in a cellar where carbonic acid might probably have accumulated, we should derive an important clue for the investigation.
Whether any indications of a struggle having happened on the spot are visible on the ground, or herbage near the deceased; and whether any footsteps can be traced near the body?—The Cornish case presents itself to us again in illustration of this question. There are also several cases where impressions upon the snow have led to the detection of the guilty party. In the case of Wm. Spiggot, Wm. Morris, David Morgan, Walter Evans, Charles Morgan, and David Llewellin, for the murder of Wm. Powell, Esq. at Glenareth, in Caermarthenshire, March 30, 1770, footsteps were traced from Powell's house (a deep snow having just fallen) to that of Charles Morgan, who was in consequence apprehended, and did not long deny the fact. Some very interesting evidence was delivered upon the subject of footsteps, on the celebrated trial of Abraham Thornton, for the murder of Mary Ashford, at the Warwick assizes of 1817. William Lovell, a workman at Penn's Mills, and several other witnesses, spoke as to the presence and direction of the footsteps of a man and a woman, which approached each other at one spot; their appearance shewed that the persons had been running, and dodging each other, "as well from the stride, as the sinking in of the ground, and the little scrape at the toe of the woman's shoe." The footsteps were afterwards compared with the shoes of Thornton, and found to coincide; the shoes, moreover, had a particular nail, called a sparrow bill, the impression of which was also perceptible. The same comparison was made with the shoes of the unfortunate Mary Ashford, and with a result which appeared to be
