SCIENCE AND POTATOES
A THIEF DEFEATED BERLIN, December 20. Thanks to the development of biological studies in Germany, a potato thief at Neuruppin, near Berlin, will spend Christmas in disappointed meditation on the marvels of science. Potatoes, supposed to have been stolen, had been found in his house, hut there was no evidence that they had come from the despoiled patch. When brought before the court the prisoner challenged the prosecution with a mocking laugh to prove that they had. As no witnesses could bo found he felt certain of acquittal. The magistrates adjourned the proceedings and sent two bags of potatoes to the Berlin Institute for Agricultural Research, one with potatoes from the prisoner’s house, the other with specimens from the plaintiff’s patch. A newly-discovered process was applied, and after four weeks’ treatment the seeds revealed that all the potatoes were of the same kind and had grown in similar circumstances. The thief, dumbfounded by this “ magic,” confessed his theft and has retired to prison for a year 4
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Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 3
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170SCIENCE AND POTATOES Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 3
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