One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Jesus, man, the statistical analysis clearly has to stop the day the 'coincidence' occurs. You cannot include any other day post-March 9, 1992!

Ike, with all due respect, and very little is due at this point, the above comment exposes your ignorance of statistical analysis. You simply do not understand what statistics are, or when they should be used, nor how Orsam was using them, nor their limitations.

All Lord Orsam was calculating is how likely it would have been for an electrician to have been working at Dodd’s house on any given workday in 1992 (workdays being the only days Mike could have called Crew Literary Agency). That’s it. You may not have liked his exercise, but that’s what he was calculating. As such, of course he had to count all the known days electricians had worked for Dodd that year--before during and after. That’s how probabilities work. Hell, it could have been a lot worse. If we were to learn that Dodd had more electricians working the following November/December, long after the diary had been found, they would have been counted, too. And, come to think of it, Orsam could have counted all days that ANY type of workman was on Dodd’s property, just as long as he admitted that that is what he was doing, since the diary doesn’t say anything specifically about hiding the diary in a place that only an electrician would look.

It is at this juncture that you scream: BUT THE FLOORBOARDS.

You simply don’t get it, mate. The floorboards don’t matter. The floorboards aren’t a proven provenance; they are only a suspicion. So what you are really measuring is suspicions. Keith’s suspicions, to be specific. If you had actual evidence that the diary was found under the floorboards, you wouldn’t be bothering with impressing us with probabilities, would you?

Remember what you are attempting to accomplish. I encourage you to get with a statistician so he can point out the error of your thinking. I haven't the patience.

At least do this much. Meditate on the following:

Please try to comprehend how the vague wording of the diary makes a mockery of your experiments in probability theory. (Not to mention the lack of evidence that Eddie found anything).

If diary said "I will place this diary now under my bedroom floorboards" that would give us an iron-clad reference for our calculations.

But, in fact, the diary states "'I place this now in a place where it shall be found.”

Not only does it not say Jack Shite about floorboards, it does not even state the diary was going to be hidden. It states the opposite. Nor do we know if the diary WAS found…instead of being created. The probabilities you are attempting to measure are based on ghosts.

So--IKE--what exactly ARE you trying to measure?

[HINT: DO NOT SAY FLOORBOARDS!!!!]

At the risk of repeating myself, until you have actual evidence, what you are really attempting to measure is the validity of Keith Skinner’s suspicions. Or put another way, you are trying to calculate how likely it would have been for a ‘Maybrickian’ event significant enough to have caught Keith’s attention to have occurred on the same day that Barrett came forward with the diary. (Caveat: we don’t actually know March 9th is the day Barrett first came forward with the diary, but I concede it must have been in the ballpark).

Since you don’t actually have evidence that the diary came under floorboards, you can’t use that as the sole point of reference—it’s just one suspicion among many potential suspicions that are as yet unconfirmed.

What events would qualify?

Work on Dodd’s basement? Renovations at one of Michael Maybrick’s houses? Tearing out a shelf at the chambers of one of Maybrick’s former lawyer’s law offices? The excavation of John Over’s outhouse? An estate sale held at house in Aigburth?

“No,” I hear you scream, “nothing was found at those places.”

And I reply: “and you don’t know that anything was found under Dodd’s floorboards either!!”

Ask yourself this, Ike: what EXACTLY are you attempting to measure? And how do you plan on using statistics to measure it? The question is more subtle than you seem to grasp, because the diary doesn’t really leave us a reference point to use in our calculations. And we don’t have an actual proven event, either.

All you can really say is “man, it’s weird that some work was done on Dodd’s house the same day that Mike called Doreen.”

And I would ask, “how often does Dodd have work done on his house? Was something actually found, or did constant questioning by those investigating Dodd’s recent work inadvertently create the belief that something had been found?”

Stay away from statistics, Ike. You don’t have the aptitude, and there is nothing more annoying than being rudely lectured by someone who doesn't have a firm grasp of the subject matter.

[rjpalmer]

P.S.

Ike, had you really wanted to attack Lord Orsam’s statistical analysis in any intelligent way, you should have said. “Hold the phone! Foul! 1992 was not a typical year for Dodd. It’s not EVERY year that he has electricians in! It’s misleading to state that it was 18 to 1. He had no electricians in 1991, for instance.”

But, really, mate, he was being somewhat easy on you. Barrett having first called Crew on March 10th would have been just as much of a coincidence as March 9th (and some say it would have made the timing far more credible), so the odds really should be reduced to 9 to 1. And since the diary doesn’t say Jack Shite about floorboards, nor even hiding the diary at Battlecrease, it would have been appropriate to add in other visits by other workmen who could have led to suspicions about the diary having been unearthed—plumbers, etc. And other buildings significant to Maybrick’s life other than Dodd’s. You claim this is unfair, but the very vagueness of the diary forces us to do so.

Until you have proof that the diary was found hidden somewhere, all you are really measuring is the probabilities of potentially ‘suspicious events.’ If you had actual proof, you would present it. And of course, what makes a ‘suspicious event’ is subjective, so it can’t be accurately measured.

But my prediction is that you will keep crying foul and keep arguing about floorboards, because you have already concluded—even before your statistical analysis has started—that the diary DID come from underneath the floorboards. In a way, you have mentally "stacked the deck" before you have even begun.

To be fair, you did bring up a point that Orsam didn't address in this particular analysis, though he does address it elsewhere.

You are claiming that 9 March was actually a DOUBLE coincidence. It wasn't just a matter of a "suspicious" Maybrickian event having occurred on the same day that Barrett called Crew; it was a Maybrickian event that involved someone who (allegedly) was known to Mike Barrett. This 'Fat Eddie' chap.

And that, to your mind (because you have said so), greatly increases the improbability of this being a mere coincidence. What, you have asked, are the freaking odds???

I invite you to think through the matter carefully and then determine how you are going to go about calculating this additional 'coincidence.' It will be an opportunity for you to think about statistical analysis. When you're done you can post your methods and your conclusions, and what additional weight we should give to them.

If you don't want to do this exercise--then fine. Maybe I'll come back in a few days and address this issue myself.

R P

[caz]

As recently as two days ago, you suggested that Barrett had contacted Martin Earl to ascertain the value of a blank or almost blank Victorian diary (despite Mike already knowing that the one on offer was supposedly the Diary of Jack the Ripper, per his phone call with Doreen Montgomery). It remains a thoroughly bizarre suggestion, but let's go with it.

If such was the case, how could Barrett have already bought the diary in The Saddle at lunchtime on March 9th? Isn't this a discrepancy in your theory?

Earl's advertisement in Bookdealer doesn’t appear until March 19th--ten days later--and he did not send Barrett a bill until March 26th. So, your explanation for Mike’s odd purchase is already gasping for air.

I think the problem you have, RJ, is that because your own thinking is totally inflexible, despite the gaps that remain in our knowledge, and you have a complete picture in your mind that nothing can now alter, you can't cope with the flexible thinking of others, who do allow for those gaps and are still coming up with different scenarios to suggest what may actually have happened, when and in what order. The individual elements are not all going to work with each other to form a complete picture like the one you have. As long as I include the known facts, the rest is speculation and not yet a fully formed, fully workable whole. My mother always used to say we must cut our garment according to our cloth. If you don't have the cloth yet, but imagine you do, you'll be wearing the Emperor's new clothes while I'm still looking for colours and fabrics that won't clash when I am finally in a position to put them all together.

I think what you must be suggesting is that Fat Eddie was the ‘clueless and unsuspecting’ one. He risked his job--and legal trouble--by stealing what Ike has referred to as ‘clearly a very valuable historical document’ from Dodd’s house, and yet as fast as his car can travel he rushes over to The Saddle and hands it over to Mike Barrett's grubby mitts, on credit, without even determining what exactly he had, or what it was worth, or how much it might fetch—even though Eddie had supposedly told his employer that it ‘might be important.’ Mike was able to take the diary home, study it, etc. without paying a red penny.

It wouldn't be until some two weeks later, on or around March 27th, that Mike returns to The Saddle and seals the deal, bamboozling Eddie out of this potential “best seller” by waving Martin Earl's unpaid bill for £25 in the air.

Oh, brother.

Eddie, thoroughly satisfied with this transaction, buys a round, and rides off into the sunset, having served his purpose in our little drama. Within months, Barrett would turn down a £15,000 offer for the diary.

Where did all that come from? Your Emperor's new clothing catalogue? If you weren't so clearly terrified of the thought that the diary might have come from Maybrick's old bedroom and been passed on to Mike, at some point between 9th March and 12th April, you would have made a far more careful analysis [see what I did there?] of the known circumstances and therefore all the possibilities. Getting into such a muddle over the chronology is actually good news for you, because it makes it easier for us to see how Mike could have done the same with a few drinks inside him.

So, let me fix your statement.

Thank you, but bending everything out of shape until it needed fixing was all your doing, and you are making an art form out of it that does you little credit.

I think pretty much anyone would have roared with laughter if they were told that Eddie Lyons sold the Diary of Jack the Ripper to Mike Barrett for a measly £25 on the strength of an unpaid bill from Martin Earl! But that is what you are claiming as you try to wish-away Barrett's attempt at buy the raw materials for a hoax. It is only marginally more believable than Eddie accepting the red diary itself.

But you made that last bit up, didn't you? Like your fantasy that Eddie should have recognised what he had as a priceless artefact, and not let Mike have it for £25. How does that work with the common view that anyone who wasn't a total moron would have recognised it immediately as a worthless bit of old tat?

No, I don't see many people jumping onboard this train wreck, but perhaps you have already convinced Ike to abandon his former idea that a scrapbook found under the floorboards of Maybrick's old house was "clearly a very valuable historical document."

To everyone but 'Fat Eddie,' that is.

You wrecked the train, RJ, with your Major Misunderstanding imitations.

Do you happen to know how and when Eddie the electrician first learned that the house on Riversdale Road was once home to the man Mike identified as the diary's author?

I guess that'll be a 'no'.

Have a complacent weekend.

[rjpalmer]

If you want to believe that Caroline was remembering her dad discussing aspects of a theoretical diary, with someone who had died in August 1991, many months before it took on the physical form that she was actually being asked about, I won't be a bit surprised - nor even disappointed. It's all a bit late for that.

Thanks, Caz.

And if you want to believe that Caroline was confusing a man her father had a row with in July 1992--long after the diary had entered young Caroline's life--with a man who had died nearly a year earlier (August 1991), I wouldn't be surprised either--or even disappointed.

You see, both of our interpretations are based on a necessary confusion of some sort, so why is yours better than mine?

I don't think it is.

At least I have Paul Feldman stating that it was Tony that was being discussed (and never did it dawn on Feldy that Caroline could have meant Eddie), as well as the circumstantial evidence that Tony did have Mike's booklet, whereas you cannot show that Mike 'pestered' Eddie until many months after the diary had already entered Caroline's emotional life, (though I understand that you are theorizing they entered her life at the same time). But if so, how could she have confused a man her father was screaming about (Eddie) with the benign figure down at the pub, who had been now dead for at least 7 months?

What you are really suggesting is that Paul Begg and Martin Howells asked leading questions when quizzing young Caroline, and so, inadvertently, she confirmed their account of Mike pestering Tony, when she was really remembering Mike pestering Eddie.

But neither of us was there; we don't know if the questions were leading, or whether Caroline's answers indicated that there could have been no confusion. We also don't know (or at least I don't know) how well Caroline knew Tony. Your interpretation relies on Tony being little more than abstraction. Do you know that for a fact?

And how do we know that both of us aren't wrong, and young Caroline was simply coached?

I don't think it outlandish to think that Caroline could have remembered Mike discussing Tony and Maybrick during the same span that Mike lent Tony RWE's book (June or July 1991) and then wholeheartedly accepted the cover story eight months later when Mike first showed Caroline the physical specimen in April 1992. By the time Paul and Martin quizzed Caroline, nearly another year had passed, and her memory of the whole fiasco would have blended into one continual event.

Unless, of course, she was simply coached.

By the way, between finding the diary under Dodd's floorboards, and rushing to The Saddle, why did Eddie swing by the stationary store, buy some brown paper, and wrap up the diary?

Why would he have done that?

Wasn't that another detail in the collective memories of Mike Barrett, Ann Graham, and young Caroline?

It is according to Shirley Harrison. Brown paper. And Shirley even saw the brown paper in April 1992.

[rjpalmer]

How does that work with the common view that anyone who wasn't a total moron would have recognised it immediately as a worthless bit of old tat?

'Immediately'? That's your word. I would think at the very least they would have had needed to read it first.

You're having Eddie hand it over to Barrett immediately on credit, awaiting Martin Earl to figure out what it would be worth. Remember how this discussion started--we are not really discussing Eddie giving the diary to Mike--we are discussing your explanation as to why Mike was willing to buy the red diary.


And anyway, there is a further distinction. If you are correct, Eddy KNEW the diary came from under the floorboards of an old, Victorian house in Aigburth. By contrast, anyone who 'wasn't a moron,' only knew that the diary was an object being peddled by Mike Barrett who had previously contacted his agent under the alias 'Williams,' and had no better explanation than that he got it from a dead guy in a pub.

Really? You can't bring yourself to even admit that Eddie's "provenance" would have been FAR AND AWAY more compelling--which is precisely why you are championing it? And yet he was still willing to hand it over to Barrett?

No matter how you 'spin it,' you either have Eddie handing the diary over to Barrett unread and on credit (which supposedly explains Mike's dealings with Earl) or you have Eddie knowingly selling an object that is purporting to be the Diary of Jack the Ripper for a song.

If you don't wish to address that strange contradiction, then you will indeed have a complacent weekend.

No, I'm afraid that I don't find either scenario to be a credible explanation as to why Mike needed to go shopping for a blank Victorian diary with a least 20 blank pages.

[Yabs]

Just throwing this up for no other reason than it’s interesting.

From the Liverpool echo 1956.
Maybrick and Brierley discuss JTR

[Yabs]

[Scott Nelson]

Wasn't Devereux a compositor for the Liverpool Echo?

[rjpalmer]

I seem to recall that Melvin Harris once made point about Nigel Moreland (the article's author) mentioning Jack the Ripper in the same breath as Maybrick, and how this could have been an inspiration for the hoax.

But what I find interesting is that Moreland is claiming that Maybrick was home for Christmas 1888 (which agrees with what you noticed in Michael Maybrick's trial testimony), while the diarist has Sir Jim visiting Manchester for Christmas.

Some would see this as another mistake in the text, but, of course, this won't bother the sleep of the true believers. They will just claim Maybrick changed his mind after writing the entry, or respond by singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," in a bored, complacent, and sleepy sleepy voice.

It is all but impossible to pierce the armor of unquestioned belief.

[rjpalmer]

Wasn't Devereux a compositor for the Liverpool Echo?

Yes, and Richard Whittington-Egan was once a frequent contributor to the Echo. He had a column which discussed local mysteries.

[Iconoclast]

Ike, with all due respect, and very little is due at this point, the above comment exposes your ignorance of statistical analysis. You simply do not understand what statistics are, or when they should be used, nor how Orsam was using them, nor their limitations.

I think this opening salvo is probably going to set the tone for the rest of the post?

I received an email from one of our readers this afternoon and he said it better than I could: 'It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!'. I think he might just be right.

All Lord Orsam was calculating is how likely it would have been for an electrician to have been working at Dodd’s house on any given workday in 1992 ...

Believe me, if you are going to ignore 1889-1991 and just focus on 1992 then no statistician could possibly take you seriously. Honestly, don't take my word for it (as it would appear that I don't understand what statistics are), please please please have some integrity and find a statistician you trust and ask them. The first thing they will say to you is "Why are you deliberately massaging the denominator down by reducing the number of possible days in your analysis?". The next question they will ask is "If you are that determined to produce a fake statistic to support your argument, why stop at 1992? Why not just focus on the month of March 1992? Or just that one week? Or maybe just that one day (March 9, 1992) - that would get you a certainty - a rip-roaring probability of 1!".

Remember what you are attempting to accomplish. I encourage you to get with a statistician so he can point out the error of your thinking. I haven't the patience.

Having just pleaded with you to do the same, I'm probably going to have to decline.

Stay away from statistics, Ike. You don’t have the aptitude, and there is nothing more annoying than being rudely lectured by someone who doesn't have a firm grasp of the subject matter.

I get it. I hope everyone else gets it. I thought you were bigger than this. But you clearly aren't. You have realised that someone has a better grasp of the argument than you do (which your ego can't stand, obviously) so you try bluff and bluster and honestly the most embarrassing obfuscation to try to petulantly 'win back' what you feel is a superior position.

I am comfortable with my analysis, even if you aren't.

It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!

[Iconoclast]

P.S.

If you don't want to do this exercise--then fine. Maybe I'll come back in a few days and address this issue myself.

R P

It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!

[Yabs]

I’ve read on and those are snippets from the book
the friendless lady by Nigel Morland as quoted in The Echo

[rjpalmer]

I received an email from one of our readers this afternoon and he said it better than I could: 'It is completely and utterly useless to continue arguing against these people!'

An excellent question, Ike, even though it apparently comes from someone lacking the backbone to actually come forward and explain or defend your probability theories.

But still, the question is valid.

Why do you continue to argue against "these people"?

If I am too dense to comprehend the unimpeachable reality and accuracy of your statistical analysis, which purports to prove to a mathematical certainty that there can be only one credible provenance for the Maybrick Diary--that it came from underneath the floorboards of Maybrick's old bedroom on March 9, 1992---then I must not be alone on my island of stupidity, for I am seeing precious little discussion--let alone acceptance--of the 'Battlecrease' provenance anywhere. People don't appear to be discussing it or writing about it or championing it in the magazines, etc. which seems mighty odd if things are as you claim they are.

I generally don't like to fall back on an 'appeal to the masses'--I'd much rather have a rational discussion of the issue--but since you seem to believe it is really a matter of my stupidity, I'm curious if stupidity is also your explanation for other contributors to this forum, or Howard Brown's forum, or in the pages of The Ripperologist, etc., being utterly aloof the the Battlecrease provenance. That great silent majority that can't even muster enough interest to discuss the matter?

Is this simply a matter of bad PR? That they haven't heard about it? Or is the world as a whole too stupid to see the mathematical writing on the wall, as explained so eloquently and rationally by your own good self?

Just as the world at large appears to be too dense to understand the implications of "Diego Laurenz"?

As always, respectfully submitted, Ike. But as I do agree that it would be a shameful waste of your time to respond to my specific points, so I will now consider the topic closed.

Cheers.

[Iconoclast]

An excellent question, Ike, even though it apparently comes from someone lacking the backbone to actually come forward and explain or defend your probability theories.

I think you have to recognise that much of what passes for commentary on this thread is like watching Chelsea play Leeds in the 1970s. People are going to get hurt, so I don't blame anyone for steering clear of posting (which is actually a shame) and I admire those who do post even though they often get a roasting, occasionally from me.

But still, the question is valid.

Why do you continue to argue against "these people"?

Because I genuinely want to debate what - to paraphrase Caz - either is true or could be true (within reason and fitting with the evidence).

If I am too dense to comprehend the unimpeachable reality and accuracy of your statistical analysis ...

I don't think I've ever called you 'dense', RJ, but my statistical analysis is unimpeachable and is accurate, I promise you. Where I would admit a deficiency in my argument (and as was pointed out in your recent post), I don't factor in the other dates when work was done on Maybrick's house. This is 1) because these dates are not quantified anywhere, and 2) because I'm actually not - despite what you obviously think - attempting to say that the 'double event' of March 9, 1992 proves the scrapbook to be authentic. I'm not - I'm simply pointing -out what is true - namely that that was the most astonishing of double coincidences. The implications are obvious (and I state them), but they are not certain.

... which purports to prove to a mathematical certainty that there can be only one credible provenance for the Maybrick Diary--that it came from underneath the floorboards of Maybrick's old bedroom on March 9, 1992---then I must not be alone on my island of stupidity, for I am seeing precious little discussion--let alone acceptance--of the 'Battlecrease' provenance anywhere. People don't appear to be discussing it or writing about it or championing it in the magazines, etc. which seems mighty odd if things are as you claim they are.

What I find is that - without being 'dense' - the vast majority of people have no interest in statistics. Why would they? I can't imagine it's top of anyone's list of topics for discussion, but I find the subject fascinating and I know what's right and what's wrong about statistical analyses (at least at this basic level).

I generally don't like to fall back on an 'appeal to the masses'--I'd much rather have a rational discussion of the issue--but since you seem to believe it is really a matter of my stupidity, I'm curious if stupidity is also your explanation for other contributors to this forum, or Howard Brown's forum, or in the pages of The Ripperologist, etc., being utterly aloof the the Battlecrease provenance. That great silent majority that can't even muster enough interest to discuss the matter?

Arguments ad populum stink the house out. I couldn't give a **** if I'm the only person in the world who is making an argument. I only care about whether I'm making a good one or a **** one.

Is this simply a matter of bad PR? That they haven't heard about it? Or is the world as a whole too stupid to see the mathematical writing on the wall, as explained so eloquently and rationally by your own good self?

As I said above, no-one cares about statistics. I don't blame them, but it doesn't mean statistics can't advance a position in an argument. They can and they do.

Just as the world at large appears to be too dense to understand the implications of "Diego Laurenz"?

My point exactly. 'Diego Laurenz' in that context, to that provincial newspaper, is a staggeringly unlikely 'coincidence' if James Maybrick was not the Ripper, but I understand that most people just go 'Whoosh!' as it flies over their heads. They are the lucky ones.

As always, respectfully submitted, Ike. But as I do agree that it would be a shameful waste of your time to respond to my specific points, so I will now consider the topic closed. Cheers.

I would agree.

Ike