St. James's Budget
September 15th, 1888
Page 3
The sensation of the week in London has been another brutal murder in the East-end, the
victim's body being hacked about with the same mad ferocity which has marked other
recent murders in the same neighbourhood. A profound sensation was created
throughout the metropolis; and in defence to popular suspicion the police arrested a man
known as "Leather Apron," and widely accused of complicity in the crime. He was able,
however, to prove his innocence and the real culprit, who is very possibly an escaped
lunatic, is still at large. The police, as usual, desire it to be generally understood that they
are in possession of information which may lead to the murderer's arrest at any moment.
Page 6
THE MURDER-OUTBREAK IN THE EAST-END.
THE shocking murder and mutilation which we report elsewhere makes the third of these
atrocious crimes perpetrated in East London within the last few weeks, and the fourth
within the last few months. In each case the victim was a woman; in each case she was
murdered in the early hours of the morning within a short distance of frequented
thoroughfares in the midst of a densely populated district; in each case the crime was
accompanied or followed by circumstances of such monstrous and disgusting barbarity
that it is impossible to give all the details. Such is the state of affairs: and it is plain that if
there is not to be a regular panic in the East-end, followed, as panics generally are, by
some act of blind savagery, the murderer or murderers must be captured without delay.
Two theories have been suggested to account for these assassinations. One is that
they are the work of a gang of desperadoes something like (but definitely worse than) the
"High Rip" ruffians of Liverpool. The other is that they have been committed by a
maniac, whose madness has taken the form of a thirst for blood and the mutilation of the
dead. This suggestion, fanciful as it seemed at first, has gained in plausibility until it is
very largely accepted in the district. The crimes have been almost motiveless, so far as
can be ascertained. There was scarcely enough to be gained by killing these poor women
to tempt the most hardened desperadoes as long as they were in their senses; nor is it easy
to conceive that any sane beings, however wicked, would run the risks of committing
Saturday's murder while the hue and cry raised upon that of the 31st of August was so
hot. But if we suppose that there is some savage creature to whom the lust of slaughter
has become an insatiable instinct, the horrible series of crimes will at least have an
explanation -- shocking and terrifying as it is.
If there is such a lunatic in the case, it is obvious that he must be hunted down
with the unremitting zeal and energy with which a man-eating tiger is ensnared by the
ryots (sic) of an Indian village. The police now "have the case in hand." But perhaps
some steps should be taken to supplement the leisurely activity of Scotland-yard. We are
no advocates of police work by voluntary agency, but this may be a case for exceptional
treatment. In the Western States of America, when a murderer or horse-thief has
succeeded in baffling the "sheriff" for some time, the citizens form a sort of Watch
Committee, which deliberately undertakes the work of trapping the criminal, and very
seldom fails. The roads are patrolled by day and night, the district is regularly quartered
among the volunteer sentries, and every suspected person is "shadowed" so closely by his
neighbours that escape is impossible. Something of that sort might be attempted in
Whitechapel; at least so far as regards the organization of a body of patrols which should
guard the streets by night in a much more effectual way than is possible for the sparse and
thinly scattered watchers of the Metropolitan Police Force. If this were done quietly and
without needless ostentation, it would diminish rather than add to the panic which seems
to be setting in at the East-end.
At present, there is scarcely a street in London in which it would not be tolerably
easy to get twenty minutes or so for any deed of darkness in the small hours of the
morning. We are not making this a reproach against the police. As we have said over
and over again, the force under Sir Charles Warren's control is ridiculously inadequate to
its numerous duties. How can 13,000 men watch and patrol by day and by night every
yard of hundreds of leagues of pavement, of hundreds of square miles of courts, alleys,
dark areas, and similar places? Even if the London police force were twice as strong as it
is, it could not prevent an insane wild beast getting possession of some wretched drunken
outcast, taking her into a dark corner, and then and there quietly assassinating her. This
is a point worth remembering at a time when wild deductions are drawn from this affair,
which, startling and terrifying as it is, it does not in the smallest degree warrant.
Pages 7-8
SUPPING ON HORRORS.
MR. PUNCH this week directs attention to a very serious matter which has already
received consideration in the St. James's Gazette. Our contemporary asks if it is not
"within the bounds of probability that to the highly coloured pictorial advertisements to
be seen on almost all the hoardings in London, vividly representing sensational scenes of
murder, exhibited as 'the great attractions' of certain dramas, the public may be to a
certain extent indebted for the horrible crimes in Whitechapel?" We think there can be
very little doubt, indeed, about the effect of this kind of thing upon ill-regulated minds;
and, as we hinted a few weeks ago, the time has very nearly come when some sort of
supervision should be exercised over "posters" and "pictorial advertisements." If the huge
gaudily coloured bills of which complaint is so reasonably made were merely vulgar and
tasteless, the artistic eye would be offended, it is true; but that would be the end of the
business. Nobody would be harmed; there would be little danger of persons of weak
mind being tempted to commit crimes because a picture upon a poster was out of
drawing or was somewhat less refined than a fastidious criticism approved. Unluckily the
offence of which Punch complains is much less venial than this. Every one who walks
much about the streets of London, or of any other large town, must have observed that
during the last two or three years the illustrated posters on the walls have shown an
increasing tendency to be grossly horrible and revolting. Theatrical advertisements sin
most frequently in this direction. It is a powerful recommendation to the latest
melodrama that it should contain plenty of killing; and, to the end that people may be
induced to pay their money to see the melodrama, it is necessary to make it perfectly clear
to them that the piece contains an abundance of sudden death and reeks with gore. No
more effectual means of bringing this home to the comprehension of the public has yet
been discovered than the flaring poster, gaudy with prismatic colour and plentifully
bespattered with blood, as red and realistic as the colour-printer can make it. No detail is
spared. We have the fiendish expression of the villain's countenance as he plunges a
dagger into the bosom of the hero. The crimson stains upon the white shirt-front are very
effectively managed; and when the murderer withdraws his knife, as in some of the
posters, there is sure to be a significant splash of red upon the point of it. Often, too, the
blood is seen trickling from the knife to the ground. Or a bullet may be the agency of
murder; and then we have the picturesque flash, the dramatic uplifting of arms, the
sudden ashy pallor of the victim's face some little suffused by the red glare of the
discharge. Or the wicked heroine ma push her perfidious lover off the rocks into the sea.
It is all right so long as there is murder; and the more blood there is the better. The
agonized contortions of a person who meets with a sudden and violent death, the dripping
of the gore, and all the unpleasant physical details of the shambles are reproduced with
the minutest fidelity.
It must, we are persuaded, be quite obvious that constant doses of this kind of
thing can only have one result -- the degradation of those who are weak enough to be
influenced by such representations. In all great communities there are certain to be a
number of small-brained creatures, only half-human, whose minds, muddled by bad air
and bad gin, readily take fire when they are confronted with the ghastly particulars of
murder. Such pictures as these produce upon them the same effect that the taste of blood
produces upon the tiger. Some men -- usually, no doubt, men partially destitute of
intellect -- at once fly into a murderous frenzy at the sight of blood. Of such was the
negro Bruce, who ghastly story Mr. W. B. Churchward has just told with an
over-abundance of gory minuteness in a book ("Blackbirding in the South Pacific") which
it is greatly to be hoped is wildly exaggerated. Whenever Bruce saw blood he "went
mad," and performed an amount of miscellaneous killing which would have done honour
to one of Mr. Rider Haggard's heroes. And if the sight of blood will have this effect, it is
not unreasonable to suppose that the sight of a picture of murder and gore will have much
the same influence. Indeed, it is notorious that a picture is often more seductive than
reality. For our present purpose it does not matter very much whether the picture is a
drawing or a description in words. The picture is the more glaring and momentarily the
more shocking; but the effects of the description are perhaps more lasting. But there is
this to be said of the posters: that they influence persons who never open a book and
rarely read even a newspaper.
It is the horrible fashion of the day to revel in blood. There is no need to put a
fine point upon the matter; and that statement represents the simple fact. We find blood
everywhere: at the theatre, in the three-volume novel, in books of travel, in "shilling
shockers," and (not least) in the newspapers. Certain important and influential provincial
newspapers seem to have deliberately set themselves to glorify the most sordid and brutal
crime: and week by week their columns are gorged with accounts of crimes for which
hanging is all too good. Is it, then, to be wondered at that we are just now suffering from
an epidemic of murder? Surely public decency calls for the suppression of the abominable
illustrated posters to which it is extremely likely that many a murder has been due. They
have become more numerous and more horrible of late: so have murders. No good
purpose is to be served by this bold advertisement of the details of bloodshed; while it is
certain that the horrible longings of homicidal maniacs are quickened by their
contemplation.
