Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
22 November 1888
A WHITE CHAPEL SCARE.
All London Gets Excited Over a Fallen Woman's Outcry.
NOT JACK, THE RIPPER, THIS TIME
The Police, After Much Ado Over the Case, Decide that the Harlot Gashed Herself With a Knife - Cable News.
LONDON, Nov. 21.-Great excitement was occasioned this morning when it was reported that another woman had been murdered and mutilated in White Chapel. The police immediately formed a cordon around the premises, and an enormous crowd soon gathered. It was stated that another murder had been attempted upon a low woman by a man who had accompanied her to her lodgings, but that in this instance his work had been frustrated. According to the woman's story the man had seized her and struck her once in the throat with a knife.
She had struggled desperately and had succeeded in freeing herself from the man's grasp and had screamed for help. Her cries had alarmed the man and he had fled without attempting any further violence. Some of the neighbors said they heard the woman's screams and followed the murderer for about 300 yards, when he disappeared from their sight. The woman said she was fully able to identify the man and gave a description of him to the police. The police felt hopeful of soon capturing him.
After investigation of the facts the police are of opinion that it was not the work of the man who committed the atrocious murders in that vicinity recently. The excitement among the people was great.
Further investigation showed that the White Chapel woman was a prostitute of the lowest order. She suffered only a slight abrasion of the skin on her throat, and the police finally concluded that she inflicted the injury herself while she was drunk.
The principal reason given by the police for their belief that this morning's attempted murder in the East End was not the work of the real White Chapel fiend is the fact that both the would-be murderer and his intended victim drank themselves into a state of gross inebriety, a condition that the perpetrator of the previous crimes was obviously free from, and then went to an ordinary lodging house, at the door of which a Government inspector is always in attendance. This circumstance, together with the fact that the time of attempting to kill the woman was as ill-judged with reference to the escape of the murderer as the place, induces the belief that the whole business was simply to create a sensation.
