One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[John G]

I have finally found the time to address some of the posts made over the Christmas period, when I was having such trouble keeping up! Don't groan at the back there.



Not so fast…

Find fault with Feldman by all means [most of us can and have], but there is a danger of using his overenthusiastic but faulty reasoning to try and score points against the diary, which may be unwarranted. Find another error of Feldman's and bingo, it somehow morphs into a related error made by our hapless forger. But if the diary is being interpreted in the same way as Feldy did, and too much is being read into the words, or not enough, or the words are being changed to read something else, it may not be our diarist who was trying to be too clever.

As many probably know by now, I don't believe our hoaxer had to try that hard. I think he knew plenty about the Maybricks that we have since learned [Michael wrote lyrics as well as music, for example]; I suspect he had some inside info on the ripper (but only as good as whoever supplied it); he didn't need to practise with pen and ink if that was all he'd ever known; and he wouldn't have had to sweat the small stuff – like the speed of a horse race - or even some of the bigger stuff, like it not resembling Maybrick's handwriting - if it was only ever meant as a literary prank, or burlesque, to have some fun at the Maybricks' expense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlesque

Before Harry got there, I was thinking to myself, hold on, don't racing people talk about the 'going' being fast or slow, depending on the state of the ground? Here's the man:





If the going was good, it could be said to have been 'fast'. But Harry went on to say:



So while the going could still have been slow due to the most recent spell of bad weather, despite a dramatic improvement on the day, that would not be comparing the going with the same race - the Grand National - in previous years. I wonder how many of them had been blessed with drier weather and firmer ground in the days leading up to the big event. This was after all early Spring in Liverpool, not July in the south of France.



Hold your horses…

It doesn't matter whether Maybrick wrote the diary or not. According to Feldman, he and his wife attended every Grand National after marrying and settling in Liverpool. So when he attended the race in 1889, as we know he did, he would arguably only have been able to compare the going with other years he could remember well from earlier that decade. If the going in those years had looked relatively poor due to worse weather on the day, he might well have got an impression in the Spring sunshine of 1889 of a faster race, without caring or needing to know the actual comparative speed of the horses.





Except that the author only said it was the fastest Grand National "Sir Jim" had seen – not the fastest 'in history'; not the fastest 'in living memory'; not the fastest 'ever'. If he is meant to have had a reasonable view of the action each year, he would certainly have noticed when the horses were labouring through saturated grass and churned up mud, or thundering past him on turf that was springy and ground that was dry and firm. Isn't that much more likely to have been something the real James could have compared as a regular race goer, without having to know the ins and outs of a flea's bottom?

Ooh, that was rather timely, wasn't it? Grand National time is with us again - in more ways than one.

Have a great weekend all.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

I lost on the Grand National sweepstake!

Yes, I've just been looking at Harrison's book and the author of the diary writes: " ...true the race was the fastest I have seen..."

Interestingly, Frigate won that year. According to Harrison "That particular National, won by Frigate, was the fastest on record-information that has been confirmed after a great deal of probing in the race archives and local papers."

Well, actually, not enough "probing" it turns out, because it wasn't the fastest race on record as Frigate won in 10m 1.2 s, whereas several races had been won in under 10 minutes, i.e. The Lamb in 1871, 9m 35.7s.

Pity Wiki wasn't available when Shirley wrote her book! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...tional_winners

Fastest time ever? Mr Frisk, 1990, at an incredible 8m 47.8s.

[pinkmoon]

Diary was written just before it was discovered of that I have absolutely no doubt .

[StevenOwl]

Diary was written just before it was discovered of that I have absolutely no doubt .

Yes, you keep saying that, and yet as far as I can see you've never produced a single shred of evidence to back it up.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I lost on the Grand National sweepstake!

Yes, I've just been looking at Harrison's book and the author of the diary writes: " ...true the race was the fastest I have seen..."

Interestingly, Frigate won that year. According to Harrison "That particular National, won by Frigate, was the fastest on record-information that has been confirmed after a great deal of probing in the race archives and local papers."

Well, actually, not enough "probing" it turns out, because it wasn't the fastest race on record as Frigate won in 10m 1.2 s, whereas several races had been won in under 10 minutes, i.e. The Lamb in 1871, 9m 35.7s.

Pity Wiki wasn't available when Shirley wrote her book! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...tional_winners

Fastest time ever? Mr Frisk, 1990, at an incredible 8m 47.8s.

Hi John,

Thanks for that.

I won £5 off my other half! Mind you, we only sat down about an hour before the big race and our sweepstake consisted of dividing the 40 horses randomly between us and putting £25 each in the kitty, with the winner getting £20, runner up £15, third place £10 and fourth place £5. I had One for Arthur and Saint Are, and hubby had Cause of Causes and Blaklion.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Diary was written just before it was discovered of that I have absolutely no doubt .

Hi pinky,

I wouldn't put money on it if I were you.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is this the longest thread ever?

Hi: newish member here. Briefly, been interested since '84/'85. Drifted away for the last 6 or 7 years but my interest has been reignited.

I have to say that you would have thought after 26 years that something, anything would have shown up on this well-to-do, well travelled, man-about-town businessman to 'categorically' disprove the diary. Someone on here implied that an accumulation of doubts is acceptable as proof of the fraudulence of the diary; it is not. One little note on the minutes of a meeting showing that Maybrick was in Sheffield at the time of one of the murders. Something in the diary, the equivalent of, Maybrick saying "I visited Thompson's Chemist in Walpole Street today," where it's found that there was no Walpole Street or chemist called Thompson. These would be proofs. But at the moment, 26 years later we still appear to have the same points against authenticity (I have to admit to not being very up to date here.)
- poste house .....he could have meant London
-tin match box,empty.....is it impossible to believe that 2 different people could use 4 words in the same order? (I thought that only conspiracy theorists didn't believe in coincidence)
-handwriting........does anyone know of any previous forgery that didn't attempt to copy the handwriting of the proposed suspect? Surely it's not totally beyond the realms of possibility that Maybrick, who otherwise saw himself as a gentleman, saw the ripper as his dark side; his Mr Hyde if you like.
-someone pointed out that the Grand National wasn't actually the fastest......surely Maybrick only said that it was the fastest that he'd seen?

I'm not saying that Maybrick was the Ripper or even that the diary is genuine but it appears, and it appeared so from the beginning, that some people are absolutely desperate for the diary to be a forgery. After 26 years of constant and rigorous analysis and research surely we could have expected one categorically disproving fact. Just one from this 'amateurish fake.'
And what kind of risk was the perpetrator of this 'amateurish fake' taking by selecting as his/her subject a well-to-do business man whose murder was the centre of one of the most famous trials of the century? Surely if someone wanted to simply make money from a 'diary of Jack the Ripper' they would have been infinately safer selecting some unknown market trader from Bethnal Green. Why choose a suspect who could conceivably have left a traceable trail throughout his life for detractors to choose from. Surely this could, only possibly, point to someone at the time who had a grudge against Maybrick? Couldn't it have been Maybrick's fantasy, written in a drug addled state, fuming about his 'whore of a wife.'
I believe that the Hitler Diary was disproved in less than a year? Melvyn Harris always threatened to expose the nest of forgers but never did. Even poor old Jeremy Beadle was mentioned as a suspect. Surely we can't believe that the late Mike Barrett really forged it? Did anyone ever meet him?
I titled this 'is this the longest thread ever?' partly because, well it is a very long thread but also because I would never have believed, 26 years ago, that the diary saga would still be ongoing and that those that disbelieved it would still appear so angry when people said ' well sorry but you haven't disproved it yet have you?'
I'm not on any side here. All that I'm saying is: Court circulars prove that Prince Eddy was away from London on the nights of (i believe) 2 of the murders. That.
categorically exonerates him. Neil Cream was in Joliet Prison at the time. That categorically exonerates him. But Maybrick and the diary? No, not yet.

Regards
HS

[Iconoclast]

Hi: newish member here. Briefly, been interested since '84/'85. Drifted away for the last 6 or 7 years but my interest has been reignited.

I have to say that you would have thought after 26 years that something, anything would have shown up on this well-to-do, well travelled, man-about-town businessman to 'categorically' disprove the diary.

Hi Newish Member,

Welcome to The Greatest Thread of All. Unlike your good self, Maybrick will never drift away because he cannot be categorically proven to not be Jack the Spratt McVitie. The argument resurfaces and the debate rages on afresh. In fairness, some have made well-considered submissions (in truth, we are all still recovering from the fearless rhetoric of He Who Is Never Wrong).

And we will never drift away - not finally, only ever briefly - because the case for Maybrick as Jack is at least as strong as for any other candidate and (very unusually in the rarified world of Ripperology) we actually have some evidence to work with here.

The initials on Mary Kelly's wall are the most compelling evidence of all. They are so utterly unlikely (if Maybrick were innocent) that detractors simply deny that they are there, failing as they do so to note that detractors far more published than they have already recorded versions of the image which show the two letters unequivocally (Sugden and Marriott are the two best examples of the trade).

Categorically disprove the letters on the wall, and the journal loses its most implausible element. Just say it's blood splatters (they are known for their naturally-articulate forms, you know). Or say it's just wishful thinking, like buses or Sir Winston Churchill or highlighter pens are. Or say that the journal makes no reference to them (be really really really really literal when you do so so that your argument sounds a tiny bit meaningful).

I was planning on a formal relaunch of the initials argument. It may yet happen ...

Until I do, Newish Member, I for one welcome your thoughts and thank you for your considered approach. Maybrick was Jack, I can categorically promise you that ...

Ike
An Honest Servant of Truth

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hello Ike

Thanks for your reply. To be honest I expected someone to confront me with some absolute disproving fact of which I'd never heard.

I really never understood, from the start, why people were so aggressively anti-diary even at a time when they wouldn't have had time to research it. They screamed from day one. I don't consider myself an expert on anything. Like most I have a pretty decent knowledge of the Ripper murders based on quite a few years and even more books and nothing about the diary to me shouted 'forgery.' Then I read Feldman and could help thinking how skilfully this 'amateurish' forger had woven the Graham family details into the plot. Then he had, I assume, created the watch which, if I recall correctly, experts said was more than tens of years old.
Do I recall, in the Feldman book, Keith Skinner saying 'we can't shake it?"
Just one single categorically disproving fact is all that we need. Just one after 26 years. I'm still waiting....

Regards
HS

[Harry D]

The diary never explicitly mentions "FM". "An initial here, an initial there" implies that the initials would be in different places, not right next to one another. Also, how is it the police missed this glaring clue while investigating the murder scene, particularly as they now believed the murderer was inclined to leave graffiti?

You asked why a forger would choose the diarist to be a victim from a famous murder case, and not some random nobody? I don't know. Perhaps for the same reason why the likes of Van Gogh, Prince Albert, Walter Sickert & Francis Thompson have been proposed as the killer down the years.

[caz]

Do I recall, in the Feldman book, Keith Skinner saying 'we can't shake it?"

Hi HS,

I may be wrong but I thought it was Paul Begg who said that, along with the line about sitting on the fence so long he was developing piles.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The diary never explicitly mentions "FM". "An initial here, an initial there" implies that the initials would be in different places, not right next to one another. Also, how is it the police missed this glaring clue while investigating the murder scene, particularly as they now believed the murderer was inclined to leave graffiti?

Hi Harry,

I have often wondered if 'an initial here' was meant to refer to Sir Jim, back in Liverpool, scratching another initial in the watch, while the initial 'there' referred to one left somewhere at the 'front' of the Kelly crime scene 'for all eyes to see' - possibly carved roughly into her flesh and not appreciated as a deliberate marking among all the other damage. The diarist does express the thought of carving a 'funny little rhyme' on the next victim's flesh, and if this passage was meant to refer to two initials together on the wall behind Kelly, one has to ask why the words 'here', 'there' and 'in front' were used to describe them. It wouldn't be cryptic - it would just be inaccurate.

You asked why a forger would choose the diarist to be a victim from a famous murder case, and not some random nobody? I don't know. Perhaps for the same reason why the likes of Van Gogh, Prince Albert, Walter Sickert & Francis Thompson have been proposed as the killer down the years.

My personal view is that the point may have been to connect the two most infamous murder cases of 1888 and 1889 - the unsolved ripper murders in London followed by the suspected murder of James Maybrick in Liverpool. What goes around comes around. It would be a neat trick to tie up both cases and provide an explanation for the ripper's reign of terror coming to an end - his own untimely death. And Whitechapel Liverpool, Whitechapel London is a powerful theme. Did you know that the only recognised quotation in the diary was by the poet Richard Crashaw, whose father was vicar of London's original White Chapel, St Mary Matfelon. If Mike Barrett knew that small fact, I don't believe he ever said so.

The fact that Maybrick hasn't yet been placed elsewhere when the murders were committed is a bonus, but I'm not sure that was something the diarist could have controlled, or would have worried about.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

'An initial here an initial there,' could indeed mean that he's saying he left them in various places. It could mean that he left them elsewhere as well as Millers Court. If Jack was leaving initials he wouldn't have made it an obvious clue to the police. There could have been something at Buck's Row or Hanbury Street that the police just didn't connect to the crime. What about: The (J) uwes are the (M) en... ? Now I'm not suggesting that for real but who can say how a killers mind works?
As for why the police didn't notice it. It's a fair point but for years Ripperologists hadn't noticed it either. And maybe the fact that the room was like an abattoir and that there was a sight on the bed than no one would have seen before. Who could have blamed them if there were slightly less than Holmes-like in there attention to detail. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to spend any time in there at all, never mind rummaging around for clues in the blood and gore.
I've always been a bit dubious about Hutchinson's testimony but recently I've come to accept that he 'could' have been telling the truth. If so, he saw someone with Mary Kelly who was considerably better dressed than your average Whitechapel inhabitant. Like a cotton merchant perhaps?
Off the top of my head I can only think of 3 suspects that can be categorically dismissed. Van Gogh (I hate even mentioning his name in this context) because he was in France at the time. Neill Cream because he was in prison in America at the time. And Prince Eddy because Court circulars put him elsewhere for, I believe, 2 of the murders. Every other suspect hasn't been categorically disproven. If the police today had a murder suspect and someone raised a few 'doubts' would they say 'well it couldn't have been him then,' and then completely dismiss him? Off course not. I don't blame anyone for saying 'I don't think that Maybrick was Jack,' but I can't accept if someone says 'the diary is definately a forgery and therefore Maybrick wasn't Jack.'
If someone produces that one piece of definitive evidence I'll say "ah ok so the diary was a forgery after all," and then move on without bursting into tears but I sometimes get the impression that if someone found the definitive piece of evidence proving Maybrick was Jack the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be deafening.
Regards
HS

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Caz

I can't understand why you say that the diarist wouldn't have worried about Maybrick ever being placed elsewhere? This is a strange forger who isn't bothered about being found out by a stray fact and who doesn't even make an effort to copy the handwriting. That's not really the definition of a forger.
Regards
HS

[Iconoclast]

The diary never explicitly mentions "FM". "An initial here, an initial there" implies that the initials would be in different places, not right next to one another.

As I say, really really really really literal, and all that ...

[Iconoclast]

Hi HS,

I may be wrong but I thought it was Paul Begg who said that, along with the line about sitting on the fence so long he was developing piles.

Love,

Caz
X

Paul Begg definitely said it in the video and got a raucous laugh for his troubles. I don't think it was mentioned in Feldman. But it is true. We can't shake it. Twenty-odd years later.