The poem proceeds from Jack the Ripper's apocryphal statement that he inaugurated the twentieth century (some say this first appeared in Stephen Knight's conspiracy theory, and in the novel "From Hell"; others, that it has had apocryphal currency for years, perhaps decades, prior to that time). It also alludes to the Titanic; to Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest" and Dvorak's Ninth Symphony ("From The New World); as well as Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler. The address in the last line is that of the Ripper's fifth canonical victim, Mary Kelly.
