"LEATHER APRON."
THE ONLY NAME LINKED WITH THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS.
A NOISELESS MIDNIGHT TERROR.
The Strange Character who Prowls About Whitechapel After Midnight - Universal Fear Among the Women - Slippered Feet and a Sharp Leather-knife.
The mystery attending the horrible murders in Whitechapel shows no sign of lessening. The detectives at work on the case, who were quick to confess themselves baffled, only continue to make the same confession, and there is every prospect that the last ghastly tragedy will go unpunished like its predecessors. Whitechapel is loud in its indignation over the inefficiency of the detectives, and is asking several questions to which there does not seem to be any satisfactory answer. Among other things the people wish to know why the police do not arrest "Leather Apron."
"Leather Apron" by himself is quite an unpleasant character. If, as many of the people suspect, he is the real author of the three murders which, in everybody's judgement, were done by the same person, he is a more ghoulish and devilish brute than can be found in all the pages of shocking fiction. He has ranged Whitechapel for a long time. He exercises over the unfortunates who ply their trade after twelve o'clock at night, a sway that is
He has kicked, injured, bruised, and terrified a hundred of them who are ready to testify to the outrages. He has made a certain threat, his favorite threat, to any number of them, and each of the three dead bodies represents that threat carried out. He carries a razor-like knife, and two weeks ago drew it on a woman called "Widow Annie" as she was crossing the square near London Hospital, threatening at the same time, with his ugly grin and his malignant eyes, to "rip her up." He is a character so much like the invention of a story writer that the accounts of him given by all the street-walkers of the Whitechapel district seem like romances. The remarkable thing is, however, that they all agree in every particular.
Ever since the last murder the name "Leather Apron" has been falling repeatedly on the ears of the reporters. On the afternoon of the day following the murder a group of women in Eagle-place, near the mortuary, were busily discussing something to the detriment of their household duties. The subject was "Leather Apron," and the report had spread that
for the murder. Ever since then women have been shaking their heads and saying that "Leather Apron" did it. The strangest thing about the whole case is that in view of public opinion in Whitechapel, the man has not been arrested on suspicion, and his whereabouts on the night of the murder inquired into.
About 50 of the unfortunates in the Whitechapel district gave a description of "Leather Apron" to a Star reporter between midnight and three o'clock this morning. The descriptions all agreed, and most of them added to it a personal experience with the man during the last two years in which they were more or less injured. From all accounts he is five feet four or five inches in height and wears a dark, close-fitting cap. He is thickset, and has an unusually thick neck. His hair is black, and closely clipped, his age being about 38 or 40. He has a small, black moustache. The distinguishing feature of his costume is a leather apron, which he always wears, and from which
His expression is sinister, and seems to be full of terror for the women who describe it. His eyes are small and glittering. His lips are usually parted in a grin which is not only not reassuring, but excessively repellant. He is a slipper maker by trade, but does not work. His business is blackmailing women late at night. A number of men in Whitechapel follow this interesting profession. He has never cut anybody so far as known, but always carries a leather knife, presumably as sharp as leather knives are wont to be. This knife a number of the women have seen. His name nobody knows, but all are united in the belief that he is a Jew or of Jewish parentage, his face being of a marked Hebrew type. But the most singular characteristic of the man, and one which tends to identify him closely with last Friday night's work, is the universal statement that in moving about
What he wears on his feet the women do not know, but they all agree that he moves noiselessly. His uncanny peculiarity to them is that they never see him or know of his presence until he is close by them. When two of the Philpott-street women directed the Star reporter to Commercial-street, opposite the Princess Alice Tavern, as the most likely place to find him, she added that it would be necessary to look into all the shadows, as if he was there he would surely be out of sight. This locality, it may be remarked, is but a few steps from the model dwellinghouse in George's-Yard, where the murdered woman of four weeks ago was found.
The noiselessness of 'Leather Apron's' movements recalls the statement of Mrs. Colwell, of Brady-street. She said that about the time the murder was said to have been committed she heard a woman running up the street shrieking "Murder; Police." "She was running away from somebody," said Mrs. Colwell, "who, from the way she screamed, was hurting her as she ran. And it struck me as very strange that I did
whatever except hers. This took place where the bloodstains were found, and where the woman evidently received her death cuts. Taken together with the absolutely noiseless way in which she was carried up Brady-street; so noiselessly that three people wide awake and only a few feet distant heard no sound, this looks as though "Leather-Apron" was worth interviewing, to say the least.
"Leather-Apron" never by any chance attacks a man. He runs away on the slightest appearance of rescue. One woman whom he assailed some time ago boldly prosecuted him for it, and he was sent up for seven days. He has no settled place of residence, but has slept oftenest in a fourpenny lodging-house of the lowest kind in a disreputable lane leading from Brick-lane. The people at this lodging-house denied that he had been there, and appeared disposed to shield him.
was in the house at the time, and his presence doubtless had something to do with the unwillingness to give information. "Leather-Apron" was last at this house some weeks ago, though this account may be untrue. He ranges all over London, and rarely assails the same woman twice. He has lately been seen in Leather-lane, which is in the Holborn district. There is no question, considering his general character and the certainty that the murders were done by some unsettled character of this kind but that he should be taken into custody and investigated.
There is one point in connection with the murder which has not yet been brought out. This is the certainty that the abdominal mutilation was done not only after death, but after the woman was laid down at the gateway in Buck's-row. She was so horribly cut that anybody who viewed the body will admit that she could not have stood erect with her clothes on, and remained as she was when found. Furthermore,
clear and undeniable, which were visible on the Buck's-row pavement, 25 and 35 feet above the place where the body lay, were made by fresh thick blood, and were probably caused by something in the hands of the murderer as he walked away. Added to this is the slight abdominal hemorrhage, such as would be the case if the cutting were done after death.
Penal Servitude for a Pair of Boots.
Ellen Jenkins, who was found guilty at the Middlesex Sessions of stealing a pair of boots, was proved to have spent the greater part of her life in prison. There were on record 10 or 11 previous convictions against her, and she has served terms of seven and ten years' penal servitude. She was now sentenced to five years. On hearing the sentence, the prisoner became very violent and shouted, "Oh, my poor child, my child, what will become of her."
Opium v. Alcohol.
The Colonial Surgeon of Hongkong, in the course of his report for the past year, refers to the subject of opium smoking, and says the experience obtained in the Hongkong gaol is that the habit of opium smoking is far less deleterious than spirit drinking. Old confirmed opium smokers were found to have preserved a good appetite and healthy digestion, and it was further found that the suffering attendant on the deprivation of opium, which is not allowed to any one in the prison, was not more than in the case of a tobacco smoker deprived of his pipe. There were no evidences of suffering from the deprivation, though opium in any form is carefully excluded, and though they are subject to exactly the same diet as all other prisoners they remain of the average weight. "Opium smoking, held forth as the Chinaman's greatest vice, is certainly not to be compared in its evil effects with the European vice of spirit drinking, a habit to which the Chinese, as a nation, are not given."
