September 17th Letter

[mac-the-kipper]

I recall there being a fairly healthy discussion regarding this letter here , what happened to it?

[Cap'n Jack]

I think, Mac, that a lot of folk round here were hoping that particular letter you mention had sort of just disappeared off the face of the planet.
Me not being one of 'em, I trust the letter is as alive and cheeky as ever.

[Natalie Severn]

Well the point was made that although the letter surfaced in the Public Record Office,it surfaced at the time of the centenary ie 1988 so it was likely to be a fake.
Funny though, I seem to remember Swanson"s alleged and very mysterious handwritten "marginalia" naming the Anderson suspect as Kosminski ,made its debut at this time and was trumpeted out very loudly by the Daily Telegraph as being a sensationally new discovery.Even though it was written in two different inks on two different parts of the book, nobody apparently blinked .

[Dan Norder]

The Swanson Marginalia was found exactly where such a thing would be expected: in Swanson's family's possessions, and, as informal personal writing you wouldn't expect it to have been mentioned in police documents. Its contents also seem very authentic. Considering that the book was owned for years and there was nothing requiring the man to write all of the marginalia at once, there's no reason to think that multiple writing implements would be an indicator of anything suspicious.

The Sept. 17th letter, on the other hand, showed up in files it had no business in long after someone would have expected to find it, and, as what would have been the first use of the Jack the Ripper name if it were authentic, certainly would have been mentioned in existing police documents if it were real. None of the police ever mentioned such a message, and it does not bear the stamps or notes that other authentic letters sent from that period do. Its contents are extremely suspicious, seemingly having been pulled from the text of multiple other letters, including as you would expect from a fake the famous Dear Boss letter, Saucy Jacky postcard, and the Lusk letter, but also seems to mimic letters from ten years later. If this letter were real, which is extremely unlikely, it would mean that the writer either was psychic and copied messages that had not been written yet or that the writers of these others letters all knew of the contents of what would have been the first letter -- making a large number of messages written in multiple hands and not commonly thought to be by the same author necessitate having been written by the same person.

Advocates of the Diary (which, if real, means that Maybrick wrote the Dear Boss letter and so forth) and Patricia Cornwell's theory that Sickert wrote hundreds of letters (and was the Ripper to boot) therefore have a vested interest in trying to make this letter sound real. A.P. Wolf, on the other hand, just seems to want it to be real so that he can pretend to be smarter than all of the respected authors in the field, which in the past has also caused him to support works of fiction as if they were actual case evidence as well as 20th century artistic interpretations of non-canonical murder victims as if they were real morgue photos.

Anything that Patricia Cornwell, Maybrick Diary supporters and A.P. Wolf all agree on and basically nobody else does is pretty much guaranteed to be nonsense. The only way it could be worse is if there were some alleged Freemason or Satanic conspiracy angle to it as well... and those types manage to find one in anything, so there will be, I'm sure.

[Cap'n Jack]

Quite right, Natalie, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Dan, you'll be pleased to hear that I personally believe the 17th September 1888 letter to have a far greater chance of being the genuine article rather than the Swanson margerine.
I have no particular reason or purpose for that stance other than I understand 1988 was a good year for the roses.

[mac-the-kipper]

The Swanson Marginalia was found exactly where such a thing would be expected: in Swanson's family's possessions, and, as informal personal writing you wouldn't expect it to have been mentioned in police documents. Its contents also seem very authentic. Considering that the book was owned for years and there was nothing requiring the man to write all of the marginalia at once, there's no reason to think that multiple writing implements would be an indicator of anything suspicious.

The Sept. 17th letter, on the other hand, showed up in files it had no business in long after someone would have expected to find it, and, as what would have been the first use of the Jack the Ripper name if it were authentic, certainly would have been mentioned in existing police documents if it were real. None of the police ever mentioned such a message, and it does not bear the stamps or notes that other authentic letters sent from that period do. Its contents are extremely suspicious, seemingly having been pulled from the text of multiple other letters, including as you would expect from a fake the famous Dear Boss letter, Saucy Jacky postcard, and the Lusk letter, but also seems to mimic letters from ten years later. If this letter were real, which is extremely unlikely, it would mean that the writer either was psychic and copied messages that had not been written yet or that the writers of these others letters all knew of the contents of what would have been the first letter -- making a large number of messages written in multiple hands and not commonly thought to be by the same author necessitate having been written by the same person.

Advocates of the Diary (which, if real, means that Maybrick wrote the Dear Boss letter and so forth) and Patricia Cornwell's theory that Sickert wrote hundreds of letters (and was the Ripper to boot) therefore have a vested interest in trying to make this letter sound real. A.P. Wolf, on the other hand, just seems to want it to be real so that he can pretend to be smarter than all of the respected authors in the field, which in the past has also caused him to support works of fiction as if they were actual case evidence as well as 20th century artistic interpretations of non-canonical murder victims as if they were real morgue photos.

Anything that Patricia Cornwell, Maybrick Diary supporters and A.P. Wolf all agree on and basically nobody else does is pretty much guaranteed to be nonsense. The only way it could be worse is if there were some alleged Freemason or Satanic conspiracy angle to it as well... and those types manage to find one in anything, so there will be, I'm sure.

Have you ever actually ever examined the files? Would you argue that the Anne Boylen letter that was found recently in a file that was 200 years out of period, a fake? In the HO files there are many letters and reports that aren't stamped 'received' or the such like. Are they all fakes? Too many people can't see or percieve that there is a difference between a fake and a questioned document. Those of you in the camp that claim it is definitely a fake could well be in for big fat eggs on your faces.

[Cap'n Jack]

If Dan's having egg then I'd suggest sunny side up.

[Dan Norder]

Yes, there is a difference between questionable and fake. The overwhelming weight of the evidence, for the reasons already given and more, show this to be a fake. If there were some actual evidence to support any other conclusion, then it might move up to being merely questionable. Considering the sheer amount of evidence that it is a fake, there would have to be some pretty amazing evidence to ever go beyond questionable to thinking it was authentic. It would have to be something reliable and verifiable by neutral third parties. If something like that ever turns up, great...

[Jenni Shelden]

what happened re Cornwell's tests?

[Cap'n Jack]

She was declared insane, but rich.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes, there is a difference between questionable and fake. The overwhelming weight of the evidence, for the reasons already given and more, show this to be a fake. If there were some actual evidence to support any other conclusion, then it might move up to being merely questionable. Considering the sheer amount of evidence that it is a fake, there would have to be some pretty amazing evidence to ever go beyond questionable to thinking it was authentic. It would have to be something reliable and verifiable by neutral third parties. If something like that ever turns up, great...

Well I dont agree with you on this Dan.Our Public Record Office has always been carefully monitored and I very much doubt it would have been easy to have slipped it in without someone seeing it.
In addition the letter was found in Home Office files----so Matthews finger prints could be on it or Anderson"s.Either of these men could have decided to keep the whole thing secret----Anderson was away in Paris and may not have wanted to advertise the fact he had failed to act on it when he found it in his intray-there was a lot of secret service mail to attend to when he got back --he got back on 4th October after 4 women had been found dead----so it could have been a genuinely "lost" letter-stuffed into a private slot and forgotten about all these years or it could have been something that caused embarrassment to one or other of these chaps-----Anderson/Matthews or Jenkinson -who still "visited" the home office after his "resignation" in 1885.
Best
Natalie

Ofcourse it would mean Jack wrote it.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Considering the sheer amount of evidence that it is a fake'.

By that Dan, do you mean that Stewart said it was written with a biro?
I'd be very pleased to hear of any other 'evidence' you have in that regard.

[mac-the-kipper]

Yes, there is a difference between questionable and fake. The overwhelming weight of the evidence, for the reasons already given and more, show this to be a fake. If there were some actual evidence to support any other conclusion, then it might move up to being merely questionable. Considering the sheer amount of evidence that it is a fake, there would have to be some pretty amazing evidence to ever go beyond questionable to thinking it was authentic. It would have to be something reliable and verifiable by neutral third parties. If something like that ever turns up, great...

There is not one jot of evidence that proves this letter to be a fake. Nothing, zilch, zip, diddley.
Show me proof that this is a fake.
I ask again, have YOU personally examined this letter?

[mac-the-kipper]

what happened re Cornwell's tests?

[Sam Flynn]

There is not one jot of evidence that proves this letter to be a fake. Nothing, zilch, zip, diddley.

Being purely objective, Mac, there's nothing that proves it's a genuine survivor from 1888 either.