Quote#Politics & Power
Circumstantial evidence, Markham, is the utt‘rest tommyrot…
Quote byS. S. Van Dine · 1888–1939
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Benson Murder Case (1926), Ch. 22.
English (original)
Circumstantial evidence, Markham, is the utt‘rest tommyrot imag‘nable. Its theory is not unlike that of our present-day democracy. The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce intelligence; and the theory of circumst‘ntial evidence is that if you accumulate a sufficient number of weak links, you produce a strong chain.
— S. S. Van Dine
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