Jack the Ripper in the Yorkshire Post Archives

Here we look at these chilling accounts and take a peek back into the fog shrouded streets of Victorian Whitechapel.

The full detailed reports of the Jack the Ripper murders are very explicit and we hestitate to publish them here but they can be viewed at The British Newspaper Archive.

Our second extract is from The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer from Monday 1st October 1888. By this time the reports in the Yorkshire Post took up two thirds of a page.

This is the account of the third and fourth of the five canonical ripper murders, that of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

After the horror caused by the recent discoveries of women being murdered and disembowelled in Whitechapel, London, it will readily be imagined that when yesterday (Sunday) morning the bodies of two more murdered women were discovered in the same district the inhabitants of the Whitechapel quarter were raised to a fever pitch of excitement.

The two fresh murders discovered yesterday morning are similar to the others on all points.

About half-past one yesterday morning the first of these two atrocious murders was discovered by a city policeman in Mitre Square, Houndsditch, near the junction of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street.

The murdered woman was apparently between 35 and 40 years of age, and was lying in a corner of the Square.

Great excitement prevailed as intelligence of the shocking affair was circulated. The second discovery was made about the same time, and this murder was found to have been committed about half-an-hour earlier than the one in Aldgate, the victim in this case also being a woman.

The body was found in the back yard of No. 40, Berner Street, Commercial Street, not many minutes walk from Hanbury Street.

The premises were occupied by the International Socialist Club. The steward, Mr. Deimstritz, going into the yard discovered the body with the throat cut and gashed lying in corner.

The police were immediately sent for from Leman Street Station, and Dr. Phillips, who made post-mortem examination in the case of the woman Chapman, likewise arrived at the scene, followed shortly by other medical gentlemen.

The excitement in Whitechapel and the City when the horrible facts became known was intense, and crowds hurried to the localities in which the tragedies were perpetrated.

In the next installment we conclude with the final and fifth ripper murder committed on 10th November, that of Mary Kelly and how it was reported in the Yorkshire Post.

To read the full reports of the Jack the Ripper murders and much more go to The British Newspaper Archive at http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk