One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,

very good questions.

yes the answers would be very interesting would they not?


Steve

Hi Steve

Very interesting, and one other question

How did Robert Smith first become involved ? The answer to that I would suggest is as clear as a mountain stream

For those who dont know Robert Smith runs a literary agency and at the time did, represent several Ripper researchers/authors who had some involvement with Barrett.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

The earliest written reference to a "one off job" that I have found is from 1912 (which is about 10 or 20 years earlier than the dictionaries state). However, I have found references to making a 'one off' in a manufacturing context from as early as 1903. All the early references come from engineering trade journals and they all relate to manufacturing, producing or casting 'one off' items and similar.

From the concept of a "one off job" in manufacturing jargon, the concept of the "one off instance" (and similar) slowly crept into the English language and common usage of it. The earliest example of that exact expression that I have found in writing is, nevertheless, 1981 but let's allow for it being in use 40 years earlier than this. The fact is that, despite carrying out every possible search I could imagine, I haven't found any similar written usage prior to the Second World War.

Prior to the Second World War, I have found "one off pattern" (1925) and "one off product" (1942). Then, after the war, "one off nature" (1953), "one off effort" (1960) and "one off event" (1963). The first examples of "one off occasion", "one off affair", "one off episode", "one off incident", "one off occurrence" and "one off appearance" that I have been able to locate have all been from the 1970s.

If the author of the diary wrote the expression 'one off instance' in 1888 he would have been the first person ever known to have done so and, even if you deduct 40 years from the earliest I have found it, this would still mean it was never written again in the entire English speaking world for over 50 years. It's totally unrealistic.

Hi David,

I haven't seen your response yet to the question I posed recently about modern examples of 'one off instance', so I hope you will bear with me here.

You have done some terrific work on this, so many congrats. But I note that in all the examples you gave above (with dates) you did not include a single dated example of 'one off instance', which would of course have been the icing on the cake. Is it too much to ask if you have found any documented examples of this exact phrase and, if so, why you did not include them above? Wasn't it just a trifle rich to have a pop at Shirley Harrison, practically accusing her of inventing Traynors/Trayner's and the conversation she said she had with them, if you had either a) failed to find a single instance (sorry!) of the three-word phrase (outside of the diary itself of course) but didn't admit this outright, or b) found one or more, but decided against including the details?

I'm sure you understand the point I'm making, David. Whether the diarist was composing the text in 1908, 1938 or 1988, if there are no other written examples of that phrase which can be found, anywhere, at any time before the diary emerged in 1992, even in this internet age, are we not left with - quite literally - a one off instance of 'one off instance'? Of course we are now awash with examples, but did they really all sprout from the wit and wisdom of one, Mike Barrett?

All this would still put the diary's creation no nearer the magic late 80s/early 90s date that we would need for a thoroughly modern Barretts of Goldie Street production.

[Naturally, if since posting the above you have found and posted a dated example of 'one off instance' I will be the first to congratulate you again.]

Love,

Caz
X

[Elamarna]

Hi Steve

Very interesting, and one other question

How did Robert Smith first become involved ? The answer to that I would suggest is as clear as a mountain stream

For those who dont know Robert Smith runs a literary agency and at the time did, represent several Ripper researchers/authors who had some involvement with Barrett.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I am aware you have spent a great deal of time looking into all of this over many years.

apart from reading the diary and Feldman's book I have not spent much time looking at it, having decided it was probably a fake.

BTW i yesterday posted a analysis of your experts on the secret police files thread, must say am impressed with the number used. have you seen it at all?

Its not meant to be critical in anyway, just thought a good look at the experts was overdue.

Steve

[Trevor Marriott]

I am aware you have spent a great deal of time looking into all of this over many years.

apart from reading the diary and Feldman's book I have not spent much time looking at it, having decided it was probably a fake.

BTW i yesterday posted a analysis of your experts on the secret police files thread, must say am impressed with the number used. have you seen it at all?

Its not meant to be critical in anyway, just thought a good look at the experts was overdue.

Steve

Yes I saw your post on the experts opinions, it was an all round interesting exercise to do, and was done for the benefit of ripperolgy, and an attempt to prove of disprove some of the old previously accepted facts.

I concur with you the diary is a fake.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

As for a place in time, I am influenced by the fact that Dr David Baxendale, an experienced document examiner, carried out a solubility test in July or August 1992 which revealed that the ink in the diary had been recently added to the paper.

'Revealed' is a bit strong, if you don't mind my saying, David. Had Baxendale reliably 'revealed' this with his solubility test, I would have to ask what you and I are doing here, in 2016, tearing the arse out of one off instances and so on, on a thread that needs just the one incontrovertible... fact.

I notice you didn't balance the above with the shortcomings of Baxendale's report, or the findings of Dr Nick Eastaugh, who examined the ink and produced his main report on October 2nd the same year, 1992. The experienced Baxendale failed to find the iron in the ink which Eastaugh found in clearly measurable amounts. And Eastaugh also reported that 'it was clear that the solubility of the ink was similar to the Victorian reference material and unlike the modern inks dried out for reference'.

On top of this, Baxendale reported finding nigrosine in the ink and asserted that this had only been in use since the 1940s (sounding familiar yet?). Shirley Harrison then discovered, courtesy of the Science Library in London, that nigrosine was commercially patented in 1867 and was in general use in writing inks by the 1870s. Mind you, I'm not sure any of the subsequent examinations confirmed the presence of nigrosine anyway.

When Leeds University examined the diary two years later, in 1994, they compared it with two documents from the 1880s and found the inks identical.

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm off until at least the middle of next week.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

'Revealed' is a bit strong, if you don't mind my saying, David. Had Baxendale reliably 'revealed' this with his solubility test, I would have to ask what you and I are doing here, in 2016, tearing the arse out of one off instances and so on, on a thread that needs just the one incontrovertible... fact.

It would be a good question but unfortunately, as I understand it, the report of Baxendale was never allowed to be published so that might explain why I needed to provide another incontrovertible fact.

[David Orsam]

I notice you didn't balance the above with the shortcomings of Baxendale's report

What shortcomings?

An ink solubility test is, I believe, very simple for an experienced document examiner. Are you saying there were shortcomings with this test?

[David Orsam]

'or the findings of Dr Nick Eastaugh, who examined the ink and produced his main report on October 2nd the same year, 1992. The experienced Baxendale failed to find the iron in the ink which Eastaugh found in clearly measurable amounts. And Eastaugh also reported that 'it was clear that the solubility of the ink was similar to the Victorian reference material and unlike the modern inks dried out for reference'.

I think I need to refer you to your own book again Caz.

On page 17 it is stated that Eastaugh conducted two examinations of the diary, neither of them involved a solubility test.

The quote you have provided is ambiguous as to exactly what he means.

Further, on page 48 of your book it is stated: 'Nicholas Eastaugh had told them [the Sunday Times] that he examined paintings and drawings principally, rather than text, that he would not describe himself as a forensic scientist and was 'concerned that his report is being used by you to authenticate the diary'"

Ink eventually must dry so the key test will always be the earliest test. Dr Baxendale was an experienced forensic document examiner. An expert in document examination. What are you saying? He just made a mistake with his solubility test?

[David Orsam]

On top of this, Baxendale reported finding nigrosine in the ink and asserted that this had only been in use since the 1940s (sounding familiar yet?). Shirley Harrison then discovered, courtesy of the Science Library in London, that nigrosine was commercially patented in 1867 and was in general use in writing inks by the 1870s. Mind you, I'm not sure any of the subsequent examinations confirmed the presence of nigrosine anyway.

That's a far more complicated and difficult test. The presence or otherwise of nigrosine has got nothing to do with solubility. So Baxendale did not have sufficient expertise in the history of nigrosine. Big deal. He conducted an ink solubility test and concluded that ink had recently been applied.

I'm not seeing any credible answer to that.

[David Orsam]

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm off until at least the middle of next week.

Merry Christmas!

[caz]

The phrase in the diary, Purkis, as I keep repeating, is "one off instance". No-one in 1888 would have understood what that meant which is why a diary writer would not have included it (or thought of it). So far I have not found that exact phrase in existence over 90 years after the diary was supposed to have been written but am happy to call it 50 years on the basis that some similar expressions can be found after the Second World War. Given that no author of either fiction or non fiction books, no other known diarist, no writer of any surviving private letters, no author of any surviving official reports, no journalist in any newspaper in the English speaking world wrote anything similar to the expression 'one off instance' in over 50 years after 1888 it is indeed utterly implausible to think that Maybrick included this expression in the diary.

Just one more...

If a 'one off job' was described as 'familiar' in any circle, by 1912 (as unearthed by your good self), I wonder how long it took in those days to gain its familiarity. Weeks? Months? Years? A decade or more? Personally I don't see such a yawning chasm between 'job' and 'instance' that the phrase would have been incomprehensible to anyone coming across it among the private written musings of, say, someone with an engineering or manufacturing background, or who could have been up to speed with the latest jargon via friends or family.

While I have no doubt a hoaxer was responsible, it has to be said that 'Sir Jim' wouldn't have been writing with a view to the finder understanding every last entry. The context of 'one off instance' was surely easier to grasp than 'Christmas save the whores mole bonnett' [sic], wasn't it? Why include that reference without explaining its meaning to the casual reader?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Because I believe whoever wrote the diary must have researched the Whitechapel murders, and the life of James Maybrick, in some detail.

I don't think so.

Have you read this:

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/mhguide.htm

Answers your earlier question to Iconoclast incidentally.

[David Orsam]

l. However, Barrett suggests that he completed all the necessary research in just a few days- at the very least he's vague about this point.

I've provided all the relevant quotes from his affidavit and he does not suggest at any time that he completed all the necessary research "in just a few days".

You say he is 'vague' but the fact of the matter is that he simply does not say how long it took him to 'read everything to do with the Jack the Ripper matter' nor how look it took him to have 'looked closely at the background of James Maybrick'.

[David Orsam]

Moreover, he gives virtually no detail, either at the time of the affidavit, or as far as I'm aware in the future, about how he undertook that research and what sources he consulted.

But if you asked me how I know what I know about Jack the Ripper my reply would be "I've read a lot of books". Would you find that suspicious? Sure I'm not drafting an affidavit but could I possibly tell you what books I've read on the subject? No way. I don't even know all the books I own. Barrett basically says he read up on the subject of Maybrick and the Ripper. That seems sufficient to me. In other words, he's read the available books. More detail is always nice but the absence is hardly suspicious.

What I do find suspicious, however, is that Barrett contacted Doreen Montgomery on 9 March 1992 to ask if she would be interested in a Jack the Ripper Diary, then waited over a month before producing it while in the meantime placing an advertisement for a Victorian Diary with blank pages and acquiring one. Now THAT is suspicious! No?

[David Orsam]

Just because someone comes along as says "I wrote the Ripper Diary" or "I know who JtR is", doesn't mean I'm just going to believe them. Particularly if they keep changing their mind and can't provide any supporting evidence.

Sure but Mike Barrett is the person who produced the Ripper Diary in the first place. He is the provenance. And he says in a sworn affidavit that it's a fake. So what are you going to do: believe it's genuine?