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- On page six of the London Times for February 22, 1838,
situated above the latest news of East India Shipping, this bizarre article,
from a totally different realm of discourse, appeared:
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- Outrage On A Young Lady The London Times February 22,
1838
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- Many among the public have hitherto been incredulous
as to the truth of various representations made to the Lord Mayor of the
gambols of "Spring-heeled Jack," the suburban ghost, and believed,
from their being no positive proof of the miscreant carrying his pranks
beyond the mere act of alarming unprotected females, that those statements
were more the effect of imagination than reality. The following authentic
particulars, however, of a gross and violent outrage committed on a respectable
young lady, and which might not only have caused her death, but that of
both her sisters by the unmanly brute, will remove all doubt upon the
subject.
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- Yesterday Mr. Alsop, a gentleman of considerable property
residing at Bear-bind Cottage, in Bear-bind lane, a very lonely spot between
the villages of Bow and Old Ford, accompanied by his three daughters,
waited upon Mr. Hardwick at Lambeth-street Police-office, and gave the
following particulars of an outrage committed on one of the latter:--
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- Miss Jane Alsop, a young lady 18 years of age, stated
that at about a quarter to 9 oclock on the preceding night she heard a
violent ringing at the gate in front of the house, and on going to the
door to see what was the matter she saw a man standing outside, of whom
she inquired what was the matter, and requested he would not ring so loud.
The person instantly replied that he was a policeman, and said "For
Gods sake, bring me light, for we have caught Spring-heeled Jack here
in the lane." She returned into the house and brought a candle, and
handed it to the person, who appeared enveloped in a thick cloak, and
whom she at first really believed to be a policeman. The instant she had
done so, however, he threw off his outer garment, and applying the lighted
candle to his breast, presented a most hideous and frightful appearance,
and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, and
his eyes resembled red balls of fire. From the hasty glance which her fright
enabled her to to get at his person she remembered that he wore a large
helmet, and his dress, which appeared to fit him very tight, seemed to
her to resemble white oil skin. Without uttering a sentence he darted
at her, and catching her partly by her dress and the back part of her
neck, placed her head under one of his arms, and commenced tearing her
gown with his claws, which she was certain was of some metallic substance.
She screamed out as loud as she could for assistance, and by considerable
exertion got away from him and ran towards the house to get in. Her assailant,
however, followed her, and caught her on the steps leading to the hall-door,
when he again used considerable violence, tore her neck and arms with
his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head; but she was at
length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. Miss Alsop added,
that she had suffered considerably all night from the shock she had sustained,
and was then in extreme pain, both from the injury done to her arm, and
the wounds and scratches inflicted by the miscreant about her shoulders
and neck with his claws or hands.
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- Miss Mary Alsop, a younger sister, said that on hearing
the screams of her sister Jane, she went to the door, and saw a figure
as above described ill-using her sister. She was so alarmed at his appearance,
that she was afraid to approach or render any assistance.
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- Mrs. Harrison said, that hearing the screams of both
her sisters, first of Jane, and then of Mary, she ran to the door, and
found the person before described in the act of dragging her sister Jane
down the stone steps from the door with considerable violence. She (Mrs.
Harrison) got hold of her sister, and by some means or other, which she
could scarcely describe, succeeded in getting her inside the door, and
closing it. At this time her sisters dress was nearly torn off and both
her combs dragged out of her head, as well as a quantity of her hair torn
away. The fellow, notwithstanding the outrage he had committed, knocked
loudly two or three times at the door, and it was only on their calling
loudly for the police from the upper windows that he left the place.
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- Mr. Alsop, who appears very feeble, said that he and
Mrs. Alsop have been laid up for several weeks past with a rheumatic affection,
so as to be scarcely able to get out of bed, but such was the alarm on
the night before, that they both got out of bed, and he managed to get
down stairs, and found his daughter Susan [sic] with her clothes torn,
and having all the appearance of receiving the most serious personal violence.
Mr. Alsop also said it was perfectly clear that there was more than one
ruffian connected with the outrage, as the fellow who committed the outrage
did not return for his cloak, but scampered across the fields, so that
there must have been some person with him to pick it up. In conclusion,
Mr. Alsop said, he would most willingly give a reward of 10 guineas for
the apprehension of the said miscreant.
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- Mr. Hardwick expressed his surprise and abhorrence at
the outrage, and said that no pains should be spared to bring its miscreant
perpetrator to justice.
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- Despite the combined efforts of the police, the elderly
Duke of Wellington, who is said to have set out every night on horseback
with a brace of pistols at the ready, and vigilante committees which roamed
the midnight streets eager to enact their own brand of justice, this bizarre
criminal, known by all as Spring-heeled Jack, would never be caught. What
first began as reports on the outskirts of London of a white, bear-like
apparition walking on its hind legs, soon grew into tales of a leaping
demon that belched fire into the faces of young women and attacked them
with metallic claws.
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- Jacks first recorded victim was Polly Adams. On the night
of October 11, 1837, the leaping demon spat flames into her face, tore
away the seventeen year old womans clothes, raked her skin until she bled,
and leaped away laughing into the darkness. The unfortunate Jane [Susan]
Alsop was his next recorded victim, although many others had encountered
Jack in the back lanes of suburban London and refused from shame or fear
to give their names. Significantly, a few nights after his "visit"
with the Alsops, Jack again made a similar attempt at another address,
but was scotched by a servant who raised an alarm that sent the apparition
fleeing. The servant would later state that he had noticed a crest on
Jacks cloak with a "W" upon it. This would lead Peter Haining,
in his Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, to speculate that
this spring-heeled monster was the Marquis of Waterford, a wealthy bachelor
with a fondness for cruel jokes and a hatred for women. If the Marquis
was indeed the one and only Jack, he must have had a special seat reserved
for him in Limbo, where he shared the cruel company of such immortals
as Ahasarus, Melmoth the Wanderer, and The Flying Dutchman.
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- Reports of Jacks activities ran in cycles. He was again
seen in the 1840's practicing his old tricks on mail coach horses, women
and children, and he appears to have been responsible for the drowning
death of a prostitute. He returned once more in the 1870's to frighten
the sentries at Aldershot military base, and was last seen by hundreds
of witnesses leaping across the roof tops of Liverpool in 1904. According
to all accounts, after that he was never to be seen again. Or was he?
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- Baltimore, Maryland
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- Time: July, 1951. Place: ODonnell Heights, Baltimore
Maryland. ODonnell Heights was built in 1942 as a defense housing project
in southeastern Baltimore. It now no longer exists. In 1951 its only distinction,
besides offering affordable rent to military families and war workers,
was that it was almost entirely surrounded by graveyards.
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- Just as the old Springheels began his depredations with
no preamble, so his American cousin struck without warning. It was as
if a door had opened from a hidden dimension, and the monster hopped in
for some sadistic sport. "He ran and jumped like a gazelle,"
they said of the black-robed figure. "He had a hump on his back,
and a horrible face," according to one witness. And true to his European
predecessors, this demon even spoke. As a February 28th, 1962 account
by John Sherwood of the Baltimore Sun relates: "He was seen hiding
under a car, saying: "Come here, little girl" to a passing child.
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- People heard footsteps on the flat roofs of their cinderblock
homes, from which the tall, black-clad demon jumped with supernatural ease,
"but [he] never left a footprint when he hit the ground," said
another astonished witness.
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- Frightened residents stayed awake all night with 12-gage
shotguns and lead pipes. Some carried butcher knives for self-protection.
A photograph from the Sun account shows families huddled in fear on their
front lawns. A traffic problem developed after midnight on ODonnell street,
and hoards of people from all over the city came to hunt the Phantom down.
Witnesses swore they saw this "galloping ghost" leap over barbed-wire
trimmed cemetery fences and melt away among the stones. A man told reporters
that hed heard organ music coming from a graveyard chapel at one in the
morning, and he knew it was the Phantom.
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- Then, once more true to the precedent set by the Springheels
that brought terror to Dickens London, this leaping monster abruptly disappeared.
By August of 1951, the sightings abruptly stopped and the residents of
ODonnell Heights could once more sleep in peace.. We can only suppose that
Springheel Jacks cycle of earthly existence had again run its course, and
he had shut the interdimensional door behind him. Yet the question remains:
will he ever return, and where? Is he poised again, now at the end of
the Millennium, to leap over rooftops with eyes of flame and hysterical
laughter? Does he lurk even now in some late-night doorway with claws
of steel and a mouth full of fire? Only time will tell.
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- Copyright 1999 by Jesse Glass.
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