One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Mike J. G.]

Devereux. Spelling.

Love,

Caz
X

And? Not the easiest name to spell, is it? You just having a rough day, mate?

[Mike J. G.]

Tony Devereux was living on Fountains Road, near the Saddle, in 1991, quite a way from Aigburth and Riversdale Road. Do you know where he was living when your parents knew him?

Love,

Caz
X

No idea where he was living, but he most definitely had family in Aigburth, as I said. He was a fairly frequent face at St. Austin's' football matches. Like I was saying, I was more familiar with the younger members of the family.

Living in Fountains road has no bearing on whether he'd have been in Aigburth at all, I don't get the relevance.

[Mike J. G.]

I've put out this challenge many a time over the years, Andy, and nobody seems to have the will to put it to the test.

Mind you, Mike Barrett was once asked to produce something similar, when he was still in confession mode, and to put it kindly the result was not exactly positive.

Love,

Caz
X

This strikes me as an exercise in futility. What does it prove?

This is kind of like those Bigfoot believers who ask people to recreate the Patterson Gimlin Film in order to "prove it wasn't a hoax," ultimately ignoring the fact that this isn't how science works and attempting such a thing would prove absolutely sod-all.

[Mike J. G.]

But if the same person who created this thing - in a handwriting that was nothing like Maybrick's - was the person who thought up its crappy provenance, he must have been a twat of the highest order. Pure and simple.

Love,

Caz
X

You'd be surprised at how many hoaxers fall at such apparently avoidable hurdles. It's like they put all of their effort into making their hoaxes seem legit, only to stumble on something minor that they failed to iron out beforehand. The aforementioned Patterson/Gimlin hoax was a fine example of this, where both men seemingly couldn't get a story straight for even 5 minutes.

We think, well they couldn't have been that daft! But they most assuredly can and do. It's human error, natural human error.

[Mike J. G.]

Or it's a valid challenge that we don't have examples of Maybrick's writing other than the fancy-dan copperplate of the day.

It's nothing to sweat about. It's just a simple fact. We don't know how Maybrick wrote in his private journals when he was high on blood-lust and arsenic.

We don't have to produce his informal hand to demonstrate the obvious (that his copperplate formal hand was unlikely to be the only hand with which he wrote).

To be fair, though, would his "informal" hand be that much different to his formal one? I think we all try to write a hell of a lot neater when we're doing anything official, but overall, we're not putting out two entirely differing styles of handwriting.

[Mike J. G.]

If not a hoax, then - what? A bit of a joke that went too far?

I'm more inclined to think that it was a bit of a joke, but at the same time, whoever wrote it was probably a little intrigued at how many people might buy into it. Indeed, a lot of people I've spoken to about it seem to think it was a bit of a laugh, and it certainly reads like a person having a laugh.

[Mike J. G.]

My only problem with that, Caz, is that as the tens of thousands of pages of this very thread show, the hoaxer/s seem to have taken great care to avoid any outright smoking gun errors. The odds on managing to avoid a single outright Gotcha over that many entries seems rather slender if it were compiled by some person or persons just out to have a bit of fun, don't you think?

It largely depends on what you'd consider to be a "gotcha." As I feel that there's a few, but it's just down to what you accept or don't accept as being suspicious. The problem is that someone can and usually will try to downplay such things, and so the goalposts are being moved around, setting the bar beyond reachable limits.

It's like: well there wasn't a ghost in that house, but that doesn't mean there isn't a ghost in this house, ghosts could still exist!

[Mike J. G.]

Not sure of the purpose of the joke though.

****'* and giggles?

It's hard to say why anyone pulls pranks such as this one. A joke among friends, an attempt to deceive, a for-the-hell-of-it project. Maybe they'd read those RWE books and suddenly became inspired. Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, the Maybrick story was/is a popular piece of local lore, and lots of people grew up hearing about the famous poisoning case. Obviously, the younger generations likely aren't familiar with it, but so many older generations are. I'm in my 30's and I grew up with it.

[Iconoclast]

To be fair, though, would his "informal" hand be that much different to his formal one? I think we all try to write a hell of a lot neater when we're doing anything official, but overall, we're not putting out two entirely differing styles of handwriting.

On the contrary, and it's just a sample of one, but my own formal hand is profoundly different to my informal hand - I even slant my handwriting differently depending upon formal or informal, so I would say that (on the basis of my extensive sample of one) such differing styles of handwriitng are very possible.

It's in the nature of what you are trying to do - with a formal hand you are actively seeking to dress up your handwriting and with an informal hand you are simly seeking to get the thoughts down.

[Mike J. G.]

On the contrary, and it's just a sample of one, but my own formal hand is profoundly different to my informal hand - I even slant my handwriting differently depending upon formal or informal, so I would say that (on the basis of my extensive sample of one) such differing styles of handwriitng are very possible.

It's in the nature of what you are trying to do - with a formal hand you are actively seeking to dress up your handwriting and with an informal hand you are simly seeking to get the thoughts down.

It's certainly a possibility, as my own handwriting has changed over the years, but I have to wonder if this is something which we can actually hang our hats on in this instance.

There's a good possibility that there are more examples of Maybrick's handwriting out there, I'm not sure how deep anyone has really dug.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi all

Didn't think that I'd be returning to this thread yet here I am. Ike, there's a magnetic 'pull' going on somewhere.

I'm a diary 'agnostic' if you like, but there is one question that I'd like to ask ( I believe that I may have asked it before though)

Has there ever been another 'forgery' where the 'forger' made absolutely no effort to 'forge' the relevant handwriting?

Regards

Herlock

[Iconoclast]

Hi all

Didn't think that I'd be returning to this thread yet here I am. Ike, there's a magnetic 'pull' going on somewhere.

I'm a diary 'agnostic' if you like, but there is one question that I'd like to ask ( I believe that I may have asked it before though)

Has there ever been another 'forgery' where the 'forger' made absolutely no effort to 'forge' the relevant handwriting?

Regards

Herlock

That's assuming that the 'forger' didn't in this case. If we ever find Maybrick's informal hand and it matches the journal's, I think it's reasonable to say that anti-jounalists will suddenly be in awe of the forger's tenacity at tracking down Maybrick's informal hand before embarking on the hoax.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hello Ike

If there's one worm of doubt about the suggestion of forgery it's the handwriting. I realise that most feel that this is pretty much conclusive proof of forgery but I just can't help thinking what kind of idiot ( yes, I can hear people shouting 'Mike Barrett,' here) would go to the trouble of all that research, of finding the ink etc, of avoiding obvious 'howlers' and yet not even attempting to copy the handwriting. Even if it was a poor forgery it could have been said that, well he was a dying, mad arsenic addict!
On the other hand, if Maybrick wrote the diary (whether the ripper or not) isn't it at least possible that he could have seen the ripper as his alter ego and used a different handwriting? Or, if Maybrick wasn't the Ripper couldn't he have written the diary, under the influence of drugs, as a kind of revenge against Florence?

Don't know basically.

Regards

Herlock

[Sam Flynn]

I just can't help thinking what kind of idiot would go to the trouble of all that research, of finding the ink etc, of avoiding obvious 'howlers' and yet not even attempting to copy the handwriting.

Producing a fake "diary" is easy, but writing out the text in convincingly forged handwriting is a major undertaking, beyond the capability of anyone but a specialist. Even adopting a pseudo-script not intended to resemble anyone in particular's handwriting, just something other than your usual hand, and to do so consistently over a large amount of text, is quite a feat.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Producing a fake "diary" is easy, but writing out the text in convincingly forged handwriting is a major undertaking, beyond the capability of anyone but a specialist. Even adopting a pseudo-script not intended to resemble anyone in particular's handwriting, just something other than your usual hand, and to do so consistently over a large amount of text, is quite a feat.

Accepted Sam. My only question would be: why would anyone believe that they could possibly get away with a forged diary when they would have known that the very first thing that potential debunkers would look at would be the handwriting?

Regards
Herlock