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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 30, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary-Archives 2001:
Archive through April 30, 2001
Author: R.J. Palmer
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 08:20 am |        | Correction: In Mike's initial confession to Harold Brough Daily Post 27 June, 1994, Mike does name the ink shop. I quote Harold Brough:
'He then said that he had bought some ink from a shop at the Bluecoat Chambers in Liverpool, and that he had typed the diary on a word processor at his home in Liverpool'
I don't think Mr. Brough was such a feeble reporter that he would have pointed out the shop to Mike, and then claim that Mike pointed it out to him.
Paul--You didn't ask me if I thought Mike forged the diary. I don't think Mike forged the diary. You asked me if I thought Mike knew it was a forgery. Yes, that is what I think.
As for Anne giving a recently forged document to Tony Devereux --an almost complete stranger-- to give to her husband, in order that he write a novel that never materializes... It is, as David Hume would say, not logically impossible, of course. But it seems so unlikely to me (and considering that the other half of Anne's statement does not agree with the textual/forensice evidence} I would have to say that it is wildly unlikely. I see logic here coming to the aid of credulity.
Cheers,
RJP |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 08:22 am | | But, John and Paul, the result of constructing scenarios from data as diffuse and sometimes self-contradictory as that surrounding the diary, is, I hope you will agree, only a demonstration of the constructor's ingenuity and ability to reconcile more of the difficult pieces of data than do different and 'rival' scenarios. There are just so many possible ways the diary could have come into Mike's hands to be passed to Doreen that even when those constructs which contradict demonstrable fact have been eliminated, there is no way of suggesting that any scenario is 'probable' truth.
In the present state of knowledge, we just don't know who forged the diary and how it came into Mike's possession. Suspicion is one thing. The probability of any postulated chain of events is quite another.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Karoline L
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 09:28 am | | I think Martin's claim that there are just "so many possible ways" this 'diary' couid have been acquired by MB is rather disingenuous.
Actually there aren't many ways at at all, are there? And few of them are remotely plausible as I think several of us have been at pains to point out.
And all of the possibilities (bar one) fail more or less at the test of the Crashaw quote.
Any scenario that seeks to suggest the diary was created anywhere but in Liverpool circa 1991 by a group of people involving MB has to find a plausible explanation
1.for the huge coincidence that MB owned the only other book beside the fake 'diary' ever known to have been published to contain the quote beginning 'O Costly intercourse of death'
2. for the fact that MB identified the source of that quote in circumstances that would have made it impossible for him to do so - unless he already knew it was there.
I have not seen a single plausible alternative suggested for this entire and compelling episode, and until there is one, the rational assumption has to be that MB identified the quote because he knew it was there - because he'd already found it while the 'diary' was being composed and either put it in the text himself, or advised someone else to do so.
But I appreciate that for several people here this discussion is not really about finding likely answers - or about looking for evidence, or moving forward in any appreciable way.
It's about the syllogistic maze - argument for the sake of itself or for some other purpose I cannot even imagine. And Paul and John obviously have a huge amount of time and energy to devote to this rather demoralising pursuit.
Gentlemen here who share my views - I think we are all doing little beside providing fuel for this exercise to continue. I think we have made the point as well as it can be made.
I suggest we concentrate on something more profitable. I'd like to keep trying to pull together as much of the currently unavailable or confused data as possible, and anything useful I get handed, or discover (or even work out for myself!), I'll let you all know about. But I'm not doing this round any more in the forseeable future.
Paul -
would it be possible to have copies of those faxes as asked for - re. the Crashaw revelation and its chronology?
or could you post them here?
And if you ever find that transcript I would still appreciate being able to look it over.
And Martin,
no I don't think it's anything like beautiful enough to be Swinburne.
Lamb?
I'm just guessing frantically
Karoline |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 11:00 am | | Hi, Karoline, Martin:
I have also been frantically searching, in vain, for Martin's quote. Charles Dickens was born some twenty years before Swinburne, in 1812, and Lord Tennyson three years earlier, in 1809. Surely both were writing before Swinburne's birth but I am not sure of the contemporaneity of their both achieving fame with Swinburne. Ah well. . . If it is not Dickens or Tennyson, I for one give in, Martin!
I did notice one thing in desperately searching through my poetry texts. I have both a recent (1999) copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse and an older edition that I recently inherited published in 1940. The new edition is edited by Christopher Ricks, he of Sphere Guide fame, and the old edition is edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. It is interesting to note that the 1940 edition contains 15 pages of poetry by Richard Crashaw, comprising seven poems, five quite lengthy and two about half a page each, whereas the 1999 edition by Ricks gives us only a page and a half of Crashaw, an extract from his A Hymn to the Honor and Name of Sainte Teresa. Move over, Crashaw! 
Chris George |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 12:00 pm | | Karoline, dear Karoline!
Weren't you ever told that 'disingenuousness' is a form of dishonesty, and by alleging it you attack my character and not my competence?
Ingenuity, on the other hand, is a part of creativity. Try the following possibilities:
Mike owned the diary because he was the original and sole forger.
Mike received the diary from Tony Devereux without knowing what it was, indeed, knowing no more than that Tony told him to 'do something with it'. And Tony himself didn't know what it was. He was only repeating Anne's instructions about handing Mike a mysterious parcel. Caroline's evidence endorses the story that the diary came out of a parcel and Mike didn't know what it was.
Mike took the diary to Doreen because Anne had forged it, and he wanted to protect her in case it all backfired: both of them were concerned that she should always be available for Caroline.
Mike took the diary to Doreen because he and Anne had forged it jointly, and he wanted to protect her as above. Caroline saw them doing it.
Now, so far I haven't even had to use my imagination. All those stories have emanated from Mike or Anne. If I start inventing, then:
Mike received the diary via Tony Devereux, because Tony and Anne had forged it, and knew Mike was simple enough to put it on the market for them, keeping them out of it.
Add Gerard Kane to the above story.
Make Gerard Kane and Tony Devereux complicit in getting the diary to Mike without Anne's knowledge. Her wild 'confession' then follows all she knows about how Mike got it, which can't be contradicted with Tony dead, and allows her to make claims from any ulterior motive you care to suggest: getting Feldy off her back, getting a larger share of interest in the diary; getting future career help by ingratiating herself with Keith and Shirley.
Replace Gerrard Kane in the above with any other friend of Tony Devereux you like.
I've only started! And I am certainly telling you the absolute truth when I say that I have absolutely no idea whether Mike was a patsy or a forging confederate, and no leaning to either as the more probable explanation. (Bear in mind that Anne, too, presumably had access to the Sphere book).
To a pleasanter topic.
Lamb???? Who died in 1834, and was distinctly old hat by 1888??? Join Mr Begg in the category of Muttonheads making confusion of Lamb! (Or am I ovelooking the little known Carl Philip Emmanuel Lamb?)
Accept this further clue, offered to Chris as well. The author in question is none that he has named, though he's moving in the right directions. And my earlier clue might have been more fairly put by saying he achived fame 'in his own right' around the same time Swinburne came to public notice.
With all good wishes,
Martin |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 01:16 pm | | Hi, Martin:
You frankly have me stumped and I am fishing around wildly. But Disraeli was born in 1804, published novels before Swinburne was born, and became Prime Minister in 1868 around the time Swinburne published some of his most famous poems. Do I have the writer, if not the work?
Best regards
Chris |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 01:59 pm | | Hey Martin:
Sounds like Robert Browning, but I'll be hanged first before I wade through every poem of his oeuvre to see if I'm right.
Yaz |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 02:00 pm | | Let's start with the assumption that the diary is not by Maybrick and is not the diary of the ripper.I think that we might find three people at the most disagreeing with this.
So it's a forgery. Recent or old? How many people here can put up their hands and say that it was an old forgery? No Paul, it doesn't count if you have your hand halfway up , John I really can't get into a discussion as to what "old" means and Keith it's ok to say that you don't know but we'll just have to put you in this little group all by yourself.
I think that the majority of the people here today think that it's a modern forgery.
Who forged it? On the basis of cui bono we have to look closely at MB and AG. There is no doubt that they profitted, that they have from time to time told stories that conflict with each other, conflict with their own previous stories and conflict with what documented evidence there is. Could they singly or jointly have forged the diary on their own? Yes. Although the handwriting in the diary does not look very much like their normal handwriting, it's very possible that either of them could have written it in a disguised handwriting. It has been said that MB's handwriting could well have deteriorated after 1992 due to his alcohol problems. Apart from one signature, the only samples I have seen date from 1994 onwards. As far as I know, no reliable forensic document examiners have looked at the writing of MB/AG.
Could someone else have been involved? Yes. One element in some of the MB/AG stories is that Tony Devereux gave the diary to MB. Although the later AG story may have been designed to use the earliest MB element and is therefore gratuitous, it is likely that the reason that Tony was originally used as a source was that he was safely dead and couldn't argue about it.
Is there any indication other than the MB/AG stories that Tony had possession or was involved in the diary? Well, there are indications of confirmation from Caroline, daughter of MB/AG that she was in the house when the diary arrived from Tony, watched it being unwrapped and saw her parents reading it. She was however 10 years old when this occurred and it must be considered that the possibility is that she was coached by her parents, misunderstood events or simply got things wrong. She could also be telling the truth but it is unclear whether, apart from a conversation in a car to which Paul Begg was privy, her statements on this matter are directly from her or filtered via her mother. It is a common misaprehension (apparently shared by John Omlor) that children always tell the truth.
Apart from this possible confirmation, the only other evidence is the temporary possession by Tony of the book by RWE which MB has said put him on the trail of Maybrick as the author of the diary and which was owned by MB. This is in itself evidence of a mutual interest in the subjects covered by this book, one of which was the Maybrick case. Further investigation is underway but it is interesting as I have recently pointed out that Tony, MB/AG and the other person mentioned below lived within half a mile of each other.
Who physically wrote the diary? As said above it is perfectly possible that it is in a disguised handwriting by MB or AG. However on the will of Tony Devereux one of the witnesses was suggested to have similar handwriting to the diarist. Although I discounted this previously because the sample was so small, further samples have been brought to my attention and there is a similarity.
Could anyone else be involved? There are people living today who may know more about these things but may not have been originally interviewed or interviewed in a faulty manner. It's likely however that they would just hold information about the various participants but not themselves be involved. Other people have been suggested, whose candidature as diary supremoes can only be considered eccentric. Those have included Keith Skinner and Melvin Harris!
There is however a tremendous archive of material in the possession of some of the earlier writers and researchers on this matter that demands to be placed in the public archive or at the least examined privately by people like myself. I have already agreed with Shirley Harrison that if I am given access to this material and find that I am convinced by the evidence that the diary is old or indeed the work of James Maybrick I will announce that fact here. She in turn has agreed that if she can be convinced that it is a modern forgery, she will also announce that. It's been suggested that part of the material she would wish to inspect would be the "new" handwriting examples. In turn I would have access to the supposed Amstrad transcripts. I am willing to consider this but would only do so on the condition that that offer is made by Shirley by mail to my business address. Obviously in a matter of this importance we cannot risk any misunderstandings. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 02:04 pm | | Karoline,
OK, that's twice now that you told us that you were finished discussing the issue because you thought it could no longer be profitable and you had made your case as well as it can be made.
On Saturday, April 28, 2001 - 12:43 pm, you wrote to me:
"Anyhow John - that's my last time through this question. I doubt it will make much difference, since all my previous efforts failed miserably. I have some articles to write and a family who need attention (as I've mentioned before), and I am interested in following up as much of the data here as possible - I just don't have time for this as well! So if I don't respond to any more of your questions, don't blame me - you've been served notice of my intention to quit."
And you were true to your word. I followed your post with a lengthy and detailed and careful response of my own and left the same four questions hanging, concerning the existence of any real and reliable, consistent and non-contradictory material or testimonial evidence. Readers probably know these by heart, at this point. But just so we know exactly where we still are concerning what evidence is reliably available, here they are again, just for fun. Please, everyone, feel free to skip over them if you remember them. 
"1.) Can anyone at all give me one single, solitary piece of real, reliable and established evidence that would "indicate" or logically allow me to choose which of the two scenarios concerning Mike's diary purchase is really more likely?
2.) Can anyone at all give me one single, solitary piece of real and reliable evidence that indicates that Mike Barrett ever met Gerard Kane or even knew of Gerard Kane?
3.) Can anyone at all give me one single solitary piece of real and reliable evidence that would allow me to decide whether Mike knew the Crashaw 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?
4.) Can anyone at all give me one single solitary piece of real and reliable evidence that would fairly and logically allow me to decide whether the transcript on Mike's wp (or on a disk) was put there before the diary was made as an act of original composition or after the diary was already in Mike's hands in order to facilitate copying, research, and distribution?"
And, precisely as you promised, Karoline, you did not answer any of these questions. Fair enough.
But now you are back.
Hello again. I am pleased to see that you are still willing to journey "through this question." Honestly.
You reiterated your request for other possible scenarios and I was going to construct a couple different and long ones, but Paul and especially Martin beat me to it. Please remember, the scenarios would not need to have very much real, reliable, established material evidence to support them, since neither do the ones that suggest that Mike and or Anne committed this forgery or helped to create this forgery or even knew that this was a forgery at the time they initially received this diary. So you can’t really or fairly attack Paul or Martin's scenarios as remaining conjecture and unestablished or supported by evidence, since that would also describe the one you are advancing.
So where are we? Well, I think Martin probably had it about right in his original post.
"[T]he result of constructing scenarios from data as diffuse and sometimes self-contradictory as that surrounding the diary, is, I hope you will agree, only a demonstration of the constructor's ingenuity and ability to reconcile more of the difficult pieces of data than do different and 'rival' scenarios."
and I would also second his rather, by now obviously well-established, eloquently phrased conclusion that:
"In the present state of knowledge, we just don't know who forged the diary and how it came into Mike's possession. Suspicion is one thing. The probability of any postulated chain of events is quite another."
 For Everyone:
 But I would now like to directly address the following bothersome remarks of yours, that seem to wish to characterize my own work here. They include a charge that I flatly and absolutely and unequivocally deny and they reveal your frustration, but nothing at all about my words, which you have apparently not been reading very closely.
You say this, unfortunately:
"I appreciate that for several people here this discussion is not really about finding likely answers - or about looking for evidence, or moving forward in any appreciable way.
It's about the syllogistic maze - argument for the sake of itself or for some other purpose I cannot even imagine."
Your first sentence, in my case, is simply wrong. Staggeringly wrong. I recognize your prejudice and your own assumed but unsubstantiated conclusions about what I might be doing here, but they are simply wrong. I am quite obsessively interested in finding answers and in looking for evidence and in moving forward. In fact, I have been the one pointing out to the point of blinding tedium that too much of the evidence is contradictory or still missing. So of course I am all in favor of finding evidence. I am not in favor of passing off speculation, preferred interpretations, and demonstrably invalid conclusions as evidence. I will never be in favor of that. Never.
But the fact that you think you can say this about me makes it suddenly very clear to me how you can so insistently assert Mike's probable guilt despite what has been shown here about the scantness of the evidence and the contradictory nature of what little evidence is available.
I understand, now Karoline. I see how you can go on asserting the likelihood of someone's guilt. I have now seen something similar, first hand.
You have assumed to know what I am doing here and you think you have evidence to support that assumption and I can say with absolute assuredness and completely unquestionable first-hand experience, that your assumption is completely and utterly wrong.
You have assumed that I am not really interested in "finding likely answers - or about looking for evidence, or moving forward in any appreciable way."
You are wrong.
You think you have evidence to support this unwarranted and incorrect assumption.
You do not.
Every word I have written here with the exception of a few jokes, one or two brief, intentionally ridiculous responses designed to demonstrate the absurdity of what I was reading, and some polite chatter, has in fact been carefully constructed and written deliberately to find likely answers and to look for evidence, and to move forward in an appreciable way.
Every one of my criticisms of your assumptions and every one of my demonstrations concerning the invalid arguments offered here and every one of my careful presentations concerning what specific evidence is still missing, was designed intentionally to allow readers to see what can and cannot be logically and validly established as reliable evidence or warranted conclusions. This is precisely how we move forward. This is precisely how investigations must move forward if they are going to be fair and careful and accurate and responsible. And I am all in favor, in fact I would even insist that this sort of investigation into criminal complicity be fair and careful and accurate and responsible. This, it seems to me, is precisely the opposite of not trying to find evidence or answers or to move the discussion forward.
You are simply wrong about what I am doing.
And the fact that you felt that you could write with such assuredness and such conclusive rhetoric about what you thought I was not interested in doing demonstrates clearly to me why you still insist on the likelihood of someone's criminal complicity even when barely any consistent and reliable evidence yet exists to support this accusation. This is obviously how you read. You develop an assumed conclusion and assert it. You have done that here about me. You have not offered evidence. You have made no case. And, to make it all the worse, I happen to know you are wrong.
And you used to accuse me of being unreasonable.
Also, because I have used logic and rational argument and clear questions and a careful, detailed and meticulous examination of your writing and your assertions and the quality of your evidence, your only response to my work now becomes:
"It's about the syllogistic maze - argument for the sake of itself or for some other purpose I cannot even imagine."
No. It's about reading carefully. It's about examining the quality of our evidence carefully. It's about using rational argument. It's about making logical and valid conclusions from established premises. It's about fairness. It's about an eye for the consistency of the details. It's about justice. It's even about truth.
It is most definitely not "about the syllogistic maze - argument for the sake of itself or for some other purpose I cannot even imagine."
The reason you cannot imagine another purpose is because the actual purpose of my reading has nothing to do with any "syllogistic maze" (which remains simply a vague and misleading phrase uttered by you in place of any careful reading of what I have written -- I'm sure it's easier to respond that way, since you don't actually have to think).
But I can give you the purpose you cannot imagine.
The purpose is accuracy and consistency and validity and fairness and responsibility for the details and honest intellectual conclusions and the purpose, finally, is the writing of responsible history and the maintenance of objectivity and the eventual establishment of justice in our conclusions.
That is the purpose you say you cannot imagine.
I am bound by that purpose to read your writing closely and to investigate in a careful and detailed way precisely what can and cannot be claimed as reliable and consistent and established evidence and what conclusions can validly be reached.
There is no syllogistic maze here, Karoline. There is close, detailed reading in the name of the accuracy of details and the reliability and consistency of the evidence.
The fact that you think otherwise and that you actually assert otherwise in writing without any supporting evidence whatsoever speaks only and poorly to your behavior as a reader and your already assumed conclusions.
I am sorry that you felt you had to write these two sentences. They seem to me to be unwise and to demonstrate precisely why as a reader I might fairly be suspicious of any other conclusions you assert within your reading of this case. You see, I know these two to be absolutely false, and it makes me wonder how much evidence you have to support your others. I am afraid that your assumptions about my motives, offered in writing as a conclusion without support, do not do very much to enhance your credibility as a careful, patient, or responsible reader.
I hope I have made my point. I really did wish today to turn this discussion a degree or two towards the kinder and gentler side. But reading these two completely unsubstantiated and, at least in my case, utterly false sentences made it impossible for me not to respond.
Please, Karoline, question my writing; question my conclusions; question the logic of my arguments; question my summary of the evidence and the lack of evidence; but do not question my motives or my desires or my intellectual rigor and honesty. Please.
I have questioned here why people's writing seems so insistent when it comes to claiming Mike's involvement or the likelihood of Mike's involvement, why people want, in their investigations, to treat anyone as "fair game," why they would twist contradictory facts to support the same conclusion of probable guilt. I think now I am beginning to see why.
I do promise after this today, to turn pleasant. It is a lovely Spring weekend here and I went around the course in +8 and I am about to have a fine lunch and a cold Bass.
But I did feel that these two unfortunate sentences needed to be addressed.
Now back to your regularly scheduled program...
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 02:15 pm | | Peter,
My two little nieces lie. So did I, all the time, when I was a child. I do not know what you are talking about.
I would not consider little Caroline's story to be reliable or established evidence for anything and have, in fact, explicitly said so in my written criticism here on these boards of a passage from Paul Feldman's book, (where I could not believe that he actually characterized Caroline's story as "disinterested" or "objective" testimony and where I argued strongly against his use of her story as evidence for anything). I think Paul F. was wrong to consider her story real or reliable evidence of anything on its own. Please read my words carefully. If you can cite an actual passage where I suggested that her story was real and reliable evidence either in favor of or against complicity, I will happily retract this. But I do not believe I have written such a thing. Her story is not necessarily true by any means. It cannot also be determined to be a lie, of course. It remains completely unestablished as either true or false and that is all we can yet say about it; therefore we cannot fairly use it to establish the likelihood of one scenario or another.
Right?
Bye for now,
--John
PS: Would, say 1988, be "old?" How about 1959 (be careful here)?  |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 03:11 pm | | Martin:
If I had to guess the work, assuming Browning is the "likely villain," I'd hazard "The Ring and the Book."
Appropriate choices, in many ways, considering this thread -- but if it ain't true, it oughtta be.
Yaz |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 03:41 pm | | Yaz - You have the author spot on. To disentangle my clues as to his identity, he published 'Paracelsus' in 1835, two years before Swinburne was born, but was generally known as 'the great' spasmodic poet Elizabeth Barrett's imepenetrably obscure husband until he published 'The Ring and the Book' in 1868-9. Swinburne hit notoriety with 'Poems and Ballads' in 1866 and less controversial fame with 'Atalanta in Calydon' and 'Songs Before Sunrise' in 1871.
I'm not sure that 'The Ring and the Book' would still be considered 'modern verse' in 1888 (when Browning still had a year or so to live, and could be imagined by Max Beerbohm, demurely sipping tea with the middle-aged ladies of the Browning Society). You are absolutely right to suggest that it would be intolerable to dredge your way through his enormous and as far as I know unconcordanced output in search of lines I don't think can be traced on the internet. The 'house where lust is sport' comes from 'Ned Bratts' in the 'Dramatic Idyls' of 1879. The ninth section (unless my edition has advanced a section across a page or column turn).
I must admit I enjoy a lot of Browning, and think his more difficult work - ( tho' NOT Paracelsus!) - repays the effort: perhaps especially 'the Ring and the Book' and 'Caliban'. But senility must be creeping on, as I can now also enjoy a certain amount of Swinburne, whom I used to think of as full of sound and music and signifying nothing.
With congratulations to all contestants,
Martin F |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 04:07 pm | | Peter
The remark about having a hand half way up suggests that you seriously misunderstand my views.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Yazoo
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 04:24 pm | | Hey Martin:
Are you aware of the admittedly superficial parallels between your choice and this thread?
1) Browning and his wife were both writers=AG/B/G and MB are alleged "writers"
2) Browning's wife's maiden(?) name is Barrett
3) Too bad about the quote not coming from "The Ring and the Book" because Browning's book is supposedly taken from the infamous "Yellow Book" Browning found in France or Italy (dare I suggest the city of Florence?) -- I think it is disputed whether the book ever existed; in other words, its authenticity is disputed a la the Maybrick diary
4) Both the Yellow Book and "The Ring..." deal with, I think, the trial of a wife accused of murdering her husband and the method, again I think, was poison=Florence Maybrick and the rest of the happy, happy Maybrick family
5) Browning is most reknowned for his poetic monologues (the quotations marks meant either a playwright -- doubtful -- or someone like Browning). The monologue is a soliloquy is talking to oneself in written form=a diary or diary entry
6) But anyway, I think your quote mentioned Woman in connection to lust=Maybrick's alleged concerns about Florence's (again alleged) infidelity in the diary
Anyway, it's no doubt all a figment of my own febrile little brain.
Yaz |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 04:46 pm | | Peter
That Mike and Anne gained from the forgery means very little as evidence that they forged the 'diary' since they would have gained from it whether they were unwitting placers or active forgers.
That they have told conflicting stories is true, but those stories should be specified and may have been dictated by conditions existing at the time they were told. What evidence within the stories suggests that one or other forged the ‘diary’?
Whether a professional handwriting analysis would confirm that the handwriting is either Mike’s or Anne’s remains to be seen, but if it is then we can all turn with relief to other things. If it isn't - and it seems agreed (now) that the disrist’s handwriting does not look like either Mike’s or Anne’s - the obviously neither of them penned it. At least one more person would then have to be involved in the conspiracy. And maybe that one person conceived and executed the whole shebang and Mike was just an innocent dupe.
it is likely that the reason that Tony was originally used as a source was that he was safely dead and couldn't argue about it. This is important. On what evidence is it ‘likely’ that Tony was dead?
Sure Caroline could have been lying or repeating what she had been coached to say. I merely mentioned her testimony and observed that it could be disregarded.
Fine, there is a similarity between the handwriting of the diarist and the handwriting of Gerrard Kane. Is there any evidence that Gerrard Kane knew Mike Barrett? There are people lodging in the same house who don’t know their neighbours!
So, the "evidence" seems to be little more than the statistical probability that Mike and Anne are the forgers because they are the ones who benefited from the forgery. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 05:25 pm | | Geez, Peter,
You just come right out and conclude:
"it is likely that the reason that Tony was originally used as a source was that he was safely dead and couldn't argue about it."
You offer no evidence whatsoever for this, nor support, not even any real argument. Just a statement, without any basis in known or even offered facts, that this is likely.
What sort of investigation are you conducting here, anyway, that would allow you to just announce this as if it was a self-evident conclusion? What sort of rules for evidence should we have? Do simple unwarranted and unevidenced assumptions now just start to count as "likelihoods" simply because someone writes them down? I really can't believe you think this or want us to assume this. So shouldn't there be some evidence for such a statement? At least a little? Somewhere? If only for the sake of accuracy and responsibility?
Your words:
"it is likely that the reason that Tony was originally used as a source was that he was safely dead and couldn't argue about it."
Why is this likely? Is there any real, reliable, material evidence at all that this was likely? Can you support your conclusion that this was likely with anything other than your own random and unsubstantiated opinion? Anything at all?
Also, your analysis of the handwriting situation leads once again to the mysterious and still completely unlinked Mr. Kane (or someone else) possibly being the penman. If you believe this, then how does this square with your arguing in favor of complicity by suggesting that Mike and Anne are the ones who profited from the diary? Do you have any real, reliable, material evidence that you can put forth here that anyone else has profited from this diary? If so, who? And what is your evidence that this profit took place? If not, why would someone pen the thing for Mike and Anne and then not be rewarded? Or perhaps you are going to claim that Mike or Anne secretly paid their co-conspirators and we just don't have any evidence of these payments but we can be sure they are there? DANGER: We are now moving perilously close to Feldman Country, everyone, where the prose drifts into the purely imaginative and the dramatically mysterious. Walk carefully and watch for unsubtantiated, purely speculative, hypothetical assertions offered solely to make arriving at the pre-determined and desired conclusion rhetorically possible despite a complete lack of evidence.
And will someone please offer me one single piece of reliable and substantial evidence that Mike Barrett ever knew, met, or even knew of Gerard Kane. Please.
Otherwise, this is starting to sound very much like the fabulous prose of The Final Chapter, where we first meet the mysterious "Mr. J.O."
Yup, it was me.
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 07:27 pm | | Hi All,
I have an innocent question, not meant to stir up another hornet's nest, but asked simply because I honestly don't know.
I think I've read almost all the published discussions concerning the age testing done on the ink and when it might have been applied, etc., including the ones collected here on the Casebook as well.
As we all know there are several conflicting reports, even and including the one from Alec Voller and the one from AfI. And there are others, including Eastaugh's and Kurantz', etc.
So has anything changed recently? Have there been any recent scientific age tests done on the diary, say, in the last year or so, and have the results available changed or become more definite? Is the scientific data now more consistent and determined? I just wanted to be sure I was up to speed on what the science is most recently saying.
Thanks for any info, in advance.
An all-new Simpson's is approaching and so I am off to Springfield.
--John |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Sunday, 29 April 2001 - 10:37 pm | | I'd just like to add my voice to the overture that Peter Birchwood made this morning:
"There is however a tremendous archive of material in the possession of some of the earlier writers and researchers on this matter that demands to be placed in the public archive or at the least examined privately by people like myself."
Would it be possible to release some of the relevant documents, interviews, and transcripts to those who are researching the Maybrick diary? Can anyone suggest how this might be accomplished? Or is there another way forward? Suggestions anyone?
RP |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 02:09 am | | Hi RJP
On Saturday you wrote: "Correction: In Mike's initial confession to Harold Brough Daily Post 27 June, 1994, Mike does name the ink shop. I quote Harold Brough: 'He then said that he had bought some ink from a shop at the Bluecoat Chambers in Liverpool, and that he had typed the diary on a word processor at his home in Liverpool'
Just to keep the record straight, Mike’s initial confession to Harold Brough was on Friday, June 23rd 1994 and was published in the Liverpool Daily Post on Saturday, June 25 1994 (not Monday, 27th June 1994, as you stated). Mike Barrett spoke with Harold Brough again on Sunday, 26th June, 1994, at this interview taking Brough to the auctioneers and the ink shop, and the interview was reported on Monday, 27th June 1994 (being the interview you cited).
At the initial confession on June 24 1994/reported June 25 1994 Harold Brough wrote:
‘He is now separated from his wife and family. He poured himself a whiskey, and said: “I did it because I could not pay the mortgage. So I thought ‘what can I do?’ and the only thing I am good at – apart from being a scrap metal merchant – is writing. So I thought I would write the biggest story in history.”
But he was unable to explain how he managed to write a book which fooled experts, or answer basic questions about how he found the old paper of the diary, or old ink: “But I pulled it…I bloody well pulled it.” (my emphasis)
And you wrote: "Paul--You didn't ask me if I thought Mike forged the diary. I don't think Mike forged the diary. You asked me if I thought Mike knew it was a forgery. Yes, that is what I think."
I'm sorry if I did not express myself clearly enough. I wrote "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..."
The possibility I was asking you to consider is that Mike did not know that the 'diary' was a forgery and I am asking you to clearly distinguish between evidence that would be consistent with him being an innocent patsy and evidence from which you infer that he an accomplice in the forgery. I was asking you to simply cite the latter.
I am not suggesting that Anne gave the 'diary' to Tony Devereux. I am simply asking whether there is any evidence which in your opinion supports Mike having been given the 'diary' by Tony Devereux.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 05:28 am | | Hi Yaz,
Oddly enough, I'd never given a thought to the coincidence of 'the Portugues's' maiden name and that of the Liverpudleian diary owners. When you put 'maiden' in brackets, I hope you aren't suggesting that ay hanky-panky went on on that hysterical pseudo-consumptive sick-bed in Wimpole Street?
Martin |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 07:09 am | | Hey Martin:
Who, me? Never. Besides, nefarious members of secret Browning Society chapters may come after me if I did.
Yaz |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 08:13 am | | Paul--Hello. Thanks for the correcting my mistake in saying that the 27 June article was Mike's initial confession. He, of course, contacted Brough three days earlier. What I was attempting to deny is the insinuation made in Paul Feldman's book (p 177) that Mike didn't identify the ink bought until after the name the Bluecoat Art Shop had been named in the Liverpool papers, which was in Feldy's rebuttle on 28th June, wherein the owner of the Bluecoat Art shop was interviewed. So it's true that Mike initially didn't have any details about how he forged it. Mike still doesn't have varifiable details. (And I, for one, don't believe Mike Barrett single-handly forged the diary). Mike did however point out a shop. Shirley Harrison wrote that if Mike had bought the ink at this shop it would have been Diamine. Diamine ink contains chloroacetamide. At least one test showed that the diary's ink contained chloroacetamide. If you look back you'll see that that is all I initially wrote. What I'm asking is whether or not this is a coincidence. It is admittedly a very thin thread. Does it suggest that Mike was able to find out where the ink was bought?
Paul, could you list your reasons for thinking that Mike was ignorant of the diary being a forgery? Could there be "alternative explanations" as to why Mike has never been able to come up with a convincing confession, other than that he was an ignorant dupe?
Cheers, RJP. |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 08:18 am | | Paul, Martin, RJ, Peter, Caz, Chris et al.,
Hello everyone,
Seriously, have there been any more recent age tests done on this ink and have the scientific conclusions become clearer and more confidently established since, say, the end of 1995 when Voller examined the ink?
Genuinely curious,
--John
PS: Chris, given your last name and all, I trust you rarely told anyone you were curious about anything when you were a child... |
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 08:50 am | | Hi John
To answer your question, not that I am aware of.
Hi RJP
Mike identified the ink shop on the Sunday. On Monday Harold Brough visited the shop and was told the nearest thay had to a Victorian ink was Diamine manuscript ink.
My point is that on that same day Mike also identified Outhwaite and Litherland as the auctioneers who supplied the book. They denied this and have also stated that the sales procedure described by Mike is not theirs. If this information is true, then at least half of Mike's story is untrue. Why, then, give any credence to the identification of the ink shop? Mike told me that he identified the shop because he knew it existed because he attemded book and records sales in the precinct. And I have also speculated - gaining Chris G's agreement - that there probably weren't many such establishments in Liverpool and that Diamine, being a Liverpool based manufacturer, probably enjoyed wide distribution in the area. That the 'diary' ink should be an ink manufactured and sold locally if probably very far from and unlikely coincidence.
I don't have a reason for thinking Mike was a dupe. It's a hypothesis that emerged from a careful and controlled assessment of the evidence. Mike has consistently displayed ignorance since he first confessed to Harold Brough, when his story has been tested, as with O&L, it has proved untrue (or so we are told). This lack of knowledge suggests lack of participation. If he didn't participate, did he have a witting role? Is there any evidence to suggest that he did? That's what I was asking you.
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 09:08 am | | Like Mr Begg, I'm not aware of any new tests. But I haven't paid much recent attention to diary matters util these boards turned into an interesting methodological discussion.
Martin F |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 09:18 am | | Hi, all:
John, my last name "George" was a hassle for me when I was in school in England because as per convention in the all male school in Liverpool that I attended, the masters called me by my last name "George" and a number of kids got the impression that it was my first name as well. I used to detest being called "George" for that reason. 
I would like to bring up a point in regard to the large format photo book versus the small maroon diary. The maroon diary could have been bought, as some of us (myself, Peter, R.J, Karoline) believe, to put the Diary text in it. In this sense, the buyer could have known that the actual handwriting style was immaterial as long as the handwriting looked old. The buyer knew or sensed that the original Diary that we know is a forgery and that it was the story that was important not so much the handwriting. I have noted before that the writing in the existing photo or scrapbook often ends before the end of a page, and the writer fills in the remainder of the page with a scrawled diagonal or a squiggly line. Could it be then that the text was intended for a smaller format book but the scrapbook was the only period book they could find initially to use to write the text? Or could it be that the text in the existing book is copied from a smaller book? Just some points to ponder.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 09:28 am | | Thank you Paul and Martin.
So the testing and the results remain somewhat contradictory, then?
This has always struck me as strange, but of course I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about the science of age-testing. I just have that ignorant amateur's naive assumption that science could determine such things rather accurately and reliably. It's the same thing I hear when I first tell my uninitiated friends about the diary. Usually, the initial response is simply "Hey, can't they pretty much tell those sorts of things these days with tests and stuff? Why don't they just date the ink using lab tests?" As if that should be the end of the dating problem. I once would have thought so too. I guess I would have been wrong. Yet another misplaced faith goes by the wayside.
Martin, here's a tip. Have the fisherman think of the great DiMaggio during his struggles against the sharks. Or maybe the great DiMaggio’s ex-wife.
Thanks again,
--John
PS: "I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it. Let them think about it."
and later, still thinking about sin and the fish,
"You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?
"'You think too much, old man,' he said aloud."
--Hem |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 09:53 am | | Hi Chris,
Ah yes, the two first names problem. I myself was of course thinking of a mischievous little primate who featured prominently in my own childhood literary experience. Curious George.
Anyway, Chris, you ask some interesting questions.
One of the last ones has me confused. You ask:
"Or could it be that the text in the existing book is copied from a smaller book?"
Are you suggesting here that the text was first written in the red diary and then copied over to the big one? But wasn't the red diary for a specific and unacceptable year and therefore completely unusable? So why would anyone have written the text in it first? And if they had written it in a different smaller diary, why not just use that one then instead of heading out to find a bigger one that they would not have needed? I'm a bit confused here and perhaps I am not understanding your question.
Also, even if the diary were somehow "composed" to fit into a smaller book, why would the penman have to maintain this originally intended format once he or she was copying words into the bigger book, why not just put several apparent "entries" on the same page, the way a real diarist might? Or extend entries to fill pages?
But wait, that's what actually happens in the diary we have. I just looked at the facsimile in Shirley's book and there are in fact plenty of pages that have full-length entries that cover entire pages, and there are also pages that have several shorter "entries" separated by lines, all on the same page, and, as you say, some pages remain half empty. There are indeed pages like 218, but there are also plenty of pages like 232 and 246 and even some like 231. And there are also lengthy entries that cover more than one page, like the one that runs from the bottom of 245 to the top of 247. All of these appear. So I'm not sure we have any consistent textual evidence here at all that the diary was originally composed for a smaller volume. In fact, it looks as if it might have been composed without any specific thought whatsoever to page size, since the entries vary dramatically in length with no apparent consistent pattern. (Of course, if it had been a "real" diary written into an old album, this would have also been the case, perhaps. But this is irrelevant.)
Interesting ideas, though.
--John
PS: All page numbers above refer to pages in the diary as they appear in the Hyperion hardbound edition of Shirley's book. Is this standard, or is there a standard way to refer to diary facsimile page numbers? Sorry I don't already know this. |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 10:08 am | | Hi John:
Obviously what I am proposing is only a hypothesis but I have long thought that it looked suspicious that a number of pages were not completely filled and that the writing ended half way or two thirds of the way down and the writer then ended the page with a flourish of the pen, either a diagonal or a wavy line. Why is that?
Yes, I am suggesting possibly the text of the Diary earlier resided in a third so far undiscovered and presumably now destroyed book. If it was a smaller book, where you see the text flow over from one page to another in the present book, that text could have been on facing pages in the earlier smaller format book. Maybe the writer made mistakes in that earlier book and had to rewrite it in the book we now know. The maroon diary was bought with the idea of making yet a third version of the writing in what would appear to be a more fitting book than the photo book.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 10:13 am | | John,
I think we need to be cautious about treating scientific lab reports as ex cathedra pronouncements on some of our historical document and fraud problems. The Vinland map labs, as far as I know, have not settled their disagreements yet, and it has really fallen to historians of maps and documents to look carefully at the original and conclude that 'Vinland' (and it may be Greenland - I don't remember for sure) has been skilfully added to blank ocean space in an original of Leif's starting point. If it were up to the scientists, they'd still be quarrelling about whether the anachronistic substance identified was used in forger's ink or was an inevitable atmospheric contamination acquired by the document in its normal recent lifetime. And whether a narrow core sample of the ink was more reliable than a blanket test of some ink and some parchment.
Likewise, when that delightful old western historian - (is his name Snow?) - received the negative DNA results on the body he had laboriously traced, excavated, and produced vey strong evidence for as the Sundance Kid, he concluded his television documentary, 'Aw, sh*t!', and accepted that his work must all have been wrong. Personally I think it far more likely that Mr Longbaugh's mother was no better than she should have been, which is why his DNA did not match collateral relatives on Mr Longbaughthe elder's side. Science isn't inevitably better than history, (though don't ask me to believe that the Turin shroud is a genuine 1st century Palestinian item).
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 11:31 am | | Good point, Martin, about the perils of comparing someone's DNA with anyone on their 'father's' side of the family. An old saying is, "A wise man knows his own father."
Incidentally, I quite often think of MB and AG (silently) as 'The Barretts of Win Poll Street.'
(Ouch!!! The zapper still works!)
Hi Karoline,
I wrote:
" what you are quite definitely
saying is that you will go on fingering Kane in public as a likely forger, and that it’s not your fault that your hands are tied when it comes to producing a shred of evidence to
back up your suspicions...”
I thought it was fairly obvious why I was disgusted. (I never mentioned dishonesty. Do you think you were being dishonest?)
My own values would not allow me to finger anyone in public, if I knew I was not on the firmest possible ground beforehand, or if I knew I was in no position to back up my public suspicions in public. This is just me.
I can’t do as you are doing, in building your house of circumstancial ‘evidence’. You seem to be using bricks made of possible explanations for the facts, and picking all the red ones out of a box marked ‘suspicious’, and saying, “See what a clever girl I am!”, when there are also two other boxes available to us, one of blue bricks, marked ‘not suspicious’, and one of green ones marked ‘could be either’. No one here is suggesting that you should be replacing all your reds with blues. (I’ve still got the green house Mike said he wanted to buy with the diary money.  ) And don’t forget, we only need one single red brick to be correctly placed in order to make Mike and/or Anne guilty. Yet, oddly, considering the illogical and unreasonable behaviour (not to mention drinking habits) of the man at the centre of all this, he has somehow managed to stop us cementing that one red brick into place. The diary house itself, of course, was built when it was built, and can’t be changed by choosing what colour bricks we would like to see there. (It’s a bit like the game of mastermind, where the coloured pegs and blanks – I like including blanks - are predetermined, and you have to work backwards to find out what the code is.)
But it remains a mini-mystery to me how Mike didn’t trip up, and let slip the fatal words, ‘Crashaw’ or ‘Kane’, among others, at any point, until so doing could no longer be seen as conclusively damning, by those who were at the heart of the investigation, and knew all the twists and turns that we still don't. Does this indicate that we have a guilty Mike, who has been rather lucky (my father-in-law always maintained that “God looks after drunks and little children”, being very fond of the odd drop or two himself) or very crafty? Or is it equally likely that we have an innocent Mike, who tends to find trouble without even looking for it, and is very good at looking guilty? I don’t know – I’m still struggling with my greens – although my mum always said they were good for me. I think she was right…..
Love,
Caz
PS Quick question: if Keith Skinner is not thought objective, or painstaking, enough to have handled all the diary documentation; and it is now generally thought advisable to let others have a closer, more careful look through it all, for the smoking gun Keith truly believes he needs from Melvin; who do we think has demonstrated sufficiently well here, that he/she/the cat would make a totally objective job of it, and might succeed where Keith has failed?
(Bear in mind, if you will, when thinking of possible candidates for this task, the use of such famous phrases as 'LONG BEFORE' and 'known associates', not to mention the Formby fiasco, where Billy Graham's actual step-granny actually lived within half a mile of Alice Yapp - but of course, this has no more or less significance than the fact that Kane, Devereux and Barrett lived within half a mile of each other.)
Sorry about the long PS. |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 11:45 am | | Hi Chris,
I see what you're saying. But then, it if was originally a smaller book how do we account for the long entries and the multiple entries and the thorough inconsistency of entry length that we have in the final version? And if the entry length varies, then how can we tell whether the original entries were in a small book or a big book or on a word processor. See what I mean?
But I think I also now get your point about the smaller entries. Why would a diarist or forger bother putting short entries on a whole page and then not use the rest of the page?
Interesting question. Have you noticed how, when that occurs, there is also a dramatic pause or occurrence or moment in the narrative.
But this gets me thinking. We should look again at the various entry lengths in detail. It has always seemed to me that this diary starts out with rather controlled entry lengths, rather controlled handwriting, and rather neatly constructed entries and page layout. Then, as it goes along, it becomes visibly less organized, the handwriting gets visibly less controlled, the entry lengths begin to vary dramatically and the strike-outs increase dramatically. Now, our forger might have thought this was all in keeping with the disintegration of a sickening psyche. This would have all been done therefore to reproduce in a cheap and psychologically naive dramatic fashion, if you ask me, the gradual unraveling of Maybrick's mind. Or, of course, the forger may simply have gotten sloppy and lazy or started to rush and therefore ended up giving less care and attention to the structure of what he or she was creating. Odd, the very same pattern of layout and narrative suggests completely opposing possible interpretations. Either the forger was trying to be careful recreating a psychological disintegration or the forger was just getting careless and more haphazard. Both readings work, really.
In any case, let's look closely at the diary entry lengths and the layout and see what we can see.
Take a first look at the entries from 207 to 215. They are fairly organized. As you point out, 212 and 215 remain only half full and this is odd (although, to be fair, 215 is marred by a smudge on the bottom half). But then 216 has three paragraphs filling the page without line separations and even a sentence which carries over onto 217. The pattern of shorter entries and line breaks and respect for new pages has apparently stopped. 217 and 218 also have a carry-over entry and when this somewhat longer entry stops, so does the writing on 218. This, of course can not be evidence for original composition in a smaller volume, since the entry that ends halfway down 218 is actually started halfway up 217 and therefore shows no signs of being too small for the page. In fact, if it had been composed in a smaller book it would have had to have been more than a single page there in any case. So clearly, the decision to stop writing halfway down 218 could not have been because it was short entry designed to fit a small volume, since the entry was actually longer and carried over from the page before in the album. This is why I think it is probably unfair to suggest that half-written pages suggest composition for a smaller volume. Obviously, in this case, the decision to stop writing halfway down the page must have been made for some other reason.
And indeed there is a dramatic shift in thought and event as you move from the end of 218 to the "I could not resist mentioning my deed to George" beginning on top of 219. Perhaps this is the reason for the forced page break. I don't know.
But I want to keep reading.
The pattern is severely disrupted on 220, where we have a line or two carried over from 219 and the, set all by itself and in the middle of the otherwise empty page, only the two lines of doggerel "one dirty whore was looking for some gain / another dirty whore was looking for the same."
Notice: This is the first time that the diarist tries his hand at poetry. It is separated and isolated on a single page with attention calling lines above and below it. It is clearly being marked for our reading as an important moment, perhaps we are to assume it represents a specific change in our diarist or a new development in his evolving psychosis, or perhaps we are just meant to see that now we have a new element in this book that will prove to be more and more common and to play a larger role, rhetorically, in the subsequent entries and in the diary as a whole. It's almost as if the forger got the idea to have "Jim" try out poetry, thought it was a cool idea with lots of possibilities and therefore announced it's beginning on a page almost all it's own. Again, the decision not to use the rest of the page here could not have been strictly and simply because any original book was smaller, since this whole entry is only two lines and would not have filled any page in any book.
Still, though, we have had no strike-outs, no scratched out verse, nothing of this sort yet, and the handwriting is only starting to grow a bit in size but remains mostly under control.
At the top of 221, a second partially filled page, we get the "Am I not clever? I thought of my funny rhyme..." lines. Here we are I think perhaps to conclude that Maybrick put the previous two lines on a page all to themselves because he was especially proud of them, then after expressing that pride, he (metaphorically as well as literally) turned the page (although, to be fair again, there is another smudge on the bottom half of 221).
Now things start getting messier. Perhaps our forger thought they were recreating the mind of a man suddenly obsessed with writing verse, or perhaps our forger just stopped controlling his own plan and layout, but now the pages and the entries start to become more haphazard. Page 222 begins with prose but quickly shifts to more attempts at rhymes and we have our first readable strike outs (to help us watch the evolution of composition -- or the illusion of it anyway) and by 223 the line spacing and the handwriting has noticeably increased in size and decreased in consistency. Perhaps the writer has speeded up, or perhaps this is a dramatic effect to give us the dramatization of psychological insight. I don't know.
224 has verse all to itself, centered neatly on the page, but with a line or two struck out. Again the verse is "presented" as if the writer wanted to create the appearance of pride or of a deliberate layout designed for readers. 225 has a full-length entry in prose again but by 226 we have de-evolved into scratchings and the scrawled "MAY" and the repeated "ha ha ha ha" and the layout has, if you'll pardon the expression "gone to Hell."
But not really. If you look closely at 225, you'll see that the verse that begins towards the bottom actually carries over onto 227, so again, it seems not to have been composed for a smaller volume necessarily, but rather to have been composed without particular thought at this point to page breaks whatsoever. The versifying continues, now centered on the page, until 230. Then the prose begins again, with multiple entries on a page but with carry overs of the same entry from 230 to 231 and with more space between lines, although an entry does end just exactly at the bottom of the page on 231. Page 232 is a full page entry from top to bottom and ending exactly at the end of the line on the bottom of that page with a final "ha ha." Again, this suggests that at least part of the composition was either done with the larger page size in mind or altered after any original composition, in order to fit the page size completely in any case, and this makes the question, of why some pages are not so filled out while others obviously are, much more problematic. Unless we believe that the size and endstops of the entries on the second half of 231 and on page 232 (where a sinlge entry seems to fill the page exactly or at least is broken exactly at the end of the page with the "ha ha") is some of sort of happy coincidence or accident rather than at least in part due to the actual size of pages 231 and 232. I don't know, myself.
From 233 on, the diary mixes verse and prose entries of irregular and varying lengths in such a way that no further reliable conclusion about the size of any previous or original composition can apparently be made.
However, the diary handwriting reaches its largest point from 258 to 265 and then shrinks again noticeably back to more like the size of the early entries. 259 seems to mark a climax of expressive calligraphy with the giant "Sir Jimay" that fills half a page and the verse of only four short lines again given their own entire page on 260 as if the forger wanted us to see both the product of composition and the lack of control (now the page is not so neat as it was when verse first appeared, now there is the dying swirl filling the page -- but again this cannot really be said to be evidence of an original composition in a smaller book where the composer would have run out of room, since the whole entry was only four short lines in any case).
The most dramatic shift occurs between 265 and 266. Now the size of the writing and the size of the line spacing shrink again considerably and return to their earlier size (almost as if this part had been written closer to the time of the early entries, though of course there is no real evidence for this either way). Psychologically, this is a place where "Jim" starts announcing that he is tired and that things are starting to wear on him. The fiendish exuberance of the middle pages is starting to sink into weary frustration and exhaustion. Perhaps we are supposed to assume that this is why there is such a dramatic change. But it happens much too suddenly to be believable, of course, unless we are also assuming that a significant amount of time has passed between these two pages.
The thoughts about the Kelly murder appear on 268. Now this is another only somewhat filled page, but a closer look at this one reveals a contentual possibility for this. The forger/diarist is asking God's forgiveness for the horrors he committed on Kelly and when he gets to the melodramatic writing of her actual name he loses himself in memory and scribbles "no heart no heart" and is apparently unable to lift the pen from the paper at the end of the second "heart," leaving a scrawl continuing to drop from the word (sort of like the dying words on the cave wall that reveal the last resting place of the Holy Grail in the Python film -- the castle Auuuuuuughh ["maybe he died while he was writing it. Don't be silly, he wouldn't have written Auuuuuuughh if he was dying, he would have cried Auuuuugh. Well, maybe he was dictating."] -- remember?)
Anyway, this rather cheesy last "heart" and apparent collapse of strength is made to be the end of the page, as if the diarist could write no more...
I don't really know, but I do begin to suspect something: This isn't a sign of the original entry size of the composition. This is simply cheap theatrics.
And finally, the last page of the diary, significantly, is exactly one full album-sized page long. In the small hand of the early entries. After the diarist's ability to write is finally cut short with memories of the horrible Kelly murder and implied illness, the final statement takes a formal and final and even apocalyptic tone, as if our writer knew his fate (although we have no reason to think he could have) and knew his audience as well (more cheap forgery technique of course). There is talk of death and a will and of course the almost comically dramatic final "Yours truly" signature and date. But these all remain in the earlier size and with the earlier care for layout. I do think we are supposed here to find a progression and regression. The handwriting, the layout and the spacing of the diary, like its contents, all follow the pattern of establishment / rising action/ horrific climax / exhaustion and falling action/ resignation and conclusion. Aristotle would have been proud.
I think these are some of the reasons, Chris, why some pages remain only partially filled for contentual and dramatic reasons (to imply something about the drama at the moment of writing and the writer's psyche), why some pages have poems, even little two or four line poems all to themselves (to imply struggling at and swollen pride in composition), and some pages, including the last one, seem written deliberately to fit the page size of the album.
This it seems to me is one way to read closely the layout and the progression of the writing and spacing on the page of this strange little diary.
Thanks all,
--John
PS: Chris, did you really think you could get away with sneaking a line into the diary like "I could not resist mentioning my deed to George?" I mean, come on, we were bound to spot this private little joke. Also, if you did compose this thing, I do apologize about the "cheap theatrics" remark above, just my own critical opinion, after all... |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 11:55 am | | Hi John,
Of course, the real diary author is going to have a very hard time if he ever 'comes out'. Will he go down in history as a witless fool, or a foolish twit?
I'm hunting around for more green bricks.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 01:34 pm | | Hi John,
Just to clarify that I don't think I ever described the source of the maroon diary as a bookshop as such. I understood it to be more of a book search company, and I think I've only described it as a book firm, book company, or book search company. Apologies if I inadvertently confused anyone or got the wrong end of the stick myself.
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 02:17 pm | | Hi Caroline,
Fair enough. No problem. This would not alter any of my related analyses, as far as I can tell. The important detail here is Mike's illogical and contradictory behavior (using a fake name with Doreen and yet using his real one and his home address when placing the order for the diary -- strange how, for some, both of these apparently opposite behaviors somehow manage to imply complicity -- Mike gives a fake name? Suspicious, he was probably complicitous. Mike gives his real name? Stupid. He was probably complicitous. -- the facts, after all, must fit the desired conclusion I suppose, even if they seem to be in contradiction with one another.)
Also remaining important, of course, is the complete and total lack of any reliable evidence whatsoever that would allow us to in any way fairly and responsibly decide, consequently, on Mike's actual intentions (whether he needed the book for an original composition or had already received the diary and wanted to compare it to a real one as part of his amateurish attempt at determining its authenticity). No real or reliable material evidence yet exsits as far as I have seen that could be used to determine which of these odd behaviors (giving his real name and home address while purchasing a book he intended shortly to use for criminal purposes, or needlessly buying a Victorian diary just to compare it to one he was holding) is especially more likely. Logically, at this point, since we have no reliable or material evidence in support of either possibility, no evidence that would suggest either odd behavior was the one that actually happened, no evidence at all that even suggests one is more likely than the other, we must remain honest and admit that we simply don't have enough information to claim yet that one is more likely than the other. So I'll gladly replace "bookshop" with "book search company" or "book firm" and let my questions and my reading stand.
But at this point I've gone back to reading the diary pages, as you could probably tell by my layout-analysis posted above, and so I am lost in the well-made and almost cliched melodramatics of our friendly alleged diarist.
"Ha ha"
Thanks,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 02:28 pm | | Hi, John:
Thank you so much for your detailed analysis of the facsimile diary pages to test my theory that the Diary could have been written in a smaller format book. There are a number of oddities about the text of the Diary that we can address and have been addressed with varying degrees of satisfaction: 1) The short text on some pages, which you appear to satisfactorily explain as having been done for dramatic effect (rather than that the text was copied from a smaller format book), by a writer who knew he would have an audience. 2) The struck-out lines that also appear meant to be read. 3) The Crashaw quote. 4) The similarity of the doggerel to the Eight Little Whores poem which Harris claims originated with either Dutton (ca. 1930) or McCormick (1959). 5) Mrs. Hammersmith, whom genealogist Peter Birchwood fails to find in Liverpool at the time the Diary was allegedly written (1888-1889). 6) The Poste House, which I maintain is today's Poste House near Whitechapel, Liverpool but which Paul Begg maintains could be any hostelry anywhere. 7) The reference to Eddowes' possessions including "one tin matchbox empty" which seems taken from the police list only published in 1988. 8) The initial Manchester murder which no one has been able to trace and which I mentioned occurs unannounced after "Maybrick" says he will do his murder spree in the capital, London.
I am glad you have made an analysis of the amount of control shown by the writer. I agree that the return to neat handwriting at the end of the text seems sudden. I have always thought that the final page looks the most artificial of the lot with the dramatic and stagy, "Yours truly Jack the Ripper" as if the writer thought, "I had better make this look good."
Here is another oddity, this time about the book, not the existing text as such, although it could refer to the text as well. Is there any possibility that the 63 pages removed at the beginning of the book were removed not only to remove pages with photographs or memorabilia on them but pages where the forger made mistakes and had to start again, or text pages which he simply decided to remove for some reason, so that the text begins as we now know it, mid-sentence? Again, this might not be knowable but it is a thought that we might consider. I had previously asked Shirley Harrison whether there was any evidence that the excised pages had any writing on them. I am not aware that she has addressed this question here.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 04:41 pm | | Hi Chris,
I enjoyed looking at this today.
I also wanted to examine the layout and the length of the entries just because I was curious what I might find. If fact, it just reconfirmed my initial sense that this thing has a strangely classical, formulaic, Aristotelian progress to it that adds to its artificiality. And this is the kind of thing that a forger might have ended up constructing without even being aware they were doing it, since it is such a seemingly "natural" dramatic construction for most of us by now, raised as we were on this formula in movies and on television and in novels and in plays. (Though this formula of introduction/suggestion/rising action/dramatic climax/falling action/resolution is not really "natural" at all, of course, and nothing like real life -- though it is modeled in some ways after the event structures and tempo of good sex. And it is apparently how many of us still like our dramas, if box office numbers are any indication. Any "authentic" diary, of course, would not, I think, have been likely to be quite so neatly narritivized if someone were actually writing their own day to day thoughts and recollections, but this isn't really relevant.)
Not only are the thoughts and the actions of the diary well-structured dramatically speaking to give the reader a sense of a story taking place (and a very familiar sort of story at that, not even any real challenge to or variation on centuries old conventions of plot), but the actual handwriting and layout on the page turn out interestingly to mirror these conventional movements and structures. This surprises me a bit, because the return to control in the handwriting and layout would not have been the only choice to accompany the conclusion of the exhausted action (the forger for instance could have chosen to make the handwriting look like it gets weaker and weaker and have the layout start including even more and more space to signify an apparent inability to concentrate and to keep focus and to write -- but maybe they were running out of room. I don't know.) This is one reason why I say it is almost as if the early entries and the last section were written closer in time than the over-the-top melodramatic middle. But this remains purely fanciful speculation on my part and completely unsupported by any reliable evidence except the similarities in writing style and size and layout.
I agree with the "official ending" nature of the final page of course, but the forger does cover him or herself at least somewhat here by suggesting that the diarist intended this to be the end of his book because he had had enough and was hoping the mortal end was near. The flourish of the signature and date is I agree, a bit too much though, and the words on the final page do read sort of like a novelist trying to give a reader a sense of where we have come now that things are over.
Still, it was fun to go back over it all and I would like in the days ahead to look closer at the words again and see what else might creep into my little head as the re-reading unfolds.
Oh yes, I know I've talked about the Crashaw quote at length and I am still not convinced there is real evidence in the text that allows us to say with any confidence or reliability at all that the Eight Little Whores poem is being referenced or cited as an influence (after all, all we really have are three short lines whose numbers progress the wrong way and whose line structure does not even approach that of the original and which themselves exist amidst a number of other scattered attempts at working numbers and sequences into bad rhymes that have no relation at all to any older verse; so unless we're prepared to say that almost any lines that have the numbers One and Two in them and also somewhere include the word "whore" are referencing or were influenced by "Eight Little Whores," this seem to me to remain something of an unwarranted and unnecessary stretch), but I did want to say a word or two about items #5 and #8. These two -- the creation of Mrs. H and the appearance of other unknown murders -- make a certain sort of narrative sense for a forger, since it would have been a wise and convenient thing for someone creating a text that had to face a host of expert critics to include a few necessarily untraceable and completely fictitious details to keep the expert readers and researchers and authenticators busy searching and misdirected. As long as the details were vague enough to be the sort of things that could neither be proven true or false with any historical finality or in any absolute way, this would have been a strategically sound inclusion on the part of our deceptive author. It'd be a risk, but it would have most likely had the effect of keeping the debate open and alive and therefore it would have been a risk worth taken. I think even I would have thought of this little idea. But I could be imagining all of this, of course, and there could very easily be a completely different explanation for just why these two little details appear.
As always, the evidence remains unavailable as of yet.
By the way, Chris, I knew the journal itself was sixty-three pages long, but I was not aware that we knew there were also sixty-three pages missing. Is this true? Does the book begin exactly half way into the original volume? This would have been the first I have heard of this number, although of course I knew that some pages appear to be missing from the front of the book. How was such a thing determined if the pages don't have numbers? Just wondering about this.
In any case, this little problem text remains fascinating on many levels and the evidence concerning who wrote it and what took place at the specific scene of composition remains largely absent and therefore this particular moment of "true crime" remains a delightful and frustrating puzzle.
Sincere thanks, Chris, for reading along with me,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 08:44 pm | | Hi, John:
Glad to know our close look at the Diary text is yielding a few conclusions about the manner in which the Diary was written. Because we both agree that definitive evidence is lacking to tell us at this moment in time who forged the Diary, maybe we can at least reach some presumptions based on the attributes of the document.
Here is the rundown on the pages for the book that contains the Diary, according to Shirley Harrison's latest 1998 British Blake edition paperback (p. 5): 64 pages removed, 63 pages of Diary text, 17 pages blank. Note that this is not the same breakdown as Shirley specifies in her 1993 Hyperion hardback! See two paragraphs below.
This is how Harrison describes the book in the Blake paperback (p. 5):
"To judge by the evidence of the glue stains and the oblong impressions left on the flyleaf, the book had served the common Victorian practice of holding postcards, photographs, reminiscences, autographs and other mementoes. The first 64 pages had been removed. The last 17 were blank. The writer's reference to his fear of being caught as early as page three--'I am beginning to think it unwise to continue writing' [italics Harrison's] clearly indicates that what we are reading is the end of the story--not the beginning. For whatever reason the earlier text has been destroyed. Then followed 63 pages of the most sensational words we had ever read. . . ."
In her 1993 Hyperion edition, Shirley states, p. 4, "The first 48 pages [emphasis mine] had been removed with a knife. Then followed 63 manuscript pages of the most sensational words Mike had ever read. . . ." No doubt this is one of the corrections in the new edition compared with the old, as with the revised information that Mike did not buy his word processor after Devereaux died but had owned it for five years before his friend's death. Perhaps Shirley can address this revised page count.
Noting that the focus has changed from Mike to "we" [i.e., presumably meaning Shirley's Word Team], did the first information "The first 48 pages had been removed with a knife" come from Mike? Moreover, is the "removed with a knife" significant given Mike's later affidavit that the pages were removed with a Stanley knife? I have previously noted here that the Hyperion copyright page attributes the ownership of the text of Shirley's book to both Shirley and Mike. Did Mike know the pages were cut out with a Stanley knife (or any knife) or was this just his supposition?
Shirley says in her Blake paperback that there was Diary text on the missing pages. There may be some Diary text missing as I stated in my previous post, although I believe you and I agree along with Madeleine (Where are you Madeleine????) that the story begins satisfactorily enough with the present beginning with no elements seemingly lost. More likely, I think Shirley is wrong in her haste to believe the document authentic and thinking Maybrick had removed his beginning pages, and the truth is that the forger had to remove 64 pages full of postcards, news clippings, and the like.
I would like to make one other observation here. I think there has been some talk of the size of the photographs that were in the book, based on the glue marks. I am a postcard collector, and I have recently come to specialize in postcards of the period 1901-1910. Note this: {there were no pictorial postcards in the period 1888-1889 when this document was allegedly written!} So if physical evidence in the book does show it held postcards as Shirley says in all of the editions of her book this is an indication that the document has to be a forgery and it is, moreover, an error on Shirley's part to think that pictorial postcards were known in James Maybrick's day.
Specifically, the pictorial postcard that we know today, I believe, came in around 1899-1900 and was unknown before. I have a rather splendid color-tinted picture postcard of the Liverpool Exchange where James Maybrick did his work. It is dated May 1903, the year and month in which Francis Tumblety died (and he also knew Liverpool), but Jim Maybrick could not have known such a card! Possibly this is another point that Shirley could address in a reply.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 10:38 pm | | Chris--Hello. Interesting information about the postcards. Good find. I also have been looking into something about the size of those squares which I'm hoping to be able to post before too many more days. By the way, I noticed that Alec Voller claimed that some 'ink dots' in Maybrick Diary were underneath some of those glue stains (p. 369. I wonder if Shirley Harrison can confirm this. Also: was the ever glue tested?
By the way, if you can find Joe Nickell's book Detecting Forgery in the library, it's worth a peek. The information on the Maybrick diary is slim---though there's an excellent display of the diary's writing compared to Maybrick's will & the Dear Boss Letter. But what is interesting to the true Diary-mongers out there is the photographs scattered throughout the book showing some of the 'players' in the Maybrick saga. Robert Smith is shown inspecting the edges of the torn-out pages; Joe Nickell is shown in a good photograph that gives a good view of the stains on the inside cover; Robert Kurantz demonstrates the technique for taking ink samples, etc. The book is probably hard to find, but worth a peek.) Best wishes, RJP |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Monday, 30 April 2001 - 11:34 pm | | Paul--Hello. You wrote:
'My point is that on that same day Mike also identified Outhwaite and Litherland as the auctioneers who supplied the book. They
denied this and have also stated that the sales procedure described by Mike is not theirs. If this information is true, then at least half of Mike's story is untrue. Why, then, give any credence
to the identification of the ink shop?'
This is exactly the same reasoning that I used to discredit Anne's story about giving the diary to Tony Devereux--reasoning that didn't seem to impress either you or John Omlor. Anne claims the diary had been in her family since at least the 1940s and that years later on a whim she gave it to Tony D. to give to Mike. I stated that textual/forensic evidence makes her 'in the family for years' claim impossible. If I am correct, and Anne isn't telling the truth about one half of her story, why believe the rest of it? Especially considering that (according to Anne herself) she wouldn't have known Tony D. if he passed her walking down the street (and this seems to have be at least partially confirmed by the owner of the Saddle).
And yet, I'll give you some credit. I think you're right--Mike's indentification of the ink shop isn't very impressive, particularly if Diamine ink was readily available locally. (It might be interesting to know if other UK manuscript inks contained chloroacetimide--was this a Liverpool forgery with Liverpool ink?). Indeed, I would almost be willing to think that Mike was ignorant of the Diary's origins, but the Crashaw quote, the REW book, and the purchase of the red diary hold me back, as well as the curious fact that Mike was evidently making all the money off the Diary & calling the shots. He was the one with 'the goods'. Still, it is an interesting idea--but it only points me in another direction.
As I've said, several times, I don't think Mike forged the diary, but I do think he must know where it came from. If you're willing to speculate, I'd be interested in your opinion of the letter (dated 15 Oct 1996) published on pg. 317 of Shirley Harrison's latest edition. What do you think the correspondent meant when he told Mike "Be assured that if we can possibly prove without doubt where you brought the Diary from I can almost guarantee you will make 'money'"? Was this just another story Mike was weaving? Mike seems to be telling everybody what they want to hear. It was forged by me. It is genuine. It came from Anne. It came from Tony. It was forged by someone else. I think the safest bet might be to rule out all of Mike's statements.
RJP |
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