Editing Spring-heeled Jack (section)

=== Early reports ===
[[File:Springheel Jack.png|thumb|left|Illustration of Spring-heeled Jack, from the serial ''Spring-heel'd Jack: The Terror of London'']]
The first alleged sightings of Spring-heeled Jack were made in London in 1837 and the last reported sighting is said in most of the secondary literature to have been made in [[Liverpool]] in 1904.<ref name=scotsman1>David Cordingly, "[http://living.scotsman.com/people.cfm?id=1465132006 Lives and Times: Spring-Heeled Jack]", ''[[The Scotsman]]'' 7 October 2006. Excerpted from the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''.</ref><ref name=cordingly1>Rupert Mann, "Spring Heeled Jack", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; {{ISBN|019861411X}}).</ref>

According to much later accounts, in October 1837 a girl by the name of Mary Stevens was walking to [[Lavender Hill]], where she was working as a servant, after visiting her parents in [[Battersea]]. On her way through [[Clapham Common]], a strange figure leapt at her from a dark alley. After immobilising her with a tight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face, while ripping her clothes and touching her flesh with his claws, which were, according to her deposition, "cold and clammy as those of a corpse". In panic, the girl screamed, making the attacker quickly flee from the scene. The commotion brought several residents who immediately launched a search for the aggressor, but he could not be found.<ref name="eehe">{{cite web |last1=Reed |first1=Peter |title=Spring-heeled Jack |url=https://eehe.org.uk/?p=33406 |website=Epsom and Ewell History Explorer |access-date=19 December 2021}}</ref>

The next day, the leaping character is said to have chosen a very different victim near Mary Stevens' home, inaugurating a method that would reappear in later reports: he jumped in the way of a passing [[carriage]], causing the [[coachman]] to lose control, crash, and severely injure himself. Several witnesses claimed that he escaped by jumping over a {{convert|9|ft|abbr=on}} high wall while cackling with a high-pitched, ringing laughter.<ref name="eehe" />

Gradually, the news of the strange character spread; soon, the [[mass media|press]] and the public gave him the name "Spring-heeled Jack".<ref>Clark, ''Unexplained!'' mentions{{page needed|date=August 2017}} that the press referred variously to "''Spring-heeled Jack''" or "''Springheel Jack''". Haining, ''The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack'', asserts that the term ''"springald"'' was rather the origin of the name Spring Heeled Jack, to which it evolved later; alas, there is no proof to support this claim, according to Clark. Dash, op. cit.,<!-- WHICH ONE? --> reveals that there is no contemporary evidence that this term was used in the 1830s, and establishes that the first original name was "''Steel Jack''{{-"}}, a possible reference to his supposed armoured appearance.</ref>