 Butchers , slaughterers , surgeons , and physicians were suspected because of the manner of the mutilations . A surviving note from Major Henry Smith , Acting Commissioner of the City Police , indicates that the alibis were investigated of local butchers and slaughterers , with the result that they were eliminated from the inquiry . A report from Inspector Swanson to the Home Office confirms that 76 butchers and slaughterers were visited , and that the inquiry encompassed all their employees for the previous six months . Some contemporary figures , including Queen Victoria , thought the pattern of the murders indicated that the culprit was a butcher or cattle drover on one of the cattle boats that plied between London and mainland Europe . Whitechapel was close to the London Docks , and usually such boats docked on Thursday or Friday and departed on Saturday or Sunday . The cattle boats were examined but the dates of the murders did not coincide with a single boat 's movements and the transfer of a crewman between boats was also ruled out . 
