One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

I do love Fido's dismissal of Barrett's story!

I'm with you, I'd love it to be proven beyond all doubt, but I just don't know how that could happen. If Anne Graham could prove her story was true it would only place the diary in the right place at the right time - still doesn't make Maybrick guilty. Same goes for any Battlecrease provenance. A new discovery of Maybrick's informal handwriting which matched the diary exactly would surely only see detractors conceding it was a work of fantasy by Sir Jim. What could possibly come to light to prove beyond doubt that it was Maybrick's journal, and that he was Jack? I just can't see it ever happening. We can live in hope though...

Yes, it is difficult to imagine what categorical proof could look like 128 years later, though - as I have contended many times before - if we could test Eddowe's cigarette case for arsenic or strychnine I believe that a positive result would make it extremely hard to argue that the journal was authentic and wasn't written by James Maybrick.

Caz has previously (a long time ago) put forward other possible 'provables'. I believe it is possible, but the will and the money needed to do so is likely to be reserved for another day. Perhaps someone will research the journal from scratch in twenty years time, invest in the tests again, and seek clarity either way?

Might be me (when I'm retired)!

Ike

[Iconoclast]

So you have an incontrovertbile fact which refutes the diary? I'm intrigued...

Seriously, Steve, he doesn't.

You know when you get calls from 'the Windows Maintenance Department' telling you to check your computer and give them access to your bank details? We're on a similar flight of fantasy here. If Pinky had proof, he wouldn't post here telling us he has proof without providing it.

By the way, how is your Windows system working, and I promise you faithfully I have one incontrovertible fact which proves the journal to be authentic. Honest, I do. No, reallly.

Ike

[StevenOwl]

Seriously, Steve, he doesn't.

You know when you get calls from 'the Windows Maintenance Department' telling you to check your computer and give them access to your bank details? We're on a similar flight of fantasy here. If Pinky had proof, he wouldn't post here telling us he has proof without providing it.

By the way, how is your Windows system working, and I promise you faithfully I have one incontrovertible fact which proves the journal to be authentic. Honest, I do. No, reallly.

Ike

Right, I get you. I thought as much. That's quite a claim to be making without backing it up.

[Iconoclast]

Right, I get you. I thought as much. That's quite a claim to be making without backing it up.

Isn't the first, and definitely won't be the last. That undoubtedly includes me before anyone feels the need to say it.

[David Orsam]

How about this; perhaps MB felt a little reticent about handing over the diary to someone he didn't know he could trust, and so he planned to make a copy of it which would pass any initial cursory visual examination as a genuine late-Victorian artefact, but he wasn't happy with the results and eventually decided to present the actual diary to Doreen Montgomery.

So he gives this copy of the diary to Doreen, who he doesn't yet fully trust, and tells her it's the genuine article and she goes off and pays for some testing and arranges a publishing deal then, when he feels he can fully trust her, he says, "Oh by the way Doreen, that diary I gave you, well here's the funny thing, it was a fake that I created but, hey, don't worry THIS is the real one". Oh how I imagine Doreen would have laughed. "Now", she would have thought, "we finally trust each other".

[David Orsam]

Some Victorian diaries.....

[David Orsam]

Do most diaries not have evidence of the year on every major page? Isn't that kind of the point of a diary?

No, is the answer to your second question. The point of a diary is to record the thoughts and actions of the diarist. This can be done in any form of book, for example an exercise book, as long as there is space to write. I suggest that some people prefer to write diaries in books where the date is not on every page so that they are not constrained by the available space for any particular day and do not waste pages on days when there is nothing to write about or no time to write. Additionally, they might want their diary to span several years so they don't want to be limited by one single year in one volume. On your case, Maybrick did exactly this, writing his diary, or journal, in one volume in a period spanning 1888 and early 1889.

To answer your first question, the answer is: I don't know, I'm no expert on 19th century diaries, but the question itself acknowledges that some diaries don't have evidence of the year on every major page and perhaps that was what Barrett was after. Even if the date was on every "major" page, some diaries have a notes section at the back which do not bear the date so that (as long as the year of the diary is not embossed on the front cover) Barrett could have removed all evidence of the year of the diary yet still retained the paper.

Above all, Barrett doesn’t know if he can use an 1890 or 1891 diary with blank pages until he actually sees it. I would point out to you that if the scenario I am contemplating is correct then Barrett, in March 1992, was pretty desperate to get hold of an authentic period diary, given that he now has interest from an agent about Jack the Ripper's diary who is waiting to see the diary itself. He can't just walk into a shop and pick up the ideal 1888-1889 diary. So he puts out the advert to try and get hold of any diary from the 1880s or thereabouts. But realizing that his task is impossible (as the only one available is a useless one from 1891) he goes to an auction and decides to use a photo album after removing the photographs. Hardly ideal but that's the best he can do.

[Observer]

I was just about to say the same. Unless Barret contacted the seller of the red leather diary to enquire as to it's layout he would have had to have taken pot luck as to whether it was suitable for use. It appears to have been unsuitable for purpose, Barret expressing in his affidavit it was too small. What's being missed here however is the fact that Barret actually bought a late Victorian diary, and shortly after the purchase of said diary the "Maybrick Diary" appeared. Speaks volumes does it not?

[Observer]

Just for the slow ones at the back. (And those who CBA to wade though 100s of pages of threads...)

Is there anything, anything at all in the dairy that is written that 'only the killer could have known?'

Nothing Geddy. In fact the author of the Diary, goes out of his way to weave the hoax from the material available at he time of it's emergence.

Take a look at Caligo Umbrator's post 1664 in this thread. Very well put by Mr Umbrator.

[David Orsam]

What's being missed here however is the fact that Barret actually bought a late Victorian diary, and shortly after the purchase of said diary the "Maybrick Diary" appeared. Speaks volumes does it not?

And, indeed, that Barrett was specifically hunting for a Victorian diary containing blank pages.

[Iconoclast]

Some Victorian diaries.....

These look like notebooks which have been used as diaries?

[Iconoclast]

No, is the answer to your second question. The point of a diary is to record the thoughts and actions of the diarist. This can be done in any form of book, for example an exercise book, as long as there is space to write.

Okay, I hear what you're saying.

By the way, we get a lot of folk from time to time (as you will know) coming on here saying that the journal is a fake solely because it was written in a photograph album.

I'll be looking for you to repeat your comment above (which I have emboldened) in future if that occurs?

Just saying!

Ike

[David Orsam]

These look like notebooks which have been used as diaries?

Yes, but what you are missing is that that's what diaries are, or can be, and always have been. They don't need to be printed by Letts & Co, or some similar publishing company, to be a diary. They don't need the 365 days of the year printed inside them. A diary can be any form of book in which it is possible to write.

[David Orsam]

Okay, I hear what you're saying.

By the way, we get a lot of folk from time to time (as you will know) coming on here saying that the journal is a fake solely because it was written in a photograph album.

I'll be looking for you to repeat your comment above (which I have emboldened) in future if that occurs?

Just saying!

Isn't the suspicion here that the journal is a fake because it was written in a photograph album from which the photographs had been crudely excised?

[Iconoclast]

Isn't the suspicion here that the journal is a fake because it was written in a photograph album from which the photographs had been crudely excised?

That's not what most punters who come on here say when dismissing the journal based solely upon its appearance. Generally no mention of the torn out pages. In fairness, most people probably don't even know it's got torn out pages.