The Munster News and Limerick and Clare Advocate
Limerick, Ireland
Wednesday, 3rd October 1888

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

Two additional murders, making six in all, with more, have been effected in London, in the darkness of the night, in densely populous districts, consummated by horrible disfigurement and wrought in both cases by sharp bladed knives. The perpetration of the six awful barbarities excites the most astounding awe, in London, as well it may, since the assassin has come to be judged a lunatic, and the inhabitants known not but that on any foggy day or clouded night the perpetrator of the crimes may not pounce upon female relatives and compel them to contribute catastrophes within their own thresholds. The police as yet are utterly impotent, and the extent of their conjectures amounts to this much, that the murderer is a mad man - no improbable supposition, but one by which no woman will be rescued from the murderous dagger. It is said that the proverbial cunning of the lunatic is transparent in the fearful incidents. It is thought that the three Autyeiras would not cure the patient, but there remains the danger of his escape, and if he slaughters fifty more he cannot be hanged. One thing that strikes the readers of the details of those fiendish brutalities most forcibly is that when the descriptions of the districts or structures where the crimes were perpetrated are read over, they are found to be filthy and squalid near noble edifices, but badly inhabited by foreign races, no more observant of Sunday worship than Mahomadens or Hindoos. They carry on a sort of small miscellaneous traffic, fight dogs, and violate Sunday in every possible form. They contribute some of the revenue paid to the revenue by the Corporation, and would have a right to improvements by which light and air and health and sanitation could be introduced to the kennels near the palatial piles that belong to London. It is through a dark and gloomy lane and dirty square that a clubhouse of foreigners is approached in the city, and one of the mangled bodies was lying regurgitating its life stream before it was perceived. If in place of guzzling and swilling the London Corporation had laid out the funds drawn from the poorest of the population, and opened up the vile courts and closes, it would not be possible that the maniac could waylay the victims in the reckless and daring manner in which the wretches had slaughtered the six. Of course there is no telling whether the lunatic, if he be one, may not consider he is doing the British metropolis a series of important services, inasmuch as he is ridding it of the instrumentality of vice in which it abounds, but this is apparent, that if the fiend had not found his opportunity in obscure and narrow passages, no terrible crime would have been enacted under the banner of Whitechapel. As it is, a most lamentable lack of sagacity is wanting on the part of the police. The body comprehends about 12,000, about as many as the force for all Ireland, and out of that host, despite its familiarity with the retreats of the weasels, sneaks and serpents of society, not an officer has been able to capture one of the venomous and poisonous set, covered in the holes hollowed and concealed by crime. Jobbery and corruption are common practices of the London Corporation. They bestow "freedoms" in gold boxes, and vote statues and such like to heroes who are shot in the back, because they are pious. They are misspending heavy sums, by which they could make sunshine gleam where gloom reigns day and night, and cruel murder is paramount. When BONAPARTE straightened the Boulevards, revolution was arrested. When mail roads were made, the Queen's write would run, and civilisation hold its own n the kingdom of Kerry. If the Tories did in the modern Babylon what the BONAPARTISTS did in Paris, and British ministers did a little of what the Board of Works did in Kerry, caitiffes and cut-throats could not work their will amid crowded throughfares, nor assassins work their dreadful wickedness upon wretched womankind.

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
SIX MORE WOMEN THREATENED WITH DEATH

No further arrests have been made in connection with the East End murders. The police have no doubt that the woman murdered in Mitre square was, as the man Kelly states, Kate Conway. Kelly will, in company with the police officers, go to find the daughters and sister of deceased.

Consternation has been caused in Woodgreen, North London, by the receipt of a postcard signed "Jack the Ripper," ad threatening to kill six of the girls employed in at a confectionary factory there.

The relations of Mr Watts, husband of the woman murdered in Berner Street, state that they were married 28 years ago, she being then a domestic servant in Watt's father's house. They only lived two years together, when, it is alleged, the woman forsook her husband, who is leading a roaming life.

A man giving his name as William Bull, describing himself as medical student, London Hospital, surrendered to the police last night, accusing himself of committing the Aldgate murder. He was drunk at the time, and when charged at the Guildhall Police Court t-day, denied having committed the crime. He s not known at the London Hospital. He is remanded in custody.

A post mortem examination of the remains found at Westminster was conducted this morning, and occupied several hours. Particulars will be submitted at the inquest on Monday next.

The inquest was resumed to-day on the body of Elizabeth Stride, murdered in Berner street. The first witness examined was Elizabeth Tanner, at whose house the deceased had lodged six years. Her evidence corroborated the facts already published. Evidence was given that on Sunday night, a long sheep knife with a blood stained handkerchief round the handle, and itself smothered in blood, was picked up in Whitechapel road.

Two more arrests were made this afternoon in connection with the East End murders. One man accused himself to a passing policeman, but it seems he is suffering from delerium tremens. Another attracted attention at a lodging house. Both are in custody.

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

The inquest of the woman murdered in Berners' street, Whitechapel, was resumed yesterday. A woman named Malcolm, wife of a tailor in Holborn district, identified the deceased as her sister, Elizabeth Watts, who had eight years ago taken to drink and evil living, and had been put away by her husband, who went to America, and she afterwards formed the acquaintance of a seaman, who was wrecked three years ago. Witness used to allow her sister two shillings a week, and last saw her Thursday. She did not come to meet her on the Saturday, as usual. Last night this witness made further important statements respecting connexions of the deceased to a representative of the Press Association, which may possibly give a clue to the mystery.

TWO MORE HORRIBLE MURDERS IN WHITECHAPEL

London was thrown into consternation on Sunday morning by the startling news that two more horrible murders had been perpetrated similar to those which have already rendered Whitechapel infamous, and both in places not far from the scene of the others. One was committed about ten minutes to one o'clock am, in a courtway leading to an International or Socialist Club frequented by foreign residents of Commercial road and its vicinity, the other in Mitre square, Aldgate, within the boundaries of the City of London, almost beside the house tenanted by a policeman and a warehouse watched by a night man. The murderer had been apparently scared away from his first victim, for he had only finished the cutting of her throat, and left her with a bag of grapes tightly clutched in one hand and some sweets in the other. The second murder was committed three quarters of an hour after. The victim, after her throat had been cut, was completely ripped open and disembowelled by the fiendish assailant. A description has been obtained of a man seen in that locality at midnight, which corresponds with that of a man seen passing down the courtway at Berners sreet, Commercial road, just before one o'clock. A concert was going on at the Socialist Club there, within a few yards of the murder, and the body was found at one o'clock by one of the members of the club quite warm. In the other and more horrible case a policeman, on his beat had passed the lonely spot fifteen minutes before he discovered the crime when passing again. Further details say that the Whitechapel and Aldgate districts are in a state of ferment and panic. All Sunday night long there had been people in the streets standing around the coffee stalls, and at other points in the thoroughfares talking of the latest horrors. Extra police patrolled the streets, 900 additional constables having become available by reason of one of the crimes being in the precincts of the City. It is believed by the police that the murderer decoys his victims with gold, which he takes from their pockets again after killing them, and that he wears gloves. The body of the woman murdered in Berner's-street has been identified as that of Elizabeth Stride, alias Lizzie Long, living at Dean-street, Soho. Two pawn tickets were found lying beside the corpse of the other woman, and the initials TC or DC in blue ink were on her left forearm. The police are searching for a man aged thirty, height five feet five inches, complexion fair, hair dark, full face, small moustache, broad shoulders. It is alleged that such a man was seen to knock down the woman Stride in Berner's street, but that they were supposed to be a man and wife quarrelling, and nobody, therefore, interfered. A number of men were arrested on suspicion during the day, but subsequently released. A meeting of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was held on Monday, at which a resolution was passed, calling on the Home Office to offer at once a substantial reward. Notice of motion was given at the London Common Council on Monday that the Corporation should offer a reward of £250, but later on in the day the Lord Mayor himself issued a notice that a rewards of £500 would be given by the Corporation for the capture and conviction of the murderer. The "Financial News" has offered a reward of £300, the "Evening Post" has started another reward fund, and altogether the rewards offered amount to about £1200. In reply to a letter from the "Financial News" enclosing a cheque for £300, a letter has been received from the Home Secretary on Monday night returning the cheque and stating that if he had been of the opinion that the offer of a reward would have been attended by any useful result he would himself at once have made such an offer. Some traces of the murderer appears to have been found. On Monday afternoon Sergeant Dudman noticed what seemed to be blood stains on the door of the house 36 Mitre street, not far from the spot of the murder, and also underneath the window, as if a person had wiped his fingers on the window ledge, and drawn a blood stained knife down part of the doorway. Mr Hunting, who lives on the premises, stated that he had only just noticed the stains a short time before. Almost immediately afterwards the same police sergeant noticed similar marks on the plate glass window of Mr William Smith, at the corner of Mitre Square, but Mr Smith sconted the idea that this could have anything to do with the murder, as the windows of his house were covered by shutters at nine o'clock at night. A portion of a woman's apron was picked up at Golden street, which corresponded with the piece left on the body of the victim, and this seemed to show that the murderer had escaped in the direction of Whitechapel.