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

[Graham]

First he'd have to prove he was the angel Gabriel, then he'd have to prove God was God and then he'd have to prove the signature was Gods before I'd lend credence.

I did say I'm Jewish, Ally, and I'll know the Angel Gabriel when I see him. Also, I do have God's signature on one of His post-dated cheques.

Graham

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock, the Post Office Tavern was never known as the Poste House, why some of you keep ignoring this glaring fact is something I can't fathom.

The "e" should be a giveaway, seeing as the Post Office Tavern didn't include an "e", but the well-known pub called the "Poste House" did/does.

If we're going to start making up random facts about pubs for the sake of excusing an error, then we're not playing fairly, are we? You might as well just invent a pub called the Poste House and have it sit at the top of Riversdale road in 1888, now lost to the sands of time, despite a solid history of local pubs from the Victorian age existing in books widely available in this city not showing any pub of that name existing.

One-Off duty is in no way reflective of "one off instance."

So, again, May was a true man of obscure knowledge, from obscure poetry, to obscure pubs, to obscure phrases, to obscure handwriting.

The writer also spelt 'post haste' with an 'e' showing that this was a spelling error that he repeated 4 times

One off duty is transparently reflective of one off instance.

I'm thinking that's it's time to withdraw here Mike. Such omniscience is a little scary.

[Graham]

A person's handwriting style tends to change from time to time, my own has done several times over the years.

One thing a person's handwriting style does not do is completely change in terms of detail which are plainly evident to experts who are paid to analyse such things.

If May wrote the diary, there will be evidence for it in his hand, and last I checked, it didn't match. Seems like a simple experiment, have someone professional check it, have they? Will they?

The jury is out.

Yes Mike, I agree, a person's handwriting can and often does change with time, but the difference in styles which I believe is evident in the Diary could not be accounted for in such a way, assuming that the Diary was written in a relatively short space of time.

There is no way, IMHO, that any of the handwriting in the Diary can be matched with the handwriting in the SS Baltic letter. The writing in Maybrick's will is still a bone of contention, as there are those who believe that someone else wrote it at Maybrick's dictation when he was on his death-bed.

Graham

[Mike J. G.]

Yes but to see if it was the way Maybrick wrote, i mean content not handwriting, you would need examples to compare it with which I don't think exist, do they?

The handwriting has never bothered me in the slightest apart from what kind of cretinous forger would forge a document without bothering to even attempt to forge the handwriting of the subject and hope that no one would notice. Or could a seriously disturbed drug addict have seen his Ripper identity as a kind of alter ego and so used a different hand?

There exists examples of May's formal hand, they were not found to be a match with the diary, IIRC.

If the handwriting doesn't bother you, then I don't really know what to say to you, tbh.

The handwriting should matter to anyone wanting to actually know whether the diary was written by the man in question or not.

Saying the handwriting doesn't matter is about as odd as you can get.

It wouldn't matter a jot whether the writer was on LSD at the time of writing, Herlock. There are details within the text that do not change, such as angles, where a loop or a curl may begin and end, where the pressure-point showing the initial beginning of a certain written letter starts, and all other manner of details which simply do not change merely because a person is intoxicated.

There is an entire science devoted to such a thing as analyzing text for repeated patterns.

Either May wrote it or he didn't. The handwriting we have for May does not match that of the diary, yet apparently that doesn't matter.

[Mike J. G.]

The writer also spelt 'post haste' with an 'e' showing that this was a spelling error that he repeated 4 times

One off duty is transparently reflective of one off instance.

I'm thinking that's it's time to withdraw here Mike. Such omniscience is a little scary.

Yes, and as I've said, the added "e" to "post haste" implies that this was a subconscious addition due to having already written "Poste House."

Either that, or Maybrick was as thick as they come, and thought that a random "e" was just added to post in any circumstance.

People seem too willing to ignore blatant errors to lend credence to a diary that has thus far had zero evidence in its favour, yet a lot of evidence going against it.

[Observer]

Know what? I reckon if the Angel Gabriel descended from Heaven with the True Origin Of The Diary graven in letters of fire upon a golden tablet and signed 'God', he'd be argued with.....Graham

Too true, "one off instance" wasn't in use as an expression in the context it was used in the Diary in 1888/9

[Mike J. G.]

Yes Mike, I agree, a person's handwriting can and often does change with time, but the difference in styles which I believe is evident in the Diary could not be accounted for in such a way, assuming that the Diary was written in a relatively short space of time.

There is no way, IMHO, that any of the handwriting in the Diary can be matched with the handwriting in the SS Baltic letter. The writing in Maybrick's will is still a bone of contention, as there are those who believe that someone else wrote it at Maybrick's dictation when he was on his death-bed.

Graham

Does his marriage certificate still exist at all? There is surely something still in existence that James put a pen to, one would think. What happened to the contents of the home after his death? Where they shared among the immediate family?

[Observer]

. Or could a seriously disturbed drug addict have seen his Ripper identity as a kind of alter ego and so used a different hand?

No, not a chance.

[Mike J. G.]

No, not a chance.

One thing I've read is that even when a person tries hard to disguise their writing, literally using a different hand, or constructing letters in a different way, they still manage to give glaring clues away of their identities.

Another thing a person tends to do when disguising their identities when writing is to revert back to their own style partway through without having realized it, which is why experts tend to start from the end of a text and work their way back, and this is something that was echoed in the recent H.H. holmes show on History by an analyst studying the "Ripper letters".

[Graham]

Does his marriage certificate still exist at all? There is surely something still in existence that James put a pen to, one would think. What happened to the contents of the home after his death? Where they shared among the immediate family?

Phew-wee, Mike, you're asking the wrong person. But somewhere there must still exist samples of JM's handwriting - like for example is there some kind of a Historical Society covering the Liverpool Cotton Exchange which keeps archives? I mean, my family were very much working-class (for which I forgive them...) in the second half of the 19th century, but they certainly left behind a whole lot of hand-written correspondence.

Graham

[Observer]

If it was possible to completely disguise one's hand writing over a 60 plus page document, wouldn't this mean that hand writing analysis would be obsolete?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes, and as I've said, the added "e" to "post haste" implies that this was a subconscious addition due to having already written "Poste House."

Either that, or Maybrick was as thick as they come, and thought that a random "e" was just added to post in any circumstance.

People seem too willing to ignore blatant errors to lend credence to a diary that has thus fat had zero evidence in its favour, yet a lot of evidence going against it.

Or.....it was a spelling error that he repeated, as the evidence shows when he did it with the phrase 'post haste'. As people sometimes do. But of course, that's impossible!

It's pretty obvious that everyone who either thinks the diary is genuine or even allows of a slight possibility that it might be are all gullible idiots. Diary discussion really should be avoided! Nothing in ripperology attracts such strident bias. I should have learned my lesson and avoided this thread.
Personally, my life isn't changed one bit by the diary being genuine or not. I don't claim to be an expert in anything but I've read all the books (including the new one unlike some) and am not convinced that it has been conclusively disproven (anywhere near so.) 'Amateurish?' - no way. Mike Barrett the master forger 25 years later and it's still around. Hitler diary - 6 months.
I'll leave everyone to their comfortable certainty

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, not a chance.

Says it all.

Bye.

[Mike J. G.]

When anyone can verify that the Tavern was referred to as the "Post(e) House" let me know, as this is obviously yet another of those obscurities that James was a master of knowing, while the rest of the city sits in ignorance of the fact, including the clever folk at central library who make it a point to fact-check many historic details for people from all walks of life.

Thus far, the only people who have this obscure knowledge are the now-dead Maybrick/The Ripper, and a mate of Caz, who she can't name for reasons that aren't clear to anyone other than her.

[Observer]

There's an archive in the U.S.A with examples of Maybrick's hand writing.