One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Let's just look at what the much criticised Baxendle - Dr Baxendale - actually said in his report.

This is what Robert Smith says about Baxendale's report:

"....he goes on to state boldly that "synthetic dyestuffs did not become common in inks until after the second world war. They may have been used earlier, but not before the first world war."

Is that a fair representation of what Baxendale actually says? Because here is what actually appears in his report dated 9 July 1992 (with my bold):

"Synthetic dyestuffs did not become common in inks until after the second world war. They may have been used earlier, (reliable information on this is scarce), but not before the first world war."

So Smith has simply omitted the words in parentheses, without any indication that he has done so.

I reckon Robert did Dr Baxendale a big favour then, because reliable information on usage before both world wars was not scarce. As Shirley wrote: 'With the help of the Science Library in London it took very little time to establish that nigrosine was patented in 1867 by Coupier and was in general use in writing inks by the 1870s!' Even Dr Joe Nickell, in his Pen, Ink and Paper, published in 1990, confirmed that nigrosine ink was first produced commercially in 1867. Baxendale's 'not before the first world war' was simply wrong.

Regarding Baxendale's failure to detect iron, Smith says that "Every other analyst concluded that it is an iron-gallotannate" ink which is not a particularly fair criticism bearing in mind that the other analysts, Eastaugh and Leeds, both used scanning electron microscopy for which you need specialist equipment (which an individual forensic document examiner is unlikely to possess) in order to detect iron in the ink.

So what is our resident ink expert saying here? That when Baxendale reported finding nothing to suggest the presence of iron, he didn't know he was not actually equipped to detect it?? Or that he did know, but misled Robert by not saying so??? I must say, if Robert was doing Baxendale a favour by playing down his ignorance on one issue, David seems to be doing his level best to put the boot in all over again by highlighting more of his failings.

We may note that Baxendale also stated:

"The ink of the diary is noticeably lighter in colour than the intense black usually associated with modern inks. This lighter colour could easily be obtained by diluting with water."

Of course Voller, who was an ink chemist, agreed about the colour three years later, in 1995, saying that Diamine ink manufactured "within the last 20 or 30 years" would be "blacker and more opaque than this". But he added that the opacity of the diary ink was "very much poorer than one would have from Diamine Manuscript ink even if it were diluted. You see dilution would simply not produce this sort of effect".

Perhaps Baxendale should have stuck to his own areas of expertise and not commented on the scarcity of reliable information that others found easily; failing to find the iron that others found easily and which he couldn't have detected anyway; or the effects of diluting a modern black ink.

Poor old Baxendale. With friends like David...

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

I see that at last we have a concession from the Diary Defender-in-chief that the argument is that Mike WAS being honest and can be relied on, when he stated that he was given the Diary by a drinking buddy from the Saddle pub and was told to "do something" with it.

That's what I said quite some time ago - Mike is not ALWAYS dishonest when it suits the Diary Defenders - but that was disputed. We got there in the end though.

You may have 'got there in the end', David. Do you always finish first?

I'm lagging behind because I can't see anything remotely honest about Mike repeatedly insisting, dishonestly, that it was TONY DEVEREUX who gave him the diary and told him to "do something" with it - except when he was claiming, equally dishonestly, that Tony had helped with the diary's creation from early 1990 and died later that year after it had been completed.

If you can't stop yourself from trying to mislead your fan club in this way, it might pay you not to do it quite so TRANSPARENTLY in future. Your supporters surely can't be as stupid as you think they are.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

David likes throw what he considers to be subtle insults at anyone who doesn't tug the forelock. 'Dear boy', 'Muppets', 'Chief Diary Defender etc' roll off the Awesome pen like shite off a hot shovel. Such a shame, because if he wasn't such an insulting little twerp, one might almost admire him.

I do admire him, Gary. Or at least I admire all his efforts to mimic an insulting little twerp. He almost pulls it off [now there's an image nobody wanted], but I suspect he is just another silly faker, just like he believes his hero Mike Barrett was.

A long way to go before anyone reaches the standard of the insulting great twerps of yesteryear, like Mighty Mel Harris and the Big O, John Omlor. They were the genuine articles.

Love,

Caz
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[Herlock Sholmes]

When i first heard Ike’s ‘off instance’ explaination i must admit to having a bit of a giggle at his resiliance whilst also thinking at the same time “yeah right.” We do use the phrase ‘off day’ though, and have done going way back at least to the 1840’s. So if we can have ‘off day’ or ‘off performance’ or ‘off night’ why not an ‘off instance?’

[caz]

Yup. We live at a time when such relatively obscure things as prison slang can more easily reach a wide audience than they ever could in the Victorian era.

When TV and radio scriptwriters were able to bring such slang to the attention of millions of ordinary people on a regular basis.

Why do we need to factor in 'millions of ordinary people', Gareth?

I wouldn't call it the work of an 'ordinary' person to write Jack the Ripper's personal diary, be it genuine, the musings of a fantasist, a spoof by someone with a Maybrick obsession, or a risky amateur fake in the wake of the Hitler Diaries. Maybe that's just me.

But I would expect it to reflect the odd expression picked up by a drug-taking violent criminal, operating by night among the vicious, semi-criminal denizens of Whitechapel.

I'd have expected more of it in a diary that wanted itself to be taken deadly seriously - which, as you know, I doubt, considering just how much daft doggerel the diary contains, interspersed with the panto villainish outbursts.

It's the inclusion of little things like this that continue to intrigue me. Did the author have any idea that "top myself" was prison slang back in the 1870s?

Did the author know any of those things about Crashaw, which make him the ideal poet - the dog's bollocks - for a brief cameo appearance in a diary about Maybrick as The Whitechapel Murderer? A one off instance of "Sir Jim" quoting from a better man's poetry.

But I can see fingers going in ears and eyes glazing over whenever I mention Crashaw's name these days. Nobody wants to have a go at explaining how he, out of millions of ordinary and not so ordinary people, gets quoted in the diary by pure coincidence.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

When i first heard Ike’s ‘off instance’ explaination i must admit to having a bit of a giggle at his resiliance whilst also thinking at the same time “yeah right.” We do use the phrase ‘off day’ though, and have done going way back at least to the 1840’s. So if we can have ‘off day’ or ‘off performance’ or ‘off night’ why not an ‘off instance?’

Did the Victorians use phrases like "off-day", though? I doubt it. Besides, the diary refers to "A one off instance", not simply "AN off instance", which doesn't work. (Compare "I'm having a one off-day", which doesn't work for the same reason.)

[Sam Flynn]

"Why do we need to factor in 'millions of ordinary people', Gareth?"

I would have thought it obvious, Caz. The more people that are familiar with a term and the more popular it becomes, the more likely we are to hear it... or write it down.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Did the Victorians use phrases like "off-day", though? I doubt it. Besides, the diary refers to "A one off instance", not simply "AN off instance", which doesn't work. (Compare "I'm having a one off-day", which doesn't work for the same reason.)

‘Off day’ was actually used in Vanity Fayre by Thackeray. Of course your right that it doesnt fit grammatically though. Grammatical errors do occur though and i dont think that anyone would suggest that the diary was written by Stephen Fry. Anyway its not a point im going to pursue

[Sam Flynn]

‘Off day’ was actually used in Vanity Fayre by Thackeray.

Both Wiktionary and Collins online dictionary gives "a day off work" (or equivalent) as one definition of "off-day", and I've seen it used in that sense in texts up to the present century. Looking at the relevant section of Vanity Fair:

"The cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen’s Crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach; and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall"

Thackeray's not saying "[on a day when things weren't going too well] Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall", but that Becky was brought to the Hall on a free/non-working day.

I bought a copy of Vanity Fair on my Kindle to check. It was a £3.99 bargain, so thanks for inspiring me to do so, Herlock - I've not read Thackeray before

[Herlock Sholmes]

Both Wiktionary and Collins online dictionary gives "a day off work" (or equivalent) as one definition of "off-day", and I've seen it used in that sense in texts up to the present century. Looking at the relevant section of Vanity Fair:

"The cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen’s Crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach; and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall"

Thackeray's not saying "[on a day when things weren't going too well] Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall", but that Becky was brought to the Hall on a free/non-working day.

I bought a copy of Vanity Fair on my Kindle to check. It was a £3.99 bargain, so thanks for inspiring me to do so, Herlock - I've not read Thackeray before

No problem Gareth,

I read it years ago and its one of those books that ive always intended to re read along with all the Dickens books that ive never gotten around to. The problem is that they are all enourmous and would conflict with my Holmes/Doyle reading.

I need to put the world on hold for a couple of years.

I do wonder when the first use of ‘off day’ was used to mean ‘a day when things werent going so well?’

[caz]

I'm not colour blind but it's interesting to note that "many men are to a certain degree" because one wonders if that applies to Robert Smith who claimed that a sample sent to him in 1995 showed the same bluish undertones as in his sample written some 17 years later. It's funny that a certain person was happy to rely on Smith's assessment of the colour of the ink in that letter (which has not been reproduced for some reason) and didn't seem to wonder if he is, perhaps, a bit colour blind.

I can only go by the fact that I can see the same colours as Robert, because to me the colour of the ink is indeed black with bluish undertones in his test sample, using Diamine specially made up by Voller to his pre-1992 formula, as pictured on page 34. I presume Adam Wood at Mango Books saw the same black with bluish undertones in the original sample and the reproduction in the book, or was too polite to say anything. Using the same bottle of Diamine to add his own words to Warren's missive, Robert saw that the two samples were 'identical', with the same bluish tinge in both, but unlike the dark grey diary ink.

I don't see the problem here. Robert can clearly see the difference between a black ink with a bluish tinge and a dark grey ink, so that's not the problem. If Warren's sample had looked dark grey, Robert would have seen the difference between that and his own writing, and would no doubt have concluded that Warren was using the wrong Diamine or some other ink entirely.

Is our resident ink expert suggesting that Diamine can look dark grey or black with a bluish tinge on the page, depending on how recent the writing is or how long it is kept in the bottle before use? Voller observed that the diary ink would have been "blacker and more opaque" had it been Diamine ink manufactured within "the last 20 or 30 years". Does this not suggest the ink would continue to look the same on the page - blacker and more opaque than the diary ink - whether it came from a bottle that was 30 years old or brand new, and whether the writing was done very recently or many years ago? Wouldn't Voller have said if his own Diamine ink varied in appearance depending on how long it had been in the bottle, or how long it had been on the paper?

It seems our very own resident ink expert is the one who needs the answers, or should supply them if he already knows. For me, it's enough to know that Baxendale saw the diary ink was dark grey back in 1992, and it's the same dark grey today. Robert's Diamine test sample on page 34 is, just as Voller predicted, blacker and more opaque, and has a bluish tinge. So unless David wants to argue that Robert may be colour blind on some days but not on others, or fancies accusing him of lying, Warren's test sample from 1995 looked identical because - surprise surprise - the same Diamine ink was used for both.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

"Why do we need to factor in 'millions of ordinary people', Gareth?"

I would have thought it obvious, Caz. The more people that are familiar with a term and the more popular it becomes, the more likely we are to hear it... or write it down.

So how popular was the name Crashaw to millions of ordinary people by the early 1990s, Gareth? [she asks, not expecting an answer]

Popular enough for them all to know his daddy was vicar of the original White Chapel, London?

Popular enough for them all to know he used the words 'tis love in his poetry - just like "Sir Jim" when in sentimental mood?

Popular enough for them all to know he played word games with his surname in one of his poems - just like "Sir Jim" did in his doggerel?

Popular enough for them all to know he appeared in The Times on Christmas Day 1884 with Michael Maybrick's lyricist, in adjacent columns?

[cue tumbleweed]

Have a great weekend all.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

So how popular was the name Crashaw to millions of ordinary people by the early 1990s, Gareth? [she asks, not expecting an answer]

Were there no books containing details about Crashaw and his poems available in the late 20th Century? Were there no libraries? No workhouses?

(Sorry, I was channelling Scrooge at the end there.)

[caz]

What is the importance of the ink containing Nigrosine?

It's nothing to do with the date of patent or manufacture of Nigrosine. It's all about the nitrogen.

Pegg tells us that nitrogen is a major constituent of Nigrosine.

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/maybrick_diary/maybrick-diary-analysis.ink.html

Now, here is what Robert Anderson says in his 2017 essay "Ink: A Recipe for Madness and Death" regarding the Leeds University results:

"Chloroacetamide contains nitrogen (N), which makes up approximately 15% of its mass, and - unfortunately for the Diamine proponents - the Diary ink contains no notable traces of nitrogen. We can be sure of that as each element, be it iron, calcium, silicon, nitrogen or any other element you care to mention, appears at exactly the same place in the spectrum and there was no signal where nitrogen would have appeared if it had been present in the samples analyzed. Case closed - the only time these words will escape my lips in connection to the Ripper!"

But if the ink was a Nigrosine based ink why is there no nitrogen?

It should be there shouldn't it? But if you can't find the N in Nigrosine might that not be the same reason why you can't find the N in chloroacetamide? If, of course, the ink contained chloroacetamide.

And if that's the case is it really Case Closed?

I know very little on this subject, but I thought an issue was raised recently with regard to the detection of very small amounts of nitrogen in ink? Robert Anderson refers to 'no notable traces of nitrogen', which sounds more like 'none detected' than an established absence. I suppose it might depend on whether it should have been detectable with the method and equipment used, if it was present at the levels indicated for any nigrosine-based ink, or any ink with chloroacetamide as an active ingredient.

The problem is that nobody seems to know how the diary ink compares with Diamine ingredient for ingredient, never mind the levels of each in the respective dried ink residues. If there had been a match, and independently verified as a match, that really would have been case closed in t'other direction - and there'd have been no need to argue back and forth on the merits of Baxendale's solubility test, the earliest known written example of a one off instance or what Mike really wanted to do with that little red diary [beyond using it for revenge purposes in January 1995].

Another problem is not knowing enough about the use of nigrosine and/or chloroacetamide in inks other than Diamine over the years, from the 1860s onwards, by individual ink chemists experimenting with their formulae and not sharing the information with their competitors in a steadily growing market. This is why it's the amount in the dried diary ink that counts, and not merely the presence or absence. A 'notable' presence is no more a problem than 'no notable' presence without a direct comparison with a modern ink.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Were there no books containing details about Crashaw and his poems available in the late 20th Century? Were there no libraries? No workhouses?

(Sorry, I was channelling Scrooge at the end there.)

Not containing all those details together, Gareth. If Mike ever knew them, he had forgotten the lot by January 1995, when just one would have been a game changer, not to mention that his research would certainly have extended to rather more than a mere 2 or 3 sources for the forgery.

Why would Mike even be looking for details of Crashaw's life and works to begin with, when researching the ripper and Maybrick? And what were the chances of finding such absolute gems? The infamous Sphere book doesn't contain any of them, although my paperback edition from 1970 does interestingly quote Crashaw on page 188:

'Love is too kind, I see; & can
Make but a simple merchant man.'

I think I would have used those lines for the diary myself.

Love,

Caz
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