The murder at Havant remains a mystery, and it is as horrible a mystery, in its way, as the Whitechapel crimes. The further details, as they appear ion our columns today, are heartrending. The murdered child, Percy Knight Searle, was but eight years old. He was sent on an errand by his mother at about six on Monday evening, and he was butchered on his way home. The crime was committed in a lane bordered by a garden wall, but the lane was a well lit thoroughfare. Another boy entering the lane saw the first one struggling with a tall man who, as it afterwards proved, was hacking at the child's throat. The lad gave the alarm, and the murderer ran away, dropping his knife, but leaving no other trace. It is impossible to assign any motive for the deed. The child was too young to have incurred the deadly enmity of any human being, and in all probability the murderer was a total stranger to him. Nothing at present known tends to identify this miscreant with the author of the Whitechapel crimes; so now, in all probability, we have two monsters at large instead of one. The Police at Havant have as yet done nothing to the purpose. They have arrested a man, only to release him, in what now seems the approved way. The helplessness of the Force, both in town and country, is a positive temptation to crime, and it ought immediately to engage the attention of Parliament.
