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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Enigma of Jack the Ripper, The (Locksley)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Non-Fiction:
Enigma of Jack the Ripper, The (Locksley)
Author: Dennis Stocks
Wednesday, 18 November 1998 - 11:56 pm |        | Back when I was a research biochemist, I was once told that no matter how eloquent or persuasive your argument; no matter how accurate or innovative your material, if a reader found one typing error the whole structure and content of your publication was henceforth questionable.
With this in mind I would like to bring to your attention two works on Jack the Ripper by Dr. J.R. Locksley: The Enigma of Jack the Ripper and Jack the Ripper Unveiled each available at £7:50 plus £1:50 for postage from McCarthy Office Services, 117 Fairmead Crescent, Edgewear, Middlesex HA6 8YR.
Enigma is 30 A4 pages and Unveiled is 26 A4 pages; both privately "published" (i.e. run off on a photocopier and bound with plastic covers). To call them "books" (as Locksley refers to them) is to have serious delusions as to the definitions of that word.
Now, in these days of word processors, formatting and spell checking, typing errors and layout anomalies are inexcusable. So, in these two works, why do we find:-
"Autumn" spelt as "Authem"; "farriers" as "farriars", "their" as "there", "of" as "off", "infirmary" as "infirmery", "liberty" as "libity", "hypothesis" as "hyposocis"?
Why are the 30 pages of Enigma numbered by hand (even if a PC wasn't available, you could feed each page through a manual typewriter before copying)?
Why do Tom Cullen appear as "Cullum", Conan Doyle as "Doyal", Henry Stanley as "Standley", Donald Rumbelow as "Rumberlow", Woodhall as "woohall", and Donald McCormick as "Marcormic"?
Why are no publisher details provided in the bibliography?
Why are the photograph captions in Unveiled hand written?
Why is the chart on page 1 of Enigma so messy? (Didn't Dr Locksley's PC/typewriter have a tab key?).
Why does Dr Locksley also appear not to understand the use of "'s" to denote the possessive (e.g. "Sickerts claim", "the Queens diaries", etc. etc. etc.). When he does use them, they are not grammatical. He uses the possessive when he should use the plural form; ["Biography's of his life..." ("Biographies" surely?)] and the plural form when he should have used the possessive ["the landladies suspect" when he means "the landlady's suspect"].
Why does he appear not to understand that quotations must be denoted by the use of parentheses? Even making the quoted passages in Italic would make it easier for the by-now highly-confused reader.
Why are there are strange passages which require a number of readings to glean the gist of what he means? Take for example, "In Bucks Row now Durward Street behind Whitechapel Tube Station, the road splits, blood stains went round the corner, Police did not question residents in the other road, only in Bucks Row." And "The alley Coles was stabbed to death in George Yard now called Gunthorp Street where Mather (sic) Turner and Tabram was killed and 29 Hanbury Street where Chapman was killed." WHAT?
Why are there gaps in the text where the formatting has skipped 10 character spaces or so?
In fact the writing is so bad, you start to believe that Dr Locksley is not at all comfortable with the English language. Yet, in Enigma, he claims to have regularly visited the Whitechapel area in the 1950s. So you can assume he has lived in an English-speaking milieu for some time. In any case, where was Dr Locksley's editor?
Look, to review these works is akin to shooting fish in a barrel and I am aware I could be seen as overly critical and pedantic. One typo is bad enough, but these pages are a manifesto of amateurism and examples of how not to "publish" your studies. When you consider they are for sale, "rip-off" springs readily to mind.
In short, they are a painful read. The message is long lost in the poorly presented medium.
In the context of the Ripper canon, there are also a number of astonishing statements: For we are told that
"This mircofich (sic) is a computer disc..." (and all this time I believed the film format of a microfiche bears no relation to the storage system used by floppy discs).
Dr Locksley has found an anagram in two of the Ripper letters which, deciphered, state "Fripp and Prince Albert Kill the whores Stride and Kelly".
the Goulston Street graffiti should be "translated" as "The Juives are not the women to be blamed for nothing?" and goes on to state: "As the constable who found it was sacked shortly after I think we can say it was decided he wrote it himself." I suppose this is more startling than the fact that PC Alfred Long was dismissed in 1889 for being drunk on duty?
This is prime example of my contention that the whole JTR canon is riddled with historical research so poor or so willing to alter the facts that it borders on the criminal.
In Unveiled we are told that Jack "never crossed a main road". Oh yes? What was Commercial Road? Etc. etc. etc.
In short the works are a thorough mess.
So what is his argument? Well, you finally come to it in Unveiled when he argues that Eddie, beset by syphilis, "does a Henry II" and exclaims the equivalent of "who will rid me of these turbulent whores?" And Dr Alfred Fripp does the necessaries.
But the format of the works absolutely detracts from the argument. Who knows, Dr (later Sir) Fripp may be a worthy candidate. Based on this work, who cares?
I am told that a third volume, A Ramble with Jack the Ripper, will be available at £20:00.
Don't bother. |
Author: 4cxxxxxrw
Sunday, 25 April 1999 - 08:58 pm | | | 7jrnnnnbvbrbv |
Author: Caz
Sunday, 25 April 1999 - 10:28 pm | | I thought all those 'enigma' variations had already been done to death during WWII, Mr/Ms 4cxxxxxrw.
Or can I call you "for-ce five kisses, aaargh! double you" (or quits)?
Howzat?
I thank you.
I'll leave the actual content to be interpreted by the author. Shouldn't think anyone else could decipher the bugger!
Love,
Caz |
Author: Julian
Monday, 26 April 1999 - 08:59 am | | G'day Caz,
I thought enigma variations were things you had to see a proctologist for.
Yeah mate, goodonya. It would have tooken me ages to have got that one.
Jules |
Author: Calogridis
Monday, 26 April 1999 - 09:16 am | | Howdy Caz, Jules!
Back when I was a youthful, albeit insane and rapidly aging, cryptographer, I used to wander the bloody streets of Whitechapel looking for just such a book as this! Ah well, fair dinkum.
Cheers.......Mike |
Author: Julian
Monday, 26 April 1999 - 10:28 am | | G'day everyone,
Hey Mike, does that mean you do engravings for tombs?
Jules |
Author: Caz
Tuesday, 27 April 1999 - 12:43 am | | That's epitaph variations or a tomb with a view. Unlike the poor victims, some of who had a womb with a view....
Sorry, I'm gone....
Love,
Caz |
Author: Calogridis
Tuesday, 27 April 1999 - 08:21 am | | Howdy Caz, Jules!
Jules- Yes, I do, mate. That's more or less a reasonable translation of my work.
Caz- I'll take a tomb with a brew!
Cheers......Mike |
Author: Caz
Tuesday, 27 April 1999 - 06:28 pm | | Hey Mike and Jules!
Does a cryptographer creep into a crypt, do something lavatorial beginning with yet another c word, and creep out again to the pub for that brew (ha ha)? Or should I say brouhaha?
Before I have my epitaphs torn off (or should that read epaulettes?), perhaps mine should go something like:
'ere lies Caz Senior (keep up, you can't get much more senior than dead). She was not the enigma who was not blamed for nuffink (probably), and she is still grappling with the problem of Jack, but is now under the very sod and with the very sod, so chances are she knows all the answers at last (ha ha bloody ha). Cheers!
(I'm not going anywhere yet, they'll have to beat my liver to death with a big stick first. Got that boomerang handy, Jules?)
Love,
Caz |
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