The coroner, regarding the death of Polly Nicholls, writes source B. His report contains his own comments and conclusions of the ability of the murderer using the evidence he presents; the doctor’s report does not. He has given a more biased report on who the murderer may be.
“It was done by one who knew where to find what he wanted,”
He does this to assist investigations and give an idea of the type of injuries. His conclusions back up his evidence, making his ideas more relevant. This is the coroner’s report so it has been written to assist the inquest.
Source A does not conflict with the information of the other sources but is not as reliable or informative either. It does not give detailed accounts of the cases and doesn’t give any facts, just people’s comments. The writer was not a witness to the scene of the crime as the other sources are, therefore it is not a primary source. The account is very biased, for example it believes the murderer was a “demented being.”
3.Source D is not particularly useful in helping me to understand why the ripper was able to avoid capture. The source is primary, but due to the lighting of Victorian Whitechapel it is not very accurate. The witness gives her account of the suspect with very vague descriptions.
“I think he was wearing a deerstalker hat but I cannot be sure.”
Elizabeth Long gives this evidence, and it is obvious to me that she would not be able to pick this man out of a crowd and therefore neither could the police. This was a problem because the police had to rely on this evidence due to lack of forensic evidence. They did not have fingerprinting, DNA and as far as blood typing was concerned the only thing they could prove is whether it was the blood of an animal or a human. The cloths the witness described were very popular at the time, especially the deerstalker hat, this is important because it proves that the evidence was not really very significant as the person described could be so many people in the London area. I also become suspicious when studying this source because she describes the man as ‘dark complexioned.’ There was a large Jewish community living in the East End at the time, and a lot of attention was focussed upon this race. This bias could’ve led Elizabeth Long to believing this man was part of the Jewish community.
Source E is a lot more useful because it explains more about the area where the attacks took place. Whitechapel was very poor area of London and only the very poorest people lived and there were many prostitutes. Whitechapel was described to have “open and defiant ruffianism.” This would mean that there would always be violence and disturbance in the streets, so it would be very difficult to spot a suspicious character.
It was also described as “an apocalypse of evil.” This suggests to me that the area was like a third world country; the areas police was not very advanced. They had never had to deal with a serial killer and did not know what to do. The police wanted to offer rewards to anyone with information, hoping to get more evidence. However the Home secretary did not believe this was needed, believing that this could create more false evidence due to the amount of struggling people in the area.
These sources are useful to some extent but a lot more detail could have been included. The metropolitan police force had only recently been developed and the force only had detectives since 1842. The methods detectives used were slowly developing, but were very amateur at this stage. The basic method was simply to follow suspicious characters whilst wearing plain clothes. Other than this they were aware of footprints and some basic forensic evidence. The policeman on the beat was only trained to stop violence in rallies and major demonstrations and to keep order on the streets of London. This of course wasn’t very useful when trying to catch a serial killer.
4.The police tried many different approaches to catch Jack The Ripper. Source F tells me about a poster campaign that was launched. They decided that increasing awareness of the situation would maybe jog a witness’ memory or even make someone feel guilty. The polce have made this notice very blunt and to the point, in an effort to interest the reader into giving evidence. This was the normal nineteenth century methods used.
‘You are earnestly requested’ gives me the impression that the police do not have any major leads.This was probably useful but not very hands on approach to catch the killer. It shows me that the police were still I also know that the policing in Whitechapel became tighter, in efforts to catch the Ripper red handed, there were more policemen on the beat. The police were not trained for such individual murders, they only had two main purposes, to keep order and deal with riots. This means the only thing they really could do was to patrol the area. The police had few detectives, whom would simply follow suspicious characters. This would be quite difficult as there was a great deal of violence, prostitution and drunkenness in the East End of London. A suspicious character is not a very reliable method. The police were starting to develop some forms of forensics. For example in 1884 John Thomas was convicted of murder because the paper he used for his pistol wadding matched that of the head wound on the victim. Other methods had not been adopted at the time of the Ripper murders. During the 1880’s the police had a bad name due to the severe increase of serious incidents. After reading Source G I know that offering a reward was not a method they chose to use, as it would “produce more harm than good.” Whitechapel was full of people desperate for money so a reward would not work as it likely that it would produce false evidence. So This was the first metropolitan serial killer, the police had no experience at all. I now realise that there were very limited things the police could do to improve the situation, but increase security and awareness. Or of course catch the killer red handed. The committee that wrote to the Home Secretary believed that a reward would be the most succesful.
5. “The police were to blame for not catching Jack the Ripper”
Yes this seems to be the case, for the obvious reason that Jack the Ripper was not caught. Although there are many reasons that show the police were not to hold full responsibility. This was the first urban serial killer. No one knew how to deal with it, as they had no experience. The only way the police could act on the situation was to increase policemen on the beat and to increase awareness to find witnesses. Secondly the horrific elements this case involved. The bodies were mutated in horrible humiliating ways. This was probably going to affect the people working on the case. A factor that should also be included is that there was no forensic science, there was no blood typing, DNA or even fingerprinting. A case of this type during modern day could easily be solved due to fingerprinting. Taking all of this into account I believe the only way Jack the Ripper could have been caught is if he was found with a victim or if there was a witness. I think the Ripper was close to being caught after the murder of Elizabeth Stride as there was no mutilation of the body except for a slit to the throat, also he moved on to murder another women in the same night. Source H sums up the situation the police were in during these murders, describing the murders to be ‘carried out with such ruthlessness.’ This again bringing up the issue that the murders faced every day were normally by someone who knew the victim, as a drunken mistake or something of the like. However the Ripper murders were brutal and obviously intended by the killer. The police could not have been prepared for this because of lack of experience. I find it interesting that all the murders were in the same poor area, and every victim was or had ben a prostitute. I can see how close the muders were by the map in Source I. In conclusion I think it was not the fault of the police force, but lack of experience. If the case had been solved it would be down to chance and obviously the police did not have luck on their side! Around two months later when the Ripper had not been caught and another attack had not taken place, it was decided that he was dead, in an asylum or left the country.