EATING THE EVIDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 18, 22 January 1929, Page 6

EATING THE EVIDENCE.

Since it is impossible to have a murder without a corpse, it is, 011 c believes, a fact that in most countries it is also impossible to have a trial for murder without evicience that a corpsc has existed (says the "Manchester Guardian"). In America the same proposition seems to have been extended, for there it would appear that it is also impossible to secure a conviction for robbery unless you can prove the existence of the stolen article. At any rate, Renter now tells us that when a woman was charged at Lexington with stealing a frock she had to be acquitted because the frock could not be found. And the frock could not be found because the alleged stealer of it had oaten it. The female of the species is. therefore, not only, as Mr. Kipling lias assured us, more deadly, but also more voracious than the male; many a boastful man has recklessly promised to eat his hat, only to prove in the long run that he was merely talking through it. But apprehended persons have from time to time swallowed incriminating documents in order to place them beyond the scrutiny of the court or the range of a search warrant, and one fears that the real moral which we are intended to draw from the telegram from New York is. that there might very well be more bulk about a decent-sized affidavit than there was about the dress which has just been devoured. We are asked to believe, in short, that we have readied a stage when one sex at any rate can cat not onlv its own words but also its own wardrobe. This mothlike accomplishment must be a great advantage to female kleptomaniacs and shoplifters; no mere man could hope to devour a new .winter overcoat in time to avoid detection or cour viction. Appetites of that kind have been lost to the male sex since that unnatural disciplinarian Saturn swallowed stones under the impression that he was putting his own offspring beyond the reach of mischief. In any case, the American concession to frock-enters does not seem to be one that would be extended in this country. If a man steals a loaf it is no answer to the charge to prove that he has also eaten it.