Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[caz]

Caz scolds Mike for not sticking around to ask Keith ‘tough’ questions. But how do you ask tough questions to a self-proclaimed agnostic who insists that he has no hound in the hunt, only mild preferences? You might as well swordfight with the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Tough questions do not come into play if someone insists they have no answers—only more questions.

Hi R.J,

I assumed, maybe wrongly, that Mike's broken promise - or was it an empty threat - to ask Keith some tough questions at the conference, was aimed at the traditional Q&A session, so Mike's questions and Keith's answers would be aired for all to hear. If the audience then felt that Keith was dodging those answers, while professing to be a diary agnostic, they would have had the perfect opportunity to chime in and say so. So allow me to scold you now, for anticipating how Keith might have answered, had Mike not denied him that opportunity. Even Keith is not smart enough to guess what questions Mike would have asked, had he not been torn away early by some more pressing engagement.

I don’t know if you saw my comment on the Piltdown Man hoax on the other site. The hoax was accepted for decades before someone noticed the file marks and realized that old Pithy had the jawbone of an orangutan. Only then did the business of unmasking the hoaxer really kick into gear, but by then the trail was as cold as a Diary debunker’s heart. In subsequent years books came forward naming various conspirators—trying to explain who did what at Piltdown pit.

Now, I could sit back and say, “You see! The Piltdown debunkers can’t even agree on who dunnit! Some say Teilhard de Chardin, some say Dawson, and, lordy, some dumb-arse even says Conan Doyle! And if they can’t agree, well my dear fellow, then why not face the reality—or at least the POSSIBILITY-- that Piltdown Man IS REAL!”

This may be a delightful and joyful and wise argument, perhaps even convincing to certain folks chewing popcorn in the upper decks, but it doesn’t make the jawbone any less orangutan.

But that particular hoax was 'accepted for decades', which makes it a statement of the bleedin' obvious to point out that 'the business of unmasking the hoaxer' came far too late to be successful. The Maybrick diary, in stark contrast, was condemned in some quarters as a 'shabby hoax' almost from the off, and certainly well before Shirley's first book was published, while all the suspected hoaxers, bar Tony Devereux, were still alive to be investigated. How incompetent would any hoax buster be, to spend decades trying to unmask the hoaxer(s) in this case, and still be failing miserably today? So your pithy observations on Piltdown Man merely serve to highlight how different he is from the object you are seeking to compare him with, and how little they have in common.

I suspect that this is the secret belief of the Diary agnostic:

“I have no pony in the race. Any old nag can win and I’m as happy as a clam, just as long as it’s not Barrett’s filly, True Confessions.”

Can it really be agnosticism if one has a secret belief? Answer: of course not.

Not a secret belief on my part, R.J. I fully admit to being an agnostic regarding when exactly the diary was composed and penned, but I'm a non-believer when it comes to any knowledge Mike Barrett ever claimed to have about either process. In fact, I'm a non-believer in anything he ever claimed to know about how it came into his possession. Just like with the existence of God, or fairies at the bottom of the garden, I can't be turned into a believer in the diary being wholly or partly a Barrett creation, just because some people out there are true believers. God talks to His believers. Conan Doyle saw the fairies and believed. Some people have read Mike Barrett's stories and believe in the truth of some of them.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Put that horse in the Grande National. I've stuck an e on the end of Grand by the way it's de rigueur around these parts at the moment it seems. The thing is it's an easy shot for the National, lets make it more interesting. How about we make it run backwards blindfolded wearing oversize wellington boots with a 15 stone penalty. I'd still put my shirt on it.

Blimey, Observer, so you'd still put your shirt on Barrett's filly - True Confessions?

Even without the blindfold, wellies, your Hawaiian shirt and all, it should have been shot the day after it was born, in January 1995.

I wish you luck with that one and trust you own more than one shirt.

[caz]

Oh, I get it now. You want to play tennis without a net.

Okay then, carry on. Let's watch Caz and Icon go at it in full debate, and let the best debater win! I promise to sit by as silently as Anne Graham for the next six months, and Lord Orsam is banned and Mike is busy with the Liverpool pub scene, so there shall be no interruptions. Let the debate begin!

If you are suggesting only two debaters, R.J, then surely you mean 'let the better debater win'. Or perhaps Ike and I are both seen as master debaters.

If only others would join in and actually debate, rather than spectate and then shout "you cannot be serious!" at regular intervals.

New balls please.

[Iconoclast]

master debaters

Cough cough …

[Graham]

I think you mean co-authored with Carol Emmas, Graham - but good question nevertheless!

Good point, young Ikey. I could say I was only testing, but I'm an honest cove.

Graham

[caz]

because the truth is important. Looking forward to you and Ike debate over the authenticity of the diary. You have a lovely Easter too Caz.

Thanks Abby. I did.

The truth is indeed important, but how do you decide what the truth is, without the necessary facts? If your version of the truth is based on personal belief, you can't simply claim it to be the truth, and therefore 'important'. Facts are always more important than belief, when it comes to judging the truth of the matter. If and when the facts become known and established, the truth will be revealed and belief will be made redundant.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Lets be honest none of us with an interest in the case, and I'm including those who met the man, are in a position to say whether or not he had the mental ability to conceive and compose the diary. It's a pity those who were involved with Barrett at he time of the Diary's emergence failed to look into Barretts "career" as a part time writer of articles for a pop magazine. In my opinion the man, was far from being an idiot. Of coarse those with a desire to distance Barrett with any involvement in the production of the Diary would have us believe the man was little short of being an imbecile, barely able to sign his own name. How many of those individuals knew the man intimately before 1992? How many were around and were on intimate terms with Barrett at the time when those articles were produced by him for the pop magazine?

Hi Observer,

One person knew the man intimately before 1992. She was around and was on intimate terms with Barrett at the time when those articles were submitted and accepted: his wife, Anne. Both admitted, after the diary emerged, that Mike's written work was not fit for publication until Anne "tidied" it up. She'd have known, better than anyone else on the planet, the risk she would have been taking, not to mention the hard slog she would have been in for, if Mike had decided his next project would be to fake a diary by the real James Maybrick from Liverpool, confessing to Jack the Ripper's murders in London, and if she had been insane enough to agree to "tidy up" whatever he might have managed to produce on his own. With that agreement in place, we are asked to believe that she would have left Mike in control of sourcing a suitably "old book" for the purpose, and would have trusted him not to leave a paper trail solid enough to lead straight back to the Barretts as the recent recipients of the actual book used for their hoax.

Was it just a piece of luck that the only paper trail left was the one for the tiny diary for the year 1891, which proved about as useless as anything could possibly have been for faking the rambling thoughts of a man who had shuffled off in 1889? Was it a similar piece of luck that no such paper trail would emerge for the acquisition of the old scrapbook Mike took to London? Or did Anne gamble on a paper trail back to the useless 1891 diary not proving fatal, unlike one for the scrapbook they ended up using? And if so, why would she have been remotely confident, in March/April 1992, that Mike had not left another unambiguous, and this time 100% incriminating paper trail, had he acquired it from a Liverpool auction house, to be used immediately for the diary and taken to London?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

“Williams, the name is Williams…remember that…Williams.”

After hanging up, Mr. Earl places the now famous advertisement: “Unused or partially used diary dating from 1880-1890, must have at least twenty blank pages.”

Again, this is Earl’s advertisement, not Barrett’s. We don’t know if Mike said anything about the year 1890 and considering that Earl ultimately went outside the parameters of his own advertisement (a worthless 1891 appointment book), we can deduce that Barrett’s instructions were not very precise. If it was Barrett and not Mrs. Barrett, that is.

So, R.J, how did Mr. Williams turn into Mr. Barrett, by the time the 1891 diary was sent to Mr. Barrett at the right address in Goldie Street? It was Mr. Barrett who went down as a 'late payer', when he failed to respond promptly to the invoice in his name. If you believe it could have been Mrs. B who made the enquiry, whether on behalf of Mr. Williams or Mr. Barrett, would you still deduce that the instructions were 'not very precise', or does that only apply if Mike was the one issuing them? In the case of Mrs. B making the enquiry, how would you imagine the conversation might have differed, while producing the same, totally unsatisfactory result?

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

So, R.J, how did Mr. Williams turn into Mr. Barrett, by the time the 1891 diary was sent to Mr. Barrett at the right address in Goldie Street?

That might be an enigma best answered by Shirley Harrison.

Rather oddly, Doreen and Shirley weren't unduly alarmed when Mike's name suddenly changed from Williams to Barrett, so I doubt H.P. Bookfinders would have cared who was footing the bill as long as they received their twenty-five pounds. What is highly suspicious to some is merely a 'flair for the dramatic' to others.

Evidently Keith called H.P. Bookfinders and confirmed the late payer was 'Barrett,' but I haven't seen his documentation. As previously noted, the prior owner of the hoax house on Goldie Street was a 'Mr. Williams,' and I suspect Barrett may have used that particular alias for a reason. Then again, maybe he was a Robbie Williams fan. Personally, that sort of music make me gag (or fall asleep or fall asleep gagging) but to each his or her own.

What irritates me is that at some point it must have been blindingly obvious that if Barrett's purchase of red diary was 'worthless' the scrapbook must have been bought later, but no one checked the correct dates with O & L. Alan Gray tried to inspect their books, but was turned away. However, I won't use the unkind word 'incompetent' that you use on the other thread. I'd say it was more a matter of impotence, or, at worst, a lack of any sense of urgency. Keith and Shirley and Gray and Harris didn't have the power of the police, so their 'failure' to unravel the mystery to your remarkably high standards of evidence is what it is. They couldn't subpoena, etc., and since Smith never filed a complaint, no thorough police investigation of the Barretts could ever happen, despite your insistence that it did.

Let me put it this way. If ten years from now, you still haven't nailed Fast Eddy for the Great Battlecrease Floorboard caper, and he's still roaming the streets freely calling you crazy, I promise not to call you and Keith incompetent. It's not like you can drag him down to the nick and beat a confession out of him! All you have is the power to persuade.

Have a jolly day.

[caz]

Haha, never heard that one before. I'm afraid the retort alludes me.

Did you mean to take one of the mistakes from the diary and make it your own, Observer? Or could this be evidence that you wrote the diary yourself? It's an argument made against Mike Barrett, that he wrote it because he often quoted from it.

Which of the following is more likely?

1. That Barrett bought the maroon coloured diary in order to perpetrate the hoax that is The Maybrick Diary? Bear in mind he asked for at least 20 blank pages, and that he paid £25 for the privilege, quite a sum in those days for Barrett considering his financial situation.

or

2.Barrett went to the considerable expense, for his meagre income, to buy the diary to copy the contents of the original scrapbook because he was fearful it might get nicked or lost.

Why could he not have just bought a jotter at WH Smiths for a couple of bob and saved the 25 quid he spent on the diary?

The fact is, Observer, Mike had no idea what his enquiry might produce, nor how much it might cost. And in the end, Anne paid for it by cheque from her own bank account when Mike was marked down as a 'late payer'. So you might say that the cost to himself, in monetary terms at least, was nothing. But he didn't know, until the bill for the 1891 diary arrived, whether it would be for 50 pence or 500 pounds.

In short, whichever argument you personally favour, Mike simply didn't consider his own financial situation, nor that of his household. Ditto if, as R.J has suggested, it was Mrs. Barrett who made the enquiry. Perhaps she was the one with more money than sense, while Mike had precious little of either commodity.

Each has his or her own preference, so let's leave it to those casual visitors of this forum, the one's with a limited knowledge of the Maybrick saga, to make up their own minds. We wouldn't want to mislead them would we?

What, with the idea that Mike knew the little 1891 diary would set him back £25?

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Maybe I'm as dull-witted as Barrett was allegedly dull-witted, but if I was going to go hunting for a genuine Victorian diary I wouldn't ASSUME that it would be stamped all over on the cover and every page with the year '1891' or '1881' or anything else. I'm not buying an appointment book, I'm buying a diary, and most of the diaries I've seen aren't dated--they are just blank books with some flowery image embossed on the cover.

The intention of requesting an 1880-1890 diary was almost certainly to locate a suitable medium that would be forensically dated to the correct general period (by a bibliophile, if not a scientist) and not in some crazy hope of hitting the jackpot by acquiring an 1887 or 1888 ledger published by the Liverpool Cotton Broker Association.

Mike was probably as shocked as anyone else would be when he tore open the brown paper wrapper and saw the date '1891'. Doh! No wonder Anne put him in a headlock when she got home, and the two rolled around on the kitchen floor.

[Iconoclast]

Maybe I'm as dull-witted as Barrett was allegedly dull-witted, but if I was going to go hunting for a genuine Victorian diary I wouldn't ASSUME that it would be stamped all over on the cover and every page with the year '1891' or '1881' or anything else. I'm not buying an appointment book, I'm buying a diary, and most of the diaries I've seen aren't dated--they are just blank books with some flowery image embossed on the cover.

Come on rj - that's just not acceptable if you are using it in the form of an argument (and most of your readers here will assume you are and therefore give it far greater credence than it deserves). We all know that a diary generally has dates so we all know that - if we want one that fits a known chronology - we have to specify either a date no later than the last possible year (in this case, 1889, obviously) or else we have to go to great lengths to stress to the person we are requesting it from that "It must be one of those really rather unusual diaries that are not dated on every page (whether they have pretty flowers on them or not)".

I think Barrett's simplest strategy would have been to ask for "A diary dated 1880-1889 or else a genuine Victorian diary that is one of those really rather unusual diaries that are not dated on every page (whether they have pretty flowers on them or not)".

I think your previous experience of diaries is simply not helpful to us here as it does not tally with what we all know we mean when we refer to a 'diary'.

It's one of the reasons why I call the Maybrick scrapbook a 'scrapbook' and not a 'diary'.

[rjpalmer]

Come on rj - that's just not acceptable.. We all know that a diary generally has dates so we all know that -

If you say so, Ike (but see below, and let me know if you want further examples).

But maybe you're right. Maybe Barrett knew EXACTLY what he would get when he ordered a genuine Victorian diary. But that rather undercuts your own argument that he needed to shell out 25 quid to see what one looks like, no?

Waiter! Check, please!

[rjpalmer]

P.S. If you can't make it out, the notation at the bottom states 'The Diary of Charles Evans, 1851 September 24-1855 January 21'

[Iconoclast]

If you say so, Ike (but see below, and let me know if you want further examples).

But maybe you're right. Maybe Barrett knew EXACTLY what he would get when he ordered a genuine Victorian diary. But that rather undercuts your own argument that he needed to shell out 25 quid to see what one looks like, no?

Waiter! Check, please!

Well done, Roger. That's a picture of a blank notebook that someone called Charles Evans has used as a 'diary'. I could do that with a post-it pad, but if I ordered a diary I would not expect to get a notebook or a post-it pad back.

Citing a so-called example of something which contradicts a well-established rule without following the rule does little for the argument.