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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 358
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 5:20 pm: |       |
Paul,
Surely you know that Wild was never given unlimited access to the watch, right?
Paul Feldman himself, in his own pro-diary apologia, offered a half-hearted excuse for this, in fact:
"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."
Now normally, I don't believe anything Paul Feldman says about anything. But when he's defensive, like here, I know there must some truth to the accusations.
Besides, Wild's own report includes a phrase that should just fill every reader to the brim with confidence:
"From the limited amount of evidence that has been acquired..."
And then, amidst words like "this suggests that" and "is probably" there are these inspiring words of assuredness:
"it is not possible to be more accurate without considerably more work."
Now then, why would anyone think some scientist somewhere should eventually be given unlimited access to the material?
I won't even ask why they won't be. I already know the answer to that one.
All the best,
--John
|
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 301
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 9:08 pm: | |
Paul,
I have access to the reports and they are quite clearly not definative in any way, shape, or form. The presence of the H 9/3 scratch above the Maybrick marks, is proof only of an H 9/3 scratch above the Maybrick marks. Whoopie.
As far as what further tests would be reasonable, how about the ones both Turgoose and Wild wanted? Hmmm?
Regards,
John
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Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 5:02 am: | |
Hi John H,
In your informed opinion, is there anything in the watch reports that actually favours a mid-1993 hoax over the alternative scenario - ie that all the observed and remarked upon scratches were already in the watch when the Murphys claim it was first acquired by Mrs M's father (which was, I believe, circa 1985)?
And why would it be so hard for anyone here to bear if the latter were indeed the case?
As I've said on too many occasions to remember, I couldn't care less either way. And I couldn't change things even if I did care.
Thanks.
Love,
Caz
X
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 369
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 8:11 am: | |
Oh, good.
More discussions of unpublished reports written by scientists not given unlimited access to the material they were testing and who were left wanting to do more work.
Not a word, of course, about when the proper and responsible thing will be done. Not a word, of course, about when, if ever, anyone will be allowed to learn at least a little bit more about the book and the watch.
Never surprised,
--John
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John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 304
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 9:52 am: | |
Caz,
"In your informed opinion, is there anything in the watch reports that actually favours a mid-1993 hoax over the alternative scenario - ie that all the observed and remarked upon scratches were already in the watch when the Murphys claim it was first acquired by Mrs M's father (which was, I believe, circa 1985)?"
In my opinion there are at least one or two points which strongly suggest an artificially aged artifact. I've mentioned them in the past. But of course that's simply my subjective opinion based on the evidence I've seen in the reports. As to when that could have occurred, pre/post/or during Murphy's ownership there is nothing in the science to give us any guidance.
Because as I've said before, from a completely objective position, based on science, there is nothing whatsoever that gives us a probable date of origin for those marks.
John O,
I would hope that the reports will become available soon. It will certainly make for an interesting discussion once they do.
Best Regards,
John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1107
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 10:11 am: | |
John O,
That may be because no one currently posting here has a magic wand, nor is anyone here in a position where they can reliably and responsibly inform the readers that investigations are not ongoing.
They can guess that nothing has been done, apart from what has already been published; that nothing is being done; or that nothing is being planned and organised for the future, but they couldn't possibly know anything of the sort, without being in regular contact with all the relevant sources of such information.
A guess, repeated here a million times and at every opportunity, is still only a guess. It can never take the place of knowledge or information which you don't happen to possess, and have no way of possessing at this time.
Love,
Caz
X
(Message edited by Caz on June 26, 2004) |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 371
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 10:32 am: | |
Caroline,
Regarding what testing has been done, is being done, and will be done:
I don't see anyone anywhere proving me wrong.
And I haven't for a very long time.
When I do, I'll let you know.
--John
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1108
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 11:27 am: | |
Perhaps that's because you have made a very public point of cutting yourself off, and keeping yourself away from, the primary sources of information. When they are ready to let the public know how investigations have been proceeding, that will be when you know too.
In the meantime, by your own admission, you are hardly in the best position to report to the masses (sorry, the two or three readers left here) on either progress or
non-progress.
Instead, perhaps you would care to think about how a watch hoaxer, allegedly working in mid-1993, managed to render the surface entirely free of any prevous repair marks or scratches that would otherwise have been visible under the highest possible magnification conditions, in order that he could fake his 'I am Jack'/Maybrick marks on a pristine surface before handing the hoax over for close examination by the recommended experts.
It's a puzzler isn't it?
Love,
Caz
X
PS Come on Tim!
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 343
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 12:09 pm: | |
Instead, perhaps you would care to think about how a watch hoaxer, allegedly working in mid-1993, managed to render the surface entirely free of any prevous repair marks or scratches ...
There you go again ...
We've been taken through a number of contradictory statements and mutually exclusive hypotheses about these superficial scratches by you and Paul. Perhaps that's not so strange, as you've admitted you don't fully understand the technical details yourself.
Half the time you sensibly agree that these sort of wild comments are inappropriate until the reports have been made public, and exhibit a sort of outraged innocence at any thought that you'd draw premature conclusions. The other half, we have these extreme claims - totally unsubstantiated by any direct extracts from the reports themselves, just the usual mixture of loose paraphrase, hyperbole and wishful thinking.
Can you really not see the irony of this, a couple of days after your message on "Inflated claims? Who, me?"
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 375
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 4:20 pm: | |
It was bound to happen again, Chris.
It was inevitable. You'll just have to get used to it.
Anyway, Caroline writes about the reason no one has ever been able to prove me wrong about the diary and the watch not being properly and thoroughly retested by a reputable scientific organization is:
"When they are ready to let the public know how investigations have been proceeding, that will be when you know too."
Let me count the years...
STILL waiting,
-John (confident that his fiftieth birthday will come some day and he'll still be being told, "When they are ready to let the public know how investigations have been proceeding, that will be when you know too.
PS: And still I am correct, no one has proven me wrong. Once again, for those interested in why I say this with such utter confidence, send me private e-mail and I will send you too the reasons and the record I have already sent to so many others.
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Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1112
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 4:19 am: | |
Ok then, I'll wait to hear whether John Hacker thinks Turgoose was unclear - or perhaps incorrect - about the order in which he believed all the visible scratches and marks were made in the watch.
Perhaps John will happily confirm your suspicions that I am making extreme or inflated claims about the 'I am Jack' and 'Maybrick' being the earliest of all the scratch marks Turgoose was able to examine under high magnification.
If he does, and if everyone agrees with him when they read the reports for themselves, I'll hang my head in shame while you throw the rotten tomatoes. It won't kill me to admit I was wrong about this, or any other detail.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Busy Beaver
Sergeant
Username: Busy
Post Number: 25
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 4:36 am: | |
I have a silver locket that has been in my family since 1858. Upon closer inspection, someone in my family scratched their initials into the locket. My aunt said she did this aged 7 years old some 86 years after the locket was purchased. So it goes to show scratches can be done by anyone at any time.
Busy Beaver  |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 378
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 6:13 am: | |
Busy,
You have no idea what you've just started.
Wait for it...
--John |
Paul Butler
Detective Sergeant
Username: Paul
Post Number: 64
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 11:48 am: | |
Hi John H,
Nice to see you still around.
“I have access to the reports and they are quite clearly not definative in any way, shape, or form. The presence of the H 9/3 scratch above the Maybrick marks, is proof only of an H 9/3 scratch above the Maybrick marks. Whoopie”
Do you not agree then that Turgoose is totally unambiguous in his description of the order in which the scratches were made? If you don’t then it won’t be any breach of copyright to quote his reservations here. I can’t find them!
Unless we’re getting into conspiracy theories and the existance of fairies at the bottom of the garden, then those scratches were already there when Albert bought the watch.
New tests would be nice, but not entirely necessary. All of the data obtained from the first tests will soon be in the public domain. These tests were done when the scratches were alleged, by you and a couple of others, to be only a matter of months old. This data will surely be more valuable than anything that can be gleaned a dozen years after the alleged hoax.
Once in the public domain, this data can be reinterpreted by anyone who wishes. Perhaps then we shall get an explanation of how atmospheric pollution, in the form of carbon, found its way into the surface of the metal within the scratches. Something an expert in corrosion says requires a prolonged exposure to the environment.
All the best,
Paul
|
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 307
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 6:55 pm: | |
Hi Paul,
Wow... The claims only get better with time. I really do hope the documents become public knowledge so that everyone can play. I'm not going to go into a lengthy debate on this subject until they do. But your post contains some seriously misleading claims that need to be corrected.
"Do you not agree then that Turgoose is totally unambiguous in his description of the order in which the scratches were made?"
If only the order actually proved anything that might be interesting. He was certainly ambiguous in the sense that he only examined a subset of the scratches. He made that quite plain in his report. And let's also make it quite clear that he wasn't saying that the surface was "pristine" as has been suggested. What he actually said was "The markings identified to me as 'am J' and 'maybrick' are the earliest visible markings. All others overlay these where crossing does occur." And from his conclusion, "...it is clear that the engravings predate the vast majority of the superficial surface scratches (all of those examined)." Looks pretty ambiguous to me.
I think that once the reports become public, the characteristics of the scratches will be found to be more significant than their order.
"Perhaps then we shall get an explanation of how atmospheric pollution, in the form of carbon, found its way into the surface of the metal within the scratches. Something an expert in corrosion says requires a prolonged exposure to the environment."
Not carbon Paul. Hydrocarbons. (Big difference there...) Nor was exposure the only cause he cited. Was it? Let's go to the quote shall we? "The watch surface was heavily contaminated with hydrocarbons which were present as a result of prolonged exposure to the environment and handling. As a result the initial spectra only identified carbon and oxygen." The only thing Wild can say for certain is that there were hydrocarbons there. Anything else is speculation on his part.
BTW. Hydrocarbons are organic molecules such as alcohol, petroleum, skin oils, etc.
Nowhere in Wild's report does it say that carbon found its way into the surface of the metal. Nor does it say that atmospheric pollution was required. Or that it required a prolonged exposure to the environment. The above two quoted sentences are the sum total contained in the report regarding the "contamination". You really should re-read the reports to see what they actually say before posting. (You might want to think about those scratches a bit more too.)
Best Regards,
John
P.S. Turgoose was the corrosion expert, not Wild. Wild worked for the Interface Analysis Centre at Bristol. |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 381
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 9:53 pm: | |
Hi John,
The reading-as-desire continues, I see.
Wasn't Wild the one who kept qualifying everything he wrote because he had not been give unlimited access to the watch and felt that a lot more work would have to be done to get definitive results?
Anyway, here's one thing that amazes me. Everyone agrees here, or has written that they agree, that discussion of the reports should be put on hold until they are published and available to all.
And yet the same people keep returning to this and every other diary thread to mention them and to spin, pre-publication, their own peculiar and obviously subjective readings of them. And whenever they do, someone else who has seen them (like you) has to come by to remind us all that they might not say just what we're being told and that we are indeed being spun.
These reports, which no one thinks we should discuss, sure get discussed a lot.
And I think I know why.
We can't really discuss the handwriting -- we know it's not James's.
We can't really discuss the history -- we know the diary gets it wrong.
We can't really discuss the odd appearance of the tin matchbox line -- we know there's no way for the real Maybrick to have seen it.
We can't really discuss Mike's sourcing of the Crashaw quote via the miracle of the Liverpool library -- we know it was impossible.
We can't really discuss any of the available evidence concerning the diary -- we know it all points to a fake.
We can't really discuss the provenance of the diary -- it has none.
So all they are left with is their desperate reading of a couple of old and partial reports on the watch.
It's the last thread in the rope.
So saying we shouldn't talk about it won't matter. It will come up again and again because they have no other hope.
Watch (as they say) and see.
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1117
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 6:58 am: | |
Hi All,
I was planning a response on another thread, but here will do just as well, since John O's post is practically a rewrite of his offerings there.
Every point John claims 'we can't really discuss' has already been discussed to hell and back on the appropriate threads, if anyone is interested in looking again at the various arguments and challenges in depth, all of which remain ultimately unresolved - IMHO of course. According to John's list, there is little or no room for further discussion anyway, since his own conclusions have evidently taken over and become the law.
But while I still have the right to independent thought, here goes:
If anyone currently believes that the diary handwriting belongs – or could belong - to one of the following: Anne or Mike Barrett, Billy Graham, Tony Devereux or Gerard Kane, it is illogical for them to state as a FACT that the handwriting does not – and could not – belong to any other individual, and that includes James Maybrick. Expert opinion is not FACT. Their proof that JM did not compose the diary text must come from elsewhere.
It is not a FACT that the sequence of four words in the diary: ‘tin match box empty’ (listed with another, similarly constructed try-out line: ‘one whore no good’) was lifted by a hoaxer verbatim from case records listing Eddowes’ personal effects – it is an opinion. It is not a FACT that these records were unavailable or unknown to anyone before 1987 – it is the opinion of one unnamed ripper expert. According to two of the most highly respected ripper authorities who have actually done their homework, these records were indeed available to private researchers for a considerable period of time much earlier in the 20th century than the late 1980s. Time for someone to do a bit more homework, or at least check it out again with their ‘expert’ source, instead of relying on blind faith and repeating someone else’s opinion as FACT.
It is not a FACT that Mike Barrett did not search for, and find the Crashaw quotation in a source other than the diary in 1994 – it remains an opinion that he could not have done so. Three copies of the Sphere volume, with ‘English Poetry & Prose, 1540-1674’ clearly visible on the spines, were available in the library at the relevant time. All copies of this book will have a natural tendency to open at certain pages, one of which contains the quotation. At least two copies, apart from the one Mike handed over to private investigator Alan Gray in December 1994 (that no investigator apart from Melvin Harris has been allowed to examine since), have opened at this same page for at least three people: for myself and for Keith Skinner’s partner, on separate occasions in Liverpool Library; and for an anti-diary researcher in a shop in Welshpool. Armed with the information that the quotation looks like ‘old English poetry’, and the incentive, following his notorious confession in June 1994, to return to centre stage with some new and equally dramatic revelation, Mike Barrett, with plenty of time on his hands, could have found that quotation. As in many other cases, ‘impossible’ is an opinion, not FACT.
It is not a FACT that the diary has no provenance just because the person saying so currently has no knowledge of the true provenance, and only an opinion on how the diary began its life and when. A verifiable provenance is not beyond the bounds of possibility. What may be beyond the bounds of possibility is the acceptance by a few hardened sceptics of that verification, if and when it hits them between the eyes, and in whatever form it takes.
It is a FACT that Turgoose examined the various engravings and superficial scratch marks in the watch in 1993 and observed the order in which they occurred or were made. Perhaps John Hacker could kindly comment further on whether ‘unlimited’ testing of the watch is likely to alter these findings and render them invalid.
Will ‘unlimited’ testing reveal evidence (completely missed by Turgoose) that the surface could have been tampered with by a hoaxer (with no known expertise or experience) in May 1993, in order to remove traces of existing scratches that would have been visible to Turgoose (yet leave Wild with an impression of a surface ‘heavily contaminated with hydrocarbons’ present as a result of ‘prolonged exposure to the environment and handling’ – not one or t’other, John H – both, but in your view this is mere speculation on Wild’s part), before crudely scratching ‘I am Jack’ there?
Will ‘unlimited’ testing expose a hoaxer who made a very reasonable attempt at a faked Maybrick signature, despite there being no quick and easy way to discover what the real thing might look like?
Will ‘unlimited’ testing reveal an amateur con merchant, who neatly engraved H 9 3 and 1275 on top of the ‘ripper’ marks, then handed the whole heavily contaminated and otherwise artificially aged process over to the experts, willingly paying them to examine it minutely and to report any signs of his hoax?
Could further, or ‘unlimited’ testing ever prove beyond doubt that the scratches were or weren’t artificially aged?
If not, we would still be left relying on the few FACTS we think we know, plus the circumstantial evidence which supports or undermines our personal experiences, understanding, opinions or theories. And under those conditions, I will still be minus a workable scenario for a 1993 watch hoax, minus a single solitary hoaxer, and minus any hard-and-fast opinions.
And what will you still be minus, dear readers?
Have a great weekend all.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 347
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 7:34 am: | |
It is not a FACT that the sequence of four words in the diary: ‘tin match box empty’ (listed with another, similarly constructed try-out line: ‘one whore no good’) was lifted by a hoaxer verbatim from case records listing Eddowes’ personal effects – it is an opinion. It is not a FACT that these records were unavailable or unknown to anyone before 1987 – it is the opinion of one unnamed ripper expert. According to two of the most highly respected ripper authorities who have actually done their homework, these records were indeed available to private researchers for a considerable period of time much earlier in the 20th century than the late 1980s.
I know I said a few days ago that I wouldn't comment further on these matters, but as this is something I asked you about repeatedly - and in the end you said you could offer no explanation - and as you now come out with this - please could you clarify your position?
Do you expect anyone, in their wildest dreams, to believe that James Maybrick, having murdered Catherine Eddowes, went to the police, or the coroner, or whoever, and on some pretext somehow gained access to the inventory of her possessions?
Unless you believe that, it's irrelevant to the authenticity of the diary whether anyone else could have looked at the inventory before it was discovered in the late 1980s.
Moreover, once it's conceded that the diary is a fake, why on earth cling to these mind-bogglingly unlikely concepts - that this precise phrase was used by chance, or that the hoaxer secretly discovered this document in the archives and quoted it - when the obvious alternative is that the diary was hoaxed after the inventory was published?
Chris Phillips
(Message edited by cgp100 on July 02, 2004) |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 385
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 9:05 am: | |
Ah, excellent, another attempt to keep everything possible.
Despite the evidence.
Chris has done a perfect job above pointing out why even Caroline's own remarks about the "tin matchbox line" leave us still only able to conclude that there's no way the diary can be real.
(Incidentally, the unnamed Ripper expert has never been publicly refuted about this by any Ripper expert anywhere in print that I have seen. Perhaps that's why discussions of this issue tend to end very quickly.)
The rest, the fanciful dream that takes the place of evidence and serious explanation, demonstrates exactly how strong the desire not to admit the obvious is in other circles.
But we'll return to the issue of this line.
Let's first go to the other wonderful responses above.
To begin with, Caroline reassures us,
"Every point John claims 'we can't really discuss' has already been discussed to hell and back on the appropriate threads..."
Yes, and everyone should go back and read all of those threads and see exactly how all of those discussions proceeded and how they ended. In each case the evidence clearly and uniquely led away from authenticity and towards a forgery.
No one, by the end of each discussion, not a single person, not Caroline, not anyone, was left arguing that the evidence suggested that the real James Maybrick wrote this book. That should tell you something.
Now, paragraph by paragraph -- this won't take long, these are easy.
The handwriting. Here Caroline feels compelled to tell us that "Expert opinion is not FACT."
No, it's evidence. And all the evidence we have, all the samples we have, all the expert testimony we have, all of it tells us that the real James Maybrick's handwriting in no way matches the handwriting in this book. It's not even close. (And that's not even mentioning the handwriting in all the letters the diarist claims to have written). Which way, then, does the evidence clearly point? Away from authenticity and towards a fake. That's why no one seriously discusses it anymore.
The handwriting discussion is now reduced to this nonsensical argument: since you can't tell us who did write it, you can't say James didn't. But that's just dumb. Whether or not we do have someone whose handwriting matches does not in any way stop us from pointing out that we know one person whose handwriting clearly does not match that in the diary -- the reputed author's -- the real James Maybrick's. And that means the book's a fake.
Chris has already responded to the "tin matchbox line" argument. Since there is no legitimate historical way the real James cold have seen the report on his own alleged victim, the diary can only be a fake. And as for consulting with the unnamed expert who write that we know that the list was unavailable to the public before modern times, I humbly suggest that such a consultation would be much easier for her to do that it would be for me.
Then, to my delight, she actually invokes the miracle of the Liverpool Library.
I love this because it should demonstrate to readers exactly what HAD TO HAVE HAPPENED for the diary not to be a modern forgery.
So pay close attention everyone:
Even Caroline admits that the ONLY way you can argue that this book is not likely to be a modern fake is if Mike Barrett, ace researcher and super scholar, was given five completely unidentified words from the entire history of the English language and, never having seen them before, walked into a library, pulled down a book written in the wrong genre, found an essay on the wrong writer, and found those very same FIVE WORDS right there conveniently excerpted in the middle of the page! And the fact that he also happened to own a copy of that same book... Well, we know the rhetorical contortions that are necessary to get around that one, even if you could believe in the library miracle.
So then, let's be clear. Those who are pleading that the diary might not be a modern fake now must rest their entire case on everyone believing in Mike Barrett and his claim to have discovered these five words all before anyone else on the planet could name the source of the quote.
Here's a story to tell your friends:
A guy brings forward a book. No one knows where it came from. The book has five unidentified words in them. No one knows their source. Only one man is able identify their source for everyone. The guy who brought forward the book.
What does your friend conclude?
It's amazing how common sense works.
Regarding the sad but true fact that the diary has no provenance, Caroline is reduced to saying:
"A verifiable provenance is not beyond the bounds of possibility."
Translation -- none exists. "Maybe someday," we are told.
Maybe someday the diary will get a provenance.
Maybe someday the diary will be properly and thoroughly retested.
Maybe someday some scientist will be given unlimited access to the watch.
Maybe someday we'll learn how the real killer cold have seen the police list.
Maybe someday we'll learn why the real James's handwriting is not the diary's handwriting.
Maybe someday we'll discover something, anything, that would be real evidence in support of the diary being authentic.
Maybe someday.
The entire case in support of this diary being anything other than a fake has now clearly been reduced to a sad bunch of "maybe somedays."
Because the evidence, here, now, all points in exactly the opposite direction.
Maybe someday, those who truly recognize this will come forward and simply and honestly admit it.
Caroline then asks a long series of questions about what unlimited testing of the watch will or could show.
There's a quick and easy answer to all of those questions and it's the only intellectually responsible and honest one.
Let's see.
Do the right thing. Give it to the scientists and let's find out what unlimited testing will and will not show.
To argue against doing so is to argue against learning what we can.
And that's simply irresponsible at best and deliberately diversionary at worst.
I wrote once before that Diary World is the only intellectual environment in which I've ever found myself where people actually argue against the possibility of learning things.
I can't say I'm surprised to see that things haven't changed.
Maybe someday...
--John
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 451
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 9:32 am: | |
Hello,
here's something I don't understand, (am I on the right thread?)tin match box...the other stuff in this vein doesn't it point to a forgery? Tests etc other things in this vein don't they point to something different. Don't both things sound convincing in isolation...put them together and its a total mess. How can both things be right?
Chris,
Do I believe James Maybrick went to the coroner and blagged a look at an inventory. Not really.How does this make the other thing you said irrelevant? I ask because I don't get diary world!
Jennifer
ps its probably the wrong thread sorry!
Uncle Bulgaria,He can remember the days when he wasn't behind The Times.....
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 387
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 10:57 am: | |
Jennifer,
Yes. No. Not really. They can (because they don't really conflict).
And what Chris is pointing out is simply that if the real James didn't see the police list, then the real James didn't write the diary.
Of course, we already knew that.
Don't let whether someone admits it here or not distract you. We all know the obvious.
All of us.
Really. 
--John |
Busy Beaver
Sergeant
Username: Busy
Post Number: 39
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 12:07 pm: | |
James the Maverick wrote the diary.
Busy Beaver  |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 455
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 2:10 pm: | |
John,
oh I see. James didn't write it. we are clear. Phew!
Jennifer
Uncle Bulgaria,He can remember the days when he wasn't behind The Times.....
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 348
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 3:15 pm: | |
John (Hacker)
As I've already broken my resolution not to post again on Maybrick matters, I may as well also comment on your quotation from Turgoose:
"The markings identified to me as 'am J' and 'maybrick' are the earliest visible markings. All others overlay these where crossing does occur."
Those four small words I've emphasised cast rather a lot of light on the claims about the "tail of the J" passing over what Caz persists in calling the "H 9 3 and 1275" (despite the fact that Turgoose, whose opinion she relies on when it suits her, calls it "H 9/3").
When I've asked how the "tail" scratch can be connected with the "J", if the "stem" of the "J" is really the slash in "H 9/3", the closest I've been given to an answer is that I should rely on Turgoose's interpretation of how the scratches join together to form letters.
But from the quotation above, it's clear that "reading" the scratches formed no part of Turgoose's study. He was simply told how the scratches should be "read", and relied on what he'd been told.
The question about the tail of the J, the stem of the J, and the slash of the "H 9/3" remains more open than ever.
Chris Phillips
|
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 309
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 03, 2004 - 11:31 am: | |
Caz,
"It is a FACT that Turgoose examined the various engravings and superficial scratch marks in the watch in 1993 and observed the order in which they occurred or were made. Perhaps John Hacker could kindly comment further on whether ‘unlimited’ testing of the watch is likely to alter these findings and render them invalid."
I'm not sure why you keep asking me about the order of the scratches? I've given my opinion on them, and quoted the relevent section many times. In my opinion, your interpretation is already invalid, and isn't supported by the reports.
But surely further investigation would be a good thing, wouldn't it?
"Will ‘unlimited’ testing reveal evidence (completely missed by Turgoose) that the surface could have been tampered with by a hoaxer"
This is already known, stated by Turgoose in his conclusion, and implied at virtually every point that the scratches are mentioned.
"yet leave Wild with an impression of a surface ‘heavily contaminated with hydrocarbons’ present as a result of ‘prolonged exposure to the environment and handling’ – not one or t’other, John H – both, but in your view this is mere speculation on Wild’s part"
Actually Caz, that's a fact. (And I don't use that word lightly.) It is speculation on Wild's part. Anyone interested in the technical aspects of why that's the case should research "hydrocarbons", and the technique Wild was using which is "auger electron spectroscopy". Relevant quotes can be found above.
"Will ‘unlimited’ testing expose a hoaxer who made a very reasonable attempt at a faked Maybrick signature, despite there being no quick and easy way to discover what the real thing might look like?"
It doesn't look at all like Maybrick's signature to me. Nor is any expert likely to say that it does, the letter formations are entirely different. (A while back I went through it letter by letter. I should try and locate that post.)
Have a great weekend Caz!
John |
John Hacker
Inspector
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 310
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, July 03, 2004 - 11:39 am: | |
Chris,
It's great to see you back!
I'm not sure what to make of the tail of the J. It LOOKS like a single stroke made the J and tail to me from the picture I have.
I do NOT see a slash between the 9 and the 3 however. It looks the the upright portion of the J to me.
The question I have is why would anyone write on top of the existing marks when there was so much unused real estate to write in? Unless they were deliberately attempting establish marks on top of the Jack marks of course.
John
|
Harry Mann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, July 03, 2004 - 5:16 am: | |
Caz,
It is not an opinion but an unshakeable belief,that the letters were not on the inside back of the watch,prior to the watch coming into the possession of Albert.
I will be persuaded as being wrong, only if undeniable evidence is produced to prove otherwise.
An opinion is something I put forward in a previous post.It was to the effect that the whole of the back of the watch is bogus.It is not the original. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1120
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 8:56 am: | |
That's fine Harry, but if I had an 'unshakeable' belief in something, I would see very little point in joining in a debate about it. But each to his own I guess.
Hi John H,
Thanks for your comments. I am grateful as always for your alternative take on the value of the opinions, findings and conclusions of the two metallurgists who have actually examined the watch and its various marks and engravings, and your own views on the same have been duly noted.
Hi Chris,
I haven’t given you a ‘position’ to clarify, yet you insist on trying to pigeon-hole me and attribute certain claims, opinions or beliefs to me. I wrote, and you quoted back to me:
‘According to two of the most highly respected ripper authorities who have actually done their homework, these records were indeed available to private researchers for a considerable period of time much earlier in the 20th century than the late 1980s.’
Now, how could you possibly infer from this piece of information that I was expecting anyone to believe that Maybrick [who, as we both know, died in 1889] somehow gained access to the records containing the four words ‘tin match box empty’ in the 19th century?
And you accuse me of wilful and dishonest misreading??
Just in case you really didn’t understand my words, no one said anything about the records being accessible to Maybrick, the ripper (whoever he was), or indeed any private individual, in the years immediately following the murders. No one even hinted at anything remotely along those lines.
You wrote:
‘Unless you believe that, it's irrelevant to the authenticity of the diary whether anyone else could have looked at the inventory before it was discovered in the late 1980s.’
That wasn’t my point, so please don’t pretend it was. The argument repeated ad nauseam on these boards recently, for all the world as if it were of critical importance, was that because some unnamed ripper expert believed no one had access to the list before 1987, we could rule out any possibility of an older forgery, leaving the only possible conclusion that a post-1987 forger lifted the four words from newly-available or published records.
Obviously I was in no position to check with an ‘expert’ whose identity was being withheld, but I have now found three of the most highly-respected current ripper authorities, whose research and opinion directly contradicts that of John O’s mystery man. And now I am told that it makes no difference whether anyone could have accessed the records long before the 1980s or not. John O still demands that everyone rule out such a possibility, but now it's on the not-quite-so-firm grounds that a forger working post-1987 is more likely, in his opinion, than one working much earlier in the century - supported by an opinion that Michael Caine had a dramatic influence, and a belief that Michael Barrett or one of his pals had a pre-1992 penchant for quoting Crashaw.
I still have no idea what possessed the diary author to include the four words: ‘tin match box empty’. But I do accept that an empty tin match box was found at the crime scene and that the killer could have known it was there. It could even have been his own, given to Eddowes before he attacked her, for all you know. But I can offer no verifiable explanation of my own. I have no one to ask and no one who could tell me.
I have never said the diary is NOT a fake, despite the impression that some of John O’s posts appear designed to give. I am not saying the match box detail was NOT lifted post-1987 from a published list. I am not saying Mike Barrett DID find the Crashaw quotation in 1994. I am not saying the quotation did NOT come from the Sphere book prior to 1992. I simply don’t have the kind of information that would justify forcing any views of my own onto anyone else, let alone reaching any final conclusions at this stage.
You know your own information remains incomplete (no access to the watch reports yet, or to the ongoing investigation behind the scenes, just for starters); you know that some of it is contradictory (ripper and forensic experts alike often differing wildly over everything from the availability of case records to the chemical make-up of the diary ink); you presumably also concede that the limited evidence currently available is insufficient to date-stamp the diary or watch (otherwise I hope you wouldn’t be expecting others to organise and fund further tests that you yourself don’t think necessary).
So if I were you, I’d sit back and relax, until someone hands you the full watch reports and, eventually, the fruits of all their various endeavours behind the scenes. And while you are waiting, you could always do a bit of your own digging, to try and ascertain which ‘experts’ really do know their stuff and which only claim to know. And you never know your luck, some kind soul might one day bring you the results of further tests to add to your growing store of knowledge.
There’s nothing like equipping yourself with the fullest possible range of quality information (and if in doubt double checked by yourself where possible), BEFORE coming here with fixed beliefs and confident conclusions. And you have nothing like the full range yet.
And the same goes for everyone currently posting here, including myself. We all know we lack information one way or another. And without knowing how much or how little remains to be dug out, I for one won’t be reaching any firm conclusions until I’ve done a lot more digging for myself.
If and when the digging is done, I’ll be the first one back to pat you on the back for recognising a post-1987 faked Victorian document when you see one (and therefore a post-1992 watch scratch seen or unseen  ), or the last one to throw brickbats your way if your preferred sources of information and expertise, or your current reliance on incomplete, contradictory and limited evidence, ultimately let you down.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 349
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 9:32 am: | |
Caz
So just to try to distil out of those hundreds of words, something amounting to a clarification of your position:
You can still offer no explanation of the occurrence of that phrase, tin match box empty, consistent with Maybrick being the author?
Chris Phillips
P.S. In case you really don't know, Feldman is the author who made the comments about the match box quoted by John. Surely you are familiar with what Feldman wrote in his book?
If you have anything more definite to offer on the closure of this document than the "opinions" of the unnamed "authorities", why not provide it, irrelevant though you admit it to be as far as the authenticity of the diary is concerned?
But to be frank, I don't think you believe any of this nonsense about the forger quoting an undiscovered document in an obscure archive in the 1950s or whatever - then cobbling it together with the worst sort of tripe about the breasts on the table and the stolen key - then quietly putting away the fruits of his labours for the Barretts to discover years later...
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 350
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 11:04 am: | |
John Hacker wrote:
I'm not sure what to make of the tail of the J. It LOOKS like a single stroke made the J and tail to me from the picture I have.
I do NOT see a slash between the 9 and the 3 however. It looks the the upright portion of the J to me.
Thanks for that information.
If that's the case, it's strange that Turgoose did (apparently) refer to a slash between the 9 and the 3. I find it difficult to reconcile this with his remarks about the "J".
The other strange thing is that Harrison's photo seems to show a dark line extending just about to where we'd expect to see the top of a slash. But there are several odd things about the photo, including - according to those who've seen the watch - the fact that the scratches are clearly visible at all ...
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 399
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 3:18 pm: | |
Caroline writes over a thousand words (1,032) that finally end up saying we should all stop talking and wait for more information.
But since it has just taken her one thousand and thirty two words to say that we should stop talking and wait for more information, it doesn't seem that she is very likely to heed her own advice.
So neither will I.
She said some other things too.
She's graciously demonstrated, for instance, that she has no rational explanation for the appearance of the line from the police list in the diary if it was written by the killer.
She's graciously demonstrated that she has no rational explanation for Mike's ability to source the five words in the diary that no one else could identify.
She's graciously demonstrated, via it's absence, that she has no rational explanation for why the diary still has no established provenance whatsoever.
She's graciously demonstrated that she has no rational explanation for why the diary is not in the purported author's handwriting if it's not necessarily a fake.
But my favorite clause from all of those 1,032 words is this one:
"There’s nothing like equipping yourself with the fullest possible range of quality information..."
Caroline Morris, the woman who has come here again and again, month after month, to offer the same tired old reasons why new tests on the diary should not be done, why giving scientists unlimited access to the watch would be too difficult, now argues in favor of acquiring "fullest possible range of quality information."
The woman who gave us "Why test -- people won't believe the results" and "Why test -- the results won't be definitive enough or final" and "Unlimited access isn't possible, it's too expensive" and just recently "What good would giving scientist a new look at the watch do anyway?" and all those other gems arguing that learning new things is somehow a bad idea, now comes here and speaks in favor of learning as much as possible before one speaks.
I'm sorry. The irony is crushing.
I must stop writing here.
I'm unable to stop my head from exploding.
Just really lovin' this,
--John
PS: Nope, not Feldy.
(Message edited by omlor on July 04, 2004) |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 351
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 5:42 pm: | |
John Omlor wrote:
Nope, not Feldy.
I'm sorry if I've jumped to a conclusion here, but Feldman did make such a claim about the "tin match box empty" line - and of course Feldman was arguing in favour of the authenticity of the diary.
In any case, I'm sure all sensible people will agree that then important thing isn't what one person or another has previously said about this in the past, but what the actual availability of the document was.
Caz has brought this subject up, and perhaps she could clarify quite what she is - or her "authorities" are - claiming. Given that coroners' records are normally subject to closure of 100 years, is the claim that:
(1) The document was formally open to public consultation before the 1980s; or
(2) The document was formally closed to public inspection before the 1980s, but a forger could have gained access to it?
Chris Phillips
|
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 342
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 7:33 pm: | |
Hi, Chris
In an editorial in the most recent Ripperologist, Paul Begg wrote this: ". . .as has been explained many times, as long ago as 1993 Keith Skinner undertook some research which suggests that the Eddowes inquest papers were open to public inspection as early as the 1930s and remained so for twenty years." Paul Begg goes on to write that he doesn't know if the papers were open to the public or not.
I've missed the explanations, but would like to hear more, so I can judge for myself if this research is merely suggestive or if there's something concerete there.
Earlier, Caz wrote: ". . .but I do accept that an empty tin match box was found at the crime scene and that the killer could have known it was there."
But Caz, the match box wasn't found at the scene--it was discovered along with most of Kate's possesions when her body was stripped at the mortuary. The police differentiated between what was on Kate's person and what was on the ground; we know this because items that were on the ground--the buttons, thimble, and mustard tin containing the pawntickets--don't appear on the lengthy inventory as it has been faithfully transcribed in Evans and Skinner's Ultimate Sourcebook.
So what the police are telling us is that the match box was concealed inside the clothing, not visible on the ground. The Ripper wouldn't have known the match box was there.
Dave
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 400
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 10:18 pm: | |
And, in case anyone has forgotten...
1930 is still the wrong century.
So the line still cries "fake!"
See ya,
--John |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 352
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 3:03 am: | |
David O'Flaherty
Thank you for that information.
Maybe I've misunderstood, but I don't quite follow the distinction between being open to public inspection and being open to the public.
Does Paul Begg cite any references for Keith Skinner's research, or the many explanations?
Chris Phillips
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 353
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 3:53 am: | |
To answer my own question, I had a trawl through the Casebook CD, and found this comment in a post by Paul Begg dated 23 March 2001:
With regard to Eddowes inquest papers, my understaning is that public access to coroners’ records is governed by the Public Records Act (1958) as amended by the Public Records Act 1967. I am given to understand that prior to 1958 a 50-year closure period operated. If so, the inquest papers relating to Eddowes would have been available to public inspection after 1938 until closed to public inspection by the 1958 Act. They would then have remained closed until officially opened by the Lord Chancellor’s Instrument in July 1984.
How easy it would have been to access the documents between 1938-1958 or between 1984-87 remains to be seen.
So the possibility is that the document was formally open to public access for the 20-year period 1938-1958.
Chris Phillips
|
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 344
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 6:38 am: | |
Hi, Chris
No, that was all that was said about it in Paul's editorial, so thanks for reposting that here. That's an interesting possibility, although it seems weird that the 1958 Act would reseal papers that may have already been open to the public for twenty years.
But we don't have to wonder about this; we can contact the PRO and ask them. I tried to use their their online form to ask them about this, but their form wouldn't accept my request (I guess because my U.S. phone number doesn't fit their format). I can write via snail mail, but perhaps someone in Britain might volunteer to drop the PRO an inquiry so we can have a speedier answer?
Best,
Dave
|
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 345
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 6:45 am: | |
Please disregard my request for assistance--I was able to get an online request to go through (the trick is to leave out hyphens in the telephone field).
If I hear anything, I'll post about it.
Dave |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 354
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 7:17 am: | |
David
Thank you. That seems a very sensible strategy.
I should think the PRO should be able to help with a general question like this about historical closue periods. If not, it may be worth trying the Corporation of London Records Office - I believe that is where the document is actually held.
That's also an excellent point about the matchbox not being "found at the crime scene", as Caz claimed. Not that it should come as news to her - one of the more depressing exchanges I noticed on the CD was this, from 5-6 May 2000:
Caroline Anne Morris: ... If the diarist is implying the match box or cigarette case, or both, are his own possessions left at the scene (and the police may have thought the same about the match box, hence the decision to withhold this particular item from the public) then we are left with the tea, sugar and ‘the whore’s knife’, presumably the ‘White Handle Table Knife’ in the inventory. Why then must the murderer have even looked in the pockets at the scene? ...
Peter R.A. Birchwood: ... Now as Stewart has said ... all of these items were in the possession of the deceased and were in her various pockets. "Maybrick" must therefore have rifled through the pockets (some of which were in underskirts etc.,) to find the matchbox in order to discover it was empty. All this in very little light and with an imminent risk of discovery.
So, in short, your latest post is misleading. ...
Not much changes, does it?
Chris Phillips
|
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 346
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 7:42 am: | |
Thanks, Chris--I've also dropped the Corporation of London a line. Also, thank you for the quote from Peter Birchwood. I agree with him that it would be extremely unlikely that the Ripper would go through Kate's pockets, take special note of an empty match box amidst the numerous odds and ends she had, and then bother returning it to its place inside her clothing. Far more likely is that the line was cribbed from the inventory list, whether it was available in 1938 or 1988.
As has probably already been noted somewhere in the debate, the forger of the Diary should have referenced the mustard tin that was found to the left of Kate's body.
I'll let you know when I hear something.
Cheers,
Dave |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 402
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 7:46 am: | |
Chris,
If you start re-reading the Casebook, your own head will explode.
As David Radka would surely tell you, Eternal Recurrence ain't just a pet theory of Nietzsche's --it's the LAW around here.
So what's impeding the progress of the conversation, you ask? Well I have my own "pet theory."
See here's the thing. I believe that everyone who posts here regularly knows the diary is a fake.
Everyone.
That's why we're getting arguments about who could have seen what in the 1930s. Because we ALL KNOW, if we're honest with ourselves, that there is no way the real killer ever sees the line from the police report or writes it in the diary. Everyone already knows that. Really. Just like they all know that the diary gets stuff wrong and is in the wrong handwriting and all the rest.
Now, you might wonder what stops people from simply and clearly admitting, once and for all, "Hey, the diary is a fake. It wasn't written by the real James. It's not his handwriting and there's stuff in it that demonstrates clearly that it wasn't written by the killer. We all admit that. OK. Now let's move this discussion forward and talk about who might have faked it and where and when."
You might wonder that.
I do, too.
But there are some people from whom you'll never hear those words in public. Even though I believe that they and their friends and colleagues and everyone else writing here knows that the book is a fake.
So we play this silly little game.
It's all right. It keeps us busy. It's mildly entertaining. But let's not forget where we are and what we're doing.
We're chatting about a fake book. And we all know it.
Perhaps we should all admit it.
(yeah, right, like that's ever going to happen....)
--John |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1122
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 6:58 am: | |
Mornin’, you ‘orrible lot.
Firstly, my thanks go to Chris Phillips, for rendering me incapable with laughter at one point.
Feldy???
Chris thought Paul Feldman was John O’s idea of an infallible ripper expert?
Oh me poor aching sides.
Now then, back in the real world…or maybe not quite.
Interestingly, the match box only mattered to John O while he was using his anonymous expert to argue that the Eddowes list was unavailable to the public before that magic year 1987. Now that it’s at least possible he may have been misinformed, he no longer needs it to form any part of his argument. That’s fine by me. Let’s see where that leaves us.
Hi Dave,
Many thanks for your input. I apologise for not being clearer about the crime scene. I simply meant that an empty tin match box was found - or established - to have been present at the scene, on the dead woman’s person. The possibility therefore remains, as I said previously, that the match box was given to Eddowes by her killer – perhaps in lieu of pre-payment for services not rendered. In those circumstances, it would be a certainty that the killer knew about it, and if the police suspected it may have belonged to him, all the more reason for withholding this item from press reports at the time - if the omission was intentional of course.
Hi All,
For an awful long while now on the Maybrick boards, we have been reading the claims made on an almost daily basis by John O, about the impossibility of the diary existing before 1987. Almost no one, as far as I can recall, has made any serious, or prolonged attempt in recent times to claim that the diary is either an older fake or genuine. The whole debate, therefore, appears to revolve around whether John O has proved his case or not. Do we ‘know’ the diary and watch are modern fakes, or are we not certain when either was created? Those currently reading and contributing to these threads can surely be divided into two basic ‘positions’, if Chris needs further clarification:
A) John O has already proved his case – the diary did not exist, could not have existed, prior to 1987, and therefore the watch scratches could not have been made before 1993.
B) John O has not proved his case, and the age of both artefacts has yet to be satisfactorily determined.
Now, I suspect that if any of the shiny happy people in category A) (aside from John O) are still among us, watching the inmates or even arguing the toss with them, they won’t be killed in the stampede to offer their help to organise and fund further tests, as per Robert Smith’s suggestion. Why would they? Proof is proof, and only one form is ever required. No test can undo or alter proof arrived at by other means. And people don’t, in my experience, tend to spend their own precious time and hard-earned pennies on tests that will either confirm a theory they believe has already been proved, or else be dismissed as obviously unreliable or invalid. They would not be testing an unproven theory, in this instance; they would merely be testing the efficiency of the testing process.
And here we come to the nitty-gritty. Who is ultimately responsible for proving John O’s case for him? Those people, including me, in category B), who would not claim to be 100% convinced about when either artefact was – or wasn’t – created? It would be very interesting to have a show of hands, to see how many here would put themselves in each category.
And who in category B) is being irresponsible, even if they choose to sit back just like John O up there in category A), making feeble excuses for doing nothing more constructive than counting my words (“How many words do you write, Caz? Let me count the ways I attempt to discredit them”), or hastening to correct one’s fellow posters’ typos and misspellings while coming out with delicious howlers such as ‘slight of hand’ and ‘via it’s [sic] absence’, while expecting others to go off and organise and fund the testing of John O’s repeated claims about the proven modernity of the diary?
Some of us are, in fact, regularly beavering away behind the scenes as and when time allows (on our own initiative, I might add, and not because John O thinks he is somehow entitled to crack the whip), to help the ongoing investigation in a variety of ways we believe might be constructive and ultimately enlightening – er, for those who would appreciate a bit more enlightenment, that is.
Love,
Caz
X
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 478
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 7:41 am: | |
Hi Caz,
my position is this - i am not satisfied that the only two explanations are that it is either modern/fake or that it is contemporay/unfake. Why can't it be both fake and victorian for eg? these explanations are simply the ones which have the most people shouting for them that is all. I am sure if the artefacts had not already been tested and were not now 11 years in public some more testing would be worthwhile. therefore i would reluctantly out myself into your category b.
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 355
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 7:48 am: | |
Caz
Chris thought Paul Feldman was John O’s idea of an infallible ripper expert?
I'm sure you know that's not true (like much of what you write, I suspect). I could hardly be unaware of John's opinion of Feldman. I assumed that - if John did mean Feldman - he was employing a bit of rhetoric. You know a little about rhetoric, I think?
Anyhow, not to be diverted by the usual games-playing, can I just pin you down on your position - rather than following you into a discussion of everyhing under the sun you can think of except your position?
You do seem to be edging towards an attempt at an explanation of "tin match box empty", consistent with Maybrick's authorship. Is it fair to summarise it as follows?
(1) Maybrick paid for sex with Catherine Eddowes by giving her an empty tin matchbox (I assume that's what "in lieu of pre-payment" means).
(2) She then secreted this on her person along with her other trinkets. The police, finding an empty tin matchbox on the victim's body - along with all the other trinkets - somehow miraculously divined that it belonged to the killer, and decided to suppress any mention of it in the newspapers. (I won't even ask how this could conceivably benefit them.)
(3) Maybrick, in writing his diary, included a sort of list of Eddowes's possessions. These are all included in the official inventory, but because Maybrick could not have seen this, he must have taken some items out of the accounts in the newspapers, and added the tin match box from his own knowledge. In doing so, by sheer chance he used exactly the same unnatural, stilted phrase that occurred in the police inventory which would remain undiscovered for another century.
On the whole, wouldn't it be better if you went back to not offering an explanation at all?
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 405
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 8:01 am: | |
So we are all now assuming, then, as a starting premise, that this diary is a fake and we are arguing only whether it's an old one or a new one?
Because that's the case I've been recently "proving," of course. And I seem to have succeeded.
Since both the 1930s and the 1980s are impossible dates for authenticity, a fake seems to be all Caroline is leaving us with as a realistic option.
Excellent.
I'm glad that discussion is over.
And I should probably point out to begin with, that the Ripper expert whose quote I reprinted here concerning it being impossible for anyone to have seen the line before the 1980s was still counting authenticity as a possibility. But of course since no one seriously argues any more that the killer could have seen the police list, that's just dumb.
Incidentally, I don't recall correcting anyone's typos. But if this was a reference to my comment on another thread about Dee spelling difference as "differance," I do hope Caroline knows that I was not correcting that "mistake" but rather making a joke about Jacques Derrida. I also hope Caroline knows why that would be a joke -- but perhaps she doesn't. No matter.
On to other things.
As for the verbiage about testing and responsibility -- it all adds up once again to Caroline saying "Just wait, there's stuff going on, you'll see."
If there are ever t-shirts sold in the Diary World gift shop, that's one of the things they should say.
For years, a good number of years actually, we've seen people arrive here and say, "Just wait, there's stuff going, you'll see."
Children born the first time we were told this are now walking and talking. By the time any new tests are ever done, they'll no doubt be watching their own children walking and talking.
And if, as it appears from Robert's latest post, the "conclusive results" requirement that must be met before any lab sees the material has not been significantly altered, those children too will be playing with their kids, while our own grandchildren will be reading those same magical words right here. "Just wait, there's stuff going on, you'll see."
Anyone wonder why people now have their doubts?
As for my "feeble excuses" for doing "nothing more" than hanging out here...
There's a passage in Hume's Inquiry about putting one's hand in a candle flame and then actually learning something when you get burned, so that you don't put your hand in the candle flame again.
Of course, being a thinking human being, I too have that same ability to learn from experience. I still have all the fun stuff, if anyone wants to see it, that burned me the first time. I'm not stupid enough to push my hand back into the fire.
Meanwhile, nothing has changed. And today is the 6th of July.
Cool, we're getting there.
With a smile,
--John
PS: I also hope Caroline knows that I didn't actually have to count her words myself. There are machines that do that nowadays. We all have one. The latest science is a wonderful thing (although I can see why that point might be a touchy one in some quarters).
(Message edited by omlor on July 06, 2004) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 479
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 8:02 am: | |
Chris,
i agree with the idea of what you saying (to clarify, that is to say, that the inventory matches the diary and that the inventory was not made public when the diary is supposed to have been written).
but one thing is puzzling me, suppose you or i were going to fake a diary claiming to be written by JTR - which excluding this was well researched and thought out- why would one then include that exact line knowing it was not made public until 1988- wouldn't one change it so the idea/point was the same but it read differently - eg and i left upon here person a empty tin box which used to contain matches but alas no more!!!?
Jennifer
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 406
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 8:24 am: | |
Oh yeah, one other fun thing.
If the killer gave Eddowes the match box, why was he angry in his journal about it being empty? Surely he would have known this when he handed it to her, no?
Isn't the line "damn it, the tin box was empty"?
Chris is right. Offering no explanation seems more productive than offering this one.
But why bother with consistency when it's hope that's important?
--John (enjoying this morning's demonstration of desire trumping data)
PS: I've just thought of another t-shirt:
on the front -- "tin match box empty"
on the back -- "now where have I seen that before...."
|
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 356
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 8:55 am: | |
Jennifer
I agree - it wasn't a clever thing for the forger to do that. But I've never really subscribed to the theory that the forgery was a clever one.
For one thing, if the forger was clever, (s)he had remarkably poor spelling and grammar. Even if the forger was dyslexic, (s)he could have improved the spelling by using a dictionary!
Chris Phillips
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Inspector
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 481
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 8:57 am: | |
Hi John O.
see that went down well! Jennifer
ps it seems my two posts overlapped with either Chris or John sorry about that guys i hadn't noticed.
(Message edited by jdpegg on July 06, 2004)
"Think things, not words." - O.W. Holmes jr |
Harry Mann
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 5:01 am: | |
Caz,
One debates from a belief that what they contribute is the truth as they see it.
What is strange,is that a person continues to debate when there is no evidence to underline their beliefs.
There is no evidence that the initials were on the inside back cover of the watch before it came into the possession of Albert. |
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