so he could take pleasure

in killing them.

In his lifetime, Holmes’ largest confession was to

twenty-seven murders. Some of those he named

came forward to argue that they were, in fact, still

alive, while others could not be proven to ever have

existed. As his very own first mythmaker, Holmes

would have approved of any tale that pushed that

tally into triple digits.

Holmes changed his own story continually during

his lifetime, along with his name, collecting a host

of biographies and pseudonyms. Between his final

capture in Boston in November 1894 and his

execution, he spoke three different confessions,

wrote an autobiography that protested his

innocence, and wrote his single written confession

of twenty-seven murders – although he used his

last words on the gallows to contradict himself yet

again.

"In his lifetime, Holmes’

largest confession was to

twenty-seven murders.

Some of those he named

came forward to argue

that they were, in fact,

still alive, while others

could not be proven to ever

have existed."

The “true” story of H. H. Holmes is further muddied

by the fact that newspapers ran their own

headlines and cobbled together their own

confessions from various sources. blurring facts and

adding to the confusion surrounding what Holmes

himself did, in fact, write or say.

In the twenty-first century, we have been exposed

repeatedly to the narrative of the serial killer in both

fact and fiction. Their stories are therefore

predictable: abusive mother, absent father, and

common childhood traits that it seems any

captured serial killer can adapt to his own

biography. Holmes, in the late nineteenth century,

had no such format. In order to sell his own story,

especially his autobiography in which he claims

innocence, he had to determine for himself what

plot elements would entice readers to pay twentyfive

cents for a copy.

Holmes’ Own Story, published in 1895, was

purportedly written by Holmes while he was

detained in Moyamensing Prison. The

autobiography even includes an appendix entitled

the Moyamensing Prison Diary in which Holmes

first details his day-to-day life as a prisoner and

then, finally, concocts his explanation for why so

many of the Pitezel family – Benjamin as well as

three of his children – were discovered to have died

after being around him. Holmes’ Own Story went to

press before Holmes was put on trial for Pitezel’s

murder, so he had to balance both the story of his

own innocence while competing for audiences’

attention with the lurid newspaper headlines

detailing his life, including such tantalizing tidbits

as bigamy and murder.

Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia PA. The execution of H. H. Holmes,

scene while he was making his final address. Sketched in the Prison by

Newmar, Times artist. From Holmes' Own Story (1895) by Mudgett,

Herman W.

Credit: Wikmedia Commons

Even while in Moyamensing, Holmes was allowed

to read the paper. One morning, in fact, when he

awoke to a commotion outside, he sent for it


"As his very own first

mythmaker, Holmes

would have approved of

any tale that pushed that

tally into triple digits."

outward appearance and apparent affection for the

children, since he trusted Hatch and Miss Williams

both to care for them out of his own sight. Had

Holmes not allowed them to take the children,

then, he tells his readers, they would still be alive

today.

After being convicted of the murder of their father,

however, Holmes changed his story and included

the three Pitezel children as victims in his

confession to twenty-seven murders. He had

immediately and was able to read in the headlines

that the bodies of two of the Pitezel children had

been found even before the detective had been

able to make his way to the prison to question him

about them. Holmes was therefore not caught

unawares and had already had the chance to set

his story in order before confronting Detective

Geyer.

The papers also helped direct him to discover what,

exactly, was holding the public’s attention during

this pre-trial publicity, and Holmes then adapted

what he read into his autobiography by placing the

most scandalous traits on others. In Holmes’ Own

Story, Pitezel himself becomes a drunk who not

only fails to support his family monetarily but

discovers himself to have taken a second wife after

a night of serious drinking. Holmes himself was

rumoured to have taken – and murdered – a string

of mistresses, including Miss Minnie Williams,

whom he resurrected for his autobiography. Miss

Williams became a fallen woman who had freely

slept with multiple men before she met Holmes, a

seducer against whom he was powerless. To add

insult to injury, Holmes even included the idea that

the children’s deaths were, in fact, Miss Williams’

idea, and that she convinced her new paramour to

commit the murders and frame Holmes because

she was jealous of Holmes’ new wife. Holmes

himself, of course, repented of his weakness and

refrained from allowing himself to be overcome by

any other such fallen women, remaining faithful to

his – supposedly only – wife.

The majority of the murderous traits ascribed to

Holmes in the newspapers were transferred to the

fictitious figure of Edward Hatch. Hatch claimed to

be married to Miss Williams, a statement Holmes

indicates he suspects to be untrue and physically

resembles Holmes. This, of course, means that any

time a witness came forward to state that Holmes

had been seen with the children, the man in

question had actually been Hatch. Holmes himself

even laments that he was fooled by Hatch’s

already profited from the sale of his book and now,

just weeks prior to his execution, sold his new story

to the Philadelphia Inquirer – even though it, too,

soon proved to be false.

Holmes the con-man began creating his own tall

tale during his lifetime, and would be pleased that

he is still being spoken and written about today,

while the mystery remains: how many people did

he murder? It is a secret Holmes took to the grave.


"How many people did he

murder? It is a secret Holmes

took to the grave."

Above: World's Fair Hotel, better known as H. H.

Holmes Castle. Circa 1890's. Credit Wikimedia

Above right: August 11, 1895 Joseph Pulitzer's "The

World" showing floor plan of Holmes "Murder

Castle" and left to right top to bottom scenes found

inside it-including a vault, a crematorium, trapdoor

in floor and a quicklime grave with bones

Rebecca Frost is the author of

WORDS OF A MONSTER:

ANALYZING THEWRITINGS OF H.H

HOLMES, AMERICA'A FIRST SERIAL

KILLER

RRP: $29.95


Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave

her mother forty whacks. When she

saw what she had done, She gave her

father forty-one.

THE

TRIALS OF

LIZZIE

BORDEN

WORDS BY NICK KEVERN

In April 2015, Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River

Massachusetts became the unusual place that

journalists found themselves flocking to. They were

there because a grave site was vandalised with green

and black paint. It was not the first time that the grave

site in question was targeted and indeed that of the

individual who laid beneath. Her name will forever be

linked to the double murder of her father and step

mother in 1892. She was the prime suspect who,

despite her acquittal for murder, would later became a

key part of America’s criminal history, spawning

movies, books, articles and even operas. Even today,

the curious can stay the night at her old house where

the now infamous crimes took place. The green and

black paint that defaced her final resting place was

simply another trial Lizzie Borden would face.

On the 4th August 1892, there was a frenzy of police

activity at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Upon their arrival the grim discoveries of the crime

scene awaited them. Upstairs, the body of Abby Borden

laid on the floor of the bedroom. The first blow hit her

at the side of her head with wounds that corresponded

with that of a hatchet being the most likely murder

weapon. 17 further blows continued ensuring that she

was dead. Her body was colder when compared to the

second victim with the police concluding that she was

the first to be murdered.

Downstairs the body of Andrew Borden was discovered

slumped on the couch in the sitting room. His face was

unrecognisable following his attack. Struck 11 times

with a hatchet to his head, police were convinced that

he was asleep as he was murdered. His body was still

bleeding from his wounds suggesting that it was a very

recent attack. They calculated his time death at

approximately 11 am.

Rumours would soon circulate in the press about the

double murders. Ranging from a “Portugeuse

Labourer” eager for his wages from Andrew Borden

Andrew Borden, father of Lizzie Borden, slain in his house in Fall River.

Police forensic photograph. 1892 The Burns Archive./ WikiCommons

being a suspect, to Abby Borden being attacked "by a

tall man who struck the woman from behind." The

appetite for coverage of the crimes was reaching

fever point. Two days after the murders, the media

had turned their attention to the Andrew Borden’s

daughter, Lizzie.

The media circus that surrounded the case would act

as the first of many trials for Lizzie Borden. Soon there

were reports that she had attempted to purchase

prussic acid the day before the murders from Eli

Bence who was a clerk at S.R Smith’s Drug Store. The

Boston Daily Globe would also report that Lizzie and

her stepmother were no longer on speaking terms.

Family members would however, contradict these

claims. The newspapers had their target firmly in

their sights.

The police were inclined to agree with the media.

Puzzled by the lack of blood anywhere except on the

bodies of the victims, they were convinced that the

murderer came from inside the household. The

suspicion was firmly with Lizzie. Her older sister,

Emma, was out of town during the time of the

murders and her uncle, John Morse (who was staying

with the Borden Family) was out visiting his nephew

and niece in town.

Further suspicion grew with Lizzie’s story. She

claimed that she was in the barn loft outside the

house preparing for an upcoming fishing trip yet the

dusty floor of the barn loft revealed no footprints. Her

" On the 22nd August at her

preliminary hearing, Judge

Josiah Blaisdell pronounced

her “probably guilty”

confused and contradictory answers at the inquest a

few days later led to her arrest. On the 22nd August at

her preliminary hearing, Judge Josiah Blaisdell

pronounced her “probably guilty”. It was enough for

her to face a grand jury at court for the murder of her

Father and stepmother.

During the trial itself, Lizzie never took the stand. The

vast majority of the case against her relied heavily on

circumstantial evidence with the defence offering

little in terms of hard evidence. It wouldn’t take long

for the Jury of 12 men to reach their verdict. With only

90 minutes of deliberation they found her “Not

Guilty”. In many cases, Borden would have been left

to continue her life peacefully but this was no

ordinary case. More questions were left than actual

answers. Even to this day the murders of Andrew and

Abby Borden remains unsolved. However, the mud

had firmly stuck to Lizzie as she now faced the trial of

public opinion.


The Borden murder trial—A scene in the court-room before the acquittal - Lizzie Borden,

the accused, and her counsel, Ex-Governor Robinson. Illustration in Frank Leslie's

illustrated newspaper, v. 76 (1893 June 29), p. 411.Credit: Library of Congress/Wikicommons

It would not take long for the first book about the

case to hit the bookshelves. “The Fall River Tragedy: A

History of the Borden Murders,” was written by Edwin

H. Porter who was a reporter for the Fall River Daily

Globe. Porter believed that Lizzie was guilty of the

crimes. Sold for $1.50, the book proved to be popular

as the case was still fresh in the public’s imagination.

For those who believed that Lizzie had gotten away

with murder, this book proved them to be correct.

For those who believed her to be innocent, it could

have possibly swayed them. No matter where Lizzie

would go, the case would never be far away. More

books would be released during Lizzie’s lifetime as

amateur and professional sleuths gave their opinions.

Lizzie never left Fall River. Opting to stay she would

soon become a pariah within the community. Having

moved to Maplecroft in the richer part of town she

undoubtedly heard the children singing the now

famous skipping rope about her. She was also later

detail. The film insinuates that there is a valid

explanation for the lack of blood anywhere other than

on that of the victims. It suggests that Lizzie

commited the murders whilst naked and bathing

after each murder. The same idea would later be

repeated in 2014 as Christina Ricci portrayed Borden

for a new generation.

“Lizzie” starring Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart

was released in 2018. This interpretaion of the

murders implies that both Lizzie Borden and the

housemaid, Bridget Sullivan were both involved

suggesting that they were also intimate and that

Andrew had sexually abused Bridget.

As a new generation learns more about the murders it

is these interpretations that have continued to put

Lizzie Borden on trial even to the present day. There

will be more written and documented about the case

as time goes on as the trials of Lizzie Borden continue.

Photo from the made for television film "The Legend of Lizzie Borden

"starring Elizabeth Montgomery. 1975

Credit: WikiMedia

snubbed by the Christian Endeavor Society where

prior to the murders she had served as the treasurer.

Alienated from former friends and family members,

Lizzie often sat on the pew alone in church as the

community distanced themselves from her. At the

time of her death at the age of 66, the vast throng of

people attending her trial had dwindled to only a

handful of mourners at her funeral.

Discover more about Lizzie Borden

TRIAL OF LIZZIE

THE

A TRUE STORY

BORDEN:

Cara Robertson

by

published by Simon &

Now at peace, the trials of Lizzie Borden should have

ended but in reality they had only just begun. Such

was the interest in the murders it would not take

long for new areas of the media of regain an interest.

“The Legend of Lizzie Borden” starring "Bewitched"

actress Elizabeth Montgomery aired in 1975. A new

interpretation of the murder was revealed in graphic

Schuster

RRP: £15.99 Amazon


The Morellos:

Families at War

Words: Anthony Ruggiero

Images: WikiMedia

The Morello family was the United States’ earliest mafia

family, who were based in the Italian Harlem of Manhattan.

Giuseppe Morello founded the crime group during the

1890’s after his had migrated from Sicily to New York. Prior

to living in the United States the Guiseppe had already

began engaging in criminal activity, which forced them to

move to the United States. This mafia family was into

different types of criminal activities such as murder,

conspiracy, extortion, counterfeiting and racketeering.

However, following a series of legal problems and later the

Mafia-Camorra war, the gangs power began to rapidly

decrease. Regardless of this, the group had a significant

impact on organized crime in the early twentieth century.

Prior to immigrating to the United States the family had

already been involved in criminal activity. Giuseppe

Morello was born on May 2nd, 1867 in Corleone, Sicily. His

father, Calogero Morello, had died when he was five years

old, after which his mother, Angelina, got remarried to a

Corlonesi mafia member named Bernado Terranova. It

was Terranova who had introduced Sicilian mafia to

Morello. Like other Mafia members, Morello was forced to

leave Sicily in 1892 and went to the U.S. Another reason

cited for his immigration was being a suspect for

murdering and running a counterfeiting ring. Even

though, he reached the U.S., back in Sicily, the Italian

government had found him guilty of counterfeiting case.

In his absence, he was found guilty in September 1894 and

was sentenced to imprisonment for 6 years. Hence, he

never came back to Italy.

Giuseppe Morello arrived in New York from Corleone in

1892. He was followed six months later by his mother, stepfather,

four sisters and his step brothers; Nicola, Circo,

Vincent Terranova The family stayed in New York for a year,

but after failing to find any work they travelled to

Louisiana. For a year Morello worked with his father

planting sugar cane before moving on to Bryan, Texas

where he found work as a cotton picker. However, after

Louisiana was struck with a malaria epidemic in 1896, the

family relocated back to New York. In New York, Morello

worked with his father as an ornamental plasterer, with his

step brothers. He eventually opened a coal basement, but

quickly sold it, and in 1900 he opened a saloon on 13th

Street, soon followed by a second saloon on Stanton

Street. Due to bad business, Morello closed the Stanton

Street saloon and sold the one on 13th Street in 1901.

Ignazio Lupo, who would later become a powerful

member of the gang and also marry into the family,

arrived in New York in 1898. Lupo was fleeing arrest in

Palermo after killing a business rival in the wholesale

grocery business.

The gang’s early focus was on counterfeiting US currency.

This would ultimately result in them becoming the focus

of the New York Secret Service branch, with agents

specially trained to detect bogus bills and tracking down

street pushers with the hope of capturing the counterfeit

manufacturers. The first major arrests happened on June

11th, 1900, when Giuseppe Morello was captured along

with Colagero Meggiore. They were accused of selling

counterfeit money and held on $5000 bail. The arrests had

grown out of a Secret Service investigation that began

when counterfeit $5 bills were being passed in Brooklyn

and North Beach. Morello and Meggiore were believed to

be the suppliers of the money, which was described as

‘being printed on very poor paper with crude

workmanship’. However, due to their being a lack of

evidence, Morello was able to avoid any jail time.

However, legal troubles still continued for Morello, when

an anonymous letter was sent to Detective Petrosino of

the NYPD, the Secret Service raided a powerful band of

counterfeiters on May 22nd, 1902. The letter claimed that a

gang had been manufacturing coins at a cottage in

Hackensack, New Jersey, rented by Salvatore Clemente, an

acquaintance of Nicholas Terranova. Agents also raided a

barbershop that was being used to distribute the currency,

which resulted in the arrests of Vito Cascioferro and

Giuseppe Romano. Cascioferro was one of the most


GIUSEPPE MORELLO 1902

IMAGE: WIKICOMMONS

powerful Mafia leaders of the time; he managed to escape

conviction with an alibi that he worked at a local paper

mill. The alliances that Morello formed in these

counterfeiting were of mixed ethnicities. The 1900 arrests

were a mixture of Italians and Irish criminals. Working with

already established gangs in New York was a necessity due

to the technical, mechanical, and network requirements of

the counterfeiting business.

Giuseppe Morello started a real estate company in 1902,

‘The Ignatz Florio Co-Operative Association Among

Corleonesi’; the company was involved in the construction

and selling of properties in New York. The names listed on

the incorporation as directors were Morello, Antonio

Milone – a man who would later be involved with their

counterfeiting schemes and Marco Macaluso. The

company eventually collapsed, hindered by the economic

downturn in 1907. The Bankers Association of America

later investigated it. In 1902 Morello acquired a saloon on 8

Prince St. in Manhattan, which became the official

meeting place for the gang. From Prince St. Morello

launched his empire employing several enforcers whose

Another major event that placed the Morello gang in the

eyes of the public was The Barrel Murder in 1903.

According to the The New York Times, on April 14th, 1903, a

barrel was discovered with a man’s body inside. The body

was been gruesomely mutilated. Police believed the barrel

that had once been used for shipping sugar was dumped

from the back of wagon in the early hours. On the base of

the barrel was stenciled ‘W.T’, and on the side “G 228”. The

victim was thought to have been from a fairly prosperous

background, due to his “clean person, good clothes and

newly manicured nails”. The following day, Secret Service

agents, who had been tracking the Morello gang for over a

year in connection with counterfeiting, claimed to have

seen the victim with various members of the gang in a

butcher’s shop in Stanton Street on the evening of

Monday, April 13th.

As a result on April 15th, eight members of the Morello

gang were arrested. The police had been watching the

gangs usual hangouts: a Stanton Street butcher shop, a

cafe at Elizabeth Street and a saloon Prince Street in

Manhattan. Each member of the gang was found to

Fifth Avenue in New York City on Easter Sunday in 1900 (Wilimedia)

sole job was to kill anyone Morello requested. For example,

Guiseppe Catania, a Brooklyn grocer, was found murdered

on July 23rd, 1902. The Secret Service believed that Catania

had been a member of the Morello gang involved with

counterfeiting. They suspected the gang had disposed of

him due to his habit of drinking, talking too much, and

had argued with gang members whom he had fights over

debts owed to them. It was later revealed by the Secret

Service that Morello had Catania killed.

Further legal problems continued in January 1903, Morello

was charged with passing counterfeit money. It was

discovered that $5 bills were being replicated in precise

imitation to the currency issued by the National Iron Bank,

Morristown, NJ. They were printed in Italy and shipped to

New York in empty olive oil cans. Other suspects refused to

implicate Morello in the case and he walked free. Several

members of the Morello gang were sent to prison,

including Giuseppe De Primo.

armed, with either a knife or a pistol. The members that

were arrested included Giuseppe Morello, Tommaso Petto,

Joseph Fanaro, Antonio Genova, Lorenzo LoBido, Vito

LoBido, Dominic Pecoraro, and Pietro Inzerillo. When

Morello was interrogated and later taken to view the body

in hopes that he would identify whom the person was he

refused, and it was widely feared that Morello and his gang

would be released because there was no evidence to hold

them in police custody. However, police continued

searching and would soon locate where they thought the

murder had been committed. It was a pastry shop on

Elizabeth Street in Manhattan called, Dolceria Pasticceria,

run by Pietro Inzerillo, it was there they found an identical

barrel to the one used in the murder, even bearing the

same inscriptions. Sawdust, and some burlap, on the floor

of the shop had also been found in the base of the murder

barrel. The barrel was eventually traced to Wallace &

Thompson bakery, where their record books showed an

entry of a sugar order, made by Pietro Inzerillo in February

of that year. Thus, police continued to investigate the

situation further.


Eventually, the body was identified as Benedetto Madonnia,

the brother-in-law of Giuseppe De Primo, who identified his

body and was still imprisoned by counterfeiting money

since January of that year. De Primo revealed that Madonnia

was not part of any counterfeiting scheme and had lived in

Buffalo, New York. He revealed that he had traveled down to

Manhattan to collect $25,000 dollars owed to De Primo and

suspects that the gang killed him instead of giving him the

money. However, despite this admission by De Primo, this

was not enough to detain Morello and six other of his

associates. Initially, on April 25th, Tommaso Petto was

formally charged with committing the murder. Petto, when

arrested on April 15th, had been found in possession of pawn

ticket number, dated April 14th 1903. The ticket had been

traced to a watch that had belonged to the murder victim

that had been described to by the victim’s stepson to the

police. However, this was the only evidence that police

would find linking Petto to Madonnia’s murder and he too

was later released from prison on January 29th, 1904.

Although, the gang and its leader were able to avoid any

serious conviction despite committing numerous offences,

it was not long before Giuseppe Morello would be arrested.

On November 15th, 1909, Secret Service agents met with

officer Carraro from the police and went to Morello’s home

where they arrested him in connection with a counterfeiting

operation in Highland, New York. According to police

reports he was taken from his bed Morello and placed in the

front room with his son while agents searched the house.

While the were searching his home, Morello passed two

letters to his wife to hide, however Carraro discovered them,

Carraro and the agents would later find four more letters

hidden inside a baby’s diaper. A Secret Service agent, Flynn,

described what a letter would entail and how it was used:

A threatening letter is sent to a proposed victim.

Immediately after the letter is delivered by the postman

Morello just “happens” to be in the vicinity of the victim to

be, and “accidentally” meets the receiver of the letter. The

receiver knows of Morello’s close connections with Italian

malefactors, and, the thing being fresh in mind, calls

Morello’s attention to the letter. Morello takes the letter

and reads it. He informs the receiver that victims are not

killed off without ceremony and just for the sake of

murder. The “Black-Hand” chief himself declares he will

locate the man who sent the letter, if such a thing is

possible, the victim never suspecting that the letter is

Morello’s own. Of course, the letter is never returned to the

proposed victim. By this cunning procedure no evidence

remains in the hand of the receiver of the letter should he

wish to seek aid from the police.

These letters and others discovered linking him to the

counterfeiting operation in Highland, New York was enough

evidence to finally convict Morello, thus sending him to

prison.

With Morello in prison, new leadership of the Morello gang

needed to be decided. There were the Terranova brothers,

Ciro, Vincent and Nicholas who were highly considered.

Other possible candidates included the Lomonte brothers,

Fortunato and Tomasso, the cousins of Giuseppe Morello.

They operated a hay and feed business in Manhattan.

Giuseppe Morello’s young son, Colagero was also in

consideration for leadership of the gang. However, the

Terranova brothers soon left the gang after failing to

secure leadership and formed their own gang called “The

White Doves.” Rocco Tapano, whose uncle, Benedetto

Madonnia, had been killed by the gang years earlier, killed

Colagero in 1912 in retaliation of the murder. Nicholas

Terranova later killed Tapano for Colagero’s murder.

Fortunato Lamonte, who had began to increase his power,

was killed in 1914 by associates of ‘Toto’ D’Aquila, a mob

moss in the Gambino crime family, who was looking to

remove Lomonte from gaining too much power. He also

had him killed for the recent killing of D’Aquila’s friend,

Giuseppe Fontana, a long time Morello associate who had

left the gang. Overall, this time period was filled with

much turbulence for the once powerful gang.

Chaos ensued following the start of the Mafia-Camorra

War. The Camorra was a large coalition of mafia groups,

who were all from Naples, Italy. The situation began to

escalate on June 24th 1916 when a meeting took place at

Coney Island between the Morello gang, the Neapolitan

gang and the Neapolitan Coney Island gang. The idea of

the meeting was to negotiate the expansion of gambling

dens in lower Manhattan. Even though the Morello’s and

the Navy Street gang worked together for sometime,

including jointly removing, Giosue Gallucci, a crime boss

once affiliated with the Camorra, from Harlem, the

Neopolitans believed they could have taken over the

Harlem rackets if they could eliminate the Morellos. They

devised a plan where they would attempt to lure the

entire leadership down to Brooklyn and ambush them. On

September 7th 1916, Nicholas Terranova and Charles

Ubriaco travelled downtown to meet with the Navy Street

gang; they were both ambushed and killed.

The Morello gang and the Brooklyn Camorra were officially

at war. The Camorra conducted various plans to take out

the rest of the Morello leadership, but they were either

discovered or were never completed, however the

Camorra in Philadelphia would later murder four

associates of the Morello gang. The Navy Street gang

managed to take over the Morello businesses for a short

period in 1918. A Harlem gambler claimed that for a short

duration he had to travel to Brooklyn each week to have

his books checked. The Camorra even tried to move in on

the Morello’s artichoke business, but the wholesale dealers

refused to give in to their threats. Although, eventually the

two sides met a deal where a ‘tax’ of twenty-five dollars

was paid on every carload of artichokes that were


delivered. Coal and ice merchants who had worked with

the Morellos also proved hard to threaten, and the

Camorra’s did not profit much from this corporate takeover

then they had imagined. At this point the Morello gang had

been defeated and D’Aquila was the new major crime boss.

However things would once again shift in the Morello

gang’s favor when, in 1920, Giuseppe Morello was released

from prison after serving ten years of his fifteen year

sentence. By this time former Morello crime family

member, Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria had gained

influence over several gangs and become very powerful.

After aligning himself with former loyal gang members,

Morello unsuccessfully attempted to have Masseria killed.

Due to his unsuccessful attempts Morello would align

himself with Masseria and the rising organized crime

leader, Lucky Luciano. However, Giuseppe Morello would

later be gunned down in 1930, thus never being able to fully

regain the prominent status the gang once possessed.

The Morello gang was significant group that had a

significant impact on organized crime in the early

twentieth century. During their prominence, the gang

managed to make headlines in the media for their

counterfeiting schemes and murders in which a majority of

its membership managed to avoid conviction for a period

of time. Although, the group would eventually collapse

following the fall of their leader and founder, their inability

to establish new leadership, and its lost to the Camorra; the

gang will always be remembered as the first major

organized crime group in American history.

Giuseppe Morello would

later be gunned down in

1930, thus never being

able to fully regain the

prominent status the gang

once possessed.

Anthony Ruggiero is a High School History Teacher

in New York City. In addition to teaching, he has

been published previously in History Is Now

magazine, Tudor Life magazine, Discover Britain

magazine, The Odd Historian magazine, and the

Culture-Exchange blog.

Featered Reading

THE WILD EAST:

GUNFIGHTS,

MASSACRES AND RACE

RIOTS FAR FROM

AMERICA'S FRONTIER

by Ian Heron

Published by Amberley

RRP £20

Photograph of the Navy Street gang in Brooklyn, New York used as a prosecution exhibit at trial in 1918 (slightly cropped)


COMING SOON

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PODCAST JUST

FOR YOU

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HISTORY

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COMING SOON

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PODCAST JUST

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When the Peaky Blinders television series first aired in

2013 it had all the hallmarks to become a smash hit.

Stylish, gruesome and dark. Telling the story and

exploits of Thomas Shelby and his family, the Peaky

Blinders were ruthless in their criminal endeavours.

Aimed with razors within the peaks of their paperboy

hats the gang would profit from illegal bookmaking

and target anyone who got in their way.

Set after the First World War in 1919 the series would

continue to show their rise to power over time. Whilst

the series has been a massive success it has also

gained a lot of attention from historians. The truth

about the Peaky Blinders gang in Birmingham

maintains the dark gritty aspect of the series but the

Shelby family were certainly not a part of it.

The real gang first came to prominence in the media

on the 24th March 1890 in the Birmingham Mail. The

article stated that:

"A serious assault was committed upon a young man

named George Eastwood. Living at 3 court, 2 house,

Arthur Street, Small Heath, on Saturday night. It

seems that Eastwood, who has been for some time a

total abstainer, called between ten and eleven o'clock

at the Rainbow Public House in Adderly Street, and

was supplied with a bottle of ginger beer. Shortly

afterwards several men known as the "Peaky Blinders"

gang, whom Eastwood knew by sight from their living

in the same neighborhood as himself, came in."

Thomas Gilbert

Stephen McNickle

Professor Carl Chinn is a historian specialising in the

real role that the gang played in Birmingham. The

author of The Real Peaky Blinders is quick to point out

that the timeline for the series is completely wrong.

"By the early 20th century the Peaky Blinders had

disappeared. The idea that the Peaky Blinders took

their name from their flat caps in to the peaks of

which they has sewn razorblades is a false one. It's a

myth, there is no evidence at all to support it."

The timeline and the razorblades has now been ruled

out as merely poetic licence. There is no doubt that

the gang still terrorised the people of Birmingham.

Professor Chin continued to say that: "People were

scared of the Peaky Blinders in the 1890s...they caused

mayhem where they were aloud to and they picked

on the innocent."


Rather than being led by Thomas Shelby, the gang

was likely to have been led by Thomas Gilbert. Gilbert

frequently changed his surname in order to avoid

detection and often went under the alias of Kevin

Mooney. He is believed to have initiated many of the

land grabs during the reign of the Peaky Blinders.

Most of the gang were from middle class with jobs

and even businesses.

The land grabs by Gilbert and others allowed for the

gang to grow from their original stomping ground of

Small Heath. With each land grab the gang was able

to insert their influence over local businesses. It also

allowed them to recruit more youthful members of

the gang.

One such recruit was Harry Fowles. Referred to as

"Baby-faced Harry", Fowles was part of the youth

culture that the Peaky Blinders aimed to encourage.

Arrested in 1904 for stealing a bike, the 19 year-old

would have made his way to the holding prison on

Steelhouse Lane in Birmingham where we would

spend the night before going through the tunnel to

the magistrates. It would have a similar fate for any of

the gang who got caught.

Fowles was not the youngest to get caught and

punished. David Taylor was only 13 years-old when he

was arrested for possession of a loaded firearm.

Others like Stephen McNickle and Earnest Haynes

were also arrested. West Midlands police records

described them as: "foul mouthed young men who

stalk the streets in drunken groups, insulting and

mugging passers-by."

Parliament. Yet the gang that stood up to Billy

Kimber never did anything of the sort. Instead

they ran with some joining Kimber's gang. In

short, the fearsome Peaky Blinders that is

portrayed is simply great television. The real

gang, whilst still feared by the people of

Birmingham, were the starter for Billy Kimber's

main course of gangs in the Midlands of England.

"foul mouthed young men who

stalk the streets in drunken

groups, insulting and mugging

passers-by."

Harry Fowles

Earnest Haynes

The influence of the gang would soon decline. The

emergence of Billy Kimber's Birmingham Boys would

soon take over. Whilst the series portrays it other way

around, it would Kimber (who was a former Peaky

Blinder himself) who faced the rival Sabini gang.

One key reason why the gang began to fade was the

that it opted to expand its empire into racecourses.

The escalation of violence between the Peaky

Blinders and the Birmingham Boys saw many leaving

Birmingham into the safer countryside. Over time

their influence, contacts and lands were usperted by

Kimber's gang.

Peaky Blinders - The Real

Story of Birmingham's most

notorious gangs by Carl

Chinn published by John

Blake Books

RRP: £8.99

It is somewhat bemusing that the story ends there.

The series would of course continue seeing Tommy

and his gang take over and even go on to enter


IF ORGANIZED CRIME

COULD MAKE IT IN NEW

YORK... Words: Christa avampato Images: Wikicommons

IT COULD MAKE IT

CHRISTA AVAMPATO IS AN AWARD WINNING

AUTHOR AND FILM-MAKER. SHE IS ALSO A WRITER

FOR THE WASHINGTON POST AND GUIDE FOR

ANYWHERE!

UNTAPPED CITES IN NEW YORK.

“The parties were bigger...

the pace was faster…and

the morals were looser,”

F. Scott Fitzgerald on

Prohibition

Organized crime had a heavy hand in the transport of

alcohol around New York. Rum Row originally lived 3

miles off the coast of New York where that waters

were no longer in any government’s legal jurisdiction.

Modern-day pirates who captained a line of boats

carrying liquor (including but not at all limited to

rum) from the Caribbean, Canada, and Europe

dropped anchor to create a kind of alcoholic

bazaar. Speakeasy owners would travel out to Rum

Row, shop for what they wanted, and then have it

secretly delivered via organized crime networks on

speedboats that would attempt (and often succeed)

to outrun the Coast Guard.

The early haunts of organized crime have been

largely erased from today’s New York City. Yet, this is

where organized crime grew from a ragtag set of

small-time criminals to a slick and brutal machine. In

many ways, the structure of organized crime today—

now an international, highly-intricate web—traces its

inspiration and roots to New York, particularly the era

from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. From the

Gangs of New York to The Godfather, this is where

and when crime became big business. harmony and

speed.

Rival gangs (known then and now as “families”)

formed and feuded in the mid-1800s as waves of

immigrants began to pour into Ellis Island from

Europe. They fought over territory, power, and the

control of goods flooding New York as it rapidly

became the largest port city in the world. The Lower

East Side, Little Italy, and Five Points neighbourhoods

are the stages on which these battles played to their

often-fatal end.

Nineteenth-century organized crime remained fairly

small and localized by today’s standards until New

York, and the entire country, handed its families an

enormous gift with unintended and unforeseen

consequences: Prohibition. From 1920 to 1933, the dry

movement nearly a century in the making prohibited

bootlegging—the illegal manufacture, distribution,

and sale (but not the drinking) of alcohol. Almost

immediately, bootlegging gave crime families a hot

commodity with enormous demand and even bigger

profits.

No other city had a hankering for liquor more than

New York, and no other city had as many crime

families either. Though Al Capone’s infamous Chicago

bootlegging market is a favourite of historians, New

York was the crown jewel of alcohol during

Prohibition. Throughout the era, New Yorkers

consumed more alcohol than any other city in the

country. There were anywhere from 32,000 to 100,000

speakeasies and 5,000 nightclubs in New York by

1925.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress

To make things more difficult, the government

campaigned and won the battle to move Rum Row

out to 12 miles off the coast. Criminals like a challenge

and though this new line made it more difficult for

crime families to bootleg liquor, it also made them

more inventive. The speedboats got faster, the liquor

got more expensive, and they developed

sophisticated networks to get the liquor around the

city to speakeasies once it arrived on land.


One family even started a legitimate cab business

with alcohol as its only passenger to shuttle it around

right under the noses of the police.

Additionally, the crime families figured if the

government was going to make it more difficult for

alcohol to get to land, then they would stage parties

on the boats that rivalled any Mardi Gras before or

since. Organized crime built the Wild West of the

1920s on Rum Row, and controlled access to and

from it. Yes, the boats were full of liquor. They were

also full of every other illicit activity someone might

want. Anything came and went out there. Those

ships comprised a lawless land on an open sea, and it

kept organized crime afloat despite government

crackdowns.

While the rich and well-heeled New Yorkers in the

1920s took their drinks in midtown-Manhattan’s

glamorous spots like the 21 Club (which is one of only

two remaining original speakeasies in the city), thrillseekers

made their party in Harlem.

Black and Tans, as they were often called because

they literally created space for the mixing of people of

different races, were tucked away in every

"It is the prohibition

that makes anything

precious." Mark Twain

conceivable space: basements and backyards of

brownstones, backrooms and second floors of

legitimate bars and restaurants, and industrial-like

structures like garages and workshops. Plentiful

hooch joints and buffet flats with fanciful names

offered much more than booze—full homemade

meals (the more you eat, the more you drink!),

dancing, floorshows, and music were all on offer.

The liquor, laughter, and love flowed to the

soundtrack of a new kind of music that would be

celebrated the world over long after the Prohibition

parties ended, and that soundtrack was jazz. Before

they were household names, the biggest names in

jazz got their start in the speakeasies of Harlem

supplied by organized crime’s advanced bootlegging

operation. Jazz and its stars are so closely tied to the

Prohibition era that there is an argument to be made

that jazz may not have become the worldwide

phenomenon it was without Prohibition. As Mark

"Having seen and examined the two Siamese

Youths, Chang and Eng, I have great pleasure in

affirming they constitute a most extraordinary

Lusus Natuare; the first instance I have ever seen of

a living double child; they being totally devoid of

deception, afford a very interesting spectacle, and

are highly deserving of public patronage. " (2)

Chang and Eng the Siamese twins, aged eighteen,

with badminton rackets. Coloured engraving by JLB,

1829. Credit: Wellcome Collection.

Created by Elmer Simms Campbell in 1932

Originally for Dell Publishing Company for their magazine Manhattan

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

A reciprocal relationship between medicine and

freakery had been established. On the one hand,

the managers of Chang and Eng benefited from

these medical endorsements. At the time, medicine

was slowly modernizing and becoming more

professional, gaining social respectability and

cultural authority, so these attributes were

transferred onto Chang and Eng’s freak show. The

display of deformity was often associated with lowclass

itinerant fairs, so this backing from medicine

Mugshot of Charles "Lucky" Luciano in 1936 Italian-American mobster and

one of the most powerful mob bosses during Prohibition. Luciano was

reportedly making millions of dollars in bootlegging profits by the mid-1920s

(Wikimedia Commons)

Twain famously said, Prohibition is what makes

things precious.

The Alhambra Ballroom had Billie Holiday on its staff

before they discovered she could sing, and thankfully

they quickly made that discovery. With the hardhitting

talents of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and

Count Basie, the Alhambra became one of the most

famous clubs in the world known for its epic swing

dance battles. It continued its business into the 1960s.

The Sugar Cane Club did not have the longevity of

the Alhambra, but during Prohibition its crowds were

legendary. Its location on 135th Street and Fifth

Avenue was a stronghold in the Harlem Renaissance

movement that showcased a blossoming of African

American art, writing, and music. As a speakeasy and

nightclub, it was home to jazz giants such as Bessie

Smith, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong.

Owned by Ed Smalls, Small’s Paradise was the setting

history points to when discussing racially integrated

speakeasies. Smalls was the only African American to

own a Harlem speakeasy during Prohibition. The

dancing and roller skating waitstaff, over-the-top

floorshows, and big names in music were its

hallmarks, and they played well into the morning

hours. Their breakfast and its matching 6am

performance were renowned. Like the Alhambra,

Small’s had a life beyond Prohibition. In 1943, Malcolm

Little was a waiter at Small’s. Less than a decade later,

he would become one of the most famous men in

the world—Malcolm X.

New York’s origin story of its organized crime scene

provides us with one of the most tangled, fascinating

periods of time in the U.S. Music, racial integration,

politics, commerce, culture, and immigration are all

threads in its web, and history is still weaving the

fabric of its stories and legacies.

Murals of Dizzy Gillespie, jazz legend

Photos by Christa Avampato, 2019

Murals by Brandan "B-Mike" Odums and Marthalicia Mattarita

135th Street in Harlem


From speakeasies to illegal bootlegging the "Jazz Age"

was a time to let your hair down. But for Al Capone it

was business and those who crossed him paid the price.

Dr Elliott.L.Watson argues that although Capone helped

to create the Jazz Age...he also destroyed it.

WORDS BY

HOW THE ST.

VALENTINE'S DAY

MASSACRE KILLED

DR.ELLIOTT L.WATSON

THE JAZZ AGE IMAGES: WIKICOMMONS

For those who were fortunate enough to take part

in it, the Jazz Age was a time of unprecedented

bullishness in almost every aspect of American life.

As banks loosened up credit and factories massproduced

cheaper consumer goods for customers

who could now, at least on paper, afford them, a

deep-seated belief in the fundamentals of a

deregulated economic model took hold. Provided

this seemingly preternatural prosperity continued,

the electorate would continue to vote into office

the apparent architects of it – the Republican Party.

To many Americans, this loosely-bound pact made

perfect sense: the Democrats under Woodrow

Wilson had led the US into war and austerity,

despite initially promising not to do so. Republican

Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover had all

built their electoral campaigns around the popular

post-war inclination towards small government and

non-intervention: a ‘return to normalcy’. The pact

between government and people, as long as it

seemed to profit both parties, would continue.

significance, than in the city of Chicago. And it was

only Chicago that would see the rise of a criminal

who would generate such national renown and

caché as Alphonse Gabriel Capone.

Al Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899 on the 17th

January - coincidentally the date upon which

Prohibition would, 21 years later, begin. A natural

When the dam holding back the economic waters

burst in October 1929 with the Wall Street Crash,

this pact was swept away by a deluge of mass

unemployment and social deprivation. As many

historians tell it, this is the point in American history

at which the relationship between Americans and

their government fundamentally altered, from one

of a distant paternalism, to one characterised by a

people-driven expectation that the government

needed to be more responsible for their welfare. As

Hugh Brogan told it in his ubiquitous Penguin

History of the United States of America, “From every

quarter the clamour began to rise for Washington

to tackle the problem directly”. However, the

erosion of the pact had begun eight months earlier,

not with the loss of billions on Wall Street but with

the murder of seven men in a garage on Chicago’s

North Side.

The moment the 18th Amendment to the US

Constitution was ratified on the 16th January 1919,

the federal government set itself upon a path that

would lead to an explosive growth in organised

criminal activity across America. As the nation’s

demand for alcohol continued despite its

prohibition, black markets proliferated to satisfy it.

Initially, these black markets were served by ad hoc

individuals and groups looking to make quick

money. However, once it became clear the

staggering sums that were to be made

bootlegging, those involved in the black markets

became increasingly more sophisticated; more

organised. Perhaps nowhere in the United States

saw the coalescing of criminal activity around

Prohibition more obviously and with greater

proclivity for violence saw him develop

relationships with gangs of ever-increasing

sophistication, from the Junior Forty Thieves,

through the Brooklyn Rippers to the powerful Five

Points Gang. As he exited his teens, Capone moved

to Chicago and, under the tutelage of Johnny

Torrio, began to make his name on the streets and


in the tabloids. After barely surviving a brutal

assassination attempt, Johnny Torrio retired and, at the

tender age of 26, Alphonse Capone inherited control of

the Chicago Outfit.Unfortunately for Capone, the Outfit,

though powerful, was not the only gang in Chicago; the

North Side Gang, led by Bugs Moran, was a dangerous

thorn in the side of Capone. In an attempt to remove the

thorn, Capone ordered the murder of Moran. The

location chosen for the attack was a trucking garage at

2122 North Clark Street - the erstwhile HQ of Moran. The

event itself is reasonably familiar to many: at midmorning

on the 14th February 1929, 7 associates of the

North Side Gang were lined up against one of the walls

inside the garage and mown down with Thomson

‘Tommy’ guns. Two of the victims - John May and James

Clark - were finished off with shotgun blasts to the face.

Moran was not among the dead. Although the debate

still continues as to the identity of the trigger men, it is

generally accepted that they were operating on the

orders of Capone. What is perhaps less familiar, is the

impact that the event had on the course of US history.

The temperance movement was very much a rural,

protestant phenomenon. Its success in gaining national

support had as much to do with across-the-

Congressional-isle political opportunism as it did with a

genuinely progressive attempt to improve the overall

‘health’ of the country. Nonetheless, come to the cities

Prohibition did. And it levied a heavy tax on the

inhabitants of those cities who, for the majority of the

1920’s, were willing to pay it. The tax came in the form of

ever-increasing Prohibition-related violence (the

homicide rate across the US went up by 78% during this

period), the growth in criminal activity amongst the

general populace (the number of federal convicts rose

by 561%), as well as the ‘multiplier effect’ of black market

money that helped support and expand other illicit

industries. This ‘tax burden’ was shouldered by the

urban-dwellers for a number of reasons, perhaps the

foremost of which was self-interest: they wanted to

continue drinking and the gangsters supplied their

demand - by ‘bootlegging’. Additionally, most of the

direct Prohibition-generated violence that beset the big

cities was gangster on gangster - crimes that could be

ignored by the public, provided the liquor kept flowing.

And flow it did. Particularly in Chicago.

Perhaps more than any other American city, alcohol

shaped the very character of Chicago. In 1907, an early

tabloid-style journalist - George Turner - asserted that:

“The liquor interests are vastly more extended in

Chicago that any other. The city spends at least half as

much for what it drinks as for what it eats” (1)

However, it was more than the mere drinking culture of

Chicagoans that allowed for a toleration of the kind of

"The city spends at

least half as much for

what it drinks as for

what it eats”

violence not witnessed in other American cities at

the time. Capone is credited with introducing the

Thompson submachine gun to the Jazz Age. So

closely was the notorious ‘Tommy gun’ associated

with the city that it was actually monikered the

‘Chicago typewriter’. Even more than this, bombs

became a signature of the Chicago gangster - a

choice of weapon that was not to be found in any

other American city. Chicagoans liked their beer, yes,

but there was more to their apparent acceptance of

criminality than the desire to quench a thirst.

Criminals enjoyed more freedom in their city than

any other because of the unprecedented

relationship that those criminals who supplied the

illicit demand enjoyed with the authorities. Chicago

was the corruption capital of the country.

The astronomical sums of money that were

generated by the bootlegging of alcohol were swift

to convince those in authority in Chicago that

Capone’s frequent statements of merely providing

‘light pleasures’ were truisms. Writing in his

influential 1929 study, Organized Crime in Chicago,

John Landesco rued, “The gangster does not

exaggerate when he says that he has never seen a

straight election”. If Chicago was the corruption

capital of the country, then William Hale Thompson

was its mayor. Literally. ‘Big Bill’ Thompson, perhaps

more than any other prominent politician in North

America, celebrated his close relationship with

organised crime - particularly Al Capone, who partly

financed his run for mayor in 1927. Thompson also

maintained a publicly ‘relaxed’ view of the

enforcement of Prohibition, as enshrined in the

Volstead Act: he frequently sequestered a boat that

was permanently moored in Belmont Harbor on

Lake Michigan for ‘fishing’ with his buddies. The Fish

Fans’ Club was well known as one of his private

drinking holes.

As much as the politicians were in a cash-covered

bed with the bootleggers, the average Chicagoan

found the economic benefits of driving a beer truck

or waitressing at a speakeasy too attractive to turn

down. Here again, Landesco speaks to the

irresistibility of Prohibition’s black-market financial

gains to the inhabitants of Chicago, “...when he sees

his hardworking father laboring for a few dollars a

day and accumulating nothing, and the bootlegger…

riding in limousines…” (2). When a Prohibition Agent


might earn as little as $1,200 per year (and an already

overburdened policeman even less), enforcing the

Volstead Act in Chicago became, if not impossible,

then very unlikely. That was, until the St. Valentine’s

Day Massacre.

It is unfair to characterise Chicagoans as being

indifferent to the violence and criminality staining

the fabric of their city - they weren’t, they were

weary. For years Chicago’s politicians and authorities

had campaigned on platforms of crime reduction,

but none had been inclined, once in power, to

pursue the gangsters. Indignation was

commonplace; action was rare. Until the 14th

February 1929. The photographs of the crime scene

were nationally syndicated and public revulsion led

to a typically American response: market forces

brought powerful pressures to bear on both the local

and, more importantly, the federal government to

act. For the Chicago Crime Commission - a civilian

organisation of prominent legitimate city

businessmen - enough was enough. Before the FBI

plagiarised the format for themselves, founder of the

CCC – Frank J. Loesch – responded to the massacre

with a list he called Public Enemies, “...of the

outstanding hoodlums, known murderers… which

you and I know but can't prove...”. As he explained

it, “The purpose is to keep the publicity light shining

on Chicago's… gangsters.” (3). At the top of Loesch’s

list was the newly minted Public Enemy No. 1:

Alphonse Capone.

The influential CCC convinced President Hoover that

the situation in Chicago merited federal involvement

- the likes of which had been unheard of during the

rugged individualism of the Jazz Age (excepting

Prohibition itself), and almost unimaginable in the

halls of a Congress dominated for a decade by the

Republican Party. Though paling in comparison to

the federal interventions of the New Deal, the

immediate post-Valentine’s Day Massacre era saw

some of the first steps towards a remoulding of the

relationship between Americans and their

government. Many began to shift away from the

traditional expectation of a broadly noninterventionist

national government, towards a

government that responds to certain social needs.

Recognising the shift, Hoover established the

National Commission on Law Observance and

Enforcement – more colloquially known as the

Wickersham Commission. The Commission was

tasked, at the national level, with examining the

criminal justice system under the 18th Amendment.

Its findings were unsurprising: the negative effects of

Prohibition would require an overhauling of its

enforcement, including rooting out endemic

corruption. Hoover sent the ‘feds’ to investigate the

massacre, apparently going so far as to tell the

treasury Department to “...get that man”. And get

Capone they did - on the less ‘newsworthy’ crime of

tax evasion.

In Chicago’s next Mayoral election, the louchely

corrupt Mayor Thompson was dumped out of office

by an exhausted electorate who chose reform

candidate, Anton Cermak, by a 17-point margin.

Thompson would be the last Republican Mayor of

Chicago. This exhaustion translated across the

United States. In the 1930 Congressional elections,

the Republicans lost 52 seats in the House of

Representatives and 8 in the Senate, to the reformpromising

Democrats. In the gubernatorial elections

held in the same year, the Democrats gained 7 seats,

one of which was a landslide victory for Franklin D.

Roosevelt. Roosevelt would go on to the presidency

and do three things in quick succession: cancel the

18th Amendment, declare a ‘War on Crime’, and

introduce the National Firearms Act. This act was the

first of its kind and would, among other actions, ban

weapons such as the Thompson gun and sawed-off

shotguns - the basic tools of the organised crime

trade. Of course, the Wall Street Crash and ensuing

Great Depression have the lion share of responsibility

for the profound political sea change witnessed after

1929, but the tide had turned in America before the

October collapse on Wall Street: it started in Chicago

when the Jazz Age was killed at 2122 North Clark

Street.

Notes/Sources

(1). The City of Chicago, A Study of the Great

Immoralities appeared in McClure's Magazine in

April 1907 (vol. 28, pp. 575-92)

(2) Bergreen, Laurence (1996). Capone: The Man and

the Era. Simon and Schuster. pp. 365–366.

(3) Ibid

Dr Elliott. L. Watson is the

author of BLOWING UP

THE NAZIS: WHAT YOU

DIDN'T KNOW MAY BLOW

YOUR MIND

RRP: £7.99

@thelibrarian6


From hounds

to hair: the

changing

world of crime

investigations

DR NELL DARBY

It was early September, 1888, and the body of Annie

Chapman, the second canonical victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’,

had just been discovered in the back yard of a house in

Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. Already, both the public and

the press were asking why the individual believed to have

committed both murders had not been caught and

identified. Ordinary men and women offered their

unsolicited advice, including a newspaper reader who

called himself ‘Whitechapel Workman’. He pondered,

“Why do the police not employ

bloodhounds to trace the

[Whitechapel] murderer? He

could not commit such a crime

without being covered with the

blood of his victim, and this

would help the dogs to trace

him.”

It’s not surprising that the public wanted to offer their

views on how to catch serious offenders. Criminal

investigation techniques in the late Victorian era were

developing, but while some methods were, to a certain

extent, unchanging - such as searching individuals and

properties, conducting interviews with witnesses and

suspects, and trying to collect as much evidence as

possible - some of the science involved in investigations

was still in its infancy, and there was still a residual belief in

older, more esoteric techniques from past centuries.

Although the police subsequently tried to use

bloodhounds, miscommunication meant that they did not

succeed, leading to one provincial newspaper noting, ‘It

would be amusing, if there was not such a terribly tragic

side to the affair, to note how all the police plans seem to

be bent towards catching the culprit after the next

murder.’ However, the idea of dogs tracing scents had

logical roots in their success in poaching - a common

offence, particularly back in the 18th century.

Another old method of crime investigation that was used

in the Whitechapel murders, though, was never going to

succeed. This was optography - the photographing of a

victim’s eyes, in the belief that dying eyes preserved the

image of the last thing or person they had seen before

being killed. Prior to the invention of photography, people

would simply look into a murder victim’s eyes in the hope

of seeing an image in the victim’s pupils or elsewhere on

their eye’s surface: a shadowy image of a man, perhaps,

who could be loosely (very loosely) recognised in a local

village as being a particular individual. The technique

reflected general attitudes of superstition rather than

science, but after the development of photographic

techniques, it continued to be used and regarded as

‘science’, with retinas being photographed. Two ‘Ripper’

victims, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly,

were said to have had their eyes

photographed - surprisingly, to

no avail.

In Manchester, when Sarah

Jane Roberts was

murdered in 1880,

a photographer was

commissioned to

photograph her

‘eyeballs’ in the

hope that they had

recorded an image of

her killer. A surgeon at

the Manchester Royal

Eye Hospital

commented that if

Sarah’s eye had been

removed immediately

after her murder and

examined, it might be

possible to ‘trace the

outlines of the

murderer, or the

weapon used in the

murder.’ The police,

though, delayed obtaining

the pictures from the

photographer, having

doubts about their value -

suggesting that not all police

forces thought this was the best

way of investigating a serious

crime.

Luckily, in the late 19th and early

20th centuries, scientific methods

with more chance of locating the

perpetrators of crimes were being

developed, as it became recognised

that humans had some distinctly

individual characteristics that could

help identify them. In 1901, New

Scotland Yard introduced a fingerprint

classification system, and the

following year, an analysis of

fingerprint left at the scene of a

burglary in south London resulted in a

middle-aged labourer named Harry Jackson being

convicted of the crime at the Old Bailey.


This case had shown the reliability of fingerprint evidence,

and it was used to good effect again in 1905. In March of

this year, Thomas Farrow, who managed a shop in

Deptford, and his wife Ann, were bludgeoned

to death. A fingerprint smudge was found

inside their cash box, which didn’t match

the relatively few prints Scotland Yard

had on file. However, brothers Alfred

and Albert Stratton had been seen

near the house by a witness the

morning of the murders. They

were brought into the police,

and subsequent fingerprint

analysis showed that Alfred

Stratton’s thumbprint

matched the smudge on

the cash box. Just this

small but crucial piece

of evidence was enough

to convict both brothers,

and they were hanged

for the murders. These

were the first convictions

for murder in an English

court that had resulted

from fingerprint analysis.

It’s more difficult to use

footprints in crime scene

investigations simply because

the majority of people

committing crimes tend

to be wearing shoes or other

footwear. Yet although feet

have a pattern or set of

ridges that is unique and

can be matched to an existing

print on record, just as a

fingerprint can, footwear can

also be used to identify a

perpetrator.The patterns

left by a shoe can be studied

and matched to other prints,

showing the likelihood of one

person being responsible for more

than one crime. Footwear

analysis can also help police

determine how tall an individual is

by the size of their feet; and their

weight can be assessed by how

deep the print is in the ground, and

whether it was damp or dry at the time.

This sounds like a modern type of crime investigation

technique - yet it’s said that the technique had been used

in 1786, to solve a Scottish murder case. A young girl had

been killed; footprints in a marsh near her home were

analysed, and found to have been left by boots worn by an

individual who had been running (the prints were left

deep into the mud of the marshland). An impression was

made of the boot prints, and through comparing to boots

worn by mourners at the girl’s funeral, a culprit was found.

In the Victorian era, police constables similarly used boots

as a means of identification, and followed the impressions

made by footwear as criminals fled the scenes of their

crimes. By the 1930s, footwear analysis was being formally

undertaken, with the FBI in America creating a ‘shoeprint

file’ with hundreds of examples.

Science is like water, in that it keeps moving on: it

develops, it progresses, as people’s knowledge increases.

Crime investigations have undoubtedly benefitted from

scientific advances; but the work of our ancestors in this

field should not be mocked or underestimated. They used

the means they had to hand to try and solve crimes;

although some methods to us now seem absurd - such as

the concept of optography - to our ancestors, it seemed

more logical, with the use of the very modern

photographic methods giving it a scientific bent - or at

least, the Victorians thought so. Other techniques we

recognise as more valid, such as following scents or blood

trails; fingerprint analysis and footwear analysis, have a

longer history than we might expect. One wonders,

though, what Victorian investigators, for example, might

have been able to do with microscopic hair analysis, or

DNA testing: would Jack the Ripper have been caught

with the help of modern forensic science, for example?

The police’s reputation might have improved as a result,

and a whole money-making industry would never have

existed.

Dr Nell Darby is the author

of LIFE ON THE VICTORIAN

STAGE published by Pen &

Sword

RRP: £12.99

CRIME AND THE UNDERWORLD/ 55

INSIDE

BOOKS

Jack the Ripper has been pushed from the pages in Hallie

Rubenhold’s widely acclaimed book. He haunts each

chapter, of course, stalking ever closer. But there is no

hunt for the elusive, gruesome figure. Instead, The Five

offers an unflinching and uncompromising account of the

lives of his ‘canonical’ victims.

This shift in focus makes for challenging and timely

reading. It demands readers question the way these

women – Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane

– have frequently been remembered and depicted. In

doing so, it raises difficult questions about persisting

injustices and inequalities.

The Five charts their lives because they were human

beings. They were sisters, wives, daughters and mothers.

Their stories encompass farms in Sweden and streets in

Knightsbridge. Their stories extend back – before

Whitechapel, before 1888 – and Rubenhold has

painstakingly pieced them together.

WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD

PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2019

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The Five: The untold lives of the

Women killed by Jack The

Ripper

Author: Hallie Rubenhold

Publisher: Doubleday

Language: English

"This book is notable

beyond its ties to a famous

killer, because it’s not about

him. It is a book about

society, about life."

These biographies are carefully situated in their historical

context, resulting in a detailed exploration of the social

history of this period. In particular, frequent references to

costs, earning potential and expanding families drive

home the economic realities of life for working-class

women. It is a powerful and emotive narrative. It is not an

easy read. Prostitution is also a central aspect of The Five.

The consideration of how it was conducted, defined and

perceived makes for compelling reading. Additionally,

Rubenhold argues that there is no hard evidence that

three of the five women engaged in prostitution.

This book is notable beyond its ties to a famous killer,

because it’s not about him. It is a book about society,

about life. It is a book about five women: Mary Ann “Polly”

Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine

Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

Hardback/Paperback/ebook/

Audiobook

The Five was reviewed by Mallory James. Mallory is the

author of Elegant Etiquette in the Nineteenth Century

published by Pen & Sword @_MalloryJames

It is a sobering thought that until the closing years of the

twentieth century, Britain’s courts were technically able to

impose the death penalty for a number of offences; both

civil and military. Although the last judicial hangings took

place in 1964, the death penalty, in theory at least,

remained for a number of offences. During the twentieth

century, 865 people were executed in Britain, and of those

only 3 were ever posthumously pardoned. This book

details each and every one of those executions, and in

many cases highlights the crimes that brought these men

and women to the gallows.

The book also details the various forms of capital

punishment used throughout British history. During past

centuries people were burned at the stake, had the skin

flayed from their bodies, been beheaded, garrotted, hung,

drawn and quartered, stoned, disemboweled, buried alive

and all under the guidance of a vengeful law, or at least

what passed for law at any given period. This book spares

no detail in chronicling these events and the author has

painstakingly collected together every available piece of

evidence to provide as clear a picture as possible of a time

when the law operated on the principle of an eye for an

eye.

The author, Gary M. Dobbs, is a true-crime historian and

has spent many hours researching the cases featured

within these pages to bring the reader a definitive history

of judicial punishment during the twentieth century, and

this carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling

text will appeal to anyone interested in the darker side of

history.

"During past centuries

people were burned at

the stake, had the skin

flayed from their

bodies, been beheaded,

garrotted, hung, drawn

These biographies are carefully situated in their historical

context, resulting in a detailed exploration of the social

history of this period. In particular, frequent references to

costs,

and

earning

quartered,

potential and expanding

stoned,

families drive

home the economic realities of life for working-class

women. disemboweled, It a powerful and emotive narrative. buried It is not an

easy read. Prostitution is also a central aspect of The Five.

The alive consideration and of how all it was under conducted, defined theand

perceived makes for compelling reading. Additionally,

Rubenhold argues that there is no hard evidence that

guidance of a vengeful

three of the five women engaged in prostitution.

law"

This book is notable beyond its ties to a famous killer,

because it’s not about him. It is a book about society,

about life. It is a book about five women: Mary Ann “Polly”

The full story on why Derek Bentley was

given a posthumous pardon in 1964

Details all 865 people who were executed

in Britain in the 20th Century

Covers the entire history of judicial

punishment from beheadings to hangings

The story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to

be hanged in Britain, is presented

Discover why capital punishment was

finally abolished in the United Kingdom

A Date with the Hangman:

A History of Capital Punishment

in Britain

Author: Gary Dobbs

Publisher: Pen & Sword History

Language: English

The scene was set for a classic Western showdown. On a

dusty main street, a sheriff backed by townspeople faced

down a gang of heavily armed hired gunslingers. Tension

rose, hard words were exchanged, and someone drew

first. A few minutes later 10 men were dead or dying, and

several more suffered gunshot wounds. The hired guns,

those that remained on their feet that is, fled. But this was

not a shoot-out in the Wild West of Wyoming or Montana

or South Dakota in the 1880s, or a Hollywood re-imagining

of such an event. This was not Dodge City or Abilene. This

was the West Virginia mining town of Matewan in 1920. By

contrast the more celebrated gunfight at the OK Corral in

Tombstone lasted 30 seconds and left three dead. And

Matewan was not an aberration.

"The first book to show that

during the era of Wild West,

the most dangerous place to

be was in the Wilder East,

far from the American

frontier."

▪Largely forgotten stories about the

making of America

▪Widespread use of primary sources

by an experienced journalist with an

eye for a story

The Wild East: Gunfights,

Massacres and Race Riots far

from America's Frontier

In the era of the post-Civil War Wild West, it can be argued

that the most dangerous place to be was in the East. It was

the inevitably violent outcomes of massive social upheaval

– race wars with lynchings and massacres, heavily-armed

confrontation between infant trade unionism and the

forces of capitalism, murderous feuds between corrupt

lawmen and the early Mafia.

These were confrontations in which the US government

bombed and marginalized their own citizens, the law was

twisted for private ends, and "fake news’” became the

norm.

Author: Ian Hernon

Publisher: Amberley

Language: English

Hardback

Ian Hernon

A print journalist since 1969 and a lobby correspondent in

the Commons since 1978. Ian Hernon covered the Troubles

in Northern Ireland and more mayhem in the Middle East.

He ran the oldest Parliamentary news agency for 15 years.

He was the deputy editor of Tribune for five years. He is the

author of a dozen books including the best-selling

'Britain's Forgotten Wars'.

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