One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Fact - in 1992 I was working closely with Keith Skinner.

And I have worked closely with Keith on the diary and watch - on and off - for the last decade. To my knowledge Keith does not believe they are modern hoaxes but is still waiting and hoping for someone - anyone - to prove otherwise. Clearly you are one of many, many people with knowledge of certain aspects of this saga, all of whom are unable to put him out of his misery.

Love,

Caz
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[Stewart P Evans]

Contest

And I have worked closely with Keith on the diary and watch - on and off - for the last decade. To my knowledge Keith does not believe they are modern hoaxes but is still waiting and hoping for someone - anyone - to prove otherwise. Clearly you are one of many, many people with knowledge of certain aspects of this saga, all of whom are unable to put him out of his misery.
...
Caz
...

If this is some sort of contest then I've been working closely with Keith for over two and a half decades.

[Bridewell]

The Jury Remains Out

Hi Simon,
Well we will just have wait and see then, what a pity then that others who claim or imply ( in a round about way ) that they have had all this evidence for many years now, could'nt have put us out of our misery many years back.

Soothsayer...old pal,
lets see the out come, but till that day I will back you to the hilt in that quest for The One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal,Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the diary...and until that day you and I are right... it aint been proved YET.

The evidence suggests one of two things:
Either the diary is genuine or it is a well-conceived, but imperfect, forgery.

Soothsayer & Spyglass, the argument which says the diary is genuine because no unequivocal evidence has yet disproved it, is very weak.

There is no merit in a claim which is basically this:

"I can't prove my case but, as you can't disprove it, I must be right."

This has to apply equally to those who think the diary genuine, and to those who think it a hoax. However

The basic tenet of English law is that any suspect is innocent until proven guilty. If you wish to prosecute a case for James Maybrick being the Ripper, it is encumbent upon you to prove your case, not for the defence to disprove it.

James Maybrick, on the evidence available remains, therefore, not guilty in my view.

[Bridewell]

Going back to the first page of this thread, we have the following items which are allegedly suggestive of Maybrick's guilt:

1) A Whitechapel in both Liverpool and London
So what?
2) V marks on Catharine Eddowes (‘left my mark’)
How are V marks indicative of James Maybrick, more than Viva voce or Vauxhall Victor?
3) The FM on the wall of MK’s room
If these letters exist - and I have yet to find them - they are just initials, and not those of James Maybrick.
4) Florence’s comment in a letter to Brierley (‘The tale he told me …’)
...which could be anything. "She doesn't say that it wasn't a claim to be Jack the Ripper, therefore it probably was?" Get real!
5) The remarkable ‘photofit’ of Oct 6 which looked so much like Maybrick
but seemingly the wrong Maybrick!
6) The ‘Who is Jim?’ newspaper article
Where's Wally?
7) Maybrick’s established addiction to arsenic
I don't understand how Maybrick's use of arsenic is evidence that he was Jack the Ripper
8) Maybrick’s known presence in Whitechapel
along with 70,000 other people
9) The spelling of Jack from Maybrick’s name
Is this evidence?
10) The convenience of Juwes appearing much like James
but even more like Juives
11) The Diego Laurenz letter
Is this evidence?
12) The extravagant swirl at the end of a sentence
unique to James Maybrick?

Everyone is free to form their own opinion on the diary, but opinions are not evidence. Any claim that the genuineness of the diary is a proven fact, has to be supported by evidence. The existence of the diary is proof only that the diary exists. The checkable facts therein contained are proof only that those facts were known to (or guessed by) the writer. James Maybrick's name on the diary is not proof that he wrote it, any more than the word Bridewell over this post is proof that someone of that name actually wrote the post - my name is not Bridewell.

[caz]

If this is some sort of contest then I've been working closely with Keith for over two and a half decades.

Don't be daft, Stewart, I don't 'do' contests like that. I know my place.

Just saying what I know to be true about Keith's feelings on the subject. You also know his views, and how they differ from your own, but maybe not why they differ. If you had any evidence that Keith didn't, that could change his mind, I don't doubt that you would have shared it with him by now. From all the documentation I have been given access to, I have no choice but to share Keith's view that the diary and watch are not modern creations. No contest.

Love,

Caz
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[Stewart P Evans]

Obviously...

...
Just saying what I know to be true about Keith's feelings on the subject. You also know his views, and how they differ from your own, but maybe not why they differ. If you had any evidence that Keith didn't, that could change his mind, I don't doubt that you would have shared it with him by now. From all the documentation I have been given access to, I have no choice but to share Keith's view that the diary and watch are not modern creations. No contest.
...
Caz
...

Obviously Keith and I have discussed the 'diary' - going way back to 1992. And I have given him some material that I had and he didn't.

I know what Keith thinks about the 'diary' and I also know that he does not think that Maybrick was 'Jack the Ripper'. But it's not a question of what Keith's opinion, or mine, may be. I too have seen all the documentation but I disagree and I still believe it to be a circa 1990 creation.

I have a vast amount of information on this and that includes Melvin Harris's files, as well as much other original evidence in the form of private letters from many of the individuals involved.

Unfortunately, and I mean that, because of the private, and sometimes compromising, information that I possess I shall probably never be able to publish it (even if I had the interest to do so, which I don't).

Indeed, I shall probably destroy it all as I consider the subject to be divisive, contentious and a pointless exercise based on a modern fake. But, hey, that's my opinion, disagree with me if you wish, I really don't care.

[caz]

Hello Bridewell,

You are correct, James Maybrick must be presumed entirely innocent of the Whitechapel murders. Anyone who believes the diary (or watch scratches) to be his work still has one hell of a mountain to climb to prove it.

But the reverse is also true: those who claim they are the work of modern hoaxers do not even have a viable suspect, or suspects, let alone the evidence to prosecute anyone for fraud or forgery. If we are going to play it by the book, we have to presume the innocence of every potential modern hoaxer while there is no proof, scientific, linguistic or otherwise, that these objects could not both have been created many, many decades ago, by person or persons who have long since shuffled off their mortal coils.

And it has been the case since 1992 that modern hoax believers, more than anyone else, have made claims that are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Love,

Caz
X

[lynn cates]

research

Hello Caz. I recognise that I am out of my league with the diary and that it were better for me not to stick my nose in; nevertheless, I am intrigued by a persistent possibility that the diary represents an old hoax.

I daresay you are up on the research here, so can you tell me, have all the contemporary forgers been examined? I have recently found a couple of chaps who were involved in more than one hoax.

Maybe?

Cheers.
LC

[Soothsayer]

Hello Caz. I recognise that I am out of my league with the diary and that it were better for me not to stick my nose in; nevertheless, I am intrigued by a persistent possibility that the diary represents an old hoax.

I daresay you are up on the research here, so can you tell me, have all the contemporary forgers been examined? I have recently found a couple of chaps who were involved in more than one hoax.

Maybe?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

As I understand it, one of the biggest challenges facing the 'old hoax' theory is the fact that the author clearly has five canonical victims. Right up until relatively recently (1970s?), it was commonly held that there were seven victims in Jack's canon. The author in 1889 (or whenever) makes an interesting choice in focusing on just the five which are now, 120 years later, held to be his actual tally.

We also have the challenge of understanding how our late Victorian hoaxer managed to reference information which was not public domain until the 1980s. This would imply that our hoaxer was a policeman with inside information. Plausible, but hardly more so than that which Occam's fine Razor leaves you with - namely, that it was Maybrick himself who was Jack.

Ultimately, as with any jury, we all need to assess the reasonableness of the evidence before us, and I have yet to see that single piece which really destroys the case against Maybrick. Bridewell seems to think you can so casually disregard the circumstantial evidence which underpins the case in support of Maybrick as Jack, but then he or she might not be so inclined if they bothered to read one or more of the books on the case (a common failing, incidently, of journal critics on this website - not a single one of them has read a word of the case for the journal other than that strange multitude of enthusiasts who appear to me to have more or less lived with Keith Skinner for half a lifetime).

Anyway, I digress - so unlike me!

Keep the faith, but shift it ever so slightly. There are many grounds indeed for embracing the belief that the journal was written by someone with great insight, living in the late Victorian period.

The Mighty Soothsayer
Genius and Fearless Warrior/Detective

[Jonathan H]

The 'canonical five' were establihed by Major Griffiths in 'Mysteries of Police and Crime' based on 'Aberconway' by Macnaghten who believing in Druitt's guilt had to remove all post-Kelly murders, such as Coles, from Jack's list.

So, from 1898, Macnaghten was trying to cement the five. Even when he retired reporters were writing about seven.

Whomever faked the diary had a good look at what went wrong with the 'Hitler Diaries' and 'Mussolini Dairies' hoaxes -- and why wouldn't you.

In the end the hoaxer faced a potentially easier time because Maybrick is not a world historical figure like those Fascist dictators.

What they could not do with any ease was to establish the provenance of the 'source' and this is what renders it null and void as an historical artefact.

An extraordinary artefact has to be above reproach, there has to be a chain of where it originated and where it got to, and instead all those intimately connected with it have told conflicting stories.

Thus there is no reason to believe it is anything but a modern fake -- which the people who faked it made an effort to try and avoid errors made by previous notorious hoaxers of artefacts.

That the 'author' claims to be 'Jack the Ripper', a moniker believed by contemporaneous police to be a journalistic hoax (the one thing Littlechild, Macnaghten, Anderson and Sims agree upon, as sources, and Littlechild named the hoaxer(s) ) is very unconvincing, to say the least.

[lynn cates]

Ockham revisited

Hello Sooth. Thanks for that. Perhaps it is a new hoax after all.

Ockham's Razor? "Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate." How does that apply here? Perhaps you mean "The Principle of Parsimony"?

Cheers.
LC

[Bridewell]

Assumptions etc

Hi Lynn,

As I understand it, one of the biggest challenges facing the 'old hoax' theory is the fact that the author clearly has five canonical victims. Right up until relatively recently (1970s?), it was commonly held that there were seven victims in Jack's canon. The author in 1889 (or whenever) makes an interesting choice in focusing on just the five which are now, 120 years later, held to be his actual tally.

We also have the challenge of understanding how our late Victorian hoaxer managed to reference information which was not public domain until the 1980s. This would imply that our hoaxer was a policeman with inside information. Plausible, but hardly more so than that which Occam's fine Razor leaves you with - namely, that it was Maybrick himself who was Jack.

Ultimately, as with any jury, we all need to assess the reasonableness of the evidence before us, and I have yet to see that single piece which really destroys the case against Maybrick. Bridewell seems to think you can so casually disregard the circumstantial evidence which underpins the case in support of Maybrick as Jack, but then he or she might not be so inclined if they bothered to read one or more of the books on the case (a common failing, incidently, of journal critics on this website - not a single one of them has read a word of the case for the journal other than that strange multitude of enthusiasts who appear to me to have more or less lived with Keith Skinner for half a lifetime).

Anyway, I digress - so unlike me!

Keep the faith, but shift it ever so slightly. There are many grounds indeed for embracing the belief that the journal was written by someone with great insight, living in the late Victorian period.

The Mighty Soothsayer
Genius and Fearless Warrior/Detective

Soothsayer.

I don't casually disregard circumstantial evidence; I simply acknowledge it to be such and, therefore, do not place a great deal of weight upon it.
Nor do I make assumptions about which books other people have read. I bought the original Maybrick book when it first came out and read it from cover to cover. I have never met Keith Skinner, so your statement that:

not a single one of them has read a word of the case for the journal other than that strange multitude of enthusiasts who appear to me to have more or less lived with Keith Skinner for half a lifetime).

is not only a sweeping generalisation but, in my case, completely untrue.


The book was an interesting read, and a great deal of research had obviously gone into it. It is not, however, of itself, evidence. It is a book about the artefact known as the Maybrick Diary, an item of uncertain provenance, which it will remain unless and until a chain of evidence can be established linking the item itself (not just the content) to James Maybrick himself.

I do not claim that the Maybrick Diary is a hoax, nor do claim that it is genuine, because the matter has not been proved one way or the other.

You have every right to hold to the view that the diary is genuine, but others have an equal right to disagree. The point I was trying to make (perhaps not very well) is that no-one is proved right by the inability of others to prove them wrong.

Apologies, Caz. My signature was not intended to apply to any particular post. I am certainly not suggesting that the view of others are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing', although inevitably there are some whose views I do not share. I just like it as a quote, but probably ought to change it to avoid ambiguity!

[Soothsayer]

I don't casually ... Etc

Bridewell,

Darn it, you're uncommonly reasonable! Your points are well made, and it's hard to question the spirit in which you make them, however instinctively inclined I am to do so (just for jolly, etc.).

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Feldman's little epic on Maybrick as he just didn't know when to stop digging and he genuinely threw up some intriguing possibilities.

My fearless, brilliant campaign is all around demonstrating the one thing which disproved the journal categorically, so if you have any insights, let me know.

For now, I shall raise my swishing swooshy sword in your honour, and hope it's enough to drag Archaic out of her oirish hiding place for a bit of craich. I miss the old gang, you know!

S Soothsayer
Most Clever Chap

[Soothsayer]

Hello Sooth. Thanks for that. Perhaps it is a new hoax after all.

Ockham's Razor? "Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate." How does that apply here? Perhaps you mean "The Principle of Parsimony"?

Cheers.
LC

I could have sworn it was spelt 'Occam'!!!

El point (as if I've ever needed one before starting to spout forth): it takes considerably less to believe that the journal was actually written by the murderer himself than it does a uniquely-insightful hoaxer, so under the principle of Soothsayer's Razor (problem solved!), you might be more inclined to favour Maybrick over a hoaxer if you wished to believe at it was written in the LVP.

I rest my case, as ever brilliantly ...

[Bridewell]

Dear Soothsayer

That's a very civilised reply. As you've probably realised, I do like to play devil's advocate on occasions! I confess that I cannot provide the "One Incontrovertible etc" which forms the basis of the original challenge. I guess my position is this:

If Maybrick was the Ripper, I hope someone finds the final piece of evidence to nail him.
if he wasn't, I hope someone finds something which clears his name, especially as he, himself, died a pretty horrible death.

It is a credit to all who post on this forum that we are all, despite our differences of opinion, working towards the same ultimate goal.

Live long & prosper! Colin (aka Bridewell)