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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 743
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 1:43 pm: |       |
One more thing.
As far as I can ascertain, without causing damage to my mum’s old album, not all the photos (inserted into their oval-shaped surrounds via a little gap at the base of each of the 50 pages) are mounted on standard studio cards. And some - obviously cut to size - are mounted on home-made cards, of varying thicknesses, also cut to a size that allows for a neat insertion.
Customising options would obviously have been open to the scrapbook owner too, if he/she wished, for example, to display a certain number of similar-sized photos or other items to a page.
Love,
Caz
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 231
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 2:25 pm: | |
But, why would anyone stick photos over the diary of JTR. Did they? I perhaps am not following, but i thuoght the choice was this
! the diary is a fake and this proves it as the diary is written on a scrapbook that had photos in in the 1880s subsequently removed
oR
2 it was not a fake and someone therfore stuck photos over the text, which were subsequently removed before the barrets saw it.
Am i wrong?
Confused as ever
Jennifer D. Pegg
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Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 192
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 3:17 pm: | |
Jennifer D. Pegg
I suppose the pro-diarist answer is that first it was a photo album (or an album of something else that could plausibly be of the right size before the 1880s) and then some of the pages were removed - or possibly just the photos/other items were peeled off the pages so they could be written on - and then it was used as the Ripper's diary, and then some [more] of the pages were removed, leaving only part of the Ripper's narrative.
A strange business.
On the other hand, perhaps a modern faker came on a photo album with some unfilled pages at the back, hacked out the pages with photos on them, and then wrote the fake Ripper diary on the rest of the pages. And because some pages had been hacked out, he/she was careful to begin the narrative in mid-sentence, as though it had started on the missing pages (not realising that impressions remained to prove that the previous pages had just contained photos).
Chris Phillips
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Chief Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 698
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 3:47 pm: | |
Hi,
I have read the diary, and I consider it a hoax, it was designed to cause sensation, and to profit from its contents.
It was very well written, and I would consider, several people were involved in its manifacture.
I doubt if the killer of these women, ever confessed, especially not in diary form.
I consider Maybreck, a victim of arsenic poisoning, either by Florence, or by his possible own overdoses, not as our 'jACK'
If a diary, or confesion was found somwhere, from a person more connected to this case, even a Fred Smith from Hackney, it would carry more weight.
Why is it people put forward, such ridiculous claims?.
Richard. |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1166
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 5:21 pm: | |
G'day Rich,
We know there are many people who want to solve this case, the RIGHT way...to find the REAL Ripper. I suppose there are people who just want to provide solid evidence against anyone, (without careing who they defame).
It certainly was well-written, and the person/people researched the Ripper case as well as the life of James Maybrick, and skillfully blended the two.
We have to look for the little 'holes', like the contradiction about taking none of Mary Kelly's organs and then writing: 'God forgive me for the deeds I committed on Kelly, no heart, no heart.'
That, plus perhaps the inclusion of Annie Chapman's FARTHINGS, could have been the hoaxer's biggest mistakes!
LEANNE |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 297
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 10:25 pm: | |
Three quick comments from the cheap seats. 1. Isn't 1/4" a heck of a lot of "fuzz" as Caz calls it? I seriously doubt that Baxendale's dimensions were that much of an approximation. But I'll withhold judgement for the time being. 2. The dimensions of the mount, obviously, are what's important here; remember that Baxendal found the torn edge of what he believed was a photograph: so we know we aren't talking about unmounted images cut from a larger sheet. Is there a standard mounted Victorian photograph that measures aprox. 3 1/2 by 2 1/2? This is what I want to find out. 3. Mike Barrett described the album as having once contained WWI era images. Is there anything so far to rule this out? RP |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 193
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 3:27 am: | |
Leanne Perry
I suspect that in writing no heart, no heart the diarist was following the information available to him, that Kelly's heart had been cut out (but not necessarily taken away).
In that case, there wouldn't be a contradiction within the diary, but the statement Regret I did not take any of it away with me it is supper time which you quoted previously, does contradict the facts of the murder (on the natural interpretation of the evidence that the heart had in fact been taken away).
Chris Phillips
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John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 222
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 7:21 am: | |
I am obviously no expert on victorian photographs, but if it turns out that the sizes did vary to such a great degree then maybe we're not going to be able to get anywhere with this even if precise measurements can be taken. (I'll certainly hope we can get a precise answer, but if your impression is correct Caz, then I guess we won't.)
Given that the piece Baxendale found is no longer available and cannot be verified as a photograph, it there may well be that there are too many "maybes" and "approximatelies" to get any definite answers.
Perhaps a more profitable approach would be to examine the glue, and also to see if any more fragments could be located in the stuck together stubs? Does anyone have any information on Victorian glues vs. WWI glues? I have no knowledge at all in that area so I don't know if it would be worth pursuing. However, if further photo fragments could found, perhaps they could be analysed to answer the photo question once and for all.
Regards,
John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 746
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 10:16 am: | |
Hi Chris P,
‘…not realising that impressions remained to prove that the previous pages had just contained photos’.
I think people are still getting the wrong impression about these impressions and what they ‘prove’.
Baxendale reported extensive staining to the inside front cover of the scrapbook and flysheet. It is on this flysheet that he found rectangular-shaped stains, reporting that this staining is largely absent from the intact part of the scrapbook.
Hi RJ, John H,
Baxendale did also report that the fragment of paper he thought might be the torn edge of a small photo was coated in a glue-type material. He concluded that the torn out pages could have had small photos attached to them with glue.
RJ, if you seriously doubt Baxendale’s approximate dimensions were out by as much as a quarter of an inch, then presumably you don’t think we are talking between-the-wars photos, like all those in my collection that measure 2 and a quarter by 3 and a quarter inches?
And run this by me again - how do we know the scrapbook could not have contained unmounted Victorian photos, mounted straight onto the page with glue? I’m not quite with you.
Hi Richard,
No one here is putting forward any claims, ridiculous or not, about Maybrick confessing to being the ripper in his diary. The diary exists and everyone here is simply discussing its possible origins.
Hi Leanne,
Similarly, the diarist is the only one to blame for not caring that he or she defamed Maybrick.
Love,
Caz
|
Paul Stephen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 9:26 am: | |
Dear John H
I’m glad we got that sorted out. Now I realise that you were including the mount with it I fully understand your concerns around my original posting. I was a little puzzled before, which is not unusual for me!
I used MS photo editor to shrink it, (badly), and I would have thought by re-saving it I had messed up the proportions completely and permanently. I’m no expert on these things, and if it becomes important later I can post one or two other relevant examples if they would help, and take greater care with them now I know how to do it properly!
I too hope that this angle of investigation may offer some hope to solving the diary problem. It is certainly nice to see new ideas being explored. More so than the textual problems which, it seems will always be open to some sort of interpretation.
Jennifer
I think there are several possibilities as to why the photos may have been in the journal. You have to think it through from the angle of a modern hoaxer as well as if you were James himself, to see all of the various possibilities.
The journal, if the real thing, could well have had Maybrick family pictures in it at various points, to illustrate their lives for example. We need to know if the first now missing page had one or more impressions left on it, and their orientation. Could there have been writing and text on the same page?
If the stain that is visible later on in the diary, which may be glue and is on top of the ink, actually turned out to be glue, then that would probably put paid to that possibility once and for all.
If a hoaxer just simply cut out pages which held photos, and we knew that for certain, then it would make a nonsense of the diary starting mid sentence.
The trouble is that we will never know what was on all of the preceding pages!
Chris P and Leanne
Why does everyone automatically assume that “No heart, no heart” must refer to Kelly’s physical heart? It just seems a funny way of saying that he had removed it and maybe taken it away. I must confess that I had always interpreted it as just meaning “heartless”, as in uncaring, and possibly referring to Florrie. I don’t have the diary in front of me right now to check the context again, but it never occurred to me that it meant Kelly’s actual heart until I saw that was how others had interpreted it.
Just a thought.
Regards
Paul
|
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 299
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 4:43 pm: | |
Caz--I'm researching this further and don't want to be pegged down until I know more. It appears to me that from about 1865 to 1905 portraits were always (or nearly always?) affixed to commercial mounting cards. This is because the actual photograph was on very flimsy, thin paper that would tear unless it was mounted. After the turn of the century, the unmounted "snapshots" replaced these earlier types. So (at present) I'm not seeing an unmounted photo as being an option, but am always willing to be proved wrong.
But here is something new that I think might be worth considering. Like I said earlier, I have long suspected that the bone-black matter found in the Diary's gutter is somehow connected to whatever was mounted on the missing papers. It makes sense to me. There was a type of photograph popular in the 1890s up to about around 1910 called the "crayon" or "charcoal" photograph, which was an actual photograph touched-up with a charcoal crayon. Could this explain the black dust found in the Diary? Bone-black was a popular pigment for various types of art work until it was eventually replaced by oil based pigments. Were any of the missing photographs something along these lines? RP |
Robert Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 1:30 pm: | |
I have just caught up with the continuing debate on the impressions left on the verso fly leaf of the diary. I will try to answer some of the questions.
The impressions on the fly leaf are discolourations created by the images, which were pasted down on the first cut-out page of the diary. They are very similar to what one often finds in nineteenth century books, where a print or a photograph leaves a brownish/yellowish stain on the page opposite.
The images in the diary run down the page, two side by side, with the two long edges being in the horizontal position. There are three or four images running down the page, so there must be six or eight images in total. They are neatly laid out.
I would note that this staining phenomenon scarcely seems to occur on papers used in the twentieth century, in which wood pulp is the major ingredient. Older books, printed on papers made from cotton, esparto grass, etc., would often have a light separation sheet between the image and the page opposite to protect it from discolouration. The problem continued to a minor degree into the twentieth century, but the staining was much fainter. I would be surprised to hear of any book printed since World War II, which has any discernible staining from photographs and prints.
The depth and colouring of the staining in the diary is clearly evident to the naked eye, which to me, suggests a nineteenth century date, but I could not definitely rule out the first twenty or thirty years of the twentieth century. It would take a proper expert in antiquarian printing and binding to take this further.
I did once measure the impressions, and my memory is that they did accord with Dr Baxendale’s measurement of approximately 3 ½ inches x 2 ½ inches. They cannot be precise: as the impressions are offset from the originals, the edges of the stains are not straight or consistent. When the diary next comes out of the bank vault, I will measure each one as precisely as I can.
The studio mounted photographs were usually put into albums, dedicated to that purpose. In those I have seen, one slid the mounted photographs into pockets in the album. These, as has been noted, were standard sizes. The photographs (or prints) which began the “diary” album, were, I am sure, not mounted, but simply stuck down on to the page.
I have an album of small, mostly horizontal family photographs, taken from about 1900 to 1930 pasted down in a similar manner. A wide range of sizes is exhibited. Every photograph has been manually trimmed, probably with scissors, so that it is impossible to ascertain the sizes of the original photographs. It appears, that they would have had white surround borders. We do not know, for sure, if the “diary” images had white borders, but if the missing white fragment of paper was a cut-off border, as Baxendale suggests (“It has straight edges and is similar in length to one dimension of the rectangular stains. It is coated in a glue-type material”), then the whole photograph including the border would obviously have been greater than 3 ½ inches x 2 ½ inches.
I am afraid that the above raises more questions than it answers, but it’s the best I can offer at the moment.
|
Paul Stephen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 7:59 pm: | |
Dear RJ
For what it's worth, all of the Victorian photographic prints I own are on flimsy paper, which have been glued onto a stiffer mount, although not all are on commercial mounting cards. Some are mounted onto card which is cut to the exact size of the print, i.e. with no border, and others are on larger card mounts possibly intended for framing.
Dear Caz and Robert
Thanks for explaining about the positioning of the photos or prints in the diary. They are exactly where I thought they were until I was "corrected" here recently, and lead to believe the stains were left by photos on the page previous to the now first page of the diary...phew!
That now makes a partial nonsense of what I posted on the subject earlier today!
Regards
Paul |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 300
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 9:22 am: | |
The confusion, I think, comes from Rendell's report. "The first three forensic tests were undertaken to rule out an unexpected piece of evidence: ultraviolet and infrared examinations, and a test for the slightest impressions in the paper (electronic static detection analysis.) The ultraviolet examination showed that rectangular pieces, probably postcards, were mounted on the first, now missing page (an outline of their images appear on the first existing page)." It's unclear (to me at least) why Rendell is referring to 'utraviolet examinations' if he only means the visible stains, and why he calls it the 'first existing page' if he is referring to the fly leaf. |
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 224
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 10:22 am: | |
Robert,
Thanks for the additional information. If it raises more questions, they are at least interesting ones.
R.J.,
Rendell's report is indeed confusing in regards to "first existing page". As far as the ultraviolet examination goes, I would assume that he means that the stains flouresce when exposed to UV light. That might give some hint as their composition?
Regards,
John |
Paul Stephen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 9:41 am: | |
Dear RJ
Blimey, it just gets more and more confusing..!
3 ½” X 2 ½” POSTCARDS? You wouldn’t get much of a message on those as well as a postage stamp would you?
Are the “impressions” the same as the “stains”, or are they two separate things?
I suppose we should bear in mind that this Mr Rendell also seemed to think someone by the name of James T Maybrick was reputed to have written the diary. It would explain how JTR got away from the scene so successfully though. He simply beamed himself up!
Regards
Paul
|
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 226
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 2:56 pm: | |
Paul,
3 1/2 X 2 1/2 was a size of post card used for a time. It was also a standard size for victorian calling cards, which I have found referred to as "post cards" on some sites. If I had to guess, that is probably what Rendell was referring to and made the assumption based on the orientation of the impressions.
As far as where the "T" came from, that's a really good question and one that I have always been curious about.
Regards,
John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 759
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 11:05 am: | |
Hi RJ,
Well, the fly leaf would be the first existing page, wouldn’t it? And anyway, we can reasonably conclude that this is what Rendell must have meant from the comparison with what Baxendale reported.
Baxendale also used ultraviolet light to examine the visible rectangular stains. He also examined the first of the pages bearing handwriting, together with the stained fly leaf, to see if anything decipherable, such as writing, could have left its impression - he found nothing.
I don’t know if this would exclude postcards with handwriting already on one side before being mounted, or pre-printed calling or business cards, or whether his examination would only have detected impressions left on a blank page by someone writing directly onto an overlying page, or onto an item already mounted in the scrapbook.
You can see I haven’t got much of a scientific brain for this kind of thing. So any enlightenment is much appreciated.
Love,
Caz
(Message edited by Caz on February 23, 2004) |
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 230
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 11:17 am: | |
Caz,
According to Rendell, ink on a page will often leave an impression on the facing page if it's been there a sufficient length of time. (I think he used the ballpark figure of 100 years, but I could be wrong.) So it seems likely that ink on postcards pressing against the paper could have the same effect if they were there long enough.
The ink of the diary test itself did not cause such an effect for whatever reason.
Regards,
John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 760
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 11:27 am: | |
Hi John,
Thanks for that.
I suppose it would have helped if any of the experts had been able to detect how recently – or how long ago - the ‘barbarian’ hacked out the missing pages.
Love,
Caz
|
Helene
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 5:06 am: | |
Very nice site. Please take a look also to calling cards at www.connectto.com.
Thank you. |
Paul Stephen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 8:52 am: | |
Hi John and all,
For what it's worth, I was looking through my Grandmother's Autograph book the other night. It has entries from 1919 up to 1924, and in all types of ink from Violet to Indian ink.
There is NO "print through" whatsoever in any of them except where Indian ink has been used to draw cartoons and was used very densely, (is that a word?).
What did tickle me a bit though, was that the letter formations of one of the contributors, a lady born around 1875/80, has handwriting very close to that in the diary! The capital Ts in particular being identical in form.
When I've got the time I'll photo a couple of examples out of interest.
regards
Paul |
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 274
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 10:53 am: | |
Paul,
When you say "print through", what are you referring to exactly? I'm a bit puzzled there.
As far as the handwriting goes, I would be very interested to see some of your samples, but remember that her education would have been 25-30 years after Maybrick's. My understanding from reading Shirley's book is that handwriting from the late victorian period on is difficult to distinguish. (I can't seem to find the reference at the moment. I will try and dig it up later.)
Best Regards,
John |
Robert Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 1:27 pm: | |
An update on the six 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches yellowish rectangular stains in the diary. I have now looked at the physical diary again and can confirm, that their formation is two across and three deep, with the longer sides being horizontal. They are laid out very precisely and although visible to the naked eye, do fade progressively from the top of the page to the bottom.
Although, Dr Baxendale in his report describes the stains as being on a flyleaf, it is more correct to call it the endpaper, the left page of which is glued to the cover. If you turn over the right page of the endpaper of a normal hardcover book, you will find it is glued at its right hand hinge to the first page of the book. Similarly, it would have been on the first right-hand page of the diary, with the rectangular stains appearing on the facing endpaper, where the six images would have been positioned.
This is what Dr Baxendale writes about the stains:
“I have noted, that the rectangular stains measure approximately 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches, which was once a popular size for photographs and corresponds with the size of the film used in roll film cameras”.
This comment is clearly intended to suggest, that the diary originated after the first world war, when roll film cameras started to become more popular than plate cameras. But my researches indicate that the size of negatives closest to 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches produced by roll film cameras from the 1920s up to the 1960s, was significantly smaller, i.e. between 3 1/8 x 2 1/8 inches and 3 ¼ x 2 ¼ inches. Obviously my research is not definitive and I would be interested to hear if anyone has roll film negatives from the 1920s and 1930s, which are in fact, precisely 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches.
Crucially, 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches are precisely the dimensions of a popular format for negative plates and films used for cameras, which did not use roll film, in the Victorian, Edwardian and early 1920s periods. It was a size, whose popularity was only exceeded by the quarter plate size (4 ¼ x 3 ¼ inches) and by the 5 x 4 inches format. I can give the published sources for this information if requested, but they include Edwardian amateur photographer magazines and the 1926 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
There is therefore no difficulty in a late Victorian scrapbook having positive prints contacted directly from 3 ½ x 2 ½ inch negatives, pasted into it. Mounts would be far too bulky for a scrapbook, and photographs, if used at all, were pasted down on the scrapbook pages, unmounted.
Unless one is dealing with same size contact prints, as appears to be the case in the diary, there is no benefit to be had from measuring the sizes of prints in our personal collections of photographs from the Victorian and Edwardian periods. They would have been individually enlarged and/or trimmed to approximate to the usual sizes of the pockets and “windows” in the formal photograph albums of that time, made specifically for displaying mounted photographs. This is why the sizes of the prints in such albums vary so much.
Baxendale’s insinuation, that the stains point to a date later than the first world war, ties in with his equally misleading comments about the dating of a colouring agent in the diary ink. He wrote that he had noticed a pattern, which was “characteristic of inks, based on a synthetic dye called nigrosine, which is a complex mixture of substances, but one which has been used in many inks, at least since the 1940s”. Nigrosine is a synthetic dye, and Baxendale asserts categorically in the conclusion to his report: “Synthetic dye stuffs did not become common in inks until after the second world war. They may have been used earlier, but not before the first world war.”
We know that Baxendale was wrong, either through intent to mislead or from negligence. The ink expert on Rendell’s team, Dr Joe Nickell, confirms in his book Pen, Ink and Evidence that nigrosine was used commercially in inks from 1867 onwards.
Perhaps the diary was written post world war one or post 1987 for that matter, but in my opinion, Baxendale should not have biased his report by suggesting that a Victorian date for the 3 ½ x 2 ½ inches rectangular stains was historically wrong, or by ruling out a Victorian date for the ink, because it contained a synthetic dye.
|
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 1:17 pm: | |
Hi,
A while ago I posted on here debating the arguement over firstly whether the diary was genuine or fake, and secondly whether or not Maybrick was indeed JtR.
A few people answered, people more knowledgable on this matter then I and stated they felt it was fake and the evidence pointed in that direction.
I said I would go away and read more before I came to my decision.
I cannot explain why I came to the decision that Maybrick was indeed JtR as there are so many other possibilities to consider. I reached my decision before I had even read the diary or knew who it claimed to be written by. Something about Maybrick set bells ringing more then any of the other suspects.
After reading all the pros and cons for the diary I am more inclined to believe it is genuine. I feel sure that if it was a fake it would have been proven by now without question. Yet it has not. Nothing I have read (and I have read!!) even comes close to disproving it. I understand about all the scandal surrounding the Hitler Diaries, and why people are sceptical. I was too and in some ways still am.
Maybrick was pretty much an outside contender. If the diary is forged why use Maybrick? Why not use someone who was more likely in the eyes of the public to be JtR? That is one question I would like answered.
Secondly...there is no evidence in what I have read that states the ink was not victorian. I would have thought this would have been easy to determine if it was in fact present day ink.
Thirdly..we all know Maybrick was hopelessly addicted to arsenic and strycchnine. (I may have misspelled that!) I do not believe that Mike Barrett forged the diary, as he would have had to have vast knowledge that quite frankly, no disrespects, he did not seem to have. And if the diary was forged during the time frame of 1922-1950 as one report I read suggested then that brings another question. Were there public records of long term effects of the use of constant arsenic and strycchnine during this time? I have found none and I have searched hard.
If someone can answer these questions for me, I may reconsider my point of view. Nothing indicates to me that JtR could have been anyone other then Maybrick who in my opinion of profiling all types of serial killers during my reading, had the motive, will and means to carry out these dreadful murders.
Hope you are all well,
Thanks,
Dee. |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 359
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 4:52 pm: | |
Hi Dee,
1. There are a number of reasons why the final death throes of the diary have not ended. One has to do with how long it's been since any reputable scientist has been allowed to see the diary or to examine it or the watch. Another has to do simply with how vague and fragmented and unspecific the text is. And a third has to do with the willingness of people to ignore the historical record (which contradicts the diary more than a number of times).
For instance, there is no way, if the real James was Jack, that he could have seen the police report on his murders from which the diary quotes. And that's just one example. There are many others.
2. Why use Maybrick? The diary came out not long after the centennial of the murders and it came out of Liverpool, where the Maybrick case is still very much part of the local history. It was an easy enough thing to think of putting 1 and 1 together at exactly that time.
3. The available ink evidence is in fact contradictory, which is just one reason why a thorough retesting at a responsible lab remains in order. Thanks for reminding us of that. In fact, it is not an easy thing to determine the age of such ink.
4. As for the "vast knowledge" of which you speak: sorry, but there's not a single thing in the diary that would not have been available in published books in the 1980's and 90's. And still the diary gets stuff wrong. That's the truly amazing part -- not how much the diary knows, but how much it doesn't know. And there are also no specific lines anywhere in the diary about the effects of addiction to this or any drug that could not have easily been imagined and written with a general knowledge.
Finally, it's simple, Dee.
It's not James Maybrick's handwriting. Not even close.
The details are repeatedly ahistorical. The record clearly contradicts the book.
There is absolutely no established provenance. There never has been.
There is a line in the book unavailable to the killer or to anyone in the public before the second half of the wrong century.
There is a line in the book that only Barrett himself could source and then had to offer an impossible miracle for an explanation as to how he was able to do so.
Every piece of evidence available anywhere suggests that this book was never anywhere near the real James Maybrick. NO real evidence anywhere suggests otherwise.
Believing in the diary demands that all the available evidence be ignored and that pure simple faith be allowed to reign supreme. It's like believing in crop circles or that aliens built the pyramids.
All the evidence point in exactly the opposite direction.
As does the behavior of all involved in the case.
That's why serious Ripper scholars and historians around the world no longer take the thing seriously. It was a hoax from the start.
I appreciate your thoughts, but unfortunately, as they are written they are built largely on unsupported hypotheses and unevidenced conclusions.
The book's a fake.
But you should definitely keep reading.
All the best,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on June 19, 2004) |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 362
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 5:38 pm: | |
One other thing, Dee,
I should have included, in my list, the fact that the diary's structure is completely artificial, following a strict Aristotelean form of rising action, climax, falling action, as if it were written as a set-piece rather than a recounting, at the moment, of lived events. And even though it pretends to begin in medias res, it conveniently starts at the beginning of the relevant narrative and ends with complete closure after setting the entire murder spree as a simplistic mano-a-mano struggle between two men, in much the same way the TV miniseries just happens to structure the same events, despite the historical record.
I do this for a living. I get paid to analyze texts, especially fictional ones, but diaries too, and to teach their form and structure. I have a doctorate in just that. I know a work of fiction when I see one.
And, just in case you thought that the whole mano-a-mano thing being in both the diary and the movie might be a coincidence, the diary includes a scene nowhere to be found in history, where Abberline very nearly catches Jack. It's true that there's no historical record of such an event in any document anywhere. But the very same sort of event does just happen to occur in that very same mini-series at just the same point in the narrative. Imagine that!
And what year did the TV show air in England?
I'll bet you can guess. 
Just another fun thought for the day,
--John |
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, June 20, 2004 - 1:01 pm: | |
Hi John,
Firstly, thank you for your reply.
I do not deny that I am not as knowledgable on this case as many who use this site. I would not be as arrogant as to presume that I am. I have seen your name many times on these message boards and am sure that your knowledge on this subject is far greater then mine.
However, I am never one to jump to conclusions rashly. I carefully weigh up the facts and make up my own mind, which I'm sure you will agree is always the best way of dealing with things.
My decision that Maybrick was JtR was not based on the diary. I find the diary interesting because, like this case, it is a mystery in many ways as it cannot be proven genuine or fake. I understand that the reason for the diary no longer being tested is due to the fact there is a lack of funds to cover the testing it requires and also, there does not seem to be a way of conducting an accurate enough test to settle this arguement for once and for all.
A rather lucky break for the supposed forger of the diary would you not agree?
Victorian scrapbooks? I do not know how readily they become available at auctions and the like but I guess it would not be unheard of.
It's the ink I have an issue with. Not the paper it was written on or the handwriting or subject matter.
Why?
During the course of my life ( and I am older then I sound!!) I have come across many walks of life. I have a rather informed insight into the human psyche. I understand people. Rather too well in fact. Most serial killers who kill in this kind of manner, are usually sexually motivated. There is usually rape or some form of assualt involved. Although I will also agree that there are cases that there was no evidence of such things.
Who do you believe was Jack the Ripper? And why?
The Royal connection? Not possible.
Frances Tumbelty? Well if it was him, then why did the murders not continue after he went back to America? Serial killers very rarely stop unless they are caught or killed themselves.
Aaron Kosminski? Off his rocker yes but a serial killer? Very doubtful.
Sir William Gull and the masonic conspiracy? I find this hard to contemplate. The guy was 71 and had a stroke, and I think this was something that was decided from nowhere. What a scandal if there was a royal connection. The media would have had a field day.
From everything I have read up to now, none of these to me personally, adequately fit the profile of Jack the Ripper.
Incidently, there were actually 3 times he could have been caught. In Bucks Row with the murder of Polly Nichols, at 29 Hanbury St with the murder of Annie Chapman and at Dutfields yard with the murder of Elizabeth Stride.
Unfortunately, in those days it was 'hear no evil, speak no evil'.
The police records? Well everything I have read and learned indicates to me that the police in victorian times were not exactly, shall we say, methodical in their book and record keeping. It was inevitable that records would be lost and misplaced. In fact I would have been more surprised if everything ever documented on this case has survived intact to the present day.
Also...how embarassing would it have been if the records showed that they could have caught him and failed to do so. Anti-police feeling was quite high during those times. Would not have been a good idea to show them as incompetent would you not agree?
I also have some knowledge of drug use (recreational and medicinal). Arsenic used long term affected the memory and doubled with strycchnine was a game of Russian roulette. Maybrick did have medical knowledge as he was a hypochondriac and they do tend to know roughly where everything is.
You want to know what else I think?
I also think there is something to the case of Florence Maybrick. How do we know that she did not find out that Maybrick was JtR and discreetly upped his use of arsenic? He would not have known.
I do love these debates. Keeps the brain working!!
Look forward to your reply.
Hope you are well.
Best wishes,
Dee. |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 366
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 10:19 am: | |
Hi Dee,
First things first. You write, somewhat mistakenly,
"I understand that the reason for the diary no longer being tested is due to the fact there is a lack of funds to cover the testing it requires and also, there does not seem to be a way of conducting an accurate enough test to settle this arguement for once and for all."
You have been misinformed.
If you send me private e-mail, I can send you some information about the real problems with getting the diary tested.
And of course, whether or not a test "settles the problem once and for all," should not be what determines whether we keep testing. Even if we only learn a few more things, that knowledge is valuable. All further knowledge is valuable. We should never be against learning things just because we aren't promised the final answer at the moment.
Also, the fact that the tests completed so far have been interpreted in contradictory ways is not simply a "lucky break" for the forger, it's the result of people's desires (and a certain amount of self-interest). The lucky break the forgers got was the willingness of some people to put personal desire over history.
As to the handwriting, it is quite clearly not the real James Maybrick's. And no expert anywhere has ever said it was. Again, you can deny history, but that won't make it go away.
I have nothing to say concerning your problems with other suspects. I don't think any of them was likely to be the killer either.
But as to the near-capture scene -- nothing in any of Abberline's records indicates that any such thing ever took place between him and any suspect and yet there it is in the Michael Caine miniseries in 1988 AND there it is in the diary that suddenly appears just a few years later. Again, history tells us one thing and the diary (and a tv show in the 1980's) says another. The diary often conflicts directly with the historical record. Just like the availability of the police report about the matchbox, just like the location of Mary's breasts, just like Mike being the only one anywhere able to source the five unidentified words, just like all the other evidence in this case.
And you seem to have misunderstood about the "tin matchbox line" quoted in the diary. This is taken from a document that we know was not lost or misplaced, that was right there in the confidential police files up until it was made public late in the 20th century (the wrong century for the diary). Then it appeared in a number of Ripper books, right around the same time as the mini-series and right before the diary comes out. There's certainly no historical way the real Maybrick could have seen it. There are plenty of ways a forger in the late 1980's or early 1990's could have. And there it is in the diary.
The evidence, as usual, is quite clear in this matter.
Excuses can be made, but that would just be wishing. The evidence and the record all point in a single direction. The book is a fake. And there is no real evidence anywhere on the planet that the real James Maybrick had anything to do with these crimes. As a suspect, in terms of real evidence, he stands alongside Lewis Carroll and G. B. Shaw and Oscar Wilde as potential rippers.
As to your speculation about Florence and drugs and the rest, it's just that, pure speculation without any solid historical evidence. That's not how to build a case or how to arrive at a justified conclusion.
You'll have to offer me solid evidence that somehow contradicts what we already have in abundance if you wish to make even the beginnings of a case that this book might be anything other than a fake. And since it's not going to be retested anytime soon and since all the available records have been examined and since the handwriting and the ahistoricity of the text and the behavior of all involved and all the rest point exclusively away from authenticity, that might prove to be a difficult thing to do.
But I wish you luck,
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1105
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 5:36 am: | |
Hi Dee,
Currently, the date the diary was actually created appears to boil down to subjective opinion, however informed and expert that opinion is claimed to be, since there are no scientific results - yet - that anyone is willing or able to describe as conclusive (and may never be, for all sorts of reasons, good, bad or indifferent).
But if the 'Maybrick-as-ripper' scratches were already in Albert Johnson's gold watch by 1985, subjective opinions involving one of my idols, Michael Caine, may amount to fantasy in the great scheme of things - just as the idea that anyone has enough money to throw at unlimited, ill-defined or unresearched testing, just for jolly, or - more to the point - to keep others supplied with yet more results that they are likely to dismiss as inadequate, is much more fantasy than stark reality, all IMHO of course.
I have even been trying to get on 'Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?', so that I may be able to help out one day, but nothing doing yet. 
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 368
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 8:04 am: | |
Hi All,
Often, the most important stuff in any writing lies in the asides, between parentheses or in brackets or separated by the protection of hyphens.
And, of course, the evidence that does exist in this case remains unchanged and points only to one possible, rational conclusion.
And, of course, there is plenty of fantasy to be found all across Ripper studies and on every thread on these boards. Diary World, however, happens to be the Magic Kingdom in this regard.
All the best,
--John
|
Busy Beaver
Sergeant
Username: Busy
Post Number: 21
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 2:41 pm: | |
Well Said John. The Diary certainly is a "Mickey Mouse" Story. If only Mickey had written it himself- it may have shown more credibility!!
There's only one place for it- 
Busy Beaver |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 342
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 5:20 pm: | |
Caz
I will just comment on your implication that anything that isn't "scientific" is "subjective".
I can see the virtue in this, from your point of view, in that it enables you to close your ears to all the internal evidence against the diary's authenticity.
But you must know that academic historians have developed perfectly rigorous methods for evaluating documents of disputed authenticity.
This is nothing new, and it certainly had to be done long before the era of carbon dating and ion-migration tests. For example, a high proportion of medieval charters have long been known to be fakes, so for several centuries medievalists have had to develop systematic methods for evaluating their authenticity on the basis of internal evidence.
These methods are not "scientific" in the narrow sense of test tubes and bunsen burners, but they are objective in the sense that, once clear evidence has been presented, all but the lunatic fringe have been convinced. (And after all, even in science there's a lunatic fringe.)
These are the kind of tests that the diary has failed again and again.
When the diary includes a direct quotation from an official document that Maybrick could not realistically have had access to, and one that was for all intents and purposes inaccessible to anyone else before 1988, I think it is dishonest to characterise that as only "subjective" evidence against the diary's authenticity.
When - to take another example - the handwriting of the diary bears no resemblance to Maybrick's, and its defenders have had recourse to speculative theories about split personalities, then surely it's the arguments in favour of the diary that have become subjective, to the point of desperation!
Chris Phillips
(Message edited by cgp100 on June 26, 2004) |
Tiddley boyar
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 10:58 am: | |
Stick with your feelings Dee, believe me you're right.
John V. Omlor wrote "..Often, the most important stuff in any writing lies in the asides, between parentheses or in brackets or separated by the protection of hyphens."
The most important writing in the diary does indeed lie in the asides. It is apparent that no-one has seriously looked at the diary fully. No-one would/could forge a document as good as this. I believe it is genuine, but can't shake the feeling that it has at some time for whatever reason been transcribed in its entirety, into its present form. As with all arguments/debates, the points made about the diary being incorrect on certain points can equally be turned around to beg the question "How or why would a well informed hoaxer/forger get it wrong with all the facts to hand in this informed day and age?"
There are a few so very minor sentences which speak volumes for the diary being written first hand from someone who was there, little things that a forger would never think off.
Regards all
Tiddley boyar.
"The human mind is more subtle than a hard fact" |
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 3:24 pm: | |
Hi John,
Thanks for your reply.
I think you must have misunderstood my point in my last posting.
I never, at any time, referred to Inspector Abberline catching JtR. You must have misunderstood what I had written.
What I meant was that I personally think that there were 3 times JtR could have been caught. These opinions are purely my own, not quoting anyone else. I came to this decision due to my reading the individual case files.
I also stated that my belief that Maybrick was JtR was NOT based on the diary. Once again I will state I find the diary interesting because of the lack of proof either way. You may say that it is 100% fake but none of us know for sure one way or the other. The diary is interesting to me purely because of my interest in mysteries and puzzles. It is not because I believe 100% that the diary is genuine. I said that I was more inclined to lean that way because of the fact it has not been proven fake. Your leaning's are towards the diary being fake. That's entirely up to you, we all have our own opinions and belief on this matter which we are well within our rights to have.
None of us will ever really know for sure who JtR was. We all speculate, believing what we think is right and discounting that which we think is wrong. Freedom of choice.
Also in my posting I never made any mention of the 'tin matchbox empty' issue. And yes I have seen the Michael Caine 'Jack the Ripper' film. I own it. However I do have enough knowledge and common sense to be able to tell that it is innaccurate. For a start Annie Chapman was lying in the wrong place and the films conclusion that it was Sir William Gull which I did not believe anyway. But I do enjoy watching it from time to time along with Johnny Depp in 'From Hell' (which is also inaccurate) but they are entertaining.
Just thought I'd should point that out so you do not think I have based my thoughts on such things.
To do with the handwriting..I never said it was definately Maybrick's. But I am given to understand that his last will signed by him is unknown as to whether or not it was actually written by him. I cannot comment, I was not there at the time he signed it!!
The reason I said it was a 'lucky break for the forger' was because of obvious reasons. The hitler diaries were proven fake because of a bleaching agent found in the paper that was not in use until after WWII. The dispute on this matter is the ink.
What I meant was that it was lucky that the forger was able to purchase ink that would cause such an ongoing dispute.
I'm not saying it will never be proven a fake. What I am saying is that I do not believe Mike Barrett forged it. My own conclusion of course, not someone else's.
I fully agree that we should always continue to learn and keep learning, for just as we form one opinion, along may come other information that will change our point of view.
I also was speculating about Florence Maybrick. I did not say there was definate proof. For that's also a good way to help knowledge...speculation. That is not why I have come to my conclusion.
You sound like a very knowledable person. But may I, not meaning to sound offensive, point out you also have a very closed mind on this subject. You are entitled to have your opinion of course, just the same as I am entitled to mine. If the diary is proven fake, I will still believe that there was a good chance Maybrick was JtR. Once again I point out my decision was NOT BASED ON THE DIARY.
Next time, if you like we can debate the issue of long term arsenic and strychnine use.
And yes, I never stop reading and trying to learn more.
Hope this finds you well John.
Best wishes,
Dee. |
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 306
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 10:01 am: | |
Dee,
"To do with the handwriting..I never said it was definately Maybrick's. But I am given to understand that his last will signed by him is unknown as to whether or not it was actually written by him. I cannot comment, I was not there at the time he signed it!!"
There is no serious doubt that the will was written by James Maybrick. The arguments against it are all based upon a faulty transcription by a fellow named MacDougall.
Here's a link to a dissertation on the subject by the late Melvin Harris which explains the issue in detail.
http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/mharris.html
I'm afraid there is no doubt that the diary is NOT in Maybrick's handwriting. No qualified expert has ever said that it was.
For additional information, read the Rendell report regarding the letter formations. (Although Shirley Harrison quotes an expert who believes the document could possibly be consistent with late Victorian letter formation, Maybrick's education would have occurred almost 50 years previously.)
Best Regards,
John Hacker |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1110
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 12:22 pm: | |
Hi Chris,
Your opinions about the internal content of the diary are your opinions – and you are perfectly entitled to them.
If others disagree with your opinions, or think certain parts of the diary text are at least open to possible alternative explanations (some of which have been offered and already thoroughly debated under the relevant Maybrick sub-sections), you are also entitled to describe those others as coming from the lunatic fringe. After all, who in their right mind would deliberately set themselves up for the stick they get here, when they could be an instant Mr or Mrs Popular just by nodding and smiling and offering the odd ‘diary loonies’ or ‘improbable theories’ comment here and there?
What puzzles me, though, is why anyone thinks it worthwhile to keep up a constant dialogue with this lunatic fringe, or thinks more scientific testing needs to be done, if the internal content of the diary stands alone and screams out to all sensible souls that it’s such an obvious modern fake.
I’ve already said that I don’t go along with the split personality idea, and I’ve already pointed out to you that I can’t explain the empty tin match box references, so I know you weren’t intentionally linking me with either of those examples.
But I’m afraid that when it comes to being ‘subjective’, we are all guilty. It is my subjective opinion that none of the named modern suspects were involved in the creation of either the diary or the watch, and it is your non-lunatic fringe’s subjective opinion that two or more of them must have been.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 344
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 12:37 pm: | |
If others disagree with your opinions, ... you are also entitled to describe those others as coming from the lunatic fringe.
Caz, you can see perfectly well I said no such thing.
Seriously, I'm becoming very unhappy about the way you keep putting words into my mouth in such a misleading way. Please stop doing it. Thank you.
Chris Phillips
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1111
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 1:57 pm: | |
And thanks, Chris, for taking my words out of their original context.
You wrote, did you not:
'These methods... are objective in the sense that, once clear evidence has been presented, all but the lunatic fringe have been convinced.
...These are the kind of tests that the diary has failed again and again.'
If you didn't mean to associate those who disagree with you about what tests the diary has 'failed' with either a 'dishonest' or 'lunatic fringe', perhaps you should have chosen your own words more carefully.
If all your evidence for a modern fake is clear, unambiguous, objective and conclusive, you don't need a strategy that involves dropping in 'bad or mad' references, then claiming they weren't in any way intended to be directed at your 'opposition'.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 345
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 2:08 pm: | |
Caz
However, you spin it, I did no such thing as to "describe those others [who disagree with my opinions] as coming from the lunatic fringe."
What's more, you must know that, unless you are unbelievably obtuse.
Several times over the last couple of weeks I've commented that there's little point in trying to have a sensible discussion with someone who twists the facts in such a blatantly dishonest way.
Clearly there isn't. This is the last you'll hear from me on this subject.
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 373
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 4:00 pm: | |
First, let's go back to Dee.
Dee,
You write, concerning Maybrick's handwriting:
"But I am given to understand that his last will signed by him is unknown as to whether or not it was actually written by him. I cannot comment, I was not there at the time he signed it!! "
Unfortunately, once again, you seem less than fully informed about the record. We have other confirmed examples of Maybrick's own handwriting, including letters he wrote. You can find them in a couple of books. The handwriting there, which we know to be the real Maybrick's, looks nothing at all like the handwriting in the diary. It's not even close. Let's not play with the facts or the history here, OK?
Second, you say a couple of times that:
"...my belief that Maybrick was JtR was NOT based on the diary."
Fine. Give me one single solitary piece of real, undiary-related evidence that even remotely links the real James Maybrick to the committing of these crimes in any way. Other than the fact that he lived in England in the fall of 1888 and was old enough and strong enough (like millions of others), there is simply no evidence of any sort that possibly entitles him to be a rational suspect in this case.
Unless you count the whim and desire of readers.
He is no better a suspect than Oscar Wilde.
As for my mind, on this matter it is not closed for no reason, it is "closed" because of history, because of the evidence, because of the facts, because of the record, and because of simple logic.
And, as far as I can see, not a word you have written above in any way suggests that I should reopen it.
Still waiting for real evidence against the man,
--John
PS: TB asks, ""How or why would a well informed hoaxer/forger get it wrong with all the facts to hand in this informed day and age?"
How, indeed. Drink, perhaps? In any case, wrong they got it. And therefore the diary cannot be authentic.
And there are no "little things that a forger would never think off" in the diary (assuming you meant "think of"). There's not a thing in the diary that would not have been available to a forger in the 1980s. And there is at least one line we know that would not have been available to the real James Maybrick. Now then, what should we conclude from that?
Perhaps what we should conclude from all of this is that the power to delude oneself out of desire remains much strong that the power of evidence, history, and common sense.
There are two things the diary is missing, any established provenance of any sort, and any evidence within it anywhere that even remotely suggests it could only have been written by the real James Maybrick.
That's probably because it has no provenance and it wasn't written by the real James Maybrick.
Or does that make too much sense?
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 374
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 4:10 pm: | |
Chris,
A recognizable pattern of reading and writing has already been established elsewhere. We should not be surprised that it continues here.
Now then, Caroline writes,
"What puzzles me, though, is why anyone thinks it worthwhile to keep up a constant dialogue with this lunatic fringe, or thinks more scientific testing needs to be done, if the internal content of the diary stands alone and screams out to all sensible souls that it’s such an obvious modern fake."
Surely this is not puzzling in any way. Whenever anyone comes here and offers willful misreadings, bad logic, ill constructed argument, simple rhetorical desire, strategies of self-interest, or defends ahistoricity, or simply misstates or incompletely states the historical evidence, or in any way argues in favor of a document with absolutely no established provenance, in someone else's handwriting, and filled with inaccurate details including anachronistic knowledge, the correct and responsible thing to do is to reappear and respond.
Just as the correct and responsible thing to do is to have the suspect document fully and thoroughly retested by a reputable scientific organization.
The latter, I know, will never happen.
But the former, I promise, will.
Why? Because it's the right thing to do.
--John (in the name of fake professors everywhere) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 346
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 6:33 pm: | |
Caz
Don't worry - as I said, I won't be posting on the watch or diary any more. Evidently that's viewed as an invitation to misrepresent my words. And while I'm happy for other people to post as much nonsense as they can generate (quite a lot, in practice), I'm not happy for them to put whatever nonsense they please into my mouth.
But as you've made the following accusation, I will just answer it:
If you didn't mean to associate those who disagree with you about what tests the diary has 'failed' with either a 'dishonest' or 'lunatic fringe', perhaps you should have chosen your own words more carefully.
If all your evidence for a modern fake is clear, unambiguous, objective and conclusive, you don't need a strategy that involves dropping in 'bad or mad' references, then claiming they weren't in any way intended to be directed at your 'opposition'.
As you know, I didn't "describe" those who disagree with me as a "lunatic fringe", as you claimed. I wouldn't with to make any such diagnosis of people's psychiatric health. As Ted Heath famously said, when asked to comment on Margaret Thatcher's behaviour, "I'm not a doctor" (well, not a doctor of medicine, anyway).
But it is worth clarifying the point about dishonesty. As I've said several times, I believe your posts on these boards on the subjects of the diary and the watch are fundamentally dishonest. Above all, I'm convinced of this because of the persistent pretence that you're unable to understand straightforward arguments and questions, clearly stated.
Your posts are full of apparent erudition. You've written a book on the diary. Therefore I find it impossible to believe that you're as obtuse as you pretend to be on occasion.
Chris Phillips
(Message edited by cgp100 on June 27, 2004) |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1114
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 5:41 am: | |
Hi Chris,
I am happy with my own posting record on the subject of the diary and the watch.
But it is often the case that when there are fundamental differences of opinion, based on a person's individual awareness, understanding and knowledge of the entire story, the 'side' with very fixed beliefs simply cannot imagine how anyone could possibly fail to share those beliefs and still be an honest, reasonably intelligent or sane person.
I'm not saying this is necessarily the case here, despite your allusions to lunatic fringes, my dishonesty, wilful misreadings and failure to grasp simple arguments and so on.
But I do understand the phenomenon, and I also understand why you hold the strong beliefs you do, that the diary and the watch are both recently created hoaxes.
Although I will not, and cannot, share your suspicions and your beliefs (certainly not without seeing a workable scenario for a 1993 watch hoax that ties in with the available evidence and witness testimony), I fully accept that they were honestly arrived at, and based on your own understanding of events.
I wish you all the best, and suggest that if you have any remaining concerns or questions, despite having reached your own conclusions, you address them to the individuals you believe are in the best position to give you the straight and well-informed answers you deserve.
Love,
Caz
X
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 376
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 6:09 am: | |
Chris,
It has been suggested that, "if you have any remaining concerns or questions" about the diary or tests or whatever, that you "address them to the individuals you believe are in the best position to give you the straight and well-informed answers you deserve."
Yeah.
Right.
Try that.
See what happens.
Then let me know.
--John (who knows the past, is looking at the present, and can see the future)
PS: You see, you're on "the side with very fixed beliefs." That explains it.
|
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 1:49 pm: | |
Hi everyone,
I came on here expecting to see a reply from John Omlor to my last posting as he is normally quite prompt in answering. Hope you are ok John.
I have a few thoughts. My previous postings have stated that my belief that Maybrick was JtR was not based on the diary. I stand by that.
I also said that I found the diary interesting because IT HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN EITHER WAY.
I do not see how it can be so easily dismissed by those who doubt. Once again I am not saying it is 100% genuine. But no-one can say it is 100% fake either. No test has been conclusive either way.
For those who believe it is fake....that is entirely your opinion and you are perfectly entitled to believe that.
For those who believe it is genuine....you are perfectly entitled to believe that.
None of us know for sure. And for those who are critical of those who decide to believe that the diary could be genuine....I believe you should not be as critical of something that cannot be proven fake.
That is my problem.
If this document was a modern forgery it would have, in my opinion, been proven by now. With the technology we have in this day and age, how can it not be?
The paper has stood as Victorian.
The ink, subject written and handwriting are the issues for debate.
I do not believe for one moment that Mike Barrett forged this diary. He just does not stand as credible. Once again, this is only my opinion and I am entitled to believe whatever I choose.
If it is a forgery, then it must have been forged back in the early 20th century.
So ok. Lets say it was. But a few questions to be answered.
1) The diary has info on long term effects of arsenic and strychnine use. Were there easily accessible public medical records available for perusal by anyone who choose to view them during this time? I cannot find any.
2) Yes, I suppose that if you really wanted to, you could probarbly purchase Victorian Ink. But, would it be usable enough to be able to forge a document of this magnitude?
3) Who would have had the knowledge of Jack the Ripper, James Maybricks life and drug addictions, Florence Maybricks extra-marital activities and lastly the Florence Maybrick trial for James murder?
I can honestly say I cannot think of anyone. And if this diary is a fake, then it is definately something that was forged a long time ago. So why was it left so long before it was brought forward into the public eye?
I can produce diaries that I myself have written over the years. I can select a diary from years ago and give it someone who does know me and I believe the only way they would identify the diary as being written by me is because of the subject matter. My handwriting would not stand as mine. Maybe those of you who doubt have never kept journal type diaries.
How I write in my diaries is completely different to how I write on forms or in letters etc.
Different aspects of personality maybe? I do not know.
I believe that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. In my opinion he had the motive, means and will to commit these crimes. He fits the profile of a man who wanted to destroy that which he despised. Believe it, don't believe it. The choice is up to the individual.
What I do not understand is why those of you who are adamant that the diary is fake and Maybrick not the Ripper, are on this particular message board subject?
And no, I do not have a closed mind. If it is proven fake and Maybrick proven not to be JtR, then I will say 'fair enough I got it wrong'. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying we all have a right to believe that which we will and we should be open minded. Personally I do not think that we will ever know who JtR really was.
Records are not always accurate. My late father was unregistered for 10 years after his birth. He was born in 1918. My late grandmother used the money given to her to register my fathers birth to have a drink instead! Also there were several children who died (brothers and sisters of my father) who I cannot find any record of ever living as they are unregistered. I know this because of research I and my family have done into our family history. So you could say I do know how to search for things. It's a very interesting hobby.
So as you can see, not all records are accurate. So who's to say that the police and press reports during the time of JtR are in fact accurate?
How will we know? We won't. There is no way to be sure as none of us were there at the time.
All we can do is speculate. And believe what we want to believe. But I just think it is better to keep an open mind on such matters.
Hope this finds you all well. I do love these message boards! (and if I've offended anyone then I do apologise!)
Best wishes
Dee. x |
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, June 28, 2004 - 4:50 pm: | |
John,
Glad to see you've answered my posting dated Weds June 23rd. You'll have to excuse my lateness in replying each time as I am not a registered member of this site so it takes a while for my posts to arrive on here.
I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed in your inability to believe that I myself believe that Maybrick was JtR is through my own conclusion. I am not disregarding historical 'fact' as you put it. I am not an ignorant person, nor do I claim to have all knowledge relating to this issue. I can only state my own opinion which I am perfectly entitled to have as are we all.
There will be a posting on here from me before this one dated Sunday (I think). I need to correct an error. In that posting I said my late Father was born in 1918. I meant 1916 (as there was a 12 year age gap between my Mother and Father and my Mother was born in 1928).
I have said in that posting about my Father being unregistered for some time after his birth and the reason why. I have also mentioned other 'non-tracable' relatives who were born.
I have read more then one book on this you know, and I do not like the fact that you are implying that I have either come to my conclusion through watching an inaccurate film starring Michael Caine (although it was entertaining!) and one book. I have read several. Some I own, some I loaned from my local library. You misread my posting, I never said Abberline almost caught JtR. I never mentioned the 'tin matchbox empty' quote either.
Once again I will state my reasons. You can believe me or not, however I am thought of amongst people who know me well as an honest and trustworthy open minded individual who will always make up her own mind after considering ALL THE FACTS.
I believe James Maybricks will is inaccurate and therefore not a good example of his handwriting.
There are other examples of James Maybricks handwriting that do not match the will (AND NO, I DO NOT MEAN THE HANDWRITING IN THE DIARY). Letters known to have been written and signed 'Yours Truly, James Maybrick'. Fact.
In my opinion he had the motive, will and means to commit these crimes. Fact.
He was, without doubt, hopelessly addicted to arsenic and strychnine. Long term useage can lead to mental health problems, memory impairment and the like. Fact.
He fits the description given in police records. Historical fact. Fact.
I can go on and on. Only one of the above is in reference to the diary. If my conclusion was based on the diary alone I would go on citing what I had learned from it. The 'fact' is my opinion is of my own choosing, through my own careful deduction via reading and re-reading different opinions voiced by those far more knowledgable than myself on this subject.
I am not a know-it-all. I am a novice and I acknowledge that. But I am also reasonably intelligent and not an idiot.
Please do not accuse me of ignoring 'historical fact'. I would be incredibly stupid to do so.
Just the same as I would be incredibly stupid to believe 100% that every single 'historical fact' is 100% accurate. None of us can say for sure as things sometimes are recorded incorrectly. I am not saying the historical records are wrong. I am just saying that caution is needed when dealing with such issues. As none of us were there at the time these things were written, how can we know which is 100% correct and that which is 78% correct and that which is total nonsense?
We cannot know.
If over 100 people at the time of the last cenus had stated their religion was 'jedi knight' it would have had to be listed as and official religion. Thats not fact. But it would have gone down as one. So in years to come, people would have believed that the 'Jedi Knight' religion really existed!!!
You sound like a very intelligent person John. I would not say different. Please have the decency to consider the 'fact' I am not stupid, that I do read more then one book, that I consider and weigh up all information before I make up my own mind and that I consider other peoples opinions just as important as my own. You have a doctorate, I have an extremely high IQ, an open mind, medicinal knowledge, an insight into psychology etc. And I believe Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. My choice.
Sorry if this posting seems offensive in any way. But I do not like people treating other people as stupid. We all have a right as individuals to believe that which we think is right. I respect your opinion. Please respect mine.
Thanks, Hope you are well.
Best wishes as always,
Dee. x
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 383
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 10:39 pm: | |
Dee,
Let me be clear.
I have no opinion as to your intelligence.
I do have an opinion as to your writing and the strength of your claims, and that remains intact. So far, all I see above are unevidenced speculations. They might be fun, but they tell us nothing.
Evidence is what allows opinion to become more than just opinion, and all the real evidence, all the hard evidence regarding this book, the handwriting, the text, the history, the record, the Crashaw quote and matchbox line's appearance, the provenance (or lack of it), the behavior of all involved, etc., all point singularly and without exception to this book being a fake.
But let's go slowly through some of your assertions.
You write:
For those who believe it is fake....that is entirely your opinion and you are perfectly entitled to believe that.
For those who believe it is genuine....you are perfectly entitled to believe that.
This is charmingly democratic, but it's much too simplistic. Yes, everything can always be rhetorically reduced to opinion. But sometimes the actual evidence strongly supports one opinion over the other.
It's not a question of entitlement. It's a question of the historical record and where there is evidence and where there isn't.
Where there is evidence -- to support the the claim that the diary is a fake.
Where there is no evidence at all -- to support the claim that the real James Maybrick had anything at all to do with this book or these murders.
Once again, there's not a single piece of substantiated information in the diary that was not available to the general public in the 1980s. There's nothing in it about any specific drug addiction that could not have been easily written by a modern forger, there's not a single thing about the Ripper case or the Maybrick case that was not available in any number of books by then. And in his dissertation on the subject right here on this casebook, Melvin Harris clearly demonstrates why the ink was also available to a modern writer.
So your points 1, 2, and 3 are not really evidence of anything. And you have not yet offered a single rational or evidenced reason why we should discount the possibility of a modern forger.
Give me one, just one, and I might consider your argument as more than just speculation and wishing.
By the end of your first post above, you are reduced to saying "maybe Maybrick had different handwritings for different personalities" and "maybe history was wrong." So surely you can see how rational objective people might see this as reaching, as making unfounded speculative excuses for the diary simply to get around the evidence -- that the handwriting isn't even close to matching the handwriting samples we know came from the real James and that the historical record contradicts the diary much too often for the diary to be real.
Yes, you can invoke mythical different personalities and reject history in favor of fiction, but that's not analysis, that's not objective argument, that's not using evidence responsibly, that's simply wishing and hoping and offering excuses in the name of the vaguely possible, simply to keep hope alive.
Finally, in your first post, you write:
All we can do is speculate.
No, that's not all we can do. We can analyze. We can gather evidence. We can check the document against the facts and the record. We can examine the material. We can test and retest. We can behave responsibly and do the right thing. And finally we can admit that the evidence that does exist points explicitly and exclusively in one direction -- towards a forgery and away from authenticity. And that leaves us without a single solitary piece of evidence anywhere to support the rather random claim that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.
Now then, as for your second post...
You are correct. You didn't mention the "tin matchbox" line. I did. Because there's no historical way the real James could have seen it. You didn't mention the Caine mini-series and and the near-capture scene. I did. Because there's no way the real James could have seen it. I didn't even get into the Crashaw quote, but we can go there, too.
You write,
There are other examples of James Maybrick's handwriting that do not match the will.
FACT: There are NO, I repeat, NO authenticated samples of James Maybrick's handwriting that look ANYTHING AT ALL like anything anywhere in the diary.
What can you conclude from that? What would the logical, common sense conclusion be?
You tell us, about James:
In my opinion he had the motive, will and means to commit these crimes...
Well, if you mean he lived in England, took drugs, had a wife who cheated on him and was strong enough to wield a knife, you're right.
That groups with how many other men at the time?
He's not a suspect according to this, he's just a demographic category.
This isn't evidence against him in any way, at least not any more than it would be against say hundreds of thousands of others in the same place at the same time. So you've told us nothing, really.
Then you say:
He was, without doubt, hopelessly addicted to arsenic and strychnine. Long term useage can lead to mental health problems, memory impairment and the like.
This is true. It is not evidence. It is not a legitimate reason to claim that he was Jack-the-Ripper. It does not even make him particularly likely to be a serial killer. And it still means he was one of a great many.
Then you offer this vague assertion:
He fits the description given in police records.
You already know what I'm going to say here. I won't even bother.
The rest of your post is more talk about our relative intelligences. This question does not interest me. I respond only to the claims I see here and the degree to which they are or are not properly supported. Who wrote them and how smart the writer might be is irrelevant to me.
So I'll skip that part of the discussion.
Nothing you have written above gives anyone any real legitimate reason, supported by real evidence, to think that the diary could be genuine or that the real James is in any way linked to any of this. It's all vague speculation at best, all unsupported by either the historical record or the material evidence or the facts of the case.
I'm glad you have what you call an "open mind." But please don't insist that all arguments are equally sound, equally supported by the evidence and the record, equally likely to be true. They are not. And in this particular case of this particular fake book there is no question where the evidence directs us.
To remind people of that is precisely why some of us who know this book is a fake "are on this particular message board subject."
Just doin' my job,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on July 01, 2004) |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Chief Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 935
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 3:31 am: | |
Hi,
I do not usually make comments on the Maybrick thread, as my personal opinion is the diary is a hoax, and to be honest any serious follower of Jack could come to that conclusion in seconds, it is written by someone who put himself in the mind of a maniac, and cleverly using facts known by the majority of us since the eighties. it is well written, but the main objective was to make a considerable amount of money, through sales and tv documentarys, and press articles.
I might feel differently if a package containing a knive and confession turned up under a pile of rubble in east london during the blitz, or when Millers court and surrounding area was demolished in the late twenties, but a cotton merchant from liverpool, who either died from an overdose of poison, administered by himself ar allegedly his wife, a NO.
Regards Richard. |
Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 1:05 pm: | |
John,
Firstly, thank you for your reply.
Secondly, I am entitled to speculate as I choose.
I have no problem with you believing the diary to be fake. I never said I believe it is 100% genuine. I said I believe if it is a forgery then it is not a modern one, but must have been forged a long time ago.
My belief that James Maybrick was JtR is of my own choosing and is not because of the diary.
If you choose to believe I am lying for some reason, be my guest. However, I have nothing to gain by lying.
I am entitled to be 'democratic' as you put it. I am open to other peoples opinions. And I am, like them, entitled to make up my own mind.
You go on about evidence. Do you really think I have not considered the evidence as it is?
You say it's not a question of entitlement. I'm sorry...I thought we lived in a 'democratic' society where all individuals were 'entitled' to make their own choices. Am I wrong? Have I missed something? I thought living in this country entitled me and others to 'freedom of speech'. I must have been mislead as a child, brought up to believe everybody is equal, everyone is entitled to have their own thoughts and opinions and to not only form my own but also to respect others opinions too, whether they agree with my own or not.
How wrong of me!
If there is so much evidence as to who Jack the Ripper really was....why do we not know yet?
Why are we on here, debating what we think?
WOW! That means that it's known who he was!! Case solved!!
I must have missed that too, as it's so obvious, can you tell me who he was? Then I can tell others that all the documented historical evidence clearly states without a doubt who Jack the Ripper was. I'm so excited!!
And yes...I am one of these very sad individuals who also believes sarcasm is an art form! (Incidently that was a joke! Thought I'd better explain that too as you are having such a problem deciphering my point of view).
I think, to be honest, there is no real point my trying to make my point to you as you are obviously closed to any other point of view that clashes with your own.
I did not ask for you to agree with me. And the reason I have responded to your post? Because I personally have a very high regard for history. I love it. Always have. I also adore mysteries and puzzles and anything that cannot be explained easily. I like to make my brain work.
What bothers me is the fact you cannot get your head round the possibilty that I can believe that Maybrick was JtR without relying on the diary.
My choice.
What difference does it make what I believe?
Is my choice going to change anything? NO!
Are my beliefs going to go down in history? NO!
Is my opinion going to influence others? NO!
So what does it matter?
I am not out to solve this mystery, get my name in the papers and go down in history as the one who solved the unsolvable.
I am on here, like many others to persue an interest, a hobby. My opinion does not make a damn bit of differance anyway.
So who cares what I think?
I do not take this half as seriously as you obviously do. I have other things that are of a higher priority that are more important to me. I'm not doing this for a living...maybe you are. But you need to remember that many of us on here peruse the info available as a hobby not a job. Maybe we should not then.
I would never, ever, be so arrogant as to presume that I know everything about this subject. However, so far you have implied that I have come to the conclusion that Maybrick was JtR by reading just one book (obviously must have been the diary then) have gathered my information and formed my opinion by watching a film that although entertaining was inaccurate and have completely disgarded 'historical fact'.
It's a shame you have concluded all this about me by reading a few postings I have placed on this excellent website. A shame because if you knew me you would find I am a level headed, open minded, 'democratic', intelligent individual who is always willing to learn. But I will only learn from those who embrace opinions whether they be right or wrong.
I will not say what I could conclude about you if I was of the mind to do so. I do not know you and I make it a point never to judge people.
My point is made. How you may ask?
You have come to the conclusion that I am someone entirely different to who I really am, by reading words I have written. You read, you judged, formed an opinion and set it down. Yet you do not know me. And I am very different to how you imagine.
Words can be misleading. Information chanelled the wrong way can be misleading. Four people can read the same piece of evidence and each will come to a different conclusion. It really depends on the individual. Nothing is certain. All we can do is make up our own minds, decide for ourselves. What differance does it make what I think?
Will it bring back those poor victims?
Will the real Jack be tried and convicted for his crimes?
Will it stop him before he does it again?
The answer, obviously is no.
You seem to think that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. How do you know you are right?
You don't. None of us do.
We are stumbling in the dark trying to find our way. If you are so right...solve the mystery. Tell us who he really was and why.
I'm not saying you are wrong John. I'm just saying that we are all 'entitled' to form opinions of our own. Just like you have formed yours.
I thank you for you insight. You have a problem with the diary. It obviously bothers you. I do not care about it. Genuine or fake, does not matter to me. You can choose to disbelieve me. It does not matter.
My interest is beyond the diary.
I could not accurately say who, what, why and when. I can only speculate on that which I know. As there are certain pieces of info missing that have never been found and the fact I was not there at the time these crimes were commited leaves me no choice but to speculate and decide for myself. Like we all do. Unless you have seen every single piece of evidence first hand including the missing files then neither can you.
This will always be a puzzle with pieces missing. So no one can be 100% sure. All we can do is give it our best guess formed on that which we know.
I thank you for your time in replying. However, I do not think I am going to be able to learn anything from you, and that is why I post queries, questions and points of view. To be able to learn.
But I wish you best wishes, and thank you for your time.
Regards,
Dee. x
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