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arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the supposed
gangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have prevented the
bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have imagined to paralyze the
single man. Could we suppose an oversight in one, or two, or three, this
oversight would have been remedied by a fourth. They would have left
nothing behind them; for their number would have enabled them to carry
all at once. There would have been no need of return.
"
Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the corpse
when found, 'a slip, about a foot wide had been torn upward from the
bottom hem to the waist wound three times round the waist, and secured
by a sort of hitch in the back.' This was done with the obvious design
of affording a handle by which to carry the body. But would any number
of men have dreamed of resorting to such an expedient? To three or four,
the limbs of the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, but
the best possible hold. The device is that of a single individual; and
this brings us to the fact that 'between the thicket and the river, the
rails of the fences were found taken down, and the ground bore evident
traces of some heavy burden having been dragged along it!' But would a
number of men have put themselves to the superfluous trouble of taking
down a fence, for the purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they
might have lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of men
have so dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the
dragging?
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