Perhaps?

[belinda]

Is it possible that Jack got somebody else to write the letter for him. The scene goes something like this.

Jack aproaches somebody he all ready has the kidney he says to person x lets play a joke telling person x the Kidney is not human. Person x agrees and does the letter while Jack provides the kidney?

Plausible or(steak and kidney) pie in the sky

[claire]

The purpose being...??

[Adam Went]

Interesting thoughts, but then what happens when Person X sees the newspapers and reads/hears all about the letter and kidney and realises the connection?

That also means that Jack had some sort of accomplice, aware of what he was doing or not....not likely, given what we know of JTR.

Cheers,
Adam.

[belinda]

Jack wanted to make his presence felt but was perhaps illiterate or as they had published photographs of the handwriting wanted to disguise it. Yes good point Adam maybe person x was leaving the country or Jack thought he could make some kind of excuse.

Pondering ways the Lusk letter could be interpreted. I think it is real, probably, I'm about 80% certain anyway. lol decisive aren't I.

[GregBaron]

Lusk........

I saw the second half of a Ripper documentary last night. It was the one
with Stewart Evans and the Tumblety theory. I didn't know Tumblety's handwriting matched the Lusk letter(in some ways)! So what does this mean, perhaps he wrote the letter? Just like Cornwell sort of proved that Sickert wrote a letter. So what, writing a letter isn't the same as cutting a throat. Hundreds of people wrote letters. Why do people do such things? I think Tumblety has taken somewhat of a tumble since this documentary. My
own belief is that JtR probably didn't write any letters. He let his work do the talking....



Greg

[mklhawley]

I saw the second half of a Ripper documentary last night. It was the one
with Stewart Evans and the Tumblety theory. I didn't know Tumblety's handwriting matched the Lusk letter(in some ways)! So what does this mean, perhaps he wrote the letter? Just like Cornwell sort of proved that Sickert wrote a letter. So what, writing a letter isn't the same as cutting a throat. Hundreds of people wrote letters. Why do people do such things? I think Tumblety has taken somewhat of a tumble since this documentary. My
own belief is that JtR probably didn't write any letters. He let his work do the talking....



Greg

Hi Greg,

Michelle Dresbold, the handwriting expert, has some of her book online, so you can see better what she has compared (Tumblety letters and the From Hell letter. Cherry picking? Perhaps, but it is quite compelling.

Sincerely,
Mike

[Adam Went]

The person who wrote the "From Hell" letter, whether it was Jack or not, was hardly William Shakespeare anyway, Belinda....

Cheers,
Adam.

[GregBaron]

Literacy..........etc....

Nor was the letter writer Christopher Marlowe either Adam....

I think the writing expert that MKL......mentions compared wild loops
that went beyond the line below in Tumblety's writing and the Lusk
letter.......indeed compelling........I can see Tumblety writing
letters as he sipped Chambord and received a pedicure in his drawing room
but I can't see him slicing and dicing in the filth of Mitre Square..

It does seem the Lusk letter has about the same degree of illiteracy
as the Ghoulston St. grafitti.....of course illiteracy can be faked
too...........what might be more compelling is to see if the literacy/grammar/style
of Tumblety's writings mirrored that of any of the letters........?


Greg

[Adam Went]

Hi Greg,

The Goulston Street Graffito doesn't actually have any spelling errors though - unless you count "Juwes", and we can't be sure of that. Everything else is correct, it's the punctuation and poor use of English that is the problem with that. The From Hell letter, on the other hand, contains numerous spelling errors.

It's true that illiteracy can be faked, but this is usually noticeable because the person has to take their time and it's clearly a very forced, stop and start type writing style, which handwriting experts can pick out pretty easily.

Cheers,
Adam.

[GregBaron]

Illiteracy..........

Good points Adam........I do think illiteracy can be faked though..
especially if written in advance and then speed copied....this might
fool the experts......there's also the angle of the Irishness of the
Lusk letter....does Juwes indicate anything Gaelic...? They said
Tumblety had Irish ancestors which I consider a bit of a stretch and
I'm still curious about the overall writing quality of Tumblety's letters...?

Oh, I just saw there's another Tumblety thread going...maybe some
answers are there.......?



Greg

[Adam Went]

Hi Greg,

Fair enough points, and I guess that for whoever wrote those letters in 1888, they wouldn't have been predicting, or even be bothered with the fact that handwriting experts would be analysing their work to try and figure out their character more than a century later!

There's been talk for a long time that the Dear Boss and Saucy Jacky letters were faked by journalists, which is probably pretty close to the truth.....

Cheers,
Adam.

[GregBaron]

Writing....

Agreed Adam. I doubt the Ripper wrote any letters.......I just wish I understood why people would fake such things and interfere with a serious investigation? He probably didn't write the graffito either but maybe saw it on his way to Mitre Square and thought.....hmmm....this might be a good place to drop a clue to further confuse the already befuddled police......


Greg

[belinda]

An iteresting point is the way whoever wrote the letter signed it.They didn't try to cash in on the Jack The Ripper nickname.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Adam, Belinda, and all,

The idea that Tumblety wrote the From Hell letter is laughable, but I agree with Adam that it's quite possible a journalist wrote the 'Dear Boss' series, although probably not Thomas Bulling, as has been most often thought these past 15 or so years. I'm facing a conundrum in researching and writing on susect Charles Le Grand, because although I'd prefer not to have to rely on the Ripper letters for any of my material, Le Grand's actions are forcing me to at least consider the possibility that he wrote some of them. He was writing threatening letters in red ink in 1887, a year before the Ripper crimes, and he continued writing them after 1888 (and invariably they mentioned the Ripper). He would write a threatening letter, followed by a postcard. He 'discovered' Matthew Packer in Berner Street and put him in the press, and almost immediately a witness, quite possibly Packer, received the Oct. 6th 'threat letter'. He was hired on by the Whitechapel Vigilance Committe in September and in less than two weeks Lusk received the 'box of toys' postcard, which is the companion piece to the From Hell letter, received approximately 3 weeks after Le Grand was hired. It's also a matter of court record that Le Grand could disguise his handwriting, was multi-lingual, and had criminal accomplices who would write at his dictation. In spite of all this, I'm not at all convinced Le Grand wrote 'Dear Boss' and 'Saucy Jack', although he probably did write the 'Oct. 6th' letter (more on that later) and possibly the 'From Hell' letter. However, I AM convinced (and so we all should be) that the kidney Lusk received did not come from Eddowes, no matter who sent it.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Adam Went]

Greg:

You're definitely right. The police and various other people received hundreds of letters supposedly from the Ripper, it's just that Dear Boss, Saucy Jacky and From Hell have emerged as the 3 most well known. I guess it's like people who confessed to being the killer, they were just looking for their moment of notoriety in his name.

Cheers,
Adam.