One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Scott Nelson]

Yes, it's a damned theory, Ike.

[Iconoclast]

On another thread, The Baron has made reference to my short critique of the issue of the placing of Kelly's breasts in my brilliant Society Pillar. Obviously, you've all read it (probably many times - it's more of a reference book now, I think), but I thought I'd remind the forgetful amongst you of the argument which I so brilliantly made:

The carnage which was committed on Mary Kelly’s corpse is pretty much without equal in the annals of serial killing. She was gutted like an animal and her room was left a scene of unimaginable horror. Witnesses thought so in 1888, and we would still agree in 2019. Whoever destroyed Mary Kelly’s body must have been profoundly aroused as all his previous disgusting efforts were monumentally eclipsed due to the time he had available to finally rip a woman’s body to bits. His senses must have been in overdrive. Whittington-Egan [31, p101] cites Dr Samuel Ingleby Oddie:

Oddie, later describing ‘the mass of human flesh which had once been Mary Kelly’, wrote, ‘Let it suffice for me to say that in my twenty-seven years as a London coroner I have seen many gruesome sights, but for sheer horror this surpasses anything I ever set eyes on.’

Is it likely – in the uncontrolled blood lust of that slaughterhouse – he would remember every single act he committed on the tragic Kelly? Critics of the Victorian scrapbook would certainly say so. We know this because the author of the scrapbook gets his facts mixed-up regarding where Jack placed Kelly’s severed breasts. In reality (assuming the pathology report was accurate), he left one at her foot and the other by her head. He did not leave them on the table by Kelly’s bed along with so much other gore as some newspapers at the time claimed, and which the author of the Victorian scrapbook repeated.

Melvin Harris identified Underwood’s 1988 Jack the Ripper: One Hundred Years of Mystery as the source of the hoaxer’s mistake when Underwood writes [14, pp25-26]:

But to return to the scene of the murder: on a table by the bed there were little piles of flesh, neatly laid out: the breasts, the heart and the kidneys and, horror of horrors, other parts of her body and dripping intestines hung from the picture nails like the grotesque and fiendish whims of a disordered mind.

It seems for all the world that the hoaxer of the late 1980s or early 1990s had leaned directly upon Underwood’s error and simply repeated it, thereby unequivocally proving the fraud. Interestingly, what Underwood’s statement implies is that ‘the breasts … hung from the picture nails like the grotesque and fiendish whims of a disordered mind’ rather than were found on the table, but we’ll accept that he meant they were on the table and that it was her intestines which were hung from picture nails. Either way, Underwood tells a story which disagrees with the pathologist, and the hoaxer appears to have fallen for it.

Is there a reasonable alternative view, however? It is largely up to the individual reader to decide for themselves. Some may feel that there is simply no possibility that the Ripper would get such a detail wrong. Others might argue that – in amongst the destruction wrought upon Kelly’s body – errors of recall compounded by errors of contemporary newspaper reporting were not just possible but quite possibly inevitable.

The error of Kelly’s breasts is a bad one – not simply because the author erred but because he was so elaborate in his erring. The hoaxer is very specific in his notes and his articulation of the destiny of Kelly’s breasts appears to leave no room for doubt [1, p284]:

I thought it a joke when I cut her breasts off, kissed them for a while. The taste of blood was sweet, the pleasure was overwhelming, will have to do it again, it thrilled me so. Left them on the table with some of the other stuff. Thought they belonged there.

Bizarrely, if the hoaxer was unaware (having read, say, only Underwood) that one breast was ultimately found by her feet, he guesses staggeringly accurately when he later writes in a piece of crossed-out doggerel [1, p286]:

I kissed them,
I kissed them
They tasted so sweet
I thought of leaving them by the whores feet
But the table it was bear
So I went and left them there

It is this crossed-out doggerel which presents the reasonable alternative. It is a very reasonable alternative too. If the hoaxer believed that Jack had left Kelly’s breasts on the table by the bed, why on earth did he decide that they might otherwise have been left by her feet? If he knew that one had been left by her feet, why did he claim they were both left on the table?

The answer seems compelling: Jack the Ripper thought of leaving Kelly’s breasts by her feet, and ultimately left one there and the other by her head. It is possible, of course, that he did both. In his doggerel, the ‘table was bare’ which suggests that Maybrick mutilated Kelly’s breasts early in his assault on her corpse. If this is the case, he may well have placed her breasts on the empty table by her bedside, and perhaps later removed them again and put them where they were ultimately found - the errors he read in the newspaper then causing him to believe that he had left them on the table.

To iterate, as this is a critical point, whichever way you choose to cut this, the author of the Victorian scrapbook claims that Jack at least thought of leaving Kelly’s breasts at her feet and this is a staggering claim to make if the author did not know that one breast was indeed left at one of her feet. If, on the other hand, the author wrote this knowing that Kelly’s breasts were not left on the bedside table, why did he knowingly insert such a crippling error into his tale?

The claim that this error proves the scrapbook is a hoax is ironically weaker here than the claim that the error may actually support the case against James Maybrick.

Society's Pillar can be viewed and downloaded from History vs Maybrick or sent as an email attachment if you prefer (historyvsmaybrick@gmail.com).

It's brilliant and it's free, two of my favouritist things ....

Ike

[The Baron]

Hi All,

"I had a key,
And with it I did flee."

Star, 12th November 1888

The key of the womans door has been found, so her murderer did not carry it away with him, as was at first supposed.

Regards,

Simon

The key went missing soon after the window got broken on 30th October, and so on 9th November the door could not have been locked with the key.

And as the key had gone missing soon after the window got broken on 30th October, Jack the Diarist could not have had the key, and with it he did flee.

Regards,

Simon

we've at last nailed down the lid on the Diary coffin


Simon

Simon killed the diary stone dead in one shot!




The Baron

[erobitha]

Simon killed the diary stone dead in one shot!




The Baron

Was this reported in any other newspaper? Perhaps a more reputable title?

Forgive me if I find anything quoted from The Star as reliable as anything quoted from today's The Sun.

If it is quoted in any other paper independently then I will happily to take it on board, but this is from the paper that gave us the amazing disappearing Israel Schwartz and his live-in translator.

[Iconoclast]

Simon killed the diary stone dead in one shot!

The Baron

Well done Simon - good job - the whole affair is over at last!

Hold on a second ...

Hold on ...

The key went missing after October 30, yes?

And then it got found again before November 9, perhaps?

So Maybrick took that recently-found key away with him in the early hours of November 9 so that his carnage could not be discovered until he was well away, at which point he threw it away (not like he'd need it again).

And then it is found 'again' in time for The Star to report by November 12 that it had been found.

Aw, what a shame! Looks like the diary isn't stone dead after all - and all I did was apply a little bit of logic! Now I might be wrong (I'm only spitballing here) - perhaps the key was definitely known to still be missing on the evening of November 8. The good news is, someone will surely inform me!

PS Did George Hutchinson report that Mary Kelly had disappeared around the corner before coming back with her door open? If not, does this not imply rather strongly that she simply opened her door with the key which had been found again?

Ike

[Harry D]

"The diarist got it wrong, so obviously that proves it was authentic!"

I'm afraid there's no antidote for doublethink like this

[The Baron]

There is one more thing

The hoaxer says:

I had a key,
And with it I did flee


There is a very subtle error in the above, Jack was not locked in the room, he was not imprisoned there, he didn't need a key to flee.



The Baron

[The Baron]

"The diarist got it wrong, so obviously that proves it was authentic!"

I'm afraid there's no antidote for doublethink like this

The Baron

[Iconoclast]

There is one more thing

The hoaxer says:

I had a key,
And with it I did flee


There is a very subtle error in the above, Jack was not locked in the room, he was not imprisoned there, he didn't need a key to flee.



The Baron

I answered that in my previous post. Maybe you'd care to read it?

[Iconoclast]

"The diarist got it wrong, so obviously that proves it was authentic!"

I'm afraid there's no antidote for doublethink like this

Well the diarist (not the hoaxer) got it right and they got it wrong, and it's that which points towards authenticity, but - honestly - you do have to think about these things before you post.

Someone who believed that the breasts were left on the table would not - surely - have lucked-in by suggesting they had thought of leaving them at Kelly's feet?

And someone who believed that the breasts (or breast) had been left at her foot would not have said that they had left them on the table?

No doublethink needed nor employed.

[Harry D]

Well the diarist (not the hoaxer) got it right and they got it wrong, and it's that which points towards authenticity, but - honestly - you do have to think about these things before you post.

Someone who believed that the breasts were left on the table would not - surely - have lucked-in by suggesting they had thought of leaving them at Kelly's feet?

And someone who believed that the breasts (or breast) had been left at her foot would not have said that they had left them on the table?

No doublethink needed nor employed.

Donald Rumbelow's The Complete Jack the Ripper from 1987 printed a newspaper report that mentions "the liver etc... were found placed between the feet of this poor victim", so it seems to be nothing more than the hoaxer incorporating that knowledge into the diary.

[Iconoclast]

Donald Rumbelow's The Complete Jack the Ripper from 1987 printed a newspaper report that mentions "the liver etc... were found placed between the feet of this poor victim", so it seems to be nothing more than the hoaxer incorporating that knowledge into the diary.

Ah yes, I see where you're going with that Detective. Someone once published that some organs were found at Kelly's feet ipso facto the diary is a hoax because the hoaxer must of necessity then thought "I've already plumped for the commonly-held belief that her breasts were found on the table, but having read Rumblebow I'd better cover my arse by adding that Jack may have thought of leaving her breasts at her feet because that will totally make my hoax believable" only to find that actually his throwaway, crossed-out line of doggerel turned-out to be the correct version of events. I can't decide whether you consider this to be deduction or simply inference but either way it comes - unfettered - from a mind firmly made up already.

At the time of which you speak, the belief was common that Kelly's breasts were left on the table so it was an act of hoaxing genius to introduce a little bit of your 'doublethink' into the story by having Jack think to do what it ultimately turned-out he did.

[Harry D]

Ah yes, I see where you're going with that Detective. Someone once published that some organs were found at Kelly's feet ipso facto the diary is a hoax because the hoaxer must of necessity then thought "I've already plumped for the commonly-held belief that her breasts were found on the table, but having read Rumblebow I'd better cover my arse by adding that Jack may have thought of leaving her breasts at her feet because that will totally make my hoax believable" only to find that actually his throwaway, crossed-out line of doggerel turned-out to be the correct version of events. I can't decide whether you consider this to be deduction or simply inference but either way it comes - unfettered - from a mind firmly made up already.

At the time of which you speak, the belief was common that Kelly's breasts were left on the table so it was an act of hoaxing genius to introduce a little bit of your 'doublethink' into the story by having Jack think to do what it ultimately turned-out he did.

It’s as simple as that.

The hoaxer went on the contemporary misconception that Kelly’s breasts were left on the table. He must have also read the report that stated the killer left some of the organs by her feet and incorporated that into the narrative.

Fact of the matter is the author got a key piece of information about the murder WRONG.

[The Baron]

Fact of the matter is the author got a key piece of information about the murder WRONG.

tin match box empty





It is astonishing! It doesn't matter how many error one makes in a forgery, one can always find some people who will believe it!

In this case, those readily and unconditionally believers not only believe it, they use those exact errors to confirm its authenticity!

People can believe ANYTHING, there is NO LIMITS for imagination, this case proved it.



The Baron

[Iconoclast]

Fact of the matter is the author got a key piece of information about the murder WRONG.

Well whoa there Trigger. How do you know that Maybrick didn't place Kelly's breasts on the table before removing them again, putting one at her foot and the other at her head? In this event, Maybrick's account would have been right and then right again. On what grounds have you apparently excluded this possibility? Is your worldview so rigid that events cannot be anything other than as they were recorded?

But - even if you stick rigidly to the convenient position that the author was wrong (even though he was also right), the question then remains, does that invalidate the claim? Before you retort "Yes, of course", steady the horse a moment and think about it. Does the error (if error it be) actually disprove the claim? If the author claims that the breasts were left on the table - as so many newspapers were telling him after the potentially long-drawn-out mutilation (and as they so heavily influenced Ripper texts for a hundred years) - does that mean that the author cannot in any event have been the killer? If you think the answer is "Yes" then I suggest that a job is waiting for you in the detective department of the Metropolitan Police*.

Mind, if you insist on taking the written word at its most unyieldingly literal, there can be no room for context, for human error, for human inconsistency. By this means, you attempt to pigeonhole the text into the bracket of a hoax when others can see that the events are far from incontrovertible.

* To be read in a hugely sardonic tone ...