One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Soothsayer]

Well, you'll have to show me which one, because the entry about a tale being designed to frighten the truth out of Florrie doesn't tie in at all with the diary.

Only with an excessive amount of creative interpretation.

Nor do we need one, since there's no reason to believe the real ripper wrote the letter in question. Yes, I was serious in my suggestion that he could have signed his real name. I don't consider it the most likely explanation, necessarily, but your incredulity at that suggestion is unwarranted, since false confessions to murder are fairly well known phenomenon. It's infinitely more likely to be correct, however, than the fanciful "Diego Laurenz = James Lawrence = James and Florence = James Maybrick" hypothesis.

Exactly, so stop saying they are.

Ben, seriously, I'm splitting my sides here!!!!! Just admit it, you didn't think it through before you posted it, man!!!!!!!!! It's totally preposterous! Oh Lord, my sides, my sides!

Anyway, where do you get this masterpiece from: "Diego Laurenz = James Lawrence = James and Florence = James Maybrick"? Desperate attempts to make a simple link seem convoluted. Try this simpler one: "Diego Laurenz = James Florence" (surprisingly easier, isn't it?).

My comment about the letters not being there were for the benefit of everyone in The Cult, because I know they have all had irony bypasses on joining. Thanks for confirming my theory! Of course the letters are there. Try looking at Evans and Rumbelow or Marriott or loads and loads of other writers and you'll see them sitting there, as clear as day. It's called evidence, Ben (something The Cult either wishes to ignore or wishes to undermine).

Florrie's letter doesn't potentially reference the journal? This one took me a while to work out, but then I remembered - no-one in The Cult has actually read anything about the journal!

The journal of James Maybrick is clear evidence that he was Jack the Ripper. Fortunately, we now have solid provenance in the back story of Anne Graham and her father Billy, who conveniently shared and share the surname Florence Maybrick chose on leaving jail in 1904. Coincidence, Ben? Of course, it must have been (warning: irony alert!).

Fortunately, we also have three concrete pieces of supporting evidence:

1) Florrie's letter
2) The Diego Laurenz letter
3) The letters 'FM' on Kelly's wall.

Now, that's my case. Let's hear yours, Ben. Who does your Master tell you was Jack? And where's the evidence for it?

[Ben]

Desperate attempts to make a simple link seem convoluted. Try this simpler one: "Diego Laurenz = James Florence" (surprisingly easier, isn't it?).

Unsurprisingly wrong too. Laurenz doesn't mean "Florence", so it requires some tweaking and fiddling to get it to mean what you're so anxious for it to mean. The above constitutes a desperate attempt to make a convoluted link seem simple.

Of course the letters are there. Try looking at Evans and Rumbelow or Marriott or loads and loads of other writers and you'll see them sitting there, as clear as day.

No they're not.

You can argue that you're seeing something that look a bit like letters if you're hell bent on it, but letters they most certainly are not, or else the contemporary police would have noticed them. Irrefutably so.

The journal of James Maybrick is clear evidence that he was Jack the Ripper.

Nope, the scrapbook purporting to be the journal of James Maybrick is clear evidence of forgery, and if you're buying into the notion that the Grahams are related to the Maybricks and that it somehow lends credence to James Maybrick being a serial killer, I'm afraid you've been very seriously duped.

[Steve Powell]

Feldman anagram

Diego Laurenz = Die Go Run Laze
That's what he did.

[Soothsayer]

Unsurprisingly wrong too. Laurenz doesn't mean "Florence", so it requires some tweaking and fiddling to get it to mean what you're so anxious for it to mean. The above constitutes a desperate attempt to make a convoluted link seem simple.

It just rhymes with it, it doesn't mean it. No tweaking. No fiddling. Just rhyming (tenuously, it is true, but not much else rhymes with 'Florence', does it?). Doesn't matter to you and your ilk, though Ben - you don't want to enquire or develop; you just want to deny anything which threatens or contradicts the tenets of The Cult.

By the way, Ben, still waiting for your candidate and for the evidence which brought you to him (or her).

I - I guess far too late - have recently realised that it would be simply impossible to convince Cult members to relinquish The Quest. The Quest is all that matters to The Cult, not the reolution of The Quest. We could find a signed confession from the actual Jack himself, with unequivocal evidence of his guilt, and The Cult would still tell you all to deny it.

James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. The Maybrick journal proves it beyond any reasonable doubt. The provenance is understood right back to Edith Formby. Anne Graham gives it a living provenance, so naturally she has to be ignored, insulted, and discounted by you and your ilk from The Cult of Ripperology.

Ben, you've discounted the fact Florrie called herself Graham. You've discounted the Florrie letter to Brierley. You've discounted the Diego Laurenz letter. You deny the letters on Kelly's wall, even though they are so clear, and so many people see them. You've discounted the journal itself (and got yourself terribly confused with that whole 'May' debate you went on and on about last year). I could tell you that the Earth was round, and you'd scream that it was flat, just like your forefathers did. It doesn't matter what I or anyone else cites, you and your ilk would simply ignore it, insult it, discount it.

You're coming across like a classic member of The Cult - terrified that The Quest will end. Worst still, deep down, aware that finally The Quest has ended.

[Soothsayer]

Diego Laurenz = Die Go Run Laze
That's what he did.

That's helpful, thanks.

[Ben]

It just rhymes with it, it doesn't mean it. No tweaking. No fiddling. Just rhyming

And to get from "Diego Laurenz" to "James and Florence Maybrick" requires an unacceptable and preposterous leap of speculative faith, and anyone silly enough to make it is likely to be scoffed at for good reason. Diego Laurenz does not mean James and Florence Maybrick. It just doesn't. To argue otherwise would be to conjur up ridiculously fanciful interpretations of the order that most Maybrickians find themselves guilty of on a regular basis, usually when they try to fill in the blanks by looking for "support" for Maybrick's candidacy outside of the diary.

It's the same mentality that created "The James are the men".

No, I didn't get confused in the whole "May" debate. You did. I pointed out that the hoaxer could easily have been reading the back of the dust-cover of Martin Fido's "Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper", published in the late 1980s, and discovered the "Blind Man's Bluff" cartoon accordingly.

James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. The Maybrick journal proves it beyond any reasonable doubt.

Haha!

No.

[Soothsayer]

And to get from "Diego Laurenz" to "James and Florence Maybrick" requires an unacceptable and preposterous leap of speculative faith,

Diego = James, Laurenz rhymes with Florence (badly, but what else does?). There you are, your problem neatly solved. You do actually know what this is referring to, don't you? You know about the letter to the Liverpool Echo, yeah? I'm just checking because I've discovered that people will post to the Casebook even though they haven't read a thing.

No, I didn't get confused in the whole "May" debate. You did. I pointed out that the hoaxer could easily have been reading the back of the dust-cover of Martin Fido's "Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper", published in the late 1980s, and discovered the "Blind Man's Bluff" cartoon accordingly.

There you go again - totally missing the point, and after so many months! Amazing!

The point I was trying to make which you so spectacularly keep missing is that the journal refers to Maybrick as 'May' then - lo! - so does Florrie in a telegram. Again, external, factual evidence on the record backing up the journal. Oh Lord, please please get it this time, Ben!

Please don't say (again) that the forger got the reference to 'May' from the cartoon. I'm not doubting where the forger got the reference from (that's blindingly obvious given that he says so in the journal at the time!!!!). I'm suggesting that Florrie's use of 'May' supports Maybrick's playing around with the name in the journal.

I know you won't get this, but hope springs eternal ...

[Ben]

Diego = James, Laurenz rhymes with Florence (badly, but what else does?). There you are, your problem neatly solved.

The problem isn't mine.

The problem remains with those grasping at ludicrously tenuous connections, and you can't get more ludicrously tenuous that the assumption that "Laurenz" might end up rhyming with "Florence" is you pronounce them both incorrectly, which somehow means James Maybrick was the author of the letter and the Whitechapel murderer.

The point I was trying to make which you so spectacularly keep missing is that the journal refers to Maybrick as 'May' then - lo! - so does Florrie in a telegram.

But the journal almost certainly refers to "May" because of the note appended to the Punch Cartoon which, as I've mentioned was readily accessible, courtesy of Martin Fido's book. The hoaxer didn't need any of Florrie's letters to make that observation, nor did he need them to include that unfunny witticism in the diary. Incidentally, Florrie alomost certainly used "May" as a written abbreviation, and not as an actual nickname for her husband.

I'm not doubting where the forger got the reference from

Fan-phucking-tanstic.

So don't keep saying that Maybrick wrote it then.

[Graham]

OK, I can't keep it to myself any longer.

I wrote the Diary.

Or did I?

Napoleon

[Magpie]

The Quest is all that matters to The Cult, not the reolution of The Quest. We could find a signed confession from the actual Jack himself, with unequivocal evidence of his guilt, and The Cult would still tell you all to deny it.

Soothie, Soothie, Soothie. A Poisoning the Well fallacy from you?

I can't tell you how disappointed I am

[Brenda]

Who are all these people seeing initials on the wall? I've been on this site quite a few years now, and never met "lots" of people that see initials.
I "see" what it is you are referring to, but I don't believe they are letters scribbled on a wall in blood by the killer.

[babybird67]

nor me

i've never been able to see the letters either.

[Graham]

Whoever wrote the sodding Diary or whatever it is, said something like, "An initial here, an initial there". Was there ever any frigging mention of the wall above Mary Kelly's frigging bed? Maybe 'he' was referring to something he wrote on the wall of the piss-corner of his local boozer. How the hell did this ever get connected to the now-you-see-them-now-you-don't letters in the famous photo?

Graham

[Soothsayer]

Soothie, Soothie, Soothie. A Poisoning the Well fallacy from you?

I can't tell you how disappointed I am

Magpie,

What are you talking about?

And it's Soothy, for goodness sake!

PS Just Googled it. I like it! I shall add it and its strategy to my Machiavellian arsenal immediately!

Soothy

[Soothsayer]

Whoever wrote the sodding Diary or whatever it is, said something like, "An initial here, an initial there". Was there ever any frigging mention of the wall above Mary Kelly's frigging bed? Maybe 'he' was referring to something he wrote on the wall of the piss-corner of his local boozer. How the hell did this ever get connected to the now-you-see-them-now-you-don't letters in the famous photo?

Graham

Graham,

Calm down. Take your pills. It's the weekend - the nice people will come and take you out.

Just steer clear of wells, now that I hear they are fallacies too.

Soothy