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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 926
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:12 pm: |       |
Hi Ally,
Can you support everything you have accused me of here? I don’t recall seven or eight posts ‘picking on nothing but typos’ in anyone’s posts, or lampooning anyone’s writing style ‘more’ than making serious observations about the content of their posts.
Old and tiresome I can live with, whether your accusations can be supported or not. I knew that much already. 
I did actually feel threatened at the time, Ally, until you explained that I had no need to feel that way. But of course I have no way to prove how I felt.
‘Paying’ as in your constant reminders to everyone of just how deeply unethical and imperfect I was, and apparently still am, despite all your reminders.
Carry on, I’m used to it by now.
Love,
Caz
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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 927
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:17 pm: | |
Whoops! Didn't see your post Stephen - a million apologies - will go now. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 928
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:31 pm: | |
Hi RJ,
Off topic so a quickie. I could see no comparison between the couple of examples of small ks in Kane's hand, and small ks in the diary. In particular, the k in Kane's Cabinet Maker looks to my untrained eye nothing like the k in the diary's The whore is now with her maker, but I suppose it is a matter of opinion, and of course Kane would presumably have tried to disguise his natural hand, if he knew Mike Barrett was involved and might one day drop him in it! (He hasn't, in fact he doesn't appear to know who Kane is.)
I always assumed Kane was apologising for his poor handwriting because he had allegedly been in very shaky health since at least the mid-1980s, or maybe he had never considered his handwriting up to much. But I could be wrong on both counts.
Anyway, any suspicions that Kane penned the diary came to nothing in the end, so I'm not sure where you could go from there if you wanted to pursue that particular line of enquiry.
Love,
Caz |
Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 427
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:43 pm: | |
Hi RJ,
The story that I had heard was the sample provided in the Inside Story was actually the SECOND handwriting sample supplied by Kane. The first had been in a completely different handwriting than what was later shown to be his normal hand and when Gray asked for a second handwriting sample, he included that bit about sorry for the writing referring to the first sample.
I can't imagine how this eluded the authors of the Inside Story or why there was no mention that this was actually the second sample obtained from Kane and that both showed vastly different handwriting.
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 428
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 1:46 pm: | |
Hi Stephen,
I just want to make sure I understand fully what you mean. Obviously the past tedium of Caz and my spats should be kept off the board and I will gladly comply.
As long as I refrain from making comments about Caz specifically, I can of course continue commenting about the book?
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 349
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:08 pm: | |
Ally--Many thanks. It's the first I've heard of this earlier sample being in a different handwriting. Curiouser and curiouser.
Caz--I gotta disagree. To me, the "k's" I'm finding look very similar to the "z" shaped "k" in Devereux's will; but I'll post my examples and you can check them at your leisure. Is it really surprising that Barrett didn't seem to recognize Kane's name? (And actually, since you claim that Barrett is ignorant of the Diary's origins, why would that necessarily be relevant?) I seem to recall that Barrett also had no recollection of Liverpool Tales when questioned by Scotland Yard--even though they happened to have his personal copy of the pamphlet in their possession. RP |
Stephen P. Ryder
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3029
Registered: 10-1997
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:12 pm: | |
Ally -
You can continue discussing the diary as long as it doesn't devolve into the usual inane BS between you and Caz. Past experience tells me that's unlikely to happen, but feel free to give it a try.
But from now on, air your personal gripes elsewhere. Keep your posts substantive and there will be no problem.
Stephen P. Ryder, Editor
Casebook: Jack the Ripper |
Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 430
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:14 pm: | |
Oh ye of little faith.
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 431
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 2:48 pm: | |
Hi R.J.
I also agree that the handwriting looks remarkably similar, including the "I"s which I thought were distinct.
When you consider that there was apparently an earlier attempt to provide a handwriting sample that was different from his own handwriting, then I really don't understand how anyone can conclude that the case against Kane is not an avenue worthy of consideration.
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AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 970
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2004 - 4:46 pm: | |
Oh, I just woke up from a long dream.
But could anybody tell me Shirley Harrison's publishing history. I just have the feeling that I read a book from her a long time ago that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Something to do with 'strange gods' maybe? |
Robert Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 1:32 pm: | |
John and Ally,
I, too, am perfectly happy for my and your posts to be on the record.
Ally, John’s crusade is to persuade us that the “real James” could never have written a line of “Crashaw’s poem in his own diary”. I do, indeed, query whether John has any specific expertise to provide authoritative literary analyses of metaphysical poetry in the seventeenth century. I understand, that his PhD is on twentieth century subjects and, according to his expansive post of 17th March, his teaching covers some aspects of nineteenth and twentieth century literature.
John, yesterday, again insisted: “I’m an expert”, but the basis for that claim seems to be of a very general nature: “I teach literature at the university level for a living.” If he has special expertise on the metaphysical poets, I am sure, we will hear all about it in detail.
As to the job description and its “honest” presentation, I did check to see whether John was “Professor of Literature and Philosophy”. He has now admitted, he isn’t. I would say, at the least, that he had been misleading. I am pleased to see he has amended his casebook profile, but note, that his current declared occupation is even further removed from the truth.
Robert
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 244
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 6:19 am: | |
Just a quick one, Stephen, I promise.
You still here, Robert?
Can I make a suggestion?
Pornography. It relieves stress and it's less likely to make you look bad, since you use it in private.
For the last time, I am a professor at a large four year university who teaches literature and philosophy. In my old profile, I listed that as my "occupation" (which is what I was asked for). I was not listing any official work-title (which I have always been happy to specify for anyone interested). I have in no way been "misleading." My official areas of specialization include 19th and 20th century British and American literature, which includes teaching the Victorian period, and therefore I am fully qualified to speak about the place of Crashaw in the Victorian (and Modern) literary canons. You don't want someone specializing in Crashaw's work (although I have taught that in the past, too, and for a brief time was even married to someone who was one). No, you want someone who would know the likelihood of Maybrick reading Crashaw. Just because you don't like my expert opinion, all you can think of to do is attack me. That's fine (it seems to be your normal pattern of behavior, historically) -- but once again it demonstrates for everyone the intellectual poverty of your position.
And how anyone can even think to challenge the description I have now listed under "occupation" is beyond me.
This has been a blast, Robert. Not only are you a seductive charmer (I've used you in my own fantasies now for a week), but your willingness to wallow in such ugliness for no real reason that I can see makes you a very special kind of guy.
Enjoy the weekend,
--John
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 435
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 6:28 am: | |
Robert,
Whoo boy. I have a BA in English. At school, I have taught Language Arts. Because that's what they call it at some schools. My job title then, was Language Arts teacher. Not English Teacher even though that's what my degree states. If I were to go on and get a PhD and teach at a college, I would be a Literature Professor, because at college you take American Lit, British Lit, Lit. from the Romantic period. Literature, etc. Everyone who teaches those courses has a degree in English. So yes, John is a professor of literature, by virtue of the fact that A.) he has a PhD and B.) he teaches literature courses and C.) his contract says so. Also at the college level, there are many courses that there is not a degree for and the teachers who teach them are still professors.
He additionally has a large body of other professors to draw from which he stated that he used who specialized in the time period. He has resources regardless of what his job title is or isn't.
Hey John when I go to Tampa next week can I meet them? :-P
I personally thought it was a mistake for him to change his bio. It gave the impression that he had in fact done something wrong when I suspect his intention was just to humor you.
If John has a PhD alone in English Literature and could show that he had concentrated on the time period at question that would still qualify him to make a literary analysis of what the likelihood of an obscure work appearing in a common man's hournal was. Eveh if he had never taught a day in his life.
And now I am actually bored with the whole situation so I'll leave John to it should he chose.
(Message edited by ally on March 26, 2004)
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Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 270
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 6:41 am: | |
What puzzles me is that Mr Smith should spend such a lot of time picking over these details, without apparently being disturbed by the major discrepancies between the diary account and the historical record of the Ripper murders.
I raised a number of these previously, and his response to one of them was that he didn't know enough about the Ripper murders to comment. Wouldn't time be better spent researching these substantial difficulties with the diary, rather than researching the c.v.s of posters on this website in order to try to discredit them?
Chris Phillips
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 245
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 6:49 am: | |
Hi Ally,
We were writing at the same time.
Yes, I'm afraid it's gotten boring. But Robert has no arguments of his own, so discussing me seems to be all that's left for his cause. There's an unanswered question over on another of the diary threads, asked by Chris Phillips, which seems to make the possibility of an old forgery impossible. And someone even Robert must and would recognize as an irrefutable expert endorses this position in citations available there. So the old forgery idea seems dead. Now it's either modern hoax or real thing. We should get back to discussing that around the boards and not going on delightfully Nixonian smear campaigns and analyzing the syntax of each other's on-line personal profiles.
By the way, it's a shame Robert's own research skills were so lousy. There are a great many juicy skeletons in my closets (I need more than one) which would have shown everyone just what a shocking and scandalous life I have led.
"Juicy skeletons." What an odd phrase. Is that an oxymoron? I'm not sure.
Anyway, I'll go back to reading the words on the diary pages and Robert will go back to what it is he does with that forgery he owns and life will, I hope, get back to normal.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
Off to the rejoin the congregation,
--John
PS: Hi Chris! As you can see, I was just talking about you. It's a small world (though I wouldn't want to paint it).
Apologies to Stephen Wright for stealing his joke.
(Message edited by omlor on March 26, 2004) |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 930
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 9:55 am: | |
Hi RJ,
As you said yourself on the watch board, anecdotal evidence is a real bastard.
Firstly, do you know for certain that the Liverpool Tales pamphlet handed over to Scotland Yard in late 1993 by Tony Devereux’s daughter was Mike Barrett’s personal copy? The pamphlet was apparently borrowed from Tony sometime in 1991, and the story goes that his daughter was asked to return it because it belonged to Mike. Tony died in the August, but over two years later his daughter had still not returned the pamphlet to Mike, handing it straight over to the police instead.
Secondly (but for the umpteenth time), I don’t claim that Mike is ignorant of the diary’s origins at all. I don't know what he knows, or what he may only suspect. I simply question other people’s claims that he was involved in its creation. It’s not the same thing, even if I can't get it through to anyone.
Thirdly, have you thought to ask who obtained this alleged earlier Kane sample, when and under what circumstances? Has all the writing contained therein been confirmed and witnessed as wholly and exclusively Kane’s own, since the story goes that it is ‘vastly different’ from the second sample, and presumably also vastly different from the signature on Devereux’s will and the writing in the diary? If Kane was capable of disguising his handwriting out of all recognition, in order to produce this earlier sample, don’t you think it’s curious that he didn’t bother to use this undoubted talent for the diary, if he penned it himself?
Perhaps the Kane discussion (and anything else that can be traced back to the original 'Liverpool tales' told by Mike about Tony Devereux's role - amazing how everyone accepts Devereux with open arms in as much as the Kane theory depends on him) should now move to a more suitable thread if anyone is serious in going any further down what looks to me very much like a dead end.
Love,
Caz
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 436
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 10:46 am: | |
Again, I believe that the first handwriting sample was also given to Gray which is why I said he asked for a second handwriting sample. This is supported by the text of the handwriting sample in the Inside Story which indicates he had provided a sample already and was told by Gray that he would "hear no more". He clearly states that he had already provided writing.
As for why he wouldn't disguise his handwriting for the diary, disguising your handwriting for three sentences that say "Here's the sample you wanted, hope you're satisfied, " is not all that difficult. ( I am not claiming that's the actual text of the handwriting sample). Disguising your handwriting for a short paragraph is not at all on the same level as disguising your handwriting for an entire book. The more you write, the more likely it is that you will make production errors in your writing. Therefore, it would make more sense to write it in your regular hand and fudge a later handwriting sample. They really could have banked on the fact that since he was not in the group of bringing the Diary to light, no one would ever connect him to check his handwriting.
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R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 350
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 11:40 am: | |
Caz-- Didn't you already ask this on the old boards? I seem to recall that Melvin stated that the copy of Liverpool Tales produced by Scotland Yard via the Devereux sisters actually had Mike's signature on the inside cover. (Nick Warren would probably know.) At any rate, why would they lie about it?
As for the earlier sample of Kane's writing, I would have thought that my message above made it perfectly clear that I know nothing whatsoever about it. "If Kane was capable of disguising his handwriting out of all recognition, in order to produce this earlier sample, don’t you think it’s curious that he didn’t bother to use this undoubted talent for the diary, if he penned it himself?" No. (For the same reasons as Ally). On the otherhand, I would be curious to know why the heck he disguised his handwriting the first time around. I'm rather surprised that you aren't. RP
(Message edited by rjpalmer on March 26, 2004) |
R.J. Palmer
Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 351
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 1:01 pm: | |
Caz--Referring to RWE's Liverpool Tales: "That book, with MB's name in it, was eventually handed over to New Scotland Yard." --Paul Feldman, Final Chapter, pg. 155. Perhaps the signature could be confirmed. As I once noted, perhaps it was only a rubber-stamped "Ex Libris Bongo." But it seems doubtful the Devereux sisters would make it up. --RP |
Robert Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 12:45 pm: | |
Ally
You say: “If I were to go on to get a PhD and teach at a college, I would be a Literature Professor.” But John wrote on 19th March: “There’s no such thing as Professor of Literature.”
In Britain, being appointed to a professorship is the highest accolade. A university professor is at the very top of the academic tree. It is clear from what you write, that the title is applied far more widely and loosely in the USA.
John
You were pleased, were you, with your post at 06:19am on 26th March? Of course, you were.
Chris
Thanks for your advice about how my time could “be better spent”. But I think I will spend it in ways, other than you suggest.
All best,
Robert
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John V. Omlor
Inspector
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 248
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 26, 2004 - 5:50 pm: | |
Dear Robert,
Twice in one day. My heart's all aflutter.
Read my post again. What I said was that where I work that title does not exist. Professors of literature here are professors of English. Your confusing Ally's use of the phrase as a job description (an accurate one) with a formal title (which where I work does not exist). I teach in the English department. I teach literature. I listed myself as a professor (I am) and I included what I teach -- literature and philosophy (thus giving my occupation, which is what I was asked). I was not giving my official title (which I was not asked, and which would not have even occurred to me to do on such a general, online personal profile). I am happy to give my title (it's Adjunct Professor of English), but that's not what I was doing in my old profile.
Robert, my friend, Chris and everyone else who has written to me privately about this are right. The fact that you keep coming back to this in such a strange and desperate fashion, the fact that this is so important to you, can indicate only three possibilities. Either, 1. you have no other hope for your intellectually and ethically bankrupt position and this is all that is left for you despite the fact that it's both stupid and irrelevant (and even mistaken besides), 2. you think people care for some reason or that it is making you look good somehow, or 3. you are in love with me.
I think I know which one is most likely.
I've seen it before, Robert. Trust me, it's only a crush. It happens all the time. You'll get over it. I realize that right now that it seems like you'll die if you don't see me here on line, if you don't spark my words of response, if you don't get me to pay at least a little attention to you, if you don't feel like you are important to me and that I share your feelings of love and passion. But it'll fade. A week, maybe two, a month from now, you'll hardly remember the time we shared here. Just a few fleeting moments now and then will be all that remain, a twinkling phrase, a smile exchanged about one of our shared and special jokes, the butterflies in the pit of your stomach will return for a second or two and you'll have to catch your breath. But just like that, it'll be gone. You'll go back to your life, back to owning a forgery and digging up dirt on internet posters and all the rest, and I'll just be a shadow, a soft gray stain on your memory, a ship that passed too gently in the internet night.
I'm sorry, Robert but it has to be this way. We're two bald men who wear glasses and have no lives, we're just too much alike, what would people say?
But think of me dear Robert, and when you do...
be kind.
With the regret of a love that never was,
--John (breaking yet another heart)
(Message edited by omlor on March 26, 2004)
(Message edited by omlor on March 26, 2004) |
Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 940
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 12:50 pm: | |
Hi Ally,
But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? There is no evidence that Kane was able to ‘bank’ on anything. At least if he had owned up to penning the diary in 1999, or did so now, Robert Smith could sign him up immediately and promise him a lucrative book deal, leading to tv documentaries, movies – you name it. Citizen Kane the sequel if you will. I doubt the police would be interested since they would look fools for eliminating him all those years ago.
Anyway, as far as I recall, the original reasoning was that Kane’s initial refusal to give a sample of his handwriting at all was considered pretty damning. So there were presumably three attempts in total to obtain one: the first totally unsuccessful; the second far too limited, or, if we take the story you heard at face value, written wholly by Kane himself but too heavily disguised to allow a formal comparison with the diary; and the third substantial sample that, for whatever reason, the people who asked Alan Gray to acquire it failed to go the whole hog and get a forensic handwriting examiner’s report that could have allowed for Kane being their elusive penman.
Oddly I haven't seen too much condemnation of the failure to commission this particular test in order to support the Kane theory, so presumably even the latest sample did not conform to an expert's description of unlimited access to Kane's confirmed handwriting?
Hi RJ,
I would be very interested to know exactly how and when Mike’s signature was confirmed to be on the inside cover of the copy of Liverpool Tales which Tony’s daughter handed over to the police in October 1993. It’s a great pity a photocopy of this was not, or could not be obtained from the police by any of the investigators, while the pamphlet was knowingly in their possession. I have no idea how long the police would keep such an item, signed or not by its alleged owner.
But imagine you had borrowed this pamphlet from a close relative sometime in 1991 and that relative had died shortly afterwards. Two years down the line you hear this new Liverpool tale emanating from one Michael Barrett, a man you never knew to be a great bosom buddy of your late relative, which relative is suddenly in the frame for God knows what shenanigans in connection with the alleged written confession of James Maybrick to being Jack the Ripper. Mike is even claiming to have worked out the subject of the dodgy document from seeing Battlecrease mentioned in the Liverpool Tales he found in WH Smiths.
Moreover, you know you still have a copy of this same popular pamphlet, the one you borrowed in 1991 when you visited your relative and saw it in his home. You don’t believe for a second that he would have been mixed up in anything like this without your knowledge, but the implications of him possessing this particular pamphlet around the time Mike is claiming to have been given the diary by him don’t bear too much thinking about. So you own up to having a copy indoors, but you honestly believe it must have belonged to Mike, and that its presence in your relative’s home could have had nothing to do with him being involved with Mike’s dodgy diary.
So you see, without confirmation of Mike’s signature, we have nowhere more definite to go with this one.
And again, with Kane, if someone can confirm that there was an earlier sample in which he disguised his handwriting out of all recognition, I will start to be curious about why he might do such a thing. I just like to know as many facts as possible about someone’s actions, and the possible reasons behind them, before I start speculating and putting the worst possible interpretation on them, ie wilful profiting from a known forgery. I’m funny that way, but I don’t like it when people do it to me, so I try not to do it to anyone else.
Love,
Caz
PS As we’re still way off topic, if you or anyone else has any further related concerns which you would seriously like me to address, perhaps you would be kind enough to email me or choose another thread? Many thanks.
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 459
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 2:32 pm: | |
Caz,
Check "The Handwriting" thread. The earlier sample is pretty much confirmed now I'd think. And just out of curiousity, how do you choose which situations you will wait on to apply the worst possible interpretations on someone's motives? Because, it seems you apply the worst possible motives when it is convenient and wait to get a broader picture when it's not.
Just wondering is all,
Ally
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Caroline Anne Morris
Chief Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 947
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 10:37 am: | |
Hi Ally,
It 'seems' and 'when its convenient' is your own interpretation of my words and my motives, and we've been told to cut it out, so I'm not responding any further on this theme.
Love,
Caz
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Ally
Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 466
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 10:56 am: | |
Hi Caz,
That Kane handwriting sample is still there waiting for you to get curious.
Kisses,
Ally
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