Sir Charles Warren is one of the most ill-starred officials ever employed by any Government. He appears wholly incapable of doing anything but blunder from morning to night. He is now charged with having been the person who directed the writing on the wall over where the fragment of the apron was found in Colston street to be obliterated. The explanation offered by the police is that they feared an anti-Jewish outbreak in the East End. But it would have been quite easy for them to have had the writing covered, at least until it was photographed. Instead of that Sir Charles Warren instantly got all traces of it removed. This deserves to take rank as one of those blunders which is worse than a crime, for it amounts to this - that the chief of the London police destroys what seems to have been the most important clue yet obtained as to the identity of the murderer. The matter is one which cannot be allowed to drop, and all the papers without exception are down on Sir Chas Warren now. The Pall Mall continues its investigation into the working of the polie system, and appalling as was its list of undetected robberies in the Gray's Inn road, it discloses a far more serious state of things in Hackney. These special articles in the Pall Mall constitute an overwhelming indictment against the police system of London, and, whether wholly responsible for that system or not, it seems highly probable that Sir C. Warren is doomed to suffer for it.
The Press Association states that the police have grave reason to suspect as the Whitechapel murderer a man, now a patient in an East End infirmary, admitted since the commission of the last murder. He is under surveillance.
This morning a constable was called to the Duke of York publichouse, Clerkenwell road, by the barman, who said a pensioner from the Hussars named Conway had entered the bar, and asked the barman to sign some document to the effect that he had lost his pension papers. The barman having noticed from the newspaper reports of the inquest on the victim of the Mitre square murder that the police were looking for a pensioner of that name, who was believed to be the husband of the murdered woman, thought this might be the man. A constable took the man to King's Cross-road Police Station, and after being questioned he was removed to Bishopsgate-street Police Station, where he will be confronted with the relatives of the murdered woman. He is not, strictly speaking, under arrest, but it is thought that if he is the woman's former husband or paramour he may be able to throw light on her recent movements. During the forenoon the police found that the murdered woman's husband was a much older man than the individual detained, and, without sending for Catherine Eddowes's sister, they let the man go.
The Central News learns that the police authorities attach great importance to the spelling of the word Jews in the writing on the wall in Goulston street. The mode of spelling the word in the dialect common among East End foreigners would be "Juwes," the evidence there fore seeming to point to the commission of the crime by foreigners. A man named Andrews is in custody in Whitechapel pending inquiries as to his recent whereabouts. The arrest is not believed to be important.
At the Police Court to-day, John Foster, who was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the Whitechapel murders, was brought up.
Constable Carland deposed that he went to Memel street, and there found the prisoner, who gave the name of Wm John Foster, and said he had no place of residence. He arrived in Belfast on Sunday evening having previously been for two days at Greenock, and for four days previous to that at Glasgow, and still earlier at Edinburgh. A clasp knife was found on him, and in a bag were three razors, two knives, and a number of watchmakers' appliances. He aid he was a watchmaker. He had £19 in money, a watch with the monogram "A M R," a locket and a piece of a necklet. He wore boots similar to those worn by soldiers.
The magistrate remanded him for a week for inquiries.
