The Leander Analysis

[babybird67]

Let us - theoretically - assume that Babybird writes to Frank Leander.

You dont need to assume anything Fish. When i have emailed him i will post it here for everyone to see.

Let us - likewise theoretically - assume, that she asks Leander if it would not have been better if all three signatures had been used, and if we are not at a risk to have a flawed result since this was not done.

Finally, let us - once again, purely theoretically - assume that Frank Leander answers exactly like this:
"Aha, so there were THREE signatures on that protocol? In that case, I must retract what I said about the single one, since no fair assessment can be made from only parts of the material! Let´s see now, hmmmm, there they are, them little buggers.... Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh! My goodness! I can see now that these added signatures very much imply that I would have been wrong in my earlier assessment - I am now of the meaning that none of the signatures match those of Topping Hutchinson!"

I'm hoping Fish that he will look at the other signatures and perhaps give us a revised opinion. I know he will believe that his initial reaction is flawed, because he cannot do otherwise. He didnt have the benefit of looking at all the extant Hutchinson signatures. I'm prepared...in the spirit of truce...to attribute this to mistake on your part, nothing worse. However, mistake it was, and sampling error means we cannot rely on any of Leander's conclusions, be they personal or otherwise.

I wrote eight times to Frank Leander, in three months time. It did not take him long to get very bored with the issue and, as you put it, Ben, "fob me off". So, what we have concluded is that Leander is very prone to fob people off, and give them what they want, just to have a little peace and quiet.

yes...you were excessive. I hope you can see this now. Again, a mistake, but you are human, so dont be too hard on yourself...you have me for that! (that was a joke...if you havent noticed i am trying very hard to be more tolerant and understanding) I don't think it means Leander is prone to fobbing people off and i have no intention of harrassing him, merely of seeking clarification as to how his comments may have been affected had he been supplied with the other signatures and what, if he agrees to look at them, he would conclude, having seen the others.

But would not that mean - bearing in mind that Babybird would be harassing Leander with this material for the NINTH time - that he would be even more worn out by it, and even more prone to say "yeah, yeah, whatever you want"?

That's not right is it Fish. I wouldn't be harrassing Leander for the ninth time. I will be contacting him for the first time. I shall be perfectly respectful and if he declines to address the matter further, i shall post that response here, and i shall certainly not pursue the matter with him. I have no intention of harrassing him. I have too much to do anyway.

If he instead keeps telling us that he was perfectly able to assess the one signature he got from me, and that the two added ones do not affect his verdict - does THAT mean that he is still - working by remote "Babybird control" - trying to fob ME off?

Really Fish sometimes you are your own worst enemy. You really have to stop doing this. I will post Leander's response here. I have nothing to fear if he still agrees with you. Even if he does, he will still be of the opinion that anything he says is not a professional opinion because he still will not have seen the originals. If you mean what i think you mean by "remote Babybird control" that i would post up lies just to discredit you, that is thought unworthy of you, and an action unworthy of me. If you want a truce, behave as if you do, because a one-sided truce will not hold, believe me. I shall post up what leander says, whatever it is, whichever side, if any, he comes down on. Rest assured of that.

I can always say that he would have fobbed Babybird off

You can say what you like Fish. I have nothing to hide. I will post up Leander's response in due course. I have things going on which will delay me contacting him today...and i would like to think about what i want to say. But Casebook will have the full response if and when any is forthcoming. Everyone can then make up their own minds.

regards

[Victor]

a "personal" (or maybe that meant "clown", we had better ask you) and "spontaneous" (maybe that meant "lightbulb", Jeez i wish i was as fluent in this as you are )

And now you've turned into Papa Lazarou. Or are you his wife now, Dave?

[babybird67]

And now you've turned into Papa Lazarou. Or are you his wife now, Dave?

No idea what you mean by this, my dear, or why someone's wife should be called Dave...but there you are, nothing else you have said has made sense so why am i surprised.

I was hoping for some more Swedish translations from you as well.

[Observer]

oh oh does victor know something we don't

Observer

[Cap'n Jack]

could it be that the girls I have been tying to me main mast and lashing are now't but hairy arsed semen?

[Sam Flynn]

You dont need to assume anything Fish. When i have emailed him i will post it here for everyone to see.

Why not email some other document examiner, Jen? Seriously. If you ask me, Leander has gone enough out of his way already, and it strikes me that this vexed subject could do with a fresh pair of eyes. Leander vs Iremonger has, I think, been done to death.

[Jane Welland]

Yes, I agree.

Why not email some other document examiner, Jen? Seriously. If you ask me, Leander has gone enough out of his way already, and it strikes me that this vexed subject could do with a fresh pair of eyes. Leander vs Iremonger has, I think, been done to death.

It's time this wrangling stopped imo. Perhaps there can be some resolution here if somebody else does the job - but they would have to be clearly impartial - so that we could avoid any suggestion of bias etc such as we have had already regarding Leander and Iremonger.

It's a thought, anyhow.

Jane x

[Victor]

No idea what you mean by this, my dear, or why someone's wife should be called Dave...but there you are, nothing else you have said has made sense so why am i surprised.

I was hoping for some more Swedish translations from you as well.

Ok Dave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Lazarou

He has his own gibberish language called Gippog, that he makes up as he goes along to con people into doing what he wants - just like your doing.

[Fisherman]

Cap´n Jack writes:

"semen"

Please tell me that wasn´t intentional....?

Fisherman
apalled

[Fisherman]

Jane Welland writes:

"Perhaps there can be some resolution here if somebody else does the job - but they would have to be clearly impartial - so that we could avoid any suggestion of bias etc such as we have had already regarding Leander and Iremonger."

Dowe, Jane, really have any suggestion of a bias on either account here? I think not.
We do have the suggestions on both researchers behalf, that they may have done a bad/unsufficient/lacking job, of course, but that is not the same as accusing any of them of having been biased.

Moreover, is the only thing it takes to attach suspicion of a bias to a researcher a suggestion on somebodys behalf that the researcher may have gotten tired of the ones who ask him/her things, and decided to fob them off? Does such a thing stick to the reputation of the researcher, if no convincing evidence can be presented, telling us that the allegation must be true?
I think not.

I think instead that we must work from the suggestion that as long as a researcher has not been proven biased, all decency and logic speaks for upholding the stance that we are dealing with an unbiaased researcher. It should also be added that neither Iremonger nor Leander take - to the best of my knowledge - any active interest in Ripperology, and so they will not have formed any opinion at all that would incline them to a bias.

What Sam says, though, applies very much - the two have been done to death, in some sense. The problem is, I cannot see why the next man or woman who gives his wiew should not be led to the guillotine by someone who disleikes what he or she says - but that is another matter. He or she will in all probability loose his head totally unbiased anyway.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

...and speaking about bias and related subjects, I will make one more effort to elucidate what lies behind the differences Ben I entertain on the matter of the Leander analysis.

To enable some understanding, we must travel back to the first time Leander gave a wiew on the signatures, back in April.

I reported on it, and gave his wording, in post 1255, page 126, of the "Hutch in the 1911 census"-thread.

Before I knew what anybodys reaction to the post would be, I commented on it like this:

"What is very interesting here is that Leander tells me that the fact that Hutch was a young man may have played a role - for I never told Leander his age! I have written back since, and asked if this was something Leander could conclude from the text, and I am much intrigued to find out.

It should be added that the signatures from Sams post was all I supplied Leander with, together with the information on when they were written and the fact that the one at the top was the only one where we were not sure if we were dealing with the same writer.
Therefore, Leander did not know, for example, that the finishing n could be written by Toppy without that upward-pointing curl. Nor did he know that there was only a very limited set of George Hutchinson´s about at the right time and place. Or, for that matter, that Toppys own son(s) had witnessed about him being the witness.
I have told him this in my latest letter (the one asking how he concluded that the writer of the police report signature was young), and if he takes the time to answer me again, I will let you all know.

Until that time, we can ponder that a top authority in the field tells us that although there are differences in a few singled-out letters and the tch-group (differences that can be explained and overcome by a number of things, according to Leander!), the overall character of style and the writing skills - and that means nothing but the overall impression! - involved tell us that we may certainly be looking at the same writer!

So, here we have a renowned expert´s opinion on the matter, bolstered with the details that he used to reach his conclusions - the way that it should be. And to me, it all reinforces what I have said all along: The possibility that George William Topping Hutchinson was the Dorset Street witness is and remains a clear and obvious one.
And by now, we have one of Swedens foremost experts in the field telling us that the signatures DO tally in so high a degree that it can be safely said that they may well have been written by the same man!"

And that was my assessment of what Leander had said - I was of the meaning that he was clearly positive to the suggestion of a match.

That, of course, could be correct. My meaning was - and is - that it indeed was so.

It cannot, however, be ruled out (in the general sense of the phrase...!) that I got it wrong. For the sake of theory, we must therefore accept that we have a situation that can be described as a choice between two possibilities: my being right or my being wrong.

A possible indicator that I was wrong was presented when Ben said that he was of the opinion that Leanders stance had been one of absolute neutrality. That, again, was something that could of course be right - though I did not think so then, and do not do so today), or could be wrong. On the theoretical level, the same applies as what applied for me. But since the question is related to the exact same question as in my case, we do not get four possible solutions - we get only two. And it boils down to the simple fact that either I was right, or Ben was.

In a situation like this, where a case - good or bad, but still some sort of case - can be built for each argument, we will arrive at a stalemate. Such a stalemate may be universally accepted, if both sides in the conflict are about the same size.
If one side is significantly smaller, or extremely small in comparison, then the issue will not be regarded as a stalemate any longer - but for, perhaps, byt the one(s) on the smaller side of the conflict.

Is there any way to solve such an issue? Yes, there is - we can always go back to the source that originally worded the verdict on the matter in such a fashion so as to leave room for a stalemate. We can then ask for a clarification. If that clarification is also insufficient to break the deadlock, we can once again ask for further clarification, up to the point where no doubt can exist any longer.

This is what happened in the Leander issue. He made it increasingly clear to those who spoke for a stance of neutrality on his side, that this had never been the case. In doing so, he confirmed my original stance, and disconfirmed Ben´s ditto.

That was when Ben decided to say that Leander had never been at liberty to settle the issue in my favour; he was obliged to follow not his own intentions from the original post, not my interpretation of it that concurred with what Leander added subsequentially - but ONLY Bens interpretation of the initial post.

After such a thing, it can of course not be said that Leander could be accused of any sort of bias. The only bias here rests with Ben, who actually disallows Leander to speak his mind. Interestingly, even if Leander had said "I should have been clearer in my first mail, since it seems I have been misunderstood by some posters", that would not have had any impact on Bens wiew - he would STILL say that Leander, according to his own interpretation of the first mail, had tied himself to a position of total neutrality, and that nothing he could say would change that.

With this, I am having all sorts of trouble, and it remains the main explanation to why trenches have been dug and posters have become enemies. My suggestion is that we accept Leanders verdict as a whole, and not just pick parts of it. It will not mean that we must agree with him, since those who concur with Iremmonger are of course absolutely free to do so. Those who think the signatures unalike are equally free to do so too. Those who point out that Leanders examination was not carried out according to full professional demands will be completely correct. It will not close the case if we allow Leander the right to speak his mind and be believed.

What happens if we instead claim that Leander is not trustworthy, and that he changed his mind to get rid of me, was outlined in my former post; in such a world, where it is everybodys privilege to question the veracity of researchers and deny them the right to clarify in whichever way they seem fit to do, we will immediately get lost. Whenever somebody takes the trouble to search help from an expert or authority, we are all at liberty to say "Nah, he just said so to please you" just as we are all at liberty to say "Yeah, yeah, YOU think he said no, but he did not come across that way to me. I thought he said yes", and when the researcher/authority then confirms that he said no, we can say, "Hey, wait a minute - that was not what he said the first time over! I´m being cheated here!"

Is this a situation we need to have?

Is this how we are fortwith going to treat those who have expertise in a field?

Can we take us the liberty to make allegations like these, without having approval from the total community of posters?

I don´t think so. And I hope that we will all come to our senses before it happens again. Many voices for a seize-fire have been heard since this conflict took off, and I would be the first one to embrace such a thing - but to pay the price of giving up these fundamental demands for decency on our behalf when it comes to how we treat generous researchers who offer their experience and knowledge in a genuine effort to help out, is something I will never do. And, indeed, I urge everyone never to do so.

To those who have not been in the trenches from the outset, this is what the battle is about. Many hard words have been uttered, and I have authored a good deal of them. There is every chance that it will go on, regretfully. And as it has been suggested to agree to disagree, this is the explanation I offer for not accepting my counterparts stance as a legitimate one.

The best,
Fisherman

[Jane Welland]

No..

Sorry Fisherman, agreeing to disagree isn't going to work-that should be clear by now. I think a third opinion is a good idea-with total transparency, of course, though I suspect it will remain theoretical. I sense reluctance from you though, I think. Why should that be? Surely if you are certain of your position then a third, fourth, fifth opinion etc, should not concern you? If the match is so strong and convincing, future analysis will only serve to confirm that, yes? Best regards, Jane x

[The Good Michael]

Jane,

With the information available, and even the original documents, no one is going to say that Hutch and Toppy are the same man. No one would risk their reputation by being so certain. So, what will we get out of, say 3 more opinions all saying, "why we think this is the same man, but there's always a chance it's not"? The foundation of Toppy- isn't- Hutch rests upon opinions that Hutchinson lied, was seen by Lewis, and must be the murderer of Kelly with absolutely no evidence for that conjecture. That scenario is so deeply rooted for reasons unfathomable to me, such as any scenario that is unflappable to someone is likewise, unfathomable, that the Hutch is Guilty side will not change their stance. Too much is invested in it. Of course if Toppy is the witness, that doesn't mean he wasn't guilty, but it throws a wrench into things when a family man is a suspect and has no criminal record, and hasn't commited a crime that we know. That camp can always scream "alias". There is nothing that can be done, save a lobotomy that can change things. Fisherman got all he could from his expert. We don't know what the other expert, the 'world renowned' expert looked at exactly, but we do know she didn't see all the census signatures purportedly by Hutchinson, and she isn't coming out of her office to tell us anytime soon, which may be an admission of error, for all I know.

Anyway, just as it must be true because 'the Bible says so', so is Hutchinson's guilt because a book said so. It's ludicrous and offensive to existing members of the family who won't come forward either because (they say) their father (Reg) has been attacked. I agree with them as well.

Cheers,

Mike

[richardnunweek]

Hello Mike.
I Absolutely agree, what leaves a sour taste in my mouth at the moment ,
is the sarcasim, and hostility, between certain posters, which I find so annoying.
Everyone of us has convictions, but the amount of venom spat around this thread had surprised even me, especially from Jenny, who seems to have really found her feet on Casebook, and i feel needs to 'cool' it a bit.
Back to the handwriting, a third opinion, or we shall always remain hostile, even another expert i feel, would still not settle the matter however.
Regards Richard.

[Cap'n Jack]

A most distressing typo it is indeed, Fisherman... I really must get my eyes looked at as a matter of urgency.