The inquest on Mrs Chapman, the last victim of the Whitechapel murderer, was resumed to-day. The Coroner caused a profound sensation by stating in his summing up that the murderer was a skilled anatomist, whose object was to obtain possession of the uterus; for this missing organ there was a market, an American having recently been in England seeking specimens for which he was willing to pay £20 each. The jury returned a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown.
Four more awful murders of women have been committed in England in precisely the same horrible fashion as adopted in Whitechapel. In one case her throat was cut, and she was ripped open and left in a mangled state until discovered lifeless by the police. In two other cases the women had their throats cut, and in a fourth, the young woman's head was almost severed, and she was stabbed in a ghastly fashion all over her body. Unless in the form of butchery, there is no connection with the London assassinations, but the world is shocked at the barbarities. The inquest on "DARK ANNIE" who was the last slaughtered in the Whitechapel district, concluded with an "open verdict" of "murder against some person or persons unknown," but no trace whatever can be had of her murderer. There are 12,000 police in London, and though they have been night and day on the look out for the party, no success has rewarded their inquiries. Amongst the proposals made at the inquest was one to photograph the retina of poor ANNIE CHAPMAN'S eyes, to find if they could possibly have held the image of her assassin, but it was not entertained. Her murder does not seem to have been premeditated, as only for the hardness of a low lodging-house keeper she would be alive. She had not the fourpence necessary to pay for her bed in the awful den in which she slept, and when she was turned out to get it she said "I will soon get the price and be back again," but she never did come back, for then she met the murderer, who hacked the life out of her. Her awfully sad end may lead to good results for it has called attention tot he hideous back slums of London in which poor women like her dwell. In the street in which she sought a rest there are a few of these lodging houses that nightly let out 700 beds! And close by is another where a few more hire each night 1,150, and so on throughout the whole locality where the lowest dregs of the population of London swarm. An average sum of £200 per week is received in one of these streets from night lodgers at a few pence per bed, and they are driven to these place because they have no other refuge in the greatest and wealthiest City in the world. The terror caused by the murders seems to be affecting all England and arrests in various places, on the merest suspicion, are taking place daily.
About nine o'clock on Sunday morning the body of a woman named Jane Savage, aged 26, was found on a railway siding near Butley, five miles south of Newcastle. She had evidently been dead some hours. Her throat was cut from side to side and there was a horrible gash in the abdomen. The woman lived with her stepfather and her mother, and when last seen was leaving a publichouse where she had been drinking. There were no signs of a struggle.
