Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[rjpalmer]

Perhaps because "Abberline" is a more telegenic (cine-genic?) name than boring old "Reid" and "Arnold", so it's Abberline who gets to be the star detective in TV dramas or movies about the case.

Years ago it was wondered if the Diary's phrase

Sir Jim with his fancy cane

may have been an inside joke and a triple entendre--a pun on Caine [from the miniseries] and Kane, the alleged penman.

[Mike J. G.]

But that, my dear chap, is precisely what you do to all and any poster who disagrees with what you write! If you can't see that, well.....

And so you HAVEN'T read anything that Mike Barrett had published, then? Having seen examples of his writing style, if that's the correct word, I can assure you that someone - could have been Anne - cleaned up his articles prior to publication, with regard to syntax, spelling, etc. Now you'll be crawling all over me saying, "Nah, naaah, told you so! You're admitting that Mike Barrett could have conceived and draft-written the Diary, and that Anne could have 'cleaned it up' on their processor!" Well, no. I defend what I said. Mike Barrett may well have obtained the Diary, but I cannot accept that he conceived and wrote it. Erobitha's Post No 1958 is laudable and should be read carefully by one and all.

Graham

The answer to your question is yes, I've seen Mike's published work, and I provided a link to this, courtesy of David Orsam, yet you seem disinterested in reading it. I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest Mike, with or without Anne, could not conceive of and write the diary. Likewise, I've seen nothing in the diary that couldn't be conceived or written by Mike. The pro-diary crowd said for years that Mike wasn't a writer, yet he was, and he was obviously deemed capable enough to interview "celebrities," so this perception you have of Mike, IMO, is naive and simplistic. If you're in any way interested in hoaxes, you'd see how Mike fits the part of the hoaxer quite well.

Erobitha's post in 1958 is factually incorrect, as pointed out by me in my last post which you've apparently ignored.


As for me ignoring any questions, can you please post them up here for me, as I've never, to my knowledge, ignored any questions from you or anyone else, I actually try to take the time to address anything people post in my direction, a courtesy that isn't returned, oddly.

[Sam Flynn]

What about Maybrick's obsession with Abberline when Abberline was rarely mentioned in the press?

Perhaps because "Abberline" is a more telegenic (cine-genic?) name than boring old "Reid" and "Arnold", so it's Abberline who gets to be the star detective in TV dramas or movies about the case.

[Scott Nelson]

What about Maybrick's obsession with Abberline when Abberline was rarely mentioned in the press?

And there's still Harry, George and Michael to consider.

[Graham]

Of everything I've ever posted, all you and Graham seem to do is question it, which leads me to answer it, and then you basically ignore what I post and pretend it never happened. I ask you both questions and you avoid them like the plague

But that, my dear chap, is precisely what you do to all and any poster who disagrees with what you write! If you can't see that, well.....

And so you HAVEN'T read anything that Mike Barrett had published, then? Having seen examples of his writing style, if that's the correct word, I can assure you that someone - could have been Anne - cleaned up his articles prior to publication, with regard to syntax, spelling, etc. Now you'll be crawling all over me saying, "Nah, naaah, told you so! You're admitting that Mike Barrett could have conceived and draft-written the Diary, and that Anne could have 'cleaned it up' on their processor!" Well, no. I defend what I said. Mike Barrett may well have obtained the Diary, but I cannot accept that he conceived and wrote it. Erobitha's Post No 1958 is laudable and should be read carefully by one and all.

Graham

[Abby Normal]

The internet is a wonderful breeding ground for tribalism. You are either in one camp or the other - there apparently is no in between.

For what it is worth, and being from a line of actual police detectives - I can assure you nothing is impossible. Everything is possible.

Park your feelings and conjecture and examine the facts and you must like me can only be open minded to the possibility of the Maybrick document being genuine.

- it has not been scientifically disproven or proven either way via numerous paper and ink testing
- it contains at least two references which simply could not have been known by a forger pre 1987
- Intimate knowledge of the household such Evelyn’s illness and Sir Jim could only be found via documentation that was locked away in American archives which were never accessed only until recently by researchers

These are not opinions - these are facts so the improbable remains probable. Either it is indeed a modern forgery by someone who had access to intimate household knowledge not previously known by the public or it is genuine.

Then the watch throws up something different altogether. Even the much missed Martin Fido admitted that the science on the watch troubled him. The results of which stated in no doubt that the engravings are many decades old.

The evidence therefore weighs just in favor of the diary and watch being genuine as one supports the other and cannot be independently dismissed by science.

The diary continues to ask more questions as time passes than it answers and therefore we have to be open to the improbable - either way.

hi ero
the answers to these questions/ comments are all on here or more specifically on Lord Orsams website (just google Orsam Books). he has many articles, comments, snippets to these questions and many others. His writings on the subject really is the last word IMHO that should have finally put this silly diary to bed once and for all. Plus there is a lot of great research on other ripper related/true crime issues. his site really is must read for ripper related stuff. brilliant work by an "outsider"!
Great sense of humor too.

[Mike J. G.]

The internet is a wonderful breeding ground for tribalism. You are either in one camp or the other - there apparently is no in between.

For what it is worth, and being from a line of actual police detectives - I can assure you nothing is impossible. Everything is possible.

Park your feelings and conjecture and examine the facts and you must like me can only be open minded to the possibility of the Maybrick document being genuine.

- it has not been scientifically disproven or proven either way via numerous paper and ink testing
- it contains at least two references which simply could not have been known by a forger pre 1987
- Intimate knowledge of the household such Evelyn’s illness and Sir Jim could only be found via documentation that was locked away in American archives which were never accessed only until recently by researchers

These are not opinions - these are facts so the improbable remains probable. Either it is indeed a modern forgery by someone who had access to intimate household knowledge not previously known by the public or it is genuine.

Then the watch throws up something different altogether. Even the much missed Martin Fido admitted that the science on the watch troubled him. The results of which stated in no doubt that the engravings are many decades old.

The evidence therefore weighs just in favor of the diary and watch being genuine as one supports the other and cannot be independently dismissed by science.

The diary continues to ask more questions as time passes than it answers and therefore we have to be open to the improbable - either way.

I'm not sure how anyone could profess to having had history within the police and then say most of these things, and that's not an insult, it's a genuinely perplexed opinion.

The ink was shown to be consistent with a modern time-frame, with others stating it could be older, but seeing as we already have well-documented examples of forgeries appearing to fool the experts at a glance, coupled with the fact that ink can and has been aged many times before, should make you take pause, unless you only subscribe to far-out theories over more mundane truths, with isn't consistent with police work, in my humble opinion.

As for the "facts" concerning details not being available, did everyone forget Orsam's research, or did they just totally ignore it?

To borrow from Orsam's work:

Gladys Unwell Again

Robert Smith notes a number of features of the Diary which he thinks that a modern forger could not have known which, according to him, shows the Diary is a genuine document. I won't deal with all of them but will select the most important examples for comment.

Probably the most important is the entry in the Diary that says:

'My dearest Gladys is unwell yet again.'

Smith refers us to Shirley Harrison who tells us that the only source for Gladys being unwell 'again' is a letter from Margaret Baillie to Florence Maybrick dated 13 April 1889 which contains the sentence 'I'm sorry that your little girl has been unwell again'. Thus, Harrison says confidently in her 2010 book, 'The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick':

'There is no other source for the information that Gladys was repeatedly sick.'

The Margaret Baillie letter is in a file in the National Archives and, it is claimed, was never made public or published prior to March 1992 apart from by J.H. Levy who, we are told (by Harrison), 'transcribed' the sentence incorrectly so that it reads 'I am sorry about your little girl'.

In point of fact, Levy transcribed nothing because that Margaret Baillie letter of 13 April 1889 was read out in its entirety by counsel for the prosecution at Florence's trial on 31 July 1889, and the exact same line, i.e. 'I'm sorry about your little girl', was published in both the Liverpool Echo of 31 July 1889 and the Liverpool Daily Post of 1 August 1889 when reporting the opening speech. As we shall see, the error was not made by the prosecution counsel but by the reporter for the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post (who appears to have been the same person). Levy was simply repeating this error when he published a transcript of the trial, as did H.B. Irving in his own reproduction of the trial transcript in 1912 within the Notable Trials series.

...

You can read the rest of this information here: https://www.orsam.co.uk/maybrickthefalsefacts.htm It covers the "Sir Jim" issue and many others, but like I said, maybe some would prefer to simply ignore it.

How anyone can ignore the fact that the diary contains factual errors, both literary and historical, is beyond me, but I guess I'm not a policeman, so what would I know? I'm just a bloke applying critical thinking, something I thought they did in the police, Occam's Razor, and all that. There's an abundance of evidence pointing towards hoax, and virtually none pointing to "genuine," but hey-ho, whatever floats your boat, innit.

[erobitha]

The internet is a wonderful breeding ground for tribalism. You are either in one camp or the other - there apparently is no in between.

For what it is worth, and being from a line of actual police detectives - I can assure you nothing is impossible. Everything is possible.

Park your feelings and conjecture and examine the facts and you must like me can only be open minded to the possibility of the Maybrick document being genuine.

- it has not been scientifically disproven or proven either way via numerous paper and ink testing
- it contains at least two references which simply could not have been known by a forger pre 1987
- Intimate knowledge of the household such Evelyn’s illness and Sir Jim could only be found via documentation that was locked away in American archives which were never accessed only until recently by researchers

These are not opinions - these are facts so the improbable remains probable. Either it is indeed a modern forgery by someone who had access to intimate household knowledge not previously known by the public or it is genuine.

Then the watch throws up something different altogether. Even the much missed Martin Fido admitted that the science on the watch troubled him. The results of which stated in no doubt that the engravings are many decades old.

The evidence therefore weighs just in favor of the diary and watch being genuine as one supports the other and cannot be independently dismissed by science.

The diary continues to ask more questions as time passes than it answers and therefore we have to be open to the improbable - either way.

[jmenges]

Please everyone try to keep the personal attacks out of the debate. Calling each other trolls, empty noggins and maroons serves only one purpose, to get you an infraction. It’s against the rules.

JM

[Mike J. G.]

I believe Mike Barrett published for Celebrity Magazine, and did a few interviews along the way, one being with Bonnie Langford. Orsam notes that Mike's first credited interview was published in 1986. - https://www.orsam.co.uk/maybrickthefalsefacts.htm

So yeah, that pretty much puts to bed any notion that Mike was a simpleton Scouser, unable to string a coherent sentence together, versus the sheer literally brilliance that is "the diary," lol. The diary wasn't exactly written by a budding Mark Twain.

So, Mike Barrett, a writer, seeks a Victorian-era diary with missing pages, then out of the blue, he comes across the never-before-seen diary of a never-before-considered Ripper suspect, in which the writer strongly implies himself to be the murderer that nobody could ever find. What a truly fantastic coincidence! Almost as fantastic a coincidence as Maybrick being able to write in two absolutely different hands, as well as predicting such things as how a list of items would be published in a book many, many years later! Wow, I mean, just...wow. The first man to ever use the phrase "one-off" instance, and oddly even predicted the future name of the "Muck Midden" pub!

So many coincidences, eh?

[Mike J. G.]

I have no problem with Ike's posts at all, that's because regardless of what I might think of his opinions, he's always polite and good humoured and backs up his theories and thoughts with huge amounts of detail. If you're unable to see the gulf between the style of Ike's and Mike's posts, and the difference between what each brings to these here message boards, then I'll politely suggest that you've spent far too long in the company of Ripperologists...

Then you're either daft or are doing a bit of this "trolling" lark, yourself, lol.

Of everything I've ever posted, all you and Graham seem to do is question it, which leads me to answer it, and then you basically ignore what I post and pretend it never happened. I ask you both questions and you avoid them like the plague. You're as hokey as Mike Barrett's acting in that diary documentary which was obviously directed by Ricky Gervais.

[Harry D]

I have no problem with Ike's posts at all, that's because regardless of what I might think of his opinions, he's always polite and good humoured and backs up his theories and thoughts with huge amounts of detail. If you're unable to see the gulf between the style of Ike's and Mike's posts, and the difference between what each brings to these here message boards, then I'll politely suggest that you've spent far too long in the company of Ripperologists...

Ike is the biggest troll on here. It's the only reason the diary won't be put to rest because he keeps shaking the hornet's nest.

[Mike J. G.]

Let me know what your favourite tipple is, Ike, and I'll have one this very evening.

Graham

I believe he's on the Kool-Aid, mate. The giant pot of it is over there, next to the Jim Jones self-help manual.

[Mike J. G.]

Yes, big shot, but have you ever read anything that Mike Barrett wrote and had published? If you haven't - and I don't think you have otherwise you wouldn't be defending him, why don't you say so? Or are you the troll that many posters here, including me, believe you are?

Graham

Oh, you mean like what Ike does, only instead of blindly championing that the "diary" is "genuine" or that Maybrick was "the Ripper", I'm generally calling an obvious spade a spade? I see, well then yeah, you're right, I am mocking, but it appears that mockery only flies with you when it's considered to be pro-diary. Y'know what that is? Hypocrisy, contradiction, and pettiness. Concentrate on the argument and not the arguer. As for me being a troll, I'm obviously not ashamed to show my face, or my real name, albeit without my surname for reasons born out of privacy and common sense, but if you genuinely are as paranoid as you seem then send me a message and I'll send you my Facebook information so that you may weirdly stalk me. Otherwise, my name's Mike and I live in Liverpool, and that'll do for you, anonymous Graham and anonymous Steven Owl.

As for me having read anything published by Barrett, I believe Orsam posted a couple of his published articles, one being an interview he conducted, so yeah, I've read a Mike Barrett piece, but I bet you my last Rolo that you've not got anything worth a carrot when it comes to there being evidence for it having been written by literally anyone else, which is an insult to critical thinking. Congratulations.

[StevenOwl]

Strange. You have no problem when Ike does it.

I have no problem with Ike's posts at all, that's because regardless of what I might think of his opinions, he's always polite and good humoured and backs up his theories and thoughts with huge amounts of detail. If you're unable to see the gulf between the style of Ike's and Mike's posts, and the difference between what each brings to these here message boards, then I'll politely suggest that you've spent far too long in the company of Ripperologists...