Jack the Ripper
. What can you learn from Source A about the murders of Martha Tabrum and Polly?
Nicholls?
The source is a London newspaper called the East End Observer. It is about the murders of how Martha Tabrum and Polly Nichols were done. We can tell the article was made within a month of their murders. It says the victims were "the poorest of the poor" meaning that they had no money whatsoever. This was odd, as the murderer has no apparent reason to murder the two people. The journalist's opinion is that the murderer "a demented being".
The reliability of this source can be questioned, as it is a newspaper. A newspaper would normally want more readers so they would exaggerate the facts in order to gain more readers and more profits. There is an assumption that both murders were linked, this may not be true but it was thought at the time that they were.
We can learn from this that the murders were different to anything else normally seen and that this could possibly be a mental serial killer.
2. Does the evidence of Source C support the evidence of Sources A and B about the Ripper murders?
The source is a doctor's report about on the body of Elizabeth Stride. This is a fairly reliable source as the doctor would not bias his report as there is no motive for him to do so. The thing that can be questioned is whether he is a good doctor as this cannot be confirmed from the source. This is the same with the coroner but the newspaper's motive is to make people read the article for more profit, this is why the article could be exaggerated. While it is the doctor's and the coroner's job to investigate the murders, the journalist's is to make people read their newspaper.
Source A says "The excess of effort" and "extraordinary violence used" about the murder telling us that the murderer might be mental but Source B says that "There are no meaningless cuts" and "the injuries have been made by someone who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge". Source C says "In the neck there was a long incision" meaning that there were no meaningless cuts like the Source B.
3. How useful are Sources D and E in helping you to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture?
Both sources have strengths and weaknesses, for example, in Source D the person has actually seen the murderer and the police acted on the information given, while Source E suggests that the police weren't looking for the killer, this was written in a local newspaper so it could be biased.
In Source D, Elizabeth Long gave evidence at an inquest about the death of Annie Chapman, giving the description of the man Annie was seen talking to. She said the man was "dark complexioned and was wearing a deerstalker hat", there are many people in London who had dark skin and the person wouldn't always be wearing a deerstalker hat so this wouldn't be that helpful in finding the Ripper. She then says "I think he was wearing a dark coat but I cannot be sure", she says she thought he was wearing a dark coat and that ...
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In Source D, Elizabeth Long gave evidence at an inquest about the death of Annie Chapman, giving the description of the man Annie was seen talking to. She said the man was "dark complexioned and was wearing a deerstalker hat", there are many people in London who had dark skin and the person wouldn't always be wearing a deerstalker hat so this wouldn't be that helpful in finding the Ripper. She then says "I think he was wearing a dark coat but I cannot be sure", she says she thought he was wearing a dark coat and that she wasn't sure so it is unreliable. Another thing is that he might not always be wearing the coat. She thinks that the man was over forty and "taller then the deceased", this would not be helpful to the police as there are many people who fit the description. She then says that the man looked like a foreigner and "what I should call shabby genteel" meaning middle classed. Whitechapel was homed to many foreigners and there would be many middle classed people in the area as well. This shows that the police did not have very reliable evidence but they did try to find a foreigner.
Source E is an article from a local newspaper published after the murders of Polly Nicholls and Annie Chapman. The journalist's informant "demanded at that time that the police force on the spot should be strengthened and some kind of order created on the streets by night", this suggests that there aren't enough police in Whitechapel and that they are not doing a good enough job. He then says that murders would continue if the situation didn't change, blaming the police for the further murders. He then says that his informant was referred from one police officer to another without making an impression, this suggests that the police aren't interested in the murders. The article then said that after the first murder the informant warned the police that there would be more murders if they didn't clear the streets of crime, after this came another murder. The article then says that areas of Whitechapel are connected by "by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes, every one apparently containing some headquarters of infamy", like brothels and opium dens. This shows that it would be difficult to find someone in these narrow, dark and crooked lanes and that it would be difficult keeping law and order in such places. This suggests that the police did not take interest however; the journalist could just be blaming the police so the source is unreliable.
Overall the sources are useful because Source D showed that the witness's descriptions were not detailed enough so there were too many suspects while in Source E it suggests that the police were to blame for not stopping the murders and catching the criminal so the Ripper couldn't be caught because there were too many suspects and the police weren't very good. However, Source E is the journalist's opinion, not fact and the police weren't trying while in Source D, the police did try to look for a foreigner. So the two sources are similar as they show how the Ripper could avoid capture but they are also different as one of them is reliable and the other isn't.
4. Use Sources F and G, and your own knowledge, to explain how the police tried to catch Jack the Ripper.
The Metropolitan Police force used many different ways to try and catch the Ripper, in Source F, there is a leaflet and in Source G, the is a letter about rewards. There are also other methods that the police used.
Source F is a police leaflet published after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Kate Eddowes. It talks about the two murders and that the killer lives in Whitechapel. It asks the occupant that if they are suspicious about anyone linked to the murders, to contact the nearest police station. This method was used to warn people of the murders and to get information from the people, about the murderer. This didn't work very well as many of the residents of Whitechapel had their own crimes to hide and didn't want to meet with the police.
Source G is part of a letter from the Home Secretary to the Mile End Vigilance Committee. It talks about offering rewards for finding criminals, were discontinued. This is because there are many people desperate for money that they will lie for it and this produces too many suspects as the letter says "experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good". The letter then says that the Secretary of State says that there is no reason for the rules to be changed. The reason the letter was sent was because vigilante groups were offering rewards the Ripper.
At the time there was no forensic evidence at the time, which is used now to catch criminals using DNA and fingerprinting, so to convict a man they would need to have caught him in the act, or to make the suspect confess. This is why in Source F, they asked for people to come forward and give information about the murderer. In Source G, it talks about not offering a reward which would have been normal practice, but was refused by Henry Mathews who was the home secretary.
5. 'The police were to blame for not capturing Jack the Ripper.'
Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view.
I don't agree with this view. There were many factors that hindered the police, which they couldn't control. Some of these factors are the area and the technology of the time.
The Metropolitan Police force was in their infancy so they were not very good at detective work as their focus was on petty crime. The CID was only set up ten years before the murders, so they did not have enough experience or the technology to catch the Ripper. The main way to catch criminals at the time was to catch the criminal in the act or to make them confess. To do this they needed witnesses; however some people did not trust the police as they had their own crimes to hide, so they didn't come forward. In most forces, the constables were uneducated, working class and received very little training so they had to learn the trade "on the job". Another problem was that imposters were writing letters pretending to be Jack the Ripper which distracted the police. It was difficult to tell whether the letters were genuine and could actually help. In the "dear boss" letter, there were suspicions that the criminal might have been American as "boss" was an American expression, this made even more suspects. The police were even sent a part of Kate Eddowes' kidney; this couldn't be confirmed as the technology wasn't good enough. Graffiti was found at the seen of the murders saying "the Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing", this implied that the Ripper was Jewish but if the community found out then the police feared there would be rioting against the Jews as there were many in Whitechapel, so the police removed the graffiti. A reward could not be given as when the Lord Mayor offered a reward, it gave 1,400 tip offs so this standard practice could have been used. The wittiness's descriptions were too vague to give the police enough information about the Ripper as in Source D where the descriptions weren't detailed enough.
The media also played a part in hindering the police's effort's to catch the ripper. The new transport network meant that newspapers could spread easily. People were interested in crime because of the newspaper's graphic descriptions, the newspapers cared little for the truth and by creating panic they would sell more papers. The graphic images conjured up in many people minds made them complain to the government, this brought about the constant changing of police officers, this halted the police's progress. Such as in Source A, it describes the "extraordinary violence" of the murders. Another description from the London Times said" The stomach and the abdomen had been ripped open, while the face was slashed about, so that the features of the poor creature were beyond all recognition". Since many of the lower class couldn't read, the newspapers printed detailed illustrations suggesting who the ripper might be. This created a public outcry and wasted police time as the media was speculating who the ripper might be. The press then started to receive letters claiming to be from the ripper, these were dismissed as hoaxes; however the "dear boss" letter was believed today to be real. The press didn't send until a few days later and the night after the police had received the letter, two more people were murdered meaning the police had lost their only chance to catch the ripper. It is certain that the media's coverage of the murders caused more problems for the police. The area also caused problems for the police. Whitechapel was one of the poorest areas of London. The area was very populated with 900,000 people, 1,200 of them were full time prostitutes. There was already a lot of crime in the area so people didn't want to interact with the police. The murderer left no clues so it was difficult to catch him and when he wrote the graffiti on the wall, the police had to clean it off as there were many Jews in Whitechapel and if the public found out then there would be rioting. In Source E, it describes Whitechapel as "connected by a network of narrow, dark and crooked lanes, every one apparently containing some headquarters of infamy. The sights and sounds are an apocalypse of evil", making it a difficult place to work in.
This is why the police found it difficult to catch the ripper as the technology wasn't good enough; the media created panic and the area of Whitechapel was a difficult area to work in. So because of the time, the murders happened in, the Ripper wouldn't have been caught.