The Echo, 10th November 1888

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

Sorry, I haven't got a clue as to who wrote the version I posted.

But thanks for the variants.

Small wonder we're so hopelessly confused.

Regards,

Simon

[Rob Clack]

Hard to tell Simon but I think the first two are in the same handwriting.

Rob

[mariab]

Agree with Rob that the first two (MEPO 3/140 and the first HO 144/221/A49301C) look like from the same hand but a different pen/ink. Which would mean that the first HO 144/221/A49301C is an original?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

Agreed.

The first looks like a really crappy photocopy of the second, except that there were no photocopiers in those days.

The third, however, is a bit of a mystery, as the closing occupies four lines rather than three.

I would guess that inter-departmental copies had to be hand-written, with more attention paid to their content than the layout.

In short, I really don't know.

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

My having said there were no photocopiers in 1888, it was however possible to send a document over the cablegraph network.

The first such machine was invented by a Scottish mechanic and inventor, Alexander Bain who, in 1843, received a British patent for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in electric printing and signal telegraphs”.

In 1850 a London inventor, F. C. Blakewell, received a patent for what he called a "copying telegraph", and in 1860, a machine called the Pantelegraph, invented by Giovanni Caselli, sent the first "fax" between Paris and Lyon.

I'm going out on a limb here.

We know that on 1st October 1888 Commissioner Sir Charles Warren requisitioned the installation of a telegraph machine [at an annual cost to the Receiver of Ł21.10.0d] at Robert Anderson's private house in Linden Gardens, Notting Hill.

Could, therefore, the "crappy photocopy" have been the version of Bond's "profile" received by Anderson over the wire?

Just a thought.

Regards,

Simon

[Rob Clack]

Hi Simon,

I think there was even carbon paper back then as well.
I don't think we can say definitely until we can look at the original copies and see if we can get a clue from that.
We do know some copies of reports were copied by hand by other people but they are usually initialed as such.
I am going to try late summer to have a look at the original documents. If I can I will check.

Rob

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

The very best of fortune with your inquiries.

Regards,

Simon

[Debra A]

Hi Rob, Simon.
The first two do seem to superimpose perfectly over one another, there's even a partial bit of the bracket in the first one in exactly the right place that is intact in the second version posted. I would guess the first one posted is a carbon or maybe traced copy and not a hand copied version of the second one posted.

[Tom_Wescott]

Carbon is what I was thinking too. Watch the word 'signed' appear and disappear.

Since it was signed at the very bottom by Anderson, would that mean he was the transcriptionist? It reminds me of Tom Bulling's hand written copy of the 'Moab and Midian' letter, where he transcribes it and then signs it with his own name underneath the Jack the Ripper signature.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Rob Clack]

Hi Debs,

That's what I was thinking but the MEPO copy is so bad. Where the words begin and end on each line is the same. The MEPO copy doesn't appear to have the line down the left hand side either.#

Rob

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

The name Robert Anderson at the bottom was most probably that of the addressee.

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

Yes, carbon might explain the “fatty ink“ in the first copy. And I can see a faint "signed" now that someone mentioned it. No idea why the carbon copy is missing the margin line on the left though, but maybe it was left out of the pic?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

"The Exciting History of Carbon Paper"

I kid you not.

http://www.kevinlaurence.net/essays/cc.php

Regards,

Simon

[Dave O]

Hi,

I found this bit of thin, transparent paper in Dr. Macdonald's records at the LMA and asked the archivist about it, and she told me that it was carbon paper.

Dave

[mariab]

Hmm. Definitely makes the ink appear more thick and "wet", like in Rob's MEPO 3/140 letter.