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

[Iconoclast]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

Brilliant post Lombro2.

It's this kind of logic which shines a light on some of the facile thinking which so frequently drives ripperology's desperate search for a solution - any solution.

[Lombro2]

I agree. Ditto.

But at least, it wasn't five pages of rubbish.

[John Wheat]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

Rubbish post.

[Iconoclast]

So, after all that, you've proved that elements of Michael Barrett's affidavits have been confirmed, just as Roger said. Thanks Ike

Yes indeed, RJ has proven to us all that he was bang on the nail - at least six or more (RJ’s original claim as I recall) statements in that affidavit have been confirmed or can at least be taken to be true. Hoorah for investigative journalism of the highest order! Only a true Barrett-believer could manage to avoid mentioning what the rest of us could not miss.

Now you’ll excuse me whilst I go back to work to pay for that red ink toner I now need for my printer …

[Lombro2]

And of course, fences never try to mix their stolen goods with legitimate ones, and thereby pretend innocence and ignorance so they can get away with fencing…

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/o997q5/how_do_fences_keep_from_being_caught/

[Lombro2]

Caz and I are actively looking for the real Forger and the real Ripper and the real Mary Jane Kelly ( and the real Tom Mitchell). You’re welcome to join us instead of wasting your time with the Barretts and taking up Caz’s time and patience.

As for the Ripper, we’re eliminating guys like Maybrick because only Bivy the Chivers buy knives, as only forgers buy vintage diaries, not fences. Unlike deerstalkers, six inch knives are not ubiquitous.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks for that interesting quote, Herlock. I must have missed it back in 2018 and couldn't find a reference to it in the archive.

It's strange how, many years ago, Anne was marketed as plausible and consistent, yet the more one looks, the more she contradicted herself.

Anne being 'chirpy' and 'friendly' with the woman who is attempting to publish the book she doesn't want published is also troubling.

I might have to rethink my assumptions about how willing she was to accommodate Barrett's schemes, but people can disguise their emotions.

No problem Roger

[rjpalmer]

As to Anne wanting to protect the diary from fire, after quite a lot of searching on Casebook, I've finally managed to track down the source of the story (and thanks to no one for helping!). Keith Skinner posted it in a thread entitled "Acquiring a Victorian Diary" on February 21, 2018. It was in a letter from Doreen Montgomery to a Sally Evemy dated April 22 ,1992. The key passage is this:

"I spoke with Mrs Barrett last evening, and she sounded a very chirpy, friendly woman. I think they are genuine people and her only anxiety in asking her husband to place the Diary with the bank was because of the fact that they have had a couple of burglaries and she is also frightened of fire. Understandable."

Thanks for that interesting quote, Herlock. I must have missed it back in 2018 and couldn't find a reference to it in the archive.

It's strange how, many years ago, Anne was marketed as plausible and consistent, yet the more one looks, the more she contradicted herself.

Anne being 'chirpy' and 'friendly' with the woman who is attempting to publish the book she doesn't want published is also troubling.

I might have to rethink my assumptions about how willing she was to accommodate Barrett's schemes, but people can disguise their emotions.

[rjpalmer]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

Now if you can only discover that, two weeks before the Polly Nichols murder, Charles Lechmere tried to find a surgical scalpel in Oxford. "Must be at least 6" in length and capable of cutting a human throat."

[Herlock Sholmes]

Roger that!

Just to be clear, Lombro, no-one, as far as I am aware, is saying: "The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.". That's an argument you've made up so that you can ridicule it.

What is being said is that the Barretts had this modern creation in their possession in a way that is totally unexplained.

What is also being said is that the Barretts are the only people known to have been involved in an attempt to purchase a genuine diary from the decade of the Ripper murders containing blank pages in March 1992, shortly before the diary made its first known appearance.

The Barretts were also people who received money from the publication of a book about the diary.

So the conclusion is that the Barretts are obvious candidates for consideration as the forgers.

But if you can tell me someone else who is an obvious candidate behind this recent creation, I'm all ears.

[Lombro2]

And it’s that kind of logic that gulls people into thinking that Cross might have been guilty when anyone can see that he wasn’t.

Roger that!

[Lombro2]

Ike, you can throw that affidavit in the oven. I won’t fight you on the kitchen floor for it.

Mike said he thought his wife was having an affair with the man he was undermining? I can’t believe I believed a word of what he said then.

It reminds me of when I believed in the friend of Arthur Leigh Allen who tipped off the police, and then I found out Allen molested his daughter. I feel so Gullible—no pun intended.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

And it’s that kind of logic that gulls people into thinking that Cross might have been guilty when anyone can see that he wasn’t.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Again, Ike, I was being overly generous regarding Baxendale and his considered 'opinion' in that report. I'll go further than that and say that I was being less than accurate in my interpretation of Baxendale's own words.

In case Herlock is still labouring under a misapprehension - which I may inadvertently have helped to provide - that Baxendale was putting the year 1946 as the earliest possible date of origin for the diary, I must clarify this before it becomes embedded and repeated in posts droning on until the crack of doom.

Baxendale stated that nigrosine was in the diary ink and this was not used in writing inks before the First World War.

He was wrong.

Baxendale didn't have any information on when it began to be used after the first war, but stated that it didn't become common until after the second: hence his opinion that the diary likely [only 'likely', mind - not 'most probably' or 'certainly'] originated since 1945, when nigrosine was commonly used in inks.

He was wrong.

Nigrosine - assuming he correctly detected its presence in the diary ink - had been in general use in writing inks from the 1870s.

It's another 'topping myself' moment, like the one which proved the phrase had appeared in print back in the 1870s, and hadn't waited until 1958 to make its sparkling debut, as originally claimed by another expert.

I wonder if experts feel like topping themselves when the amateurs have a dabble and expose them for being out of their professional depth. Having their pants pulled down and facing humiliation is not designed to make them feel all warm and cuddly towards the person who has done it to them.

If the ink being 'freely soluble' had been uppermost in Baxendale's brain back in 1992, as a clear indicator of a very recent forgery when he first examined it, his biggest mistake was to date the diary using nigrosine as the killer blow.

But needs must when the devil drives, so poor old Baxendale has been chastised ever since by having his priorities switched round by more amateurs, to make the ink's solubility the killer blow instead, and a better fit for the magical but obligatory April Fools' Day Creation.

Love,

Caz
X

But Baxendale didn't say that his conclusion about the diary ink being dated to a period after 1945 was solely based on his thoughts about nigrosine, did he?

Earlier you told me that you assumed that if Baxendale had been able to date the diary to post-1945 on the basis of the solubility test alone he would have said so. Is that safe assumption though? I would have thought he would have based his conclusion on all the data. And I think I'm supported in this belief by the fact that he appears to have told a Sunday Times journalist in 1993 that the result of his solubility test was that the diary was a very recent creation. So I don't think that by discrediting the nigrosine element you've succeeded in undermining his ultimate conclusion.

It doesn't really matter in any case. This is just supporting evidence to the key fact which is that phrases such as "one off instance" didn't enter the English language until after 1945. That's just undeniable. The fact that Baxendale came to the same dating conclusion on the basis of the ink is just bonus. But it's the language that positively dates the diary as modern.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There was no real risk to the Barretts, assuming they weren't forgers, so it's another argument that goes both ways.

The real risk in that case would have been that the diary's rightful owner might miss it and want it back. This would have been on Anne's mind when Mike first brought the diary home wrapped in its brown paper, regardless of what he chose to tell her about it.

There is some evidence that Mike feared being beaten to a pulp over the diary, which would be understandable if he had originally pinched it from the pincher. After all, Mike was already a fully unpaid-up and documented 'late payer'.

Love,

Caz
X

I just don't see how you can say "There was no real risk to the Barretts, assuming they weren't forgers".

Surely, if the diary was stolen, there was a real risk to them in submitting a stolen diary for publication and alerting the real owner that they were in possession of stolen goods. Indeed, that's what you say that might have been on Anne's mind in the very next paragraph. So was there a real risk or not?

It's odd because having said there was no real risk to the Barretts you then go on two paragraphs later to say that Mike feared being beaten to a pulp. Well was there a real risk of that happening or not? And what "evidence" are you saying there was that Mike feared this?

I'm quite puzzled, though, because I would have thought that, above all, the fear would have been of being arrested. Wasn't that the real risk of handling a stolen (and very valuable) diary?

To be honest, I thought that's why you were saying Anne wanted it thrown on the fire. Not because there was a direct risk to her, as such, but because Mike might have gone to prison and she would have been left alone to bring up Caroline. Was that why you think she wanted to burn it? Weird, if so, that having had it accepted for publication, which one might have thought would increase the risk of arrest, she then wanted to protect it from fire. I don't quite get it.

I also don't understand why either of them would have feared Mike being beaten up by the owner. Who did they think it had been stolen from? A gangster? Surely any normal owner would have just gone to the police. So what's happening in this scenario?