There's Something Wrong with the Swanson Marginalia

[robhouse]

The problem is that, as you know, the Swanson marginalia have already been examined by a professional handwriting expert, who, being careful (and a bit wimpy?), chose to call the results of his examination “inconclusive“. Trevor Mariott and Rob House (if I'm correct) would like to have the document re-examined.

Hi Maria,

No, I am not one of those who want to have the document re-examined. Nor do I think that the handwriting expert, Davies, characterized his results "inconclusive." I think this is how his results were characterized by someone else.

Rob H

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi All,

If nothing else, we now know that the marginalia shares it genus with the Minotaur.

Just as a matter of interest, does anyone know if the Aberconway version of Macnaghten's memorandum now bears similar red line markings?

Regards,

Simon

I doubt it no one has seen it how would they know !

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

If nothing else, we now know that the marginalia shares it genus with the Minotaur.

Just as a matter of interest, does anyone know if the Aberconway version of Macnaghten's memorandum now bears similar red line markings?

Regards,

Simon

[mariab]

Originally Posted by Chris
The first two lines of the paragraph appear to be underlined twice, and I assume the suggestion is that the ruled lines have been added since Stewart took his photos.

We can't really know until we've seen an older photo of p.137, I suppose. All the pictures I've seen just concentrate on pages with notes on them.

That's exactly how it looks to me, as Chris says, that someone added another line to Swanson's original underlying. Very unfortunate and stupid, and it most certainly qualifies under “tampering“ with an important original source (Swanson's underlying), but, as already noted by others, legally it's their book, and they can mark it and loan it around.
I'm not surprised that most older photos available concentrate on the pages with marginalia on them.

Hello Norma (Natalie),
I know you weren't suggesting a “forensic“ investigation. What I was trying to stress is that another “independent“ handwritting specialist with no particular knowledge in Ripperology might end up doing more harm than good, as he might turn up being unnecessarily self-important and a drama queen, resulting in another “inconclusive“ examination, which would further instigate confusion and accusations on the boards.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Maria,
I wasn"t suggesting such handwriting tests should be done-or even need to be done.What I was pointing out was that forensic handwriting tests would be able to separate out what lines were drawn over the original ones----if that ever became necessary,
Cheers,
Norma

[John Bennett]

John

Thanks, that's very helpful. The first two lines of the paragraph appear to be underlined twice, and I assume the suggestion is that the ruled lines have been added since Stewart took his photos.

We can't really know until we've seen an older photo of p.137, I suppose. All the pictures I've seen just concentrate on pages with notes on them.

[Chris]

John

Thanks, that's very helpful. The first two lines of the paragraph appear to be underlined twice, and I assume the suggestion is that the ruled lines have been added since Stewart took his photos.

[mariab]

Many thanks to John Bennett for posting a photo of p. 137.
I apologize, but I can't seem to refrain from laughing when considering the “defacing“ in question. The underlying/coloring of the book is unfortunate, but if I were to make a list of all important archival documents (and I don't only refer to printed books, which are easier to preserve/restaure) on which I've encountered similar markings, the list would take up dozens of pages.
Storm in a teapot, anyone?

[mariab]

a thread entitled "The marginalia is kosher" gets 50 posts in a single day. Until then im quite content on seeing conspiracy theorists getting into a lather over highlighted text in a book.
Enquiring about the red lines is legitimate, surmising anything else is getting into Trevor Marriot la-la land.

Fully agree.

Chris Phillips wrote:
No - there is a red vertical line in the margin, but the underlining is in pencil.
So we can't even assume that these were done by the same person at the same time. I insist that the SPE photo from 2000 is the historically accurate document, and that the recent documentary frames (in HD) can be useful in consulting only due to a possibly better resolution. I wonder if the underlying (of the printed text) on p. 137 was already present on the 2000 SPE photo. But I assume not, otherwise it wouldn't have been brought up by Don?

[John Bennett]

No - there is a red vertical line in the margin, but the underlining is in pencil.

[Chris]

Thank you for the information, Chris. Underlying in red, like with the thick red margin lines discussed here?

No - there is a red vertical line in the margin, but the underlining is in pencil.

[jason_c]

Likewise, if anyone has any evidence that the marginalia was written by Swanson, please post it.

I will whenever a thread entitled "The marginalia is kosher" gets 50 posts in a single day. Until then im quite content on seeing conspiracy theorists getting into a lather over highlighted text in a book.

Enquiring about the red lines is legitimate, surmising anything else is getting into Trevor Marriot la-la land.

[mariab]

Thank you for the information, Chris. Underlying in red, like with the thick red margin lines discussed here?
(Obviously, underlying of the printed text is not as bad as an alleged underlying of the marginalia.)

[Chris]

So there is indeed underlining of the marginalia added on p. 137, like Don Sudgen suggested on another thread?

It's underlining of the printed text. (I think I'm right in saying that there are no handwritten annotations on that page, only underlining.) So the suggestion is that someone has gone over some of the original underlining of the text with new underlining.

[mariab]

I think this relates to the underlining, not the handwriting. I guess one would have to do a comparison with the photos taken in 2000 and look for differences.

So there is indeed underlining of the marginalia added on p. 137, like Don Sudgen suggested on another thread? If so, it looks to me that someone was trying to establish if the marginalia were jotted down in the same time frame by adding horizontal lines on the page in question. (Which, obviously, is a very poor decision and technique. They should have done this on a xerox copy, not on the original!) Would John Bennett perhaps acquiesce in posting a picture of p. 137? (He posted p. 138-139). Or would the people who have a DVD copy of the channel 5 documentary check this out? Considering the source where from the allegation's coming (Don Souden), I'd tend to take this seriously.

Natalie Severn wrote:
Modern forensic handwriting tests could probably soon separate out the wheat from the chaff with regards to who wrote what if there is concern about that.
Hello Norma (Natalie). The problem is that, as you know, the Swanson marginalia have already been examined by a professional handwriting expert, who, being careful (and a bit wimpy?), chose to call the results of his examination “inconclusive“. Trevor Mariott and Rob House (if I'm correct) would like to have the document re-examined. I tend to agree with Chris Phillips, that the slight discrepancies in the marginalia handwriting can be explained by a different time frame in their origins. I'm not convinced that a “forensic“ examination of the document is in order here. In my opinion, it would be best and fairly sufficient if an experienced Ripperologist re-examined this, such as SPE, Rob House, or Paul Begg. An “independent“ handwriting specialist might end up murking the waters (again). By the way, the “inconclusive“ part in the previous handwriting examination occurred because the handwriting specialist at the time was unable to locate contemporary samples of Swanson's hand. In the meantime, SPE has posted contemporary samples of Swanson's hand in a related thread here, so this doesn't constitute a problem anymore.