One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[erobitha]

Hello Ero. Is that the best you have, Old Boy, after the joke flew so obviously over your head? These 'solitary vice' jokes have been a standard gag on these boards for years.

Moving along:



So what you are saying is that Jim Maybrick took Florrie to the ‘City of Whores’ in September 1888 and didn't bother to mention it in his diary?

Fascinating.

And do I have this right---you see this as a mark in the diary’s favor, rather than a crippling blow?

Think it through.

If your information is correct, here is yet another example of the hoaxer being entirely clueless about Maybrick’s actual day-to-day life in 1888. As always, the hoaxer never strays beyond the stand information about Maybrick that can be readily found in Bernard Ryan’s The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick, published in 1977.

Yet, just imagine the fun the hoaxer could have had—if he had only known about this obscure information!! It would have been one of the highlights of the novella--- worthy of at least half a dozen paragraphs

"I will take the whore to the City of Whores! Ha ha ha! Two in one night—indeed what pleasure! But one will be left damaged, severally damaged. Ha ha ha! I wish I could share my WITTicism with that half-baked fool Witt!!! Ha ha ha!"

Instead: not a peep.

Our diarist doesn't take advantage of this little gem, and doesn’t mention Witt either, for the obvious reason that he is totally unaware of all of it, not even Maybrick’s significant trip to London in September 1888--just as he was also unaware that Maybrick had his portrait painted in October 1888, and went on a walking tour in Wales in early 1889, etc. etc.

Yup. Once again--and speaking of poor eyesight-- the Diarist has the same blind spots as Bernard Ryan.

Weak eyes, indeed. I wonder why that might be, and how Mike Barrett seemed to be aware of it?

Melvin Harris couldn't have told Mike--he thought the hoaxer had used Nigel Moreland. Only Mike knew. And now we know his bogus notes were based on the same book.

Well, have fun with it; if all goes well I'll drop by in another two weeks with something new.

[Note: Witt doesn't specifically state that Mrs. M was also with Florrie in September as well as June, but, according to the dodgy diary, Maybrick was already murdering women by that Spring--the non-existent strangulation murder in Manchester]

I have never claimed to be a diary defender Roger. This is not news. It would appear these are labels you and Orsam like to bestow upon me.

I also do not believe Maybrick penned the Dear Boss letter either, so it is not the only conflict with the diary I have. I do believe Maybrick wrote the 'From Hell' and 'Openshaw Letter'.

I have always been more a believer of the watch than the diary, but you can label me with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I have the humility to accept the diary could well be true and my beliefs could be wrong. If in time that is the case, I shall concede so. I am a Maybrickian that is true, but the watch to me is more compelling than the diary, but I will not dismiss it out of hand. I could be wrong.

However, I believe the more we investigate Maybrick the more circumstantial quirks we uncover. Just because it isn't in the diary does not mean it cannot be true.

[rjpalmer]

By the way. Here's one for Caz to contemplate in my absence, if she is still denying that Anne and Mike's bogus research notes were based on Ryan's book.

Where did Barrett come up with the following name?



Benjamin Thurston is Florrie Maybrick’s great-great-grandfather. This dude was an obscure American. Does anyone really believe that in 1990-1992 the Liverpool Library would have had the genealogical materials to allow Barrett to have traced him? He lived in Maine, for gosh sake, before the time of the census, and these were the years before FindMyPast, etc. And why would anyone bother to trace Florrie's family tree this far back? It had zero relevance to the diary.

Undeniably, Barrett simply cribbed the name Thurston out of Bernard Ryan’s book. Orsam notes that one other book also has a reference to Ben Thurston: Florrie Maybricks ‘My 15 Lost Years’, but Barrett had to have been working from Ryan because the same bogus entry in the notes also mentions Ryan’s “Brittanic” mistake and the fact that the engagement happened so soon after the voyage. Florrie’s book doesn’t mention either of these facts/errors

With this in mind, it is abundantly clear Barrett is also cribbing his other information from the same book, because he is falsely attributing to The Echo what is not in The Echo. And significantly, Anne Graham had to know the notes were bogus. There was nothing to 'Hoover' up. The reams of paper notes about Florrie's family tree that would have allowed Barrett to have traced Thurston didn't exist. They never existed. The notes were tossed together, so Anne must have known as well as Mike that it was a sham.

[Iconoclast]

So there's 'big stuff' which is neither in Ryan nor the scrapbook (na-noo-na-noo).

Hold on a second. There's also very big stuff in Ryan which isn't in the scrapbook!

James Chandler Maybrick, born March 24 (p23).
Gladys Evelyn Maybrick, born June 20 (p27).
Florence Maybrick, born September (p262).

Young Bobo probably had two birthdays during the course of the scrapbook. Gladys and Florrie had one.

And none of the three (or four events) is mentioned in the scrapbook! Not a single "Gladys turned two this week" or "Florrie's birthday is approaching" (if Barrett didn't know exactly which day in September 1862 she was born).

So James had his portrait painted in October 1888 - presumably to mark his 50th birthday - but failed to record this in his Jack the Ripper scrapbook. And James went on a walking holiday in Wales but failed to record this in his Jack the Ripper scrapbook. All because Ryan didn't mention these two events? But nor did the author of the scrapbook mention Bobo's birthday in March 1889 which was around the same time and was in Ryan. Nor did the author of the scrapbook mention Gladys and Florrie's birthday in 1888 both of which were evidenced in Ryan. Was this because James Maybrick's Jack the Ripper scrapbook was primarily (though not exclusively) for recording events which had relevance to his 'campaign'?

There are other seemingly-noteworthy events in Maybrick's life which are recorded in Ryan but completely ignored by the author of the scrapbook. For example, Ryan tells us on page 30 about the viper Yapp leaving Gladys crying in the nursery in the dark and James and Florrie returning home and Florrie scolding her. This occurred early in 1889 - just like the walking holiday in Wales - but this doesn't get mentioned in the scrapbook either.

So Barrett didn't record stuff in the scrapbook that was freely available in Ryan and he didn't record stuff in the scrapbook that wasn't freely available in Ryan.

As a proposition towards inauthenticity in the form of the latter, it's hardly conclusive stuff, is it, dear readers? Indeed, it is so inconclusive, I feel positively unable to conclude anything whatsoever at all from this mooted howler.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

The taxi is blowing its horn, Ike, ready to take me off to Shangri-La, but I am willing to spend the extra two dollars in fare to make a quick response, but it would really help if you occasionally thought things through.

This is silly stuff, Old Man, not even suitable for the nursery.

First off, recall the oft-proclaimed nonsense, even repeated in the introduction to Anne Graham's book, that the diary contains obscure information about Maybrick's private life. Every time someone makes this claim they end up with egg on their face, just as you did with the "shared grave" fiasco. It's all in Ryan. This has been proven by three independent researchers so why not just accept it and move on?

Meanwhile, the concept doesn't work in reverse. Ryan isn't based on the diary, the diary is based on Ryan. As far as I know, only Anne Graham and Bruce Robinson considered the diary suitable primary source material for a non-fiction work; all other historians have given the document a cold shoulder.

Have you never in your life seen a film adaptation of your favorite book, or of a historical event?

The aim of the scriptwriter is to narrow--to condense. One of the main indications that the diary is a fraud is its obvious fictional structure. The artificial beginning, middle, and end, complete with a repentance scene, which has suggested to many of the more astute commentators that it began life as a work of fiction.

Think of it as a screenplay.

And if you think of the diarist as a scriptwriter, also realize that the producer is only going to give him 90 minutes of blank 35 mm film to work with---just as Mike was afraid that Martin Earl might not be able to locate more than '20 blank pages,' so he had to keep the typescript relatively short and sweet--after all, he had six murders and his own death to deal with. Details from his source obviously would not fit the dramatic sweep of his 29-page epic.

In short, Barrett was too lazy and too desperate to crank out a 300-page novel--his mortgage payments awaited--so he just wanted a tight 29 or 30 page typescript that focused on the Ripper murders, with a bit of Liverpool name dropping tossed-in to convince the credulous.

And those Ripper murders occurred in London, Ike. A confirmable trip to London not mentioned in any of the secondary sources would have been a tour de force. Rest assured, Ike, had Ryan mentioned it, this detail would have found a home in the diary.

Why do you think Maybrick wouldn't have mentioned this event? Nor his walking tour of Wales? He seemed to be quite concerned about his health and appearance. All those sitting for a portrait in October 1888, and not one mention?

Come on, Ike. Let us be adults. There is not much more sand in the hourglass, and Putin may blow us all to bits, yet. It's time to set aside the denial and be honest about what we see here.

Shalom.

[caz]

Just because I dislike your moustache doesn’t mean you aren’t an attractive woman and what have you.

I'll take the compliment, Ike.

Many folk just don’t trust the vehicle it was written in. That’s not unreasonable, but it’s not unequivocal (and therein lies the not inconsiderable rub). Using a dodgy scrapbook to spill the beans on your murderous ‘campaign’ is not open to question by those a century later who wouldn’t have done so too. The very unhappy guy who brought the scrapbook to light later claimed to have created it – for many that’s all they needed to hear to either just believe it or else go further and shoehorn every fact they could locate into making it appear to be so. Some people who appear to have no real grasp of what the word ‘proven’ actually means have just taken to claiming that the scrapbook has been proven to be a hoax. Some people claim the scrapbook previously contained photographs from World War I, conveniently skipping the bit where someone actually provides some unequivocal evidence to support it. Some say the writing is too melodramatic which seems to set a particularly low bar for a man who literally ripped Mary Kelly’s corpse apart. Some folk say the mention of the ‘Poste House’ is an anachronism when what they mean to say is that the mention of the ‘Poste House’ could be an anachronism. Others point out that the text of the scrapbook was found on Mike Barrett’s computer, as if a man who possessed a word processor and who came into possession of the reflections of Jack the Ripper could not possibly type a version of it into an editor to both protect the text and to make it more easier to analyse without necessarily revealing in the process that he must have therefore created the original document in the first place. Is anyone seeing how these facile arguments have built an aura of distrust around the scrapbook, but not an aura of actual evidential falsehood?

A couple of observations here and what have you...

I have never understood the argument that because the real JM could have afforded a proper diary, he would therefore have purchased one - or two if they were for specific years - in which to confess to being Jack the Ripper.

My late father - who would genuinely not have hurt a fly [my mother, who wore the trousers, would have killed him first] - could have afforded a posh new diary each year, but would never let a piece of scrap paper go to waste, for making lists, noting down appointments or various other aides-memoire. His handwriting was tiny and often hard to read, and if anyone suggests it was someone else's writing because Dad would have used paper that was blank on both sides, or proper diaries or notebooks, I'll get the switchblade out. The disposable razor for my whiskers can wait a while longer.

I also personally doubt that anyone looking to mount their collection of World War 1 photos would glue them into a pristine Victorian guardbook - assuming they had one available for the purpose.

I'm not sure the diary text was found on Mike's word processor. It was presumed that the police did so when they interviewed him in October 1993, but they were investigating Robert Smith at the time, and I haven't seen any confirmation that they ever examined the word processor. Besides, it would have been remiss of Anne to leave the draft of a hoax they had created on the machine, but natural enough for the transcript, as sent to Doreen back in April/May 1992, to have been on it.

Love,

Switchypoo
X

[caz]

The first issue for me is establish that Abberline was mentioned in the papers at the time, as were many police officers. The reference to Sgt Thicke is irrelevant as why would he even consider a Sgt over an Inspector in any context?

Then we would have to examine all of those references to see if any papers made it clear that Abberline was from Scotland Yard, sent in to assist in the investigation. This would immediately set him apart from his colleagues. Anyone with a logical brain at the time could reasonably consider that as a sign of Scotland Yard sending in their best man. That does not require any modern context.

Hi ero,

A literary hoaxer worth his salt might also appreciate the psychology here, of a psychopathic serial killer singling out one of Scotland Yard's finest as his arch-enemy - the adversary in blue he needs to keep outwitting in order to save his own neck. It's seen as a game, a battle of wills between good and evil.

Like Moriarty and Holmes if you will.

Or the Yorkshire Ripper and Detective George Oldfield. In that case, Oldfield saw the uncaught killer as his nemesis, because he was being singled out and taunted by the Geordie hoaxer. It took a terrible toll on his health.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If we were to Accept Sergeant Thicke not getting a mention for that reason, we still have the issue of Inspector Helson getting more hits than Abberline and not getting a mention.

Although I do agree this deserves more research to see if there is anything in the newspapers from autumn 1888 that sets Abberline aside and above the others, because if the diary is genuine, the newspaper is the only medium with which the writer would have come to that conclusion.

I'm not sure it would make any difference, Yabs, whether the diary is genuine or not, because it's clear from the content that 'Sir Jim' is following his exploits in the newspapers. This would also explain the confusion expressed over the Kelly murder, because the early reports didn't reflect the reality of the scene, and would have had the real killer wondering why his recollections conflicted with some of the reported 'facts'.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Well, at least I have confirmation that some people would rather stoop to thoughts of onanism than deal with the evidence in front of them.

Perhaps as it's most likely their own specialist subject.

One of them was up until recently a master debater. No doubt this explains his propensity for misreading between the lines.

Seems to have lost his way when looking for the exit. He suggested recently that without him the master debating would stop and the Maybrick threads would fall silent. So much for the accusation that the so-called 'diary defenders' were the ones keeping the dream alive. He had single-handedly been doing that for years and now he's back for another go. Must be the double vision.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hello Ero. Is that the best you have, Old Boy, after the joke flew so obviously over your head? These 'solitary vice' jokes have been a standard gag on these boards for years.

Moving along:



So what you are saying is that Jim Maybrick took Florrie to the ‘City of Whores’ in June/September 1888 and didn't bother to mention it in his diary?

Fascinating.

And do I have this right---you see this as a mark in the diary’s favor, rather than a crippling blow?

Think it through.

If your information is correct, here is yet another example of the hoaxer being entirely clueless about Maybrick’s actual day-to-day life in 1888. As always, the hoaxer never strays beyond the standard information about Maybrick that can be readily found in Bernard Ryan’s The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick, published in 1977.

Yet, just imagine the fun the hoaxer could have had—if he had only known about this obscure information!! It would have been one of the highlights of the novella--- worthy of at least half a dozen paragraphs

"I will take the whore to the City of Whores! Ha ha ha! Two in one night—indeed what pleasure! But one will be left damaged, severally damaged. Ha ha ha! I wish I could share my WITTicism with that half-baked fool Witt!!! Ha ha ha!"

Instead: not a peep.

Our diarist doesn't take advantage of this little gem, and doesn’t mention Witt either, for the obvious reason that he is totally unaware of all of it, not even Maybrick’s significant trip to London in September 1888--just as he was also unaware that Maybrick had his portrait painted in October 1888, and went on a walking tour in Wales in early 1889, etc. etc.

Yup. Once again--and speaking of poor eyesight-- the Diarist has the same blind spots as Bernard Ryan.

Weak eyes, indeed. I wonder why that might be, and how Mike Barrett seemed to be aware of it?

Melvin Harris couldn't have told Mike--he thought the hoaxer had used Nigel Moreland. Only Mike knew.

And now we know his bogus notes were based on the same book.

Well, have fun with it; if all goes well I'll drop by in another two weeks with something new.

[Note: Witt doesn't specifically state that Mrs. M was also with Florrie in September as well as June, but, according to the dodgy diary, Maybrick was already murdering women by that Spring--the non-existent strangulation murder in Manchester. Even if he had only brought her there only in June, it would have been exploited to the hilt by Barrett]

'I will visit Michael this coming June...

...I am vexed. I am trying to quell my anger. The whore has suggested she accompany me [nice use of the subjunctive there, Bongo!] on my trip to Michael...

...Under no circumstances can I let the bitch accompany me, all my hard work and plans will be destroyed if she were to do so...'

...I believe the bitch has changed her mind...

...Michael is expecting me towards the end of June, henceforth from July my campaign will gather momentum...

...June is drawing to a close I shake with anticipation.'

It would appear that Bongo decided to have Sir Jim under Florie's thumb, unable in the event to stop her accompanying him to London after all to see Michael - and to be the guests of the Witts while visiting the City of Whores, where he was itching to begin downing them.

And he wriggles once more off RJ's faulty hook.

[caz]

However, I believe the more we investigate Maybrick the more circumstantial quirks we uncover. Just because it isn't in the diary does not mean it cannot be true.

Hi ero,

Bongo was clever, very clever. 'Sir Jim' didn't want Florie coming to London with him in June, but if she appeared to change her mind about doing so, she evidently changed it back again and got one over on him by accompanying him anyway, against his will. Bongo didn't include that humiliating detail in Jim's diary, but it would be the obvious reason why he had to postpone the start of his campaign. If he had managed to stop Florie going with him, there would have been no obstacles to his original plans for June, during his visit to Michael.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

By the way. Here's one for Caz to contemplate in my absence, if she is still denying that Anne and Mike's bogus research notes were based on Ryan's book.

In your absence? Don't make me laugh. You can't tear yourself away for more than ten seconds. You are a diary addict.

Where did Barrett come up with the following name?



Benjamin Thurston is Florrie Maybrick’s great-great-grandfather. This dude was an obscure American. Does anyone really believe that in 1990-1992 the Liverpool Library would have had the genealogical materials to allow Barrett to have traced him? He lived in Maine, for gosh sake, before the time of the census, and these were the years before FindMyPast, etc. And why would anyone bother to trace Florrie's family tree this far back? It had zero relevance to the diary.

Undeniably, Barrett simply cribbed the name Thurston out of Bernard Ryan’s book. Orsam notes that one other book also has a reference to Ben Thurston: Florrie Maybricks ‘My 15 Lost Years’, but Barrett had to have been working from Ryan because the same bogus entry in the notes also mentions Ryan’s “Brittanic” mistake and the fact that the engagement happened so soon after the voyage. Florrie’s book doesn’t mention either of these facts/errors

With this in mind, it is abundantly clear Barrett is also cribbing his other information from the same book, because he is falsely attributing to The Echo what is not in The Echo. And significantly, Anne Graham had to know the notes were bogus. There was nothing to 'Hoover' up. The reams of paper notes about Florrie's family tree that would have allowed Barrett to have traced Thurston didn't exist. They never existed. The notes were tossed together, so Anne must have known as well as Mike that it was a sham.

Oh dear. The 'same bogus entry in the notes'? Have you checked them lately?

The Thurston and Britannic details [at least the ship's name is spelled correctly, unlike your 'Brittanic'] are written as separate notes, and included with nine others, all under the general heading: 'Revelent [sic] facts connected with Maybrick.'

They are all unattributed except for the Saint James note, taken from Tales of Liverpool.

The ninth note is the one relating to Gladys: 'date of birth not known'.

Mike himself admitted to reading Ryan's book and My Fifteen Lost Years in the library, but claimed this was well after the research had begun.

Where is the problem here, with Mike taking notes from Ryan and/or Fifteen Years and simply not naming the source?

Anne claimed she only corrected Mike's spelling when typing up his work [but evidently missed 'Revelent'].

Mike lied to Doreen about the diary coming from Tony Devereux. He therefore lied about when his research began. We both believe that to be the case.

You believe the research began a lot earlier when the Barretts were supposedly starting on their campaign of fakery. You believe they stupidly used Ryan for a set of bogus notes, after using Ryan for their fake, when there was never any need to do so.

I believe the research only began from March 1992, when the diary first entered the Barrett family home. But Mike couldn't admit how and when he came by it, hence the 'dead mate' lie was told and could not then be untold. The notes were meant to reflect the research he had claimed to do over the months since Tony's death, explaining: 'Transferring all my notes since August 1991'. A white lie to keep the darker one intact. Mike's 'mistake' was to play catch-up by reading a couple of Maybrick titles after Shirley was on board, and taking his notes from those. It wasn't a capital offence, and I suspect Anne just let him get on with it, not knowing it was Shirley who introduced him to one of the books he was using between April and July 1992.

Could you remind us which notes Mike falsely attributed to the Echo, and where he must have found the information? I'm not sure it matters much, mind, if he was just trying to give the impression that he had done more intensive research, and over a longer period, than was actually the case.

I suspect all this effort still going into keeping the Barrett Hoax dream alive must come from some visceral horror of ever having to consider the implications of this diary being stolen from Battlecrease on 9th March 1992. So much of Mike's diary obsession from that day onwards can be explained in that context, while there is no evidence of it occupying Mike's mind, or anyone else's, prior to that date. Tony Devereux was Mike's gift to you, but a curse on the truth. Tony told his daughters everything [unless you'd like to dispute what they said], and we all know Mike had the loosest lips in Liverpool, so there would have been no chance of a theoretical or actual diary of Jack the Ripper being kept a secret between them until the day Mike finally phoned Doreen, by pure coincidence, when another Saddle regular had been helping out in the house over in Aigburth, where Sir Jim had lived and died.

I have no problem with the diary being found in No 7 Riversdale Road in March 1992. For me, it wouldn't make it any more likely to have been penned by Maybrick, or by Jack the Ripper, or even decades before it emerged. But then I save my visceral horrors for more immediate concerns, like visits to the dentist, or the small creatures my cat Monty brings in to devour in front of me.

[caz]

Ryan isn't based on the diary, the diary is based on Ryan.

Does it have to be either/or?

Obviously Ryan didn't base his narrative on the diary, that's just silly.

And Mike, when not in silly mode, would disagree with you about the diary being based on Ryan. He slipped up when talking to Alan Gray and apparently forgot that the information in the diary was put there by himself or Anne, copying it straight from Ryan's narrative. He was too busy showing off his research skills, which he had used to good effect to find confirmation in Ryan of what "Maybrick" had written in his diary. It was evidence, as far as Mike was concerned, to support his belief that what he had was genuine. In April 1999, back in silly mode, he repeated his belief that Maybrick was indeed Jack the Ripper, but used it to explain why he selected him for the hoax in the first place. Priceless.

And if you think of the diarist as a scriptwriter, also realize that the producer is only going to give him 90 minutes of blank 35 mm film to work with---just as Mike was afraid that Martin Earl might not be able to locate more than '20 blank pages,' so he had to keep the typescript relatively short and sweet--after all, he had six murders and his own death to deal with. Details from his source obviously would not fit the dramatic sweep of his 29-page epic.

In short, Barrett was too lazy and too desperate to crank out a 300-page novel--his mortgage payments awaited--so he just wanted a tight 29 or 30 page typescript that focused on the Ripper murders, with a bit of Liverpool name dropping tossed-in to convince the credulous.

It was the load of toss Mike claimed in his affidavits that convinced the credulous. He only had to wave the 1891 diary around and he owned them.

Mike was naturally sceptical when he first set eyes on the scrapbook, particularly if he was aware of what happened to the silly sausages who believed they had Hitler's Diaries. I still suspect he wanted to find out if another prankster, a century after Jack the Ripper was active, could easily have found a genuinely old book to use for his diary, with enough unused pages for the purpose. The only item Martin Earl was able to locate - far too small and two years too late for the 1889 date - would have provided some reassurance that suitable Victorian vehicles were not exactly growing on trees, and by the time the red diary arrived Doreen was already enthusing about the suitable Victorian vehicle Mike would be taking to London in a few days, so he was hopeful that Jack would not be following Hitler into the joke box.

[caz]

Thought for the day...

If a hoaxer decides to write JtR's diary based on James Maybrick being the murderer, and only uses one modern book for all his information on the man himself, I'm wondering how Ryan's book really helps to pinpoint Maybrick's movements and whereabouts during the crucial period between August and November, when JtR killed up to five women in Whitechapel.

The usual defence is that James was unlikely to have had provable alibis when only four nights were concerned. But this is a simplistic view, that takes no account of what Ryan's book doesn't contain. While Ryan does point to JM's 'weekly visits' to Dr Hopper 'in the summer and autumn of 1888', and by the November he is seeing another Liverpool doctor, complaining of 'ceaseless headaches over a period of three months', a 'numbness of the left leg and hand', and 'various skin eruptions', there are no actual dates mentioned, so a hoaxer might feel lucky enough to rely on the lack of any specific events that could place JM far away from London on the 'revelent' four nights.

But Ryan's brief was not to put Maybrick's everyday affairs in 1888 under the microscope, but to concentrate on the relationship between man and wife and the much more specific events of 1889, when everything came to a head.

The Barretts, using Ryan alone, would have come unstuck rather swiftly, had other sources shown that, for example, the Maybricks were on holiday in Wales between 30th August and 9th September 1888; or Jim had spent a long weekend in the Lake District with his best friend George, at the very end of September; or a business trip to another northern city had kept Jim occupied over the 8th and 9th November.

If I had tried my hand at such a hoax, using my own handwriting, I'd have wanted more than just Ryan as my guide, to give myself a fighting chance of making it beyond the second Maybrick source to be scoured for evidence of what he was doing and where he was, when he was meant to be available for five 'orrible murders in Whitechapel.

Good weekend all.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Darwin notebooks worth millions lost for 20 years

'Stolen' Charles Darwin notebooks left on library floor in pink gift bag - BBC News



Charles Darwin’s notebooks have apparently turned up. What a relief! They have been valued at £2 million and were stolen a few years ago, but now they’re back, thank goodness! Just imagine, if we didn’t have Darwin’s original notebooks, we would have no idea about evolution by natural selection. Phew – we dodged a bullet there, dear readers. Now we can finally get back to understanding where we came from and how the differences between species emerged.

I was intrigued, though, that these two apparently Victorian notebooks, written in apparently genuine Victorian ink, have been so rapidly accepted as the genuine articles and - in the cynical, brainless spirit of so much that passes as analysis in this world - I have immediately concluded that they are obvious fakes! Let me justify my conclusions with some illogical inferences. Do we need to look any further than their desperately poor provenance? They appeared one day on the floor of a probably-ex-scrap-metal-dealer-turned-librarian, for goodness sake, wrapped in cling film with no return address. How suspicious does that sound to you? (I think the word you are looking for is 'very', by the way.)

Fortunately we had some experts on hand to validate their authenticity, but I'm not convinced for a moment.

Prof Secord was one of several academics and experts who examined the returned manuscripts and concluded they were authentic. He took me through the "lines of evidence" they looked for.

‘Lines of evidence’? Sounds reasonable. What were they, I wonder?

"Darwin uses different types of ink in the notebooks. For example, on the famous tree of life page, there is both a brown ink and also a grey ink. Those kind of changes are quite difficult to forge convincingly.”

So the hoaxer has used two different Victorian inks, and that’s conclusive enough for the ‘experts’? Really? Or is it more that the ‘experts’ know how incredibly difficult it would be to source even one genuinely Victorian ink so to have sourced two is obviously as compelling a confirmation of authenticity as one could ever hope to have?

Personally, I think the hoaxer just clocked that he or she needed two different shades of genuine Victorian ink, went to the local art shop and bought some modern ones made by Diamine.

But the hoaxer has been so much cleverer still!

"You can see the tiny bits of copper that are coming off where the hinges are located. The paper type is the right sort of paper. These are the tiny tell-tale signs that the whole team of researchers at the university library can use to tell that they're genuine."

What was that about tiny bits of copper coming off where the hinges are located? That’s exactly what hoaxers do, for goodness sake! They get contaminated implements and they scrape off tiny bits of copper from Victorian hinges to fool the so-called ‘experts’! They probably used an old hanky to polish out modern scratches to make them look authentically Victorian. Come on, everyone, how could anyone fall for this utter mince? How could otherwise intelligent people fall for this blatant and shoddy fraud? No provenance. Dodgy inks. Faked hinge copper. How on earth has this got as far as the BBC?

How naïve are these so-called ‘experts’ – that they would be fooled so easily and by so little actual evidence? They didn’t mention the handwriting but I think we can safely take it as read that there are more than enough extant examples of Charles Darwin’s private writing intended only for his own eyes that there were comparators for both the hoaxer to style their text on and the experts to be hoodwinked by.

The notebooks, adds Dr Gardner, are "in remarkably good condition". She confirms: "Every page that should be there is there."

Clever work by the forgers - imagine the furore and the cacophony of doubt which would have emerged had there been any pages torn out, especially those at the start. I could have had a field day!

She says: "I do wonder where they have been. They haven't been handled much, they've clearly been looked after with care, wherever they have been.

Well they absolutely couldn’t have been stuffed in a tin box underneath the thief’s floorboards – we all know that’s just ridiculous!

"I think what we can probably surmise is they've been dry, they haven't been subject to damp. So what can we speculate, other than that whoever had them, put them in a safe place?"

Doh! Or else the thirteen year old forger just knocked them out last weekend (it was pretty wet in the UK as I recall).

How fortunate it is, I suggest, for the hoaxer or hoaxers that someone wasn’t publishing a book next year about how Darwin’s notebooks had been burned in a firepit and who - in order to keep the sweating author's erstwhile publisher at the table - therefore might feel the need to shout ‘Fake!” loud enough for the dumbest newspaper in history to get onboard and instigate a biased, personalised campaign of criticism and doubt. Imagine the truly unnecessary confusion that would have caused Darwinologists over the next thirty years!

Maybe I should, just for jolly? It might stop anyone else getting completely off their tits on whisky and claiming they wrote the bloody things!

Committee for Iketegrity, anyone?

[rjpalmer]

"You can see the tiny bits of copper that are coming off where the hinges are located."

One would expect hinges to be worn, Ike.

By contrast, our diary debate concerns the unhinged. (Sorry, Ike, I couldn't resist!)

The wear-and-tear on the watch is located in a spot (inside of the back cover) where one wouldn't expect to find wear-and-tear.

There's the rub.

Thus, your stuck with using the most suspicious aspect of the watch in order to date it.

Not a very good position to find yourself in, Ike.

It was noticed a long time ago by Chris Phillips and John Hacker that the stray, superficial, and incidental network of tiny scratches on the watch that supposedly show its antiquity are on TOP of the 'Maybrick' engravings.

Yet, the watch dates to the 1840s. If this was normal wear-and-tear, one would expect to see just as many stray, superficial, and incidental scratches to have been made on the watch between 1840-something and 1888. Yet, in those four decades, the watch remained pristine--as one would entirely expect, considering it is the inside back cover.

The suspicious network of scratches was made after the 'Maybrick' engravings, and since there is no way to date scratches in metal, the watch is even less compelling than the Edwardian photo album/guard book.

(I call it Edwardian for the same reason that Caz recently called it Victorian. What bloody evidence is there that it is Victorian?)

And now, Ike, I am returning to the bottom of the Thames. Enjoy.

P.S. No one will understand this obscure factoid, Ike, but you---but I did notice one error by the anti-diarists. This watch has bugger-all to do with John Over, but it was once argued that since Mrs. John Over (who had worked for the Maybricks) had married shortly before 1888, she would have been long gone by 1888, and this would not have afforded a chance for Maybrick to steal her husband's watch.

I did notice, however, that Mrs. Over was already calling herself Mrs. Over before she ever worked for the Maybricks. She apparently "lived in sin" for several years, posing as his wife. The marriage came later. That's what it looks like to me in studying the census returns and the marriage banns.