It was, for example, at Wandsworth Prison that Jack the Ripper suspect George Chapman was executed.

The Portsmouth Evening News,  in its edition of Saturday the 21st of September, 1895, provided readers with a peek inside the prison and at the las days awaiting the condemned held therein:-

A MURDERERS’ GRAVEYARD AND HOW THEY GO TO IT

It would be difficult to find, by way of illustration, a picture uglier or more commonplace than the one which is the subject of this article.

But it is a curiosity of its kind.

The place itself is very rarely seen, and I believe that it has never before been “taken” by pen, pencil, or camera.

The reader may count thirteen small patches of whitish paint on the face of a dull brick wall. They are the “tombstones” of thirteen murderers.

There are fourteen patches on the wall now, for another was added to them about twelve noon the day after the present writer saw them.

This, in a word, is the murderers’ graveyard, within the precincts of Wandsworth Prison.

A BRIEF RECORD

The record which the murderer leaves behind him (or her) in this silent, decorous, and dreary spot is as brief as may be; the initial letters of the name borne in life, the date of the sudden and final disappearance, and the distance – fourteen inches all cases – between the boundary wall and the head of the flat, untended grave.

This is “the end of the passage,” so far as the relations of the murderer go with the world which has pitched him out.

MARCHING THROUGH HIS GRAVEYARD

A gravel path divides the grassplot from the gallows shed, the insignificant proportions of which are completely dwarfed by the great block of prison cells that shadows it.

It is a common little drab-painted shed, which, when the folding doors are closed, looks as though it might be a place to keep garden tools in.

Nowhere here, where the last scene of is hurriedly enacted, is there anything to enhance the terrors of sudden death by the hangman’s hands. The victim, his way to the gallows, would never guess that he is marching through his graveyard, unless by chance he caught sight of the narrow pit newly opened at the end of the row.

Approaching it from the back, as is always done,he would not recognise the gallows itself until the instant at which he turned to face the rope dangling from the beam in the shed. He would catch no sound from the outer world, no echo of the busy life within the prison; above the voice of the chaplain, he would hear only the death-boom of the prison bell

IN THE CONDEMNED CELL

The condemned cell at Wandsworth is at the end of a corridor quite close to the central hall of the prison, but the occupant of that roomy and not uncomfortable chamber knows nothing of what is around him all day long; nor, unless by accident, is it known to the other prisoners that a felon under sentence of death is lodged with them.

He is exercised in a quiet yard or garden of the prison, unseen save by the two warders who are always with him.

INSPECTING THE CONGREGATION

If he attends the morning service in the chapel, he no longer occupies a place of shame where every eye may observe him, and his two warders sit alone in a gallery, effectually hidden by a thick red curtain from all the rest the congregation; he is brought in before the prisoners have assembled, and does not pass out until they have left.

He would never in these days hear a sermon preached at him by the chaplain, which seems at one time to have been the almost invariable custom on the Sunday before the execution.

Apropos, the Rev. J. W. Horsley told me some years ago of a singular and painful experience which befell him at Newgate one Christmas morning.

He had gone to take the service for the prison chaplain, but there had been a clearance of the gaol a day or two earlier, and his congregation consisted of two warders and a man who was to die on the gallows the next day.

An inspiriting audience for a Christmas homily!

HUMOURED AT THE LAST

Under the modern regime a condemned criminal may pass the time in his cell pretty much as pleases him.

His diet is nominally the ordinary prison fare, but the doctor can, and always does, modify it to suit any reasonable liking of the prisoner.

Books and writing materials are freely supplied, and it may be remembered that a murderer who was hanged not long since spent almost the whole of his last days in the composition of a comic opera.

HOW MURDERERS FACE DEATH

Curiously Or not, the demeanor of most prisoners under sentence of death is quiet and orderly in the extreme.

A certain number stunned by the prospect of an hourly approaching fate, seem to pass their days and nights in a kind of stupor from which they are scarcely roused, even by the arrival of the executioner on the morning of death; their conscious existence has ceased almost before they are placed beneath the gallows beam.

MY VISIT TO WANDSWORTH

When I visited Wandsworth Prison the condemned cell was tenanted by a man who was to be hanged at nine on the following morning.

I passed the cell three or four times, always with a nightmare feeling, and I had the curiosity at last to ask the Chief Warder, Mr. J. H. Ward, what he supposed the unhappy creature was doing.

“When I was last in his cell,” said Mr. Ward, “he was sitting with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth.”

SOME OF THE EXECUTED

Wainwright, executed for the murder of Harriet Lane, kept up to the last an air of reckless effrontery.

He was allowed a cigar, says Major Arthur Griffiths, the night before execution, which he smoked walking up and down with the Governor of Newgate, and recounting his “extraordinary successes” with women.

He stepped briskly to the gallows, with a smile on his lips.

Kate Webster, hanged at Wandsworth for poisoning her mistress, showed neither remorse nor penitence, nor fear.

Mr. Ward, who assisted the execution, told me that he well remembered her, as she stood upon the drop, putting her pinioned hands up to her throat to adjust the rope more comfortably.

In many of the cases jealousy was clearly the motive for the crime.

The London Evening Standard, in its edition of Saturday the 14th of April, 1866, published the following details of one such case:-

THE MURDER OF SARAH GILES

Yesterday afternoon Mr. Payne, the coroner for London and Southwark, held a painful inquiry at the workhouse of St. George the Martyr, on the body of Sarah Ann Giles, aged 28, the unfortunate female who was brutally murdered, on Thursday last, by a man named Daniel Beloe, one of two men with whom she cohabited.

The inquiry disclosed such gross immorality as has, probably, never been surpassed, and caused considerable sensation among the jury.

The jury, after walking nearly half mile to view the body, returned to the court, when the following evidence was taken:-

JAMES BENTON’S EVIDENCE

James Benton said that he was a seaman in the merchant service, and lodged in the house numbered 17, in Eltham-street, Kent-street, Borough.

He knew the deceased, who lived in the same house with a man named Daniel Beloe, a lighterman, whose apprenticeship had expired on the day of Thursday last.

“DAN HAS CUT MY THROAT”

On that day, whilst he was in his room down stairs, the deceased rushed into his room, and said “Oh, Dan has cut my throat, and also his own.”

He kissed her, and placed some rags round her throat.

She lived only about a quarter of hour afterwards.

At that time he saw nothing of Beloe, and no doctor had seen Giles at that time, and not until after she was dead.

EVENTS BEFORE THE MURDER

He had heard Beloe say that he wished Giles was dead, and that he was sorry he had ever seen her, and said that he intended to do away with himself.

When the woman rushed down stairs into his room she was dressed, but the man was not.

He, however, did not see him at that time.

When he went to bed with the deceased they both appeared sober.

HE WAS JEALOUS

The Coroner:- “Do you think he was jealous?”

Witness:- “I am sure he was.”

The Coroner:- “Of whom?”

Witness:- “Of me. We have talked together about it several times, and I have no doubt that was the cause of his doing what he has done.”

MARTIN MORE’S TESTIMONY

Martin More, of 23, Eltham-street, Borough, a costermonger, said that he knew the deceased woman Giles, at present lying dead.

The yard of his house and all the others meet the one in which the deceased resided.

On Thursday morning, at ten minutes before seven o’clock, he heard some boys crying out “Murder!”

He at once ran out, and having entered the room he saw a man lying a bed on the floor, with his face on a pillow, and blood running from his throat.

He raised his head to stop the blood when he dropped a razor from his right hand.

He did not then see the woman, and he heard that she had run down stairs.

He said to the man “You have done a foolish thing; did you do it?” and he nodded assent.

THE VERDICT

After some further evidence, The Jury returned a verdict of Wilful murder against Daniel Beloe; and the Coroner made out his warrant for his committal to Newgate, in the event of his recovery, Mr. Inspector Wise was then bound over to prosecute.

Some of the most disturbing homicides were those that involved a parent killing a child.

The Windsor and Eton Express, in its edition of Saturday the 19th of May, 1827, carried the following report on an inquest on the victim of one such murder that is particularly harrowing:-

MURDER AT WHITECHAPEL

On Saturday afternoon, an inquest was held at Whitechapel Workhouse, before Mr. Unwin, the Coroner, on the body of the infant, William Henry Sheen, who was murdered by his father.

The body was placed in a shell. The head was completely severed, and the marks of the murderer’s fingers were on the face, where he had held it whilst he cut off the head.

SARAH POMEROY’S EVIDENCE

The first witness was Sarah Pomeroy, of No. 2, Caroline-court, Lambeth Street.

She said that she kept the house where the unfortunate affair happened.

On Thursday evening, about half past seven o’clock, she was sitting in her own apartment, when the mother of the murdered infant came to her and said, “Mrs. Pomeroy, come and see what my Bill has done; come up stairs, for he has cut the child’s head off, and its lying on the table!”

I went up stairs immediately, and the mother followed me, and when I entered the room, I saw the head of the child lying on a table, with the face towards the door. I was so alarmed that I hurried out of the room as speedily as possible, and procured the assistance of Dalton, an officer.

I went up stairs, with the officer – the mother followed, and drew the attention of the persons in the room to the marks on the side of the child’s head, where the father had struck it with his knuckles, on Sunday morning.

Before I came down, the body of the child lying on the bed, with a blue bed gown up, murder.

I did not hear Sheen come down stairs after the murder.

EBENEZER DALTON’S TESTIMONY

Ebenezer Dalton, the officer, said, that in consequence of the alarm raised by the last witness, he went up into the room where the murder had been committed, and found the head on the table, and the body on the bed, covered over with a counterpane.

He made a search then and since, but found no instrument with which the act had been perpetrated. Witness, however, is satisfied it was done with a razor.

The mother of the child said, that Bill, meaning her husband, had cut the child’s bead off.

Coroner:- “Have you any reason to believe that she was accessary to the murder?”

Dalton:- “I think not.”

The facts were communicated to the magistrate, and Davis, an officer, was sent after Sheen with instructions to pursue him into Wales, where, it is supposed, he is gone.

QUESTIONS FROM THE JURY

In answer to some questions put by the jury, Dalton said, that he thought the child was placed on the table, and then murdered.

There was a considerable quantity of blood on the table, and also on the floor.

THE MOTHER’S EVIDENCE

Letitia Sheen, the mother of the child, was next examined.

She is a young woman, about 26 years of age, and seemed greatly afflicted.

She said, that on Thursday last, in the early part of the day, her husband and herself were very comfortable together, and had no words; about two o’clock in the afternoon she went out to visit her mother, and took the child with her, and returned about five.

She then went to a public house, where her husband was playing at skittles with some other men.

He left his companions, and came home with her; the child was with her; he sat with her in the apartment till about eight o’clock, and then he said he wished to have some tea.

A HORRIBLE DISCOVERY

She went out to procure some, and left him and the child on the bed; she was out about a quarter of an hour, and, on her return, saw the child’s head lying on the table.

Her husband was not in the room.

She was greatly alarmed, hastened down stairs, and informed the people in the house, and the officers, of the circumstance.

She told the officer to go to her husband’s mother, in White’s Yard, Rosemary Lane, as he might be there.

She has not seen her husband from the time she left him in the room.

Coroner:- “Have you any doubt that he committed the murder?”

Witness:- “I have no doubt that he committed the murder; he had always been kind to the child.

Coroner:- “You had no concern in the murder, or even consented to it?”

Witness:- “Never.”

THE FATHER OF THE KILLER

William Sheen, the father of the murderer, was then called. He was in tears the whole time he was under examination.

He said, that on Thursday evening, about eight o’clock, his son came to his house, in White’s Yard, Rosemary Lane; his coat and hat were off. I asked him if he had been fighting. He said that he had, with two or three Irishmen, in a skittle ground, and had struck one of them in the shoulder with his knife.

I walked down with him to St. Katherine’s, and I said I would endeavour to settle the affair.

He made no confession to me of having murdered the child.

We went together to the residence of a Mr. Pugh, a cow keeper, in Carnaby Market, to whom he told the same story of having fought with the Irishman.

I left him in Oxford Street, and he said he was going to Barnet, and should remain there until I could settle with the Irishman, and he directed me to give him a pound if that would satisfy him.

My son had no coat or hat on when he came to me, but he borrowed one of Mr. Pugh.

THE BEADLE’S EVIDENCE

John Partridge, one of the parish beadles, said, that the coat was found in the apartment where the murder was committed, and which was supposed to belong to Sheen. It was stained with blood on the left sleeve and front.

When the murderer went away, he had on a brown coat, corded trowsers, a red plush waistcoat, and silk hat.

Dalton said that he had often seen Sheen in the coat in question.

MR. PUGH’S RECOLLECTION

Mr. Pugh, the person alluded to, and his wife, said, that, on Thursday evening, when Sheen and his son came to their house to borrow some money, the son said, he had stabbed an Irishman; and, throwing down a knife, said, he had done it with that, and begged them, for God’s sake, to burn it.

The knife was here produced. It was a clasp knife, rather blunt, but pointed, and apparently of sufficient strength to sever the head from the body.

The witnesses said that there was no blood on it. Sheen threw it down; they lent him 10s.

Letitia Sheen said, she had seen the knife in question in her possession.

THE VERDICT

This being the whole of the evidence, the Coroner briefly summed up, and the jury instantly returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against William Sheen, the father of the child.

A REWARD OFFERRED

A large reward is offered for the apprehension of Sheen, and officers have been dispatched in all directions after him but their efforts have been hitherto ineffectual.

Violent murders were plentiful, and aside form those murders that were carried out in the heat of the moment, the horror of a cool calculated murder still shocks us today.

The Chelmsford Chronicle, in its edition of Friday the 20th of March 1840, published the following account of one such homicide:-

THE MURDER OF JOHN TEMPLEMAN

During the whole of Tuesday, the neighbourhood of Islington was much excited in consequence of the discovery of a most inhuman murder, perpetrated on the person of Mr. John Templeman, an elderly gentleman, who resided in an obscure cottage, situated in Pocock’s Fields, the back part of Liverpool-road, adjacent to Barnsbury-park, Islington.

It appears that for some years past the deceased gentleman occupied the above cottage, and resided by himself in a most retired manner, occasionally amusing himself with his garden, consisting of an acre of land.

He was possessed of an income arising out some houses belonging him in the neighbourhood of Somer’s Town, and by all accounts was in the habit of boasting of and exhibiting his money to his neighbours, which, it is said, led to the catastrophe which has fatally ensued.

HE COLLECTED THE RENTS

On Monday last he proceeded to Somer’s Town for the purpose of collecting his rents, and on his return home in the afternoon he sent for a woman who lives adjacent to his cottage, to procure some necessary articles.

On her arrival she found the old gentleman taking tea by himself, when he laughed, and told her that had been to collect his rents, and he had been paid all in silver instead of gold, and at the same time telling her that he would be in bed at six o’clock that evening.

HIS BODY DISCOVERED

The woman, whose name is Thornton, left the cottage and returned home; on Tuesday morning, about eight o’clock, she sent her daughter with some writing paper which she had purchased for him, when she knocked at the door, and called him by name.

Not receiving an answer, she returned to her mother, who proceeded to the cottage and looked through the parlour window, but not seeing him there she went to the window of his bed-room, which is upon the same floor, there being only two rooms in the cottage; elevating herself upon a stool she peeped through the window, which she pushed open, and she perceived the bed all tumbled and the pillows and bed clothes saturated with blood; and on stooping over she was horror-stricken at beholding the deceased stretched upon the floor, with both his hands tied with cord.

A bloody stocking was tied round his head, so to bandage his eyes.

The floor and carpet were covered with blood, and the deceased’s head was literally dashed to pieces.

HIS GRANDSON NOTIFIED

Mrs. Thornton neglected to give any information to the police, and delayed telling any body of the discovery she had made until the arrival home of her son-in-law at eleven o’clock, when, instead of their giving information of the murder to the police, he was dispatched to the deceased’s grandson, Mr. Herbert Templeman, solicitor, of Mortimer-street, Cavendish-square, who in the course of the day attended.

THE POLICE ALERTED

Information was then forwarded to the police at Islington station house.

On examining the body, there were several severe wounds at the back of the head, the forehead was completely dashed in by a violent blow from some heavy instrument, the nose and both jaw bones were smashed, his mouth was severely bruised and mutilated, and it is the opinion that the violence must have been inflicted by a hatchet.

Three of his teeth were found lying on the carpet.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

The deceased, it is supposed, had retired to rest, (his clothes being off), when he fell asleep, and the murderer or murderers must have tied his hands together, and bandaged his eyes to prevent resistance or recognition, and being awoke, he attempted resistance when the fatal blows were given.

The drawers were forced open, and the box in which the deceased used to keep his money was also forced open, and the whole of the money taken therefrom.

The deceased had been a widower for 14 years.

He had evidently been smoking his pipe and reading religious books on the night before he retired to rest.

THE MURDER AT ISLINGTON

The Weekly True Sun, on Sunday the 22nd of March, 1840, published an update on the case:-

In the course of Friday, Mr. Templeman, solicitor, grandson to the deceased, made some private communication upon the subject of the murder.

Inspector Miller, Sergeants Collins, King, and Pagan have been indefatigable in their exertions to trace the weapon with which the deed was perpetrated.

THE MURDER WEAPON

The cuts and severe bruises on the head gave rise to a suspicion that a hatchet had been used, but the circumstance of a piece of stick having been found on the floor covered with blood and human hair leaves but little doubt that it was some heavy bit of wood with which the blows were given, and through the violence with which they were given the piece of wood found in the cottage with blood and human hair was splintered off, and unconsciously left behind by the murderer.

Every effort has been made in order to ascertain whether a stick or piece of wood corresponding with the above remnant was ever seen in Gould’s possession, and from the evidence of Mrs. King it is inferred that what she saw in his (Gould’s) pocket on the Monday night, at the Rainbow public-house, might, in all probability, have been the stick or instrument used.

The officers have made every search after the cheese knife which Mr. Allen missed on Monday morning last, but without effect.

DEEPER SUSPICION

It is stated, that circumstances have been discovered involving Mrs. Jarvis and Gould in deeper suspicion than before, and calculated to show that she was aware that the robbery was to take place on the night of the murder; but circumstances it is said, are in favour of her husband, who was a hardworking man, as a painter, and worked in the City-road, and generally went to work at five o’clock in the morning, and returned home at six o’clock in the evening, and an illicit intercourse existed between his wife and Gould, which it appears was unknown to him (Jarvis) until exposed at the examination before the magistrates.

QUESTIONS IN COURT

Mr. Combo inquired the reason why, when the prisoners were placed at the bar, Mrs. Jarvis was always placed by the side of the prisoner Gould, and so far distant from her husband.

It was stated that the police could explain the circumstance. It was from the fact that the evidence of Mr. Allen, as to the intimacy between her and Gould, could be given.

MORE THAN ONE PERPETRATOR

From the manner in which the deceased’s hands were bound, and his eyes bandaged with a stocking, it has been conjectured that more than one person was engaged in the murder, and from the position in which the deceased’s body was found upon the floor in his shirt, that he must have made a violent resistance; and this seems to be confirmed by the numerous injuries he received on the head, back part and front, coupled with the excoriation on his knees, and the bruise on his breast, which must have been caused by someone holding him down with the knee pressed upon his breast.

The deceased was also so very hoarse that he could not make any alarm that could be overheard in the event of an attack upon him.

The whole of the prisoners, on being locked up, conduct themselves in a reserved manner, and never speak to each other.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE SUSPECTS

On Thursday last, when they were locked up at the back part of the office, Gould and Jarvis in a separate but adjoining cell to Mrs. Jarvis and her child, Jarvis was evidently ruffled, and paced the cell backwards and forwards with his arms folded, but looking down. This was at first construed into a feeling of guilt, but afterwards to his jealousy at hearing of his wife’s misconduct with Gould.

After pacing for some time, he would sit down in a corner, when Gould would then get up and pace backwards and forwards, and so they took it by turns, until the arrival of the prison van.

Mrs. Jarvis remained silent, but without the least dejection, with her child.

On the arrival of the van, they were brought from the cells, when Jarvis treated his wife with indifference, but took his child and kissed it affectionately.

A VIOLENT YOUNG MAN

Gould, it appears, has been well known for some time past as a violent young man, who has been in custody for assaults; and on a recent warrant against him for embezzling his late employer’s money.

It has been remarked that Gould was at the Rainbow public-house on the Monday night, with only one and a half pence in his possession, and on the following evening he had money, and the silver was found by the officers on the Tuesday night, concealed between the tiles and rafters of the privy, where in the morning he was noticed to have remained 20 minutes after he had been seen doing something to his trousers, supposed to be wiping off blood.

GREAT EXCITEMENT

The interest excited by the horrible affair has daily increased since the apprehension of the prisoners, especially in the immediate neighbourhood of the murder, and crowds flock to the scene to view the premises at which it took place.

Another account says – That the murder was premeditated not the slightest doubt can exist; for the cord which was bound round the wrists is secured at one end by a fine piece of twine, so as to prevent its being unravelled, while at the other end a small noose was made.

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION

In the course of Thursday afternoon and the night, the police obtained most important information, which has removed all doubt of the murder having been committed by Gould.

The precise nature of the evidence has not been allowed to transpire, but we understand it will bring the case clearly home to the prisoner.

A circumstance relative to Gould has also been discovered, viz., that this name is fictitious, and that he is supposed to be a person of the name of Nicholson, who is of a highly respectable family, and deserted from the 11th Light Dragoons.

HE WAS FROM LINCOLN

The unfortunate deceased passed the early and middle part of his life at Lincoln, where he was master of the New Jersey School for a number of years.

He left Lincoln about twelve years since.

Aside from the threat posed by a chance encounter with the likes of Jack the Ripper, or the fact that street gangs were rife in the area, there were so many threats awaiting the intrepid wayfarer, that you can’t help wondering why anyone would go there in the first place!

All manner of ne’er-do-wells were lurking in the shadows ready to rob and beat those who they might consider worth robbing and beating.

One of the most dangerous pasts times for anyone to partake in was drinking in one of the area’s many public houses or drinking dens, not because the beer posed a threat to the well being of imbibers, but rather because alcohol appears to have been at the root of many a case of violent death, when tempers, fuelled by excessive drinking, frayed, and spilled over into fights or street brawls.

The Evening News, in its edition of Saturday the 12th of May, 1900, carried the following story that shows the dangers posed by a night spent drinking in the Victorian East End:-

SUSPICIOUS DEATH IN WHITECHAPEL

Cattleman Killed by a Severe Blow on the Head.

An inquest was held today at Whitechapel into the death of Charles Boyd, a cattleman, who died under suspicious circumstances in the Working Men’s Home, 28 Thrawl Street, Spitalfields.

The evidence showed that the deceased and two other cattlemen arrived from Liverpool on May 6, and took lodgings at the above address.

FOUND UNCONSCIOUS

After being out all day on Tuesday they returned home, all very drunk.

Two of them left to join their ship, and the deceased went to bed, where be was subsequently found by the night watchman in an unconscious condition. He died the next day without regaining consciousness.

THE DOCTOR’S EVIDENCE

Dr. Goodman, of Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, deposed to having made a post mortem examination, and to having found a bruise on the left ear and the skin being torn.

He also found a large clot of blood on the left side of the brain and a lineal fracture four inches in length on the left side of the skull, obviously the result of direct violence.

The injury might have been caused by some instrument or by a direct blow with the fist.

CORONER’S OPINION AND VERDICT

The Coroner said that the deceased might have been fighting and had got knocked own.

An open verdict was returned by the jury.

One of the aspects of this was that more and more people saw themselves as private or amateur detectives who might be able to bring the perpetrator of the atrocities to justice.

Interestingly, the “private detective fever” didn’t just occur in London, but all over the country, as evidenced by the following article, which appeared in The Scotsman  on Saturday the 13th of October 1888:-

A SUSPECT ARRESTED IN GLASGOW

A curious outcome of the private detective fever which is at present prevailing through the country, and which is the result of the London murders, has just taken place in Glasgow.

It was yesterday reported that a man had been arrested in Glasgow by a civilian, and given into the custody of a policeman on the supposition that he was the Whitechapel murderer.

APPEARANCE OF AN AMERICAN

The suspected individual was a thin cadaverous-visaged man of fully five feet nine-inches in height, and wore a slouch hat, was shabbily clothed, and bad boots that were well worn.

He had all the appearance of an American, and his accent was that of an Irish-American.

It is stated that altogether he bore a striking resemblance to the portraits published of the alleged Whitechapel murderer.

HIS NAME REVEALED

When taken to the St Rollox Police Office, the man, whose name is given as Thomas Smith, was put through a searching examination, but nothing could be traced upon him or found in his statement to justify his detention, and he was set at liberty between eleven and twelve in the forenoon.

ARRESTED AGAIN

Three hours later, however , the same man found himself again in the hands of the police of the city through the overzeal of another private detective.

Regarding the second arrest of Smith, which was carried out by a sea captain, it seems that the captain came across Smith lounging about the river quays.

WENT FOR A DRINK

The appearance of the man at once aroused his suspicion; and, confident that he had unearthed the culprit of the London outrages, he insinuated himself into his company, and the couple went off to a public house.

MATCHING THE SIGNATURES

While in the public house the captain persuaded the supposed murderer to sign his name.

The calligraphy of the signature confirmed the captain in the conviction that he had laid hands upon the right man , and his next endeavour was to get the man, who had again signed himself Thomas Smith, conveyed to the police orifice.

TO THE POLICE STATION

Under the pretence of having a drive round the city, he got Smith into a cab, and immediately drove to the Central Police Office.

On entering the Detective Department Superintendent Orr was called, and at once recognised the man who had been-liberated but three hours previously.

HE’D BEEN ON THE TRAMP

Smith, who is thirty-three years of age, stated that he arrived from America in May last, and had been employed about the docks at Liverpool until a few weeks ago, when he went off north on the tramp.

Since then he had been in Edinburgh where he was imprisoned for ten , days for begging-, and had also been before the Glasgow Stipendiary Magistrate for a similar offence.

Indeed, some of the institutions where you might expect some semblance of safety to hold sway could be deadly places, as is evidence by the following case, which appeared in The Eastern Post on Saturday the 3rd of July 1880:-

MURDER IN THE CITY OF LONDON UNION, BOW ROAD

At between 7 and 8 o’clock on Tuesday evening a shocking murder was perpetrated in the infirmary which is attached to the City of London Union, situated in the Mile End Road.

On Monday a constable of the City Police force found a man lying insensible in or near Aldersgate Street, and conveyed him to the Moor Lane Station, where the inspector on duty had him examined by the divisional surgeon, who advised his removal to the workhouse. He was at once put into a cab and conveyed to the City of London Union, where he was seen by the medical officer, who ordered him to be taken to the infirmary.

He was accordingly carried there, still insensible, and placed in a room by himself, away from the rest of the patients, with an attendant to look after him.

HIS NAME FOUND

His pockets were examined, and in them wore discovered a passport and other papers which showed the bearer to be David Saleneskam, a native of the village of Paruts, in the province of Kalvrarany, Russia, the passport being dated February, 1880, to extend to February, 1881, the holder having permission to travel in any part of Russia and Poland during that time.

HE RECOVERED CONSCIOUSNESS

A few hours after his reception at the infirmary, Saleneskam recovered consciousness, sat up in bed, and evinced a desire to enter into conversation with those about him, being unable to speak more than a few words of English.

A man named Harris, who had been an inmate of the infirmary since the beginning of March, was sent for to talk with him.

Saleneskam seemed very pleased to find he could speak the Russian tongue, and readily entered into conversation with him, Saleneskam seeming very quiet and calm, though somewhat strange in his manner.

HE BECAME VIOLENT

On Tuesday evening, about 7 o’clock, Harris was sitting at a table reading, another patient, named Kollingsworth, being in the room also, when on a sudden Saleneskam jumped out of bed, caught hold of a chair, and rushing at the latter, made a terrific blow at him, which, however, he managed to avoid, receiving little or no injury.

Saleneakam then darted at Harris, and inflicted blow after blow upon his head, smashing the chair into pieces and knocking out the poor fellow’s brains, which were scattered over the table and floor.

“MURDER!” “HELP!”

Hollingsworth shouted “Murder!” and “Help!” as loudly as he could, and a bricklayer named Hughes, who was at work on the premises close by, came running into the room, followed by other persons, who managed to overpower Saleneskam and strap him to a bed.

The police were called in, and Arthur Reynolds, 254, and Inspector Back were soon in attendance.

On their arrival they found the murderer foaming and shrieking in a way which at once showed him to be in a state of raving madness.

He was accordingly detained at the infirmary, and the body of his victim was removed to the mortuary, to await on inquest.

THE INQUEST HELD

On Thursday Mr. George Collier opened an inquiry at the board-room of the City of London Infirmary, Bow Road, relative to the death of Alfred Harris, aged 28, who was murdered in that institution.

Inspector Back, of the K Division, appeared on behalf of the police authorities.

The murderer is still confined in the infirmary under close supervision.

Before receiving the evidence P.C. J. Rabinowitz, K 141, at the request of Dr. Bancombe, the medical officer, stated that Salesneskam, the murderer, was a native of Skuwalk, in Russia, a labourer, and in religion a Roman Catholic.

Mr. Solomons, an insurance agent, of New Road, Whitechapel, identified the deceased, who, he stated, was a Polish Jew, and by trade a tailor.

CONSTABLE VICKS’S TESTIMONY

William Vicks, City police-constable 968, said that he was on duty in Old Broad Street about seven in the evening of the 28th ult., when he was called by a messenger from the Russian Consulate in Great Winchester Street to the prisoner, whom he found in a kneeling position.

He was not violent, and the witness removed him to Moor Lane Station.

Not being able to stand, he was removed there on a stretcher.

He was afterwards taken to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital by the inspector’s orders, and witness saw no more of him.

OLIVER HUNT’S EVIDENCE

Oliver Hunt, City policeman, 181, deposed to removing the prisoner from the station to the hospital, where he was seen by a doctor, after which he was taken back to the station.

The doctor said that he was suffering from an epileptic fit, and if looked after, might recover.

He was afterwards removed to the infirmary, as there was no charge against him.

By the Jury: A doctor saw him at the station and advised his removal to the infirmary.

THE DOCTOR’S TESTIMONY

George Edgar Miles, assistant medical officer to the City Infirmary, said that the prisoner was admitted about eleven o’clock on Monday night last.

He was free from violence, but kept crossing himself and praying, exclaiming that he was sent from Heaven.

He was placed in an imbecile ward in which there were about six other patients, and witness upon visiting him next morning found him in the same condition and free from violence.

Witness was called about two o’clock on the afternoon of the same day, up to which time he had been tranquil, and found him brandishing a chair in his hand.

Deceased was near the doorway, lying on his face, quite dead.

There was no one else in the ward.

Witness made an examination, and found death to be due to fracture of the skull, the brain being scattered about.

When witness entered the door he saw one blow struck by prisoner.

DAVID WILLIAMS’S EVIDENCE

David Williams, imbecile and general attendant, said that the prisoner came under his charge at twenty minutes to twelve on Monday night last.

Witness left the ward in which he was placed at one o’clock on Tuesday.

The deceased, the prisoner, and one and two others were then in the ward.

Witness was sent for about a quarter to two, and saw deceased lying within the door on his face.

The prisoner was on the bed, struggling with Dr. Miles, and on some straps being procured he was secured.

The prisoner had been very quiet, with the exception that he would get out of bed and dress himself and make the mark of a cross on the door. If there had been any apprehension that he would commit mischief he would not have been left.

INQUEST ADJOURNED

The Coroner said that he proposed at this stage to adjourn the inquiry, which accordingly was postponed for a week.

TUE MURDER BY A MADMAN

The Leytonstone Express and Independent provided an update on the case in its edition of Saturday the 10th of July 1880:-

David Saleneskam, 24, a native of Russia, has been charged at the Thames police court, London, with wilfully murdering Alfred Harris, by striking him on the head with a chair at the City of London Union infirmary.

BOUND HAND AND FOOT

The inspector who has charge of the case said that the prisoner was in the courtyard in a cab, he was quite mad, and was bound hand and foot.

He had been charged in consequence of a communication received from the union authorities that he was in a fit state to be brought before the magistrate.

He had pulled out nearly the whole of his front teeth by biting at the padlock by which the straps which confined him were fastened.

BROUGHT INTO COURT

It being decided that the case should be gone into, the prisoner was carried into court by some constables and placed in a seat by the side of the dock.

He is a slight-built, spare looking man of peculiarly marked features; from the time he was brought in until the conclusion of the case he never ceased to utter a series of loud cries, at the same time making most horrible grimaces, some of which were almost fiend-like in their malignity.

Every now and then he kept rising from his seat, throwing himself about, and striving, as it seemed, to burst the bonds by which he was confined.

AN EVENTFUL HEARING

Evidence similar to that already published was given, one of the witnesses, an inmate of the imbecile ward at the union, going into a fit as he left the box, thus adding to the confusion that was reigning.

The magistrate ultimately directed the prisoner to be taken to Newgate until an order could be obtained from the Secretary of State for his removal to a criminal lunatic asylum, and he was then carried out of court still shrieking.

The Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, in it edition of Friday the 14th of September, 1888, was one of several newspapers that began seeing the crimes in biblical terms:-

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

The East of London has during the last few weeks been the scene of no fewer than four diabolical murders.

A fortnight ago a poor woman named Nicholls was discovered dead, having been murdered in a most atrocious manner. No clue to the crime was discovered. It appeared to be the work of fiend, judging from the outrages committed on the victim, and the police were completely baffled.

The feelings of dread and horror with which the people in Whitechapel heard last Saturday that another – and almost precisely similar – murder bad been committed in their midst, can, therefore, be easily understood.

ANNIE CHAPMAN’S MURDER

A woman, known by several nicknames, but whose real name was Annie Chapman, was found lying in a most horrible condition, in the backyard of No. 29, Hanbury street, Spitalfields.

She had been murdered in the same way as the victim of the previous week.

Her throat had been cut so dreadfully that the head was almost severed from the body, and – horrible to relate – the woman bad been completely disembowelled.

In every respect the atrocity resembles the murder of Nicholls. The deed had been done with the same fiendish savagery, and in the same mysterious manner.

MONSTER IN HUMAN SHAPE

For the second time within a fortnight this monster in human shape, who is responsible for this devilry, appears to have come and gone unnoticed by any person, and without leaving any trace behind.

The police believe – indeed common sense suggests – that the murder was perpetrated by the person who committed the three previous ones, whilst the ghastliness of the crimes gives colour to the supposition that they are the work of a lunatic.

This theory is very likely a true one, but it renders the speedy capture of the miscreant a matter of most argent necessity, as his taste for human blood seems insatiable.

NO TRACE DISCOVERED

We regret to learn, however, that up to the present time no trace of the maniac has been discovered.

As usual, several mistaken arrests have been made, but the author of this series of diabolical outrages is at liberty and seems likely to remain at large.

THE CURSE OF CAIN

Truly horrible is the idea that wandering and down, unknown and unsuspected, is one who already bears a double or treble curse of Cain upon his brow, and who still waits his opportunity again to revel in human blood and the mutilation of his victims.

The police must let themselves have no rest until, having tracked this wild animal to his lair, they are able to terminate his campaign of butchery.

NOT ENOUGH POLICE

It is said that the East of London is in the ordinary way insufficiently protected by the police, whose visits are, comparatively speaking, but “few and far between.” If this is so no time must be lost in reforming such a scandalous state of things.

A VIGILANT WATCH

The poor have at all times as much right to protection as the rich, and especially is it necessary in rough places like Whitechapel that day and night the representatives of the law should keep vigilant watch and ward over the lives and property of the people.

The Leytonstone Express and Independent, in its edition of Saturday the 14th of December, 1878, published details of a murder that had occurred in Kent:-

THE MURDER IN KENT

The following details have been received respecting the dreadful murder recently perpetrated near Sandwich.

It appears that a ploughing machine belonging to the victim, Mr. Arthur Gillow (son of Mr. W. Gillow, J.P.), having been damaged, a reward of £10 was offered for the conviction of the offenders, and bills to that effect were freely distributed in the public-houses and shop windows in the surrounding neighbourhood.

Prior to that the deceased had made a general reduction of his men’s wages of a shilling a week all round, but still their pay was liberal, one man who drove the engine in question receiving twenty nine shillings per week instead of thirty shillings as before.

STEPHEN GAMBRILL SUSPECTED

The inquiries of the police led them to attach special notice to a man living in Woodnesborough named Stephen Gambrill. He was what is termed “second boy” on the farm, in the employ of Mr. Arthur Gillow.

Gambrill, however, is married, and has a wife and two children.

The police could get no satisfactory account of the way the man spent the night, and his own account did not seem straightforward.

Moreover, a boy is said to have seen him following the deceased from Sandwich.

AT THE POLICE STATION

These and other circumstances, which certainly did not go beyond suspicion, induced the police to ask him to go down to the police-station at Sandwich, and allow his clothes to be examined.

He went down in the evening, and was detained in the reception-room at the police-station waiting for the arrival of the superior officer who was to make the investigation.

ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE

In the meantime the man lay down on a bench, and the policeman in charge gave him a rug to put over his legs.

After lying there a while the man pulled the rug up from his legs and covered his head with it, and almost immediately afterwards it was found that while thus hidden he had taken a knife and attempted to commit suicide by inflicting a fearful cut in his throat.

The officer in charge at once took the weapon from him, and called Dr. Scott, who sewed up the wound and stopped the blood, and it is thought that the man will get better.

He is now in the lock-up at Sandwich, and, as soon as he is sufficiently recovered. he will be brought before the magistrates for examination.

His wife is in great distress about him, but he has made no admission or confession at all, and is very sullen and reserved.

PEOPLE VISITING THE SCENE

Hundreds of people have been to the scene of the murder.

As is the case commonly in that neighbourhood the road lies open to the land without hedges.

The ploughing engine stands on the land close to the roadside, a short distance out of the village of Woodnesborough.

There are no trees or other hiding-places about.

SIGNS OF THE STRUGGLE

The signs of the struggle are still to be seen on the earth between the road and the engine, and also the place is plainly marked where the deceased lay in a pool of blood.

Two detectives have arrived at Sandwich with blood hounds to trace the murderers.

It is believed there were two.

AN INQUEST HELD

An inquest has been held at Woodnesborough, when Mr. Thomas Horn, surgeon, who examined the body of the deceased, found a wound about two inches long on the forehead, and another about the same length over the left temple, and at the back of his head an irregular wound, star shaped, below which the scalp was in a condition of pulp.

The jury then returned a verdict that the deceased, Arthur Gillow, was wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.

INTENSE EXCITEMENT

A correspondent states that the murder has created intense excitement through the whole district, as it is supposed to be connected with the agricultural labourers’ strike, and that Gambrill, whose wages had lately been reduced from 16s. to 15s. a week, is a violent tempered man, and was suspected some time since of cutting a horse’s tongue out.

The Norwood News, in its edition of Friday the 16th of March, 1928, provided some insights into the issue:-

PENALTY OF DEATH

ARGUMENTS FOR ITS ABOLOITION

WOULD MURDER INCREASE?

Stealing five shillings from a shop. Being armed in a rabbit warren. Pocket-picking. Associating with gipsies.

A hundred years ago the penalty for those offences was death in England.

Mr. E. Roy Calvert mentioned the fact in the course of an address he delivered on “The Abolition of the Death Penalty” at a meeting of st. Peter’s Literary Society, Tooting, on Monday.

Mr. Leonard Shepherd, J.P., presided.

WAS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT GOOD?

Mr. Calvert said that no one would maintain that capital punishment was good in itself.

People who considered that it was a horrible thing said that it was necessary for the protection of society and that without it there would be more murders.

This same cry about the protection of society was used to Justify the infliction of all sorts of barbarous punishments in the past.

Experience had shown that the discontinuance of those terrible penalties was accompanied by none of the evil consequences which their champions foretold.

One hundred years ago the English law recognised over 200 capital crimes.

UNFULFILLED PROPHECY

When, in 1810, an attempt was made to abolish capital punishment for small offences, the Bill was strongly opposed, and even the Lord Chief Justice of England, speaking in the House of Lords, asked their lordships to pause before assenting to the Bill, and characterised the measure as an experiment pregnant with danger to the security of property.

“Such,” he declared. “will be the consequences of the repeal of this statute that I am certain depredations to an unlimited extent will be immediately committed.”

The fears expressed by the Lord Chief Justice proved by experience to be quite groundless, and, instead of bringing an increase, there was a decrease in such offences.

The great improvement in the social life of the people had a lot to do with the diminution of crime, but the chance of conviction for capital offences just before the mitigation of the law was so slight, owing to the high percentage of commutations and the reluctance of Juries to convict so great, that professional criminals were said to prefer to be indicted capitally, because there was a much greater chance of escape!

DETERRING MURDER

Crimes against property were usually premeditated, whereas the majority of murders were the outcome of sudden passion.

The greatest deterrent was the certainty of punishment.

Capital punishment was not a real and complete deterrent because we still had about 160 murders annually in England and Wales.

MORE MURDERS WOULD FOLLOW

The defenders of capital punishment said that if it was abolished there would be more murders, or, in other words, there were plenty of potential murderers walking the streets who were longing to commit murder but were deterred by fear of hanging!

Capital punishment had already been abolished in many civilised countries of the world, and there had been no increase of murders in those countries, but a decrease.

INTENSE SUFFERRING

Capital punishment inflicted intense suffering upon the innocent relatives of the condemned person, and in no way alleviated the suffering of the murdered person’s friends.

It violated our belief in the sanctity of human life, and stood morally condemned, as the business of a Christian community was to redeem the offender.

THE ALTERNATIVE

Mr. Calvert said that the immediate alternative to capital punishment was a long term of imprisonment, not as an of ideal substitute, but as the next step in the general business of penal reform.