All of Jack’s victims had one thing in common; they were all prostitutes. Their names were (in order of their murders): Mary Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. Their “profession” was very dangerous for a number of reasons, however up until Friday 31st August 1888, these were disregarded. As all of the prostitutes were uneducated and disrespected by society generally (for being lower class women) the only method of making money they had was using their body. The majority of the victims were alcoholics. They used alcohol as a way of escaping from their dismal lives. The fact that it was prostitutes being murdered drew attention to the case, because that had never been heard of. It became obvious that the Ripper was very specific about his victims, that he wanted them all to be prostitutes. That was probably because they became vulnerable when lifting their skirts (making his job easier).
As stated before, murder was not unheard of in Whitechapel, however mutilation definitely was. This was the rippers Modus Operandi, which probably attracted the most attention, with the press’s help. It was gruesome, messy and it was completely unnecessary. The Ripper obviously felt the need to mutilate them after slitting their throats, and what’s more, gained pleasure from it. The strangest thing about his mutilations was how precise and accurate they were. Judging by the autopsies, he knew exactly where to cut, and how to not damage any vital organs when removing them. This fascinated the press, it posed the question, is the Ripper a professional? His modus operandi was somewhat terrifying, after slitting the women’s throats he would disembowel them. However, on the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, which happened to be his last murder, he left no stone unturned. There were pieces of her body all over the room in which she was killed, and blood all over the walls. And it was difficult to even see that she was a person. Maybe he did this was because he knew she was to be his final victim. The press gained a morbid fascination with his modus operandi, and they and the newspapers readers started to live vicariously through what was happening.
Of course, when the press wrote stories about each murder, they exaggerated. They explained everything about every murder down to the finest detail, and had bold headlines, grasping people’s attention. From the North to the South, the whole country was aware of what was happening in Whitechapel, and this was all down to the press. The press criticised the police force, leading people to believe that the police weren’t doing everything they could to try and stop the Ripper. Everybody from the rich to the poor gained some kind of knowledge from the newspapers. The rich could read the articles, and the poor could look at the graphic pictures. The press had no boundaries when writing their articles and taking their pictures, they included everything and left nothing to the imagination. As gruesome and probably wrong as this was, it sold newspapers and that was all that was wanted by the companies, infact, Jack the Ripper helped their sales go through the roof, and they were thankful to him for that if nothing else.
In conclusion, for all of the above reasons, a lot of attention was attracted to the Jack the Ripper murder mystery, and overall evidence shows that it was the press that caused all of the attention, and that was their intention.
