Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)
23 January 1890
Seeking "Jack the Ripper"
How English Detectives Board Cattle Steamers in Search of the
Murderer.
First Officer Matthews of the cattle steamer Borderer, which has just
arrived in Boston, gives the following account of the
manner in which Scotland Yard detectives are hunting for Jack the Ripper,
under the supposition that the murderer is a cattle
man: "The detectives have such an arrangement over there that they know
nearly everyone of the men who go over on our
steamers. If a man isn't known he is carefully questioned and if there is
anything suspicious about him they have him
shadowed during his stay in the city. Detective Reagan boards every London
bound steamer carrying cattle at Gravesend, the
first point where it would be possible for any one to land. There he talks
with the cattle men about their business in London
and what they propose doing while in the city, and accompanies them
ashore.
The work done by the Ripper seemed to show that he had experience in
butchery, and as the crimes were always coincident with
the arrival of cattle boats, it seemed probable that a cattle man from a
foreign shore had been the assassin."