CARDIFFREMEMBERED Did Jack the Ripper send letter to paper before last murder?

A MONTH or so ago, a letter believed to have been sent by Jack The Ripper warning of two murders was sold at auction for £22,000.

The ink-written card had arrived at Ealing Police Station on October 29,1888.

Just 11 days before the serial killer’s last suspected victim Mary Kelly was disembowelled.

Well, on October 10, 1888 the editor of the Western Mail received a letter, bearing a London postmark, which read as follows... “The Editor, Western Mail, Cardiff, South Wales.

“Dear Old Boss – What do you think of my little games here – ha!

“Next Saturday I am going to give St Mary Street girls a turn. I shall be fairly on their track, you bet. Keep this back until I have done some work. Ha! ha! Shall down Friday.

“Yours,&c. Jack The Ripper (Trade Mark)’’

The Western Mail pointed out that the letter could probably be a hoax but went to great lengths to say that the communication written across half-sheet of plain paper was in similar phraseology to the letter written to the Central News a week earlier. “Dear old Boss, ha ha!, give them a turn’’ and “on their track.’

The Western Mail said that: “The broken sentences all indicate that the letter was written by the same hand.”

It seems rather odd that Jack The Ripper’s last victim was Mary Kelly who was one of the “ladies” of the night and who was said to have plied her trade in St Mary Street before moving to London. Poor Mary was found horribly mutilated in Whitechapel on November 9, 1888.

The editor of the Western Mail back in 1888 was Henry Lascelles Carr who was said to have made the paper the Voice of Wales.

I wonder what he did with that letter? Was it destroyed? Or is it possible that it still exists somewhere?

Incidentally, at one time there was some speculation that The Duke of Clarence, who came to Cardiff in 1890 to open Clarence Road Bridge, was Jack The Ripper.

You can send your letters and pictures to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered,South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR or email brianlee4@ virginmedia.com, including a home telephone number.