London Again excited Over Terrible and Mysterious Crimes
A SUSPECT UNDER ARREST
London, Oct. 2.
Two more women have been murdered in Whitechapel. The crimes were committed within a few minutes of each other and were evidently the work of the same man whose crimes have already paralyzed London with fear.
A man was arrested at midnight on suspicion of having committed the terrible murders in Whitechapel.
He is a tall man, with a dark beard. He wore an American slouch hat, by which he was traced from the locality of the last murder, where it is reported he was seen on Saturday night, to Albert Chambers on Union street, in the Borough, South London, where he was found. The Borough is across the river and far away from the Whitechapel quarter.
When arrested he was unable to give any account of himself during the previous night. He assumed a defiant attitude.
The police are investigating his antecedents and movements, of which, it is said, he refuses to give any information.
Very few additional facts have been obtained. Both murders were discovered about the same time, between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning, and both victims, as in the other three cases, were women of the lowest and most debauched character. The first victim, discovered in a stable yard in Berners street, adjoining a club room frequented by Russian Socialists, has been fully identified as that of Elizabeth Stride, or "Hippy Lip Annie", as she was more commonly known, a notorious dissolute woman of that neighborhood who had been seen in the street only a short previous.
Identification was rendered easy in her case, because the fiend who had killed her had not resorted to his usual mutilating process, having probably been frightened off by some passer by. This fact led the police at first to believe that the deeds had not been committed by the mysterious criminal but they have now changed their minds about it. The throat of the victim had been cut from ear to ear with one clean stroke, and instead of disembowelling her the murderer had finished his bloody work by giving her several powerful blows upon the head with a blunt instrument, which left its marks in deep, jagged gashes.
Coroner Baxter, who in the investigation of one of the other murders told the jury that he thought the criminal was an American, has charge of this case, but he is not so free in expressing his opinion as formerly. In fact, he is as much mystified as any of the other authorities.
It was the second murder, however, which was discovered in Mitre square, only five minutes walk from Berners street, that has filled the people of London with more horror than all the other crimes of the unknown wretch combined. Such ghastly and sickening mutilation was never seen before, and the policeman who first discovered the body fainted at the horrible sight.
The victim was lying upon her back, with her throat cut from ear to ear, the stroke, in fact, nearly severing the head from the body; the nose and the left ear shaved completely off, and the face crisscrossed with gashes from the sharp instrument in a most horrible manner, and completely defying identification.
In addition to this the clothing had been pulled up to the breast and the same razor-like knife had ripped open the abdomen with two long slashes. The intestines had been torn out and some of them twisted about the neck of the victim. There was blood in every direction.
There was nothing to show in what direction the murderer had retreated or what manner of being it could be.
No steps have been taken to identify the body, except a general description which the police have issued.
There is hope that a tattoo mark of a figure "4" on her left forearm may lead to her identification.
Several vigilance committees have been organized in the Whitechapel district, and the people have resolved that if the police will not protect them they will supply the deficiency themselves.
That the end has not yet come is the universal belief. It will be recalled that when the body of the fourth victim was found in Hamburg (sic) street the fiend wrote in blood on the wall: "Fifteen before I surrender." Six lives having been taken, nine more will probably be sacrificed before this monster's appetite for blood is appeased - provided the police are not successful in running him down.
The lord mayor of London has offered £500 reward for the arrest of the Whitechapel murderer. Dr. Forbes Winslow and Sir Risdon Bennett and other medical experts express themselves as more than ever convinced that the perpetrator of the crimes was a homicidal lunatic.
