A NEW THEORY

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1929, Page 8

A NEW THEORY

OF JACK THE RIPPER MURDERC GREATEST MYSTERY OF ALL TIME. “ THE MYSTERY OF JACK THI RIPPER ” (By Leonard Matters.) Mr Matters in this book endeavour: to solve the mystery attending tin series of seven murders in East London which caused such alarm forty years ago. His solution is based upon a con fession which is said to have been made on Buenos Aires by the murderer, whi was then upon his death-bed. Unfortu nately, it does not fit the facts, or it only does so if one df the series of murders is excluded and regarded as having been the work of another hand. These extraordinary crimes were all committed upon the lowest class of woman, in a squalid area of about a square mile close to Aldgate Pump and densely populated. In every instance murder was accompanied by mutilation and was perpetrated within hearing of many people and in some cases almost under the very noses of the police. The first was reported on August 7, 1888; a second followed on August 31; a third on September 8; two in a single night on September 30; and the sixth on November 9. There was, further, a crime of this same type which Mr Matters does not notice or mention, committed on July 17, 1839, when Alice Mackenzie was found dying with fourteen slashes on her body. The effect of this series of undetected /crime was grpat: The terror spread all over London. Men, women, and children were affected by it. Only those who had to be out at night, or those who had first assured themselves df ample protection, loft their homes after nightfall, and then lonely woman wayfarer, abroad when darkness came, hurried through the streets with the spectre of a murder clutching at her shoulders. It was the fairly rapid sequence of the “Ripper” crimes, and that mystery in which the undetected criminal had shrouded himself, that staggered the metropolis and drove the people of the East End into a frenzy of'fear.

i Police in uniform and plain clothes iwere poured into the area frequented I by. the murderer; the utmost vigilance was maintained, and a considerable reward was offered. Put he was never ! seen, and the only description of him ever issued was at variance with the evidence, and as the author says might have fitted thousands of men in East End London. Several arrests were made from time to time, but all the persons thus held for inquiry cleared themselves.

Various letters purporting to be from the murderer wore sent to a news agency and to other people. One. written on September 27, 1888, boasted of the murders he claimed to have committed, and said that “in the next job I will clip the lady’s cars off and send them back to the police.” He requested that the letter (should) be kept back till lie had done ‘by bit more work.” The police were informed regarding this letter, but no public mention was mi.de of the matter till after the double murded.

On October 1, one day after the liidceous double crime, a postcard was sent, “smeared with what may have been blood,” which ran thus: I was not codding, dear old Boss, when I gave you the tip. You’ll hear about Saucy Jacky’s work to-morrow. Double event this time. Number one squealed a bit; couldn’t finish straight off. Had no time to get ears for pol ice. Thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Mr Matters dismisses these revolting missives as having “no importance whatever in connection with the mystery.” But is is rather curious that jJr. Forbes Winslow (the famous alienist who came into some prominence as the result of letters which he wrote to the Press concerning the earlier crimes) received a similar letter in October 1888 “stating that a murder would Ikcommitted on November 9.”' And it is also an important fact, which was mentioned lit the inquest on Alice Mackenzie, that the police received a letter three weeks before her murder on •July 17, 1889 ,declaring that “operations would resume in July.” SON WHO WENT TO THE BAD. Mr Matters’s theory, based on the Buenos Aires confession, is that there was at the date of the murders in London a talented doctor, whom he call “Dr. Stanley,” and that this doctor had an only son on whom he doted. The son went to the bad, contracted a deadly complaint, and died in liis youth. The father proceeded to kill and mutilate women with the intention of revenging himself on the person whom' lie regarded as responsible for K son’s ruin. According to Mr Matters he found her on November 9, 1888, in Marie Kelly, and when he had slaughtered her Ifelt his work was done and fled from the country to South America, where he died of cancer. We have pointed out that the exnlunation does not account for the murder of July 17, 1889. Dr. Forles Win c low with better reason was convicted that he had indentified the criminal, who, ho said “ was a religious homicidal monomaniac,” and was to be seen every Sunday on the steps of St. Paul’s. He look the police into his confidence biit they treated his with incredulity; on which he published his facts in the London edition’ of the New York Herald. The supposed criminal at this took alarm and disappeared,