Jack The Ripper - Mark Whitehead [14]
Mrs Darrell’s testimony that the man she’d seen talking to Chapman was ‘foreign-looking’ didn’t help matters. However, when her testimony was given on 19 September, the atmosphere in the East End had relaxed and locals, particularly prostitutes, were beginning to take to the night streets again. Not everyone was terrified by the crimes. Some even found ways to profit by them. Inhabitants of houses overlooking the backyard of 29, Hanbury Street charged members of the public a small entrance fee so that they could see the crime scene. A waxworks’ owner in Whitechapel Road splashed red paint on three of his female dummies and exhibited them as Tabram, Nichols and Chapman.
Perhaps the group that profited most from the crimes was the press.The sales of newspapers to bloodthirsty members of the public eager to hear the latest about the atrocities boosted sales like nothing before, and extra print runs were needed to meet requirements. Journalists from the tabloid Star to the upmarket Daily Telegraph rose to the challenge. Even the usually sedate Times wasn’t exempt. All were equally keen to make political currency out of the murders. Both radical and conservative papers used coverage to criticise the Home Secretary and Sir Charles Warren.
Sir Charles Warren, in turn, was highly critical of the behaviour of the press. He angrily denounced them to Matthews for trailing police officers on their enquiries and re-interviewing people once the police had finished their questions. The CID’s policy of maintaining secrecy to protect the investigation caused journalists to resort to such tactics. Journalists flocked to Wynne Baxter’s lengthy inquests which supplied them with many of the details they couldn’t glean from the police, and claimed that fuller reports could only help the police investigation.
The press and the public were only too keen to offer their own theories to the police.Was the killer a religious maniac on a crusade to clean up the vice-ridden streets of Whitechapel? Were the attacks motivated by revenge, the killer having contracted a venereal disease from a prostitute? Maybe he was the member of some heathen sect, or a Jewish ritual slaughterman seeking out human sacrifices. On 13 September, The Star suggested photographing Chapman’s eyes (there was a widely-held belief that the human retina retained the last image it saw).This was politely ignored, but the Home Secretary would later suggest the same idea to Sir Charles Warren during the investigation of the next Ripper victim, Elizabeth Stride. After Chapman’s murder Dr L Forbes Winslow, self-described ‘medical theorist and practical detective,’ offered the first of his suggestions to The Times, advising the police to check lunatic asylums for patients recently discharged or escaped. Winslow later became obsessed with the case to the degree that he patrolled the streets in search of clues.
Wynne Baxter’s theory of the cash-hungry uterus collector was welcomed by the press but disputed by the medical fraternity. Most medical schools denied receiving such a request. University College and Middlesex Hospitals refused to confirm or deny the suggestion. Instead, their comments that the interests of justice were endangered by the disclosure suggest that they might