WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 234, 13 December 1888, Page 3

WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

VARIOUS INCIDENTS. NOTES AND REFLECTIONS. The London papers are almost filled with details of the Whitechapel murders and incidents connect’d therewith. The suggestion made by Doctor Forbes Winslow that MALE DECOYS should be employed has been acted upon, medica studentshaving gone out armed with revolver and daggers concealed in thedreaseworn by them. In addition to this the worn- n of the streets are. themselves a> med with knives, and two poor creatures one morning show- d a reporter two formidable bowie knives, which they would unquestionably use upon any m m who attempted violence of a deadly character. A thin women, pale and Starving, said with « vid ent sincerity, “ W< 11, suppose 1 do get killed, it will he a good thing for me. for the uint» r is coming on and the life i» awful. I can’t leave it; nobody would employ me.” She had been twedty years on the streets of the East End, She is welt acquainted with the whole of the lower classes and their habits, and in common with many others of her class and the denizens of the lodging house* generally feels certain that the murderer •• does no belong to them.’’

THE NOISELESS ASSASSIN. A night watchman in Mitie square, who could hear the footsteps of the patrol ing constable every fifteen mi' utes with the utmost distinctness, had expressed to the police man his ardent desire that the “ butcher ” would come to Mitre square, and “he would give him a doing ” That very night the fifth victim of the assassin was discovered on the pavement in the square ; yet the watchman. whrseaid was hurriedly summoned had r beard not a sound. That rhe miserable vic- j

tim had been killed where her body wai found, despite th* alert watchman, and des pite the quarter hour patrol, was only to< e* ident. When the inquest came to be belt on the sixth victim, the story of A STRANGE PRESENTIMENT was told in the course of the official enquiry The victim was a woman who had beer living apart from her husband, and hat become a mos’ mi erable outcast. Yet then was a link binding her to a better past. Oi •very Saturday, for nearly three years, ah< bad met a sister at a given hour, and hud re Crivrd two shillings to pay for her lodgings One Sa'urdav the sister was at the app- inted pl ce, and waited for two hours and a half ir Vain. She said to the Coroner, in answer tc questions, “On the Sunday morning, when I read the accounts in the newspapers, 1 thought it might be my sister bpeu murdered. 1 had a presentiment rhat that was ao I came down to Whitechapel and Was directed to the mortuary, but when I •aw the tody I did not recognise it as that of my Mater.” “ How was that ? Why did you Dot recognise it in the first instance?” “I do Dot know, except that I «aw it in the gaslight, between nine and ten that night. But 1 recognised her the next day.” “ I 'id you Dot have some special presentiment that this was your sister ?” " Yes.” •• Tell the jury what it was.” “I was in bed, and about twenty minutes past one on Sunday morning I felt a pressure on my breast, and heard three distinct kisses. It was that which

made me afterwards *uspectthat the woman Who had bem naurde eJ was my sister.” COMMENTING ON THE INCIDENT the Telegraph says :—“ This unfortunate bad endured every variety of privation, humiliation, and pollution, moral and physical ; she had times without number been in •o abject a state of destitution as to be compell* dts share the nightly refuge a shed in Dorset street - of a score or so of homeless Waifs, pe« ni>e s prostitutes like her elf, with* uta •' iend,a name, or even a nickname. Thl« O' ce most unhappy wietch has been indented, not by any real oi fanciful designation, but by some of her no less miserable aasociates, and by two city constabb s, who had arrested her on Saturday evening for drunkenness a few hours before her assass'nation. She was in oust >dy at Bishop>gate street po ice station at 1 a m. on Sunday, at which hour she was released, and sauntered awav along Hound.*ditch towards theplace of her death, which musthave occurred bare’y twenty minutes after her release from custody.” DR. PARKFR’R DENUNCIATION. Preaching at the city temple, Dr Parker said :—•• Every pulpit in the world should denounce the crime* which London mou»n°d, but denunciation was a poor part of pulpit duty. Every congregation should offer reward for the recnveiy of the criminal. What the Home Becr*tarv wa* doing, or thinking of dninc,passed his (Dr Pai ker’s) comprehension. If offering a reward f<r the discovery of the criminal did 41 nt detect the perpetrator nf the crime, what harm was done ? But if offering a reward should end in the detection nf the criminal great good was done. This quick murder of women, however, was nothing compared to the slow murder that was going on every day. Compared wi'h many who were cruel, deliberately, the perpetrators of the<>e East Erd crimes wa«gentleness—mercy itself. The magistrates should be armed with greater powers. Nothing would really make a certain clas* of criminals feel their crime but bodily chastisement. It was no u«e trying moral suasion upon paro’Urp, violent robbers, cru*l husbands and fathers—they must be floeged. Church congresses and Nonconformist assemblies should suspend their sittings, that th*se tremendous grievances might be attended to. Thev hid had papeis enough upon distant subjects—addresses enough upon things that were only in the air. What were they to do with the real concrete intolerable life immediately around them ? It was in vain to meet as a quiet, respectable. go*pel-imbihing congregation, drinking orthodoxy to the full and setti g down the empty goblet with a sigh of impious satisfaction. The Devil laughed at the sacrifice. As to denouncing the criminal, better ask how far they were responsible for hi* creation by makinp labours disappointment, by running profits down so small a* to turn ynung men to gambling, hy surrounding men with drinkeries and then fining them for drinking. Away with piety that trifled with the stream when it might dry up the fountain,” A SAD REFLEX. The problem of the unfortunates is one that haa in all times engaged the deep attention of the phiUnthropirt and the Chri tian. A few weeks qp Mr Walter Hazell wrote to the Times offering £5O towards a fund which he propoa d should forthwith be raised to provide ag inat a sudden influx of unfortunates from the streets The Pall Mall Budget while appreciating the spirit in which the offer wa- made, expresse a fear that Mr Hizell has underrated the difficulties in the path of reform and reclamation. "If,” says the Gazette, "anyone imagines that it is an ea«y thing ’o provide employment for a middle aged woman who most unfeignedly repents and reforms, we fear his first practical experiment would bring about a cruel disillusion." And our contemporary proceeds to make these grim reflect ions What, then, is the chance of providing means of livelihood fora host of unfortunates who do not repent, who are not anxious to leave their evil life, and who, abov- all things in this world, long for gin ? It is a grim tragedy of despair, no doub , that we are witnessing, sogrim a«g-me times to m dden those who are confronted with its realities, but it is not so pathetic as the unavailing struggle of the decent wom n to ema decent livelihood, and who finds herse’f driven steadily step by step backward jn o the abyss from which even the knife of the Whitechapel mnrderer may be regarded 8a a merciful deliverance. So utter y hopeleas it sometimes seems to get a subsistence wage for a decent woman that we have ofun wondered wh-ther, after all, it would not be well .to allow the hard-driven woman at least a chance of suicide as an a ternative to rice If in every town there were established an asphyxiating chamber in which, on due. decl • ration being made, the applicant, having exhausted all means of procuring employment. preferred to die rather than purchase the means of existence by a life of •n -me we fear it would be much more used than people imagine.

WH.I A COBBSWONDEWT THINKS. A correspondent of the Times writes •• Having been long in Indi* and, therefore, acquainted witn the methode of Eastern erimiMle, it has struck me in reading the astouutsof Um* Whimhap*! autdera, th*

Vev have prnbablv bnen committed by a Malay, or other low-c'as* Asiatic, coming under the general term of Lascar, oLwhom, I believe, there are large numbers in that part of London. The mutilations, cutting off the nnse and ear*, ripping up the b dv, and cutting out certain organ*—the heart. &c -—are all peculiarly Eas’ern ni'-thods and universally recognised, and intended hy the criminal c’nsRPR to expres* insult, hatred, and contempt ; wherea*, here the public and police are quite at a lorr to attain any meaning to them, and ro they are described as the mere Rprßpleßß fury nf a maniac. My theory would he that some man of this class has be-n hnonßßed and then robbed of hi* savings (often largp), or, as he considers, been in some way greatly injured bv a prostitute —perhaps onp of the earlier victims, and then has been led bvifury and revenge to take the lives ol as many of the same clas° ns he can. This also i« in consonance wi'h Eastern ideas and the practices of the criminal classes. Hundreds nf these men hav* resided long in that part of London, Rppgk Engli-h well—although whpn necessary cannot understand a word—and dress in ordinary English clothes. The victims have b«’en the poorest and most miserable, and probably only such would consort with the c’ass of man I speak of. Such a man wnuld Bp quite safe in the haunts occupied by h>s fellow countrymen, or should he wish to escape, he could join a crew of Lascars on the first steamer leaving London. Unless caught redhanded, such a man in ordinary life would be harmless enough, polite, not to say ohsponinu*, in his manners, and about ♦he last a British policeman would su°ppct. But when the villain is primed with his opium, or bang, or pin, and inspired with his lust for slaughter and blood, he wnuld destroy hi« defenceleps victim with the ferocity and cunning of the tiger; and past impunity and success would only have rendered him the more daring and reckless,”