One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[spyglass]

He's back in chokey doing a ten stretch with Soothsayer, Gladiator, etc..

Will they ever learn the error of their ways?

I'm sure Mitchel and Soothsayer are/were the same person....He got reprimanded and accused of being a sock puppet by admin if my memory serves me well.

Hope he is well.

Regards

[spyglass]

Hi all,
Been away from here for a while, but still kept an eye on things.
I'm still not convinced Maybrick was JTR, however I still have not seen or heard anything to prove he wasn't.

A few years back, a prominent JTR historian and author categorically stated he knew that the diary was a forgery, and exactly who was behind it.
In fact he was very angry about it because he felt it held back and hindered real research on the subject.
Well in that case he could of ended this debate there and then.....still waiting!

regards.

[Iconoclast]

You've got a bit of a way to go before you overtake the A6 Thread at something over 1,180,000 views. But of course we on the A6 deal with facts, not common or garden speculation.............................

Graham

Excellent - the Battle of the Threads!

On the facts vs common or garden speculation issue I do think it is relevant that we aren't actually talking about the same case here.

The A6 case vs, say, the death of Diana would undoubtedly give the latter a good run for its money on speculation but could not possibly compete on fact.

I think you should compare apples with apples, young man, or at least acknowledge that we inevitably know more about your apples than we do about my pears.

And tell your mates to get rid of those banners whilst you're at it ...

Ike

[Iconoclast]

I'm sure Mitchel and Soothsayer are/were the same person....He got reprimanded and accused of being a sock puppet by admin if my memory serves me well.

Hope he is well.

Regards

I imagine he is still at the very top of his game, SpyG.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hi all,
Been away from here for a while, but still kept an eye on things.
I'm still not convinced Maybrick was JTR, however I still have not seen or heard anything to prove he wasn't.

A few years back, a prominent JTR historian and author categorically stated he knew that the diary was a forgery, and exactly who was behind it.
In fact he was very angry about it because he felt it held back and hindered real research on the subject.
Well in that case he could of ended this debate there and then.....still waiting!

regards.

I wouldn't set your watch by the accuracy of such routine claims from the naysaying classes, SpyG. The journal is the real deal. I think a quarter of a century chimes quite nicely as we reflect back with a cup of tea and a biscuit on the knowledge that James Maybrick rather obviously was Jack the Spratt McVitie.

Ike

[c.d.]

Hello Ike,

And what is your take on those handwritten letters from Mike Barrett to his wife that David so recently discovered?

c.d.

[Iconoclast]

Hello Ike,

And what is your take on those handwritten letters from Mike Barrett to his wife that David so recently discovered?

c.d.

It is a rare opportunity these days to legitimately repeat oneself, but let me try, c.d..

These are the scribblings of an emotionally-broken man whose senses were scratched and torn by the ravages of the demon drink. They were not posted, so we lack corroborating evidence from Anne's replies. They therefore could be 'genuine' (and by 'genuine' we should mean factually-correct) or else they could be malicious, manipulative, and utterly mendacious. I - for one - have no way of knowing which it is.

And nor does anyone else, I'm afraid.

The back story for Maybrick as Jack the Spratt is too rich to discard in the light of Barrett's desperate befuddlement.

[c.d.]

It is a rare opportunity these days to legitimately repeat oneself, but let me try, c.d..

These are the scribblings of an emotionally-broken man whose senses were scratched and torn by the ravages of the demon drink. They were not posted, so we lack corroborating evidence from Anne's replies. They therefore could be 'genuine' (and by 'genuine' we should mean factually-correct) or else they could be malicious, manipulative, and utterly mendacious. I - for one - have no way of knowing which it is.

And nor does anyone else, I'm afraid.

The back story for Maybrick as Jack the Spratt is too rich to discard in the light of Barrett's desperate befuddlement.

A reasonable answer. Thanks.

c.d.

[Abby Normal]

A reasonable answer. Thanks.

c.d.

Totally agree. I think Maybrick might have also been spring -heeled jack, jack and the beanstalk and JFK!

[Sam Flynn]

A reasonable answer. Thanks.

Apart from the last paragraph: "The back story for Maybrick as Jack the Spratt is too rich". Really? The back story begins and ends with the diary.

[Iconoclast]

Apart from the last paragraph: "The back story for Maybrick as Jack the Spratt is too rich". Really? The back story begins and ends with the diary.

Far from it, Sam. The back story has been slowly enriched by unexpected gems over the years which have made Maybrick's candidature for Jack emminently more plausible. It is absolutely undeniable to state that Mischievious Fate has thrown up a series of circumstances which have played readily into the hands of our hoaxer or hoaxers - and all after the event of the hoax. From the top of my head alone:

1) The 'M's which appear in the Chapman and Eddowes' deaths (the former could have been researched by a hoaxer, fair enough, but the latter was not something commonly discussed until Maybrick's case was first introduced via the journal).
2) The rhyme which plays so unexpectedly in Maybrick's favour ('as time will show', and 'I'm society's pillar').
3) The Goulston Street Graffito which patently contains cryptic references to all six significant adults in Maybrick's family.
4) The Daily Telegraph photofit of October 6, 1888, which looked so closely like James Maybrick.
5) The September 17 'Dear Boss' letter which was written in a hand so like the joural's (something tells me that this will prick Lord O into some research leading inevitably to contradiction).
6) The 'FM' on Kelly's wall, so clear in the published works of those two arch-journalists Sugden and Marriott.
7) The astonishingly-implausible October 10, 1888, postcard to the Liverpool Echo (the Liverpool Echo, mind!) citing the apparently-irrelevant 'Diego Laurenz'.
8) Florence Maybrick leaving gaol under the name Florence Graham.
9) Billy Graham and his sister looking so strikingly like Florence 'Graham'.
10) Places post-publication for Maybrick to have been in order to place him in or near Whitechapel (Witt, Robertson).
11) Kim Rossmo's geoprofiling data which highlighted Middlesex Street as as good a locus for the fiend's home as Flower & Dean Street (which Rossmo, in fact, focused on).
12) Anne Graham's link-through-marriage to the viper Alice Yapp.
13) The uncovering of Michael Maybrick's lyric-writing when once it was such a cornerstone of journal-doubters.
14) The reference to Gladys being ill 'again' and a letter from the time of the crimes which confirms it (middle-class Victorian children were not like lower-class children - they were healthy and they tended to live to adulthood).
15) George Davidson's pocket watch under his pillow when he died otherwise penniless in March 1893.

That's just off the top of my head, sitting here in my suit, just home from work! When I post, I'll doubtless start thinking of others I've missed.

You cannot ever say that Fate makes it implausible for Maybrick to be Jack the Spratt McVitalite. He positively oozes out of the surrounding evidence with a back story that just keeps fitting the facts.

If it ever proves to be the case tha Maybrick was not Jack, Fate has much to answer for its mischieviousness.

Ike

[Sam Flynn]

The 15 points you mentioned are either fanciful, mistaken or desperate retro-fits that can only be made with the hindsight of the diary's publication. If the diary had never come to light, there'd be no reason to identify Maybrick as the Ripper at all.

[Iconoclast]

The 15 points you mentioned are either fanciful, mistaken or desperate retro-fits that can only be made with the hindsight of the diary's publication. If the diary had never come to light, there'd be no reason to identify Maybrick as the Ripper at all.

Without the journal, absolutely - these 15 points would not have ever been connected together by anyone. Indeed, not even a single one of them would have been linked to anyone - James Maybrick or anyone else. This is not surprising. If you do not know that something connects other things, it is more or less impossible to envisage the link to identify that unifying thing. You have to be handed it.

For 130 years, these things meant nothing. But in the context of a centralising factor such as the journal, they immediately start to make sense. When you say "James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper", you can start to see where these 15 things become spokes in a wheel pointing inwards at the hub.

They are not "fanciful, mistaken or desperate retro-fits" at all but they do require "the hindsight of the diary's publication". You are absolutely correct that "If the diary had never come to light, there'd be no reason to identify Maybrick as the Ripper at all." but that does not mean that they were not spokes pointing to a hub all of this time. We just didn't think about the hub in the context of Jack the Ripper therefore we did not see the connections to what was out there.

For example, the GSG has been argued over for 130 years. Of course it was. We are such a literal animal that we obsessed with the obvious bit - the strange reference to 'Juwes' and tried to make sense of the message in its context; we tried to eek out sense from the ultimately senseless because that's what our brains are hard-wired to do. But eventually James Maybrick is presented as Jack and the GSG is revealed for what it was, a reasonably clever cryptic clue to the six significant adults in James Maybrick's life. Of course this could never have been uncovered without the hub being clear. Why would anyone think - spontaneously - to identify an apparently-prosperous middle class cotton merchant from Liverpool as the Whitechapel fiend? They wouldn't, and they didn't. It took something to reveal him - something to lift the veil away from the wheel, and then the clues to Maybrick all made sense and their association became clear.

It is not a weakness of the journal that it was the reason James Maybrick was identified as Jack the Ripper, it is only a strength of it. Without the journal, no-one would have thought to look for the evidence - or the 'links' if you don't like the word 'evidence' - pointing towards Maybrick. Once the journal unveiled the man, we could start to look to see what lay out there to link with him.

And we found what we found, and to me it is compelling stuff. I understand that to others it is not, though I feel uncomfortable when they dismiss it all so crudely with remarks like "The 15 points you mentioned are either fanciful, mistaken or desperate retro-fits ..." when they are patently not. They may not be correct. I may be wrong. But they in themselves have a right to be heard and considered without the casual dismissal of the inconsiderate eye.

[c.d.]

"The Goulston Street Graffito which patently contains cryptic references to all six significant adults in Maybrick's family."

Sorry, but that is a stretch and then some. It reminds me of the "Bible Code." Simply rearrange letters over and over until you get something which you think is significant. There are simply no references there to Maybrick's family any more than it cryptically translates "for a good time call Queen Victoria."

And finally ask yourself if in fact Maybrick was the author of the GSG why would he take the chance to write a message that only he and he alone knew what it meant. That just doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree on this one.

c.d.

[Sam Flynn]

You could have ended that last sentence after the fifth word,, CD