25 YEARS OF THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE TRUE FACTS by Robert Smith

[caz]

The provenance has buried the diary from the get go..

Its very sad that it ever fell into mikes grubby hands.

I often wonder what would be made of it IF the electricians had just given it to the owner of battlecrease!!??

Paul Dodd would now be the one accused of faking and planting it, of course, Kaz. And it would be seen as a more sophisticated effort, in accordance with the prime suspect.

Haven't you grasped anything about how this works?

If Mike had been more like Paul Dodd - or Albert Johnson, to pick a more apt example - it might have been a tad trickier to try and pin it on him [without the luxury of a 'confession' handed on a plate to the wishful thinkers], but you can bet your last thruppence it would have been done.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Yes, and apparently James Maybrick had one. Not that it would matter if he did or didn't, because nobody in their right mind could interpret this as a serious intention to get Queen Vic on the blower.

I wonder how quickly Mike Barrett found out that Maybrick had one of these newfangled 'telling bones'?

Love,

Caz
X

OK thanks.

Not that it would matter if he did or didn't, because nobody in their right mind could interpret this as a serious intention to get Queen Vic on the blower.

whether it was serious or not is beside the point. Its whether he meant call her as in on the phone. and if that phrase is anachronistic.

[caz]

They did, although they were pretty new-fangled in the 1880s and by no means as numerous as they would later become. Be that as it may, you could well have found another anachronistic expression; I'd like to know when "giving someone a call" became part of the casual vernacular.

Edit: I found a history of telephony in Britain here http://www.britishtelephones.com/histuk.htm. It states, among other useful bits of info, that there were 13,000 telephones in use in Britain in 1884, and the first "long distance" trial took place in 1885 between London and - you guessed it - Liverpool. The Diary's lucky streak continues... even if its use of the expression "give her a call" still strikes me as potentially too "modern" for 1888.

Hi Gareth, Abby [just seen your post],

I wondered if you could use "give her a call" to mean "pay her a call", as in "pay her a visit"?

The very next line in the diary is:

"Show her my knife".

So unless the diarist had a video telephone in mind, he'd have had to pay her that call to show her his weapon, wouldn't he?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It's too clever, Mike. On a scale where your "funny little rhyme" scores 10, I'd score the diary's poems at 3, or 4 at the very most. This is purely on a comparative basis, of course, but I don't think it's an unfair comparison. The diary's poems are incredibly poor, and its prose isn't of a much better standard either.

And of course, Gareth, we all know that if you are writing a diary claiming to be a serial-killing cotton merchant of little talent, the first thing you must do is to write decent poetry and make it damned good, and the second is to write excellent prose.

Because if it ever sees the light of day that's the first thing the experts will look for.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi Gareth, Abby [just seen your post],

I wondered if you could use "give her a call" to mean "pay her a call", as in "pay her a visit"?

The very next line in the diary is:

"Show her my knife".

So unless the diarist had a video telephone in mind, he'd have had to pay her that call to show her his weapon, wouldn't he?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
Thanks-yes I was wondering about that interpretation too-like "I shall call upon her". to visit. Could be.

But just sounds so modern to me-"give her a call"

[caz]

I once convinced my mate to pull up his floorboards and go hunting with a pellet-gun for some kind of burrowing wild animal, it went on for hours and his family got involved. There were people moving furniture about and shining torches into the abyss. It was nothing more than me clicking my toes on the floor inside my boots.

People are easily fooled, by the most foolish of folk

I bet your 'mate' and his family reckon you're a laugh a minute, Mike. How they must have chuckled.

Goodness me, you're such a scally it's a wonder you don't make a mint out of creating a literary hoax of your own that'll get 'em going for the next 25 years. You sound like a natural.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

Yes, and apparently James Maybrick had one. Not that it would matter if he did or didn't, because nobody in their right mind could interpret this as a serious intention to get Queen Vic on the blower.

Indeed not, Caz. It's the diarist's glib use of the phrase "I'll give her a call" that looks suspicious. Not that long ago, some people were still using the phrases "I'll give him/her a ring" or "I'll give him/her a bell", and before those "I'll telephone him/her". To "give him/her a call" smacks of a casual familiarity with telephone technology that would not become commonplace until well into the 20th Century.

[Abby Normal]

I bet your 'mate' and his family reckon you're a laugh a minute, Mike. How they must have chuckled.

Goodness me, you're such a scally it's a wonder you don't make a mint out of creating a literary hoax of your own that'll get 'em going for the next 25 years. You sound like a natural.

Love,

Caz
X

a friend of mine had a little shack that he lived in for a while, and he had something living in the attic/rafters (not accessible via door or any other way).
The noises was driving him nuts, and one night after we had a few cocktails and trying to watch some fights on TV, the noises started again, and he absolutely lost it. He grabbed his shot gun and started blowing holes through the ceiling. It was a possum. WAS-I emphasize.

[caz]

Seems like it'd be beneficial for all for someone to track the men down, if they're still here, and hopefully they are, and ask them what the sodding deal is.

You don't say, Mike.

Nobody ever thought of doing that before. Perhaps some of us should give it a go. What do you reckon?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I may be nitpicking here, but it seems to me like a more fitting word for the period would've been shall or even possibly should/would.

I'll give her a call, to me, anyway, seems a bit modern, not super modern, but not really 1888.

Just my opinion.

I may also be nitpicking here, Mike, but it's 'I will', not 'I'll'.

Our diarist was a bit of a stranger to contractions. In fact you'll find hardly any in the text, which you may or may not find a trifle odd for anyone writing in the late 20th century and not having much of a clue. Yet they get one particular use of the humble apostrophe bang on, where even highly educated people fall down, where "Sir Jim" writes: 'I believe if chance prevails I will burn St. James's to the ground'.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sam Flynn]

One thing that has always 'bothered' me when people say that the text of the diary could easily have been composed using 2 or 3 source books is the fact that in none of them would a murder in Manchester have been mentioned. Why would a forger, knowing full well how many people in the world scrutinise and study these murders, invent another previously unknown one.

Unknown, and almost certainly undetectable. How many unsolved murders, or untraced missing people had there been in Greater Manchester alone during the relevant time period?

The diarist would have had nothing to lose by referring to a fictitious murder, or even picking a known, but unsolved, murder and attributing it to Maybrick. In fact, the "Wearside Jack" hoaxer John Humble did precisely this in 1978/79 when he claimed a Preston victim for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Indeed, it's conceivable that the "Wearside Jack" tape and letters formed part of the inspiration for the writer(s) of the Maybrick diary, and the proof may yet be out there. Perhaps one day a wax cylinder recording will turn up under the floorboards of a Liverpool flat, with a reeely thickchchch Scouse accent reciting a "funny little rhyme" on it

[Sam Flynn]

I wondered if you could use "give her a call" to mean "pay her a call", as in "pay her a visit"?

Possibly, Caz, but "give him/her a call" in any sense doesn't appear much in print before the 20th Century.

You're quite right about the next line being "Show her my knife", at least on p57 of the diary. However - thanks to the facsimile - we see that that wasn't originally the next line. On p56 we see the diarist thrashing around for a half-decent line to follow "give her a call":

who knows,
perhaps one days [sic]
I will give her a call

Shining knife
my life
honour my knife
Show her my knife
and she will honour me for life

The text in red is crossed out in the diary, so it appears that the idea of showing the knife to the Queen didn't occur immediately to the writer.

[Mike J. G.]

It would appear to be reasonably super-modern, Mike. And the manner in which it's used I find telling; it seems to be a throw-away comment, like someone today would say "I'll text her".

Not me, by the way: I send texts, I don't "text". It takes quite some time for me to accept a noun being used as a verb. For the same reason, I don't "party" either

I agree, Sam. It just doesn't seem authentic to me.

Jeez, I am a bit guilty of using nouns as verbs from time to time! lol.

[caz]

Ahh I see. Answering two simple questions is akin to miracle working huh? Well I see you certainly trying to work miracles defending this nonsense in boat loads of long posts no less. You apparently have no problem with that!

Who said your questions were 'simple', Abby?

Let me see - you did. You made an assumption on the basis of what?

I can't help you if you can't help yourself.

Love,

Caz
X

[Mike J. G.]

Abberline says, he was never amazed,
I did my work with such honour.
For his decree
he had to agree,
I deserve at least an honour so all for a whim,
I can now rise Sir Jim

[...]

Victoria, Victoria
The queen of them all.
When it comes to Sir Jack,
She knows nothing at all.
Who knows, perhaps one day
I will give her a call

Something piqued my attention here. The Queen, the corrupt Establishment, Honours being granted... The Queen knowing 'nothing at all' - and the word 'decree'. Had someone recently watched the excellent 1979 Ripper movie Murder By Decree perhaps, before penning this doggerel? Just a passing thought.

And would a Victorian not have described Victoria as 'Queen of us all'? Who does he mean by 'them'? Not.... the Victorians.... surely?

I guess the intention could've been to imply that the queen was not his queen, but the queen of the people. I'd guess it's an attempt to separate himself from everyone else.