WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 235, 15 December 1888, Page 3

WHITECHAPEL HORRORS.

THE LATEST DETAILS. [A SICKENING TALE ALL THROUGH. London, Not. 9. Th* murder fienl has added another to his list of victims. At eleven o’clock this morning the body of a woman cut to pieces was discovered in a house in Dnr*et-stre>-t, Spitalfields. The po'i e are endeavouring to track the murderer with bloodhounds. The ippearence of the remains was frightful, and the mutilation was even greater than in the previous cases. The head had been severed and placed beneath one of the arms The ears and nose had been cut off. Th* 3 body had been disembowelled, and the flesh torn from the thighs. The womb and other organs were missing. The skin hvd been torn off the forehead and cheeks, and one hand had been pushed into the stomach. This victim, like all the others, was a prostitute. She was married and her husband is a porter. They lived together at spasmodic intervals. Her name is believed to have been Lizzie Fisher or Kelly, but to most of the habitues of the haunts she visited she was known as Mary Jane. She had a room in the house where she was murdered. She carried a latch-key. and no one knows at what hour she entered the house last night, and it is probable no one saw the man who accompanied her; therefore, it is hardly’ likely he. will ever be identified. He might easily have left the house at any time between one and six o’clock this moraine without attracting attention. The doctors who have examine! the remains refuse to make any statement until the inquest is held. Three bloodhounds belonging to private citizens were taken to the place where the body was and placed on the scent, but were unable to keep it any dis hfance, and all hopes of running the assassin with their assistance will have to be Abandoned. The murdered woman told a companion last evening that she was without money, and that she would commit suicide if she did not obtain a supply. It has been learned that a man respectably dressed accosted the victim, and offered her money. They went to her lodging. No noise was heard during the night, and nothing was known of the murder until the landlady went into the room early this morning to ask for her rent. The first thing she saw on entering the room was the woman’s breasts and visceri lying on the table. The mystery in this case is as deep as in the cases of ’he preceding crimes. The fiend got away without leaving the slightest clue. He chose his time well, and the moment the murderei woman’s body was discovered was that at which the gorgeous spectacle known by the name of the Lord Mayor’s show was blocking the traffic of the great city, aud for hours was organising near the Mansion House, scarcely a mile away. Three million people were packed in the streets between the Mansion House and the World office, in Trafalgar Square, with nearly every policeman in the city braced as a barricade along the curb to keep them in order. The rigid police patrol maintained in Whitechapel since the last horrible murder in October was relaxed for one day, and in that day the assassin struck down another victim. November 10. There is little new to add to the latest Whitechapel horror. The mystery is as deep as e er. Sir Charles Warren confesses his helplessness in the case to-night by publishing a promise of pardon to the accomplice* if they will turn informers. This is the more absurd, as every detail of the seven murders Is of the same type, and goes to show that the murderer had no accomplices. His latest escapade goes to show that a shrewd man is not above changing his. tactics. Knowing the streets are guarded, he lures his victims to their roems. So long as he follows this plan there is no limit to his Opera’r ; and he will probably not be caught unless by some blunder of his own. An important fact is pointed out to-day which starts a new and quite probable theory of the murders. It appears that the cattle boats bringing live freight to London usually come into the Thames on Thursdays or Fri days, and leave again f r the Continent on Sundays and Mondays. It has ready been noticed that revolting crimes have been committed at the end of the week, and au opinion has been formed among some detectives that the murder* ris a drover, or butcher, employed on these boats, of which there are many, and that he appears and disappears with one of the stesmers. This theory is held to be of much importance by those engaged in the investigation, who believe that the murderer does not reside either in Whitechapel, or even in the country at all. He may b« employed upon one of these boats, or one who is allowed to travel by them, and enquiries have for some time been directed to follow up this theory. The doctors who made the post-mortem examinations are authority for the statement that no portion of the last body was taken away by the murderer. One physician gives the World the following description of the condition of the body when found :—“ The woman lav on her back on the bed entirely naked. Her throat was cut from ear to ear right down the spinal column. The ears and nose had been clean cut off. The breasts also had been entirely cut off and placed on the table by the side of the bed. The stomach and abdomen had been ripped open, while the face was slashed about so that the features were beyond all recognition The kidney? and heart had been iemoved from the body and placed on the table by the side of the breasts. The liver had been taken out and Jaid on the right thigh. The clothes, soaked blond, were on the floor beside the bed. MQfe was no appearance of a struggle. A more sickening sight could not be imagined.” Almost everybody in the neighborhood of the murder had some story to tell to-day, but that of Mrs Maxwell, wife of the lodginghouse keeper of Dorset-street, opposite the hcu*e where Mary Kelly lived, seems reliable, and gees to shew that the murder was committed after 9 a.m. Here it is“ I assist my husband in watching the lodging-house. We divide the time, staying up all night. Friday morning, as I was goi: g borne carrying a lantern with me, I saw the woman Kelly standing st the entrance of the court. It was then about 8.30 o’clock, and it was unusual for her to be seen about at that hour, I said to her, * Hello, what are you doing up so early ?’ She said, • Ob, I’m v«ry bad this morning. I have been drinking so much lately.’ I said,” Here, why don’t you go and have a half-pint of beer. It will set you right.’ She replied. *1 just had one, but I’m so bad I couldn’t keep it down,’ I didn’t know then that she had separated from the man she had been living with. I then went out to do some errands. On my return I saw Kelly standing outride the public-hou?e talking with a men. That was the last I saw of her. It have been nine o’clock.” The excitement in the neighborhood is not ao great as immediately following the previous murders. The people are becoming accustomed to the horrors. To-night, as usual, the streets are full of loose women plying their trade uninterrupted by the Kelly woman’s fate.

November 17. Le Tempe, of Paris, - professes to believe that a lunatic Russian, named Nicholas Wi«siley, released from the asylum at Sebastopol in the early part of this year, is the Whitechapel murderer. That journal says he killed and mutilated eight women in 1882, af?er hiving been jilted by a Parisian grisette, and was finally arrested while trying to kill a woman. He was committed to the insane asylum, where he was confined until discharged as cured Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, resigne 1 on November 12. This is not due to the popular outcry over his failure to capture the murderer, as many supposed ; but ’ater, Matthews (Home Secretary) stated Warren’s resignation was un’e’y due to his rrfcaal to rabmi to the rule which forbids officia s publicly criticising the Government they serve. On the 18th the police were confident of being on the right track of the murderer. Two persort had been found who saw the man who accompanied the last victim tn her room on the night of the murder. Their descriptions cf the man tallied in every respect. The Birmingham police have lately shadowed a man whom they suspected because he was in the habit of travelling to London on Sundays. They arrested him in London OB November 17lhi and at cnee took him

to Scotland Yard for examination. He i- a doctor, formerly holding a good position, with good practice. The prisoner greatly resembles the individual seen in company with t e latest victim on the evening of the last murder.

A dispatch from New York, November 17* says a well-dressed stranger accosted a police' man on the street that afternoon, asking “if this was London?’ He was <aken to the station. On the way he said, “I feel very strangely ; I guess I have been insane ; last time I remember being awake I was in London.” At police beadquarters he gave the name u Henry Johnson,” and said he lived in the best district in West end. After being assigned a cell, he was seized with a fit and removed to Bellvue Hospital. Several photos of English ladies were found in his pock-ts, also a card bearing the address, “ Mary John* on, Whitechapel, London,” He mentioned the Whitechapel murders. At the Guildhall onOcober 4 a young man named William Bull, aged 27, was charged on his own confession with having committed the murder in Mitre Square, .Aidgate. Police Inspector Izard said the prisoner came to his station on the previous night and said he wished to give himself up for the murder in Aidgate on the previous Saturday night or Sunday morning. He stated that he met the woman in Aidgate, and went with her up a narrow street. When walking along together a second man came up, and he took 2s 61 from her. Prisoner then said, “My poor head. I shall go mad. I have done it. I must put up with it.” In reply to the Inspector as to what had become of the clothes he had on that night, the prisoner said they were in the Lea, and the knife he threw away. At this point he declined to say anything more. He was drunk. The prisoner’s parents appeared to be most respectable people, and the father stated his son was at home on Saturday night. The prisoner—l said this when I was mad drunk. I never committed a murder; I could not commit such an act. The magistrate—l shall remand you ; and you have yourself to thank for the position you are in.

Stuart Cumberland, the thought reader, is going to apply his powers to the detection cf the Whitechapel murderers. The Lancet thus refers to the subject:— Vice and crime rival one another as means of stimulaling a depraved appetite for the horrible and the bestial. The educative aim of such writing is evidently to develop all that is lowest and most animal in our nature—the passions, the desires, and appetites—-in place of that which is higher and more human. Tales of silly sentiment, cf glaring immorality, of refinement in vice, of romantic passinn working out its course in hatred and murder, fill up the pennyworths of garbage which are constantly foisted upon foolish and ignorant purchasers by these gutter purveyors of literature. Perhaps a transparent veil of pretended utility, philosophy, or virtuous reproof is cast by the cunning vendor over hia disgusting stock in trade. Whatever the subterfuge adopted, however, there is at times but little if any real difference between hia methods and those of the professed agent of a system of corruption. None can guage better than he the fatal success at which he may hope to arrive, if only he will pander shrewdly to the diseased curiosity of his readers. Youth, untrained in right principle, perhaps overworked, physically and mentally morbid from th a want of fresh air and sufficient houseroom, affords a ground already prepared to receive the tares of his injurious teaching.