Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1888 — THE WHITECHAPEL FIEND. [ARTICLE]

THE WHITECHAPEL FIEND.

Great excitement was occasioned Wednesday morning when it was reported that another woman had been murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel, London. The police immediately formedja cordon around the premises. An enormous crowd rushed to the vicinity in which the crime was said to have been committed, where it was learned that another murder had been attempted upon a low woman by a man who had accompanied her to her lodging, but that in this instance his work had been frustrated. According to the woman’s story the man had seized her and struck her once in the thtoat with a knife. She struggled desperately and succeeded in freeing herself from the man’s grasp and had screamed for help. Her cries had alarmed the man and he fled without attempting any further violence. Some of the neighbors who had heard the woman’s screams followed the murderer fer about 300 yards, when he disappeared from their sight. The woman says she is fully able to recognize the man and gave a description of him to the police. The police are hopeful of soon capturing him. This latest Whitechapel sensation has been sifted down to nothing but the mere ravings of a drunken women after a row with her lover. Thq woman is of even lower type than those who fell a prey to the Whitechapel murderer. Her associates say that she is very quarrelsome, and that the man whom she accused of trying to cut-her throat has been visiting her for nearly a year. The people in the house heard them quarreling at 9 q’clock Thursday, and when the man ran down the stairs the woman followed him to the top of the landing and screamed: “He tried to cut my throat, folio v him.” Three men gave chase but the fellow got away easily enough. This indeed is the only significant thing in the whole affair and it is difficult to understand how a man could escape so easily in broad daylight in streets patrolled by- the police and filled with people. But the police know who the man isaDd where he lives. They have been watching his house all day and when he gets over his fright and returns home they expect to get him. ’ There is however not the slightest reason to suppose that he is the Whitechapel fiend. The police believe that the woman inflicted the wound in her own throat. The injury is very slight The really interesting incident of the* day is another letter from “Jack the Ripper,” dated Portsmouth. Here it is: ‘ Dear Boss It is no good so you to look for mein London, becauseT am not there. Don’t trouble yourself about me long. I like the work too well to leave it lo< g. Oh that was 6ueh a jolly job the last one I had plenty of time to do it properly. Ha, ha! the next lot 1 mean to do with a vengeance, to cut off their head and arms. You think it is a man with a black mustache. Ha, ha, ha! M hen I have done another you can catch me, so good by, dear Boss, till I return. Yours, “Jack the Ripper.” The letter isio the same handwriting as the one received just before Mary Kelly was murdered.

One hundred more writs of ejectment were served on settlers on the Des Moines River lands Wednesday. The’ settlers w*jre"driven out of their houses, their furniture piled up in the road, and the doors and windows barred against them. The Land Company make no compromises and when the settlers make overtures to buy their land, as many of them are doing,they are charged from sl6 to $25 per acres Harrison’s official plurality in Michi--gan is 22.966. Fisk received 20,942 votes, and Streeter, Union Labor, 4,542.