Night Killer Who Scared London

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Night Killer Who Scared London

NO women on the streets alone after dark. Only men at the coffee stalls, and the men keeping away from the shadows on their way home. Policemen in plainclothes, many in rags, hiding in the doorways and alleys of the Ea£>t End. Terror stalked by night.

8y... George Ramage

It is 50 years ago since Jack the Ripper, Britain's most bestial murderer, began his death campaign against the women of the streets; a campaign which brought a ghastly end to six or eight victims in less, than two years.

Exactly how many unfortunate women the Ripper killed will never be known. Two of the eight victims popularly attributed to him were believed to have been slain l»v somebody elae. But at least six fell to the blade of hie surgeon's knife.

Even more open to question is the identity of this perverted monster. It has never been established that he paid the penalty of his crimes.

Police agreed that the man who so mutilated his victims must have been a

The Story Of JACK THE RIPPER

doctor, or at least a man with surgical knowledge. Spiritualists claim that Robert James Lees, clairvoyant, solved the mystery, , t0 WC9t End D V aMi ° n ' home of a celebrated surgeon who was a respected Dr. Jekyll during the day, a bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde at night. They s*y thatthe surgeon was secretly certiSom« t a hl " isylum Some say the Ripper was a doctor who £°H f e Ayre8 ' —said he had found and slain the woman iv t>Others labelled •« the Ripper a Southwark poisoner with medical knowledge; or alternatively Neill Cream, medical student and poison murderer, who started to say, lam Jack . . , M on the scaffold, but was plunged into eternity before he could compete the sentence. Whoever he was, Jack the Ripper's fiendish crimes threw London into panic, completely disorganised the night life th A . w 2™j" ing V 1 ® first ? nd . last , which do not appear to have been his u *}PP er . with Roa r ( ?Ealr FnH' » g >m ® e j rc l . ial bX t?thV wi 1 woman who sold her uooy to the worst types of men.

Just another murder. It aroused little comment—at the time. B ut within a month fear had gripped i^ndon Two more victims of the Ripper! Both bearing his ghastly trade marks carved w s*i, - i._; f * wi, It £2 End W ° men ° f the stm n J, mI , (Il)e| for the .. There were stories of a soberly-dressed man with a mtl black bag bein" seen near the spots where the bodied were f oun d. _ Black bags went out of fashion. In Kent a woman dropped dead through fear when she saw an innocent man carrying a black bag. In London police arrested and freed dozens of suspecta each week. A short period of inactivity. Public alarm began to fade. Life became more normal. . . . Then the Ripper struck again. Two women in one night! Perhaps disturbed, the Ripper rushed »way without leaving his mutilation marks on the first body. A London news agency received a postcard the next day: "Couldn't finish straight off, had no time to g«t ears for police."

With his second victim on the same night within an hour of the first he took mor# time, left her body mutilated in the darkness. On November 9, 1888, Mary Jeannette Kelly, an Irish girl, was found dead with 184 wounds, some too bestial to describe. She was the youngest and most beautiful of his victims. It seemed as if he had marred her body the more because of the qualities which made her so attractive. Still no clue. A reward of £1500 was offered. It brought nothing but the wild theories and still wilder accusations of a terrified public. That was the last of his victims. Slowly fear gave place to bewilderment. Why had the Ripper stopped his killing? We shall never know. But when you walk peacefully hom« tonight, see a policeman on the corner doing nothing more serious than trying shop doors, think of 50 years ago—and be thankful this is 1938. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Torture Charges. A EUROPEAN police inspector, an Indian head constable and two constables of the Punjab force are to face charges at Rawalpindi of torturing a prisoner. The charge is that of "voluntarily causing a hurt to extort a confession or compel extortion of property." The allegations against the police were made in the High Court, which quashed a sentence of life transportation passed by the lower court on a watchman named Kiroo for the manslaughter of a policeman. Kiroo was being questioned on suspicion of theft when the alleged torturing took place. He appealed against the sentence, and the High Court acquitted him, holding that he was within his rights in killing a police officer who was torturing him. The alleged torture was the subject of a question in the House of Commons.