The Curious Case of History vs. James Maybrick

[c.d.]

"I'm not sure how or why people argue over the GSG, when we consider that there's no solid example of how it actually looked, the text varies, IIRC, in different accounts. We've no idea when it was written, or why."

Amen to that.

c.d.

[Iconoclast]

Hi again Ike. A couple of further questions.

Why did Mr Maybrick decide to smuggle the names of his wife and four of his brothers into the GSG? Why four of his brothers but neither of his parents? What was so important about his brothers?

How many English words do you suppose end in "ed"? Many, many, many. And yet still the only way you can crowbar "Edwin" into the gsg is to suppose that "for nothing" represents a football score, and thus a "win". It would be churlish to point out that it also denotes a defeat. If Jews could be misspelled for the purposes of his hidden clues, why not "for"?

And his most important sibling, Michael, is to be found only in a pair of initials when some of the text is read upside down?

The problem, Ike, is that it's easy to play this game backwards, in retrospect. But if you play it forwards, if you start with a blank page and imagine you are Maybrick, it becomes so improbable and nonsensical as to be impossible. If you say he wants to misspell his own name so as to joke about the idea of the Jewish ripper, fine, I can go with you. But once you say he has also included the names of no fewer than 4 siblings and his wife, things get crazy. "How shall I include Michael in my rhyme? I could pun on 'my kill' or 'my cull' or something, that would link the message to my murders. But no, I'll just write his initials upside down and hope it looks like an English word! Oh phew, it does! And how about Edwin, mustn't forget him. Lots of words end in 'ed' so that's easy. Could just start the next word with win - win, winsome, window, winnow, wind, wing... No, I have a better idea, take a football scoreline, spell it wrong, and that can denote a win!"

He goes through all these gibberish contortions and STILL ends up with an intelligible piece of working class anti-Semitic graffiti?! By your reckoning he was a kind of proto-James-Joyce genius. But we've read the diary: he wasn't remotely creative with words. And it's highly improbable that a man who came up with this level of cryptic contortions would not have crowed about the gsg in detail in his great confessional diary.

This hidden clues game only ever makes sense working backwards, Ike.

You will of course have the view you have. James, Thomas, William, Ed'win', FM, MM, and 'nothing' written exactly as it is written in Maybrick's journal.

Anyone winning the lottery wouldn't expect such an implausibility.

Find me Roger. Find me Horace. Find me Frank. Hey - find me Henry. None of these are to be discerned in the GSG. And yet James, his four brothers, and his wife all appear gamely in there, and in the hand of the journal (just as the Sept 17 'Dear Boss' letter is in the hand of the journal).

I don't have to defend that in the slightest!

[Iconoclast]

Ike, we frequently hear these days about the diary's hand not matching Maybrick's formal hand, but having no examples of his informal drug-addled hand with which to compare it.

Could you just clarify, then: you have no evidence that Maybrick ever wrote in a hand different from the known examples we have? Your argument is essentially that while the diary hand doesn't match the hand we know to be Maybrick's, it might match a completely different hand that Maybrick might have written in, of which we have no examples?

That is correct.

[Iconoclast]

I can think of many examples of hoaxers falling short on apparently avoidable blunders in the detail. A hoax is nothing more than an elaborate lie, and lies can be hard for a person to keep track of.

It's my personal opinion that the diary is merely a hoax that wasn't very well executed, when we note the lack of similarity in handwriting, the mention of the Poste House, the lifting of text from the list in the police report, information looking as though it was lifted from a couple of RWE books, and so on.

It's like I was saying regarding the "gotcha", there are errors to be found, but if we make excuses for them then we're essentially moving the goalposts. A good example of this is the Poste House, which I'm now being told was actually referencing the Old Post Office Tavern, which, as far as I can tell, was never called the Poste House. If Caz can show me any evidence to suggest that it was, then I'll reconsider it, but frankly, it seems obvious that the hoaxer was merely naming a pub which they considered very old, and they weren't wrong, the pub is old, but the name, however, was not as old as the hoaxer had thought, which is a natural mistake for a person who is making things up as he/she goes without really going to great lengths to do research, and let's be honest, we know that their research consisted of a few books that weren't hard to get hold of at all.

When it comes to belief, some people prefer to see the puppet and not the strings. With the diary, the strings are there to be seen if you want to see them, but if we keep making excuses for them, we're just seeing a puppet, frolicking without strings.

And you should hold true to your opinions (based as they are on assumptions) and I will happily stick with the evidence, which is that James Maybrick wrote himself into every one of the canonical murders in one way or another (maybe not Stride's) and we have evidence - however tenuous you may feel it is - to support it. It's all in my thread. My brilliant, brilliant thread.

[Iconoclast]

Hi, Ike,
curious

Thank you, curious. What is it short for? Curiosity, I wonder? Such a nice name.

Yes, I've taken a few batterings down the years, I can tell you - probably in the Top 3 of The Bruised and Battered, but I come back calmly for I am in possession of the Answer to The Riddle. Ho ho.

In time, you'll all recognise my genius!

[Iconoclast]

Hi again Ike. A couple of further questions.

Why did Mr Maybrick decide to smuggle the names of his wife and four of his brothers into the GSG? Why four of his brothers but neither of his parents? What was so important about his brothers?

I have absolutely no idea. Why are you asking me when I didn't write it?

[Iconoclast]

I'm not sure how or why people argue over the GSG, when we consider that there's no solid example of how it actually looked, the text varies, IIRC, in different accounts. We've no idea when it was written, or why.

And yet you can find all those Maybricks, but no Horaces, Henrys, Davids, Duncans, Georges, Meryls, Roberts, Cuthberts - where to stop in the long long list of the unmentioned?????????????

Even if the GSG were not a felicitous copy, what are the odds of those names being referencable by sheer chance alone and what chance that the word 'nothing' would be written exactly as written in the journal (unless we say that the hoaxer mirrored the GSG when hoaxing the diary but couldn't be arsed to check the known examples of Maybrick's actual known and formal handwriting?).

For the record, Commissioner Warren asked the local Plod to make a 'duplicate' before he sponged out of history our only solid clue. Now, a 'copy' would be ambiguous ... but a duplicate? To me, that's pretty compelling language.

[Henry Flower]

You will of course have the view you have. James, Thomas, William, Ed'win', FM, MM, and 'nothing' written exactly as it is written in Maybrick's journal.

Anyone winning the lottery wouldn't expect such an implausibility.

Find me Roger. Find me Horace. Find me Frank. Hey - find me Henry. None of these are to be discerned in the GSG. And yet James, his four brothers, and his wife all appear gamely in there, and in the hand of the journal (just as the Sept 17 'Dear Boss' letter is in the hand of the journal).

I don't have to defend that in the slightest!

But Ike, the things you purport to find are not there either. You've listed hundreds of names that don't appear in the GSG, but the latitude you allow yourself when trying to insert the names you want to find - looking for initials upside down, turning letters on their side to see what they resemble - that's all just nonsense that would allow any of us to find whatever we wanted. FM is not there. MM is not there. Edwin is not there. Etc. You've performed absurd acrobatic contortions to crowbar them in.

If you can't see that, if you can't honestly admit that, there's little point debating this with you.

And by the way, I genuinely don't appreciate that "You will of course have the view you have" attitude. There is no "of course" about it. I have an open mind about JtR and accept good evidence and good reasoning wherever I see it.

[Henry Flower]

That is correct.

And you're not embarrassed to put this forward as an argument?

[Observer]

In time, you'll all recognise my genius!

Now now, be humble for once.

[Iconoclast]

that's all just nonsense that would allow any of us to find whatever we wanted.

Well, let me take you up on the offer. Find me 'John', and find me 'Gertrude', and find me 'Celia', and find me 'Daniel'. Just let me know how to 'see' them and I'll take your point.

If you can't (and you won't), then take my point.

[Iconoclast]

And you're not embarrassed to put this forward as an argument?

You are correct.

[Iconoclast]

Now now, be humble for once.

That was me being humble. You should see me when I'm really on fire. I write amazing threads like this one, amongst others ...

[Mike J. G.]

Well, let me take you up on the offer. Find me 'John', and find me 'Gertrude', and find me 'Celia', and find me 'Daniel'. Just let me know how to 'see' them and I'll take your point.

If you can't (and you won't), then take my point.

People find whatever they like when they're looking desperately, though, Ike. Some people see the image of Jesus on pieces of toast.

[Mike J. G.]

And you should hold true to your opinions (based as they are on assumptions) and I will happily stick with the evidence, which is that James Maybrick wrote himself into every one of the canonical murders in one way or another (maybe not Stride's) and we have evidence - however tenuous you may feel it is - to support it. It's all in my thread. My brilliant, brilliant thread.

It's not evidence, though, is it? Let's be honest. The glaring issue is that you cannot prove that James wrote anything contained within that diary, meaning you have no evidence of James writing himself into any murder. James never even wrote like that, and you'll have a rather bothersome time trying to prove that he did.