Scientific Objectivity and Scientific Irascibility:
Melvin Harris' rhetoric on the perpetration of the fraud of the Maybrick Ink test
According to author Melvin Harris, one of the most infamous hoaxes ever perpetrated against the community of scientists, historians, and laypersons was that of the Maybrick 'Jack the Ripper' diaries. Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who terrorized prostitutes during the late Victorian Era, remains a great unsolved crime. The supporters of the so-called Maybrick diaries claimed to solve the Jack the Ripper murders by implicating convicted 19th century murderer John Maybrick. The diaries were 'discovered' during the late 20th century and a subsequent book by Shirley Harrison was published to support this claim that Maybrick was 'Jack.' However, Melvin Harris in his essay "The Maybrick Hoax: A fact-file for the perplexed," disputes the scientific evidence presented by the supporters of the Maybrick theory. Scientific tests of the diaries proved contradictory, and according to Harris, the differing results were not due to a mere divergence of scientific opinion but an outright attempt at perpetrating a fraud.
According to Harris, following simple and accurate protocols should have revealed the folly very early on. Most notably, Harris states the tests performed by Dr. Nicholas Eastaugh were erroneously used as 'proof.' The mere fact that the ink of the diaries was not "in conflict" with the types of ink in common use between the years of 1888-9, when Maybrick was supposed to have penned the entries does not constitute adequate evidence the diaries were antiques (Harris 1). Simply because the ink did not automatically rule out the dating of the letter was far from conclusive that the writings were not falsified. (The fact that I have a letter written in erasable pen and erasable pen was in common use during the 1980s, for example, does not constitute proof that the letter was written in 1982). Furthermore, Harris notes that "chemical profile of an iron-gail ink made 50 years ago, or 2 years ago or even a month ago, will match that of iron-gall inks made a century back" (Harris 1).
There were also other obvious problems regarding the ink: there was none of the expected age-bronzing and ink-dissolving tests indicated new ink because of the rapid rate at which the letters dissolved. Finally, there were ample sources of the ink from modern sources that could be used to make a forgery in London where the diaries were found. Specifically, the Bluecoat Art Shop sold a "Victorian-style black manuscript ink made by 'Diamine' of Liverpool" which Harris thought was very likely the modern ink used to forge the so-called authentically Victorian diaries (Harris 1-2). To further support his contention of deliberate fraud, Harris states that proponents of the veracity of the diaries were extremely resistant the process of testing at first, including for the presence of a "give-away extra component…a preservative known as chloroacetamide" which was only present in commercially-produced inks after the Second World War (Harris 2).
Thus Harris does not simply accuse what he caustically calls the 'Diary camp' as reluctant to take action because of overzealous enthusiasm about finding a potentially valuable historical document or scientific ignorance. He suggests there is willful blindness at play in the refusal of Mrs. Harrison and her supporters to use tests that could retrieve potentially uncomfortable facts. He notes that in her book Harrison dismissed his claim saying that Diamine ink "contains a modern synthetic dye that any of our analysts would have spotted in the ink of the diary" which was blatantly untrue and which she had already been told by the manufacturers (Harris 2). Harris does not say how he 'knows' she was told so, but does stress that subsequent editions of her book retains this assertion, implying that she wishes to tell a seamless story in support of her version of the events more than to be honest with the credulous public.
This idea that there was a deliberate...
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