One hundred years ago
MR WYNNE E. Baxter, the Coroner inquiring into the Whitechapel mur- ders, has justified his conduct in insist- ing on the publicity which we last week condemned. He has been the first to offer a reasonable explanatiOn of the murders. They are atrocities of the old Burke and Hare type, aggravated. It appears that some American student of uterihe pathology some months ago Offered £20 each for specimens taken from corpses recently deceased. The offer was made • to two pathological museums in London in succession, and was considered so strange that it was remembered, and on the,appearance of Dr. Phillips's evidence in the papers, was communicated to the Coroner. As the uteri's had been taken from the body of the second victim by a murderer with some knowledge of anatomy, and an attempt had been made upon the former one, the suggestion is that he had been tempted by the £20, as Burke was by the £7 lOs offered for 'subjects', and had committed two murders to obtain the reward. The theory looks probable, and if correct, should limit and direct .the search, the miscreant being clearly a foreign medical student, or more probably attendant of a dissecting-room, knoWn to be dark . over forty, not tall, of shabby-genteel appearance, and dressed in a deerstal- ker hat and a dark coat . . . . If this is the history of these crimes, they are by far the most devilish committed in this country during this generation, and it will be a disgrace to our civilisation if the criminal escapes.
The Spectator, 29 September 1888
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