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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 July 06, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary:
Archive through July 06, 2001
Author: Mark List
Monday, 02 July 2001 - 07:42 pm |        | Hey, John and All,
I have a serious question concerning our wonderful diary:
What would it take to PROVE anything?
I mean that in the sense of, when we were talking about the watch. We said, "maybe someone found a watch that had old scratchs in it and faked the rest."
This one point really upsets me, because in todays world there have been so many fakes and hoaxes, that we're seemingly over-sensitive about proof.
But, what is proof?
Video? it can be faked....
Eyes witness accounts? fakes and misunderstanding...
A written account? it can be faked...
What does it take to PROVE anything anymore? what constitutes, "staring you right in the face" evidence?
Sorry so sound obnoxious, just an issue that feel strongly about,
Mark |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 02 July 2001 - 08:23 pm | | Hi Mark,
Interesting question. I suppose, to begin with, that the science might have proven the thing was a bad fake definitively and even given us a date, if the materials or the situation were different. If the paper used or the ink or pen style used had been clearly anachronistic, that would have settled the matter of the diary's authenticity (though not of its origins or authorship). Also, if there had been a phrase or two in the diary that could not possibly have been written in 1888 or if there were a reference to a book or a story that could have not been offered in 1888, that faulty historicism would have helped us.
Of course, the simplest and most obvious proof that this diary is a fake would come if someone produces a clear and compelling record of James Maybrick's presence somewhere other than London during the nights of the murders. If Maybrick, say, had done a cotton deal in America on the day of the Kelly murder, and the record of the transaction had survived, or if he had attended a ball in Liverpool on one of the murder nights and it was on the contemporary record, that would at least prove quite definitively that the diary was not by Maybrick.
But an interesting and related question is what will constitute proof of the actual author's identity? That's a whole other ball of wax and in many ways an even more complicated question. How will it be proven who, precisely, wrote this thing?
I'll leave that one in the air for now.
--John |
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