THE MURDERERS OF LONDON"

Otago Witness, Issue 1159, 14 February 1874, Page 21

THE MURDERERS OF LONDON"

" A Retired Murderer " writes to the Pall Mall Gazette :—": — " You were good enough on a former occasion to permit me through your columns to protest against a practice indulged in by young and inexperienced murderers of hacking and mutilating the remains of their victims, and thus naturally exciting in the breasts of the public a disgust not generally awakened by a simple assassination, artistically effected without undue violence and with a proper regard for the feelings of the survivors. I venture, therefore, on behalf of a growing and important class — the murderers of London, in whose reputation I shall ever feel the deepest interest, having spent some of the happiest days of my life in their society— to trespass again on your kindness while I beg the public to believe they have no hand whatever in a practice which it appears from certain remarks made by Dr Lankester at an inquest held by him on Monday, prevails in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Canal of taking out of that convenient receptacle the bodies of murdered persons or suicides, robbing them, and depositing them again in the water. A more contemptible form of crime cannot be conceived than the system referred to ; and I would implore the public to believe that no murderer worthy of the name would so far demean himself as to rob the remains of one in whose removal to a better world he had borne a part. So far from tho London murderers as a rule approving this practice, they would, I feel assured, willingly lend the police (whom they cordially admire, and for whom indeed they are beginning to feel a sincere affection) every assistance in bringing to justice the low scoundrels who thus disgrace the criminal classes. I need only point to the neat and peaceful manner in which babies are now despatched, and their bodies (packed in lime) deposited under the very noses of the police,' to prove that murderers not only know how to perform disagreeable duties in -an orderly fashion, but that there is an openness in their proceedings that speaks volumes for the nobility of their nature. P.S. — I take this opportunity of congratulating Lord Aberdare on his elevation to the peerage. His lordship will, however, be missed, I fear, at the Home Office."