Who were they?

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike,

A quick thought on the 1890 issue.

Would a diary for the year 1890, with printed dates, have been available to James Maybrick in 1889? I'm not an expert in the history of Victorian era stationary, but diary's for the following year are available early on, particularly useful to businesses that need to plan well in advance and allow for the fact that the fiscal year runs into the following calender year. Was this the case in early 1889?

If, a theoretical question for you, the existing Maybrick diary was in a diary with 1890 on its cover would it rule out it's contents automatically, or would you be inclined to argue that an 1890 diary was available to Maybrick?

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I'd agree that it is possible that an 1890 diary would be available at some point in 1889, Abe. I don't know know exactly when that would be, but certainly by the autumn. Perhaps earlier.

[erobitha]

I believe that some contemporary reports did mention the missing heart.

There is something for you to think about.

What reports between 1987 and 1992? That also did not reference the breasts locations?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Actually, what you have done here is highlight a very good point. Not the one you were making because that's you just having an opinion on my argument.

If the no heart reference was only available in the post-mortem report which was handed back to the yard in 1987, then why did the hoaxer not also incorporate Dr Bond's location reference to the breasts?

Think about that.

I believe that some contemporary reports did mention the missing heart.

There is something for you to think about.

[Iconoclast]

I'll leave you with this, Ike: My favorite line from Mike Barrett.

"I need to go to York."

"No, really, I need to go to York, Doreen. I know I promised to deliver the diary this week, but something's come up, and I can't find...er...I'm having trouble...I... er...I really need to go to York."

Classic Barrett.

I should have asked you this yesterday, RJ. Where exactly is it on the record that Mike said to Doreen, "I need to go to York"?

[Iconoclast]

Ike, Old Man. One question that I forgot to pose. Do you think that someone involved in a nefarious activity might wish to disguise their request? I mean, you don't really expect Bongo Barrett to have asked Marty Earl to find him an 1888 diary, with the insistence that the pages between August 31st and November 9th inclusive needing to be blank? You really don't expect a conman to telegraph his punch that much, even in far-off Oxford, do you?

No, I wouldn't dream of thinking that such a man seeking such an artefact at all unless it was simply a general facsimile to pass off as the real thing if anyone asked for it back. But I thought y'all were claiming that his request was blindingly obvious as it stood? I'm sure it was one of the key premises of the chattering classes that they have to say words to the effect of, "What more evidence could you possibly want - he tried to buy a blank Victorian diary!". Are you now saying that - actually - his request was somewhat more ambiguous than that? If you are, here's your membership card. Don't spit your gum out on the floor.

We don't really know what Barrett discussed with Earl. We can only judge what he wanted from the advertisement Earl placed as a result of their unknown conversation.

You've got to be thinking, though, surely that Mr. Earl would document what his customer asked for rather than what - say - he had vaguely picked-up from their unspecific conversation? Imagine a bloke selling windows and he has a quick chat with his customers, "Hey, you want a window, I'll place an order for you". Err. Couple of questions might be helpful here. "Hey, you want a specific size?", "Hey, you want double-glazing?", "Hey, you want sash and case?", "Hey you want new PVC or wood?". Capishe?

The jury is going to see that advertisement and know that Barrett wanted a minimum of twenty piece of blank paper that would pass the forensics for the 1880s. The jury isn't going to be as starry-eyed as you, Old Man.

The jury would have to be spectacularly stupid to fail to notice two expressions - 'diary' and '1890'. Juries can be a bit stupid, I guess, so it's a relief to know that we aren't in a court of law here. We are in the court of common sense and common sense tells us that a man seeking a 'diary' from potentially '1890' is not seeking to create a hoaxed account of Jack the Ripper's crimes.

[Iconoclast]

You are literally defending THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER -- a blank book without dates -- and yet saying that such things are not referred to as diaries.

You need to take it up with Robert Smith and with anyone else who calls what I call the Victorian scrapbook a diary. Nevertheless, and that said, if all the components of a car were laid out next to one another, would anyone say "There's a car"? Nope, at best they'd say, "There's the potential for a car". Is a blank notebook a diary? No, of course it isn't and everyone knows that and no-one would seek one by calling it a 'diary'. But - retrospectively - what if you use that blank notebook to record a chronological series of events (sans dates), could you call it - for convenience (or for marketing purposes, as Robert did) - a diary? I guess you can. Once up and running, a notebook can become a diary by dint of what you use it for. But no-one seeking a blank Victorian notebook (as you insist Barrett was when he sought a blank Victorian diary which according to you he assumed would have no reference to dates in) would ask for a blank diary - it's self-evidently too specific for what you require and thereby it massively restricts your market, as does specifying a limited period (1880-1890), which in itself also means that you are seeking evidence that even your blank notebook (if that's what you insist on permitting it to be) could not reliably be used as a journal of Jack the Ripper because - if you can show that it was from the period 1880-1890, then it must have some mark to show it and if that mark states 1890, you're straight in the goo. "You could rub out or mark over the date!", I hear the special pleaders cry. Well, you could, but if you were seeking a book from a specific period of time and you thought it might have any date in it whatsoever, would you not specify '1880-1889' and then cut-out at source the risk that you would need to deface the book in order to 'start its engine', as it were.

Nope. You can try your best to wordsmith your way out of this mess you're in, Muddy, but you're fooling only fools and the utterly vindictive.

Use more water in your scotch, Ike, or more ice.

At the risk of not being politically correct, I won't say what I just called you out loud. Let it suffice to say that I would never dream of bastardising my large malt collection with water after it is manufactured.

What is happening here is you are avoiding the fact that your 'doppelganger' theory has imploded on its first trial run. It has burst spectacularly and almost instantaneously into flames like one of Elon Musk's overpriced experimental rockets.

If anyone is ever wondering what the expression 'wishful thinking' means, I hope you have bookmarked RJ's post as it really doesn't get any better than this.

If the rumor got out that Eddie found an 'old book' at Battlecrease, neither the cops, nor Dodd, would have had an inkling of its contents, having not seen it. So, your barmy idea that Mike needed to specifically request a BLANK diary falls at the first hurdle. He could have substituted any old book, filled or unfilled. He could have substituted Zane Gray's Riders of the Purple Sage.

Look, RJ, I can see you're struggling here so I'm honestly trying to help you out here. Watch my lips. How would Mike Barrett on March 9, 1992, know with any degree of certainty who in the world knew what in the world about his sudden acquisition (assuming at this point he had actually acquired it that soon)? How? Come on, RJ - wake wakey, "Hello McFly", etc.! Is there anything going on in there? All Barrett had to go on was that he had something which looked old, had writing in, and had blank pages. Obviously, he didn't ask for a diary that had its earliest pages torn out (an obvious mark of the scrapbook) because even he - in his hurry to pack for his holiday in York - would have worked out that he could do that bit himself.

Special pleading indeed. Do better. Be better. Anyway, I've said my two-bits. Enjoy your weekend. I've had enough of this circus for the month.

No you haven't. It'll be sun-up for you in about four hours so I look forward to my lunchtime chuckle over your cornflakes.

[erobitha]

The police at the time considered the possibility that the Ripper may have been a Jewish slaughter man and made visits to Jewish abattoirs. The khalef, a scochet's ceremonial knife, was examined by police surgeon Dr Gordon Brown to see if it was capable, in his judgement, of inflicting the injuries on Catherine Eddowes body. Dr Brown said in his opinion such a knife, single-edged and lacking a point, could not have been used.

https://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/non-fiction/cjmorley/170.html

Yeah, they gave up looking for butchers.

"Chief Inspector Swanson reported that seventy six butchers and slaughterers had been visited."

Dr. Brown was a doctor. He wasn't a senior detective directing investigations. He gave his medical opinion, which was noted.

He was right, but that's irrelevant to the point you were trying to make.

If they stopped looking for butchers, it's because they probably ran out.

[erobitha]

You provided the following:


'As for the MJK crime scene, what if he did get some details wrong? If he was high on drugs, alcohol and mania, he might not remember every detail perfectly. It is very possible. He might have put them on the table, then moved them, and forgot that he did.'


That is what you actually wrote.

According to you, the murderer was so sozzled that he couldn't remember what he did with Mary Kelly's breasts.

He put them on the table and, incredibly, researchers and newspaper reports ever since have somehow divined that the breasts were originally on the table.

You then have the murderer inexplicably moving the breasts from the table and placing them under Kelly's body.

You then have the murderer forgetting that he had done that, but remembering that he had previously put the breasts on the table.


Do you not see how ridiculous that is?

Actually, what you have done here is highlight a very good point. Not the one you were making because that's you just having an opinion on my argument.

If the no heart reference was only available in the post-mortem report which was handed back to the yard in 1987, then why did the hoaxer not also incorporate Dr Bond's location reference to the breasts?

Think about that.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I'm genuinely interested in where this is shown as fact. Can you point me to the source for this?

The police at the time considered the possibility that the Ripper may have been a Jewish slaughter man and made visits to Jewish abattoirs. The khalef, a scochet's ceremonial knife, was examined by police surgeon Dr Gordon Brown to see if it was capable, in his judgement, of inflicting the injuries on Catherine Eddowes body. Dr Brown said in his opinion such a knife, single-edged and lacking a point, could not have been used.

https://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/non-fiction/cjmorley/170.html

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

You've gone from having all the evidence apparently to just falling back on your opinions.

I have provided dates and sources to a number of points and you provided nothing.

Where there is nothing but opinion, it is met with opinion.

You provided the following:


'As for the MJK crime scene, what if he did get some details wrong? If he was high on drugs, alcohol and mania, he might not remember every detail perfectly. It is very possible. He might have put them on the table, then moved them, and forgot that he did.'


That is what you actually wrote.

According to you, the murderer was so sozzled that he couldn't remember what he did with Mary Kelly's breasts.

He put them on the table and, incredibly, researchers and newspaper reports ever since have somehow divined that the breasts were originally on the table.

You then have the murderer inexplicably moving the breasts from the table and placing them under Kelly's body.

You then have the murderer forgetting that he had done that, but remembering that he had previously put the breasts on the table.


Do you not see how ridiculous that is?

[erobitha]

Please see my replies below.

You've gone from having all the evidence apparently to just falling back on your opinions.

I have provided dates and sources to a number of points and you provided nothing.

Where there is nothing but opinion, it is met with opinion.

By the way, opinions and theories are absolutely fine. I have no issue with them. I have many myself.

Don't masquerade them as fact unless you have some kind of evidence to actually back it up.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my replies below.

There is a rather long thread going on for a very long time that actually deals with the majority of your points.


I don't think so.


Your confidence in your arguments is misguided.


They have not been refuted.


Also, we do have the tin matchbox conundrum from Catherine Eddowes list of possessions. This was not publicly available information until 1987. So either the writer was a modern hoaxer who had access to such information, or it was indeed the killer.


Where is the evidence that the diary was written before 1987?


As for the MJK crime scene, what if he did get some details wrong? If he was high on drugs, alcohol and mania, he might not remember every detail perfectly. It is very possible. He might have put them on the table, then moved them, and forgot that he did.


The report that the murderer placed the breasts on the table is part of the folklore of the case.

The writer of the diary made the mistake of believing it.

Your explanation for his mistake is ridiculously farfetched.


Also, the reference to "no heart" was also another fact a modern hoaxer or the killer himself would know. The detail of the heart possibly being removed was in the post-mortem report, which was missing for almost 100 years before it was returned to Scotland Yard anonymously in 1987. You are bright enough to see 1987 as a common theme here.


I am bright enough to realise that the diary was not written before 1987.


This has always led me to believe that if it was not the killer himself who wrote the diary, it is someone who knew how and where to obtain this information. That was not Mike Barrett. It also means we cannot rule it out as being genuine.


It was written by someone who believed that the murderer wrote the Dear Boss letter.

That alone is enough to rule it out as being genuine.


So, be as smarmy as you want,


I think you are trying to insult me but you are having difficulty finding the right word.

Many insults have been directed at me, but being accused of being ingratiating is not one of them.


but you are not up on all the facts.


I believe I am 'up on' all the facts that matter.


Like so many, you scan the superficial and are happy to claim it as evidence.


I wonder how many readers would agree with you that my analysis was superficial.

Let me know if you find one.

[erobitha]

The police ruled out the possibility that the murderer used a shochet's knife simply by comparing one with the medical evidence.

I'm genuinely interested in where this is shown as fact. Can you point me to the source for this?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Where did they dismiss it?

The police ruled out the possibility that the murderer used a shochet's knife simply by comparing one with the medical evidence.

Robin Odell revived the idea in the 1960s and when confronted with the same facts, had to concede what the police had established three-quarters of a century before.

He said, however, that he still believed the murderer was a shochet, even though he had conceded that there was no evidence that he was.

[erobitha]

That's like saying its impossible to rule out 100% druitt and Lechmere and any other suspect one might support.

The arguement for defending these so called suspects just so one can keep alive a theory using that type of zany logic doesn't cut the mustard anymore .

Just ask Trevor, his organ harvesting theory and his preferred suspect have been put through the wringer and found wanting, just has Maybrick has .

And his downfall has and will always be in his case and Maybrick is the evidence that which we know and refer to in regards to medical and murder scene and yes even witness testimony keeps biting such theory in the ass..

Well there is tons of circumstantial evidence and a watch, which kind of puts him miles ahead of other candidates.