The Express.
London, England, 1864-11-24 00:00:00

THE CODRINGTON DIVORCE CASE.

COURT OF PROBATE AND DIVORCE.
Nov. 23.
(Won gas Judge Onthary.)
OODIMIGTON O. OODINGTON AND AILDWON.
incur. JIM.

After over report left yesterday.
The Judge Ordinary observed that the %nations submitted
to the jury were neither intik:de nor involving points of
law on which he need dash' them. There
were, however, two directions in which they might go
astray—two rocks upon whisk their judgment might pee.
sibly be wrecked. In the flat place, in oonsidering the
ease against Mrs. Codringtoe, they might iessoeibly have
I been led to attach weight to the mere number of charges,
and to think that • person against whom so many soma.
Hose had been brought and suppated by more or lees of
evidence could not be wholly without geilt. But surely
any number of weak links would not make • strong chain.
It was true that • great variety of teas of suspicion satis-
factorily made out wore as so many steps by which the jury
might rise to the higher charge of adultery • but • number
of MR* unproved charges ought nob to affect their view of
the quotations submitted to them. The other danger to
which they were exposed was lest they should think that
because some of the charges had failed they had • right to
hurl back the whole ease at the head of the petitioner.
This, likewise, would surely not be • logial course ;
they must weigh the evidence in each ease and form
their amolnsion upon each allegation Independently. The
letter which had just been read appeared to him to have •
most important bearing upon the case. Regarding it in the
most favourable light for the respondent, could they look
upon it eves es the later which • sister might write to her
brother ? It monied to him to he impossible for anybody
to read it and attach to it any but one meaning—that mean-
ing being that Mrs. Codrington and Colossi Anderson had
for • long time, probably for two years, been a terms of
Mint &Bedtime. Mind, there was not • weed of adultery in
the whole letter ; bat it wag impossible not to see from it
that the puttee must have interehaaged vows of mutual
&Bailee. look at its language :—" Surely before you en.
gaged yourself to he married to agree you were bound in
all hoover to write and tell me of the changed state of your
feelings." Suppose the letter were from Calomel Anderson's
sister, could the pad* have mid that? How weld she
say that her brother was " band in boomer" to tell her
before he engaged himself to he married It wee pretty
obvious that the writer mast be alluding to some eat of fealty
which her correspondent and herself owed to one another
as the consequenos of mutual vows. Again, the letter
went OD to Say—" I =Met believe in one week the recol-
lection of the two pest yeas can be obliterated so utterly
from your heart as to amble you to marry mother." Could
• enter have written like that' How could • saber have
possibly talked about her brother marrying " abolber ?"
Again, the writer said, "Time aloes cam effect each • revul-
sion in • true heart." And agam." As to the advice yon
give me, I would say nothing harsh or unkind to you, but
onaidering the abject of your letter, and the startling an-
nouncement you mad* to me, it is somewhat cold and cruel,
sad,l venter, of thearitare of the advice theexecutionergives
hie victim when toying her bead on the block, ' I have to
cut your head off ; it most be, so do not Slack or swerve—
it is best you should not, and then zny axe will make a
clean stroke and end year misery quickly.' As you have
steeled your heart to writs what you have, believe me,
the least you can say on that point the better. There
ere certain crushing sorrows wherein the heat alone
knows its own bitterness, and only God can give comfort."
Surely that was • letter which spoke of passion, and of
parka which bad been not unrequited. how to • married
woman who thus surrendered her heart, it was a very sheet
step radioed to go farther, and surrender her anon. Still
it wee • step further. There was not • word in the letter
which referred to criminal intercourse ; and it was for those
who supported the petition to show that It had nevertheless
Wren place. The whole of the investigation had really been
occupied is proving that lest step ; but the letter itself car-
ried them three parts of the journey. He must say he
thought that the husband of • wife who was capable of
writing such • letter was very well justified in craning to the
Divorce Court, and saying, " I will not live any looger with
such a person, if Ima help it." A great deal had bees said
thong the employment of spies. No doubt Gary one's feel-
ing! would be Whist such a course ; bat it could not be
said that • man as never to have his wife watched.
Whether • man was justified in doing so or not
depended entirely upon the date of his knowledge
at the time, and also upon what was dimmed ;
for no one would tolerate the idea of a woman complaining
that she was watched when, in point of fact, it appeared
that she bad been all toe time committing adultery. In
this eve it would be for the jury to say whether, when the
letter which had been read was fouled in the respondent's
desk, the petitioner wee not perfectly justified in watching
each • woman. The jury had heard the evidence respecting
the conduct of the respondents after Colonel Andaman's re-
turn to Loudon from Soothed. He had bad an interview of
two or three hours with Ma. Oodriagton at her husbants
home on the Sunday, and it certainly would require • con-
siderable stretch of charity to believe that after that oppec!
unity of returning any papers which she might have had
to give up, and of making any other arrangements, the
cold require to meet him again for any innocent purpose at
the Grosvenor Hotel, and to speed three or four hours
with him there. All that, however, was entirely for the
judgment of the jury, which they would exercise with refe-
rence to the state of feeling between the respondents.
It was very tens that there was no direct evi-
dence of adultery ; aor was there in nine cues out of ten ;
but they might presume adultery if the circureatanees wag
sufficiently strong to warmest them in doing so. It would
be for them to say whether the interviews bantam these
patties were of the nature of clandestine meetings, or who-
thee they were snch.as might be accounted for by legitimate
frisedship. He (Sir J. P. Wilds) dwelt thus much epee
this part of the ow, because it was by far the strongest,
and it did not awry iwavietioa with it be did not think there
was any other that would.
The Queen's Advocate—l do nob know whether it would
be proper to remind your lordship that Colonel Anderson
was engaged to be married at the time !
The Judge Ordinary—That is • mere remark ; but if I
make say error in panne the evidence I shall
gondola, to
be corrected.—As regarded the adultery is theit
was not necanary for him to make any observations urge
the evidence, farther than this—which:was • fair remark to
make up= that el all the Maltese vintage—they did not
appear. to have mentioned what they had noticed until
some wpaoa had bees around, and probably sot until
after legal gentlemies had been not out from this country
to make inquiries. As to Roe's testimony, it seemed to be
wholly irreooocileable with that of Lieutenant Galway ;
and it was, moreover, of • very equivocal character. What
the policeman had deposed to, even if it really occurred,
was no more than might be susceptible of aa innoesat ex-
plamition. He now quitted the case of Colonel Anderson,
leaving the jury to form their own judgment open the
various facts is issue, and their bearing upon the extraordi-
nary relations which bad existed all this time between this
man ad this wawa, as shows by her letter.
Mr. Price—Will your lordship direct the jury that that
letter is not endear, against Colonel Anderson ?

The Judge Ordinary—The learned counsel was perfectly
right upon the point of law. The letter written by the
respoodeut was not metope. opium Colonel Anderson ; and
if Mrs. Codringtoe bad not been a party to this came,
it could not have been evidence against her. There was no
doubt as to Misrule of law ; bat, as a man of common sense
he (the Judge Ordinary) rimed that be thought that the
distinction was • perfectly idle one to take; for how
could the jury at one and the same time treat it
as 'videoce and not evidence ?—how could they
at one and the same time say that is preyed
adultery to have been committed by Mrs. Codrington with
Colooel Anderson, and that it did not prove adultery
to have been committed by Colonel Anderson with Mrs.
Codriogtoo ? (A laugh.) It was ace of those rules of law
which asked the mind to perform an impossible function.
The jury could not come toe 000clusicia spinet Mrs. Cod-
, finical, and at the name time my they were of opinion that
there was no evidence spinet Colonel Aodersoa. He now
came to the case as it related to Lieut. Mildmay. Here
again he would take the same course as he had already done,
sod grapple at once with the strongest evidence, namely,
that of Mrs. Wawa. (The leased judge read or ma-
untamed a coosidemble portion of the vitae's.* deposition.)
No doubt them revealed eoefideacies, where one of the
partiescould get into the witness•box and the other could not
were very awkward things for a respondent to deal with,
and he really did not see how they were to be dealt with,
unless the jury would ask themselves whether the story
told them was • probable one, and whether the person tell. li
Mg it was free from bias ? Now, in the first place, he did
Dot think that Mrs. Watson was a lady to whom • married
woman would choose to coeflde • guilty attachment for
another man. le this esse, too, it was • perfectly voluntary
. statement. It was not a ease in which them had been •
i partial discovery, and a further explanation had been as it
were extorted ; but it was alleged that after oily two or
. three Lye' acquaintance by the bedside of a sick (deed the
' respondent had volunteered this singular confession to •
: lady who was evidently a pence of rigid virtue—a lady
i who, as they had all seen, was a perfectly
intelligent, discreet, and exact person—a lady who,
unlike perhaps the writer of the • Lilian letter," would
certainly not be disposed to talk in easy terms of such •
matter as adultery. While Mrs. Codrington told Mrs. WM-
. eon that she woke sad found herself in Lieutenant Mildmay's
arms. Ma. Watson charitably added, "My impression wee
that the seal of Infamy was not then set ;" 'Jut It was hard
not to believe that Mrs. Codringtoo meant to convey, if
I what Mrs. Watson reported was true, that the sad of
infamy war )then set. Next, Mrs. Codringtos was repre-
sented as goiog spin to Mrs. Watson and declaring, io a
paroxysm of agitation sad tears, that " The climax of evil
had arrived., He (liar J.P.Wilde) certainly could not under-
stand either the owl manner in which Mrs. Cudriogtou had,
three months before, aneounced that she had spent the
night in the anus of Lieutenant Mildmay, or the agitation
and tears which had accompanied this later thalami. There
- was • species of clic:Tommy is Mrs. Waimea's evidence
which made one badly inclined to give it entire credence.
Mrs. Watson said that she was nut on terms of sash intl.
mite frioadship with the respoodent after this coefessien,
. but her statement was hardly recoecileable with her
letter.. It was also difficult to understand bee
subsequeet cooduct. There was no trace of any gunnel
between them, except a temporary one, that seemed to have
been perfectly healed; but after the partied returned to
England Mrs. Watson was present at all the steps whisk
were taken to mead the petition. He owned that one's
mid rather revolted from Ude state of things. Gas weld