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"Let us reflect now upon 'the traces of a struggle;' and let me ask what
these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang. But do they not
rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What struggle could have taken
place--what struggle so violent and so enduring as to have left its
'traces' in all directions--between a weak and defenceless girl and the
gang of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp of a few rough arms and all
would have been over. The victim must have been absolutely passive at
their will. You will here bear in mind that the arguments urged against
the thicket as the scene, are applicable in chief part, only against it
as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single individual.
If we imagine but one violator, we can conceive, and thus only conceive,
the struggle of so violent and so obstinate a nature as to have left the
'traces' apparent.
"And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by the
fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain at all in
the thicket where discovered. It seems almost impossible that these
evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where found. There
was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to remove the corpse;
and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose features
might have been quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lie
conspicuously in the scene of the outrage--I allude to the handkerchief
with the name of the deceased. If this was accident, it was not
the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only the accident of an
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