Jack the Ripper Coursework Assignment.
Q1. What can you learn from Source A about the murder of Martha Tabram and Polly Nicholls?
You can learn from Source A the basic information about the two murders. It is part of a newspaper article called the East End Observer which describes the murder of Martha Tabram and Polly Nicholls. Although the article doesn’t tell us their identity it just states “The two murders” with not much more detail except that the victims both had one thing in common that they were “the poorest of the poor”. But we know that they had other things in common as well such as they were prostitutes. At the beginning it tells us that the murders “startled London” meaning that the murders took place in the East End of London because the source was published in the East End observer, but also if it startled London then the murders must have been quite extraordinary because murders were not very rare but as there were two murders then this could lead people to believe that they were linked in someway, although the article doesn’t say anything about that but if you read between the lines you get the idea that someone extraordinary has happened meaning they are linked somehow. The source also tells us that “no adequate motive the shape of plunder can be traced”. We can learn from this statement that the victims weren’t robbed so the Police cannot suggest a motive just yet so the murderer must have had another motive that is currently unknown. The article tells us that there was an “excess of effort” meaning that there was some form of cruel behavior imposed upon the victims but the source does not tell us what kind of brutality they received. The writer describes the crimes as the work of a “demented being” and that is they used “extraordinary violence”. But they do not tell us what kind of violence was used therefore we are still moderately restricted on our knowledge of the sources by just using this source. This source is quite limited to an extent that they do not tell us the finer points about the murders such as the name, age, gender, profession etc. about the victims, the place in which they were found, who found them or what violence was inflicted upon them. This is possibly because journalists probably don’t know much about the victims, they job is to just sell papers and get the public interested. Also as it was the beginning of the murders the writer just gave us basic information that had been released to the public.
