Horrible but Probable.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 867, 12 October 1888, Page 27

Horrible but Probable.

“ The mysterious murders ” still continue to furnish sensational items in the daily telegrams from London, and fresh victims seem to be added every few days to the appalling list of supposed assassinations in the heart of the great city. According to the telegraphic reports the strong arm of the law* seems paralysed, the police are impotent, the public are panic-stricken, and the| press is vociferously indignant. No less than £IOOO has been raised by private and public subscriptions toward a reward for the detection and conviction of the supposed murderers, and the employment of bloodhounds has been suggested by The Times. This is a most wonderful record for the centre of civilisation. The whole thins is utterly incomprehensible in its telegraphic shape, but possibly when tho full accounts arrive by mail some more light may be thrown on the matter. The San Francisco mail ought to bring much later intelligence, and then it may perhaps be possible to gather some more definite information on the subject than at present is accessible. By the Tongariyoks mail we only have some further accounts of the first W hiteohapol murder. In that case - the murdered woman was found to have been stabbed in, a number of places with a dagger or bayonet, and blood had flowed from the. wounds. In the later cases the bodies —all the victims being of , the feminine sex—-were found to be shockingly mutilated, but we are not told what were the appearances as to the length, of time that had elapsed , since death. In all these cases of i mutilation, however, the indications were held to show that the mutilation had consisted in partial dissection for anatomical purposes. This suggests a theory to . which the latest disl eoverv gives a good deal of colour. The last body found was lying on the Thames Embankment, aud was in a state of decomposition. It is added that the corpse is supposed to be that i of the woman to whom belonged the arms recently found in Lambeth and Pimlico. This is tantalisingly vague. We might have been told a little more about those arms, but we deduce at anyrate that the decomposed corpse was armless. Now, we must confess that this last discovery does seem to us to favour a suspicion which has gradually been growing in the minds (£ some people, that these mysterious

murders ” —the first one excepted—are in reality gruesome practical jokes on the part of medical students, 'who have adopted this mode of disposing of their dissected “ subjects.” This idea may be utterly wrong. Later Bnd fuller aecouuts may demolish it entirely. So far we have only the briefest aud vaguest information to go upon, but the fficts as related certainly do appear to us to point to this conclusion. It would not be the first time chat the world had been horrified by the ghastly pranks of these modern Bob Sawyers and Ben Allens. Most people have heard or read of the Waterloo Bridge mystery, which was ultimately shown almost conclusively to have been a grim practical joke. A sack was discovered on a projection of one of the piers of the bridge, and on being opened, proved to contain a human body cut up into fragments. A thrill of horror pervaded all England for some days, but at last it came out that the repulsive butchery had evidently been performed with surgical instruments, and then the truth began to be suspected. The fact of this last corpse being considerably decomposed proves that death was not very recent, and the previous discovery of the missing arms goes to lend probability to the suspicion that the supposed “ victim ” was simply a “ subject.” The addiction of those embryo doctors to the wildest and most revolting practical jests is notorious, and the public horror daily growing deeper and more intense would afford a wealth of delight to those scientific scapegraces. We stroDgly suspect that this will turn out to be the solution of the dreadful mystery. The remains were found in each case very near the London and St Thomas’ Hospitals respectively. Then it would certainly have taken some time to kill, undress, and scientifically dissect the victims, all of which proceedings could hardly have been carried out in a London thoroughfare without discovery, especially in so many instances. This points to the conclusion that the dissection had taken place before the bodies were placed where found. Nothing is said as to the victims being identified or as to .any women having been missed. All we know is that several female corpses, partly dissected, and one much decayed, have been found scattered about Loudon. The refusal of the Home Secretary to offer a reward for the detection of the “ murderer ” maybe duo to such a suspicion as we have suggested. We hope that this hypothetical solution of the mystery may prove to be the true one. The alternative possibility is almost too frightful to contemplate, and the horror which it has excited is onlynatural.