(JACK THE RIPPER) | Extensive coverage of Jack the Ripper in Supplement to the Worcestershire Advertiser, Market Edition. Worcester, Saturday October 6, 1888

Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection

(JACK THE RIPPER)

Extensive coverage of Jack the Ripper in Supplement to the Worcestershire Advertiser, Market Edition. Worcester, Saturday October 6, 1888

Broadside (24 1/2 x 9 1/8 in.; 628 x 232), text in three columns; browned, some marginal chipping costing a few letters of word "Supplement." The consignor has independently obtained a letter of authenticity from PSA that will accompany the lot.

"They saw the deceased talking to a man who wore a black coat." Virtually the entire first column of the Supplement is devoted to the investigation, including the inquest, into the murder of Elizabeth Stride, believed to have been the third victim of the still-unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. The Ripper terrorized the Whitechapel district of London from 1888 to 1891, when the murders ceased. 

While the fiend was never arrested, or even identified, the coverage in the Worcestershire Advertiser—which is much more sober than many of the more sensationalized contemporary media accounts—makes clear it was not for lack of effort. The police are depicted as thorough and painstaking in their investigation, and the possible use of both bloodhounds and "thought-reading" to apprehend the murderer are discussed.

Only one other broadside or handbill relating to the Ripper has appeared at auction in recent years: a Metropolitan Police notice, 30 September 1888 (Christie's, 15 June 2017, lot 303, $35,000).