Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[caz]

i didnt say you said those things caz. I was just making general points.

Fair enough, Abby. Have a lovely Easter.

[Iconoclast]

general note-I find it very interesting that caz and other diary defenders, who dont think the diary was written by maybrick, rarely, if ever, debate and or reply with snarky remarks and insults with those who do. I mean its a hoax right? shouldnt that be a much more a point of contention then the comparatively minor question* of who hoaxed it?

curious that.


*and its not even a question/mystery who hoaxed it anyway.

Perhaps they are sufficiently open-minded that they can at least entertain the possibility (however unlikely in their opinion) that the jury remains out on the truth of the matter so that someone arguing for Maybrick is not really rattling their cages and irritating them. Maybe they are freer of thought and therefore don't have cages to rattle?

On the other hand, those who have boxed themselves into cages (in this, I include myself, of course) very much have cages to get rattled and walls to defend so we get personally affronted by the moots of the other side?

I find that Caz - like many people on the site, scrapbook defenders or not - simply address the evidence and if someone posts in a 'bigoted' or tunnel-visioned way, they get rightly motivated to correct the misinformation and closed thinking. Maybe it comes across as 'snarky' in the case of Caz because she's pretty fearless in her approach. Personally I both admire her for it and am very scared of her at the same time. Maybe one person's 'snarky' (such a great word, by the way, where on earth did you get it from?) is another person's 'passion'?

Take your post (quoted). You haven't allowed for any possibility that it is not a hoax and have even closed off who the hoaxer was even though the rest of us know that that has not yet been established (28 years and counting, by the way). I don't think Caz has ever said that she knows beyond any doubt that it is a hoax. I suspect other agnostics (this is probably not the best term but it's as good as I've got at the minute) take a similar view. I'm sure Caz has posted before that she believes it to be an old hoax (Victorian period) but that she doesn't care either way - she just wants to know the truth one day. For the record, I'm convinced it's not a hoax but I too desperately hope for the truth one day regardless of its nature and I cannot simply settle for the dark corners of misinformation, poorly-constructed opinion, bald-ass assertions, and presuppositions. Hold on, am I plagiarising from 'The Atheist Experience' here???

This argument would suggest that scrapbook agnostics and defenders argue with a closer eye to a fair interpretation of the available evidence, of course, which would be a wonderfully covert-snarky way of my saying we use our brains more.

Not that I would ever suggest that, of course!



PS I also find that people of all persuasions (including me) are never 'snarky' in private correspondence. It's like we all agree to play out a certain character in our public fora, but are minded to be our socially-adjusted selves in PMs/emails (even whilst still in character). I think psychologists call the former 'deindividuation'.

[Abby Normal]

general note-I find it very interesting that caz and other diary defenders, who dont think the diary was written by maybrick, rarely, if ever, debate and or reply with snarky remarks and insults with those who do. I mean its a hoax right? shouldnt that be a much more a point of contention then the comparatively minor question* of who hoaxed it?

curious that.


*and its not even a question/mystery who hoaxed it anyway.

[Iconoclast]

I didn't say it was written 'at the time', Abby. Nor did I say the hoaxer was 'very good'. In fact I'm not sure you understood a word of what I did say. So I wouldn't advise you or Mike to try creating a hoax anytime soon.

Love,

Caz
X

Honestly, Caz, I think we are being trolled. Nobody - three sheets to the wind most of the time or not - could ever be so ignorantly ignorant! They must be meaning to be?

I suspect it would be very dangerous for me to accept Mike's generous offer of a night on the lash in Liverpool as I still rather value my teeth, but I have to say that on the few occasions I too have been three sheets to the wind in Scouseland Central, it's been a right good night. It's very much like Glasgow, Newcastle, etc. - rough as a badger's, but remarkably tolerant. Maybe we should all get together in the Philharmonic (I think that's the one I was tying to remember the other day), sing Beatles songs, and remember to duck once Mike starts 'arguing the case' for the Victorian scrapbook of James Maybrick being a hoax?

Abby, honestly mate, I value your wit and wisdom, but - like Caz - that last poste of yours was ever so cryptic.

PS [Addendum] I wasn't meaning that the Scousers would have my teeth for garters - I was suggesting that Mike might given my slightly less than generous comments about me old mucker from the midden.

Ike

[Abby Normal]

I didn't say it was written 'at the time', Abby. Nor did I say the hoaxer was 'very good'. In fact I'm not sure you understood a word of what I did say. So I wouldn't advise you or Mike to try creating a hoax anytime soon.

Love,

Caz
X

i didnt say you said those things caz. I was just making general points.

[caz]

exactly. which shows it wasnt written at the time and that the hoaxer wasnt very good.

I didn't say it was written 'at the time', Abby. Nor did I say the hoaxer was 'very good'. In fact I'm not sure you understood a word of what I did say. So I wouldn't advise you or Mike to try creating a hoax anytime soon.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Ah yes, Ike, because post offices were often sourced by keen drinkers, privy to the secret knowledge that they served ale for one's refreshment! lol.

Gosh, Mike, are you really that ignorant or were you joking?

Before post offices there were post houses, typically inns, serving food and drink, where the post was delivered or picked up, and if it was a coaching inn the horses could be watered while their riders took a spot of liquid refreshment. When the railways came, things changed and the old post houses gradually lost their postal services to post offices built for purpose, while retaining their status as public houses or hotels.

Ike, the clue is in the fact that Maybrick supposedly "took refreshment" there. The fact that you laughably have to invent a story about the writer actually meaning to claim Sir Jim was sitting in a post office having a glass of beer in a fruitless attempt to try and quash the fact that the writer actually made a staggering, factual error, is nothing short of embarrassing, but whatever keeps this dream alive for you, mate.

Now that is embarrassing, Mike, unless you really were joking. Nobody is suggesting Sir Jim was sitting in a post office supping his beer. When the real JM was born, in 1838, the main Liverpool post office was adjacent to an old inn on School Lane, a stone's throw from his childhood home and very close to Whitechapel. In 1839 the post office separated off and moved to a different location, leaving the original inn to serve up alcoholic refreshments to the regulars who used to combine a drink with all their postal needs. The directories for 1888 give this old inn's name as the Post Office Tavern, showing that it was still associated with those old postal services, fifty years after the last person had used them. Easy to see how it might have been referred to by its regulars back in the day as "the post house". And that's where Robert Smith was directed by a former landlord of Rigby's in Dale Street, when he asked for "the post house". I also gave you the name and phone number, by private message, of the old chap I met, who said exactly the same to me when I asked him if Liverpool had a "post house". Yet you cheekily refer to him as some 'random' chap and ignore Robert Smith's experience, as if we both invented our sources.

'Sir Jim' misspells 'post haste' with a rogue e: 'poste haste', so there's no reason why a hoaxer couldn't have done the same with post house, to produce the 'Poste House'. There used to be a sign 'Poste Restante', where postal services were offered, so anyone, including the real JM, might have picked up the rogue e from that. If this is what our hoaxer had in mind, I would suggest they were creating the text at a time when the pub in Cumberland Street was yet to be renamed the Poste House, so they had no idea this would trip them up when their hoax emerged in 1992.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Really? Easy as falling off a log, Mike. Try the directories I consulted many moons ago in the Liverpool library. Pretend you are a hoaxer who wants his diarist to take refreshment in a pub near Whitechapel in the heart of Liverpool in the year 1888. You'd like to pick the tiny Poste House in Cumberland Street but you are not certain if it was called that in 1888. So you pop to Liverpool Library and simply scroll down the list of publicans in the relevant 1888 directory, but what's this? No sign of your Poste House. Without digging out my notes, I believe Ike is correct that it was then the Wrexham House. You'd need the directory for 1894 to learn that your chosen pub, also known as the Muck Midden, had been renamed The New Post Office Hotel, as a nod to Liverpool's new main post office in Victoria Street. You won't find your dear little Poste House listed in any directory in the 19th century, but you would find what the same pub at the same address was called in 1888. So you'd be off your nut to carry on regardless and call it the Poste House in your fake diary, wouldn't you?

Love,

Caz
X

exactly. which shows it wasnt written at the time and that the hoaxer wasnt very good.

[caz]

I still believe that the Poste House is basically mentioned in the diary merely because it's a very-well known old pub in this city with links to such people as Charles Dickens. The information regarding its former names are not as easy to dig up, hence why the diarist makes the mistake of mentioning the incorrect name of the Poste House to begin with...

Really? Easy as falling off a log, Mike. Try the directories I consulted many moons ago in the Liverpool library. Pretend you are a hoaxer who wants his diarist to take refreshment in a pub near Whitechapel in the heart of Liverpool in the year 1888. You'd like to pick the tiny Poste House in Cumberland Street but you are not certain if it was called that in 1888. So you pop to Liverpool Library and simply scroll down the list of publicans in the relevant 1888 directory, but what's this? No sign of your Poste House. Without digging out my notes, I believe Ike is correct that it was then the Wrexham House. You'd need the directory for 1894 to learn that your chosen pub, also known as the Muck Midden, had been renamed The New Post Office Hotel, as a nod to Liverpool's new main post office in Victoria Street. You won't find your dear little Poste House listed in any directory in the 19th century, but you would find what the same pub at the same address was called in 1888. So you'd be off your nut to carry on regardless and call it the Poste House in your fake diary, wouldn't you?

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Ah yes, Ike, because post offices were often sourced by keen drinkers, privy to the secret knowledge that they served ale for one's refreshment! lol.

Ike, the clue is in the fact that Maybrick supposedly "took refreshment" there. The fact that you laughably have to invent a story about the writer actually meaning to claim Sir Jim was sitting in a post office having a glass of beer in a fruitless attempt to try and quash the fact that the writer actually made a staggering, factual error, is nothing short of embarrassing, but whatever keeps this dream alive for you, mate.

"Poste House." That, right there, is your dead giveaway, mate.

A pub that didn't exist by that name until 5 years after Sir Jim had bitten the dust. A pub that is now touted, wrongly, by all and sundry, as being frequented by James Maybrick. Shirley Harrison didn't think the writer was actually discussing a local post office, nor did Vincent Burke, or anyone else, for that matter... Besides you

'Post house' = building which collects post prior to collection. May be a pub. May not. If not a pub, probably no-one drinking there. For the record, I believe that most were indeed pubs which also provided accommodation for travellers such as those collecting the post.

This is so simple to understand that I have to assume that you are attempting some foolish wind-up when you persistently - 2018, now 2020 - keep making a 'joke' of something which is simply an established part of Victorian enterprise.

Your belief that the scrapbook is a hoax determines your position and your arguments in the self-same way mine (and others') do. End of. Nothing special about my position, and citing hoaxers as proof that hoaxes have occurred is rather like arguing that when the ball crosses the line it's always a goal.

By the way, it's been ages since I last reviewed this stuff but I'm sure the Wrexham House in 1882, known colloquially as the 'Much Midden' around 1888, became something like The Post Office Tavern or The Post Office Restaurant by the end of the century. It was only in the 1960s that it became the Poste House.

[Mike J. G.]

You seem to be the only person on this site who does not understand that not only is every pub under the sun NOT known as the Poste House, but that any building which collected post to be picked-up by the frequent post carriages of the 1800s was referred to as a 'post house'. This was true whether they were public houses or not.

The fact that Maybrick spelt the one he was in as 'Poste House' is beyond everyone else's control, but not categorical evidence that he did not write the scrapbook.

Ike

Ah yes, Ike, because post offices were often sourced by keen drinkers, privy to the secret knowledge that they served ale for one's refreshment! lol.

Ike, the clue is in the fact that Maybrick supposedly "took refreshment" there. The fact that you laughably have to invent a story about the writer actually meaning to claim Sir Jim was sitting in a post office having a glass of beer in a fruitless attempt to try and quash the fact that the writer actually made a staggering, factual error, is nothing short of embarrassing, but whatever keeps this dream alive for you, mate.

"Poste House." That, right there, is your dead giveaway, mate.

A pub that didn't exist by that name until 5 years after Sir Jim had bitten the dust. A pub that is now touted, wrongly, by all and sundry, as being frequented by James Maybrick. Shirley Harrison didn't think the writer was actually discussing a local post office, nor did Vincent Burke, or anyone else, for that matter... Besides you

[Iconoclast]

Of course, you can ignore all of that and just hope really, really hard that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and you can live out the fantasy that every pub under the sun was known as the Poste House, and that nobody in Liverpool has ever heard of the Maybricks, despite the obvious evidence going against both of those suggestions.

You seem to be the only person on this site who does not understand that not only is every pub under the sun NOT known as the Poste House, but that any building which collected post to be picked-up by the frequent post carriages of the 1800s was referred to as a 'post house'. This was true whether they were public houses or not.

The fact that Maybrick spelt the one he was in as 'Poste House' is beyond everyone else's control, but not categorical evidence that he did not write the scrapbook.

Ike

[Mike J. G.]

I recently stumbled across something that I found quite funny, it concerned Vincent Burke, the local crime writer and historian, who had a great interest in the Maybrick poisoning case. It was in a summary of the case by him that I noticed the fact that he mentions the "Poste House" being one of James's favourite haunts in which to meet his friends, in fact, he even includes footage of the pub in question, which we all now know didn't exist by that name in the 1880s, being that it was known as the Muck Midden until at least 1894.

Now, I've heard so much nonsense from people in this forum that "Maybrick" was more than likely referring to another pub by that name, which after some searching, I've not been able to find any such evidence for, and it seems Shirley Harrison also had this problem despite "hours of trawling." Caz likes to make a funny claim about another pub going by that name, according to some random bloke she met in there one time. Of course, Caz also reckons that the Maybrick case is practically unheard of in this city, which is obviously hilariously false, as I've mentioned before.

There is no doubting that the pub spoken of in the "diary" is the Poste House in Cumberland street. So, did Vincent Burke not know this? He was a local man. Was he merely referring to the fact that the pub known as the Poste House was once the pub frequented by James? Where did this information regarding James drinking there ever even come from?

Where is the information regarding where James did or did not "take refreshment"?

Vincent was a speaker at the "Trial of..." at the cricket club, so he wasn't a stranger to the diary. Which came first, then? I believe Vincent bases his information regarding James' favourite watering hole merely on the diary's mention of it. I don't recall there being any actual, supported information regarding where James drank. The fact that the pub was situated close to his offices, so he must have drank there, doesn't wash with me, as there where a lot of pubs situated near his offices.

I still believe that the Poste House is basically mentioned in the diary merely because it's a very-well known old pub in this city with links to such people as Charles Dickens. The information regarding its former names are not as easy to dig up, hence why the diarist makes the mistake of mentioning the incorrect name of the Poste House to begin with.

Of course, you can ignore all of that and just hope really, really hard that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and you can live out the fantasy that every pub under the sun was known as the Poste House, and that nobody in Liverpool has ever heard of the Maybricks, despite the obvious evidence going against both of those suggestions.

Food for thought.



Hope you're all washing your hands!

[Iconoclast]

Of course those are natural terms to use.

But to bother to write a journal of your movements and only use those terms, and not include one date or even name which day of the week it is at any point, is very odd.

Yabs, this is a 'hoaxer' who was able to spell 'sceptick' correctly in the context of 1888. He or she did the hard yards of research. I don't think he or she would have had a moment's hesitation in using some days of the weeks or actual dates, especially where these were well-established. You probably feel that I am over-reacting here, but you need to realise that we get far too much irrational (lazy?) 'reasoning' on the Casebook, and - like irrationality all the world over - it is frighteningly-compelling to those who like to repeat such stuff not long later as known facts.

You need to be careful how your mind moves from A to C - especially if it has to go through B and B is an unknown, unmapped town in the backwaters.

Cheers,

Ike

[Yabs]

Of course those are natural terms to use.

But to bother to write a journal of your movements and only use those terms, and not include one date or even name which day of the week it is at any point, is very odd.