Jack the Ripper Walk Through.
THE HISTORY OF JACK THE RIPPER
THE AFTERMATH OF THE NIGHT OF THE DOUBLE EVENT News of the double murder crackled through the Metropolis like wildfire. Thousands of sightseers flocked into area and blocked the approach to Mitre Square. Berners Street meanwhile said to have been like a sea of heads from end to end. Those who had houses or businesses that overlooked the murder sites openly charged admission for ghoulish spectators to gaze down upon the crime scenes.
You had lots and lots of people coming in from elsewhere, other parts of London even coming along from the Provinces and there are press reports about coaches and carriages arriving and bringing people to look at the streets. There were numerous street vendors and hawkers out selling everything from cheap serial books and pamphlets through to fruit, to service the crowds of people that were gathering at the murder sites and other places. Indeed, there was almost a carnival atmosphere going on at times in Whitechapel as a result of the murders. THE POLICE ARE CRITICISED FOR NOT CATCHING JACK THE RIPPER The press criticism of the police increased. The Star went so far as to accuse the entire force of being “rotten to the core.” The Daily Telegraph meanwhile attacked the “notorious and shameful shortcomings of the detective department,” whilst the East London Advertiser lamented that there was “no detective force in the proper sense of the word in London at all.”
On the 2nd of October, at a demonstration by the unemployed in Hyde Park, a huge banner expressed the feelings of many Londoners. It read simply “THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS. WHERE ARE THE POLICE.” THE POLICE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES The police were infact rigorously pursuing their investigations, albeit they had adopted a policy of guarded secrecy in order to prevent their lines of enquiry from becoming public knowledge. One of Warren’s first actions in the days that followed the double murder was to send extra police into the district. Detectives went around in disguise, some it is rumoured even dressed as prostitutes. Door to door enquiries were made at common lodging houses and 2,000 lodgers were questioned. 80,000 handbills were distributed asking that any suspicious person be reported to the police. 76 butchers and slaughterhouses were visited and the characters of their employees ascertained. Sailors in the nearby docks were investigated. But despite the thoroughness of their investigation the murdered effortlessly evaded them and remained at large.
There really wasn't much more the police could have done. All they were in a position to do was to just wait and hope to catch the murderer. Hope that there would be some clue that would reveal the killer or hope that somebody who they thought must have suspicions about a relative or somebody would actually turn that person over to the police.
In most cases, then as now, murders are committed by somebody that is known to the victim. But when it is a random killing and they don’t know the killer there is nothing to connect the killer with the victim and consequently it is very difficult to catch the perpetrator unless some sort of clue is left or there are witnesses. But even if there are witnesses you’ve still got to catch the criminal before you can confront him with the witness. So what the police were looking for were clues that would lead to the killer. But he didn’t leave any so the only thing that they could really do was flood the area with police and just hope that the next time he killed somebody there would be a policeman around to catch him. But that didn’t ever happen and so Jack the Ripper got away.
Although October would pass with no further murders. Historically speaking the days that followed the double event saw one of the most important developments of the entire saga. For it was during this period that the Whitechapel murderer was given a name.
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