. What Atheist fails to reverence
the greatness of Milton? And why should not a Christian reverence the
greatness of Marlowe? If creed stands in the way, the Christian may keep
his Dante and his Milton, his Cowper and his Wordsworth; but he loses
Shakespeare, Byron, and Shelley; he loses Goethe and Victor Hugo; nay,
he loses Homer, AEschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace,
and all the splendid poets of Persia whose lyres have sounded under the
Mohammedan Crescent. The distinctively Christian poets, as the world
goes, are in a very decided minority; and it is a piece of grotesque
impudence to ban Christopher Marlowe because he declined to echo the
conventional praises of Jesus Christ.

JEHOVAH THE RIPPER. *

* November, 1888.

The Whitechapel monster has once more startled and horrified London, and
again he has left absolutely no clue to his identity. He is the
mystery of mysteries. He comes and goes like a ghost. Murder marks his
appearance, but that is all we know of him. The rest is silence. The
police, the vigilance societies, and the private detectives are all
baffled. They can only stare at each other in blind dismay, as helpless
as the poor victims of the fiend's performances. All sorts of theories
are started, but they are all in the air--the wild conjectures of
irresponsible imaginations. All sorts of stories are afloat, but they
contradict each other. As for descriptions of the monster, it is easy
enough to say that the police have advertised for nine or ten "wanted"
gentlemen, of various heights, dimensions, colors, and costumes, who are
all the very same person.

We have no desire to dabble in murder, nor do we aspire to turn an
honest penny by the minute description of bodily mutilations. But while
the Whitechapel atrocities are engaging the public attention, we are
tempted to contribute our quota of speculation as to the monster's
identity. We thought of doing so before, but we reflected that it was
perfectly useless while such a pig-headed person as Sir Charles Warren
was at the head of the police. Now, however, that he is gone, and there
is a chance of common-sense suggestions being fairly considered, we
venture to propound our theory, in the hope that it will at least be
treated on its merits.

Well now, to the point. Our theory is that the Whitechapel murderer
is------ "Whom?" the reader cries. Wait awhile. Brace up your nerves for
the dread intelligence. The East-end fie