WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 231, 6 December 1888, Page 3

WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

[Per Mail Steamer.J The Central News of October 12 says a startling fact has just come to light in connection with th»* recent Whitechapel murder?. After killing Catherine Eddowes in Mitre square the muiderer, it is now known, walked to (’ou’ston stieet, where he threw away the piec of the deceased woman’s apron upon which he wiped bis hands -nd knife. Within a few feet of this spot he had written upon the wall: •* The Jews shall not be blamed for nothing ” Most unfortunately one of the police officers gave orders for this writing to be immediately sponged out, probably with a view of stifling the morbid curosity which it certainly would have aroused ; but in a» doing a very important link was destroy’ d: for had the writing been photographed, a certain clue would have been in the hands of the authorities. The witnesses who saw the writing, however, stat** that it was similar in character to that of the letters sent to the Central News office, and signed “Jack the Ripper.” Though it would be far better to have clearly demonstra ed this by phot graphy, there is no r-aon to believe that the writer of the letter and postcard sent to the Central News, facsimiles of which are now to be see” outside of every police station, is the actual murderer. The police co**se quently are very anxious that every citizen identifying the handwriting should without delay communicate with the authorities. The Central News since the original letter and postcard of “Jack the Ripper,” were published, has been receiving from 30 to 40 communications daily signed “ Jack the Ripper. ” These are evidently the concoction of silly nmoriety-hunters. A third communication, however, has been received from the writer of the “ Original Jack the Ripper” letter, and a postcard which, acting upon official advice, it has been deemed prudent to withhold for the present. It may be stated, however, that al though the miscreant avows his intention of committing further crime-* shortly, it is only against women of the unfortunate class that his threats are directed, his desire b-ing to respect and protect honest women

Tne Daily News Paris correspondent telegraphs : The Whitechapel murders have not only been a newspiper sensation <>f the first ntagnitude, but have got on weak brains and set madmen aud lovers of practical jokes writing to the Prefect of Police. M.G urea, the head of the Criminal Investigation Departmen , receives letters written from both. The following was received by him recently ; “ Sir, — You must have heard of the Whitechapel murders. This is the explanation of their mysterious side There are parioers— l and another—in this business ; one is in England and the other in France. I am at Rre*r and am going to Paris to operate M does my London colleague in London We are seeking in the human body that which the doctors have never f uud, and you wi 1

try in vain to hunt us down.” Il u staled tbai the police authorities attach a great deal of importance to the spelling of the word Jews in the writing on the wall a' the spot where the Mitre-equare murdere* I threw away a portion of the murdered woman’s apron. The language of the Jews in the East End is a hybrid dialect k sown as viddish, and their mode of spelling the word Jews would be “Juives.” This the police consider a strong indication that the crime was committed by one of the numeious foreigners by whom the East End is infested. The order to erase the words on the wall, as Hated in the evidence at the inquest, was given by an officer in the Metropolitan Police Fores with the humane intention of averting Bn increase cf the Anti-Jewish feeling which is, unfortunately, but undoubtedly, very general in the East End of London. So real were tbs apprehensions of the police authorities in this way, that on the Sunday night of the murders the chief police stations in the East End were reinforced by fif'y constables each. In a London daily appears the following remarkable piece of * fine ’ writing ;— • Dark Annie’s’ spirit still wa’ks Whitechapel unavenged by Justice— most mis rable, m«»st desolate, most degraded, most forgotten and

for aken of all her sex in this vast metropolis. Destiny also reserved for her to perish most awfully and mysteriously of all the recent martyrs of neglect by the hand of some horrible assassin who, not content W'ith slaying, desecrated and mutilated the body of his Victim. The inhuman murderer still comes kud goes about our streets free aud unpunished, holding in his guilty heart the secret known only to him, to heaven, and to the dead, and yet even this forlorn and despised citizen of London cannot be said to have suffered in vain. On the contrary she has effected more by her death than many long speeches in Parliament and count* lets columns of letters to the newspapers CWW have brought gbent. She lim

forced innumerable) people, who never gave one serious thought before to the subject, to realise hnv it is, and where it is, tha f our vast fl iftting population, the waifs and stiaya ol our thorough! ires, live anti sleep at I nights and what sort of accomm «dation our I rich and enlightened capital provides for them after so many Acts of Parliament passed to improve the dwellings f, f the poor, and so many millions spent by our Board of Works, our vestries, and what not. It is comparatively easy to be virtuous when one retires at the first feeling of sleep to a cosy bedroom with luxurious appointments, all kinds of comforts, and the bright firelight perchance dancing upon the soft pillows and snowy sheets. It is easy to be respectable even wilh simple comfort without luxury ; but ‘ Dark Annie’s’ dreadful end has compelled a hundred thousand Londoners to refl -ct what it must be like to have no home at all except the ‘common kitchen * of a low lodging-house, to sit there —sick and weak and bruised and wretched ; for lack of fourpence with which to pay for the right of a ‘ doss ’ to be turned out after midnight to earn the requisite pence anyhow and anywhere, in jourse of earning it to come across your murderer and caress your assassin. As all know, she never did come back, and Mr Matthews, who did not spend a hundred pounds to fl >d her butcher, has not the gho-it of an Idea where to find him. Nevertheless. Dark Annie will eff-ot in one way what fifty Secretaries of State could never accomplish. By her ghastly (ate incurred upon that hard er i and to earn a f w hours sleep, she has constrained ail London to meditate once more on ’hese hideous holes and corners where our very po «r huddle at night to hide an-1 slumber—these foul breed-ing-places of vice and fvth.y refuges of recklessness, where womanhood mud unsex itself and self-respect abandons everything to despair, and where to be decent is out of the question, and to remain virtuous is unpermitted and impossible.