Could the Freemasons have the key?

[RivkahChaya]

I've read the reports. I'm not impressed with the credentials of the original "scientists" who examined it, and I find the fact that no one of significance was interested in it after a cursory look to be significant in itself. The second wave of experts to look at it were generally top of their field-- debunking frauds and hoaxes. People like Joe Nickell, for example.

You just can't escape that. The first examiners were self-styled and promoted handwriting analysts, and ink experts who worked in the industry, not rare document curators from the JP Morgan library, or the Eli Lilly library at Indiana University, or experts in Victorian language. Anthe later one were all debunkers.

Usually, when a find is possible, but unknown, you get real experts examining it without bias, who make a pronouncement one way or another, and then thereafter, barring some startling new revelation, the scientific community continues to agree.

[caz]

I know I said I was done with this thread, but I'd like to make a general point about evidence.

You can't use evidence within evidence to prove anything. That's what is known as "begging the question," or arguing from premise. You have to use outside evidence to prove something.

Based on that general principle, you can't use evidence from within a document to date it, when the entire provenance of the document is in question. If the general provenance of a document is "the mid-1800s," then using an internal date of April, 1852 isn't wrong, but if there is no known provenance, and no other way of dating the document, an internal date is suspect. The diary is not the only example. The Book of Daniel is an excellent example, although I leave it to people to look up, rather than make a very long post.

The diary has no known provenance before 1992. It is therefore up to people who believe it was written before that to demonstrate an earlier provenance. The prima facie evidence is that it was written shortly before 1992.

I don't think anyone has suggested that because the diarist signs off on May 3rd 1889 that's evidence of when it was written.

We all know what is meant by provenance, but even if the evidence were entirely lacking for the diary existing prior to 1992 (it's not - the scientists put its creation to before 1970 for starters, and ink specialist Alec Voller said in 1995 that ink met paper 90+ years previously), the evidence is certainly entirely lacking for any individual faking it 'shortly before' 1992.

Therefore anyone claiming the latter will need to produce a tad more 'evidence' than simply repeating the date it emerged into daylight. Clearly, the supposed nature of the beast is that it was hidden away somewhere to await its discovery at any point from the (as yet unknown) date of its creation.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Mike,

Well I tend to include victims that Maybrick could not have killed, but I still find the diary an interesting and intriguing document.

Love,

Caz
X

[Michael W Richards]

Hello all,

Im off of my traditional ground here, commenting on the diary, but I believe its fair to say that it is a document that claimed to solve the Ripper cases and has not done that. But, as to its relevance in any discussions here or elsewhere, its, as Caz said, as relevant for study as any other piece of the puzzle we have been presented with, much of which has no externally authenticated source.

That being said, the diary presents us with someone who claims to have killed the Canonical Group, to this day, just a theoretical list of murders that presumes a single killer. That in and of itself makes the diary very suspect for me personally. Add to that the fact we cannot prove it was written in London in 1888-89, and you have something which should be learned about by anyone serious about this study,....and then assessed by the individual for its overall value within their own belief system.

I dont see any compelling evidence that one man killed the 5 women, so for me, its not relevant in my search for answers.

Best regards

[RivkahChaya]

I know I said I was done with this thread, but I'd like to make a general point about evidence.

You can't use evidence within evidence to prove anything. That's what is known as "begging the question," or arguing from premise. You have to use outside evidence to prove something.

Based on that general principle, you can't use evidence from within a document to date it, when the entire provenance of the document is in question. If the general provenance of a document is "the mid-1800s," then using an internal date of April, 1852 isn't wrong, but if there is no known provenance, and no other way of dating the document, an internal date is suspect. The diary is not the only example. The Book of Daniel is an excellent example, although I leave it to people to look up, rather than make a very long post.

The diary has no known provenance before 1992. It is therefore up to people who believe it was written before that to demonstrate an earlier provenance. The prima facie evidence is that it was written shortly before 1992.

[caz]

Hi Raven,

I think Graham's point was that anyone accusing a hoaxer or fraudster (named or as yet unidentified) of creating the diary in the late 80s/early 90s is required to come up with the proof every bit as much as anyone accusing Maybrick of writing it in 1888/9.

Until someone proves the existence of the former, they are no more real than Fairy Fay.

Without evidence a 'guilty' verdict is out of the question in either case.

Love,

Caz
X

[RavenDarkendale]

Burden of proof in a criminal case lies with those accusing someone. In this case, the guilt or innocence of Maybrick lies with the Diary and the watch. The prosecutors have to prove Maybrick penned the Diary and owned and marked the watch. To assume Maybrick innocent requires no proof at all under law, and those advocating that Maybrick didn't pen the Diary, nor handle the watch are not required to prove their point. Innocent unti; proven guilty. Bottom line.

[Graham]

Hi Graham,

As far as you are concerned maybe. Otherwise the burden of proof lies where it always has done:

http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.co....ystery-of.html

Regards, Bridewell.

Yes....and?

Graham

[Phil H]

The link is VERY apt, Bridewell.

An almost exact equivalent of the "diary" I'd say.

Phil H

[Bridewell]

The burden of proof, so far as I am concerned, lies with those who claim that it's a modern hoax - so prove it!

Graham

Hi Graham,

As far as you are concerned maybe. Otherwise the burden of proof lies where it always has done:

http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.co....ystery-of.html

Regards, Bridewell.

[Phil H]

Two excellent posts, Graham.

My problem with the "diary" is that as a fake (if you prefer that word - to me the forgery element is that it purports to be by Maybrick) it appears actually very crude:

the first several pages of the album missing;

the fact that the handwriting appears to resemble no specimen of Maybrick's; as well as

the fact there there is so little (if any) new material of a factual/researchable kind.

But as you say, people have no invested so much (if not money then emotion, intellectual time and emergy etc) that a solution of any sort will not be easily or readily accepted.

A bit like the Turin Shroud.

Phil H

[Graham]

As to forged paintings having no status, I wish I had a van Meegeren forgery of a Vermeer hanging on the wall of my lounge! Or even a van Meegeren full stop!

The Diary cannot be, per se, a 'forgery', as it is not, so far as we know, a representation of something that is 'genuine'. It's either a fake, hoax, call it what you will, or it was produced at some time in the past for purposes which we do not as yet understand. Had it been the crude production of what Melvin Harris referred to as 'a nest of forgers', it would have been rumbled within five minutes. But it wasn't, and it hasn't been. The burden of proof, so far as I am concerned, lies with those who claim that it's a modern hoax - so prove it!

Same with the watch - the scratches are almost certainly not made within the past 20 - 30 years, yet it is still labelled a modern hoax. Personally, I have more faith in the science of metallurgy than I do in the 'art' of handwriting analysis, so the watch, to me at least, is certainly not new in terms of what's scratched on it, and is thus probably more 'watertight' than the Diary.

Even so, I still can't accept that Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.

There was, I honestly believe, something going on in the run up to, and the aftermath of the trial of Florence Maybrick that we in 2012 are not privy to, and probably never will be.

Feldman thought he'd come close to showing that the Diary had been 'found' in Battlecrease House during renovations, but even he had to concede that it almost certainly was not so. Abstracted from Battlecrease by a servant and handed down through the family of Anne Graham? Don't know, never will.
But that's what Feldman came to believe. Mind, if I'd sunk £250000 into one of my 'theories', I think I'd be rather reluctant to admit I was wrong.....

Frankly, we could argue the toss from now until Domesday, and probably will.

Graham

[sleekviper]

With Freemasons, the grand lodges would not have allowed women to join, so if there had been a fear of some deep secret being leaked, the bodies on display would have been of the male members. If a member was known to be a killer, they would need to bring that member to justice quick, or else face the demise of being a co-conspirator in murder. As an organization, that would have caused for dismantling worldwide. If law enforcement were involved, these women would have been called domestics, and/or several crazy nut cakes roaming the streets.If anything, it would have called for new and tighter immigration laws. Either way, with Freemasons no one would know who these women were now, and whoever some message was being sent to at the time of their death would only know from the obituary on the last page of a paper. People with secrets want secrets, terror wants public attention, mixing the two defeats the purpose of either.

[Phil H]

Many forged paintings are actually (almost by definition) excellent works of art - but they have no status.

I don't think that it can simply be written of as being of absolutely no historical importance at all.

To have importance, it either hass tio have instrinsic importance - either related to the author, or the contents; or

it has to have had an impact in some ways on the field of study. Hence the "Hitler diaries" caused international reactions, damaged the reputation of a leading historian and led to a trial. the financial implications were also significant as I recall.

I don't think Ripper studies are important enough, per se, for the "diary" to cause national or international waves.

As to its intrinsic value/importance - we will have to see.

Regarding its presentation, I recall when first revealed and in the run-up to publication, several notable Ripper experts were signed up as part of a confidentiality agreement. It was launched with some fanfare.

But to my mind, in such an artifact, provenance is all. Like a treasure found by metal detectors and revealed out of its context - the "diary's" finding/discovery whatever, remains murky and probably always will. Had it been provavble that it was found in Maybrick's home, and in circumstances that showed it to be of his period, things might have been different.

Phil H

Phil H

[Graham]

I've often thought that if the Diary had been presented for public scrutiny by a recognised 'celeb' historian, for example, rather than a Scouse scrap-metal dealer, it might just have been taken a little more seriously rather than being condemned out of hand as a modern out-and-out hoax. Barrett did himself and us no favours at all, but we're stuck with it, and I would say the odds now are definitely against the discovery of its true origins and authorship.

I don't think that it can simply be written of as being of absolutely no historical importance at all.

Graham