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The Toronto Daily News (Canada)
4 October 1888

WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

LONDON Oct. 3--
There is now in the London Hospital, with a serious cut on her arm, a woman who has solemnly declared she received the injury while protecting her throat form an attempt made to cut it by a man who, having engaged her in conversation and struck an immoral bargain with her, tripped her up, then threw her heavily on the pavement, and attacked her, knife in hand, with murderous intent.

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Times (London)
Monday, 10 September 1888

Soon after the murder was discovered, a woman of the same class reported to the police that a man had accosted her in the streets of Spitalfields at an early hour that morning, but that she tried to avoid him. Thereupon he began to knock her about; she screamed, and he ran off. He gave her two brass medals for half sovereigns. She was asked to describe the man, but her description of him was not considered clear. Still the police determined to follow up the matter, more particularly because the woman states that the man seemed ready to kill her. The woman's description did not answer the description of a man for whom they have been searching in connexion with the murder of Mary Ann Nichols - a man known as "Leather Apron" - and they incline to the opinion that, after the hue and cry raised about him during the past few days, he would not have ventured into the neighbourhood of Spitalfields, where he is so well known. It seems certain that the deceased was robbed of three rings she wore on the left hand, which the murderer mistook for gold, though it is said that to a woman in the lodging-house she admitted they were only brass.

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A young woman named Lyons stated that at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon she met a strange man in Flower and Dean-street. He asked her to come to the Queen's Head publichouse at half-past 6 and drink with him. Having obtained from her a promise that she would do so he disappeared, and was at the house named at the appointed time. While they were conversing Lyons noticed a large knife in the man's right-hand trousers pocket, and called another woman's attention to the fact. A moment later Lyons was startled by a remark which the stranger addressed to her. "You are about the same style of woman as the one that's murdered," he said. "What do you know about her?" asked the woman, to which the man replied, "You are beginning to smell a rat. Foxes hunt geese, but they don't always find 'em." Having uttered these words the man hurriedly left. Lyons followed until near Spitalfields Church, when, turning round at this spot and noticing that the woman was behind him, the stranger ran at a swifter pace into Church-street and was at once lost to view. One noteworthy fact in this story is that the description of the man's appearance is in all material points identical with the published descriptions of the unknown, and up to the present untracked, " Leather Apron." Over 200 common lodging-houses have been visited by the police in the hope of finding some trace of the mysterious and much talked-of person, but he has succeeded in evading arrest.

On Saturday evening a somewhat suspicious incident occurred at Deptford. About 7 o'clock a man in a hurried manner entered the shop of a newsagent in Grove-street, near the entrance to the Foreign Cattle Market, and in an excited tone asked for a copy of the special Star containing an account of the Whitechapel murder. The newsagent replied that he had not one left. The man then asked for a special Evening News, and received the same reply. "Then," said the man, "let me have a special anything." The newsagent was at the time reading the special Standard, and told him he could have that if he liked. The man snatched the open paper from his hand, threw a penny down upon the counter, rushed out of the shop, and, by the light of the gas in the shop window, appeared to eagerly and excitedly read the account of the tragedy. Indeed, his manner and appearance were so remarkable, that the newsagent suspected that he might be in some way connected with the murder, and leaving the shop, told a boy who was passing to hurry away for a policeman and bring one back to the shop immediately. The boy started off, and the newsagent returned to his shop, and on doing so was observed by the man, who appeared to become alarmed at the circumstance, for he crushed up the newspaper in his hand, started across the road, ran down Emily-place, and disappeared. The newsagent is of opinion that he probably ran that way towards a car on the Deptford and Southwark Tramway which runs to Tooley-street, and would take him out of the neighbourhood in a few minutes. The man wore an old felt hat pulled well forward over his eyes, and his coat collar being up, the impression of the newsagent is that he was endeavouring to conceal his features. He was of stout build, full-chested, rather ruddy complexion, slight moustache, a beard scrubby or of several days' growth, and looked, to use the newsagent's words, "as if a little soap would have done him good." He was wearing an old brown overcoat, well worn and greasy at the pockets. He stood about two minutes outside the shop reading the paper, and was watched by the newsagent through the window. A constable afterwards came to the shop and took down in writing the statement of the newsagent.

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Times (London)
Wednesday, 12 September 1888

Mrs. Fiddyman, the landlady of the house into which it was stated a blood-stained and wild-looking man entered shortly after the hour at which the murder was probably committed on Saturday morning, has been taken to Leman-street Station, and on seeing Pizer she expressed herself as quite certain that he was not the man who came into her house on the occasion spoken of.

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Times (London)
Friday, 14 September 1888

The man arrested at Holloway has for some reason been removed to the asylum at Bow. His own friends give him an indifferent character. He has been missing from home for nearly two months, and it is known that he has been in the habit of carrying several large butcher's knives about his person. Inquiries are now being made with a view to tracing his movements during the past two months.

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A man named Albert Barkert [Bachert] has made the following statement: - ''I was in the Three Nuns Hotel, Aldgate, on Saturday night, when a man got into conversation with me. He asked me questions which now appear to me to have some bearing upon the recent murders. He wanted to know whether I knew what sort of loose women used the public bar at that house, when they usually left the street outside, and where they were in the habit of going. He asked further questions, and from his manner seemed to be up to no good purpose. He appeared to be a shabby genteel sort of man, and was dressed in black clothes. He wore a black felt hat and carried a black bag. We came out together at closing time (12 o'clock), and I left him outside Aldgate Railway Station.

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