The popular press reported the case extensively, and some newspapers, particularly The Daily Mail, focused on attacking the Aliens Act 1905, blaming it for being too open and making it too easy to enter the country. The French anarchist newspaper called Helfeld and Lepidus "our audacious comrades" who came "under attack" from what they called "citizens, believers in the State and authority". The perception of immigrants was affected by the outrage and, according to the Metropolitan Police Service, it "provoked some misplaced public anti-Semitism", which affected public opinion two years later in the siege of Sidney Street. In December 1909, during the events that led to the siege, a leading article in The Times described the Whitechapel area as one that:
