A curious story is published by the New York Herald (London edition). It is to the effect that a man has been found who is quite convinced that the Whitechapel murderer occupied rooms in his house. This man states that suspicion was first aroused by the lodger coming home at about 4 o'clock one morning. He had expected to find everybody in bed, and to be able to get to his room unobserved. To his surprise, his landlord had been kept up waiting for his wife who was on a visit to some friends. The lodger was excited and incoherent in his talk. He said he had been having a rough time, that he had been assaulted, and had his watch stolen, and he gave the name of a police-station where he had laid a complaint. Upon inquiries at the police-station, this story was found to be entirely devoid of foundation. He had made no complaint, and the police had no knowledge of a street disturbance. The man's shirt and underclothing were found hanging over chairs. They had been washed and put out to dry. He was in the habit of talking about the women of the street, and wrote "long rigmaroles" about them. His writing in minute particulars resembled that of the letters sent to the police purporting to come from "Jack the Ripper." He had a wardrobe which included eight suits of clothes, eight pairs of boots, and eight hats. The man can speak several languages, and when he went out he always carried a black bag. He was apparently well off, and never wore the same hat on two successive occasions. When he left his lodgings a quantity of bows, feathers, and flowers, and other articles which had belonged to the lower class of women were found in his room. He also left behind him three pairs of boots and three pairs of galoshes. The boots are ordinary leather lace-up boots with thin soles. The galoshes have india-rubber bottoms and American cloth uppers, and are bespattered with blood. The individual who supplies the above story has (according to the New York Herald) reason to believe that another murder will be committed shortly. Some writing to this effect, and said to be written by the suspected man, was found on a wall the other day. A sketch upon paper, of a significant character, has also been picked up near to the spot where the last victim's body was found.
Several Russian organs, commenting upon the Whitechapel murders, express their amazement at the extraordinary immunity enjoyed by the perpetrator of the crimes. Some very scathing strictures, says the Daily News correspondent at St. Petersburg, are passed on the London police. In Russia, where the police system is necessarily elaborately organised, any such defects or shortcomings would be promptly visited on the Minister of Justice and the administrative chiefs. Perhaps the English police authorities might usefully emulate the Russian system so far as to employ as detectives a few men of the highest education, who would necessarily discover much which escapes the notice of men promoted from the ranks. Such men, unknown to the public, and working in the darkest bye-paths of society, are available in all communities if they are sought for and adequately paid.
A disciple of the mysterious murderer who calls himself "Jack the Ripper" has just been condemned to penal servitude for life at the Aveyron Assizes. He is a person named Oulie, formerly employed as a skilled workman in the shops of the Steel Company of France. Oulie had made the acquaintance of a woman in the town, whom he seized one night in her room and literally butchered, mutilating her body. Oulie fled, but the neighbours had been aroused by the woman's piercing shrieks, and five gendarmes started in pursuit of the fugitive. Oulie jumped into a pond with the intention of drowning himself, but the instinct of self-preservation obtained the upper hand, and emerging from his cold bath he gave himself up to the gendarmes. At the assizes the murderer defended himself with remarkable coolness and skill, arguing that the woman had ruined him for life, and that therefore he had a right to revenge.
