On Guy Fawkes Night, 5th November, 1892, 18-year-old Emily Edith Smith was walking along Cheapside, in the City of London, when she was approached by a man who invited her to go for a cup of tea with him.
After hesitating initially, she agreed, and the couple headed to Fenchurch Street where they stopped off at a low tea shop.
Here, the man asked her to go with him to his office at Upton Park, and, when she consented, the two of them headed to Aldgate where they boarded an omnibus and set off along Whitechapel High Street.
As they went to man pointed out various locations which were connected with the Jack the Ripper murders of a few years previous.
They left the omnibus and took a tramcar to the George IV pub on Commercial Road East, where the alighted and set off along Sutton Street. Stopping for a drink at a beer house, the girl was able to take a good look at her companion, and she was later able to describe him in a great deal of detail.
From the beer house they walked to nearby Station Place, which was so dark that Emily became nervous and refused to go any further, whereupon the man seized hold of her and pulled out a knife with which he attempted to attack her.
Emily was able to fight the man off, and she ran back into Sutton Street, by which time the man had disappeared.
When the newspapers learnt about her ordeal, they published lurid headlines wondering "Has Jack the Ripper Returned?"
In this video we take a detailed look at her account of her ordeal, and end by noting how the man bore an uncanny resemblance to an actual Jack the Ripper suspect.
11 окт 2021