One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Yabs]

Why don't we just the Casebook readers to complete a poll, Caz? For every single issue ever discussed about Jack the Ripper or indeed any other subject, let's just establish our truths by the popularity by which they are held.

Okay, I'll start: Who thinks polls are of any value whatsoever in determining any sort of truth at all, ever, on any subject?

A: Me
B: Me mum in Carstairs
C: Yabs

Missed the point I was making and previous post didn’t you?

[Iconoclast]

Well it would prove that people who believe Barrett was the author Isn’t just a small handful of people with a psychological need to be right.
Point being, that suggestion was more than a little rude to those who haven’t got any motive for believing Barrett was the author, surely that can only apply to those that have written books and want to retain the same theory that they’ve presented to the world

It doesn't matter, Yabs. None of that matters. What matters is the realisation that you can't form your views or assess the validity of your views based solely upon how many people appear to hold them.

How many people are openly gay in the 28 (I think I heard on TV the other day) countries in the world which still carry the death penalty for homosexuality?

Probably not as many as are gay in those countries, I would suggest. Probably no-one. Does that mean there are no gays in countries which carry the death penalty for being gay?

The clue is often in the question. Let's try it a different way:

Quick poll: If you think James Maybrick wrote the Maybrick scrapbook, you will be ridiculed, insulted, and treated like Chandala - marginalised as crackpots, time-wasters, wind-up merchants, and cretins. Do you think James Maybrick wrote the Maybrick scrapbook?

Let's see if I can command an uprising based upon popularity alone. I do! (So that's 100% so far.)

[Iconoclast]

Missed the point I was making and previous post didn’t you?

No, I didn't miss the point you were making in your previous post, Yabs, as I was typing #9960 when you posted it therefore I hadn't read it before I posted my response.

[Yabs]

It doesn't matter, Yabs. None of that matters. What matters is the realisation that you can't form your views or assess the validity of your views based solely upon how many people appear to hold them.

How many people are openly gay in the 28 (I think I heard on TV the other day) countries in the world which still carry the death penalty for homosexuality?

Probably not as many as are gay in those countries, I would suggest. Probably no-one. Does that mean there are no gays in countries which carry the death penalty for being gay?

The clue is often in the question. Let's try it a different way:

Quick poll: If you think James Maybrick wrote the Maybrick scrapbook, you will be ridiculed, insulted, and treated like Chandala - marginalised as crackpots, time-wasters, wind-up merchants, and cretins. Do you think James Maybrick wrote the Maybrick scrapbook?

Let's see if I can command an uprising based upon popularity alone. I do! (So that's 100% so far.)

The silly posts like this with awful comparisons is the exact reason I tend to make a point then duck out.

Plus I suspect if Anne confessed tomorrow you would retain the same stance and paint her as up to something.
so it’s all a bit pointless.

[caz]

Dear me, the diary must be the most wrapped and unwrapped brown paper parcel in the history of the planet.

Eddie finds it wrapped but unwraps it to show to Mike down the boozer, then rewraps it. Why he didn't just chuck the paper is beyond me. Later, the diary is shoved under a car seat, still wrapped, where it is taken to Liverpool University where it is presumably again unwrapped, but rewrapped after the appropriate, but alas unrecorded, examination.

By now it is getting quite tattered, but the Liverpool stationary stories are having a heck of a run on Scotch tape. Ultimately, Eddie wraps it again to sell to Mike, who unwraps it for Little Caroline, before rewrapping it again for Anne.

Who unwraps it with Mike while sitting on the sofa.

This must be a UK thing---to pointlessly wrap and unwrap and rewrap books in brown paper.

Personally, I've never heard of such a bizarre and useless exercise outside of the mini-series comedy Forging Hitler, where the hoaxed goods always showed up wrapped in brown paper.

Like it or not, the diary showed up in London on 13th April 1992, wrapped in brown paper. Another mistake on Mike's part, which was overlooked, if this was known universally as your typical hoaxer's calling card. It didn't occur to the electrician, when he told Feldman in April 1993 about the brown paper package he had seen.

Anne included it in her own story too, when she claimed the paper had been lining a drawer at home in 1991, and she had used it wrap up the diary before taking it round to Tony's house. I have never been clear whether Anne had supposedly told Tony about what was in the package, or whether he was instructed not to open it but to hand it straight to Mike on his next visit.

It's strange, because Tony's daughters said he never kept secrets from them, and yet we have one book supposedly taken round by Mike and borrowed in January 1991 by Janet Devereux, with instructions to bring it back by the weekend, which she never did, then another book supposedly taken round by Anne later in the Spring, and given straight to Mike. Both with a Maybrick theme, and both only temporarily in Tony's house. It does on the surface look suggestive, because you'd think Tony would have mentioned this second book connected with "Bongo" to Janet, and would have reminded her about returning the first. But if Anne's story is not given any credence, it's just the one little book that went out of everyone's mind after January 1991, because it arguably held no particular significance for Mike at that time, and only came back into play in March 1992, when he was trying to put a name to JtR before taking the diary to show Doreen.

[rjpalmer]

Especially if Anne was under the thumb at the time, Ike, as we are led to believe, and had to do exactly what she was told, like a good little wifey

More meaningless sniping from Caz, signifying nothing. And please note she's saying this to Tom--who just got through claiming that Anne was knowingly helping Barrett peddle stolen goods!

Here are Anne's own words to Doreen Montgomery:




"I just signed what Michael told me."

Yup, sure sounds like a woman who would give Barrett fierce resistance. You've hit the nail on the head once again, Caz. "I just signed what Mike told me."

Recall that Tom Mitchell is arguing that Anne Graham "knew Mike was handling stolen goods" the minute he mentioned the bogus Tony Devereux provenance, which was almost immediately, yet Anne goes on to sign the contract on April 30th (which would mean she was agreeing to knowingly profit off of stolen goods) yet we are supposed to juggle this with the notion that Anne would have to have been "stupid" to go along with Barrett.

It's an obvious contradiction to anyone with five brain cells to string together.

And as always, Caroline misrepresents my views.

I don't think Anne was stupid at all. I think she did give Mike resistance. But I also believe her long letter to Feldman, admitting that she had been subjected to years of emotional and even physical abuse by an alcoholic.

One doesn't have to be stupid to humor an alcoholic, despite Caz's desire to promote this harsh and simplistic myth, especially if, as Anne tells us, she thought Doreen would "just send Mike packing."

But it has always been Caz's technique to misrepresent the views of others into some allegedly crazy or simplistic idea in order to quickly brush them aside.

Note that she has no intention of also doing this when it comes to Tom's claim that Anne had knowingly cooperated with Barrett in the sale of stolen goods. Not a peep do we hear, though it is an accusation far worse than my suggestion.

Typical. It's become one big, tiresome, and childish game.

[rjpalmer]

Oh, wait, there is. Mike's research notes were not individually dated, and were not handed over to Shirley in any case until the summer of 1992, when her own research into Maybrick and the available literature was well under way. Mike claimed on at least two occasions on the record - for what it's worth - that he had never heard of Ryan's book before Shirley asked him if he'd read it.

You've spread this misinformation before.

David Barrat has made a very strong case for Mike and Anne's research notes not only being bogus, but studiously avoiding any mention of Bernard Ryan.

You then argued--without any evidence or citation--that Mike didn't mention Ryan because Shirley had already quizzed Mike about his book.

Not only does this make no sense whatsoever, you were asked to give your source for this, and you never did.

In reality, the only source for Shirley asking Mike about Bernard Ryan is from a taped interview recorded fully two years after Mike turned in his notes.

Why would she have asked him this if she had already asked him back in 1992?

[caz]

Caz's response to me has always been that Anne would have to have been 'stupid' to go along with Mike creating a hoax, but here you describe her stupidly going along with Mike peddling stolen goods.

The fundamental difference here is that going along with her husband in creating a hoax - or rather, letting him commit fraud [let's not pretty it up] using her own handiwork, is hardly the same as not knowing where he got the diary from and not getting a straight answer out of him.

I've often said that in the first scenario Anne could have swiftly stopped the rot by having a quiet word with Doreen on the phone if she had expected her to 'send Mike packing', but was horrified to find that her fictional story dressed up as a quirky sales gimmick was going to be marketed as a potentially priceless historical document written by none other than Jack the Ripper.

That failure to do anything but sit back and let everyone get on with it is what would have made Anne a very stupid woman indeed if her own handwriting had been in that blasted scrapbook. What experience did she have in the world of handwriting analysis, that would have allowed her to sleep peacefully in the knowledge that she had inadvertently done a foolproof job of disguising her own hand simply by trying to make it look a bit 'mock-Victorian' just for jolly? If she expected Doreen to send Mike packing, she presumably wasn't predicting, like her husband, that people in the publishing business wouldn't give a damn what the thing looked like as long as they smelled money to be made.

On the other hand, Anne couldn't control what she didn't know. She'd have suspected something was amiss when Mike was cagey about where the diary came from, but if he was determined to find a publisher, he'd be the one with all the questions to answer and the problems to overcome if the rightful owner turned up. What she could do was to try and destroy the thing so it couldn't bring trouble to her door, and then put it in the bank when Mike brought it back from London with the news that it had been well received. If this woman had been 'worn down from years of abuse' at her husband's hand, would she really have risked two lovely black eyes, and a good deal worse, by trying to destroy his one chance of having a best seller, with their young daughter watching on?

[caz]

And of course, I think the real reason Anne humored Mike is because she thought (reasonably enough) that the London literati would easily see through the hoax and (in Anne's own words) 'Doreen would just send Mike packing.'

I suspect, Tom, that the episode of Anne trying to destroy the diary dates to April 1992, when Mike returned from London and it suddenly dawned on Anne that Mike's scheme was actually going forward, and she was going to be dragged down with him.

Nope, that doesn't work with the evidence. Why would Anne have agreed to produce a typed transcript from the diary in that case? And why tell Doreen after Mike's return from London that the original was in the bank for fear of fire or theft, if she was hoping to burn it herself, before it could do any more harm?

The row would have come when Anne first found out that Mike had rashly promised to show a London agent the scrapbook, despite her advice to just write a story based on what was in it.

[Iconoclast]

The silly posts like this with awful comparisons is the exact reason I tend to make a point then duck out.

Plus I suspect if Anne confessed tomorrow you would retain the same stance and paint her as up to something.
so it’s all a bit pointless.

Yabs,

Whilst you're here posting at least get your facts right: it is Orsam and Palmer that "paint her up as something". Why did you say that about me but not them? Biased?

[Scott Nelson]

I thought Anne's first provenance was that she got the diary from Devereux to give to Mike (not her giving it to Tony to give to Mike).

Of all the phrases cited to 'prove' the diary is a modern creation, it's the Abberline bits that tell me the diary is post-1988 (the date of the Michael Caine/Abberline broadcast). The diary handwriting could be that of someone in Devereux's small circle of friends.

[Iconoclast]

I thought Anne's first provenance was that she got the diary from Devereux to give to Mike (not her giving it to Tony to give to Mike).

Of all the phrases cited to 'prove' the diary is a modern creation, it's the Abberline bits that tell me the diary is post-1988 (the date of the Michael Caine/Abberline broadcast). The diary handwriting could be that of someone in Devereux's small circle of friends.

Scotty,

If you don't know that first principle - that Anne said she gave the scrapbook to Devereux to give to Mike - I'm worried about you.

It's almost as bad as Aethulwulf on another thread admitting - despite his very trenchant views on the subject - that he had never read a book on Jack the Ripper.

Astonishing.

[Scott Nelson]

It's old age, Ike. Forgetfulness and all that. Laziness too...

[caz]

Well, at last we have something to agree on!

Personally, I wouldn't call it 'Mike's scheme', but you are welcome to call it what you want. What is critical, of course, is that Mike must have come home and told Anne that he had said that he had received the scrapbook from Tony Devereux "to protect his source" at which point Anne knew exactly what Mike had - stolen goods - and had a blind panic at what might unfold. She saw the threat to herself and to her daughter Caroline and she attempted to eradicate the threat at source. Most sensible people would.

Over two years later, when Mike melted-down, the die was cast and the book was published so Anne protected what she knew deep down was almost certainly the actual journal of Jack the Ripper and also protected her friend Feldman's film project (as she understood it).

As I said earlier, once she was committed to that convenient lie, she had to then live it. Her silence these last twenty years is so telling ...

Well, I might have to disagree with you there, Ike, but only about the timing. The evidence strongly indicates that the famous eleven days was when the transcript was being typed up from the scrapbook, so Doreen would have a complete copy of the text that could be read when Mike had returned home with the handwritten original. It seems that only a few pages of the actual diary could have been photocopied in her office on 13th April, because she later had to ask Mike to photocopy the whole thing or get the bank to do it for him.

I see Anne's attempt to 'eradicate the threat at source' as being earlier in the process, when she would have been most worried about the rightful owner knocking at their door, while Mike was busy trying to interest a publisher. That threat would have diminished over the next five weeks, when nothing happened and Mike appeared to have no concerns of his own - which I would put down to the reassurances he was given that "no effing bugger alive knows about it" and that Doreen appeared to suspect nothing either.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

It's old age, Ike. Forgetfulness and all that. Laziness too...

Can’t argue with that, Scotty - your humble and good-natured reply does you huge credit, young man.