Worthy of a Penny Dreadful

A couple of hours ago i submitted the first entry in this blog, and hours later i've come back to start plunging utter randomness into it.

So, in one of my travels across the web i've found a really interesting urban legend that happened in the Victorian Era in England.
It was common to find in that period of time a really vast amount of myths and hoaxes going around to provoke mass hysteria.

So, in 1837 a businessman returning home late one night, he was shocked when he saw a strange figure jumping over the fence of the cemetery. Apparently he claimed that the figure looked like a muscular man with devilish features like pointy ears and nose and bright eyes.

This, of course, was not the only sighting.

Later in October, Mary Stevens was walking on Lavender Hill, and suddenly she claimed that she saw a strange figure leaping from a dark alley. He quickly immobilize her by applying a tight grip with his arms and started to kiss her face while ripping her clothes with his claws that according to Mary where "cold and clammy as those of a corpse"; the girl screamed and the attacker fled from the scene, the scream drawed the attention of neighbors but they couldn't find the attacker.
This was just the first of a series of attacks thats mostly where against young women.

The next day after the attack of Mary Stevens, there was a report of the same character leaping in front of a carriage causing the driver to loose control and crash injuring himself. Several witnesses claimed that he escaped by jumping over a nine foot high wall
while laughing.

After this weird sightings the press started to give the name of "Spring Heeled Jack" to the mysterious character.

Similar reports where handed to the police over the next months claiming the same "wicked pranks".

The best description of Spring Heeled Jack was told by Jane Alsop after being attacked.
Apparently a police officer knocked on the door of her house asking to bring a lamp because they caught outside, when she opened the door the man attacked her and started ripping her clothes until other members of her family ran to help her.
She told the police "he was wearing a kind of helmet, and a tight fitting white costume like an oilskin. His face was hideous; his eyes were like balls of fire. His hands had claws of some metallic substance, and he vomited blue and white flames."

There where more attacks after this and then the legend spread through all of England.
He became for decades a symbol of English folklore, he was used often to scare kids.
He was too the protagonist of Penny Dreadfuls, British fictional publications.

Spring Heeled Jack was never captured and there was no real evidence of his existance other than witnesses testimonials. But there where suspects.
A group of young aristocrats where accused after it was known they had an irresponsible wager.
But the main suspect was the Marquess of Waterford. The Marquess was frequently in the news in the late 1830s for drunken brawling, brutal jokes and vandalism, and was said to do anything for a bet.
A reverend accused him of being the culprit claiming the Marquess "used to amuse himself by springing on travellers unawares, to frighten them, and from time to time others have followed his silly example".

There was never a real explanation for the attacks; it is suspected that this legends is one of those story's that gets more and more exaggerated as the word is spread; people thought it was some sort of demon because there was so much ignorance in those times, but now days even with all the advances of science is one of those legends its no longer able to be resolved. But i think its a nice story and i would like to keep it just as a myth and part of english folklore.

PD. Most probably you clicked the "Back" button long ago, but if you just scrolled down and red this...Go back up and read the whole damn thing!