Tumblety's Alibi

OLEANDERS IN NEW YORK.
NOTES FROM A VERSATILE PEN FAMILIAR TO HERALD READERS.

A Ride Across Brooklyn Bridge with One Who is Charged with Being "Jack the Ripper."

BROOKLYN, Aug. 1.

I enjoyed a peculiar adventure the other morning. I had just finished my night's work, and was riding across the big bridge. I had barely secured a seat in the bridge car when a peculiar looking man entered. He was over six feet in height, his face was square and red, and his gigantic, wiry, black moustache was of such huge proportions and singular cut that it would have attracted attention anywhere. It attracted my attention at any rate and as its owner sat down beside me I immediately decided in my mind that

HE WAS DR. TUMBLETY,

the alleged Whitechapel murderer. I had seen several pictures of that notorious gentleman which were published in the HERALD about the time he fled from London, and the man sitting beside me closely resembled them. The car contained few people at that early hour, and during the five minutes ride over the bridge the big stranger and I conversed with each other in a friendly manner. He led off with a familiar remark about the weather, and I followed suit in the same vein. Well, to make a long story short, one thing led to another, his every remark convincing me more and more that my guess at his identity was correct, until at last I asked him his name.
"Dr. Francis Tumblety, you may have heard it before," was the quiet reply.
I replied somewhat significantly that I had. He said he had been greatly wronged by the press, and gave me a pamphlet containing his picture and a number of notices of a book he had just published. We parted at the Brooklyn end of the bridge. Shortly thereafter the last Whitechapel murder occurred in London, and as Tumblety was without doubt in Brooklyn at the time, he is evidently unjustly suspected of being "Jack the Ripper."

Source: The Olean Democrat, Thursday August 8, 1889