Both Joynson Superfine watermarked letters that Sickert wrote to Rothenstein are undated. One of them - oddly, written in German and Italian - is on stationery that must have belonged to Sickert's mother because the return address is hers. A second Joynson Superfine watermarked letter to Rothenstein, which includes mathematical scribbles and a cartoonish face and the word "ugh," has a return address of 10 Glebe Place, Chelsea, which is the same return address on Ellen Sickert's 1893 letter to Blanche. There is a Ripper letter at the PRO with a part Joynson mark. It would appear that Sickert used Joynson Superfine watermarked paper from the late 1880s through the late 1890s. I have found no letters with this watermark that date from after his divorce in 1899, when he moved to continental Europe.
Four letters catalogued in "The Whitechapel Murders" file at the Corporation of London Records Office were written on Joynson Superfine paper: October 8, 1888; October 16, 1888; January 29, 1889; and February 16,1889. Two of these letters are signed "Nemo." Three other letters with no watermarks are also signed "Nemo." On October 4, 1888 (four days before the first "Nemo" letter was written to the City of London Police), The Times published a letter to the editor that was signed "Nemo." In it the writer described "mutilations, cutting off the nose and ears, ripping up the body, and cutting out certain organs - the heart, amp; c. -…" The writer continued:
My theory would be that some man of his class has been hocussed and then robbed of his savings (often large), or, as he considers, been in some way greatly injured by a prostitute - perhaps one of the earlier victims; and then has been led by fury and revenge to take the lives of as many of the same class as he can…
Unless caught red-handed, such a man in ordinary life would be harmless enough, polite, not to say obsequious, in his manners, and about the last a British policeman would suspect.
But when the villain is primed with his opium, or bang, or gin, and inspired with his lust for slaughter and blood, he would destroy his defenceless victim with the ferocity and cunning of the tiger; and past impunity and success would only have rendered him the more daring and restless.
Your obedient servant October 2 NEMO
I have already mentioned that Sickert's stage name when he was an actor was "Mr. Nemo."
Other unusual signatories in the some fifty letters at the Corporation of London Records Office are suspiciously reminiscent of those of some PRO Ripper letters: "Justitia," "Revelation," "Ripper," "Nemesis," "A Thinker," "May-bee," "A friend," "an accessary," and "one that has had his eyes opened." Quite a number of these fifty letters were written in October 1888 and also include both art and comments similar to those found in the Jack the Ripper letters at the PRO. For example, in a PRO letter to the Editor of the Daily News Office, October 1, 1888, the Ripper says, "I've got someone to write this for me." In an undated letter at the Corporation of London Records Office, the anonymous sender says, "I've got someone to write this for me."
Other "Whitechapel Murder" letters in the Corporation of London Records Office include a postcard dated October 3rd, with the anonymous sender using many of the same threats, words, and phrases found in Ripper letters at the PRO: "send you my victims ears"; "It amuses me that you think I am mad"; "Just a card to let you know"; "I will write to you again soon"; and "My bloody ink is running out." On October 6,1888, "Anonymous" offers a suggestion that the killer might be keeping "the victims silent by pressure on certain nerves in the neck," and adds that an additional benefit to subduing the victim is that the killer can "preserve his own person and clothing comparatively unstained." In October 1888, an anonymous letter written in red ink uses the terms "spanky ass" and "Saucy Jacky" and promises to "send next ears I clip to Charly Warren."
An undated letter includes a bit of newspaper attached by a rusty paperclip. When my co-worker, Irene Shulgin, removed the clipping and turned it over, she found the phrase "author of works of art." In a letter dated October 7, 1888, the writer signs his name "Homo Sum," Latin for "I am a man." On October 9, 1888, an anonymous writer takes offense, once again, at being thought of as a lunatic: "Don't you rest content on the lunacy fad." Other anonymous letters offer tips to the police, encouraging officers to disguise themselves as women and wear "chain armour" or "light steel collars" under their clothes. An anonymous letter of October 20, 1888, claims the "motive for the crimes is hatred and spite against the authorities of Scotland Yard one of whom is marked as a victim."
In a July 1889 letter a writer signs his letter "Qui Vir," Latin for "Which Man." In a letter Sickert wrote to Whistler in 1897, he rather sarcastically refers to his former "impish master" as "Ecce homo," or "behold the man." In the "Qui Vir" letter, which is at the Corporation of London Records Office, the writer suggests that the killer is "able to choose a time to do the murder 8c get back to his hiding place." On September 11,1889, an anonymous writer teases police by saying he always travels in "third class Cerage" and "I ware black wiskers all over my face." Approximately twenty percent of these Corporation of London Records Office letters have watermarks, including, as I mentioned, the Joynson Superfine. I also found a Monckton's Superfine watermark on a letter signed "one of the public." A letter Sickert wrote to Whistler in the mid to late 1880s also has a Monckton's Superfine watermark.
Certainly, I wouldn't dare claim that these letters were written by Sickert or even Jack the Ripper, but the anonymous communications fit the profile of a violent psychopath who taunts police and tries to insert him-or herself into the investigation. Watermarks and language aside, the problem of handwriting remains. The amazing variety found in the Ripper letters has been a source of hot debate. Many people, including forensic documents examiners, have argued that it is not possible for one person to write in so many hands.
This is not necessarily true, says paper historian and forensic paper analyst Peter Bower, one of the most respected paper experts in the world, and perhaps best known for his work on the papers used by artists as various as Michelangelo, J.M.W. Turner, Constable, and others - as well as for determining that the notorious Jack the Ripper diary was a fraud. Bower has assisted in our examination of the Ripper/Sickert letters. He says he has seen "good calligraphers" who can write in an incredible number of different hands, but "it takes extraordinary skill." His wife, Sally Bower, is a much respected letterer, or person who designs and draws lettering. Although she is not a handwriting expert, she has a different perspective because she is an expert in how a person forms the letters strung together in words. When she looked through Ripper letters with her husband, she immediately connected a number of letters through quirks and how the hand made the writing. I have no doubt that Sickert had an amazing ability to write in many different hands, but his disguised writings are becoming less concealing as the investigation progresses.
Peter Bower's vast knowledge of paper obviously includes watermarks; his opinion of those we have found is that A Pirie 8t Sons and Joynson Superfine "would not have been the commonest paper." But the watermarks were not necessarily uncommon in the late nineteenth century. Monckton's Superfine was a rarer watermark and Monckton's also manufactured artists' drawing and watercolor paper.
Matching watermarks do not necessarily mean the paper was from the same batch, and almost none of the Sickert letters or Sickert/Ripper letters are from the same batch, says Peter Bower, who spent days going through Sickert and Ripper archives and measuring the paper using a 3 Ox lens to study the measurements, fiber content, and distances between chain lines. When paper is manufactured by machine, as A Pirie and Joynson and Monckton's were, the paper comes from one batch, meaning it is from the same roll. Another batch with the same watermark and a fiber content that is relatively the same may have slight differences in measurements of the sheets of paper due to the speed of drying or the way the machine cut it.