Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-11-01
JACK(2) THE RIPPER.
Probably Woman, i'm thu On. |.
of am EmtnenI Lon aan rMan

PROBABLY woman, i'm the Opinion
Oh am Eminent London surgeon.
MIR. Lawson TAFT, the eminent women's
surgeon, having read the suggestion pub
lished in our columns on Thursday that
"Jack the Ripper might be woman.
resentatives. He said:
"No serious suggestion in connection
with this matter that one can make NAV
be wisely discarded or made light Of The
police have discovered nothing, and are
evidently at their Wits end. They must
begin afresh.
II have taken great interest in these
tragedies from the very commencement.
Now, looking at the subject as a surgeon,
the first conclusion is that the whole of
the murders, not only in White.
chapel, but in Battersea and Chelsea,
are the work of one and the same in1i-
yidual. They must be grouped to-
gether. Secondly, the crimes are the
work of a lunatic. The absolute motive
lessness of the whole business shows
this.
Again the operator must have been
person accustomed to use q sharp knife
upon meat. The work was done by no
surgeon. A surgeon cuts in niggline
kind of way. The murderer in these
cases has worked in free, slasbipg
manner. The criminal must have been
butcher, end a London butcher. The
cuts are made in fashion peculiar to the
London butcher. They would have been
made quite differently if the operator
had hailed from Dublin or Edinburgh.
81 have said the criminal was mad.
He or che is undoubtedly person suffer-
ing from epileptic Juror. The fit only
lasts for a short time. May not the
police be floored at the outset by the inn
portant question Of sex? The male cpl
leptic has his fits irregularly in the case
of q woman this is not SO. This is some-
thing to 60 upon. Granted that an cpl
leptic be the criminal, on coming out of
his or her fit the offender would have no
| recollection of the murder and cutting
up, and would resume his or her every
day life in no way pertrubed by what had
happened. Nothing is more likely than
that Jack the Ripper is some big,
strong woman engaged at slaughter.
house In cleaning up, now and then ac-
tually cutting up meat.
"Again il number of instances the
women when found were hardly dead,
The bodies were warm the murderer
could not be fsr away. The fact that the
police were So close upon the criminal
goes to prove to u wonderful degree that
the operator was woman. On the dis
covery Of one Of the murders the police
promptly made circuit round the neigh
borhood. Nobody was arrestee, or,
rather, no man was arrested-they did
not look for woman"
How could q woman have 80 cleverly
committed the deed?"
'1t must be clearly understood that
whoever was the criminal would be thor
oughly splashed with blood. 1t would
be impossible to hack and hew warm
body in Ripper fashion without getting
all over blood. A man who thus be-
smeared himself could not possibly have
got clear away time after time. The
thing would be perfectly easy for a
woman. See here" Here Mr.. Lawson
TAFT picked up a Liberty "chair back''
and placed it around him like an apron.
Conceive the murder done and the
woman all splashed. All she has to
roll uh her skirt to her waist, leaving her
petticost, and foil up the shawl that is
over shoulders and tucked in at her mid
die. Then she might paes through the
crowd with the very slightest fear of de-
lection.
"Then az to washing the blooe-dyed
garments. What would man do?
Plunge them into hot water. Result, the
blood cosgulates, won't come off. and
stains the clothes. And where is he to
get hot water, or how is he to pour away
bloody water undetected? A woman is
always at the washing tub, and she
would put tue clothes in cold water,
when, with a little soap and rubbing,
they would become clean, practically un-
Stained, and she would be unsu spected,
An important point is to be noted in
connection with what has been termed
the hendish disemboweling of the bod
les, and with reference to the particular
place at which the incisions have begun.
IL IS 10 wild slashing done without
method by novice by the knife. Hav-
ing cut The victims throat from behind,
the operator simply By an act of uncon-
sclous cerebTation goes to work in the
regular butcher fashion. Having elit the
ca!f's neck, the next thing to be done is
to make an incisiJn at the bottom of the
abdomen, and lay aside the various or
gans in the very fashion reported at the
inquest as having been done. The re-
semblance between the the 'Ripper's'
work and that of a butcher is complete.
"Ol at least one of The occasions when
the police came upon the scene there
were to be noticed several women in the
crowd that quickly gathered. Had those
bystanders been searched there is all the
chance that the criminal would have.
been captured"
What advice do you then give to the
police ~ our representative asked.
Let them visit all the slaughter
houses ia the district, inquire as to male
or female regular assistants OF occasional
nelps-there are not SO many slaughter
houses, and they are all licensed and
under the health authorities-and find
out what facilities there are for entrance
into the houses after the work of the.
DAY is done.
"lf this were carefully done at once
the people would catch the criminal in
week. The police need to 90 on q brand
new road. .'-[ Pail Mall Gazette.
Praising Governor HIPS Speech.
Governor Hills sneecb in Atlanta wao