Mass hysteria is a phenomenon that spreads collective allusions of threats through a society as a result of rumors and fear, whether real or imaginary. The city of Halifax,
England was tormented for nine days in November and early December 1938 by a razor- wielding maniac. A mysterious, almost supernatural figure who became known as 'the
Halifax Slasher' was among the streets, stalking and attacking his victims with a razor before disappearing into the fog and shadows. The town of Halifax was nearly shutdown due to the mass hysteria caused by this marauder, strangers were attacked, innocent citizens were accused, and detectives from Scotland Yard were called in to help capture this supposed razor-wielding assailant known as the Halifax Slasher. …show more content…
Luckily, police were able to intervene and rescue him before the worst happened and he was escorted home (“The Halifax Slasher”, Sword).
JAMES BARNEY: error Haywood 4
The attacks in Halifax continued to pile up with nearly five accounts every day. but most startling of all is that in spite of the sheer number of attacks that had occurred over the month of November no clues were left in order for the police to follow any leads. The town was in an uproar, demanding answers that police could not provide and creating tension between police and the suspicious townsfolk. The investigation struggled to produce results as no evidence could be found at the crime scenes and the victims’ descriptions of the attacker did not correlate. The police were staggered by the evasive criminal and assumed that there could possibly be more than one. After announcing that up to three different attackers might be responsible for the attacks, stability in the town reached its breaking point (“A Mad Man”).
Chaos was breaking out within the last days of November, however, in the first week of December, reports of the Halifax Slasher attacks were void and as quickly as it had begun, the panic ended, yet suspicion was still afoot. Two Scotland Yard …show more content…
Though many of the “victims” of the slasher confessed about their phony wounds, there were a few citizens that truly believed they had been attacked by a maniac. There were three such girls that came out and said they had truly been slashed, one of these girls, Constance Wood, was knocked down outside her gate by a running man in a raincoat, genuinely believed that she had been attacked.She had two small scratches and a tear in her sweater that probably came from falling to the ground. She and her neighbors were in such a state of paranoia, fueled by the newspaper reports of the slasher and the general panic in the town, that they believed a Slasher attack was inevitable
(Glover).
On December 2nd the Courier announced: “Carry on, Halifax, the slashing scare is over! The theory that a half-crazed, wild-eyed man has been wandering around, attacking helpless women in dark streets, is exploded” (Glover).By the end of the panic, police had counted between 200 and 400 reports of attacks related to the Halifax Slasher
(“A Mad Man”).Nearly eighty men were deputized to help investigate the huge influx of reports, while hundreds more took to the streets on their own to hunt down the fraud of