Goulston Street graffito wasn’t anti-Semitic

An old Desert Rat who exchanged his leave with his brother – suffering severe trauma – would use words such as oxter and alikific. He was the only person, amongst his family and immediate friends, who used such terms. Each slang word was stolen from the indigenous population. As any Brit is likely to do, if he can say it, has a use for it, he will nick it. Hence the ever-enlarging English vocabulary.

Anyway, alikific - Allah-keefik (God will take care of it) or as he used it, sod it, I don’t care. Oxter : armpit. Why he needed another word for armpit I’ve no idea. But perhaps the Saharan heat and proximity made that particular part of the anatomy noteworthy.

I suggest that ex-army officer, Charles Warren, understood the definition of jewes – of Persian Indian origin and meaning justice. Of course, Warren feared public disorder. He erased the message before it was photographed, and against the advice of the City police. He was the commissioner of the Metropolitan police and his word in that borough held sway. Warren had heard his soldiers swear jewes when given an order they thought unfair, or received an unjust punishment from a senior soldier, and with whom they could not argue. Jewes. Judge, jury and executioner."Bastard jewes."

Charles Warren received criticism for his recruitment of service personnel as constables. The word jewes, understood by other ex-army men, would link the murders to the military, if not the Ripper - a dangerous position for Warren.

Jews is easy enough to spell. Adding a silent E doesn’t simplify the word. It complicates it. Why do that? Because the graffito wasn’t anti-Semitic – but no doubt ‘playful’ - as if the writer enjoyed cryptic games, but sod it, he didn't care ...

On 14th October 1896, eight years after the first letters, Commercial Street Police Station received, through the post, a Jack the Ripper letter.

Dear Boss,

You will be surprised to find that this comes from yours as of old Jack the Ripper.

Ha Ha. If my old friend Mr. Warren is dead you can read it. You might remember me if you try and think a little. Ha Ha . . . 

Much in the same vein followed, liberally sprinkled with words and phrases cribbed from the original communications but not in the same handwriting. The writer explained that he had just come back from abroad and was ready to resume his work, and he concluded with an enigmatic reference to the writing found in Goulston Street.

The Jewes are people that are blamed for nothing. Ha, Ha. Have you heard this before?

Yours truly. Jack the Ripper.

Jewes. The Goulston Street message

More definition and meaning of the message.

Jewes. Judgement.Variant, juise, obsolete,.

Forms iuise, iewes. L Judicium – judgement and a later and further form, judgement, doom; a judicial sentence, or its execution: penalty. The compact edition of The Oxford English Dictionary. Text Produced Micrographically, Vol 1.

Jewes

Jewes, -esse

var. juise Obs., judgement.

Juise n. Of. juise. L. judicium. See {Judicial}.]Judgment; justice; sentence. [Obs.] 1913 Webster

On pain of hanging and high juise. Chaucer.

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

Jewes is a from a group of Indo-European languages. The Indo-European Language Association. The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary.

Jewes means Law. It is pronounced as it is spelt.

English	Europaio	Pronunciation
law	jewes	jewes
swear	jewesa	jewesā
just	jewesto	jewesto

The message therefore is: The law are the men that will not be blamed for nothing. But law has something else too Judgement – judge, jury and executioner?

The man who wrote that message came armed with chalk – he didn’t just find it in the gutter and compose a cleverly worded conundrum that would take more than a century to decipher. He knew what he wanted to write, and he wanted to connect the message to the crime scene. The police at this period, handily, carried chalk. Without the ripped cloth, tying it the the corpse by its apron strings, and Long's remarkable interest in the rag, that message would have remained unnoticed and ignored.

He ripped the apron from Eddowes, and thereby literally introduced us to the Ripper? First use of 'Jack the Ripper' on Dear Boss letter dated 25th September. The letter was posted to the Central News Agency on 27th September 1888, and forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29th September. Eddowes died in the early hours of the 30th September. 

14th October 1896, eight years after the first letters, a fresh Jack the Ripper letter was received through the post at Commercial Street Police Station.

"Dear Boss," it began, 'you will be surprised to find that this comes from yours as of old Jack the Ripper. Ha Ha. If my old friend Mr. Warren is dead you can read it. You might remember me if you try and think a little. Ha Ha ..."

Much in the same vein followed, liberally sprinkled with words and phrases cribbed from the original communications but not in the same handwriting. The writer explained that he had just come back from abroad and was ready to resume his work, and he concluded with an enigmatic reference to the writing found in Goulston Street.

'"The Jewes are people that are blamed for nothing." Ha Ha. have you heard this before." It was signed 'yours truly. Jack the Ripper."

Strange, how the author insisted on the, by then, discounted jewes spelling.

More Goulston Street.

Goulston Street message

Jewes

Jewes Interpretation:Translation jewes, jewes, -esse var. juise Obs., judgement.[1]
Juise — Ju*ise , n. [OF. juise. L. judicium. See {Judicial}.] Judgment; justice; sentence. [Obs.] [1913 Webster] Up [on] pain of hanging and high juise. Chaucer. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. Modern.
A GRAMMAR OF MODERN INDO-EUROPEAN Third Edition Jewes - diks : Judge.

If the Ripper wrote the Goulston Street message, then he's either blaming the 'law' (police), and/or proclaiming himself, judge, jury, and executioner.

Interestingly, police constables of the period would carry chalk.

Goulston Street wall.

Additional.

Black aprons and Goulston Street

I reread Walter Dew's memoirs - the link? North London and hair curlers! Anyway, Walter Dew stated that Catherine Eddowes wore a black apron. I’d always imagined Victorian working-class women wore white aprons, so I checked. There are photographs of women in dark-hued aprons with and without patterns. It takes little thought to understand a dark apron is more practical than white. If Eddowes apron was black or dark, how would Alfred Long see it in a dark entry? In the gloom, white cloth would have been difficult enough to see on that overcast, drizzly, night, but black? A mere shadow at the foot of the jamb that’s how it would have appeared and, at that stage, PC Long wasn’t yet aware a murder had occurred, or so he said. Peculiar he found the cloth so interesting – strange that he saw it at all.

Goulston Street graffiti.

Goulston Street graffito. A brick is eight x four inches. Sergeant Halse stated: The writing is in good schoolboys script, 3/4 of an inch.The writing formed three lines ... To fit the bricks and to scale it would need to be placed similarly to this.

Jews, Juwes, Jewes, Jeuwes, Juwes, Jeuws, Juewes or Juews? These were the variant spellings according to different author's reports. The mid-line scrawl caused confusion. Writing on a brick wall, with chalk, isn't likely to assist legibility.
In this drawing I've used letters from Saucy Jack and Dear Boss missives
Jewes definition.