Was Eleanor Bridge Mrs Hammersmith?

[rjpalmer]

I think you just poured cold water on your own theory there, RJ, because the evidence strongly indicates that Mike didn't have access to the right Sphere volume until late 1994, nearly three years after the diary emerged, and the copy he finally handed to Alan Gray was not new and had signs of being used by a student.

I dispute this, but haven't the time or desire to go into it at the moment. Barrett is hardly going to produce his copy of the Sphere Guide in 1992 & 1993 when he is still trying to convince Harrison, Montgomery, and the world that the Diary is genuine! The idea daft. Of course he wouldn't have presented his copy of the Sphere Guide until after he began confessing.

Even if he said nothing about reading Rumbelow's book and finding the inspiration for Mrs Hammersmith within its pages, a dozen reasons can be found to explain why he was unable or unwilling to 'hammer' home any of his forgery claims

How do you know he doesn't reference Rumbelow? Have you heard all of the Alan Gray tapes?

Shirley Harrison once mused about Barrett's seeming ability to come up with quotes and phrases, despite not being well-read.

In the Gray tapes, Mike makes an odd reference to the novels of Colin Dexter (of Inspector Morse fame), and, in particular, The Dead of Jericho. His point was that Dexter used to include quotes at the top of his chapter headings, and Barrett evidently memorized a few of these in order to impress others, including Harrison.

As I say, Barrett appears to have been something of a magpie, and so was the diarist when it came to Crashaw.

The Crashaw quote is not an organic part of the text. It is a white elephant. 'Maybrick' makes no other literary quotes, unless one counts Donald McCormick, nor is his own poetic inability ("with the key I did flee") really suggestive of someone who could quote a difficult 17th Century metaphysical poet from memory.

I see Gary Barnett is chuckling elsewhere over the opinion that a middle-class protestant cotton broker whose tastes ran to money, women, horses, and arsenic wouldn't likely have been a connoisseur of a 17th Century Roman Catholic metaphysical poet.

Laugh all you want, but this opinion was shared by two doctorates who were lecturers in English Literature, John Omlor and Martin Fido. It was also shared by a woman who was specifically a Crashaw scholar--a friend of Omlor's.

Yes, there were a few religious types and few minor poets who read Crashaw, but that's world's away from Maybrick. Not many freemasons in the late Victorian Age were pro-Catholic. It wasn't absolutely forbidden, but most of them were anti-Catholic.

Just to mention a few names familiar to Ripperologists, Sir Robert Anderson, Chief Inspector Littlechild, and Supt. Charles Cutbush all had strong anti-Catholic leanings.

What evidence is there to suggest Maybrick read 17th Century metaphysical poetry? Or approved of Catholicism?

Have a good day.

[caz]

I'm sure Eddie exists. I've been told that he's even been on video.

It's just a little difficult to entertain the idea that he is guilty of theft and rubbing elbows with Mike Barrett when all we know is that he lived on Fountain Road and once worked for an electrician, though evidently in a non-official capacity.

It's like accusing George Hutchinson of murder when, as far as I know, he was a six-foot one-armed choir boy with bright red-hair who helped little old ladies cross the Whitechapel Road.

But I can understand the need to keep him a cypher, so thanks anyway.

Well, RJ, my logic may not be up to yours, but surely one could only 'keep' Eddie a cypher, if he was one to start with.

You are of course free to believe he is a cypher, all the while you admit to not knowing much about him, and have not quite grasped what has already been posted about this electrician's brief employment by Portus & Rhodes. And you can also believe that those naughty diary defenders know just as little as you do, but are too afraid to admit it, and who among the true Barrett believers would blame you, or not share those beliefs?

I'm not being difficult here, but a thank you wouldn't go amiss, for letting you carry on believing for a while longer.

[caz]

I dispute this, but haven't the time or desire to go into it at the moment. Barrett is hardly going to produce his copy of the Sphere Guide in 1992 & 1993 when he is still trying to convince Harrison, Montgomery, and the world that the Diary is genuine! The idea daft. Of course he wouldn't have presented his copy of the Sphere Guide until after he began confessing.

I'm not about to go through all this again, but I'm curious as to which bit you dispute. Have you seen the copy he handed Gray in December 1994? If you had, you'd know it couldn't have been sent to Mike brand new, for a charity appeal, back in 1989, as he claimed. If not, what makes you think he had this same copy back in 1992, and why would he have needed to lie about how he got it? Why not admit that he found it in a used bookshop, in line with the condition of the book?

How do you know he doesn't reference Rumbelow? Have you heard all of the Alan Gray tapes?

I don't. That's why I said: 'Even if he said nothing about reading Rumbelow's book...'

And he was hardly going to make a false confession in 1992/1993, any more than a true one, so I'm not sure that argument really works. I'm quite sure he didn't give Alan Gray in conversation a list of the books he is meant to have consulted, or the affidavit fell seriously short by not following the desired script. Convenient, isn't it, to put this down to Gray not being au fait with what the modern hoax believers needed to see transferred to the affidavit, and Mike being too befuddled at the time to produce the right goods.

As for the rest of your post, you seem to be confusing me with someone who believes Maybrick himself had a penchant for quoting Crashaw. At least I don't believe for a single second that Mike Barrett did when the diary first emerged.

Have a good evening.

[MrBarnett]

RJ,

You say,


“I see Gary Barnett is chuckling elsewhere over the opinion that a middle-class protestant cotton broker whose tastes ran to money, women, horses, and arsenic wouldn't likely have been a connoisseur of a 17th Century Roman Catholic metaphysical poet.”

Not entirely true, is it?

I was chuckling solely at the absurdity of the idea that Maybrick’s protestantism might have prevented him from being familiar with Crashaw.

There is more than a slight inconsistency in suggesting that both Maybrick’s vices and his protestant beliefs might have prevented him from reading a Catholic author, don’t you think? What was he, a low-living scoundrel, or a man with deep religious convictions? Deeper, presumably, than those of the Presbyterian and Anglican men of the cloth such as Grosart and Ashe who clearly had no problem with Crashaw’s ‘Catholic’ poetry.

If you’d left out the ‘protestant’, my chuckle muscles wouldn’t have been stimulated.

Over-egging rarely results in a satisfying pudding.


Gary

[Scott Nelson]

For me, it would need to have been written prior to 9th March 1992.

As I've suggested Caroline, I think Devereux rewrote the diary after watching the 1988 miniseries and incorporated various Abberline snippets here and there.

[rjpalmer]

There is more than a slight inconsistency in suggesting that both Maybrick’s vices and his protestant beliefs might have prevented him from reading a Catholic author, don’t you think? What was he, a low-living scoundrel, or a man with deep religious convictions? Deeper, presumably, than those of the Presbyterian and Anglican men of the cloth such as Grosart and Ashe who clearly had no problem with Crashaw’s ‘Catholic’ poetry.

If you’d left out the ‘protestant’, my chuckle muscles wouldn’t have been stimulated.

Over-egging rarely results in a satisfying pudding.

No, I don't see an 'inconsistency,' Gary. Not in the least. We've all met the pompous hypocrite who outwardly professes to be religious, but who has never given such matters any great thought, and whose morality is merely a way of being conventional--the necessary outward show of righteousness that is convenient for 'getting on' in the business world, but is immediately abandoned when they drink and double-dip and snort white powders and womanize. These are precisely the sorts who would profess to be disgusted by 'Romanism'--because that is the conventional and the expected attitude of those in their circle.

I don't see a 'protestant' businessman like Maybrick having much of anything in common with a 'protestant' like Ashe. Or even a Protestant like Sir Robert Anderson.

But all of this is idle chit-chat, is it not, for we know Maybrick didn't write the diary, so why the need to pretend that he could quote Crashaw from memory?

Let's keep in mind that during its first two years of existence, 1992-1994, no one knew that Crashaw was quoted in the Diary. Many suspected that 'Oh Costly' [O Costly] was a quote, but no one could place it, even though many tried.

And what great scholar finally identified it for the first time?

None other than Mike Barrett, alias 'Mr. Williams,' --the same bloke who brought the diary to market in the first place! Worse yet, he found it in the middle of an essay on literary criticism, which to my mind, and the mind of others, is a near impossibility unless he knew where to find it to begin with.

It's a bit like a confessed murderer telling the police that they could find the victim's bloody clothing in under a haystack on the edge of town, and lo, when they check, the bloody clothing is indeed under the haystack.

It doesn't precisely prove he did the deed, but it certainly suggests that he had inside knowledge.