As the panic over the Jack the Ripper murders increased, in October, 1888, the demand for news concerning the atrocities was such that newspapers covering the crimes could sell for several times their value.
On Friday the 5th of October, 1888, The Dundee Courier highlighted the impact that the murders were having on the nation as a whole:-
POPULAR EXCITEMENT OVER THE MURDERS
Popular excitement over the Whitechapel atrocities is increasing, and the whole community is becoming saturated with the prevailing emotion.
To a large extent the evening papers are feeding the excitement by their rival sensational announcements.
Last night the Evening News printed facsimiles of the letter and postcard which have emanated from a person calling himself “Jack the Ripper,” and in a few minutes what is published at the price of a halfpenny was selling readily for sixpence.
THE COMMERCIAL VALUE OF THE PANIC
Indeed, it is a striking peculiarity of the commercial value of this panic that the halfpenny newspaper has temporarily ceased to be obtainable at that price.
Sales are simply enormous, the women down to the little grisette of the shop counter being quite as eager for the latest news as the opposite sex.
For the latter it is simply irresistible, and when one of the papers came out at the dinner hour today with a flim-flam story about the fugitive having been caught red-handed, a carter paused upon the threshold of his tavern and bought a copy with the penny that was intended for his “pot.”
MORAL CONDONATION
Mr Wilfrid Lawson will probably see in this incident a moral condonation of the immoral doctrine that the end justifies the means. More correctly, it will serve to show the engrossing passion of curiosity into which this extraordinary series of unpunished crimes has thrown the populace.
I may remark that the police authorities attach considerable importance to the ghastly jests of “Jack the Ripper,” and believe this individual be the murderer.
LETTERS IN 1845
In connection with the anonymous letters respecting the Whitechapel murders, a friend reminds me that in the year 1845, when the famous railway robberies created so much sensation, and some men were in custody, several anonymous letters were sent to the company’s agent conducting the prosecutions evidently to deter him. Rewards of £100 were offered on both sides without success.
Mr Nash then had the letters engraved on wood in facsimile, and the Editor of The Times consented to their insertion, and they filled a column of the front page, and startled the newspaper world.
A MAN DENOUNCED
The result was that a man was denounced as the writer, and he would have been prosecuted but for difference of opinion on the course to be taken among the railway officials, and so he was let off.
It is suggested that these Whitechapel letters might be lithographed with equal advantage.”