jack the ripper

The source helps us to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture.  The evidence given by Elizabeth Long is very vague.  She uses words like “I think”, “ as far as I could tell”, “I cannot be sure” and “he seemed”.  She had convictions for drunkenness so her evidence may not have been taken seriously.

At the time of the Ripper, Whitechapel was full of Jewish people and people of different nationalities. A lot of small businesses in Whitechapel were run by foreigners so there would have been a lot of people who fitted Elizabeth Long’s description of a “ dark complexioned foreigner”.   He might have been able to avoid capture because there were so many nationalities and races in Whitechapel that he blended in and would not have stood out.  In the overcrowded conditions and unlit alley ways in Whitechapel, the Ripper would have easily been able to avoid the police

Source E is part of an article published in a local newspaper after the murders of Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman.  The source tells us that the murders were not handled very well by the police because they took no notice of informants.  The source describes how people demanded that the police force be strengthened to try and create some kind of order on the streets at night, and to try and put a stop to the murders.  People warned that the murders would continue if the police did not take some kind of action.  In the source Whitechapel is described as “ thoroughfares connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes.  Everyone apparently containing some headquarters of infamy.  The sights and sounds are an apocalypse of evil”.

The source suggests that the local police force may have been inefficient.  The source says “my informant was referred from one police office to another, but without making any impression”.  The source suggests that Whitechapel was such a rough place “an apocalypse of evil” that the police may have been too frightened to go out in the narrow, dark alleys of Whitechapel at night by themselves,` or that there were too few of them to patrol Whitechapel at night.  All these facts would have made it easier for the Ripper to avoid capture.