Daily Northwestern
Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
3 October 1888
HE WOULD CATCH HIM
How Inspector Byrnes Would Work in London
New York, Oct. 3.
Inspector Byrnes talks at length on the Whitechapel murders in London. He says: "With the very large force of police under his charge Sir Charles Warren, commissioner of police of London, who under the English form of government has powers autocratic, should have been able to cover the ground so thoroughly after the second crime that the third would have been impossible, or, at least, that the capture of the perpetrator would have been inevitable. It isn't as if the murders were committed in widely separated districts, which would have made the case more difficult. The fellow even gave warning in a letter to a newspaper that he intended to kill twenty five women. One of the recent murders was committed right at the entrance to a hall where socialists held their meetings. Why did not the London police commissioner with his great powers determine the class of society to which the murderer belongs, and if he had ever committed previous crimes? If these things had been settled the mystery would have been solved. I will say unhesitatingly that the people who have charge of the police in London, with the great powers allowed them, ought by this time to be enabled to effect the arrest of the murderers. With the great power of the London police I should have manufactured victims for this murder. I would have taken fifty of the female habitués of Whitechapel and covered the ground with them. Even if one fell a victim I would get the murderer. My men, ununiformed, would be scattered over the whole district, so nothing that happened could escape them. The crimes are all of the same class, and I would have determined the class to which the murderer belonged. But pshaw! what's the use of talking; the murderer should have been caught long ago."
