A Little Boy Chopped to Pieces in Bradford, England
London, Dec. 29.
The horrible discovery of a young boy's dead and mutilated body was made at Bradford this morning, and the town is wild with excitement, fearing that Jack the Ripper or apt imitators of his have made their appearance here.
The body was found in an outhouse and was that of a boy named John Gill, aged eight years. The boy when last seen alive was sliding on the ice with a number of companions. This morning he was found murdered. His legs and arms were roughly chopped off and tied to the body. The ears were cut off and there were two stab wounds in the chest. The heart and entrails were torn out and lay on the ground near the body which was wrapped in a rough covering and flung in the outhouse.
The greatest excitement prevails, many believing that Jack the Ripper has made his advent in Bradford. The police, however, hold the theory that the murder was committed by a gang of drunken lads whose minds were inflamed by reading reports of the Whitechapel tragedies and wanted to imitate the work of the Whitechapel fiend.
It is supposed that the murder was committed at some distance from the place where the body was found, and that afterwards the body was carried to the outhouse.
No arrests have yet been made, though detectives have been sent down from London.
Later news from Bradford says that a milkman has been arrested on suspicion of having committed the murder. The boy used sometimes to accompany the milkman on his rounds and the prisoner was the first to recognize the mutilated body of the lad.
It is now certain the body was placed in the outhouse where it was found between the hours of four and seven this morning.
