|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** 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 27, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
Forensic Evidence:
Archive through July 27, 2001
Author: Alegria
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 10:43 am |        | I find it sad that we have been reduced to seizing on any small imperfection in a person (such as a typo) and using it to belittle them repeatedly and run them and it into the ground.  |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 11:15 am | | Oh Ally,
The points that were made in my two separate posts about Melvin's egotistical assumptions, his inconsistent account of his own past work, and especially his bizarre claim that any interest in who wrote this book or why was somehow "simplistic" and "unreal" and an "excuse to avoid the hard facts," had nothing at all to do with his (or Peter's) goofy little typo. And you know that, if you've read what I wrote in both of my posts above.
The rest of the remarks were obvious jokes.
Melvin came by here as if descending from a mountain top, with a title all in caps and worded as a command, and offered us a post that actually said very little and called those of us who are interested in the why and who of this case and have written about these questions on the boards, an "inexperienced and tiny minority who have contributed absolutely nothing of value to this investigation."
And you chastize us for being petty? Honestly.
Melvin's specific claims about the calls to investigate the who and why of this case are both nonsensical (how can such a call for information and further analysis be "unreal?" -- this makes no sense at all) and simply wrong (we are not avoiding any hard facts whatsoever -- in fact most of us agree with many of these "hard facts," even though we still want to know who wrote the book and why).
So, by writing a sentence that was both logically nonsensical and demonstrably wrong, regardless of the silly typo, Melvin opened himslf up to a thoroughly responsible and appropriate critical response from those who have been doing most of the "clamoring."
And besides, anyone who apparently thinks that, just because he believes he has "proven" that the diary is a modern forgery, the remaining questions concerning who wrote it and why are somehow not important or simplistic or "unreal" -- anyone whose ego is so big that he assumes that if he doesn't have an answer to a question, it must be "unreal," isn't likely to be harmed by any of our so-called "belittling," if you ask me.
No, I don't think you need to shed any tears for Melvin Harris. He seems perfectly capable of defending his positions when he wants to. This particular sentence of his however, really and simply is logically nonsensical and demonstrably wrong, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone belittling him or with any typos.
--John |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 12:30 pm | | Hi Ally,
If the only imperfections you can find to comment on, from Melvin's post attacking Robert Smith, is the typo, and our little jokes about it, I don't think you, or Melvin, have much to worry about.
And I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you are reducing the reasons for John and I writing our detailed posts to belittling someone for a typo. Is that really all you thought we were posting for?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Robert Smith
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 12:39 pm | | Even More “Farewell Facts” From Melvin Harris
I realise it can only be my “misrepresentation” of Melvin’s views, which has forced him once more back on to the boards from his retirement. It has taken him three or four weeks to work up his response to my post of 29th June, but it has been worth waiting for.
I am proud to be one of those, who clamour “to know who, when, how and why”. Only when we know most of the circumstances, in which the Diary was produced, will it be sensible to claim that the investigation is over.
John and Caroline, although you are not identified by name, as I am, by the Great Investigator, you are assuredly counted in the “inexperienced and tiny minority, who have contributed absolutely nothing to this investigation”. You stand accused of analysing statements and evidence, searching widely for illumination and information, and doing your damnedest to remain open and objective in the continuing investigation. By implication, you and all others sharing your approach, are guilty of adopting “a simplistic and unreal position” and not “facing hard facts”.
So, both of you, just mend your ways. Get complex and real, like the Great Investigator, who dispensed with the bother of proof by publicly concluding in 1993 that the diary was a fake, before he had read a word of it. No wonder, he regards those of us, who demand “to know who, when, how and why” as simple minded. We only need to know that, “It has already been proved to be a fake”.
Melvin goes further and maintains the crime of fraud has been committed. If a murder or a robbery is committed, don’t even average investigators have to prove the identity of the criminal, the time of the crime, the method, and the motive? However, the Great Investigator must not be questioned and is never inconsistent. Presumably, he still believes that the writer of the diary was “schooled” in the 1930s, as he proclaimed in the press conference, which launched the publication of the Diary in October 1993. That rules out the Barretts. How about Kane? Was he able?
Sorry, I forgot that naming the fakers is “of little importance”, not only to the GI but “all competent investigators the world over”. It was simplistic, as well as impertinent, of Caroline to draw attention to Melvin’s December 1994 statement: “It is hoped that the identities of the three people in the forgery will soon be made known”.
Moving swiftly from the “who” to the “how”, I offered Melvin the opportunity of using a blank page of the Diary to prove his claim that it was written with pre 1992 Diamine ink. I am told that I had the chance “back in 1996” to compare the Diary and Diamine inks, but the opportunity was missed. Melvin estimates that it would take three years for the tests to be concluded. So what, if it proves the diary to be a fake? Oh yes, “It has already proved to be a fake”.
I may go back to Melvin’s ink and handwriting comments another day, but right now, it seems pointless continuing these debates with him, especially as he tells me as “a bare statement of facts” that my remarks were made by “someone, who was in a state of darkness”. I must wait until I see the light.
A final note on the watch engravings. At last, there has been some more discussion about it on the boards. There were, of course, two experts, who (uniquely in the Diary saga) came to the same conclusion. Dr Turgoose of UMIST said, “the engravings are likely to date back more than tens of years, possibly much longer”. Dr Wild of Bristol University concluded that the engravings are “at least several tens of years old”. So how exactly did they both get it wrong?
If they are right, the post-1987 Diary hoax proponents have a mega problem.
Robert Smith |
Author: Mark List
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 12:45 pm | | Please tell me that this board isn't going to turn into an "insult" board...
I know that there are things, and issues, that I haven't been around long enough to understand and appreciate the magnitude of, however, I'd rather not log on to this board and find out that for that last week everyone's been at each others throat about "imperfections".
I find what Melvin wrote to be somewhat upsetting.
I don't think that "proof" is something that "Anyone" has found when it comes to the Diary.
Proof is truth
Truth is in the eye of the beholder
Thus, "truth" is subjective...
The Diary is fake for obvious reason, but there is no hard "proof" that it is.
I would love to see Melvin's "proof" that the Diary is fake.
But until that time, I whole-heartily quote Bobby McFerrin:
"Don't Worry, bew happy"
Mark |
Author: Mark List
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 01:08 pm | | PS
I'd just like to say, concerning the "proof" that the diary is fake, that "obvious reasons" or circumstantial evidence isn't proof:
1) The Diary is TOO convenient. The writing and placing/history of it makes it Too Perfect. "I don't know where it came from. Tony knew and now he's dead..."
but this doesn't "prove" anything. Just because it's "too perfect" doesn't mean that it's not possible.
2)The Crashaw quote written in the Diary in 1888 by "Maybrick" is not impossible . Unlikely, yes.
But that doesn't "prove" anything. Coincidences happen. If we place so much thought in the possible coincidences about the Diary and the quote and how it happened into the diary TODAY, why would it not have happened in 1888.
What we place in our minds as "proof" of a fake is circumstantial. "It's unlikely that anyone in 1888, would know about the Crashaw quote, thus it impossible and proof of forgery." This is not proof. Had the quote been written in 1892 or 1968, then, yes, proof of forgery.
Just because the Diary appears TOO convenient, isn't "proof" that it's fake.
I know that there's more than just these two points, but they're examples of what is substanial and unsubsantial evidence/Proof.
...There, I feel better... |
Author: Alegria
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 03:06 pm | | Hi Caz,
I think that there are many valid arguments to be made against what Harris has said. But as many people have said about him, when the manner of delivery is off-putting it detracts from the message. There are enough things to take issue with without resorting to belittling someone's poor typing. It just seemed a cheap shot to me. [shrug] |
Author: Christopher T George
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 04:17 pm | | Hi Ally:
I agree that "belittling someone's poor typing" probably is not good form and should on a general basis be discouraged. In any case, I think the mistake was probably Peter Birchwood's in transcribing Melvin's fax to put up here rather than a mistake on Melvin's part. On the other hand, there is something to be said, as John Omlor has pointed out, for criticizing Melvin for his gratuitous swipe at those of us who are, in the spirit of genuine enquiry, interested in the origins of the Maybrick diary. To belittle those of us who are trying to examine in fine detail the text of the document and to look at the available evidence was, I think, uncalled for. We are after all, on the same side. Melvin has done much to expose the Maybrick document as a fraud but he has not gone far enough. Only by proving who did the forgery will this episode in Ripper history and "sham-history" be put behind us.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Alegria
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 04:34 pm | | Hi there Chris,
I totally agree with everything that you said about Melvin and his insulting everyone with an interest in the authors ..after all I am included in that insult. However, I still believe that we can hardly pick on Mel for being an arrogant, condescending nit-picker if we descend to that level ourselves. I always maintain when I am having an argument with someone, that there are rules to be followed. Certain things are just petty and I don't win my argument by resorting to them. The fact that my opponent does weakens his position but it is no reason to weaken my own by matching him. But anyway those are just my thoughts. I guess I am just a little fed up with the over-analysis of everything everyone posts. It seems that lately everything is being taken to it's most ridiculous extreme and the argument is not better or further along for it. |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 04:51 pm | | Now that we've carefully read and responsibly analyzed Melvin's rather silly dismissal of us and our attempts to identify the authors of this book and to learn the "who?" and "why?" of this whole thing, I'd like to return for a moment to something Robert wrote in his last post.
He points out, properly I think, that the scientific findings concerning the watch engravings represent one of the few times, if not the only time in this investigation, when the independent scientists seemed to have agreed upon something. Both said the engravings were likely to be at least tens of years old.
But this would put the date of the identifying scratches in the watch at least back into the early eighties.
And the Hillsborough disaster that eventually resulted in the Sphere Guide arriving at the Barrett's was, I believe, in April of 1989. So Mike apparently acquired the books sometime in the summer of 1989.
That would mean, if both scientists are even close to correct, that the markings in the watch that name James Maybrick as Jack the Ripper were made well before the Crashaw quote was in the Barrett's house.
What possible explanations are there for this?
Let's start a list.
Just wondering, in the name of speculation, for fun...
--John
PS: I'll start.
1.) Both scientists are somehow simply wrong.
2.) Uh... I'm stuck. |
Author: Mark List
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 05:12 pm | | This goes back to my initial point, John, about the watch coming first.
I think that maybe we should not throw the watch in the gutter in favor of scrutinizing the Diary. Perhaps we should focus on the watch for the possible evidence and "truth" that it might show us--if any...
mark |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 07:06 pm | | | As for comments relating to circumstantial evidence not being proof I have seen many people convicted on nothing more that circumstantial evidence.A great deal of such evidence was paramount in the conviction of Jill Dando's killer.It is incorrect to state that circumstantial evidence is not proof.It is in a court of law. |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 07:15 pm | | Yes, Ivor,
But as you can see, in this case, we can't even tell what the circumstantial evidence does and does not show us about who wrote this book and why. The watch evidence is a good example of something that seems contradictory and problematic at this point, especially when read into and through the dates of the acquisition of the Sphere Guide and the publication of the evidence list and a bunch of other stuff that is often used to date the diary's composition sometime after 1989.
So even the "circumstantial" evidence turns out not to be very clear or reliable.
For instance, what other possible explanations are there for a pre-1989 date on the watch?
Just for fun...
--John |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 10:24 pm | | | John,Just one piece of good damming evidence we can take note of is that the "Post House" referred to in the diary was not known by that name in Maybricks day.Many such mistakes were made in the diary which shows it up as a fake but people tend to ignore such facts. If the diary and the watch had been taken to the Home Office Forensic Lab at the start of this saga then this "con" would have been nipped in the bud.But no that was too much to ask so we are now faced with this circus.The way out of this situation is simple.Get the Home Office to perform the "full Monty" on the diary. That however will not tell us who wrote it.It's time to take the damm thing to the Home Office.However that may be seen as too risky for those who own it. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 10:28 pm | | | Who does own the diary now ? |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 25 July 2001 - 10:46 pm | | Hi Ivor,
If you read the first line of my post to you closely, you'll see it said:
"we can't even tell what the circumstantial evidence does and does not show us about who wrote this book and why."
And these are precisely the things you yourself say the Home Office "will not tell us."
I'll let others debate the historicity of the term "Poste House" -- which is not quite as clear as your sentence implies. And although I, like you, believe there is a strong likelihood that this document is a fairly recent forgery, I must admit that I have no reliable idea who wrote it or why; and the evidence that would allow us to answer these questions remains contradictory, conflicting, partial, and unreliable.
That's the fun.
--John
PS: And the watch was taken to separate and independent scientists, and they seem to have dated the marks on it to before the time most people think the diary was written. What do we do with that one?
PPS: I believe Robert Smith owns the diary. |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 01:17 am | | Hi, John:
While I think the watch is probably a crude hoax produced by somebody who knew about the Diary and that the scientists are simply wrong, I think it is not unimpossible that the watch gave someone the idea for the Diary. After all, we have all been scratching our heads wondering how someone put Jack and Maybrick together. Well, the watch could be the answer. It may not be Maybrick's watch but it could be someone's idea of fun at the time of the Maybrick trial and the aftermath of the Jack the Ripper murders to put those tantalizing scratches in the watch. As I remarked here recently, as soon as the real Jack left the scene, the mythical Jack the Ripper stepped into the world of entertainment and into the imagination of humankind. Jack could be whomever you wanted him to be. . . maybe someone fantasized even back then that Maybrick could have been Jack? Unlikely you say. But something to think about nevertheless.
All the best
Chris George |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 01:32 am | | | John, I was aware that the watch was taken to independent scientists, I was referring to the diary and not the watch.One would have thought it quite obvious that the diary scam was undertaken for the purpose of making money.The "front man" and his wife have both made money from the forgery. I do not understand why such a question as to why it was written is under dispute.This diary was placed in the market place so to speak for the purpose of making money.We know that to be true dont we? So the remaining question is who wrote it.Also if the experts cant get to the bottom of the modern amateur diary con my advice is dont even bother trying to work out the Ripper case. The state of affairs in relation to the diary have now become a joke to say the least. In fact it shows the subject to be what it really is,a circus. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 02:54 am | | John--Hi. I noticed above that you seemed a little hestitant to offer your opinion about "Poste House", stating that it is a "little unclear" and preferring to "leave it to others". But I'd be interested finding out why you think that it is "unclear".
Let's see what we have, shall we? And hammer this out once & for all?
The Poste House is at 23 Cumberland Street, Liverpool, around the corner from Whitechapel Road [mentioned in the diary], and a couple blocks or so from Tithbarne Street, the street where Maybrick worked at the Knowsley Buildings. A few streets to the west is the Cotton Exchange. [Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong with this]
The diary reads, in its second passage:
Foolish bitch, I know for certain she has arranged a rondaveau with him in Whitechapel. So be it, my mind is firmly made. I took refreshment at the Poste House it was there I finally decided London it shall be. etc etc
Now, what exactly do you find "unclear"? Do you find it illogical to assume this Poste House is the Poste House around the corner from "Whitechapel" mentioned in the same passage, which is located in the very center of Maybrick's Livepool haunts? Do you think Paul Feldman made a valid argument in suggesting his alternative, and that Maybrick was writing this passage while already in London?
Shirley Harrison certainly came to the conclusion that the diary referred to the Liverpool Pub and included it in her maps of Maybrick's Liverpool. And, unless the BBC misqutoed him in their press release, Keith Skinner used the Poste House flub as one reason why he felt the diary was an old hoax at the Psychology Convention's conference of the Maybrick diary back in 1998.
Now, considering you think the diary is probably a modern hoax, is it really so radical to concede that the Poste House reference dates the diary to the 1960s, presuming that Roger Wilkes was correct in stating that the pub didn't have that name until then? Just curious.
Best wishes, RP
PS. Bottom line. What do you think? That this lady's watch is an old hoax? Or that the scientists are wrong? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 07:55 am | | Hi John,
'At least tens [plural] of years old', as at 1993, if correct, actually makes the watch scratches date from 1973 or earlier.
Hi Chris,
If it was the watch that gave someone the idea to write the diary, when and how do you think the diary hoaxers learned about its existence - and did they plan for the timely introduction of it by Albert?
Hi All,
I'm not sure how a court of law would normally view the word of two independent scientists, in any other situation, but I'm not sure it would be dismissed as lightly as some people are doing here, because it contradicts other evidence which is circumstantial.
Hi Ivor and RJ,
Unless we can see inside the head of the actual diary author, how can any of us be 100% certain what was meant by the Poste House? It's a bit of a circular argument, to start with the assumption that the diary is modern, find there's a pub in the right area of Liverpool using that name above its door, but only in recent years, then assume the modern author must have meant this one and made a bad mistake by referring to it by name in the diary. It's well-known that pubs are always changing their names these days, and all inns that used to be post houses (I think I'm right in saying) would have started life with a name other than "The Poste House" above their door. So if this was a mistake on the part of a modern forger (especially one who knows about pubs!) it seems a very elementary one to make. I'm disappointed, considering the author generally leaves details vague enough so he doesn't catch himself out. But if the diary predated the name change, and dated from a time when any inn the author was calling the Poste House would have had another name above the door, this would be in line with his usual flair for keeping details vague - until, of course, the day came when a pub in just the right area decided to give itself a new name - curse it.
Yes, Ivor, it would be great if it was a simple matter of the owner of the diary (others with no access to it, like Feldy, could not have financed tests on it anyway) handing it over to our friendly, overworked and understaffed Home Office (I used to work for them), and letting them get on with it. Do you know if they even accept commissions from members of the public, considering their facilities are used for more important things, like murder investigations? Do you know anything about what research facilities would be available, and how much money would be needed, for something like the diary, which entered the commercial, not academic, domain? And do you know how much money there was to play with?
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 08:53 am | | Hi RJ,
Caroline has expressed some of my admittedly minor concerns about assuming too much about "Poste House" (and Shirley may certainly have been guilty of such premature assumptions in her own writing at one point), and I also seem to recall some discussion previously about the term historically being used in a fairly generic way as well. But I'm not a qualified history of language person and I would have to check with one before I agreed that this was a possible or an available usage or that this interpretation remained a viable one.
You ask me:
"[I]s it really so radical to concede that the Poste House reference dates the diary to the 1960s?"
Nope. Not so radical at all. Not even necessarily wrong or unlikely. Very possible, if you ask me. But not, I think, absolutely imperative or final or definitively provable just yet, as Ivor implied when he wrote "the 'Post House' referred to in the diary was not known by that name in Maybricks day." Perhaps, if we can clearly determine which place was the referent. I'd even say probably. But I'd be very careful about writing this as a simple statement of fact, since we'd have to self-consciously and admittedly assume a few things in our reading, first (as Caroline points out above).
Finally RJ, you ask me for another bottom line (what is it Basil Fawlty says about the American who is always threatening to kick someone's ass? "Everything's 'bottoms' with you people, isn't it?")
"Bottom line. What do you think? That this lady's watch is an old hoax? Or that the scientists are wrong?"
You know my answer in advance...
First, of course, I don't know. I think the watch is likely to be a modern hoax somehow. I am not qualified to say if the scientists are wrong or how. I don't know if they are. I do strongly believe, though, that it remains a genuine problem for everyone and they should admit it right up front and in an open and responsible way.
Two scientists independently came to the same conclusion and it's one that flies in the face of our own expectations if we believe that the diary was written post-1987. We cannot simply dismiss them, saying "they must be wrong" because their conclusions do not happen to agree with our own desires or expectations. That's not how learning or science or objective analysis works.
If I really am going to be objective, then I must not simply pass over conclusions and data with which I do not agree because I find them somehow troublesome or inconvenient. This would be irresponsible, sloppy, and lazy thinking on my part.
I think we would have to do a good deal of further research on the watch and the methodology of the scientists before we could say, responsibly, either that the two scientists are simply and demonstrably wrong or that the watch is clearly a new forgery -- if only out of respect for the two professionals who did their job and offered us their findings.
I can't believe that the watch came first, I can't understand how it could have, or that there were two separate people in the same place that had the same idea about James Maybrick independent of each other. And I have not seen nor heard any evidence whatsoever that the Johnsons and the Barretts ever knew each other in any way. So I must admit that I do not know what I think about this. My own desires compel me to want the scientists to be wrong and the watch to be produced somehow after the diary, as a bandwagon item. But I cannot make any claim to knowledge based on my own desires. I think people do this way too often. My claims to knowledge must be based on what the data tells me, objectively, and independent of what I would like to be the case or what I just think, for vague reasons, must somehow be the case. No, I like to think I am more disciplined than that intellectually. Analysis must be slow, patient, careful, detailed, deliberate, scholarly, and responsible. Otherwise it's just chatting.
So far, the only genuinely deliberate, objective, detailed, scholarly analysis we have of the watch gives us results we do not like.
But even though we want not to believe these results, we must respect them at least until someone can definitively show us how and why they are mistaken. We are, after, all, rational and responsible scholars of history and texts and data and we owe it to our own enterprise to be careful and detailed and patient and open-minded at all costs.
So what do I think? That depends. I want the watch to be a new forgery. That would make sense. It would be comfortable. It seems that it must somehow be true. It would fit perfectly. It would be neat. It would be logical.
What does the data show?
Damn.
I know what I want, but I can't ignore what the scientists say simply because of what I want. So I am forced to admit that as of yet I do not know what to think precisely. I can only tell myself to be patient and to keep reading and to hope the investigation continues and that I will someday learn the truth. Until then, I must not ignore material or simply dismiss it because it conflicts with my own desire or what I perceive to be my own "common sense."
And that, for me, is the bottom line.
--John |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 09:12 am | | Hi Ivor,
You write with admirable confidence:
"One would have thought it quite obvious that the diary scam was undertaken for the purpose of making money.The 'front man' and his wife have both made money from the forgery. I do not understand why such a question as to why it was written is under dispute.This diary was placed in the market place so to speak for the purpose of making money.We know that to be true dont we?"
Ah, Ivor, I really do wish it was that simple. But clearly, it is not.
Let me show you why.
You say that the 'front man' and his wife have both made money from the diary. And this much is true. They have made some, although neither of them have become wealthy and I believe Mike Barrett has complained repeatedly about being broke and unable to pay his bills.
But that's not the problem.
If, as I think your term "front man" suggests, Mike was a placer for the diary and not its original composer or penman, then someone else wrote the diary.
And we have no evidence whatsoever that anyone else ever made any money off the dairy.
This reopens, I'm afraid, the question of why it was written. Why would someone write a diary that would only profit someone else?
Now if you can show me evidence that someone else, other than Mike or Anne, was making money off of this thing, then yes, I'd be willing to admit that this was probably the motive.
Or if you can show me reliable material evidence that it was Mike or Anne's hand that held the pen and that it's their handwriting in the book, then yes, I'd say they did it for the money.
But since no one, in nearly ten years, has been able to demonstrate either of these things in any reliable way, I'm afraid the question of why someone or other actually held the pen and wrote these words is still very much undecided and in need of investigation.
You yourself say "the remaining question is who wrote it."
But Ivor, if you don't know who wrote it, then how can you decide that money is the motive, since you don't know if whoever wrote it ever received any money or how they would have? Do you see? You can't posit a financial motive if there is no evidence at all that anyone profitted from this thing except Mike and Anne, unless you assume they wrote it all by themselves and it's their hands that held the pen. And we have no evidence that would allow us to assume this at all. So as long as it seems possible and perhaps even likely that someone else actually wrote this book, we can have no idea why they did so, especially since we have no evidence at all that anyone else ever got anything from it.
So no, the question of "why" this book was originally written has neither been settled nor determined, nor is it obvious, nor is there much evidence in favor of the financial solution. And your own sentence suggesting that we do not know yet who wrote it is the best logical proof there is that we do not know, therefore, why it was originally written.
Perhaps this case has become what you call a "circus" because we have sometimes assumed too much and therefore learned very little.
Just a thought,
--John |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 11:52 am | | | John--While you seem to wish to repeatedly characterize all the various critics of the diary as being overly simplistic & incautious, the flip-side of the coin is that I find you & Caz & others to be overly timid & overly subtle & overreaching in your thinking. [Freud might have even called it by another name]. Why not be willing to accept the obvious and move on? That Poste House is, for instance, Poste House? I think this is the exhasparation that Ivor is expressing when he calls this a 'circus'. There is every reason in the world to believe the diary was composed in 1990 +\- two years, and that any serious inquiry must focus on Mike Barrett or Anne Graham. It's ridiculous to believe otherwise. The longest journey starts with a single step, but you & Caz seem unwilling even to lift your foot. That fence board must get hard on the bum after a while, doesn't it? Cheers, RP |
Author: Mark List
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 12:32 pm | | I'm sorry,
I don't live in England and don't have a historical background of Liverpool, but what is the issue about the term "Poste House"?
Mark
P.s.
I think that most honest answer to the question here is that the Watch came first.
I don't how, why, or when but the is scientific proof by TWO separate scientists.
what else can it be? |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 01:25 pm | | Mark--Hello. Here's my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt if you like. But I don't think it is accurate to say that the scientists dated the scratches. How does one date a scratch? Perhaps by saying that the edges are worn, as if by age? Or by the fact that small insignificant scratches run across the top of them? So, really, to me, the scientists were given an impossible task. [I would have taken to watch to a jeweler or a dealer in antiques if it was me, perhaps they would be more likely to have come across artificial aging techniques].
So what we have is some evidently well worn markings with some superficial scratches over the top of them. In the opinion of Turgoose & Wilde, this indicates that they are several decades old--but they concede that they could have been faked.
Here's the problem:
The scratches are on the inside cover of the back of the watch.
One of the two scientists (I forget which) had to rather embarrassingly return the watch unexamined his first go-around because he couldn't get the back cover off. In other words, the wear & tear that supposedly dates the scratches are suspicious in themselves, for how would the inside back cover of the watch be exposed to this wear & tear? The whole dating process, therefore, falls apart at this stage, and the abrasions covering the engravings should be looked open with suspicion. A jeweler that had had the watch before the current owner went on record saying that he had seen no such scratches.
Here's the other major problem. The supposed Maybrick scratches on the watch were not discovered until after the Maybrick Diary story was reported in the Liverpool papers. So we are left with a remarkable coincidence that this alleged Maybrick artifact came to light for the first time in "decades" by an accidental discovery that just happened within weeks of the Maybrick story breaking in the papers. Quite a coincidence! Indeed, it was so hard to accept that even Paul Feldman the diary's most adamant supporter couldn't accept this and weaves a strange tale of two watches and his prime character witness being misleading about its true origins. Hardly a peg that I would care to hang a theory on. Cheers. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 02:55 pm | | Well written RJ. Caz I was in touch with the Forensic Science Service, on the matter of document examination in relation to the diary. Below is one letter I managed to find on the subject dated 15th October 1997.
The Forensic Science Service
Priory House
Gooch Street North
Birmingham B5 6QQ
Direct line: +44(0)121-607 6985
Dear Sirs,
Further to our telephone conversation of the 14th October. I believe you require an estimate for an examination of some documents.
However the Forensic Science Service is unable to indicate whether we can assist you with your request,until our expert undertakes a preliminary assessment of the original documents.
If you wish the Forerensic Science Service to proceed with the preliminary examination, please forward the original documents for my attention at the above address.
I hope this meets with your requirements. I look foward to your response,in the meantime if I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me on the above number.
Yours Faithfully,
Cheryl Coelho
Expert Scientific Services.
This information was made known to the Diary camp.The diary was never sent to the above
address.
Mr P Feldman made a remark about the tests they wanted to do. The ball was placed in the diary court and I am sorry so say that is precisely where it stayed.The cost of any examination would be a pittance compared to the ammount of money made by those who peddled the hoax onto the general public. Pressure should be placed on such people to take the diary to the Forensic Science services. Do they have something to lose by such action ? Surely it is the least the general public deserve. |
Author: Mark List
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 05:00 pm | | | what about the "Poste House"? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 06:35 pm | | "Poste House" an olde English term for...a place for watering/resting/exchanging horses...and it follows, watering/resting/exchanging persons.This name is still used in some backwaters of England,
and occassionally, on a number of modern hotels in an attempt to attract those seeking a traditional-style of hostelry. Confusing?
Circumstantial evidence: A wide net with a large mesh.
Pst! Gov'nor! "Calcraft" is the name...small arms close-quarter is his game. Modus operandi hard to suss...taxi, bicycle, even the bus!
Rosey Cel l'vie :-) |
Author: Mark List
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 07:14 pm | | Thanks Rosey,
But, I'd also like to know how the Term in the Diary is proof that the Diary is modern...
Mark |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 26 July 2001 - 08:44 pm | | RJ,
I certainly do not think "all the various critics of the diary" are "being overly simplistic & incautious" and I think you know that.
And your post to me about the Poste House mentioned in the diary being that Poste House was actually in response to my comments about being scholarly and deliberate and patient and open minded about the findings of the scientists who examined the watch. My remarks about the Poste House question were somewhat different. There I simply stated that the term was, I believe, used rather generically sometimes, as Rosey and the OED (pg. 2252 of the Compact Edition) suggest, and as others including Paul Begg have remarked, and the grammar of the sentence in the diary does not make it clear exactly how the term is being used.
Here's the sentence:
"Foolish bitch, I know for certain she has arranged a rondaveau with him in Whitechapel. So be it, my mind is firmly made. I took refreshment at the Poste House it was there I finally decided London it shall be."
All this actually tells us is that James made a decision while drinking at "the Poste House." It does not tell us where this Poste House is, it does not say anything about the Poste House being in or near Whitechapel (either one) and it does not tell us whether the term is being used specifically or in the historically generic sense. And I should also point out that the Poste House you are thinking of, RJ, apparently had it's name change as early as the late 1960's, no? So this does not help us prove that the diary is a post-1987 forgery in any case. Not at all. And this isn't being overly cautious or subtle (but thanks for the compliment). It's simply the facts as we have them and as they appear before us, independent of any will to interpret to fulfill one's desires or expectations.
Mark,
The term in the diary is not "proof" of anything at all. There is a fair point and a reasonable point to be made in favor of the modern forgery theory when one realizes that a bar actually called the Post House does exist in Liverpool and did not in Maybrick's day (it changed it's name sometime in the 1960's). However, the term was also used in a more generic way in the nineteenth century and earlier to indicate a resting point and place for refreshment.
Those who want this to be "proof" of the diary as modern forgery can only claim of course, that if we knew that the author meant the Post House in Liverpool, then the diary must at least be written after the 1960's sometime. Anything beyond that with this term and they are reaching in order to fulfill their own desires.
Finally, RJ, you write:
"There is every reason in the world to believe the diary was composed in 1990 +\- two years, and that any serious inquiry must focus on Mike Barrett or Anne Graham. It's ridiculous to believe otherwise."
But the material and reliable evidence, RJ? Where is that? Of course any inquiry should focus on Mike and Anne and the text of the diary and the handwriting and a bunch of other things. Of course. But that is saying nothing at all about who actually wrote this book. Nothing. And we have little or no material and reliable evidence of who exactly wrote this book or why. That simply remains true.
And as long as it remains true I will respect that absence of material and reliable evidence concerning who exactly wrote this book and why and I will respect what I do not know and I will respect what the data does and does not show us and I will not leap to a conclusion just to fulfill my own desires for a solution and for some sort of completeness. This is not a fence I am sitting on, RJ. It's reason and the rules of evidence. And it is quite comfortable.
--John
PS: RJ, When you write to Mark about the findings of the scientists concerning the ages of the scratches, which you tell us they could not have determined even thought they both said the same thing (at least tens of years old), you add the provocative comment that the scientists also say that the scratches could have been faked.
This is true. But it is not the whole truth.
Mark, just so you know, Dr. Turgoose admits that the scratches could have been faked.
Here Mark, for you and for the record and for everyone, is exactly what Dr. Turgoose said about the age of the scratches and the likelihood that they were faked. This is our scientist writing, Dr. Turgoose, PhD lecturer in the Corrosion and Protection Centre, a post-graduate department in the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
"The wear apparent on many of the engravings, evidenced by the rounded edged of the markings and the 'polishing out' in places, would indicate a substantial age for the engravings. The actual age would depend on the cleaning and polishing regime employed, and any definition of number of years has a great degree of uncertainty and to some extent must remain speculation. Given these qualifications I would be of the opinion that the engravings are likely to date back more than tens of years and possibly much longer."
Now, Mark, comes the good part:
"However, whilst there is no evidence which would indicate a recent [last few years] origin of the engravings, it must be stressed that there are no features observed which conclusively prove the age of the engravings. They could have been produced recently and deliberately artificially aged by polishing, but this would have been a complex multistage process, using a variety of different tools, with intermediate polishing of artificial wearing stages. Also, many of the observed features are only resolved by scanning electron microscope, not being readily apparent in optical microscopy, and so if they were of recent origin the engraver would have to be aware of the potential evidence available from this technique, indicating considerable skill and scientific awareness."
There, Mark.
That's what he said about the possibility of the scratches being fake. You can take it for what it is worth. It seems pretty clearly written to me.
Please note: I am not saying anything at all about when these scratches were or were not made. I don't know. I don’t think RJ knows either. I'd like to think they were made after 1992, and after the diary was written and was released. That would make me comfortable and restore my faith in logic. But I do not have the necessary data to claim that particular knowledge and neither, as far as I can tell, does anyone else. Certainly no one has clearly and definitively established such a truth.
Sorry about that.
Hope that helps,
--John
PPS: RJ, I've just gone back and re-read my post to you from earlier this morning, where I first write about the findings of the scientists and the need to show exactly why and how they are wrong and the need to be responsible and to recognize precisely what they say and not dismiss them simply out of my own desire to erase inconvenient or contradictory evidence, my desire for neatness. I checked everything I wrote to you in that post above, dated Thursday, July 26, 2001 - 08:53 am. RJ, is there anything, any specific thing, in those remarks in that post that you think is wrong? Remember, "I cannot make any claim to knowledge based on my own desires." |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 11:07 am | | John--Speaking of "inconvenient evidence"...
What exactly do you propose to do with Mr. Tim Dundas, the horologist who examined the watch six years prior to Turgoose & Wilde who has stated that none of those scratches or the Maybrick engravings were present?
By the way, I noticed you left out Dr. Turgoose's opening sentence. It is of interest. On the basis of the evidence...especially the order in which the markings were made, it is clear that the engravings pre-date the vast majority of superficial surface scratch marks (all of those examined).
My question still remains. Where did all those surface scratches come from? Why didn't Dundas see them? Why are on they on the inside back cover of the watch? That some scratches are underneath other scratches is a matter of chronologyy, of order. This is very different than saying that they are "decades old". What is the basis of that belief? The worn edges?
Several months ago, Melvin Harris paid a visit to this site and made some interesting comments about the watch. He was derided as usual, but I couldn't help but notice that no one ever really responded to some of his objections. Let me re-post part of his statement, and see if anyone wishes to respond. The full statements & the ensuing furor can be found back on Feb 4 2001, 6:44 PM thru Feb 9 2001 8:31 PM, after which the conversation turned to demands to reveal the forger's identities. Here's Melvin:
"I have given cogent reasons why the brass particles can never be used as a dating standard and if Dr Wild wishes to dispute this then let him say so, though when I spoke to him he readily agreed that corrosion itself was not a dependable factor.
For those who still do not grasp the import of the points I make let me reiterate that Dr Wild was not told that the polishing by Murphy was only a gentle rouge job that took place just 18 months earlier. He was also not aware that Dundas had stated that the 'Maybrick scratches' were not present in 1992. So Dr Wild started from the false premises that the watch surface had been heavily polished some six to ten years earlier and that the 'Maybrick scratches' had been present at that time. This led him to write "...the engraving was certainly older than ten years." Having been given false information, Dr Wild was simply accepting that he was looking at changes that OF NECESSITY had to have a minimum age of ten years. In other words prior to Albert's purchase. He was wrong, but no-one in the Diary camp corrected him when he issued his reports. Why?"
RP, Ps. You may wish to check out Paul Feldman pg 33-34. Interesting story. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 11:52 am | | Hi RJ,
Scratches first – Poste House to follow ‘poste haste’ (as our trusty diarist would spell it).
Please bear in mind I composed this before seeing your latest post so I am not responding to that one specifically.
You believe the scratches were made in 1993, very shortly before Albert handed his timepiece over to the good doctors Wild and Turgoose to examine.
Did whoever made those scratches know just how closely they could be examined, using the latest equipment, and that nothing could be found to show whether they were made yesterday, or over a hundred years ago? Again, the boring old questions – was it a combination of blind faith and incredible luck, on the part of an amateur opportunist who had no idea whether his efforts would fool anyone, or get him into trouble, yet didn’t hesitate to let the experts loose on the watch? Or was it specialised knowledge and experience, that told him not even the latest techniques could prove a thing either way? Or was it a skill he possessed, to make the scratches consistent, in the opinion of two independent metallurgy specialists, with how they would appear if they were indeed decades old?
You believe the Maybrick scratches were not in the watch when the jeweller sold it to Albert, and support that belief with his statement that he hadn’t noticed them before. But neither did he note any changes in appearance or condition, when he saw the watch again later, to suggest that the scratches had been added since his last examination. Quite simply, if the jeweller couldn’t tell the difference, when we know the scratches were in place, how can you argue that he would have noticed them had they been there to start with? And would Albert have risked going back to pester the jeweller with questions about the watch’s history, if there was any possibility that he could have told him, or the diary investigators, “Now wait a minute, I know these particular scratches weren’t there when I sold this watch in 1992 – I’d have noticed”?
And if this jeweller didn't recognise them as having been there before, how do you know that someone else might not have equally failed to pick up on their presence or significance at any earlier date, when examining or repairing the watch, and not looking for, or expecting to find anything unusual? (This bit responding to your latest post.)
Right then – on to the Poste House.
Imagine our modern faker knows there is a pub called The Poste House in Cumberland Street, and thinks it will fit nicely into his diary of the 1880s. Well, assuming we are talking at least about an Englishman (or woman) - and quite possibly a Liverpudlian pub-goer, schooled between say the 1930s and 1960s, we can automatically eliminate anyone who knew of the pub’s existence before, or around, the time it was being renamed in the 1960s. So this would be someone who didn’t have any such local knowledge until much later, at a time when he could not have seen or heard any references to previous names; someone who may have seen the name “The Poste House” on the front of this pub one day, and thought “Great – just the job for my diary”, then just went ahead and stuck it in, not even stopping for a pint, for research purposes, when he might have had the common sense to check with the regulars if it was called “The Poste House” when the diary was supposed to have been written, or indeed if the place had ever been an actual post house; someone who had not registered the fact that many pubs had undergone changes of name by the time he decided to use this one; someone who didn’t realise that no pub, whether it was a post house or not, would have had a name like “The Poste House” above its door in Victorian times.
So does that narrow down the field of possible modern fakers in any way? Or does it just show a lack of due care, on the part of an Englishman or Liverpudlian, who perhaps ought to have known better, and been aware of one or other of these pitfalls? Maybe, as you have suggested, RJ, he wasn’t trying to impress anyone with a competent forgery anyway? But in that case, why bother to research and include the Poste House reference in the first place?
Now lets imagine we are dealing with an author who decided he was going to put in his diary that he took refreshment at the post house – as in any number of the buggers, in or outside of Liverpool, all of which would have had a different name above the door, and never the actual words ‘post house’ in sight. Where would the diary author have seen the words post house written down, if the regulars always talked about going down ‘the post house’, when they really meant ‘The Nag’s Head’, for instance? Notice that he doesn’t put a capital T on ‘the’, as he might have done, if referring to the official name of the pub. The fact he chooses to use capitals for ‘Poste’ and ‘House’, and adds an ‘e’ to ‘Post’ doesn’t prove he ever saw it written that way. After all, he also adds an ‘e’ to ‘post’, as in ‘poste haste’, which suggests he hasn’t seen that written down much either. The only ‘Poste’ anything he may have seen regularly in writing would be ‘Poste Restante’ – in which case it would be an understandable assumption that post house might be written ‘Poste House’, and post haste, 'poste haste'.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 12:15 pm | | Hi, Caz:
You are going down the same road Paul Begg went down positing a hypothetical "post house" somewhere. I think your argument is getting overly tortuous. This is a Liverpool forger who mentions Whitechapel, Liverpool, so, to my mind, of course they mean the present-day Poste House pub near Whitechapel. (Incidentally, R.J., the Liverpool thoroughfare is just called "Whitechapel" not "Whitechapel Road".)
Caz, you and John Omlor and Paul will all say but that isn't proven that the writer means that Poste House but to my mind it is. Your argument is getting a bit absurd. We might as well, and could if we wish, start talking about parallel Battlecrease Houses, that there was another Battlecrease House, maybe that there was more than one Maybrick family, another Jim and "Bunny" in Liverpool. . . Sorry to poke fun but I do think this "poste house" argument is getting overextended when the obvious explanation for why the name "Poste House" is in the Diary is sitting right in front of our eyes!
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Robert Smith
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 12:18 pm | | THE POSTE HOUSE
Many look for the big breakthrough, which will prove the diary either to be a modern fake or to be a genuine Victorian document. Currently, for RJ Palmer, it is the Poste House, but it won’t do. Just look at the actual reference again in the diary:
“Foolish bitch, I know for certain she has arranged a rondaveau with him in Whitechapel. So be it, my made is firmly made. I took refreshment at the Poste House it was there I finally decided London it shall be.”
Mr Palmer is making the same assumption as the original edition of the “Diary of Jack the Ripper”, ie that the diarist must be referring to the Poste House in Cumberland Street. We now know it was given that name in the 1960s, probably to appear cosy and olde worlde, and for the same marketing reason that Charles Forte changed the name of many of his UK hotels to Post House. The diarist doesn’t locate the pub, though we may assume that it is in Liverpool and might even be near Whitechapel, Liverpool. In the 1880s the Poste House was called the Muck Midden, as a framed newspaper article, which hung in 1993 (and may still) on the walls of the pub explained. It could never have been a post house or coaching inn, because Cumberland Street is a tiny Victorian road, and there are no stables attached to the pub or access space for coaches. More crucially, post houses were always on main thoroughfares. Researchers have found no pubs in Victorian England, formally named the Post House. It would have been like naming a pub, the Coaching Inn. It was a generic term.
Let us go back to 1888 Liverpool. About 50 yards from the Muck Midden (the modern Poste House), one comes to Liverpool’s coaching thoroughfare, Dale Street. According to a book called “Old Liverpool” published in 1889, Dale Street goes back to at least 1644. The first passenger stage-coach from Liverpool started out from the Golden Fleece in Dale Street in 1760. The other 18th Century coaching inns in Dale Street, were the Golden Lion, the Angel and Crown, the Bull and Punch-bowl, the Wool-pack and the Red Lion.
The end of the golden age of coaching was signalled in Liverpool, by the opening of the Liverpool-London railway in 1838. In a large scale three-dimensional map of Dale Street dated 1850, there are only three coaching inns remaining: the Saracen’s Head, the Old White Lion and the Angel, which may have been the earlier Angel and Crown. And by 1888, post houses and coaching inns were an anachronism. Only the Angel had survived as an inn, and on the opposite corner was Liverpool’s Coach Office. (The Angel is still there on the corner of Dale Street and North John Street). If Maybrick was in the habit of going to a pub, like the Angel, near his office (and near Whitechapel), which in the 1850s, when he was in his twenties, had been a working post house, he and other locals in the 1880s may well have referred to such a pub as the Post House. The diarist, of course, spells it as the Poste House, in the same way he spells posthaste as “poste haste”. And even to this day poste restante is spelt with the final e.
The Angel was a two minute walk from James Maybrick’s office in Knowsley Buildings, Tithebarn Street, closer than the Muck Midden, and a short walk from Whitechapel. So, if one is to speculate on where the Poste House in the diary was, the Angel is far more likely than the Muck Midden. To repeat, it is not a diarist in 1888/89, or even a hoaxer in 1992, who places the Poste House in Cumberland Street.
Robert Smith |
Author: Robert Smith
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 12:19 pm | | THE WATCH
A few more thoughts about the watch engravings. As experts go, they don’t come much better qualified than Dr Turgoose and Dr Wild. UMIST and Bristol are two of the country’s top metallurgy departments. Major reputations are at stake here, and it is most unlikely that they are wrong or misguided.
RJ Palmer says that Dr Turgoose and Dr Wild “concede that [the scratches] could have been faked”. I would say both are as categorical as they could be, given that it is almost impossible for a research academic to give a 100% unqualified statement. This is what Dr Turgoose says: “They could have been produced recently and deliberately artificially aged by polishing, but this would have been a complex multistage process, using a variety of different tools, with intermediate polishing or artificial wearing stages. Also, many of the observed features are only resolved by the scanning electron microscope, not being readily apparent in optical microscopy, and so if they were of recent origin the engraver would had to be aware of the potential evidence available from this technique, indicating a considerable skill, and scientific awareness.”
Dr Wild is similarly dismissive of the idea of the expert faker: “In my opinion it is unlikely that anyone would have sufficient expertise to implant aged brass particles into the base of the engraving”. He also told me privately that he couldn’t have faked the scratches himself.
So if we want to identify a watch faker, it doesn’t look like the Barretts or Johnsons are quite up to the job.
A final intriguing point. While the handwriting in the diary has little similarity to the handwriting style seen in Maybrick’s signature on his wedding certificate, the “J Maybrick” scratched on the watch, either is a genuine signature or a good attempt to imitate it.
Robert Smith |
Author: Robert Smith
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 12:20 pm | | TO IVOR EDWARDS
You urge that the Forensic Science Service be commissioned to conduct tests on the diary. The diary ink has been extensively tested – Baxendale, Eastaugh, Analysis for Industry, Leeds University, the Rendell team in Chicago. What new and different techniques are available from the Forensic Science Service, which could be of the conclusive nature you desire?
If you can get a clear assurance from them that they can describe tests, which will reliably date an ink on a time scale between 1888 and 1992, then subject to the money being found for the tests, I would be happy for them to conduct such a test.
You say that you made the letter to you from the Forensic Science Service dated 15th October 1997, known to the “Diary camp”. As you know, my company Smith Gryphon published the book, but I don’t remember receiving any letter from you. Did you send one?
You have made a very serious allegation against me in your final paragraph, accusing me of the criminal act of fraud. Do you wish to continue to allege that I and my publishing company “peddled the hoax onto the general public”, or do you wish to withdraw the allegation?
Robert Smith |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 03:30 pm | | TO ROBERT SMITH.
With all due respect I am more than aware of the tests taken on the diary to date. We all know what a waste of time they were and the fiasco they caused.I will indeed contact the Forensic Science Services in view of your offer but I can inform you now that they will need to view the diary before making any decision. You and I met at your London office during 1993 where we discussed several issues including the diary.The inquiries made in relation to the Forensic Science Service letter to which you refer dated 15th October 1997,were known on the casebook. Several people known to you were aware of the situation.In fact Shirley Harrison, Paul Begg,and Doreen Montgomery were posting on the casebook at the time. In fact both ladies recieved flak from posters because of their comments towards me.Now to the point where you wrote, "You have made a very serious allegation againest me in your final paragraph, accusing me of the criminal act of fraud. Do you wish to continue that I and my publishing company " peddled the hoax onto the general public", or do you wish to withdraw the allegation?" I have looked at my comments and neither your name or the name of your publishing company are in evidence. I am not responsible for how you choose to interpret my words. I will not withdraw my comments. |
Author: John Omlor
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 05:39 pm | | Hi RJ,
I have no problem with any of the comments and testimony you cite.
I think Mr. Tim Dundas provides us with evidence that directly contradicts the evidence of the two experts, the scientists.
That leaves us with contradictory evidence concerning the age of the scratches.
This neither surprises me nor particularly disturbs me. In fact, around here I sort of expect it.
And so we are right where I have been saying we are -- without the necessary evidence to conclude anything about the age of the scratches and with directly contradictory evidence from separate sources, two of which agree and a third which does not.
And the questions you ask of Dr. Turgoose:
"Where did all those surface scratches come from? Why didn't Dundas see them? Why are on they on the inside back cover of the watch? That some scratches are underneath other scratches is a matter of chronology, of order. This is very different than saying that they are 'decades old.' What is the basis of that belief? The worn edges?
All of these are excellent and important questions for both the Dr. and Dundas and all concerned. You do not answer them. I do not have the answer to them. Consequently, neither of us know exactly how or why Dr. Turgoose may have gotten it wrong, if he did.
That's what I've been pointing out. That's exactly why we cannot simply dismiss his orMr. Dundas's testimony. They both must be allowed to stand as contradictory at this point, until we have the answers to the sorts of questions you ask here.
I don't see Melvin addressing Dr. Turgoose's statement in your citation. Perhaps he does elsewhere. I see that Robert has offered a response as well about the findings of both men and mentioned that Dr. Wild has also commented on how much knowledge a faker would have needed.
Remember, RJ, I like you, want this watch to be a recent fake and a bandwagon item. But I do not see anyone offering the reliable evidence that would allow us to claim that it has been established as such. And this means more than just discrediting the two scientists or their conclusions because they do not fit our desired scenario -- it means actually coming up with some evidence about the production of the watch, like Mr. Dundas' statements for a start -- can they be corroborated by anyone else? And then finding some evidence, scientific or otherwise, that the scratches were put there after 1992.
Until something like that is produced and verified responsibly, we cannot just go around claiming the watch is a modern post-'92 fake just because dammit it must be and the scientists therefore must be wrong, no matter how badly we need this to be true for our own sanity.
We share a "common sense" feeling about this. We have to prove it. Otherwise, we're still just chatting.
And nothing Melvin has said in the citation above goes any serious way towards proving anything.
By the way, I for one am very glad that Dr Wild "was also not aware that Dundas had stated that the 'Maybrick scratches' were not present in 1992."
I would not, under any circumstances, have wanted him to be told this before he conducted his investigation. It would have altered his expectations and it is only someone's personal testimony. He is a scientist. He should be examining the artifact without knowing what people are or are not saying about it. These sorts of things should be kept from him as much as possible in order not to alter his findings in some subtle ways.
But as I mentioned earlier, RJ, I take everything you've written above at face value and think it should be thrown into the mix and allowed to stand. Why not? It doesn't lead us to any conclusion or make the contradictions in the evidence and testimony go away and it certainly doesn't tell us when the watch was made. But it's all important stuff and should all be counted and considered carefully.
I think both Dundas and Turgoose (and Wild and Harris) should stand and neither should be dismissed simply because they are inconvenient.
Let the contradictions multiply and let us keep our minds open and eventually we'll be having fun (if not getting to the truth, which remains unspoken in all of this because it remains unknown).
Chris,
Sorry but your examples are not the same sort of thing at all -- since you are using proper names (Battlecrease, James, and Bunny, etc.) and saying they cannot be replaced with other referents for the same proper names, and the Poste House question is a question about whether a proper name is being invoked or a generic one is and the fact is that the grammar simply does not allow us to decide -- independent of our own will to construct a meaning which satisfies our own desires. And that's not how analysis should take place. We have to deal with what is actually before us, the words. And the words in this case do not allow the identification of the specific historical place to be "proven." You can think it is "proven." That's fine. But that's different from it actually, logically, clearly, being proven. And Robert Smith is correct when he says that the diary does not place this establishment where the Post House is today. It simply does not. I wish it did. That would make this all go away. But the term was used in a much more generic sense, historically, as the OED verifies, and the reference in the sentence in the book is not specific.
We must deal with what remains before us.
But I appreciate your frustration and wish you to know that I respect your opinion about this being "proven," even if I disagree with it. This does not mean that I do not agree with the idea that the Post House might very well have been named by a modern and recent forger for the one in Liverpool. It might very well have been. But that is not yet afforded us as a proven fact or interpretation and I'm not sure why anyone would be in a hurry to say that it is.
But I agree to keep reading and to keep an open mind about it and to continually see what the evidence actually allows us to be certain of and to claim.
Thanks all,
--John
PS: Serious thanks to Robert for some very useful information. Well done. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 06:15 pm | | Hi John,
Why, oh why, couldn't our modern forger (with no apparent concept that pubs can and do change their names these days, as, when I put it to hubby - who knows very little about JtR - that surely he'd check first, if he wanted to write a fake 1880s diary, to see if The Poste House was always called that, replied "Didn't The Ten Bells change its name in recent years, then change back again?" which I thought was a bloody good point to make) - why couldn't he just have written, 'Strolled along Cumberland Street, entered The Poste House for some refreshment...'
Or, better still, 'Strolled down Commercial Street, entered The Jack The Ripper (originally, and then again up until very recently, The Ten Bells) for some refreshment and exotic dancers... d'oh!' 
Love,
Caz |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 27 July 2001 - 07:42 pm | | This is getting SURREAL and eerily similar to a Whitehouse press release. Tim Dundas doesn't merely 'contradict' the findings of Turgoose & Wilde.. HE IS STATING THAT THE SCRATCHES DIDN'T EVEN EXIST SIX YEARS EARLIER! If one believes Dundas, how on earth does this "certainly not tell us when the watch[ie., scratches] were made"?? Dundas took the watch apart to clean & repair it, how could he have missed the engravings?? And more importantly, would the opinions of Turgoose & Wilde have changed if they had known about Dundas's examination of the watch?
Uggh. Meanwhile, we have Paul Feldman telling us that Robbie & Dr. Turgoose couldn't tell what was "written at 8 o'clock"...even though he had already been given a diagram by Robbie telling exactly what was on the watch. We still have the remarkable coincidence of the accidental discovery three weeks after the diary is announced in the Liverpool papers, and the mysterious supeficial scratches on the inside cover of the watch....
But I give up debating about this one. The watch discussion has resurfaced as a suggestion to 'rethink' our 'assumptions' about the Maybrick diary's age, but personally, I find the watch less than awe inspiring, and certainly see nothing compelling enough to warrant my rethinking the diary. |
|
|
|
|
