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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 897
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 6:38 am: |       |
Hi RJ,
I don't know any more about this sceptical female reporter on The Echo, but of course she would not have been alone. Shirley too was very sceptical when she first heard about the watch.
It's only when one is faced with not one, but two reports that suggest neither Robbie nor Albert Johnson could be considered serious contenders for having planned, made and engineered the 'discovery' of all the marks on the inside surface of the watch in the month or so between hearing about a ripper diary being discovered and taking their own ripper effort to Robert Smith, that one wonders whether 'healthily curious' should start to take over a wee bit from 'healthily sceptical'.
Turgoose had no doubts whatsoever about the order of the scratches - the word 'apparently', referring to the H 9 3 being engraved after 'Jack' was scratched, was all mine. Obviously I haven't seen the surface under the same magnification as Turgoose. I have no idea what the scratches would look like, and what criteria he would have used to establish the order, or how he could be satisfied that a hoaxer could not have put the ripper marks over the previously engraved numbers then made it appear like it was the other way round.
So, either Turgoose and his equipment were completely and utterly fooled (no 'apparently' there), and the H 9 3 and 1275 were engraved before the hoaxer got to work in May 1993, or the hoaxer himself engraved the numbers afterwards, inventing a shortsighted jeweller who put them there long ago, 'apparently' without noticing the incriminating scratches beneath. (As I've said before, if the ripper markings were faint from the start, and not that easy to decipher, would a humble repairer have had much reason to try? An owner, however, might reasonably have taken a personal interest in working out what the marks were, once he realised they were there.)
This just gets better and better, doesn't it? When does 'healthily sceptical' flip over into 'sick unto death sceptical', I wonder?
Love,
Caz |
Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 387
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 6:50 am: | |
Hi there Paul,
You know I am beginning to love how you state with absolute certainty stuff that you don't know at all. I mean, have you seen the watch yourself? Didn't think so. And are you playing semantics that you are now saying you didn't blunder what the "1275" was or mess up despite that 25 years experience?
You haven't actually answered anything, though you claim to answer all. You just repeated yourself from before and added nothing new.
Could you point me to where salt was discussed as an ager? I missed that bit and would appreciate it. But honey, if someone is using metal to scratch into metal, even the dimmest bulb knows there will probably be flakes and traces left and that shiny new brass particles will give it away and therefore need to be aged. That's not exactly rocket science.
You have quoted several sentences at once of the report, so do a favor eh? Go ahead and quote exactly what the good man says about the scratches going under the stamps. I mean does he say "the engravings appear to be over the scratches"? I would like exact wording on the issue and if it has already been posted, just point me to it. I agree that there is no sense in continuing debate until all have the reports in their hands.
 |
Paul Butler
Sergeant
Username: Paul
Post Number: 37
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 7:06 am: | |
Hi Ally
You are now getting so obviously out of your depth here. Wait for the reports and enjoy them!
Paul |
Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 391
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 10:44 am: | |
Once again..no actual rebuttal just snide comments. You really need to learn to temper the snide with actual facts otherwise you are going to get a reputation for being unable to argue without resorting to tantrum.
|
Paul Butler
Sergeant
Username: Paul
Post Number: 41
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 12:39 pm: | |
Oh dear Ally. Has it come to this? 
I’m usually far too polite to rub anyones nose in anything, but really how impossible would you like it to be, and how much more rebuttal would you like?
More than enough has been discussed here to put paid to a 1993 date for the watch once and for all. But if you really want another one…
Tim Dundas, whos “sworn statement”, has been long held sacred by those who insist on a 1993 date for the watch, including the late Melvin Harris, stated quite clearly in 1994 that he saw “the usual repair numbers.....repairers and pawn numbers, this sort of thing”
He saw these repair numbers, (the ones that go OVER the Maybrick scratches remember), in 1992 when he cleaned the watch.
For his amazing 1993 hoax, Albert now needs to add a time machine to his already extensive arsenal of scientific equipment…!
Mind you, if he had one of those he could always go back to 1888 and put us all out of our misery.
On an impossibility rating of one to ten, I think this hoax must have reached about 20 by now.
Really, if just one of these findings had gone the other way, it would be being waved about as some sort of proof positive that the watch was a fake. But they don’t. Not by a very, very long chalk.
Regards
Paul
P.S. Tantrums? I don’t need no tantrums!  |
Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 392
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 12:54 pm: | |
Paul,
Do you understand how discussion works? I asked you for a few specific bits of information. You went off into snide land. I pointed out that you had not replied to my points and you come back with an irrelevant post on something that I have not mentioned, asked about and frankly don't care about.
The points under discussion are these:
What are the actual words used in the report to describe the overlay on the scratches
and
How can you claim that with your 25 years of experience you didn't bomb what the 1275 actually was
and
where in the discussion was salt discussed as an ager?
The last two are points that you yourself stated with certainty, so please back them up.
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 263
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 5:38 pm: | |
Paul Butler wrote:
No I didn’t claim they were serial numbers. I was trying to see a serial number in my photo and couldn’t find one. Now I have a better photo I can see the serial No. quite clearly elsewhere.
This is simply untrue.
Paul posted on 10 March:
... I can now say with complete certainty that 1275 is a Casemakers mark.
It was only after John Hacker pointed out to Paul that Turgoose reported that "1275" crossed the "Maybrick scratches", and after I pointed out to him where the real serial number was, that Paul changed his opinion.
Chris Phillips
|
Robert Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 12:15 pm: | |
Chris Phillips,
I had checked your post of 27th February, and indeed referred to the passages you requoted, in my second paragraph.
I am only querying your assumption, that there were two reports by Dr Wild. You point out only one significant difference between them (i.e. about whether the silver enrichments could provide any dating information). So when Dr Wild says: “The conclusions are the same in both reports”, it is reasonable to assume that, apart from this variation, he was referring to two almost identical drafts of the same report.
Robert Smith
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 221
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 8:39 pm: | |
Thanks, Adam,
Good luck. Seriously.
It'll be interesting to see how long the process takes. I know, in the end, that the evidence in these reports will be clear and definitive and will have, all along, been just the proof we needed that diary cannot be a modern fake.
All the discussion here certainly leads one to think that the reports will not be able to be read in any other way.
All the best,
--John (a recent convert) |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 344
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 22, 2004 - 10:57 pm: | |
I am more & more intrigued by Paul Butler's comments above:
"The earliest supposed date for the watch scratches is April 1993. At some later time the watch surface is severely polished, partially removing scratches and removing the surface and its resultant pollutants. Hydrocarbons due to prolonged exposure to the environment are discovered January 1994. We don’t seem to have a prolonged exposure to the environment here do we?…..The one thing you really can’t fake..!…....Scratches therefore can’t be as recent as 1993. QED'
But--and this is an important but---as Chris Phillips has been pointing out, Dr. Wild was inexplicably given false information about when the watch was polished:
"I understand that the watch surface was polished some six to ten years ago in an attempt to remove some of the scratches on the inside surface of the watch casing. This would have had the effect of removing some of the surface layers from the original surface...' (Dr. Wild)
Fascinating. It certainly sounds to me like Wild is saying that this polishing would have thoroughly cleaned the surface and removed the hydrocarbons; afterall, it even removed parts of the surface. Now, 6-10 years later (ie. 1994) the surface is slightly corroded. This "shows" that the "Maybrick scratches" couldn't have been made recently.
But there's a hitch: the 6-10 year figure quoted by Wild is entirely a ghost number. It comes from who knows where--there is no extant evidence for this date--the previous owner suffered from Alzheimers and only had a sketchy recollection of where he obtained the watch. We know (or think we know) that the back surface was polished by Murphy in 1993. To me, Wild's comment that the surface abrasions were an "attempt to remove the scratches" certainly sounds an awful lot like Murphy's statement (!):
Question: In considering Dr. Wild's comments, how big an influence did the misinformation have on his judgement? Is it possible that the presence of the hydrocarbons after only 18 months or less after Murphy's cleaning indicate that the watch was deliberately doctored or somehow artificially aged? According to Wilde, hydrocarbons could not have formed recently--and he seems to be impressed by the alleged heavy polishing 6-10 years in the past. What would he have thought if he knew this had happened only 18 months earlier? Do the hydrocarbons really rule out the modern forgery theory as Paul Butler claims--or does it actually suggest that something is not quite right.... ??
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 901
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - 4:01 am: | |
Hi Ally,
Turgoose reports (and I quote):
The horizontal marking…is part of the large ‘J’. This, and particularly the expanded view…show that the ‘9/3’ was written after the horizontal line, and also that the superficial scratches are of later origin.
And this:
The…’am J’ and ‘maybrick’ are the earliest visible markings. All others overlay these where crossing does occur. Also all the superficial scratches are later than all the engraving. This can clearly be seen…
Hi RJ,
A few questions if I may:
Do you believe Murphy tried to polish out some scratches in 1992 (couldn’t have been 1993, I assume this was a typo), or was he making this up for some reason?
If you believe him, what do you think could have caused those scratches pre-1992?
And do you think it’s possible that, even under extreme magnification, there would have been no visible scratches, either random or identifiable, underneath the ripper markings, if the latter were made as recently as May 1993?
And finally, what ‘usual’ repair numbers and pawn numbers (plural) do you believe Dundas could have seen when servicing the watch in 1992?
Thanks.
Love,
Caz
PS Like I said to Chris Phillips, I still don't see how the alleged polishing six to ten years before Wild examined the surface could possibly have influenced his final 'at least several tens of years old' opinion. He added that considerably more work would be required to be 'more accurate' about the age. You are free to interpret the words 'more accurate' in this context as loosely as you like, but I get the strong impression he was implying that more work would be needed in order to give an informed opinion on whether the scratches were 30 years old (the absolute minimum interpretation of 'at least several' decades), 60 years old, or 90 plus years old.
|
Paul Butler
Sergeant
Username: Paul
Post Number: 42
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 - 3:26 pm: | |
Hi RJ
I can see where you’re coming from with the “polished 6 – 10 years ago” bit of Dr. Wild’s report. When put into context of the whole thing, it becomes clear that its more a sort of throwaway line, and doesn’t really mean a lot.
See if this makes any sense, and apologies if I’m repeating a lot of stuff you already know, but it might possibly make better sense this way rather than piecemeal.
The silver enrichment test was conducted by etching the surface of the inside of the watch case with ions. The purpose was to see if the surface composition of the gold varied with depth, which indeed it did.
18 Carat gold also contains silver and copper, and these two metals become more concentrated towards the surface over time, at the expense of gold. If the scratches were old, the concentration of silver would be the same both in the scratches, and on the surface of the inside of the case.
Having etched the surface to a depth of 111nm, Dr. Wild discovered that not only was the surface contaminated with hydrocarbons from the atmosphere, but that the concentration of silver was indeed the same, or nearly the same within the scratches and on the surface.
However, there was a small difference in the two, with slightly less silver on the surface than in the scratch. This would have made the scratches older than the watch, an obvious impossibility, so this clearly indicated a polish at some time, which has “had the effect of removing some of the surface layers from the original surface, but not from the base of the scratch.” This seems to have concerned Dr. Wild who then goes on to say that he understood that the watch was polished some 6 – 10 years ago, and that explains why this small difference occurred.
He uses this information to conclude as almost an aside, that “This would indicate that the engraving was certainly older than 10 years.” (My emphasis). If he had been told the watch had been polished 5 years ago say, then his comment would have been that it indicated that the scratches were certainly 5 years old, and the same for 50 etc. etc.
This aside isn’t used as part of his final conclusion that the scratches are “several tens of years age.” All he is doing is saying that the scratches are certainly as old as the last polishing, whenever that was.
He admits himself that he doesn’t know at what rate this silver enrichment occurs, and whether it is a steady and continual process, or whether it appears over a relatively short space of time and then levels out. His suggested further tests to obtain an accurate date involve using other datable examples to investigate this point.
His conclusion that the silver enrichment being the same at all points tested, including the base of the scratch, indicating that they were contemporary, was therefore independent of the date of the polishing.
Does that make some sort of sense?
Regards
Paul
|
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 345
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 4:21 pm: | |
Paul--In general, it worries me if scientific reports contain "throwaway" lines.
"All he is doing is saying that the scratches are certainly as old as the last polishing."
And it doesn't make a difference if the "last polishing" was only 16-18 months in the past, as opposed to ten years?
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear (my fault) but I'm not really concerned with Wild's estimation of "tens of years." I'm more concerned that there was already surface corrosion in a "secret" part of the watch so soon after Murphy's alleged polishing---particularly when I'm told that such corrosion would take "a prolonged exposure to the environment." See what I mean? What might this be telling us?
I do follow your reasoning above, but I remain skeptical. If dating the watch was as simple as you make it out to be, why did a number of independent labs claim that the task was inaccurate if not impossible? I'll wait for the reports.
One thing is certain: the watch & the diary can't be both new and old. One set of 'evidence' has to be bogus. I have to believe that the fact that the Diary's ink visibly bronzed after becoming public is pretty damning. All the best, RP
Caz--I see where your thinking is headed, but I'd have to answer all your questions at once with the simple phrase: "Anecdotal evidence is a real bastard."
No, I'm afraid I can't be entirely certain that Murphy polished the watch. I can't be certain that jeweler's rouge would explain the swirling surface scratches. Ultimately, I don't know what caused those scratches, and it's pretty strange that they're on a part of the watch that isn't exposed to wear & tear. Murphy did say to Feldman that he was "almost certain" that the scratches were there when still owned the watch. On the otherhand, Dundas was certain enough they weren't there to sign a sworn affidavit denouncing them. Sounds like a wash to me. It's difficult to have much faith in such things.
It's one of the reasons I'm trying to track down whether or not the Echo ran a piece on Albert's watch. If they did, it would be the earliest version of the story--before Albert came into contact with the various Diary researchers. RP |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 267
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 4:58 pm: | |
Paul Butler wrote:
Does that make some sort of sense?
I'm afraid it makes very little sense, and I wonder quite what is in people's minds when they present these reports as either "new" or "clear" evidence that the scratches are older than 1988.
Unfortunately it sounds as though we're not going to see the text of these reports any time soon, and from Robert Smith's posts, I take it that we won't be seeing the original draft of Wild's reports in any case.
That's a pity, because each summary of the reports that appears here just raises more questions.
The best sense I can make of what I've read about the silver enrichment experiments is that Wild initially expected to find greater enrichment on the surface than in the scratches, and hoped to be able to estimate their age from this. This despite the fact that he knew nothing whatsoever about the time course of the silver enrichment process, according to Paul.
In fact he evidently found greater silver enrichment in the scratches! I presume this is why he wrote in the initial draft that the silver profile appeared to be established very quickly, and that nothing could be said about the age of the scratches. At this point, I suppose he must have attributed the difference between the measurements to experimental error.
Then, apparently, he came up with a possible explanation - polishing could have reduced the silver enrichment on the surface, while leaving it unchanged in the scratches. Perhaps that's the case, and if so it would only strengthen the conclusion that these measurements can tell us nothing about the age of the scratches.
But then there is this odd conclusion that the scratches are therefore older than the polishing, whenever that took place. Passing over the fact that Wild seems to have been misled about when the watch was polished, and the obvious illogicality of the deduction that if the scratches preceded an event 6-10 years before they must be more than 10 years old (!), I still see no logical basis for a deduction about the age of the scratches here. With Wild's assumption that polishing leaves the silver enrichment in the scratches unchanged, the same effect would presumably be observed whether the scratches came before or after the polishing.
(To discuss this sensibly, we should need to know what Wild assumed about the silver profile within the scratches when they were originally made. Maybe this is in the report, but I haven't seen it stated clearly here.)
Of course, I am still partly guessing on the basis of indirect summaries of reports most of us haven't seen. But so far it looks like a jumble of guesswork and speculation, and doesn't give me much confidence in the quality of Wild's reasoning.
Can anyone give us any details of Wild's academic credentials, or the academic position he held?
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 237
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 5:30 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
And since this has come up, there's a sentence in Paul Feldman's powerful and definitive book (you know, the aptly titled Final Chapter) that I am now wondering about. Perhaps I am just old and I've forgotten this little detail over the years. Perhaps it means nothing at all.
Paul writes, in his characteristic clear and complete style:
"Of course, the cynics criticised Albert for not granting R.K.Wild unlimited access to the watch. They ignore the cost of such an exercise."
What does this mean? What access was not granted to Wild? How was his access limited? I forget. And just who are these nasty cynics, anyway, and why are they complaining? And which of the two watches Paul says there were was the one that Wild was looking at? That part always confuses me.
I have no doubt that Dr. Wild is a fully qualified professional (he's at Bristol University, Chris, a PhD and DSc, I believe). But apparently he was given only "limited access" to the thing he was testing. Is this true? It must be. Paul Feldman says it in his book.
Oh yeah, and Dr. Wild begins at least one sentence in his report with the delightful phrase, "From the limited amount of evidence that has been acquired it would appear that...."
How anyone could question a conclusion that begins that way, or suspect that such a conclusion might be anything but clear, definitive, and yes even "Final," is beyond me.
But I'd still like a refresher on the access question. And I don't feel like looking it up.
Limiting his own access,
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 921
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 7:08 am: | |
Hi RJ,
Well, Murphy and Dundas can’t both be right, can they? But they could both be telling the truth about what they did or didn’t see.
Assuming Murphy didn’t get Albert’s watch mixed up with another one that went to Dundas around the same time in 1992, and assuming Murphy had no reason to lie when he said he tried (which implies he knew he hadn’t succeeded) to polish out some scratches with a ‘gentle rouge job’ (as I think it has been described in the past) when the watch came back from Dundas in 1992, and before it went up in Murphy’s window, I imagine the polishing would also have had a limited effect on any significant corrosion at the base of those scratches.
Of course, the only thing Murphy couldn’t be 100% certain about was whether the scratches he tried to polish out - but couldn’t - were definitely the ripper markings that Albert showed Robert a year later. The implication is clear – unless Murphy was lying for some inexplicable reason, there were visible scratches in the watch of some sort when Albert bought it in July 1992. So a hoaxer working after that date must have succeeded in polishing out every trace of the scratches left on the surface after Murphy’s failed efforts, before putting the ripper markings there, otherwise the previous scratches would have been even more visible to Wild and Turgoose than they had been to Murphy.
Assuming Dundas also remembered the watch and was telling the truth, he was certain he saw no ripper markings (but if they were already there in 1992, Murphy didn’t know they were ripper markings then either), yet Dundas remembered seeing the usual repair and pawn numbers. Where Dundas got really muddled was how much time had elapsed between servicing the watch and Murphy asking him if he’d noticed any ripper markings (like he is going to say “Yes, as a matter of fact I do remember seeing ‘I am Jack’ and the initials of the five canonical victims along with the usual repair and pawn numbers, but thought no more about it”). Dundas thought Murphy’s question had come a mere ‘a month or so’ after the servicing, when in fact a year or so must have gone by. So we have to consider the possibility that Dundas would have seen the H 9 3 and 1275 engraved on the ‘secret’ surface, in the course of his work on the watch, but may not have noticed the superficial scratches on top, or the barely visible ripper markings beneath, as described by Turgoose.
Or, alternatively, we could just dismiss the testimony of Dundas as inconclusive, anecdotal and unreliable, and that of Murphy as inconclusive, anecdotal and possibly unreliable. But we are still left with the evidence and professional opinions concerning the order of all the scratches, the silver enrichment and the corrosion and so on. Feldman was rightly criticised for rejecting the evidence and professional opinion that Maybrick wrote his own will because he didn’t have a better explanation for the difference in the handwriting. I do hope no one is going to go down the same road as Feldy, by rejecting the findings of Turgoose and Wild because they have no better explanation for H 9 3 and 1275 being engraved over ripper markings which were made on an otherwise scratch-free gold surface.
Incidentally (wrong topic I know), what is your evidence – apart from anecdotal - for the ‘fact’ that the diary ink visibly bronzed after becoming public?
It’s very similar, isn’t it, to the question of whether the barely visible ripper scratches could have gone unnoticed by Dundas or Murphy in 1992 had they been there, yet seen by Albert and workmates a year later when the watch was held in just the right light. In 1995, Voller described a bit of faint bronzing when he took the diary over to the window and held it in the right light. But he thought the ink had gone on the paper over 90 years previously, so do we simply dismiss his expert testimony as unreliable too? If we do accept there was faint visible bronzing in 1995, could the process really have stopped dead the moment Voller put the diary down again? You see there is no evidence of any further bronzing of the diary ink from that day forward. And if there hasn’t been any discernible further bronzing, would this suggest to you that the process, begun as late as 1989, could have been complete by 1995, or does it allow for the possibility that the faint bronzing, first remarked upon in 1995, was also there in 1992, and has not altered from that day to this?
Love,
Caz
PS (sorry about the length, but this obviously needs spelling out)
Why do people assume Albert had money to burn in the early 1990s, just because he coughed up £225 for a gold watch he fancied as an investment for his granddaughter? Does anyone posting here have any real idea how much it would have cost Albert to leave the watch with any professional examiner for an unlimited period of time, saying, “Here you are Mr. Expert. Spend as many hours as you like with it, doing whatever you think it will take to give me your most accurate estimate of the age of the scratches”?? So Mr. Expert takes the watch and sets to work finding control samples of known dated scratches in gold, recent, not so recent and over 100 years old, does all this extra work and finally reports to Albert, if his findings can be called conclusive, that a) you’ve been fooled by your brother, b) the scratches were made before you bought the watch but not as far back as the 1880s, or c) congratulations! The scratches date back to 1888/9 so you may just be the proud owner of Jack the Ripper’s watch – and then presents him with a bill for goodness alone knows how much, representing all the hours and materials required for the job. And what is the best that could happen then, in the event of good news? That’s right – no bugger will believe it’s genuine anyway, so instead of winning the lottery, Albert has just saddled himself with the equivalent of the National Debt.
(Message edited by Caz on March 25, 2004) |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 240
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 8:00 am: | |
Ah,
I assume from Caz's PS that Paul Feldman was telling the truth (did anyone doubt it?) and that Wild was not given full access to the watch, that his access for testing purposes was indeed, as Paul puts it, "limited." And why? Well, because, after all, no one knew how much it would cost.
Excellent.
Precisely the way science should be done and findings should be acquired and used.
So perhaps Dr. Wild, then, knowing his access to the watch was limited, might be inclined to qualify himself in his report, to hesitate, as it were, to even make a not so subtle gesture towards his own concern, and temper his conclusions with phrases like, "From the limited amount of evidence that has been acquired it would appear that...."
Possible translation: "Hey, if the guy had let me have unlimited access to this thing, the way I should have, I could have acquired a good deal more evidence and I wouldn't have to talk about appearances -- but since I could only gather limited evidence in this case, I can only talk about what appears at this point to be the case. Sorry, folks, that's all I got. Sadly, I suppose the consequences of this will be that Ripper geeks with no lives and way too much time on their hands, even those who play golf and teach for a living, will spend hours arguing on the internet about it all. That's inevitable I guess, since I can't say anything about this watch other than what appears to be true given the limited amount of access I had and the limited amount of evidence I was able to acquire. But that's OK, because some enterprising and altruistic author can always write a book about all this (it'll no doubt be the Final Chapter in this mystery); and he can call some of those geeks 'cynics' and dismiss their worries about the consequences of limiting the scientist's access to the material being tested with his own apocalyptic rhetoric about cost. And besides, those poor mole people on the internet need something to make their lives meaningful and if my offering a partial and inconclusive report can do that, just a little bit, then I feel I've done a good deed. Think of me, in this case, as more of a Samaritan than a scientist."
Well, OK, maybe he wasn't saying all of that. But the effect is the same. All this talk of limited access and limited evidence available and "it would appear that..." allows squirming room for those with closed minds, those unable to realize that the existence of the watch proves that the diary cannot be a modern hoax (and it cannot possibly be an old forgery, as we are now being told in the words of a different fully qualified expert on another thread).
It's simple, if the watch is older than "mid-eighties," the diary must really be by James Maybrick. The words in the diary, we've recently been shown, make any other conclusion "certainly" impossible. Of course, since Wild has "limited" his conclusions in this way and Murphy and Dundas disagree, and since the full texts of all the reports remain unpublished, I guess all we can do at this point is be thankful that we still have so many good reasons to be here and that we all don't yet have to face the sad realities of our outside lives. Thank God for conflicting conclusions and ambiguous science, that's what I say.
Meanwhile, just how limited was this access, anyway? Anyone know? Someone want to ask the Wild man? Why not? It's worth a shot.
Still feeling the faith,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on March 25, 2004) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 269
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 8:55 am: | |
Caroline Anne Morris wrote:
I do hope no one is going to go down the same road as Feldy, by rejecting the findings of Turgoose and Wild because they have no better explanation for H 9 3 and 1275 being engraved over ripper markings which were made on an otherwise scratch-free gold surface.
When we can see the reports, then we can evaluate their findings. Always bearing in mind that Turgoose found nothing that in his eyes could disprove that the scratches were modern, and that Wild emphasised the provisional nature of his findings because they were based on limited evidence. (No doubt he would have been only too happy to carry out more detailed tests, as this was paid work, but evidently that didn't happen, for whatever reason.)
From my point of view, the only puzzling feature is Turgoose's finding about the two marks overlaying the tail of the "J". These haven't been proved to be repair marks, but in any case, they don't seem to fit in with the other "Maybrick scratches".
I'd like to know more about Turgoose's methodology before accepting he was definitely right about this, but - for example - John Hacker has seen the report and he thinks Turgoose is unlikely to be wrong.
But I'm puzzled about this tail of the "J". How do we know it's the tail of the "J"? Because, we're told, it joins on the the upright of the "J".
But I'm puzzled about the upright of the "J", too. Supposedly it passes between the "H9" and the "3", and its lower part is what's previously been mistaken for a "/" or a "1".
But on the contrary, Turgoose apparently refers to the mark as "H9/3" rather than "H9 3".
And on the photo, the part of the upright between the "9" and the "3" looks distinctly different - darker - than the part of the upright that continues above.
[click here for Michael Sheehan's post containing a scan of the photo]
Unless my eyes are deceiving me, there's even a sort of black "blob" where the character of the upright changes.
On top of that, the peculiar shape of this supposed "tail" isn't particularly what the tail of a "J" would be expected to look like.
Perhaps this tail has a few more twists than we thought.
Chris Phillips
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 347
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 9:17 am: | |
Caz--Dr. Baxendale reported (Aug 1992) that the diary's ink had no bronzing. He thought it looked fresh to the page. Voller sees bronzing in 1995. So, naturally, I conclude that it bronzed over its first three years in public. I wouldn't consider Baxendale's comments "anecdotal evidence." He was specifically asked to study the Diary's ink and make notes and file a report on it. He saw no bronzing and recorded this fact.
I have no objections to your observations about Dundas or Murphy. They are reasonable conclusions based on what the two men have stated. It's just that in general people can be remarkably inaccurate about memories, dates, events--and it's difficult for me to know what weight I should give them. Cheers, RP |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 931
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 12:23 pm: | |
Hi RJ,
The ink still does look 'fresh' to the page. Anyone who saw it in 2001 would be able to confirm this. Did Baxendale closely examine the same page where Voller noticed the slight bronzing in 1995? Would Voller, if he saw the diary again today, confirm that the ink is more bronzed than back in 1995? You can't conclude, 'naturally' or safely, that the diary ink bronzed over its first three years in public without a very definite and expert 'yes' to either or both questions.
Re the watch, I absolutely agree about people being inaccurate about memories, dates and events. Can I take it then that you do at least accept that Murphy was telling the truth and did try to polish out some scratches with a gentle rouge job before selling the watch to Albert in July 1992?
If so, can I ask you again: do you think Turgoose could have failed to see the scratches that Murphy saw - and failed - to polish out? Or did a hoaxer succeed in polishing them out completely before putting in the ripper marks?
Thanks.
Do you have any idea what John means when he talks about 'apocalyptic rhetoric about cost'? I am trying, and failing, to understand why he thinks Albert, or anyone, should - even if they could - afford the kind of testing he so fiercely advocates, when a) there is no guarantee that scratches in gold can ever be dated accurately, however much money and access is given to the best 'experts' in the world, and it therefore follows that b) there is not the faintest chance that an 'old' conclusion would be accepted by the very people who are most vocal in their criticism of others for not handing over hard cash.
Does anyone, including John, know just how much such testing would cost? And do they seriously think there is a hope in hell of anyone getting a good return on such an investment, and I don’t just mean financially? If so, I’d be very interested to hear their reasoning.
Love,
Caz
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 247
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 5:22 pm: | |
Absolutely, Caz.
We shouldn't test. After all, we know there are some people who won't accept the findings, whatever they are, and that in itself is certainly enough reason not to learn whatever the science can tell us whenever it can tell us it. By all means, if it's possible that some people won't accept the results, then we should not do the tests and we should not learn anything; especially if we don't know how much the tests are going to cost.
I don't know why Wild would say that stuff about "limited evidence" or why Paul would say that stuff about "limited access." I can't imagine why giving the scientists only limited access to the material being tested would in any way affect their confidence in their results and make them talk about things like appearances. You'd think they'd be happy to actually see the material at all -- some labs never even get that chance, you know.
No, I agree. Don't test. Not if you don't know how much it's going to cost (it might be too much, after all) and not if some people are likely to doubt whatever results are produced. That should definitely stop us in any search for the truth.
As long as their are grumps who won't accept the findings, then scientific tests should never be done.
That makes perfect sense to me. And as a result, we'll always have a home here, someplace we can spend our long boring days as we wait the inevitability of our own deaths (and our rewards in internet-and-Ripper-geek-heaven).
Don't test. Don't give the scientists the chance to do all they can do. Don't give them unlimited access to the watch or the diary. It might end up taking away the only fun we have in our sad little lives.
Thank goodness the right people appreciate this.
Thank goodness the science is finished once and for all and the results are still ambiguous and inconclusive all around. Thank goodness.
In favor of keeping the dream alive, as always,
--John
PS: Of course, now that we know that the diary can only be either authentic or a modern hoax, the science has even less of a job to do. Either the book was written in 1888 or it was written after 1980. Those are the only two possibilities, as has been proven on another thread and backed up by a still unchallenged expert. So we damn well better not give scientists unlimited access to anything, or they're liable to tell us finally whether it's the 1880s or the 1980s for the diary, and that would be bad for all concerned, myself included (what would I do without you all).
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 249
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 6:53 pm: | |
Hey everyone,
Here's a bit of serendipity for you. I happened to be reading this old book I have at my bedside. It was written in about 1604 or so, in early 17th century Italian. I was, of course, translating as I went, and I came upon the following remarkable passage. I translate it for you here:
"So long as there remain, among our own countrymen, those who will be inclined to disbelieve our result, those who would seek to cast doubt upon our discoveries, we should refrain from pursuing our investigations or conducting our experiments. The stubborn blindness of others must always be considered a compelling reason to go no further in our search for answers, in our voyage into understanding. For that reason, we must stop our science now."
These are the words, written in 1604, of Galileo Galilei.
Or maybe not. I don't actually speak Italian.
Ciao,
--John |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 352
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 9:52 am: | |
Caz-- Baxendale reported there was no bronzing, and he was specifically looking for it. Of course I don't know which pages he studied. I assume he looked at several. Why would it matter? I seem to recall Rendell's team concluding that multiple passages of the diary were written at the same time. Maybe if the ink 'still looks fresh' today it is because it still is fresh?
I don't have any reason to believe that either Dundas or Murphy are wilfully lying. 'No.' I have a difficult time visualizing that someone staring at the watch under magnification cannot see the scratches.
As for the testing---I'm ambivalent. Everyone else can argue to the cow's come home, but why should I play the hypocrit? I don't think one can date scratches in metal. Why would I therefore want more tests that I already believe are pointless? I certainly wouldn't care to pay for them. I think it would be more appropriate to have the tests already completed made public.
Long ago, I discussed this matter with Viper. We were both of the opinion that the only way the 'Diary' debacle could ever really be resolved would be to identify the author(s). The only way. As Martin Fido once wryly commented, the various scientific tests tended to favor the opinons of those who funded them. Or so it sometimes appears. RP |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 251
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 10:11 am: | |
Hi RJ,
I wonder, was it the tests that favored the opinions of those that funded them, or the interpretations of the tests after the fact? The latter, of course, is inevitable, but should not, surely, stop us from continuing to investigate these things using whatever means might be available.
Science, incidentally, is getting better all the time.
--John (with apologies to the Beatles)
PS: I agree with you, of course, about making everything public. |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 353
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 10:26 am: | |
John--No, I'm sure you're probably more on the bulls-eye. It's already been fairly well demonstrated that Baxendale & Eastaugh's opinions (to name two examples) were rather loosely handled by the various people who quoted them. I'm a cynical bastard though. Some of the excerpts I've seen from the various scientific reports are rather freely written. Scientists are humans, too. It seems at least possible that a certain amount of subtle subjectivity might creep in depending on the funding.
One minor, perhaps irrelevant point. I couldn't help but notice that Two-Gun Tex's $40,000 offer to buy the watch was made the week before Dr. Wild was commissioned to make the test. (Tex's letter to the Johnson's solicitor is dated Jan 20., Wild's report is dated Jan. 31) A connection? Always wondered about that. RP |
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