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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 **
Archive through April 28, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary-Archives 2001:
Archive through April 28, 2001
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 11:01 am |        | Hi Chris,
You asked:
However, is it logical or reasonable to create a diary allegedly written by James Maybrick without trying to match Maybrick's writing?
We can't answer that, surely, without knowing who created it and what it was created for. If we knew for certain that it was created in modern times for the purpose of deliberate fraud, we could then say, "No it is neither logical nor reasonable", and we could then conclude that it was done by someone who acted illogically and unreasonably - er, like Mike.
You asked:
Is it logical to try to place a document without having a proper provenance for it?
Again, you are using Mike's illogical behaviour to support your opinion that the diary was a modern forgery, placed knowingly by Mike, an illogical soul who didn't think of a 'proper' provenance for it. But if Mike only knew he got it from Devereux, but didn't know what it was, that would be, however unsatisfactory, the only provenance Mike could come up with.
The illogical and unreasonable behaviour of Mike can be used to solve certain puzzles after we know that he placed a knowingly forged diary. You seem to be starting from the assumption that we do know this already. But I, for one, wouldn't still be here if that were the case!
Love,
Caz |
Author: Alegria
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 11:01 am | | | LOL. Appropriate to the situation and everything! Hmmm...guess I'll go hunting...Waldo? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 11:19 am | | Hi All,
Right, so we rule out the remote possibility that Mike spent a week in the library, flicking through books at random (but more likely to have, say, 'English', 'literature' or 'guide' in the title), and eventually found what he was looking for, in a volume that the 'casual browser' might look in, and see the 'O costly...' lines, standing out clearly towards the bottom of a page otherwise filled with prose. Fine, I'm cool with that.
Thanks Carps, for your post. I wonder what others made of it?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 11:21 am | | | For still the craft of genius is... Alegria |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 11:42 am | | Dear Peter
1. I think it has been established from various letters, faxes and so forth, that the date was September 30 1994 and not 1998.
2. I have no idea whether it would have been likely for Mike to have been directed to or have found the book in the library. I think it quite possible that he could have done and that the quote caught his eye, give that it was alone amid text. But the fact – or, rather, the presumption - is that Mike must have realised that his claim would be checked and therefore ascertained that the library did hold a copy of the book.
3. Mike telephoned Harold Brough and voluntarily confessed to him. Unless you know differently, the subject of money never entered their conversation. And Mike told me that he confessed because he hoped that by doing so Anne would go back to him, from which it may be thought unlikely that (a) he was interested in money and (b) that he’d have withheld material supporting his story.
4. "Isn't it though just as possible that MB didn't realise the importance of the Crashaw quote until Shirley asked him to look for it?”
Yes, it is perfectly possible, though this has serious implications for Mike/Alan Gray/Melvin’s story that Mike knew the value of the ‘diary’ long before September 1994 and had lodged it with his solicitor. And, of course, if he didn’t realise the book’s significance until Shirley asked him to look for it, then that answers point 3 above doesn’t it?
Whether or not Mike’s story about finding the book at the library has a ring of truth about it depends on your interpretation of why he admitted to owning a copy. If Mike really did find the quotation through hours of diligent research at Liverpool library, then his rather gauche admission that he had a copy of that very book in his attic does sound very honest to me. If, on the other hand, he had found the quotation in his copy of the book and merely wanted people to think that he’d found it through hours of diligent research at the library, the admission sounds bizarre.
A point perhaps worth chewing on is that according to Melvin Harris, on 27th September 1994 Mike’s solicitors were told by letter that £12,000 was due from Feldman for film rights. Did this have a bearing on Mike’s actions? We don’t know. Mike’s solicitors were apparently told on this date. We don’t know when Mike was informed. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 12:00 pm | | Hi Peter,
You wrote:
I'm a little confused about the date when MB admitted having in his possession the Sphere book. I realise that on these boards it has been said that it was shortly after the Sept. 30th 1994 date of the "discovery" at Liverpool Library.
I put Keith’s record, from 12th October 1994, on the boards. By this date, Mike had already admitted having the Sphere book, and was talking about taking it that very day to his solicitor.
You wrote:
In short, can the cheque be matched with no doubt whatsoever to the purchase of the red diary?
Yes, Keith has already said so. Anne gave him a photocopy of the cheque that went to the book firm and passed through Anne’s account, and Keith has said that it matches the cheque stub. The best I can do is to ask Keith to give me a post directly from him to confirm this for you – but I do appreciate it would still technically only be my word for the fact that I would be giving you Keith’s word. But may I ask why you feel this is so important to have confirmed?
Hi Karoline,
You wrote:
The last thing we need are more silly proposals like this "exchange" that will in all likelihood result in keeping this situation going.
So, do I take it that you think, in all likelihood, that Melvin really can’t do anything to stop this situation from carrying on?
You wrote:
I can see a possible problem over the Kane handwriting since it involves a direct implication of criminal involvement and therefore could be construed as possibly libellous, but even so I don't think there could be any objection to merely posting it on the web somewhere, without comment.
I take it that you see no objection to suggesting in public that Kane is a likely forger – but only an objection when asked to put up evidence that could put anyone doing the suggesting at risk of being sued. I understand perfectly. Thank you.
Incidentally, you both keep saying things like "we need hard data put up here on the boards." Who is the "we" here? From a purely practical point of view, most people would see that this is not a very viable proposition, given that Paul, for one, has commented on the sheer volume of diary documentation that must exist. The ones who really need the hard data to be shown on these boards are surely those who are arguing for a particular theory on these boards.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Rachel Henderson
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 12:01 pm | | Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803–1882
TO clothe the fiery thought
In simple words succeeds,
For still the craft of genius is
To mask a king in weeds.
Too easy John! Took 10 seconds with Google.
R |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 12:16 pm | | So who are the kings in weeds here, and who are the emperors in new clothes?
Answers on a saucy postcard....
Love,
Caz
Over and out for the weekend. Be good to each other guys.  |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 12:40 pm | | Hi John
I think Caz has a point that Mike could have flicked through the book in the library and accidentaly. I agree that it is highly unlikely and would be an extraordinary coincidence, but isn't it possible that he picked it up because he recognised it as a book he had in the attic? However, if Mike already knew about the quote, we are presented with the problem of Mike never having produced the book when he needed any evidence he could lay his hands on. And we have that little oddity about his confession that I outlined in my post to Peter. Do you think these problems need addressing before we accept that Mike knew about the Sphere book earlier than September 1994? |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 12:44 pm | | All right, all right! I was trying to be fair, and I don't suppose Mike had Google immediately available (or did he?), but I knew this would happen.
I'll go home this afternoon and find a more challenging one.
The problem remains of course.
*************************************
Chris:
re: Peter's premises and invalid conclusion about Mike's purchase of the diary...
I've got it! I think I know how I can make this simple.
You have two items -- A. and B.
Both A. and B. are blue.
Someone comes and fairly demonstrates that the item most likely to be true will be blue.
What can you then decide about which one is therefore most likely to be true?
Nothing.
You see?
Now just plug in the phrase "illogical and irresponsible behavior" for "blue."
The same conclusion remains the only one logically available.
That seems clear.
*************************************
Having failed miserably at my first attempt, perhaps because I chose an epigram from a major American poet/essayist and perhaps because I chose a first line, I will try and more accurately reproduce Mike's difficulties for you all when I get home from work.
Thanks for playing, all you incredibly clever creatures.
Paul, did you know it from memory?
--John |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 01:08 pm | | Hi John
No. I asked a librarian in Liverpool. They know all that kind of stuff.
|
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 01:12 pm | | "He glutted black ravens on the walls of the fort..."
"still vex'd Bermooths"
Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
But then I know the answers...
As does everyone to the latter, I suspect |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 01:18 pm | | Paul,
It is, of course, possible that Mike saw the Sphere volume in the library and recognized it; opened it up and saw the "O costly intercourse..." line and said "Yes! I am king of the world." and then went to the experts and said "See suckers, I told you I could find it." This remains possible -- but admittedly unlikely, given that he didn't even know he was looking for a Crashaw quote. Still, it remains possible. It also remains possible that he found the quote in his own copy of the same book, when he was supposed to be looking for such things after taking the diary to Doreen's, and said "Yes! I am king of the world." and then went to experts with the library research story and claimed triumphantly, "See suckers, I told you I could find it." Both of these scenarios remain possible and I'm not sure how we could choose one or the other as more likely without evidence either way. Although the fact that Mike had a smaller number of relevant volumes to choose from in his own home than he did in the library might make the second scenario at least mathematically "more likely" than the first. But not necessarily, since we must allow for the possibility of him accidentally stumbling on the same book in the library.
It is also possible of course, that Mike found the quote in the Sphere volume while he was composing a fake diary of Jack the Ripper and said "Yes! I am king of the world. This would be the perfect quote for Saucy Jim."
But, if that last possible scenario were actually the case, then why would Mike not have then announced triumphantly, later, when he wanted us to believe that he wrote this thing, "See suckers, here is where I got the quote from and here is where I put it and I told you I wrote it. So there." Why would he not do this?
In other words, you ask:
"However, if Mike already knew about the quote, we are presented with the problem of Mike never having produced the book when he needed any evidence he could lay his hands on. And we have that little oddity about his confession that I outlined in my post to Peter. Do you think these problems need addressing before we accept that Mike knew about the Sphere book earlier than September 1994?"
Indeed, the one question that will not go away for anyone claiming that the Crashaw quote's appearance in the diary and the Sphere volume is evidence of Mike's authorship or complicity, is why, if that is indeed the case, Mike would not have been able to produce this quote as evidence that he did what he says he did, when he wanted to make the best case possible and convince us that he did write this thing.
There are two possible ways of accounting for Mike's lies and inability to demonstrate such knowledge when he most wanted to be believed (other than the demonstrably useless "he often does illogical things" line). I have sketched them out carefully before. Here is a summary.
Either he was deliberately trying to coyly distract us with a false and deceitful and partial and incomplete confession, consciously witholding key details so that he could cleverly retain ownership and yet not have to insist on authenticity, because the problems of authentication would remain in light of his own unreliable confession (a pretty cunning and complex strategy, worthy of a first rate political operative);
or he didn't know what the hell he was talking about because he didn't really know how this thing was composed or where or by whom and so couldn't have been expected to produce the Crashaw quote since he didn't even know about it until after the diary came into his possession and had already gone public.
Question: Which is the more likely scenario -- Mike as crafty strategist deliberately but only partially dissimulating for the purpose of distraction but with the intent of retaining claims to ownership? or Mike as confused liar unable to verify a story because he didn't actually have the facts or the knowledge that he claimed to have?
You decide.
By the way, Mike producing the Crashaw quote in one of his many attempted confessions as reliable, physical, substantial, material proof of his claim to have helped write this thing would also, it should be noted, not required him to turn on any of his mates. So this apparent inability or this decision not to produce this quote cannot be said to have been out of loyalty to any person or to any conspiracy.
Why then if he knew abut the quote all along and wanted "desperately," as RJ has put it, to discredit Feldy or to at least show us all that he helped write this thing, why then would he not have held it up and simply said "So there, suckers."
Possibly because he didn't know about it.
Possibly because his claim to having helped write the thing was another lie.
Perhaps.
But it is up to anyone who would like to seriously advance any other scenario (implying knowledge and complicity on Mike's part) as "more likely" to actually offer clear and reliable and supported evidence that Mike did find the quote before 1992, that he did know about the quote in the Sphere volume before 1992, and that he used it to help compose this volume?
Anyone want to offer such evidence?
Anyone at all?
Anyone?
--John
(Or, as I asked a few moments ago, is this too just speculation and opinion and therefore no more entitled to be claimed as "more likely" to be true than Peter's claim about the "most likely" reason behind the diary purchase, a claim which remains completely unsupported and demonstrably and utterly invalid? We are, after all, suggesting that it is likely that someone participated in a criminal act of forgery. It would be nice if someone bothered to offer reliable, material evidence that actually supported such an accusation.) |
Author: Karoline L
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 02:00 pm | | Caroline Morris wrote:
"I take it that you see no objection to suggesting in public that Kane is a likely forger – but only an objection when asked to put up evidence that could put anyone doing the suggesting at risk of being sued. I understand perfectly. Thank you"
Caz,
No I don't think you do understand me at all if what you seem to imply is what you mean. I'm not arguing that the Kane handwriting shouldn't be made public
I am in fact saying that it should be made public - along with all other data in the case. I merely express an understanding of why some people might feel uncomfortable about taking the step, because, unlike the transcripts and the Graham interview, this involves an indirect allegation against one man.
Just to make it perfectly clear - I am not arguing that the Kane writing shouldn't be made public. So, please don't follow John Omlor's example and tell me twenty times at terrifying length that I am really, and you can prove it!
John,
I suspect the problem between you on the one side and Chris, RJ, Peter and I on the other is that, with all your attention to very close and detailed reading you are either not familiar with, or choosing to disregard the concept of "cumulative evidence".
I'm sure as an exercise your methodology has a valid application - but what about the wider view?
Pixels only matter because they contribute to making a picture, and at some point we have to step far enough back from the minutiae to see what any of it actually means.
Actually this was the very point I was making to you in that posting of mine that seems to have so worried you and the central meaning of which I so signally failed to get across (Iapologise for that).
The point is that while each one of the pieces of evidence we have about the 'diary' is individually capable of several explanations and while, individually there is nothing to make any one explanation overwhelmingly more likely than the other - when we put the data together this changes.
Considered singly there is no overwhelmingly compelling reason to assume the diary was first composed on MB's wp, or that the red diary was bought as a potential receptacle for the forgery, or that the presence of the RWE book in Devereux's house is significant of anything.
But cumulatively, the coexistence of all these facts means that a single and coherent narrative of considerable power begins to emerge.
Because it is a cumulative argument, your present system of challenging it is largely missing the point.
Merely pointing out that each individual piece of evidence is capable of multifarious other explanations does nothing to address the fact that together these individual elements combine to tell a strong coherent story.
The only way to refute that is to find another equally strong and coherent story that fits the facts equally well.
Your methodology is all about stripping out and separating - but we can only arrive at sensible interpretations of data if at some point we stop stripping and separating and begin building and connecting. Your entire concept of academic thought seems to be a denial of that basic truth - which I think is why a few of us here look at some of the things you say with a sort of incredulity (in a nice way!)..
Surely, John, when all the shredding and deconstructing is through, you have to admit that the data implies at very least the strong probability this artefact was created circa 1991 in Liverpool by a group of people connected to MB and with access to his Sphere book?
No?
Really?
Ah well - as Melvin Harris would say!
Karoline |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 02:53 pm | | Karoline
Karoline
The point is that while each one of the pieces of evidence we have about the 'diary' is individually capable of several explanations and while, individually there is nothing to make any one explanation overwhelmingly more likely than the other - when we put the data together this changes.
Please answer me one question: what happens if the pieces of evidence are individually explained by the interpretation you personally don't favour?
Oh, and
"this artefact was created circa 1991 in Liverpool by a group of people connected to MB and with access to his Sphere book?"
this is a different argument to the one you were making and to which John was replying. The one you were making was that Mike and Anne dunit. |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 03:42 pm | | Hi Chris
Whatever you say, Mike Barrett and Anne Barrett (now Graham) have to be considered suspects for the very reason that they had the Diary and no good explanation has been given of where the Diary came from before they had it.
I don’t think anyone has ever denied that Mike and Anne must be considered suspects. But being a suspect doesn't make them guilty. Their guilt is what you have to prove.
As for “no good explanation has been given of where the Diary came from before they had it, Mike said he got it from Tony Devereux. So what evidence is there that he didn't?
(I mean, currently Gerrard Kane is mooted as he penman, but as far as I know the only link between Gerrard Kane and Mike is that Tony Devereux knew both men. Does this open up at least a possibility that Devereux was involved. And if Devereux was involved, how involved was he? How involved was Mike - what did he know, what detail has he told us? What, actually, is the evidence that Mike (specifically) was involved with the forgery? What evidence is there that he even knew it was a forgery? What wasn't Mike just an innocent patsy used by Kane and Devereux to 'place' the 'diary'?) |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 03:43 pm | | Hi again Karoline,
First things first.
Once again, there is not a single piece of "deconstructing" going on here whatsoever. Not by me, that's for sure. In fact, I do not believe that you know what this word means. I've just been asking for evidence and pointing out when people reach invalid, unestablished, speculative, contradictory or unjust conclusions. This isn't deconstruction at all. It's called careful, critical reading and analysis and it goes all the way back to before Plato.
And no, I am not missing the point concerning cumulative evidence. But that evidence can only be cumulative if it really is evidence. If it's just assumptions, personal preferences, interpretations of contradictory scenarios, or opinions offered as established conclusions then there is no "cumulative evidence" because there is no evidence offered.
Let me show you what I mean.
Here, for everyone, are two possible diary purchase scenarios:
1.) That Mike bought this diary in this blatantly traceable and obvious way, taking no precautions whatsoever to disguise his purchase or the book's origins, specifically in order to commit a felonious criminal act with it. Therefore, Mike was complicit.
or 2.) That Mike bought this diary because he was holding a document that was alleged to be an authentic Victorian diary and he had his doubts about it's authenticity and he was trying to research the possibilities before taking the diary to an agent's. Consequently, he decided that he needed to get his hands on a genuine Victorian diary that he knew to be authentic for the purposes of comparison. Therefore, Mike was not complicit.
We all agree that both of these scenarios describe illogical and unreasonable behavior.
Now, can you, Karoline, or anyone at all, give me one single, solitary piece of real, reliable evidence that would "indicate" or allow me to choose which of these two scenarios is more likely?
Just one.
I do not think you can. I have not yet seen one.
Second example:
You claim that Mike Barrett was a "known associate" of Gerard Kane's.
We all agree that Tony Devereaux knew both Mike Barrett and Gerard Kane.
Can you, Karoline, or anyone at all give me one single, solitary piece of real and reliable material evidence that Mike Barrett ever met Gerard Kane or even knew of Gerard Kane?
Just one.
Hey, how about another example:
You claim, I think, that it is more likely that Mike Barrett knew the Crashaw quote before 1992 and used it to help compose the book.
We all agree it was in the Sphere volume that Mike owned and yet we also agree that Mike did not produce this volume or the quote when he was trying desperately to convince us that he knew how this forgery took place.
Can you, Karoline, or anyone at all, give me one single solitary piece of real and reliable evidence that would allow me to decide whether Mike knew the quote was there before 1992 or that he did not know it was there until after he found it there after 1992 and this is why he could not use it to support his claim that he knew how the diary was written?
Just one piece of evidence that would allow me to decide which of these scenarios is really more likely?
Just one?
Karoline, The problem here is not that I am shredding the interpretations and opinions of others concerning small details and the expense of conclusions afforded us by the cumulative evidence.
The problem here is that there is no cumulative evidence.
There is barely any real evidence at all. No one, including Melvin Harris and Paul Feldman, in nearly ten years time, has offered one single piece of real physical material or testimonial evidence that directly or even indirectly links any single person or persons to the actual process of research, composition and production of this diary. No one.
There can't be a cumulative effect of the evidence when no one has yet offered any actual, real and reliable physical or material or testimonial evidence. All I see here are items being claimed as evidence in support of the case for complicity which, upon closer inspection and analysis, clearly turn out to be demonstrably self-contradictory assumptions, demonstrably invalid conclusions, logically unreasonable arguments, preferred but unsupported interpretations of narratives, and incomplete or irrelevant premises. This is no way to accuse anyone of anything, or even to claim that anyone "probably" did anything.
And, as I said in a PS above, we are, after all, suggesting that it is likely that someone (Mike and Anne) participated in a criminal act of forgery. It would be nice if someone bothered to offer reliable, material evidence that actually supported such an accusation.
Now Karoline,
I know that, because my reading continues to demonstrate clearly and decisively how little evidence is actually being offered and how much of what is actually being offered is not evidence at all but speculation, opinion, unsupported but nevertheless preferred scenarios, and hasty and unestablished conclusions, you have now concluded that therefore there must be something wrong with my methodology.
But there isn't. There is something wrong with what is being offered here as evidence.
Often, it's not.
My methodology respects both the larger picture and the small details. If the details are in conflict or not legitimately established then the larger picture will necessarily be contaminated and corrupt. Injustice will be the inevitable result of such faulty and careless reasoning, reasoning that seeks to cover over discrepancies in the details all in the name of arriving at a satisfying overall scenario before the work has actually been done. This, by the way, is one of the most common forms of, and one of the actual meanings of, bad scholarship and unreasonable argument.
You write about my methodology:
"but we can only arrive at sensible interpretations of data if at some point we stop stripping and separating and begin building and connecting."
Ah, but Karoline, we cannot begin building or connecting if no one is actually offering any real or reliable or substantial evidence with which we might build and connect. And if they are offering something else, something less sturdy and less reliable and less logically sound and less validly established, like simple opinions and speculations, or contradictory and inconsistent arguments masquerading as evidence and "facts" and conclusions, then we better not begin building and connecting with these things at all or our building is very likely going to collapse.
So the quality of the bricks must be carefully examined if there is any hope that the edifice will stand. I am examining your bricks, the bricks I have seen offered here allegedly as "evidence," and I am afraid I have demonstrated rather thoroughly that each and every one of them offered so far has proven to be of seriously questionable quality. Consequently, I do not think it would be very wise yet to build anything at all using them. This, Karoline, is my "basic truth."
Another set of examples. You write:
"Considered singly there is no overwhelmingly compelling reason to assume the diary was first composed on MB's wp, or that the red diary was bought as a potential receptacle for the forgery, or that the presence of the RWE book in Devereux's house is significant of anything.
But cumulatively, the coexistence of all these facts means that a single and coherent narrative of considerable power begins to emerge."
Unless, of course, the diary was not first composed on Mike's wp, but transcribed there later, and unless the red diary was purchased for comparison as Mike's giving his own name and address and paying by check apparently indicates, and unless the RWE book arrived at Tony's once Mike was interested in the issue, after he already had the diary.
Am I claiming any of these possibilities are more likely to be true? No!
But the thing is, since neither you nor anyone has offered any serious and reliable evidence to allow us to choose one of these scenarios over the other, neither can be validly claimed to be more likely and therefore there is no single and coherent narrative of considerable power which begins to emerge. There are at least two sets of possible coherent narratives of considerable power which begin to emerge, and you simply have not offered us any real material or reliable evidence at all that would allow us to fairly and validly and logically and reasonably choose one of these sets of coherent narratives over the other.
You see, I am not missing the point of the cumulative effect of the evidence. I am missing the actual evidence. This is a very important difference. You cite "facts" which I have clearly and demonstrably shown can serve as evidence equally well in support of two utterly different and contradictory conclusions. But you do not cite any evidence that would allow us to choose between these conclusions. You then jump to your own completely unestablished and unevidenced conclusion that these facts support a case for complicity. But they also support a case for non-complicity as well (see my reading of Peter's analysis of the diary purchase, for instance). And the only reason you are claiming that the case for complicity is "more likely" that the one for non-complicity is because that's the one you happen to prefer. But you have not established in any way that one of these cases is clearly more likely than the other, since you have not yet offered a single solitary piece of real material and reliable evidence in support of one over the other.
At the end of my last post I asked whether anyone who would like to seriously advance any scenario implying knowledge and complicity on Mike's part as "more likely" could actually offer clear and reliable and supported evidence that Mike did find the quote before 1992, that he did know about the quote in the Sphere volume before 1992, and that he used it to help compose this volume.
In your response, you did not. Should I assume from this that you know of no such evidence? How about any evidence that allows us to choose between the two diary purchase scenarios above?
And yet you continue to claim, without any supporting material evidence whatsoever, and using only speculation and preferred interpretations, that Mike and/or Anne's complicity is established as being likely or probable?
Why, Karoline, are you in such a rush?
I ask you the same questions I once asked Chris. Please read this summary of what I have seen and these final questions to you carefully. I would like to know how you would answer this final set of questions:
Every "indication" I have seen offered here so far, with the possible exception of the presence of the Crahsaw quote in the Sphere volume, has either been a simple and utter speculation, a self-contradictory assertion, a created narrative without supporting material evidence, a detail equally open to equally likely contradictory interpretations based on problematic or missing evidence, been eventually admitted not to be evidence at all, or simply and perhaps most disturbingly implied through innuendo. I have not seen one single serious and unchallengeable "indication," supported by any specific, real, reliable physical or material evidence whatsoever, "that the Barretts had some sort of involvement in producing the Diary." Honestly. Not one. Anywhere. Nothing that would logically, soundly or validly allow us to conclude that the Barrett's were even "most likely" involved in producing this diary.
Again, for this reason I really do not think it is fair to suggest or imply yet that they were. It is not just. It is not supported by any reliable or significant evidence, it is merely suggested through speculation and self-contradictory pieces of evidence and completely unproven and even unevidenced innuendos such as the "known associate" remark, and it is simply not yet a reachable or responsible conclusion. Karoline, I trust you to be a careful reader and to have a sense of fairness about your conclusions. It seems extraordinarily unfair to go around claiming that there are "indications" that two people participated in a criminal act and not to actually have either any evidence or even any unchallengeable or seriously reliable and non-contradictory "indications" that this is in fact so, or even likely.
Why would you do this? Why would anyone do this? Why not wait, and be careful, and actually establish conclusions using reliable evidence and valid logic and consistent premises? Why not be responsible when real people's reputations and futures continue to be at stake. Why not simply be content to admit the demonstrably obvious conclusion that we have no clearly established or reliable or non-contradictory "indications" or pieces of evidence that the Barrett's did or did not participate in the creation of this forgery. Or show me even one.
I have not seen one yet, and therefore I really must insist that it is irresponsible to continue to claim, without offering any solid and reliable and logically established and necessary and valid evidence, that "indications still are that the Barretts had some sort of involvement in producing the Diary."
This conclusion at this time seems utterly unsupported and needlessly to risk a serious injustice.
Why do such a thing when with patience and with responsible reading we can proceed more carefully, if we just begin by admitting that we have no clear reliable, supportable, consistent "indications" yet either way? Please show me why this would not be the more logical and responsible way to proceed and what evidence anywhere contradicts this conclusion.
You have not, Karoline, in your post above offered any reading or criticism of my work that would begin to answer such important questions.
Thank you all for reading,
--John |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 04:11 pm | | Yes, Paul, I think your quotes will be traced pretty rapidly.
A quick check through Dogpile and Mamma, however, suggests that the following - probably seen as quite popular modern verse and perhaps appropriate to the Ripper's victims in 1888 - will have to be found through old-fashioned print and won't show up in Dictionaries of Quotations or Concordances to Shaxpure:
"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,
Violence - trade?"
happy hunting,
Martin |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 04:22 pm | | Hello Everyone. John wrote:
"Mike bought this diary in this blatantly traceable and obvious way, taking no precautions whatsoever to disguise his purchase or the book's origins"
(worded a little differently originally)
And some have been repeating this point. But I think this is NOT DEMONSTRATABLE and is rather misleading.
Is the check is blatantly traceable to the red diary? Would it have been? Well, for one thing, Peter has been asking for confirmation that the check that we are seeing is the one that paid for the diary. The stub only says "book".
Secondly, it currently appears to that Mike DIDN'T ORIGINALLY PAY for the red diary. He stiffed the booksellers! Unfortunately, since Mike didn't use the thing, it is impossible to say whether he would have ever paid for it and would have left a paper trail or not. It's possible that Mike never would have paid for it had he used it. I've asked before: IS IT SIGNIFICANT THAT MIKE DIDN'T PAY FOR IT BEFORE HIS TRIP TO LONDON? Though we're waiting for Peter's question to be answered, it currently appears that the red diary was eventually paid for in May 1994, after Mike went to London ---. If Mike had contacted the book sellers and paid, say, in cash or a money order, would it have ever been traceable? But since the red diary wasn't used for the Maybrick document, and wasn't paid for until after Doreen Montgomery had seen the Maybrick journal, did Mike assume that the 'paper trail' wouldn't be damning? In several places, the May payment has been used to suggest that the red diary wasn't obtained until AFTER THE MAYBRICK diary had already seen the light of day. I find this pretty interesting.
Best wishes,
RJ Palmer
PS. That check is interesting in itself. Mike fills in the details, Anne signs it. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 04:32 pm | | Hello Again. For the record, the first Internet seach engines didn't start appearing until 1995. (Source: H'obbes Internet TimeLine") Thus, Mike wouldn't have been able to use this technique.
One question: How would Mike have been able to stumble across the Crashaw lines and shout "Eureka I forged it!" if Shirley Harrison was the one that sent him out looking for the quote in the first place?
I'm with Karoline on this one; we need to cut to the chase, and find out when Mike was sent to the library. It never has made much sense to me that this would have taken place after Mike's confessions, but, considering all the confused myriad of events that went on, it appears that Shirley Harrison no longer remembers exactly when Mike did his reseach and made his announcement.
RJP |
Author: Karoline L
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 05:19 pm | | Paul wrote:
"Please answer me one question: what happens if the pieces of evidence are individually explained by the interpretation you personally don't favour?"
Paul,
The reason I favour the current hypothesis is because in my view this explanation currently fits the facts better than any other, and not - as your question implies - because I have predetermined what to believe and am just trying to find lame reasons for my belief.
If anyone can suggest an equally simple single explanation that fits the facts just as well as the hypothesis that the diary was forged in Liverpool circa 1992 by a group of people associated with MB and AG and who had access to MB's book - then I would be happy to accept this as another very plausible scenario.
You wrote, quoting me:
"Oh, and
"this artefact was created circa 1991 in Liverpool by a group of people connected to MB and with access to his Sphere book?"
"this is a different argument to the one you were making and to which John was replying. The one you were making was that Mike and Anne dunit"
No it wasn't. I have argued from the beginning that the most likely (though not the only possible) scenario is that the diary was forged with the complicity of MB and AG.
That is to say I think it most likely that MB and AG knew the forgers, knew of the forgery and, in MB's case at least,was involved to some degree in creating the forgery.
This is clearly implied as a likely possibility by the simple fact that they owned, placed and profited from the 'diary', by the fact they have lied about the 'diary's' provenance and about oher related matters - as well as by MB's ownership of the Sphere book and by his purchase of the red diary at that very significant time.
The reason for the forgery being created, the precise extent of the Barretts'probable involvement, or who else was involved, or exactly what each individual person did, I have never claimed to have any idea about at all.
That is the sum total of my opinions on the subject. Are they really so bigoted, rigid and irrational as you and John Omlor keep saying?
Karoline |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 05:25 pm | | Hi RJP,
I wasn't up close to all the goings-on in the diary investigation (deo gratias!) but the point about Mike's crying 'Eureka!' or crying 'Fooled you!' is that they relate to two different occasions. His fury with Feldy came before he brought the quotation source back to Shirley like a faithful retriever. Well before, as far as I remember. But it was already widely enough known to have reached his ears that this was one of the puzzled in the diary. So as he was unsuccessfully trying to convince everyone that he was the onlie begetter, it would have been extremely convincing if he had suddenly come forward with the Sphere book, saying, 'Look! I really did it, and here's the quotation I used'.
In fact, the very fact that it was Mike who ultimately traced it led Shirley to fear that all her work was blowing up in her face. When she first spoke to me saying the quote had been found, she clearly thought that library-hunting Mike as the finder of something so extremely obscure was going to be the end of anyone ever taking the diary seriously. She was very cheered by my instant conviction that the use of Crashaw cleared both Barretts of any involvement in the forgery, and with her typical honesty and willingness to look at alternatives that may be damaging from her point of view, she nonetheless noted that one or both were Catholics: wondered whether this Crashaw poem might not have been used as a Catholic hymn (out of the question!) or taught in Catholic schools (likewise).
This was quite comparable with her initial reaction to Anne's 'confession'. She thought that a new provenance story, produced so late, must finally discredit the diary. And despite thnking this, she insisted that I be played it and sent a transcript immediately, as I was the person who had signed the confidentiality agreement who would be most inclined to treat any bad news as triumphant proof of my contention.
This openness with material that is obviously open to anti-Barrett and anti-diary interpretation has always characterised Shirley's and Keith's work. The fact that they don't seem clear about Anne's financial receipts or have Proof Cast in Stone that the cheque for the little red diary's price drawn up by Mike and signed by Anne was Definitely Payment for the Little Red Diary is only evidence that neither they nor anybody else thought that such additional detail was ever going to seem important. They had discovered that Mike or the Barretts bought a late Victorian diary and they immediately made the fact known, fully aware that this could be interpreted as meaning that Mike or the Barretts bought something to use as a research tool or even vehicle for preparing or improving their own forgery.
You never come up against some commitment to other people preventing Shirley and Keith from letting everyone know what they know. You don't, in fact, ever hear them denying that circumstances look very suspicious for the Barretts. What you hear them assert is that from their knowledge of Anne, they believe she is telling the truth. And the mountain of suspicion surrounding her story still hasn't included solid evidence to disprove it. Equally Paul Begg insists that the original story of receiving the diary from Tony Devereux was one which Mike stuck to without shaking for a remarkably long time (for Mike), only changing it when ulterior motives encouraged him to claim sole authorship and forgery of the diary for himself - a claim he was surpisingly unable to substantiate. And so, noting that Mike's original story is completely compatible with Anne's confession, Paul makes the fair point that it might be the truth - indeed, it might even be the truth if Anne's story was not itself true.
I don't think anybody can be found suggesting that the Barretts LOOK innocent. Those who believe Anne therefore rightly feel she is in an almost impossible position, with a story she cannot prove that seems implausible to people who don't know her well. (Those who think Mike might have been telling the truth originally probably feel that he has only himself to blame for looking even more suspicious now than he did when he produced a diary with a rotten provenance. But I was very impressed with the humanity of - was it Chris George? - who hoped his posting Mike's endless self-contradictions wouldn't be seen as bashing a helpless drunk.)
Since the Maybrick descendants don't seem perturbed by the fact that their admittedly somewhat disreputable ancestor might also have been Jack the Ripper - yes, I'd have to say I do think it is right to be a little more tender about the feelings and reputations of the living than of the dead, even though there is obviously an enormous difference between repeated bloody murder and hoping to make a couple of hundred quid off enthusiasts whose interest in an old series of murders seems to you morbid in any case.
But essentially one has to say, the Barretts' very limited circle of defenders have never claimed that the circumstances look favourable for the Barretts, and have never tried to conceal or withhold evidence that militates against their position. I have always honoured them for this, whether I agreed with them or not.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 05:25 pm | | RJ,
Regarding your questions concerning the specific details of Mike's purchasing the red diary:
Still more evidence, apparently, that we do not have. Thank you. (See my response and questions to Karoline above.)
Caz has recently offered evidence, I believe first hand testimony from the merchant, (received, I think, from Keith, but I have no time to check at the moment -- she can correct me if I am wrong) that Mike in fact gave his home address and his real name when he first ordered the book. This too seems sort of blatant and to render the order rather traceable, no? Certainly not someone trying to anonymously buy a book to be used in a criminal act. Of course, people often do illogical and unreasonable things, like buy an authentic Victorian diary to compare to one they already held but had doubts about, because they were given it, for instance. Which of these two rather illogical scenarios is more likely? I can and have demonstrated that the available evidence so far does not validly allow us to decide.
Concerning the discovery of the quote, you ask:
"One question: How would Mike have been able to stumble across the Crashaw lines and shout "Eureka I forged it!" if Shirley Harrison was the one that sent him out looking for the quote in the first place? "
You'll have to explain this one, I'm confused. If Mike knew the quote was from the Sphere volume all along and knew he had put it in the diary, when he wanted to prove he had written the diary he could have just shown us how he did that and how exactly he then composed the book. But he was apparently unable to do that. I'm not sure I understand what you are suggesting about Shirley asking him to find it. This one is my fault. I'm not seeing your point, I'm afraid.
Oh wait, I think I see. Did Mike confess (and apparently demonstrate his lack of knowledge about the quote) before or after he claims to have discovered the quote in the library? This would make each situation different. Yes. Good question. I would like to be sure about this as well. I'm not. Anyone know?
Thanks,
--John |
Author: Karoline L
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 05:43 pm | | Thanks for your support here RJ - I do believe we need very much to get a clear idea of the chronology of this whole Crashaw thing. Did Harrison's story of sending MB to the lbrary come after he 'revealed' the existence of the Sphere book or before?
Exactly what data do we have on this?
Anyone?
John (sigh!)
I ask you to consider the cumulative effect of the evidence and you reply (once again) by looking at each point in isolation.
No, I agree with you, there is no particular reason why the facts you quote in isolation should bear one interpretation more than another.
But as I said, that's not the point.
Do try looking at the evidence cumulatively - that means all together - and ask yourself what scenario can best fit the evidence - all together.
Can you find another single explanation for all the data that fits as well as the one posited by myself. RJ, Peter, Chris George, Melvin Harris, and indeed almost every other person who has reviewed the case?
Another single, plausible scenario?
That's what I'm looking for- not another lengthy essay on how, taken individually, all the facts can be seen to have many potential explanations.
I know.
Really, I think we all know.
It's just not the point.
(you see I knew we would never understand each other!)
Karoline |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 05:50 pm | | Karoline,
Briefly, I promise.
I have never said, not once, that your opinions are "so bigoted, rigid and irrational." I have said that they are opinions.
Unfortunately you have often offered them as both evidence and as conclusions (yes, I can cite specifically where, at length) and, without any single solitary piece of reliable material supporting evidence, this is irrational and it renders your rhetoric of accusation even concerning the likely participation in crimes by specific people hasty and unsubstantiated and therefore quite possibly unjust.
I respect your opinions.
However, to write the following as if it were a supported or even properly evidenced conclusion without yet doing any of the work necessary to establish that conclusion remains troublesome:
"That is to say I think it most likely that MB and AG knew the forgers, knew of the forgery and, in MB's case at least,was involved to some degree in creating the forgery."
Thank you for the "I think" here, but this conclusion about what is "most likely" remains demonstrably unsupported by any specific, clearly relevant material or reliable evidence. Consequently it can be no more than an "I think" and remains simply a speculation not based on any real evidence of any reliable and clearly relevant sort.
Your next paragraph, which seeks to explain, apparently why you think this, offers, tellingly, no actual evidence that would support your opinion. It offers "facts" which have clearly been demonstrated to indicate conflicting possibilities, each of which seem equally likely and one set of which favor complicity and one set of which does not. Consequently, these "facts" are not yet reliable, substantial, material or clearly relevant evidence of your accusatory conclusion that it is "most likely that MB and AG knew the forgers, knew of the forgery and, in MB's case at least,was involved to some degree in creating the forgery."
You are making charges here. You are not supporting these charges with any clear or reliable or material or relevant evidence. Your support for these charges is only the "facts" which have proven to be equally able to support scenarios of complicity and non-complicity:
"This is clearly implied as a likely possibility by the simple fact that they owned, placed and profited from the 'diary', by the fact they have lied about the 'diary's' provenance and about other related matters - as well as by MB's ownership of the Sphere book and by his purchase of the red diary at that very significant time."
Each one of these so called "facts," as I believe I have begun recently to demonstrate, implies with equal force under different readings, equally likely scenarios of complicity and non-complicity and neither you nor anyone has offered us all any evidence whatsoever which would properly and logically allow us to choose which scenario is more likely. Because you have not offered substantial and material evidence, we cannot and I suggest should not responsibly make the unsupported accusation even about what is more likely that you are making, since equally likely non-complicitous possibilities remain.
Adn again, what's your hurry? Why is it so hard to wait until real and reliable evidence actually supports a claim of complicity? Wouldn't this be a prudent and responsible thing to do?
I still don't understand the rush to decide whether Anne and Mike were more likley to commit this crime than not when we are faced with a staggering lack of evidence.
Perhaps I am being too cautious.
Fair enough.
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 06:17 pm | | Karoline,
But you misread me again, and then responded to me as if I had written only part of what I actually wrote. I do not think this is a particularly careful way to respond. I have not replied simply point by point. I have told you I don't believe there is barely any real reliable and material evidence to be cumulative. I have yet to see barely any evidence at all. Without real reliable evidence, how can there be any cumulative effect of evidence? There are speculations and other interpretations and inconsistent conclusions, etc. But there is very little if any evidence, so how can it have any cumulative effect if it is not there?
For the record: Here are two things I just wrote, which did speak to the issue of cumulative evidence:
"Karoline, The problem here is not that I am shredding the interpretations and opinions of others concerning small details and the expense of conclusions afforded us by the cumulative evidence.
The problem here is that there is no cumulative evidence.
There is barely any real evidence at all. No one, including Melvin Harris and Paul Feldman, in nearly ten years time, has offered one single piece of real physical material or testimonial evidence that directly or even indirectly links any single person or persons to the actual process of research, composition and production of this diary. No one.
There can't be a cumulative effect of the evidence when no one has yet offered any actual, real and reliable physical or material or testimonial evidence. All I see here are items being claimed as evidence in support of the case for complicity which, upon closer inspection and analysis, clearly turn out to be demonstrably self-contradictory assumptions, demonstrably invalid conclusions, logically unreasonable arguments, preferred but unsupported interpretations of narratives, and incomplete or irrelevant premises. This is no way to accuse anyone of anything, or even to claim that anyone 'probably' did anything."
I also wrote this about why it is necessary to look at the pieces before one makes a cumulative case:
"Ah, but Karoline, we cannot begin building or connecting if no one is actually offering any real or reliable or substantial evidence with which we might build and connect. And if they are offering something else, something less sturdy and less reliable and less logically sound and less validly established, like simple opinions and speculations, or contradictory and inconsistent arguments masquerading as evidence and 'facts' and conclusions, then we better not begin building and connecting with these things at all or our building is very likely going to collapse.
So the quality of the bricks must be carefully examined if there is any hope that the edifice will stand. I am examining your bricks, the bricks I have seen offered here allegedly as 'evidence,' and I am afraid I have demonstrated rather thoroughly that each and every one of them offered so far has proven to be of seriously questionable quality. Consequently, I do not think it would be very wise yet to build anything at all using them. This, Karoline, is my 'basic truth.'"
So you see, I have considered the cumulative evidence and suggested there is hardly any reliable and substantial evidence at all and what is being offered as evidence is so problematic that it cannot possibly count as reliable evidence and therefore cannot add to the cumulative effect of the evidence. There is not yet any strictly reliable evidence that can even have a cumulative effect, and certainly not enough to allow for a conclusion that people are most likely guilty of criminal activity.
Is this any clearer?
--John
PS Sorry if this was not "what you wre looking for" but I thought I ought to at least correct your mischaracterization of my first response by reproducing the relevant passages here that demonstrate that I did take into account the question of the cumulative effect of the evidence. I did this in the name of accuracy and careful reading. Finally, you asked me:
"Can you find another single explanation for all the data that fits as well as the one posited by myself. RJ, Peter, Chris George, Melvin Harris, and indeed almost every other person who has reviewed the case?
Another single, plausible scenario?"
I believe I can posit several such scenarios, each equally possible and plausible and each equally unsupported by any real evidence whatsoever, precisely as your scenario of complicity remains. I can construct these possible but unevidenced narratives (possible and yet unevidenced, exactly like the narratives I have seen here seeking to establish complicity) at length tomorrow if you would like. But now I must run. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 06:46 pm | | John--Hello. I suppose I didn't express myself very well. If Mike had ordered the maroon diary and had it sent to his home address, it might well have been stupid...but only if a check stub was available to trace back to these booksellers. Otherwise, nobody would have been able to contact them. But we are looking at this ipso facto; we have a check stub and so the booksellers were contacted--we don't know if there would have been a checkstub if Mike had used the maroon diary. My point is that I don't think Mike's actions are necessarily blantant nor traceable. Even as things turned out, had Scotland Yard investigated Mike & Anne's finances, all they would have found is a cancelled check for a "book" dated after the Diary was brought to London. It might have drawn no attention, and I assume that any investigators who would have taken their investigations to this level would have been looking at Mike & Anne's purchases before Mike came forward with the diary. Thus, I don't think we can say that Mike's ordering the maroon diary was particularly risky, since it would have been pretty well impossible to trace the diary back to the booksellers had not that check been found --and, again, who knows if he would have paid for it by check had he used the maroon diary? I also think there is the possibility that the late payment was used as a disguise in making the purchase, or even an indicator that Mike was avoiding a paper trail.
As I see it, Mike's main risk would have been a photograph of the diary being published in the papers, and the booksellers recognized it. Indeed, it was suggested by Melvin Harris (and seconded by Caroline Morris) that a facimile of the Maybrick diary be made up and advertised in a prominent location. We do current have an album that cannot be traced. If Mike did buy it somewhere, quite possibly he is not as dumb as many of us think--there hasn't been any proof of such a purchase (Though I think Peter wonders if the rather steep 25 pound check might indicate that Mike bought more than just the maroon diary).
Best wishes. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 April 2001 - 08:00 pm | | Hello. One last post for the day. Thanks to Martin Fido for his remarks above. I, of course, didn't mean to imply that Shirley Harrison or Keith Skinner were misleading anyone about the date the maroon diary was purchased. In fact,Keith Skinner was the fellow that tracked down these dates and made them public, so clearly he was after the truth of the matter.
Caroline Morris suggested that maybe Anne didn't know about the purchase of the maroon diary until she signed the check in May. But if Mike innocently bought the diary for 'research' would this have been likely? I will say the the composite nature of the check (filled in by Mike/signed by Anne) might suggest to me that Mike made the purchase without Anne's consent, which is interesting...
Chris--Hello. Sorry for the mystification with my 'bamboo raft' statement. I didn't mean that Mike wrote the diary, and I wasn't really referring to Mike. Frankly, I've wondered about AEG leaving Mike shortly after the first diary money showed up. I don't know who wrote the Maybrick diary, but I think there are only 2 or 3 decent possibilities. (Martin Fido suggested an interesting scenerio a few weeks ago). But I think there is the possibility that Anne was never involved in the Maybrick scheme, and that her actions can be explained in that she was often reacting to events that were largely outside of her control. (Could her new provenance story been motivated by wanting to let her self-destructing husband off the hook?) Admittedly, Anne helping Mike type the transcript & tidy-up his research notes is a little puzzling to me, but there do seem to be some indications that AEG might have been genuinely troubled about Mike publishing the Maybrick diary. Maybe, maybe not. Something about subjecting Anne to a lie detector test, etc., goes a little against the grain. Could we suggest amnesty rather than investigation, and wrap this thing up soon?
[By the way, I really do know how to spell facsimile. Typographical errors seem to increase with age :-( ]
John--Take the Maybrick diary & tack Feldy's commentary on the end of it and you have something a little like Nabokov's Pale Fire. A piece of fiction disguised as fact, rendered back into fiction by the reader's commen sense, and then painfully attempted to be turned back into fact by Feldy's baroque research, which is, in some ways a more frightening & interesting puzzle than the diary-proper itself. Is the whole thing is a blurred object-lesson on the nature of historonics, a sly commentary on Ripperology? (A joke)
RP |
Author: stephen stanley
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 12:15 am | | Hi, Paul,
'Tho' He was not Arthur'..or something very similiar...
Steve S |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 03:41 am | | Hi Stephen
Exactly. The first ever mention of Arthur in a written text. Alegria got it very quickly too. Excellent. Should we start a strand for the discussion of King Arthur, who is infinitely more interesting than the 'diary' and even, dare I say it, Jack himself! |
Author: Karoline L
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 04:25 am | | RJ's simple statement "I don't know who wrote the diary, but I think there are only two or three likely possibilities" (or words to that effect) is a perfect summary of my thinking as well as his own.
It isn't about believing or theorising - it's about recognising the rational likelihoods imposed by the evidence and by human nature. It seems that so much that is said here is asserted in pure defiance of these things. But never mind.
John ,
by all means post any scenario that you consider to be plausible, this is exactly what I have been asking for.
Martin,
I appreciate the endorsement of Ms Harrison's character (which has never been questioned here so far as I know) - but what I am looking for is some details of fact.
I do not agree with you that the evidence has always been presented with all the objectivity that has been required. In fact I think that much of the present confusion stems from the unfortunate and chronic misinterpretation in print of various pieces of key data. But I'll go into that at a later date.
Right now, I am trying to establish a chronology of events. Like RJ, I have always thought it odd that Harrison was asking MB to go researching for her in the library two months after he had 'confessed' to forging the 'diary'.
Has some confusion arisen here?
Does anyone know when Harrison's account of asking MB to research the diary in the library first saw the light of day? Was it before or after the Sphere book was given to Alan Gray? What documentation do we have to illustrate the sequence of events here?
I guess we can all see how potentially important and/or problematic this might be.
Karoline |
Author: Karoline L
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 04:38 am | | Well, here's a slightly longer quotation. You will probably find it very easily -
but don't you think whoever wrote it must have visited this place, if only in a dream?
So I, that had resolved to bring
Conviction to a ghost,
And found it quite a different thing
From any human arguing,
Yet dared not quit my post.
But, keeping still the end in view
To which I hoped to come,
I strove to prove the matter true
By putting everything I knew
Into an axiom:
Commencing every single phrase
With “therefore” or “because”,
I blindly reeled, a hundred ways,
About the syllogistic maze,
Unconscious where I was.
Karoline |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 04:46 am | | The point is that while each one of the pieces of evidence we have about the 'diary' is individually capable of several explanations and while, individually there is nothing to make any one explanation overwhelmingly more likely than the other - when we put the data together this changes.
Karoline, I have no problem whatsoever with you favouring a particular hypothesis because you think it best fits the facts. What I dispute is that the facts are really facts. It is a fact that the text of the ‘diary’ was ‘on’ Mike’s word processor, but it is not a fact that it is there because Mike composed the ‘diary’ on his word processor. This is your interpretation of that bit of evidence. And it favours Mike's guilt only because you interpret it that way. What the argument here is all about is whether your interpretation is correct. You have argued in a whole variety of ways that it is. John Omlor has questioned the reasoning on which your argument is based and he has done so in admirable detail so that there is no ambiguity.
Now, if you admit, as you appear to be doing, that there are alternative explanations for, for example, the text being on Mike’s word processor and that there is “nothing to make any one explanation overwhelmingly more likely than the other”, then it seems to me that you have to allow that if the evidence is interpreted differently from the interpretation you favour then your hypothesis is weakened. And if three or four bits of your evidence are interpreted differently to the way you favour, your hypothesis is maybe terminally weakened.
I am not saying that your hypothesis is a bad one and I am most certainly not saying it is the wrong one, but I am saying that it is not the only one and that it may not even be the best one. I am saying that you have built a hypothesis that stands only because the evidence is interpreted in the way you favour. If the evidence is interpreted differently, your hypothesis collapses like a house or cards. This is true of all hypotheses, of course, but the problem here has been – and I suspect still is - your general unwillingness to acknowledge the validity of alternative interpretations or explanations – (in fact you have argued fiercely and on occasions dogmatically that alternative explanations either don’t exist or are of the Elvis-sighting variety - and I can quote you if you’d like.
And you are changing your story, I think without due acknowledgement, because you started out by claiming that Mike and Anne wrote the ‘diary’. Now you are suggesting that it was written by "a group of people associated with MB and AG" (my emphasis). Well, forgive me, but this is what Keith Skinner and I were suggesting in some antediluvian period when there was a possibility that I could get the kind of six pack that doesn’t have Heineken written across it. What interests me now is whether this little nest of forgers actually forged the ‘diary’ without Mike’s knowledge. But it is kind of difficult to even discuss that with someone who is so firmly wedded to the belief that Mike composed it on his word processor. |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 04:51 am | | Karoline
Mike announced his discovery of the quote in the Sphere book on 30 September 1994. He had the Sphere book in his possession in October 1994, when he stated to Shirley that he intended taking it to his solicitor. This was before he gave the book to Alan Gray. This has been stated here several times now, I believe. |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 05:00 am | | RJP
Allowing that your possibility is correct and “Anne was never involved in the Maybrick scheme”, would you like to consider the possibility that Mike wasn’t either and indicate what evidence you think exists that most strongly argues, in your view, in favour of his complicity, and what reasons there are for thinking that Mike could not simply have been the innocent dupe of others?
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Karoline L
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 06:07 am | | Paul wrote:
"Karoline, I have no problem whatsoever with you favouring a particular hypothesis because you think it best fits the facts. What I dispute is that the facts are really facts. It is a fact that the text of the ‘diary’ was ‘on’ Mike’s word processor, but it is not a fact that it is there because Mike composed the ‘diary’ on his word processor"
No, you are right - it is not a fact that it is there because Mike composed the ‘diary’ on his word processor. And I have never claimed it was a fact. It's my personal deduction based on the facts.
I would have thought that was pretty clear.
Are we just taking another turn about the syllogistic maze for the fun of it?
My point is simple - I think the facts as they presently stand (the facts I have listed here and which you agreed to be germane), imply the probability (though not the certainty) that the diary was forged circa 1991 in Liverpool. I also consider the facts imply that the forgers were almost certainly a small collection of people involving MB AG and some others.
You don't agree with that. Okay. But can't we stick to the issue here and stop going off on regrettable tangents about shades of meaning and hair-splitting ventures into other people's lower intestinal tract? And couldn't you stop telling me things aren't facts when I've never said they were!
I've stated my view. You know what it is. Let's stop trying to lose ourselves in the twisty old maze of mendacity and let's start talking about something useful
Paul wrote:
"Mike announced his discovery of the quote in the Sphere book on 30 September 1994. He had the Sphere book in his possession in October 1994, when he stated to Shirley that he intended taking it to his solicitor. This was before he gave the book to Alan Gray. This has been stated here several times now, I believe"
Yes, thank you I'm aware of that - but what I'm asking for is where this is all documented.
What is our source for this information? can it be quoted here?
I'm looking for specific names, dates, letters, notes taken of conversations - that kind of thing.
What do we have to demonstrate that this chronology is the true one?
Karoline |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 06:32 am | | Hi, Karoline:
The extract of the poem you posted is from Lewis Carroll's "Phantasmagoria," Canto 6, "Dyscomfyture." Indeed, Karoline, the Maybrick Diary mess verily makes one feel like the speaker:
I blindly reeled, a hundred ways,
About the syllogistic maze
Do you know if by any chance Reverend Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) wrote those lines in a little maroon 1891 diary? 
All the best
Chris |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 07:04 am | | Karoline
I see. So what exactly are the facts on which you base your personal deduction that the text is on Mike's word processor because he composed it on his word Processor?
The date is obtained from various dated papers and noted phone conversations. |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 07:08 am | | Karoline,
I'm furious about being anticipated by Chris, as I was about to say, simply from memory, that your known expertise instantly confirmed my recollection of your quotation source! I carefull declined to mention Paul's Arthurian expertise, or to say, 'Castor and Pollux blow me to Bermuda!' when saying I thought his quotes would be quickly traced.
Anyone got anywhere with 'the house where lust is sport'?
I can't help about the Alan Grey datings, I'm afraid, as that's the sort of arcane detail I've never gone into in the investigation of something I've always believed to be a pretty obvious forgery. Since Mike's confessions and retractions followed each other rapidly and unpredictably once he'd stepped down from the insistence that he only knew he'd received the book from Tony Devereux, I've never been troubled by Shirley's apparently drawing his attention to the specific need to find the quotation after he hd first claimed to be the sole forger. I doubt very much whether she imagined this would be seen as asking for his help in library research. But I'd have to repeat that I am quite unaware of Shirley Harrison or Keith Skinner ever obfuscating or evading debate and discussion, or withholding or suppressing evidence.
I love RJP's characterisation of Feldeian research as 'baroque', however, and have no doubt that PF's vehement contributions were a major cause of all the unpleasant hubbub that has surounded the diary ever since he became involved with it.
With all good wishes,
Martin F |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 28 April 2001 - 07:44 am | | Hi RJ,
Ah. I now understand your point about the diary purchase and needing the details concerning the check. But you yourself mention at the end of your post a simple and I think obvious possibility. Once the diary goes public, everyone in Liverpool and all over England and the world hears about it. It makes all the papers, as they say. The book is given to forensic experts to examine. People begin to suspect for various reasons that the thing is a forgery. They go looking for where, first of all in Mike and Anne's vicinity since they brought the book in, one might have acquired such a book. They might even be likely to check bookshops. Mike gave his own real name and his own home address when he ordered the book. Would he have known not to? Well, he didn't even do this later when he gave the other diary to Doreen. Now he seems doubly damned. If he lies about his name and address, people say "See, he's acting suspicious, he likely wrote the diary." If he tells the truth, if he does give his real name and address, people say, "Well, he's still acting suspicious, he's just being stupid. He likely wrote the diary."
(This hardly seems fair and seems at least to indicate an already assumed conclusion prior to an actual and objective evaluation of the evidence.)
So I'm afraid I still do not see how we can fairly and reasonably yet determine whether it is more likely that Mike ordered the book for the purposes of composition or comparison. The reason for my caution is because we still are only speculating and we are doing so with an appalling lack of evidence.
In a later post, you write:
"I will say the composite nature of the check (filled in by Mike/signed by Anne) might suggest to me that Mike made the purchase without Anne's consent, which is interesting..."
It is indeed interesting, precisely because we do not know what exactly it means. This is a perfect example of so much of what is claimed to be evidence in this case. It is not really evidence at all, but incomplete facts interpreted by others in favor of preferred conclusions but which often support contradictory readings equally well. Since pieces of "data" such as this remain equally in support of conflicting possible readings and since we do not have the real physical or material or testimonial evidence necessary to allow us to decide which of the readings is more likely, this "data" remains not evidence yet at all. But it is interesting.
 Our response when we learn it , I think, should not be, "let's see what conclusion about guilt or innocence, about likely complicity or non-complicity, we can draw from that."
Our honest response should be, "we're not sure what that means, let's see what else we can learn and see if we can find any real and reliable evidence to indicate either way what that means."
This is what I have been trying to say. We still have little or no evidence of that kind.
Finally, RJ, I agree with you about the Feldman book of course, and have offered rather harsh and critical words here on these boards about the faulty logic and the unwarranted assumptions and the melodramatic rhetoric and the uncertainties disguised as conclusions and the "probable" case actually built almost solely on conjecture, preference, rhetoric, and hurried supposition, all without any serious and reliable physical or material evidence to support it.
I think we should be very careful that we are not building ourselves just such a Feldian case here, in the opposite direction (in favor of complicity), but nonetheless eventually subject to precisely the same criticisms.
The case against Mike and Anne as forgers, as it stands now, rests on not much more solid, reliable, and material evidence than the case made in that book. It is only missing that book's penchant for melodramatic prose and triumphant announcement of "final" judgments. But people around here are still quite content to write sentences claiming with all the rhetoric of certainty they can muster, that it is clearly more likely that Mike and Anne participated in the actual construction of this book and knew details about this forgery before they ever took the book to Doreen's, all without offering any more specific and reliable and material evidence than Feldy does.
This is still worrisome.
--John |
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