by Sean B. Palmer
Spring Heeled Jack was an extraordinary fellow who plagued Victorian London in the 1830s with his attacks on several women. But he is remembered most, and has earned a place in the annals of the paranormal, for his ability to vault ten foot high walls, breathe sparkling fires into the faces of his victims, and elude attempts at capture by the whole city. This article uncovers details of one of the most commonly repeated incidents, exposing a subtle twist in the tail to the whole mystery.
Fifty years after the London Monster and fifty years before Jack the Ripper, Victorian London was plagued by possibly the strangest criminal of them all: Spring Heel Jack. So outrageous was his method of assaulting his victims that he is generally classed as a paranormal phenomenon rather than an ordinary common crook.
A businessman walking across Barnes Common, London, in September 1837 was the first person to encounter Jack. A figure leapt over the railings of the adjacent cemetary, landing in front of the businessman, revealing his glowing eyes and devil-like appearance. The businessman did not stick around. The next night, the first attack happened in the same place, Polly Adams being the main victim. She was clawed at and groped having being abandoned by her two female and one male acommpaniers, and later found lying unconscious by the police.
The second major incident happened in October, with yet another woman being assaulted but not permanently injured, this time in Cut Throat Lane in Clapham. Her name was Mary Stevens. Jack was seen again in the same area the next day, having caused an accident only to leap away with his extraordinary ability to once again evade capture.
Incident three happened in Clapham Church, with Jack once again getting away via a tremendous leap, but this time leaving some evidence behind: police found footprints three inches deep in the ground, and surmised that he must have employed some spring-powered mechanism in his shoes.
London was up in arms. When the Lord Mayor, Sir. John Cowan, received a letter from a man in Peckham who described a Spring-Heeled Jack encounter, he declared Jack to be a "public menace", and the hysteria increased to the point of vigilantieism. Most amusingly of all, the ageing Duke of Wellington set out on his horse every night to attempt to capture the perpetrator. It is said that he had many close encounters with the scoundrel, but that each time he managed to escape.
After Sir. John Cowan's public proclaimation, many more reports started to filter in from people that had previously been too scared to come forward. But the attacks also continued, and in February 1838 there were two major incidents. The first was that of Lucy Scales, who was assaulted in an alley and blinded (the duration of which is unknown) in the Limehouse region of London. Witnesses said that the attacker leapt up onto a root in order to make his escape. The second, perhaps the most singular, was the attack on Jane Alsop of the Bow Street area. A policeman knocked urgently upon her door declaring that they had caught Spring-Heeled Jack in the lane and that they needed a light, quickly. When Jane returned with a candle, she saw that the policeman was none other than Jack himself, and he attempted to drag her out into the lane by her hair. Thankfully, she was rescued by her family and Jack escaped once again.
The next major event offered a clue as to Jack's identity. A man knocked upon a house and asked the servant who answered the door whether they could see the owner. The servant asked the man to wait for a while, and in the process saw the the man was no other than Spring-Heeled Jack. As he cried out in alarm, Jack fled, but the servant managed to get a close look at his shirt: it had the letter "W" embroidered on it in gold.
When the news reached the papers, people immediately began to suspect the well-known practical joker the Marquis of Waterford. Nothing was ever proven, and the theory was abandoned when the Marquis tragically passed away a decade later but the attacks still continued. Several isolated incidents are even said to have occured into the twentieth century, but the entire affair dissipated quickly from that point onwards, only to be retold in many books of the paranormal.
The incident that we focus on here is that of Jane Alsop, the girl who answered the door to a policeman that turned out to be Jack. This happened in the thick of the events, and is often recounted as the most interesting tale of the whole saga.
Sean B. Palmer