Maybrick's "Blucher" letter

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

This is a letter from James to his brother Michael. (Thanks Livia!)

http://www.jamesmaybrick.org/pdf%20files/Maybrick,%20James%20%28Blucher%20letter%29.pdf

I happen to think it does read somewhat like the prose of the Diarist - it certainly isn't miles apart. But more importantly it isn't the product of a keen intellect.

This part should catch the eye: What is the matter with me none of the Doctors so far can make out and I suppose never will until I am stretched out and cold and then future generations may profit by it if they hold a post mortem which I am quite willing they should do.

I don't take it as a confession of being Jack, but instead that of a self centered hypochondriac.

Which is precisely how the Diarist portrays him...


Liverpool 29th April 1889
My Dear Michael Blucher,
I have been very seedy indeed. On Saturday morning I found my legs getting stiff and useless but by sheer strength of will shook off the feeling and went down on horseback to Wirral Races and dined with the Hobsons. Yesterday morning I felt more like dying than living so much so that Florie called in another doctor who said it was an acute attack of indigestion and gave me something to relieve the alarming symptoms, so all went well until about eight o’clock I went to bed and had lain there an hour by myself and was reading on my back. Many times I felt a twitching but took little notice of it thinking it would pass away but instead of doing so I got worse and worse and in trying to move round to ring the bell I found I could not do so but finally managed it by the time Florie and Edwin could get upstairs I was stiff and for two mortal hours my legs were like bars of iron stretched out to the fullest extent but as rigid as steel. The doctor came finally again but could not make it indigestion this time and the conclusion he came to was that the nux vomica I had been taking under Dr Fuller had poisoned me as all the symptoms warranted such a conclusion I know I am today sore from head to foot and played out completely.
What is the matter with me none of the Doctors so far can make out and I suppose never will until I am stretched out and cold and then future generations may profit by it if they hold a post mortem which I am quite willing they should do.
I don’t think I shall come up to London this week as I don’t feel much like travelling and cannot go on with Fuller’s physic yet a while but I shall come up again and see you shortly. Edwin does not join you just yet but he will write you himself. I suppose you go to your country quarters on Wednesday.
I have not seen Dickinson yet.
With love. Your affectionate brother
Jim.

[Kaz]

Thanks, a very interesting letter!

[Lechmere]

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

[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'.

[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 ...

[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!

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[lynn cates]

not FM

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

Cheers.
LC

[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".

[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

[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?)