Jack the Ripper

WHY DID THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS ATTRACT SO MUCH ATTENTION IN 1888?

The Dates

1. Friday 31st August 1888-Mary Ann Ð''Polly' Nicholls

2. Saturday 8th September 1888-Annie Chapman

3. Sunday 30th September 1888-Elizabeth Stride

4. Monday 1st October 1888-Catherine Eddowes

5. Friday 9th November 1888-Marie Jeannette Kelly

The Victims

All of the victims chosen by Jack the Ripper were female lower-class women who had prostituted.

This excited the interest of middle- or even higher-class Victorians as these people were seen as wicked, going on the streets not for need but for choice; about them view was that all they deserved for their sins was death, so their killing would have stirred and reinforced an average Victorian's sense of justice.

The Slaughtering

What all victims had in common was their violent death caused by a Ð''necklace' from ear to ear. Then, especially in the last one, horrible mutilations were performed on the dead body, the brutality and rawness of which excited the public, as did shocking theories of cannibalism when organs went missing, or speculations of obscure rituals performed during the mutilations as the positioning of removed organs suggested.

The Press Reports

Of course, all of this would not have been known to most Londoners if it hadn't been for the attention which the press gave to the case.

All of the mutilations and gruesome, lurid details of the massacres were reported to the public not only in their full viciousness, but were even inflated, together with pictures of bleeding bodies and dark characters-as of course not only in the victim was the press interested, but also in suspects. The many hypothesises advanced by different London papers gave people something to gossip about-or argue, as the radical press emphasized especially on the incompetence of the Police Force in their investigations and the amount of evidence against the Jewish community.

The Double Murder Night

The Ripper's acts in the night between the 30th of September and the 1st of October greatly increased the public's attention to the case. The audacity shown in murdering two women in two hours disturbed everyone.

As the killer had crossed the boundary into the City of London, a lot of middle-classed people felt involved not being any longer just an East-End business.

The Police was also deeply disturbed by how the slaughterer had managed to strike a second time in the same night, even though the whole zone was sweeping with uniformed and disguised policemen looking for him.

The letter

A short time before the double murder night the first letter which is attributed to the real murderer is also the one which gives the Whitechapel Beast his eternal nickname: Jack the Ripper. Out of all the 400 letters ever claiming to be from the murderer, this one stands out for its audaciousness and the threats it poses to Ð''get to work right away'. After the double murder, it is posted by the Police all over the East-End, so that those few who are not yet aware of what's going on now take notice.

WHY WERE THE POLICE UNABLE TO CATCH JACK THE RIPPER?

There were many factors that caused the Police to fail their attempt to catch Jack the Ripper.

1) The Whitechapel Factor

One of the reasons Jack the Ripper was not caught was that almost all of the murders took place in Whitechapel. This was the worst part of the poor end of London. Here, the streets were dark by day and poorly lit at night. There were many side streets and corners in which it was easy to hide or refuge.

Not only was the geography and conditions of the streets favouring the murderer, but also the many different people meant that no matter how strange or unlikely one might look, he could still pass unnoticed.

The cries of the Ripper's victims might have well passed unnoticed as in Whitechapel it was common to hear cries of "help!" or "murder. This narrowed the number of witnesses.

Overall, this made it hard to catch the Ripper both during the time of the murder and after.

2) The Prostitution Obstacle

Another reason which brought few, vague witnesses forward was that the victims were prostitutes, performing illegal acts in dark, lonely places. This meant that where they brought their customers were few