The WHITECHAPEL, MURDERS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 318, 21 November 1888, Page 4

The WHITECHAPEL, MURDERS.

THE QUESTION OF REWARDS. Tins Lord Mayor, acting upon the advice of tho Commissioner of City Police, haa, in the name of the Corporation of London, offered *a reward of £500 for thedetection of the Wbiteohapel murderer, the last crime having been committed within the jurisdiction of the city. The following is the placard offering the reward :—: —

MURDER —£SOO REWARD. Whereas, at 1.45 a.m. on Sunday, the 30th of September last, a woman name unknown, was tound brutally mm-dered in Mitre-square, Aldgate, in this City, are ward of £500 will be paid by the Commissioner of Police of the city ot London to any person (other than a pertson belonging to a police torce in the United Kingdom) who shall givo Mich information as shall load to the disco-veiy and conviction of the murderer or murdoreis. Information to bo given to the Inspector of the Detective Department, 26, Old Jewry, or at any police st'ition.— Jamks Fkasiok, Colonel, Commissioner. Tho Home Secretaiy, having had forwarded to him a cheque for C3OO, for the purpose ot a reward being 1 otleied, has returned the cheque, with the intimation that such a course would not be attended wifh any useful result. Wr Mafcthews's decision has been rocfiived with almost universal disgust, while the prompt action of the Loixt Mayoi in offering a reward for the apprehension of the Mitic-squai'e murderer ha- been teceived with general satisfaction. Toe sum offered by his lordship, together with t/!G0 which two newspapers offer to Mi t >ply, the £100 j offered by Mr Montagu, M.P, and the I £200 collected by the Vigilancu Committee, make an aggregate sum of ri 1.200 It is probable that the reward will be increased to £2,000, as the Lord Mayor has been urged to open a subscription list, and somo members of the Stock Exchange teem disposed to take the matter up. Colonel Sir Alfred Kirby, J.P , the officer commanding the Tower Hamlets Battalion Koyal Engineers, has offered, on behalf of his ofHcjih, a leward of £100, to anyone who will give information that will let d to the discovery and conviction of the per- ! petrator of the recent murders committed in the district in which his regiment is situated.

IS THE MURDERER. FROM TEXAS? The "Daily News I American conespondent s^nds the iollowmg suggestion :— Not many months ago a series o£ remaiUably brutal murders of women occuned in Texas, the victims being chiefly negro women. The crimes were characterised by the same brutal methods as those of the Whitechapel murders. The theory has been .suggested fcbal the peipetrator of the lactei may be the Texas criminal, who was never discovered. A leading Southern newspaper thub puts the argument : — In our recent annals of crime there has been no other man capable of committing buch deeds. The mysterious crimes in Texas have ceased. They have just commenced in London. Is the man trom Texas at the bottom of them all ? If he is the monster or lunatic he may be expected to appear anywhere. The fact that he is no longer at work in Texas orgues his presence somewheie eke. His peculiar line of work was executed in precisely the same manner as is now going on in London. Why should he not be there ? The more one Ihinks of it the more irresistible becomes the conviction that it is the man from Texas. In these days of &team and cheap tiavel distance is nothing. The man who would kill a dozen women in Texas would not mind the inconvenience of a trip across the water, and once there he would nob have any scruples about killing more women. The supei'inbendent of the New York police admits the possibility of this theory being; conect, but he does not think it probable.

ANOTHER CJHASTLY DISCOVERY. On Tuesday another horror was added to the list. About twenty minutes past three o'clock on Tuesday afternoon Frederick Wild born, a carpenter employed by Messrs. J. d i over and Sons, builders, ot Pimlico, who aie the contiactors for the new Metropolitan Police head-quarters on the Thames Embankmen fc was workingon the foundation , when he came across a neatly done up parcel in one of the cellars. It was opened, and the body of a woman, very much decomposed, was found carefully wrapped in a piece of what is supposed to be a black petticoat The trunk was without head, arms, or legs, and piesented a honible spectacle. Dr. Bond, the divisional surgeon, and several other medical gentlemen were communicated with, and from what can be- ascertained the conclusion has been arrived at by them that these remains arc those of a woman whose arms have recently been discovered in different parts of the metropolis. The building which is in course of erection is the new police depot for London. The prevailing opinion is that to place the body where it was found the person conveying it must ha\ c scaled the Bft. hoarding which encloses the works, and, carefully avoiding the watchmen who do duty by night, must have dropped it where it was found. The body could not have been where it was found above two or three days, because men are frequently passing the spot.

A SCOTCH PRECEDENT FOR THE WHITECHAPEL HORROR. In the reign of James I. of Scotland, there was born in East Lothian, in a village a few miles from Edinburgh, Sawney Beane, the son of pooi 1 , but hard -working people. Evincing from boyhood a hatred of all labour and displaying every kind of vicious quality, he at an early age abandoned his homo and fled to Galloway. He was accompanied by a fit companion for his crimes in the person of a young' woman, a native of the same village The home of this pair was in a cave of about a mile in length and of considerable breadth, the mouth of which was washed by the sea, the tide sometimes penetrating; the cave a distance of 200 yards. The \ ictims were waylaid under cover of night on their way from country fairs, or, in the case of isolated travellers across the country were openly attacked in daylight. The same soul-sickening mutilation was inflicted in each case ; the abdomen was cut open, and the entrails dragged out, and the body carried to the cave. To prevent detection they murdered every traveller they robbed, and for years they continued their horrible calling. In this manner, the chronicler tells us, they lived until they had eight sons and six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters — all the offspring of incest. After a long career of murder the gang were captured by King James, who, roused to acf-ion by the long immunity of the criminals from detection, headed a body of troops, and succeeded with bloodhounds in unearthing from the cave the whole vile tribe, to whom was meted out a death agreeable with the life they had led. The men, says the historian, had their entrails thrown into the fire, their hands and legs were severed from their bodies, and they were permitted to bleed to death. The mother of the whole crew, the daughters, and grandchildren, after being spectators of the death of the men,' were cast into three separate fires and consumed to ashes.