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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 08 October 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
TIME FOR A RE- EVALUATION!:
Archive through 08 October 2001
Author: R.J.P.
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 12:02 pm |        | John--Here's my take on this tricky question. An author has the right to argue whatever they wish, but the publisher & the editor have the responsibility to see that they live up to certain standards. Time Warner felt those standards weren't met & ditched the diary. Justice Lindsay worried the public would be deceived and let the Sunday Times lambast the diary before it was published. He probably hoped the expose would derail the project; in other words, perhaps he was attempting to impose standards that he felt the publisher was ignoring.
As I said yesterday, I accept Keith's (and now Paul's) argument. It's impossible to look into an author's soul and decide his or her sincerity. It's impossible for me to believe that Paul Feldman or Shirley Harrison would have spent the time and effort [and received the lumps they have received] if they didn't believe in their project. Besides, the books by Feldman & Harrison are largely about the investigation of the document itself, which pretty much let's them off the hook. [Some critics still question the use of specific details that they claim were pointed out to be erroneous before publication].
Personally, I'm a little more dubious about Anne Graham's The Last Victim, where she brushes aside the issue of the diary's authenticity and uses it freely as legitimate history. Paul Feldman uses the same stunt in his book with certain letters and documents, not really 'cluing in' the reader to the controversy surrounding them. A good historian should be honest with the reader and even freely expose the weakness of his or her own 'evidence', particularly if it is controversial. RP |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 02:13 pm | | Dear John Omlor, RJP, Christopher T. George, Caroline Morris, the legendary Paul Begg and anyone else with an interest!
I think, having read the last few entries, that I have found some common ground with you all.
John: I think that on the instance of the 'treble event' you and I must agree to differ, although if you get a chance to enter into a discussion in the chat room I think it would be beneficial to us both to chat contemporaneously, so to speak. When does the chat room run for someone living in Manchester, England? Your views on the 'treble event' are perfectly valid and are indeed a POSSIBLE explanation for the mention of it in the diary. But I think I have logic and the law of probabilities on my side. Perhaps we could debate a different point? Paul Begg made a very interesting and thought provoking point that the diary is 'real' and deserves to be debated as much as any other piece of ripper evidence, at least that is how I interpreted Paul's contribution to this message board. He has NOT quoted it as genuine, because I am fully aware of Paul's view on the identity of the Ripper, but I do believe that, at least in the back of his mind, there is part of Paul that is prepared to believe that it is possible that the diary could be genuine. John, is there any part of you that believes in any way that the diary could be genuine, or do you one hundred per cent believe it to be a forgery? I don't think Shirley Harrison has ever gone on record as claiming she has proven the diary to be genuine, although I think it would be fair to accept that Paul Feldman believes that he has proven the diary to be genuine.
Let me be frank with you: I, as a believer in the validity of the diary, do have some grave concerns as to various parts of the text. I would be willing to share those concerns with you in return for you sharing with me any parts of the diary which have particularly impressed you. I realise this would be hard for you, as I detect a certain amount of animosity towards the diary. Would you be willing to take part in that exhcange of views, John?
Forget about the treble event for now, perhaps you could give me your view on Sir Jack/Sir Jim, which the diarist seemed so keen on calling himself. Where do you think he got that idea from, in view of the fact that Feldman has proven Maybrick referred to himself as Sir Jim, a fact which could not have been in the public domain at the time that the diary emerged?
Ivor Edwards: Roslyn D'Onston? Really? Maybrick is the ONLY Ripper candidate against whom tangible evidence exists, that is if the diary were proven to be genuine. ALL of the others have arisen because of the flights of fancy of some retired police chief or other, who, lets face it, didn't bring the Ripper to justice. Kosminski,Druitt,Ostrog because of the McNaghten Memorandum against which I have already strongly argued; Tumblety, owing to the 'Littlechild Letter', and various others. Is there any other Ripper suspect against whom there is tangible evidence, besides Maybrick? No, I didn't think so. I admire your support of Roslyn D'Onston as the Ripper, but feel that if you tried to, you could make a case out of Queen Victoria being the Ripper, after all some poor misguided souls have been trying to sell her son off as the Ripper for many years.
Caroline, do you favour any Ripper suspect at all? Is there anyone you are convinced COULD NOT have been the Ripper? Do you think the truth will ever be proven? And do you accept that some people will cling on to their favourite subject or suspect even when it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that they could not have been the Ripper, witness Stuart Evans and Paul Gainey who have still not given up the ghost despite proof that Tumblety was in police custody when Mary Kelly was murdered? Do they seriously think the police would release somebody they KNEW to be the Ripper on police bail? Do you believe that?
Once again I have waffled on, could someone please be so gracious as to let me know when the Ripper chatroom convenes, if indeed it still does? Many Thanks..............and happy posting.
Peter. |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 02:37 pm | | Hello Peter:
The structured Ripper chat is every Tuesday at 9:00 pm US Eastern Standard time, which unfortunately is 2:00 AM Manchester UK time. However, you can find some of us there at other times. I will make a point of visiting there this afternoon, so possibly we could have a chat. It is now 2:40 pm US time or 7:40 pm your time and I am going there now.
My understanding is that neither Paul Begg nor Keith Skinner believe the Maybrick diary is genuine, although both have spoken of the possibility of it being an old forgery. Keith stated in Oxford on Tuesday that he believes the date given by the McNeil test of circa 1920 may be correct.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Walter Timothy Mosley
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 02:56 pm | | This is off-topic and I expect Alegria to relocate it to the proper thread.
Regarding The JTR Chat Room:
I see inquiry has been made above regarding the chat room. Although we now have regular structured chat on Tuesday nights as described in the Pub Talk section, and regular die-hard chatters are to be found in there nearly every other night, there is NO REASON why anyone should not use the chat room when they feel like it. That is why I have had Abberline installed in there - to monitor the room for use at all hours.
Our British and Australian cousins are welcome to use the chat room as they see fit. If the timing is right, as Chris George states above, then those in the US may want to participate as well.
All are welcome to use The JTR Chat Room to discuss all matters relevant to the Whitechapel Murders.
WTM |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 05:16 pm | | Hi Peter,
I would be happy to talk about the diary in detail with you, from all points of view. I want to be clear that I am not "anti-diary" nor do I have any vested interest in proving that it is a forgery (as I suspect). And I have no "animosity" towards the book at all. In fact, I find it a delightful reading problem and a fascinating human mystery that raises all sorts of lovely questions of interpretation and uncertainties surrounding authorial identification. I'm glad it exists regardless of who wrote it.
A while back, I wrote the following. It still holds true, especially the part that considers what happens if the diary turns out after all to be authentic somehow.
This is what I wrote:
One of the most interesting things about the diary is that it has received the passionate attentions of both Messrs. Feldman and Harris and yet its origins still remain a mystery.
Paul's work finally does little to help us in figuring out the who, where, when and why of the diary's actual composition -- although his book does introduce us to the major players and provide an example of how it is possible to create a story around the diary and then submit it as fact. Melvin's work also finally does little to help us in figuring out the specifics of the who, where, when, and why of the diary's actual composition -- although it does demonstrate the most convincing difficulties with some of the "authenticity" claims and even the claims of it being a 19th century document.
But at some point both men have a tendency to announce things as proven and to announce solutions (or, in Melvin's case, the promise of them or the ownership of them), when in fact the solutions remain conspicuously absent. And neither man's work is very well served by their love of the language of revelation and finality (Paul's exclamation points and "without a doubts" and Melvin's "that is the end of that matter" tone and insistence on his own triumphs).
So what the rest of us are left with is a reading problem and a living mystery. And for most of us this is made even more problematic and difficult because we do not know and have never met the major players. I often wonder what I would think if I had met Mike or Anne or Tony. How would talking to them change my opinions about this text and its origins? But as is the case with most reading, the principal figures remain unavailable to most of us and we're stuck with words on pages and stories told to others.
I had one thought this morning. It seems that now both Mike and Anne regret the appearance of the diary (and what it has done to their lives). And I think many of the other people involved (including Shirley and Doreen, perhaps) also have moments where they wish the thing had never turned up or been written. Even Paul Feldman seems to have suffered finally with this thing, and it's obviously driven Melvin to distraction once or twice.
Is there anybody around these days who is actually glad this book appeared? Or has it just been trouble for all involved?
If there is an unnamed and unknown author sitting somewhere, related or unrelated to the Barretts & co., I wonder if they are proud or regretful of what their little project has produced?
Also, I wanted to mention one thing to the diary supporters. If we are all completely wrong around here -- if by some rare chance it turns out that this thing was written by James Maybrick (despite the handwriting problems and all the rest) and that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, I would be perfectly happy with that outcome. If we found another document tomorrow, with impeccable provenance -- a letter, say, that had been in the family for generations, that now turned up and wherein Maybrick himself suggests to a friend or relative that he's been murdering women in Whitechapel, and we are all forced to admit that the damn diary was real after all, I would be the first to say how mistaken all my readings were and to exit smiling, knowing now who killed the poor women whose faces appear on the Casebook victims page.
This, finally, is not about the pride of being right or wrong. This has to be about reading the best we can and considering what we know and don't know honestly and with care.
That is what I wrote.
So I think we should definitely keep reading. But as we do, I think we have to be very careful about our logic and our claims and make sure that they are absolutely valid and not simply leaps of faith.
What bothers me most, still, about the diary, is its staged melodrama and its too-neat Aristotelian structure of beginning (setting the stage and naming the players) rising action (the complications that drive James mad) climax (the Kelly murder and its aftermath) and falling action (the gradual decline and the melodramatic single page wrap-up in which James sees his own approaching death in advance). It's a perfect pyramid structure for a constructed narrative. It's all much too neat and too artificially structured according to principles of drama that we all absorb as children and that are 2000 years old and permeate the written and filmed culture that surrounds us. It's not a daily diary -- it's a set piece, I think. It is even rather filmic in its structure -- think of the movements of a clichéd Hollywood film like Die Hard or Titanic -- set-up, establishment of conflict, complications, climactic event, cool down with gradually falling action and final resolution.
But an authentic diary of a life being lived day to day should not be a set piece, nor so well-structured nor so neatly informative. It is also very thin concerning the stuff of daily life and maintains a purely inferential character at all times, as if it was deliberately trying to be difficult or evocative and thereby resist easy identification and verification. This too seems to me suspicious. Why would a personal and private diary bother to be so problematic? No, this book was clearly written with an audience of interpreters in mind.
But that's all just an off-the-cuff reaction and proves nothing at all.
I give credit to the diary. It goes on for sixty-some pages without a single historical howler or simple, fatal mistake and it has resisted all attempts, both scientific and interpretive, to prove it false once and for all. How much of this is due to the weaknesses of the science and the knowledge of the interpreters I don't know. But the diary, for such a simple and deliberate narrative, has held up extraordinarily well as at least a debatable document (for at least some people) for quite a number of years and is apparently free from the sort of errors that would simply convict it and expose it -- errors that so many other forgeries, such as the Hitler Diaries, could not manage to avoid.
But sure, let's go into detail. You tell me the passages you wish to discuss and I'll be right there with you.
Looking forward to it,
--John
PS: You write that "Paul Feldman believes that he has proven the diary to be genuine." I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not. But if it is, then it is clear that Paul does not understand the logical requirements for or the definition of "proof." |
Author: R.J.P.
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 06:07 pm | | John--Wow. No offense, but I really have to question your own logical requirements if you don't consider the fact that the diary's handwriting doesn't match either Maybrick nor the 'Dear Boss' writers handwriting definitive proof that the diary is a forgery! What in the name of goodness would you consider proof?
Also:
'It goes on for sixty-some pages without a single historical howler'
A suggestion: tin match box empty=historical howler.
Sorry, but can you explain a scenerio where the real Jack the Ripper would ape the grammatical construction of a police inventory list, and particularly one that was not in print until 1987? Best wishes, RP |
Author: John Omlor
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 06:34 pm | | Hi RJ,
Let's take the second one first. You are talking about four words. Now, while I too think it is perfectly reasonable to assume that those four words in that order suggest that the writer had seen the police list, I also, certainly, cannot claim that because those words also appear in the diary, the diary can simply not possibly have been written in 1888. Because I cannot simply or casually dismiss the possibility that those four words were put on paper by someone who had not seen that list (you are making an argument similar to Feldman's about the October 5 letter having to have been seen by the writer, and it still doesn't pass logical muster, whether it's in favor of authenticity or against it). Nor can I simply dismiss the possibility that someone somehow saw that list a very long time ago.
In any case, the appearance of those four words is definitely not a historical howler to the extent that it proves the diary could not, under any circumstances, have been written in 1888 (the way, say, a mention of Mick Jagger would, to be ridiculous about it). That sort of fatal ahistorical error was what I was suggesting the diary did not contain.
The handwriting question is a trickier business, because the handwriting people have not been able to definitively or finally establish that James Maybrick could not, under any circumstances, have written this document. Nor will they be able to, I suspect, simply and sadly because theirs is not that sort of science.
All I was saying RJ, is that the diary has not fallen prey to the sorts of finally fatal mistakes as other forgeries -- anachronistic ink or paper or language or narrative detail or historical fact or known conflict of dates or known conflicts of geographies or known and established biographical inconsistencies or any other marks that would identify it once and for all as impossible. That's why it remains a subject for debate. No matter how much you and I might think it has been "proven" to be a forgery, no one has driven the stake into its heart; the death knell has not finally rung out; and neither you nor I nor Melvin nor anyone has been able to bury the thing underneath incontrovertable facts or positive science or anything else, as they have with so many of the other forgeries of history.
And of course, we still have no idea who wrote the damn thing.
Thanks for asking,
--John |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 06:38 pm | | Dear John,
The Diary is an Existential Cartoon...informing the reader about its author. Nothing more than an empty gesture...BUT A TIMELY EMPTY GESTURE.
Thus,
Rosey:-) |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 07:08 pm | | Peter Wood,Contary to your beliefs I have yet to see any tangible evidence that Maybrick was the ripper. If what you believe is true then the diary would not be concidered as a hoax. If you believe Maybrick was the ripper then good for you. Evidence is indeed what this is all about and I do know that there is more evidence to support D'Onston being the killer than Maybrick.And unless you or anyone else have read my research into D'Onston you are not in a position to make certain comments until you have seen all the evidence.Is that not fair?
Christopher George. I have been following your comments with a great deal of interest and agree with them. It is most refreshing to learn that common sense and the ability to use ones brain as it should be used is much in evidence as far as you are concerned. Thank God for the likes of you. |
Author: Scott Nelson
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 07:45 pm | | | The Diary written about 1920? The author having seen a police inventory list ("tin matchbox empty")? Hey! maybe the author was an ex-MET policeman! What's that theory of Andy Aliffe's? That some of the Ripper files returned to Scotland Yard anonymously in 1987 quite possibly came from the descendents of Walter Dew (?). Was Dew jealous of Abberline? Food for thought. |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 08:16 pm | | Dear Ivor
You are of course right, if I haven't seen your research into D'Onston I am not in a position to make certain comments - and that is, of course, why I have not made certain comments. I am genuinely interested to see your research because the research I have seen so far on D'Onston suggests to me that he is no more a credible candidate for the Ripper than, for instance, Dr Barnardo. That's just my opinion and I accept you are perfectly entitled to yours, but don't you think it is a shame to ally yourself only with people who are of a like mind to yourself? As for tangible evidence that Maybrick was the Ripper, well there are sixty three pages of it in a little victorian diary that came to the public's attention some 9 or so years ago. Neither Paul Feldman nor myself has to prove Maybrick was the Ripper, but having the diary as a definite object means that if we can prove IT to be genuine then it follows automatically that we have proved Maybrick to be the Ripper. I hope you don't think that I am disrespecting you, but what exactly is your evidence on D'Onston? I look forward to seeing it.
John (Omlor) - at last! I have found someone who is willing to debate the very things that made me start this strand of the message boards. Let me firstly address the point that Paul Feldman believes he has proven the diary to be genuine, you will find it in the introduction to his book, The Final Chapter, on page 'x' - and I quote "I had for some time believed that the diary was genuine. I now know it is. I also know that I have proved it beyond any reasonable doubt". Then on page 406 (Paperback edition) "However, it is simple logic that gives us the undeniable proof that both artefacts, the diary and the watch, are genuine. It is impossible for the diary to have been written since 1989. It is impossible that the marks in the watch owned by Albert Johnson were made after 1989. It is impossible for anyone to have access to the detailed knowledge contained in the diary before 1989..........................". There you have it, Paul Feldman believes that he has proven the diary to be genuine. I would be very interested to know why you state that 'even Paul Feldman finally seems to have suffered with this thing', what has happened to him?
Also, why do you consider Mike, Anne and Tony to be major players? Surely, unless you can accuse them of forging the diary, they are nothing more than "messengers". The content, handwriting, psychological profile etc would still be the same for the diary regardless of who had taken it to Doreen Montgomery, so Mike, Anne and Tony are, at best, completely innocent - and at worst the pawns in someone else's game.
Finally John lets get down to the serious debating you promised me. Lets start off with an easy one: Where do you think the diarist got the idea to refer to himself as 'Sir Jim'? This question being posed in view of the fact that Paul Feldman uncovered evidence of Maybrick referring to himself at Battlecrease House as 'Sir Jim' or 'Sir James', that evidence being the correspondence between Florence Aunspaugh and Trevor Christie which Feldman uncovered from the University of Wyoming, and which could not in any way shape or form have been seen by anyone prior to Feldman discovering it.
Good Luck
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 08:24 pm | | Dear Rosemary
'The diary is an existential cartoon.........Nothing more than an empty gesture'? Interesting. But it also happens to be an existential cartoon that has caught your attention and motivated you to contribute to it's space on the message boards. There are many things in life in which I don't believe - well I don't visit their websites and post messages on them. I am indeed pleased to see you posting messages here, surely the fact that you are motivated to post a message here proves that the diary is indeed something more than an existential cartoon?
Peter. |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 08:47 pm | | Dear Peter,
"Thus,
Rosey :-)" |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 09:23 pm | | Hi Peter. I do agree with what you wrote, if the diary is indeed genuine then Maybrick was the ripper. But it has not been proven geniune. The truth of the matter is that some people believe it is genuine while others do not. You must understand that the story behind the diary has changed on several occasions and this in itself places doubt in the minds of others. I find the prevailing situation far from satisfactory. And most of my questions have been ignored by those who support the diary. For example I am not aware of a case where a person ever had a genuine article worth its weight in gold only to state that it was a forgery when in fact is was not. Can someone explain to me what someone with the genuine article would hope to gain by such action. Also Barrett told me that he was a con man so what conclusions can I be expected to draw. I certainly cant be asked to believe it is genuine. And this is without taking everything else into concideration. The diary situation leaves a lot to be desired and I think most people would agree on that point. No offence to you when I state this Peter but although some people believe the diary genuine there are also people who believe the world is flat.As for information on D'Onston it would be far better for you to read my book and digest it rather than for me to re-write all the information here. I hope you see my point.
If proof is shown to me that the diary is genuine then I can live with that.But I cant be expected to believe that a sows ear is a silk purse.It is up to the people involved with the Diary to prove that it is genuine this they have not done. Quite simply if they had then all these debates on the subject would not be taking place. If people wish to believe that the diary is genuine then that is their right and I can live with that. I have had people tell me that they believe so and so was the killer and when I ask them why they tell me that they dont know!!! Such comments do not surprise me anymore because of human nature being what it is. In fact it is because of human nature being what it is that this subject is now seen as something of a joke by many people. I find that a rather sad state of affairs. |
Author: R.J.P.
Saturday, 06 October 2001 - 10:58 pm | | John--Hello and thanks for responding-- but there is no way that I can agree with you on this. It is a weak analogy to compare Feldy's reasoning of the 'treble event' with the strange inclusion of the four word phrase 'tin match box empty', and I'll tell you why. It is because the latter phrase is not only exactly verbatum, but it also comes during the mentioning of a series of articles in Liz Stride's possession in the exact same order that they appeared on the inventory list. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, the four word phrase is an extremely odd grammatical construction. There is only one adjective in the English language (and actually it is Irish --"galore") that follows the noun rather than precedes it. That 'empty' modifies the noun "box" is highly unusual, and only occures because the author of the diary was dumb (or playful) enough to copy it verbatum from the inventory style that inspired it. There is 0% chance that it happened by sheer luck. If you need something as blatant as an allusion to Mick Jagger to convince you then you are setting up a ridiculous and therefore meaningless standard of proof...for clearly even the most bungling forger is attempting to be as realistic as possible.
And I really am surprised about your comments about handwriting analysis. I'm no huge fan of the art myself, but please take some time to re-compare Maybrick's will to the 'Dear Boss' letter and to the writing in the diary. If you don't think that there are any forensic handwriting experts that can distinguish between the three, then I suspect we should re-open the cases of everyone who has ever been convicted of forging a document or a check. My honestly opinion: I truly believe that there is more evidence that the Maybrick diary is a hoax than nearly any other forgery that I have ever studied. John, are you sure that your standards of proof aren't so ridiculously high as to be impractical and therefore useless in the real world? Perhaps we should reconsider Piltdown, the Mussolini Diaries, and the Cardiff giant? I don't know what is so difficult in acknowledging that the burden of proof has been met. This thing is a forgery... Admit it. It will make you feel better.  Best wishes, RJ Palmer |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 03:14 am | | Hi Chris
I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. To have argued that the ‘diary’ was genuine because it exists would have been too ridiculous for words. My meaning was as John Omlor has interpreted it, namely that the ‘diary’ is a real and tangible and solid thing that advances Maybrick as a suspect. Maybrick is put in the frame by and because of that real, solid and tangible thing. This distinguishes Maybrick from theories about the Duke of Clarence or Sir William Gull or J.K. Stephen, against whom there is no existing tangible evidence. Being named in a tangible document is the reason for suspecting Maybrick, just like the reason for suspecting Tumblety is because he is named in a tangible document. The only distinction between the documents is that one is accepted as genuine and the other isn’t, so obviously the one suspect enjoys a higher credibility than the other. But Maybrick is in the frame and will remain there until the ‘diary’ is shown to be an out-and-out post-1987 hoax. Of course, many people accept that this has already been achieved. But other people don’t. The debate continues. The alternative argument to the one I have outlined above would seem to be that Maybrick cannot be considered a suspect until the ‘diary’ is proven genuine. This is a reasonable argument and is why Kosminski, Druitt, Ostrog and Tumblety, advanced as suspects by senior policemen of the time, top the suspect totem pole, but it is an argument that would also eliminate most of the suspects from discussion, not just the likes of J.K. Stephen but also those suspects against whom there is no evidence but their presence in the East End in 1888. I can see that some people might think that this would be a good thing, but it is also a bad thing. |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 05:18 am | | Hi, Paul, John, RJ, Peter, Ivor, etc.
Is there something wrong with the field of Ripper studies that the Maybrick diary is still around and has not been dismissed as I suspect it would have been in other fields?
Is the field so bound up with a thirst for information on the Ripper that we accept a suspect document as being a valid basis for debate?
Is Ripperology so driven by commercial considerations that a document such as this gets published while in other fields it would not be?
To Peter:
You state, "there are sixty three pages. . . in a little victorian diary that came to the public's attention some 9 or so years ago."
Let's be clear about this and please excuse me if I am misconstruing what you are saying or am being pedantic. The Maybrick diary is not in any way little. It is written in a ledger or scrapbook, on A4 size sheets. This is what document examiner Kenneth W. Rendell found suspect, that the narrative is not written in a journal or diary, which would have been usual in Victorian times, but rather instead is written in a ledger or scrapbook. It was a revelation to me to see the Diary in Bournemouth--and thanks are due to Paul Begg, Adam Wood and Robert Smith for making it available for the convention attendees to see. Also on view was the little marroon diary bought by Mike Barrett in spring 1992. Why did Barrett buy this, by comparison, little, nay tiny diary? Well, possibly, I believe, with a view of transferring the diary text to a book more appropriate to hold it because the scrapbook did not look right... and still does not.
In regard to the October 5, 1888 letter, quite apart from this debate about whether the "treble event" implies Maybrick wrote both the Diary and this letter, the tone of the letter is quite different to that of the Diary.
The October 5, 1888 letter is characterized by religious allusions and a call to the divinity:
"In the name of God hear me I swear I did not kill the female whose body was found at Whitehall . . . . God will bless the hand that slew her, for the woman of Moab and Median shall die and their blood will mingle with the dust. I never harm others or the Divine power that protects and helps me in my grand work. . ."
At no point in the Diary are there religious allusions of this kind, which implies to me that the Diary and the letter were written by two different individuals.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 06:52 am | | Hi Chris
I suppose the answer to your first question rather depends of what you mean by ‘dismissed’. Filed in a rubbish bin? Put on a bonfire? Treated as if it had never existed? If by dismissed you mean treated as if it isn't genuine, then it
has been dismissed. Most investigators are agreed that it wasn’t or almost certainly wasn’t written by James Maybrick. It is therefore widely recognised as being a fake. The disagreement is about when it was faked, specifically whether it was pre- or post-1987.
As for your second question, I would contend that a suspect document is indeed a valid basis for debate. Indeed, suspect documents are freely and avidly debated in academic circles – note the recent conference to examin the Casement diaries.
And the third question depends on whether or not Ripperology is (a) driven by commercial considerations and (b) that a ‘diary’-like book wouldn’t be published in other interest areas. I’m not convinced that either proposition is true. I don’t think Ripperology is any more or less subject to commercialism than is anything else. And I think every interest area has its ‘sensations’, dubious documents, off-the-wall theories and so on - which are avidly discussed and debated.
Chris/Peter
To be strictly accurate, the 'diary' is neither a ledger nor a scrapbook but a large hardbound book specifically produced to hold bulky items such as cards and photographs, as well as things like pressed flowers, theatre tickets, and other items that would bring back memories. As Robert Smith pointed out, a small separator in the binding keeps the pages are kept apart and allows the pages to lay flat once such items have been inserted.
Whether or not it is an unusual or suspicious thing for the author to have written into obviously depends of the circumstances in which the writing was begun and the author's purpose in writing. I suppose we could imagine the author brooding over his wife's infidenlities whilst going through their 'scrapbook' of good memories, then taking up his pen and writing his thoughts in an effort to exorcise them. In such circumstances the book might have seemed the prefect place to express them. And as his hatred grew, he may have cut out the front pages that contained the relics of his happiness. A bit Barbara Cartland, but who the hell knows what people will do! I think it's a bit dangerous to presuppose the actions of an individual and then use that presupposition to question the validity of a document or argument.
And now off for a birthday lunch!
Cheers
Paul |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 08:06 am | | Dear Chris G and Paul B
I find it hard to believe that after the diary has been in the public domain for nearly a decade that someone can base their main argument against it as being "it is not a diary". Well, blow me down with a feather, of course it's not a diary in the traditional sense, but then Maybrick wasn't an ordinary person in the traditional sense, was he? Are you asking me to believe that a drug addled, misogynistic psycopath would toddle off down to W H Smith (or it's victorian equivalent) and buy the 1888 year diary. Why? Maybrick wasn't concerned with writing in a book that actually said 'DIARY' on the front, he didn't need dates or months or the names of days. All Maybrick was doing was, to borrow a word from Paul Begg, exorcising his thoughts - putting them on paper - to my mind that is no different than the youngster who tortures animals and then progresses to people. Maybrick wrote about it first, then progressed to doing it, it obviously helped him to see his thoughts down on paper, we all do it, we all write things down, what do you think we are doing in here? So please, have you not got anything better against the diary than "IT'S NOT WRITTEN IN A DIARY"? Having made his decision to write his feelings down, Maybrick reached for the nearest thing he could find and just started writing! Is that so hard for you to believe? Please debate with me some of the more contentious points of the diary, it's text content, the scientific evaluation etc and not the size of the book. The use of the word 'little' should not cause so much consternation amongst a group of, otherwise, very intelligent and knowledgeable people.
One more point - read the text - does not the introduction of Lowry into the 'story' lead you to believe that Maybrick took the book from the office and started writing in it, only for Lowry to question the book's disappearance? "How dare he question me..........Should I replace the missing items?" Surely by now gentlemen you have realised that size is NOT important?
Looking forward to debating some real issues
Peter |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 08:18 am | | Dear Ivor
Of course I would LOVE to read your book, I have plenty of books on the subject of Jack The Ripper and take time to read books with which I disagree, just so I can know what I am arguing against. I look forward to it, is it available in England? Excuse my ignorance.
As for Mike Barrett being a con man, well - not having had the privilege of meeting Mr Barrett I can't comment on that, although if his original story is genuine then I have great sympathy with the man. Let's face it - he was a scouser living in a two up two down terraced home with no bigger dreams than maybe getting a green house one day and then BANG! he is thrust into the spotlight, now I don't think Mike wanted that anymore than Robbie Williams wants it. A lot of people who are 'famous' would rather not be, but the money is nice, isn't it?
I think it is lamentable that the diary should be knocked on the fact that it was Mike who took it to Doreen Montgomery, wherever the diary had been since 1888 - it's author could not have known that it would, 100 years later, end up in the hands of a man whom the majority of the world would view with suspicion. It doesn't matter who took the book to Doreen Montgomery, anyway it is possible to cut Mike out of the loop if you accept Anne Barret's statement that she saw the diary at the end of the 1960's and her father's that he saw it in (excuse my memory) 1943. Do you accept Anne Barret's statement? If you do then lay off Mike, if you don't then that is the avenue of your approach to take in future - and you would have to accept that Anne Barret knows the diary to be a forgery. I wonder if you would be willing to join in a debate on the text content within the diary Ivor?
Looking forward to reading your book
Peter. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 10:33 am | | Hi All,
Let's see. Where to start? RJ, first, I think.
I know you think I'd feel better if I admitted the thing was a forgery. And I have, of course, admitted that I believe the thing is a forgery. But I cannot admit that the thing has finally been proven to be a forgery conclusively, if only because the experts who have been trying to prove the thing a forgery finally and despite all debate haven't managed to do it yet. Thus, here we are. The difference between this and those other forgeries you mention is that everyone now agrees, on the basis of overwhelming and conclusive proof, that they were forgeries. The Hitler Diary debate ended the minute the paper was analyzed. In others, a convincing and consistent confession in which the forger was able to explain exactly how he produced the forgeries came forward to put an end to the matter. That is not the case here, with our friend Mike. The handwriting problem (which has always convinced me that the diary was forged, by the way) is more complicated here because of the progressive arsenic addiction, the psychology problems involved in the case, and the relatively few samples from a limited period of time of our subject's hand. I don't actually buy any of these arguments myself, of course, but that doesn't make them go away.
Finally, the grammar. Of course. And I too believe that this must have come from the list. But, to be thorough and fair, I must also consider the admittedly ridiculous argument that if I write the phrase "tin match box empty" as a fragment in my diary, especially if I really did kill some women and was recalling a tin match box that was empty, the rules of grammar no longer apply, since I am not using it in a sentence, but only jotting down a personal and fragmented memory (just as they don't apply to a police officer making a list). I must consider this, even though it is a ridiculous argument and a near impossibility, because we are only dealing with four small words and with, theoretically, the possible fragmented memory of a murderer in a private journal and I cannot say that there is no way those words could have appeared in the same order on that page, as unlikely as I think it might be that they might have. It's just simply possible. I also don't know the complete history of the list, of course.
RJ, in the hopes of making me feel better, you write, "I don't know what is so difficult in acknowledging that the burden of proof has been met."
No problem. I have always admitted that the burden of proof establishing the diary as a forgery has been met for me. More than met. For me. (Unlike the burden of proof for establishing its actual authorship -- which has not even begun to be met.) But that burden of proof clearly has not yet been met for the reading public or the world. Until someone writes the book, puts together all the evidence, and clearly and logically and conclusively establishes the thing as the fake that you and I believe it is, either through science or through exposing an undebatable textual difficulty or through a revelation of its scene of composition, the book is not dead, the debate is not dead and the diary is not dead. That is all I have been saying. And I feel fine (as the song goes).
Hi Peter,
Yes, I believed you when you said that Paul thought he had proven that the diary was genuine. It just made me sad, that's all. Because it really does demonstrate that Paul has no idea what the definition of proof really is. All his "it is impossible that..." statements are really just wish-fulfillments because he has not established the necessary premises to allow him to make the final and brutally absolute conclusions that he loves so much -- it is, I think, his biggest rhetorical weakness -- why so much finality about something so necessarily uncertain? Is there ego here?
Paul's book establishes none of his claims as certain, and most remain purely speculative or associative. I mention his "suffering," incidentally, in light of the financial burdens and difficulties I understood this project ended up imposing upon him and in light of the tedious and horribly unpleasant battles he was sucked into with Mike and because I have heard that he has had his share of difficulties as the result of this entire project.
I referred to Mike, Tony, and Anne as "major players" only because they are the people most immediately associated with the diary. It was not meant to imply anything about their possible guilt. Believe me, a quick read of the Diary discussion board archives should convince you that I am perhaps the hardest fighter for not implying their guilt in any of this until such time as evidence becomes available. I do not believe we have any idea who did actually write this book or where or why, even if we do not believe (or I do not believe) that James Maybrick did. So you get no argument from me on Mike and Anne's possible innocence.
Finally, Peter, a close reading of the diary text reveals the likely origins of the hero calling himself Sir Jim (independent of later information about Maybrick's letters). The writer is in the midst of speculating about "all of England" knowing his name. This makes him think that perhaps even the Queen will hear of his murderous exploits. Thoughts of her Majesty spark in him the joke that perhaps he will even be knighted. "I can now rise Sir Jim." This makes sense. It is cute, in a melodramatic sort of way and is not particularly remarkable. It could certainly have been a simple rhetorical construction independent of any secret knowledge about Maybrick's writing habits.
But, Peter, I have also always said that whoever wrote this diary has been very, very lucky. Their indirectness has always helped them, of course, and their control over the limited references in the diary was their best ally. But pure luck has played a large part in keeping their document alive. It seems they might have been lucky here as well. I do not recall off-hand exactly what was in the letters found in Wyoming, but it wouldn't surprise me that Maybrick might have referred to himself in such a way as well.
But I notice you have not commented on my concerns, detailed in my last post to you, about the Aristotelian neatness of the diary's structure, its artificial completeness, it's set-piece construction, and the implied audience and the lack of a day-to-day life narrative in the book.
Just wondering if you thought those raised serious doubts as to whether this really was a personally and privately maintained journal written over a long period of time?
Thanks for the questions,
--John |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 11:43 am | | Dear John
Thanks for responding, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your last post. I think in all probability that you and I are arguing about two sides of the same coin. Correct me if I am wrong, but your standpoint appears to be 'The diary is fake until proven genuine', whereas mine is 'The diary is genuine until proven fake'. And if it WERE proven to be fake, believe me nothing would give me more pleasure than uncovering it's whole sordid history along with your good self.
As for 'Sir Jim', yes you make a very plausible point that this could have arisen out of his fanciful thinking that Queen Victoria might one day knight him. But, big BIG but, what is to say that Maybrick wasn't sitting at home in his study many many moons before writing the diary, and even back then fantasised about Queen Victoria knighting him? So, do you see where I am coming from? Your supposition would account for the use of 'Sir Jim' in the diary AND for Paul Feldman's discovery that Maybrick called himself 'Sir Jim' in the comfort of his own home. You mention 'luck'. The diarist referred to himself as Sir Jim/Sir Jack OVER THIRTY TIMES! I have not counted them by the way, just quoting from a distant hazy memory of either Shirley or Paul's book.
Look in your copy of Paul's book on page 107 and Shirley's on page 63 onwards for a fascinating glimpse inside the Maybrick house, given by Florence Aunspaugh as related to Trevor Christie. The notes uncovered by Keith Skinner and Paul Feldman DID NOT appear in Christie's book (etched in arsenic) and had not been seen by anyone else until Keith uncovered them. It was Keith who noticed the reference to 'Sir Jim'.
Now, for that reference to appear over thirty times in the diary cannot possibly be luck, the conclusion is inevitable, whoever wrote the diary KNEW that Maybrick called himself 'Sir Jim'. Put this fact alongside the reference to a 'treble event' and you have a powerful argument for the diary to be genuine. If the diary was fake you would still have to accept that whoever wrote the diary saw Trevor Christie's notes. Well, there's a starting point for you anyway.
Next question, John. You say the diarist has enjoyed a tremendous amount of luck and yet some of the detractors would have us believe that the reference to the 'tin match box empty' was copied from the police lists. Do you think that the diarist would have been so downright lazy, considering the amount of research that must have gone into the 'throwaway' remark concerning the Grand National of 1889 - "True the race was the fastest I have seen". How do you account for the diarist being spot on with that remark about the Grand National?
See you soon
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 11:47 am | | John
p.s. I am trying to work my way through all the archives, a near impossible task, that's why I thought a 're-evaluation' might be useful, hence the title of this string. You and other people might well have posted your views on here before regarding differing parts of the diary debate and the ripper story in general but I haven't had a chance to debate those issues with you. Therefore I hope you will ALL be patient with me as I try to make some sense of the debate.
Peter. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 12:36 pm | | Hi Peter,
A bit too quickly, as laundry calls...
You make a bit of a Feldmanesque leap in your "Sir Jim" argument. Once the diarist has had the cute idea of being knighted and called himself "Sir Jim" in his first attempt at doggerel after that thought (it follows immediately on the page), then how many times he does it from there on becomes irrelevant, evidentiarily speaking. Since it is very clear that our writer, whoever he or she was, loved nothing more than running with a theme and beating it into the ground. Repetition permeates the diary's prose, so it should be no surprise whatsoever that the "Sir Jim" thought, once hit upon, turns up a million more times, just like the other repeated phrases ("foolish bitch", etc.)especially throughout the poetry where the degree of original invention is paltry.
Here's where the logical error takes place:
"Now, for that reference to appear over thirty times in the diary cannot possibly be luck, the conclusion is inevitable, whoever wrote the diary KNEW that Maybrick called himself 'Sir Jim'."
This is simply not the case. If the reference appears once, then its repeated appearance another thirty times says nothing at all about whether the author knew or didn't know that Maybrick also called himself by that phrase. The repetition of the phrase tells us nothing about what the author did or did not know. It is just as likely that the phrase would be repeated endlessly, once coined, if the author made it up himself as it is that it would have been repeated endlessly if he knew that Maybrick used it or if Maybrick wrote the diary. The simple repetition of the phrase is not evidence of anything at all about what the author knew or did not know. If I never knew Maybrick called himself Sir Jim, but had the idea of my Jim-as-Jack being knighted and calling himself that, I could repeat it ad nauseaum and this would tell you nothing about whether I knew inside info about Maybrick's habits or not.
And yet, you somehow use the simple repetition of the phrase to conclude that the writer must have known that Maybrick called himself "Sir Jim." But if the writer could have come up with the phrase without knowing that, why could he not have then repeated it endlessly (as he does everything else in the book) without knowing Maybrick called himself that? It doesn't make sense to say that just because it appears repeatedly it is more likely the author knew something about Maybrick. Once it's there the first time, it's there and repeating it tells us nothing at all about where it came from (an author's imagination or Maybrick's habits). So your conclusion that i's being repeated in the diary is somehow powerful evidence of inside knowledge is utterly invalid, I'm afraid. It's only evidence that it was created in the diary and then whoever wrote it repeated it, something a forger could quite easily have done and is even likely to have done.
By the way, Peter, the Grand National remark is one that has always impressed me, too. I have argued elsewhere that this actually is evidence that some detailed research was done, since it does seem that this was one of the fastest races on record. RJ and others have argued that the language is vague, since it could be only claiming that it is the fastest that Maybrick had seen, and there's no way to verify this historically, and therefore it's not a historically specific reference. I admit that I'm not so sure of this. The diary's language makes it very clear what race is being referred to, we do know that race was the fastest on record at that time, and therefore, for me, this seems either like another stunning and coincidental piece of luck for our writer(s) or evidence of at least a little historical research or knowledge. Maybe our forger was also a race buff.
But it's not compelling or conclusive evidence of anyone's authorship, including Maybrick's. That's for sure. The records of the race were public and available.
How do you account for Maybrick writing a line from an unpublished police report in exactly the same phrasing, anyway? (No sense me taking on RJ all by myself.) I think it is evidence against Maybrick as ripper and author, because of the known history of the police list. But we don't really know very much about the early history of that list, so I'd be interested to hear how the appearance of identical phrasing supports Maybrick's candidacy.
Thanks,
--John
PS: You also write, "If the diary was fake you would still have to accept that whoever wrote the diary saw Trevor Christie's notes."
But this also is simply not true. The diary could very well be fake and the author could have hit upon the "Sir Jim being knighted" idea and then run it into the ground (like everything else he writes in the book) without ever seeing anyone's notes about anything. In fact, this is highly possible. Simple repetition also tells us nothing at all about what our author had or had not seen. You can repeat anything once you have thought of it and it tells the reader nothing about where the thought originated.
PPS: Still no thoughts on the too-neat opening and closing and the too-perfect dramatic structure throughout that all serve to give the diary the feel of an artificially constructed set-piece narrative, rhetorically speaking? |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 01:32 pm | | Dear John
Classic arguments! Regarding repetition I get the feeling that the detractors feel that if they repeat their 'Diary is fake' claim often enough then it will somehow become true. It will not.
My reason for invoking the 'repetition' theory is this: The number of times that 'Sir Jim' is mentioned in the diary indicates it's importance to the author. Now, if you had a teenage daughter and you found one of her schoolbooks covered in scribblings about pop stars where Robbie Williams' name appears 33 times and N-Sync appears just once, what could you assume from that? Yes, yes, yes, you could rightly assume that Robbie Williams was very important in her life, you have to admit that! You also have to accept that either the 'Sir Jack' reference comes from Maybrick himself or a forger deliberately placed it there and over emphasised it (33 times) so we could all be sure to see it. Do you go around your house calling yourself Sir John? No, I didn't think so. Does Paul Begg call himself Sir Paul? What was that? Another resounding no!
In short it is not common for Joe Public to call himself Sir Joe, but the diarist calls himself Sir Jim and we have evidence that Maybrick did the same, ergo there is a connection - regardless of the number of times it is mentioned!
By the way, thanks for comparing my reasoning to that of Paul Feldman, I couldn't have been more pleased if you'd said the book I am writing is about the same as John Grisham!
Thanks for your interesting observation on the Grand National. Yes, if the diary is fake then the author has done some very serious research - so tell me this: Why does our forger wake up one day and decide to spend endless hours looking for a snippet of information on a horse race that Shirley Harrison struggled to find and is so obscure as to be almost unobtainable and then when he gets home from his foray into the world of horses and Aintree says 'stuff this for a game of soldiers, I can't be bothered doing any more research, I'll just copy the tin match box reference from the police lists'. It just doesn't wash, does it John?!
The tin match box: This has always concerned me, Feldy points out that if it was copied from the police lists then that makes nonsense of the scientific evidence which suggests a forgery date of 1920 plus or minus 12 years and places the diary within 20 years of the crimes of Jack the Ripper. Someone such as Melvin Harris or any of you who believe the diary to be an old forgery have to accept that the 'old forger' could not have seen the police list. So you are really only left with the probability that the diary is either genuine or post 1987, would you agree? And if the diary is post 1987 then how do you account for Anne's father seeing it in 1943, how do you account for the scientific evidence placing it many many decades ago and how do you account for Alec Voller's interpretation of the age of the ink? All of a sudden those four little words actually become very insignificant in the order which they appear, but seeing as you have asked me to address the issue, then so I shall: The 'lists' of words which Maybrick - oops, sorry, the diarist - places at various points in the diary are there as 'plans' for his rhymes. In essence he is 'brainstorming' - i.e. he writes all his ideas down and then tries to make some sense of them in a rhyme, hopefully, I suppose in his eyes, using them all, but as can be witnessed by the crossings out he didn't always get it right the first time. So 'tin match box empty' could just be there because it's easier to rhyme than 'empty tin match box'!
There you have it, a lucid explanation of those four little words on which you detractors have pinned so much. Our diarist who is intelligent enough to research the Grand National with more knowledge than John McCririck (Paul Begg will now him) can only bring himself to copy a line from an official police list? No. You cannot on one hand imbue him with a great intellect and on the other hand say he just copies his work from someone else.
By the way, the records of the race were not public and available, if you read Paul and Shirley's books you will know how much trouble they had to go to in an attempt to establish that connection.
Aaah, now I see that the poisoned chalice is being returned to my hands and instead of being the questioner I am becoming the questioned! Well, I suppose that is fair game, I can't expect to be quizmaster all the time! Let me respond to your last paragraph regarding the 'artificial' structure of the diary, as follows:
I have never been the sort of person to keep a diary, so I can't really comment with any amount of authority on what people put in them or the way they compose them. BUT I have written two novels - they were initially written for my own interests (i.e. never intended for publication) so the structure is what you might expect from someone writing a story for himself. And there it is! Maybrick was writing a story for himself! These days we have Samaritans or similar where people can phone up if they are having thoughts that are bothering them (i.e. psychopathic tendencies), Maybrick didn't have that luxury. I am of the opinion that Maybrick thought that by writing down his 'urges' he could slake his thirst to actually carry them out, i.e. he gets his thrill by admitting it to someone, in this case that 'someone' being his diary. Only problem being that writing down his thoughts didn't quieten his thirst for blood, did it? But if you read closely there are times when he appears to be fighting with himself and shows genuine remorse. So, the structure, it all appears a little bit 'artificial' because that was the way it appeared in Maybrick's mind, he probably didn't believe that he would have the courage (wrong word, I know) to take a woman's life but enjoyed writing about it - it was almost a fantasy! And then it became real.
As for the neat and tidy wrapping up at the end and signing off with the JTR name and date, what do you want me to make of that? You either believe in the diary or you don't. If you accept it is genuine then the ending makes perfect sense, if you don't think it is genuine then I don't think it is valid to argue against it's validity using the 'stage managed' ending argument. To you and the detractors the ending looks stage managed BECAUSE you think the diary is fake, not, I believe, the other way round. I find nothing wrong, as a believer in the diary, in a man who knows he is dying tying up his story and leaving it for all the world to see. I see that in itself as Maybrick's 'apology' to the world. It is a far braver (wrong word again, I know) thing to do - to leave the diary for people to read than it would have been to destroy it.
I don't have a problem with the structure of the diary or it's 'artificial' ending. You do, but only, I believe, as a result of the fact that you are already convinced the diary is fake.
Remember there were people who denounced the diary even before Shirley's book was published, so it is fair to say that, on the whole, the detractors aren't that open to new lines of thinking. I.E. The diary is fake so the ending must be artificial.
Anything else you want to question me on?
Yours
Peter.
P.S. My books were originally written for my own interests, but I have since become convinced that they are good enough to be published. Know any good publishers? |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 02:19 pm | | Hi Peter,
Piece by piece...
You write:
"The number of times that 'Sir Jim' is mentioned in the diary indicates it's importance to the author."
Not necessarily. It could simply indicate the author's lack of imagination or his penchant for repetition. Your reading is a possible one, but certainly not a necessary one. The repetition itself tells us nothing at all about what's important to the author just because it is repetition. It could just as easily tell us that he had a limited number of things to say. because I repeat a favorite phrase in a text does not mean the phrase is particularly important to me, it might just mean that I liked it and that I had only a few phrases to use because that's all I could come up with. It is the certainty of your claim that is logically invalid, since other equally possible explanations remain. You cannot, therefore, say what the repetition "indicates" with such certainty.
Then you ask:
"Do you go around your house calling yourself Sir John?"
No, but in my private comments to myself, I often call myself Jack because that is a name my parents used on me when I was a kid (it's the name my father still uses). And my significant other and I repeatedly refer to each other as "Buckwheat." But this is irrelevant. If I am sitting down creating a literary character, and I have him think of calling himself, in mocking jest, "Sir Jim," then it makes perfect sense to have him repeat it as he writes about himself in third person throughout his mad diary entries (which I am writing). It is a simple literary device. That could certainly explain the repetition of the phrase in this work, and no one would have to have seen any letters anywhere. It certainly in no way proves either that anyone has or that only the real Jim could be the writer.
I think I will smile and let RJ respond to your reading of "tin match box empty," where you explain the odd syntax by saying it was part of the brainstorming for the poetry and would have been easier to rhyme. I like your reading there, in an odd way, and it makes me smile, as I say. Indeed, the words do appear as part of the planning for yet another bad poem.
But you say, about our supposed author:
"You cannot on one hand imbue him with a great intellect and on the other hand say he just copies his work from someone else."
Oh, sure you can. This happens all the time. Smart people screw up. Good researchers turn out to be sloppy writers (I know several fellow academics like this). Someone can have great intellect and still make stupid errors of composition. Someone can learn relevant details that might be hard to find and still slip in a line from a police list. It's not at all contradictory and is certainly possible. This tells us nothing, really, and is not a logical objection. Someone could have gone to all the trouble of finding out the records of the Grand National and still slipped up with the police list reference. Or RJ could be right and the Grand National line about the fastest one that Maybrick had seen might just be a stroke of good fortune wherein vague language is read after the fact to imply more than intended.
As to the dating of the document, I actually agree that we are at the mercy of contradictory scientific and circumstantial evidence. The science is a mess and the Crashaw quote seems to place the thing after the Hillsborough soccer disaster (like the police list), but the questions around "when" remain with us. I will say that I certainly do not know that Anne's father saw it before 1943 or even before 1993. I know what he has said and what Anne has said, but none of that is more than the stories of interested parties at the moment and there is no reliable or material evidence to support these claims whatsoever.
Then you tell me:
"Maybrick was writing a story for himself!"
But he's not supposed to be writing a story. he's supposed to be keeping a diary. This is an entirely different enterprise, both rhetorically and structurally. It is lived. Fragmented. Day to day. And it would not have the neat pyramid structure of narrative action that a piece constructed out of whole cloth would and that this diary does. And by the way, in real life, Maybrick doesn't know he is dying. He doesn't know the end is near. He hasn't taken (or been given) the fatal dose before he stops writing. And the last entry is exactly one page and provides the reader with a melodramatic farewell and signature.
And I should tell you that I was struck by the artificial nature of the opening page and the closing page and the melodramatic structure of the whole book the very first time I read it, when I thought it was probably real. When I first bought the book and read the book, I was expecting it to be authentic, even hoping it was. And as I read, before I had read any criticisms of the book or its provenance at all, while I still completely believed Shirley's reading and Mike's story, I was still struck hard by the opening, where we get to meet all the players and the setting in such a convenient way, and the climax and the "no heart, no heart..." trailing off with the pen still on the paper moment, and the bad TV movie resolution of the ending. These are the things that first made me suspicious, not things I saw only after I was convinced the book was a fake. They still bother me.
By the way, Peter, since you are so interested in the text of the diary, you should know that Chris George and I and several others undertook a page by page, almost paragraph by paragraph reading of the diary text this past summer. It took us more than a month, reading about two to five pages a day or so, every day. It can be found, in its entirety, placed on a separate and single thread. It includes comments on every idea and important line in the text, I think. Just look under the Maybrick Diary/General Discussion for the topic "Analysis of Diary Text." Click on "Archive through July 5, 2001." Begin with the second post (dated Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 09:50 am). Our reading begins there, in a post by yours truly, with the first page, first paragraph of the diary and continues to the end of that archive, ending on or about the third of July. I think you'll find lots of stuff there concerning the voice of the diary and James' character development and language and the possibilities of authenticity. Check it out.
Thanks,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 03:07 pm | | Hi, Peter:
I second John's call that you study the page-by-page analysis that John made of the Diary to which I along with others contributed.
I do agree with John that the repetition of "Sir Jim" does not necessarily affirm the importance of this name to the writer as you think it does. It is rather just one of a number of motifs that repeat throughout the book and that add in the end to the artificiality of the document. I am talking about such repeated elements as "The bitch opened like a ripe peach" and the piece of the victim (presumably the kidney) that he vowed to fry to see if it tasted like fried bacon, the repeated claims to being "clever" and the contest with "clever Abberline" (as opposed to any other police official) and so on. All of these elements, to my mind and I believe to John's as well, give the narrative an air of being staged rather than being a naturally written document by a real person writing about their experiences over a matter of months.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 06:13 pm | | Dear John and Chris
We seem to use the same strands of evidence to arrive at different conclusions. Is that fair?
I still maintain that the biggest problem the detractors have with the diary isn't the 'tin box', nor the 'treble event', nor 'Sir Jim', not any of these things; I believe the biggest problem you have with the diary is that it is just too good to be true. This must be all the more pertinent to Chris, as you were the one who I believe grew up in Liverpool, but relevant to everyone as I also believe we all learnt of Jack the Ripper at a very early age.
I became fascinated with Jack The Ripper around about the one hundredth anniversary of the killings, or rather that is when my fascination went into overdrive as I had read the published books up to that point, but didn't have any favoured suspect and lacked a 'special' interest in the subject as, to be honest, I thought it impossible that the mystery would ever be solved. Then I discovered a book that named Druitt as the suspect and because it had a picture of his photograph in it, guess what? Yes, you've guessed it - I became a confirmed Druittite, which makes me cringe today, because the poor old chap did nothing more newsworthy than taking a late night swim in the Thames with a few stones in his pockets.
My next suspect after that was Kosminski - and before you ask why, let me tell you: I was working as a police officer in Watford, Hertfordshire, England at the time and had cause to visit Leavesden Asylum, which incidentally I believe isn't in Leavesden, it's in Garston. Anyway, I digress. It was about that time that a programme naming Kosminski was aired on British T.V. and I became utterly convinced owing to the identification at the seaside nursing home, which they flourished with a ............shall we say 'Feldmanesque' finality. I have learnt a lot since then, the identification still interests me, but I no longer lay so much store by it.
Then I remember seeing the photographs of the victims and thinking that the very last person to see those women alive was the very person for whom we are all searching.
By this time I was reading every book available, even the fiction ones where Sherlock Holmes became the ripper! Strangely enough I actually saw the 'Jack the Ripper' Diary Video before I read Shirley Harrison's book - and I was immediately hooked because of one thing - I had seen that name Maybrick before. I have tried in vain to retrace my steps and discover where I first read of it, but notwithstanding my failure to find the relevant passage in the relevant book I believe it would have been a comment on the judge at Florie's trial being the father of a ripper suspect, so the book was probably discussing J.K. Stephen and happened to mention Florie Maybrick in passing.
I think I accept the diary as genuine because of one thing - I am PREPARED to accept it is possibly genuine, whereas I don't think you are even prepared to accord it that privilege. I too have some grave concerns regarding possible language error and undertook to dissect the text myself, using both Shirley Harrison's and Paul Feldman's books as my benchmarks. Essentially I was looking at it from the point of view of a Devil's Advocate and I would try to tear things apart and PROVE to myself that the thing MUST be a forgery. But I couldn't. I couldn't prove it was a forgery. Neither can I prove it is genuine. John, as you have rightly pointed out before, much of this comes down to opinion. For instance I still find it hard to believe that you can't accept the 'Sir Jim' references as indicating the diary to be genuine. If I was in your position, i.e. arguing against the diary, I would be using the number of times that 'Sir Jim' is mentioned in the diary as evidence that the diarist/forger WANTED us to make the connection with the records at Wyoming. Same as I would argue that the reference to the tin match box (empty or not) is just too good to be true.
Ultimately it comes down to a matter of opinion and I don't think any of us has as yet convinced the other of their viewpoint.
Let me ask you this: Is there anything that would convince you of the diary being genuine? Do you accept that your main argument against the diary has to be that old favourite 'Its just too good to be true'. Come on, Jack the Ripper writing down a diary? No way! Impossible! Ahh, but wasn't that the word that Hannah Koren used when Feldman asked her if the text in the diary could have been forged?
Why don't you try to think of it like this. It wasn't Jack the Ripper who wrote the diary at all, it was just a humble cotton merchant from Liverpool called James Maybrick. Then imagine that the letters to Central News Agency had never been sent and the world had never heard of Jack the Ripper, and consequently the list of murders had been consigned to history along with all the other unsolved crimes which filled newspaper columns for a few weeks. Then a hundred years later the diary resurfaces and instead of it being the writings of a bogey man from your childhood it was just the confessions of a drug addicted psychopath from Liverpool. Please read this last paragraph again and please give it some thought. Be honest with yourselves, it's not so hard to believe now is it?
My turn to ask the questions again: Do you accept that, at the very least, Feldman has proven the 25 September letter and it's subsequent postcard to be genuine in view of the fact that only the text of the former was published in the newspapers and not a facsimile, and yet the handwriting of the postcard matched that of the letter, and they clearly echoed each other in content.
One more contribution on the 'tin match box' debate. Having made his list of words and phrases he intends to use in the rhyme, the diarist then pens the following "....damn it, the tin box was empty". Lose 'was' and you have 'tin box empty'. Have you ever tried writing things in your own form of short hand, i.e. missing out words such as 'and', 'the', 'was' .....etc etc. Try it, it will come as no surprise to you therefore that it is perfectly possible to come up with a phrase such as 'tin match box empty'. By the way, the preceding line to that quoted above is "....I showed no fright, and indeed no light..." AND INDEED NO LIGHT, this is where I differ slightly from Feldman, he speculates that there may have been drugs kept in the box, I rather go for the simpler option of it was Maybrick's match box, so of course he would refer to it as a 'match box' if he used it as such.
Let me know your views.
Cheers
Peter. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 07:03 pm | | Dear Peter,The diary is not being knocked for the sole purpose that Mike Barrett took it to Doreen Montgomery. It is not that simple or clear cut there is far more to it than that. Mike brought a lot on himself by his words and actions he therefore only has himself to blame. I dont know if I have misunderstood you but you wrote that you take time to read books with which you disagree.How can you disagree with a book before you have read it ? It is just that I find it rather odd that someone would wish to buy a book on which they disagree (without knowing its content)just for the sake of arguing againest it. Have I got the wrong end of the stick so to speak ?
Also I find that no posters have bothered to answer my question about why would someone state that a genuine article worth its weight in gold is a forgery.And can anyone cite such a case to me ?
As for debating the text Peter I have been over that ground many times in the last 9 years I have since moved on to other areas which interest me.I have really had my fill of that Diary it is like listening to the same old tune being played over and over.You can if you so wish obtain a copy of my book direct from me as it came straight off the press just in time for the Bournmouth conference. In fact copies were delivered straight from the printer to the conference.It was a close run thing.The book is not yet in the shops. Please feel free to e-mail me and let me know if you would like hard back or soft back and I will send you details. Robert Smith was kind enough to buy a copy from me in person and I must admit that he was most polite and gracious and understanding towards me in view of my past comments in relation to the diary and those involved with it. I take my hat off to the man. |
Author: John Omlor
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 08:02 pm | | Hi Peter.
You write:
"I believe the biggest problem you have with the diary is that it is just too good to be true."
Now let's be honest about this. The biggest problems with the diary are not the lines in it, nor the convenience of it. The biggest problems with the diary remain the handwriting (which simply does not resemble known samples of Maybrick's) and the frankly horrible provenance. Remember, we have at least three separate stories from those who brought it to light, including one once agreed upon by both people, one put forth by only one person and a confession filled with conflicts and inconsistencies which are then conflicted directly in subsequent statements on the record. There is no other history of this document and there is no reliable material support for any of the stories told so far about where it came from (I still don't believe we have heard the truth from anyone involved).
The provenance is horrible. Compare it to the Littlechild or McNaughten letters as to the claims to authenticity and you'll see what I mean.
And the timing, coming out as it did upon the heels of the anniversary and all the press, and all the mysteries surrounding Tony and the brown wrapper story and drinking mates at the pub, etc... It just needs to be cleared up before any claim to authenticity can be made with confidence.
You ask me:
"Is there anything that would convince you of the diary being genuine?"
Sure. Lots of things. Corroborating documentary evidence with a well-established provenance, for instance. A piece of Maybrick's known writing which resembles the writing in the diary would help. A believable and verifiable account of the history of the document. Some definitive and verifiable account of its existence before 1992. And many more things. But none of these seem to be forthcoming and the document's history remains a mystery. Still, I would, in fact, be perfectly open to accepting it as genuine if the reliable and material evidence were to be brought forward that would allow me to make such a decision with my own sense of professional, scholarly responsibility and thoroughness and care.
You say:
"I still find it hard to believe that you can't accept the 'Sir Jim' references as indicating the diary to be genuine. "
I can't because it simply and logically doesn't. The reference and the appearance of the phrase cannot indicate authenticity in any case. At best, it might indicate possibilities. But even that is problematic.
Please understand me, Peter. The idea of some Liverpool cotton merchant, even James Maybrick, being Jack the Ripper wouldn't be hard for me to believe if the evidence was reliable and verifiable. The problem is not the suspect, it's the document and its history and its scene of production and its material difficulties (ink, handwriting, plot, characterization, structure, neatness of narrative movement, set-piece opening, etc.).
Now, I think I will let Chris respond to the question about the October 25 letter and Paul's claims. Chris is the letter researcher and I'm sure he can respond more thoroughly than I can.
Please have a look at our reading of the diary's text if you get a chance, Peter, and we'll of course continue to talk.
All the best,
--John |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 07 October 2001 - 09:52 pm | | | Hi Christopher, It certainly is an accumulation of all three reasons you gave which makes the diary saga what it is. I certainly do believe that the prevalent situation would not be excepted elsewhere. |
Author: R.J.P.
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 12:06 am | | Re: Grand National
John--Just for you. Boring Sunday evening, thought I'd better double-check Feldy. Remember that the race in question is 1889, won by Frigate in the time of 10:01. Aintree is just outside of Liverpool and no doubt Maybrick had seen a lot of the races, being a keen racing fan. Be sure to check out the time of the winner 'Playfair' the previous year, 1888.
Maybrick was born in Liverpool in 1839. He started his cotton brokerage in Liverpool in 1870. Being a young, single, gambling businessman, might he have seen the Grand National of 1871? Some of the races of the 1860s while he was in his early 20s? What needs to be proven is the statement: "True it was the fastest race I have seen..."
http://www.accessentertainment.co.uk/Horseracing/Grand.htm
Have fun, RJP
[Maybe a more historically accurate statement would have been, "wow! same time as last year"??] |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 07:32 am | | Hi All,
Hi Peter, I tried arguing last year that ‘tin match box empty’ could have been a try-out line omitting the verb ‘was’. Everyone thought I was either mad or clutching at grammatical straws.
The try-out lines are as follows:
‘Sir Jim
tin match box empty
cigarette case
make haste
my shiny knife
the whores knife
first whore no good’
The finished verse is:
‘One whore no good,
decided Sir Jim strike another.
I showed no fright and indeed no light,
damn it, the tin box was empty’
My argument was, and still is, that we have not one, but two try-out lines close together here, where the author has simply not bothered to include a verb: ‘tin match box [was] empty’ and ‘first whore [was] no good’, and that the word ‘empty’ here is not therefore, as RJ argued, a misplaced adjective at all.
In the finished verse, ‘Sir Jim’ decided to keep the verb out of the line: ‘One whore no good’. But to make sense of the final line he included it: ‘damn it, the tin box was empty’. Had the author included ‘was’ in the previous try-out line (which to my mind would have been an odd thing to do in this context), there would never have been an argument for him copying these words directly from the police list.
My little joke at the time was that, had there been such an item on the police list as ‘1 First Whore, no good’, it could then be compared with ‘1 Tin Match Box, empty’, and both try-out lines could rightly be dismissed as cockups by our decidedly dopey diary author.
Hi Ivor,
Have you any thoughts on why Mike Barrett confessed to forgery, putting his future income from royalties at risk? Does his confession make any sense to you, whether he was involved or not?
Thanks.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 07:47 am | | Hi RJ:
A very interesting find. The statistics on the Grand National website that you cite do indeed appear to show that the time of the Grand National run on March 29, 1889 won by Frigate at 10:1 minutes was as fast as the race won the previous year, 1888, by Playfair which finished in the identical time of 10:1 minutes, something that neither Shirley Harrison nor Paul Feldman tell us.
In fact, Harrison writes, "That particular National, won by Frigate, was the fastest on record--information that has been confirmed after a great deal of probing in the race archives and local papers. Once again an obscure but accurate detail makes nonsense of the crude modern forgery theory." (Harrison, The Diary of Jack the Ripper, 1998 Blake paperback, p. 174)
Feldman is more specific about where the confirmation of the fast 1889 time comes from: "In an obscure magazine entitled the Liverpolitan, in an issue dated March 1939, page 27 carried the headline A STATISTICAL GUIDE TO THE WORLD'S GREATEST STEEPLECHASE. Every result since 1837 was listed. So were the details of the owner, age and weight of the horse, number of horses in the race, jockey and the time. The Grand National of 1889 was won by a horse called Frigate. It was the fastest Grand National run for eighteen years!" (Feldman, Jack the Ripper: The Final Chapter, 1997 Virgin hardback, p. 296)
I believe Keith Skinner and Melvyn Fairclough did much of the research for Paul Feldman's book, so perhaps one of them can answer on this point why the 1888 race time was not taken into account. Feldman's statement does seem to indicate that the 1870 race was the previous fastest, which is true, but the 1888 race time is seemingly conveniently (or inadvertently) not mentioned. It is also noticeable that the 1870 race, at 10 minutes exactly, is not as fast as previous races in the 1860s which were run under 10 minutes, and nor is the 1889 Grand National especially fast in comparison with prior races which were only a few seconds slower.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 08:07 am | | Hi, John and Peter:
In regard to Peter's question about the Saucy Jacky postcard and the Dear Boss letter of September 25, 1888, I do agree with Feldman that these two missives were written by the same person. The handwriting appears the same and the melodramatic phrasing seems similar. What I don't agree with is the inference that the communications necessarily came from the killer. In fact, as a number of writers show, the postcard supposedly forecasting the Double Event could have been written when news of the double murder was known. Although undated, it bears the postmark October 1, which was after the murders. Even if the writer did not read about the crimes in the morning papers on Monday, October 1, which is not inconceivable, if, as some contend, the writer was a newspaperman, he would have had the facts of the murders to hand anyway. As Yazoo and I have previously discussed on these boards the two communications' melodramatic flourishes and careful clerkish writing (particularly in the letter) don't ring true as the work of a real killer. The "From Hell" (Lusk) letter, to my mind, seems more authentic with its "planned" mispellings and sinisterly menacing tone.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 11:04 am | | Hi Chris,
So what do you think inspired our diary author to write '...true the race was the fastest I have seen...'? Where might he have got this nugget from, if not from published stats? We are trying to ascertain how and why certain things found their way into the diary. Whether Feldy dishonestly ignored certain statistics doesn't help us with the possible sources of the diary author's information.
You are arguing that the diary researchers must have noticed from the stats that the races for 1888 and 1889 were won in the same fast time of 10:01, but chose not to mention it. So what about the diary author, who wanted to write like a Victorian racing enthusiast who knew his stuff? If he had referred to the published statistics while researching for the diary, wouldn't he have noticed the time for the 1888 race too? And if he didn't refer to them, how did he learn that the 1889 race was at least fast compared with many Maybrick may have seen previously?
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 12:17 pm | | Thanks Caz,
I'm at work and pressed for time and you asked my questions for me.
Thanks RJ for the excellent find. It does indeed raise questions about the claim made for Maybrick in the diary line (unless Maybrick hadn't seen the race the year before, I suppose -- perhaps he was out of town in March of that year (1888) -- who knows...) But you make an excellent point about Paul and Shirley's claims being misleading.
Still, the relevant question for me is why is this line there at all? If you're a forger, why bother commenting on the time of the race we all know that Maybrick saw? Why point out that it was a fast one rather than a slow one even? Did the forger think he knew something? Was it just a guess and a risk? What if it had turned out to be a very slow race that year? That would have done the whole diary in in one quick stroke -- that's some risk. Why even bother to run it unless you at least knew it was a fast race? Did our forger know that? How?
All of these questions remain and remain relevant.
Bye for now,
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 02:52 pm | | Hi, Caz:
I have no idea where our Diary author got the nugget of information that the 1889 race was run at a fast time. The two pre-advent of the Diary texts that I own that mention the Maybrick case, Trevor Christie's Etched in Arsenic and Richard Whittington-Egan's Murder Mystery and Mayhem mention the race but don't mention that it was fast. Christie does mention that the heir apparent, Bertie, the future Edward VII, was at the race--a point that has been mentioned as a point in favor of the Diary but that is plainly less hard-to-find information than the race time. As John Omlor says, the penman would have been taking a chance by saying it was a fast race if it had turned out to be a slow race. One thing that occurs to me is that either way it could not have been visibly a fast race. You would not know the race was fast, at 10:1 seconds, than the 1884 to 1888 winners which all ranged from 10:1 seconds (1888) and 10:14 seconds (1886) run by Old Joe (Barnett????). . . no one watching the race could have told the difference, I think, between, a race finishing one or thirteen seconds slower. . . they would have had to have read about it in the newspaper or have seen the time on the scoreboard, if the finishing times were posted on the scoreboard.
As for the matter of whether Paul Feldman purposely chose to ignore the 1888 time, I have no idea if he did so. I does occur to me that his researchers, Keith Skinner and Melvyn Fairclough, being both Ripper researchers and used to dealing with the year "1888," may have unconsciously skimmed over the year 1888 and reported the 1889 time as the fastest as if the last fastest time was 1870. Just a thought.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 03:12 pm | | | Caz, I do have my own thoughts on why Barrett said it was a forgery when he knew it to be so.And it makes sense to me as well. Also it did not stop him from making money out of it. But I am asking if anyone on the casebook can tell me why he would say it was a forgery if in fact he knew it was not. Can you answer the question ? And can you cite me a case where someone with the genuine article worth its weight in gold has turned round and said it was a forgery while knowing it to be genuine. |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 08 October 2001 - 04:51 pm | | Ivor, John, Chris, Caroline, RJP - WOW! Where to start? O.K. Ivor first, here goes:
You want to know why someone would state a genuine article worth it's weight in gold as a forgery when he knows it to be genuine? What makes you think Mike Barret KNOWS the diary to be genuine? Mike was just a former scrap metal dealer from Liverpool (with all due respect to former scrap metal dealers). The man is obviously intelligent, but I don't think he would get past £8 000 on 'Who wants to be a millionaire', not unless the next question was about Crashaw's poetry, anyway!
Mike didn't KNOW the diary to be genuine. Mike got caught up in the big lights of London, populated by publishers and film producers and fancy lunches on expense accounts - isn't that understandable when he was probably used to eating take away pizza with a couple of cans of warm lager on a Friday night? The only valid point in your question is that the diary is worth it's weight in gold, figuratively speaking. But ultimately that didn't matter to Mike, alcoholics tend to think only of where their next pint is from, and I suspect there were times when Mike would have traded the diary for a bottle of Bourbon from his local five and dime (I put that one in for our American cousins).
Ultimately something irked Mike, and that something was worth more than all the money in the world - I believe he was genuinely afraid of losing his daughter Caroline. I believe that by stating the diary as a forgery Mike believed he could make the whole thing go away and he could have his nice tidy little life back, with his wife and child in their terraced home in Liverpool. My heart goes out to the man.
One more point for you Ivor - when I stated that I read books with which disagree, well yes you did understand me slightly there, but that is my fault for not being clearer. I don't just read my Jack The Ripper books once, I read them MANY times, in fact it's surprising that I have time to do anything else. Having read a book once, I then have an opinion as to whether or not I agree with it - the second reading and subsequent readings are to see if I can pick up any little scraps of evidence that I missed out on the first time. There are very few books on Jack The Ripper that I haven't enjoyed reading. The only one that springs to mind was the one by Sue and Andy Parlour. I wouldn't read THAT one again.
Caroline! Hiya! Do I detect a kindred spirit here? Are you, as appears arguing from the perspective that the diary is genuine, or are you going to dash my hopes of some moral support against the rocks? Your arguments are great! Long may they continue.
QUICK NOTE TO EVERYONE: Do you think Maybrick stood at the Aintree racecourse with his Victorian stopwatch (no initials scratched in the back - yet.......) and actually TIMED the race. No! Of course not! A race can be described as fast when it is also EXCITING. Ever tried spending five minutes watching the grass grow? It'll be the longest five minutes of your life. Ever spent five minutes watching Jennifer Lopez on video (o.k. Caz, I'll allow you a choice between Brad Pitt or George Clooney) - I guarantee you it will just fly by! It doesn't matter what Feldman did/didn't lie about, the fact is that the diarist was referring to the race as fast from HIS PERSPECTIVE, not, as you all seem to think, from the perspective of the record books!
Another one for Ivor, of course I will buy your book, better still I'll swap it for a copy of mine. Afraid there is no hardback available, just 500 loose sheets of A4 paper, but it makes a cracking read. Seriously, I will definitely be in touch about getting a copy of your book.
John, how much more 'definitive and verifiable' can you get than Anne Graham's father saying that he saw the diary in 1943, and Anne saying that she saw it in the late 1960's? O.k. so they verify each other, but does that mean they are lying. The forensics on the diary certainly back their stories up, wouldn't you agree? One more thing John - be careful what you say in relation to the Grand National, you sound like you are almost arguing FOR the diary and doing my job for me. I think I must be wearing you down and winning you over!
Chris, if you accept that the Saucy Jack Postcard and 25 September letter were written by the same person, then you MUST accept that there is a strong possibility that they were written by the Ripper. It had, too, entered my mind that the forger (of the letter and postcard) could have been a journalist, but how could that person so accurately forecast what would happen next - "You will soon here of me.............". The choice is either a forgery by a journalist or they were written by the Ripper. The journalist could not have put the amount of detail in that is so patently there - they are genuine, they were written by the ripper. This then leads you into the whole realm of Paul Feldman's dissection of the myriad of letters received by the police. And John, this next one's for you...........
I think the topic of handwriting has been covered many times. Want to know what bothers me LEAST about the diary? Yep! The handwriting. Want to know why? Simply because there are so few verifiable pieces of Maybrick's writing with which to compare the diary. Writing is organic, it changes over time, it can change from day to day, hour to hour, depending on moods - and the diarist obviously had his different moods. Paul Feldman has defined a clear link between Maybrick's writing and a letter signed by the ripper, surely that is worthy of some discussion?
For my next question, John, I will borrow freely from Paul Feldman, paraphrasing: Why didn't the forger (of the diary) copy the handwriting of a letter which was known to be in the public domain? Why not even attempt to copy one of the signatures, perhaps on the will? The answer, I believe, you will find on page 255 of Feldman's book where he exhibits the multitude of handwritings that can be forthcoming from a multiple personality. The diarist didn't need to copy handwriting from the 25 September letter, he didn't need to copy a signature on the will - the diary was written by James Maybrick. Follow the flow of the diary, when Maybrick is angry or excited the writing is wild, in his more lucid moments it is controlled and almost neat. The arguments that Feldman used are still valid, you wouldn't use the same handwriting on a letter to a business colleague as you would in your own diary, or on a birthday card to your wife, would you?
I sense the tide is turning................
Take care all, and Caz - please don't let me down!
Peter |
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