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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 989
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 11:12 am: | 
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Jenni
I know you've always argued it's possible that the hoax was old, and just by chance the hoaxer had a penchant for obscure 17th-century verse, and just by chance the very same Crashaw quotation used by the hoaxer was picked out by the editor of the Sphere book, and on top of all that just by chance Barrett walked into the library and managed to pick the right book off the shelf and managed to find the right page, but ...
If we're talking about proving this was a modern hoax beyond reasonable doubt, in the juryroom sense - would you be happy, as Counsel for the Defence, resting your case on that series of events? What do you think the chances of an acquittal would be?
Chris Phillips
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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 990
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 11:18 am: |
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Sir Robert
I am extremely skeptical of what light the Crashaw quote sheds on Barrett's involvement, primarily because he has been unable to prove that he owned a copy of the Sphere book at the necessary time.
But all the palaver over whether he owned the Sphere book, and at what time, and whether he lodged it with his solicitor, and at what time, is a side show.
The crucial thing is that we know he was able to identify the quotation, when no one else could. If he wasn't involved, that must have happened by pure chance.
Even if you want to hold on to the possibility of an old hoax, don't you think it's much more likely that Barrett was able to identify the quotation because he was involved, than that the sequence of events I described in my post to Jenni took place?
Chris Phillips
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2398
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 11:53 am: |
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Hi Chris,
let me stop you there.
I don't think it is possible the hoax is old (once upon a time i did think this but not anymore).
I do think it is possible Mike found the quote in the book in the library the quote was in. Where I also think its possible the hoaxer found the quote. Just not necessarily at the same time!
Jenni |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1516
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 12:10 pm: |
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Hi Chris and Jeff and Jenni,
(There's no reason for me to say hi to Sir Robert, as he will no doubt continue to pretend my posts don't exist,-- I suppose because he still has no detailed, rational, evidenced, common sense responses to the arguments found within them. At least, that's the only mature reason I can think of.)
Now then, first things first. Jeff -- Look at it this way -- as you say, no one is willing to come here and offer any old hoax scenario that accounts for any (let alone all) of the textual difficulties in any rational way using any material, documentary, or even logical evidence. It's never been done. Ever. By anyone. Anywhere. To every single textual difficulty that exists, all we have ever heard from Sir Robert and others who want to keep the old hoax dream alive, is the prayer that "maybe there's something we just don't know about yet." On the other hand, the modern hoax theory has simple, common sense and evidenced explanations for all of these problems. So if it is a simple choice between which account is the more logical, the more evidenced, the more likely and even the more established, then it's no contest.
And that's all I'm saying here.
Meanwhile, I wrote you this paragraph:
"The diary mentions the specific name of an exclusively modern pub, it cites a text we know was available to the general public in a modern source, it includes modern letter formations in its handwriting, one of its discoverers was mysteriously able to identify a five word quotation using only a modern source, there is no record whatsoever of the book ever existing before modern times and the modern people who gave it to us have done nothing but lie about where it came from."
You cited it back to me and said,
"Again you deal out the same old stuff we've examined a thousand times before and again we have the enivitable answer. case NOT PROVEN."
But you have not offered us even a single piece of evidence concerning these facts that would allow us to come to any other conclusion in any legitimately logical way. All of these things have one clear aspect in common - they all point directly to a modern date of composition. So whether or not you think the "case" is "proven" is irrelevant to me. The evidence is what it is and no one ever has offered even a single documented logical and rational explanation for any of these indicators of a modern date of composition. And according to the laws of inductive logic, that allows for a perfectly valid conclusion, whether you agree with it or not.
Notice also that no one on these boards has been able to answer the five simple and direct questions I originally asked poor Sir Robert. He can't answer them with any reasonable evidenced answers. Neither can anyone else. If the old hoax dream had any substance behind it at all, each of these questions should be answerable. It has been demonstrated here that they are not.
Yet a modern hoax theory can answer all of them simply, easily, and directly.
Now, I'm quite happy if sensible people with logical minds come to the conclusion that obviously follows from all of this.
Meanwhile, I still wish you the best of luck with getting the whole book finally thoroughly and properly tested in a laboratory that has all the latest technology.
Keep trying.
Finally, another poster writes this:
"I think that when you cut through to the heart of the Diary whodunnit, it comes to an up or down vote on Mike Barrett."
And it's nice that he thinks that, but clearly there is a good deal more being discussed here than just the "whodunnit" question. Determining when the book was written (since we already know it's a fake), can be done in any number of ways that do not require the naming of a penman.
Reading the text is a good beginning -- and there is plenty in the text that an old hoax dream has NEVER been able to account for in any evidenced way and which clearly indicates a modern date of composition.
So he can base his beliefs about the diary on some sort of general impression about a single person and what they might or might not have once been capable of producing. I prefer careful reading of the text, evidence, documents we know about, material arguments and logic myself.
And I'm happy with my relative position within that distinction between us.
Enjoying how this is turning out, even while being delightfully ignored by the few,
--John
(Message edited by omlor on May 13, 2005) |
Jeff Leahy
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 141
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 12:39 pm: |
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Not the court of law thing again....
Evreyone put there hands up and the position with the most votes gets to be the truth....vomit.
Look we just want answers to an enigmatic question.....and I really dont care who votes for what, I just want to get at to the truth.
The truth so far is that know body knows or has a diffinative answer. And frankly my dear I dont give a dam* how many people are voting for a modern hoax.
Sir Roberts and Caz's position seem fairly clear to me...that is..'It has not been proved the diary is a modern hoax or that Barrett created it.'
Anything else you choose to take out of that statement is an interpretation. You are creating an old hoax conspiracy that doesnt exist.
Othre people are saying hey we dont know..lets do tests and find out...it is the 'Modern hoax theorists that are saying lets do tests and prove its a modern hoax.
We've been over and over the crashaw quote and tin match box emptie and however you stack the cards it comes up, case not proven. Dont know. we cant guess the probabilities without more information. We just dont know.
Caz and Rob arn't saying the diaries are an old Hoax, their saying their not sure its a modern hoax, which to me is a completely different thing.
The evidence as you are so often pointing out sujests a modern hoax, yes, but that is a million miles from saying it is a modern hoax, or not questioning the holes in that argument or the unlikely hood for Barrett producing the diary....
Can you not see that..and that is why we need to do new tests with an open mind. Not just any old tests but tests that will finally prove who wrote the diary...even if that person was James Maybrick (chris has heart attack).
Its a question of balancing the argument until someone can come up with proof.
There are no old hoax advocists just people not convinced that it is deffinately a Modern Hoax produced by Mike Barrett..
That I beleive is the current situation of the two sides of the current argument.
Jeff |
Carolyn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Carolyn
Post Number: 85
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 12:47 pm: |
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Hello,
Gertrude Stein said it best..."A hoax is a hoax is a hoax'
Oh wait, that was a rose, never mind! 
Cheers,
Carolyn |
Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 991
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 12:59 pm: |
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Jeff and Jenni
As I've said many times, there are very few things that's it's possible to prove or disprove absolutely.
Unless you're willing to talk about probabilities, it's not really feasible to have a sensible discussion.
After all, Jenni has seen Sir Robert's "explanations" for "tin match box empty", and no one can say they aren't possible (they obey the laws of physics!). But Jenni is still persuaded by the evidence, because she thinks the explanation is so unlikely it can be disregarded.
To say anything meaningful, we have to be prepared to look at the explanations that are put forward, and make some decisions about their likelihood. We have to be prepared to say whether these ideas are credible, or whether they're sufficently unlikely that they can be disregarded.
Jeff - if you were called up for jury service, you couldn't just look at any old c*ck-and-bull story the Defence had offered up and say "The truth so far is that know body knows or has a diffinative answer". You'd eventually have to reach a judgment on how credible counsel's argument was, and vote accordingly.
Chris Phillips
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Jeff Leahy
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 143
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 1:02 pm: |
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Would smell as sweet by any other name xxx
Goodnight sweet love...can hear the lark approach...and off with the envious moon.
have a good weekend Jeff |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1517
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 1:13 pm: |
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Jeff,
As you know, there all sorts of proof. Logical proof, even an inductive proof based on a preponderance of the evidence, evidence in a text which without exception points in a single direction, allows for a perfectly valid conclusion. You might not think it does, but it does.
So Caroline and Robert can offer prayers and dreams about "maybe there's just stuff we don't know about yet" all they want. But that does not alter the long list of documented material indications of a modern date of composition.
If the only sort of proof you are willing to accept as proof is scientific proof, that's fine. Get the tests done and then we'll talk. But fortunately, there are plenty of other people who recognize that there are plenty of other perfectly valid sorts of proof, including close careful detailed reading of the text for indications of its composition date. Each and every one of those indications in this case can be explained simply and logically if the diary is modern. None can be explained in any rational evidenced way under any other scenario.
You say, "There are no old hoax advocists..."
And I can certainly understand why that would be the case, given the evidence found in the text. But I'm afraid you are not quite right, given the record here.
Anyway, it doesn't matter whether the old hoax advocates exist or not. Since they would have no evidenced explanations for any of the difficulties in the text and since no one here is able to answer the five simple questions I have asked, whether or not advocates of the old hoax dream really exist becomes immaterial. There is no material evidence of any sort concerning these particular facts in question to support any other alternative.
And once again, you have not offered any alternative evidenced explanations for any of these problems, so the evidence stands exactly as I have described it and the most logical choice concerning the date of the diary's composition remains obvious.
Sorry,
--John
PS: Carolyn. Indeed. And that's certainly what we have here. Thanks for the always useful reminder, which keeps things in perspective.
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 412
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 1:29 pm: |
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"After all, Jenni has seen Sir Robert's "explanations" for "tin match box empty", and no one can say they aren't possible (they obey the laws of physics!)"
Spare me the sarcasm. My contention is that the police would not have given their only copy of Eddowes' possessions to the coroner; that they would have in fact retained more than a few copies of said inventory in their files, and they would have sent copies to more than a few interested parties. The coroner's report, with the list attached, would also have been widely distributed within law enforcement circles. These copies would have been subject to different disclosure rules than the coroner's office.
What I am saying is that people that believe the "tin match box, empty" is a fatal blow because the inventory was locked up sight unseen in the coroners' sealed files are really stretching common sense.
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1518
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 1:55 pm: |
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Once again Sir Robert, amidst the invocation of the usual but still unevidenced "maybe there's something we just don't know about yet" argument, mentions the "fatal blow" criteria.
So, once again, despite the fact that he can't bring himself to acknowledge my presence or answer the simple logical questions I have asked him, I must return and insist that this is not the way theories work. To save my wrist, I'll just cut and paste.
As any student of logic and induction knows, you don't build a theory around a single piece of evidence or a single "link." That's the whole point. A theory is developed when all the ideas or links are taken together. And in this case, when ALL the ideas or links in the text are taken together, the modern hoax theory accounts for ALL of them with documents, evidence, and simple common sense answers and the old hoax dream cannot account for any of them with anything but prayer. Perhaps that’s why it’s never been written down.
So, although Sir Robert remains completely unable to answer the five simple questions I have asked here -- an inability that in itself demonstrates the problem inherent in any theory of any date of composition other than a modern one, the comparison between what we know for sure and what we don't know remains crucial.
To this end, here's some more cutting and pasting.
There IS a Poste House in Liverpool in modern times (we know that for sure).
AND
The TinMBE line and the rest of the inventory were in an available modern Ripper book (we know that for sure).
AND
Dr. Baxendale confirms that there are modern letter formations mixed into the handwriting (we know that for sure).
AND
Mike was the first one to give us both the Crashaw quote and tell us about the modern Sphere Guide (we know that for sure).
AND
The people who brought the book forward have lied about where it came from since the beginning (we know that for sure).
AND
It's over ten years and there is still no verifiable provenance for the book (we know that for sure).
Of all of these (and more), how many can the old hoax theory explain using stuff they know for sure?
None.
That’s right. Not a single one.
In each and every one of these cases, where there is evidence to support a modern hoax theory, the old hoax dream can only say, "well, maybe there’s something we just don’t know about."
It’s a dream based entirely on what we don’t know.
As opposed to an evidenced theory based on what we do know.
And that hasn’t changed one bit in the past two hours or two days or two weeks or two years.
The old hoax dream still can’t explain any of the textual difficulties using any real evidence whatsoever. And so it tries to offer hopes and wishes for each single one, hoping that no one will notice the cumulative effect.
Here in the playground, with the facts, but still being ignored,
--John
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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 992
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 1:59 pm: |
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Sir Robert
It isn't sarcasm.
I'm drawing a distinction between what's theoretically possible and what's actually likely.
The problem is that when I ask you whether you really think these constructions of yours are likely, you just clam up, so we're left on the "laws of physics" level.
For example, I've asked - why on earth would Shirley Harrison have secretly fed Mike Barrett information about the Crashaw quotation, when it makes the diary look like a modern hoax, despite the fact that she wants it to be genuine? It makes no sense.
Or if your idea - I'm tempted to call it a fantasy, as you've been unable to offer any evidence whatsoever in its favour, or cite any example of a copy being made of any comparable document - about the Eddowes inventory being "widely distributed" were true, what sort of hoaxer would be astute enough to track down a copy in an archive - which no other Ripper researcher has been able to do before or since - but stupid enough to quote from it verbatim, marking the diary down as an obvious fake? It makes no sense.
If you really expect people to find these "explanations" remotely credible, these are the questions you have to answer.
Until you do answer them, don't be surprised if the rest of us are sceptical.
Chris Phillips
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David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 874
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 3:07 pm: |
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Hi all,
Robert wrote: "My contention is that the police would not have given their only copy of Eddowes' possessions to the coroner; that they would have in fact retained more than a few copies of said inventory in their files, and they would have sent copies to more than a few interested parties. The coroner's report, with the list attached, would also have been widely distributed within law enforcement circles. These copies would have been subject to different disclosure rules than the coroner's office."
So that's Robert's contention, but since Robert's not a member of the Met, a coroner, or with the Home Office (I assume), sources for this information would be helpful. I'm particularly interested in the disclosure rules. Where does that come from?
Dave |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1519
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 3:48 pm: |
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Hi Dave,
No fair asking for actual documented evidence or the full citing of specific sources.
In these parts, some even consider it rude.
Still, let's see what you get,
--John  |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2400
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 4:08 pm: |
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Hi Robert,
Comments about things being possible are very definately aimed at me!
Jenni
ps isnt that right? |
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 413
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 5:24 pm: |
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"Or if your idea - I'm tempted to call it a fantasy, as you've been unable to offer any evidence whatsoever in its favour, or cite any example of a copy being made of any comparable document"
Do you really believe that the police would make a report of Eddowes' possessions -- which might include objects left behind by the murderer -- and give their SOLE copy to the coroner's office? And that the coroner's report, which had the inventory attached to it, existed in ONE COPY, and one copy only?
Forget the Diary for a minute. Do you really believe this was the case?
Do you think Warren and the Yard just might want to know what was found at the scene of the crime?
Would the divisional and provincial forces have cared to know, especially in the immediate aftermath of the murder? They were trying to identify the body and the physical description as well as the description of her clothes and possessions might have been useful in the event that someone reported a missing person.
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 875
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 5:57 pm: |
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Hi John,
By the way, I should have said City Police, not the Met in my earlier post. It's not that I don't think the City didn't have their own copy (I think it's reasonable to think they kept or were supplied one); my skepticism comes in with a hoaxer being able to get to it. I'm sure the City, like coroners, the Home Office, and Met. Police, had a procedure for priveliged access, but what was it?
As the National Archives explained closure to me, there was a standard 100 year closure on all records relating to criminal cases, before and after the Public Records Act 1958. That covered the Home Office files and the Metropolitan Police files. It would also cover the City of London police files, right? So when Robert claims different rules for an inventory list in the City files, I believe he's mistaken.
Incidentally, what's the history of the City's files? I notice in Ultimate's chapter notes on "The Murder of Catherine Eddowes", all the sources are Home Office and Met Police files (and the Littlechild letter). Nothing seems to be coming out of the City archives. Am I right those files are no longer in existence?
Cheers,
Dave
(Message edited by oberlin on May 13, 2005) |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1520
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 6:19 pm: |
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Hi Dave,
Thanks for the info. And as you can see, Sir Robert has responded and offered absolutely no evidence of any kind to support his assertion and cited no source whatsoever for his information.
Is anyone surprised?
Business as usual here in DW,
--John
PS: Meanwhile, of course, we do know where the police inventory certainly could be found by a hoaxer, don't we? But the obvious remains too easy for some folks.
PPS: I have not heard anything about any availability of any City files either. I'd ask Sir Robert myself, but he's still playing his silly little game of pretending I'm not here. So if you can't get an answer, that must mean he doesn't have a source and just made this up.
(Message edited by omlor on May 13, 2005) |
David O'Flaherty
Chief Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 876
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 6:53 pm: |
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"Meanwhile, of course, we do know where the police inventory certainly could be found by a hoaxer, don't we? But the obvious remains too easy for some folks."
People like mysteries; it's human nature, I guess. You know, back in the day when Hasselhof and I used to work our Lone Ranger and Tonto routine at Chippendale's, I found my tips increased whenever I wore my mask.
Cheers,
Dave |
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 414
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 6:54 pm: |
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"It would also cover the City of London police files, right? So when Robert claims different rules for an inventory list in the City files, I believe he's mistaken. "
You could well be right, Dave. Somewhere in my notes I believe that I have scribbled that the CID disclosure rules where different, but let's look into it. And I am not minimizing your point when I say that I believe posters on this board are greatly underestimating how many eyeballs would have gotten a look at the inventory. We've already seen that some variants of it were supplied to the press.
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1521
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 13, 2005 - 7:49 pm: |
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Well Dave,
At least you get an answer. Of course, you don't get any actual evidence and you certainly don't get any sources cited, but perhaps that was expecting too much after all.
Yes, I know what you mean about insisting on mysteries when the obvious explanation is staring one in the face. Sometimes people prefer the mask. Of course, it doesn't change the obvious, common sense, logical explanation. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that one scenario accounts for all of the textual problems without exception using real evidence, clear logic and simple common sense and the other can't account for any of them except by saying "really, maybe there's just stuff we don't know about yet." The preponderance of the textual evidence remains completely intact and continues to indicate a modern date of composition. There is an accumulation of moments such as this one in the book that cannot be explained via any actual, real evidence unless the text was written in modern times. Therefore, the question of which scenario, in the end, is far and away the most likely one remains perfectly clear.
So all that's left is the endless, pointless circle dance that will continue here tomorrow with the same signatures including my own,
--John
PS: We certainly have not seen the tin matchbox line appearing anywhere in the press at any point in the distant past. But we have seen it appearing in a generally available modern book, haven't we? The facts. They remain sticky things. |
Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 994
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 3:45 am: |
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Sir Robert
"Or if your idea - I'm tempted to call it a fantasy, as you've been unable to offer any evidence whatsoever in its favour, or cite any example of a copy being made of any comparable document"
What is it with you people in Maybrickland and your penchant for snipping quotations selectively?
This is what I wrote:
Or if your idea - I'm tempted to call it a fantasy, as you've been unable to offer any evidence whatsoever in its favour, or cite any example of a copy being made of any comparable document - about the Eddowes inventory being "widely distributed" were true, ...
[emphasis added]
I don't know whether a single copy would have been retained by the City Police - we've seen no evidence about the normal procedure, and you can't provide any examples of comparable documents that were copied - but I'm absolutely surely the inventory wasn't "widely distributed".
Unless someone can show me some proof to the contrary, I don't believe 19th-century administrators did routinely copy documents in the way you've suggested. The labour involved would have been far too great.
By the way, weren't the City Police records destroyed in the Blitz? That's what I seem to remember reading.
Chris Phillips
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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 995
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:17 am: |
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Sir Robert
Anyhow, I'm still as much in the dark as ever about the reason why you think it's more likely to be an old hoax than a new hoax.
I take it that for all the argument over "tin match box empty" and the Crashaw quotation, you wouldn't consider your alternative explanations, if taken in isolation, more likely than the obvious alternatives - that the former came from Fido's book, and the latter from the Sphere book?
You say "NOTHING I have read ... leads me to believe that Barrett is our man" (and you discount his identification of the Crashaw quotation on the rather illogical grounds that "he has been unable to prove that he owned a copy of the Sphere book at the necessary time" [my emphasis]). But how can this "nothing", this absence of evidence, point towards an old hoax? And even if you had some positive reason to think Barrett was not our man, that wouldn't indicate the hoax was old, would it?
Surely, if you consider that the hoax is likely to be old, you must have some reason for your opinion. Presumably this is it:
This has all been discussed before, but the "old hoax" school of thought looks at the tests done to date, and while saying that further works needs to be done, point to the tests as indicating a degree of aging for the artifacts.
But which tests is it that you find convincing?
The ion migration tests? Voller's opinion, based on his brief visual examination? Both of these seem to have huge question marks hanging over them.
Are there some other tests indicating the hoax was old, that I don't know about?
Chris Phillips
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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 997
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 5:44 am: |
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If somebody does think this is sufficiently important to follow up, of course the relevant census to look at would be 1891, not 1871. But if Hammersmiths are found there, I would recommend checking that the transcript is correct.
As the search comes free, I did look at the 1891 census index for Hammersmiths. As it's really nothing to do with ink, I've posted the results on the proper "Mrs Hammersmith" thread:
http://casebook.org/cgi-bin/forum/show.cgi?tpc=4922&post=130328#POST130328
Chris Phillips
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 415
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 10:55 am: |
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"Unless someone can show me some proof to the contrary, I don't believe 19th-century administrators did routinely copy documents in the way you've suggested. The labour involved would have been far too great. "
I am astonished at the contortions the modern hoax theorists put themselves through at times.
If you wish to believe that the Met, the CID, and the Yard didn't make copies of documents for each other -- or for that matter, themselves -- in a case that was as high profile as this, then I just can't help you. The notion that the sole copy of the inventory was attached to the coroner’s papers, never to be seen again by mortal eyes until Fido transcribed them is laughable.
Do you really believe Warren didn't care to know what was found at the scene of the crime?
As I said to Dave, forget the Diary for a moment. Does what you are contending fit with common sense, let alone bureaucratic norms???
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Chris Phillips
Chief Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 998
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 11:27 am: |
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Sir Robert
Unless you're willing to provide us with some kind of back-up for all these claims you're making - or at least give us some sort of reason for your insistence that the hoax is probably an old one - there's really not much point in continuing the discussion.
On this question of whether Victorian bureaucrats "widely distributed" copies of handwritten documents like this, to be blunt I think I have a lot more experience than you of research in English archives, and I think it's a ridiculous notion.
Chris Phillips
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1523
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 11:29 am: |
|
Still no actual evidence. Still no source for any claim. Still no documents cited to support any argument.
Of course, a modern hoax scenario needs no such contortions, since there is a book, published in 1987, that contains the tin matchbox line as well as the items next to it on the list that all appear next to each other in the diary. And that book not only contains the line in question(which still no one has ever found anywhere in the press reports) and the other items in the diary, but offers them separated, excerpted, and printed in bold face at the top of page 70 where any modern hoaxer could quite easily have seen them.
Sir Robert still is utterly unable to answer the five simple questions I have asked him repeatedly, which demonstrates all anyone needs to know about the lack of real, material substance supporting any old hoax dream.
And he offers no sensible response to Chris's fine set of questions four posts up.
David O'Flaherty has done a thorough and admirable job researching and presenting the facts concerning the history of the availability of the list to the public and the rules of disclosure.
Sir Robert has offered nothing by way of actual sources or actual research or actual evidence to support any alternative scenario for an old hoaxer seeing the list and putting it in the book.
One set of conclusions then is based on research and solid sources. The other remains a wish, a hope, the desperate plea that "maybe there was something out there we just don't know about yet."
And so we march on, without any of the diary's many textual difficulties being explainable using real evidence if the book is old and with ALL of them being easily explainable using already conducted research, known documents and evidence as well as simple logic, if the book is modern.
And Sir Robert (who is still on the playground pretending not to see me) can't seem to change that situation.
And still the modern hoax scenario is still far and away the most likely one given all the textual evidence which an old hoax dream remains completely unable to account for using any real evidence whatsoever.
You can pretend the facts aren't there -- the rules of disclosure, the line not being found anywhere in the press, the line being in the modern book, the list being used in the diary's composition, the modern pub name being offered precisely, the modern letter formations being in the text, Mike giving us the source of the Crashaw quote from a modern secondary source, the lack of any verifiable provenance for the book before modern times, the lies told by the people who gave it to us and all the rest -- but the facts won't disappear because you can't handle them. The facts won't just go away because they can't be explained. And the facts won't go away just because you pretend they are not there and do not add up to a valid inductive conclusion concerning the likeliest date of the text's composition.
It's a telling strategy now being employed by those who can't deal with all of the problems in the text. And it suggests to me that we are on the right track concerning what this book can tell us in its own words.
Thanks, Sir Robert, for the shove,
--John
PS: Hi Chris, sorry for the cross-posting. I noticed that although we get a word or two about "common sense" this morning from Sir Robert, he won't answer your questions concerning which scenario makes the most common sense. I'm not surprised.
(Message edited by omlor on May 14, 2005) |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2406
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 11:38 am: |
|
Hello friends,
yes i believe the city police records were destroyed in the blitz.
I might as well ask again, if anyone other than James Maybrick's handwriting has ever been professionally compared to the diary?
of course i am thinking of specific people (or a specific person) but really has anyone elses at all been compared?
Jenni
ps for some reason I keep putting dairy to day, sorry if one slipped through! |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2407
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 11:39 am: |
|
I think theres something we need to clear up, when we are talking about an old hoax, is that different from what we might call a contemporary hoax? |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1747
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 12:40 pm: |
|
Hi Chris,
Despite the impression you may have got, one person who doesn't think the diary is either genuine or old is Caroline Morris. Circa 2000, she was happy to say she thought it was clearly a fake, and even that Melvin Harris had all but proved that the hoax was modern, and that the "old hoax" theory lacked credibility. When invited recently to say whether her views had changed, she declined. So I think it's reasonable to assume she still believes it's a modern hoax, but tries to keep these discussions going for her own reasons.
You may think it’s reasonable to make assumptions about my current views on the diary’s origins, by referring back to some post of mine from five years ago; I don’t.
You may think it’s reasonable to accuse me of trying ‘to keep these discussions going’ for my own reasons (even though it’s obvious I don’t have to ‘try’ - I don’t notice any slackening off in Diary Land whenever I’m away living my life); I don’t.
Anyone else might feel deeply insulted by your continuing speculation about my motives for posting, based on assumptions about my current views. I just think it shows lack of conviction about a less than watertight theory, if you keep leaving your arguments to one side while you take personal swipes at your debating opponent, even after Stephen's warning. I am fully entitled to go on questioning the various unproven modern hoax claims, as I have from day one. You are not entitled to impugn my motives (and thereby my character) for doing so; only my arguments. So back off.
The day I think you’ve proved the diary modern, beyond all reasonable doubt in my mind, I’ll let you know.
What I will tell you (and please do remember this one in five years from now, and feel free to remind everyone of it) is that I believe all the ‘evidence’ you think you have now, for the diary being a post-1987 creation, is all you will ever have. I don’t have to tell the modern hoax believers to make the most of it; they are already doing so on a daily basis, for all their typing digits are worth. The archives must be groaning under the weight of repeated words by now, saying nothing new and nothing real about the diary’s whereabouts up to April 1992.
You must think I have an awful lot of power, if you blame this on my efforts to keep the discussion going. I'm sorry to disappoint you. The person who has made by far the most effort to keep the archives full of repetition spelled out the personal motivation for his own posting behaviour a while back, in terms that left no room for any misinterpretation.
Love,
Caz
X |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1525
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 12:43 pm: |
|
Hi Jenni,
Well, I suppose "contemporary" would mean around the time of the murders -- but it sure seems to me that the diary is clearly written after James has died (it even seems to know the outcome beforehand) and, after the trial and its celebrated revelations, several of which appear in the book.
So, just as a bit of DiTA fun, let's come up with some possible very old hoax scenarios, remembering that we know the author used the inventory list (same specific items right next to each other in both documents) and wasn't James (wrong handwriting entirely).
Hmmmm...
I suppose the coroner could have written the diary. Perhaps he was really Jack (medical knowledge and all) and wanted to pin his killings on someone else, someone already dead, but then hid the book so well that no one found it for over a hundred years (Homer says, "D'oh!").
No, wait.
Maybe some mysterious retired police detective who had his very own copy of the list wrote the diary. Not because he was Jack you understand, but because his pension sucked and he thought he could, I don't know, sell it as a discovery or blackmail the Maybrick family or something. But then he died of a mysterious sudden illness (or perhaps he was even MURDERED!) and so could not cash in on his most excellent plan and he left the book in a Liverpool pub where no one found it for over a hundred years.
OK, maybe not.
Oh, I know, maybe Lewis Carroll really WAS Jack after all, and HE wrote the diary as an elaborate fictional game and as a way of throwing attention towards another suspect, and his secretly citing his own novel with the "'tis love" lines was just a little joke between him and his mysterious and murderous My Hyde other self.
Or not.
Wait, here's one. Maybe Mike Maybrick, James's famous composer brother, was really Jack (you know, the killer with the song in his heart) and HE wrote the diary to frame his dead brother because hey, his brother's dead anyway, you know, so what they heck, and then he used his influence as famous composer guy to get his very own copy of the police inventory and then stuck it in the diary, even though he was the killer and wouldn't have needed it, because... Well, because... Uh... OK, maybe not. Damn, for a minute there I thought we might be able to make a buck or two.
Oh, of course. I know.
Maybe a big and powerful MASON used their contacts at the police department to get their very own xeroxed copy of the police list with the matchbox line in it because the MASONS actually wrote the diary as a way to send people off the track and after James when suspicion arose that they were behind the killings (because some poor slob with a piece of chalk couldn't spell Jews).
OK, that can't be right. There'd already be a book by now.
Hey, but wait.
Maybe Warren himself was Jack and HE wrote the diary. He got a copy of the list from the coroner just to add a touch of official language to the thing and pinned the whole deal on Maybrick but then decided to have the whole book erased at the last minute only he couldn't figure out how to erase ink.
Nah, probably not.
Man, this is tough.
Well, I guess the only answer is that James wrote it. That he really did have some weird strain of unnoticeable MPD after all and that he also couldn't remember the details of his own killings and that he somehow acquired his own copy of an unpublished police document about his own murders and used it in the diary even though he had done the killings himself and that then he hid the book somewhere really really cool so that no one would find it until at last a hundred years later it fell from the top floor of a building one day and hit Mike Barret in the head as he was walking down a city street.
Yes, by far that's the most likely explanation. Now if we could just figure out how James could predict the future...
Somehow someway we'll have our movie yet,
--John |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1526
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 12:53 pm: |
|
Awwww man,
While I was having all that fun, Caroline showed up and offered no actual evidence from the text to support any scenario or date of composition other than a modern one, and offered no response to the five simple questions that remain unanswerable apparently for any old hoax scenario, and offered nothing much really, except a slap at Chris for his accurately citing her earlier words to him.
But she did offer us this:
"The person who has made by far the most effort to keep the archives full of repetition spelled out the personal motivation for his own posting behaviour a while back, in terms that left no room for any misinterpretation."
Oooohhhh. 
Who could she mean?
Who is this mysterious and unnamed stranger she has created for us?
Why does he remain anonymous, a figure shrouded in the darkness of her sly and hinting rhetoric?
What evil thing has he said about his own "motivation" or "behavior" that lurks so in Caroline's mind, but which she can't bring herself to show us?
My curiosity is piqued.
I'm all a tingle with this new mystery.
Perhaps revelations will soon be coming.
Fearing the rapture,
--John |
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 416
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 12:55 pm: |
|
"On this question of whether Victorian bureaucrats "widely distributed" copies of handwritten documents like this, to be blunt I think I have a lot more experience than you of research in English archives, and I think it's a ridiculous notion."
The "Single Copy Theory" is a real doozy.
Am I to conclude from this that you believe the detectives at the Met, the CID , as well as the bureaucracy at the Yard, were all kept in the dark as to what was found at the scene of the crime?
That Warren and Anderson et al were not informed of the coroner's report ?
That seems to me to be what you are claiming. If I have missed something, let me know.
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
|
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 417
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:02 pm: |
|
"when we are talking about an old hoax, is that different from what we might call a contemporary hoax?"
I would hope so.
Personally, I cast a wide net, and define "old hoax" as "created before Barrett got his mitts on it".
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
|
Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1001
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:03 pm: |
|
Caroline Morris
You are not entitled to impugn my motives (and thereby my character) for doing so; only my arguments. So back off.
Well, if you feel that's what I'm doing, I'll give you yet another opportunity to make your position clear.
Have you changed your mind, since you posted that you were in no doubt that the diary was a hoax?
Have you changed your mind, since you posted that the case for a modern hoax was all but proved, and the case for an old hoax lacked credibility?
If you decline to answer, and if you continue to act as you have been acting, you can hardly complain if people draw unfavourable conclusions about your integrity.
Chris Phillips
|
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1527
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:04 pm: |
|
Chris,
Perhaps Sir Robert did not notice you quoting the phrase "widely distributed" and that's why he posted this response. And yet he cited you using the phrase. What an odd way of reading.
Anyway, he's not much fun is he?
Besides, I've already argued that Warren not only got a copy of the thing but used it in the diary when he was trying to frame Maybrick.
There's just no pleasing some people.
I mean, OK rules are rules, and David has done fine research and told us what they were and Robert has no evidence whatsoever that any old hoaxer could have actually seen the line or that it appeared anywhere in the press, but still, we have all those other possibilities I have offered Jenni above, right?
Celebrating the lunacy of desperation as I wave to Sir Robert from the shadows,
--John (AKA the invisible man) |
Chris Phillips
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 1002
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:23 pm: |
|
Sir Robert
That seems to me to be what you are claiming. If I have missed something, let me know.
What I am claiming is that you have shown us not one shred of evidence that a single copy was made of this document, or any comparable document, let alone copies of it having been "widely distributed".
You have shown us not one shred of evidence that there was any suspicion that the Ripper "planted" any of these items on Eddowes, or that the inventory would have been considered to be of any conceivable practical importance in the detection of the crime.
You have shown us not one shred of evidence that if there were other copies, a hoaxer in the 1880s, or the 1930s, or the 1950s, or at any time before the 1980s, would have been permitted to see them, any more than they would have been permitted to see the original that we know about.
You have suggested no conceivable reason why the hoaxer would have gone to the immense trouble of conducting archival research at a time when no other Ripperologist was doing so, or why having done so he would have quoted the inventory in such a stupid way as to prove the diary was a hoax.
You haven't told us what has become of all these copies of the inventory that you imagine were made. Can you find a single one of them? If you can't, how do you suppose the hoaxer managed to do so, at a time when they wouldn't even have been open to public inspection, let alone catalogued, indexed, or included in a searchable Internet database?
Do you really expect people to believe all these fantastic speculations, in preference to the straightfoward, obvious explanation - that the hoaxer simply copied the phrase out of Fido's book?
Chris Phillips
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2410
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:47 pm: |
|
Hi Caroline,
What I will tell you (and please do remember this one in five years from now, and feel free to remind everyone of it) is that I believe all the ‘evidence’ you think you have now, for the diary being a post-1987 creation, is all you will ever have. I don’t have to tell the modern hoax believers to make the most of it; they are already doing so on a daily basis, for all their typing digits are worth. The archives must be groaning under the weight of repeated words by now, saying nothing new and nothing real about the diary’s whereabouts up to April 1992
are you suggesting one day we'll have egg on our collective faces?
Jenni |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2411
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:49 pm: |
|
Hi John,
all i was getting at is the old hoax suggestions dont seem to point at a specific date. Some are contemporary sounding some are later (1921) etc
Jenni |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2412
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 1:58 pm: |
|
SRA,
the single copy theory may be dozy.
But I do recall asking you more than once what evidence there was...
oh never mind,
i accept there might have been other copies that we dont know about. i accept it is unlikely there was only one copy. there is only one copy now though i'm sure we agree to that much?
Jenni |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1529
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 3:54 pm: |
|
Jenni,
I recognize the difference between contemporary and old, I guess. But aren't those very old scenarios I've sketched out for you above at least possible?
--John
PS: Sir Robert, you will remember, has offered us no evidence that any old hoaxer could have seen either the list or the matchbox line. And David has chronicled the rules of disclosure for us pretty well. Meanwhile, we sure do know who could have, don't we? Readers of modern Ripper books. |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2414
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:49 pm: |
|
Oh John,
go on then,
I suppose the coroner could have written the diary. Perhaps he was really Jack (medical knowledge and all) and wanted to pin his killings on someone else, someone already dead, but then hid the book so well that no one found it for over a hundred years
possible?
Lets assume for one moment Coroner Langham wrote the diary - maybe he was a Florence Maybrick supporter, right?
I think handwritng analysis would rule him in or out.
And of course John, you'd have to explain how the diary got from London 1888 to Liverpool in 1992. But these are small matters.
Think about the inaccuracies in the diary (ALL of them) now clearly tmbe would be solved by this, but only in isolation.
happen to know if Langham was a Crashaw fan (obviously that ones still possible)
Surely Coroner Langham a contemporary of Michael Maybrick would know just what it was he was famous for? Of course again it's possible the Coroner was an idiot.
What about the intials. Did the Coroner have access to the kelly photo?
Jenni
os like I say handwritng analysis can solve this one - it's easy! |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2415
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:50 pm: |
|
Maybe some mysterious retired police detective who had his very own copy of the list wrote the diary. Not because he was Jack you understand, but because his pension sucked and he thought he could, I don't know, sell it as a discovery or blackmail the Maybrick family or something. But then he died of a mysterious sudden illness (or perhaps he was even MURDERED!) and so could not cash in on his most excellent plan and he left the book in a Liverpool pub where no one found it for over a hundred years.
Possible...
unlikely, extremely hard to disprove in any real sense.
But possible |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2416
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:53 pm: |
|
Oh, I know, maybe Lewis Carroll really WAS Jack after all, and HE wrote the diary as an elaborate fictional game and as a way of throwing attention towards another suspect, and his secretly citing his own novel with the "'tis love" lines was just a little joke between him and his mysterious and murderous My Hyde other self.
John, John,
pay attention,
how would he know about tmbe?
but we could probably rule out his handwriting anyhow
|
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2417
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:56 pm: |
|
Wait, here's one. Maybe Mike Maybrick, James's famous composer brother, was really Jack (you know, the killer with the song in his heart) and HE wrote the diary to frame his dead brother because hey, his brother's dead anyway, you know, so what they heck, and then he used his influence as famous composer guy to get his very own copy of the police inventory and then stuck it in the diary, even though he was the killer and wouldn't have needed it, because... Well, because... Uh... OK, maybe not. Damn, for a minute there I thought we might be able to make a buck or two.
But he would no he was a composer not lyrisist, he wouldn't know about tmbe,
he wouldn't have seen the Kelly crime scene photo.
in your crazy hypothesis, he was the killer ergo he would know where he put the breasts.
NOT possible really sorry. |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2418
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 4:58 pm: |
|
Maybe a big and powerful MASON used their contacts at the police department to get their very own xeroxed copy of the police list with the matchbox line in it because the MASONS actually wrote the diary as a way to send people off the track and after James when suspicion arose that they were behind the killings (because some poor slob with a piece of chalk couldn't spell Jews).
i would think the big powerful scary masons would know the details of the killings had they performed them themselves. Plus they already had a cover up story, why pay more? |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2419
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 5:00 pm: |
|
Maybe Warren himself was Jack and HE wrote the diary. He got a copy of the list from the coroner just to add a touch of official language to the thing and pinned the whole deal on Maybrick but then decided to have the whole book erased at the last minute only he couldn't figure out how to erase ink.
Charles Warren there's an interesting thought.
i cant see any reason why not.
better check his handwriting! |
Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2420
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 14, 2005 - 5:02 pm: |
|
Well, I guess the only answer is that James wrote it. That he really did have some weird strain of unnoticeable MPD after all and that he also couldn't remember the details of his own killings and that he somehow acquired his own copy of an unpublished police document about his own murders and used it in the diary even though he had done the killings himself and that then he hid the book somewhere really really cool so that no one would find it until at last a hundred years later it fell from the top floor of a building one day and hit Mike Barret in the head as he was walking down a city street.
yeah you've got it there James Maybrick was the Doctor,
exterminate, exterminate,
later John!
Jenni |
Jeff Leahy
Detective Sergeant
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 144
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 7:10 am: |
|
There is an old computer acronym, GIGO which stood for ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ and meant that the conclusion reached by a computer would only be as good as the data fed into it.
The Modern Hoax theorists have fed in a lot of data – the Poste House, Mrs Hammersmith, the Crashaw quote, the matchbox, and so on – all of which points to the diary being a modern hoax and quite correctly they state that the accumulation of this data leads to the conclusion that the diary is a modern hoax.
However, for that conclusion to be correct the data on which it is based must be good data. But is it?
Well, we’ve taken the claim that the matchbook never appeared in print before Martin Fido’s book in 1987, but our modern hoax advocates couldn’t tell us how many or which newspapers have been checked, or how thoroughly and conscientiously they were checked, or by whom they were checked. Not only that, none of the Liverpool newspapers, the one’s most likely to have been looked at by a Liverpool-based hoaxer, seem to have been checked. On top of which we know that the reference is going to be pretty obscure because only four or five of the two thousand plus newspaper articles digitised on the boards mention the red cigarette case, so a large sampling would be necessary for any meaningful conclusion to be drawn. So, is the reference to the matchbox really evidence of a post-1987 hoax?
The mantra..."maybe there's just stuff we don't know about yet" is a daft statement; all research is done to see if there is stuff out there we don’t know about yet and the fact is that the modern hoax theorists haven’t done the research necessary to support their argument.
Rather amusingly I watched indiana Jones last night who stated the Study of archeology is the search for FACT....if your searching for truth you require philosophy..your in the wrong class.
So lets re-examin the FACTS.
There appears to be NO old hoax theories.
(jenni the line I'm taking for old Hoax/ new Hoax is 1987 but I realize that some people like Sir Bob use Barrett as the deviding line)
THe debate seems to be simple:
There are New Hoax theorists. They claim that based on contextral anomilies the Diary was created after 1987.
the oposition to this train of thought says.
There appear to be insophicient facts to support this theory. More tests and examination of the diary is required inoder to form an intelligent and factual assecment of the Diaries origins.
In lack of evidence to support the Diary being a modern hoax more facts and research should be done by those advocating such a position.
Chris-I really don't like the jury comparisson because if I was on said dury and someones life depended on my vote then I know if there was the slightests most tiny doubt in my mind I would find INOCENT. However as a betting man with my hard earned cash, and if this was the Grande National, I think my money would be....on a personal level...on Barrett. There is a big differance between where i would stand on speculation and where I would stand professionally or in a life and death situation.
In the mean time as an independant journalist I beleive it is up to the Modern Hoax theorists to either supply the facts or except the possibility that Barrett didnt create the diary and that it is currently unknown who did.
making wilde unsubstanciated claims gets us know nearer to the fact.
Jeff
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1750
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 16, 2005 - 7:17 am: |
|
Hi Jenni,
are you suggesting one day we'll have egg on our collective faces?
No - everyone has a perfect right to speculate in the absence of any further evidence concerning the diary's origins, if they wish to do so.
Everyone has the same right to draw no firm conclusions, or to change their mind a thousand times about each argument put forward to explain the available evidence.
But we are all responsible for our own posts, and only our own posts. Any egg that ends up on anyone's face due to new evidence emerging is entirely optional. The egg-covered ones were never obliged to speculate from a position of less than complete evidence.
Hi Chris P,
Right, now read this very carefully, I shall write it only once:
My current position is that, based on all the published factual information, testimony and speculation, I think all the 'theories' - old hoax/modern hoax/genuine - lack credibility, to the extent that I couldn't advise anyone to put money on one of them until new information becomes available.
I have given you my answer, so you can draw whatever conclusions you like about my integrity - although I recommend you do it in private, if they continue to be negative. There is nothing wrong with continually rereading and reassessing the evidence, as well as reassessing one's views and position along the way. What's the point in coming here to debate any of this stuff, if our minds have already been made up 100%, and are incapable of budging an inch, whatever new information comes our way?
The 'straightfoward, obvious explanation - that the hoaxer simply copied the phrase out of Fido's book' may be all you think you need to crack the case. But if evidence exists that the diary was written before Fido wrote his book, for example, you'd have to rethink your views and your explanation, and look for another one.
I couldn't possibly hold it against you for holding the views you do. I can understand it absolutely. But I think you will do yourself no favours if you hold it against me for not holding certain views.
Love,
Caz
X |
|
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