Jack The Ripper Ballads 1888 - A Scene Of The Rhyme Investigation.

As the Jack the Ripper murders began to increase in their number and ferocity, ballad sellers arrived in the area to hawk their ditties about the crimes. These ballads weren't in the least bit eloquent, and their resemblance to actual poetry was, to say the least, passing. But they were popular, and people simply couldn't get enough of them.

In this video we take a close look at some of those ballads.

We begin with an introduction to the history of street ballads, explaining how they were one of the few means that the poor had of gathering news stories about the wider world in which they lived.

We then look at some of the Jack the Ripper ballads themselves - or at least those that appeared in the newspapers.

As you will see, the imagery in some of those ballads was pretty tasteless, albeit the majority of them were expressing outrage over the crimes and were demanding that more should be done to bring the perpetrator of the crimes to justice.

The video then looks at some of the other merchandise that was on sale around the scenes of the crimes as more and more people flocked to the area to discuss the murders and to give their opinions on what type of person the perpetrator might be.

All these discussions were listened in on by the balladeers and were then reproduced in ballads which were sold all over the country.

The video ends with the question - can we honestly say that we are any better than the 19th century citizens when songs about Jack the Ripper are still recorded and performed by many rock groups and rappers?