Jack the Ripper

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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.
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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 ...

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