Ripper Sent to Asylum

"JACK THE RIPPER."

A well-known Scotland Yard detective, discussing in the "Sunday Chronicle" the many murders whose perpetrators are never traced, says: "It is easy to suspect a man. Frequently it is not difficult to suspect the right man. But unless there is an unbroken chain of circumstances connecting the suspected person with the actual crime, it is both useless and harmful to make an arrest. Perhaps the most terrible crime during the last decade which was not followed by a conviction was the killing and mutilating of a number of unfortunate women in Whitechapel. Day after day these murders occurred. Failure again? Yes. But listen to this. We found our man. He was engaged in a large way of business in the city of London, was married, had a family, and was generally respected. For some time he had been known as eccentric, and various escapades had caused his friends a good deal of anxiety. Frequently, as we learned later, he stayed out all night about the time when these outrages were committed. His description agreed with that of a man seen in Dorset-street, Whitechapel, on the night when Mary Jane Kelly was cut to pieces, and at that time he was near to actual arrest by a policeman. His family knew of the circumstances, knew that he was not only a madman, but a man possessed of considerable surgical knowledge, and with their full consent, and the knowledge of the police, he was put away in an asylum. Since that man's removal there has not been another such crime in London, though we had another undetected criminal in the same neighbourhood five years ago. Mrs. Austin being murdered and mutilated in Dorset-street. The crime was somewhat similar, but it is absurd to suggest, as it has been suggested, that it was the work of the madman of the "Ripper" crimes. Mrs. Austin's body was mutilated, but by no means in the same skilful way."

Source: Clarence and Richmond Examiner, Saturday 9 December 1905, page 11