Decatur Daily Herald
Decatur, Illinois, U.S.A.
13 October 1888

London, Oct. 8.
The anger felt at the neglect of the Government to offer a reward for the capture of the Whitechapel fiend is growing to an alarming extent among the residents of the East End. Sir Charles Warren's name is mentioned with scorn and imprecation, and the Queen herself comes in for a share of the liberal abuse. The methods now employed by the police in their vain efforts to capture the murderer are ridiculed and denounced as trifling and useless. Their clumsy efforts and wholesale arrests are exciting the East Enders to wrath, and instead of having a single criminal to find and deal with, it is feared that a very carnival of crime will be begun unless something is done to appease the desperate characters of this neighborhood. A change is noticeable already for the worse, and crimes, such as wife beating, assaults and affrays with knives, have increased within the last two weeks in the worst districts of the East End. But what the police most fear is an open riot, which will exceed in proportions the Trafalgar Square riots of last year. Whitechapel and the adjoining districts are the resorts of a large portion of London's floating population. They come and go irregularly. Criminals of all kinds have their hiding places here, and when their business in the country of housebreaking and similar pursuits is dull thither they flock. They are ready for almost any desperate action, and can easily be incited to crimes or lawlessness. Unless the petition to the Queen to offer a reward for the murderer's arrest, which the people of the East End have circulated, is successful, and Her Majesty or the government offer a suitable reward and show more interest in the matter, a riot, and a bloody one, may be looked for.