"Blind Man's Buff" - Jack the Ripper

"Blind Man's Buff" appeared in the September 22, 1888 issue of Punch.  It was accompanied by scathing, poetic  text. 

Both the writing, and the drawing, decried police and government ineptitude (for failure to make proper arrests), dubbing them members of "Municipal Muddledom."

Some of the poem's caustic lines, which tie-in with the cartoon, are:

Justice appears not only blind but halt.
It seems to play a merely blinkered game,
Blundering about without a settled aim,
Like boys at Blind-Man's Buff.  A pretty sport
For Law's sworn guards in rascaldom's resort!
The bland official formula to-day
Seems borrowed from the tag of Nursery play,
"Turn round three times," upon no settled plan,
Flounder and fumble, and "catch whom you can!"

Click on the image to expand its view.

Credits

Cartoon, originally published in Punch (22 September 1888).  Image, courtesy British Library.

Quoted text, and references, from Punch, Vol XCIV.  Online, courtesy Google Books.