When Jack the Ripper Resumed His Awful Work
London, July 17.
London is thrown into a ferment of terror this morning over the fearful crime which was committed last night, and which promises from its appearance to be the first murder of Jack the Ripper's second series. This mysterious and fiendish individual has, according to his promise to kill twenty Whitechapel women, several more murders to perform, and there is little doubt that last night's performance is some of his handiwork. The victim killed in castle alley, Whitechapel, last night was, like the rest of the Ripper's subjects, an abandoned woman. Her throat was cut through to the spine, the clothing thrown back, exposing the abdomen, and several horrible gashes had been made across the stomach. The intestines, however, were not exposed and no portion of the body is missing, as was usually the case with the other murders of this description.
Blood was still flowing from the body and the body was warm when it was found. Since the last murder in Whitechapel several extra policemen have been stationed in the district, and some of them have been placed within a hundred yards of the very spot where last night's murder was committed. More then this, an officer, who, with a watchman employed to watch a large warehouse nearby, must have been within a few yards of the murderer when he struck the victim, did not hear any noise of a suspicious nature. An old clay pipe, smeared with blood, which was found lying beside the murdered woman, is the only clew the police possess, and it quite possible that the pipe belonged to the victim herself. Several arrests have been made of suspicious persons, but the prisoners have all been discharged. As usual the police are as much in the dark as the public and are working up every possible clew. They have placed a cordon around the immediate district and are searching houses, alleys and every place which suggests itself as the hiding place of the murderer.
The newspapers unanimously declare that the work is that of Jack the Ripper and call upon Commissioner Monro, of the Metropolitan Police, to do better work in this case than was done by his predecessor, Sir Charles Warren.
It isstated that a letter was received by the police officials before last night's murder in Whitechapel signed "Jack the Ripper", in which the writer said he was "about to resume his work."
