The Media that Once Saved Britain
Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard …. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. — Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897
London 1888. Five (or six) London prostitutes were killed and mutilated in the East End by an unknown murderer who became known as Jack the Ripper. Public panic spread far beyond the East End, and the police failed to arrest him. After four months of media frenzy, the attacks stopped. The reason for this is not known, but the theories about it, and the culprit’s identity, are legion, writes Heather Creaton (2003) from…
