The Fiend of London: Jack the Ripper PART 2

(Continued fromPart ONE)

energetic action, impelled Sir Charles Warren, the autocratic Chief Commissioner, to circulate notices asking for information about " A man, aged 37, height 5 feet 7 inches, rather dark beard and moustache. Dress, dark jacket, dark vest and trousers, black scarf, black felt hat. Speaks with foreign accent."

On September 9th alone, twelve suspects were taken for examination to Commercial Street Police Station.

Next day a half-witted Polish Jew, John Pizer, known throughout Whitechapel as " Leather Apron," was detained. He was a boot-finisher, and because he used long-bladed knives in his trade, it was thought he might have something to do with the murders. Two days later, after telling the authorities he was afraid of being torn to pieces, he was released.

During the week that followed, scores of people were detained, including William Henry Piggott, found with blood on his hands and boots after rescuing a woman from a street fight ;

Charles Ludwig, a German, and John Fitzgerald, who “ confessed " to an angry crowd that he was Jack the Ripper.

The famous dramatist George Bernard Shaw explained in :a letter to The Star that the murders were being perpetrated by an unknown reformer, anxious to draw attention to the East End slums and to raise funds for their starving poor.  

Meanwhile, the pick of the C.I.D., aided by a huge force of plain·cIothes men and police, were ferreting into every nook and cranny of Spitalfields, questioning everyone whose movements gave rise to the slightest suspicion.

 Hundreds of denunciations were made daily by crooks and street women, The underworld of the East End, allied itself unhesitatingly with Scotland Yard in the search for the lone killer. And the tradesmen of Whitechapel formed a Vigilance Society, with a widespread net of amateur patrols and watchmen on the alert everywhere for a trace of the Ripper.  

One newspaper suggested that every woman in Spitalfields should be shadowed day and night by two amateur patrols, and should learn a complicated system of whistling and signaling to summon aid if she found herself attacked.

Another urged that the stalwart giants of the Metropolitan Police Force should shave off their beards and mustaches, dress themselves in women's clothes, and try to lure the Ripper into custody.

This agitation became so popular that Sir Charles Warren was forced at length to protest in strong and bitter terms against it. A search of the London sewers was even contemplated, though it was pointed out that the Ripper needed a special key to unlock the street grids, and that the skill, strength and courage to escape in this way would deter even the hardiest murderer. The public clamor reached its height with a demand for bloodhounds. How these could track a man successfully through the myriad smells and obstacles of Spitallields was a question that did not enter the mind of the terror-stricken citizen.

The outcry became so great that Sir Charles actually obtained a pack. Accompanied by high Yard officials he took them for practice out to Tooting, where they promptly lost themselves. ‘ . 

On September 27th, the Central News Agency received a letter with a London, E.C., postmark, signed ‘Jack the Ripper.” 

The writer boasted about the murders. “ In the next  job," he wrote, “ I will clip the lady”s ears oll` and send them to the police." 

He further added a request that the letter should not be published until he had "done some more work.” 

For three weeks alter the murder of Annie Chapman, the Ripper stayed his hand. Then in the heart of a district where day and night every man and woman was on the watch for him, where detectives and informers and patrols were scouring every inch of` its grim alleys, where a thousand traps were waiting for him, he struck again, with a double murder so bold and outrageous that it must have been meant as a gesture of defiance for all time against the forces of law and order.

Elizabeth Stride was a tall, raw-boned lighting Swede-, who began to drink heavily after she saw her two children drown amid the wreckage of the pleasure steamer Princess Alice,

when it went down in the Thames. Everyone in Spitaitields knew her. Any man who was seen with her was certain to be noticed and talked about afterwards.

The Ripper took the biggest risk in his life when he accosted Stride just after midnight on September 30th, 1888, and walked with her through one noisy, crowded thoroughfare after another, until they reached Berners Street.

They stopped for a few moments outside a working men's club, where a dance was in progress, with all the windows lit and facing the street.

About 1 a.m., the Ripper seized her by the throat, threw her to the ground, and was stabbing and slashing when a cart drove up, about to enter the yard of the club. The Ripper dashed into the yard, just as the driver, seeing the dark bundle on the ground, jumped down to investigate.

Horrified he rushed into the club, and the Ripper ran from the yard. Dr. P. W. Blackwell, who reached the dead woman at 1:14 a.rn., said afterwards that she...

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