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

[rjpalmer]

a concerted campaign by RJ to squeeze every single piece of information (whether known or rumour) into a Barrett hoax theory.

Hilarious, Ike!

Compared to what? Your concerted campaign to squeeze every single piece of information into a Maybrick wrote-it theory?

Why am I not allowed to fight my corner while you fight yours?

I think Geddy's comment was interesting, and it reminded me of the very judicious and intelligent remarks by Professor Chisholm.

I think it is undeniable that the hoaxer knew of the Kelly photograph and wanted his readers to refer to it. This doesn't pose as debilitating a problem for you (though it IS a problem for you) as it does for the 'old hoax' theorists, though I've been told there are no longer any old hoax theorists in these parts.

[Iconoclast]

"'Left it in front for all eyes to see' confirms that our diarist is patently informed by the main police photographer's perspective.

No, it absolutely does not.

In other words, the hoaxer was aware of the Kelly photograph.

No, this does not logically follow unless you are illogically working from the premise that the only view available in that room was the one the photographer caught when he (or she) took MJK1.

I would add that the hoaxer is almost begging his or her readers to refer to the Kelly photograph in order to look for the 'clue' that the 'fools' could not find.

This is simply not correct. The author of the scrapbook is clearly saying that his wife's initials had some role to play in Kelly's room by the time he left it.

It is a puzzle for the reader to solve, and Barrett, infamously, was a maker of children's puzzles for Look-In before he came forward with the hoaxed diary.

It is a puzzle which the best we can hope to do is solve through the lens of MJK1 because we have no other lens with which to view Kelly's room (I exclude the photograph of the table here - others might wish to add it back in).

The hoaxer also assumed that the reader would have access to the police photograph in order to solve this puzzle ...

This is not correct. There is no evidence that the author even knew that a photograph had been taken. His (or her) comment about Florence's initials could have referred to any number of other locations in Kelly's room, but we only have one lens into it, not five or ten or twenty, so most of her room is not recorded on film for us to view in detail.

... which again rationally dates the diary to the 1960s or later, when the photograph first obtained wide circulation.

Self-evidently not so.

Before that date, the photo was either in the off-limits City of London Police materials or in one exceedingly rare book in French--so rare that to this day only one library in the UK owns a copy, and that Library was only founded after the diary was published.

It doesn't matter where the photograph was or is stored. The fact that there is a photograph tells us nothing about what else Maybrick could have left 'for all to see' in Kelly's room which was unfortunately not photographed.

Dear readers, I implore you all to think long and hard before assuming that these terrible simplicities are anything other than a concerted campaign by RJ to squeeze every single piece of information (whether known or rumour) into a Barrett hoax theory.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock.

I'm still amused, twenty-four hours later, that I make one suggestion, one brilliant and perceptive suggestion to use Ike's vernacular, that the diary's text contains puzzles to solve, and Barrett was a puzzle maker for Look-In Magazine, and Ike loses his mind, screaming it is unfair, prejudicial, close-minded, etc. etc.

Can you imagine if it was recently discovered that Maybrick wrote puzzles for a Victorian magazine? Just imagine the ecstasy of delight from Ike if this was discovered--another jewel to be included in Society's Pillar.

And yet, compared to my simple suggestion, Ike has written a whole book arguing the text was written by Maybrick, using everything from anagrams to false statements about the alleged obscurity of his parents' graves, and Ike promotes this as judicious, intellectual, open-minded, etc.

This is what we are up against and why discussing anything with someone this fanatical and pot/kettle/black-ish is a very poor choice of morning hobbies.

Cheers.

[Iconoclast]

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

I know I'm heavily invested and biased, but this is still a brilliant post in my opinion, Caz. I appreciate that we aren't supposed to reply with superlatives (and certainly not with the entire post re-posted), but both seem fair on this occasion.

That said, let me justify my actions by posing this question: How likely is it that Baxendale would have laboured his 'freely soluble' comment to Chittenden which he so blatantly underplayed in his second report to Smith a year earlier if Smith's dealings with Baxendale had not been so unexpectedly confrontational (and by 'confrontational', I mean challenging from an academic and 'expert' perspective)?

That is, was Baxendale's ego so thoroughly piqued that he leapt into Chittenden's corner once the latter had presumably assured the former that he (Baxendale) had been dealing with a hoax all along and should therefore feel on safe ground when commenting in a way he certainly didn't the previous year?

[Iconoclast]

Oops a daisy - a rather obvious gaff here:

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990.

This should obviously have read:

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990.

In truth, I think I'm right in saying that Tony Devereux was housebound in 1991 (not in 1990) but it's a small point and I'm willing to leave "During this period" as blue as I'm that kind of guy.