Arbeter Fraint, October 5 1888, page 4
[Column 1]
The grand jury consists of 12 men, who are selected from among respectable members of the community.
It wasn’t until Tuesday that anyone knew who the murdered woman was. All that was known was that she belonged to the unfortunate street women and was known as "Tall Lisa." [1] On Tuesday she was identified by her sister, Maria Malcolm, the wife of a tailor.
Her sister, the woman murdered, was 38 years old and had been married to one, named Vots [Watts?]. This person was a son of a wealthy wine merchant in Bath. They [he and his wife] did not get along and he left her. They had two children: one boy and one girl. The girl died and the boy is in boarding school. Since she had been separated from her husband, approximately eight years ago, she began to drink and later also began to lead a licentious life. For the last three years she visited her sister every Saturday, and she [her sister] used to help support her with a few shillings. During those three years, the murdered woman did not fail to visit her sister for [even] one Saturday. The last Saturday she did not come. That made her sister uneasy. On Sunday, when she heard about the murder, she went to the morgue to see the murdered woman and she identified her as her sister.
* * *
This is the story of the first martyr. Now we will give a brief glance at the second one, who was treated much more tragically than the first.
One hour after the first murder, a second murder occurred in Meyter Square near the Duke Place Synagogue, a much crueler murder than the first.
As a policeman was walking by the Square he noticed a dark human body lying on the ground in a dark corner. As he got closer to the body, he saw a gruesome scene. Before him lay the figure of a woman with her belly slit open. Her heart, lungs and liver were outside [her body]. Her throat was cut open wide and her innards were wrapped around [it]. Her face was disfigured and her nose was missing. The cut up body was lying in a lake of blood.
The policeman raised an alarm. More police arrived as did a doctor, and the latter confirmed that a bestial crime had committed. The body was taken to Golden Lane Morgue.
Until Tuesday night, no one even knew who the second martyr was. During this time a man named John Kelly recognized her. He recognized her from a mark on her arm, where the initials T. C. had been burned [into her skin]. The man had lived with her for 7 years without being married to her and they had had a good life together. The lived at Floyer and Din [Dean?] Street. The name of the woman was Katie. She had been married once before. Her husband’s name was Tom Conway, with whom she had several children. Her husband, who had left her a long time ago, was a soldier and must still be alive, but his whereabouts are unknown. Of all their children, only one married daughter is still alive. Her husband is a canon-worker. They live on King Street, Bermondsy.
Last Saturday, the unfortunate [murdered] woman had gone out to pawn a pair of her husband’s boots, because they didn’t have anything to eat, and she never returned. She was horrifically murdered.
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Yet that is not all. Tuesday at about 5 in the evening another dismembered woman was found not in East End but in West End near Westminster. The body was found among wood that must have been lying there for some time since it had already begun to rot. More parts were missing from this body [than from the other]. To this point there has been no trace of the murderer.
* * *
When one thinks about these horrible and cruel scenes, one involuntarily asks oneself: are we living in a forest with wild animals or among people? What is the meaning of these slaughters in public streets in the most illuminated quarter of the large, civilized city of London?
Many are pondering this and must ultimately come to the conclusion that robbery was not the motive for these crimes. In any case, all doubt disappears [everyone must agree] that these cruelties did have a purpose. There is much more to consider; the murderer must be a maniac, a person whose strong imagination determinedly led him to follow these poor, unfortunate women street women. This maniac must also not be impoverished.
All doubt also disappears that there must be more than one murderer, otherwise they would not be mad men and would have to have a reason for these murders. [2]
One can also not accept the opinions of our little Jews [3] who
[Column 3, top]
began with the first murder to assert that G-d [4] was doing this to punish the Socialists, because they gorged themselves on Yom Kippur. Unfortunately for them, the second murder, even more gruesome than the first, occurred near the Duke Place Synagogue, where Dr. Adler gives his vacuous sermons.
Of all these opinions the unfortunate fact remains that poor women, naked, [5] who do not have a home in which they can hide from murderers’ knives, are murdered in the streets as they try to earn their sad bread by selling their bodies.
It is very sad and heartrending to hear that a few people, very late at night did ask on of the women why she was walking around in the street all alone, when murders are committed against her kind. She responded: “What should I do? I have no where to sleep.”
Who does shudder upon hearing these words in which one can see [sic] whole volumes endless suffering and pain, much despair in the human condition—that people are sentence to bear the enormous burden of today’s thieving society.
Not even seizing the murderer will stop these cruelties [from occurring] nor will it change by a hair’s breadth the lamentable condition of these unfortunate women. Only the destruction of today’s murderous system will stop the wild murders for money and salary etc. and will also at the same time stop the suffering and troubles of the working people.
Translator's notes
[1] Lange Lisa in Yiddish . Literally 'long Lisa' meaning she was tall.
[2] I’m not quite sure what this means.
[3] Pejorative.
[4] Fully spelled out in the original.
[5] This is not to be taken literally. It means they barely have anything to wear.
