September 17th Letter

[Chris]

Chris,I have asked them,when I visited last year .They said they were not aware the letter"s authenticity was under dispute.

Well, from previous discussions we know that staff at the PRO (as it then was) certainly were alerted to this issue in the past, and that they were made well aware of the likelihood that the letter was a fake.

From those discussions, my understanding was that - far from having subjected the letter to "some pretty strenuous tests", as "mac-the-kipper" claims - the staff at the PRO decided that it did not have the resources to test it properly.

Perhaps if they had taken this matter more seriously at the time, they could have saved themselves subsequent embarrassment over the planting of fake documents concerning Himmler in the National Archives.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Chris,I am well aware that there was a famous precedent -and a fake document was found to have been deliberately planted in the National Archives- but at least there was an obvious motive in that particular case.In the case of the September 17th letter I am uncertain quite what the motivation could have been?-----thats why I am inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Its a new one on me that they are stating they cant afford testing.Their position when I spoke to them was that as far as they were concerned the letter was genuine.Maybe they see Ripperologists as a bunch of cranks and therefore are not inclined to pay too much attention to requests for further maybe invasive testing
to prove the authenticity of their documents to satisfy the doubting Toms.

[Sam Flynn]

In the case of the September 17th letter I am uncertain quite what the motivation could have been?

One such motive might be that there was a book planned that never got published, Nats.

[Chris]

Its a new one on me that they are stating they cant afford testing.Their position when I spoke to them was that as far as they were concerned the letter was genuine.

As I understand it the decision that the PRO did not have the resources to test the letter properly was made back in the 1990s.

It sounds as though the people you spoke to last year didn't even know it had been questioned, let alone what had been decided 10 or 15 years earlier.

[Stewart P Evans]

Fake

Personally I am 100% happy that this letter is a fake. That said, this is my opinion and I am not an ink or handwriting expert. However, I don't think that you have to be any sort of expert to see right through this one. But, as I have stated in the past, no one is obliged to agree with me and, as we have seen, many don't. My off the cuff comment to Keith Skinner when I first saw the letter at Kew that it appeared to be written in ball-point was, as I have explained previously, based on the fact that there was no obvious sign of variable thickness as is displayed in writing with a nib dipped in ink. What I would say here is that at least I have examined first hand (in the flesh as it were) all the letters in MEPO 3/142 as well as this one. As for indicators as to why I believe it to be a fake I shall follow this with some examples.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Stewart , Chris and Sam,
I think what Sam says could quite possibly be the case-deplorable as that maybe.
I haven"t seen the letter "in the flesh" so will be grateful Stewart for your help in providing some scale of comparison between the letter in question and some examples of those of more certain provenance from the period in question.
Chris,you may well be correct.I did wonder at the time whether they knew the letter"s authenticity had ever been questioned.

[mac-the-kipper]

My off the cuff comment to Keith Skinner when I first saw the letter at Kew that it appeared to be written in ball-point was, as I have explained previously, based on the fact that there was no obvious sign of variable thickness as is displayed in writing with a nib dipped in ink.

Correct, there is no obvious sign, but it is definitely ink.

The tests in 1990 were given permission to go ahead but costs negated this. (the finder couldn't afford it), it wasn't in the PRO's plans at the time as there wasn't any reason to question it.

Since then the N/A HAVE done their own tests and the results of which resulted with the decision to include it as a bona fide document.

Just what this mysterious unpublished book would have revealed will forever remain a mystery for this letter changes nothing with regards to the facts.

Just as Stewart as pointed out on many occasions, I will reiterate. His comment to Keith was that it 'appeared' to be written in biro. This for some strange reason was jumped on and taken as fact.

[Stewart P Evans]

Analysis

The first thing to do with this letter is to make an analysis of its content and see what that may tell us.

First off the date - this is the main reason to closely examine this letter as this alone makes it so relevant were it not a fake, '17 Sept 88' is over a week before the date on the 'Dear Boss' letter sent to the Central News Agency, i.e. 25 Sept. 1888.

"So now thay say I am a Yid" - this echoes the 'I'm not a butcher, I'm not a Yid...' verse in Macnaghten's 1914 book.

"When will thay lern Dear Old Boss? You an me know the truth don't we." - this is very reminiscent of 'Wearside Jack's' communication with George Oldfield during the 1980s Yorkshire Ripper investigation - especially it's very personal 'You an me' tone.

"Lusk can look forever hell never find me but I am rite under his nose all the time I watch them looking for me" - as well as the 'Lusk letter' connotation here it also appears to draw on the 1988 Ripper movie starring Michael Caine where Abberline (Caine) suggested the Ripper might be one of Lusk's own vigilantes.

"...and it gives me fits ha ha I love my work an I shant stop until I get buckled" - it is hardly necessary to point out that this wording appears in the 25 September 1888 Central News Agency 'Dear Boss' letter, albeit in totally different handwriting.

"watch out for your old pal Jacky" - as in the the 'saucy Jacky' postcard of 1 Oct 1888.

"Catch me if you can" - as in the 'From hell' letter of 16 October 1888.

"Sorry about the blood still messy from the last one" - as per the 25 Sept 1888 'Dear Boss' letter.

In reality, and given the obviously different hands, there is very little doubt that the Central News Agency Jack the Ripper letter and the Lusk 'From hell' letter were written by different people.

This '17 Sept. 88' letter screams 'Fake' I'm afraid. Add to that its uncertain origin - the alarm bells should be sounding in peals.

[Stewart P Evans]

Public Record Office

Much has been said about the viability of 'planting' items in the files at the Public Record Office. I used the PRO for research during the 1970s and the 1980s and I can assure you that it would have been simplicity itself to have put a piece of paper into any of the files I was accessing.

[Chris]

Since then the N/A HAVE done their own tests and the results of which resulted with the decision to include it as a bona fide document.

If this were true, it would obviously be highly relevant, though I can't understand why it shouldn't have been mentioned during the previous protracted discussions.

Who should I contact at the National Archives for confirmation of this claim?

[Stewart P Evans]

Ripper Authorities

Back in 1989 this letter was brought to the attention of the leading Ripper authorities Donald Rumbelow, Keith Skinner and Paul Begg. All were rightly cautious about it and, significantly, it was not included in the A-Z when it appeared in 1991. Nothing further really happened until 1993 when Keith Skinner began to delve into its provenance as a result of research on the 'diary.' At this time they were unable to locate the finder.

[A L Morrison]

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.

The treatment of the letter is more than a bit iffy and very much not proper archival practice. Whoever punched the hole in it should be ashamed of themselves.

[mac-the-kipper]

If this were true,





Who should I contact at the National Archives for confirmation of this claim?

I wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't true.

Try one of these dudes.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/directors.htm

[mac-the-kipper]

Much has been said about the viability of 'planting' items in the files at the Public Record Office. I used the PRO for research during the 1970s and the 1980s and I can assure you that it would have been simplicity itself to have put a piece of paper into any of the files I was accessing.

But could you have unstrung the entire file, slipped in a folder and then re-strung it rite under their noses?

[Sam Flynn]

But could you have unstrung the entire file, slipped in a folder and then re-strung it rite under their noses?

...the hole for the string was only put in later, wasn't it? Prior to that, it would have been somewhat of a "loose-leaf" arrangment, would it not? If so, there was no need for un-stringing and re-stringing, just a case of "slip-it-inning".