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Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 266
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - 9:41 am: |       |
Hi RJ,
Two questions for you. Firstly, did you get my email?
Secondly, a question in three parts for anyone who wants to have a stab at it. Who wrote the following and when, and is there anything that strikes you about the grammar and choice of words?
‘Maybrick belonged to several clubs, which he often frequented after his day’s work at the Exchange...’
Thanks.
Love,
Caz
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 267
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 3:41 am: | |
No takers yet?
I may send you a clew or two if you only wate a whil longer...
Next time I will throw acid over them.
How clewed up did our forger need to be about the new "crime wave" that had appeared in the 1870s - vitriolage?
Love,
Caz
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 77
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 2:33 pm: | |
caz,
i don't understand, ahhh my brian where did i leave it!
jp |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 233
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 3:30 pm: | |
Hi
I came from the Barnett Board to ask about something my dad said. I have read the Diary and I thought it was dated to the twenties so I asked if It could have been written then and I was told about the heart. My dad who is at a convention said the heart wasn't known to be gone until the late eighties. He also said no victorian man would ever ask about his kids he toldf me to find out on my own what this means can someone help me. I am 15 and thinking about a project on Jack.
Trevor Weatherhead |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 236
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 11:43 pm: | |
Hello
My dad explained he was partly kidding but there is a grain of truth in most humor.
Trevor Weatherhead |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 79
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 6:52 am: | |
hi
can i just say something and call me a stupid muppet and tell me to shut up if this really has nout to do with this board! the fact we didn't know about mjk's heart until the 80s doesn't mean no one did. where was the info telling us this, we didn't dig up her body and have a look someone had it. and besides that someone muyst have known at the time, yes one would be the murderer but also the police doctors working on the case etc. if these people didn't know we wouldn't now, someone could easily have known in the 20s because we didn't.
anyway sorry to rant on, nice to see you on the boards again trevor, i guess there is a grain of truth in most humour, reminds me of a jimmy carr joke,
regards
jennifer |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 238
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 11:44 pm: | |
Hi. Jennifer
If I recall correctly, the press reported an organ was missing. Logic would say it was one of the same organs he had taken from the other victims. So, it is possible that a person could have guessed it was the heart and been right irresespective of whenever they were writting.
Nevertheless, I believe a small group of people were involved in writting 'The Diary' and my comment to my son was related to the fact that I see a womans touch in the writting.
Who knows they may be lurking in the shadows as I right this. But, I have no inside information and I resreve the right to state my opinion.
Best
Gary |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 239
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 11:46 pm: | |
P.S. I reserve the right also to spell reserve incorrectly. |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 80
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 2:08 pm: | |
i see,
its not just in relation to the diary my rant was aimed (or at your family, sorry if it came over that way) but more particularly the way we all tend to assume that as at such a time we didn't know something no one could have especially things we have rediscovered. that is why it is called research and not search. the information was already there somewhere,
a womans touch hey, i'm afraids i'm much to young to be in the frame however,
i would suggest to keep looking in the shadows!
jennifer |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 245
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 10:11 pm: | |
Hi Jennifer
Oh, I took no offense. I know what you meant.
All The Best
Gary |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 120
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 10:27 pm: | |
Caz--Apologies for my belated response. Yes I received your reply (thanks). I don't spend much time ruminating about the Maybrick diary these days, I think of it as a sort of side dish to the main course, or, rather, a quiet stroll after the full meal.
A statement of Mr. Johnson's caught my attention.
"I couldn't find a book on Maybrick in the college library, but there was one on Jack the Ripper, and it was then I realized the initials of his victims matched those on the watch."
Just a tiny detail, not meaning much, I suppose...an idle curiosity about which specific book was in the college library. Cheers. |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 298
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2003 - 9:18 am: | |
Hi, Caz:
What is the answer to the questions you posed in your post of August 12,
1) Who wrote the following and when, and is there anything that strikes you about the grammar and choice of words?
‘Maybrick belonged to several clubs, which he often frequented after his day’s work at the Exchange...’
2) Next time I will throw acid over them.
How clewed up did our forger need to be about the new "crime wave" that had appeared in the 1870s - vitriolage?
Thanks
Chris |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 289
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2003 - 9:56 am: | |
Hi Chris,
I was fully expecting that someone could tell me - someone who claims to know their Maybrick sources well enough to state with some confidence that the forger sat down with Ryan when composing the diary.
Oh well, if no one knows, I'll provide more details next week when I have more time.
Love,
Caz |
R.J. Palmer
Detective Sergeant
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 122
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2003 - 12:53 pm: | |
Ah Caz, did I hear my name mentioned?
I saw the carrot dangling from the string, but I wasn't assinine enough to lunge towards it.
My memory is bad, but not bad enough not to remember Keith Skinner warning me that Ryan's wording might have been explainable by him working rather closely from earlier sources. I don't recall the exact citation at the moment, maybe Sir Charles Russel's closing argument or some testimony he elicited at trial.
But that certainly doesn't weaken the case for Ryan having been used. It's not based entirely on the one passage, but several that occur within a few papes. Three pages from the 'club' quote he writes: "Maybrick's cotton brokerage flourished". Ring a bell?
Here's something that might interest you. It proves nothing of course. It's a letter I received sometimes back from the University of Liverpool Library.
Mr. Palmer---
The book you are enquiring about is not currently in its place on the Library shelves and may well
be missing from stock. This is its catalogue record:
B15744206 BIBLIOGRAPHIC Information
CLASS NO KD372.M46.R98
AUTHOR RYAN, Bernard
TITLE The poisoned life of Mrs Maybrick
PUBLISHED 1989
PUBLISHED Penguin, Harmondsworth
I17439139 ITEM Information
ICODE1: 1 LPATRON: 1006542 RECAL DATE: - - INTL USE : 0
ICODE2: - LCHKIN: 25-02-00 TOT CHKOUT: 5
LOCATION: sjl
BARCODE 011930965
DATE 890830
All I can tell you from that, is that the book was last in the Library when it was returned on
25th February 2002. It had been borrowed a total of 5 times between that date and July 1997. The book
was originally acquired by the Library in August 1989.
So, in answer to your question, I can confirm that it's very likely that the book was indeed
available in the Library in 1991 - but I couldn't be any more definite than that.
I hope that helps.
****************************
[Name Ommitted]
Head of User Services
Sydney Jones Library
The University of Liverpool
PO Box 123
LIVERPOOL
L69 3DA
Barrett researched the diary for a year, if I recall, but only discovered by accident the author's identity when finding a copy of RWE's Liverpool Tales in a local bookstore. It's an odd little story. Mike's research notes show he used probate records to research Maybrick (fairly sophisticated research) but he later tells Shirley he had no knowledge of the major source of Bernard Ryan. It's a pity he didn't take the arduous drive from Goldie to the University. I greater pity that the librarain couldn't tell me who checked out the book in 1989-1992. So I'm stuck. "The best plans of mice & men..." and all that. All the best. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 290
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 8:41 am: | |
H RJ,
A specific line from Ryan about Maybrick spending frequent evenings at the club was singled out again recently, and has frequently been used in the past to help the case for a forger using this particular source to come up with: Frequented my club.
Within days, my hubby coincidentally picked up a book from a local second-hand book stall, which he thought I might find interesting. In it I found the following line, which is even closer to the diary's wording than Ryan's:
‘Maybrick belonged to several clubs, which he often frequented after his day’s work at the Exchange...’
I am very interested in your continued efforts to discover if a modern forger used Ryan to help him/her with the Maybrick content, and I wish you luck. I just thought you and others ought to bear in mind that there is an alternative source of information for James' frequent visits to his club (even using the verb 'to frequent' and some pretty dodgy grammar to boot). While you may argue that this doesn't weaken your case, my point is simply that you can no longer rely on this specific example to strengthen it for you. Your case will have to be built on similarities that haven't (yet?) been found in alternative sources.
Love,
Caz |
Brenda Love
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, September 05, 2003 - 12:26 pm: | |
Sorry to break in here, but I just want to say I got my recent issue of Ripperologist, and I was so happy to have the article about the Diary, an article that broke it down for me and told me the whole story regarding the publishing, testing, possible forging of the Diary. I've only been into the JTR thing for a little over a year now and I've followed the boards faithfully. I knew there were scandals regarding a forging confession and there were disputes over the testing, but I never had the whole story laid out for me like that. It was very informative and it persuaded me not to dump the idea of the Diary into the trash barrel just yet...there's a lot of unanswered questions! And Ms. Morris I am looking forward to your book. |
Predator 2
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 3:56 am: | |
There is a possibility that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper,although his confession amazes me...How can you confess the fact that you killed 5 prostitutes and live without a guilt feeling?And besides,did HE REALLY WROTE IT?
Or it was just a hoax?
I believe the mystery is deep,almost supernatural.Jack HAS NOT BEEN FOUND!He was too clever for the police to catch.
More questions rise:Who was "the Boss"?What about "the Dear Boss" letter?Did Jack work as a mercenary for this boss?COULD THE BOSS BE EDDY?
Maybrick's diary is shrouded in mystery.If it is genuine,then the case has been solved.Yet,why did it took more than 100 years just to discover the diary?
Was the police so incompetent that it did not manage to aprehend Jack even with 50 police cars?
There is one more thing that puzzles me:The street grafitto.Why did Jack spell "Juwes" instead of "Jews"?Was he a jew?
We may never know.Jack left a trail of blood behind him.Maybrick or not. |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 324
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 1:55 pm: | |
Hi Predator,
You post bewilders me.I Assume you think that it is a possibility, that Maybreck commited these crimes, and then decided to hide his diary under floorboards, because he knew he was about to be murdered by his wife.
Then you mention Eddy, Could he be the Boss?.
Also I was not aware that panda cars were in operation in 1888,
And why should the spelling Juwes, implicate he was a jew, The word Juwes is the feminine word meaning jewess, Therefore an interpretation of the writing would be 'The jewish women are not the men that will not be blamed for nothing'
No sense in that clue.Or is there?....
Sorry to be negative, jack was not clever , although mayby to a degree , but extremely fortunate he did not commit his crimes years later.
Regards Richard. |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 155
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 2:04 pm: | |
Richard, Your right about "Jack" not being clever. By living in Whitechapel his whole life he instinctively knew what to do to cover his tracks so that police who patrolled the streets wouldn't be able to track him. The streets were his playground as a child, but they also served as a classroom.
Shannon |
Raymond Speer
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2003 - 12:52 pm: | |
I've just read _The Ripper Diary_ and congratulate the authors for a dispassionate rendition of facts concerning a controversy over which the participants are emotionally inflamed. In journalism or history, it is difficult to write an impartial account of an event when your sources are indulging in character assassination against each other.
IMO, as the book progressed, the mystery changed from, Is Maybrick the murderer? to Who is the forger? To believe that the Diary is a contemporary account of the Whitechapel killings, the observer has to:
(1) Discount Mr. B's confessions about faking the manuscript.
(2) Believe Ms. B's belated tale about the Diary being an unappreciated heirloom of her family.
(3) Assume that the Diary went from Maybrick's sickbed to the publisher in a journey of more than a century, during which none of the intermediaries who possessed the Diary ever brought the matter to light.
Why should I take the first step and believe that Mr. B's withdrawn confessions were phony and his latest position (his ex probably did acquire the Diary as a family heirloom) is accurate? The argument taken by Diary defenders is that Mr. B has not produced a second version of the Diary, hence how could he have faked the first one? Besides the obvious fact he named his ex-wife as an essential collaborator in the hoax (she was the scrivner). Mr. B has never been challenged to repeat his performance. If he did, the old book he would come up with on a second try would obviously differ from the album originally used for the Diary, & arguments would arise that Mr. B cannot now produce an exact copy of the Diary, hence he never made the original.
The second assumption of the Diary's hidden history as a Graham family heirloom is hard to swallow. Had the text been it a foreign language -- but it wasn't. Had the text concerned some boring, dryasdust, obscure information on something that no one in the 20th century gave a damn about -- but the confessions of JTR would have been valuable anytime that century. Ms. B's dad would have to have been daft not to notice potential profit in that "legacy" & there are no allegations that Graham was mentally deficient. Alas, there are also no indications that he possessed the Diary before its alleged discovery other than the old soldier's agreement with his daughter's defense of the MS.
Ultimately, the book is dismissive of a theory that Florence Maybrick was the progenitor of the Grahams by an illegitimate child bourne by her at age 15. I congratulate the authors for distancing themselves from that unsteady web of speculation. The trouble is that it is equally unfounded surmise to guess a friendly maid may have taken the Diary to a family without documentable ties to either James or Florence Maybrick. If the Diary's authenticity is sufficently established by a plausible backstory, let's employ Occam's Razor and return to the inital "official" speculation that Tony Deveraux was given the Diary by some plumber or electrician who may have been working at the Battlecrease house & secretly found the Diary, which had been well hidden for a century. The only potentially reasonable way for the MS to make it to the 1990s before its revelation is to postulate it was a "buried treasure" never found before 1990.
And I have not even mentioned the point that no handwriting specimen that purports to be James Maybrick's has ever been found that resembles the penman ship of the Diary writer. Even if late 20th century critics are right in challenging Maybrick's 19th century will as a fake --- based on nothing more solid than feelings that Maybrick's brothers were bad people --- it would be nice if Diary proponents could find some script somewhere showing that Maybrick ever exhibited the writing style of the Diarist. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 591
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 7:25 am: | |
Hi Raymond,
Thanks very much for your kind comments.
It’s entirely up to you, of course, what first steps you wish to take, if any, towards believing any one of the claims made or theories put forward for the diary’s existence.
I don’t know where you get your impression of Mr. B’s latest position from, but he certainly is not accepting that his ex ‘probably’ acquired the diary as a family heirloom. The testimony we have directly from Mike has consistently indicated that he is adamant that Anne lied about ever having the diary herself or giving it to Tony Devereux.
The plain fact is that no one has been able to show that either Mike or Anne actually faked the diary, individually or together, and even the late Melvin Harris always insisted they didn’t do it.
You actually undermine your own argument that belief in the diary being an old document depends on a belief in Anne’s story (2), by suggesting a return to the simpler speculation that the diary was found in Battlecrease. For the sake of argument, I wonder what the reaction would be if time revealed that this was indeed what happened. I suspect we would have all sorts of strange and wonderful theories popping up to explain how a modern hoaxer managed to plant the thing in the late 1980s/early 1990s and arrange for some mug to find it and pass it on to another mug who would then try to get a third mug to publish it. 
You will notice that we actually distance ourselves in the book from defending any claims made by the major players where there are no visible means of support. Much better for us to wait and report new evidence if and when it ever emerges than to indulge in predictions based on speculation that would come with no more guarantee of hitting the spot than anyone else’s.
I absolutely agree with you that it would be nice if anyone could find just one example of Maybrick exhibiting the writing style of the diarist. However, I doubt that many here would choose the word ‘nice’ to describe it – ‘horrific’ or ‘unbelievable’ more like. And even if a nice thing like this were to happen, I wonder how easily such an example could be authenticated as Maybrick’s own handiwork? The author of a faked diary, ancient or modern, could presumably have planted similar examples to be found by some other mug in the future.
I am currently working on the principle that nothing is quite as it seems when it comes to the diary’s origins, and that there are more people alive today who don’t want the truth coming out than I previously thought, and for a variety of reasons.
You keep that Occam’s Razor of yours nice and sharp and I’ll see what I can do to get to the cutting edge.
Love,
Caz
(Message edited by Caz on January 06, 2004) |
Sadie Jones
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, January 12, 2004 - 1:58 pm: | |
Hi all.
Always had an interest in this subject but on recently got more interested shall we say. Just a couple of points I'd like to make.
Concerning the diary...I have read the inside story...I congratulate the authors on a job well done, it was very informative and I have recommended it to others to read.
One point that strikes me odd...and maybe this has been said on here before and if so I apologise in advance. Ask yourselves this...if you decided you were going to forge something would you truly attempt to forge something that was over 100 years old? Think about it (which you all proberbly have). You'd have to know all about Victorian lifestyles and times, about the style of grammar etc, all about James Maybrick's life, have an extremely good insight on the Jack the ripper cases...so much to take in!! Then you would have to be able to get hold of blank victorian paper/book, ink that could pass for victorian etc. Suppose you brought the book from the auction who told you it was Victorian and it actually was'nt. The possibilties of it going wrong are endless. So. In my opinion it would be easier to prove it is fake then genuine. Yet it cannot be proved. I'm not saying I believe its genuine or fake...I honestly do not know, I am not an expert in such matters. But quite honestly...if I wanted to fake something that would have an impact...I think I'd go for something a little more recent and easier to forge would'nt you?
Sorry to ramble.
Best wishes. Sadie. |
Shannon Christopher
Inspector
Username: Shannon
Post Number: 341
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 2:06 pm: | |
Sadie, the older the document the fewer authorities there are to authenticate it, and the less is known about it. The Maybrick Diary can be proven a fake by the simplest of means; however the owners have refused to release it to be tested. If you read the diary closely you will see that it claims every known aspect of the case, and nothing that is unproven. Had it been real it would have disclosed at least one fact not known about the case that would be proven in time and give it credence. That has not happened, and it has served as the basis for it being faked as there are now facts which have come to light that disprove previous beliefs abut the Ripper in general and the diary in specific, and since the diary claims these facts, we know the book to be fake.
My grandfather kept a diary during WWII, written in pencil in an old bound note book. There are a number of blank pages in the final book. If I were to purchase a pencil from the times, remove his pages from the front of the book, and continue as thought it were 1945 (with the aid of a trip to the archives at the library) I would be able to write a very accurate story, and perhaps take credit for some event which changed the tide of the war, and sell the book for a profit much the same as the owners of the diary have.
Anyone can be duped. If you remember, the faked Hitler diaries were sold for $5 million dollars! There are many expert forgers out there and they do not limit their craft to currency and works of art...
Shannon
|
John Hacker
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jhacker
Post Number: 126
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 2:33 pm: | |
Sadie,
In regards to the points you made...
First off, we cannot know what was in the forgers mind, so speculation down that path will get us nowhere fast. It could have been made for any number of reasons. (It's also worth noting in my opinion that the 100th anniversary of the JtR crimes and Florrie's trial for James murder was only a few years prior to the diaries appearance.)
The diary doesn't actually demonstrate the the writer knew "all about Victorian lifestyles and times". There are strangely enough very few specifics in it.
The diary additionally contains errors of fact which show that the writer was not in fact JtR. (I.E. The writer has the killer placing MJK's breasts on the table, which was a popular misconception that we now know is not true based on Bond's report which became public in the late 80s.) In any case, there was certainly no shortage of JtR source material for our forger to pour over.
In addition Maybrick's life was very well documented due to his wife's trial for his "murder". (Read the "Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick by Ryan for more details. Indeed the entire transcript of her trial has been in print for 90+ years, which documents many facts about James's life.) There are no facts regarding James in the diary that couldn't be gotten by doing a very little research, and nothing new.
"Suppose you brought the book from the auction who told you it was Victorian and it actually was'nt."
Usually auction houses dealing in antiquities require a degree a proof that the item they are auctioning is indeed as it is represented.
And in fact, it did go wrong as tests have show the presence of a chemical (chloracetamaide) which was not used in period ink. And I think it's a fair bet that if the diary were to be made available for comprehensive testing it would be possible to nail down fairly conclusively when the thing was forged.
Regards,
John Hacker |
Anthony Dee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 9:56 am: | |
John,
I used your 100th anniversary theory on the other board. I forgot where it was at !! But I do agree with your thinking. This anniversary could have sparked an idea into someone's head. I'm wondering if this is a forgery, could Maybrick still be a suspect. Maybe a Family descendant decided to write this to expose the Family Secret.
Regards,
Anthony |
|
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