The Police Badly Confused and Working Blindly - Many Useless Arrests Made - Unpleasant Complications
London, Oct. 8.
Saturday's Telegraph published two sketch portraits from descriptions of the man last seen in company of the woman named Stride, one of the victims of the Whitechapel murder fiend. The result has been the unceremonious arrest of every man bearing any resemblance to the pictures, and a great deal of discomfort has been caused by this new phase of police activity. Many of the arrests are made by self constituted detectives or ambitious vigilance committeemen. The victims are generally discharged from custody as soon as brought before a magistrate, but some are unlucky enough not to be able to satisfy the officials of their rectitude, and are subjected to more or less annoying detention. One of the men arrested carried a bag in which was found a razor. The suspect is still held, and will have to give a very good account of himself and razor.
Another perplexity attending the Whitechapel muddle is due to the fact that the regular police do not know by sight the various amateur detectives, and the latter are occasionally held up and put to the embarrassment of explaining their presence and mysterious movements in the much watched district. Experts ridicule Sir Charles Warren's determination to use bloodhounds in searching for the murderer. Scent training is now a neglected art, and only show points are cultivated in the bloodhound making him the most stupid of canine varieties and useless in man hunting.
At the noted dog show in Warwick two years ago, though the crack dogs of the kingdom were represented, only one bloodhound displayed even fourth rate gifts. The dog that tracked Fish, the Blackburn murderer, was not, as has been sated, a bloodhound of pure breed, but a mongrel. But even if a genuine tracker were secured, the dog would be useless in the East End, where a trail could not remain many minutes unfoiled (sic).
