One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Soothsayer]

Carol,

If the woman you mentioned spoke some English, she would most probably have used 'Jaime' rather than 'Diego' as that is the direct translation.

Mike

I am reliably informed by my good friend Mr Google that 'Jaime' is a modern-day preference and that 'Diego' was the older translation.

I believe my scullery girl's Diego therefore trumps your Jaime.

Clearly, had the reverse been true, Maybrick would have signed his postcard to the Liverpool Echo JAIME LAURENTZ, GENUINE. The fact that he didn't unequivocally proves that my people - however humble their role - are cleverer than your people.

[Livia]

Hi Carol,

Domitila Rodriguez Janion was the daughter of the
Chilean Consul to Hawaii and a business partner
of Robert Cheshyre Janion (Robert Williams was his son).
Her sister (whose name escapes me at the moment)
also married a business partner of Mr Janion's and
his son Robert married a daughter of a business
partner too. Green was his name (I think) and later
a man named Davies. They were in the sugar business
and other exports. His son Robert Williams Janion died
age 37 in January of 1889 in San Francisco.

The RW Janion family lived in Vancouver.
If you google "Janion Hotel", you'll see pictures
of a now derelict building once built and owned
by the Janions.

I thought you'd like to see a picture of Robert
and Domitila.



Robert died in August of 1881, Domitila died in January
of 1911.

Quite a handsome couple.

Liv

[The Good Michael]

Clearly, had the reverse been true, Maybrick would have signed his postcard to the Liverpool Echo JAIME LAURENTZ, GENUINE. The fact that he didn't unequivocally proves that my people - however humble their role - are cleverer than your people.

I don't have any people. I was offered a scullery maid, but turned the offer down as I knew that her argument would be less than no argument.

Mike

[Soothsayer]

On another thread there is a theme being batted about along the lines that the Maybrick journal is a modern hoax (no great shakes there) and - here's the rub - one perpetrated by a small group (perhaps just one) of the group of Ripperologists who were first brought together to review the journal - that group which was filmed in Michael Winner's original film, I guess.

I think that the anti-journalists have probably reached a genuine nadir of desperate fantasy with this particular theme. It's almost as though the journal is - in reality - so utterly complex that they are returning to the source to try desperately to find some form of simplicity in their disbelief.

Those of us who simply accept that there is a journal written - apparently - by James Maybrick, Liverpool cotton merchant which has been scientifically tested as older than 1970, and for which we have a provenance through Anne Barrett (however convoluted she ended up making it), and for which no single error has categorically consigned it to the trashcan, we happy few sit back and watch, reading these claims with increasing astonishment at how cheaply so-called authorities on the subject can sink to invective, ridicule, and the extremes of reason.

Unable to prove the journal a hoax, these 'authorities' have descended into a petty, deeply unpleasant cannabilism - they are literally destroying the very fabric of their claims to understand, to reason; attempting to silence their own voices with their imploding reputations. Their bitter frustration that the journal will simply not go away through fact has turned them in on themselves - it may not be dancing, but it is certainly with the wolves - and drawn them to internicine war. I sense in all of this a final kernal of utter doom in their broken hearts - the sinking platform of their ambitions, buckled by a journal which names the author of the Whitechapel crimes, and thereby ends the feckless, random exchange of potential suspects which - for some of course - has been a source of not only their life's ambition, but also the sustainer of it through the bottom line of books on the subject.

As is well known on the Casebook, what you will always get on The Greatest Thread of All is a reasonable argument, peppered with the odd inane or even partly insane meandering and musing (I too sit perilously on the edge of reason, good readers - in defence of your journal). So keep the faith for the faith will out. Until someone can ring the bells and announce that the journal is categorically a fraud, we can continue to accept the fact that - in reality - we now know who Jack the Ripper was.

Soothsayer
Fact Reporter and Dashing White Sergeant of Truth

[Carol]

Hi Carol,

Domitila Rodriguez Janion was the daughter of the
Chilean Consul to Hawaii and a business partner
of Robert Cheshyre Janion (Robert Williams was his son).
Her sister (whose name escapes me at the moment)
also married a business partner of Mr Janion's and
his son Robert married a daughter of a business
partner too. Green was his name (I think) and later
a man named Davies. They were in the sugar business
and other exports. His son Robert Williams Janion died
age 37 in January of 1889 in San Francisco.

The RW Janion family lived in Vancouver.
If you google "Janion Hotel", you'll see pictures
of a now derelict building once built and owned
by the Janions.

I thought you'd like to see a picture of Robert
and Domitila.



Robert died in August of 1881, Domitila died in January
of 1911.

Quite a handsome couple.

Liv

Hi Liv,

I was really interested to read your post. It was very kind of you to take the trouble. Thanks also for the portrait of Robert and Domitila. As you say, they are a handsome couple.

As Robert died in 1881 I re-read the item on the 'Janion family' in The Maybrick A to Z and realised I had misunderstood Domitila's and her husband's ages. She was, indeed, aged 49 and he aged 65, but this was at the time of the 1881 census. So she was actually about 6 years older than Maybrick. Also, according to The Maybrick A to Z, Robert is called Richard Chas. Janion at the time of the 1881 census. Yet another 'census mistake'! Our own family on my father's side were called 'Saunders' instead of 'Sanders' on the 1881 census!

Carol

[caz]

On another thread there is a theme being batted about along the lines that the Maybrick journal is a modern hoax (no great shakes there) and - here's the rub - one perpetrated by a small group (perhaps just one) of the group of Ripperologists who were first brought together to review the journal - that group which was filmed in Michael Winner's original film, I guess.

I think that the anti-journalists have probably reached a genuine nadir of desperate fantasy with this particular theme. It's almost as though the journal is - in reality - so utterly complex that they are returning to the source to try desperately to find some form of simplicity in their disbelief.

Hi Soothykins,

While the diary handwriting continues to be a huge obstacle for me, I would not class myself as one of these 'anti-journalists'. I have nothing against this inanimate object, and can do nothing about the person, or persons, who created it, since I believe they were very likely beyond human condemnation by the time the infernal document emerged, blinked and rubbed its eyes in the daylight. I also doubt they will ever be positively identified now.

I am about to take a look at the thread you mention, but I would have to agree about some reaching a 'genuine nadir of desperate fantasy' if they are now seriously fingering known ripperologists for the dastardly deed. I have often thought how similar the two mysteries are - the identity of the ripper and the identity of the diarist - in that they both continue to defy any and all attempts at a satisfactory solution, with the result that the suspect list for each steadily grows and groans with less and less likely names.

Love,

Caz
X

[Soothsayer]

Hi Soothykins,
While the diary handwriting continues to be a huge obstacle for me ...
Love,
Caz
X

Hi Cazzykins,

It would certainly be beyond reasonable for anyone - even the most ardent journal-supporter (that's me, obviously, I assume) - to ignore this glaring anomaly, it is true. Personally, I do believe that we can get over it (my argument lies elsewhere, I think).

For all the conjecture around author or authors unknown, Soothsayer's Razor still says the simplest explanation is that it is the real deal.

I've always suspected that you were a bit of a wish-it-were-true kind of girl. If the handwriting weren't so problematic, would you be swayed, I wonder?

Sir S.

[caz]

Hi Soothy,

Sadly, I'm the kind of boring, down-to-earth girl who is more than happy with whatever the truth turns out to be. I've never quite understood why so many otherwise intelligent souls get emotionally involved and become wish-it-away kind of people.

They seem to think that if they huff and puff long enough over it, intoning "we are not gullible", the 63 pages will do the decent thing and go up in a puff of evil-smelling smoke.

I'm not that superstitious and I enjoy living in the real world, along with all the things that are sent to try us. It is what it is, but I couldn't care less what that is. I'd love some answers, but only the right ones will do, supported with the right kind of evidence. I'm not impressed with much of the shallow guesswork that goes on.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Good Michael]

Caz,

I read the Diary of Jack the Ripper and thought it was forced, and by that I mean the provenance story, though it was a long time ago. I also read the Anne Graham... novel and thought that was even more forced. That being said, it seemed that Anne Graham had a bit more on the ball than Michael Barrett, though that may have been my feeling because of his issues that everyone has spoken of. In your mind, could Anne and Michael have collaborated on such a thing and kept it secret? Did they have the ability to take a couple of books on the subjects of Maybrick and the Ripper and make something like the diary. Not THE Diary, but could they have collaborated together on creating something... creative.

Mike

[caz]

Caz,

I read the Diary of Jack the Ripper and thought it was forced, and by that I mean the provenance story, though it was a long time ago. I also read the Anne Graham... novel and thought that was even more forced. That being said, it seemed that Anne Graham had a bit more on the ball than Michael Barrett, though that may have been my feeling because of his issues that everyone has spoken of. In your mind, could Anne and Michael have collaborated on such a thing and kept it secret? Did they have the ability to take a couple of books on the subjects of Maybrick and the Ripper and make something like the diary. Not THE Diary, but could they have collaborated together on creating something... creative.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I too thought the provenance stories (plural) sounded forced. And I agree about Anne's book, although 'novel' is a bit strong.

From what I have learned about Anne and Mike's marriage, and from actually talking to each of them on a number of separate occasions, I can say categorically - IMHO of course - that Anne would have had no interest whatsoever in collaborating with anyone, let alone Mike, on 'such a thing' (assuming you mean creating it from scratch as a deliberate con job).

Mike certainly had some ambition to write, but sadly none of the necessary talent to go with it, from what I've seen. If he had tried something along these lines as a 'creative' project, I am pretty sure it would have been immediately obvious to anyone that it was his work, from his imagination, and no publisher would have looked twice.

As for the Barretts' ability to take 'a couple of books' and keep every single incriminating element of such a collaboration secret for the next 25 years and counting (through the misery of their marriage breakdown, Mike's drinking, his various non-confessions which effectively stopped any big money coming their way) - not a chance as far as I can see. With investigators like Melvin Harris, Peter Birchwood, Keith Skinner and Martin Fido on the case, it would have bust right open within weeks, if not days, of the diary emerging if either Barrett had tried to author or pen such a thing.

If Mike had ever come up with a credible and comprehensive list of the materials (pen, ink), books and other information sources that anyone working in the late 1980s/early 1990s would have needed to produce 'the' finished product, including where and when they were accessed, then and only then would it have demonstrated 'inside knowledge', and even then I'd be looking elsewhere for the author and penman.

Love,

Caz
X

[Livia]

Hi Caz, Michael, Soothy

You'd have to include the terminally ill Billy Graham
and his elderly sister Alice (Graham) Dean in the
equation as they both knew of the diary before
either Mike Barrett and Anne were born. Billy said
he first saw it upon returning from serving overseas
in the early 40s, and although Alice refused to talk
about it, she certainly knew about it, telling Anne
to ask her father.

Also, if Mike and Anne wrote it, how did they
know of Maybrick's nickname "Sir Jim"? The only known
reference to that is contained in the Christie collection,
in a letter from Florence Aunspaugh written to
Christie, which is held in a mid-western university
here in the States. According to Keith Skinner,
the Chrisitie collection had not been accessed for
several years, so how did they know? And how
did a family with only one parent working, barely
making ends meet, afford a trip to the States on
the off chance that the collection contained information
that could only have been known to someone present in the
Maybrick household in the 1880s? To my mind, this
pretty much absolves the Barretts and the Grahams
of any collaboration in a criminal enterprise.

Liv

[The Good Michael]

Livia,

About the Grahams that you mentioned: Because I thought the book was just pulled out of thin air, it struck me as very convenient that the old man was on his death bed, in the same manner that Deveroux died very shortly after giving Barrett the book... that he got from Anne who got it from her father, who got from...obviously someone else who died. So the two big recent links in the chain are conveniently dead. This is what I mean about forced provenance, among other things. Since I don't believe it happened, I dispute Graham, the father being involved at all.

Mike

[Livia]

Hi Mike,

But the difference between Tony Devereaux and
Billy Graham is, Billy Graham was alive and able
to tell both Paul Feldman and Keith Skinner how
the diary came down through the family. Billy's
step-mother, Edith (Formby) Graham handed the
diary (as well as some other family papers)
to him not long after his return from the Army
and said, "Your granny left this for you". The only
granny Billy ever knew was Edith's mother, Elizabeth
(Griffith) Formby, who Billy thought was friends with
a skivvy/nurse from Battlecrease whom she had
accompanied to Florence Maybrick's trial. He said, "the
one who opened the letter" (paraphrasing here). That
points to Alice Yapp.

There's also the identification of Florence Maybrick's
picture by Alice Dean as the woman who had visited
her mother (Rebecca (Jones) Graham) when Alice
was about 5 or 6 years old, c. 1912-13. (William
Graham sr married Rebecca Jones in the summer of
1911, he married Edith Formby in 1920, two years
after Rebecca had died). So you have to wonder
why Florence Maybrick would visit the Grahams
and which granny passed the diary on to Billy.

You might also recall that at the time Feldman
and Skinner interviewed Billy Graham, Anne had
no financial interest in Harrison's book. The
contract was between Barrett and Harrison.
Anne did not become a part of the agreement
until after Billy had died. (Caz, please correct
me if I've got the timing of events wrong.)
So what motive would Billy have had to concoct
a provenance for the diary he apparently hadn't
read or cared much about for the previous fifty
odd years? He didn't stand to profit and neither
did Anne, only his estranged son in law and there
was no love lost between those two.

Liv

[The Good Michael]

Livia,

Your reading this in a book doesn't make it correct. I think a ton of hope, wishful thinking, and ideas put into peoples' heads, not necessarily intentionally, came into play here. Dreams were created by the diary and when they were all but dashed, new dreams were imagined, and again, not necessarily because anyone was lying (though I'm sure some were), but because it was wished into existence.

Mike

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Could somebody please explain what it is about this most obvious of faked documents that makes some people believe it to be genuine?

Regards,

Simon