The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Sam Flynn]

Graham, even if they were only "anachronistic-ish", the fact that more than one of them occurs in the same document vastly increases the cumulative probability against the Diary's being an early hoax. As far as I'm concerned, "one off instance" and "spreads mayhem" are enough on their own to place the Diary's authorship in the latter half of the 20th Century.

[Graham]

I know enough. Besides, if there are anachonistic phrases in the text (and there are; three or four of them in the same short document) the back-story is irrelevant.

Sam, I would never ever cast aspersions upon your knowledge of Jack the Ripper in general, and the Maybrick Case in particular. I still don't think that the phrases we refer to are absolutely proven to be anachronistic, but even so they are not the be-all and end-all of the Diary story. There is plenty else to consider.

Graham

[Sam Flynn]

I do detect that among some posters, who swear black and blue that the above terms could not have been in use during the late 19th century, appear to know very little about the Diary itself.

I know enough. Besides, if there are anachonistic phrases in the text (and there are; three or four of them in the same short document) the back-story is irrelevant.

[Graham]

One of the problems that has always dogged "diary" is that people don't ask "when" the "diary" was created, but let the argument polarise into whether the "diary" is genuine or a modern fake, and it's a circular argu,emt that goes nowhere.

Well, what you say is fine, but there are posters to this and previous threads who most certainly questioned and debated the possible age of the Diary. I, in my humble little way, was and is one of them. Maybe I don't shout loud enough to be noticed. I never believed Maybrick was either the writer of the Diary or the Ripper; I never believed it dates from the late 19th century. I have certainly considered the remote possibility that it was produced in an effort to get Florence off the hook and out of clink, but for the reason stated above I reject that notion. So what of other possibilities? A combination of Michael Maybrick, George Grossmith and maybe others to smear poor old Jim for some reason or the other? Could be, but I don't think so. As has been mentioned a myriad times, the whole feel of the Diary does not suggest a late-Victorian origin. The language - to me at least, and I buried myself in Victorian authors for many years - doesn't strike true. Could be wrong on this, but I don't think I am.

What has been largely forgotten during the course if this thread is the Maybrick Watch. As it 'appeared' not long after the Diary did, this has always smacked of some kind of 'conspiracy'. Well, to me it has at any rate. Was it simply a coincidence, or what? Those of you who have read 'Ripper Diary' will agree with me that Albert Johnson struck the authors as being the very picture or propriety - with which I could never disagree. But he was involved in the Watch at any rate - he's the one who bought it from the jewellers. So was there a contemporary link between the Diary and the Watch?

We also find that the analysts could never quite agree as to when the ink went onto the paper of the Diary, and the one test (by McNeill) that did date it to the early part of the 20th century was more or less ignored. I never quite got my head around why this should have been. Could it be that the other analysts had already made up their minds - or been ordered to - that the Diary is modern?

Do you think it might just be possible to move on from the boring and increasingly tiresome arguments about 'one-off' and 'top myself'? I know what the response of most posters will be, up to them, but I do detect that among some posters, who swear black and blue that the above terms could not have been in use during the late 19th century, appear to know very little about the Diary itself.

Gone on long enough, but I would just like to end by saying that the more I think about it, the more I think that Melvin Harris was on the right lines - with or without Bongo's involvement at the onset. Does this mean, for what it's worth, that I think the Diary is a fake, then? Yep - not think it is; rather convinced that it is.

Graham

[Iconoclast]

Ike,

Look at some of the Harry Dam writings.

Can you direct us to where we should look, Scott? Google takes us either to what looks like Dutch Wiki sites or else straight back to Casebook threads.

Cheers,

Ike