Who wrote the "Diary"

[Soothsayer]

Hi Soothy,

Would you be interested in buying Al Capone's 1929 intimate diary, written during his stay at Philadelphia's Eastern Penitentiary?

The handwriting and signature are a bit dodgy, but don't worry about it. All the scientific ink and paper tests say the diary was written prior to 1970 and Scotland Yard's Fraud Squad are not interested in pursuing charges.

Ergo.

It's the six-figure offer of a lifetime.

I look forward to receiving your cashier's cheque.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

Just typing words in some cohesive order is some considerable distance from making a point. And some further distance from making a relevant point, even if by chance you have typed away at your computer for a thousand years and achieved the former.

Your premise is utterly flawed:

All the scientific ink and paper tests say the diary was written prior to 1970 and Scotland Yard's Fraud Squad are not interested in pursuing charges.

How - in your forging fantasy - did you create it in such a way that twenty years of analysis could not discount it? For - if you did - you deserve the six-figure lottery ticket you've just created.

Usually, when folk who attack the journal's authenticity sense the tide turning (and, believe me, Sir Tempus o'Revelat is turning tides like they are going out of fashion) they descend into the dust and dirt of their weakly-constructed parallels. Not actual parallels, of course - just imagined ones. No serious Ripperologist would ever dare to dirty their hands with anything even vaguely connected with evidence. I suppose we'll now be subjected to a series of smug posts from those who have the Iscariot Scrolls, the Big Foot Notebooks, and the Lucy Slates - each thinking they are the wittiest of commentators who with their wishful wands can explain away twenty years of debate.

But please do post them for - with each one which gets posted - the true character of the Naysayer is more intimately revealed ...

Soothsayer
Sir

[BTCG]

Yep, got to agree with you there, all the JM related books are great reads, whats most interesting is no one can explain them away.

And like everyone else you're entitled to your opinion, even if it is wrong

It was fun reading... and then I got to page 127, and it turned south.

From the book:

"At this point the diary poses a question. The police had to break into Mary Jane Kelly's room. All the newspapers reported that the key had been lost before the murder. But Joe Barnett stated that it was then found, so substantiating Maybrick's claim that he left with it. A few days after the murder, one newspaper reported that the key was now in the possession of the police. The rational explanation is that he locked the door behind him and once well clear, tossed the key away."

So, let's analyze this. Maybrick locks the door, gets well away and tosses the key. Someone happens upon the key several blocks away, and presumably says "this must be the key to Mary Jane Kelly's room, I must get it to the police."

Rational explanation, eh?

[Scott Nelson]

Well..let's try George Grossmith.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Soothy,

Would you be interested in buying Al Capone's 1929 intimate diary, written during his stay at Philadelphia's Eastern Penitentiary?

The handwriting and signature are a bit dodgy, but don't worry about it. All the scientific ink and paper tests say the diary was written prior to 1970 and Scotland Yard's Fraud Squad are not interested in pursuing charges.

Ergo.

It's the six-figure offer of a lifetime.

I look forward to receiving your cashier's cheque.

Regards,

Simon

[Soothsayer]

Hi All,

The "diary" wasn't written by James Maybrick.

Any argument to the contrary is just so much hocum.

Regards,

Simon

Hi All,

The "diary" was written by James Maybrick.

Any argument to the contrary is just so much hocum.

Regards,

Soothy

PS I don't actually know this to be true, but then neither does he know it isn't (unless he wrote it) ...

[spyglass]

Hello Simon,
well thats that then.

Regards.

Ps. Hurry up with that book of yours.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The "diary" wasn't written by James Maybrick.

Any argument to the contrary is just so much hocum.

Regards,

Simon

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Chris,

I have to go out shortly, so excuse the brief and possibly incomplete reply.

Imho, the concept itself requires historical knowledge on two fronts- Ripperology and James Maybrick. This knowledge would need to be studious. It would require, I believe an historianesque mind.

Given the above, the genre of Ripperology pre 1970 was conducive to a relatively limited field of said knowledgable persons. This does not include of course the unknown persons sufficiently interested in the genre. But that is only half the story. The same knowledgable person or persons must also have the historial accuracy and knowledge of James Maybrick and his antecedants. A person I'd wager was, pre 1970, hardly heard of outside specialist interest.
Historians themselves it later shows (correct me if I am wrong) have had very little to do with the Maybrick life and times. What was once an infamous trial had faded into historical obscurity.

So the combined detailf interest in both genres may indicate very specialist knowledge.
I make no assumption on the above, but to this lay-man it asks questions. Anyone WITH such a speciality would probably be known to others withìn the genres.
It may also be an indication that leans towards a later concept date. I make no conclusion on this point either way- I only pose the intruiging possiibility based on the above.

Without "dipping" into the ink quality, content and age, the creator would have to know a little something here too- which opens up, to my mind at least, more than one person involved in the creation? I dont know either way.

Please excuse any lack of response to any further reply, but as said I am out for the evening.

Best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil

I am not sure that any specialist knowledge was required other than reading one or two Ripper books and a book or two on the Maybrick case. That's pretty much what Melvin Harris thought, and the books by Martin Fido for the Ripper case and Bernard Ryan for Maybrick have been named as possible candidates for source material. Although of course Harris was positing a composition for the Diary of post-1988 that both those books would fit.

All the best

Chris

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil

Not sure what you mean by "Pre 1970 knowledge Ripperwise was pretty specialist. Maybrick even more so?"

Could you elucidate?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Hello Chris,

I have to go out shortly, so excuse the brief and possibly incomplete reply.

Imho, the concept itself requires historical knowledge on two fronts- Ripperology and James Maybrick. This knowledge would need to be studious. It would require, I believe an historianesque mind.

Given the above, the genre of Ripperology pre 1970 was conducive to a relatively limited field of said knowledgable persons. This does not include of course the unknown persons sufficiently interested in the genre. But that is only half the story. The same knowledgable person or persons must also have the historial accuracy and knowledge of James Maybrick and his antecedants. A person I'd wager was, pre 1970, hardly heard of outside specialist interest.
Historians themselves it later shows (correct me if I am wrong) have had very little to do with the Maybrick life and times. What was once an infamous trial had faded into historical obscurity.

So the combined detailf interest in both genres may indicate very specialist knowledge.
I make no assumption on the above, but to this lay-man it asks questions. Anyone WITH such a speciality would probably be known to others withìn the genres.
It may also be an indication that leans towards a later concept date. I make no conclusion on this point either way- I only pose the intruiging possiibility based on the above.

Without "dipping" into the ink quality, content and age, the creator would have to know a little something here too- which opens up, to my mind at least, more than one person involved in the creation? I dont know either way.

Please excuse any lack of response to any further reply, but as said I am out for the evening.

Best wishes

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the reply, these are my uneducated conclusions re McCormick too- am in agreement. I suspect Caroline may answer in the same fashion too.

the other question I asked is a little different, perhaps. Pre 1970 knowledge Ripperwise was pretty specialist. Maybrick even more so?

Best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil

Not sure what you mean by "Pre 1970 knowledge Ripperwise was pretty specialist. Maybrick even more so?"

Could you elucidate?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

[caz]

I think it's pretty obvious Caz wrote the diary.







(That was a joke. Clarifying for the really dim.)

You promised not to tell, Ally.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Wow what hostility and nothing addressed.

You have enough hostility about this hoax to blow the roof.

There must be some complicated backstory to trigger such bile which I have luckily missed.

Hi Jonathan,

Any hostility you detect in my responses to you can be put down to the fact that it's rather tiresome having to write the same things over and over again, only for someone to come back and claim that 'nothing' has been addressed.

How many times do I have to repeat that I did address the arguments Bill Beadle made in his 'devastating' article?

How about you addressing what 'side' you see me on and why?

How about you addressing what you think I 'want to believe' and why?

How about addressing why you think I'm lying when I tell you for the umpteenth time that I'm on nobody's 'side' and I only let the evidence do the talking, not belief?

You will find my tone a whole lot less hostile if you start reading what I've written and stop accusing me of stuff I haven't.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ally]

I think it's pretty obvious Caz wrote the diary.







(That was a joke. Clarifying for the really dim.)

[caz]

Hi Phil

Thank you for the kind words once more about Ripper Diary. I like to trade kind words for kind words (never mind individual opinions), so you and I are never likely to fall out for long.

Anyone who detects 'bile' in my responses needs to check their own attitude. I only reflect like for like. That's why Bill Beadle was so thoroughly nice about my response to his article. No 'bile' from either of us at any stage.

Given a pre 1970 conception, how do you think this ties in with pre-1970 Ripperology, literarily and knowledge wise?

I'm afraid this is not my personal area of 'expertise' (or should I say interest?). I bow to specialists like Evans, Skinner, Begg and Fido - but of course even their conclusions differ to a great extent! I do struggle with which post-1970 books Barrett and chums (for I fear we are stuck with them in any thoroughly modern setting) are meant to have used for the finished product and why. But I agree with Chris that it seems very unlikely that McCormick had a finger in this particular pie. Melvin Harris would have had his guts for garters had that really been the case. He would have sniffed out the connection between him and Barrett if there had been one to sniff, instead of getting stuck in the groove of his 'nest of forgers', whose identities he was too scared to reveal because he must have known the proof was entirely lacking.

I also feel there are people alive today who know when, where and why this was done. I doubt that the truth will ever come out either, unless someone decides that honesty, whatever the fall-out, is of more historical worth than dishonesty. We can but hope.

I only wish that were the case, Phil. Mike Barrett absolutely knows how he came by the diary and when. Others alive today may know more about where it was before March 1992. But there is no evidence that anyone alive, including Mike, knows when, where or why it was written, or by whom. I believe that is why nobody has been able to lay it to rest and that continues to intrigue me.

Love,

Caz
X

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the reply, these are my uneducated conclusions re McCormick too- am in agreement. I suspect Caroline may answer in the same fashion too.

the other question I asked is a little different, perhaps. Pre 1970 knowledge Ripperwise was pretty specialist. Maybrick even more so?

Best wishes

Phil