of an hour talking; it might be then about
three o'clock. Whilst they stood there a man
came by (examinant did not know who); he
had on a jacket of a brown colour; the man
was coming along the footpath they had
returned along; examinant said, 'Good morning,'
and the man said the same; examinant asked
Mary Ashford if she knew the man; she did
not know whether she knew him or not, but
thought he was one who had been at Tyburn;
that examinant and Mary Ashford stayed at the
stile a quarter of an hour afterwards; they then
went straight up to Mr. Freeman's again, crossed
the road, and went on towards Erdington, till
he came to a grass-field on the right-hand side
the road, within about a hundred yards of Mr.
Greensall's, in Erdington; Mary Ashford walked
on; examinant never saw her afterwards. It
was nearly opposite to Mr. Greensall's. Whilst
he was in the field he saw a man cross the road
to James's, but he did not know who he was; he
(Thornton) then went on for Erdington
Workhouse to see if he could see Mary Ashford; he
stopped upon the green about five minutes to
wait for her; it was four o'clock, or ten minutes
after four o'clock. Examinant went by Shipley's,
on his road home, and afterwards by John
Holden's, where he saw a man and woman
with some milk-cans, and a young man driving
some cows out of a field, whom he thought to
be Holden's son. He then went towards Mr.
Twamley's mill, where he saw Mr. Hatton's
keeper taking rubbish out of the nets at the
flood-gates. He asked the man what o'clock it
was; he answered, 'Near five o'clock, or five.'
He knew the keeper. Twamley's mill is about
a mile and a quarter from his father's house,
with whom he lives. The first person he saw
was Edward Leake, a servant of his father's,
and a boy; his mother was up. He took off a
black coat he had on, and put on the one he
now wears, which hung up in the kitchen,
changed his hat, and left them both in the
house; he did not change his shoes or stockings,
though his shoes were rather wet from
having walked across the meadows. That
examinant knew Mary Ashford when she lived at
the Swan at Erdington, but was not particularly
intimate with her; that he had not seen Mary
Ashford for a considerable time before he met
her at Tyburn. Examinant had been drinking
the whole evening, but not so much as to be
intoxicated."

Abraham Thornton, against whom public
opinion ran high, was tried for the murder of
Mary Ashford, before Mr. Justice Holroyd, at
the Warwick assizes, on August 8th, Mr.
Reynolds appearing for the defence. The prosecution
chiefly relied on the deceased having been
last seen with the prisoner in the fields not long
before she called at Butler's and changed
her dress. Great stress was also laid on the
footmarks in the newly harrowed field adjoining
the pit where the poor girl's body was found.
They exactly fitted Thornton's and Mary
Ashford's shoes. There were some nails projecting
from the side of one of Thornton's shoes, and
the traces of those two nails were visible in
several of the footsteps, particularly in one
in which a bit of short stick had thrown the
foot up. It was also proved that the prisoner
had spoken to a man at the Tyburn House
dance, and asked who Mary Ashford was, then
recognising her as having been a servant at
the Swan Inn, Erdington, declared that he
should go home with her that night, as he had
known her sister before. He was dancing with
her when Hannah Cox, after waiting half an
hour at the bridge for Mary, had sent Carter
for her.

Black as these things looked, the defence
was very able and very convincing. It was
contended that little stress could be laid on the
footprints. Labourers' shoes, made by the same
shoemaker, almost exactly resemble each other.
Moreover, so many persons from Penn's Mills
had crowded to the field and pit on hearing of
the murder, that all means of identifying the first
footprints were soon destroyed. All the
footprints, in fact, except two that were at once
covered with boards, were effaced by a heavy
thunderstorm that broke soon after over the
scene of guilt. If Thornton's story were true,
the footprints were really his and Mary
Ashford's, for they had been in those fields on
their way from Tyburn House. Mary
Ashford left Butler's house at nineteen minutes
after four. At about half-past four Thornton
was seen by William Jennens, a milkman, as he
was milking cows at Mr. Holden's farm, passing
towards the meadows leading to Castle
Bromwich. He was walking very gently, and
was not at all heated or agitated. About five
minutes after five John Heydon, gamekeeper to
John Rutter, Esq., at Castle Bromwich, saw
Thornton as he (Heydon) was taking up the
flood-gates and examining the nets at Castle
Bromwich Mill. Thornton told the keeper he
had been taking a girl home from the Tyburn
club. He was sober, and did not appear heated,
but said he was "much tired." He stayed a
quarter of an hour talking. He then went on in
the direction of his father's house. The Bromwich
stable-clock was proved to have been fifteen
minutes faster than Birmingham time; it was,
therefore, only seven or eight minutes before
five when Thornton spoke to the keeper. It, was,
therefore, wisely and convincingly contended
that it was impossible the prisoner, between
nineteen minutes past four and twenty-five or
thirty minutes past four, when he was seen by the
milkman, could have abused and murdered Mary
Ashford, and got over the intervening distance.

The distances were most material in the case,
and must be examined before Thornton's case
can be fully understood. Mary's nearest
road to the pit from Butler's house measured
one mile two furlongs and thirty-eight yards.
From the pit to Holden's, even across hedge and
ditch, was one mile four furlongs sixty-one
yards. But then the hedges would have delayed
him, and, taking the way a murderer would
probably have gone for expedition, the distance
would have been two miles two furlongs forty-