One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Graham]

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Doesn't the diary say, "Tin Match Box Empty", in those exact words, just like the police list of Eddowes personal effects?

Soothy? Soothy? Are you there? Hallo-o-o-o-o!

Nope, he's gone for good this time. Ah well.

Graham

[Soothsayer]

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Soothy? Soothy? Are you there? Hallo-o-o-o-o!

Nope, he's gone for good this time. Ah well.

Graham

Hmm ... just in the house from dropping Mrs Soothsayer and Mrs Soothsayer-in-Law off in town for a marathon in aid of Breast Cancer. Under no other circumstances would I be happy to report that my wife and sister-in-law would be walking along Salamander Street in Leith at 4am wearing only their bras on top.

Got to pick them up at the Finish line around 5.30am, having first walked the dogs, and picked up little Susie Soothsayer from her granny's. I have other things on my mind than lists of possessions!

Anyway, I think that you will find that I listed that wee gem along with others under my 'Weaknesses' category a few postings ago.

It is a ridiculous coincidence which can only be explained - if the journal is the real deal - by Maybrick building his list and starting with the obvious ('tin match box'), then ending it 'empty' because that's what it was. He could equally and more plausibly (to us) have written 'empty tin match box'.

Why he wrote it in inventory style, assuming he wrote it at all, is a mystery. It doesn't disprove the journal, but certainly it is a coincidence too far for most folk and I happily accept that this would be a nail in the coffin of any belief they may have had, however briefly.

My role in this world is to carry the torch not extinguish it. How else would Mrs Soothsayer find her way home tonight?

[Sam Flynn]

My role in this world is to carry the torch not extinguish it. How else would Mrs Soothsayer find her way home tonight?

... there's me thinking there was always sunshine on Leith.

[John Hacker]

Well, John, if the 'F' were not there, I would have to agree with you.

Well Sooth, there's a couple of problems with the "FM". But let's start with the "F".

What has been pointed too as an "F" is not apparently in most reproductions of the picture and as far as I am aware it doesn't appear clearly on the originals. What does turn up is a blur, a "P" or what looks more like a rune from the old Ultima game that diary proponents interpret as an "F".

The problem here is that we're dealing with a 120 year old low resolution photograph taken under horrible lighting conditions. It is almost impossible to make out any details in the thing under the best of circumstances. At best it provides a suggestion of the horror of the scene, but it's never provided much in the way of detail. The problem is made worse by the method used when printing photographs in books. Look at one with a large magnifying glass and I think you'll see the problem. It's easy for artifacts to appear as a result of this.

The "M" is apparent in most prints which suggests that SOMETHING is there. And of course that the "F" is not.

You suggest that I'll be astonished to see it, but I'm not. You can go cloud watching with someone and when they may point out a cloud that looks like a duck, you can recognize why THEY see a duck without believing that there IS one. I understand why people do believe they see it there. The "FM" (in prints where it is apparent) looks more like an FM than say, a Honda Civic, but that doesn't make it one.

Even under the best of circumstances the "F" doesn't much look like one and the "M" while better doesn't look like something anyone created. The "letter" formation is irregular and in the case of the "F" simply wrong.

As there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that they were there historically the only sensible conclusion to my mind is that they're not there and what people are seeing is something else entirely. I have no idea what is there and with the low quality of the print we will never know.

Thanks for clarifying that Rossmo didn't suggest Middlesex St. That puts it into prospective.

I know what you're saying about the Asch experiment, but it wasn't that the "vast majority" would go along. Under numerous repetitions most people conformed occasionally. If I am remembering correctly on average people would "go along" something like 20-30% of the time. Which isn't suprising given human history. :-) But in my experience some people will say that line C is actually a circle just because they DON'T want to go along with the crowd.

Anyone who is on this site is likely to have a geniune interest in the case and a great deal of knowledge regarding the crimes and the arguements surrounding them. And one thing about Ripperologists is that in general we're not followers. People will choose their position based on their own evaluation of the evidence. Don't for a minute beleive that people are disbelieving the diary because others do. They're simply weighing it differently than you do.

And you're smart enough to know that given the weight of the evidence that they're not bamboozled, confounded or simply joining the crowd.

[John Hacker]

Doesn't the diary say, "Tin Match Box Empty", in those exact words, just like the police list of Eddowes personal effects?

Yep! Although I beleive on the police inventory list there was no space between "match" and "box".

A little ways down there's yet another of the poor ryhmes endeding in "Damn it, the tin box was empty". I think that the suggestion is that we're supposed to believe that drug filled Maybrick was disappointed in not finding the tin box loaded with pills he could chow down. (A reference in the Chapman section of the book has him leaving pills with the corpse)

The problem there is that while that would make sense for a junkie of today, but an arsenic eater wouldn't have that sort of problem what with it being cheap and plentiful.

[Soothsayer]

... there's me thinking there was always sunshine on Leith.

Ho ho - very good.

I'm trying to think of a clever Proclaimers-based reply, but clever is beyond me. It's 12.18am after all.

The Soothsayerettes started the walk at 11.35pm, not midnight. The sharp amongst you will already have recalibrated the plan and recognised that the dogs will be getting walked at 4.30am, and the rest of the clan (including Susie S.) heading in to Inverleith Park at 5.15am.

And am I getting a medal?

[Soothsayer]

Yep! Although I beleive on the police inventory list there was no space between "match" and "box".

Not as I recall, Mr. H..

I'm sure that the only difference was that the police inventory had a comma after the 'box'.

[Soothsayer]

You suggest that I'll be astonished to see it, but I'm not. You can go cloud watching with someone and when they may point out a cloud that looks like a duck, you can recognize why THEY see a duck without believing that there IS one. I understand why people do believe they see it there. The "FM" (in prints where it is apparent) looks more like an FM than say, a Honda Civic, but that doesn't make it one.

Even under the best of circumstances the "F" doesn't much look like one and the "M" while better doesn't look like something anyone created. The "letter" formation is irregular and in the case of the "F" simply wrong.

Mr. Hacker,

1) What is it with you it's-not-really-there-gang and clouds?

2) You clearly haven't gone down to the bookshop like I suggested. I'll say it again, page 184 of 'Scotland Yard Investigates'. You can argue until you're blue in the face that the 'F' is a 'P' or a Sonic the Hedgehog badge, etc.. You can cite the clouds as good examples of random things bearing messages for the needy. But if you look at the photograph from Evans and Rumbelow, you will see less of clouds and more of confusion. When you do so, and rationalise that confusion, then I'd like to hear how you explain the 'FM' away.

I thought yours was a good post, nevertheless (and I'm hard to impress given how brilliant I am). I'm not one for hiding the difficult bits away. I was totally open about the geoprofiling stuff. And I accept the many weaknesses, and seem able to enumerate more of them than most journal detractors can. So I hope for a little balance, but rarely see it. The 'FM' has been seen by so many people - indeed, is positively glorified in Evans and Rumbelow (and Marriott) - that the argument that states they aren't there is terribly hard to take seriously. Weaknesses and strengths, littering a journal which remains unresolved after seventeen long years. Those who can see only the one over the t'other reveal their prejudices and their paranoia and generally compromise their positions and thereby weaken their arguments. It ceases in that way to even be debate anymore, just outright criticism of and hostility towards anything which may in any way run counter to the popular view.

Ah, live and let live - that's what I say.

[John Hacker]

2) You clearly haven't gone down to the bookshop like I suggested. I'll say it again, page 184 of 'Scotland Yard Investigates'. You can argue until you're blue in the face that the 'F' is a 'P' or a Sonic the Hedgehog badge, etc.. You can cite the clouds as good examples of random things bearing messages for the needy. But if you look at the photograph from Evans and Rumbelow, you will see less of clouds and more of confusion. When you do so, and rationalise that confusion, then I'd like to hear how you explain the 'FM' away.

Why would I go to the bookstore when I have my bookcase?

I probably have 50 different books reproducing the MJK crime scene photos. (Sourced from both prints) The Ultima rune that you're pointing to as an F is not apparent in the vast majority of them, while the M like shape is. The fact that one shape remains stable and the other does not simply cries out "artifact" under the circumstances. Why would one of the "letters" remain reletively strong from print to print while the other picks and chooses which one it deigns to appear in if they were both present in the original scene?

And once again, it doesn't look like an "F". Just more like an "F" than a pretzel, a bottle or a tiger.... Typically when an F is drawn, the lines to the right are at right angles to the vertical line which is not the case in the rune where the lines descend.

I can see why you might believe it looks like an "F". But even under the best of circumstances the resemblence isn't strong in my opinion.

[Ben]

that the argument that states they aren't there is terribly hard to take seriously.

...Which reminds me, Sooth.

Did you ever manage to come up with a better argument to explain away the apparent inertia on the part of the police when faced with a couple of bloodstained letters that you insist are so blindingly obvious? To date, you've only suggested that the police ignored them after satisfying themselves that someone other than the killer wrote letters in blood.

I'm just wondering if you've revised that stance.

Best regards,
Ben

[Chris]

It is a ridiculous coincidence which can only be explained - if the journal is the real deal - by Maybrick building his list and starting with the obvious ('tin match box'), then ending it 'empty' because that's what it was. He could equally and more plausibly (to us) have written 'empty tin match box'.

"It is a coincidence"? You really disappoint me.

Surely you are familiar with Paul Begg's suggestion that the inventory of Eddowes's possessions may in fact have been printed by an obscure provincial newspaper that has not so far been discovered by Ripperologists.

And that James Maybrick may have read that newspaper and copied the details from it, in the time-honoured manner of amnesiac serial killers writing their journals.

In short, no difficulty there at all. Diary apologists evidently aren't what they used to be.

[Soothsayer]

...Which reminds me, Sooth.

Did you ever manage to come up with a better argument to explain away the apparent inertia on the part of the police when faced with a couple of bloodstained letters that you insist are so blindingly obvious? To date, you've only suggested that the police ignored them after satisfying themselves that someone other than the killer wrote letters in blood.

I'm just wondering if you've revised that stance.

Best regards,
Ben

Crivens, michty me, and help ma boab! What's this, Pick on Soothsayer Day? If it is, it's gonna be a long'un, as it's only one and a half hours old and I'm in a fechting mood!

Look, Benners, you and John Hacker need to get your Good Cop, Bad Cop stories straight. One of you comes at me with the old "The M's definitely there, bang to rights, Soothsayer you're a genius my son, but we need to do a bit more work on your alibi for the night of the 5th and whether or not it's an 'F'" routine, then the other comes in with the highly illegal "If there were letters there, the Bizzies at the scene would have noted them down for the benefit of posterity". Come come, gentlemen, if there was an 'M' and something which even in poor copies of the crime scene passes for an 'F', then old Ben's "It was all just wallpaper" argument tumbles, bounces a bit, gets up again, and then collapses on the harsh wasteland of my exceptional insight.

Your Chief Constable will be most displeased with the two of you, I'll wager.

[Soothsayer]

"It is a coincidence"? You really disappoint me.

Surely you are familiar with Paul Begg's suggestion that the inventory of Eddowes's possessions may in fact have been printed by an obscure provincial newspaper that has not so far been discovered by Ripperologists.

And that James Maybrick may have read that newspaper and copied the details from it, in the time-honoured manner of amnesiac serial killers writing their journals.

In short, no difficulty there at all. Diary apologists evidently aren't what they used to be.

My apologies, Chris. Never one to disappoint.

Surely you are familiar with Paul Begg's suggestion that the inventory of Eddowes's possessions may in fact have been printed by an obscure provincial newspaper that has not so far been discovered by Ripperologists?

And that James Maybrick may have read that newspaper and copied the details from it?

There - problem solved thanks to the Chris-Soothsayer love-in ...

[John Hacker]

That ones beneath you Sooth.

No one has said there is an "M" there. There is an M-like shape on the photo. I've made it more that clear I don't believe there was an actual M on the wall, AND I've raised the same objection Ben has. If there were letters on the wall the police would surely have noticed that.

Unlike Ben I wasn't hear to hear your explination on that one previously. So I would be interested to know how you can reconcile the lack of comment on the "letters"?

And for what it's worth, if you think the F is apparent in all copies of the crime scene photos pop by sometime if you're in the states. We can go through the prints because I would love to see someone say they can see it with a straight face in the majority of the prints.

[Soothsayer]

The Ultima rune that you're pointing to as an F is not apparent in the vast majority of them, while the M like shape is.

For speed, many of us in the human race has skipped the need to clarify that any shape may only resemble another familiar share by adding a hyphen and a 'like'. "While the M is" would have sufficed for those of most of us.

Nevertheless, I am deeply encouraged that you acknowledge its presence (not for the first time, if I recall correctly, Constable Hacker).

This is the really interesting bit, officer - have you noticed that the 'M' in the photograph is exactly the same as that throughout the journal (distinctive by its rising second-half)? Spooky, huh?

We get drawn straight back to that old and very familiar argument that the forger first saw the letters 'FM' on the photograph, and built an elaborate back story from there, including the clever adoption of the 'M' with the rising second-half.

Na noo na noo ...