Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[David Orsam]

I suppose one can only admire the bare faced cheek of someone who accuses a probably totally honest jeweller of buying and selling stolen property and of lying about it now exploding with moral outrage at the idea that someone could possibly accuse the late Robbie Johnson of being involved in a money making scam!

The same person basically asks: Tell me how the scratches could have been put on the watch? And then when an explanation is provided says, "How dare you provide the explanation"!!!!

It's diary logic at it's very finest.

Equally as amusing is the attempt to wriggle out of the implication that the jeweller knowingly bought and sold stolen property. Now we are told that he believed it to be a completely honest transaction but suddenly, when asked where the watch came from by Albert, in order to assist him in a legitimate attempt to trace its provenance back to Maybrick and Jack the Ripper, he becomes "worried" and decides to tell a wholly unnecessary lie which he then repeats in a written statement and not only that but he involves his wife and his father-in-law suffering with dementia in his little conspiracy, getting them to tell a lie which was completely unnecessary in the first place!

And I think I was very clear. The only reason I suggested that the jeweller might have falsely said he saw the scratches at the behest of Robbie and/or Albert was because we were being told by a Diary Defender he that he was a dishonest person who dealt in stolen property and lied about it. If he is not a dishonest person who dealt in stolen property and lied about it then I would come up with another theory to explain the apparent discrepancies in his statement but the Diary Defenders first need to work out whether Mr Murphy was honest or dishonest.

[David Orsam]

So Maybrick signed the diary, got up from his sick bed, fetched a claw hammer, tore nails out of a floorboard, prised it up, secreted the diary [biscuit tin optional], hammered the floorboard back into place without attracting any attention, and then returned to his sick bed to die?

Have I got this scenario vaguely correct?

Given that I keep reading that Maybrick was a dying man who must have got out of his sick bed to put the diary under the floorboards, I really feel I must knock this idea on the head - as no-one else seems to want to do it.

On 3 May 1889, when Maybrick supposedly signed his diary as "Jack the Ripper", he got dressed, left his house and went to his office (as proved by the evidence at Florence's trial). So he would have been perfectly capable of lifting a floorboard or two that day had he wanted to.

What he was not capable of, however, not being a time traveller, was writing a sentence which contained the expression "one off instance".

[Simon Wood]

Hi David,

As a Maybrick Diary denier you surely do run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.

The Trial of Mrs Maybrick.

The Judge's Summing Up.

"His last attendance at the office was on Friday morning, the 3rd May. He returned to his house from the office and took to his bed on that day. Then comes an interval from the 3rd May to the 11th May, a week and a day, during which he suffered with various symptoms which you have heard so much about, and he died about half past eight in the evening of the 11th May."

And during this time he signed the diary, fetched a claw hammer, tore nails out of a floorboard, prised it up, secreted the diary [biscuit tin optional], hammered the floorboard back into place without attracting any attention, and then returned to his sick bed to die.

Regards,

Simon

[John G]

Nope, still not right.

However, the articles were trivial in character, and it is therefore submitted that they do not attest to Mike's literacy skills, or lack thereof. Additionally, we have no idea how much of the work was written by Mike, considering the articles may have been heavily edited by his wife.

[caz]

For the avoidance of doubt, the sentence:

"You have two one-off instances, with the clearest possible connection to Maybrick and his place of death, not only in the same century, decade, year, month or week, but on the one day in March 1992"

was not written by me, even though the quote function has been used to suggest I wrote it.

That's a bare-faced lie, David.

If you used the quote function and my name like an adult and not an insecure adolescent with a phobia, there'd be a lot less doubt over who said what. The bloody thing was in speech marks within your post, and if that wasn't enough, the very first words of my own post on the subject were:

I stand by the above statement of mine, David...

If there's any sleight of hand going on here, it's yours, in your relentless campaign to accuse me of anything you fondly think you can get away with. And everyone with basic reading ability now knows it if they didn't before. How silly was that?

I have no doubt that the author of that sentence stands by it. I wasn't suggesting anything to the contrary. In fact, that was my very point. I was saying that it wasn't correct or proper to qualify my statement that "she strongly believes that Barrett was presented with a diary of JTR on 9 March 1992 about which he was told absolutely nothing..." by saying 'It's more a case of not having seen any reliable evidence that demonstrates otherwise."

Which is why I repeat the need to quote another poster's words directly from a post they have written themselves or it's just pointless. I was qualifying your statement, as you admit above. If I have never actually written the words:

I strongly believe that Barrett was presented with a diary of JTR on 9 March 1992 about which he was told absolutely nothing...,

all you are doing is paraphrasing something you imagine you remember me writing, thus setting what you assume is my current position in stone, using your own carving tools, then arguing that it's not correct or proper to qualify this, even though it was never my statement to begin with!

If, however, you have found an actual quote of mine saying exactly this [no deviation allowed in your world, not even by a single word] perhaps you'd have the common decency to use the quote function to prove it and include the date of my post, so you can change your accusation to one of having a mind that is capable of wavering between quite sure and less sure, and admitting this openly.

That qualification was just written to be disagreeable and argumentative and to show an unwillingness to accept anything I post as correct even though it was plainly correct.

Goodness, what an ego! It was written by me to clarify my position at the time of writing, because believe it or not, I don't need anyone - least of all you - to do it for me, or imagine they know my mind better on any given day than I do. I realise you can't often have to deal with someone who doesn't hang on your every word, so it must be a strange and uncomfortable experience for you, and one you seem only capable of putting down to the other person being a Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, purely for the sake of annoying you.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I'm fairly sure I already set out the evidence that the floorboards were lifted in July but I'll repeat it with the addition of some bold for the hard of reading:

If Eddie Lyons remembers lifting floorboards in Battlecrease, and the only record we have of him working in Battlecrease is in July 1992, then one interpretation of that evidence is that Eddie did lift floorboards in Battlecrease in July 1992.

As I'm quite certain I mentioned in my last post, I have seen it stated as fact many times that no floorboards were lifted in July but where is the actual evidence of this?

But where is this interpretation of yours ever going to go, unless or until you can show positive evidence of a single floorboard being lifted in the July?

No evidence is no evidence, David. What documentary evidence would you expect to see for something not happening? You may as well ask where is the actual evidence for Eddie not sneaking off upstairs by himself in the July, when he was supposed to be working on the ground floor, and lifting a floorboard for no other reason than to see if there was anything there worth pinching. Isn't that much the same as asking where is the actual evidence that he was elsewhere on March 9th, and not helping out with the actual job being done that day on the first floor?

Why is it perfectly fine for you to interpret evidence one way, until someone can prove to your satisfaction that it couldn't have happened, but a mortal sin if anyone else dares interpret it another way, when there is equally no evidence disproving it?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Now let me see if I've got this right. Portus & Rhodes could only work on one contract at a time? When the work started in Battlecrease the work at Skelmersdale had to stop? Can that possibly be right?

The Skelmersdale time sheets, covering the week from Wednesday 4th to Tuesday 10th March 1992, and the week from Wednesday 11th to Tuesday 17th March 1992, show categorically that no work was charged for on Sunday 8th, Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th, Wednesday 11th or Thursday 12th. All the other Skelmersdale time sheets, right from Friday 1st December 1991 to Tuesday 3rd March, and then again from Friday 13th to the end of the contract on Friday 20th March, show at least two men working there full time [with Sundays off] and often three or four.

The only 7 Riversdale Rd time sheet covering any of this period is for the week ending Tuesday 10th March, when work was only charged for on Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th.

That's what the evidence shows, David. If work was continuing at Skelmersdale on the days when none was actually charged for, they got a freebee unless you have some other explanation. Other work could have been going on somewhere else, but the fact remains it was not on the Skelmersdale contract according to the time sheets for that job.

So what were Graham Rhodes, Alan Davies and Brian Rawes doing between 9th March and 13th March?

You tell me, David. What were they and all the others doing on the days they weren't named on either the Skelmersdale or Riversdale Rd sheets?

Were they all down at Battlecrease helping out on 9th March? Was every electrician employed by Portus & Rhodes down there? If not, what were they doing?

Again, you tell me. Colin Rhodes couldn't think why Eddie's name was absent from the Skelmersdale sheets for Friday 13th March and beyond, and he also said he didn't like paying his men to 'kick their heels' round the office in between jobs, so would sometimes send them off to help out on jobs allocated to other employees. Unless this was simply not true and he was seriously confused about his own work practices, or had some other time sheets tucked away, covering other jobs around the same period, which he had forgotten about or didn't think might be relevant [despite the unresolved question mark raised over Eddie's absence], I see no reason to disregard any of this as not worthy of further consideration.

And if the work stopped at Battlecrease on 10th March why did work at Skelmersdale not resume on 11th March?

Again, you tell me. We have no evidence currently that Eddie, Jim Bowling or Graham Rhodes were tied up elsewhere. They had been the main Skelmersdale crew, but only Jim and Graham appear on the sheet for Friday 13th March, the first day back there after all three put in 8 hours on Saturday 7th. It's possible that the contract was scheduled not to resume until the Friday, and Colin was able to fit the Battlecrease wiring job into the four day gap.

And what is being said about Eddie's "unexplained absence" after 9th March? That he was supposed to have been working but didn't tell his employers what he was doing? And what was he supposed to have been doing all those days? Research on the diary? Negotiating with Mike to sell it? What?

Who knows? Only Eddie, presumably, if he remembers and has nothing to hide. Colin expressed surprise when he saw the time sheets again with Keith in 2004 and noticed his name, which had appeared previously, Monday to Saturday, week in week out, was not there after 7th March for whatever reason. He could have just gone sick with a heavy cold for all I know. March can be a cruel month.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

But asking me if I have ever written anything without a reason is utterly pointless. I've never forged a diary. Asking me if I know anybody who has done it is equally pointless because I don't know anyone whose forged a diary.

Your professed ignorance on the subject is touching, David.

But I'll tell you what, here I go. Here is the diary of M.J. Druitt which I found under one of my floorboards this morning.

11th October 1888

Got called up to see the Head. He wasn't happy at the events of last night. Peter said I was a bloody fool. I have all the memories of last month. Not sure if I want to do it again. The tea they gave me afterwards wasn't very nice. I think my mother once told me what to do in situations like this but I can't repeat it to anyone. Mind you, they'd probably just laugh. Stephen gave me a call in the afternoon. He invited me round to The Mallows but I'm not sure I'll be able to make it. There was a terrible incident involving the girls but it's all been hushed up now. The twins made sure of it. A one off instance they assured me. I'm planning to go to Blackfriars later in the year to see the members of the "Society" but I'm a little bit frightened by them and might ask my brother for advice. I think November will be a better month for me but I never usually like the weather.

Have I ever written anything without having a reason for writing each and every word? Oh yes!

Very nice, David! But I have to assume you gave some thought to the above and chose every word with care, and didn't just put down the first thing that entered your head, because your 'one off instance' is clear evidence of it.

I was disappointed not to see you toeing the Hainsworth line and including a little hint about telling Peter, Stephen or the twins that you were 'going abroad' and thought Australia might be a good deal more therapeutic than mid Thames in midwinter.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi David,

As a Maybrick Diary denier you surely do run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.

The Trial of Mrs Maybrick.

The Judge's Summing Up.

"His last attendance at the office was on Friday morning, the 3rd May. He returned to his house from the office and took to his bed on that day. Then comes an interval from the 3rd May to the 11th May, a week and a day, during which he suffered with various symptoms which you have heard so much about, and he died about half past eight in the evening of the 11th May."

And during this time he signed the diary, fetched a claw hammer, tore nails out of a floorboard, prised it up, secreted the diary [biscuit tin optional], hammered the floorboard back into place without attracting any attention, and then returned to his sick bed to die.

Regards,

Simon

hi Simon
for what its worth, this part of the diary defending ive never had a problem with and have stated so. many people already have secret hiding places in there house to stash stuff so perhaps he already had it and used it previously for that purpose. ie-no tearing up floorboards with hammer and nails etc.

my problem with this scenario is the author clearly states he wants it to be found. so why would he hide somewhere where it would probably never be found? he would have just thrown it in a drawer, or left a note with someone where to find it once he passed.

[Abby Normal]

Your professed ignorance on the subject is touching, David.



Very nice, David! But I have to assume you gave some thought to the above and chose every word with care, and didn't just put down the first thing that entered your head, because your 'one off instance' is clear evidence of it.

I was disappointed not to see you toeing the Hainsworth line and including a little hint about telling Peter, Stephen or the twins that you were 'going abroad' and thought Australia might be a good deal more therapeutic than mid Thames in midwinter.

Love,

Caz
X

hi Caz

I was disappointed not to see you toeing the Hainsworth line and including a little hint about telling Peter, Stephen or the twins that you were 'going abroad' and thought Australia might be a good deal more therapeutic than mid Thames in midwinter.

now that was funny

[caz]

My point that Mike could not have known that the diary he had supposedly been shown on 9th March was genuinely from the right period has apparently been accepted but we are told that it "Makes sense to me that he would be hoping the physical book was right for the only date inside - May 1889 - and therefore he'd want to know if diaries genuinely from the 1880s were easy to obtain". Well it might make sense to someone in a lunatic asylum but outside of those padded walls real people don't start carrying out investigations of fakes by trying to buy their own materials for making those fakes, especially when they don't even know if the material used in the fake was genuinely from the period or not.

It all sounds utterly crazy to me.

But arguably not in the same league as someone crazy enough to claim he is a member of MI5; to claim he foiled an IRA attack and was awarded the Queen's medal for gallantry; to pretend to be dying within the hour; and to say he is going to live in Russia and America.

Even this pales into insignificance when one considers that he failed to do what any other self-respecting lunatic does when trying to interest a publisher in their hoax. Mike failed to take his recently hoaxed diary back to Outhwaite & Litherland to show them his handiwork and pester them with questions about the book's origins. What was he thinking? Was he pretending to be sane at that point? Not so Albert and Robbie, who are meant to have escaped from their padded cells to take their recently hoaxed watch back to the jeweller whence it came, to show him their handiwork and to pester him with questions about the watch, its history and the markings they had put inside it.

I have said time and time again that Mike only knew that he wasn't going to be able to use the 1891 diary once he had received it.

You can say it a million times, David. It still won't make it a fact that he was ever going to 'use' this diary for his own forgery purposes, even if it had had James Maybrick's name engraved on the front in gold letters, the years 1888 and 1889 printed on it, and contained a hundred pages, all blank.

And once the 1891 diary arrived, Mike knew that his advertisement hadn't produced any positive results but it wasn't so much the wording of the advertisement that was the problem...

I thought the wording was supposed to be perfect for forgery purposes and not a problem at all. How did 'it wasn't so much' creep in? Evidence that you too can moderate your previous statements when you choose to do so?

...than the fact that there were evidently no suitable diaries available via Martin Earl in that time period.

So the problem was more to do with the lack of availability, and not so much to do with the wording, where previously you insisted it had nothing to do with the wording. Onwards and upwards.

Had suitable diaries been available, the wording of the advertisement was absolutely perfect to attract them. The failure was not in the wording but in the lack of Victorian diaries for sale in the bookdealing community.

Deflated. Back to square one.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

hi Caz

now that was funny

Thank you kindly, Abby. I do try.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

People who are reading my posts properly will know that I already explained what I think was going on with Caroline. I did it in #1344 when I quoted Melvin Harris on the subject.

The only point I have been making here is that the theory that young Caroline overheard conversations in March 1992 between her father and another man about the Diary which she thought were conversations between her father and the late Tony Devereux is pure nonsense and does not fit with what Caroline told researchers about those conversations.

But you brought up Shirley Harrison's claim that young Caroline recalled her Dad going to Tony's house and pestering him about the diary's origins - something you don't believe ever happened, despite your own assurances that she MUST have recalled both [anyone confused yet?], and you appeared to concede that the source of Tony's actual words, as quoted by Shirley, may have been Mike - because I think you and I both know perfectly well that whatever Melvin Harris thought about it, even he wouldn't have been mad enough to suggest she had been rehearsed at the age of eleven to trot out those words if and when she was asked to 'recall' her Dad's pestering of Tony.

But do feel free to explain how your theory about Mike's acquisition of first the little red diary followed closely by the guardbook, both in late March 1992, does fit with what young Caroline told researchers about overheard conversations with Tony at any time. I'm all ears. Or more accurately in my case, eyes.

And I'd still like to see some response to my observation that the Barretts happily invited young Caroline to accompany her Dad down to London in June 1992 for the auction for the diary publishing rights.

Now do you believe she really witnessed her parents only weeks before, in early April, transferring their little hoax into the guardbook which Mike had only just brought home to Goldie Street [as per his January 1995 affidavit], while knowing perfectly well that Tony had died the previous summer and didn't have any "fvcking nerves" left for her Dad to get on, much less any information about this same book? Or do you think she was clueless about one thing and not the other? Or do you allow for her not being entirely sure - or bothered - about anything going on in her parents' lives over recent weeks or months, because in common with other girls of that age [and yes, even I was eleven once, back at the dawn of time], she may have been just a tad more concerned with what was going on in her own life?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

hi Simon
for what its worth, this part of the diary defending ive never had a problem with and have stated so. many people already have secret hiding places in there house to stash stuff so perhaps he already had it and used it previously for that purpose. ie-no tearing up floorboards with hammer and nails etc.

my problem with this scenario is the author clearly states he wants it to be found. so why would he hide somewhere where it would probably never be found? he would have just thrown it in a drawer, or left a note with someone where to find it once he passed.

Hi Abby,

That assumes he'd have been near enough to a drawer, or was able to leave a note with someone he could trust not to look inside it while he was still alive.

If a floorboard under, or very close to his bed, had been used before for hiding things, he'd have considered it safe enough from prying eyes while he was alive, especially while on his death bed, but it would also be relatively easy to lift, so that anyone noticing it wasn't firmly nailed down like the others might be curious to find out why.

Purely hypothetical, but some people like to put hypothetical obstacles up that needn't apply.

Love,

Caz
X

[Elamarna]

woken from my slumber

This just goes on and on and on.

There is really only one question.

Caz do you beleive that Maybrick wrote the diary?

If the answer is yes then carry on. If however the answer is no ( and I have read all these tideious posts, so have a good idea about the answer) then all this is an irrelevance.
If James Maybrick did not write the document it is by definition A FAKE.

It does not matter at all if it is modern or old, it's will still have no factual bearing the Whitechapel killer.

I am aware of about 3 regular posters who still beleive it is genuine, several others are still sitting on the fence. That should be the only debate.

The effort put in by those claiming it is old is truly remarkable and I reluctantly am forced to wonder if this is not a smoke screen, to disguise the fact that they really do beleive it is genuine but just won't say so.

If I offend any friends by those comments, so be it.
But this continual back and forth has not moved a single pixel on the screen in either direction and is unlikely ever to.

I will now return to completing Bucks Row.

Steve