new info on the diary

[MayBea]

Hi all,discussing fine points about the diary isnt really what we should be doing untill we have discoverd where it has come from and where it has been hiding for all these years....

It's no different than discussing old or new hoax without any idea of the identity of the insider or the forger.

[Kaz]

It's no different than discussing old or new hoax without any idea of the identity of the insider or the forger.

I think we should all go home......O' wait

[MayBea]

Because it's a mystery.

Now that I think about it, new hoax is far more preferable to old. Old hoax seems to need a conspiracy and an insider and somebody planting it somewhere where it could only be found by electricians a century later. One, modern forger is far more tenable.

In the interest of working with people's theories instead of just attacking them right away, I'll admit that someone in the 80s could have read up on the Ripper initially, and just based on the initial M theory and "Marlborough Men" rumors, could have searched British history books and come up with Maybrick. Then it was just a matter of getting to work and getting lucky.

That's all the help I'll give the MODERN HOAXers.

[pinkmoon]

Now that I think about it, new hoax is far more preferable to old. Old hoax seems to need a conspiracy and an insider and somebody planting it somewhere where it could only be found by electricians a century later. One, modern forger is far more tenable.

In the interest of working with people's theories instead of just attacking them right away, I'll admit that someone in the 80s could have read up on the Ripper initially, and just based on the initial M theory and "Marlborough Men" rumors, could have searched British history books and come up with Maybrick. Then it was just a matter of getting to work and getting lucky.

That's all the help I'll give the MODERN HOAXers.

Could the missing pages in front of the diary contained cuttings from newspapers concerning jtr murders?.could the diary be a rough draft to be copied out later?could this diary have been written at the time of Mrs maybricks trial to be sold on when she was hung?no way Mike Barrett wrote it and no way any one would be stupid enough to involve Mike Barrett in any scam concerning this diary.we will never know the truth about the diary because of all the lies told by the people involved with it once a liar always a liar.

[Sam Flynn]

Is the 'genius' forger theory of the modern hoax preferable to the 'insider' theory of the old forgery side?

It is to me, MayBea, much preferable.

Not to get into the middle of the two sides of the hoax fray but why defend new hoax versus old hoax?

I have very good reasons, which I've expounded at length here and elsewhere, so I won't go too deeply into them here. Suffice to say, I find the language of the "diary" point to a certain type of hoaxer, and that some phrases in particular strongly suggest a composition date no earlier than the 1960s, more probably the 1970s or 80s.

[Sam Flynn]

Hello Gareth.

Hello, Mike. Nice to see you're still fighting the good fight!

[Kaz]

Could the missing pages in front of the diary contained cuttings from newspapers concerning jtr murders?.
could the diary be a rough draft to be copied out later?
could this diary have been written at the time of Mrs maybricks trial to be sold on when she was hung?

You shouldn't be having these thoughts as we don't know where the diary came from...

[MayBea]

Could the missing pages in front of the diary contained cuttings from newspapers concerning jtr murders?.could the diary be a rough draft to be copied out later?could this diary have been written at the time of Mrs maybricks trial to be sold on when she was hung?

The first two questions are reasonable. But isn't the last question still based on the unsustainable (even to some on the Hoax side) Old Hoax theory?

If it's old, why can't it be real? Why does it have to be some sort of conspiratorial concoction?

[Sam Flynn]

If it's old, why can't it be real? Why does it have to be some sort of conspiratorial concoction?

And why didn't the contemporary press cuttings (or whatever) stay in the front of the "diary"? Perhaps the missing pages contained actual dates, or referred to events/personages that happened long after the diary was purportedly written.

[MayBea]

It's good to see members helping out those on the other side of the controversy work out their theory, even if the theory is, as you say, and as I have come to agree, less preferable.

Some, or most, of the best research defending the Diary, or explaining some of the mysteries of the text, has come from the Hoax side. That includes the explanation for the unusual phrasing match box empty which coincidentally matches the phrasing in the police list.

[MayBea]

My dear James,IF the diary was in Mrs Barretts family why all the lies.Surely to God anybody with any sense would know the potential value of this historical document so there would be no need at all to lie.

Although it passed through many hands no one seemingly read it prior to Anne Graham. http://www.jamesmaybrick.org/pdf%20f...20article).pdf

According to this, Anne Graham was 'seemingly' the first and only one in her family to read it (likely not until the 80s when she reportedly took possession of it). Can anyone really say how one person should have reacted to it?

[MayBea]

...Suffice to say, I find the language of the "diary" point to a certain type of hoaxer, and that some phrases in particular strongly suggest a composition date no earlier than the 1960s, more probably the 1970s or 80s.

Are you agreeing with William Beadle that the Diary should read more like Dickens?
http://www.jamesmaybrick.org/pdf%20f...20article).pdf

[Sam Flynn]

Are you agreeing with William Beadle that the Diary should read more like Dickens?

As (really bad) fiction, but hardly Dickens. I've little doubt that the Maybrick "diary" was the product of an indifferently-educated, unimaginative and untalented writer. Or more than one of that ilk.

Many thanks for the link, MayBea. I'm a massive fan of Bill Beadle's work, and I'd not seen that essay before.

[MayBea]

Maybe the writer used modern language because he knew Maybrick spent a lot of time immersed in the future dominant culture where the people were speeking in a language 'ahead' of its time because the future of language was theirs.

Don't you think, in this sense, the Diary or Diarist got it right?

Although he doubts authenticity, Beadle is right in concluding that the Diary helped promote the Ripper field. I believe the creators of the two main Ripper sites were inspired by the Diary or the Diary book.

[Amanda Sumner]

If the police held back the tin match box, empty, why did the Echo of 4 October mention it:

THE MURDER DISCOVERED

Inspector Edward Collard, of the City of London Police, was next examined. He said - At five minutes before two on Sunday last I received information at Bishopsgate Police-station that a woman had been murdered in Mitre-square. After dispatching the intelligence to headquarters and to Dr. Gordon Brown, I proceeded to the Square. I there found Dr. Sequeira, several police officers and a body of a woman lying in the north-west corner of the Square. The body was not touched until the arrival of Dr. Gordon Brown. He, however, arrived shortly after I got there. The medical gentleman examined the body, and Sergeant Jones afterwards picked up , on the left side of the deceased three small black boot buttons, a small metal button, a metal thimble and a small mustard tin containing two pawn-tickets. The body was afterwards removed to the mortuary. There was no money in her pockets. There was some tea and sugar, a piece of flannel, some soap, a cigarette case, and an empty match-box in her pocket. The portion of an apron (produced) was what deceased was wearing, and corresponds with the piece of apron which has been found in Goulston-street. Chief Detective McWilliams arrived at Mitre-square soon after the murder was discovered. He was accompanied by a number of detectives, and they made inquiries at the various lodging-houses in Spitalfields, and several men were stopped and searched in the street, but without any satisfactory result. I have a house-to-house inquiry made in the vicinity of Mitre-square (continued witness) to see if we could find any person who heard or saw anything unusual in the square that night.

As a newbie, my observations may be a little naive, but I've read all these posts with interest and much has been made of the empty match box. Chris raised the point that in the very short time the Ripper had to do his ghastly deeds, somehow he found the time to go through her things as well. This seems very unlikely and even less likely, to me, that he noticed it was empty too. According to this report though, the matchbox was found in her pocket...so the Ripper, very obligingly, carefully put it back after discovering that there was nothing it! It just does not ring true, so, based on that and other things, I think the diary is a modern hoax, probably written before the late 1980's.