Complete History of Jack the Ripper (53 page)

Mrs Andleman obviously resented the intrusion and, in the East End, it would have been astonishing had there been no animosity shown towards the police. There must have been those who refused them entry. But Warren’s fears of widespread obstruction happily proved unfounded. For such was the desire of the community to rid itself of the murderer that almost everywhere the police found occupiers more than happy to co-operate with them. Our evidence is virtually unanimous on this point. ‘With few exceptions,’ said Warren on the 17th, ‘the inhabitants of all classes and creeds have freely fallen in with the proposal, and have materially assisted the officers engaged in carrying it out.’ Dr Anderson, the new head of CID, in a confidential minute written six days later, agreed: ‘the
public generally and especially the inhabitants of the East End have shown a marked desire to assist in every way, even at some sacrifice to themselves, as for example in permitting their houses to be searched.’ And so did the press: ‘The greatest good feeling prevails towards the police, and noticeably in the most squalid dwellings the police had no difficulty in getting information.’

The search was completed on 18 October. It did not unmask the murderer. Nor did its failure to do so demonstrate that he did not live in the area designated for the search. In a permissive undertaking such as this anyone who really had something to hide might easily have denied the police access to their property, and although Chief Inspector Swanson reported that the exceptions were not such as to warrant suspicion the CID had no means of being certain of that. Indeed, the police knew so little about their quarry that they might well have interviewed him without suspecting him in the least. However, if the search did something to appease the public’s clamour for action it fulfilled what was arguably one of its main objectives.
²²

Unquestionably the most famous and misunderstood initiative of the Metropolitan Police was the experiment with bloodhounds. Misunderstood, because Ripperologists have foisted three tenacious myths upon the public: that the bloodhound trials were Warren’s pet project, that they were discredited when the dogs got lost in a fog on Tooting Common, and that the fiasco made Sir Charles the laughing stock of London. Now the truth was very different. Warren undertook the experiment at the suggestion of the Home Office, and the Home Office simply responded to advice daily urged upon the police by public and press. The Tooting Common episode, so beloved of Ripperologists, was a complete fiction. And far from the trials heaping ridicule upon the Commissioner’s head, they were generally welcomed by public and press and both continued to repose great faith in the hounds long after they had been returned to their owner. Indeed, some went so far as to attribute the Ripper’s inactivity during October to the well-publicized presence of the dogs in London.

The suggestion that bloodhounds might be used to track the killer, first heard after the Hanbury Street murder, was at once raised again in the wake of the double event. On 1 October a
Times
editorial reminded its readers that in 1876 the murderer William Fish had been detected with the help of a bloodhound. Noticing this editorial, Percy Lindley, a breeder of bloodhounds at York Hill, Loughton, in Essex,
wasted no time in writing to
The Times
to extol the virtues of the breed. ‘As a breeder of bloodhounds, and knowing their power,’ he said, ‘I have little doubt that, had a hound been put upon the scent of the murderer while fresh, it might have done what the police have failed in.’ Lindley suggested that a couple of trained dogs be kept at one of the police stations in Whitechapel, ready for immediate use in the event of another murder, and it was his letter that launched the Metropolitan Police experiment. For when it was printed in
The Times
on 2 October it was spotted by the Home Office and promptly transmitted by them to Sir Charles Warren.
²³

Wise after the event, Sir Melville Macnaghten and Ex-Chief Inspector Dew later wrote disparagingly of the experiment, but in 1888 even the experts were divided on the potential value of bloodhounds for police work in the East End. H. M. Mackusick of Merstham in Surrey, boasting the largest kennel of bloodhounds in existence, agreed with Percy Lindley and declared that ‘ten well-trained bloodhounds would be of more use than a hundred constables in ferreting out criminals who have left no trace beyond the fact of their presence behind them.’ Edwin Brough, a breeder from Wyndyate near Scarborough, was less hopeful. Brough admired the bloodhound. It could, he asserted, hunt ‘a lighter scent than any other hound, and when properly trained will stick to the line of the hunted man, although it may have been crossed by others.’ But he doubted whether there were in England dogs sufficiently well trained to work in the crowded streets of Whitechapel. ‘Unless laid on [the scent] at once,’ he warned, ‘the chances are that the hound might hit off the wrong trail.’
²⁴

Neither Warren nor Matthews was unaware of the problems. Indeed, in a letter to Percy Lindley, Warren queried how a dog could be expected to track the killer without a vestige of his clothing or trace of his blood, especially ‘on a London pavement where people have been walking all the evening [and] there may be scores of scents almost as keen as those of the murderer.’ But given the contradictory advice on offer their decision to attempt the experiment can only be commended. On 5 October Warren requested authority from the Home Secretary to expend £50 in the present financial year and £100 per annum thereafter in keeping trained bloodhounds in London. This would be irrespective of any ‘expenses which may occur in the special use of bloodhounds at the present moment.’ Matthews trod warily. He decided to sanction one payment of £50 only, to be
spent on the use of dogs in the present emergency, but declined to commit himself to a permanent annual charge unless the venture could demonstrate that bloodhounds could be usefully employed in the metropolis without danger to the public.
²⁵
Warren had already made inquiries of several dog breeders. As a result, on Saturday, 6 October, Edwin Brough arrived in London with Barnaby and Burgho, two of his finest animals.

At seven on Monday morning the trials began in Regent’s Park. Although the ground was thickly coated in hoar frost the hounds performed well, successfully tracking a man who had been given a fifteen-minute start for nearly a mile. That night they were tried again, this time in Hyde Park. It was dark and the dogs were worked on a leash but once more they were successful in performing their allotted task. Next morning, 9 October, further trials were held in the presence of Sir Charles Warren. In all, half a dozen runs were made, the Commissioner himself acting the part of the hunted man on two occasions. Again the results were encouraging. In every instance the bloodhounds hunted complete strangers and occasionally the trail was deliberately crossed to deceive them. Whenever this happened the dogs were checked, but only temporarily, for one or other of them, casting around, invariably picked up the trail again. ‘In consequence of the coldness of the scent,’ reported the Central News, ‘the hounds worked very slowly, but they demonstrated the possibility of tracking complete strangers on to whose trail they had been laid. The Chief Commissioner seemed pleased with the result of the trials, though he did not express any definite opinion on the subject to those present.’ Warren’s caution was justified. We are not told the venue of the third trial but it was, like the others, in one of the London parks. Therein lay the problem. For however impressively the dogs might work on grass and across country there could be no certainty that they could repeat their success in Whitechapel.
²⁶
Nevertheless, Sir Charles thought they were worth a try and instructions were issued that, in the event of another murder, the body must not be touched until the dogs had been put on the scent.

The Tooting Common episode, which is said to have discredited the whole experiment, is a myth. It sprang from a false news report of 19 October: ‘It is stated that Sir Charles Warren’s bloodhounds were out for practice at Tooting yesterday morning and were lost. Telegrams have been despatched to all the Metropolitan Police stations stating that, if seen anywhere, information is to be immediately sent to
Scotland Yard.’ The truth was less dramatic. On 18 October a sheep was killed on the common and local police wired to London for the loan of the dogs. Unfortunately neither animal was available. Burgho had already been returned to Scarborough. And Barnaby was out being practised by Mr Taunton, a friend of Edwin Brough, at Hemel Hempstead. Some comment that the hounds did not arrive in Tooting when sent for must have been made and noised abroad. This, blown up as only a journalist knows how, was the sole basis for the press story.
²⁷

However, at the end of the month the project did founder – in misunderstandings between Warren and Brough. Warren was under the impression that Brough had public-spiritedly loaned his dogs to the CID free of charge. Which is why, when seeking finance from Matthews, he had included no estimate of the cost of ‘the special use of bloodhounds at the present moment’ in his application. Public-spirited Brough may have been. But he knew the value of his animals and anticipated that the police would either purchase them or pay hire charges and insure them against accidents.

After the trials in the London parks Brough returned to Scarborough, leaving Barnaby and Burgho in the care of his friend, Mr Taunton of 8 Doughty Street, while negotiations continued with the police. When he failed to get firm assurances from Sir Charles he took steps to repossess both dogs. Burgho, sent to participate in a show at Brighton, was thereafter never returned to police use. And Barnaby remained in London only a little longer. About the end of October Taunton received a telegram from Leman Street Police Station, requesting the use of the dog. ‘It was then shortly after noon,’ he recalled later, ‘and I took Barnaby at once. On arriving at the station I was told by the superintendent that a burglary had been committed about 5 o’clock that morning in Commercial Street, and I was asked to attempt to track the thief by means of the dog. The police admitted that since the burglary they had been all over the premises. I pointed out the stupidity of expecting a dog to accomplish anything under such circumstances and after such a length of time had been allowed to elapse, and took the animal home.’
²⁸
This incident proved the last straw for Brough. The police had not offered to buy Barnaby. They had paid nothing for his hire. And, although there might be a danger that villains would try to poison the dog if they learned he was being used to track burglars, there had been no pledge that the police would pay compensation. So, without further ado,
Brough reclaimed his second dog. Hence, from the end of October, there were no trained police bloodhounds in the metropolis.

Warren obviously wanted the experiment to proceed. Writing to the Home Office on 23 October, he applied for an additional sum of £50 to be expended in the current financial year. This would enable him, he explained, to insure Barnaby against accident while in police service, to pay his hire charges until the end of March 1889, and to buy a puppy. The puppy would then be trained with Barnaby and, when the latter was returned to his owner, take his place.
²⁹
To judge by the minutes scribbled on Sir Charles’ application, the Home Office was willing to sanction this further expenditure. Evidently, though, Brough took the dog back before any action could be taken.

Even had the dogs been laid on the scent at once it is improbable that they could have achieved anything amidst the multifarious trades, traffic and smells of the East End. The whole affair did provide Radical hacks with another opportunity to lampoon the Establishment. But the Radicals did not speak for the metropolis, or even for the impoverished masses whom they propagandized for recruits. Most newspapers – even, perhaps especially, the
Star
– supported experiments with tracker dogs. So, too, did the public. Thus, when Mary Kelly was murdered on 9 November, many bemoaned the fact that hounds were no longer available to trace the Ripper. ‘Amongst the populace,’ said the
Telegraph
, ‘there was very widespread disappointment that bloodhounds had not been at once employed in the effort to track the criminal. The belief had prevailed throughout the district that the dogs were ready to be let loose at the first notice of a murder having been committed, and the public had come to possess greater confidence in their wonderful canine instincts and sagacity than in all Sir Charles Warren’s machinery of detection. They even attributed the fact that more than a month had passed since the last revolting outrage to the fear which it was thought had been inspired by the intimation that these detectives of nature would be employed.’
³⁰

Other measures were discussed at high level and either rejected or shelved. The most contentious was that of a government reward. There were important arguments against large rewards. In particular, while such an offer would be unlikely to produce fresh information about a murderer who probably operated alone, it might well encourage unscrupulous people to concoct false evidence against an innocent man purely for the sake of the reward.
³¹
But Matthews’
stubborn refusal to countenance a government reward had little to do with such altruistic considerations.

In rejecting the first applications of Walter & Son, Samuel Montagu and the Mile End Vigilance Committee, he simply followed a precedent set by his predecessor, Sir William Harcourt, in 1884. Presumably he acted upon the advice of his civil servants, probably without giving the matter much personal thought. The outcry unleashed upon him by the double murder, however, caused him to rue his early complacency. Unfortunately, having publicly refused rewards several times by then, he did not feel able to go back on those decisions without discrediting himself altogether. As he explained on 5 October in a private letter to Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, his secretary: