James Maybrick & Florence

[milchmanuk]

believe to be new book soon we all probaly ordered ?
Sorry upcasing

[erobitha]

It's not out yet, so I can't pass judgement, but as an owner of the Maybrick A-Z I expect Chris to offer an impartial and objective holistic overview.

I doubt his only arguments are nailed down floorboards and a flawed solubility test. I also expect him to offer deep insight into the watch.

[rjpalmer]

I doubt his only arguments are nailed down floorboards and a flawed solubility test. I also expect him to offer deep insight into the watch.

What was flawed about it other than Smith ignored it and you and the Diary believers don't like the implications of the results?

You have plenty of opinions, but you never back them up with reasoned discourse.

[erobitha]

What was flawed about it other than Smith ignored it and you and the Diary believers don't like the implications of the results?

You have plenty of opinions, but you never back them up with reasoned discourse.

Even if the ink did dissolve, it does not categorically prove it was put on the page recently. 'Reasoned discourse' is not to put all your eggs in one basket of a flawed test. It is not the only explanation in town. Oxygen. Compounds. Paper. UV light. Conditions. Multiple factors, old boy.

Is your old tool theory reasoned discourse RJ?

I don't value your opinion of whether my opinions are reasoned or not. It's your opinion.

[Iconoclast]

Even if the ink did dissolve, it does not categorically prove it was put on the page recently. 'Reasoned discourse' is not to put all your eggs in one basket of a flawed test. It is not the only explanation in town. Oxygen. Compounds. Paper. UV light. Conditions. Multiple factors, old boy.

Is your old tool theory reasoned discourse RJ?

I don't value your opinion of whether my opinions are reasoned or not. It's your opinion.

Erm, practicalities too, ero b.

After a pathetic attempt at a report for Smith in which primarily prima facie evidence was employed (Baxendale clearly thought this was going to be the quickest buck he'd made in a while), he produces fully eight days later a second report which actually arses itself to do some proper analysis rather than simply regurgitating a few unverified 'facts' on nigrosine which turned out to be wrong. Anyway, this second report suddenly homed-in on ink solubility. Why not the first report? So the question then becomes, 'What did Baxendale use for this ink solubility test?'. Did he still have the scrapbook in his possession after that amount of time? Did he have permission to test a piece of the scrapbook? Which piece of the scrapbook did he test? Was it definitely a piece of the scrapbook, or did he - in his pique - inadvertently test an entirely unrelated specimen from another case? We do not have the facts here to properly understood the parameters under which he conducted a test whose results seemed to imply that the scrapbook had been written in very recently.

Ideally, a second solubility test would have been commissioned immediately to test Baxendale's conclusions, but it wasn't so we are left with more questions than answers, as ever seems to be the case with Jack.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

Was it definitely a piece of the scrapbook, or did he - in his pique - inadvertently test an entirely unrelated specimen from another case?
Ike

In his pique?

Ah, I see. Somehow this angry 'diary critic' as Paul Butler falsely calls Dr. Baxendale in your opus magnus, Society's Pillar (Baxendale actually worked for Smith and Harrison) tested one of the 'old' exemplars by mistake and instead of this being fully dried and bonded to the paper as one would expect, the ink on this old exemplar was inexplicably so free flowing after many decades that it separated almost completely from the paper. This is what Baxendale, a Home Office document examiner with 25 years' experience, witnessed. The real diary samples that Baxendale carefully extracted from the diary (without permission!) were never actually tested.

Desperate stuff, Ike. Almost as desperate as Jay Hartley throwing around the phrase 'UV light,' as if it is a necessary component for ink drying and 'setting' to paper.

Which it isn't.

But yes, I agree with you on one point: the conflicting results observed by Baxendale in 1992 and Leeds in 1994 raises deeply concerning questions, and you clearly have no answers to those questions.

My answer is simple. The diary had to be very new when tested by Baxendale. How else can one explain the ink suddenly being fully bonded to the paper in 1994, when it hadn't been in 1992? How can that possibly be the case with a 105-year-old document, regardless of how it had been stored?

And placing a document under floorboards isn't going to deprive it of oxygen and prevent absorption and evaporation. Further, when books with iron-based inks remain closed for many years (decades) there is an "ink offset" effect. Tiny, perceptible amounts of ink will 'migrate' to the page it is facing and pressed against. This becomes even more evident under UV light and is one method of determining whether a book or manuscript is truly old or not. And we know that the Rendell team specifically looked for this in the Maybrick diary and found no evidence of it. Thus, there is no evidence that the book had been kept closed and forgotten under a set of floorboards or anywhere else for many years.

But whatever. These arguments won't sway you; I fully appreciate that yours is a faith-based religion.

[Yabs]

Out of interest.. has anybody ever analysed the ink on any existing document or letter that was written by a member of the Maybrick household at Battlecrease?

Florries Letters for example, if they still exist, and working on the assumption that the household would have used the same ink as the diary if written by Maybrick.

[erobitha]

Out of interest.. has anybody ever analysed the ink on any existing document or letter that was written by a member of the Maybrick household at Battlecrease?

Florries Letters for example, if they still exist, and working on the assumption that the household would have used the same ink as the diary if written by Maybrick.

If the diary is genuine, it is most likely written in his office and brought to Battlecrease later. We are led to believe this because of references to Lowry.

It would not be the same ink that Florence used if she wrote her letters from home.

[rjpalmer]

If the diary is genuine

Be careful; you might upset Ike.