Loremen Podcast - S2 Ep10: Loremen S2 Ep10 - The London Monster

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

A flesh and blood monster stalks the streets of London, causing bloodshed, outrage and mass hysteria. James and Alasdair meet innocent victims, scurrilous liars and the 18th Century’s greatest prankster. @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK Featured image: “The monster disappointed of his afternoons luncheon-or porridge-potts preferable to cork-rumps.” etching by J. Gillray, 1790. Credit: British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alastair Beckett-King. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I'm James Shakeshaft. I'm allergic to crab. This story is a monstrous tale from 18th century London about why being a woman can sometimes be a pain in the bum. So I have a London tale for you, and it's called The London Monster. Ooh. Yeah. Or I'm going to call it Angerstein's Monster, for reasons that will become hopefully clear when I explain who Angerstein is.

All right. But it's a play on Frankenstein's Monster. Okay. Yeah, and I just could see you weren't getting see frankenstein's monster was the monster's name yeah the monster's name was frankenstein's monster yeah are you correcting me we're called the dog indiana and i usually it's very rare that my research comes just from one book but in this case it does and that is a book called the london monster oh good i thought thought it was going to be the Bible. I got worried. The only book you need to read, my friend, that a certain carpenter's son. The London Monster,

it's a book by Jan Vonderson, who's a Swedish writer and academic who lives in Wales now. And he's written several other books. I'm just going to give you names of two of them. Amazing Dogs and The Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester. So, oh, and he also wrote The London Monster as well as loads of books about jack the ripper so he pretty much knows his stuff james about dogs and one particular pig-faced woman yeah but also if you look up the wikipedia page about this all the references are to this book nobody else appears to have bothered writing anything on the subject of the london monster other than this guy okay and it's not just a book of fiction the here's the quote on the front this is not just a book of fiction and it's by him the quote on the front from the philadelphia inquirer

says the facts in this case are so peculiar that no novelist would have dared to invent them which is the kind of thing that if you had made it up you would have put on the front as a way of taunting people i think that's the most pretentious way of saying you couldn't make it up but i don't think he did make it up it's extremely well referenced oh he also wrote a book about being buried alive fascinating guy with a very wide range of interests amazing i didn't go away from dogs only amazing ones to women only a pig face one i didn't give you the full name. It's Amazing Dogs, A Cabinet of Canine Curiosity. Don't put them in a cabinet. That seems cruel.

So, the London Monster was a phenomenon that occurred in London. It began in 1790 and lasted for about two years. Now, I have to say up front, it's a bit nasty. Nobody dies, but there's a lot of general nastiness towards young women. Are you okay? I was going to say, are you okay with that? Not really, but yeah. Are you disapproving but prepared to listen? I'm sufficiently warned. So over the period of that time, the London monster was stalking the streets of London, specifically the beautiful young women of London. And over 50 women were attacked by this monster. And the methods of attack used were extremely varied. The standard monster attack was,

I apologise for having to describe this, but I do, the monster would go up, shout something rude or suggestive, and then stab them in the buttocks with a knife, or slash at their buttocks with a knife. That was the monster's standard modus operandi, if you will. However, the types of crimes that were attributed to the monster were hugely varied. So one of them was that he has a beautiful nosegay, like a flower. Because you know the way in the 18th century a man could just go up to a stranger and say,

do you want to smell this flower on my clothes? And it was rude to say no. I can only imagine that's how the joke flower ever came into being. It's a version of that joke flower where if someone says, do you want to smell this thing I'm wearing? You would say, absolutely not, you weird pervert. It better be good.

It smells like a flower, yeah. What a surprise. What this guy, the monster, would do is hide a pin in it so that when they went into smell he would jab them with the pin, which is horrible. This monster's got a horrible. What's...

This monster's got a jacket. He's not like a monster monster. Oh, sorry, I should have explained. The monster's a man. Oh, okay. Yeah. The monster was the man's name then. Other things he did was he attacked women

with knives attached to his knees. Oh, that's surprising. Knife knees. Yeah. Or claws attached to his knees. Oh, that's surprising. Knife knees. Yeah. Or claws attached to his hands, like Wolverine. That's a bit more... That were retractable. Were they retractable? I can't remember. That's pretty cool,

but more expected than knee knives. Yep. Also, one woman was walking along, a door opened, and an arm just came out, punched her straight in the face face knocked her clean out the monster strikes again I'm sorry to laugh at that clearly

clearly the work of the same man as those other crimes it was very slapstick and another woman I guess it is because it fits the same MO of like you know

a claw popping out of a hand a knife popping out of a knee a pin popping out of a flower a fist popping out of a door exactly and finally a word popping out of a knee, a pin popping out of a flower, a fist popping out of a door. Exactly. And finally, a word popping out of a mouth. Another time, the monster went up to a woman and shouted, buh, in her face. How's that spelled?

B-U-H exclamation mark. That checks out. So it could be an 18th century spelling of boo, so I'm not sure. So it could be boo, but I'm pronouncing it buh a little more french so i don't think i need to tell you that the monster's crimes were many and manifold and horrible but also you with your 21st century mindset might start to wonder if these were in fact a variety of different crimes attributed to a fictitious monster character but the important thing to note is literally nobody in this story has that thought at any point. Nobody at any point wonders if it's just a series of different crimes that happen to be similar.

Or not similar, just in the same city. Or completely dissimilar, yeah. So there are about 50 attacks overall. But Monster Mania, as Bonderson calls calls it didn't really kick in until about 15 attacks had occurred right what happened was angustine who i've mentioned before john julius angustine or it could be angustine like frankenstein what i was going for there but based on different spellings from the era probably angustine he was a wealthy philanthropist and also probably quite liked going around to interview beautiful young

women who'd been in trouble. And so he became the lead monster hunter and he put up a £100 reward for the capture of the monster, which in 1790 was a hefty chunk of change. That's a lot of pounds. Yeah. And he plastered posters all over town, which really kicked off the widespread fear of the monster, as well as probably bringing in quite a few false claims, because a lot of people wanted to catch the monster and get their money. Yes. So the Bow Street Runners were pretty rubbish.

So at this time, I'm sure you're aware, there was no formal police force. Oh, we're pre-Peeler. Who's Peeler? The Peelers were the original name for them because they were invented by, of the police. They were called the Peelers because they were invented by someone, Peel. All right. John Peel? Yeah, John Peel.

Did he do, okay. Did he do children's television though? I'm getting confused. That's the radio DJ, John Peel. Oh, yeah. So the Bow Street Runners, my favourite, and you know I'm only throwing him in here for names, my favourite Bow Street Runner was Moses Murrent. Yeah, that's good.

Bow Street Runners is a great name anyway. Yeah name anyway just spoiler warning it's up there with basically roller for me um and he in fact he was there in time where someone said the monster just attacked me he was able to follow the monster until he saw him knocking on a door and then thought ah that's where he lives and went home as if you knock on the front of your own door of course when they went to investigate, they said, does the monster live here? And it said, no, but some weirdo just knocked on the door last night. And they went, oh, yeah, we lost him because we're idiots.

Really should have. Maybe should have checked to see if he went in that house he knocked the door on, Moses Murrent. So there were posters everywhere. Women started to have, upper-class women started to have special metal armoured pants made for them to catch him out. That's good thinking. Poorer women were tying copper pans onto their bottom regions.

Are we in the age of the bustle? Well, I don't think... Are we immediately before the age of the bustle? I do not know. It's possible that the bustle was introduced as a defence mechanism. Yeah, either to defend or to attack. You think they could store maybe knives or blow darts in the bustle and just whip them out? If you can put a pin in a flower, you could put a whole bunch of knives in a bustle.

Smell my bustle. A magnet that locks the knife knee in and then he's stuck. Yeah, to your buttock. That's what I was thinking. Sticks so powerful that it attracts all his claws to your buttocks. That's the opposite of what you would want, yes. A repelling magnet would be better.

You want to catch the monster by whatever means necessary, even if it be by heavily magnetised bottoms. Of all the bizarre and hysterical reactions to this, my favourite is the No Monster Club. Yeah, which I think you'll agree is

just the worst name for a thing it's like it's not somehow it just doesn't have the ring of a name the no monster club not even anti-monster gang well they were there were of course uh gangs of monster hunters roaming the streets vigilantes looking for the monster they rarely found him the moment no monster club was sort of young rakes who had had a really nice time wandering around the fairly licentious streets of London talking to young women, who found that nobody wanted to talk to them after the monster attack started.

So what they did was, naturally, formed a club called the No Monster Club and made cardboard badges that said No Monster on them to let people know that they weren't the monster. Oh, right, so I'm in a club for no monsters. For people who aren't the monster. Right right which is a club that really everyone apart from like one guy with knives on his knees yeah should have been a member of um so anyone that was accused of being the monster was in danger of being lynched straight away right and in fact pickpockets started to use it

they would steal your stuff and when you went, Oi! They would say, It's the monster! And then a mob of up to 100 people would chase you for the rest of the day. And in fact, a lot of the work that the Bow Street Runners and the parish coppers did

was protecting people who had been accused of being the monster or who had been taken in as suspects. Keeping those guys alive was the main achievement of the police during the story. Which, it sounds like it would be quite easy to get away.

You just go up to the nearest door and knock on it and people are like, well, that's the end of that. Another case closed. My favourite thing was there was a brief sort of 18th century flame war between two captains, Captain Cruikshanks and Captain Thickness.

I swear I didn't pick this story for the names, but Captain, it's actually Thickness, E-S-S-E. And you're always saying, Captain Thickness. It's Thickness. Pronounce it Thickness, please. So Captain Thickness had accused Cruikshanks of being a coward, and so Cruikshanks made a spoof of Angerstein's monster poster naming Thickness as the monster.

Oh, uh-oh. Yeah, which is like fake news. Yeah, that is not fair. And quick as a flash, in an 18th century quote tweet, Thickness produced a poster that had a picture of Cruikshanks putting up the other poster on that poster. So it was a weird meta poster, but he satirically referred to him as Captain Straight Shanks

instead of Captain Cruikshanks, which is like, we are not involved in your beef. We, the people of London. Like, how are we supposed to know who that is? The only winner in that is the printer that got to do all of those poses. Yeah, it's a complete waste of time. But it really, it gives a sense of the panic

and the general air of madness that was in London at the time. People were in genuine fear. Prevalent as well. Like, everyone would get that joke. Everyone gets that reference yes because it's it's the monster based gags only the no monster club would pretend not to get it oh yeah not in the not in the club please james off the record hilarious what i like about the badge though is the no monster badge there's nothing more suspicious than denying a crime that you haven't yet been accused of. Like, you wouldn't wear a T-shirt that said, not a pedo.

You wouldn't wear that. Well, I did conceive of such a thing. Because as a new dad... You've been selling these online for weeks. As a new dad, I find that I will be interested in other people's kids in a way that I wasn't when I wasn't a dad. Yeah, just like a professional interest. Yeah.

Like a kid you fancy. All right. What can he do? Yeah, exactly. And I feel that I needed a badge to say, it's okay. I'm a new dad. You should have formed the No Pedo Club. I think if you want to prove yourself to not be a pedo, putting

a badge on is probably a bad idea. Yeah, judge people based on their actions, say not their badges yeah uh so now i'm going to tell you the tale of the capture of the london monster oh now a london monster or an unfortunate man which one of those it is i can't tell you we don't know um but it all begins with the attack on uh Porter, who was a young woman who was walking home with her sister Sarah back to Peros Bagneo, which is where she worked, which is a bathhouse.

I should say that bathhouses at this time were semi-synonymous with brothels. But as far as we can tell, by all accounts, Peros Bagneo was a respectable institution and that you're looking at me really sceptically. Whose accounts are theirs? Yeah, mainly their accounts. It's like there is genuinely a door in central london in soho there's one door and it says on it there's a little plaque that says there are no prostitutes at this address

the no prostitutes club that's the headquarters so uh ann was uh accosted, as I said. A horrible man with a big nose grabbed her and made sexually suggestive comments, presumably sexually suggestive comments. I'm interpreting the 18th century text, which gives no detail of any of this. She managed to wrestle herself free, even though he leered after her after the attack was finished. And when she got back into the house, she found out that she'd been stabbed in the particular region, or possibly the thigh they're not specific

about any of this and she was bleeding which was nasty she had a fiance who was a fishmonger called John Coleman and the whole family was sort of

out and about that's an inaccurate surname Coleman for a fishmonger what should he have been called Codman

never satisfied James nope out in about one day she mentioned the fact that she wonders if she'll ever see him again how she should react and john who's a bit of a tough guy sort of saying i'll do it with it and then that day she says oh look there's the monster and coleman is putting a bit of a pickle because as far as i can tell he's not that much of a tough guy what coleman does is he spends about the next several hours gradually

following this man around London and eventually accosts him in a building where he's visiting a friend and demands his name and address. And he gives him his name and address and he walks off feeling, that's good, that's enough information to hand over to the police. And then he realises, oh, what if he lied? What if he lied about his name and address? So he wanders around some more, hoping to catch him again. And he runs into him again and says, actually, do you mind coming with me a minute, please? And the guy says, yeah, all right. And he takes him to Peros Bagneo.

The man who he's been following, whose name, by the way, is Rennick or Rynwick Williams. He's a Welshman. Agrees to come with him. And he takes him to Peros Bagneo. And immediately upon seeing him seeing him and porter goes it's him and faints oh and renek williams says something like i hope i haven't you haven't mistaken me for the monster and from that moment on his fate is sealed renek williams is arrested and charged with being the monster and of the many people who've been attacked by the monster,

a handful of them identify him as being the monster. Anne is absolutely certain he's the monster. Obviously not the one that got punched. The punchy one, no. The weird thing here is, Renick Williams is not a particularly savoury character. He's quite well-born, but he's come down in the world. He's lost all of his money. He used to be a fine dancer.

He was fine. He was fine. His last job was making artificial flowers. Oh. Yeah, artificial flowers, like the kind of nosegays that we use to attack people. He was sacked from that job, and now he's basically penning us. Now he makes me knives. So Rennick Williams gets arrested and he's charged. Well, this is the really tricky bit. There isn't really a crime to describe what the monster has done at this time. There are two categories of crimes, felonies and misdemeanors.

Felonies are really serious. Capital, you get killed or you get shipped off to Australia. Misdemeanors, jail, pillory, that sort of thing. The tricky thing is the law is an ass and it's completely insane. So murder is a felony. Att felony attempted murder is a misdemeanor oh so they have to dig and dig and dig in the law books to try and find a crime that it could be and it turns out that deliberately trying to slash someone's clothes is a felony so attempted murder isn't but trying to tear someone's clothes is because of some old law because people were importing nice new fabrics from india and the local textile workers didn't like it and so they started slashing people's fancy clothes.

And so they made that a felony. So like stealing over a shilling's worth of money, that was a felony, but attempted murder wasn't. Nor was just stabbing people in the bottom. It's a bit of fun. Just larks. That said, if he had, of course, been put in the stocks, he would have been immediately murdered by the mob.

Stabbed in the buttocks at the minimum. Bare minimum. But, I mean, during the trials and things, they needed loads of guards. There were hundreds of people just trying to get into the little carriage that he was travelling in, just trying to murder him. So he was absolutely hated by the people of London. So his first trial was pretty much a disaster. There was no absolutely hated by the people of London. So his first trial was pretty much a disaster. There was no evidence, by the way. So he didn't have any cutting implements. Not even on his knees?

I'm sure they checked the knees. What if in the first place they would have looked? Anne identified his coat as being the coat she described, even though his coat didn't look like the coat that she described when she described it. And he didn't own it at the time of the attack. Nonetheless, that was considered damning evidence. Uh-oh. The best thing about the trial is Lady Wallace. Lady Wallace was one of the, was a playwright. She was also one of the monster's victims,

but she didn't think it was Williams. She said, I'll be here. I'll be exculpatory evidence. I'll say that it wasn't him who attacked me. And so she got to the trial and then his defence attorney said, or whatever it was, solicitor said, OK, so we're going to call you. And she went, no, no, no, I just made it up because I wanted a good seat. And the important thing about Lady Wallace is she does this over and over again.

And every single time, everyone just goes, Lady Wallace. So Williams had quite a lot of things going for him. Like he fit the description of only a few of the people a lot of them had changed what they said that he looked like he did have a big nose which was the important thing also he did go around london chatting up young ladies and was quite aggressive towards them so he he did do the everyday sexism thing up to but not necessarily including the stabby part of it. The weird thing is that he had a history of doing that.

So he'd done that to Ann Porter more than once in the past, which is weird because when the monster attacks, she didn't say it was this guy who's hassled me several times in the past. However, at this point, her story is that that's how she recognizes him. He's the guy who's done this to her several times in the past. A little bit weird. Yeah. He has an alibi.

He was at work at the time. Oh. And his boss, Amabel Michel, or Amiable Mitchell, depending on how racist the journalists writing about it were, just completely de-Frenching the French guy's name, he gives him a complete alibi. French guy's name, he gives him a complete alibi. However, as he's giving his alibi, Lady Wallace trips in and says, that guy there, the one who's giving evidence, he attacked me in the park and he accosted me and he said all kinds of terrible things to me. And everyone goes, oh, could he be one of many monsters? Does this explain why the monster has lots of different faces? And then she says, no, it was just a joke. He didn't do that honestly it was a joke and everyone went oh lady wallace this is perfectly acceptable behavior in a courtroom what are you up to so the

newspapers had theorized that because the monster looked different in each attack he was a gentleman who had a million different disguises rennick williams obviously wasn't that but but these um these nobody was really interested. They just wanted to arrest a monster. And Williams was found guilty almost immediately in the first trial of Rennick Williams. Oh. Yeah.

He managed to get a second trial because the first trial was ridiculous. Lady Williams was just punking everyone on an almost hourly basis. Jeez Louise. And also they charged him with deliberately trying to cut people's clothes, which was obviously not what the monster was trying to do. No.

So it was clearly nonsense. Trying to get them sweet, sweet buttocks. Yeah. So he did get a second trial. And here I introduce the... I don't know if he's the best character or just the worst human I've ever read about. Oh. Theophilus Swift, a descendant of Jonathan Swift

and also another Irishman. And this isn't really relevant, but... Another Irishman? Well, Jonathan Swift was Irish, and so was Theophilus Swift. Oh, okay. Another Irishman. This isn't relevant,

but he had a son called Dean Swift, who I think probably talked like this. I'm Dean Swift. Yeah, I know. I'm Dean Swift. swift doing swift and the reason i say that is theophilus swift was convinced his son dean was a genius but he obviously wasn't he was sent down from cambridge for kicking his maths tutor i'm doing swift i don't like numbers he got in his escort cosworth and did a donut. Dean Swift, very much the Lady Wallace of Cambridge. What a japester. Theophilus Swift was, among other things, an Irishman, a complete...

We're going to have to bleep that, but he really was. He was a profound misogynist, as well as conspiracy theorist, fabulist and liar. He wrote pamphlets making wild claims, like the Prime Minister is conspiring to murder the royal family and then from that one onwards claimed that he had saved the royal family's life by publishing that pamphlet well and he wrote a pamphlet saying that rinick williams was innocent and there's good reason to think he might have been at least partly innocent

certainly of some of the crimes so swift became his lawyer for the second trial which was probably a terrible mistake because swift was not reliable so among other things he probably had renick williams dye his hair so his hair didn't match the descriptions but everybody could tell he dyed his hair because they'd seen him really recently yeah they'd seen him quite recently so it didn't make him seem any more innocent to have deliberately died It made him look quite a bit more guilty. The other problem was that Swift, as a really bad misogynist, just hated the porter women. In his view, the Perez Bagneo was a proper brothel Bagneo.

Oh, right, really. And these women were prostitutes. And the whole thing was a scam to get Angerstein's reward. So he impugned the the character of the the witnesses who let's remember everyone really liked and uh he spent a lot of time accusing coleman the the fiancee of being a terrible coward for not just confronting williams who he suspected did he have any interactions with lady wallace because boy oh boy that would have been fun to see. James, they were close friends.

Oh, no, really? Yes. He got Lady Williams in to explain that she had lied all the stuff that she said in the previous trial. And which even though that was perjury

and she should have gone to prison, everyone just went, Lady Wallace. So Swift's theory was that, not that they hadn't been attacked, but that they had decided to get the reward themselves. Anne and her would-be husband, John. John, of course, did claim the reward by finding the monster.

So she points a guy out who she doesn't like. He catches him, claims the reward, and they get married. And then they've got 100 smackers. Describing a fiancé as a would-be husband, that seems quite harsh. Well, here's the thing. In the court, Anne insists that she is not engaged to be married and that they have no relationship whatsoever. They're just friends. She's inconsistent.

Yes. And, of course, after the trial is... I mean, she's no Lady Wallace. After the trial is complete, they do get married. Oh. So she probably was lying there. She may have perjured herself, as Bonderson puts it. So basically, Swift does an absolute hatchet job of the defence.

Everybody hates him. Everybody really likes the women he's attacking. And unfortunately, Renick Williams is found guilty again. This time, though, because he was being tried for a misdemeanour, he's sentenced to six years in Newgate Prison, which is pretty rubbish. What was the misdemeanour? Sorry, this one, attempted murder? Yeah, the usual stabbing.

What he actually did, which was stab loads of women. Weird stories were told while he was in prison that the monster was putting on balls, the monster's balls, and people were having lavish dinners and invited... Because you could go into prisons, you'd pay to go into prisons those days and just see the wretched people there right right and that probably was not true but there were weird stories told uh he eventually left prison got married changed his name and was never heard of again oh and theophilus swift kept writing pamphlets about what a genius he'd been and how he nearly got him off. And in doing so, saving the royal family.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he also discovered a tranche of poems written by Jonathan Swift, which he had published. Although some people at the time noticed that they seemed an awful lot like his writing. Or Dean's. I don't like numbers. The end of the London Monster Story

leaves us with as much of a mystery as the people of the 1790s. We don't really know if it was Renwick Williams. We don't know how many there were. Angus Dean always thought that there was more than one monster, but he believed that they were all working together because how could they have learned the modus operandi that was in every newspaper and on the posters that he had commissioned to be printed and posted around the city how could they have known how could they have coordinated so brilliantly how could people have coordinated crimes as similar as punching someone and going burr

without a central monster organizer well basically the the unsurprising thing is is that this sort of thing happens all the time in lots of different cities. And there's two things that happen. There's people who go around stabbing women because they get kicks out of it and there's something wrong with them. And that's horrible. And that happens quite a lot. And also there are moral panics and mass delusions where people believe something is happening. And this is one of the perfect sort of storms of both of those things happening at once.

The attacks are real, at least some of them. Some people fake them. Once word got out that beautiful women were being attacked, quite a lot of women started, oh, I've been slightly attacked. Ah. Hmm. I don't want to play on that too much because hashtag believe women. Exactly.

But some of them were proven to not be telling the truth. Right. Bye, men. Yeah, bye. Bye, guys. hashtag believe women exactly um but some of them were proven to not be telling the truth right bye men yeah bye bye guys a few of the other cases that uh bondison lists are the uh the the the mohawks which were uh gentlemen who went around just causing chaos at night although it turned out maybe didn't exist the mad gasser on the subject of wind the mad gasser of virginia oh didn't exist. Yeah. You might have heard of him.

I've heard of that one. Yeah. And a few that definitely did exist, the Magistin Stecker and the Magistin Schneider of Germany, who were guys who went around doing snabby and pokey. Jack the Snipper. Heard of him? No, but I wonder why I've never heard of him. In 1977, he cut women's miniskirts on the London Underground. And that was one guy and he was caught.

And I don't know about this, but one of my favourites is in 1819, one guy doing the same old modus operandi, but his name was Thomas Hayne Cutbush. Yikes. Oh, my favourite thing, sorry about the Mönchenschneider. I shouldn't say favourite thing, but his catchphrase in German was Ich steh dich, which means I stab you.

There's one guy who I've forgotten, which is actually a precursor to the London Monster, and his name was Whipping Tom, and he would lift up women's skirts and shout Spanko! And then hit them on the bottom. Spanko! Spanko! And that's pre-1790. That's pre-1790.

That sounds more modern. I love them, ass-a-steer, yeah? I do. Spanko. Spanko. And that's pre-1790. That's pre- 1790. That sounds more modern. I love them, assisteria. I do. I love them. So as you well know, James, the word spanko means it's time for the scores. Do you know about kancho, by the way? No. It's a Japanese thing. It's when someone bends over,

you make like the gun, the hand signal for a gun, using two full hands, and you pop your fingers up their bum shouting, cancho. What? It's a bit of fun. That's completely inappropriate. It's called a cancho. Oh, because it's got a name.

It's okay to do it. Yep. Absolutely not. That's awful. Just go pick up that pen. So my first category for you in the classic get it out of the way move is supernatural. Yes. Nothing.

Well, hold on. Even the stories about him didn't go supernatural. They just turned into mechanics. I think among the common folk of London, he was probably credited with sort of supernatural abilities. You know, the way he constantly changed his appearance. You know, the characters like Spring-Heeled Jack in London who could leap over buildings and things like that. So he belongs to a pantheon. Even he sounds mechanical.

So he belongs to a pantheon of London nightmares who are semi-mythical. And Jack the Ripper is included in those. So I think there is a creepy underlying supernaturalness to it, but I concede that none of the events I described were in themselves magical. No, it's just got the word monster in the name. Monster! Which you say in your best Broadway style. Apparently, though, this may have been the beginning of people starting to use

the word monster to mean sexual criminal or deviant like that. Oh, right. Okay. So no points for supernatural. All right. Naming. Yeah. Okay.

Lots. It's got all the names, James. Yeah. Yeah. You got the thickness. Witness the thickness. Captain Thickness. Captain Thickness.

Moses Murrent. Peros Bagneo. Oh, wait. There's oneness. Captain Thickness. Moses Murrent. Perros Bagnio. Oh, wait, there's one I didn't even tell you. This is how one of the French co-workers of Renick Williams, this is how he's introduced by Jan Bonderson. Typhon Fournier, a Frenchman with a silly name. Cool. Yeah, I'm on board.

Just dropping in Fournier at the last minute there. I've now seen the cover of this book. Wow. Just dropping in folie at the last minute there. I've now seen the cover of this book. Wow. I should have said that the monster inspired a great many satirical cartoons. And the one you're looking at there is, I think, the monster disappointed trying to take his breakfast.

And his breakfast is a woman's bottom. And a giant monster with an enormous knife and a fork is lifting a woman up. But he's disappointed to find out she's wearing a copper bottom on her bottom, and he's not able to go to work. However, James, there was a rude version of that published where you could see her bottom. Oh, my Lord. Oh, yes. He's got a big head.

You really think the no monster badges wouldn't have been necessary? There's no jacket room to put it on. Yeah. See if I can upload that. Yeah, okay. Names, names, names. All the names. Amiable Mitchell.

Amiable Mitchell. Amiable Michelle. Theophilus Swift. Dean Swift. Dean Swift. You have five points for Dean Swift. Dean Swift. Dean Swift. Angerstein. He was angry Dean Swift. Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean Swift. Dean Swift.

Angerstein. He was angry about it. He's like an angry lobster. Angerstein's monster was a very nice addition to the start. Yep. A lot of people blame Angerstein for the whole thing because the hysteria really begins with his posters being put up and the reward. And so maybe it never would have happened

if it hadn't been for him trying to stop it. You're close to losing a point for old Straight Shanks, the most impenetrable pun. It's not Crookshanks, it's more like Straight Shanks. I don't know what you mean. And also, your name is Captain Thickness. All right, but we've got the Machenstecker, the Machensteiner, and Jack the Snipper.

Jack the Snipper. Definitely five out of five. Thank you. My next category for you is mass hysteria. Oh, yeah. Well, it's pretty big. Well, because I was reluctant to pitch it as just being straightforward hysteria

because also the word hysteria was made up by doctors who kept meeting women who had had horrible lives and going these broads are crazy must be someone to deal with a hysteric to be bones yeah i expect her female organs of fur malfunctioned and that's why she's unhappy about being made to do all the cleaning so i'm reluctant to just say these crazy ladies but But it's obvious that monster mania, as Bonderson calls it, was a thing. Yeah. And that these were just a series

of unconnected attacks that were connected by the mad paranoia of the monster. There's some doozies. You mentioned some earlier. I have some favourites. The Korean fan death. That's a mass hysteria.

Yeah? What's that? Basically, in Korea, they think that if you go to sleep with an electric fan on in your room, it's highly dangerous and that will probably kill you. All sorts of reasons. Because it gets the body too cold and you get hypothermia and die or it blows all the oxygen out.

But it doesn't at all. It's just a thing that everyone thinks. You know, I had an Egyptian friend, and I was standing right next to a fan. It's not quite the same thing, but I was standing right next to a fan because it was really hot, because it was a really hot day. And she said, what are you doing?

And I said, I'm standing next to the fan because it's a hot day. And she said, don't you know you'll get a chill? It's really bad for you to stand right next to the fan. And she said, didn't your mother tell you that i went no because my mother is scottish and we have no need of fans this is the first time i've been hot i thought you'd be more should be worried about you getting your lovely hair caught yes and that has happened a lot oh yeah but you should see the fans james they don't come out of it well you should see the other guy they know they've been in a fight.

Oh, yeah. There is another one that I was... I can't remember the country. Penis shrinking. All the men thought their penises were shrinking. And, like, so much so they were, like, inverting. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I really need more information. I know. Is there a support group? I've Googled mass hysteria penis shrink. Mass hysteria about my penis shrinking. Coro is known as shrinking penis. It's listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The syndrome occurs worldwide.

Mass hysteria ofital shrinkage anxiety has a history in Africa, Asia, and Europe. It's a thing. It's a thing. But the men are like, guys, I think my penis is shrinking. And now the men are like, no way.

Mine's getting real small too. Let's all get our penises out together. Signs and symptoms. I can think of one key sign you would look for in penis shrinkage. Yeah, there's that. The Croydon cat killer. The Croydon cat killer. I tell you what, James.

I have been getting into arguments about this for years now. About the Croydon cat killer? Because I live in Croydon, technically. I say London, but it's actually Croydon. Yeah, me too. And I have a cat. And I have a keen interest in crime and justice. And people have been saying to me for ages,

the Croydon cat, someone the other day, you know, he struck a far off field as Birmingham. Like, no, he didn't. Just someone killed a cat in Birmingham. And the police released a thing where they said it was foxes. Yeah, and no one believes it. And no one believes it.

Everyone still thinks it was the Croydon cat killer. Or foxes in league with the Croydon cat killer. But it's since my sister's husband was visiting, and he lives in New York City, and they've got crime there, James. They've got proper crime. Not like your quaint English crime where people steal scones. They've got real crime.

Statistically, it's safe to live in New York than London, but still, crime. And we found out about the Croydon cat killer, and he really loves animals. And it ruined the rest of the evening, because he was just staring off into the distance. And at one point, he turned back to us and said, so is anybody doing anything to catch this guy?

Well, there's Snarl, headed up by Bodicea Rising. Snarl's the South Norwood Animal Relationships. Something again with L. League, maybe I'm going to guess League. Yeah, yeah. It's like the No Monster Gang. It's pick a dignified name if you want people to take you seriously.

Also, the person heading it up's name is Bodicea Rising. I completely forgot about Bodicea Rising. Just, no, that's one of the reasons why people aren't taking it seriously. We have gang violence and terrorism and things like... The croydon cat killer brackets not a thing is probably quite low on the priorities of everyone other than bodicea rising but when you explain the reality of it to him it's even worse because it's like oh no it's not one person doing it it's just loads of people do it all the time yeah that's the yeah but that's the real horror of the London Monster,

because plenty of these cases were real. There wasn't our London Monster. There wasn't a network of evil people working together to commit completely dissimilar sexist crimes. Well, they were just men. Just men being guys. Inherent in society, they'd get away with it.

So what is your score for Matt's hysteria? Oh, it is five out of five. That's dangerously high. I'm starting to panic. It's like I'm going crazy for it. Also, I think I don't know about

your penis, James, but since it's not on the recording. It was right here. So my final category for you, James, Bant's gone wrong. Bant's gone wrong.

Because Bant's can go wrong sometimes. Bant's very often goes wrong. Because there's a Jeremy Bead Because Bant's can go wrong sometimes. Bant's very often goes wrong. Because there's a Jeremy Beadle-esque quality to some of this, I think. You know, like the enormous contrivances of knives on knees or retractable claws and that sort of thing. Yeah.

The street hijinks turning into horrible, violent, bloody crimes. That could have been any gotcha Oscar. That was Edmonds, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. I just think everything's Edmonds. Sorry, are you suggesting that Edmonds may have been responsible for the attacks? We don't know he wasn't. Are you aware that you slandered Noel Edmonds in the first series as well?

Yes. I'm happy to slander Noel Edmonds. Come at us, Edmonds. Although, actually... Come at us, Edmonds. He's actually quite ripped. Yeah. He was on Have a Celebrity and he's built.

And how could... Of all the people to stab with this crinkly bottom, maybe that's it. Because he's jealous of other people's non-crinkled bottoms. Is it canon

the crinkly bottom in question was Noel's? I think it's heavily implied. It's not just the Blobbies. His would be more saggy.

There are some wrinkles but I think that's just because the costume's a bit old and I don't know how frequently they replace Blobbies. That's a horrible idea. The Blobby turnover.

I just hope there's no crossover. I hope the new Blobby doesn't walk in while the old Blobby's still there and the old Blobby has to go. All right, so that's it, is it?

Undo his collar. Sign. Just walk out. As in falling over a balustrade. Of course. And of course, Lady Bantz of Bantz, Lady Wallace,

the most bantz of all the characters in the story. I was kidding. It's a catchphrase. Who just treats perjury as just a fun jape. She would have been awful at a stand-up gig. Just anything, just like, oh, no, that happened to me. Can't say that.

Did it? No. We've got Dean Swift, clearly a bad son of a young man. Yeah. Kicked his math tutor. I'm Dean. I'm Dean. Oh, it's gone wrong.

I'll do kick him a bit of rebunts, mate. Captain Thickness. His posters were a form of, his rebuttal poster was a form of extremely rubbish bants. So this would have been obviously pre-camera. Yes. And pre the eye. Only by about 20 years,

but certainly before it was possible to print photographs on a poster. So there would have been a drawing of another man putting a poster up as though that were evidence that the other man did actually put the poster up. Yes, indeed. How could you draw something that was made up? Exactly. Bants. Yeah, Bants gone way wrong there, mate.

Also, copper pans. Pants gone wrong. We sound similar. Oh, nice. So I'm hoping that's going to add to the score yeah because I was just going to give you a four because

no one died but then with the pants gone pants gone five yeah of course it is thank you very much that's a great score

so let's just hope that your bottom is safe on the way home tonight I'm a willy and what's left of your willy I don't know where it's gone. I can hardly see it now. It's disappearing from the base. You've been listening to Lawmen.

The Lawmen are James Shakeshaft and Alistair Beckett King. Please subscribe, rate, review and recommend to a friend. You can tweet us at LawmenPod or email us at contact at lawmenpodcast.com to suggest stories from your area. Turns out, once again, the true monster was man. Yes.

Well, men. It's men. I was saying it again. Yeah, say it again. Turns out, once again, the true monster was men. That sounded the same because of the accent. Oh, yeah. Classic schwa vowel.

Schwa vowel? Schwa vowel is a southern A-E sound. Linguists, feel free to correct me.