Graphology & Jack The Ripper

[Nyarlathotep]

Recently I started reading a book called Jack The Ripper: The Final Chapter. THe basic thesis of the bok is that a diary kept by a man named James Maybrick contains a confession that Mr. Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. Apparently, this diary has been around for a while and is generally considered a fake but the author contends that it is not a fake.

The problem comes in when he tries to support his contention that the diary is genuine. One of the first pieces of evidence he gives to support his theory is that he let a graphologist (the type that tells your personality from your handwriting, not the type who matches writing to a known sample) look at parts of it (without telling her who it supposedly belonged to or what its significance is) and the graphologist concluded that the writer was angry at women and a several other things that one would associate with Jack the Ripper.

Now, graphology sounds like a bogus discipline to me, but I realize that I honestly have never put much thought into it until now. Before I chuck this guys conclusion out the window, does anyone know much about it? Any good arguments pro or con? I realize full well that the logic is spurious (and it wouldn't be the only pice of spurious logic in the book, either) even if graphology is genuine (after all, if the diary is a hoax, for all anyone knows the hoaxer could harbor some ripper-esque traits himself) but it has me curious.

 

[drkitten]

Now, graphology sounds like a bogus discipline to me, but I realize that I honestly have never put much thought into it until now. Before I chuck this guys conclusion out the window, does anyone know much about it?

Yeah. "Graphology," as you defined it, is in fact a bogus discipline. We had a "real" handwriting analyst (cerftified forensic expert, 25+ years in law enforcement, that kind of stuff) giving a lecture a while back and one of the things he took great pains to point out is that there's absolutely nothing you can say about race, sex, religion, blood type, et cetera by looking at handwriting samples.

He can speak to identity : this piece of writting was/was not written by the same person who wrote that piece of writing. That's the whole game.

It's one of the biggest myths he has to dispel whenever he gives talks.

 

[kookbreaker]

Sure seems a lot like cold reading with paper products to me.

 

[SGT]

For a good analysis of the subject and several references see:
http://www.skepdic.com/graphol.html

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Sure seems a lot like cold reading with paper products to me.

That's what I thought too, but I felt inclined to ask around because I had never really thought of it before

 

[LostAngeles]

My English teacher "diagnosed" me as "schizophrenic" because my handwriting was a blend of printing and cursive. That's graphology in a nut shell. Look at the handwriting and make stuff up, the worse, the better.

Besides, Jack was Dr. Gull. Didn't you see "From Hell" with all its accuracies? *snicker*

The graphic novel is much better. Make use of the notes in the back, if you read it and also the "Gull Chasing" at the very end.. Alan Moore is clearly critical of his source work.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

Yeah. "Graphology," as you defined it, is in fact a bogus discipline. We had a "real" handwriting analyst (cerftified forensic expert, 25+ years in law enforcement, that kind of stuff) giving a lecture a while back and one of the things he took great pains to point out is that there's absolutely nothing you can say about race, sex, religion, blood type, et cetera by looking at handwriting samples.

He can speak to identity : this piece of writting was/was not written by the same person who wrote that piece of writing. That's the whole game.

It's one of the biggest myths he has to dispel whenever he gives talks.

Yeah, I know that the science of matching handwriting to known samples is a completely different thing, and is accepted enough to stand up in court, at least.

Your comment also got me thinking that if he really wanted to know whether or not Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, a good start would be getting a Handwriting expert to match the diary to any of the several letters purportedly written by the killer. If it matched it would be a good pice of evidence for his theory, not solid enough to stand by itself (since it can't be proven that the letters were actually from the Ripper), but a good start anyway.

Of course that would make too much sense. So far, the whole book reads like the author is convinced Maybrick was the killer and is trying to prove it, rather than investigating whether Maybrick was the Ripper or not.

 

[Batman Jr.]

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell claimed in one of her books that Walter Sickert, the renowned British painter, was the Ripper. Her evidence is scant and she even ripped up one of his prized canvasses in a vain attempt at finding a connection between him and the murders.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell claimed in one of her books that Walter Sickert, the renowned British painter, was the Ripper. Her evidence is scant and she even ripped up one of his prized canvasses in a vain attempt at finding a connection between him and the murders.

I remmber that one. From what I could tell her evidence consisted of.

1) Sickert lived in the right time and place

2) Sickert painted a couple of disturbing paintinggs of murders.

I'm beginning to detect a pattern here. I've never thought of Jack the Ripper in the same light as things like The Bermuda Triangle or the Pyramids, but like those things, Jack the Ripper seems to attract half-baked theories like manure attracts flies....

 

[rebecca]

Also, I wonder what the content of the diary was that the graphologist read. For instance, if the person who wrote the diary was convinced (rightly or not) that he was Jack the Ripper, I imagine that the actual content of what he wrote would be quite angry, etc.

If I was trying to interpret someone's handwriting from a sample that read "The leprechaun is telling me to burn things," I might just deduce (from the handwriting, of course) that this person was a little, erm, off.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Also, I wonder what the content of the diary was that the graphologist read. For instance, if the person who wrote the diary was convinced (rightly or not) that he was Jack the Ripper, I imagine that the actual content of what he wrote would be quite angry, etc.

If I was trying to interpret someone's handwriting from a sample that read "The leprechaun is telling me to burn things," I might just deduce (from the handwriting, of course) that this person was a little, erm, off.

That's a good point and the author never does say exactly what the portion of the diary he let the person read said.

 

[LostAngeles]

I remmber that one. From what I could tell her evidence consisted of.

1) Sickert lived in the right time and place

2) Sickert painted a couple of disturbing paintinggs of murders.

I'm beginning to detect a pattern here. I've never thought of Jack the Ripper in the same light as things like The Bermuda Triangle or the Pyramids, but like those things, Jack the Ripper seems to attract half-baked theories like manure attracts flies....

It's one of the great mysteries and unlike "Who shot JFK?" where it seems very likely that Oswald did it, there's no real leads and an abundance of clues and red herrings. Unless you want to get together, build a time machine and find out (not to mention the Mega-Prize), it'll forever be the Tootsie Pop of murder mysteries.

 

[Marian]

Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

Yeah. "Graphology," as you defined it, is in fact a bogus discipline. We had a "real" handwriting analyst (cerftified forensic expert, 25+ years in law enforcement, that kind of stuff) giving a lecture a while back and one of the things he took great pains to point out is that there's absolutely nothing you can say about race, sex, religion, blood type, et cetera by looking at handwriting samples.

I'll disagree with one point of that. I would think that an expert can sometimes identify region, and age by handwriting.

That's because handwriting is taught in schools, and how it's taught has varied over time. I wouldn't think this to be by any stretch definitive, but it could offer additional clues as to the writer if they make one or more letters a specific way, and that way was commonly taught out of a specific book used in a specific area. I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone who was, who had worked with numerous samples in a region (or even a wide area), would notice such things and could draw accurate conclusions based on that data.

Of course that assumption of mine could be totally wrong too, it is just something that would make sense to me (if you ever get a chance to ask them though... I'd be curious to know what they say!)

But yeah I totally agree with the bulk of it, regarding it being impossible to 'analyze' personality, race, religion, blah blah blah just based on how the person writes (obviously as others pointed out WHAT they write can provide many clues )

 

[rebecca]

Re: Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

I'll disagree with one point of that. I would think that an expert can sometimes identify region, and age by handwriting.

That's because handwriting is taught in schools, and how it's taught has varied over time. I wouldn't think this to be by any stretch definitive, but it could offer additional clues as to the writer if they make one or more letters a specific way, and that way was commonly taught out of a specific book used in a specific area. I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone who was, who had worked with numerous samples in a region (or even a wide area), would notice such things and could draw accurate conclusions based on that data.

Of course that assumption of mine could be totally wrong too, it is just something that would make sense to me (if you ever get a chance to ask them though... I'd be curious to know what they say!)

But yeah I totally agree with the bulk of it, regarding it being impossible to 'analyze' personality, race, religion, blah blah blah just based on how the person writes (obviously as others pointed out WHAT they write can provide many clues )

I can't imagine that if you were to compare my handwriting with that of the other thirty children in my fourth grade class, that you could see anything that was similar.

I understand what you're saying about differences in letter and word formation, but even if you could detect a pattern between people who went to school together, who's going to know that Mrs. Clark in Boringsville, USA taught kids to form their Q's just so? Or even what title and edition spelling book she used? It just seems way to broad.

 

[Marian]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

I can't imagine that if you were to compare my handwriting with that of the other thirty children in my fourth grade class, that you could see anything that was similar.

I understand what you're saying about differences in letter and word formation, but even if you could detect a pattern between people who went to school together, who's going to know that Mrs. Clark in Boringsville, USA taught kids to form their Q's just so? Or even what title and edition spelling book she used? It just seems way to broad.

You could be right, I'm certainly no expert. (And obviously I'd defer to an expert who has experience in that area). What I'm thinking (which may be completely wrong) is that when someone is looking at numerous samples over time, some patterns may be much more obvious to them. I'm sure you could take the 30 kids from your school and even if you all lived in the same region still, there would be massive differences in the writing. But perhaps to an expert who would see that, they could see something that would indicate 'Western-US' and a rough time span.

Or not. I'm primarily thinking of differences I've seen between generations and regions in mail I've recieved, both from friends and family. But since I already know the information (how old they are, what region they're in) perhaps that's all I'm noticing, what I already know. (Or it could be I'm noticing family similarities in handwriting).

I'd be curious if an expert could gather that information based on experience and knowledge. I wouldn't think it to be definitive by any means, but merely something that would at times indicate region (based on writing not wording) and potential age range, such as verbal accents can do (both with region and age range).

I would think it to be possible, but like I said, while that 'makes sense' to me, it could also be completely wrong, since I'm just basing it on 'Gee, I would think' rather than any knowledge of it. If DrKitten isn't able to ask her expert, I'll see if I can find one with good credentials and experience who'd be kind enough to answer that question, because now I'm curious.

 

[Marian]

I called these people: http://www.documentlab.com/

And spoke with Mr. Shiver (who was extremely nice) and he basically said (jist) that there's absolutely no way to tell either region or generation based on handwriting definitively. He said you can sometimes see some clues, but they're not at all definitive, because it may be based on the writing style of the instructor.

He said that it can be possible to tell differences between countries...but not regionally in the US. Even if you have one state that uses Palmer and another state which uses another book (he said a book but I can't remember the name Ziegler something?) it still would be meaningless because people move, people change their handwriting styles, etc.

Soooo basically it's correct (as Rebecca stated) that you cannot tell region or generation by handwriting style and my theory that it would be possible is wrong. (And I learned something woot!)

He also mentioned the "Black 'W'" which was that black people often use a specific type of W, but said there was a study done that showed that was a fallacy. Same with the "Hispanic 'J'". So things that were once thought to be racial indicators have been proven inaccurate (which DrKitten already said, but I thought the additional information of the specific letters was interesting).

Anyway, I thought that was interesting, and while it seemed to me like it would 'make sense' that there would be regional specific styles...that's completely wrong. And given his credentials I'm more than willing to accept his word on it personally.

 

[timhau]

Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

We had a "real" handwriting analyst (cerftified forensic expert, 25+ years in law enforcement, that kind of stuff) giving a lecture a while back and one of the things he took great pains to point out is that there's absolutely nothing you can say about race, sex, religion, blood type, et cetera by looking at handwriting samples.

I teach Linguistics 101 every fall, and in December I have a pile of about 300 exams to grade. The group I'm teaching is mostly foreign language majors, and the class is maybe 90% female. I'm fairly sure I could pick out the guys based on handwriting with significantly better-than-chance accuracy.

Of course, that has nothing to do with real handwriting analysis, and I'd hate to be convicted based on that sort of evidence.

 

[Hypocolius]

I remmber that one. From what I could tell her evidence consisted of.

1) Sickert lived in the right time and place

2) Sickert painted a couple of disturbing paintinggs of murders.

It was a bit more than that. She provided pretty convincing physical evidence that letters known to have been written by Sickert came from the same (very small) batch of paper as letters written by someone claiming to be JTR. The JTR letters were believed to be hoaxes at the time, but Cornwell suggested that they might not be. At the very least Cornwell demonstrated evidence that Sickert sent a hoax letter claiming to be JTR.

The rest is pretty thin, and relied on some dubious assumptions.

 

[Ceinwyn]

I think Marian is right, insofar as you can tell geographically and age-wise.

I've noticed over the years that the handwriting of certain people in my area, those born pre-WW1 to those born just after WW2 is very, very similar. I think this is because during those years they were all taught the same handwriting style in school, and it carried on during their lives. For example, my grandmother's handwriting is almost identical to my mother-in-law's handwriting, and my mother's is very similar too.

It still freaks me out sometimes to see it. If my MIL hands me a letter written by a friend of hers, I automatically think "my grandmother wrote this." It can be a bit disconcerting.

edit to say: Marian, I read your last post and I'm interested. Perhaps Canadians have a particular handwriting style?

 

[drkitten]

Re: Re: Re: Graphology & Jack The Ripper

I'll disagree with one point of that. I would think that an expert can sometimes identify region, and age by handwriting.

That's because handwriting is taught in schools, and how it's taught has varied over time. I wouldn't think this to be by any stretch definitive, but it could offer additional clues as to the writer if they make one or more letters a specific way, and that way was commonly taught out of a specific book used in a specific area. I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone who was, who had worked with numerous samples in a region (or even a wide area), would notice such things and could draw accurate conclusions based on that data.

Of course that assumption of mine could be totally wrong too, it is just something that would make sense to me (if you ever get a chance to ask them though... I'd be curious to know what they say!)

He was quite explicit in the lecture that he can't draw any of these sorts of conclusions. The fundamental problem, at least from a forensics perspective, is that within-group variance dominates between-group variance. It's rather like trying to infer someone's IQ from their race in that regard.

To all of you who are trying it at home -- please don't waste your time. If you must chase pseudoscience, please invent perpetual motion machines or something. If there were a way to reliably tell sex, age, religion, etc. from handwriting, don't you think the police would already be using it? The fact that police don't use this, even as an investigative tool, should tell you something.

As I said earlier, "it's one of the biggest myths he has to dispel whenever he gives a lecture."