What can you learn from source A about the murders of Martha Tabram and Polly Nicholls?

However, with opinion in source, we can see what the public thought about the murders when they happened. From the language used, we can infer that the killer was a “demented being” but also that the murders “startled London”.

The source also implies other small pieces of information that can teach us about the murders of Tabram and Nicholls. The fact that this newspaper published information about the murders in such detail can also tell us that the police force were not treating the murders of Tabram and Nicholls seriously at the time, as they felt it would be safe to publish that kind of information.

On the other hand, source A might not be that useful in telling us about the murders of Tabram and Nicholls. Firstly, the source is very unspecific and lacks detail. For example, it does not tell us the exact time of the murders, nor the day, but only gives a weak “within the last month…” The source also fails to give us information about where the bodies were found, or the state that they were found in. The lack of information in the source may be explained by its target – a small paragraph in a newspaper the gain public interest and increase sales.

In conclusion, source A is useful as a general summary of the two murders and a way to find out what public opinion was like at the time about them, but is too unspecific to be used singularly to finding out about them.