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The "ninth Whitechapel murder," reported in our cablegrams yesterday, happily turns oitt to be no murder lit all. The intended victim was another of that 'unfortunate class which finds but little protection from tho brutes upon whom it trades. The account of tho attempted tragedy tells an everyday tale. She had been drinking with a stranger, and they both went togather to her lodgings. And what sort of lodgings do these poor creatures occupy ? A room in a largo house in an unfrequented back slum ; a house in which nightly there are sounds of drunken rows, of blows, and of cries. The more sober inmates of tho house lock their doors, and take no notice of the noise; the intoxicated ones join in the brawl, and get knocked down, sometimes stabbed, and generally robbed. What is a midnight scream in such a pandemonium ? Absolutely nothing. In the last case the woman struggled and screamed, and ho frightened hur would-bo murderer that he decamped. He was ovidently not the cold-blooded wretch who has quietly and secretly assassinated and mutilated eight victims. It is stratifying to learn that tho ruffian has been captured. How to catch the other one is a puzzle. The London correspondent of tho New Zealand Times say«: " One suggestion made for the apprehension of the murder fiend is a good one. It is proposed to get a few muscular young men, of medium height, and dress them at« women, and have them well armed, and to act as ' decoys' in tho East' End, say in Aldgate, the'Whiteohapel and Commercialroads, as well as in tho neighborhood of the Minories and Radcliff Highway. These ' decoys,' it is thought, may be able in time to meet with the fiond, and then, if ho attempted any of his peculiar tactics they could fire upon him, and so lead to his arrest. I hear on very good authority that several young medical students, prompted by the spirit of adventure so strong in this class, as well as for the substantial reward offered, have for several nights past promenaded the abovo localities, thoroughly well disguised and above all well armed, but at the time of writing, beyond ordinary advonturefl, they have not had much success. The theory that wild harum-scarum medical Ftudents were hoaxing tho publics by thus disposing of femnlo'subjects,' is exploded by tho fact that in almost each case the victim has been identified."

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DTN18881123.2.8

Bibliographic details

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5383, 23 November 1888, Page 2

Word Count
402

Untitled Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5383, 23 November 1888, Page 2

Untitled Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5383, 23 November 1888, Page 2