The Whitechapel Club is a strange bit of forgotten Chicago lore. A late 19th Century gathering of Chicago journalists who wet their whistles at a local tavern and named themselves after the London slum terrorized by Jack the Ripper, the group eventually held meetings in a room decorated with skulls, nooses, and other grisly artifacts. Guest speakers were invited to address the club, only to be insulted away from the podium, and the subject of death was routinely lampooned. Alas, it lasted only five years, but the Newberry Library holds the club's remaining papers.