It is now almost impossible to gauge the mood in Whitechapel in the aftermath of the various murder in the autumn of 1888.
The only real insights we get today are those that were provided by journalists who visited the area in ever increasing numbers in search of copy of their newspapers.
Their surviving accounts, it must be said, are, t say the least, contradictory.
Still, thy do provide us with some insights into the general mood, and how, both the locals and the authorities were reacting to the atrocities.
The following article appeared in The Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser on Wednesday the 10th of October 1888:-
THE MOOD IN WHITECHAPEL
A special London representative has visited the scene of the Whitechapel murders, and he telegraphs that the reports of panic existing in the East-end are greatly exaggerated.
The people are buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, apparently quite undismayed by the atrocities.
BERNER STREET AND MITRE SQUARE
Groups of people were gathered opposite the spot in Berner-street where the fifth murder took place, quietly talking of the occurrence, and it needed only a solitary police-constable to keep order.
In Mitre-square, on the contrary, there was present a strong posse of police, who vigorously keep visitors moving on.
The occupants of the offices in the square, which is no means a “slum,” were loud in their protest against the morbid curiosity of the crowd.
MORBID SIGHTSEERS
Several young men took their sweethearts to see the spot, which, being very centrally situated, is easily accessible, and their merry laughter and giddy conversation jarred painfully on the ear as out of place.
Even ladies from the West-end condescended to drive to the square in cabs to gratify their morbid curiosity.
THE WHITEHALL MYSTERY
But the discovery at Westminster within a stone’s throw of the House of Commons is now exciting the greatest interest, especially since it has been announced that the victim there did not belong to the poorer class.
WHITECHAPEL TO BE BETTER LIGHTED
The Shoreditch vestry on Wednesday night resolved to fix improved lamps in Commercial-street.
Mr Barham said if they did their part, he was sure the Whitechapel Board of Works would do theirs in putting Commercial-street in a proper state of lighting, rendered doubly necessary by recent events.
ARE THE VICTIMS DRUGGED?
Mr R. Macdonald, coroner for North-East Middlesex, writes:-
“A remarkable incident is that in no one instance has it bean found that the victim made any noise or cry while being done to death.
My assistant suggests a theory in reference to this remarkable fact, which strikes me as having something in it, and as such ought to be made public.
The theory is that the murderer goes about with a vial of rum or brandy in his pocket drugged with an opiate – such as a solution of morphia, which is almost if not quite tasteless – that he offers a swig of it to his victim (which they would all be likely to greedily accept) when he meets them; that in about ten to twenty minutes the poison begins to do its work on constitutions well soaked with alcohol, and that they are easily dispatched without fear of making any noise or call for assistance.”