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?

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

I would give them more than that, simply because they at least absorbed the lesson of the Hitler 'Diaries'; that you have to make an effort to render the frabricated document impregnable to tests of timing because you use Victorian ink and paper (it's not that hard). Notice the Hitler hoax had no followers the instant the forensics exposed the materials in question as post-WWII.

Oh, by the way while you're here Simon ...

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6871&page=8

(I am referring to post 78?)

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Forensics were way down on the hoaxers' list of priorities.

They embarked on the initial premise that Ripperologists are willing to believe anything.

It never fails; vide Stephen Knight.

Regards,

Simon

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Hello SRA. I tend to agree. Are you familiar with the Hopwood testimony or the Tidy/Mcnamara analysis?

Cheers.
LC

I've got the A Toxicological Study; in fact I have everything, which right now appears to be too much. I am drowning in information that needs to be shaped into a coherent narrative.

Why do you ask? I frequently start Maybrick conversations by saying assume I know nothing because not only can people not agree on the "facts", we can't even agree on the interpretation of the "facts".

[lynn cates]

not FM

Hello SRA. I tend to agree. Are you familiar with the Hopwood testimony or the Tidy/Mcnamara analysis?

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

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

And I'm the loudest dissenter?? You've got to be joking?

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.

It didn't take, and so it is not a 'source' accepted by any mainstream; not by the general mainstream of pop culture, not by the mainstream of historians, writers and journalists, and not even by the mainstream of the Ripper buffs/cognoscenti.

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

Yet what I am getting at is that you are treating me as if I am this eccentric, lone voice crying in the wilderness about this lame fabrication when -- for once here -- I am not. I am legion.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Well, if his doctor had him on nux vomica, no wonder he was so ill. It's lethal stuff! Poor old Florence was getting the blame when it was the medics killing him off!

I think we can safely rule Florence out as a murderer.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Given the circumstances of his death about two weeks later, he sounds very chipper and can hardly be accused of hyperchondria!

If this is chipper I'd hate to see depressed.

[Limehouse]

Well, if his doctor had him on nux vomica, no wonder he was so ill. It's lethal stuff! Poor old Florence was getting the blame when it was the medics killing him off!

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I'm unaware that it is on the record that James Maybrick was a highly-educated individual, or particularly literate.

There isn't any such record. (I know you are aware of this Tom....)

He has to have had some sort of business training, because on his father's probate record he's listed as a bookkeeper. (Thanks again Livia!)

Michael was the family's fair-haired child education wise.

Women, drugs and horse racing were James' passions.

[Carol]

I've often wondered about this letter. Was James Maybrick in a 'well enough state' to actually be capable of writing a letter? Could he have dictated the letter to someone? Another reason that makes me wonder is the crossing out of the word 'Michael'. I can imagine Maybrick saying 'My dear Michael. Oh, cross that out and write 'Blucher'. If he had been writing that himself I don't think he would have actually crossed out 'Michael' but would have added 'Blucher' in parenthesis. Someone else was supposed to write a 'clean copy' and send it off.

I wonder if this 'Blucher' letter is only a clerical copy of a draft.

Carol

P.S. I've just read this post through and realise that it is probably of no interest whatsoever to anyone else!

[Tom Mitchell]

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=6591&page=26

OMG -- the 'diary' is an atrocious and excruciating fake isn't it?

Not on the basis of your article, it isn't, no. I'm unaware that it is on the record that James Maybrick was a highly-educated individual, or particularly literate. Could you provide us with your research on this as you appear to know more than the rest of us in this regard?

I trust you aren't making the rather vulgar mistake of assuming his relative wealth from a bouyant cotton trade necessarily required a significant intellect or education?

The person who wrote the Maybrick letter arguably had nothing to do with the 'diary'.

Well, as Maybrick definitely wrote the Maybrick letter, all you're really saying is 'The Maybrick diary may be a hoax'.

I could have saved you the effort - it's been said many times before. Many of those times by you ...

[Jonathan H]

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=6591&page=26

OMG -- the 'diary' is an atrocious and excruciating fake isn't it?

The person who wrote the Maybrick letter arguably had nothing to do with the 'diary'.

[Lechmere]

Given the circumstances of his death about two weeks later, he sounds very chipper and can hardly be accused of hyperchondria!

[Kaz]

Thanks, a very interesting letter!