Wednesday, August 8, 2012

"Spring Heeled Jack" - "Jumping Jack"

"Spring Heeled Jack" - Jumping Jack

The shady-town of 1800s London seemed to hide all sorts of mysteries and horrors. There were secret drug stores, smugglers trafficking the Thames  and prostitutes were murdered by the mysterious "Jack the Ripper." But nothing was more remarkable than the character who became known as "Spring-Heeled Jack" or "jumping Jack". Who got his name from the alleged ability to make inhumanly high jumps over walls and rooftops. This caused people to speculate that he had installed steel springs under his feet enabling him to make those insanely high jumps.

When Spring Foot-Jack first appeared is uncertain. Some records of such a man with supernatural jumping abilities surfaced as early as 1817. But it was not until the 1830s, that "Jumping Jack" became famous and well a known term to the public. January 9, 1838 the Mayor of London Sir John Cowan, received a letter reading avbout "Spring Foot-Jack". The letter was written by an anonymous person and refers to the "jumping horror that plagued London '. The writer said that Jack was actually a famous person in the community, who had made a bet that he could scare 30 people to death. After this first letter the State House where soon flooded with letters from people who all said they had met "Spring Foot-Jack".

Jack was described as a tall man dressed in black with high jack boots and steel helmet on his head. with the ability to make impossibly high jumps, but the letters also mentioned that he had fire-breathing breath. He some became popular in local folklore and there was an overflowing stream of new story's and legends about him-
He could hit people with horrible diseases, put them into a deep sleep and appeared sometimes in the form of a milk-colored bull, a white bear and a huge baboon. Mothers warned their children "if you're not well behaved now, the Spring-foot-Jack will come and get you."

The newspapers of course saw the moneymaking possibilities and published every single story they got their hands on about peoples alleged encounters with Spring Foot-Jack.Shifting from hilarious to horrific.  18 February, 1838, 18 year old Lucy Scales and her sister were walking home after a visit at their brother. When the girls passed Green Dragon Alley  Lucy who walked a few steps ahead was suddenly attacked by a dark figure who came jumping out of a dark alley.
The figure pulled her close and blew cloud of smoke and sparks in Lucy's face, after which he disappeared with breathtaking jumps into the night. Lucy fainted and was taken to hospital.

Two days later in the district of Bow. 18 year old Jane heard someone banging hard on her front door. She asked what it was and were told: "For God's sake, get a light, we have caught Spring-foot-Jack here in the alley!" Since Jane had read about "Spring Foot-Jack" in the papers, she opened the door to see the infamous person up close.Finally outside she saw a man shielding in black coat. he then took it of and revealed a horrifying face with evil glowing eyes.
On his head he wore a steel-blue helmet and appeared to be wearing a tight outfit that appeared to be of white leather . Before Jane could escape back into the house she was captured with the intruders arm around her neck and he then started breathing blue flames on her face and clawing her with cold claw like fingers. The noisy battle summoned a small crowd of people, including Jane's father and sister. And Jack scared and forced to flee into the darkness with a giant leap.

A week later Jack tried a similar attack, but this time the victim was on his guard, and an angry mob drove him away. A witness claimed that he had seen a breastplate adorned with an engraved "W" trough the opening of Jacks black coat.
The violent attacks continued. The victims were, as in the cases of Lucy and Jane, always young, beautiful women.

The articles on Jack's progress became more dramatically. Soon "Spring Foot Jack" became so famous and popular that he had magazines and whole books dedicated to him
And with this the stories about "Spring Foot Jack" soon spread outside London.And Jack was soon reported to have been spotted in both North Hampton Shire and Hampshire. In East Anglia Jack allegedly attacked a postal stagecoach. This caused huge delays in the postal delivery when the postmen avoided the roads where Jack was said to jump around.

1845 Jack ended up on the front pages again, when police were called to Jacob's Island, a slum in east London suffering from high crime rates,poverty and diseases. The police mission was to drag after the thirteen-year-old prostitutes Mary Davis brittle body. She had fallen into a stinky mud hole known as Folly Ditch. According to the coroner, Mary had drowned, probably by accident. But a large number of witnesses claimed that Jack had hurled her down into the dirty water.

In 1877 a military camp near London was visited by Jack. Throughout a whole month, the guards was assaulted by creature that came leaping out of the shadows and beating them in the face with a hand as cold as that of a corpse, the intruder was shot at without result, and now people started talking about Jack as an immortal demon

In the London boroughs Ealing and Hanwell  a person was identified as Spring-foot-Jack and arrested.But the person turned out to be an agile butcher who liked to dress up.In Chesterton Shire several young ladies was frightened by a terrifying figure who ran through their house. This "Jack" was revealed later as a male classmate of the girls. He had participated in a contest that was to be best imagined Spring Foot-Jack.

The last time Spring Foot-Jack appeared in the press was December 25, 1904, when "News of the World" reported that Jack had been seen by a large crowd when he took his way across a street with a leap over a seven feet high building. Finally he took a giant jump over rooftops, and disappeared forever it seems.

The ideas of who "Jumping Jack" was have been many over the years. In the 1800s suggestions where made that this was a crazy circus acrobat, an inventor with delusions, or even an escaped kangaroo with rabies.In 1900s theories about aliens and creatures from other dimension emerged. What you most certainly can say is that Jack repeatedly appeared and was sighted by different people. was they telling the truth or did they have a sick sense of humor or just looking for their 5 minutes of fame in the spotlight of the press?

The most likely person who could have been "Spring FootJack," at least between the years 1837 and 1838, is Henry de la Poer Beresford, Marquis of Waterford. He reportedly ha a soft spot for cruel jokes and humor which was renowned throughout England, as well as the large sums of money he put on the performance of their tricks. Beresfords family crest resembled the "W" reported to have been engraved on the chest plate of Jacks outfit.Did the young marquis borrow parts of  the family's parade-armor? In 1842 Beresford got married and turned completely from his past life of fascination for horror and inhumane jokes. 1859, he died in a riding accident.And all hope of him admitting to be "Jumping Jack" died with him

Throughout the years many scientifically attempts where made to explain "Jumping Jacks" giant leaps, and his fiery breath. As for fiery breath, there is a trick that seemed to be quite common among magicians in the 1800s.
A classic magician's handbook explains how to breathe fire and sparks from the mouth. A cotton ball sprinkled with ashes of willow stopped in a small lump of linen, along with a glowing piece of coal. The little bundle is placed between the teeth and when you exhale it produce sparks and smoke out of the mouth. however one must master only to breathe in through the nose

"Jumping Jack" is still an unsolved mystery, as well as the length of time he was seen. If Jack was one single man during the 70 years the newspapers wrote about the figure imagine what age he would have reached!

There is film made ​​about the figure, "The Curse of the Wraydons" 1946, And maybe the famous Rolling Stones song "Jumping Jack Flash" was written with "jumping jack" in mind??

No comments:

Post a Comment