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

[caz]

Hi Caz,

So are you saying the watch is genuine?

Where in my post did I say that, Al?

I do think whoever engraved Maybrick's signature in the watch was familiar with how he signed his name.

Make of that what you will. But how would you have set about engraving anyone's signature in metal, before the internet age, without any examples to guide you?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Oh dear, this truly takes the cake.

Oh good, could you make it a Victorian sponge? With a generous filling of strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream? Ta.

Caz alludes to a non-existent post from twenty years ago that she is clearly misremembering or misrepresenting, and now acknowledges that--if it ever existed--it is "lost in the mists of time," so I must take simply take her word for it.

While in almost the same breath she demands that she be directly quoted.

No 'demands', RJ. I offered not to bang on any more about that one early post of yours, if you would agree not to put your own words in my mouth in future when there are posts of mine available in the here and now for you to quote from instead. I thought that was pretty reasonable, but evidently you would prefer to carry on regardless, misremembering or misrepresenting my words, while I am still supposed to search out that one post of yours which I didn't quote directly, or keep my trap shut.

What I think she is probably misremembering is a statement made by Trevor Marriott in fairly recent memory that Barrett's sworn affidavit would be considered evidence in a court of law, and that is all he (Trevor) had to say on the matter.

Ha ha, now that's really funny. If I ever confuse any of Trevor's statements, ancient or modern, with one of your own, you really need to panic. Your post was not in 'fairly recent memory' - it was from the dim and distant past, which is why I didn't think I'd be able to quote it directly. If I do ever find the one I'm thinking of, I'll do the decent thing and quote it directly.

7 or 8 ridiculous books about the Maybrick Hoax have appeared in print, and now someone whom the diary friendly have previously expressed respect for has published 1 book daring to take the opposing view.

And they are in a bitter panic.

Who's in a 'bitter panic'? I don't even know what that feels like, so you'll have to describe it for me. It sounds rather unpleasant so you have my sympathy.

Assuming you refer to the recent book by Chris Jones, I can't think what you mean. Did he finally nail the diary as a Barrett hoax, where you and everyone else had failed? If so, I must be missing the smoking gun, which you had to wait for so many bitter years for Chris to produce.

Did you decipher some cryptic message in the book, as proof of Anne Graham's active involvement in creating the diary? As she had generously agreed to meet Chris and talk about their mutual interest in the Maybrick case, and he's a nice chap, it would have been natural enough to keep it subtle.

But if all Chris does in his book is to take 'an opposing view', I think we can all cope with that without reaching for the smelling salts.

[caz]

It is indeed painful to contemplate such absurdities.

Take a couple of aspirin and get over yourself.

The world has gone mad. Once the arguments have traveled this far down the rabbit hole, it's time to call it a day.

But you won't call it a day, will you?

The world has always been mad and it's not getting any saner. It's called the human condition. Yet you choose to come here to see it in action, like a moth to a flame.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Where in my post did I say that, Al?


Love,

Caz
X

You didn't, that's why I was asking. I was just curious, and as your post indicates, if the Johnson's didn't fake the inscription, but the signature is uncannily accurate, that alludes to it being genuine. If not, it falls into the 'old hoax' pigeon hole leaving us none the wiser as to who did it, when or why. Or how it came to be in a shop in the latter part of the 20th century.

[caz]

Hi Al,

Whether or not that would allude to it being 'genuine' has to be down to personal opinion.

What I guess I am asking is how, if I am expected to take it for granted that one of the Johnson brothers did fake the inscriptions in the watch, did they manage to make the Maybrick signature 'uncannily accurate'?

Nobody seems to have a clue, or they prefer not to dwell on such technicalities, but to take the holistic approach.

If the diary is a modern Barrett fake, then it doesn't concern them how the signature in the watch was accomplished; it just was, and the only suspects are the Johnsons.

But it's a circular argument, and here's another one: if the signature was already there in the watch when Albert bought it, it calls into question the popular doctrine about the Barretts as literary hoaxers.

I can see why so few of us are willing to even go there, but it would be refreshing to see someone giving their honest opinion on that signature, and how well they would have got on if they had given themselves a similar task, using an aged engraving implement on gold, over a couple of months in the early 1990s, before they could have Googled 'no tool like an old tool'.

Robbie Johnson dealt in cannabis and did time for it.

But how would he have set about scratching JM's signature in his own time and on Albert's watch, between April and May 1993?

And why a signature? Surely - surely - most amateur fakers, with only one go at it, would have scratched a far simpler JM [just like the other sets of initials] or, if they felt more confident and adventurous, the individual letters spelling out M A Y B R I C K.

I know my better half's signature would be virtually impossible for anyone else to decipher, let alone mimic, even using pen on paper and a genuine example to copy from.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

While I'm here, I had a brief look for old casebook posts but came up empty. If anyone has any ideas, I'm looking for posts going back to before March 2001.

I used to print out many posts when I first arrived back in late 1998, but house moves meant it was impractical to keep the vast majority, so I just kept a few, from February to August, 2001.

By 1st March that year, RJ Palmer was already posting about 'the hoax', and whether or not Melvin Harris should have been obliged to name his still living suspects.

So the post of RJ's, which I was unable to find and quote, but was one of the first he wrote when he made his debut here, must have been in the more dim and distant past than I thought.

While taking a quick look at the surviving posts in my lever arch file, I did come across one by the much missed Martin Fido, also from 1st March 2001, who was replying to a query of mine, asking about the 1858 Turnbull edition of Crashaw's works, and whether the word death's [sic] was a mistranscription of deaths [plural].

Interestingly, Martin thought death's 'would almost certainly be a mistranscription, or possibly a silent emendation by an editor who found the line difficult to understand'. Martin went on to note that 'in general those admirable Victorian amateurs were not always the best of scholars'.

I am again reminded of the argument that the diary was composed by someone who couldn't aspire to the real Maybrick's level of scholarship, as a cotton merchant who went straight into the work force without going on to higher education.

I always thought that the diary author knew the 'look' they were going for, and not being the 'best of scholars' was just one of Sir Jim's many flaws, and an exceedingly minor one!

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Jay Hartley writes, with considerable sarcasm:

Chris has this ridiculous mantra "if the diary is a fake then so is the watch!" Wow, that's logic right there.

Speaking of the archives, here's a blast from the past:



In other words, if the watch is old, the diary must be too. Sounds quite a bit like what Chris Jones said in reverse.

Will we be hearing about 'Mantra Morris' and her 'ridiculous' logic? Or are we seeing a case of what is not good for the gander is perfectly good for the goose?

Clearly, logic dictates that the arguments for the diary being a modern fake are equally debilitating to the watch unless one wants to indulge in 'convoluted and contrived' speculations.

Enough said.

[caz]

I'm not sure what RJ's problem is here. Clearly, if the Maybrick signature was already in the watch by the time the Murphys put it in the shop window in the Spring of 1992, it would seriously call into question the notion that the diary was not physically created until early April 1992, from a secretly prepared typescript sitting on the Barretts' word processor.

There is no evidence to suggest the Barretts knew the Murphys or the Johnsons in 1992, so it would really be in RJ's interests to read and address the points I raised in my post to Al on 17th November, regarding the watch.

Is RJ able to support his belief that the watch was hoaxed by a Johnson brother between April and June 1993? I'm not expecting evidence; just his explanation of how he'd have gone about it himself in order to end up with the same or a similar result.

Since his Barrett hoax theory depends on having a feasible solution to the watch conundrum, this should not be too taxing for him.

However, I won't hold my breath.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

In other words, if the watch is old, the diary must be too. Sounds quite a bit like what Chris Jones said in reverse.

Will we be hearing about 'Mantra Morris' and her 'ridiculous' logic? Or are we seeing a case of what is not good for the gander is perfectly good for the goose?

Clearly, logic dictates that the arguments for the diary being a modern fake are equally debilitating to the watch unless one wants to indulge in 'convoluted and contrived' speculations.

Enough said.

Thinking about this a bit more, I'm left wondering how convoluted and contrived RJ or Chris Jones would have allowed their speculations to become, to keep the diary as a 1992 Barrett hoax in the event that the watch engravings had proved to be much older than that, beyond reasonable doubt.

If those engravings really do date back decades, it doesn't follow that the diary would be any likelier to be in James Maybrick's handwriting.

The diary does not appear to have been written in any known person's heavily disguised hand. That should effectively have ruled out both Barretts along with James Maybrick, but instead we get convoluted and contrived speculations to explain how one of these three people [depending on the colour of one's scarf] might still have held the pen - or, in the Barretts' case, might even have persuaded the Invisible Man to do their dirty work for them, while young Caroline looked on.

If the writing was not done by James Maybrick or a Barrett, would it not be reasonable to speculate that whoever else held the pen, at whatever time, either transferred the words into the scrapbook from their own original script - since lost or destroyed - or simply copied or adapted someone else's work? We have a perfect example, with the Crashaw quote, of someone using someone else's words - imperfectly - in the scrapbook. At school we had to choose a favourite poem, learn it by heart and then recite it to the class. I picked The Charge of the Light Brigade. I don't think I fluffed any lines, but nobody would have assumed it was all my own work!

This concept is not a new one. We are asked to believe that there was a typescript sitting on Mike Barrett's word processor, which was either transferred by hand into the scrapbook, in early April 1992, by the same person who composed the words [which is where the heavy disguise speculation comes in and tends to fall down], or copied out by a very accommodating third party with inky fingers, who might reasonably have wondered what the hell the story was. I don't believe such a typescript ever existed, but it would not have survived, and would almost certainly have been deleted before Scotland Yard could have found it.

If the diary is meant to have begun life in another form, in Goldie Street in the early 90s, why could it not have begun life in another form, but in another place and time? If the watch is considered to be a kind of companion piece, it was destined to be disappointed by a diary in the wrong handwriting.

Love,

Caz
X

[erobitha]

Thinking about this a bit more, I'm left wondering how convoluted and contrived RJ or Chris Jones would have allowed their speculations to become, to keep the diary as a 1992 Barrett hoax in the event that the watch engravings had proved to be much older than that, beyond reasonable doubt.

If those engravings really do date back decades, it doesn't follow that the diary would be any likelier to be in James Maybrick's handwriting.

The diary does not appear to have been written in any known person's heavily disguised hand. That should effectively have ruled out both Barretts along with James Maybrick, but instead we get convoluted and contrived speculations to explain how one of these three people [depending on the colour of one's scarf] might still have held the pen - or, in the Barretts' case, might even have persuaded the Invisible Man to do their dirty work for them, while young Caroline looked on.

If the writing was not done by James Maybrick or a Barrett, would it not be reasonable to speculate that whoever else held the pen, at whatever time, either transferred the words into the scrapbook from their own original script - since lost or destroyed - or simply copied or adapted someone else's work? We have a perfect example, with the Crashaw quote, of someone using someone else's words - imperfectly - in the scrapbook. At school we had to choose a favourite poem, learn it by heart and then recite it to the class. I picked The Charge of the Light Brigade. I don't think I fluffed any lines, but nobody would have assumed it was all my own work!

This concept is not a new one. We are asked to believe that there was a typescript sitting on Mike Barrett's word processor, which was either transferred by hand into the scrapbook, in early April 1992, by the same person who composed the words [which is where the heavy disguise speculation comes in and tends to fall down], or copied out by a very accommodating third party with inky fingers, who might reasonably have wondered what the hell the story was. I don't believe such a typescript ever existed, but it would not have survived, and would almost certainly have been deleted before Scotland Yard could have found it.

If the diary is meant to have begun life in another form, in Goldie Street in the early 90s, why could it not have begun life in another form, but in another place and time? If the watch is considered to be a kind of companion piece, it was destined to be disappointed by a diary in the wrong handwriting.

Love,

Caz
X

The above neatly describes my own struggle with the diary. I have always been convinced by the watch and I believe I have made a strong case for it to seriously be considered as being scratched by Maybrick’s hand.

It’s convenient thinking by some to always put the watch secondary to the diary. I have always felt it was the other way round. The watch is genuine of that I am convinced. Perhaps whoever discovered it originally was too. How it reached Stewart’s of Wallasey is the key for me. The fact it was repaired in the spring of 1992 and sold by July of the same year does strongly suggest a timing correlation with the floorboards being up and Mike’s call to Doreen.

Can I categorically state it came from Battlecrease House on 9th March 1992? No I can’t, but the timing is rather interesting if we accept that the watch scratches are by James Maybrick.

Clear as K to me. The diary, less so.

[Iconoclast]

It’s convenient thinking by some to always put the watch secondary to the diary. I have always felt it was the other way round.

Hi ero b,

So you will have been impressed - I have no doubt - by my brilliant Society's Pillar which rather courageously leads with the watch not the scrapbook?

Great minds, as they say, my young posting chum, great minds ...

Ike

[FISHY1118]

Hi ero b,

So you will have been impressed - I have no doubt - by my brilliant Society's Pillar which rather courageously leads with the watch not the scrapbook?

Great minds, as they say, my young posting chum, great minds ...

Ike

I'm sure you can lead with whatever you like, but if in the end the majority of posters here and even those who may have heard of James Maybrick outside of casebook will have already made up there minds he wasn't jack the ripper. The amount of back and forth between rj and yourself and others over 1000s of post just shows to much uncertainty and doubt that which one could ever hope to acknowledge the truth lies with JM as the infamous murdered.

Having said that, if his your guy all well and good ,but like Trevor and his phantom organ harvesting theory, J.M as the Ripper just because some diary and a watch surrounded by so much controversy says so doesn't cut the mustard with the me or the masses..

In the end all we have is multiple suspects with a whole bunch of unproven theories. J.M included .

[Iconoclast]

Having said that, if his your guy all well and good ,but like Trevor and his phantom organ harvesting theory, J.M as the Ripper just because some diary and a watch surrounded by so much controversy says so doesn't cut the mustard with the me or the masses..

I know what you mean, Fishy! Just because some diary with a reference to initials in Kelly's room which subsequently were identified on MJK/1 and a watch which bears James Maybrick's actual and highly idiosyncratic signature have been found just leaves Maybrick as yet one more Ripper suspect with cast-iron evidence of their guilt.

And let's face it, we don't need any more of those!

[StevenOwl]

I'm not sure what RJ's problem is here.

I could make a suggestion or two dear Caz, but it would probably get me banned for life.

[FISHY1118]

I know what you mean, Fishy! Just because some diary with a reference to initials in Kelly's room which subsequently were identified on MJK/1 and a watch which bears James Maybrick's actual and highly idiosyncratic signature have been found just leaves Maybrick as yet one more Ripper suspect with cast-iron evidence of their guilt.

And let's face it, we don't need any more of those!

I don't see any evidence of initials on Mjk that was reported at the time. . If they were then you could use the diary as evidence in the way that you suggested.