seven yards from the pit to Holden's, making a
total distance of three miles four furlongs eighty-
five yards. This calculation, which is bound on
all sides by the most stringent observation, left
only eleven minutes for the deceased's walk from
Butler's house to the pit, for the assault, the
death, and the struggle, after a pursuit (as the
prosecution surmised), and the carrying the girl's
body thirty yards to the pit, and placing the
bundle and shoes on the slope. To do all this,
Thornton, a stout short man with clumsy legs,
must have leaped over the country at the rate
of fifteen miles an hour. It was also proved
that deceased had no wound or bruise upon
her, and that the blood found proceeded from
natural causes. Mr. Sadler, the prisoner's
solicitor, complained much at the time of the cruel
reports spread against Thornton, the pamphlets
and songs, that rendered it difficult to find an
unbiased jury. The county magistrates
themselves were strongly prejudiced against Thornton,
and had pursued their investigations with
the acrimony of partisans, who had quite made
up their mind that Thornton had abused
and murdered Mary Ashford after she left
Butler's house; although it was proved (by
circumstances which we need not recapitulate)
that Thornton and the girl had been
together all night, and that Mary Ashford had
returned to her friend with a lie in her
mouth, smiling, and without a word of
complaint.

It also appears that the Reverend Mr.
Bedford, a county magistrate, went to Birmingham
jail and reproached Thornton for having denied
that he had seen the girl after she went home to
dress. He also expressed his astonishment at
Thornton being able to eat (he was at dinner),
and said to him, very unwisely:

"You'll be hanged, and your body will
be given to the surgeons to be dissected;
you've long deserved it, for you've cost your
father many a hundred pounds for getting you
out of scrapes like this before."

It was also clear that the deceased could
have thrown herself from the bank six feet high
into the water. There was no sign of a struggle
near the pit, and although there were two
labourers' houses within a hundred and fifty yards
of the pit, and men were beginning to stir for
milking, bird-minding, and stable-cleaning, there
were no cries for help heard, notwithstanding
Mary Ashford was a vigorous and robust girl
in the prime of life.

The prisoner's conduct after leaving Mary
Ashford was quiet and straightforward. He
got home about five. He then changed his
black coat for a damson-coloured one, but did
not change his shoes or stockings, though the
former were wet. When arrested at ten o'clock,
he at once confessed he had spent all night
with Mary Ashford, but said he had left her near
Butler's, and after having waited five minutes
for her on Erdington-green. There was nothing
to impugn this statement, and Thornton was
acquitted by the jury.

In reviewing this intensely interesting case
earnestly, judicially, and dispassionately, we are
fully of opinion that the verdict was a just one.
It is true Thornton confessed that he waited to
see the girl on her way to her uncle's; but he
could not have committed the crime (for which
there was no motive), and arrived calm and
cool at the flood-gates in the time. There
is only One who will ever know who
committed that cruel crime—if it were a crime;
but let us examine the worst possible conjectures.
If Thornton murdered the girl, he
must have met her again, assaulted her, then
thrown her, while fainting, into the pit, to
prevent discovery; but her previous guilt
renders this unlikely. Or, she might have pressed
him to promise marriage, and he in a rage might
have thrown her into the pit; but, if this were on
her mind, how could she have returned in such
good spirits to her friend at Butler's? Three
other conjectures (reconcilable with Thornton's
innocence) seem to us more reasonable.

First, she might have been assaulted and
murdered by some rambling tramp from
Birmingham, or some labourer on his way to work.
Tramps can easily escape, for they leave no clue;
labourers have a right to be out early,
in the fields. But, then, why were the
things placed deliberately on the edge of
the slope? By design of the murderer? We
doubt it.

Secondly, did Mary Ashford try to go down
to the water to wash, and, in the attempt,
drown herself?

Thirdly (and this we think is the most
probable), the girl alone, the excitement of the
guilty revel and its fatal consequences gone off,
the flush of perhaps more beer and spirits than
a country girl was in the habit of taking having
passed away, there came a sudden pang—
a bitter and unbearable pang of conscience—an
awakening of innocent horror at the night and
its results—a dread of consequences, of shame,
of discovery; then one look round of bitter
parting at the fields, the sky, the awakening
birds, and the dewy flowers; then a harried
placing down of the bundle, the shoes, and the
bonnet, and a desperate plunge into death.

Had there been a struggle, short as it might
have been, there must have been traces
at the pit's edge, and there would have been
bruises on the girl's throat or chest.

Public feeling was far too much set on
Thornton's death, to be satisfied with this verdict
of acquittal.

A letter-press description, strongly coloured,
together with a sketch of the pit and a drawing
of Mary Ashford, were published by Mr. Lines,
and engraved by Mr. Radcliffe, of Birmingham.
A hot-pressed map (15 by 11) also appeared,
and "An Antidote to Prejudice" was followed
by "An Investigation of the Case." The Rev.
Luke Booker aIso published a moral review of
the conduct and case of Mary Ashford, in
refutation of the arguments adduced in defence of her
supposed violator and murderer, which concluded
with: "A proposed Epitaph.—As a warning to
female virtue, this monument is erected over