THE WHITECHAPEL MURDER.
THE discharge of the fireman Sadler, accused of murdering the unhappy woman Frances Coles, has renewed public interest in the strange series of crimes known as the Whitechapel Murders. It is almost beyond. doubt that, black as the evidence against Sadler originally looked, he did not kill the woman ; and it is more than possible, it is almost probable, that she was killed by " Jack the Ripper," as the populace have nicknamed the systematic murderer of prostitutes in Whitechapel. The profession of the victim; the locality selected, so public yet so dark ; the sharpness and severity of the throat-cutting, which were so marked that the surgeons declared that a drunken man like Sadler could not have inflicted the wound ; the attitude of the body when found, which was precisely that of most of the previous victims ; the certainty that the murderer was disturbed while at work, and his sudden and inexplicable disappearance wonder and alarm created by the series of Whitechapel It is puro fancy to imagine that clever precautions, or murders. There is no sound reason for the latter except great expense, or extreme patience will either prevent or among a single class ; but there is for the former, for after detect all murders. There are numerous classes of cases all, the continued escape of such a villain has something in which murder is prevented, and can be prevented, only about it which appeals keenly to the untrained imagination. by the human conscience, or by the absence of temptation, He seems to have eaten fern-seed, and to disappear on each or by general fear of the law, and not by any special occasion into air. It is not that the trace of him is always lost, or arranged precautions. Practically, poisonings, and but that a trace is never found. Whoever he is—we reject especially household poisoning, never can be prevented; the theory that the murderer is a woman, for no woman could and without accepting in full the opinion of, the great deceive so many of her own sex—whether he is a sailor, toxicologist who said that ten cases occurred for one as the Police fancy ; or a slaughterman, as was originally detection, it is probable that detection is far less frequent believed.; or a foreign Jew, as the " writing on the wall " than crime. If doctors took to poisoning their patients, attributed to him suggests ; or a solitary resident of what patient would be safe, or how many detections Whiteehapel, as his disappearances would indicate—he would there be P There are practically no criminals must cat, drink, and sleep, and therefore be dependent on punished for the most frequent of all crimes, child. other human beings, some one of whom ought to have had murder by relatives, and there never can be ; for the his or her suspicions aroused as to his movements, which, precise difficulties which impede detection in Whitechapel as regards hours at all events, must be eccentric or unusual. are present here also, and must always baffle any police, Nevertheless he escapes, and this through the midst of a however numerous or however astute. The victim cannot thick population, each one of whom would, on the faintest complain, the murderess has no confederate, and as suspicion, expend money, time, and energy in order to children die in thousands from natural causes, there is, ex- bring him within the grasp of the police, who themselves cept the death itself, no ground even for being suspicious of are thoroughly aware that his capture would for any man any individual. As long as babies must be trusted to their in the Force mean rapid. promotion, and something as like mothers, which will be till the world cools, so long will any fame of the advantageous kind as a policeman in this kind of police whatever be powerless to prevent, and country can expect or hope for. nearly powerless to detect, child-murder ; and as long as Wonder is perfectly natural, but we must once again say prostitutes entertain unknown lovers iu Whitechapel, so that the savage attacks on the Police, to which wonder and long will they be liable to murder. What protects them irritation seem in this case always to give rise, are utterly elsewhere is not the presence of the police, but the absence unreasonable. What can the Police or their chiefs do of a murderer who in Paris or Vienna or New York would which they have not done P It is foolish to suppose they be just as likely to enjoy immunity as he is in London. are afraid of the man with his keen knife, for they throw London has no special drawback making murder easy themselves on men with knives every day, often in places except its vast size, and in the ease of murders confined and under circumstances in which they are sure of the to a district, that drawback ceases to impede the police. hostility of all bystanders, or in which the criminal has They have only a district to watch and to search, and the every possible advantage of position. They walk up to district is not more populous or more honeycombed with burglars' revolvers, which are far more formidable than exits than a second-rate Continental town. The police, in knives, as coolly as if they were soldiers ; and are not fact, do their very hest, and the public must wait until unfrequently killed. when a little less daring, a little more some happy accident places in their possession clues without hesitation, would have saved them from the bullets. Their which it is impossible for the strongest police force to act, willingness is never doubted, and their precautions are so or the shrewdest detectives to form so much as an opinion. elaborate, that the best of all reasons for wondering is, that the murderer has so frequently been able to break through the cordon of watchers with which the district has been, at the time of at least three of his murders, carefully sur- MHE Admiralty, like many other respectable establish. rounded. As to their " stupidity," " want of experience," 1 merits, generally has a skeleton in the cupboard ; but or " deficiency of imagination, if they display those it is not often that it has to take the public into its confidence defects, they share them with the whole body of the and ask at once for sympathy, and a trifle, just a trifle, to public, which has never been able even to think of help to bury it. Skeletons like the Big-Gun Skeleton, or the disguise, or retreat, or method of flight which the the No-Stoker Skeleton, or the Total-Ignorance Skeleton, police are accused of not detecting. The latter are are either kept locked up, or smuggled away gradually, thrown, be it remembered, on the resources of their own bone by bone, until the public forget that we were ever minds in an unprecedented degree. The victim has never without guns for our ships, or stokers for our engines, or been able to give the smallest information. The spot has an Intelligence Department. So when Mr. Forwood always been chosen, with the victim's consent, because of assured the London Chamber of Commerce that the "most the improbability of observation. The man has certainly interesting and instructive statement which the First Lord no confederates, and almost as certainly no intimate, no of the Admiralty was about to lay before the House of mistress, chum, or close friend, who might accidentally feel Commons " was also, in his opinion, " most encouraging," it some reason for suspicion. His clothes, as we 'believe the was natural to expect that in the carefully edited report surgeons agree, are probably never bloody. He possesses which the Admiralty were to present, there would be the nothing definitely known to the police, except a knife and usual cheerful record of successes, and a decent veiling or from human ken,—all suggest that idea, which it is a bag, and probably a slouch-hat, articles belonging to evident took complete possession of the experienced many thousands of the population besides him. Why Coroner for the division. Mr. Baxter's whole speech to should the police, thus left without clues, be expected to the jury, which resulted in an acquittal of Sadler, is based develop from their internal cousciousness the figure of the on the conviction that the murder was another of the long murderer, to ascertain his whereabouts, or to divine the series, and that, as Sadler could not be the author of the method which he adopts of disguise,—a method so success- previous crimes, he was not the author of this one. There ful that it baffles thought to conceive what it can be ? is nothing, moreover, far-fetched in the idea that the Suppose the Force were made more " elastic," or that men " Ripper," who throughout has shown as much desire to of another class were attracted into it, or that a special escape justice as skill in eluding its agents, fled for a time body of detectives were employed in Whitechapel, still the before the fervour of a pursuit which interested all London, old difficulties would remain untouched, ability, independ- and brought on his track not only all policemen, but the ence, or special local knowledge being all rendered useless host of keen men who think nothing so exciting as serious by the want of evidence. It is said that the number of detective work, and who in some cases have the advantage, the murders proves the fatuity of the police ; but the enjoyed, for example, by the detective of the New York number does not in any way increase the facilities for Herald, of practically unlimited command of money. It detecting their author. He does the same things again is possible at least that he may have returned from beyond and again in the same way, and for the same motives, and seas ; and that the impulse under which he acts, be it mania, the police have no more clues in the tenth case than in the or revenge, or a perverted moral idea, is not extinguished first. Nor will they have in the thirtieth, except through by time, is evident from the fact that between his first one of two accidents of a most improbable kind,—viz., the known murder and his last a period elapsed of many months. presence of an unseen observer, or such a failure in the The theory, true or false, fits the facts, and the fresh attack that the victim may survive to give a description of murder has once more revived the old sensation of mingled. her assailant within a minute of his attempt.
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