DUSSELDORF'S DREAD.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17268, 14 November 1929, Page 7

DUSSELDORF'S DREAD.

JACK THE RIPPER’S CRIMES

PANIC-STRICKEN CITIZENS.

MANY SINISTER RUMOURS. United Press Assn. —Elec. Tel.—Copyright BERLIN, Nov. 12. The citizens of Dusseldorff are still panic-stricken over the crimes of the mysterious assassin known as “ Jack the Ripper.” Baron von Zigcsa, chief of the city’s police force, declared to-day: ‘‘l cannot sleep at night. I lie awake and have a kind of nightmare in which I think I am the ‘ Ripper ’ in the act of committing a horrible murder.” Theipolice chief’s state of mind is characteristic of that of everybody in the city. Beneath their outward calm they are In a frenzy of hysterical terror.

If a child is 10 minutes late In reaching home the mother telephones to the overworked police imploring them to send out a search party. The offices of the newspapers are besieged all day by people who think they have clues. Hundreds of sinister rumours are current to the effect that the bodies of children and girls have been found. Half-demented men have given themselves up to the police, accusing themselves of being the “ Ripper,” but always they have been found to be completely Innocent. With a brazen love of sensation, which is the main trait of the unknown murderer’s mania, he has proclaimed in a second letter to a newspaper that he will surrender to the police when his victims number 30. To-day the police began to dig in a field indicated on the “ Ripper’s ” map. They found no body, but they located a number of articles which are considered to be important.