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

[caz]

Hi Kattrup,

I entirely agree. Furthermore, if we assume he was the forger, Mike had fully covered himself by saying that he'd been given the diary by his dead pal. He never once vouched for its authenticity.

So all the risks that are mentioned about the diary being proven to be a fake due to the handwriting not matching, or a problem with the ink, or some other mistake, didn't exist in reality. If it was shown to have been fake in the early days, Mike would have just said "what a shame" and got on with his life.

He would surely have expected the diary to go through some form of authentication before he could make any money from it. If it failed to be authenticated, it would be game over (or, at least, that's what one would think in a sane world) but if it was authenticated then perfect. All the possible mistakes had been avoided so let the money roll in.

Creating a fake Victorian diary signed "Jack the Ripper" isn't a crime in itself and there was no peril for the forger until there was a victim who had been defrauded (and who would complain to the police). Even if the police got involved, how were they going to prove that Mike forged it? The risks were therefore minimal and, certainly, I would have thought, when it comes to risk versus reward, that the potential reward outweighed the risk

This all relies on 'if we assume he was the forger', which kind of makes any further argument redundant and circular, because you can make it fit the assumed narrative.

Now apply all the above reasoning to a document created by someone who is not among the named suspects, and who never had any intention of identifying themselves with it, and therefore didn't need to think about the handwriting, or any other aspect letting them down or catching them out, from the ink and paper, to the language and psycopathy, or the history and geography. That could only ever be a problem for anyone who ended up with it through happenstance, if they decided to do anything with it other than to set it alight.

Would the money motive not have gone up in flames with the diary, when Anne tried to burn it?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

I was being a tease, Herlock, because even someone like Mike Barrett could not have expected his wife's 'blind' forgery to be authenticated as Maybrick's handiwork from 1888/9. According to the Barrett theory, it wasn't even an attempt by Anne to deceive anyone, but a piece of creative fiction which Mike evidently thought he could pinch and pass off as a genuine confession by JM/JtR. How on earth he could have been remotely confident, let alone 'entirely satisfied' that what she had put into the diary's creation would not immediately be seen for what it was, is a question that no doubt Palmer feels most qualified to answer, but 'mental vegetable' sounds quite an apt description for anyone who would seriously present their wife's intentionally fictional story, hoping it would be mistaken for anything else. I mean, who does that in the real world? Has anyone heard of a comparable example?

Love,

Caz
X

When you refer to "the Barrett theory" what exactly are you referring to Caz?

Why could someone like Mike Barrett not have expected his wife's blind forgery to be authenticated as Maybrick's handiwork from 1888/9? I don't understand why not. You don't explain it.

Haven't Robert Smith, Paul Feldman, Shirley Harrison, Doreen Montgomery and others (including our very own Ike) all held the belief that it was Maybrick's handiwork?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Love it. I'm not sure if Herlock meant to provide an argument for his hoaxer not wanting the handwriting to look like Maybrick's, but it's a new one on me and this is Diary World after all.

Love,

Caz
X

I think you misunderstood me Caz, I was confronting Lombro with the possibility, which didn't seem to have occurred to him, that if it made sense to him it could equally have made sense to the forger.

I didn't think it made sense. See my later #214 in which I wrote: "I would like to make clear for the avoidance of doubt that I don't think your statement makes any sense at all."

[caz]

One notes that Diary Defenders usually portray the risk to Barrett’s as immense, like some personal calamity would befall them and they would be imprisoned and lose their home and child and everything, were the forgery exposed early.

In truth, nothing would have happened. They would have been out what - 25-50 pounds and some personal embarrassment - since no one knew about the scam.
But it’s always presented like oh so risky, Diary Defenders using their own comfort zone to argue how difficult the scam would have seemed to them.

When in fact it was easy and the people involved personally profited from not questioning the diary closely.
As some of them still do.

Well, I guess the Barretts had their trusty crystal ball to tell them that they couldn't fail, as seasoned forger Konrad Kujau had failed ten years previously and been imprisoned.

As for 'some of them' still personally profiting from not questioning the diary closely, it would be odd if anyone wanted that to be the case, just so they could complain about it, so it would make a nice change to have names, because I don't know of anyone who has personally made a net profit in recent years from anything connected with the diary - which ought to be a comfort if true.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I don't know any forgers personally so your question is impossible to answer but surely loads of art forgeries get wrongly authenticated. For the forger, that's the dream scenario, isn't it?

Are you saying that forgers don't want their forgeries looked at as soon as possible? And that they don't want someone to pronounce that their forgery is genuine?

If so, what do you think forgers do with their forgeries after completing them? And what do they want to happen to them?

I was being a tease, Herlock, because even someone like Mike Barrett could not have expected his wife's 'blind' forgery to be authenticated as Maybrick's handiwork from 1888/9. According to the Barrett theory, it wasn't even an attempt by Anne to deceive anyone, but a piece of creative fiction which Mike evidently thought he could pinch and pass off as a genuine confession by JM/JtR. How on earth he could have been remotely confident, let alone 'entirely satisfied' that what she had put into the diary's creation would not immediately be seen for what it was, is a question that no doubt Palmer feels most qualified to answer, but 'mental vegetable' sounds quite an apt description for anyone who would seriously present their wife's intentionally fictional story, hoping it would be mistaken for anything else. I mean, who does that in the real world? Has anyone heard of a comparable example?

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Er, hang on a minute, Herlock.

Firstly, did RJ Palmer really try to argue that the Barretts could have been 'entirely satisfied' in 1992 that no examples of Maybrick's handwriting had survived? Why on earth would anyone come to that conclusion about a real historical figure, who died in infamous circumstances, without bothering to check if that was even likely to be the case?

Secondly, has anyone used the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Maybrick's to support an argument for it being his own work? Or did you just pluck that out of nowhere?

It would be Alice in Wonderland with knobs on to use the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Mike's or Anne's to support an argument that it's a Barrett forgery, but I'm not sure anyone has gone that far.

Love,

Caz
X

There were two elements to my post Caz. Firstly I was agreeing with what RJ Palmer said. Secondly, I added my own comment commencing, "For all we know...". I wasn't attributing that view to RJ Palmer nor was I trying to argue that the Barretts were entirely satisfied that no examples of Maybrick's handwriting have survived, only that they might have been. We don't know what they believed, do we?

I have definitely seen an argument that because the handwriting doesn't match Maybrick's this supports the idea that diary isn't a forgery. So no, I didn't pluck it out of thin air. I'm pleased you agree with the Alice in Wonderland nature of it.

[caz]

Hi Lombro,

If it "makes sense" to you that Maybrick wouldn't have written the diary in his own nice legible hand might it not also have made sense to the forger who, after all, was responsible for the Maybrick character bringing his diary to London in the story?

Love it. I'm not sure if Herlock meant to provide an argument for his hoaxer not wanting the handwriting to look like Maybrick's, but it's a new one on me and this is Diary World after all.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Dang. I accidently read the message boards without logging-in and came across this post.

I thought the concept was fairly simple, but to make sure I ran it past my friend's ten-year-old daughter. Yup--she understood it right away.

What does it take, children, to challenge handwriting? Any guesses?

Yup, exemplars---significant samples of the person's handwriting.

So, if the hoaxer was convinced that Maybrick had been dead long enough that no significant samples existed (as was apparently the belief of Paul Feldman's team), and even made whatever unknowable inquires that convinced them of this, then how could the handwriting be challenged? What was Dr. Audrey Giles going to compare it against, tea leaves?

Of course, the hoaxer might have worried that samples of Maybrick's handwriting might eventually be traced, and IF that happened, gave some thought to 'Plan B' --hoping that Mabrick's history of drug use would be a suitable explanation. The diary's text is certainly filled with erratic writing, references to drugs, a big SIR JIMMAY in letters three inches, high, etc.

And lo and behold, when the Diary's handwriting was examined by Dr. Audrey Giles, as previously noted, what did Mike Barrett ask? He asked if Maybrick's drug use could have altered his handwriting.

I thought that was a fairly simple concept. My apologies if some were confused.

Was the hoaxer clever enough to have thought this out in advance? As some commentators around here like to say, "only Anne knows."

Ciao.

Right, so according to Palmer, the Barretts had managed - we are not told how - to convince themselves by April 1992 that Maybrick had been dead long enough that no significant handwriting samples had survived, but they nevertheless thought up the 'drug use' excuse 'in case' the handwriting was 'ever' challenged, but Palmer then asks 'how could' it be when there was nothing to compare it against?

Considering Mike's claim to have added sugar to the ink, a comparison between the handwriting and tea leaves might not have seemed as insane to him as it would to normal mortals.

If the Barretts were 'clever enough' to have thought this one out in advance between them, what is Palmer's 'excuse' for Anne's total inability to think of a dozen alternative solutions, after trying and failing to destroy the diary, which would have obviated the need for future excuses or a Plan B when Doreen had not sent Mike packing?

Palmer's arguments may appear balanced and mature in isolation, while seeking to reduce my intellect to that of a nine-year-old, but how well do they work in practice, when put back in the context of what was happening in Goldie Street at the relevant time?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Have you familiarised yourself with the finer details of the Barrett theory, based loosely on Mike's affidavit of 5th January 1995 and adapted to take care of all the internal contradictions and errors in the dating, timing and order of events, and various changes in his story from June 1994 onwards?

It wasn't an original observation of mine that hoaxes are not necessarily created for financial gain. I was educated in this regard by others who were posting an awfully long time ago, including some who argued for the diary being a late 20th century production. Maybe I was misinformed, and they were covering all the bases in case they had to look beyond the Barretts for their hoaxer(s), because there is no evidence that a third party was waiting for the lion's share of the proceeds and had to watch Mike squandering every penny he received and killing the golden goose by claiming it as his own work.

Love,

Caz
X

I truly don't know what you mean by the "finer details of the Barrett theory". The concept of the Barretts having created the diary seems very simple to me.

But just to be very clear. I'm not saying the Barretts did create the diary. I don't know who did, nor do I care very much. All I know is that the diary is a modern creation, and that the Barretts are obvious candidates for consideration. I certainly don't think I've seen any good reason why it couldn't have been them.

[caz]

I tend to agree with you Roger. For all we know, the forger was entirely satisfied that no examples of Maybrick's handwriting existed and was surprised to discover later that this wasn't the case. I just can't see how the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Maybrick's can possibly be used to support an argument that the diary isn't a forgery. It's an bit Alice in Wonderland, I feel.

Er, hang on a minute, Herlock.

Firstly, did RJ Palmer really try to argue that the Barretts could have been 'entirely satisfied' in 1992 that no examples of Maybrick's handwriting had survived? Why on earth would anyone come to that conclusion about a real historical figure, who died in infamous circumstances, without bothering to check if that was even likely to be the case?

Secondly, has anyone used the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Maybrick's to support an argument for it being his own work? Or did you just pluck that out of nowhere?

It would be Alice in Wonderland with knobs on to use the fact that the handwriting doesn't match Mike's or Anne's to support an argument that it's a Barrett forgery, but I'm not sure anyone has gone that far.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Apologies, Herlock. My paraphrasing was overly generous to Baxendale. In his own words [with emphasis where due]:

'My opinion, therefore, is that the ink does not date from 1889. An exact time of origin cannot be established, but I consider it likely that it has originated since 1945.'

His observation that the diary ink was 'freely soluble' was not enough for him to conclude that it 'does not date' back as far back as 1945, or he'd have said so. He considered it likely that the earliest date of origin was 1945, based on having detected the presence of nigrosine in the ink, which he mistakenly believed was not in use before WWI and only became common after WWII. However, according to The Science Library, London, it was commercially patented in 1867 and in general use in writing inks by the 1870s.



I'm at a loss here. If you believe the diary could be a Barrett forgery, how can you say it isn't an example of a forger presenting their own work as an example of someone else's - in this case James Maybrick's? The text doesn't mention him by name, but there are enough internal clues to identify who 'Sir Jim' is meant to be. The point I was making was that an art forger generally has some idea of the style to adopt for their own painting or sculpture before setting to work and trying to pass it off as the handiwork of a known person. You have to compare like for like, otherwise there was no point in you bringing art forgers into the discussion to begin with.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

We appear to be at cross purposes I wrote: "The diary is presented as a text written by James Maybrick". You seem to agree with me. So it's a forgery. I thought you were disputing that in an earlier post but it's good that we both now agree it's a forgery. Obviously, the diary is not an art forgery, so different principles apply in terms of style.

As for Baxendale's opinion, you've repeated the very thing I was attempting to correct! He didn't say that the earliest date of origin was 1945. He said that the diary ink had originated "since 1945" which, to my understanding, rules out a 1945 creation

[caz]

Hi Caz

I don't think my suggestion that the forger went to all that trouble does conflict with an argument that the forger only used a few books to research Maybrick and Jack the Ripper. It may be a relative matter but that in itself still involves going to the trouble of obtaining and reading those books. Then the forger needed to obtain the photograph album, the ink and the nibs. That alone involves quite a bit of time, trouble and presumably expense. Then the text of the diary had to be drafted and then written out in longhand. To me that is quite a lot of time and trouble and suggests a financial motive. In the post you're replying to you, I asked if you could think of any reason why a forger in the latter part of the 20th century would have gone to all that trouble to make it, absent a profit motive. Is that a question you're still pondering or can I take it that you can't think of any other reason? I’m struggling to think of one.

Have you familiarised yourself with the finer details of the Barrett theory, based loosely on Mike's affidavit of 5th January 1995 and adapted to take care of all the internal contradictions and errors in the dating, timing and order of events, and various changes in his story from June 1994 onwards?

It wasn't an original observation of mine that hoaxes are not necessarily created for financial gain. I was educated in this regard by others who were posting an awfully long time ago, including some who argued for the diary being a late 20th century production. Maybe I was misinformed, and they were covering all the bases in case they had to look beyond the Barretts for their hoaxer(s), because there is no evidence that a third party was waiting for the lion's share of the proceeds and had to watch Mike squandering every penny he received and killing the golden goose by claiming it as his own work.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Morning Herlock,

I just wanted to remind you that in this case, Mike Barrett would have wanted his wife's 'blind forgery' - if you believe RJ Palmer's theory has merit - to be mistaken for a document dating back to 1888, so there'd have been no benefit to him whatsoever if the experts in 1992 could not tell the difference between one penned yesterday and one penned a year ago. He'd have been hoping, on 13th April 1992, on the train to London, that nobody who might be invited to examine the diary that day, or in the days, weeks and months to come, would be able to distinguish between ink applied to paper in early April 1992, and ink applied when Maybrick was alive.

I still wonder what knowledge Mike would have had about such matters before you could Google it, and how confident he'd have been on a scale of one to ten, that it wouldn't go very quickly pear-shaped if he and Anne had created a document such as this one.

Surely, you have to take into account what the people who actually met or knew the Barretts would think of all this, and not just dismiss them as no more qualified, or even less qualified to comment, than those of you who don't know the real Mike or Anne from the mythical Adam and Eve - or the fictionalised Macbeth and Lady Macbeth if you prefer.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Apologies for the slow reply I’ve been having fun in Tesco.

I thought that the portion of my post that you've quoted was clear. It was in response to a positive claim you made that Mike Barrett, as the forger, would not have wanted his forgery brought "into the light" and "immediately" examined by experts. So when I responded by saying that an expert couldn't distinguish between writing made one day earlier or one year earlier, that was in direct response to your suggestion that Barrett wouldn't have wanted the diary to have been "immediately" seen and inspected.

The inability of an expert to identify a forgery created yesterday, or a few days earlier, meant that it was obviously beneficial for Mike, as the forger, for the diary to see the light immediately rather than being hidden pointlessly for a year. I therefore have to disagree with you when you say "there'd have been no benefit to him whatsoever". There was surely a clear benefit, enabling him to make money faster.

You now raise a completely different argument, unrelated to what I wrote, which is that Barrett couldn't have known whether or not an expert would be able to detect that the diary wasn't written in 1888. The problem is that you could apply this logic to every single forger of historical artefacts in the entire world. In which case, no forger would ever attempt a forgery, on the basis that an expert might be able to detect the forgery. To me, that doesn't make sense because experience shows that forgers tend to produce forgeries regardless.

For me, you are looking at this the wrong way round. You seem to consider only the risk, even though the risk to the Barretts was minimal on the basis that Mike's story was that he'd been given the diary by his dead friend, so there was no peril to him or his wife if an expert declared it to be a forgery. He could have said “well how was I to know it was a forgery? I’m not an expert.” I think you need to look more at the possible reward. Surely that's what all criminals think of when they plan a crime. The risks are ignored. I can't see any problem in Mike, as the forger, confidently thinking in his own mind that he could make a lot of money from a diary of Jack the Ripper written in a Victorian looking old book in Victorian style ink with (attempted) Victorian style handwriting. Perhaps his confidence was misplaced - I don't know - but he did, in fact, make money from it, didn't he? People committing crimes often think that they are cleverer than they actually are…I’d apply this to a certain Mr. Wallace.


As for your final sentence, where have I ever dismissed the views of people who knew the Barretts?

[caz]

Hi Caz,

If you'll forgive the correction, I don't think Baxendale said that the diary ink "could date back to 1945" did he?. What I believe he said was that the diary ink "has originated since 1945" which is a different thing.

Apologies, Herlock. My paraphrasing was overly generous to Baxendale. In his own words [with emphasis where due]:

'My opinion, therefore, is that the ink does not date from 1889. An exact time of origin cannot be established, but I consider it likely that it has originated since 1945.'

His observation that the diary ink was 'freely soluble' was not enough for him to conclude that it 'does not date' back as far back as 1945, or he'd have said so. He considered it likely that the earliest date of origin was 1945, based on having detected the presence of nigrosine in the ink, which he mistakenly believed was not in use before WWI and only became common after WWII. However, according to The Science Library, London, it was commercially patented in 1867 and in general use in writing inks by the 1870s.

As for your question to me, I'm not sure of the purpose of it if you now accept my definition of a forgery. Furthermore, the diary surely isn't an example of a forger presenting his or her own work as an example of someone else's. The diary is presented as text written by James Maybrick. As Roger has mentioned, an attempt appears to have been made to replicate Victorian handwriting. I seem to recall expressions like "frequented my club" which appear to be a (misguided) attempt to replicate the language of a Victorian gentleman. The thing is dated 3 May 1889 and signed "Jack the Ripper". But there are plenty of art forgeries which are not in the style of a particular known artist such as, for example, the sculpture, the Amarna Princess, by the British art forger Shaun Greenhalgh. Michaelangelo, of all people, is known to have created an ancient looking forged Roman statue called The Sleeping Eros with no known artist's name attached to it. But I wonder what the importance of all this is. What does it matter? It's just semantics really isn't it? If the diary was created in the twentieth century, as all the evidence suggests, it's not real and is of no value.

I'm at a loss here. If you believe the diary could be a Barrett forgery, how can you say it isn't an example of a forger presenting their own work as an example of someone else's - in this case James Maybrick's? The text doesn't mention him by name, but there are enough internal clues to identify who 'Sir Jim' is meant to be. The point I was making was that an art forger generally has some idea of the style to adopt for their own painting or sculpture before setting to work and trying to pass it off as the handiwork of a known person. You have to compare like for like, otherwise there was no point in you bringing art forgers into the discussion to begin with.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike,

Have you considered the possibility that what Mike was attempting to get hold of was authentic paper which would be scientifically indistinguishable from paper from the time of the Ripper murders?

If he hasn't, he should really ask himself why he is ignoring that possibility.

After all, it was his good friend Lord Orsam who discovered that Barrett's own magazine of choice, to which he had been a frequent contributor during his secret career as a freelance writer in the 1980s, had published a piece on the Hitler Diaries, indicating that non-period paper proved to be Konrad Kujau's downfall.

A real gem of a discovery.

Barrett wasn't about to make the same mistake, was he?

Who first named Maybrick's confessional photograph album "the diary"?

According to the authors of Inside Story, it was Michael John Barrett. It's the first line of their book. "I've got Jack the Ripper's diary, would you be interested in seeing it?" Mike crows over the telephone.

And yet, and yet--

There is not a printed date anywhere in the confessional. We can see with our own eyes that the 'old book' as some call it was entirely blank before the hoaxer added her (or his) scribbles. Many pages are still entirely blank.

The writer didn't even add her own dates.

And it is impossible to be a daily record of events, because there are not enough entries. Only on the very last page is there a date. The writer dates it like he is dating his confession. There is a similar date on the last page of William Henry Bury's confession.

No, it is not a diary, at best it is a commonplace book of the writer's random thoughts and feelings. Or one can call it a confession. Or a confessional.

But the important thing is that to Barrett it was a diary, thus we know what Barrett meant by a diary: a blank book, with no printed dates, to which one adds his own writing.

Mike, the hoaxer, was after a blank book with forensically bullet-proof pages -- at a bare minimum of twenty of them. Enough to get the job done, especially if he weeded out the repetitive poetry from whatever shape the typescript was in at this point.

But belief in this relic relies on self-deception and so it is pretended that Barrett means something else by the word 'diary'--he means a daily planner or a business memorandum constrained by dates indelibly stamped on each page. This self-deception is necessary in order to keep belief alive, even if it runs directly against what Barrett called a diary.

It is my belief that Mike was after the raw materials of a hoax because he intended to hoax the confession of James Maybrick.

Bizarrely, even those who irrationally doubt Barrett's involvement can only explain Mike's request to Martin Earl as Barrett's attempt to obtain the raw materials of a hoax. Ultimately, they agree with me.

In one version, Mike is doing so because he fears Mr. Lyons may be swindling him, so he wants to see if it is possible to easily obtain the raw materials of a hoax--a counter explanation that brings a smile.

In another version, Mike is attempting to obtain the raw materials of a hoax in order to create his own substitute Jack the Ripper confessional in case the police come knocking for Eddy's original--another smile inducer.

But at least all three of us can finally agree on something!

We all agree that Mike's request to Earl was an attempt to obtain the raw materials for a hoax. This is progress. It only took 33 years for us to reach an agreement, so we should be able to wrap this up by the year 2058.