by Covell, Mike
Newspaper reports post September 1888
The South Australian Register, an Australian newspaper, featured the following, dated October 18th 1888,
MURDER STALKING ABROAD IN WHITECHAPEL. A FOURTH WOMAN FOULLY MUTILATED. [From the P.M. Budget, September 13.] A painful sensation was created all over London on Saturday when it was known that another shocking murder, with even more horrible details than those which characterized the crime [illegible] in last week a Budget, was perpetrated early that morning in Spitalfields. This neighbourhood has been in a state of wild excitement, bordering on panic, for the other cases are fresh is everybody's memory, and nobody has been brought to justice for any one of the crimes. The victim is again a woman of the ' unfortunate' class, and the scenes of all the murders are close together. The victim was found in the backyard at No. 29, Hanbury street, Spitalfields, by a Mr. Davis, who lodges in the house. As Mr. Davis, who is a market porter, was going to work at about 6 o'clock, ne happened to go into the backyard, which is a piece of ground flagged with stones about 30 feet long, and immediately behind the door, in the left hand corner, close to a brick wall, he found the woman lying, horribly mutilated, in a pool of blood. There were blood stains on the wall, and there is no doubt that the murder was committed where the deceased was found, although no one— and there were four families in the house at the time— heard the least sound. The house is occupied by a Mrs. Emilia Richardson, who lets it out to various lodgers, and it seems that the door which admits into the passage, at the foot of which lies the yard where the body was found, is always open for the convenience of the lodgers — a fact, no doubt, known to the perpetrators of the crime. This Mr. and Mrs. Davis occupy the upper story. When Mr. Davis found the woman she was lying on her back close up to the flight of steps leading into the yard. The throat was cut open in a fearful manner— so, deep, in fact, that the murderer, evidently thinking that he had severed the head from the body, tied a handkerchief round it so as to keep it on. It was also found that the body had been ripped open and disembowelled, the heart and abdominal viscera lying by the side. The fiendish work was completed by the murderer tying part of the entrails round the victim's neck. There was no blood on the clothes. It was a woman named Amelia Farmer, who was a fellow-lodger with the deceased, who identified the body. Later on she made a statement of what she knew of the history of the murdered woman, Annie Chapman had for a long time been separated from her husband, a veterinary surgeon at Windsor, by mutual agreement, and had been allowed 10s. a week by him for her maintenance. About eighteen months ago the instalments suddenly ceased, and, upon enquiry being made, it was found that the hu3band had died. Annie Chapman had two children, but where they were she could not say. The deceased had a mother and sister, who were living in the neighbourhood of Brompton or Fulham — she thought near the Brompton Hospital. Last Monday Chap man had intimated her intention of communicating with her sister, saying, ' If I can get a pair of boots from my sister I shall go - bop-picking.' Another relation, a brother in-law of the deceased, lived somewhere in or near Oxford-street. Farmer asserted that her murdered friend was apparently a sober, steady-going sort of woman, and one who seldom took any drink. For some time cast she had been living occasionally with a man named Ted Stanley, who bad been in the militia, but was now working at some neighbouring brewery. She had not been- in the habit of frequenting the street, but had made antimacassars for Bale, {sometimes she would buy flowers or matches with which to pick up a living. Farmer was perfectly certain that on Friday night the murdered woman had worn three rings, which were not genuine, bat were imitations, as otherwise she would not have troubled to go out and find money for her lodgings. About 1.40 am on Saturday morning she went again to the lodging-house, 35, Dorset-street, and asked for a bed. The message was taken upstairs, and the deputy sent downstairs to ask for the money. The woman replied, `I haven't enough now. but . keep my bed for me. I shan't be long.' Then us the was going away she said to John Evans, the watchman, `Brummy, I won't be long. See that Jim keeps my bed for me.' She was the worse for drink at the time. He saw nothing of her again until he was called to the mortuary on Saturday, when he identified the deceased by her features and her wavy hair, which was turning grey.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Monday October 22nd 1888,
It is understood that the police have practically abandoned all hope of catching the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders, who, on the assumption that all these crimes have been the work of one hand, has been able to commit four brutal murders within a short space of time without being discovered. The only chance that remains of securing the miscreant is that he may commit another murder and be caught in the act, or else that he may, in some drunken or un- guarded moment, let out the secret. The medical examination of the remains of the woman Chapman shows that the murder must have been the work of someone possessing a certain degree of anatomical knowledge, and the doctors discard both the maniac and the slaughter man theories. We are, therefore, left face to face with the awful fact that we have at large in the metropolis, an educated fiend, afflicted with a devouring thirst for human blood, and that the best chance we have of capturing him lies in his adding to the number of his crimes. Under circumstances like these it is no wonder that Whitechapel should be in a state of panic.
