THERE will be a perceptible tightening of public interest in the Whitechapel tragedies to-day. Nearly a week has passed since the final crime in the series, and still the police are at fault. Meanwhile, the epidemic of lawlessness continues. Three violent robberies have taken place within a hundred yards of each other, and midway between the scenes of the last two crimes. There has been one more mysterious crime in the West of London, to which again the police have no clue. The evidence at the inquest is bad - bad as can be. Mysterious personages flit through it like the shadowy and awful figures in POE'S and STEVENSON'S novels, or the stealthy and cunning assassins of GABORIAU and DU BOISGOBEY. The body of the woman is washed at the mortuary - nobody knows by whom. A ghostly pensioner starts into view and disappears again. Every new turn of this bewildering labyrinth reveals some fresh depth of social blackness, some strange and repulsive curiosity of human nature. What are we to do? Where are we to turn? The foreman of the jury indignantly echoes our demand for a large reward by the Government. The reply is that the Government have ceased to issue rewards. The local ignorance of the detectives, the glib carelessness of their methods, illustrate the absolute necessity for forming Vigilant Committees, which we recommended from the first, and which might have saved the neighborhood from the fresh spurt of criminal energy we record to-day. Neighborhoods go mad like individuals, and, while the West sits discussing the Whitechapel horrors over its wine, the East is seething with impatience, distrust, horror. What a situation!
Meanwhile, theories as to the crime are setting steadily in one direction. The carefully evolved solution which we advanced in these columns some days ago evidently finds favor with the doctor and the coroner. This is the slaughterman theory. The most startling facts in its favor are these: - (1) The knowledge of rough anatomy shown by the murderer, who was able to remove vital organs whole. (2) The resemblance between the method employed, and the manner of slaughtering a sheep. (3) The probability that the knife employed was larger than a leather-cutter's weapon, and not larger than a slaughterman's. (4) The extreme rapidity with which the crime was accomplished, and the rude violence of the cuts. (5) The near neighborhood of slaughter-houses to the scenes of the last two crimes. (6) The fact that no other workman but a slaughterman could walk through the streets of London in the early morning be-dabbled with blood without attracting suspicion. (7) The comparatively small effusion of blood. Now, here, at all events, is a connected theory. There may be a link wanting here and there, but it stands four-square with some rude facts of East-end life, and it does not leave us a prey to the wild nightmare of delirious fancies into which the more fantastic theorists have plunged us. We don't ask the police to accept it; we only suggest to them, in the mere panic of guessing which seems to have overtaken them, to follow up such clues as it suggests.
But, after all, what is the use of blaming men who are but the victims of a cruel piece of blundering by our Maladroit Martinet? The offenders in this business are three. There is, first, Mr. HOWARD VINCENT, who did away with the old detectives of the Inspector BUCKET type, and substituted a whole squad of novices - a good many of them, it is said, of the decayed valet class. Then there is Mr. MATTHEWS, a feeble mountebank, who would pose and simper over the brink of a volcano. And, worst of all, there is Sir CHARLES WARREN, who finding the police force out of hand, disorganised it utterly, and thinking he had a genius for stamping out dangerous social tendencies, left the social facts at his feet - let the rank crop of crime and misery grow untouched and uncared-for. Property shaking in its shoes because of one wild outburst of the dangerous classes which our wicked system fosters - statesmen pursuing an insensate policy, and fearing for lives which in all probability were never threatened - these became the objects of Sir CHARLES'S tender solicitude. Instead of giving us sturdy constables and smart detectives, Sir CHARLES has naturalised the mouchard and the Government reporter. With all his soldierly strictness, the force is far more undisciplined, far more lax in its conduct, than in Sir EDMUND HENDERSON'S days. Unfortunately we can't impeach Sir CHARLES WARREN. He stands rooted in his self-conceit and fanaticism. But we can reach Mr. MATTHEWS, and every London newspaper but the Times is for getting rid of our never-at-home Secretary. The sooner, therefore, he is attacked in Parliament the better. The indirect consequences of this are obvious. Mr. MATTHEWS, after the habits of his kind, will come to the conclusion that if it is a question either of his retirement or of Sir CHARLES WARREN'S he much prefers that the CHIEF COMMISSIONER should go. Rid of one failure, we may be rid of another; and Trafalgar-square will be avenged in the person of one, if not two, of the men who struck down the rights of free speech in London, but could not lay a finger on its criminals.
EVERYBODY who is acquainted with the inner details of newspaper enterprise, knows that for some years past, the Times has been steadily falling in income. Not only has the circulation been at a figure which would be regarded as disastrous by the newest and least successful of the other morning papers, but even the advertisements, which were supposed to be an impregnable fortress in the trade of Printing House-square, have been becoming steadily smaller. We believe we are correct in stating that at the present moment the leading journal, which could once afford to treat every advertiser in the haughtiest manner, is actually receiving advertisements at a lower rate than at least one of the penny morning papers. It is a mistake to suppose that this steady and large decline in income can be treated with comparative indifference. To Mr. Walter it may not be of immediate and urgent importance, though when a paper once begins to go down the hill, there is no fortune colossal enough to long bear the strain.
BUT besides Mr. Walter, there are many other shareholders - some of the to a small amount. To these small people a small difference in the profits of the paper means a great deal. Indeed, it may, and we have heard it does, mean all the difference between having and not having an income.
WE have been looking carefully for some weeks past at the advertising columns of the Times and, as something of newspaper experts, we have come to the conclusion that during these weeks at least the Times must have been published at a loss. The array of advertisements has been for the Times beggarly to a degree. Take to-day's issue, there is only a single outside sheet of advertisements, and there used to be two or even three. Altogether we can make out only 28 ½ columns of advertisements in the whole paper of 12 pages. Compare this with the amount of advertising in the other morning papers. These papers, it will be remembered, have only eight pages, while the Times has 12. The Standard has 25 ½ columns in its eight pages as compared with 28 ½ in the 12 pages of the Times; while the Daily Telegraph has 37 columns of advertisements in its eight pages as compared with 28 ½ in the 12 columns of the Times.
HOWEVER, the serious and perilous falling off in the advertising connection of the Times, which is thus proved, though it must bring an amount of inconvenience, and perhaps suffering to Mr. Walter's unfortunate partners, which we deeply deplore, has to us outsiders its compensations. The less of its space is demanded by advertisers, the more of its space can the Times afford to give to the correspondence from outsiders which is now its most valuable feature. Thus we are afforded an opportunity of having the fullest discussion of the Plan of Campaign on some of the estates in Ireland, and especially on the estate of Lord Massereene. On Wednesday, for instance, the Times allowed Messrs. Dudgeon and Emerson, the solicitors for Lord Massereene, to disport themselves through four columns of its space, for the purpose of giving the landlords' side of the case. Four columns to one letter - was the like of it in any newspaper after the first two cheerless and apparently hopeless months of its existence! However, so the Times has done; and to-day naturally we have a reply to this profuse epistle.
THE replies come from Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, who has taken so deep and honourable an interest in this struggle between one of the worst landlords in Ireland and his tenants; and from Mr. T. P. Gill, the representative of the district. Mr. Lefevre, and Mr. Gill, both justly point out that the four columns' letter practically admits the real, essential, central points in debate. These are the points: -
(1) That, alone of all the landlords in the county Louth, Lord Massereene in 1886 refused any abatement of rent though advised to do so by his agent, Mr. Wynne.
(2) That the abatement demanded by the tenants was 25 per cent. on non-judicial and 20 per cent. on judicial rents.
(3) That Mr. Wynne, the agent, recommended an abatement of 20 in the first and 15 in the second case - or in other words, that between the abatement recommended by the agent and asked by the tenant there was a difference of but 5 per cent.
(4) That since the tenants adopted the Plan of Campaign, the Land Courts have adjudicated on 36 cases on the property, and that their reductions have averaged 22 ½ per cent., as opposed to 25 per cent. demanded on the non-judicial rents, demanded by the tenants themselves - or in other words, just 2 ½ per cent. less.
(5) That the Plan of Campaign was not adopted till the landlord refused all abatement.
(6) That Lord Massereene's first offer of a compromise came after the crushing decision of the Land Courts;
(7) And that now, in the final hour, the offer of compromise is weighted with two impossible conditions - the payment of exorbitant costs heaped up by the solicitors in an unjust attack on the tenants for full rents, since reduced 22 ½ per cent; and, second, the desertion by the other tenants of the other tenants who have been evicted.
SUCH are the facts. They need no comment. Perhaps they may induce some of our readers to pause before they accept Tory and Unionist statements as to the universal wickedness and the hideous dishonesty of the Plan of Campaign.
THE death of Major Barttelot, a young and gallant officer, and a son of Sir Walter Barttelot, will cause very general regret, but there must be no midsummer madness about it. Stanley has disappeared, as Gordon disappeared, and his rescuing party has failed, as the Khartoum expedition failed. But the shadowy excuse in Gordon's case for sending a rescuing force after a rather harebrained hero does not apply in Stanley's. Stanley is not a British subject, and our Government were sane enough to dissociate themselves from his enterprise. Moreover, Major Barttelot cannot be avenged by a rescue expedition against a body of murdering carriers any more than the Whitechapel murders can be avenged by Sir Charles Warren's exercises in company drill. Patience and prudence must be our motto in East Africa.
This is more by
55,000
Than the highest ever reached by any other Evening Paper in London.
The circulation of THE STAR on Saturday last was
232,500.
The Workers' Friend, the Hebrew Socialist paper, of this week, announces that as a protest against the Jewish religion and the Day of Atonement, the Jewish Socialists and Freethinkers have organised a banquet for tomorrow, which will take place at the International Working Men's Club, 40, Berner-street, Commercial-road. Speeches will be delivered in various languages. The announcement has caused much excitement amongst the orthodox Jews, and it is rumored that a disturbance may take place at the banquet. If so, the members of the International Working Men's Club state that they are prepared, and the aid of the police will not be called in to assist in quelling it. This banquet is unprecedented in Jewish history.
Deputy-Coroner Wood held an inquest at Greenwich yesterday on the body of John Regan, aged 45, of Cowcross-street, West Smithfield, who was found on Blackheath after midnight on 1 Sept. with his throat cut, and grasping a knife in his right hand. He was taken to the Seamen's Hospital, where he died from bronchitis, caused by the windpipe being cut through, and the air having to pass direct to the lungs without going through the mouth or nose and thereby becoming warmed before reaching the vital organs. Regan had been in an asylum, and the jury found that he cut his throat whilst temporarily insane.
A Skibbereen correspondent telegraphs this morning: - A woman named Hayes, widow of the chief officer of Coastguards, attacked another woman named Doolan in the same lodgings with a knife, threatening to take her life. Doolan, who was far advanced in pregnancy, jumped out of the window and sustained injuries which it is feared will prove fatal. Hayes was secured after considerable difficulty. She is supposed to be a lunatic.
At Kirkcaldy Town Council, Councillor Kinlay called attention to the large pictures in theatrical advertisements posted up in various streets, some of them depicting horrible murders. (Laughter.) He thought these [-?-] exhibitions very demoralising to the youth of the town as well as shocking to nervous people. (More laughter.) The Provost pointed out, however, that they had no power to deal with them.
During August 167 officers of the Metropolitan Police were specially commended for meritorious conduct, namely 29 for courage in stopping runaway horses, six for killing mad or savage dogs at great personal risk, three for courage at fires, two for courageous apprehension of persons by whom they were assaulted, six for rendering first aid in cases of accident, and 121 for other services of a courageous character.
At an inquest held last night at Deptford, a witness, in reply to a question, said he would have been in his present employment "three years come Christmas." "I never can understand," replied Deputy-coroner Wood, "why people say 'three years come Christmas.' Why don't they say 'two years and nine months'? It is most extraordinary to me."
The Missing Girl at Pimlico.
The following description has been circulated by the police of the girl Emma Potter, whose disappearance is connected with the mutilated arm found at Pimlico : -
Girl, aged 17 years, and of weak intellect; height about 5ft.; complexion and hair fair. She was dressed in a brown cloak, black jacket with astrachan trimming, straw hat trimmed with lace and flowers, high lace boots. The whole of the clothing was much worn.
The police to-day are making inquiries as to the whereabouts of the pensioner who was said to have kept company with the murdered woman Chapman. All traces have been lost of him since Saturday last. Tim Donovan, who gave evidence at the inquest which connected this man with the deceased, says he is known by the name of Ted Stanley, but he does not know his occupation. The watchman at the lodging-house says that when the pensioner went to the lodging-house on Saturday last, and was told that Chapman had been murdered he nearly fainted. The police think that he is keeping out of the way more from shame in having been associated with the woman than from any fear that he has of being connected with the murder. It is probable also that he may be one of those who come from the country to the Spitalfields Market on Saturday, and will put in his appearance to-morrow.
Special inquiries, the Exchange Telegraph Company says, are being directed by the police to ascertain who was the writer of the envelope bearing the embossed stamp of the Sussex Regiment, a portion of which envelope was found on Chapman. It has just been ascertained that she had been in the habit of receiving similar letters.
A Star reporter has learned, however, that this piece of an envelope was casually picked up somewhere by a man who lodged at Dorset-chambers, and was given by him to Chapman to wrap some pills in. Two pills it will be remembered were found near the body.
The Central News says: - The bloodstained newspapers which were found in Bailey's-yard, close to Hanbury-street, and upon which it is conjectured the murderer wiped his hands after committing his fearful crime, have been subjected to analysis, and the stains this morning are
The police who made the search state distinctly that the paper was not there when they made the search on Saturday, and though they have been closely cross-examined on this point they adhere to their statement. It is not clear that the murderer could have thrown the newspapers on the spot where they were found from the backyard in Hanbury-street, but if he threw the paper, which was rolled up into a round mass, over the wall it might easily have been blown or kicked into the corner in which it was discovered. To-day the police precautions are even stronger than before, the murderer hitherto having selected Friday or Saturday for the commission of his crimes.
A statement was made last night to a reporter by a young person named Lloyd, living in Heath-street, Commercial-road, E., which may possibly prove of some importance. While standing outside a neighbor's door about half-past ten on Monday night she heard her daughter, who was sitting on the doorstep, scream, and on looking round saw a man walk hurriedly away. Her daughter states that the man peered into her face and she perceived a large knife at his side. A lady living opposite stated that a similar incident took place outside her house. The man was short of stature, with a sandy beard, and wore a cloth cap. The woman drew the attention of some men who were passing to the strange man, and they pursued him some distance, until he turned up a by street, and, after assuming a threatening attitude, he suddenly disappeared.
The principal officers engaged in investigating the Whitechapel murders were summoned to Scotland-yard yesterday. Later in the day Mr. Bruce, Assistant Commissioner, and Colonel Monsell, Chief Constable, paid a private visit to the Whitechapel district without notifying the local officials of their intention to do so. They visited the scene of the Buck's-row murder as well as Hanbury-street, and made many inquiries. They spent nearly a quarter of an hour at No. 29, Hanbury-street, and minutely inspected the house and the yard in which were found the mutilated body of Mrs. Chapman.
The police have satisfied themselves that the man Pigott could have had nothing to do with the murders. His movements have been fully accounted for, and he is no longer under surveillance.
The man arrested at Holloway has for some reason been removed to the asylum at Bow. His own friends give him an indifferent character. He has been missing from home for nearly two months, and it is known that he has been in the habit of carrying several large butcher's knives about his person. Inquiries are now being made with a view to tracing his movements during the past two months.
The people of Whitechapel - the respectable people of Whitechapel that is - want more policemen. And not without reason. Wherever you inquire you get some fresh story of robbery and outrage, committed often in broad daylight. A Star reporter this morning made some inquiries in the streets lying
and found that since the Buck's-row crime hardly a day has passed unmarked by some brutal assault and robbery by a gang. Several such offences have happened during the last few days, while the place has been swarming with plain-clothes policemen.
Last Saturday afternoon in the Whitechapel-road, while the murder excitement was at its height, a cripple was attacked and robbed of his watch.
On Wednesday a gentleman was robbed in Hanbury-street at eleven o'clock in the morning.
In the afternoon of the same day, in the same street, another old gentleman was hustled and robbed of part of his watch-chain, luckily not losing his watch.
In Chicksand-street, not 50 yards away, an old man of seventy was robbed and ill used in a similar manner.
In Baker's-row, within a stone's throw, a feeble old man was badly beaten with the stick he was walking with; and at night, at ten o'clock, in Baker's-row, at the corner of Hanbury-street, a young man was the victim of a brutal onslaught because he looked respectable and worth robbing.
Yesterday morning a baker named Barnett, who keeps a shop in Hanbury-street, was robbed of £19 in a till in which a key had been left only for a few seconds. He followed the thief, but couldn't catch him, and a policeman was nowhere to be seen.
Whitechapel always has been a rough and not a particularly honest neighborhood. Every respectable inhabitant seems to have been robbed at one time or the other, but the unanimous testimony is that every day
It has come to such a pass that a tobacconist in Baker's-row, who recently has been a frequent victim, has had to screw everything he possibly can to the counter.
Opinions about the police vary. Some folks say that when told of a bother they go another way. But the most common view is that there are not enough policemen to cope with the gangs that swarm from the slums. One shopkeeper in Baker's-row, who not long ago was relieved of a carpet, says a word for the too few policemen at the expense of the magistrates. The constables, he says, are discouraged by the frequent airy dismissal of the men they capture. But after all
much more at fault than the men - is the system they have to work on. They go on beats it takes them more than half an hour to cover, and their regular movements are so well known that the roughs can do their work with a fine feeling of security. And often a drunken man who needs to be carried to the station deprives the inhabitants and way-farers of all protection. Immunity of punishment for the rough is not without its effect on the law-abiding and would-be law-enforcing citizen. The inefficiency of the protection afforded by the police has given Whitechapel over to a reign of terror, and men look on at daylight misdeeds and are afraid to interfere. A police inspector who was asked for his opinion on the subject said that to prevent crime in Whitechapel it would be necessary to put a policeman in every street. This only shows more forcibly, perhaps, than anything else how inadequately Whitechapel is protected at present. What, however, makes not only Whitechapel, but all London, uneasy is the stupidity of the "heads" of the force. A characteristic display of it is seen in the experiment being made with the American signal-posts. Innocent Islington has been chosen for this experiment. Why wasn't it tried in wicked Whitechapel, where it seems to be just the thing needed?
To-night is the beginning of the Jewish Day of Atonement. From sunset to-night till sunset to-morrow night - with a margin on either side to ensure absolute and exact compliance with the letter of the law - the overwhelming mass of the children of Israel on the face of the globe will abstain from taking food or drink of any description or in the smallest quantity. Orthodox or unorthodox, rich or poor, unenlightened Rabbinist or modernised Rationalist, the very Gallios of everyday life, all alike wherever men, women, and children of the Jewish race are found - the Siberian exile, the Australian settler, the African miner, the English gentleman - will be "afflicting" their "souls" within the next 24 hours, and will be repeating the time-honored formulæ of prayer, praise, and confession in the time-honored tongue. It may be doubted whether the whole world besides can show such a colossal instance of uniformity - outside the Roman Catholic Church it certainly cannot. Such is the normal state of things, and to the great bulk of Hebrew communities the great annual event this year will present itself much the same as it does any other year, except that, falling this time very early in the solar year,
will be somewhat protracted in this hemisphere (a matter of some consideration to weak men and women). But to one colony of Jews in our very midst it will come fraught with more than ordinary significance, and with more thronging suggestions than ever. We refer to the large Jewish population at the East-end of London, and especially in the neighborhood of Whitechapel. A few days ago one of their number was arrested amid every sign of consternation among his local co-religionists on a suspicion of complicity in one of the most appalling crimes which have ever agitated the London public. In a day or two he was released without a stain upon his character, and the joy of his friends and neighbors could only find vent in the refrain from their own Psalms, "Hallelujah!" The Jews have a graceful custom according to which their males take the earliest opportunity of a Sabbath or Festival of publicly expressing before the open manuscript scroll of the Pentateuch, and by a set formulæ, their thanks to Heaven for deliverance from sickness or any other danger. One of the occasions specified in the rubric is release from prison - that is, of course, from an undeserved doom. The congregation make a brief appropriate response. It is surely not far fetched to imagine that the poor Jew just
will to-morrow in the most solemn circumstances ever open to him avail himself of the privilege just referred to, or that the assembled worshipers will chime in with more than usual fervor, and well may they do so, for the Jews of Whitechapel were less than a week ago sitting over the mouth of a social volcano, which for a short space threatened to blaze forth against them with every symptom of intolerance and race-hatred. They were within an appreciable distance of a Judeuhetze. For a long time the Jews in the congested districts of the East-end, that is, practically, Whitechapel, have not been popular with a section of the Gentile population. In the first place, the prejudices of centuries are not easily effaced from the minds of the very poor and the very ignorant; then there are the more specific causes, viz., the recent large immigration of poor foreign Jews, and the revelations made to the "Sweating" Committee, which, reasonably or unreasonably, have inflamed the popular mind.
Whatever effect has been produced upon the minds of the Gentle populace of East London by these considerations, a suspicion that their Jewish neighbors had
assuredly had nothing to do with it. Crimes of violence are practically unknown amongst them - the failings of their temperament do not lean towards savagery - and certainly within the last 100 years, and probably a much longer period, not more than two Jews have been hanged for murder in this country. No sane person would now dream of reviving the favorite mediæval charge against the Jews that they used the blood of Christian infants, whom they had previously slaughtered, to celebrate the Passover. Yet only a few years ago some Hungarian peasants were actually tried on an accusation of this sort; of course they were triumphantly acquitted. Now the large majority of the poor foreign Jews at the East-end are, of course, very ignorant, and their experience of their non-Jewish neighbors, from whom they have fled to this country, has not been happy, and has not disposed them to believe in the good intentions of the Christians by whom they are surrounded towards them. This distrust comes out in odd ways sometimes. It was given in evidence the other day that one of these people refused to take in a registered letter because he feared that the demand that he should sign a receipt was
It is easy to guess under what sort of a regime he had been accustomed to live. Thus this class of people is always more or less predisposed to believe that their neighbors meditate an attack upon them, and for a moment this week it really looked as if they had cause for terror. They are accustomed to hear something in the synagogue services at this period of the year about the great and historic persecutions of their race in past time. Their recital this year will not seem the less interesting for their recent experiences, and the constant suggestion of the Prayer Book that with the advent of the new year (which is only nine days old) they should reflect seriously upon the course of their lives since that festival was last observed is not likely to be lost upon men who have been the subject of so much adverse criticism during that period as they have been. With all their faults, it is impossible not to feel a large amount of sympathy for them, and at this moment we may appropriately express it in terms of the greeting so common in every Jewish home and place of worship just now - "A good year," with its natural sequel, "A good fast."
Some electrical experiments were tried on the head of a man after he had been guillotined a few days ago. The operator was M. Poulet, a doctor of the 3rd Infantry, and the head was that of El-Hadel-ben-Amar, executed a week ago at Constantine, Algeria. The Doctor commenced operations five minutes after the decapitation. He began first by placing two magnetic poles on the neck, the face, near the eyes, and above and below the lips. The effect produced was horrible. The face lying in a pool of blood made weird grimaces, the eyebrows knit, the nose bent, the eyelids lowered, and then the mouth gave a ghastly grin. The muscles, as they contracted, produced on the face an appearance of intense suffering, grief, or uncontrollable laughter, although this last had always with it a look of suffering and supplication. Just when the head was being put in the coffin along with the body the face was still moving, and the eyes had the look of clearness. From the above experiments, says La Reforme, it seems that the conscience survives the execution for some time after.
Our Detective System.
SIR, - You certainly hit the right nail on the head in your Saturday's issue on our detective force. The inefficiency of our detectives is quite clear. Hundreds of our police never see London till they come up to join the force. Hence the ignorance amongst them of London and its people. Again, why should men be compelled to perform duty in uniform for several years before being permitted to do plain-clothes duty? The idea is ridiculous. What we want in London is men whose knowledge of London is most extensive. Why not leave the detective force open to men who are willing to go on trial. Men who are known to possess sound knowledge of London and the criminal classes. But under the present system men are kept out not because for want of skill, or knowledge; but because they are below the standard, 5ft. 9in. To-day the public are made to pay for height and not for brains. Surely it is time men who are ready and efficient for the work had a chance of proving the same. - Yours, &c.,
