It is to be noted first of all that the book about the diary is written from the assumption that the diary is genuine. My immediate reaction to the diary was that it is a forgery, but I want to try and be as objective as possible. It is easy to interpret facts to mean what you want them to, and I shall try to avoid doing this. From now on, when I refer to "the diary" I mean the actual document said to the be diary of Jack the Ripper written by James Maybrick. When I refer to "the book" I mean the narrative written about the diary, which tries to prove the diary's authenticity. Here are my observations.

First of all what are the possibilities?

1) The diary is a contemporary forgery.

2) The diary is a modern forgery.

3) The diary is genuine and Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.

4) The diary is genuine but Maybrick was deluded.

To consider all of these there are several different aspects to examine and I will look at them in turn.

1. The original of the diary is illustrated and reproduced in the published book. The diary is written in a Victorian scrapbook. Obviously, either Maybrick or a hoaxer could have obtained such an item. I do not agree with the book when it suggests that any hoaxer would have had to have been an expert in paper chemistry - he would only have had to be able to obtain a scrapbook of the right date. The original has obviously been used as a scrapbook or photo album at some time because of impressions and glue stains on the flyleaf. The first 48 pages have been removed with a sharp knife and the remainder have been written on. This fact, which is not commented on by the book, I find extremely suggestive. If Maybrick or a contemporary hoaxer had written the diary, why did he take a used scrapbook and cut out pages? Why not use a new book? A modern hoaxer, on the other hand, would have had much more difficulty in getting an unused Victorian diary. Preliminary examinations by experts have supported the conclusion that the diary is written on paper of the right era, and I see no reason to question this.

2. What is the provenance of the diary? This is and continues to be a problem for anyone who wishes to prove its authenticity. The owner of the diary is a Liverpool man, Michael Barrett. He has stated that the diary was given to him by a friend in May 1991, and that this friend died a few months later without having revealed how he came by it. Nothing more is known. I find this situation extremely dubious.

3. The handwriting of the diary. This, it is freely admitted, does not match the writing on the will of James Maybrick, a major criticism, one would have thought. The book gets around this difficulty by reasoning thus: a forger would have had to have been immensely, almost impossibly clever to produce the diary - such a clever person would have been able to find the will in Somerset House and copy the writing - since the writing is different then, the book concludes, it cannot have been forged! The explanation given is that the will and not the diary is a forgery. The evidence for the forgery of the will is fairly flimsy. It is noted that the will misspells his daughter's name, writing Eveleyn instead of Evelyn. This however was her second name - she was actually known as Gladys. The other reason for the belief in the forgery are the fact that his wife is effectively disinherited - she was left the income from some policies which was small, but sufficient for "keeping her respectable" - however, at the time the will was written the Maybricks were on extremely bad terms, and quarrelled frequently. The book says that Maybrick disinherited his two children and left everything to his brothers - this is completely incorrect. The fortune was left to his brothers as trustees for the children who were aged seven and three. Maybrick's intentions to do this have been confirmed in the contents of a letter written by Florence to her mother. The only other example of Maybrick's writing is that on his marriage certificate, which is not reproduced in the book. The book states that various handwriting experts have examined the will and marriage certificate and found both similarities and dissimilarities. The body of the will is written by the same hand that signed it, and the will was witnessed by a close friend and Maybrick's clerk.

4. A comparison with the Ripper letters. The book assumes that the "Dear Boss" letter (reproduced below) was written by the murderer and not a contemporary hoaxer. This letter, and two cards, are quite clearly all by the same hand, and are dated 25th September, 1st October and 6th October 1888, and were posted in London. The handwriting is quite different from Maybrick's. The book comments that handwriting comparison is unreliable and anyway the murderer would have disguised his hand or got a friend to write for him. Well - possibly, but here I feel the book is getting itself into some difficulty. There is no real proof that these items, any more than any of the others sent to the police or newspapers were actually written by the murderer. However, the writer of the diary (forger or murderer) has used some of the phrases in the letter and cards, and has written - "Before I am finished all of England will know the name I have given myself". Presumably this means the name "Jack the Ripper" which were the signatures on these items. The police at the time did take the letter seriously enough to reproduce it as a poster, but in 1910 Sir Robert Anderson, Assistant Commissioner of the Police at the time of the Ripper murders, wrote in his autobiography that he knew the letters were written by a newspaperman. 20 years later a retired newsman claimed to have been the writer. Since the diarist follows the phrasing of the letter and cards, and claims at one point to have sent them, it must follow that if the missives are ever shown to be forgeries, then the diary must also be a forgery.

5. The ink.

According to the book, although it has not been possible to date the ink, nothing has been found which is inconsistent with a date in the 1880s. A recent publication, which unfortunately gives no further details, states that another expert has placed the date of the writing as between 1920 and 1991.

6. Opportunity. No problem that I have been able to detect - Maybrick was a businessman who visited London frequently and apparently knew the Whitechapel area. There are insufficient details of his everyday movements to suggest where he might have been on important dates.

7. Was it a contemporary forgery? My feeling is that it is not. The book has pointed out that a number of facts referred to in the diary preclude this. At the time of the murders it was generally accepted that there were seven victims and not five. It was not until some publications in the 1950s that it became generally accepted that there were five. The diary mentions only five. There were some details which were not, apparently published at the time, but did come to light as a result of the opening of the official records to the public in the late 1980s. These are mentioned in the diary. If this is true, then a contemporary forgery is very unlikely, but of course, a modern forgery still remains possible.

8. The Ms

When the body of Annie Chapman, the second Ripper victim, was found, there was a fragment of torn envelope beside her. The letter bore the seal of the Sussex Regiment and the letter "M" was on one side. The Diary suggests that Maybrick left the fragment. There is of course, no evidence that the envelope was anything to do with Chapman, Maybrick or the murder - it may have been just litter, and of course, as it was addressed to someone, presumably Mr. Mrs. or Miss, the letter M was not an unlikely one to appear! The finding of the envelope was referred to once in newspapers but not at the inquest, although it has been mentioned in modern books.

When Catherine Eddowes was found dead, (the fourth victim) there was an inverted V shaped cut on each cheek. The book suggests that this was an M, Maybrick leaving his mark. (Of course, Stephen Knight , in his book "Jack the Ripper the Final Solution") reckons this was an obvious Masonic sign, but then, he would).

The final murder on 9th November 1888 was that of Mary Kelly. The diary refers to the murderer leaving the initials of the whoring mother, and the book points out that the initials F M can be seen in the photograph of Mary's body, written on the wall. What can we make of this claim? Looking at the photo, there is a mark which could well be the arches of an M. The lower tips of the M meet the position of the body, so if the mark is on the wall, there may well be a lower unseen portion. The F is more fanciful, and the vertical stroke slightly overlays the body suggesting that it may be a mark on the surface of the print. I have seen two versions of this photograph, one where the area to the left of the supposed initial F is a pale smudge, but another, before the photo was enlarged, where there is no smudge, and in that position, there is a mark which could be made out to be another letter, possibly a P. The diarist claims that he put the letters there without anyone noticing, but clearly the wall was examined, as the police surgeon's report describes the wall in that position as marked by streaks of blood. No contemporary description of the scene refers to letters on the wall.

10. Maybrick's Age. His age is quite wrong for a serial killer. The vast majority of serial killers start killing in their twenties. There have been a few exceptions . Christie was 45 when he committed his first murder, though he had been a petty criminal most of his life. Chikatilo, the Russian serial killer was 42 when he began, though he had exhibited deviant behaviour for some time before this. It is not impossible that a man of nearly 50, as Maybrick was on the date of the first Ripper murder, should turn to serial murder of prostitutes, but it is very unlikely. More damning to the book is that fact that there are several very good descriptions of the Ripper, or at least, a man seen with the victims shortly before they were murdered. The descriptions tend to agree very well, and are the best possible clue as to what the Ripper actually looked like. He is generally described as being aged from 25 to 35 with a fresh complexion and a small moustache. James Maybrick was an obviously middle aged man. His friends had, by the time he was in his late forties begun to comment on his ill and prematurely aged appearance. He did have a moustache, but the photograph of him in the 1880s shows that it was quite clearly not small.

11. The language of the diary. A psychiatrist who has examined the diary says that there is a morbid delight in distorting grammar, in solecisms and wordplay. He adds that it is not uncommon for intelligent but insecure people to adopt a less educated personality on paper. There are also many errors of spelling, punctuation and grammar that have nothing to do with word play. The book comments that this is not surprising in view of Maybrick's modest schooling, although earlier it states that virtually nothing is known about his schooling. I think that the writer of the diary has tried to emulate the language of the Dear Boss letter, right down to the repetition of the underlined ha ha .

12.Other points. The writer of the diary curses Maybrick's brother Michael and refers to his "rhyming verses". Michael was in fact a celebrated songwriter, but he wrote the music and not the words. The book explains this by saying that "significantly" Maybrick showed little interest in Michael's career. If the entry has any significance at all, it points to a hoaxer rather than Maybrick as the diary's author. Maybrick often stayed with his brother when he visited London and could hardly have been unaware that he wrote music.

The book notes that "Jack is a long-established familiar form of James". I always thought it was a familiar form of John!

The diary refers to Florence as "the whore" and to her lover Brierley as "the whoremaster", with Maybrick ranting furiously about their liaison. The book dates Florence's first meeting with Brierley as December 1887, but according to other sources they did not meet until December 1888, a whole year later, and well after the last of the Ripper murders. Witnesses at the trial spoke of the affair starting about Christmas 1888. Maybrick's brother told Florence's mother in early 1889 that Florence had met Brierley last winter. Brierley is her only known lover. The book refers to an unpublicised affidavit by Brierley saying that they had in fact met in 1887, but gives no detail or provenance. This is a very important point, as the diary could be shown to be either right or wrong on a significant issue. The only statement I have found of Brierley's is one he made to a newspaper stating that his affair with Florence had been of short duration and ended on 21st March 1889. This would suggest that the affair did indeed take place after Christmas 1988, after the date the diary is supposed to have been written. This fact alone strongly indicates that the diary is a forgery.

On the night of the third and fourth murders, an anti-Semitic message was found chalked on a wall, not perhaps an unusual item in that region of London at that time. The message was deleted by the police in case it provoked riots. What is the explanation for this message? Was it chalked by the murderer, who paused to write a message as he fled from the scene of the crime? Was it another Masonic hint? Was it in fact nothing at all to do with the murders, having been written by someone else some time before? The diarist admits to the writing, but then it is a feature of the diary, that any clues, even those which are dubious, such as the chalk marks, the envelope fragment, and the Ripper letters are taken on board. Maybrick apparently did the lot!

On 16th October 1888, George Lusk, president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee received in the mail a box containing half a preserved human kidney with a letter in a handwriting different to the Dear Boss letter, claiming to have eaten the other half. Experts have differed on their opinion of this, but there is no proof it came from the body of Eddowes, and it may well have been a hospital specimen sent as a student prank. The diary and the book claim this, too as the work of Maybrick.

The diarist gives details of the Kelly murder, telling how he disposed of some portions of flesh, which are factually quite wrong. The book's explanation is that he was confused by his excitement.

As an aside, I have mentioned Stephen Knight and his Masonic theories a few times, and have to say that, entertaining as his book is, and valuable as it is for his detailed research, he too suffers from the syndrome of being blinkered as to what conclusions one may draw from a fact. His complex hypothesis was based on an interview with the son of painter Walter Sickert, who later confessed that the whole thing was a hoax.

THE LETTER AND POSTCARDS.

1. Dated 25th September 1888, posted in London EC and addressed to The Boss, Central News Office, London City.

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha.ha. The next job I shall do I shall clip the ladys ears off and sent to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

Yours truly

Jack the Ripper.

Dont mind me giving the trade name.

Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha

2. A card postmarked October 1st sent to the Central News agency and posted in central London.

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, you'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off. had not the time to get ears for police. thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper.

3. Postcard dated 6th October 1888 posted in London NW to one of the witnesses.

You though yourself very clever I reckon when you informed the police. But you made a mistake if you though I dident see you. Now I know you know me and I see you little game, and I mean to finish you and send your ears to your wife if you show this to the police or help them if you do I will finish you. It no use your trying to get out of my way. Because I have you when you dont expect it and I keep my word as you see and rip you up. Yours truly Jack the Ripper.

The whore like all the rest was only too willing. The thrill she gave me was unlike the others, I cut deep deep deep. Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off, had a go at her eyes, left my mark, could not get the bitches head off. I believe now it is impossible to do so. The whore never screamed. I took all I could away with me. I am saving it for a rainy day ha ha. Perhaps I will send Abberline and Warren a sample or two, it goes down well with an after dinner port. I wonder how long it will keep? Perhaps next time I will keep some of the red stuff and send it courtesy of yours truly. I wonder if they enjoyed my funny Jewish joke? Curse my bad luck had no time to write a funny little rhyme. Before my next will send Central another to remember me.

CONCLUSIONS

I have already said that I do not think the diary was a contemporary forgery. In addition I do not believe the diary was written by James Maybrick, whether deluded or not. The error over the year of Florence's affair with Brierley is pretty conclusive.

My personal opinion regarding Jack the Ripper is that the nearest we shall get to the truth is contained in Martin Fido's book mentioned below, which I strongly recommend.   (Since writing this article, I have read "Jack the Ripper, the Uncensored Facts" by Paul Begg, which is also excellent.)

References.

The Diary of Jack the Ripper - Narrative by Shirley Harrisson, published by Smith Gryphon 1993.

The Crimes Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, by Martin Fido. 1993 Orion.

The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow, Star 1976

Jack the Ripper the Final Solution by Stephen Knight . Panther 1978

The Poisoned Life of Mrs Maybrick by Bernard Ryan. Penguin 1989

Real Life Crimes. Issue 54.