The Whitechapel Murderer leaves A Clue
JACK THE RIPPER WALK CONTINUES FROM MITRE SQUARE
DIRECTIONS
To follow in Jack the Ripper’s footsteps, stand with your back to the flower bed, go diagonally left across the square, pass through the gloomy Mitre Passage, and turn right onto Creechurch Lane. Cross over the pedestrian crossing, continue over Houndsditch and keep ahead into Stoney Lane. Turn right into White Kennet Street, go left into Gravel Lane, and as you cross over Middlesex Street (scene of the famous Petticoat Lane Market) note how the street signs change from those of the City of London to those of the East End of London. You have in fact crossed the boundary from the City and gone back into Metropolitan Police territory.
JACK THE RIPPER WALK THROUGH DIRECTIONS
Keep ahead along New Goulston Street, turn left into Goulston Street and pause on its right side outside the massive building that in 1888 was known as Wentworth Street Model Dwellings and which was mostly occupied by Jews who either traded second hand clothes on nearby Petticoat Lane or else sold shoes at the footwear market on Wentworth Street.
JACK THE RIPPER HISTORY - A CLUE IS FOUND  At 2.55 in the morning PC Alfred Long of the Metropolitan Police turned into Goulston Street and in a doorway of Wentworth Dwellings (pictured as they are today on the right) he found a clue, a piece of bloodstained apron. It had been taken from Catherine Eddowes body. The murderer had used it to wipe the blood from his hands and from the blade of his knife. It is a clue because it answers a vital question concerning the killer’s appearance as he fled the scenes of his crimes.
WOULD JACK THE RIPPER HAVE BEEN COVERED IN BLOOD? The common thought is that the Ripper would have gone from the crimes covered in blood. But infact it’s possible that he probably wasn’t covered in blood at all. Certainly once he had sliced the victims throat we know from the rather repellent blood splashes and splattering that were all over the place that the blood would have emptied from the victim. And once the heart stops beating the amount of blood that is going to spurt out once you start doing the mutilations would have been relatively small so he would have had blood on his hands on some of his clothing but whether it would show up in the dark and he could have used gloves may have worn an overcoat which he either took off before committing the crimes or which was open and which he could have buttoned up afterwards.
Indeed the apron tells us just how much blood he did have upon his person, for as he moved through the streets he was wiping away the evidence, and by the time he reached the doorway his hands and knife were evidently clear of any incriminating stains. But the doorway contained something else. For scrawled on the wall above the apron was a chalked message which read The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.
Juwes was spelt J U W E S which has been the cause of endless speculation in the conspiracy theories about who was Jack the Ripper. But whether or not the murderer actually chalked those words on the wall is completely unknown. There are some statements that say that they looked blurred as if they had been there for awhile. Other statements say that had they been there for any length of time they would have been rubbed off by people going in and out of the building.
Soon the City Police had also arrived on the scene and instructions were given to photograph the graffiti. The Metropolitan Police, however, were becoming uneasy. The anti-Semitic unrest that had followed Annie Chapman’s murder was still fresh in their minds, and they genuinely feared the consequences that might result when the East End awoke to news of two further murders. As dawn began to break the Metropolitan Police became anxious to erase the message. A City Policeman suggested that only the top line “The Juwes are” be erased. But t Whitechapel was Metropolitan Police territory, and when Sir Charles Warren arrived on the scene he was in no mood for compromise. At 5.30am in what would prove a highly controversial move he ordered that the writing be rubbed out before any photograph of it could be taken.
He elected to have the words rubbed out chiefly because he didn’t think there would be anyway that they would be able to mask those words from the general public who would be soon thronging that area for the Petticoat Lane market and so he felt that the reference to the Jews would incite anti- Jewish reaction in the streets and he wanted to avoid that and so he had the words erased.
With the break of day on the 30th September, the Whitechapel murderer had succeeded in evading two police forces and had left their senior officers, baffled bickering and totally humiliated. Nothing was more apparent than their utter dejection.
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