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The Star
Largest Circulation of Any Evening Paper in the Kingdom.
LONDON. TUESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER, 1888.

ONE HALFPENNY
Front Page

WHAT WE THINK.

THE blood of the murdered women in the East-end still cries for vengeance. So far as we can gather from the contradictory and meaningless reports of the police, the arrests already made do not promise a solution of the mystery. If the murderer is still at large, and if, as there is every reason to suppose, he is a maniac, we may look for fresh deeds of blood at his hands. All the more do we regret that the Government have not taken our advice and offered a reward. Whitechapel is crying out for a reward, and its tradesmen have actually clubbed their shillings in default of the action which any wise, or even sane, administration would at once have taken. Would have taken - aye, if the murders had occurred in the West-end instead of in the East, and if the victims had been "ladies" instead of the most helpless and outcast class in the community! We have taken special steps to inform ourselves of the feeling in the East-end, and we declare that the conviction is being burned into the minds of the people that the police are not only incompetent, but indifferent. And there is reason for this belief. The list of undetected London murders which we gave yesterday applies with hardly an exception to the lower classes. Working men and women have been butchered in cold blood in the streets in broad daylight, and not so much as a hint has been given as to the perpetrators of the crimes. And when public opinion is at last aroused, and the whole East-end is under a Red Terror, our authorities refuse to take the most obvious and elementary precautions for ensuring detection. All we can say is that if a mad panic sweeps through the quarters desolated by a maniac's knife, the Home Office and Scotland-yard will be alone to blame. It is impossible to exaggerate the utter want of confidence in the whole police system which this frightful tragedy has evoked; and if sheer fright grows into crazed fury we shall hold Mr. MATTHEWS and Sir CHARLES WARREN responsible.

But we have other causes of complaint of the police. Not only have their superiors grossly mismanaged and neglected their duties, but they have encouraged their subordinates to treat the newspapers in a manner to which no other press in the world but that of Russia and Germany would submit. We were compelled in our later editions of yesterday to contradict many of the reports which found admittance to our columns and to those of all our contemporaries earlier in the day. For this the senseless, the endless prevarications of the police were to blame. Not a connected, or a rational, or a truthful account could our reporters glean from them. Now the Press is the detectives' best friend. In America the reporters discover nearly as many murders as the police, which is as superior to ours in the detection of crime as Monsieur LECOQ to Sir CHARLES WARREN. BARBER, the man suspected of the Walthamstow murder, was "spotted" through a portrait in The Star. We have given the police the only clues in the present case which promise to lead us to the murderer's retreat. Our return has been to see our staff treated like interlopers or pickpockets by men whose incompetence and ignorance are the laughingstock of London. There have been honorable exceptions to this conduct, which we gladly acknowledge. But, on the whole, the behavior of the police has rendered it imperative for us to remind them that they (unlike the Whitechapel murderer) stand in the dock, and have to show cause why sentence should not be passed upon them.

Probably, indeed, people do not understand the real measure of the incompetence of the police. We have blamed Sir CHARLES WARREN heavily; and we have shown and shall show in a moment that we have good cause to blame him. But he is not alone accountable. Take the returns of coroners' inquests for the last ten or twenty years. We will take one year - 1886. In that year 177 verdicts of murder were recorded. Out of these only 72 charges of murder arose. But only 35 sentences of death were pronounced. Even supposing, however, that all the 72 accused persons were guilty and were dealt with by the law, we have the startling fact that 105 men and women who committed murder are at large! Taking 1886 as an average year, and applying its figures to the foregoing ten years, we must suppose that over 1,000 men are now in our midst whose hands are dyed with the blood of their fellows. Supposing again that the men who committed murder 20 years ago are all alive, we must reflect that 2,000 murderers are marching about England alone - Scotland and Ireland being excluded. What a thrill of joy would pass over Mr BUCKLE'S face if he could get one-tenth part of such a holocaust of crime to weave into his impeachment of the Irish nation! But that is not all. Who among the recent cases of murder can recall one in which the criminal was brought to justice by the skill and detective power of the police? We do not recall one. Either he was caught red-handed, or was tracked down by his neighbors, helped by the newspapers, or was secured in the mere chapter of accidents which now and then trip the murderer's feet.

Now there can be no doubt that during the last two years this ghastly record of inefficiency has swollen to still more alarming dimensions than those we have described. And the reason is obvious. The police are being given more and more over to political work. Instead of looking after East-end unfortunates, our detectives are "shadowing" Mr. BALFOUR, unearthing imaginary dynamite plots, and looking after the doings of the Social Democratic Federation. It is not only a question of Trafalgar-square. We assert that Sir CHARLES WARREN has employed and is employing a daily increasing number of his skilled men not to protect the lives of the poor, but to look after the property of the rich, and generally to making war on what Sir CHARLES WARREN imagines to be the advances of social revolution. Now, the natural end of this is the Whitechapel holocaust. There may be worse to come. The sooner, therefore, that the West-end understands that life is as precious in Whitechapel hovels as in Belgravian mansions the better for its social peace, and the greater its chance of disposing of its own industrious maniac when he once sets up in business.

ANY official person desiring to establish cordial relations with the Government cannot do better than take every opportunity of zealously displaying mistrust, hatred, and prejudice against the working class. When public feeling was at its height against Sir Charles Warren last November for his frantic attack on the people on the 13th, and his breach of faith on the 20th, he was made a C.B. in order that there might be no mistake about the full approval of the Government, and, we suppose we must add, of the Crown. A still more bitter enemy of the Crown has just received a douceur in the shape of a handle to his name. Mr. Justice Edlin, the servile tool of the Government in their campaign against free speech, is now Sir Peter Edlin. The distinction is equivalent to "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Sir Peter is nearly everything that a judge ought not to be; but no one can deny that he is almost a perfect type of the sort of man whom Lord Salisbury delights to honor.

THE Pall Mall will have its little joke. Its latest piece of fun is a scathing condemnation of its own Vigilance Associations. The kind of work we recommend for discovering the Whitechapel murderer and for protecting his victims is precisely the kind of work which has been initiated for very similar purposes by Mr. Stead himself. As a matter of fact it has already been taken in hand by Mr. Stead's friends. Yet when The Star proposes it, it is a piece of "lunacy" and so forth. Lunacy or no, the East-enders are putting it in practice.

BY the way, our contemporary says that Williams, the murderer of the Mars and Williamsons, had an exceedingly respectable and dove-like appearance. De Quincey does not say so, though he does say that Williams's sinister face could occasionally assume an innocent expression. "What a Medusa's head," he writes, describing the Williamson murder, "must have lurked in those dreadful bloodless features, and those glazed, rigid eyes that seemed rightfully belonging to a corpse, when one glance at them sufficed to proclaim a death warrant."

"MEANWHILE," writes an eccentric correspondent, "you, and every one of the papers, have missed the obvious solution of the Whitechapel mystery. The murderer is a Mr. Hyde, who seeks in the repose and comparative respectability of Dr. Jekyll security from the crimes he commits in his baser shape. Of course, the lively imaginations of your readers will at once supply certain means of identification for the Dr. Jekyll whose Mr. Hyde seems daily growing in ferocious intensity. If he should turn out to be a statesman engaged in the harmless pursuit of golf at North Berwick - well, you, sir, at least, will be able gratefully to remember that you have prepared your readers for the shock of the inevitable discovery."


Page 2

"THE STAR" TO SIR CHARLES. - "Pass on, Please."

PHENOMENAL SUCCESS.
The Circulation of
THE STAR
Yesterday reached
261,100.

This is more by
55,000
Than the highest ever reached by any other Evening
Paper in London.

The circulation of THE STAR on Saturday
last was
232,500.


Page 3

FIFTH EDITION.

WHITECHAPEL.
PISER IDENTIFIED THIS MORNING AT LEMAN-STREET.

£100 REWARD OFFERED BY AN M.P.

No Further Arrests - Pigott Still Unidentified, and Pronounced Insane - The Identification of Piser with "Leather Apron" Doubtful.

This morning there are two men detained on suspicion in connection with the Whitechapel crimes. One is the man Piggott, arrested at Gravesend, and supposed to be the man who went into Fiddymont's public-house at seven on the morning of the murder with blood upon his hands. He was brought to Commercial-street Police Station yesterday afternoon, and placed among a number of other men taken from the street, in order that the builder Taylor, Mrs. Fiddymont, and Mrs. Chappell, the three people who saw the man with the blood-stained hands, might, if possible, identify the captured one. Taylor and Mrs. Fiddymont declared the man at the station not the one they saw, and Mrs. Chappell, though she picked the right man out, failed to positively identify him. This morning, however, Piggot was still in the infirmary recovering slowly from an attack of delirium tremens.

The other man in custody is

JOHN PISER.

JOHN PISER,

who was arrested yesterday morning at 22, Mulberry-street, Commercial-road, by Sergeant Thicke. There were reports yesterday afternoon that Piser had been released but, as stated in our extra special edition of last night, these were untrue. At nine o'clock this morning Piser was still comfortably quartered in a room at Leman-street Police Station, and there he is likely to remain until the detectives have cleared up the strong suspicion there is against him. No one is allowed to see the prisoner but his brother this morning called at the police-station and left both food and drink, which was afterwards given to the prisoner. Piser asked to be allowed to see his brother, but was refused. The police have made a thorough search again at Piser's lodgings, but beyond the buffers or kind of knife used for scraping leather they have found nothing. The vexed question - owing to conflicting reports, it is vexing to the public at any rate - is whether John Piser is the much-talked-of "Leather Apron." John Piser, John Piser's step-mother, step-brother, step-sister, and neighbors all say "No;" Sergeant Thicke, who is an officer of high reputation, and who knows, perhaps, more of the East-end and its rough denizens than any other man in the force, says almost positively that Piser is "Leather Apron."

In view of the conflict of testimony on this point a Star reporter went to Mulberry-street yesterday morning and interrogated the neighbors standing in little crowds at the doorways. The man who seemed

TO KNOW THE SUSPECT

best was a tall man leaning against the doorpost without coat or waistcoat. He, like the Pisers, is a German Jew, and, like the man in custody, is a shoemaker; indeed, John Piser, he said, had worked for him. The Pisers have lived for 20 years in the neighborhood - the arrested man's father died in the very house the son was taken from.

"Has Piser been about this neighborhood during the last few weeks?" our reporter asked.

"Yes," said the man. "I have seen him in this street five or six times during the last few weeks. He has been in and out in his ordinary manner - he has not been hiding."

In answer to further inquiries, the man said the knives which had been found in the house proved nothing. In fact at that moment he had in his own house knives nearly half as long as his arm - he and Piser used them in their business.

"Is this the man known as 'Leather Apron'?" asked the reporter.

"No, no, I don't know - I don't know him as 'Leather Apron,' said the man, hastily.

After a little further conversation, however, The Star reporter innocently asked him to describe the man he had seen taken. This he did readily, and gave a strikingly faithful description of the man whom everybody has been talking of since The Star first described him.

The man's identity was borne out by what a Star reporter subsequently gleaned from

SERGEANT THICKE,

a stout-built, keen, but pleasant-faced man, with thick, drooping, yellowish moustache, dressed in a light check suit.

The Sergeant who, by the rough characters among whom his profession takes him, is better known as Johnny Upright, had just been deep in consultation in the station yard with a crowd of detectives, when our representative had the good fortune to get an introduction.

"Of course, you've come about the Whitechapel murder," he said, when a Star card was handed to him. "Now, you know as well as I do that I cannot tell you anything."

Our representative urged that he might be able to say something without damaging the public interest, and with a little questioning a few facts were obtained. The sergeant emphatically denied that, as the neighbors had said, "Leather Apron" had for the last six weeks been going about his business in an ordinary manner. "He's been in hiding safe enough, and it's my opinion his friends have been screening him. He has not been in lodging houses; he is too well known there and the people who frequent them would have been ready to lynch him. Why the other day a woman told me plainly that if she saw him she would kill him, and I could do what I liked with her afterwards. No," keen Johnny Upright continued, "'Leather Apron' has not been into a lodging-house since the Sunday

THE WOMAN DENOUNCED HIM IN WHITECHAPEL,

and the police were bamboozled into letting him go." The Sergeant modestly disclaimed any great deal of credit in making the capture. "I've known him for years," he said. "I didn't take him on the strength of any published descriptions of him. It was not, however, till the early hours of this morning I was told where I could put my hands on him."

The Star reporter mentioned that the people in Mulberry-street discounted the importance of the finding of knives. But the Sergeant was not to be trapped into saying anything about the knives - whether there were any bloodstains on them. "I don't mean to say anything to prejudice the case against the man. We are still making inquiry, and in the present stage of the case I can't say any more."

The report yesterday afternoon that a second "Leather Apron" - "the real man" - had been arrested and taken to the Bethnal-green Police-station was quite without foundation; nobody was detained there at all yesterday.

From inquiries at all the police stations this morning it seems that the police are in possession of no further clue.

PISER PICKED OUT.

Just before one o'clock this afternoon 11 men passing by Leman-street Police-station were asked and consented to go into the station-yard for a few minutes. Piser was brought out, and put amongst them. A middle-aged man, with a face of negro cast, but not black, was then asked whether he could "identify the man," and unhesitatingly he picked out Piser.

"What," said Piser, "you know me?"

But an inspector raised a warning hand, and without anything else being said the men dispersed and Piser was led back to his room.

It has been asserted by one witness that two men were with deceased in Hanbury-street at an early hour on the morning of the murder. These two men have not yet been traced, and the authorities are anxious to know whether one of these was Piser before releasing or charging him. The police say they do not believe "Leather Apron" the guilty man, and point out that the public and the newspapers have accused him - not they.

Although Pigott has been declared to be of unsound mind the police are by no means relaxing their inquiries concerning him.

No more arrests in connection with the murder at Whitechapel had been made up to one o'clock to-day.

REWARDS OFFERED.

Mr. S. Montagu, M.P., has offered £100 as a reward for the capture of the Whitechapel murderer, and has asked Superintendent Arnold to issue notices to that effect.

This morning posters are being posted up all over Whitechapel, offering a reward in these terms:-

"Finding that, in spite of murders being committed in our midst, our police force are still inadequate to discover the author or authors of the late atrocities, we, the undersigned, have formed ourselves into a committee and intend offering a substantial reward to anyone, citizen or otherwise, who shall give such information that will bring the murderer or murderers to justice." The committee meets every evening at nine o'clock at the Crown, 74, Mile-end-road.

A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL.

A representative of the Central News patrolled the streets and alleys of Whitechapel during last night and the early hours of this morning. The scare (he writes) has considerably subsided. People have become familiar with the tragedy, and are calmed by the knowledge of the active measures adopted for their protection by the police. This is plainly evidenced by the aspect which Whitechapel-road presented last night and up to an early hour of the morning. On Sunday night the pavements were almost deserted. Twenty-four hours later groups of men and women chatted, joked, and boisterously laughed upon the flagstones until long after St. Mary's clock struck one. "Leather Apron" has already become a by-word of the pavement and gutter. Many members of the police force firmly believe in the existence and

ALMOST CERTAIN GUILT

of "Leather Apron." The talk of the footways convinces the passer-by that the inhabitants of the East-end are sceptical as to his personality. There was the usual percentage of gaudily dressed, loudmouthed, and vulgar women strutting or standing at the brightly-lighted cross-ways last night, and the still larger proportion of miserable, half-fed, dejected creatures of the same sex upon which hard life, unhealthy habits, and bad spirits have set their stamp. Soon after one o'clock the better-dressed members of the motley company disappeared, but the poverty-stricken drabs crawled about from lamp to lamp, or from one dark alley's mouth to another, until faint signs of dawn appeared. Off the main road - in such thoroughfares as Commercial-street and Brick-lane - there was little to attract attention. Constables passed silently by the knots of homeless vagabonds huddled in the recess of some big doorway; other constables, whose "plain clothes" could not prevent their

STALWART, WELL-DRILLED FIGURES

from betraying their calling, paraded in couples, now and again emerging from some dimly lighted lane, and passing their uniformed comrades with an air of conscious ignorance. The streets inclusively referred to by the constables on beat duty in the main thoroughfare as "round at the back" presented a dismal appearance indeed, the dim yellow flames of the not too numerous lamps only rendering the darkness of night more gloomy. Such passages as Edward-street, connecting Hanbury and Princes-streets, Flower and Dean-street, between Brick-lane and Commercial-street, which, in daylight only strike one as very unwholesome and dirty thoroughfares, appear unutterably forlorn and dismal in the darkness of night. From an alley in one of these, leading to uninviting recesses, a miserable specimen of a man - hollow-chested, haggard, and dirty - shuffled hurriedly into the wider street and, crossing to the opposite pavement, dived into another recess and was instantly lost to view. No constable would have thought of interfering with him had he met him, nor would there have been any excuse for accosting him; and yet his ragged clothes, of some dark hue, might have been saturated with blood, invisible in the depressing yellow shade of the flickering gas jets. In any one of these dark and filthy passages a human being's life

MIGHT BE EVERY NIGHT SACRIFICED

were the blow dealt with the terrible suddenness and precision which characterised those of the two last homicides, and a police force of double the strength of that now employed and organised under the best possible conditions, might well be baffled in its efforts to capture the slayers. In the immediate neighborhood of St. Mary's Church a wide entry presented a deep cavern of Stygian blackness, into which no lamp shone, and where, for aught a passer-by at that hour could discover, a corpse might lie, and from which - such is its position - a murderer might, if possessed of coolness, easily pass unobserved. In a squalid thoroughfare between Hanbury-street and Whitechapel-road some houses have apparently been pulled down, the space being now waste ground enclosed by wooden pailings. This unilluminated spot is separated by a house or two from an alley which, at a point some yards from the street, turns at right angles apparently towards the unoccupied space mentioned. Into the mouth of this passage, a slatternly woman, her face half hidden in a shawl which formed her only head dress, thrust her head, and in a shrill and angry voice shrieked "Tuppy!" The cry was answered in a few seconds by the appearance of an evil-looking man, with a ragged black beard, who, in reply to an impatient question of

"WHERE IS SHE?"

muttered in a surly tone, "Round there," at the same time jerking his thumb backwards towards the alley. "Well, come 'long 'ome, then. I aint agoin' to wait for she," replied the woman, who, with the dark man limping after her, soon disappeared round the corner of the street. There was no subsequent indication of the presence of a third person. The light from the street was so dim that there was no possibility of recognising the features of the man and woman; and certainly either might have borne traces of crime which would have attracted no attention.

THE SLAUGHTERMAN THEORY.

A Correspondent Examines How Far the Facts Support It.

While the police are pursuing the empirical method in their investigation into the Whitechapel murders, and apparently looking out for persons who had blood upon them on the days of the crimes (as though at any given time in such a district as Whitechapel there are not any number of people who have just been engaged in personal and pugilistic encounters), it may be well in the columns of a newspaper to follow another method, perhaps more suited to a philosopher's study than a detective's office. To this end let us start with a theory, and then by the light of it look at the facts.

The theory. That the four women were killed by someone to whom bloodshed and slaughter is an everyday affair - e.g., a knacker or slaughterman. Such a man would have the skill, acquired by practice, necessary to do the work silently, swiftly, and with the minimum of bloodiness. He would have by him, without fear of thereby attracting suspicion, the kind of weapon exactly suited to the purpose. He would be the only man in all London who could walk along the streets in the early daylight with blood on his hands and clothes without exciting undue notice or remark. He would have the needful anatomical knowledge by which he would be able to find quickly such internal organs as the heart and liver, supposing he desired to add horror to horror by placing them outside the victim's body.

He would commit the murders within a reasonable distance of his place of trade, so as to be able to reach it at the usual time for beginning work or not to be absent from it long enough to excite notice if the crime were committed during work hours. On Bank-holidays our hypothetical murderer would not be in workaday clothes or have his tools about him, but he would be armed with a stick, which is part of the holiday paraphernalia, or with a bayonet, supposing he were a Volunteer, and in the early hours of the morning after Bank holidays he would be in the immediate vicinity of his workshop.

He would strike with a heavy, swift hand, and not with the light swift stroke of the surgeon or anatomical demonstrator.

In mutilating he would strike downwards in the same way as though he were disembowelling a sheep. Now what are the facts?

The woman Nicholls was discovered in the immediate vicinity of a slaughter-house - and of her Dr. Ralph Llewellyn said, "She was ripped open just as you see a dead calf in a butcher's shop. The murder was done by someone very handy with the knife." The throat was cut, as a calf's or pig's is cut, with one hard blow from left to right. It was not sawn asunder, and there was very little blood on the clothes or on the ground. She was killed in the early morning.

Annie Chapman was found also not far from a slaughter-house. Her throat was cut in precisely the same way, and with the same sort of weapon as Nicholls's. She was ripped up as a calf is ripped up. Some of her internal organs were taken out of her body, and there was very little blood on the spot where she lay. She was found in the rear of premises inhabited by a seller of cat's-meat - a place which would be known by a knacker or slaughterman. She was killed early in the morning.

The other and earlier victims were killed on the mornings after Bank holidays. One was wounded with a stick and the other with some weapon like a bayonet.

Question for the police and the public - Is there a slaughterman or knacker living in Whitechapel who cannot account for his whereabouts on the mornings of these murders, and is he in the Volunteers, or has he a pal a Volunteer who is given to heavy drinking?

THE BLACKFRIARS MYSTERY.
The Woman Found Lying Dead in the Street on Saturday Night Identified.

The mysterious death in the Blackfriars-road, of Mrs. Byrne, of Canterbury, widow of the late Sergt.-Major Byrne of that city, has caused a painful sensation in Canterbury. She was well known there, and, since the death of her husband some years since, had resided in Broad-street. One of her sisters is the wife of Sergeant Wakefield, of Canterbury Garrison, and another is a maiden lady, a Miss Nelson, of Chelsea, to whom it is supposed she was proceeding when she met her death. Mrs. Byrne had occasionally assisted in the management of an extensive fruiterer's business carried on by Mr. Elding, in Guildhall-street, Canterbury, and only left there at about two o'clock on Saturday afternoon. she was apparently in excellent health and spirits at the time. She stated that it was her intention to return on Sunday night, and her non-appearance caused considerable uneasiness. The deceased's parents reside at Great Yarmouth, where her only child, a little boy, is living. The odd circumstance connected with her death excite grave suspicions who was the man who declared himself to be her "husband."

Our Canterbury correspondent telegraphs:- The deceased was in Canterbury on Saturday, leaving for London about four o'clock. That day she purchased a pair of boots at Messrs. Kennedy's, in Sun-street, and it was through these boots that identification was really obtained. She informed Mrs. Elding, a fruiterer, that she had received a letter from a relative at Tunbridge Wells, inviting her to pay her a visit, and she left Mrs. Elding's with the supposed intention of taking train for Tunbridge Wells.

IN THE POLICE COURTS TO-DAY.

Excited by the Murder.

The excitement in Spitalfields gives the police a considerable amount of trouble from wandering vagrants, and the following are "day and night" incidents of Spitalfields life:- Joseph Carter, 34, tinker, was charged at Worship-street with being drunk and disorderly at four o'clock at the police-station. - Police-constable 171 H Division, said that on the previous afternoon the prisoner addressed him at the door of the Commercial-street Police-station, and said he wanted to go in to see the man charged with the Whitechapel murder. He was not sober. He would not go away, and remained outside creating a disturbance and was eventually locked up. As he couldn't pay a fine of 5s. he was sentenced to five days' imprisonment. - William Griffiths, 22, a dissipated fellow, calling himself a laborer, and living in Great Garden-street, Mile-end, was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Hanbury-street. Mr. Bushby fined him 5s.


Page 4

POLICE ALARMS.
A New System of Mechanical Sentinels Who Neither Swear nor Sleep.

London is at the mercy of a very fair proportion of desperate characters and a force of fallible and ill-armed policemen, at whose head it is now proposed to put a gentleman of "large Indian experience!" As a set off to this absurdity, however, there is opened up to us a delightful prospect of police alarm posts. The Public Safety Signal Association, out of a sad kind of sympathy with us in our helplessness - and a very secondary idea, perhaps, of commercial profit - is considerately about to show us by a practical test at Islington, how we can protect ourselves with iron posts - "active and intelligent," with the important additional virtues of being

TRUTHFUL AND NEVER OVER ZEALOUS.

In an office in Cannon-street the other morning Mr. C. B. Godfrey, the superintendent of the Company, introduced a Star reporter to one of these model policemen. "No. 42" stood very respectfully in a corner - an iron box 23in. in length and 15 in breadth, mounted on a stout wooden post.

"Yes," said Mr. Godfrey, in answer to The Star man's query, "this system is in operation in Boston, but the six months trial which preceded its adoption there ended only a year and a half ago, so that it is a comparatively new thing. You see," he went on, "we haven't in proportion to population and area anything like as many policeman there as you have." "How lucky!" thought our reporter, with memories of Trafalgar-square and some recent police-court cases. "But then," continued Mr. Godfrey, "you get three or four of your policemen (of who he seems to have a high opinion) for the price of one of ours" - (when you have converted the dollars into English coin it comes to about £15 a month). "But this apparatus," added the man of business, playing a trump card, "as good as

ADDS 50 PER CENT. TO THE FORCE;

that's been proved at Boston. London can go on growing for 20 years as fast as it has been growing lately, and if this apparatus is adopted you won't need one more policeman or one more station-house than you have got already." Having made this bold statement with the greatest confidence, Mr. Godfrey proceeded to demonstrate. Approaching "No. 42" with a couple of keys, he said, "This (a small one) is a police key; this (a larger one) is a citizen's key. Every policeman would be provided with both. Now, suppose a policeman was having a tough struggle with a prisoner; he would not be able to put the small key in there (a diminutive keyhole at the left side of the box), but he could jab this key in there (a keyhole at the bottom of a very convenient design for the men who don't go home till morning). If he can't get it in he can

THROW IT ON THE PAVEMENT,

and the first passer by can summon aid with it." ("Much better this than being called on in the Queen's name to take part in the scrimmage," thought The Star man). With a proud flourish of the citizen's key, Mr. Godfrey put it in the key hole and slightly turned it. "You hear that click," he said, "Now that key can't be taken out till a policeman has opened the door with the other. Every citizen's key is numbered; the address of the holder is kept on record at the station, so that the man who summons aid can be traced - this is a check on false alarms. A lost key, too, could be used only once. Now for the working of it." Mr. Godfrey gave the key another turn, and then let go. There was a whizz, a bell rang at the other side of the room, and

A MACHINE STARTED CLICKING.

On the upper side of a broad paper tape a long dash, a group of four dots, and then two dots were printed. "That," explained Mr. Godfrey, "is a citizen's call to Box 42, and assistance is immediately sent to the spot. In Boston it is a waggon and two policemen - prepared for a tussle or to convey an injured man." Going back to the signal-box Mr. Godfrey opened it with the police key, remarking, "If a policeman wants the wagon, or ambulance, but the call is not so pressing, he turns that index to the right and presses down the piece of brass in this slot." Mr. Godfrey suited the action to the word; the bell rang, the machine clicked, and on the tape was printed two short dashes and the six dots as before. Then pressing a button at the table Mr. Godfrey sent back a bell signal to the imaginary policeman to let him know that his call had been noted.

The index was next turned to the word "telephone," the brass in the slot pushed, and on the tape this time was printed a dot, a dash and a dot, and the dots as before to indicate the number of the box. "When we get this call," said Mr. Godfrey, "we signal back and from the station, through the telephone,

TALK TO THE POLICEMAN ON HIS BEAT.

Besides these signals there are 'on duty' signals. The policeman, every time he comes to a post on his beat, has to open a box and push the brass piece in the slot, and on the tape here at the station it is silently recorded that he is awake and actively on duty. Three men can make distinguishing signals from one box by altering the position of the index. We fix the time, too." And Mr. Godfrey showed the astonished Star man that on the back of the tape the exact time and date of every message sent had been printed by a dial, with hands moved by clockwork. "You see," he triumphantly remarked,

"OUR BOXES ARE SERGEANTS TOO,

and they keep the men up to their work. Now suppose," he continued, "the officers at the station want to speak to a man on his beat - to give him a description of a man wanted, or of a lost child - they just move this switch so, and when the policeman sends off his 'on duty' signal, the bell at his box rings and lets him know that the station wants to speak with him. In that way a description can be circulated all over the city in a few minutes." Every contingency has been provided for - even the stupidity or thoughtlessness of the policeman. If, after making a signal with the index he fails to put it back to zero,

THE DOOR DOES IT FOR HIM.

A projection on the inside comes on a curve in the index, and, whatever its position, guides it in its proper place. Unless this were done a subsequent "citizen's message" would be very mixed, and might lead to the erroneous notion that the citizen wanted a waggon to take him home. By the way, for citizens attacked with a weakness in the knees these posts would be a great boon. Not only would they be an admirable support, but an indirect means of conveyance home - that is, supposing the citizen was the lucky possessor of a key and not too drunk to find the keyhole. He could ring up the police, and the number of his key would give his address. Our representative bade Mr. Godfrey "good morning" with a profound conviction that these posts have a great future before them.

THE JEWS AND THE MURDERS.
What a Jewish Correspondent says of Their Horror of Blood.

If the panic-stricken people who cry "Down with the Jews" because they imagine that a Jew has committed the horrible and revolting crimes which have made Whitechapel a place to be dreaded know anything at all of the Jewish horror of blood itself, they would pause before they invoked destruction on the head of a peaceful and law-abiding people. Of course, there is little danger of our having in civilised London a recurrence of scenes enacted in the East - in Greece, in Turkey, and in Asia Minor! It is only in recent years that the scandalous superstition known as the "blood accusation" has been exploded by the light of inquiry. Some years ago, in the countries mentioned, many a Jewish Community was plundered, outraged, and massacred to satisfy a bloodthirsty mob eager for revenge, because a Christian had been discovered dead in a field or on the banks of a river. It was thought by the rude population that the Jewish festival of Passover necessitated

A HUMAN SACRIFICE,

and that in order to propitiate their God the Jews seized a Christian and put him to death. Greedy Turkish officials, it was proved on inquiry, fostered this remarkable theory in order that they might share in the general plunder, and that they did so is without doubt. That they connived at and even instigated the death of Christians in order that the hue and cry might be raised, is not without the range of possibilities. The Turk, in his rapacious moments - and they are not few - is not over-conscientious as to the means he employs to gratify his passions.

The murder record of all countries has but to be examined to demonstrate here how remarkably exempt from the crime of homicide are the Jewish people. The horror of even the sight of blood may be traced throughout ages, and its origin may be found in the Bible itself. That "The blood is the life" is so perfectly and persistently before the Jews that they soak their butcher-meat in water before they will prepare it for cooking, and Jews have been seen to shrink from tasting the red juice that runs from a succulent beef-steak in process of cutting it. Since the return of Jews to England in 1649, only

TWO JEWS HAVE BEEN HANGED

for murder, Marks and Lipski, and taking into consideration the origin of many of the poor wretches who fly to this country from foreign persecution, this is a very remarkable record. That the beast who has made East London a terror is not a Jew I feel assured. There is something too horrible, too unnatural, too un-Jewish I would say, in the terrible series of murders for an Israelite to be the monster. There never was a Jew yet who could have steeped himself in such loathsome horrors as those to which publicity has been given in The Star. His nature revolts at blood-guiltiness, and the whole theory and practical working of the Whitechapel butchery are opposed to Jewish character.


Related pages:
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       Home: Timeline - Annie Chapman 
       Dissertations: Cadosch – The Other Side of the Fence 
       Dissertations: Considerable Doubt and the Death of Annie Chapman 
       Dissertations: Long -vs- Cadoche 
       Dissertations: The Pensioner, and a Brief History of Fort Elson 
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       Press Reports: East London Observer - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: East London Observer - 22 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Eastern Post - 22 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Eastern Post - 29 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 11 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 13 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 14 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Echo - 26 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 8 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening News - 10 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Evening News - 15 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 11 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 13 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 14 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 17 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 20 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening Standard - 27 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Lloyds Weekly News - 30 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Macclesfield Courier and Herald - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Macclesfield Courier and Herald - 22 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Manchester Guardian - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Manitoba Daily Free Press - 9 January 1892 
       Press Reports: Marion Daily Star - 22 May 1889 
       Press Reports: Montreal Daily Star - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 11 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 13 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 14 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 18 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 20 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 27 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 28 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Munster News - 12 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: New York Times - 9 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 10 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 27 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 8 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Penny Illustrated Paper - 15 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: People - 23 September 1888 
       Press Reports: People - 30 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: St. James Gazette - 12 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: St. James Gazette - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: St. James Gazette - 20 September 1888 
       Press Reports: St. James Gazette - 27 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 13 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 14 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 15 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 26 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 27 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 8 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Te Aroha News - 10 November 1888 
       Press Reports: Times - 10 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 11 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 12 September 1888 
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       Press Reports: Woodford Times - 14 September 1888 
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       Ripper Media: Annie Chapman, Jack the Ripper Victim: A Short Biography 
       Ripper Media: Dark Annie (Piston Baroque) 
       Victims: Annie Chapman 
       Victims: Testimonies of Elizabeth Long and Albert Cadoche 
       Victorian London: Hanbury Street 
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       Dissertations: Responses to the Ripper Murders: Letters to Old Jewry 
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       Press Reports: Jewish Chronicle 
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       Press Reports: Star - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 17 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 18 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 31 October 1888 
       Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction 
  John Pizer
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       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 12 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 24 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening News - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Freemans Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser - 12 Sep... 
       Press Reports: Galveston Daily News - 26 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Irish Times - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 12 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 12 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Times - 8 July 1887 
       Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide - John Pizer 
  Joseph Carter
       Press Reports: Eastern Argus - 15 September 1888 
  Rewards
       Official Documents: Parliamentary Debates - July 18 1889 
       Official Documents: Parliamentary Debates - November 12 1888 
       Press Reports: Alderley and Wilmslow Advertiser - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Austin Statesman - 10 October 1888 
       Press Reports: British Daily Whig - 1 October 1888 
       Press Reports: City Press - 28 November 1888 
       Press Reports: City Press - 3 October 1888 
       Press Reports: City Press - 6 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Colonist - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily News - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 1 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 3 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Daily Telegraph - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Decatur Daily Herald - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: East London Advertiser - 6 October 1888 
       Press Reports: East London Observer - 24 November 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 20 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 3 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 4 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Echo - 8 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening News - 13 November 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening News - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Evening News - 20 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Freemans Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser - 2 Octo... 
       Press Reports: Freemans Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser - 6 Octo... 
       Press Reports: Illustrated Police News - 22 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Illustrated Police News - 6 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Kurier Codzienny - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Kurier Codzienny - 9 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Macclesfield Courier and Herald - 17 November 1888 
       Press Reports: Manchester Guardian - 13 November 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 13 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 15 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Advertiser - 21 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Morning Oregonian - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Munster News - 3 October 1888 
       Press Reports: New York Tribune - 02 October 1888 
       Press Reports: North Eastern Daily Gazette - 3 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 02 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Penny Illustrated Paper - 6 October 1888 
       Press Reports: People - 7 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Police Gazette - 5 October 1888 
       Press Reports: St. James Budget - 6 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 19 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 4 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 8 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 1 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 17 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 2 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Times [London] - 8 October 1888 
       Press Reports: Woodford Times - 5 October 1888 
  William Pigott
       Message Boards: William Pigott 
       Press Reports: Pall Mall Gazette - 11 September 1888 
       Press Reports: Star - 18 September 1888 
       Ripper Media: Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide - William Pigott