They Knew It Was A Doctor

PROBABLY A CLUE
To The Identity of the Whitechapel Fiend.

The Whitechapel Fiend Again.
Special to the Chronicle.


NEW YORK, Nov. 21. - The World special from London, says there is no longer any doubt in the minds of the Scotland Yard detectives that the monster, who has committed the nine Whitechapel murders, and attempted to kill another unfortunate harlot last night, is a physician. They arrive at this conclusion from the manner in which the throat of Mary Eliza Hodge, who, by the way, has several aliases, was cut last night. The knife was a surgeon's lancet, and was found on the floor beside the bleeding woman, whose clothes were saturated with her blood, and the instrument of death, together with the fact that an attempt was made to sever the jugular vein goes far towards corroborating the Scotland Yard theory.


THE WOMAN'S STORY


The Hodge woman says the murderer solicited her company on the street in the most gentlemanly and insinuating manner; a bargain was struck and he accompanied her to her lodgings. She apologized for the poor accommodations, saying that he was too nice a gentleman to come to such a place. He assured her in the most elegant and pointed manner that it suited his purposes excellently. Immediately the woman disrobed herself, "her catch" caught her by the back of the neck with his left hand and her next sensation was the feeling caused by the driving of the sharp, keen, small blade of the lancet, held in the murderer's right hand, into her throat. Being remarkably strong and realizing she was about to be dexterously murdered by the Whitechapel fiend, she made a desperate struggle for life and threw the murderer off.


THE KNIFE FELL TO THE FLOOR.


and the blood spurted from the wound, while the woman screamed and hallooed for assistance, to such purpose that the fiend thought it advisable to flee for his life. Many of the woman's neighbors in the same lodging house rushed to her assistance, and seeing the man rush from the room, followed him for four or five blocks.

The first clue to the identity of the murderer, it is claimed, is attached to the knife, which proves to be that belonging to a retired army surgeon. He is said to be a man of very high standing: a genius, possessing all the eccentricities, who is supposed to lead a quiet life, spending the most of his time in his rooms in a fashionable quarter of London, and at a certain club. Of late he has been attending all the performances of the play, at the Strand, of


"DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE."


The theory is that he has become a monomaniac upon the subject of playing this double character of goodness and deviltry, alternately, and is the real monster of Whitechapel. The Scotland Yard detectives are "piping" him, and will arrest him the moment they can get what further evidence they require to connect the man in his two remarkably diverse characters. He may yet be too clever for the duffers who receive the pay of detectives in London, and kill one or two of them, just to show how clever he is. To show the stupidity of these alleged detectives, after the murderer had gotten half a mile from the scene of the attempted crime, with the "hue and cry" following, yesterday morning, they had the police form a cordon around the block, preventing anyone from going into the premises and arrested all who came out.

Source: Aspen Daily Chronicle, (Aspen, Pitkin County), November 22, 1888, page 1