The Diary

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

If it was written to portray James Maybrick as Jack The Ripper, it is no longer convincing.

Hey Graham - good to see you.

A snippet from my talk at York:

"I would suggest that the Diarist wrote as if he really didn't care all that
much about what his audience wanted to read and wanted to believe. He's not trying to prove nuthin' to nobody. In my opinion the intended audience is simply the Diarist. I would ask the question whether the true focus of the Diary is Jack the Ripper or the "James Maybrick" the Diarist purports to be. It's clear that the Diarist is meant to be James Maybrick but it is never said
explicitly. It reads like a poorly written novel if you are talking about plot
development and creative writing. It's certainly not a diary. Paul Begg described it as "a sort of confessional into which the supposed author wrote and perhaps exorcized his thoughts and emotions". The handwriting, far from being uniform, changes erratically from a controlled steady hand to a wildness, marked by blots and slashes. The Diarist shifts from emotional tenderness to acts of cannibalism; he's letting it all hang out in a matter of fact if flowery style. There are no dated entries; in fact some entries may
have been written at the same time. None of the victims is dignified with a name save for Kelly towards the end.

In brief, it's nothing like what you would normally associate with a diary. Maybrick, or whoever, does say at the end that he thinks the Diary will have a cautionary value after his death, but the majority of the text is written without thinking of the potential audience, and the diary becomes a bit of a nuisance to him at the end, and he thinks of destroying it. I hear echoes
of Anne's attempt to burn it in the Barrett's fireplace.....A gas fired one no less...

I believe a proper forger would have started by explicitly stating the facts of the JtR and Maybrick cases so that we know we're looking at the real deal, and then woven in this emotional roller coaster. Instead the Diarist's universe revolves strictly around himself. Cringe inducing rhymes are juxtaposed with furious and blood seeking outbursts. The Diarist rails against an unjust God; he's a third rate King Lear. "One day God will answer to me, so help me." Some have said it just doesn't ring true, unlike something the "real" Jack would have written by implication.. Just what, pray tell, does the "stereotypical Ripper" diarist sound like? "

[Tempus omnia revelat]

You're straying into Patricia Cornwell territory my friend. Proving that the diarist may have written one or more Ripper letters is not the same thing as proving the s/he was the Ripper.

No. But it would prove that whoever wrote the diary was sending letters to the police of the time and, therefore, around at the same time the killings took place (i.e., it's not a modern forgery). That surely would be a leap forward. No?


Kind regards,


Tempus

[miakaal4]

Hi Graham.
Hey thanks for that piece of Casebook history, I'd bet the fireworks almost got out of hand!?
There are two points to your argument that undermine it, for me anyway.
"Maybrick" is not in the Diary. Only May and Battlecrease. So how would someone reading the diary who did not know the details of the Maybrick clan, know it was him? (A bit of a pointless frame up) And over ninety years ago brings up that old chestnut "tin box empty".

[Graham]

Anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of the Maybrick Murder Case of 1889, as soon as he/she read the word 'Battlecrease' and the names and pet names of members of the Maybrick family, would know that the author of the 'Diary' had James Maybrick in mind. Assuming that he didn't write it, it only took Mike Barrett five minutes to establish the link.

I agree with Sir Bob's comments regarding the 'feel' of the 'Diary'.

I knew someone would raise the 'tin box empty' argument - but of course this, if genuine, also shoots down in flames anyone who believes the 'Diary' was written by James Maybrick a.k.a. Jack The Ripper. As someone who appears to believe in the authenticity of the 'Diary', how do you get around this difficulty?

G

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I knew someone would raise the 'tin box empty' argument - but of course this, if genuine, also shoots down in flames anyone who believes the 'Diary' was written by James Maybrick a.k.a. Jack The Ripper. As someone who appears to believe in the authenticity of the 'Diary', how do you get around this difficulty?

G

You'd have to search the site for it but back in 2005 (!!) But I tackled the tin match box issue then. Here it is for the umpteenth time. The Paul referred to is Paul Butler, a good man in a firefight.

Posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 12:22 pm:
Hey Paul ! Following up on your comment:

"The Police made a list of Kate’s belongings and then just handed it over saying “……………here you are Mr coroner. This is the list of Miss Eddowes’ possessions we took down. You’ll need this for the inquest and then to place under lock and key for the next century. Despite the fact that therein may possibly lie a clue to the identity of the killer, we won’t keep any record of it ourselves, we won’t require any copies, and promise not to investigate for fear that it goes down in the record held on Police files.”

Am I supposed to believe that is how it happened? A by now desperate Police force ignoring the evidence? I don’t think so. It absolutely beggars belief that this one extant copy of the list of Kate’s possessions was the only reference to this irritating little tin box. "

There are a couple of points pertinent to your argument that you might like to consider.


Numerous newspapers on 1 October 1888 published a description of Eddowes and her clothing and listed her possessions. Almost all these newspapers reported that Eddowes wore a dress of dark green chintz with a pattern of Michaelmas daisies and Gordon lilies. The inventory preserved among the inquest papers mentions the chintz skirt but does not mention the pattern.

Interestingly the Daily Telegraph, 1 October 1888, refers to the source of its information about Eddowes’ possessions as ‘the full official description’.

Where did this document come from, and where did it go ?

On 1 October 1888 The Times published a description of Eddowes and a list of her possessions. This list includes references to a printed handbill with the name "Frank Cater, 405, Bethnal road”’ on it and a portion of a pair of spectacles, neither of which appear on the official inventory of Eddowes’ possessions preserved among the inquest papers. It also refers to a very blunt white bone handle table knife being found in a white linen pocket, whereas the official inventory only refers to ‘1 White Handle Table Knife & I Metal Tea Spoon’. The inquest inventory only mentions two boxes, one containing tea and the other being a matchbox which it describes as empty, however The Times on 1 October 1888 lists among Eddowes’ possessions ‘a match box with cotton in it’. If the empty matchbox is the same matchbox that had contained cotton then it looks as if the cotton had been lost between the inventory being made that was published in The Times and the inventory that is preserved among the inquest papers.


From the foregoing it seems reasonable to conclude that a inventory was made and widely circulated to the newspapers and one can probably safely assume divisional and possibly even provincial police forces, that this inventory was ‘official’, as stated by the Daily Telegraph, and that it was fuller and more complete than the inventory preserved among the inquest papers. It further appears that the inquest inventory was a list made much later and was incomplete and was made after some items such as the cotton had gone missing. In other words, there was an earlier and widely circulated inventory.

The debate over whether or not the coroner's papers were kept locked up is perhaps not the only argument we should be having....

Sir Robert

[Iain Wilson]

No. But it would prove that whoever wrote the diary was sending letters to the police of the time and, therefore, around at the same time the killings took place (i.e., it's not a modern forgery). That surely would be a leap forward. No?

That's certainly an interesting way of looking at it (although I would disagree that it would PROVE that whoever wrote the diary was around at the time, but that's a whole other debate) but that's not the point you were making:

The point remains, however, that when we study this diary there are circumstances and evidence that crop up time and time again to support this diary and the notion that Maybrick was the ripper - including FMs in pictures that no one has mentioned before and letters sent to the police of the time that match the handwritting of the diary.

My issue was that "letters sent to the police in the same handwriting as the diary do not Maybrick the Ripper make".

Plus, as Robert points out in his posts, the handwriting in the diary varies wildly.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Plus, as Robert points out in his posts, the handwriting in the diary varies wildly.

The facsimiles of the Diary don't do justice to the handwriting issues. You really have to see the real thing or high def photos to realize how much the handwriting changes almost line by line at some points.

It also puts paid to the idea that it was all written in two or three sessions based on the uniformity of the entries. They ain't uniform.

Nor is the fading. A faded word or letter can be right next to a "normal" word and this is an effect that is supposedly impossible to fake with an iron gall ink such as that used by the Diarist.

[Iain Wilson]

The facsimiles of the Diary don't do justice to the handwriting issues. You really have to see the real thing or high def photos to realize how much the handwriting changes almost line by line at some points.

Another reason I wish I could have made York...

[Graham]

I've never seen the 'Diary' itself, but certainly agree with Sir Bob that the style(s) and fashion(s) of the handwriting, together with the fading of the ink, cannot be examined properly by looking at a facsimile or even a photo.

Alec Voller made the comment that the fading of the writing is not uniform, and stated that this is what he would expect to see in an 'old' document written with 'old' ink. He said that unlike a modern fountain-pen or a ball-point, the old 'dipping' pens, when first charged by dipping into the ink, produced a dense script, that 'fades' as the ink in the nib was used. He said that the ink from a newly-charged nib faded from black to dark grey in the 'Diary' script as the nib was discharged. As I understand it, the denser script displayed a greater degree of bronzing than the faded script, and again Voller said that this is what he expected. He also said that such non-uniform fading and bronzing is impossible to forge, even with any 'speeding-up' process the forger may care to apply. In other words, Voller was saying that the ink of the 'Diary' went onto the paper a relatively long time ago, and could not have been written around the time the 'Diary' came to light in 1992. Voller's comments were, I believe, made following a lengthy visual inspection of the writing, and not via any analytical procedure.

I would also add that Rod McNeil's (in)famous "ion migration" test gave him the result that the ink went onto the paper around 1921, +/- 9 years, which is of course not helpful either to those who believe the 'Diary' is new, or to those who believe it was produced during or shortly after the Whitechapel Murders.

I accept that the above is the opinion of only one expert, but as former Chief Chemist of Diamine Inks Ltd, he should know what he was talking about.

All of the above is, of course, available in greater detail in Paul Feldman's and Shirley Harrison's books, as well as the book by Linder, Morris & Skinner, and makes interesting reading.

This, of course, does not mean that the 'Diary' was written by James Maybrick and proves him to have been Jack The Ripper. A separate issue.

As a side-comment, I find it strange that there has been no recent discussion regarding the Watch, one way or the other.

G

PS: Sir Bob, I dipped back into time yesterday and had a look at the various 'Diary' threads from 2005 - it'd take me years to re-read the whole lot! Good stuff, though!

[miakaal4]

Hi Graham,
Once people can accept that the diary is old, then the serious debate around who wrote it and why can get going. As for the watch, well you need to be brave on this forum even to mention it!

[Iain Wilson]

Once people can accept that the diary is old, then the serious debate around who wrote it and why can get going.

I don't think anyone is dismissing the possibility that the diary could be old; the real split in the community is between those that vehemently believe that Maybrick was the Ripper and those who believe that the diary is a forgery (modern or old).

[Graham]

Iain,

there are, and were, plenty of people who absolutely reject even the possibility that the 'Diary' is anything but a modern fake - Melvin Harris, rest him, being one of the most vocal.

Graham

[Iain Wilson]

Iain,

there are, and were, plenty of people who absolutely reject even the possibility that the 'Diary' is anything but a modern fake - Melvin Harris, rest him, being one of the most vocal.

Graham

Ah - I stand corrected. And yes, I should have remembered Mr Harris and Mr Fledman's - God rest both of them - differing views on the matter. More akin to a pub fight than robust debate

[Graham]

More akin to a pub fight than robust debate

Whaddya mean akin to a pub fight? It was one! Exciting while it lasted, though. Neither of them pulled their verbal punches, and apparently did come close to slinging real ones! I respect enthusiasts, even when I don't agree with them!

G

[miakaal4]

What I don't get is why people get so fed up when the diary is mentioned.
I mean, if someone doesn't think it is worth discussing, why discuss it at all?
If someone wanted to frame Maybrick, all they had to do was find a sharp knife, a couple of brass rings, and write a few gloating memories. Perhaps add some bloodied gloves. Then pay some alcholic street girl to point the finger.
His life ruined whether deemed guilty or not.