Where I am in all this!

[miakaal4]

Thanx Julie, I had a vague memory that Kominski had some serious eating and 'private' habits. But, shooting myself in the foot here, it is not 100% certain that is was Mary Kelly is it? Therefore the woman who was murdered could have known Kominski, or have even been a reletive! Oh, if only someone would invent a time machine!!!

[RavenDarkendale]

*cough*

That's not really what "begging the question means."

Pardon me, I seem to have fallen in with an editor or teacher!

[RivkahChaya]

Okay, well the "expert" I mentioned was Anna Koren, Director of Graphology Centre in Haifa, a member of the American Association of Graphologists, and Forensic document examiner for the Israeli Minister of justice.

I have serious doubts about Anna Koren. If you visit her website, she is all about graphology, which is to say, reading personality traits from handwriting, and not document analysis. She offers things like services to employers, like vetting potential hires by examining handwriting samples for traits like honesty, and mental stability. She's basically a psychic with the intermediary of handwriting to give her an air of legitimacy.

I looked her up on Israeli government websites, including some in Hebrew, and while I admit my modern Hebrew is nisht so gut, there aren't many ways to spell her name, so unless she used a different name, she was a very low-level employee. There is no "Minister" of Justice. There's a Ministry of Justice, which is a huge branch of the government, and doesn't employ one document examiner. Different departments would have different people with different types of specialties, and no one with a questionable document would rely only on analysis of just the writing to authenticate it, or just one person, either.

She was Director of Graphology Centre in Haifa, because she founded it. It is not a branch of the government. Anyone with $125 can be a member of the American Association of Graphologists, by which I assume you mean he American Association of Professional Graphologists. Or, actually, since she doesn't live in the US, she needs just $60. There's a discount, probably because they assume she won't show up to the three yearly conferences.

The idea that you can learn more from a person's writing if you don't know the language strikes me as just, odd-- OK, ignorant. Schizophrenic people sometimes write what are called "word salads," which are sentences that generally have correct subject-verb arrangement, but make no sense. They say things like "The table flies for the wish of the beholden first abracadabra." You can diagram that sentence, but it's obvious that unless the person is trying to fool you, something is wrong. If you rely on a non-English speaking graphologist to ferret out the fact that the person is mentally ill, you are making a mistake. Then there are all the indications of things like dyslexia, which Curious has shared. He and I disagree over whether you can look for them in the JTR letters, because I think the sample is too small, and we don't know whether the mistakes were a deliberate attempt to disguise the writing, but certainly in a large sample, you can see patterns that show something like dyslexia. But not if you don't know the language. It's like dusting for fingerprints, when you have caught the burglar with his hand in the jewelry box.

Also, a real document examiner would never say that "Yes, that is James Maybrick's writing," without another example to compare it to. Do we have one? All someone could say is that it is consistent with late Victorian adult writing, of a person of his class, and his level of education. I would be surprised that someone who grew up in Israel is an expert on late-Victorian penmanship.

I seriously doubt her standing as an "expert."

[Limehouse]

Examining handwriting to determine whether someone is mentally unstable is quack science to me. There are things that can affect handwriting that have nothing to do with someone's mental stability. People who experience reduced motor control due to various causes may display quirks in their handwriting that they have no control over.

[miakaal4]

Anna

Thanks to RivkahChaya and Limehouse. Both of your points are important and do indeed need to be taken into consideration. My personal belief is that Anna Koren is sufficient an expert to give an opinion on the Graphology, however, I do concede that this should be verified by two of three other handwriting professionals. I just cannot get past the personal information and the underplaying of the Ripper info in the Diary. I will be studying more material on the Casebook site for previous conversations in this matter.

[RivkahChaya]

Examining handwriting to determine whether someone is mentally unstable is quack science to me.

My personal belief is that Anna Koren is sufficient an expert to give an opinion on the Graphology, however, I do concede that this should be verified by two of three other handwriting professionals.

No matter how much of an expert you are in a quack science, it's still quackery. I may be the world's expert in preparing homeopathic remedies, with steady hands, perfect vision, and in possession of the finest horsehair striking board anywhere. Water still won't cure your strep throat.

[miakaal4]

Well, it may be quackery, but then what about the watch? Are the experts who tested that quacks too? And are the psychologists who have seen the diary wrong when they talk about the authors strange mental state? I mean not only was the author a really clever forger able to make both the diary and the watch look decades older than, according to some people 1990ish, but would also know that certain words were in use at the time, that even the Oxford English Dictionary did not know, the author was also the one who pointed out the letter of the 17th, previously unknown I believe. added to this be also able to falsely convey a disturbed mind that would fool experts/(quacks)?

[RavenDarkendale]

I could believe in the Diary (which BTW, I do not) before I could believe the watch.

[caz]

Thee most astonishing thing today is that anyone should still be prepared to waste brain cells thinking about that bogus "Diary".

.

I still think it was you who wrote the diary, Jon. It was definitely someone who puts a rogue letter e in places it has no right to be.

If you recall, you used to spell 'post' (as in casebook post) with an e at the end - poste - just like our little faker does in the diary, with the horrible 'poste haste'.

Come on, own up and we can call it case closed.

Love,

Caz
X

PS You waste more brain cells by not thinking. Use it or lose it.

[miss marple]

I have seen many Victorian scrapbooks, keepsake albums, diaries etc. I have a couple They are common in the Antiquarian booktrade. Many years ago these books were not valued and could be thrown out or picked up for nothing at markets or auctions,
There are many kinds from hard covered, embossed or leather bound keepsake albums with good quality paper for writing or drawing to soft covered scrap books of poor quality paper for sticking.
There were thousands of these, the Victorians wrote everything down and there was a huge variety of stationary produced.
Many of these albums are only half filled and if the used pages are torn out can be reused.
These albums now are valued for their historical interest, and handwriting and fetch real money.
I have always believed the diary is fake because of the ease of aquiring these albums and if pages have been torn out, well...

Posting a few pictures of these albums, that I meant to post years ago when I first raised the subject.
Miss Marple

[miss marple]

More pictures of albums/
Miss Marple

[RavenDarkendale]

@ Miss Marple

Very nice collection! It only proves that the Diary was written in a period booklet. Thus it could be genuine or a clever fake.

[miss marple]

The point is, does the diary start on the first page or have several pages been torn out before the document starts. There have been other fake diaries written in original books [ eg hitler] but as these books have been partly used, ripping out the used pages, then writing in the book is usually a sign of a fake.

Miss Marple

[RivkahChaya]

The point is well-taken.

But, not only that, I worked in a used bookstore for a little while in college, and we sent out old books to be rebound. It is possible to restitch a book into its old binding. Once, we had a book where a chapter had been torn out at the stitching, and the binder somehow repaired the ends of the pages, and restitched the book.

When books just needed to be reglued, but the binding was good, and the cover was in good condition, we glued them ourselves, and they always looked great.

I'm going to suggest that a really determined forgerer could have found an old book, unglued the binding, removed the thread stitched in period paper from another source, or from another book of the same type, and reglued it with glue that used the same ingredients, and artificially aged it-- the aging is due to drying, and the fact that the glue is organic, so it certainly is possible, especially if you retained some of the old glue as a culture.

Maybe the inquiries from someone seeking accurate period paper, or two books from the same manufacturer would be noticed. But once you had the cover and paper, the rest wouldn't be all that difficult.

Cutting the pages out of a book seems really disingenuous to me, especially since Maybrick was well-off, financially.

At the very least, it could have been made to appear that pages of Maybrick's own writing had been accidentally ripped out, rather than Maybrick cutting pages out of a book to start a new project, because those books were so scarce.

I can't believe the "cut pages" fooled people.

[miakaal4]

Well what can I say? Of course the pages being torn out could have been done by anyone, at any time, for any reason. But this is only seen as suspicious!
And what happened to this Forger, Psycologist, Ripper and Maybrick expert? Out there collecting all that money is he? No he aint. I dont know who has made all the money from it, but it seems to be people who came on the scene well after it had been reported. So, I ask again, what is the point of going to so much trouble to forge that book? Which still defies its critics.