The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-11-15
Special Foreign Service.

Special Foreign Service.
ONDON, Nov. 14.-Although the
D. Stafford assizes have found George
Edalji, the young Birmingham lawyer,
son of q clergyman, guilty of the amaz-
ing series of Ripper" attacks on do
mestic animals that have kept all the
country district in a state OF terror Tor
the last three months, the mystery as
to why these hideous and apparently
purposeless crimes were committed is
as deep as ever. When sentenced to
seven years penal servitude, Edalji, far
from making confession, stoutly pro-
tested his innocence, and there seems
to be many persons who believe him.
The story of how, since last Febru-
airy, horses, cows and sheep in differ
ent parts of this normally quiet coun-
try district have been Systematically
disemboweled by night is an extraor-
binary one as it stands, but the bizarre
circumstances connected with it makes
the affair one of the most mysterious
that ever have occurred in England.
If the clergyman's son is guilty who
is accused of ripping open the bodies of
these harmless animals, is he pervert
with a lust for blood, or will some I'M
expected reason appears for his acts?
That is the question that is being
asked all over Great Britain. AS for
the folk in the neighborhood of Great
Wyrley, the immediate scene of the
outrages, they still are living in
state of apprehension, for even since
the supposed author of the crimes was
imp isoned, another animal has been
killed with particular fiendishness, and
it is remembered with alarm that in
a letter supposedly emanating from
the Ripper" it was declared that be-
fore long he expected to turn his at
tention to human beings.
Since the beginning of last February
ten animals have been slaughtered in
various parts of the Cannock district
two sheep a COW and seven horses, all
but one of the latter valuable beasts
and the most striking part of the out
RACES, aside from their mystery, is the
diabolical cruelty and lust by which
they were accompanied. All of the an
imals were found dead in their pas
lures in the morning, and all seem to
have been disemboweled with one
stroke of some sharp weapon-perhaps
a knife. One of the horses killed,
which belonged to a farmer named
Roberts, was fearfully mutilated, it's
entrails being scattered about the
ground, the liver lying quite a distance
from the body. The blood tracks in the
mud made it clear that the brute had
rushed about in a state of frenzy before
1t died, and neighbor of Roberts, who
was awake at the time, states he heard
a series of awful groans, followed by
an unearthly scream, which he now be-
ieves must have been uttered by the
horse. Some of the remains of the an
imal actually were so far apart that
1t is believed that the assassin" must
have hurled them about the field
through sheer f1endishness.
These crimes took place about once
a month, generally just after full
moon, and as one of them followed an
other, the whole district became terri
fed. Policemen in plain clothes were
in ambush everywhere, but the mys-
terious maimings continued almost
under their noses and, as no one knew
when the assassins or assassins might
attack human beings, the country
folks alarm increased daily. Almost
no one dared venture out at night, and
Great Wyrley got to be known as "the
village of fears" There was only one
touch of what might be called comic
relief" One night when the reign Of