St. James Gazette
London, England
9 October 1888

A man arrested in Gray's Inn road yesterday on suspicion of being concerned in the murders at the East end was released from Leman street police station at a late hour last night, the police investigations having demonstrated that he was innocent of any complicity in the crimes. The man, it appears, was arrested because some blood stains were noticed on a coat and trousers left by him to be cleaned at a shop in the Gray's Inn road. His explanation was that while he was employed as a waiter at the Alexandra Palace he had broken some glass and cut one of his hands rather severely. Inquiries made at his residence and at the palace corroborated his story; and as there were no further grounds for detaining him he was discharged.

Upon inquiry at the East end police stations at four o'clock this morning it was stated that no arrests had been made during the night. The streets in the vicinity of the recent tragedies are still patrolled by police and detectives in increased numbers, and the closest surveillance is maintained on suspected localities. Last night the number of amateur detectives at work did not seem so great as at the end of last week; but the ordinary detective staff was fully represented. As on previous nights, the locality was almost entirely deserted by the class of persons from whom the murderer has selected his victims.

This morning at an early hour the police were informed by some Italians at Eyre street hill that a man who answered the description of the murderer had been seen there, and that he had been ion the company of a woman with whom he had left. Detective sergeant John Robinson, disguised in woman's clothes, went in search of the man, who was said by the Italians to have entered a cab yard in Phoenix place, Clerkenwell, and secreted himself behind the cabs. Some men employed in the yard went to the officer and asked what he wanted there, and on being told that he was a police officer they left; but directly afterwards two other men went up to him and demanded that he should clear out at once, saying that they were going to protect their master's property. Robinson informed them that he was a police officer, and requested them to keep quiet, when one of them struck him a violent blow in the face, after which the man took from his pocket a knife, with which he stabbed Robinson in the face, while the other man kicked him. Robinson called out that he had been stabbed, and a young man whom he knew came into the yard, thinking that the officer had captured the murdered, and went at once to his assistance, and then the young man, whose name is Henry Doncaster, was stabbed and assaulted. Some Italians afterwards went to the assistance of Robinson and Doncaster, and, several policemen having arrived, the two men were at once taken to the King's Cross road police station, and there charged, whilst Robinson and Doncaster had their injuries dressed by the police surgeon. The two prisoners, cab washers named Phillips and Jarvis, were brought up at the Clerkenwell Police Court this morning and remanded.