Hutch in the 1911 Census?

[Ben]

Firstly, because it's easier to send a scan, photocopy or fax, than it is to persuade someone to up-stumps and visit the archives

It doesn't matter what's easiest to acheive, Gareth.

Simplicity is not the crowning criterion. Professional document examiners analyze original documents. That is what they do, and in the instances where they volunteer their professional services themselves, you can guarantee that they would seek out the originals, otherwise - as all practitioners in this field appear to acknowledge - she would not have been doing her job.

I haven't seen a single compelling reason why copies wouldn't be good enough for the scenario we're discussing here

Okay, but I have. Very compelling ones.

[Ben]

Crystal, you're a prize beeeeyatch!

And you know I'm only keeping you sweet because you agree with me about Hutch. The moment that stops, you're a gonner!

X

[Crystal]

Ben, stop dishonestly lobbying for Hutch: I know what your words REALLY mean.

You're not fooling anyone here you know.

And don 't worry, I know how little I mean to you.

Lothario.

I'll get you for this. x

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"Fisherman is so utterly entrenched in his own dogma, and so irrationally and undeservedly convinced of his rightness that he is prepared to accept that an expert who examined the documents personally must have been looking at "faulty" material."

If you can lower your voice and open your eyes for a moment, you will realize that there is no "must" involved. I said that my GUESS is that she may have examined faulty material, and that is because she seems to have mystically overlooked a very close match.

The entrenched guy here is you, Ben, who will listen to an expert like Leander only when his words are apt for a little distorting and misinterpreting. Once he puts you at a disadvantage by being quite explicit, you merrily swing the other way. If the evidence suits you - thank you very much! If it goes against you - somebody has been lying or is being quite unbelievable. It is a truly interesting performance you´re putting on - but you seem to have missed that you left your costume behind when you entered the stage.

Fisherman

PS. Your costume is the one with the funny hat and the striped clothes in red and blue, Ben! DS.

[Fisherman]

Crystal writes:

"And Fish, I don't want to doubt your word. You have cast that doubt yourself by changing what you say Leander said."

Exactly WHERE have I "changed" what I "say Leander said"? Pray tell me! I am not a sucker for being painted out as a biased liar, Crystal, so let´s get this overwith as soon as possible, shall we?

Besides, for one who don´t want to doubt my words, you are doing a good job hiding it.

Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

"I haven't seen a single compelling reason why copies wouldn't be good enough for the scenario we're discussing here"

Okay, but I have. Very compelling ones.

But, with respect, Ben, I don't think you have a background in science like wot I do. I've not seen anything - and certainly not any empirical data - that shows that using original documents is significantly different from using scanned copies, in terms of the basic comparison of signatures.

[Sam Flynn]

Simplicity is not the crowning criterion. Professional document examiners analyze original documents. That is what they do

Not invariably, Ben. Sometimes the originals no longer exist, only scans. I presume that document examiners, when presented with such a scenario, wouldn't just shrug their shoulders and go home.

otherwise - as all practitioners in this field appear to acknowledge - she would not have been doing her job.

I don't think that all practitioners in this field would think anything of the kind. Seems rather a harsh judgment to me. In situations where the originals are inaccessible or (as might be the case in this instance) no longer in existence, scans ought to be perfectly adequate.

[Crystal]

I didn't say you were a 'biased liar' Fisherman.

Try to get your facts straight before you start raving.

You did invite us all not to take your word for Leanders. And that's what I'm doing.

Seems fair to me.

[Fisherman]

Crystal:

"I didn't say you were a 'biased liar' Fisherman."

Well, apparently not, since that was my wording. It´s just that when somebody decides to go to Leander the way you propose to, it kind of implies that you are not willing to believe me without checking. So it is, more or less, a way of pointing to a deep distrust.
But that is in no way new to me. You and - mainly - Ben have spent a lot of time and effort trying to diss both me and my wiews and paint me out as a stalker, unreliable, desperate und so weiter - oh, and "raving", of course - so who´s to be surprised? Not me, anyways!
And still, despite all of these mental deficiencies of mine, here we are with a judgment from Frank Leander that tells us that he concurs with me in my assessment that Toppy probably was the Dorset Street witness! Well, he only goes so far as to say that he would be surprised if the police report signature was NOT written by Toppy, but you have to admit that is just about the same.
Who would have thought it? A top authority in the game tells me that it seems I was right throughout the blizzard of insults! Well, well...!

Of course, Ben would be on the right track here - either I am lying or misrepresenting Leander totally, or he has just lost the grip. You really should ask him what is going on here, for it is obvious, is it not, that this cannot be true?

What was it you said some posts back, Crystal? This thread has come to a sad state, or something along those lines. Well, you are right about that!

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben tries:

"What I find galling in the extreme is that whenever Leander's observations are made known in all their circumspect, non-Toppy-endorsing glory, those arguing for Toppy go straight back to Leander.

Not quite Toppy-favouring enough, Frank!

Bit more?

Better. Bit more?

Nearly there.

Bit more?

There! That'll do!

...With Leander's views mutating over time as he is bombarded, and as his views are effectively poisoned."

That, Ben, is quite a theme for a nice book! I particularly like MY role, where I can effectively lure Leander into believing that he is thinking something he would never had sworn to otherwise - I simply creep into his head and hypnotize him, and BANG...! Kind of phantomizes me in a manner that you normally don´t award me - normally you save the role of the stupidest participator for me. So it´s refreshing to suddenly gain superhuman powers!

Then again, this all tallies very poorly with real life (but never mind, we are speaking fiction here, ain´t we..?).
For in the real life, Leander posted a wiew that said that “the expression CAN NOT BE RULED OUT belongs to the same parish as THERE ARE OBVIOUS LIKENESSES IN CERTAIN RESPECTS” and ”Can not be ruled out” has earlier been used as the lowest, most careful expression on the positive side in a scale that we have used in investigations of handstyles”.
To most people, this would mean that he tells us that he thinks that the match lies on the positive side, but not to you! No, you keep telling us that “cannot be ruled out” can NEVER point to the positive end of the scale. And yet, here is Frank Leander telling us that there has formerly even been an INSTITUTIONALIZED scale, whereupon “cannot be ruled out” represented a hit on that positive end!

Now, what happened when the post arrived? Exactly – you refused to admit that Leander was of the meaning that the match was on the positive side, and stated that he never had said that the scales were weighing over in that favour.
And so I put the question bluntly to him; Am I correct in believing that you think that the match is on the positive side of the scale? And he answered yes, and added that he would be surprised if it proved not to be a match. And there is only so much I can do if he feels that he needs to be a bit clearer - it is his choice and his wording. It´s not me in the ventriloquist´s role. Implying that is saying bluntly that Leander lacks working ethics - but you won´t mind adding further insults to the earlier ones, do you?
You were the one that forced me to put the question to Leander. I published the exact wording of that question, in both Swedish and English, and I published Leanders answer. There really is effectively nothing to whine over in that respect, Ben. And Sam did not take long time to step in and tell you that there is nothing semantically strange about Leanders posts at all - and it seems Sam has a background that makes him well suites to know about these things.
Nor is there any turn-around. The only thing there is, is a reinforcement and clarification of the earlier post. And you were the one who asked for it.

Fisherman

[Ben]

What are you all doing, blitz-posting into the evening?

Think about this logically for a moment.

You know me. If I'm supposed to be the Hutchinson zealot you claim I am, who will puruse matters to eternity and beyond, what are you hoping to acheive? Your assessment of me dictates that I will get the last word in this discussion whatever happens, so what is the motivation for sticking around? It's a serious question.

and that is because she seems to have mystically overlooked a very close match

No mysticism involved, Fish.

No "overlooking" either, and it irritates me to the point of desiring a vicious public boxing match that you should accuse her of such an oversight. Her professionalism and expertise led her to the opinion that Toppy was not the witness, and that was almost certainly as a result of examining the original documents.

The entrenched guy here is you, Ben, who will listen to an expert like Leander only when his words are apt for a little distorting and misinterpreting.

No, Fish.

I listened to Leander before his views were distorted. Since then, I believe his views have been corrupted as a result of continued bombardment and the erroneous information that was fed to him.

But, with respect, Ben, I don't think you have a background in science like wot I do. I've not seen anything - and certainly not any empirical data

But then I know you don't have the background in document examination that Crystal, Sue Iremonger and Frank Leander do, Gareth, so my scientific background means nothing. I am not s document examiner. Every single document examiner knows full well that the originals are necessary for establishing a comparison, andn that scans or computerized images aren''t as suitable for the job. The notion that it somehow requires one poster on a serial killer message board to somehow disabuse them of a concept that they all share is obviously untenable. If ripperology as a an area of interest is to be taken seriously, it's got to stop pretending it knows better than those with actual expertise, and claiming that they are the replacement experts. People do it here here, just as they do in the Tabram threads. It doesn't work, and having the loudest voice doesn't help.

Not invariably, Ben. Sometimes the originals no longer exist, only scans.

Not applicable in this case, though, Gareth, since the orignals in this case are all perfectly accessible.

[Crystal]

You know, Fisherman, you're right . Somebody has lost their grip around here.

I'm just not so sure it's Ben.

[Sam Flynn]

Not applicable in this case, though, Gareth, since the orignals in this case are all perfectly accessible.

ARE they, though, Ben? And, if they are, did Sue Iremonger actually use them?

It really is not good enough assuming that she did. Not good enough at all

[Ben]

And still, despite all of these mental deficiencies of mine, here we are with a judgment from Frank Leander that tells us that he concurs with me in my assessment that Toppy probably was the Dorset Street witness!

Ah, but he never said that.

He never once claimed that Toppy was "probably" the Dorset Street witness, although I've every faith that you'll contact Leander again, and that with the regularity of clockwork, he'll come through with the same suspiciously timely endorsement that, yes, yes, he meant what Fisherman says all along. It's decidedly dodgy, Fishster, and your efforts have extracted any worth in Leander's comments that might initially have existed. In Leander's initial "spontaneous" reaction, there was never any suggestion that Toppy was "probably" the Dorset Street witness.

He said that Toppy "cannot be ruled out", and that the differences militated "against" the similarities. You then continued to make various bogus claims about the contents about his original letter, and when I challenged these bogus claims, you suddenly reappear with a "second post" from Leander where these bogus claims magically appear. Something's decidely wrong with this. Since you're telling me that you didn't lie or mistranslate, the only realistic option is that the "expert" you recruited changed his tune in response to your unseemly bombardment, and when you supplied with with errnoeous information.

Crystal is also an expert document examiner. She has examined the documents as they appear on a computer screen and has come to the conclusion that they probably weren't written by the same hand. She contacted a colleague who works in the same field, who also subscribed to the view that they didn't match. Crystal intends to examine the originals, and I applaued her good intentions in that regard. Sue Iremonger has also examined the original documents, and has come to the conclusion that they didn't match.

I simply creep into his head and hypnotize him, and BANG...!

Oh, no - no hypnotism involved.

That's what I do to you, which is why you keep following around, and why I effectively dictate your internet activity.

What you do is bombard.

The gentleman you contacted was very adamant from the outset that his views should not be misconstrued as a full expert opinion, and when I addressed his views, I took the trouble of quoting him directly so as to avoid any possible confusion on the subject. What you then did was put words in his mouth, and when I claimed those words weren't there, you contacted Leander and suddenly those words appeared. Don't feed him misleading information about the number of potential candidates around, and don't inform him that his words have kicked up a storm on a message board. That's just screamingly obvious. If you don't wish to tarnish or colour his views, such extraneous information is unhelpful.

has earlier been used as the lowest, most careful expression on the positive side in a scale that we have used in investigations of handstyles”.

But that's what I've been saying all along. It's the "lowest" expression that can be used when describing anything that could possibly be construed as "positive". What it doesn't mean is "probable". Cannot be ruled does not mean "probable" ever, unless the person misusing them as synonyms is terminally dim or appallingly sarcastic. I had hopes that Leander was neither, but if he really is the sort to succumb to continued pestering, I'll have to think about revising that stance.

And so I put the question bluntly to him; Am I correct in believing that you think that the match is on the positive side of the scale? And he answered yes, and added that he would be surprised if it proved not to be a match.

...And he radically and suspiciously altered his stance, to the extent that he is no longer worth taking seriously, since both views effectively cancel eachother out. I find this depressing, since his initial, uncorrupted reaction was anything but Toppy-endorsing. You didn't like that, so you tried to extract as many Toppy-endorsing comments out of him as you could. It really was a case of "Bit more...bit more....bit more", and eventually, the poor beleagured man succumbed. Anything for a quiet life I guess, which is what you should be interested in.

"Overall likeness" was a comment you erroneously attributed to Leander. I point out that he said no such thing, and then from out of the implausible aether comes a "second post" where he starts talking about an "obvious likeness", and since then he's upgraded even further.

To me, that "engenders a feeling of scepticism".

[Sam Flynn]

But then I know you don't have the background in document examination that Crystal, Sue Iremonger and Frank Leander do, Gareth, so my scientific background means nothing.

My scientific background tells me that we need to see empirical evidence - studies, papers (electronic or otherwise!), research - that proves that using scanned images is significantly worse than using original documents, before we believe the "just so" stories we've had so far.

What is the proof that originals are significantly better than scans in a signature-comparison task, and - if they ARE better - under what circumstances, and in which scenarios, are those benefits most relevant?

If document examination is a science rather than a subjective "art", then I'd have expected that such information would be readily available and, indeed, in the public domain. I've not seen or found anything of the kind so far, and that is what puts all my scientific instincts on amber alert.