|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** 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 **
Archive through March 15, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
College course tackles the Diary:
Archive through March 15, 2001
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 04:28 am |        | Many years ago, almost as soon as I became acquainted with the ‘diary’, I asked three questions: When was the diary composed? Why was it composed? Who composed it? As Keith Skinner has pointed out many times on these boards, those questions haven’t been answered.
Most times it is enough to know that a document was not written at the time and by the person it purports to have been. That is almost certainly the case with the ‘diary’. But as every historian knows, there are times when there is a very real need to know the purpose of the forgery, something often divined from knowing when and by whom it was forged. So, whilst the linguistic evidence indicates that the ‘diary’ was not written at the time and by the person claimed, can we deduce anything from content that indicates when and by whom (the type of person, educational background for example, rather than the identity of that person) it was written?
The ‘diary’ is interesting and, indeed, valuable because of what we can learn from it. If in the future a document like this emerges in the way this one has done, where commercial interests compete with academic ones, is there anything we have learned from the ‘diary’ investigation that we should apply to the assessment of that future document? What rules or guidelines can we or should we be trying to lay down. As Madeleine says, quoting me but saying it so much better, “As long as the discussion is all argument and counter-argument, as Paul says, you've really got nothing you can take into criminal court.” So, what can we deduce from everything that we can take into court? What can we establish as free of ambiguity and argument counter-argument?
It seems to me that many of the arguments and counter-arguments could be resolved if we knew who wrote the ‘diary’. We would then be in a position to better analyse and understand the root of the argument and counter argument. Identifying the forger isn’t just a matter of morbid curiosity, but could reveal valuable lessons that would help in the assessment of future questioned documents. |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 06:42 am | | John
'...especially with our help' - yes, indeed. It is with our help that what I find a pretty clumsy forgery is transformed into a work of literary and historical genius. Don Rumbelow remarked quite early on that we were doing the forger's work for him; that by bringing together some of the best-informed minds working in the field, the diary proponents gave the diarist the advantage of extremely skilful attempts to postulate ways in which his or her weaknesses might be explained away. Don, of course, comes from the great days before 1987 when Ripper writers were generously encouraging to newcomers in the field, and while they happily and almost playfully might tout their own theories competitively, nobody was seriously trying to put other people down and inflate his own importance. Even Dan Farson, who could be 'as malignant as Henry VIII' in the words of an Italian newspaper, and whose confrontation with Howells and Skinner was unpleasantly hostile, only behaved like that when he was drunk. The Cosgrove-Muerer team, who met with everybody well-known on the case except Richard Whittington-Egan, found Dan 'the best value' (in the sense of the most congenial and entertaining company) of the lot of us. But as Dan's serious drinking day began at about 10.00am, you had to catch him before the late afternoon to get the advantage of the generosity with which he wrote to me when I was starting my own work on the case. Colin Wilson continues this benign tradition of encouraging everybody without caring whether this makes him look inconsistent or at times guilty of endorsing bad historical approaches.
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:20 am | | | Sorry. A mispost. |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:21 am | | Hi Martin
Whilst it might be true that the experts did the forgers work for him, the document could not have been properly assessed without experts being brought in. What guidelines can be laid down to have the expert assessment without the attendent dangers, I wonder.
There is an article in the current issue of History Today by Angus Mitchell, who is currently completing a volume of documents for the Irish Manuscripts Commission about Sir Roger Casement,in which he very briefly looks at some of the problems surrounding historical document analysis and drawing comparisons between the Casement so-called Black Diaries and the Maybrick 'diary'. He concludes: 'Confusion surrounds questions of approach and what methods can and cannot be considered 'scientific' and 'conclusive'. What we need now is a clearer set of guidelines as to how questions of authenticity should be approached by the historian in the twenty-first century.'
Bit of a coincidence. |
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 09:47 am | | Paul,
Twice you've remarked that it would take a "21st century historian" in posts back to back. Martin Fido also said something that leads me to ask and answer a question "What makes a historian ?".
My answer to that is simple, someone who gets off their backsides and do research, writes about it and gives an accurate view of things.
My question to you young master Begg is this :-
"All that has been in the public domain has been cut open and talked about a great deal by so many people that they are blue in the face. Do we have anymore files being opened soon or what ?"
The only thing that keep historians speaking in this new century is if the public shove in front of us new clues that sound a bit suspect. Now I'll ask you something on a personal level. Do you know something we don't ? or were you just suggesting ?
Tris |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 11:20 am | | Tris
"My answer to that is simple, someone who gets off their backsides and do research, writes about it and gives an accurate view of things."
I'll accept this as an extremely broad definition of a historian, but if you examine it you will immediately be confronted by the problem of what you mean by 'accurate'. We weren't there. We don't know what happened from personal experience. And if we have the eye-witness account of someone who was there, we only have their perspective. Someone else might have a totally different perspective. So how do we know what actually happened? What is the 'accurate' picture? We can know that something happened, but the variety of things that led up to it happening can be hazy and open to various interpretation. So we can say as accurate fact that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, but there may be a host of problems surrounding our understanding of the event. The picture depends a lot on how the available information is assessed and interpreted and a great deal depends on the skill and ability of the historian. If history was simply a matter of telling a story based on the available data then nobody would by writing new history books. These books get written because they look at existing evidence in different ways, perhaps questioning conclusions reached by others or giving greater weight to a piece of evidence than someone else has done. Go to any history journal and you'll find articles re-evaluating this or that conclusion or arguing the fine points of some piece of minutia. This is particularly the case the further back in history you go, when the available information diminishes, is disparate and of variable quality. This, of course, is an extremely short and very, very far from tolerable appreciation of what the historian does, but it does, I hope, provide satisfactory reply to your question about what a historian will do in the 21st century. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 01:05 pm | | Hi Martin,
You are quite correct, I think, to point out that,
"It is with our help that what I find a pretty clumsy forgery is transformed into a work of literary and historical genius."
Well, into a work of unknown and mysterious origins that seems to resist identification perhaps because of what was left out of the thing rather than what was put in; but, and I know you were not being serious, a work which is in the end, of course, neither very literary nor historical. In fact, I suspect that if it were more explicitly literary or historical; if it were, that is, a "better" book, it might actually be easier to determine something about its production. I'm not sure about this though.
People have been asking what we might conclude about the nature of our diarist. Well, I have noticed at least two small and probably not very significant things. First, as many readers have noticed, the grammar and syntax shift dramatically from proper, almost formal and legalist constructions to elementary and often seemingly deliberate error-filled jottings, sometimes within the same two or three lines. To me, the formal constructions sound much less natural for the writer than their opposite. They sound forced, as if someone were mimicking the language of stiffness. Perhaps the charade which, in the writing, sought to balance the tightrope between apparently (and somewhat naively caricatured) Victorian styled constructions and the ravings of madness, was too difficult to maintain for our writer -- who I would think is likely to have a fairly short attention span even though they have an obvious affection for playing with words. Also, the Diary at times seems to be arguing with itself and its potential readers as if it was aware of the debate that would arise about its authenticity. Consider explicit statements such as these, made after "Maybrick" decides "London it shall be,"
"And why not, is it not an ideal location? Indeed do I not frequently visit the Capital and indeed do I not have legitimate reasons for doing so?" (my emphasis)
It's as if the book was saying, "you see, this is why Maybrick chose London and look, it makes sense, see?"
On almost every page the book seems to argue at least a few times explicitly for its own making sense and its own authenticity; something a diarist would actually never be worried about.
Second, many readers have already noted the obvious dramatic structure of the book -- how, even though we allegedly begin in media res, we have an establishing shot and the locations and first major events all set up and revealed in the first page and how, as Chris has recently once again pointed out, the diary builds to climax in a cliche of dramatic construction and seems aware of its own conclusion in advance and begins to rhapsodize sentimentally about itself. If America has given nothing else to the world it has given it a flood of cheesy Hollywood movies, nearly all of which follow precisely the same structure, employ the same cliched conventions, and never fail to fulfill their audience's expectations in every way. The diary does precisely this (and, of course, I'm not sure how anyone's diary could ever do this if it was in fact written as one lived one's life). Consequently, I would not be surprised at all if our diarist was a movie-goer of a common sort, someone who had a fondness for the most popular and mainstream of Hollywood's product or for their equivalent in the world of cheesy novels (indeed they might very well be a casual reader of mega-sellers in the pop thriller or mystery fields). The predictability of Hollywood's most popular products is echoed throughout this little melodrama. When all is said and done, if I had to guess about anything, I'd guess the writer saw not only his or her share of horror films, but perhaps even Titanic (after the fact) and other such monuments to hackneyed conventions and cliches as well.
I'm off over the edge of the speculative cliff here, of course; but where else can someone go to throw down such potentially preposterous ideas?
--John (Relaxing on a Sunday and willing to be irresponsible). |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 03:40 pm | | Hi, John:
You stated,
. . . the Diary at times seems to be arguing with itself and its potential readers as if it was aware of the debate that would arise about its authenticity. Consider explicit statements such as these, made after "Maybrick" decides London it shall be,"
"And why not, is it not an ideal location? Indeed do I not frequently visit the Capital and indeed do I not have legitimate reasons for doing so?" (my emphasis)
It's as if the book was saying, "you see, this is why Maybrick chose London and look, it makes sense, see?"
I have stated here in the past, in a post that is either archived or has been lost in some of the board troubles, that as a Liverpudlian I view the notion that Maybrick travelled the 200 miles by train to London as "a stretch." So this is the reason why there is all of the self-justifying going on.
There were plenty of prostitutes in Liverpool--Lime Street and the area around Canning Place, close to the docks--were two locations notorious for them. So why did Maybrick have to go to London to commit the murders? The answer is, of course, that Maybrick didn't have to go to the capital to murder prostitutes. Unless, that is, if the writer had a need to get him to London because he wanted to make James Maybrick into Jack the Ripper, who committed his murders in Whitechapel, London. As a result, the writer is straining to make it plausible to the reader that he needed to travel to London to commit the murders.
Thus, the contrived passages after supposedly seeing Florence having a "rondaveau" (as he spells it) in Whitechapel, Liverpool. "I took refreshment at the Poste House [a pub near Whitechapel in Liverpool] it was there I finally decided London it shall be. And why not, is it not an ideal location? Indeed do I not frequently visit the Capital and indeed do I not have legitimate reasons for doing so. . . . I said Whitechapel [London] it will be and Whitechapel it shall. The bitch and her whoring master will rue the day I first saw them together. I said I am clever, very clever. Whitechapel Liverpool, Whitechapel London, ha ha. No one could possibly place it together. And indeed for there is no need for anyone to do so."
The forger of the Diary well knows the connection between the two Whitechapels is contrived, so he or she is trying to convince us it is a natural link because Maybrick is "clever, very clever" and after all "No one could possibly place it together."
Chris George |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 03:53 pm | | Hi again John:
I have just noticed that the Diary hoaxer makes a slip-up when talking about where he will commit his murders. Nothing that proves utterly that the Diary is a hoax, of course, but a slip-up nonetheless. In the first passage that I quoted, the writer says the place will be London but when he is referring back to this decision he says "I said Whitechapel [London] it will be and Whitechapel it shall." In the first mention he did not mention Whitechapel, London, at all, only London! So this might well be a case where, as you noted, we are bringing our expectations to the Diary, i.e., that Maybrick is going to be Jack and will murder in Whitechapel, so most of us, myself included, probably thought that Maybrick said initially that he would do his murders in Whitechapel, London, and he did not.
Chris |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 03:56 pm | | Good point concerning Liverpool and the justifications, Chris.
This would suggest that we have a writer who is not only fond of, or at least a product of, conventional mainstream fictions, and particularly unselfconscious about using them, and who has a fairly short attention span but loves to play with words and is probably a bit pleased with themselves when they do, but is also lacking in self-confidence and perhaps doubts their own ability to pull this thing off (thus all the explicit self-defense of the work's authenticity and the rationalization in the guise of cleverness).
Well, perhaps we're on our speculative way to some sort of little Sunday afternoon sketch of a "profile."
Bye for now,
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 03:59 pm | | Just saw your latest post, Chris.
I hadn't noticed that. But now I am out the door to a dinner engagement.
--John |
Author: Madeleine Murphy
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 08:42 pm | | Chris and John: interesting exercise in profiling. Have you read Douglas' recent book? I've mentioned it here. I'm not much of a true crime fan--who wants to know all that stuff, really!--but I thought the idea of profiling fascinating--and I'd always thought it was cobblers, I'm afraid, but I can see some value in it.
madeleine |
Author: Madeleine Murphy
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 08:49 pm | | Paul: you have brought up exactly what I think is exciting about this debate, and why I make it part of my crit thinking curriculum. It shows that there are different forms of enquiry.
The three questions that matter--who wrote the diary, when, and why--remain unanswered. What kind of enquiry brings us closer to answering them? Not, I think, the kind of inquiry that historians provide, or literary analysts. This is a problem of detection.
But police detection requires resources that aren't available here: massive door-to-door enquiries, exhuming bodies, teams of people consulting massive databases etc. I don't see anyone going to those lengths to ascertain this diary's provenance.
I think it'll remain unanswered....
madeleine |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Sunday, 11 March 2001 - 11:50 pm | | Excuse me, but...
The diary refers to a poem written in 1959. The only logical explanation for the Crashaw line is from the Sphere Guide (1986). The police inventory list was made public in 1987. Poste House was evidently renamed post-1960. The ink was found to be soluble, with no bronzing. The diary is stained with glue and once contained photographs. All of which demonstrates the provenance cannot be true. So, in all fairness, hasn't the 'when' been well established?
Best wishes. |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 01:21 am | | Hi R.J.
Aren't those points you've listed disputed? |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 06:54 am | | Hello Paul & everyone.
Well, I don't believe they can be disputed.
Taking the hint from Mr. Fido that the ink debate is dreadfully boring, I'll only state that the first scientist to test the ink, Dr. Baxendale, found the ink readily soluble. He put it in a mixture of distilled water and Pyridine, and it dissolved in a matter of seconds... while he watched. How could he be mistaken?
As to the diary referring to 'Eight Little Whores', it certainly has not been disputed by either Paul Feldman nor Shirley Harrison, the diary's two staunchest supporters. 'Whether supporters or critics of James Maybrick's diary, the 'experts' were unanimous: the poem was clearly 'echoed' in it' (Paul Feldman, The Final Chapter, p. 388.) 'In particular we were concerned with a mysterious rhyme, 'Eight Little Whores'. There was good reason. * * * If 'The Chronicles of Crime' did not exist --or if, as has been imputed, they were the result of Mr McCormick's imagination--we of the Diary had a problem. For the Diary and the poem echo each other and include the images of burning and ripeness." Shirley Harrison, (Blake edition, p 155-156).
As for the Mikado & other alternatives, I will only say that that they are not in iambic pentameter, nor do they refer to anything resembling 'whores' being in 'heaven'. But the rhymes in the diary do.
One dirty whore was looking for some gain,
Another dirty whore was looking for the same'
(p 396, Blake)
'One whore in heaven
two whores side by side,
three whores all have died
four' (p 423, Blake)
And considering the poem is included in a book that also mentions the police list, the Punch cartoon, and the 'marks' on Eddowes --all of which are referred to in the diary-- I hardly think this is a stretch to assume the Diary's reference comes from the same source.
As for McCormick's poem, it contains the Henage Court reference that was not available until Spicer told his story in 1931 to the Daily Express. It repeats the spelling error that was in the Daily Express. We have on good authority that McCormick admitted to inventing the poem for his 1959 book, and, considering the above facts, and McCormick's other proven inventions, it seems very likely indeed.
Thus, I think is open-and-shut that the diary is post-1959. The other indications show that it is post-1990. This is rather a shame, really. But I think it must be so.
Best wishes,
RJ Palmer |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 07:16 am | | Well, we have it on Melin Harris's authority that McCormick confessed to writing "Eight Little Whores" but whether or not he did so is unproven and seriously open to question since McCormick was concerned that he would suffer a stress-related angina attack and on the authority of personal experience if I feared an angina attack brought on by stress then I'd go nowhere near a television studio, especially if I understood that I was going to be put in a court-room recreation, cross-questioned and exposed on peak-time national television as a fraud and charlatan. I therefore question whether McCormick fully understood what was in store for him and in turn question whether he understood what he was admitting to or, indeed, that he was admitting to anything. Moreover, he has since twice denied the admission, which regretably is now the only response we have from him. Overall, though I have no particular regard for McCormick, I'm far from happy about accepting his supposed confession as fact. The poem, at least, therefore dates the 'diary' to post 1931.
I also think the Eddowes inquest papers were available to public inspection at some point prior to 1987, though you'd have had to have known that they existed in order to access them. Keith may be able to confirm this.
The ink question seems altogether too muddled to make much sense of, but does it point to dates or just to not Victorian?
Poste House is well aired.
I'm therefore not sure that all is as conclusive as you'd like. Which isn't to say that you are wrong, of course. Indeed, you are probably right. |
Author: Melvin Harris
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 12:31 pm | | CONCEALMENT AGAIN!
The ever-grudging Begg is obviously relying on people having short memories. The carping points he makes were dealt with in full on my McCormick postings. But briefly, for those who might be sucked in by his rigged statements, here are some of the points he deliberately avoids mentioning. In 1987 McCormick was no longer in poor health. I had been wrongly informed on that matter, and he soon corrected me. His low point had been reached 15 years BEFORE our Ripper confrontation. Long rest had restored his vitality (so he said) and he was quite perky when we spoke. He had no difficulty whatsoever in following the points I made and finally accepted that an exposure was inevitable. But I have ALREADY registered those facts on this site.
For his part, since the case against the bogus material in his book was beyond challenge, he had the option of simply providing a written acceptance without the need to appear before camera. The choice would be left up to him, without any pressure being applied.
Begg's words "...he has twice since denied the admission..." are misleading to the point of dishonesty. What Begg conceals is the fact that these denials, ten years later, WERE COUPLED with a claim that he had never heard of H.L. Adam, which was an outright lie. As I have demonstrated, his central thesis could not have existed without Adam's book which McCormick drew on for at least twelve of his pages. And McCormick's Ripper fabrications were based on Adam's faulty chronology. This is beyond dispute. So why should his lying statements be regarded as of value and something to be used against the true account I have given?
Now Begg could have unmasked McCormick years ago, if he had bothered to look in the right places; the obvious places. But Begg did not do this. So whatever views he developed on McCormick were inevitably based on incompetent research. Is this what lies behind his failure to acknowledge that my investigation exposed a charlatan beyond doubt? Does he need to be so miserly with the truth and so grudging with his recognition of a job well done? |
Author: Madeleine Murphy
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 01:16 pm | | "Whatever views he [Begg] developed on McCormick were inevitably based on incompetent research."
Or maybe just caution? I assumed Paul meant simply that it would be wise to reserve some skepticism about the word of someone who (and of course I am only going on what is said here, I don't know McCormick) sounds like a total dingbat.
RJ, I agree with you: I reckon the post-1959 IS proven. But it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than conclusively--like so many guesses, it's still induction, not deduction. Alas!
madeleine |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 12 March 2001 - 02:11 pm | | In 1987 McCormick was no longer in poor health. I had been wrongly informed on that matter, and he soon corrected me. His low point had been reached 15 years BEFORE our Ripper confrontation. Long rest had restored his vitality (so he said) and he was quite perky when we spoke.
In 1988 Melvin Harris planned to expose Donald McCormick as a fraud and fabricator on national peak-time television. He understood that Mr. McCormick was in poor health and took some basic precautions "Because I knew that McCormick's health was not good, I decided to soften any future blows by giving him prior warning." (Melvin Harris, The Maybrick Hoax: Donald McCormick's Legacy). Harris was reassured, however, when McCormick explained that "His only concern then was to guard against too much stress, in case he had an attack of ANGINA…" (Melvin Harris on Monday, May 3, 1999 - 06:38 pm).
He may indeed have been quite perky. But he sure as hell wouldn't have been in the least bit perky if suffering a stress-related angina attack. As I have said, if I feared a stress-related angina attack I would have taken the simple precaution of avoiding stress. I therefore question whether Donald McCormick properly understood what was planned for him and whether or not he fully knew what he was confessing to or even that he knew he was confessing to anything at all. And no matter how loudly Melvin whines and whinges, as one who can speak about angina with authority, I regard my doubts wholly justified – especially as Donald McCormick denied making the admission.
As for what Melvin so charmingly, if grossly inaccurately, regards as “misleading to the point of dishonesty”, it is possibly worth pointing out that on the one hand McCormick was failing to recall a source he had used when writing a book – one of many – he’d written several years before and on the other was denying that he had invented a rhyme. Personally I don’t find it in the least unlikely that an elderly man might forget a source, no matter how central to his book, but be able to remember whether or not he’d confessed an invention to Melvin Harris. And it is typical of Melvin’s habitual willingness to see the worst in everything to describe an elderly man’s probable lapse of memory as ‘an outright lie’.
Overall, a rather sad exhibition of puffed-up, foot-stampting ranting and raving!
By the way, Melvin, have you received Shirley's letter via your publisher and passed it onto the newspaper editor? |
Author: Melvin Harris
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 10:01 am | | CONCEALED AGAIN
Begg now tries to argue that McCormick might forget the H.L. Adam source, since it involved a book written years before, but still be believable when denying authorship of the poem. Well, the book was first published in 1959 which does seem a good while ago BUT the Adam connection was discussed with McCormick step-by-detailed-step in 1987! As a well-experienced interviewer I made sure that McCormick had a copy of his book at hand before we began so that every point I had to make could be checked by him at once. Now Adam's blunder provided the key proof of McCormick's duplicity and that proof has been placed on screen. No one, anywhere, has disputed the accuracy of that exposure. In 1987 the poem was just one marginal item of quite minor importance, but the crucial Adam material was uppermost in McCormick's mind. A mind that was crystal clear. He was far from being an absent-minded, confused, fuddy-duddy.
Since every bogus sequence of McCormick's Klosowski hunt was shown to rely on Adam's false information, it would, in 1987, be well imprinted in McCormick's memory as new material, superseding the original use in 1959. Thus the man did not have to cast his mind back to a distant past.
There are many who know that I warned against the use of the 'Little Whores' poem as early as 1987. Fido even had a specific warning sent to him on that score. But that was simply because so many writers were repeating it as if it was authentic verse dating from 1888. And that was long before the Diary was ever heard of. It is only since the appearance of the Diary that an attempt is being made to devalue the confession I had from McCormick. Which is tantamount to saying that all the fake material I uncovered is accepted for what it is, EXCEPT for one small item. An item that is distinctly embarrassing for those who want to get Anne Graham off the hook. And equally embarrassing for both Feldman and Mrs Harrison.
So there it is, we have a man who is known to have invented material freely when writing his books. In the Ripper field he provided a faked Chapman/Abberline saga plus a faked Ochrana Gazette text and faked Belloselski correspondence. And yet, despite this, a special status is being claimed for a poem that has no ancestry, that reflects a story that was never aired until 1931, and never saw light until 1959. And the story itself does not even involve the Ripper but hinges around a man who "turned out to be a highly respected doctor who gave a Brixton address."
Thus Begg must accept that I have good reasons for doubting his motives when he attempts to disparage my McCormick investigation. And I am strengthened in my distrust of his objectivity and honesty when I read: "The poem, at least, therefore dates the 'diary' to post 1931."
By the way, no one yet has picked up on the fact that although McCormick admitted that the poem was a fake, I have not stated that the verses were actually written by him. That is why in my last letter to him I stated that I was still not asking for the name of the culprit. So in one odd way it would be quite in order for him to deny that he had personally WRITTEN the poem. And there hangs an amusing tale of McCormick at his roguish and teasing best. He freely acknowledged that it was based on the Express story but bounced around clues and diversions when asked about the authorship. From the smokescreen emerged one man. His friend and fellow-delighter in crafting engaging yarns; none other than Ian Fleming. |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 12:19 pm | | HARRIS DRIBBLES AGAIN
I am at a loss to see why Harris imagines that I ‘must accept’ that he has good reasons for doubting my motives and I don’t know why he thinks I am disparaging his McCormick investigation. I am quite reasonably questioning his conclusion for which he offers no proof whatsoever except his word, which I don’t doubt except to point out that he would be pre-disposed to see the worst in McCormick and his objectivity is therefore in question. I appreciate that Harris can’t tolerate criticism and reacts to it with rudeness, flinging around all sorts of infantile accusations of dishonesty, but I can speak with some authority on angina, do not find it something to be so dismissive about, and very seriously question whether McCormick’s concentration after being told that his book was a concoction to be exposed on television would have been as great as Harris fondly fancies. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, I wasn’t there, but a cause for doubt is rightly and justly exists and it is to be regreted that Harris can't react and respond to it like a grown-up. It is quite remarkable, though, that in “Concealed Again” we get the impression that Donald McCormick was in the peak of health when interrogated by Melvin, but we see elsewhere Melvin admitting that at that time McCormick feared a stress-related angina attack. Maybe Harris doesn’t consider angina serious, but he certainly seems guilty of altering the details of his story to suit his needs. And he accuses me of concealing something! Now, of course, he continues his habit of dribbling information, telling us that he never actually claimed that McCormick wrote ‘Eight Little Whores’. Well, I had noted that fact amid all the jolly nod and wink subterfuge Harris was engaging in with McCormick and it was one of the reasons why I felt that McCormick had done no more than acknowledge that “Eight Little Whores” was based on the Spicer story. But there is no doubt in my mind that it was Harris’s intention to convey the impression that McCormick had written it and it is certainly an impression he has done absolutely nothing to correct – a bit of a habit of his – so he should be less free in accusing others of being misleading to the point of dishonesty!
So I don’t feel inclined to accept Harris’s word alone and I think my concerns are right and proper. If he produces more information that supports his tale, that’s fine. But I feel Harris’s story is increasingly suspect. If McCormick had never admitted to writing “Eight Little Whores” and if “Eight Little Whores” was in fact penned by Ian Fleming, then McCormick’s denial of authorship was truthful. Why hasn't Harris said so before? Why all this waffle about whether or not McCormick was lying about H.L. Adam? It’s completely and absolutely irrelevant. All very odd and Harris looks a million miles from being straightforward and honest. Trying to make some sense out of what Harris likes to tell us, what he implies and what he leaves us to infer is like trying to knit fog. It's also just as gloomy and damp. |
Author: Paul Begg
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 12:34 pm | | | By the way, Melvin, have you received Shirley's letter via your publisher and passed it onto the newspaper editor? |
Author: shirley harrison
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 12:50 pm | | Peter Birchwood wrote:
"Faced with the probability that this [Mike's confession] would be the end
of the diary as a royalty-producing artefact it would not be impossible for
us to consider Anne, now a single mother with a soon-to-be ex-husband whose
potential for paying maintenance had apparently been knocked on the head by
his public denial of the diary's genuiness, to try to find some way to give
new plausibility to the thing."
"Surely it is just at that sort of time when it looked as though part of her
income was slipping away that someone who wanted desperately to pay her
bills would think of this..."
This is indeed a reasonable supposition were it not that those of us who were dealing daily with Anne and Mike at the time saw a different scenario. When Anne left Mike she was in an extremely distressed and vulnerable state. But she is also a strong and independent woman. At no time did she ever discuss the question of money due to her from Mike - she wanted nothing to do with him and did not expect any maintenance and was not planning to ask for any. One of her big worries was to get a job and support Caroline.
For Anne to have involved her father - by then a very sick man - in an extremely risky provenance story was asking for trouble. Besides there was no guarantee of money. At that stage she was not owed any royalties at all because the contract only provided for Michael to a 50% share. It was Doreen Montgomery's unilateral decision after the divorce that Anne should have a half share of Mike's 50%'
Now Peter you may be able to help me here. I am asking this in the same spirit that I approached Melvin for the newspaper name so I hope you will feel able to respond. The question of what Mike DID with his money has worried us from the beginning - he bought his girl friend a 500pound car and was paying out 60 pound a time to taxi drivers….but what else. I wonder, since there was a private detective working on the case and privy to Mike finances, whether you have seen his bank statements and can throw any light on the m ystery?. Again it may be wiser, at least for the moment, to pursue this off the board? What do you think.
And yes Paul you are right....RJ's points are disputed but I realy cant write the book again here. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Tuesday, 13 March 2001 - 11:20 pm | | Gentlemen, my apologies for bringing up McCormick; I forgot that this involved a point of rather bitter contention. The recent discussion had been about the text of the diary and how it might indicate its age, and the 'Eight Little Whores' poem just seemed like an appropriate item for discussion. I simply felt that the points Melvin made in his dissertation were well argued. No hard feelings were intended.
RJP |
Author: shirley harrison
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 04:47 am | | With her permission I am posting Madeleine's recent Email to me because it is a breath of fresh objective air.
She wrote:
I think part of what this story reveals is how many resources are required
for detective work. This is what you're really undertaking, whether in
regards to murder or forgery. Fiction has given us a steady diet of maverick
cops who solve the crime all on their own. Actually, it takes teams of
detectives consulting thousands, maybe tens of thousands of records;
fantastically expensive testing; endless enquiries etc. It seems to me that
to ask you, or any journalist or historian, to conclusively authenticate or
discredit this document without those resources, is to ask the
impossible--or at least to ask you to be amazingly lucky. Sure, if you'd
turned up an account of Maybrick giving a speech to some Liverpool Cotton
Merchant Society on the night someone was being killed, the document would
be debunked (though the origin of the forgery would still be mysterious).
But historians of all people ought to know that it's very lucky to find
something like that. I remember spending hours in the British Library,
desperately hoping to find some note from Dickens saying, "You know, my REAL
feeling about the Benthamites is..." Fat chance.
If you had all the forensic resources available, science might help. DNA
testing, for instance, might establish if Anne Graham is indeed related to
Maybrick, or if the document is smeared with Maybrick genetic material. But
no police authority would devote those resources to catching either a
long-dead murderer, or a small-time fraudster; and I'm sure it's beyond the
scope of an individual, unless you wanted to sell your house and live under
a bridge!p
So I think you're right; history it most likely is, and that means, more
guesswork.
I can see why it's hard to contend with some of the board comments: hostile
or supportive, I can't imagine it's easy to hear others talk about real
people and real events as if they were fiction. And some of the participants
are, er, quite emphatic.... |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 07:08 am | | RJP
The point you raised was appropriate and you were right to bring it up, so you have nothing to apologise for. The points you made are perfectly valid but are questioned (whether rightly or wrongly), not to my mind conclusively proven, and therefore rather dubiously presented as established indicators of a recent date for composition. I think the McCormick confession was justifiably questioned (and rightly questioned, as it turns out, if we now accept Melvin’s claim that McCormick didn’t confess to having written it). Perhaps we should have anticipated a little temperamental foot-stamping, but the discussion had been an intelligent and fascinating one up to that time. Let’s hope it can continue to be so.
Madeleine/Shirley
Indeed, a breath of fresh-air. But excellent literary discussion - and wasn't Dickens's view on the Benthamites that they were a lousy tag-team but would with experience be worthy contenders with the Dudleys for the WWF championship belt? Or am I thinking of something else entirely. No doubt Martin will tell me. |
Author: Madeleine Murphy
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 10:20 am | | Actually it is a common historical misconception that Benthamites and the other Philosophic radicals were not sporty. But many Benthamites *were* gifted wrestlers. John Mill's close friend Roebuck was also known as Art the Puppy-Crusher, and his scarlet tights and villain's mask became familiar sights around his Midlands constituency.
Martin, you will surely back me up here.
madeleine |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 10:26 am | | And there was I, all ready to come to the aid of the party with a comforting warm poultice for Charlie's 'feeling about the Benthamites'... silly me.
I have been sitting quietly reading this little scholarly thread in wide-eyed wonder and more than a little amusement. This time last year, the diary board was visited on a regular basis by those whose views ranged from: there is zero merit in even discussing the forged diary; anyone who brings up the subject is wasting their time, as well as valuable space on the casebook; none of it being in any way relevant to the ripper, means this whole section should not form part of the JtR message boards; the diary itself should be burnt, or otherwise destroyed, because it serves only to cause trouble and can't possibly teach us anything remotely useful about anything.
I often felt entirely alone and battered in a sea of these people, when I tried to raise what I sincerely thought were relevant or at least interesting questions posed by the diary and the story surrounding it.
Where are all those people now, to tell the contributors to threads such as this one, the same as they told me a year ago? Forget the diary and the debate they said. Sorry, but it doesn't look that simple from where I'm sitting.
Carry on diary campers of all persuasions. :-)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 11:24 am | | Eek! Between Paul's waggishness and Madeleine's learning I am now floundering! I presume James Mill wouldn't have fallen off a horse if placed on one, and might even have taught little John to ride in the intervals of mastering Sanskrit and Urdu before starting primary schjool. But I have never really considered Utilitarian sportiness, and honestly don't know whether Madeleine is pulling the other one to see if she can hear the bells. (Is that a football at the Sainted Jeremy's feet in UCL, though?)
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 11:52 am | | Hi Madeleine
In the WWF line-up of superstars today is a tag team called “The Radicals”. It is a little known facts that their full name is “The Philosophical Radicals” and their idea is to change the democratic constitutional philosophy of the WWF forever. They believe that they have to weigh the pleasure of actions, like stomping an opponent’s head, against all affected by the actions. Their weakness, of course, is that they have more pleasures than pains, 14 against 12 to be precise, which isn’t much cop for a wrestler. Hence they get beaten more often than not. And isn’t is remarkable that John Mill became such a fine actor, retaining his youthful appearance over so many decades that many thought him a real life Dorian Gray, even though his unconventional relationship with Harriet Taylor did put a strain on a marriage that fortunately survived to produce over a century later such charming daughters as Juliet and Hayley. Mark you, I thought his account of the 1859 Wrestlemania, On Liberty at which Dogbreath Liberty was defeated and Undertaker took the heavyweight belt as fine a piece of economist-philosophical wrestling journalism I’d read before Bret Hart started writing for the Calgary Sun.
Is this starting to get just a little bit silly? |
Author: Melvin Harris
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 12:38 pm | | DIVERSIONS AND WORSE.
Begg fields his usual waffle when faced with some hard facts. The angina issue is a time-wasting diversion. I know a good deal about this condition since two of my close relatives have suffered from it. My uncle dealt with the problem for thirty years, but he was able to drive, attend exciting rugby and football matches and serve on quite hectic ex-prisoner-of-war committees. He did not smoke or drink, however. And the condition never affected the quality of his thought, even in his last days. (he died in his late eighties of pneumonia) Back in 1987 McCormick was equally clear in his thoughts and responses. After all, he was talking to someone he had known for years and it was not the first time that I had queried his written claims. And he bore no grudge, since he knew I was acting in my professional capacity and had no personal motive for demolishing his book. My attitude towards him was never a harsh one, it was quite unlike Fido's attitude. (Those who saw McCormick and myself together at Camille Wolff's in 1995, will agree that our meeting was a warm and friendly one, marked by open amusement from both of us)
Now, I would never have allowed McCormick to be subjected to any type of questioning that he felt uneasy with. By contrast, Begg himself was party to a filming session where frail Joseph Sickert was questioned to the point of anger, anguish and tears. And, according to Begg, Joseph later suffered a heart attack.
But the real issue here is over Begg's one-sided presentation of events some ten years later. In McCormick's answer the Adam denial was tied in with the poem denial. Assessment as evidence inexorably meant taking the two denials together. In concealing the Adam part Begg made a dishonest presentation. As I have shown the Adam material was central to McCormick's hoax and his awareness of that was fresh in his mind in 1987.
Now the Adam source can be checked out by anyone who compares the 'Trial of Chapman' with McCormick's 'The Identity of Jack the Ripper'. It does not need any words of agreement from McCormick to prove the fakery. The evidence is inescapable, and I have provided a breakdown of that evidence for those who do not have easy access to the books. In 1987 that was the key issue. The question of the poem was an ultra-trivial point, at best. It was a bogus piece rooted in the Spicer story; a text that did not even involve the Ripper. It was only raised since I wanted to save future writers from embarrassment. At that time the poem had been accepted without question and used by Camps, Odell, Farson, Cullen, Rumbelow, and Michael Harrison. McCormick was amused by the ready acceptance of something that was a glaring fake, but he joked about it in such a way that I gathered that the verses had been contrived by someone close to him as an embellishment for his book. At first I thought he meant his wife when he joked about a very close bond between them. But a few jests later I realised that he was hinting at a fellow prankster from his newspaper days.
(This bogus poem was later used by Fido, Underwood, and Wilson)
So in 1987 the poem was of very limited interest and of no great importance. Once I had warned about it, then it became unimportant. It stayed UNIMPORTANT through 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992. It only became important in 1993, when Feldman announced that an early draft of the poem had been discovered in the Diary text. Having said that, if the poem was a fake then the Diary was a fake, he fenced himself in and sent his minions on a search to find the 'Dutton Diaries'. It was a futile quest. But it brought forth yet another forgery; a letter from a man who claimed to have seen those diaries in the possession of a well-known policeman.
It was only because of the Diary camp's need to hang on to their lucrative possession that belief in this poem has become vital. The only people who need to dispute McCormick's words are those who want to see the continuance of the flow of cash or comfort to the believers.
It is interesting to note, once more, that Begg does his best to snipe away at good, solid research, while staying silent about the glaring errors in the books by Feldman and Mrs Harrison. This man, who has contributed absolutely nothing evidential to this whole debate; who has admitted that he pontificated about the Diary without having even studied the Maybrick material; is someone who devalues the truth every time he posts on this topic. Sad, but there it is, an odd mixture of ego and error.
How can I say such a thing? Well, according to Fido, it can only be because I am not a gentleman. I find that judgement quite acceptable, since the many real gentlemen I know seem addicted to boozing, smoking, cursing and whoring.
Still, Fido will never have to confess to us, since he has found a self-righteous formula that allows him to evade owning up to his blunders, etc. But those readers who care about the truth will see through that at once. And I am sure that they will be amazed to see that Fido imagines that anyone is interested in changing his mind. If he wants to go on with his fixed beliefs no one will shed a tear. But if he has lost his respect for the facts involved in rival theories, then he has lost the right to be respected as a worthwhile and healthy thinker. A mass of words is no substitute for objective analysis. |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 12:55 pm | | | Melvin, I have said all I want to say on the matter of your story about McCormick and since you are now not very elegantly trying an old side-step shuffle by bringing up goodness knows what nonsense about Joe Sickert, Martin Fido and whatever other nastiness you can find in your satchel, there really isn't much point in continuing to chat. Just keep your rudeness and insults wrapped up with your gobstoppers and wax lips in future. And as I have been rushed into hospital twice with acute angina, I think I might just be a little bit better qualified than you to talk about it and its effects. Bully for your uncle though! |
Author: Alegria
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 01:34 pm | | Well I was going to post something but
I don't even know where to start on this one! The last sentence still has me rolling on the floor in a fit of irony-induced hysteria...
(Not yours Paul) |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 01:34 pm | | | By the way, you said the McCormick had voiced concerns about a stress-related angina attack, from which it is fair to conclude that he was concerned about it, whereas your uncle clearly wasn’t. Oh, and if McCormick didn’t write “Eight Little Whores” then when he denied having written it he was telling the truth wasn’t he? So whether he was bare-faced lying about never having heard of H.L. Adam or simply unable to remember him was wholly immaterial to any assessment of whether he was lying about the poem (because he wasn’t lying about it). So there was never any reason for you to bring up H.L. Adam was there. You just spread obfuscation, just as you are vainly doing now. Bye, Melvin. |
Author: Madeleine Murphy
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 02:30 pm | | Martin! How can you not know about the long-standing association between Utilitarian thought and wrestling, so ably outlined in Paul's post? Their fame is eclipsed only by Thomas Carlyle's extraordinary achievements in synchronized swimming.
OK, we're being silly.... ! My fault, I started it.
Thanks, Caroline, for the comment. I agree that there is indeed something very worth discussing over the diary. It may not be whether the RIpper has been finally identified (I've said what I think about that) but it does tell us a lot about the nature of historical v. detective inquiry, something that Ripperologists ARE interested in. Or should be. I've read lots of "Ripper Unmasked" theories which, while brilliantly researched, just don't make a case. I just read Bruce Paley's, for instance. Great research, but if Barnett were alive, he'd sue your pants off--and he'd win!
madeleine |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 03:08 pm | | Perhaps the person who graciously allowed Melvin access to the internet via his server would care to identify himself, and let us know whether (i) he knew what Melvin was going to say, and (ii) he endorses it in its entirety.
Madeleine - Delighted that you've found yourself as impressed as we all were with Bruce Paley's background research, even though, like many of us, you cannot concur with his conclusions. He's a tremendously nivce man, and in case you ever receive malicious reports that he may have plagiarised his work from an American novel, there is correspondence on file of which I have a copy showing him writing to Don Rumbelow with his theory long before the said novel emerged.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Melvin Harris
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 03:58 pm | | THINK AGAIN
If McCormick was clear-headed and my name was brought in he would know at once what the poem question involved. Therefore, his answer is basically a lie by omission because he knew perfectly well that the poem was a fake. An honest answer would have been 'Yes it is bogus and modern but I didn't actually compose the lines'.
Sorry if I touched a raw nerve by mentioning Sickert.
I look forward to reading your exposure of the dubious and bogus material in the books by Feldman and Mrs Harrison. |
Author: Matthew Brannigan
Wednesday, 14 March 2001 - 06:58 pm | | With reference to the discussion of philosophy above, I have been working myself on a theory that the Ripper must have been an educated man who followed the teachings of the philosophers mentioned.
In particular I believe that the Ripper held his victims in the Tazzmission before reaching for his knife, as can be shown in the markings on the jaw and throat of several victims.
Matt
:-) |
Author: Paul Begg
Thursday, 15 March 2001 - 02:36 am | | Hi Matthew
What an excellent point and remarkable observation. I had noticed something familiar, but that hold had never come to my mind - maybe because I have become so used to Tazz as a colour commentator. A very fine observation and you are indeed to be congratulated. |
|
|
|
|
