Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[James_J]

Passing this along from Keith :-

To Phil Carter


Phil. If I have foolishly and unwittingly altered the meaning of your words – as you say I have – then I can but apologise most sincerely. That was never my intention. I will, of course, check back to what I wrote. Your input about Stewart’s observation genuinely has me baffled and that is why I am delaying before offering you a full response. I want to be absolutely sure that I am understanding your words clearly. Your latest post suggests that I may have misunderstood the situation.


We can draw a veil over last night. I had hoped Spurs were going to do us a favour by beating United and that would have put us second. But it didn’t quite work out like that...


I am sorry to learn that your health is not good.


Best wishes, Keith

[caz]

...it was sitting there waiting to be found, among a limited selection of volumes on a limited number of shelves, that would have faced Mike as he gazed at the small English Literature section of the library, looking for clues. And the volume he claimed to have had at home since 1989 could not have been acquired in the manner he described. It's a recurring theme with Barrett's books, isn't it?

Following on from the above, Keith has supplied this extra info on Mike's Sphere volume:

"The book to which Caroline refers is now in my possession.

On the back page, Alan Gray has written and signed the

following :-

'This book handed to me by Michael Barrett

outside his solicitors office, 8 Dale Street,

Liverpool 7 [?] on Tuesday 6th December

1994.


Mr Barrett referred me to page 184


“O’costly intercourse of Deaths” which he

says he quoted with ‘Ann Barrett’ in the

Diary of Jack The Ripper which they wrote.'


Opposite this page on the inside back cover

is written in pencil :-


'Miss Harrison Th 19 Jan 1995

Tried to get hold of Book.'


Underneath this I (KS) have written:-


'On August 10th 2004 in Liverpool

Keith Skinner paid Alan Gray £100

for this book.'"

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Well obviously the journal suggests that Maybrick liked the appellation. But that's not evidence that he actually did.

The way that the name is being used by a servant in Florence's letter clearly suggests it is slightly mocking (albeit friendly) and informal way but equally I would suggest that there is absolutely nothing unusual about it. Surely every head of every single household in the 19th century would have been referred to as "sir" by their servants. "Here you are sir", "Thank you sir", "Good night sir". It's a minor jump from one servant saying to another "Take it up to sir" and from there to "Take it up to Sir [First name]".

There's no reason to think that the real Maybrick would ever have been aware of this or that there is any connection between that comment and the way the author of the diary refers to himself which, as Sam Flynn has pointed out, seems to be based on Queen Victoria honouring him with a knighthood for services to murdering so that he says "I can now rise Sir Jim".

Are you sitting down everyone?

I completely agree with David's reasoning here.

I would add that in Victorian times I don't think it was unusual for the master of the house to expect even his own children to address him as "sir". Certainly that's how any servants would have addressed him to his face, but he'd have been an idiot not to imagine this respect might not extend to when they were below stairs, safely out of earshot.

If Alice Yapp, or any of the household, routinely referred to JM as "Sir James" when not in the same room, it's entirely possible that he'd have been aware of it, but that's not to say he'd have been pleased about it, much less that he'd have adopted it for himself in his private journal.

My personal hunch is that "Sir Jim" was merely a device used by his creator to make JM appear even more jumped-up than he really was, and to give him delusions of grandeur in keeping with the dastardly Jack the Ripper as portrayed in the diary.

The one thing that might make sense is if Yapp used it mockingly, or insolently, when the real JM got a bit too big for his boots, and the diary author independently felt he was ripe for taking down a peg or three and crafted a "Sir Jim/Jack" caricature to their desired effect.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

duplicate post - sorry

[caz]

"People are fooled because they are receptive to being fooled." - Jeremy Beadle

Hi Cris,

Ironic, when you think of Jeremy's opinions of both the diary and watch.

He was another 'crackpot' who thought people were fooled into believing Mike Barrett's forgery claims because they were receptive to being so fooled.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Keith. It's difficult not to notice that there has been little or no discussion about post #150. The image of a 10-foot pole comes to mind, but perhaps that's just me. Howard Brown reprinted the same quote on his website, but the only response I've yet seen by any "diary friendly" theorist is that, for some unfathomable reason, Paul Dodd is lying about the work done on his own house. Any comments? The quote is from Shirley Harrison (American Connection, 2003) based on her interviews with Dodd.

"Paul was adamant. The house was originally gaslit and converted to electricity in the 1920s. It was re-wired when his father bought it in 1946 and again in 1977 when Paul himself had gutted the place and lifted the floor boards. Had anything been hidden, he was sure that he would have found it then."

If the house was 'gutted' in 1977, why would anyone expect to find a biscuit tin or a large book under the floorboards in 1992? Cheers.

Hi rj,

It seems to depend on who is asking Paul Dodd and when.

On another occasion he was saying that Maybrick's old bedroom on the first floor had been left untouched until he got Portus & Rhodes in to do the underfloor wiring job for the storage heaters - which we know from Colin Rhodes and his own company records was not until March 1992 - Monday 9th, to be precise.

If this is true, Dodd couldn't have 'gutted' the entire building in 1977, or lifted every single floorboard in the house. Which version is likely to be closer to the truth? You tell me.

As always, it isn't just the suspicious characters in this saga who have given contradictory accounts for whatever reason.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Can anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reference I can find to any objects being found on the ground at the scene concerns some buttons found in the clotted blood on the ground after she was removed. The fact that this was considered noteworthy suggests to me that her other belongings were not removed from her various pockets by the killer, let alone opened up and their contents examined. For me the 'tin box empty' segment is every bit as damning as 'one off instance'. For me that kills not only Maybrick's authorship but also the old forgery idea.

The idea in the diary seems to be that "Sir Jim" was hoping to find matches in this box [whoever it belonged to] and was disappointed: 'damn it, the tin box was empty'. Did he want to light up a cigarette or the scene of crime - or both?

It's certainly a stretch to imagine the killer putting this box in one of his victim's pockets after killing her, but why would this be the obvious, or only option? Surely it's at least possible that he offered Eddowes a cigarette on their way to Mitre Square, from the red leather case also found among her possessions, and ended up giving her both the case and the tin box, by then empty, which she pocketed before he struck.

This seems to be the kind of scenario our diarist was hinting at, but of course they had to know about the tin box from somewhere, so it is a problem for those of us who favour a pre-1987 document. All I'd say is that the information has always been there from day one, and would have been known about by x number of individuals, regardless of when it was first made available to everyone.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

...I'm driven to the conclusion that it is indeed totally meaningless (even if factually correct) to assert that there is "not a shred of evidence" that Mike did any earlier research. If he had done any, we simply wouldn't know about it and there's hardly any way we could possibly know about it. It's a bit like saying there's not a shred of evidence he ever went to the lavatory. We can't actually confirm one way or the other.

But going to the lavatory, in my experience [maybe not yours], tends to be a private affair, between the goer and the lav. Not so, going to Liverpool libraries and bookshops to bone up on both the JtR and Maybrick cases, ask questions and take notes. Which means it was entirely possible for people to have noticed and remembered if someone had been doing this over a period of time, from as early as 1990, as Mike's affidavit appears to imply.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I've wondered about this, too. Now, if Barrett was the forger it seems to me his biggest problem was lack of provenance. But let us say he found out about the electricians working at Battlecrease. Could he have approached one of them and offered them a deal, which ultimately went wrong? For instance, he offers them a share of the royalties and, in return, they make the claim they found the diary at Battlecrease, thus providing the pefect provenance. But say, the electrician(s) backs out of the conspiracy at the last minute: due to a dispute over money or, say, concerns about being accused of theft.

Does this make any sense?

Hi John,

Yes, it does - up to a point and in theory. Do you mean Mike could have found out, after he'd already contacted the literary agent, that the floorboards in Maybrick's old bedroom had coincidentally been lifted that very morning?

Or that he could have found out in advance of the job, prompting his initial phone call?

If only I could get past my scepticism about Mike as the diary's creator, or even co-creator. It just doesn't work for me, on any level.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Anyone who thinks going to the lavatory is purely private affair has obviously never used a public convenience, even though they are everywhere. There is usually one in every public house and, for men, there's usually a urinal involved which is one of the least private ways of going to the toilet that exists.

Now I'm not aware there is a shred of evidence that Mike ever visited the toilet in the Saddle, for example. No doubt if he did, people in the pub saw him going in and, as he entered, he would have walked past people coming out, he would have stood next to others at the urinal (and at the sink if he washed his hands) and then walked past others coming in as he left. All in public view. It would be ludicrous to argue that Mike never went to the toilet in the Saddle on the basis that there is not a shred of evidence he ever did so.

It's equally ludicrous to argue that he didn't do any research on the basis that there is not a shred of evidence he visited any libraries or bookshops. Anyone can walk into a public library, it's usually very quiet in there and everyone else is concentrating on what they are writing or reading themselves. Most visitors are, for all intents and purposes, invisible. You just don't get remembered by others. But even if you did, so what? Thousands of people might remember Mike Barrett going into libraries and bookshops, or even speaking to him in there, but it means nothing unless you ask them. And they might not know his name so you'd have to show them a photograph. That's if you can find them first! How would you even know who they are? Librarians might be found but do they remember everyone who has ever been in their libraries? Of course not.

That's why I said in #758 "Unless there has been a proper investigation into whether Mike carried out any private research on his own, it's surely meaningless to say there is no evidence of him doing such research isn't it?" Perhaps some people think that had Mike gone into libraries and bookshops the evidence of it would have magically appeared on its own!

And Mike might have taken notes but as we know of the ones that certainly did exist, he's destroyed them.

I could go on but all this is to state the bleedin' obvious so it's impossible to understand why I'm even wasting time posting it.

[rjpalmer]

"...[Mike] bought a word processor and launched himself into extensive research. He spent hours sifting through microfilm newspaper reports... (Shirley Harrison, 1st edition, pg 7).

There you go, Caz. First hand confirmation that Mike spent hours down at the Liverpool library. From the pen of Shirley Harrison. What could go wrong?

[Kaz]

"...[Mike] bought a word processor and launched himself into extensive research. He spent hours sifting through microfilm newspaper reports... (Shirley Harrison, 1st edition, pg 7).

Case closed then....

[John G]

Hi John,

Yes, it does - up to a point and in theory. Do you mean Mike could have found out, after he'd already contacted the literary agent, that the floorboards in Maybrick's old bedroom had coincidentally been lifted that very morning?

Or that he could have found out in advance of the job, prompting his initial phone call?

If only I could get past my scepticism about Mike as the diary's creator, or even co-creator. It just doesn't work for me, on any level.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I was thinking in advance of the job. However, something else has occurred to me to explain a possible coincidence. Perhaps Mike heard a rumour tgat something had been discovered at Battlecrease, or at least that there was work going on there. Assuming he was responsible for the hoax, he may have been thinking about phoning the agent for some time and this incident focussed his mind and gave him the impetuous to make the call. In these circumstances, there would be no substantive connection between the Battlecrease "discovery" and the call to Doreen.

Mind you, that seems a bit convoluted!

[John G]

"...[Mike] bought a word processor and launched himself into extensive research. He spent hours sifting through microfilm newspaper reports... (Shirley Harrison, 1st edition, pg 7).

There you go, Caz. First hand confirmation that Mike spent hours down at the Liverpool library. From the pen of Shirley Harrison. What could go wrong?

Was Harrison specifically referring to research into Maybrick, or just general reasearch?

[John G]

Anyone who thinks going to the lavatory is purely private affair has obviously never used a public convenience, even though they are everywhere. There is usually one in every public house and, for men, there's usually a urinal involved which is one of the least private ways of going to the toilet that exists.

Now I'm not aware there is a shred of evidence that Mike ever visited the toilet in the Saddle, for example. No doubt if he did, people in the pub saw him going in and, as he entered, he would have walked past people coming out, he would have stood next to others at the urinal (and at the sink if he washed his hands) and then walked past others coming in as he left. All in public view. It would be ludicrous to argue that Mike never went to the toilet in the Saddle on the basis that there is not a shred of evidence he ever did so.

It's equally ludicrous to argue that he didn't do any research on the basis that there is not a shred of evidence he visited any libraries or bookshops. Anyone can walk into a public library, it's usually very quiet in there and everyone else is concentrating on what they are writing or reading themselves. Most visitors are, for all intents and purposes, invisible. You just don't get remembered by others. But even if you did, so what? Thousands of people might remember Mike Barrett going into libraries and bookshops, or even speaking to him in there, but it means nothing unless you ask them. And they might not know his name so you'd have to show them a photograph. That's if you can find them first! How would you even know who they are? Librarians might be found but do they remember everyone who has ever been in their libraries? Of course not.

That's why I said in #758 "Unless there has been a proper investigation into whether Mike carried out any private research on his own, it's surely meaningless to say there is no evidence of him doing such research isn't it?" Perhaps some people think that had Mike gone into libraries and bookshops the evidence of it would have magically appeared on its own!

And Mike might have taken notes but as we know of the ones that certainly did exist, he's destroyed them.

I could go on but all this is to state the bleedin' obvious so it's impossible to understand why I'm even wasting time posting it.

Hallo David,

But surely it's incumbent on the person making the assertion to provide the proof, or at least evidence. Surely to simply argue that Mike carried out the research on the basis that there's no evidence he didn't is, ultimately, reductio ad absurdum.