One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Be interesting to run an experiment on here wouldn't it?
We write our own Jack the Ripper diary?
starting the day before Tabrams murder and on through to Kelly
See how far any of us would get before someone pulled us up on a fact we had got wrong...
I'll start.....
Dear Diary
6th August 1888
Got up brushed teeth...put knife in black bag, trimmed moustache.. , (face still a little blotchy) left house..

I've put out this challenge many a time over the years, Andy, and nobody seems to have the will to put it to the test.

Mind you, Mike Barrett was once asked to produce something similar, when he was still in confession mode, and to put it kindly the result was not exactly positive.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

We may as well throw the late Jeremy Beadle back into the mix too.

[caz]

Hi Scotty,

Had it been a modern hoax, I might have wondered if it was a case of "Beadle's About". A million times more likely than Mighty Mel's "nest of forgers", involving Devereux, Kane, the Barretts or the Johnsons.

Still out of the question though. Jeremy was far too generous of spirit to stand by and watch so many personal friends of his getting their knickers in a twist over a hoax of his own making.

Love,

Caz
X

[Bridewell]

For me the greatest argument against the diary's authenticity is the use of a scrap book by the author. The item purports to document the events of 1888. In 1888 it would have been a matter of the utmost simplicity to acquire a totally authentic unused 1888 diary - so why not use one? My answer to that would be because when the diary was actually written it was a matter of the utmost difficulty to obtain such an item and therefore a contemporary alternative had to be used - a scrap book with some pages torn out.

Maybrick was a businessman. If he wanted to write a diary, either as himself or as 'Jack the Ripper', he would have used an 1888 diary, because it was the logical and easy thing to do. The author didn't use an 1888 diary and therefore, whilst not completely impossible, it defies logic to conclude, with any degree of conviction, that the author was James Maybrick.

[Observer]

Hi Bridewell

Also, for that matter a contemporary, or someone who wished to perpetrate a hoax shortly after the murders would find it easy to acquire a suitable diary to use in the deceit. In my opinion it's a modern hoax.

[Bridewell]

Hi Bridewell

Also, for that matter a contemporary, or someone who wished to perpetrate a hoax shortly after the murders would find it easy to acquire a suitable diary to use in the deceit. In my opinion it's a modern hoax.

That's my view also. The title of the thread being what it is:

"One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary"

leads me to acknowledge that it is (non-use of a contemporary diary apart) a very good hoax - but a hoax nonetheless. The title also invites us to reverse the norm and prove that the diary isn't genuine. The accepted protocol is that those making the positive assertion should prove that it is.

I have difficulty in believing that an item which someone has admitted to forging is not actually a forgery. That said, others are perfectly entitled to their view that the item is what it purports to be, just as I am within my rights to disagree with them.

[caz]

For me the greatest argument against the diary's authenticity is the use of a scrap book by the author.

Hi Colin,

For me it's the handwriting - all day long.

My Dad [born in 1915] never bought new all the while he had a source of scrap paper indoors to write on. He wasn't poor - or miserly - he was merely brought up by Victorian parents to be prudent where money was concerned and not spend it unnecessarily.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Bridewell

Also, for that matter a contemporary, or someone who wished to perpetrate a hoax shortly after the murders would find it easy to acquire a suitable diary to use in the deceit. In my opinion it's a modern hoax.

But what if it wasn't written to deceive the world, Observer, but was someone's idea of a funny little game at the Maybricks' expense?

If it had been a modern hoax, created to deceive the public at large, which had to be written in that scrap book for lack of a better alternative, there would have been even more reason to make it look like Maybrick's handwriting - and any provenance would have been better than "I got it from a mate who then died without saying how he got it". Battlecrease itself would have been the very best of course, but Mike Barrett always hotly denied that one.

Go figure, as they say.

Love,

Caz
X

[Henry Flower]

and any provenance would have been better than "I got it from a mate who then died without saying how he got it".

I'm always wary of the rhetorical trick - for that is what it is - of taking a weakness and spinning it as a strength. I mean this sort of thing, to paraphrase:

"There's an obvious mistake on page 44, the type of mistake any decent forger would've been careful to avoid making. This speaks against it being the work of a forger, a forger would've been careful to get details like that historically correct."

Sorry Caz - crappy provenance is crappy provenance

[caz]

I'd like to reassure you, Henry, that it's no 'trick' on my part, and I'm not using the crappy provenance to argue against it being a hoax! Far from it, as I don't believe it was Maybrick wot wrote it. How many times do I need to repeat myself?

But if the same person who created this thing - in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's - was the person who thought up its crappy provenance, he must have been a twat of the highest order. Pure and simple.

Love,

Caz
X

[Bridewell]

Hi Colin,

For me it's the handwriting - all day long.

My Dad [born in 1915] never bought new all the while he had a source of scrap paper indoors to write on. He wasn't poor - or miserly - he was merely brought up by Victorian parents to be prudent where money was concerned and not spend it unnecessarily.

Love,

Caz
X

Yes. If you were James Maybrick it would be the easiest thing in the world to write using James Maybrick's handwriting wouldn't it? I suppose you could contrive an argument that Maybrick deliberately disguised his hand so as to be able to deny authorship if it came to light in his own lifetime, but it would be contrived and would beg the question as to why Maybrick would write the bloody thing in the first place if he was the least bit worried about being caught.

P.s. I don't usually post on Diary Threads because they have a tendency to descend into acrimony. I do so now in the hope that this time it'll be different.

[Bridewell]

How many times do I need to repeat myself?

Love,

Caz
X

How many sprouts have you eaten?

[Henry Flower]

I'd like to reassure you, Henry, that it's no 'trick' on my part, and I'm not using the crappy provenance to argue against it being a hoax! Far from it, as I don't believe it was Maybrick wot wrote it. How many times do I need to repeat myself?

But if the same person who created this thing - in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's - was the person who thought up its crappy provenance, he must have been a twat of the highest order. Pure and simple.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz, don't worry - I've followed the thread from the start and I know you're not claiming the Diary is the genuine article. But my point was that it's slightly iffy to say on the one hand that MB wasn't sophisticated enough to have personally pulled off a forgery like this one, but on the other to say that if he had been the forger he would've been careful to mimic Maybrick's handwriting and think up a better provenance than he offered for the item.

I agree he wasn't sophisticated. Neither is the hoax diary. His handwriting didn't mimic Maybrick's (or even, more broadly, a Victorian hand) because he didn't have the skill to do so. His provenance was crappy because he didn't have the competence or the opportunity to create a better one.

Am I certain of that?

Absolutely not.

Best x

[Iconoclast]

I'd like to reassure you, Henry, that it's no 'trick' on my part, and I'm not using the crappy provenance to argue against it being a hoax! Far from it, as I don't believe it was Maybrick wot wrote it. How many times do I need to repeat myself?

But if the same person who created this thing - in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's - was the person who thought up its crappy provenance, he must have been a twat of the highest order. Pure and simple.

Love,

Caz
X

... in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's formal hand ...

Thank you.

[Pcdunn]

... in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's formal hand ...

Thank you.

OK, do we have surviving examples of Maybrick's informal hand, then?

If not, this is a difference which makes no difference, as far as I can see. It just offers another IF on which to hang hope that it is really Maybrick's diary.