September 17th Letter

[Natalie Severn]

Chris,I have asked them,when I visited last year .They said they were not aware the letter"s authenticity was under dispute.
With regard to your other point,it may be a case of letting sleeping dogs lie,and a casual mistake,but that wasn"t the impression they gave me.

[Chris]

After all,we are not talking here of a bunch of cowboys making unsubstantiated claims about items in their care, but about the professional guardians of the nation"s Public Record Offices at Kew saying , by virtue of a letter dated 17th September 1888 still remaining there, that the said letter ,is indeed part and parcel, of all their 1888 documentation, connected to the Whitechapel Murders.

If you really think the staff at the National Archives have authenticated this letter, why not write to them and ask them what evidence they found of its authenticity?

Personally I think all that happened was that they left it where it was - as archivists are always inclined to do by default, because even rearranging documents can destroy evidence about their administrative history. (Not that I think they were right to do so, any more than I think they were right to punch a hole in it, add a folio number and alter the existing foliation.)

[Natalie Severn]

I fully support what Mac has said here. All the archivists at the National Archives at Kew are,as I understand, scrupulously trained and fully qualified and are usually somewhat "over" zealous regarding their entrusted roles as the guardian"s of the Nation"s historical documents . As this Sept 17th letter remains among their protected documents,especially after all the brouhaha about the letter,it speaks volumes as to the letter"s likely authenticity.
After all,we are not talking here of a bunch of cowboys making unsubstantiated claims about items in their care, but about the professional guardians of the nation"s Public Record Offices at Kew saying , by virtue of a letter dated 17th September 1888 still remaining there, that the said letter ,is indeed part and parcel, of all their 1888 documentation, connected to the Whitechapel Murders.

[mac-the-kipper]

What you've been shown has been accepted as being beyond a reasonable doubt by most experts in the field. Getting you to agree is obviously not going to happen, and, barring some amazing new evidence that forces us to throw out all the existing knowledge on the topic, I don't think you'll get most people to take your side either.

I don't have a side Dan and this is what I've been trying to say for a long time. I don't claim this letter genuine nor have I ever said it fake. There isn't(as yet) enough evidence to show this letter to be either. However, as for the folio 103B being 'dodgy archiving', I ask again, has anyone asked the N/A why they did that? They have run some pretty strenuous tests on this letter in the past and the reason it's still in the HO file must tell you all something.

All anyone has provided here is evidence that shows the others are documented etc. Nothing that the Sept 17th is definitely a fake.

I would be the first to roar with laughter if someone came forward and said 'I did it guv, and this is how I did it'.

Until that happens, and until Keith Skinner, Paul Begg, Peter and Sally Bower, and Patricia Cornwell have finished their research and published the findings, I think it best to keep an open mind.

[John Bennett]

The numbering of the letter as 103B was an example of dodgy archiving in my opinion. The document in front of it was 103 and an 'A' had been added by hand. When this numbering occured is a mystery.

The hole-punch method of binding these documents is also a bit iffy, as it requires what is tantamount to damaging historical documents.

Earlier photographs of the letter show it pre-hole and pre-numbering, as Jonathan rightly mentioned.

The 25th Sept 'Dear Boss' letter is not stored in such a way. It has been slipped into a plastic wallet, requiring no holes of any sort.

[jmenges]

Just a pointer about something Jonathan said on the podcast: the 17th September letter was not attached to file paper - I put that behind the letter to block out the other documents for the purpose of photographing.

Correction noted

The photo kind of makes it look that way. My mistake!

Would you agree that the 'catalog' number 1038 above the date is a relatively new addition? It does not appear in other earlier photographs of the letter. Also, the hole punch with string attached is a strange way to keep the documents together, IMO.

Thanks John,

JM

[John Bennett]

Just a pointer about something Jonathan said on the podcast: the 17th September letter was not attached to file paper - I put that behind the letter to block out the other documents for the purpose of photographing.

As you can see the second photograph shows it 'au naturel'.

JB

PS having said that, it does show how easy it is to slip something (albeit only file paper in this case) into the file!

[jmenges]

I believe these are John Bennett's photos, I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing them here. I think they were posted pre-crash:





JM

[jmenges]

Shameless plugs:

Chris Scott and Gareth Williams dissected the letter line-by-line towards the end of the most recent podcast (#27- A Practical Joker) and explained very convincingly how it was cribbed from other, more famous, letters. They gave other reasons for doubting its authenticity as well.

John Bennett, while describing his photographing of the 17 Sept letter, said that he didn't think he would have had any problem if he wished to slip something into the documents. It is taking items out that the authorities are seemingly still primarily concerned with. He's probably said it elsewhere, but it's on #12 The East Ender.

I do recommend folks give the last podcast a listen, if only for the part on the 17 Sept letter.

JM

[Dan Norder]

But no-one has shown me anything which is 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.

What you've been shown has been accepted as being beyond a reasonable doubt by most experts in the field. Getting you to agree is obviously not going to happen, and, barring some amazing new evidence that forces us to throw out all the existing knowledge on the topic, I don't think you'll get most people to take your side either.

[Chris]

But no-one has shown me anything which is 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.

The question is, what would you accept as "beyond a reasonable doubt".

In the past I have offered to check the register of incoming correspondence to the Home Office, to see if this letter is noted there, as it should be if it was placed in the file by a Victorian civil servant rather than a modern faker.

But before I went to the trouble of doing that, I'd need to know it wasn't going to be a totally wasted effort. Would any of this letter's proponents accept the result of such a check?

Or would the response just be "they must have forgotten to enter it in the register of correspondence", in the same way that they assert that the letter was somehow omitted when the contents of the file were microfilmed?

[mac-the-kipper]

Kipper, I think you simply don't want to ccept how the real world works. In a criminal case, the prosecutor doesn't have to prove the case to the extent that it's completely immune to people coming up with highly unlikely excuses to ignore clear evidence. The legal burden of proof is showing evidence indicating that it's "beyond a reasonable doubt" not "to the point where even people being unreasonable are forced to admit they were wrong." And thank goodness for that, or else people could weasel their way out of absolutely anything.

But no-one has shown me anything which is 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. All most here have ever done is latch on to the words of one or two other people and that somehow seems to be accepted fact. Wait and see.

Tom, it's not so lonely where I am. Keep watching.

That's me, Im off to take the piss out of Nostradamus.

[Dan Norder]

Kipper, I think you simply don't want to ccept how the real world works. In a criminal case, the prosecutor doesn't have to prove the case to the extent that it's completely immune to people coming up with highly unlikely excuses to ignore clear evidence. The legal burden of proof is showing evidence indicating that it's "beyond a reasonable doubt" not "to the point where even people being unreasonable are forced to admit they were wrong." And thank goodness for that, or else people could weasel their way out of absolutely anything.

[Cap'n Jack]

Leaving your good self to the paper bags - you'll remember them, Tom, Packer packed his grapes in 'em - I'll continue to punch my way out of corners.

[Tom_Wescott]

Boy, Mac must have been a VERY bad boy to deserve you! At least your vices won't have to be so solitary now.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott