The Curious Case of History vs. James Maybrick

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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!

[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.

[Mike J. G.]

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.

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.

The idea that Maybrick wrote it and included clues and riddles within it regarding his family is pretty much fantasy and, imho, is less convincing than even the most absurd Ripper claims.

As you rightfully say, it's a lot of reaching and nonsensical reasoning.

[curious]

I have been accessing the Casebook for probably around ten years - I know others have been doing so for twenty or more. For 127 years we have been debating the Whitechapel murders, and yet we seem no nearer solving the case than ever we were and - as each year passes - we presumably get further and further away from the possibility of a solution. Will the Casebook still be running in the year 2100, 2200, 2300, etc., and will the gnerations which follow us debate endlessly without a candidate ever being confirmed as Saucy Jack?

That's a slightly depressing thought, eased only for me personally by the deep conviction that the crimes were solved the moment the Maybrick journal saw the light of a very public day. But it makes you wonder why we do it - pursue a now ancient case which has so little hope of ever being formally solved.

Which leads me to a straw poll - just an anecdotal straw poll (not least because I have no idea how to create those clever polls you see from time to time on some threads).

Why do you read/post to the Casebook, and/or why are you so interested in the case of Jack the Ripper?

A) I genuinely care only about solving the mystery - it fascinates me and I desperately want to know whodunnit; but deep down I do not believe that the mystery can ever be solved conclusively.
B) I genuinely care only about solving the mystery - it fascinates me and I desperately want to know whodunnit; and I genuinely believe that the mystery can be solved conclusively eventually.
C) I'm intrigued by the case and I enjoy the discussion as much as I would gain satisfaction from an answer.
D) I have some other reason. [If so, let us know what that reason is, please.]

It's August Bank Holiday, everyone, and it's wet and miserable. Seems like an appropriate place to start the discussion!

Best wishes,

Iconoclast

Hi, Ike,
Love how people have shortened your name to that. I have been enjoying the thread.

You're doing a particularly good job keeping your cool as well as the remainder of the folks who are replying, so it's an enjoyable read.

Concerning the GSG -- the word "will" is enough to stand for brother William all on its own, isn't it? Many Williams become "Will" -- along with "Bill", of course.

In answer to your poll, I started at A, lapsed to C until the advent of Pierre and Fisherman and am now at D -- I return occasionally for the site's entertainment value. Company when I have nothing else to do.

All the best and keep up the good work.

curious

[Mike J. G.]

Speak for yourself, Mike ...

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.

[Henry Flower]

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.

[Harry D]

Ike's entire defence of the diary is argumentum ad ignorantiam.

[Henry Flower]

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?

[Scott Nelson]

George Grossmith... need there be any other explanation?

[Iconoclast]

If you do think that the hoaxer was purposely allowing for inconsistencies, then why do you not feel that the "Poste House" reference is another one of these purposeful/ignored errors?

When people make stories up, they often fall short on apparently avoidable errors, because they're only human.

Speak for yourself, Mike ...

[Mike J. G.]

Incidentally, IMHO the handwriting in the diary is not Maybrick's and the prankster never expected anyone to think it was.

If you do think that the hoaxer was purposely allowing for inconsistencies, then why do you not feel that the "Poste House" reference is another one of these purposeful/ignored errors?

When people make stories up, they often fall short on apparently avoidable errors, because they're only human.