The published date, revealed at the end of source, is the 30th September – the same date as the victims of the double attack were found. From this I can infer that the police were acting promptly on the events as they happened. This shows that they were making a concerted effort to catch the ripper.
The source states that the murders happened, “in or near Whitechapel” which is not specific enough to inform the reader weather or not it was a local attack. It then goes on to say that the murders were “supposed by someone residing in the immediate neighbourhood”. From this I can assume that it was a local man, but the dates given may possibly contradict this statement, leading the reader to believe the killer is someone from outside Whitechapel, coming in on bank holidays and weekends only to kill.
The notice then goes on to inquire, “ Should you know of any person to whom suspicion is attached…” This was a very misleading inquisition because there were so many possibilities of potential killers; this led the public to panic and make false accusations, which the police force took very seriously. This was also linked to the media’s part played in the investigation. The local newspaper would hear about the latest accusations made and publicize it, this lead the police into thinking they had no choice but to arrest the person; in other words, the police were forced into making arrests.
Source G is part of a letter from the home secretary to the head of the police force issued on 17th September 1888. The letter was sent to tell the police force that they cannot issue out rewards to witnesses due to “experience”. The reply was received on the 17th September; therefore I can tell that the police had anticipated the murder. This shows that they were putting an exceeding amount of effort into the investigation and were using all means necessary to catch the ripper. The source gives less information about what the police are actually doing in order to stop the murderer, but what we can learn from it, is that they requested that a reward is given to those to put forward information. In the reply, the Home secretary stated, “experience showed that such offers of reward tended to produce more harm than good”. This implicates that rewards have been available in the past but due to false information given by those desperate for money, they were stopped. This is a massive limitation to the police force because the public refused to help, even if they did have valuable information that could of potentially solved the case. From this source I can infer that the police were struggling to receive evidence, and due to their lack of technology and equipment, could only hope that a reward system would give them a lead. The main limitation with this was that the public despised the police force due to their awful reputation in society. The police often disobeyed their given instructions as to the use of truncheons and behaved intemperately. It was a general belief that they were not acting impartially and were seen as favouring the middle and upper classes.
