Each successive one is multiple evidence—proof not _added_
      to proof, but multiplied by hundreds or thousands. Let us now
      discover, upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and
      it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters are found to be
      tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner
      as her own had been tightened by Marie, shortly previous to her
      leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What
      L’Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the garters
      being an usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own
      pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is
      self-demonstration of the unusualness of the abbreviation. What
      is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign
      adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its
      strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the
      tightening described. They alone would have amply established her
      identity. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the
      garters of the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her
      bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar
      mark upon the arm, or her general size and appearance—it is that
      the corpse had each, and _all collectively_. Could it be proved
      that the editor of L’Etoile _really_ entertained a doubt, under
      the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case, of a
      commission de lunatico inquirendo. He has thought it sagacious to
      echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part,
      content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the
      courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected
      as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of
      evidence—the recognized and _booked_ principles—is averse from
      swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to
      principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception,
      is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in
      any long sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore
      philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders
      vast individual error. (*16)

      “In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be
      willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed
      the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busy-body,
      with much of romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted
      will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real
      excitement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part
      of the over acute, or the ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it
      appears from your notes) had some personal interviews with the
      editor of L’Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion that
      the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in
      sober fact, that of Marie. ‘He persists,’ says the paper, ‘in
      asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a
      circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented upon,
      to make others believe.’ Now, without re-adverting to the fact
      that stronger evidence ‘to make others believe,’ could never have
      been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be
      understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the
      ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second
      party. Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual
      identity. Each man recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few
      instances in which any one is prepared to give a reason for his
      recognition. The editor of L’Etoile had no right to be offended
      at M. Beauvais’ unreasoning belief. “The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to
      tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism,
      than with the reasoner’s suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the
      more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in
      comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the ‘Marie’ upon the
      slate; the ‘elbowing the male relatives out of the way;’ the
      ‘aversion to permitting them to see the body;’ the caution given
      to Madame B——, that she must hold no conversation with the
      gendarme until his return (Beauvais’); and, lastly, his apparent
      determination ‘that nobody should have anything to do with the
      proceedings except himself.’ It seems to me unquestionable that
      Beauvais was a suitor of Marie’s; that she coquetted with him;
      and that he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy her fullest
      intimacy and confidence. I shall say nothing more upon this
      point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the assertion of
      L’Etoile, touching the matter of apathy on the part of the mother
      and other relatives—an apathy inconsistent with the supposition
      of their believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl—we
      shall now proceed as if the question of identity were settled to
      our perfect satisfaction.”

      “And what,” I here demanded, “do you think of the opinions of Le
      Commerciel?”

      “That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any
      which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from
      the premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in
      two instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation. Le
      Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang
      of low ruffians not far from her mother’s door. ‘It is
      impossible,’ it urges, ‘that a person so well known to thousands
      as this young woman was, should have passed three blocks without
      some one having seen her.’ This is the idea of a man long
      resident in Paris—a public man—and one whose walks to and fro in
      the city, have been mostly limited to the vicinity of the public
      offices. He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen
      blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and
      accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance
      with others, and of others with him, he compares his notoriety
      with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no great difference
      between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her
      walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself in
      his. This could only be the case were her walks of the same
      unvarying, methodical character, and within the same species of
      limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular
      intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals
      who are led to observation of his person through interest in the
      kindred nature of his occupation with their own.