Dr. Lawson Tait, a London surgeon, has put forward a theory in regard to the fiendish Whitechapel murders which is ingenious enough to figure in one of Poe's weird stories.
He says first, the murderer is an epileptic maniac, and does the murders while the fit is on, being unconscious of the crime afterwards. Second she is, not a man but a woman, who gathers her splashed and bloody skirt around her waist under her shawl immediately after the deed is done, and so escapes detection. Then, since women are "always at the washtub" she easily washes out the stains and is not detected. Third, the murderer is some one employed in a slaughter house, and familiar with the way in which animals are slaughtered in London. The Whitechapel victims have had their throats cut from behind, and have then been eviscerated in the exact manner in which a London butcher begins to dress a sheep. The cuts are long and slashing, unlike those made either by a surgeon or a novice. There are known to be women employed occasionally about the London butcher shops. It is here, according to Dr. Tait, that detectives should search for a true clew.
