The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[rjpalmer]

While I'm on a roll, Gray also stated in his November 23, 1994 letter to Seth Linder:

Why was Alan Gray writing to Seth Linder in November 1994? Are you sure you got that right?

[Iconoclast]

Why was Alan Gray writing to Seth Linder in November 1994? Are you sure you got that right?

No, I got that wrong. It was 2002.

[rjpalmer]

It was 2002.

Grazie.

[Iconoclast]

Grazie.

Prego.

[rjpalmer]

Prego.

Good afternoon, Ike.

Speaking of our friends the Italians, I don't know if you've hear about this, but a chemist named Maria Gaetana Giovanna Pittalà of the University of Catania made some interesting discoveries while analyzing proteins found on the correspondence of Vlad the Impaler--Dracula.

She found peptides, which suggests that old Vlad may have secreted blood in his tears and also found "proteins linked to an inflammatory disease and a genetic respiratory disorder known for chronic lung and sinus infections."

Advances in science have made it possible to find out quite a lot of what is on the surface of old documents--sometimes with surprising results.

And Dr. Pittalà used mass spectrometry--there was no harm to the documents at all. Other scientists used the same techniques to find tuberculosis on a typed letter by George Orwell, arsenic on the 17th Century notebooks of Kepler, and evidence of morphine use while analyzing a letter by the Russian novelist Bulgakov.

Dracula may have wept blood on tear-stained letters, chemical analysis reveals | Salon.com

A friend of yours likes to talk about people having the "courage of their convictions," and I would think that a courageous Robert Smith might wish to submit is confessional photo album for an analysis of this type.

From you point of view, evidence of arsenic or strychnine abuse on the album would be a boon for your beliefs, while I think it would be a relatively simple matter to determine what type of oil had damaged the inside cover.

Wouldn't it be something if it was related to the plant Linum usitatissimum?

Regards.

[Iconoclast]

From you point of view, evidence of arsenic or strychnine abuse on the album would be a boon for your beliefs, while I think it would be a relatively simple matter to determine what type of oil had damaged the inside cover. Wouldn't it be something if it was related to the plant Linum usitatissimum?

Yes not yes, RJ.

Imagine someone spends many hundreds or even thousands on the research and - lo! - arsenic is detected in significant amounts, say, on the cover, the spine, and the back. Whoopi-doo, you might think? Well, yes not yes because of one huge flaw in the challenge and one created and perpetuated by folks such as your good self: if Robert were to submit the scrapbook for the type of analysis suggested by you and arsenic was discovered, then the argument would be made that Mike Barrett had simply smeared it on the scrapbook himself. I'd give it the Planck length before the posts were being made here on Casebook.

And if the research claimed that the arsenic was very very old indeed? No problem at all: with absolutely no reference whatsoever to any actual authority on the subject, I can confirm for you now that if you rub arsenic with an old rag doused in linseed oil and sugar lumps, it will gradually age in appearance.

Yours is a no-lose position, it seems to me. Yes not yes?

PS If you are looking for evidence of arsenic in connection with Jack the Ripper, you need to exclude Mike the Barrett from the evidence chain. There is a way to do this: if we knew where 'Eddowes'' red leather cigarette case was and tested that positively for strychnine and/or arsenic, I've always believed that that would be game over. Unless you can think of a way Mike managed that minor miracle (possibly during that wet weekend when he was in London planting the September 17, 1888, 'Dear Boss' letter in the official record?)?

[Iconoclast]

For the quantum physicists amongst you, my apologies. I obviously should have said 'Planck time'.

[rjpalmer]

cheers

[rjpalmer]

Usually, such work is undertaken by interested academics who aren't out for a paycheck, Ike, so much as they wish to expand our knowledge.

The 1937 George Orwell letter, for instance, that showed traces of tuberculosis, was analyzed by scientists in Russia who seem to have taken it upon themselves to determine whether Orwell's disease could be traced to the time he spent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. There are probably government grants or similar funding to help them along, but I'm just guessing.

"Physicist Gleb Zilberstein analyzed the letter now held by the Russian state archive of literature and art. Using a special non-destructive ethyl-vinyl acetate film, he pulled microscopic proteins and particles off the letter, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis and traces of morphine.

Zilberstein and his team then compared the bacteria to records of the disease in Spain kept by the Comintern (which was originally founded in 1919 by leading members of Russia’s Communist party as the Communist International). It turns out, Orwell’s TB was very similar to the characteristics of the disease in Spain at the time. Zilberstein suggests that the writer picked up the infection at a Spanish hospital after being wounded in the neck by a sniper’s bullet."

The challenge with the Maybrick confessional photo album is that it was dismissed as an obvious fake 30 years ago and thus has no academic interest attached to it, so finding a qualified scientist willing to study it is going to be a difficult if not impossible task.

If there was a snowball's chance of the album being authentic, which (with apologies) is not believed to be the case, any number of discoveries could theoretically relegate Barrett's confession to the scrap metal yard. It has been theorized that Maybrick's final illness could have been some strain of gastroenteritis, and there are very unique and specific proteins that latch onto the walls of the intestines. If Sir Jim was hacking and wheezing over his diary on that last day down at the office or had not properly washed his hands on returning from the WC, traces of these proteins, coupled with drugs, or a combination of drugs, relegated under the 1984 Poisons Act, would put Barrett out of the frame.

I agree, though, no such fishing expedition is likely to ever take place. We're just chewing fat here. It might be more realistic to perform an analysis much more limited in scope: an examination of the suspicious, oily stains on the diary's inside cover.

Using the same principle you apply to Kate Eddowes' cigarette case, if these stains turned out to be flaxseed oil in origin, would not that be game, set, and match?

Regards.

[Iconoclast]

Using the same principle you apply to Kate Eddowes' cigarette case, if these stains turned out to be flaxseed oil in origin, would not that be game, set, and match?Regards.

Very interesting series of posts, RJ. Rather thought-provoking (if not exactly optimistic from my perspective).

I don't think I would treat the establishment of flaxseed oil (I assume that's the same as linseed oil) as 'game, set, and match' but I certainly wouldn't ignore it or wish it away with some unscientific bit of mumbo-jumbo as, for example, Harris did with the scratches in James Maybrick's old watch and the embedded fragment from one of the implements used to form them. I would want to see many more aspects of Barrett's claims backed-up by the evidence, but obviously I would have to acknowledge that - if he was making it up about linseed oil - he had hit the nail right on the head or else he was simply telling the truth.

I don't think anyone knows where 'Eddowes'' red leather cigarette case is, so this one - like so many - is a moot argument, sadly. If anyone knows where it is, I'd definitely consider funding its analysis myself as I do see this example as being more strongly predictive than the linseed oil example (we would not expect to find any narcotics in 'Eddowes'' cigarette case, but the staining is obviously oil of some sort so there'd be less surprise if it turned out to be linseed oil, I suspect).

[Lombro2]

Good afternoon, Ike.

Speaking of our friends the Italians, I don't know if you've hear about this, but a chemist named Maria Gaetana Giovanna Pittalà of the University of Catania made some interesting discoveries while analyzing proteins found on the correspondence of Vlad the Impaler--Dracula.

Italians have already done substantive work on the profiling in the Diary and have determined it shows deep knowledge, or instinctive and correspondent knowledge, of serial killer behavior and an SK's profile. Yes, there are people who are homicidal and there are indicators that aren't adolescent or childhood ones like peeing the bed. The most wide-spread occupational indicator category is Creature Comfort and Aesthetics. Would cotton merchant fall into that?

But if the Diary was real all along, then a new forensic test based on new science might save everyone's face like familial DNA saves cops' faces.

[rjpalmer]

Which neatly brings us back to Prego and the fine art of throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Let's face it. At this point, the forensic analysis of the diary will forever be stuck in the 90s, along with cargo pants, bumbags, the Spice Girls, Banana Bubbles, and other absurdities of that bygone era.

Just as well, I suppose.

[Lombro2]

Let’s face it, your profiling analysis will forever be stuck in the 1970s with disco and platform shoes, and Roy Hazelwood on the Phil Donohue show.

I’ve corrected my signature to reflect the real Fountainhead. Forget Thomas Harris and Marcus Aurelius.

Simplicity. Read Michael Barrett.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Italians have already done substantive work on the profiling in the Diary and have determined it shows deep knowledge, or instinctive and correspondent knowledge, of serial killer behavior and an SK's profile. Yes, there are people who are homicidal and there are indicators that aren't adolescent or childhood ones like peeing the bed. The most wide-spread occupational indicator category is Creature Comfort and Esthetics. Would cotton merchant fall into that?

But if the Diary was real all along, then a new forensic test based on new science might save everyone's face like familial DNA saves cops' faces.

But it’s not real. It’s been conclusively proven a fake and yet we are faced with a wave of pointless denialism. It’s a forgery. That should be the end of all discussion. All the Italians are wasting their time doing is studying a piece of literature. To say that x type of person couldn’t have written y type of document is childish nonsense. Apart from one off instance which is the diary’s coup de grace there are other factors too. The red handkerchief is one example. I’m thinking of starting a thread on the Hitler Diaries.

[Lombro2]

Go ahead. I think Hitler did it. Or someone exactly like him. House painter - Creature Comforts and Aesthetics.