Mary Kelly, the last of Jack the Ripper victims was murdered
in Dorset Street, Spitalfields. In 1901 the following article appeared in the
Daily Mail. Although the article doesn't mention Mary Kelly or provide any
detail about the Jack the Ripper slayings, the article does give an intriguing
insight into what Dorset Street was like 13 years after the Jack the Ripper
murders.
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| Dorset Street, London |
Where our Criminals are Trained
Dorset Street, Spitalfields, has recently sprung into
undesired notoriety. Here we have a place which boasts of an attempt at murder
on an average once a month, of a murder in every house, and one house at least,
a murder in every room. Policemen go down it as rule in pairs. Hunger walks
prowling in its alleyways, and the criminals of to-morrow are being bred there
to-day.
Blue Blood
The lodging-houses of Dorset Street and of the district
around are the head centres of the shifting criminal population of London. Of
course, the aristocrats of crime - the forger, the counterfeiter, and the like
do not come here. In Dorset Street we find more largely the common thief, the
pickpocket, the area meak, the man who robs with violence, and the unconvicted
murderer.
The Cancer of the "DOSS HOUSE"
There must seem, I am well aware, an air of unreality about
this to follow who read it in comfortable surburban homes or bright country
houses. It seems impossible that in our new century these things should
continue. But perhaps those who think it unreal will look over for their own
satisfaction the indictments of any of our great criminal courts.
