Thomas Haynes Cutbush
Thomas Cutbush was named as the Ripper by the Sun newspaper, first on 13 February 1894 and then subsequently in later editions. Author A.P Wolf, in the book Jack The Myth, also favoured Cutbush as the Ripper. The possibility of Thomas Cutbush being Jack the Ripper was thoroughly investigated by the police at the time, and shown to be without foundation.
To disprove the newspaper claims Melville Macnaghten penned his memoranda, in which he not only disputed the likelihood of Cutbush being Jack the Ripper, but named three alternative candidates, Druitt, Ostrog and Kosminski. Macnaghten claimed Cutbush was unlikely to have been the Ripper, due to the fact that the knife used by Cutbush was different to that used by the Ripper, and was not purchased by Cutbush until February of 1891, some two years and three months after the Ripper murders. Macnaghten also claimed that the frenzied killer of 1888 was unlikely to lie dormant for two years, then re-emerge and be content with stabbing women in the bottom.
Cutbush was born in 1866 in Kennington, his father died when he was young. Thomas was said to have been a rather spoilt child, he lived with his mother and aunt at 14 Albert Street, Kennington. These ladies, it has been said, were of a nervous and rather excitable disposition. Cutbush was at one time employed as a clerk and traveller in the tea trade at the Minories, and subsequently as a canvasser for a directory. He abandoned his job, and now led an idle and useless life. He studied medical books by day and wandered the streets at night, often returning home with muddy clothes. In some reports it is claimed, blood stained clothes. Cutbush was detained as a lunatic on 5 March 1891, in Lambeth infirmary, suffering from syphilis and paranoid delusions. He wrote to Lord Grimthorpe, and others, believing that people were trying to poison him with bad medicines. He soon escaped, and was at liberty for four days, taking with him a knife which he used to stab Florence Grace Johnson in the buttocks, and also attempted to do the same to Isabella Frazer Anderson, in Kennington. These crimes appeared to be imitations of a criminal called Colicott, who a couple of months previous had stabbed six young women in the behind with a pointed awl, and may have been responsible for up to sixty assaults. Colicot was arrested, but subsequently discharged, owing to faulty identification.
The Sun newspaper appears to have confused accounts of Cutbush with Colicott. Where Cutbush’s crimes appeared to be imitations of Colicot, Colicot’s crimes resemble a criminal from a century before Jack the Ripper called the London Monster. The Monster would follow young ladies around the West End of London, make obscene proposals, use filthy language, then cut or slash at their breasts and buttocks, it is claimed he attacked 50 women. Fashionable ladies, when out walking, resorted to strategically placing frying pans under their dresses. In 1790, a 23 year old artificial flower maker, and former dancer, named Ryanwick Williams, a native of Powys, Wales, was arrested and convicted of the crimes, and sentenced to six years at Newgate prison. Despite Williams being 121 years of age at the time of the Ripper murders, and long since dead, I am surprised he has not come under speculation as a possible Ripper suspect.
Thomas Cutbush was arrested on 9 March 1891, and charged with malicious wounding, he was committed to Broadmoor, where he died in 1903. At the time of the Whitechapel murders Cutbush was 23 years of age, a little young according to the eyewitness descriptions of the Ripper, and lived in Kennington, some distance from Whitechapel. Macnaghten is probably correct, it would be most unlikely for a serial killer to lie dormant for two years, then re-emerge and just be content to stab women in the behind. His Uncle, superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush, in 1896, shot himself in front of his daughter, because it is claimed, he knew his nephew was the murderer. He had for sometime being suffering from depression and mild paranoid delusions.
Sun
United Kingdom
14 February 1894
THE STORY OF ”JACK THE RIPPER.”
SOLUTION OF THE GREAT MURDER MYSTERY.
HIS PERSONALITY, CAREER, AND FATE.
We know the Christian name and surname of Jack the Ripper. We know his present habitation; our representatives have seen him, and we have in our possession a morass of declarations, documents and other proofs which prove his identity. We have a facsimile of the knife with which the murders were committed, purchased at the same place. We are able to trace the whole career of the man who committed those crimes, we can give the names of his employers, their places of business, the terms of his service there, and the incidents of his connection with them – incidents which clearly show that he was in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel at the time when the murders were committed; that he developed tendencies even in his employment of homicidal insanity; and finally he was at liberty and close to Whitechapel during all that period when the murders were committed; and that these murders immediately came to an end – as well as other crimes of violence – from the moment when he was safely under lock and key.
But at this moment our readers must be satisfied with less information than is at our disposal. Jack the Ripper has relatives; they are some of them in positions which would make them a target for the natural curiosity – for the unreasoning reprobation which would pursue any person even remotely connected with so hideous a monstrosity, and we must abstain, therefore, from giving his name in the interest of these unfortunate, innocent, and respectable connections. We are the more resolved to do so at the moment as a pathetic point in this otherwise hideous and awful story is the tenacity with which some of his relatives have clung to this awful type. They have tended him, nursed him, watched for him, borne with him with a patience that never tired, with a love that never waned. While he has been out through the watches of the night on his fiendish work, one of them has sat up, waiting anxiously for his return – frightened at every noise – apprehensive of every possible form of mishap; in imagination picturing this tiger who marched from crime to crime as some innocent, harmless, and helpless child in need of protection from the violence of others. In human history there is not a more remarkable case of the difference in the view between the relative of a human being and the world generally.
CHARACTERISTICS AND HABITS.
And now what is the story – what are the characteristics – what are the habits of the man whom we identify as Jack the Ripper?
It will be understood that for everything we say about him we have documentary and other proofs. In the first place, that he was an idle, somewhat dissolute fellow. He was dissolute, that is to say, in the sense that he kept bad company; that he exhibited the same tendency as Neill to consort with the women who were his victims.
He was in several situations years ago, but he was not steady in any of them; and he was impelled to retire from one of them. This was because he was suspected of something which at the time appeared merely a violent assault under the influence of passion, but which subsequent light on his character proves to have been an outcome of his homicidal mania.
His habits of life when he was out of employment were those one would imagine in such a creature as Jack the Ripper. He has spent most of his day in bed; it was only when night came that he seemed roused to activity and to interest in life. Then he used to go out, disappear no one knew whither, and never return till early on the following morning. And when he did return, his appearance was such as to reveal to any gaze but that of blind affection some idea of this bloody and horrible work in which he had been engaged. Even, however, to his relatives his appearance suggested something terrible. His clothes were covered with mud; there were other stains which might suggest the nature of his work; but, above all things, there was the expression of his face. His face was so distorted as hardly to be recognized. Such is the description which has been given of him.
The manner in which the creature spent the portion of the day in which he was not in bed, is also clear proof of his nocturnal occupations and of his identity. Persons who knew him declare that he always exhibited a strong love for anatomical study, and that – this is most significant – he spent a portion of the day in making rough drawings of the bodies of women, and of their mutilations, after the fashion in which the bodies of the women murdered in Whitechapel were found to be mutilated. His own reason assigned for these performances was that he was studying for the medical profession – a reason that must be taken in connection with that startling interview in North London, the particulars of which we gave in our issue of yesterday.
HIS KNOWLEDGE OF WHITECHAPEL.
We have already said that the man we identify as Jack the Ripper had been employed in Whitechapel, and had in this way had the opportunity of learning all about the infinite and labyrinthine construction of that strange region. It is also a further proof that we have identified the right man that he lived within a ten minutes’ walk of the locality of most of the murders. He had thus the necessary knowledge on the one hand of this peculiar; and on the other, was within easy reach of a place of refuge.
The next point in the identification, on which we lay particular stress, is that this man was a victim of that strange form of delusion with regard to constitutional disease which is one of the most frequent accompaniments of the murder of fallen women. On this point we have an accumulation of evidence. But we must be content for the moment with stating that it is a confirmation in the most emphatic manner that the man we refer to suffered from strong delusions of constitutional disease, and also from homicidal delusions such as one would expect to find in Jack the Ripper. The next point in the process of identification is the personal appearance of the man supposed to be Jack the Ripper. On this point the evidence is necessarily important. Curious as it may seem – paradoxical as it may sound – the only person whose identification of Jack the Ripper would be most indicative(?) is a blind boy.
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… fiendish hand which had done so many murders was responsible for her awful end. Her throat was cut, with the clean incisive cut which characterised all the atrocities; her body was mutilated, and her legs were hacked and slashed to the bone. Her murderer met her leaving a public house, and the fact was held to be clearly established at the time that she was, when accosted by the man, accompanied by a blind boy in whom she took a passionate interest. The boy heard the voice of the man who spoke to her – he remembered its strange tones distinctly and perfectly – and it was afterwards thought that in this lay a clue to the discovery of the murderer. But this boy does not seem ever to have been confronted with the man whom we declare to be Jack the Ripper. This is the more curious as the boy’s description of the voice is said to have been of such a character as to make it clear that he would have been able to identify the voice. Therefore the description as to Jack the Ripper’s appearance upon which we have to rely is that published by the City Police in October 2, 1888, a few days after what was known as the Mitre square murder.
JACK THE RIPPER’S APPEARANCE.
But before giving this description we present the reader with the notes of the appearance of the man we identify as Jack the Ripper, taken by our representatives at the asylum in which he is at present incarcerated. He is just over 33 years of age. He is a man of about 5ft 8in to 5ft 9in in height. He is thin, and walk with a slight stoop, as if his chest troubled him. His face is narrow and short, with a high receding forehead, his eyes large and dark, with the expression of a hunted beast in them; his nose thick and prominent, his lips full and red, and his jaws give sign of much power and determination.
Now compare this with the official description, allowing, of course, for the necessary indefiniteness of the police description. This official description, it may be stated, was taken from the account given by a fallen woman of a man who had accosted her in a public house a few days before the Mitre square murder. It will be seen that a description of this kind would necessarily be less perfect and detailed than that which comes from the pen of trained observers who went specially to see this man for the purpose of observing and describing him. But taking those two things into account, we ask our readers to place the descriptions side by side, and say whether they are not startlingly alike in their main features.
On October 2, 1888, the City Police announced that the man wanted for the Mitre square murder was ”Aged 28; slight; height 5ft 8in; complexion, dark; no whiskers; black diagonal coat; hard felt had; collar and tie; carried newspaper parcel; respectable appearance.”
We now come to what is perhaps, after all, the most convincing link in our chain of evidence. I began by saying that a man who had committed such murders as those in Whitechapel must have been so insane as to have the daring simplicity of a lunatic, and, therefore, able to make an escape when a sane human being would find it impossible to do so, from the sheer simplicity and calmness of utter insanity. Here is an instance that occurred in a district of London, busy, teeming with population, almost impassable. A man is in detention, all his clothes have been stripped off with the exception of his shirt; he is in bed, four men armed guard over him. Here certainly is security for his detention if such a thing is possible. But the prisoner swings from the bed, knocks down the four men on guard and scales, with the ease and nimbleness of a monkey, a wall 8ft in height.
He drops on the other side, and then he finds himself in the midst of an open and crowded district. At once the hue and cry is raised, and the whole district joins in it.
HIS CUNNING.
Policemen’s whistles bring constables on the scene, and within a few moments of the man’s escape descriptions of him are being wired from the district police station to every other station in London. His scanty apparel, it is thought, is sufficient to warrant his speedy capture.
Into a house in a busy thoroughfare goes the fugitive, with bare legs and shirt tail flying, and passing through it reaches the back garden, and then, jumping several garden walls, comes to another house, which he enters. His entrance and subsequent proceedings in the house are unobserved, because the inmates have gone into street to gaze at the other house. Here he finds a pair of striped trousers, check jacket, brown overcoat, black felt hat, and a pair of old boots, which he immediately puts on.
And while the crowd in full pursuit are clamouring for admission at the other house into which he had been seen to go, the fugitive comes out of the front door of the neighbouring house, and walks calmly and collectedly past the excited crowd and under the very nose of the people who are looking for him.
Now here we have an incident of a most remarkable character – an incident which is in many respects suggestive of the Whitechapel murders. The real secret of the success of the Whitechapel murderer’s escape was his daring and simplicity, his power of doing the most terrible and extraordinary things in an ordinary way, and it would scarcely be possible that there could be in the same city two human beings so miraculously expert in escaping detection under such equally hopeless circumstances. When we add that the person who made this extraordinary escape was a person whom we can prove to have been employed for a considerable time in Whitechapel – to have been compelled to leave his employment there for a crime of violence suggestive of the homicidal tendency – to have been living at the time of his escapade within an easy distance of the scene of the murders in Whitechapel, accumulating proof becomes extremely strong.
But this is by no means the whole case. The rooms in which the man lived were searched. In them was found that extraordinary letter which we published yesterday – but there were other things – papers which had reference to women; and stuffed up the chimney a police inspector found waistcoats wet, having been washed, and coats, the sleeves of which smelt of turpentine. Among some papers which had been torn up and found in an overcoat in the room, were
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Now we ask distinctly whether these were not the exact kind of drawings that would be found in the rooms (?) of Jack the Ripper?
And now we see who was the man who had evidently committed offences not so horrible as the Whitechapel murders, but somewhat similar to them; and whose rooms contained the batch of drawings which one might expect to find in the possession of Jack the Ripper. Evidence would stop abruptly and hopelessly short of conviction if we were unable in any way to associate the fugitive with Whitechapel and the murders; but we are about to do so; to bring this same man, with employment in Whitechapel, to show that the date of his employment synchronises exactly – almost to the day and hour – with the murders; and that their cessation for eight months equally corresponds with his dismissal from his employment and his disappearance from the immediate neighbourhood.
A STARTLING INCIDENT.
On July 24, 1888, exactly a fortnight before the date of the first Whitechapel murders, which occurred on August 7, 1888, a young man succeeded in obtaining employment at a firm in the immediate district of the murders. His age was about 27. He was swarthy in complexion, and his frame was slight and wiry. His only strong peculiarity, or eccentricity, as it was then thought, was a desire to advise all with whom he came in contact as to the treatment of certain horrible diseases. He was noticed to have possessed himself of certain medicines and lotions which he kept in his pockets. These he frequently partook of during the day, and it was remarkable that, while seemingly in good bodily health, it was his practice from time to time to retire, and when come upon suddenly, was found to be anointing his face with washes and ointments in front of a glass. This, and a faculty for drawing caricatures and anatomical figures, were his principal distinctions when not discussing nasty illnesses.
One day, an elderly official of the firm, noticing that the young man was employed anointing his face in front of the looking glass, said, in a bantering way quite innocent of malice, ”I have known much better looking men than you who did not spend half as much time in looking at themselves.”
No particular notice was taken of this incident, but when the elderly gentleman was proceeding upstairs, to his immense surprise, the young man, who up to this had never shown any violent propensities, sprang out of a dark corner where he had been lying in wait and hurled him to the bottom of the stone stairs, where he lay insensible in a pool of blood, which flowed from a terrible cut in his head. When people came upon the scene, the author of this outrageous assault remarked, ”Poor gentleman, he has fallen downstairs.”
This apparently ingenuous observation disarmed all suspicion, and it was not till the injured man came to himself weeks afterwards that the true facts were made known.
It is worthy of note at this point that the
SERIES OF MURDERS
which started immediately after his employment in the Whitechapel firm, and continued in almost regular intervals, as mysteriously ceased with his departure and were not heard of again for eight months.
And now here we have this striking combination of circumstances – that a man, admittedly a homicidal lunatic, almost clearly guilty of attempting to murder women – was the same man who at the time of the Whitechapel murders was employed in Whitechapel, and was guilty in the open daylight of just the kind of crime a Jack the Ripper would commit.
So far we have brought the case today: tomorrow we shall present the remainder of our proofs – so far as the public interest will permit them to be published – and, summing up this whole case, leave it to the judgement of our readers and commit it to the attention of the authorities.
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Sun
United Kingdom
17 February 1894
THE STORY OF ”JACK THE RIPPER.”
SOLUTION OF THE GREAT MURDER MYSTERY.
HIS PERSONALITY, CAREER, AND FATE.
ANTECEDENTS OF JACK THE RIPPER.
The next point to be considered about the criminal lunatic in Broadmoor, whom we identify as Jack the Ripper, is whether we can add to the accumulation of evidence against him any facts in his personal characteristics, his hereditary traits, and temperament which will point him as one likely to commit the Whitechapel crimes.
This man was born in 1865 in London. His father separated from his mother, whom he was said to have treated badly. In the case of the father, the morbid element appears in the treatment of his wife, his neglect of his child, and, finally, in his flying from his responsibilities and in his contracting a bigamous marriage abroad.
This man was employed in several offices, in none of them for a long time; and in every case his dismissal came from such irregularity as one would expect in the case of such a man. One of the most common of these irregularities was his constant irregularity of hours. He had begun at an early age that system of night waking and stopping in bed late in the daytimes, which finally developed into his turning night into day, and working under the protection of darkness his fiendish crimes. At the time when he committed the Whitechapel murders this tendency had so far developed that he spent most of every day in bed, and it was not till nine or ten o’clock at night that he ever went forth. It will be seen how much such habits helped him in evading detection. They kept him from being seen by all but a few; outside the relatives and chance lodgers who resided there, the house in which he lived concealed his identity, his very existence. In short, he was, except for a few people, hidden from all the world. The man who stalked Whitechapel was a thing of shadow and night – a thing hidden away from the common gaze, just like the family of a lunatic or imbecile who only signifies his existence to the casual visitor by the stifled cry or the muffled groan.
HIS TEMPERAMENT.
The testimony we are about to quote is fully clear as to the man’s having what we may call the Jack the Ripper temperament.
Already we have given many instances of that morbidness of mind, and especially in the direction of constitutional disease, which everybody who has studied this class of crime known to be a most significant impelling motive towards the murder of fallen women. So strong was this urging upon him, that, as we have already pointed out, he contemplated for a long time the assassination of a doctor who refused to take his hypochondria for real disease.
All the witnesses singularly agree in this description of the morbid and filthy tendencies of this man’s mind. Some of the statements made to me we shall have to omit as they are too loathsome for republication; but anybody reading between the lines will see the type of diseased and vile creature this man was. Anatomy held for him an irresistible fascination. We have already mentioned that in his room were found drawings and diagrams, just such as one would expect to find in Jack the Ripper’s habitation – diagrams of women mutilated, but mutilated in just the way in which the murdered women of Whitechapel were found mutilated.
In bed most of the day, out most of the night, engaged almost exclusively in the study of anatomy and the drawing of mutilated women – is not that exactly the picture one would form of the type of lunatic who would commit the Whitechapel murders? When it is added that, altogether outside the Whitechapel horrors, the creature who so lives has committed other homicidal offences, the case becomes irresistible.
THE TESTIMONY OF ACQUAINTANCES.
We now proceed to give the testimony of persons who knew the man we call Jack the Ripper. It will be seen that they correspond with our summary of these contents:-
First, there is the statement of S K. S K is a literary man; has written some works, and formerly knew A B; well, this is what he says of him:-
He was a curious fellow, and led and eccentric life. He was a clerk, but generally lost his employment by being continually late at the office, owing to his lying in bed till late. This came about through his being out very late at night. He used to come in through the windows and on one occasion I remember he broke the parlour window so as to undo the latch. He used to study books of anatomy, and was dirty in his habits and in his mind. He associated largely with fallen women. His appearance suggested filthy habits. I know that the police had their suspicions of his being Jack the Ripper.
I shall return to the sentence in this statement which I have italicised presently. For the moment, let me go on to give another statement which will help us to form a picture of this man. It is by H L:-
STATEMENT OF H L.
I knew A B. He was an idle, dissolute young fellow as long as I have known him. The way that he came to be arrested as a lunatic by the authorities was in this way. He seized a relative by the throat and tried to cut her throat with a large knife. She struggled and escaped and being now seriously afraid of him, gave information, but, like a woman, she became sorry afterwards. The police thought that he was Jack the Ripper. Whether it was true of not I cannot say, but undoubtedly the scene of the murders is only about 15 minutes from here he lived. He had a terrible face. For instance, when I married I took my wife to show her my old lodgings. When we left my wife said to me, ”Did you ever see such a man? He has the head of a murderer!” He was found on medical authority to be a lunatic, and unfit to plead to the indictment, and there the matter began and ended.
He seemed very dazed, and as though he were under a great cloud. His conversation was very incoherent as a rule, but at times he spoke naturally. He appeared very frightened when the young women were taken to the asylum to identify him (which two of them did).
THE HOUSE OF JACK THE RIPPER.
And now we return to a passage in the first statement – ”He used to come in through the window,” says S K, ”and on one occasion I remember he broke the parlour window so as to undo the latch.” Now let us see what kind of a house was that in which this man lived. It will be seen, we think, it was just the kind of house which would facilitate the doings of such a creature as Jack the Ripper. Here is a description of it by one who has thoroughly investigated it.
The house is separated by a wall from a mews, kept open during the night for the convenience of carmen. The entrance to the mews is from a street running behind the houses. It was by the entrance to the mews that A B approached the house. When he came home early in the morning he climbed the garden wall and entered the house by the back window, and by the same means he left it when an endeavour was made to secure him as a lunatic. His curious conduct was well known to the neighbours who always regarded him as a little weak in the head. A B’s room in the house was on the top floor. It was somewhat of the garret pattern, poorly furnished, and used by him as a writing room. When at home during the day he wrote a great deal, destroying, however, most of what he wrote immediately it was finished.
At the bottom of the garden attached to the house there was a small outhouse, which the police, when searching the house, neglected to overhaul. In this much might have been found. Shortly after the arrest the outhouse was pulled down.
THE MILE END JOB.
I pass to another branch of the case. It will be remembered that the charge on which the man was brought up was that of stabbing girls. When he was arrested he had a most significant observation. ”Is this,” he said, ” for the Mile End job? I mean the public house next to the Syndicate where I just missed her that time. They took me to be of the Jewish persuasion.”
Now this is an extraordinary observation in connection with the facts we are about to relate.
Inquiries were made for any trace of the ”Mile End job in the public house next to the Syndicate,” to which the lunatic referred on his arrest. It was discovered that next to the Jewish Synagogue in the East end there is a public house and that during the Jack the Ripper period of 1888 some disturbance was one night caused at the bar of the public house by a fallen women screaming that Jack the Ripper was talking to her. She had been drinking and conversing with a young man of slight build and of sallow features, and she pointed to him when she made the startling announcement that he was Jack the Ripper. The man immediately took to his heels, departing with an alacrity that prevented all pursuit. The incident was but briefly reported in the daily papers under the heading of ”Another Jack the Ripper Scare.”
But a description of the man whom the woman pointed out was given as that of a young man of 27 or 28 years, slight of build and of Jewish appearance, his face being thin and sallow. This led to the theory entertained for some time that Jack the Ripper was a Jew.
The public house incident took place about the middle of September. On the night of September 30, 1888,
TWO WOMEN WERE KILLED,
one in Berner streets and one in Mitre square. Over the latter there was written on the rough wall in chalk, ”The Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing.” The writing was ordered to be obliterated by Sir Charles Warren. In connection with the Mitre square murder, the City Police offered, on October 2, 1888, a reward of £500 for the capture of the murderer, and the description given of the person wanted was:- ”Age about 28; slight; height 5ft 8in; complexion dark; no whiskers; black diagonal coat, collar and tie; carried newspaper parcel. Respectable appearance.”
Now we say that these facts enormously add to the proof that the man who made this observation was the same man who had murdered the two women on the night of September 30, 1888. The mistake of saying ”syndicate” for synagogue rather adds to the strength of the story.
ANOTHER LINK.
But that is not all. It will be remembered that this man was charged with stabbing either four or six young women. These young women stated that while passing along the streets they had been stabbed by a man who, in each case, had made off at great speed. The women described that they had been struck by some sharp instrument, their clothes being punctured and smothered in blood, and all of them suffering more or less from haemorrhage.
What was this instrument like? We must go back to the time of this man’s escape from the lunatic asylum. On the evening after he had had that remarkable interview with the man and his sweetheart in Camden Town the escaped lunatic returned to his house. It was twelve o’clock. His feet were bleeding, a fact on which, it will be remembered, the father of one of the girls stabbed commented. He had a bath, he changed his clothes, and it was understood that he was going to bed.
After everybody else had gone upstairs, they heard a heavy tread outside in the street. They thought the lunatic would be frightened, went downstairs,
AND FOUND HIM GONE.
He came back again at one o’clock to dinner, and stayed until seven o’clock in the evening. He went to sleep, and one of his relatives then took a knife from his pocket and hid it behind a piano. He then went out and wandered about the streets all Sunday evening. During the evening a police constable called at the house. He had heard that the man had returned home again and had gone to arrest him.
The police officer obtained the knife which had been taken from the man and hidden behind the piano.
THE KNIFE.
And now let us see what kind of weapon this was. The knife is one of the bowie pattern, the sharp blade tapering to a point, being nearly 6in in length, and also having a kind of sword hilt. The black handle is knotted, seven points on either being tipped with pearl. The knife bears the name of a firm in the Minories.
THE SHEATH.
The lunatic himself, in spite of his insanity, felt the importance of the knife. To a police officer he made the significant observation, ”I am all right – they can’t do anything with me. The sheath only was found on me.” And this observation was true; for in the hip pocket of his trousers had been found a leather sheath into which the knife fitted. Moreover he exhibited great concern that the knife had been given up to the police.
THE TERRIBLE LIST.
And now let us set forth the terrible list of the crimes which were committed by the wretched man called Jack the Ripper by himself:-
August 7, 1888 – Martha Tabran, found in George yard Buildings, Commercial street, Spitalfields, with 39 wounds on the body – supposed to have been murdered with a bayonet.
September 1 – Mary Ann Nichols found in Buck’s yard, Whitechapel road. Throat was cut from ear to ear. Body ripped up abdomen almost to the breast bone; stabbed and gashed on thigh.
September 8 – Annie Chapman found at 29 Hanbury street, Spitalfields.
September 30 – Elizabeth Stride found in Berner street, Whitechapel, nearly opposite the International and Educational Club. Head nearly severed from the body.
September 30 – Catherine Eddowes or Conway, found in Mitre square, Aldgate – woman’s throat cut from the left side; abdomen ripped open. Above the body was written in chalk on the wall, ”The Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing.”
November 9 – Mary Jane Kelly murdered in a house in Dorset street, Spitalfields. Body terribly mutilated and gashed.
July 17, 1889 – Alice McKenzie murdered, her throat being cut and body mutilated in Castle alley, Whitechapel.
September 11, 1889 – Woman, unidentified, murdered, her throat being cut and body mutilated in railway arch, Pinchin street, off Backchurch lane.
February 13, 1891 – Frances Coles murdered, her throat cut and body mutilated, in alleyway of the Great Eastern Railway which leads from Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel.
These crimes have horrified the whole world. The perpetrator has remained unknown. To this paper was accorded the duty of discovering him. The story, brought to us months ago, has been subjected to the most rigid scrutiny. Not days, or weeks, but months have been devoted to its investigation. Clues, elusive and slight, have been followed up; witness after witness has been examined. Every line of evidence has been sifted, weighed, collated. Much of the information in our possession we have not mentioned in the desire to make plain within the narrowest and most stringent limits which the telling of an intelligible narrative would permit we have kept our account. In the interests of the peace and security of the community and the tranquility of the public mind we ask that this story may be subjected by the authorities and the public to the most rigid investigation.
A JOURNALIST’S VERDICT.
The London correspondent of the Liverpool Daily Post writes in that paper today:
I happen to know a good many details connected with the identification of Jack the Ripper with a homicidal maniac now incarcerated in an asylum. These, for reason sufficiently patent to journalists, The Sun has abstained from publishing but I am able to express a strong conviction that chain of circumstantial evidence is complete and irresistible. The Sun has got up the race with a skill and patience that might be well imitated by the Criminal Investigation Department and indeed the fact that the police inquiry signally failed is a disquieting commentary on the investigation of serious crime. The impossibility of giving names and stating facts which might implicate or incriminate others has seriously handicapped the newspaper revelations, but your readers may take it that there are behind the broad outlines proofs which supply all the links in the chain and rivet them emphatically. The lunatic, it must be understood, does not belong in the lowest class of society, his relatives being fairly well to do people of the comfortable lower middle class. Without dwelling too strongly on the present demeanour of the man, all that is known of his past habits and tendencies points to his being chronically possessed of that
INSENSATE MANIA
which satisfies itself only with the slaughter of fellow beings. There is, indeed, apart from the Whitechapel murders, a record of eleven homicidal crimes, committed, attempted, or planned, and it is for some of these, perpetrated in a manner singularly suggestive of the Whitechapel methods that he is now in confinement. Then as to Whitechapel. The murders began with his residence there, lasted while he remained, ceased when he left, and were resumed when he returned. There is, moreover, evidence identifying him with them still more closely. Some of this cannot be published, but amongst it is the discovery in his rooms of abominable drawings, showing such mutilations as were committed on the unfortunate victims. His way of life, the state of his clothing, to say nothing of testimony as to direct identification, are all strongly confirmatory, no less than the fact that he has on occasions practised successfully the low but simple cunning which enables a man to defy detection by mixing among those who are seeking for him. All this, and more, put together, makes the demonstration irresistible. But as he is already imprisoned as a hopeless lunatic, and nothing more could be done if the crimes were brought home to him, the case will probably never be judicially investigated, although it affords tempting scope for the pen of some future De Quincey or Poe.
