SEVEN WOMEN STABBED

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 27

SEVEN WOMEN STABBED

SENSATIONAL STREET OCCURRENCE AT HULL. A mysterious man in black created a sensation in Hull on a recent night by a scries of acts of the “Jack the Ripper” type. Within the space of a few hours and the length of one of the public streets seven women were stabbed with a knife in the- loner part of the abdomen or thigh. In every case, after dicing the knife into the woman as he passed 1 her, the miscreant got clean away. None of the young women are seriously injured, but in one or two instances the stab came very near the femoral artery, and the young women had a narrow escape. As soon as the complaints reached the police the matter was placed in the hands of Detective-Inspector Chapman, who ascertained that a man had been residing m Hull for some time answering to the description of a person who was convicted at Lancaster in 1898 for stabbing women in the street, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This was a man about thirty years of age, named James Gray, a- knife-grinder and hawker, and he was subsequently arrested. Gray was charged later on at the Hull Court with wilfully and maliciously wounding Edith Hardy, a young woman of 19, residing at Fawcett terrace, Derby street. Prosecutrix stated that while walking along Beverley road with a married sister she noticed a man approaching, and as he passed struck her on the left thigh ivith what & he thought was his fist, and then ran away. The blow hurt her very much. When she got home she found that her clothing had been cut through, and that she was bleeding from a wound on the leg. Her sister took her to the infirmary, where Dr Jackson found it necessary to- put four stitches in the v. oun-d. She picked out prisoner from among four other men at the Central Police Station, and she was quite sure he was the man who struck her. Detectives Barker and Cherry arrested prisoner at 3, Lawrence square. Cuthbert street, and when told that he was suspected of stabbing several women on Beverley road, he replied: 'Not me, I was never on Beverley road. My mother can prove where I was.” He was taken to the Central Police Station, and placed along with four other men similar in age and build. He was at once identified by Miss Hardy. Upon being formally charged with the offence he said, “I never did it.” Mr Jones, Deputy Chief Constable, asked for a remand for eight days, which was granted. After prisoner had been removed, Mr Jones said that there were other cases of a similar nature j which, however, he was not in a position to bring before the Court.