Private sale

[Jenni Shelden]

Ah, Edward no, I'm not chastising you, I'm not acting as anyone's wingman .
I'm trying to help you out ,you seem incredibly frustrated with good chap Chris and he with you. I can see you aren't answering Chris because your not paying attention to what's being said ,its possible your being patronising,its possible you don't want to see what's asked ,its possible you don't have an answer and hope Chris will go away .
because I'm so kind hearted I'm letting you know he won't ,I've met him before .
I'm getting the idea its hypothetically possible you don't like it when people ask questions too much ,you seem to want to make people shut up without answering ,you tried it with me,with Ally, with Cpenny, with Sally ,with Chris .
I feel sad and asked paddington to speak to you .
Jenni

[Robert]

I am not speaking to Mr Lechmere after what he said about my marmalade.

Regards

Paddington

[Fisherman]

Edward was capable, yes - I rarely question that. It was your unability to see this capability that annoyed me. You keep on pretending that there is something we´ve not understood, but there is not.
The only lacking understanding lies in claiming that the comprehension failures lies with the side that opposes you. They do not.

I cannot help asking myself what to make of you if we are Batman and Robin. The Joker?

All the best,
Fisherman

+++

Christer,
don't be getting silly about things. Ed was perfectly capable of having a conversation with me by himself and didn't need back up.

I'm sure he could have come up with something much better.

Take the time to go back and read what I actually said and the point I was actually making. It was not that because 200 people say something it is right.

It is up to Ed to explain what he thinks, what are you Robin and he Batman?!

Jenni

[Jenni Shelden]

I guess so Christer, because I'm still reading this thread and taking this bs ?!

[Lechmere]

Jenni
Take the time to look and you will see that every point he raised was answered – he may not like the answer and probably doesn’t understand the answer – but it has been answered.
I notice your lips were sealed when he refused to answer a couple of simple questions I put to him.
I don’t bother going on and on about such things.
Repeating things again and again tends to make the person who does it look deranged in my view.
I agree with you - I am sure Chris will keep on.

CPenney
Specifically the 1923 letter and the Scotland Yard Crime Museum documents should be tested – in an attempt to prove their authenticity.
For starters – as I have already said – the 1923 letter paper could be tested.
The Scotland Yard Crime Museum material could be checked with News International so they can establish if it is the sort of thing that it is presented as being. They could be checked again their existing documents. The paper could also be tested and also possibly the type face used – as Sally suggested actually.
I have said several times that the Scotland Yard Crime Museum documents alone could essentially authenticate the Marginalia. I can foresee possible problems with the 1923 letter.
Was it really necessary for me to spell this out? I don’t think so.

Reputable auction houses are used to dealing with questioned documents. Their reputation as a commercial enterprise hangs on not selling fake items.
I would essentially leave it to them to carry out the tests.
It actually is not my role to prejudge what tests they carry out. No matter how many times and in what variety of ways that question may be asked. So long as they consider all possibilities.
As I have said I suspect they would also take another look at the marginalia and probably wish to see as much supporting documentation as possible.
But I would not second guess them.

If you read the 2012 report it refers directly to the 1923 letter and says there was evidence that DS Swanson’s handwriting deteriorated with age. That is the oldest letter. I take that to mean that the deterioration was not evident in the earlier samples, which go unmentioned.
If a new examiner wished to test the other two letters then that would be their choice not mine.

This is an example why this debate has run its course.
I said
Actually no justification is required for saying the 1923 letter should be examined.
You said
So, having it tested against which document would satisfy you, then?
(accompanied by a little chin scratcher)
So I replied to you
With reference to your little chin scratch remark, it would be up to the tester to determine how the 1923 letter should be tested. It is not always necessary to test a document against another one. The paper for example
And then you come out with
We're not talking about that, though - this is a discussion of Dr. Davis' handwriting examination.

Errrrr…. not in that instance it wasn't. But never mind.

Do be honest I have got bored with this now – everything I needed to say has been said.
Nothing worth responding to is coming back.
Adam Wood did actually provide some information that advanced things – the Express letter and a little more detail on the provenance of the 1923 letter.
However he failed to provide an inconvenient letter – the one from Jim Swanson to Charles Nevin. A good historian does not hide unpleasant information.

[Robert]

Adam isn't hiding anything.

[Sally]

I am not speaking to Mr Lechmere after what he said about my marmalade.

Regards

Paddington

Dear Paddington,

Don't be too hard on him: it's the age-old debate - peely bits or no peely bits?

P.S. How do you feel about lime marmalade?

[Lechmere]

Sally
I am with you on the peel - this just proves you never listen to anything I say!
I do like lime but without peel.
If I have marmalade I end up with a mound of peel on the side of the plate.
Please Sally tell me you agree.

[AdamNeilWood]

Adam Wood did actually provide some information that advanced things – the Express letter and a little more detail on the provenance of the 1923 letter.
However he failed to provide an inconvenient letter – the one from Jim Swanson to Charles Nevin. A good historian does not hide unpleasant information.

I told you the reason why I wasn't going to post that letter or indeed any other document.

The fact that you've chosen to interpret that as meaning the communication from Jim Swanson to Charles Nevin is 'inconvenient' and 'unpleasant' when you don't even know what it says is typical of your preconceptions.

[Sally]

The Scotland Yard Crime Museum material could be checked with News International so they can establish if it is the sort of thing that it is presented as being. They could be checked again their existing documents. The paper could also be tested and also possibly the type face used – as Sally suggested actually.

On your first point Ed - yes, why not? In fact, I'm surprised that nobody's done it already. I'd be surprised if there was an issue there.

On the paper - I don't think this would help, really. We're only talking about a period of 30 years.

On the typeface - well, as we've seen, the NOTW used typewriters with a similar typeface to machine 2 (the one used to type the majority of the draft article and the memo); so maybe that's an indicator.

To know exactly which make and model of typewriter was used may be possible (in theory it is) but it would take some time. And I'm not sure what it would prove without knowing exactly which makes and models of typewriters were present in the NOTW offices at that time.

That may well be difficult, if not impossible, to establish.

[Sally]

Sally
I am with you on the peel - this just proves you never listen to anything I say!
I do like lime but without peel.
If I have marmalade I end up with a mound of peel on the side of the plate.
Please Sally tell me you agree.

Actually, I do agree. Peel. Bleh!

[Lechmere]

Eureka
An excellent moment to bow out

[Chris]

Take the time to look and you will see that every point he raised was answered – he may not like the answer and probably doesn’t understand the answer – but it has been answered.

You can keep pretending for as long as you like, but you know and I know and anyone else who is still reading this nonsense knows that you were wholly unable to answer my question.

You remember the one - I asked you why a faker would deliberately include in a fake document false information which would be bound to be discovered if the document was published.

The best you could do, apparently, was to suggest that the faker would want to 'agree' with the date of the letter stuck in the front of the book. But as you couldn't explain why that would be desirable or what benefit it would bring, it was no answer at all.

I notice your lips were sealed when he refused to answer a couple of simple questions I put to him.

You seem to forget that I did answer those questions - in the hope that we wouldn't be treated to this kind of juvenile refrain again. "But Miiiisss! He wouldn't answer my questions. Why should I answer his?" Some hope!

[Robert]

Hi Sally

Re your question about Jack Page 1, I can only make out the same that you have and can't decipher the other bit, but I am posting it here.

And now I must be off - I don't want to leave Jim on his own too long in the museum because he's disguised as a nun but he needs the gents.

[Lechmere]

Ah Adam
You have been reading!
You put up a plethora of documents. Yes they were interesting.
When you were questioned about them and their usefulness as support for the Marginalia’s authenticity was questioned, you did not like it.

You stopped putting up documents immediately prior to a letter that contained a passage that is referred to in your Ripperologist article as follows:
‘On 9 October 1987 Jim wrote again to Charles Nevin, revealing he had found more papers belonging to his grandfather.
‘These referred to Donald Swanson being placed in overall charge of the Ripper case. The papers also recorded a list of victims and alleged victims, as well as the attack on Annie Farmer. Whether this is a record of official opinion or Swanson’s own is unclear. Interestingly, it’s clear from Charles Sandell’s internal memo that Jim had shown the same documents to the News of the World reporter, so this was far from a new discovery six years later in 1987.’

So I have got an idea as to its contents.

I was interested to see it in full as it seems to imply one of the following options:
1) That Jim Swanson had forgotten he had already found these documents and shown them to Charles Sandell in 1981.
2) That Jim Swanson was for some reason gilding the lily and pretending to Charles Nevin that he had just found them, maybe to make Nevin more interested in the story or for some other purpose. I can’t think of any other off the top of my head.
3) That the internal memo and unused article had not in fact been written in 1981 but were written at a later date.

As you had only reproduced uncontroversial items or correspondence helpful to the Marginalia’s authenticity, and seemingly the only letter you didn’t put up from that period was the one to Nevin, I felt it was reasonable for me to suggest that you did not want to put up the Nevin letter as it potentially cast a different light on things.
Was I wrong?