. All parties were satisfied, and Wagajee was
dismissed with the present of a new turban.

Trial by ordeal was introduced into England by the Saxons. Under the
English laws, a prisoner might choose whether he would be tried by
ordeal or by jury. Trial by ordeal was abolished in this country in
the year 1218.

Trial by or wager of battle may be mentioned as a form of superstition
which remained as a legal way of deciding criminal cases down to the
time of George III.

In 1817 a young man, charged with murdering his sweetheart in England,
claimed the right to have his case decided by wager of battle: the
court admitted the claim, but he whose right it was to accept the
challenge refused to fight, and so the accused escaped punishment.
This led to the law, which allowed trial by battle, being repealed in
1819.

Before commencing the fight, the combatants were compelled to swear
that neither of them would resort to sorcery or witchcraft. If the
accused were slain, the judges regarded the fatal deed as proof of his
guilt. If overpowered, but not killed, he was adjudged guilty, and
sentenced to be immediately executed. Women, priests, infants, men
sixty years of age, or lame or blind, had it in their option to refuse
wager of battle, and were entitled to demand trial by jury.

An old author says: "If two neighbours dispute respecting the
boundaries of their possessions, let a piece of turf of the contested
land be dug up by the judge, and brought by him into the court, and
the two parties shall touch it with the points of their swords,
calling on the Most High to witness their claims. After this let them
combat, and let victory prove who is right and who is wrong."

Sir Walter Scott gives a good illustration of the superstition of
olden times, and of trial by battle, in _Ivanhoe_. We are told that
after Ivanhoe was wounded at the tournament, Rebecca, the Jewess, lost
no time in causing the patient to be removed to her father's dwelling,
and with her own hands bound up his wounds. The Jews, both male and
female, possessed and practised the medical science; and the monarchs
and powerful barons of the time, says the novelist, frequently, when
wounded or in sickness, committed themselves as patients to the charge
of an experienced person among the despised people. A general belief
prevailed among Christians that the Jewish rabbins were acquainted
with the occult sciences, and particularly with the cabalistical art.
The ra