"Yet another divorce scandal broke in 1876. This time it seems the Prince of Wales played, uncharacteristicly, an almost guiltless role, his one misdemeanour amounting to writing some compromising letters to Lady Aylseford, who was being divorced by her husband in the grounds of her adultery with Lord Blandford, elder brother of Lord Randolph Churchill. Churchill obtained a packet of letters written by the Prince to Lady Aylseford which Lord Randolph described as of 'the most compromising character', adding that if they were ever published, they would would ensure the Prince 'would never sit upon the Throne of England'. As a result the Prince challenged Churchill to a duel but was curtly refused.
In 1888, the year of the Ripper murders, the name of the Prince of Wales had become so reviled that even his own nephew, the German Kaiser, threatened to cancel a visit to Austria unless the Prince, who was staying in Vienna, departed first."
Stephen Knight,
Jack the Ripper : The Final Soultion (1976)
pp.88
" I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr..."
- Friend to Alexander Hamilton, 1804
"You're despicable"
- Daffy Duck, 1952
"The rationale behind the scene presented here is the somewhat resonant chronological coincidence that links the onset of the Whitechapel murders with the conception of Adolf Hitler. Born in April 1889, simple aridimetic places Hitler's conception some time around the July or August of the
previous year. For obvious reasons, I've chosen August, in order to present the striking juxtaposition of a sudden inexplicable wash of blood occurring in one of the worlds most populous Jewish quarters at almost the precise moment that the future Reich-Chancellor fused into being from the no doubt splendid genetic material of his mother and father.
Given that very little documentary material exists conceding the intimate sex lives of Alois and Klara Hitler, the scene here is naturally invented, as is Frau Hitler's ominous vision. Incidental details such as location are accurate, and are drawn from Hitler, A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock (Odhams, 1952)."
Alan Moore,
From Hell (1992),
Chapter Five, Footnote 1
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