September 17th Letter

[Sam Flynn]

do think that a modern forger would have picked up the spelling of 'rite' in the Openshaw letter and then copied it into the 17th September letter?

"Rite" is the usual mock-illiterate way of spelling "right", AP. There's nowt particularly significant in that. More significant, perhaps, is that the "J" in "Jack" is rendered entirely differently in both letters, leading me to believe that "17th Sept" probably wasn't a copy of Openshaw anyway. (In fact, I see both instances of "Jack the Ripper" as being in a totally different hand.)

[Cap'n Jack]

Oh so right, Sam, so take several hundreds of letters supposedly written by Jack, and then tell me how popular it was to spell 'rite' like that?
Two is it?

[Sam Flynn]

Oh so right, Sam, so take several hundreds of letters supposedly written by Jack, and then tell me how popular it was to spell 'rite' like that?

I care not one jot for the "genuine" Jack letters in this context, AP. Surely it's self-evident that "rite" (like "tonite" and "lite") is perfectly commonplace as a deliberate misspelling. I think I'm correct in thinking that my logic is perfectly "orl rite" on this matter.

[Chris]

But I hope you'll admit that this letter deserves a little more than you have previously given it, and I don't mean that in the manner of authenticity but rather good and honest discussion.

That's a pretty ugly insinuation. I hope it was unintentional.

[Supe]

AP

My impression - and I think it one backed by good science - is that the paper and ink are from the time period we discuss.

OK, I'll bite: what science/

Don.

[Cap'n Jack]

All rite then, Sam.

Don, the science of knowledge and deduction.

[Dan Norder]

Based upon the many examples of it having been published elsewhere long before AP Wolf claimed I guess it's a bit academic, but the text and image of the Openshaw letter also appeared in The Criminologist in 1969 in an article by C.M. MacLeod.

And I personally think that the resemblance of the Sept. 17th letter to other more famous Ripper letters that AP points to as a reason to believe it genuine instead suggests someone hoaxing the letter in modern times based upon accounts of these older letters. The letter seems very derivative of a whole group of messages, including ones not thought to have been sent by the same author. It also doesn't really add anything new.

So, by my view, which is shared by most Ripper author's opinions, the science of reason and deduction concludes that the Sept. 17th letter is a modern fake.

[Cap'n Jack]

Yes, Dan, for I note in the photo archive of this site that the 17th September letter is clearly labelled as a 'Fake'.
I assume this decision was made through influence rather than wise and good caution, which I do expect in this matter.
Shame really.
I like to see fair play.

[Supe]

AP,

Don, the science of knowledge and deduction.

Ah, but you see both you and Dan have applied that "science" and come up with totally different results in regard to the letter of September 17. The hallmark of "good science" (to borrow your term) is reproducible results and we surely only have opinion here. In this instance I tend to favor Dan's opnion, but again, that is but another opinion and science doesn't wotk that way (else Mr. Einstein would have remained a patent office drudge). Meanwhile, I will hold on to my opinion, you can hold on to yours and some day some real science might be applied to this problem and supply real answers.

Don.

[Cap'n Jack]

Quite right, Don, which is why, unlike Dan, I prefer to view the letter as yet untested by the type of science that might solve the issue.
Or better said, the results of those tests have not yet been publicly released.
Until then I view the letter as a matter of considerable interest to myself.
After then?

But for now I must say that I am still struck by the similar format of the two letters; and have to say that I feel the two letters were indeed produced by the same individual.

[Sam Flynn]

But for now I must say that I am still struck by the similar format of the two letters

You mean "similar", as in the PS comes at the bottom, after the signature? That's not particularly striking, if you don't mind my saying so, AP. Now, if the PS had been in the form of a rather jaunty quatrain, that'd be different - but it's not. Instead, it's practically a rip-off of the postscript to Dear Boss which, instead of being beneath the valediction, was at right-angles to the text. Hence we have some textual parallels, but the layout of the two letters is quite different.

and have to say that I feel the two letters were indeed produced by the same individual.

The difference between the two "Jack the Rippers" I've already pointed out, but scarcely any of the other characters bear even the vaguest comparison to the Openshaw Letter. There's possibly a vague attempt at recreating the capitals "L" and "C" from the Lusk Letter, but then none of the other characters match.

Another thing that strikes me is that, whilst Dear Boss, Saucy Jacky, the Lusk and Openshaw letters (in their own way) appear to be rather accomplished efforts from an adult hand, the ragged scrawl and vapid content of 17th September looks practically childish in comparison.

[Cap'n Jack]

Nah, Sam, you ain't getting away with that.
Just like Stewart when he first made comment on the 17th September letter, I would say that if I didn't know better about the Openshaw letter that it was a modern forgery written with a biro.
The Openshaw letter has exactly the modern furnished image that the detractors of the 17th September letter ascribe to that.
Your attempts to make distinction between the handwriting in the two letters appear to me to be based entirely on upper or lower case distinctions, which do not apply in such distinction.
An upper case 'J', 'L' or 'R' is never going to look like a lower case version of the same letter, even when written by the same individual.

Undiscovered letters from someone claiming to be Jack the Ripper over a hundred years after they were supposedly written does not mean they are modern fakes, even when they contain the words 'old boss' or similar.
I'll give you one now.
From the 'Western Mail', Cardiff, 11th October 1888:

[Sam Flynn]

Nah, Sam, you ain't getting away with that

Why not, AP? The writing is completely dissimilar.

Your attempts to make distinction between the handwriting in the two letters appear to me to be based entirely on upper or lower case distinctions

No - it is based on the fact that none of the characters in 17th Sept remotely compare with those in the Openshaw Letter. Or those in Dear Boss, Saucy Jacky and, "C" and "L" notwithstanding, From Hell either.

Undiscovered letters from someone claiming to be Jack the Ripper over a hundred years after they were supposedly written does not mean they are modern fakes, even when they contain the words 'old boss' or similar.

Indeed not - although it will be noted that all other derivatives on record do not purport to pre-date the original Dear Boss. There's the rub.

[Cap'n Jack]

'Indeed not - although it will be noted that all other derivatives on record do not purport to pre-date the original Dear Boss. There's the rub.'

That's your 'rub', Sam, not mine.
For I entertain the peculiar belief that our boyo was writing letters a long time before the 17th September 1888.
Just nobody noticed 'em.
Like Lusk, who freely admitted that he had received several such missives prior to his kidley letter, but had binned them as hoaxes.
I fear you and Dan employ the same bin, and history will suffer as a consequence of ego.
When I employ history I smoke a big fat Cuban cigar, swill a smoky whisky in my glass and stare up at the clouds of my ceiling.
Patterns emerge... given time, and energy.

You say not much about my press report, old sport.
A silent cannon often thunders louder than a spent one.

[Chris]

Quite right, Don, which is why, unlike Dan, I prefer to view the letter as yet untested by the type of science that might solve the issue.
Or better said, the results of those tests have not yet been publicly released.

The problem is that this position is completely incompatible with your previous claim that "My impression - and I think it one backed by good science - is that the paper and ink are from the time period we discuss."

Which is it to be? That there's scientific evidence that the letter is old? Or that there is no scientific evidence (or none that's been published) about the age of the letter?