But these struggles and these gasps would not occur
      in the body ‘thrown into the water immediately after death by
      violence.’ Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general
      rule, would not sink at all—a fact of which L’Etoile is evidently
      ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great
      extent—when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones—then,
      indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse. “And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found
      could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having
      elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman,
      she might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared
      in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have
      been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she
      might have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever. “‘But,’ says L’Etoile, ‘if the body had been kept in its mangled
      state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on
      shore of the murderers.’ Here it is at first difficult to
      perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate
      what he imagines would be an objection to his theory—viz. : that
      the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid
      decomposition—more rapid than if immersed in water. He supposes
      that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the
      surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such
      circumstances it could so have appeared. He is accordingly in
      haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for, if so, ‘some
      trace would be found on shore of the murderers.’ I presume you
      smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere
      duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply
      traces of the assassins. Nor can I. “‘And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,’ continues our
      journal, ‘that any villains who had committed such a murder as is
      here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to
      sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.’
      Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one—not
      even L’Etoile—disputes the murder committed _on the body found_. The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner’s
      object merely to show that this body is not Marie’s. He wishes to
      prove that Marie is not assassinated—not that the corpse was not. Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a
      corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would
      not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown
      in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if any thing is. The question of identity is not even approached, and L’Etoile has
      been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted
      only a moment before. ‘We are perfectly convinced,’ it says,
      ‘that the body found was that of a murdered female.’

      “Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his
      subject, where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. His evident object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as
      possible, the interval between Marie’s disappearance and the
      finding of the corpse. Yet we find him urging the point that no
      person saw the girl from the moment of her leaving her mother’s
      house. ‘We have no evidence,’ he says, ‘that Marie Rogêt was in
      the land of the living after nine o’clock on Sunday, June the
      twenty-second.’ As his argument is obviously an ex parte one, he
      should, at least, have left this matter out of sight; for had any
      one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday, the
      interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his
      own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse
      being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to
      observe that L’Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief
      of its furthering its general argument. “Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference
      to the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the
      hair upon the arm, L’Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M.
      Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, in
      identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is
      without hair. The generality of the expression of L’Etoile is a
      mere perversion of the witness’ phraseology. He must have spoken
      of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity
      of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation. “‘Her foot,’ says the journal, ‘was small—so are thousands of
      feet. Her garter is no proof whatever—nor is her shoe—for shoes
      and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the
      flowers in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly
      insists is, that the clasp on the garter found, had been set back
      to take it in. This amounts to nothing; for most women find it
      proper to take a pair of garters home and fit them to the size of
      the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to try them in the
      store where they purchase.’ Here it is difficult to suppose the
      reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the body
      of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and
      appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted
      (without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in
      forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in
      addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found
      upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed
      upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly
      strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have
      been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the
      hairy mark. If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the
      corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body
      was that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely
      arithmetical, but in one highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add
      to all this shoes such as she had been known to wear upon the day
      of her disappearance, and, although these shoes may be ‘sold in
      packages,’ you so far augment the probability as to verge upon
      the certain. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity,
      becomes through its corroborative position, proof most sure. Give
      us, then, flowers in the hat corresponding to those worn by the
      missing girl, and we seek for nothing farther. If only one
      flower, we seek for nothing farther—what then if two or three, or
      more?