Gleanings After Time: Chapters In Social And Domestic History

Bird claims "with hand on heart" that there are no Ripper files lurking about or lost in those boxes. As far as she knows, all have been turned over to the Public Record Office, and she attributes any gaps in the records to "bad handling, human nature or pinching, and the bombings of World War II," when headquarters - where the records were then stored - were partially destroyed during a blitzkrieg. While it may have been appropriate to prevent the publication of the graphic details and morgue photographs of nude, mutilated bodies for a period of time, I suspect discretion and sensitivity were not the only motives behind locking up files and hiding the key. No good could come from reminding the world that the Yard never caught its man, and there was no point in dwelling on an ugly chapter in English history when the Metropolitan Police Department was disgraced by one of its worst commissioners. Her Majesty the Queen must have been suffering a spell of some sort when she decided to drag a tyrannical general out of Africa and put him in charge of the civilian police in a city that already hated "blue bottles" / and "coppers." Charles Warren was a brusque, arrogant man who wore elaborate uniforms ...»