Maybrick's "Blucher" letter

[Tom Mitchell]

No, Tom, I'm saying that the 'Diary' is an hoax.

You may well be saying it. If only science worked this way, most commentators on the diary would be Nobel prize winners.

It is obviously a crude hoax, except that the con people at least started with the forensics. They knew they had to pass the basic tests to compensate for the terrible prose, the reliance on some dodgy secondary sources and the handwriting not being at all a match.

Well it's good to know that you rate the forensics - not quite so crude there, evidently. Shame you don't rate the 'secondary sources'. Personally, I don't even know what you mean by 'secondary sources', so I can't comment. The handwriting not being a match? Are you absolutely sure? Obviously, it's not a match for Maybrick's known formal copperplate hand, but what of when he wrote to amuse himself, where the formal wasn't required? Was the Sept 17 letter the only other example we have of this other than the diary? Certainly, it's clearly in the same hand as the diarist. Our hoaxer had some forethought to plant the Sept 17 letter some five years before the diary emerged. Hardly crude!

Of course a minority opinion can be right and a majority opinion wrong. History is littered with examples.

You may do well to bear this in mind from time to time.

I am legion.

If you stripped from your ranks those who had or have a vested interest in the diary being marginalised, how legion would you be?

[lynn cates]

newspapers

Hello SRA. Thanks.

I was asking because I thought you might like the newspaper account of those documents.

Those who are interested in the Maybrick case do not always coincide with those who are interested in "The Maybrick Diary." You seem interested in both.

Cheers.
LC

[caz]

I have no idea how the diary author prepared him/herself for the task before putting pen to paper, but I always find it highly amusing when others claim with extraordinary pomposity to know how much or how little work, skill, research and so on went into the 'project', and what it was meant to achieve. It's particularly comical to see that none of them can actually agree with each other's oh-so-confident conclusions. They generally manage to cancel one another out. Hilarious.

Isn't it enough for them that the handwriting clearly doesn't match any of the known examples we have of the real James Maybrick's? They seem to have this desperate personal need to keep telling us they are not gullible. I wonder why?

Love,

Caz
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[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I was asking because I thought you might like the newspaper account of those documents.

Those who are interested in the Maybrick case do not always coincide with those who are interested in "The Maybrick Diary." You seem interested in both.

I would welcome any and all newspaper accounts.

And yes, I am interested in the Maybrick case itself. I think it would be hard to make a judgement on the text of the Diary without an appreciation of the details of the case behind the case, so to speak. But even if the Diary didn't exist the comings and goings at Battlecrease are fascinating. The more I learn about it, the less I feel I know what the hell actually happened there. A real life soap opera - adultery, violence, drugs, mayhem, disease and possibly murder. What's not to like?

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

highly amusing when others claim with extraordinary pomposity to know how much or how little work, skill, research and so on went into the 'project', and what it was meant to achieve. It's particularly comical to see that none of them can actually agree with each other's oh-so-confident conclusions. They generally manage to cancel one another out. Hilarious.

As a fellow veteran of the Great Diary World Flame Wars, it is particularly funny to see the con people at least started with the forensics..

That's a keeper and going straight into my talk at York.

Back to soaking the fly papers.....

[lynn cates]

PM

Hello SRA. Splendid. Just PM me your preferred email address.

Cheers.
LC

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Hello SRA. Splendid. Just PM me your preferred email address.

Cheers.
LC

Shall do! Thanks!!

[Jonathan H]

To Sir Robert

Make sure you get my name right when you quote me -- it's Jonathan Hainsworth.

I will be very proud to be so named as a dissenter against this minor and misleading fraud, aginst your Holy Book.

Thanks in advance for making me the envy of the overwhleming majority here who regard the 'Diary' and its Cultists as arrogant and tiresome interlopers into this legit subject.


To Tom

You don't know the definition of, or difference between, primary and secondary sources ...?

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

To Sir Robert

Make sure you get my name right when you quote me -- it's Jonathan Hainsworth.

I will be very proud to be so named as a dissenter against this minor and misleading fraud, aginst your Holy Book.

I thought your name was Legion.

I wish I had a Holy Book.

I don't know what you think "we" believe, but other than me I don't think there are many Maybrickians running around. The debate for many revolves if it is an old hoax or recent vintage. It's a debate which has been running for 20 years now, and I suspect it's good for at least another 20....

I don't think we will ever know for certain who authored it. I certainly don't invest the issue with any fervor; it's a hobby not a passion. I think it would be inherently unhealthy to have a firm conviction either way.

[Tom Mitchell]

To Tom

You don't know the definition of, or difference between, primary and secondary sources ...?

Not after reading your recent post, no. I had thought they related to evidence (direct, indirect) but you say that the diary lacks secondary sources in a way which reads as though you are implying that every other JtR suspect has both primary and secondary evidence in abundance and therefore the lack of both or either for Maybrick somehow weakens the case against him - so I clearly have misunderstood what these 'sources' are, because as everyone knows on this Casebook and elsewhere, no suspect has any shred of primary evidence against them never mind secondary, so your point against the diary is quite irrelevant unless I have misunderstood what 'sources' are.

I'm an honest bloke. I didn't understand. I put my hand up to seek clarity.

While you're explaining to me what 'primary and secondary sources' are, could you run me off a quick list of both for Druitt, please. Just the first few (say 4-5) to save you time.

Or any at all if you're struggling.

PS Ideally exclude the whimsy of old men past their prime remembering police cases they nominally headed-up but actually had only the slightest grasp of. Or the possible guesswork of relatives.

[caz]

Ideally on a Druitt thread....

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

everyone knows on this Casebook and elsewhere, no suspect has any shred of primary evidence against them never mind secondary, so your point against the diary is quite irrelevant unless I have misunderstood what 'sources' are.

Actually Tom we have two signed confessions from someone claiming to be James Maybrick. Or someone representing themselves as he, whatever language you want to use.

There is only one Ripper suspect with evidence against him. Ironic, isn't it?

[Jonathan H]

I will gladly deal with the primary and secondary sources of the police suspects on another thread, though it will make no difference to the closed yet needy minds here.

The Ripper 'Diary' hoax is a minor sideshow, long past its run, which has caused no actual harm except maybe to those directly involved and to innocent buffs, some years ago, who had the misfortune to discover that its Cultist-advocates are as viciously defensive as religious fundamentalists.

Whereas this was a much more important hoax as it arguably helped to create the atmospherics for genocide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Whereas this was a much more important hoax as it arguably helped to create the atmospherics for genocide:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pro...Elders_of_Zion

Well, that's a first. Mentioning the Diary and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the same post. Caz will remember someone once compared the Diary to an Iranian conference on the Holocaust, but I think they were arguing the Diary was a bigger evil.

You know, there's no need for this debate to be so vitriolic, Jonathan. We've had plenty of civilized discussion about Druitt over at the Forums. There shouldn't be a separate standard for Maybrick.

[caz]

Let Jonathan work himself up into a mini lather about the diary if he wants to, Sir Robert. He's late to the party, but that's all.

Compared with one or two commentators of yesteryear, who eventually burned themselves out with their own stomach acids, Jonathan looks like a diary apologist.

Love,

Caz
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