The City Press (London)
Saturday, 13 October 1888.
ON Thursday, at the City Coroner's Court, Mr. F. S. Langham resumed the inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of Catherine Eddowes, aged 43, who was found murdered and mutilated in Mitre-square, Aldgate, on Sunday morning, the 30th ult. Mr. H. H. Crawford, the City Solicitor, represented the Corporation. Superintendent Foster and Detective-sergeant Outram watched the case on behalf of the police. Dr. Sedgwick Saunders said he had examined the contents of the stomach with the view of seeing whether it contained any poison of a narcotic kind. The results were negative, there being not the slightest trace of any kind of poison. Evidence was given by Mrs. Annie Phillips (daughter of deceased), Dr. Sequeira, Detective-sergeant Mitchell, Dr. Gordon Brown, Police-constable Robinson, Police-constable Harvey, Police-constable Long, Police-sergeant Byfield, George Hutt (gaoler at Bishopsgate Police Station), George J. Morris (watchman at Messrs. Kearley and Tange's [sic], Mitre-square), George Clapp, (caretaker at 5, Mitre-street, Aldgate), Joseph Lawende (a commercial traveller, who was at the Imperial Club on the night of the 29th), Mr. J. H. Levy (also at the club on the night in question), and Detective Halse. The jury then, without hesitation, returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown. Edwin Shelton, the coroner's officer and ward beadle, rendered considerable assistance in connexion with the inquiry. Sir A. Kirby, colonel of the Tower Hamlets Engineers, has made an offer to provide forty or fifty men for service in connexion with tracking the perpetrator of the Whitechapel and Aldgate tragedies. The Home Secretary has written to Sir Alfred, saying that, having consulted Sir Charles Warren, he had come to the conclusion that it would not be advisable to put the men on for service. Mr. Edwin Brough writes: "My hounds have not been purchased by Sir Charles Warren for the use of the police as has been stated." Up to an early hour this morning no arrest has been made in connexion with the murder.
THE Jewish Chronicle says: "We are authorized by Dr. Gordon Brown to state, with reference to a suggestion that the City and Whitechapel murders were the work of a Jewish slaughterer, that he had examined the knives used by the Jewish slaughterers, and he is thoroughly satisfied that none of them could have been used."
AT St. John the Evangelist, Commercial-road - which is within the parish in which the Berner-street murder took place - special intercessory services were held on Wednesday. The church was open all day, those who took advantage of the opportunity that was offered for meditation and prayer being very numerous. At one of the services a letter from the Bishop of Bedford, sympathizing with the parish in its present time of trouble was read.
DR. BARNARDO has been interviewed, and he thinks that the licensed lodging-house should not be allowed to admit young children. "It is desirable that the existing law relating to the custody and companionship of children should be more rigidly enforced. At the same time, some provision is urgently required for the shelter of young children of the casual or tramp class, something between the casual wards of the workhouse and the lodging-house itself - places where only young people under sixteen would be admitted, where they would be free to enter and as free to depart, and which could be made self-supporting, or nearly so."
