~Ashford, Mary.~--Sensational trials for murder have of late years been numerous enough, indeed, though few of them have had much local interest, if we except that of the poisoner Palmer. The death of the unfortunate Mary Ashford, however, with the peculiar circumstance attending the trial of the supposed murderer, and the latter's appeal to the right then existing under an old English law of a criminal's claim to a "Trial of Battel," invested the case with an interest which even at this date can hardly be said to have ceased. Few people can be found to give credence to the possibility of the innocence of Abraham Thornton, yet a careful perusal of a history of the world-known but last "Wager of Battel" case, as written by the late Mr. Toulmin Smith, must lead to the belief that the poor fellow was as much sinned against as sinning, local prejudices and indignant misrepresentations notwithstanding. So far from the appeal to the "Wager of Battel" being the desperate remedy of a convicted felon to escape the doom justly imposed upon him for such heinous offence as the murder of an innocent girl, it was simply the attempt of a clever attorney to remove the stigma attached to an unfortunate and much-maligned client. The dead body of Mary Ashford was found in a pit of water in Sutton Coldfield, on the 27th of May, 1817, she having been seen alive on the morning of the same day. Circumstances instantly, and most naturally, fastened suspicion of foul play upon Abraham Thornton. He was tried at Warwick, at the Autumn Assizes of the same year, and acquitted. The trial was a very remarkable one. Facts were proved with unusual clearness and precision, which put it beyond the bounds of physical possibility that he could have murdered Mary Ashford. Those facts hinged on the time shown by several different clocks, compared with the standard time kept at Birmingham. But the public feeling on the matter was intense. An engraving of the scene of the alleged murder, with a stimulating letter-press description, was published at the time, and the general sense undoubtedly was, that the perpetrator of a very foul murder had escaped his just doom. Hoping to do away with this impression, a well-known local lawyer bethought himself of the long-forgotten "Appeal of Murder," trusting that by a second acquittal Thornton's innocence would be acknowledged by all. Though the condition of all the parties was but humble, friends soon came forward with funds and good advice, so that within the year and a day which the law allowed, proceedings were taken in the name of William Ashford (Mary's brother, who, as next heir, according to the old law, had the sole power of pardon in such a case) for an "Appeal of Murder" against Abraham Thornton. What followed is here given in Mr. Toulmin Smith's own words:--"I have seen it stated, hot indignation colouring imagination, that here was a weak stripling nobly aroused to avenge the