Kishen Naik
Question 2 Jack the ripper
Why did the Whitechapel murders attract so much attention in 1888?
During the 18th century serial murders were unheard of and in Whitechapel there was jack the ripper who was one of the first known serial killers in the world. Whitechapel was a cosmopolitan area which had a dense population there were many people living there from Jews to poles these people lived here because of the low rent and few questions were asked. The people that mostly lived in Whitechapel were the poor and there were many prostitutes on estimate around 1200 at the time and there may have been many others these prostitutes were just making a living on a day to day basis. Altogether 900000 people lived in the east end.
The murders had attracted so much attention because something like this had never happened and with hundreds of prostitutes on the streets it soon became clear with all the letters that jack the ripper was only going to kill prostitutes and this raised publicity as they all soon became aware of jack and this became a bit unexpected to the upper class as jack was not after them for they’re money he was going after the low classed people the poor. The rich felt sympathy towards the poor and stories were published in newspapers all over the world the news had spread quickly and in those times communication wasn’t very good but the media hyped about it and soon many people knew about the murders and it was shocking as never had there been so many murders in the space of 12 weeks there were 5 murders. The interest in the murders grew with each attack. This was because of the regular continuation of the killings and the failure of the police catching him. The media needed to make money quickly and attract more readers which is why they gave details of the murders in graphic detail. The fact that after every murder the police still were unable to catch jack raised attention in the area of east London.