New Book: The Maybrick Murder and the Diary of Jack the Ripper

[rjpalmer]

So many questions that we need answers to before we buy into Chris' argument. And that's just one of his claims.

Excuse me for butting-in, Fishy, but do you see what Mr. Ike is doing here?

It's a well-known Maybrickian maneuver known as 'passing the onus,' which sounds a little painful to one's bowels. As distasteful as it might be, it is important to keep a nose out for it, which is not hard to do, as it crops up in nearly every post.

In a nutshell, Ike is saying that we must start from a position of belief--that the diary is real and came from under the floorboards--and it is up to Jones to prove that our belief is incorrect.

But Jones isn't making a claim--Robert Smith is. Jones and Dolgin are merely responding to a claim that Smith made or heavily implied in his 2017 book-- ie., that the diary came from under the floorboards of No 7, and thus the diary has a bona fide provenance. An electrician found it, lied about not finding it, and sold it to Barrett (a man he claims he didn't even know) for twenty-five quid.

Jones is just explaining for the benefit of his readers why Smith's claim can't be taken seriously. He's not really making an argument, just giving a counterargument to Smith. You can buy his counterarguments or reject them, but let's keep in mind that the onus is still on Smith, and we do not need to start from a position of belief.

Let us also remember that Robert Smith tried to have his document authenticated--twice--but both attempts failed utterly.

Smith also attempted to sell the rights of the diary to a third party, who also tried to have it authenticated, and this failed, too.

It was three strikes and you're out, and Smith hasn't bothered trying again in over 25 years, because he knows any further attempts at authenticating it will also fail, so he settled instead on writing a book about it, just as Paul Feldman did.

The examiners who tried to authenticate it used the 'holistic' approach, which despite Jay Hartley's handwringing, simply means that they looked at it from every angle: the ink, the paper, the handwriting, the text, the provenance. This is a well-established principle for obvious reasons and is alluded to in every book on document examination.

As Kenneth Rendell pointed out, the diary fell at every hurdle.

But none of this matters in Ike's eccentric world; we must still start from a position of belief in the relic, because if I understand Ike correctly, the story the diary tells is so fascinating and convincing. It feels right. It is up to the doubters to prove that his subjective faith is misplaced, and in his mind, they can't do it. They will never be able to do it. They can erect no hurdle that he is unwilling to climb over, no matter how clumsily, so he can continue in his belief. And there is always hope that they are wrong. Even Dodd must be wrong about his own house. Even though he tells us he gutted the place and lifted all the floorboards, he could have missed it. The onus is on you, Fishy, and on me, and on Jones and Dolgin to prove that Dood didn't miss it and that Fat Eddie didn't really secretly know Mike Barrett. And until we do that, Ike will continue to believe the diary is real. And even if we somehow can prove a negative, Ike can then revert back to Anne Graham's tale, and we can start all over again.

Let's face it: we can't even prove the handwriting is not Maybrick's, for Maybrick may have developed a special handwriting that he only used for confessional journals written in photo albums.

Can you prove otherwise?

Enjoy Jones and Dolgin's book. Ciao.

[Iconoclast]

Ok fair enough , but i wouldnt be putting my head on my pillow at night 100% convince James Maybrick was the JtR after all the things he mentioned .

And that is the correct position to take, Fishy. We'll probably never be 100% anyway, but 99% can only be achieved if all contradictions and criticisms have been reasonably addressed.

Surely there has to be some doubt ?

Absolutely, there must be doubt until doubt becomes the unreasonable position to take (and that moment may never come even if the scrapbook is genuine).

I found the 3 different occasions the floorboards that were said to be lifted over the decades with no diary found interesting ,if its true of course .

And you choose an excellent example of what sounds like a reasoned argument but which - I assume (I don't yet have the book) - is potentially full of ambiguity. As you say, were there actually three occasions (I know of at least two, possibly)? Did this mean all the floorboards came up? In all of the key rooms? Or just one or two floorboards, sufficient to lay cables or whatever? Was March 9, 1992, the first time the relevant floorboards came up? Were the floorboards all nailed-down? Were they nailed-down in a way that your average Victorian bloke could not prise open? Or - once prised open - could not replace? So many questions that we need answers to before we buy into Chris' argument. And that's just one of his claims. We have already seen how his argument about the paucity of comment on Nicholls' murder is actually irrelevant to the claims of authenticity. How many others are similarly unsupported by the evidence?

I like your thinking, though, Fishy, and I never thought I'd say that.

Ike

[FISHY1118]

I did. I’m afraid his holistic approach is not good enough. Nor are the arbitrary 10 rules he created. Half them are debatable at best.

Those who have more than a fleeting understanding of the whole affair need more than what was in that presentation.

Ok fair enough , but i wouldnt be putting my head on my pillow at night 100% convince James Maybrick was the JtR after all the things he mentioned . Surely there has to be some doubt ? . I found the 3 different occasions the floorboards that were said to be lifted over the decades with no diary found interesting ,if its true of course .

[rjpalmer]

(as Lord Orsam has pointed-out, this 'speed' probably reflected the foreshortened length of the race in 1889).

Doesn't that make the comment 'the fastest I have seen' all the more nonsensical and clunky?

Technically, the 'next day' was Sunday and there were no newspapers, but I think you'll want to take a hard look at the papers from the first week of April before your update in 2025. Maybe I missed it, but I haven't found any that mention a time--just that Frigate one by a length.

[Iconoclast]

I think it is reasonable to assume that Maybrick had no idea that he had just seen the fastest race in the last 19 years (as Lord Orsam has pointed-out, this 'speed' probably reflected the foreshortened length of the race in 1889). I assume he simply read it in the next day's newspaper and thus came to know it.

[rjpalmer]

Well, if the above is true, you've proven that Nathan Kaminsky and David Cohen weren't the same person, but you've also proven that Charles Cross and Charles Lechmere weren't the same person, either, which makes me wonder.

Moving back to the book by Jones and Dolgin, this won't by any means convince the diary's faithful, but I thought Mr. Jones had an interesting take on the Grand National, turning the argument inside out.

The early advocates of the diary trumpeted the supposedly obscure fact that the Grand National time in 1889 was indeed the fastest in many years, but for Jones this rather misses the point, and he argues that Maybrick's comment about the fast time doesn't really ring true coming from a horse racing enthusiast. The race was fast, but has been previously noted it wasn't particularly faster than several others in the not-so-distant past, and as a steeplechase enthusiast there were far more interesting comments to make---the exciting competitiveness of the competition that day, the several dramatic spills---including ones that knocked HRH's horses out of the competition, etc.

Commenting on the fastness of the time of that particular steeplechase was akin to the sort of trite, non-sportsy comments one hears in the grandstands in Los Angeles from people who have plenty of cash to buy expensive tickets but know nothing whatsoever about football. They like to feel they are part of the big game and perhaps hope for a chance to take a "selfie" with a star player, but they invariably spend most of the game on their cell phones or walking back and forth to the concession stands. When they do comment it is always a Captain Obvious reference to the score board or a cringe-worthy observation about the color of the opposing team's jerseys. As a man who did a bit of riding himself, Maybrick's observation in the diary is unworthy.

Thus, rather than showing an eye for detail, the diarist's reference to the fast time comes across as a clunky and hollow piece of data dropping, as if a lazy hoaxer looked up the fact in a horse racing almanac but had no real feel for the spirit of the race that day, other than noticing the final winning time was a small number in a long list of somewhat bigger numbers.

But this sort of argument is subjective and relies on the reader's own discernment. Others will read the same passage with a sense of awe and conviction, but with no sense that there is anything amiss.

[Iconoclast]

hi ike
just thought just snoop that Fred Baker story of Fanny Adams. (SFA) now i know.
the podcast with this gentleman in question of his book, there was in my mind no real hard question for him to answer but it was interesting as I've watched it twice now as i like the story of James cotton machine con. but he was from the land of love me do.
all the best.
milchmanuk

Milky,

If there was an award for Best New Poster on the Casebook (yes, Jonathan, I know this is irrelevant), you'd be getting my vote.

I do so enjoy your thoughts and what I can only describe as a truly inimitable style. "He was from the land of love me do". Genius. Well, some of the blue sort from the land of love me do are up north in the land of fog on the tyne the neet playing the barcodes so fingers crossed they get back at a decent time tonight from their long and winding road with a points tally requiring some serious help!

In other news, the ghosts of Charles Lechmere, John McCarthy, Sir John Williams, Lewis Carroll, David Cohen, Jacob Levy, Sir William Gull, James Kelly, Eleanor Pearcey, Francis Thompson, John Pizer, Montague John Druitt, Carl Feigenbaum, Michael Ostrog, Charles Cross, Nathan Kaminsky, George Chapman, Prince Albert Edward Victor, Joseph Barnett, Dr. Francis Tumblety, George Hutchinson, Frederick Bailey, Deeming, Louis Diemschutz, Walter Sickert, Neill Cream, Aaron Kosminski, H. H. Holmes, William Henry Bury, Albert Bachert, Robert Mann, Thomas Cutbush, et etcetera, et et cetera, are also pacing the worn floorboards of their favourite post houses rattling their chains and foaming at the mouth at the indignity of being lumped into the same cohort as that evil cotton merchant and taciturn killer in the land of love me do.

Jonathan, I know it's not on message with your latest post, but hopefully you'll let it be on this occasion.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

hi ike
just thought just snoop that Fred Baker story of Fanny Adams. (SFA) now i know.
the podcast with this gentleman in question of his book, there was in my mind no real hard question for him to answer but it was interesting as I've watched it twice now as i like the story of James cotton machine con. but he was from the land of love me do.
all the best.
milchmanuk

It is said that the angry and outraged ghost of James Maybrick still paces the corridors of the old Muck Midden, innocent as a newborn babe, but cursing those who have maligned his hoary head.

If you ever go there (it is now known as the Poste House, 23 Cumberland Street, Liverpool), quickly drink three pints of bitters and place the last empty glass over your left ear and will hear his low moan.

It sounds something like wwwhhhooooooorrs, but is drawn out indefinitely. A very nasty curse.

Happy Halloween.

[milchmanuk]

hi ike
just thought just snoop that Fred Baker story of Fanny Adams. (SFA) now i know.
the podcast with this gentleman in question of his book, there was in my mind no real hard question for him to answer but it was interesting as I've watched it twice now as i like the story of James cotton machine con. but he was from the land of love me do.
all the best.
milchmanuk

[erobitha]

Did you watch Chris Jones on the conference thread ?

I did. I’m afraid his holistic approach is not good enough. Nor are the arbitrary 10 rules he created. Half them are debatable at best.

Those who have more than a fleeting understanding of the whole affair need more than what was in that presentation.

[jmenges]

Good morning everyone!
Keep the thread on topic.
Keep your conduct within the rules.

Thanks
JM

[FISHY1118]

I find it just as equally strange anyone could consider anyone but Maybrick.

But then I have only studied his life in great detail for the past few years, so my understanding of the situation is probably not as in-depth as yours.

Tell me what smoking gun exactly did Chris’s book reveal?

Did you watch Chris Jones on the conference thread ?

[Iconoclast]

I find it just as equally strange anyone could consider anyone but Maybrick.

But then I have only studied his life in great detail for the past few years, so my understanding of the situation is probably not as in-depth as yours.

Tell me what smoking gun exactly did Chris’s book reveal?

I don't know what Chris' smoking gun was but Lost Mandrake needs to reflect on the 'holistic' trick of piling-in with as many unproven claims as possible to make the whole appear to be so much greater than the sum of its parts. Just get quite heated, don't stop to breathe, don't let anyone argue a point, and keep regurgitating old tropes which have been dispelled or challenged or even just invent new ones.

An example would be useful. How about this gem from Chris? Apparently the Victorian scrapbook is a hoax because the author spends just three lines (I haven't fact-checked this claim, by the way) on the Buck's Row murder when a 'real' murderer would have reflected for pages on the littlest detail of his crime - because Chris Jones knows how murderers work, you see? Or, at least, wants everyone to believe he does so that he doesn't have to explain his vapid claims.

Chris Jones, and perhaps my dear readers too, will be interested to know that - in 1867 - Fred Baker, a solicitor's clerk, murdered and dismembered an eight year old girl. He brutalised her corpse so severely that I suggest you access Wiki if you want the sick details. He was partly condemned by the fact that he had recorded his terrible crime in his diary. Over pages and pages, we presume, of the most intimate, gloating, detail? Absolutely! Just as Chris Jones implied! Let me post Baker's record verbatim so that we can rejoice in Chris' perspicacity where murderers' personal reflections are concerned. He wrote, 'Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.' Thank goodness he managed to just about squeeze in a weather report before running out of room, eh?

I strongly suggest that we see this 'holistic' science of Chris Jones as providing our analysis with exactly sweet FA.

Ike

[erobitha]

Couldn't agee more , Maybrick and Druitt just non starters ,should be removed from suspect list imo.

I find it just as equally strange anyone could consider anyone but Maybrick.

But then I have only studied his life in great detail for the past few years, so my understanding of the situation is probably not as in-depth as yours.

Tell me what smoking gun exactly did Chris’s book reveal?

[FISHY1118]

I think this is a case for some people wanting something to be true so much their minds will literally make it true, regardless of fact or probability. After listening to Chris Jones' talk I just cannot see how JM could ever be considered JtR. All the evidence pointing that way is just so full of holes and needs too many massive leaps of faith. I am in no a fan of any kind of 'suspectology' and do not believe we will ever find out who the murderer was. But this Maybrick tale just takes the cake. Hopefully some one will 'fess up at some point. I really hope they do because this whole faking saga would make a great Netflix series!

Couldn't agee more , Maybrick and Druitt just non starters ,should be removed from suspect list imo.