One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

No, it would not - a single good example would have sufficed

I don't see how that can possibly be true. Look what happened when you actually got round to reading my post. You said this:

"I'm not sure about thoroughness, but he could have been more relevant. Few of those references deal with bone-black being an arsenic antidote, and all of the references are very old. There are a number of other issues I might point out with the snippets David posted, but frankly I can't be bothered.

I might have pointed these out earlier had I read his post more carefully, but all I saw was an avalanche of words, apparently designed to beat me into submission, humiliate me and/or shut me up. This is a tactic I've often seen used elsewhere, but I wasn't expecting it here."

So that's THREE specific complaints about the examples I posted, plus further "issues" hinted at, in circumstances where you had read them all the examples together. How is it possible that I could I have just posted one example in circumstances where you would have claimed that this single example was either not relevant, didn't deal with bone black being an arsenic antidote or was very old OR that there was another issue with it.

I just knew that unless I posted them all we would be going back and forth all evening. It's what ALWAYS happens on this forum. I've simply learnt to be as complete as possible and get it out of the way. I don't think there is anything at all wrong with being complete, in any case, and I actually and truly find your complaint baffling.

I know you are not a fool but you are being absolutely foolish.

and a bit of human courtesy would not have gone amiss. I'm not a fool, and I found your impersonal, sledgehammer post wholly unnecessary and condescending - it's the kind of crap I expect from some of the more shrill members of this message board, but not you. I was made to look a right chump, and I was genuinely upset because of it.

I don't recognise any of this "impersonal", "sledgehammer" "condescending" stuff. Whatever has got into your head, from my perspective I was genuinely attempting to answer your question and provide the supporting evidence.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the post in question was my SECOND attempt at responding to you. I had earlier said:

"There are plenty of sources that mention this..."

I had really hoped this would be enough and you would have done some simple Googling to find the sources yourself (how you didn't manage to do so in the first place I still have no idea). I didn't WANT to have to waste my time digging out and posting all the examples. But you posted in response:

"Be that as it may, I haven't yet found a reference to bone black being used as an arsenic (or strychnine) antidote, which is what Feldman said."

In response I had to give you a number of examples because some of the references I found were referring to "animal charcoal" or "ivory black" but I had to meet your claim about "bone black" so I also had to provide definitions to show they were the same. And I then had to show it was used as an antidote to both arsenic AND strychnine. It was impossible to find a single example meeting all your criteria.

Sorry Gareth but you have read this all completely 100% wrong. You have fallen into the online trap of projecting things onto me that don't exist in reality.

[David Orsam]

I don't recall seeing that one, so I'll seek it out.

Okay, I'm fairly sure you were involved in the debate at the time when the example was produced.

I am right about the British examples in the OED, so there's no "may be" on that score, thankfully.

There has to be a "may be" because we've seen with other examples that the OED doesn't always capture the very first usage of a word.

Maybrick's connection was with the 19th Century USA, so a 1930s American article about politicians isn't exactly convincing evidence that Maybrick would have been familiar with that sense of the word, or even could have been.

That is absolutely right but the point is - and this was the reason the "Mayhem" example was produced in the first place - that your chart of usage from Google book searches would have predicted zero usage of it in the 1930s (to the extent it "predicted" anything). That being so, where did it come from in 1930s America? How do we know it was not being used for years before that? I don't want to sound like a Diary Defender here but until we can establish the history of its usage in America we can't possibly know how it was or was not being used over there in the nineteenth century.

[David Orsam]

Ah, I'm feeling pleased with myself. I made a note of it. This is the reference:

Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963) - Chicago, Ill.
Author: EDMOND TAYLOR
Date: Jun 13, 1933
pqarchiver.com

"The social life of the world economic conference got under way tonight when delegates of the 66 countries represented, after a day spent in contemplating bilateral and general mayhem,...."

According to my note, if I'm reading it correctly, it was originally posted by someone called Jessica Pices (not sure if it was in this or the other forum).

[MrBarnett]

I don't mind being enlightened, David. What I found unhelpful the other week, apropos charcoal as an arsenic antidote, was your reeling off example after example after example without so much as a polite intro. This felt like having my head bashed against a wall, and it wasn't very pleasant, believe me. Anyway, that's water under the bridge now.

I might have posted it myself, because I found a similar article from the USA. This was an account of an American Football game, ISTR - a very physical sport indeed, where mayhem in the sense of "physical" chaos (if I can put it that way) still makes sense, without stretching its meaning to refer to abstract confusion, which is the sense in which it appears in the diary. American examples notwitstanding, the fact remains that the British examples of this usage given in the OED date no earlier than the 1970s.

I've come across the term being used in UK press reviews of comedy films in the 1950s and 60s.

This example is from the Clitheroe Advertiser and Times of 16th April, 1954:

[MrBarnett]

The term was also applied to the antics of Norman Wisdom's character in the 1953 film Trouble in Store. And a 1955 review of one of Wisdom's stage performances makes a reference to a 'Mr Mayhem' about whom Hilaire Belloc had written 'a long time ago'.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another question.

Has anyone written a ‘the diary is a forgery and this is why’ book?

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks, Gary and David. Useful finds. We're still looking at the mid 20th century in British terms, and at 1930s America, so there is nothing that yet indicates that the "mayhem" of the diary could have been written by someone from Late Victorian, or even Edwardian, Britain.

[Iconoclast]

Another question.

Has anyone written a ‘the diary is a forgery and this is why’ book?

No, Herlock, of course not.

That would require something to base it upon.

[Sam Flynn]

And a 1955 review of one of Wisdom's stage performances makes a reference to a 'Mr Mayhem' about whom Hilaire Belloc had written 'a long time ago'.

The character of "Mr Mayhem" appeared in a book by Belloc written in 1903 (Caliban's Guide to Letters), but there's nothing in that book that suggests that Belloc was using "mayhem" in the sense of chaos/confusion. The book also has a major character named "Dr Caliban", but he isn't a half man, half monster. Belloc's "Mr Mayhem" and "Dr Caliban" appear to have been simply names.

[MrBarnett]

Thanks, Gary and David. Useful finds. We're still looking at the mid 20th century in British terms, and at 1930s America, so there is nothing that yet indicates that the "mayhem" of the diary could have been written by someone from Late Victorian, or even Edwardian, Britain.

Sam,

I was really reacting to the lateness of the earliest OED examples.

I'm not sure when Belloc thought up 'Mr Mayhem', or exactly in what sense he was using the term. Something a little more general than the narrow legal sense I would imagine. And according to the 1954 reviewer Belloc had come up with the name 'a long time ago'.

I'll keep any eye out for the Bellocian example. I have two of his books, but I don't think 'Mr Mayhem' appears in either of those. As I'm sure you know he was a prolific writer, whose earliest works were published in the 1890s. Not much read today, I believe secondhand booksellers refer to collections of his works as a load of old Bellocs.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, Herlock, of course not.

That would require something to base it upon.

I find that rather......strange

[MrBarnett]

The character of "Mr Mayhem" appeared in a book by Belloc written in 1903 (Caliban's Guide to Letters), but there's nothing in that book that suggests that Belloc was using "mayhem" in the sense of chaos/confusion. The book also has a major character named "Dr Caliban", but he isn't a half man, half monster. Belloc's "Mr Mayhem" and "Dr Caliban" appear to have been simply names.

You beat me to it.

If Belloc's Dr Caliban had developed from the original, perhaps his Mr Mayhem wasn't a purist limb-lopper. Perhaps he was more of a general mischief-maker.

[Sam Flynn]

I was really reacting to the lateness of the earliest OED examples.

Indeed, Gary. It's all good stuff and very helpful.

[Sam Flynn]

If Belloc's Dr Caliban had developed from the original, perhaps his Mr Mayhem wasn't a purist limb-lopper. Perhaps he was more of a general mischief-maker.

He doesn't seem to be either in this book, Gary - it's just a name, as best I can tell from a quick read-through.

Digitised copies here https://archive.org/details/aftermathcalled00bellgoog

[Iconoclast]

I find that rather......strange

Well Herlock, can I suggest that there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact?

It is only on here that a few digital desperados (and an aristocratic one) attempt to dismiss the Maybrick journal. Out in the real world, no-one has attempted it in print and I would suggest that that is because there actually is nothing substantive to say on the subject.

The Maybrick journal solved the problem of who Jack the Spratt McVitie was, and that's an end to it. Every rightminded publisher has evidently agreed.