Erin ’s Reviews > The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper > Status Update

Until 1864 extramarital sex and illegitimate pregnancies were punishable by Swedish law.

Whereas Scarlet Fever, a flu like streptococcal illness characterized by a red rash, predominantly affected children, typhus attacked both young and old alike.

Laws prohibited vagabonds from returning to the same shelter within a 30 day period.

Everyone who lived on the street was viewed as a nuisance.

"Self help" proponents held that a person's own choices and behavior were the cause of poverty and problems such as alcoholism; tough mindedness and grit could overcome them.

For at least 2 centuries, Whitechapel had been a destination for immigrants from many parts of Europe.

The brutality of the Whitechapel murders stunned London and newspaper readers around the world.

Well to do classes simply did not appreciate precisely what it meant to be homeless.

One of the workhouse's primary functions was to humiliate those who were forced to rely upon them.

The poor were judged to be lazy and immoral paupers who refused to do honest work and bred bastards and enormous families while "living off handouts".