Herald Despatch
Decatur, Illinois, U.S.A.
19 June 1897
WOMEN MURDERED
New York, June 17.
Advices from Japan say that a crude imitator of Jack the Ripper has slain several young women recently in Tokio. The murders, which were four in number, all occurred in the first part of May, and so great was the excitement in Tokio that what might be called a wave of suicidal hysteria set in, and several young women killed themselves out of sheer fear of the murderer. Unlike the victims of the original Jack the Ripper, the women slain by the Japanese murderer were in every case of good character and all of them belonged to the better class. The murderer has not been caught.
The first of his victims was discovered when the body of a young woman was found under a bridge, disembowelled and the arms cut off. The second murder terrified the women of the city. A third murder occurred within a week. On the shelving banks of the canal the body of another young girl with the arms missing was found, and so great was the panic that many women left the city. For more than a week no more new cases were reported, and the police were beginning to breathe easily again, when, on the 13th, the mutilated body of a handsome well dressed young woman was found hanging to a tree. Her arms were missing. The discovery of the body of the last victim produced a great panic among the women of Tokio, which was followed by a wave of suicidal hysteria far reaching in its consequences. Then the police issued an order that no young woman was to be allowed on the streets of Tokio after dark unless she was accompanied by a male escort, and the press censor refused to allow any of the details of the murders to appear in the Tokio newspapers.
The police believe that the murders were committed by students of whom there are 30,000 in Tokio.
