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

[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.

[Losmandris]

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!