Wandsworth and Battersea District Times
United Kingdom
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1888
NOTES BY THE WAY.
The loud outcry at the alleged inefficiency of the police exhibited in their inability to arrest the perpetrator or perpetrators of the East End murders, and the demand for the instant dismissal of the Home Secretary and Sir Charles Warren, culminated in a letter addressed by the Whitechapel Board of Works to Sir Charles Warren, and which letter has evoked not only a reply, but a well-merited rebuke from that functionary.
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The complaints against the police and Sir Charles Warren are absurd on the face of it, the members of the force are as anxious for the arrest of the author of the crimes which have of late so startled London, as any of the members of the Board or Vigilance Committees can be; and Sir Charles is quite right when he points out as a proof of the efficiency of the work that is being done by the detective department that that work is unknown to the local authorities.
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He furthermore carries the war into the enemy's country when he points out how ill-lighted streets, courts, and alleys tend to the commission of crime, and urges the Whitechapel Board to set their own house in order in this respect. This is, indeed, a blot not only on the administration of Whitechapel, but in many local other districts within the metropolitan area.
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It is well to remember, however, that the greater part of the simulated indignation against the police and heads of the force, the Home Secretary and Sir Charles Warren, is the outcome of political fanaticism. Even in the letter we have been noticing, the Daily News finds occasion to rebuke Sir Charles for his "lecturing" propensities, when most people, we should imagine, would admit that the letter clearly spewed the writer's desire to co-operate with the local authorities for the prevention of crime. But the Radical wire pullers never lose an opportunity to harass and embarrass the Government whenever an opportunity occurs, and, although it might appear a difficult matter to arouse a political controversy over the dead bodies of the poor women so foully done to death, yet the ghoul-like prowlers of the Radical party seek to create an impression that a Conservative Government cares nothing for the lives of the "people" and raise an outcry against, and a demand for the removal of a responsible officer of the Crown.
