Omaha daily bee., 1889-07-26
JACK THE RIPPER'S LATEST.
Alice Mackenzie's Funeral Held at
a Public House.
ALL wHlTecHAPEL WAS THERE
Curious Crowds Watch the Procession
as IL Winds Past the Scenes OF
the Various Murders In
the District.
IL Was n Gala Dny.
tcopnfoht 1889 bu James Gordon Be


house, in Artillery street, yesterday after.
noon. 1t was typical Whitechapel funeral.
All the streets, courts, alleys. doorways aud
windows which commanded view of the
scene were crowded. 1t was rivers of heads
and tides of human beings in ali the bric.a-
brac editions Of humanity in Morocco bind
ings that Whitechapel offers. There were
walls of faces, male and female, old and
young, ruddy and gin-stained, fair to look at
and unpleasant TO see. Well-to.do homes
sent well-dressed people; the slums sent
blear.eyed delegates, nocturnal as
rats and much less neatly dressed
There were children, others with
babies, ragged hags with bottles,
and more ragged haRs with bottles. All had
an expectant, awe-struck look, mingled with
more or less excited expression, which indi-
Gated that 1t was an unusual occasion.
Whtechapel has few gala scenes, and among
them real funeral ranks high.
The talk ran universally on the poor
woman and her assassin until the hearse
came. Then everybody stared at tie hearse
1t made queer, black picture in the dingy,
crowded street, as it stopped at the public
house door. With it were two mourning
carriages, each with driver and atten-
bering horses with glossy black
names and black velvet cloths. The vehicles
were black the drivers clothes were black,
hats were black, streamers were black, and
the inside of the hearse was without bios
som to relieve the blackness of the long
something, with a black ball over it, which
represented the fragmentary remains of the
murdered woman.
Inside the public house it was also black.
The low-ceiled apartment was rather dark,
and the bar compartments were crowded to
their utmost capacity. In small room ad-
joining, on which door opened from
the bar, were the mourners. They were
nine women from Enpenny's lodging house,
where the victim lived, and three men. The
women were all In black, with Grape hats.
Among the men Jim Mccormack, in black,
leaned against the high desk near the door
crying as if he would break down. McCor
mack was her husband in the eyes of the
neighborhood if not of the chu rch, and the
relation, if unsanctifed, showed none the
less tender.
The mourners entered the two carriages
and the procession moved. 1t wound, as
usual with Jack the RIpper's list of
funerals, all through Whitechapel, touching
or passing the scenes of all the other
murders. 1t passed Dorset street,
crossing Commercial street into Hamburg
street, and past Number &c. where the Rip
per slew his fourth victim and wrote the
prophecy on the door; went down near the
morgue whittier all the victims have been
taken, and out Bakers row, passing the top
of Bucks row, the scene of murder number
three.
Throughout all this long way the crowd
was so dense as to be scarcely capable of
motion. The carriage wheels threatened
the feet OF men, women, girls, boys and
children who were pressing back as
far as they could. A squad
of police accompanied the hearse and
cleared the street ahead. AT Whtechapel
road the crowd thinned, and as tho cortege
passed through Turner street into CONNER
cial road it disappeared The last gathering
was at the Commercial road corner There
the horses began to trot on their long Jour
ney to Plaistow.
There were hundreds outside the gates
and thousands inside them. Up the wide
avenue to the chapel the procession passed
to the steps at the door. The mourners went
into the little gothic burial church, with bare
walls of grey stone, high windows small
diamond panes and bare, open stone
floor. There were two rows of
brown wood seats at each side.
At the upper end was the reading
stand of brown wood In front of this, on
the wide bare space, We're two pairs of black
wood frames, four feet high, to hold the
coffin. A third palr at the end held the coffin
of Alice Mackenzie, still covered by the pail.
The rector, an old man with gray hair and
spectacles, and with white surpice, awk-
wardly hung, began, ~ am the resurrection
and the life" as soon as the mourning party
reached the seats on the right. The Lords
prayer and the benedction closed it. Then
the old man seized his hat and walked brIskly
out, going down the avenue at the
right of the coffin, which seemed a ghastly
ornament rather than part of the occasion.
1t began to ram now, and when the rector
reached the small mound of clay and small
stones one hundred yards away, the drops
came down steadily. On top Of the mound
there was platform Of boards and between
them a narrow slit in the earth eighteen feet
deep and thirty inches wide, braced up at
the sides with thick beams. 1t looked like
mining shaft. Five grave dIggers, ia cordu-
roys and gingham shirt sleeves, stood on the
along, struggling under the weight of
the casRet, which was of light
brown wood, thckly studded with black
nails. 1t was laid on two props, covered with
clay, which crossed the narrow aperture in
the earth. The mourners gathered on the
edge and the women sobbed. The old man
said, half audiDly; Earth TO earth, ashes
10 ashes, dust 10 dust.n and the grave dig
gers lowered the coffin TO the bottom. Then
one digger pulled the lower rope, lifting the
cofitn and shaking the rope free, the foot Of
the coffin falling back, striking the earth
with thud. The other grave digger ierked
the other rope and the head Of the coffin fell
back with another rattle aud bump. The
grave digger threw in a handful of gravel.
which struck sharply on the coffin lid. The
rector walked briskly away. The carriages
came up at a trot. The grave diggers began
TO fill in, and Alice Mackenzie, a poor unfor-
tuns e, who week ago was loved in Gun
street and murdered in Castle alley. was left
at the place in Plaistow.
Jack the Ripper Is still in Whitechapel.