Omaha daily bee., 1889-10-13
NO SOVEREIGN But SATAN.
The Unspeakable Degradation of
the Denizens of Whitechapel.
A WILDERNESS OF wlokeoNsss
The Difficulties to be Overcome by
the Men Who are Trying to
Catch Jack the
Ripper.
A Modern SOdOm.

spector B.yrnes who is wanted over IN Lon
don to run down Jack the Ripper" Perhaps
the author OF the sentence has been in VIII ite-
chapel and knew what the district wanted
and perhaps not. Let us suppose tnat he
knows all about it, in which case he is con-
siderably wiser than ninety-nine out OF n
hundred of the residents of the West End,
the only portion of the worlds metropolis
the average American traveller sees or knows
anything about and can appreciate some of
the difficulties the gallant inspector would
encounter.
Some time ago Mr.. Lawrence Hutton. n
recognized authority, thus described the
characteristics OF the district in Harper's
Magazine: lit contains miles upon miles of
rows of houses-small, mean and monotonous
houses, occupied by hundreds of thousands
of persons who live mean and monotonous
lives, all of them, like the houses, after
the same model. Probably there
Is no such spectacle in the whole
world as that of this immense, neglected,
forgotten, great city of the east of London.
IT has little or no history; no one wants TO
see 1t for itself or for its associations sake;
no one has any curiosity about it or its way
of life; the books upon London with Few eN-
ceptiOns ignore it altogether, and even its
own citizens give it or themselves no serious
thought. They are sure they want some
thing, but what the something is they do not
know and cannot discover"
Whtechapel is not street, nor square,
nor ward, as might be imagined but one of
the collection of cities which makes up
the great cosmopolitan metropolis of London.
1t lies on the Middlcsex bank of the Thames,
four or five miles distant from the only sec
tion of the city the ordinary traveller ever
sees. In all America there IS no locality
which approxImates to 1t in filth and misery.
The most degraded section of New York
city does not even approach it in SOU alor and
wretchedness, and more misery and crime is
collected on u single floor of one of its reek-
hl
Dago alley and on the river bottoms COM
bined. II is the very cesspool of London
London with its 5,0o0,0U9 inhabitants and
dozen of criminal and pauper districts, any
one of which equals in size and population
the average American city.
The main street, degraded sort OF Bow
cry, Is Whitechapel road 1t is lined with
three or four story buildings, crazy, mil
dewed concerns, with the ground floors oc-
cupied by cheap, dingy stores and the upper
floors packed with humanity. From this
main road branch off hundreds of narrow,
crooked alleys and lanes leading to-no one
knows where
This is the Whtechapel of to-day, and
this 1T was 200 hundred years ago. Macauley
wrote of 1t II long time ago: ut is laby-
rlnth of sQualid, totterlng bouses, close
packed every one from cellar to cock,loft'
with outcasts whose life is one war with nd
manity. The narrow alleys swarm with
sharpers receivers of stolen goods, clippers
of coin, forgers and tawdrv women, bloom
ing with paint and brandy, who in their
anger make free use OF their nails and their
scissors, yet whose anger is less to be
dreaded than their kindness"
was permitted few nights ago to visit
the scene OF two or three of the mysterious
murders In company with an inspector OF
police, and with all due Difference to the de-
tectlve skill of Inspector Byrnes, must con-
fess that in trailing Jack the Ripper, he
would have his hands full. We saw tEou-
sands of villainouS hulks OF men whose only
support Is the earnings OF fallen women. We
heard medly of all the tongues of the earth
and even the Queens English was so cor
rupted and interarded with slang and the
cant language of the criminal classes as to be
unintelligible. From the open doors of gin
dives and pot-houses, where brawling men
and women, and even children, steamed in
the rank atmosphere, tloated the rattlng OF
the dice box drunken shouts for more gin
and ale, blasphemous curses and ribald
songs. The women of the place ply their
trade in shoals along the sidewalk.
And such womenl
Blear-eyed, ragged, and filthy with faces
bruised and cut with the blows of the brutes
who live on the wages of their shame, there
will not bo seen in a nights walk single
face, young or old, not utterly repulsive and
debauched. Some conception of their utter
degradation may be gained from the
fact that their demands never ex
ceed dime or ''siXpcnce" Tel
times the NUMBER of these elpless victims
of the knife of Jack the Ripper might have
their frightfully mutiated remains testified
TO their terrible end. They are utterl.
friendless and abandoned.
All this we saw along the half dozen main
streets which we traversed. We glance,
down scores of narrow dark alleys whence is
sued the shrieks and curses of fighting mer
and women, but we did not enter them. M
POLICEMEN ever do except in squads. Fol
an ordinarily well-drcssed man to go dowr
one of these lanes in the daytime would b'
madness; by night it would be suicidal
Fighting and uuarreling are of too common
occurrence to attract attention and for
policeman, single-handed, to attempt an ar
rest would be TO invite annihilation.
In such locality and among such peopl
the mysterious Jack plies his ghastly trade
Could he have selected more favorabl
placel A correspondent in a recent lette
thus vividly pictures il:
"Ima6 Line half dozen main roads in dis
trict two miles in diameter. Fancy two o
three scores of narrow alleys branching OF
from these in ell sorts of circutous ways
and hundreds of mere lanes betwee
the buildings and yards springin
from the alleys winding in and out and cross
ing aud recrossing each other. Then refieC
that the outer doors of the rookeries ar
never locked; that fugitive can dash into
hall way, scamper through it, cut into a
alley in the rear, scale fence and repea
the process ad infinitum, and also weigh tn
fact that every man he meets will assist hiI
and do his best to battle his persuers and yo
can get an idea of the probabilities of a pC
lice officer there catching his man,
In Omaha, with her broad and well.lighte
streets, it may be asked; s"Why not bur
the place outin Talk is cheap, There ar
200,O00people in Whitechapel-20O 900 hu ma
souls whose parents lived and died here an
whose children will grow TO ol
age here before they are out
their teens. Generation after generatio
drags along its wretched, hopeless existenC
and sinks to It's nameless grave with 4
greater ambition than the qualification
tta tFtR IA rn nj M Ia inrT. .
the gin bottle.
There are few lights in the picture Goo
men and women, il Is true, try to let a lit
sunshine into the darkness, but IL is han
for purity or nobility to breathe in such 9
atmosphere The people are world
themselves. They know nothing and ca
nothing of any other life Many of the
never go outside the district, but find the
all that their degraded tastes desire.
would doubtless be good thing for civiliz
tion If the place were ooliterated, but the
remains the problem Of 100000 homele
souls.