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

a maidservant in tb".1174-e 4414001,"
book of the dockyard portal, establish ft
at least one of the amnions Ara which
ANDERSON wu charged with having stayed in the
house he had left " directly " after landing.
Similar instances, in which Lieutenant Mrunur
was the alleged partner of guilt, were rebutted by
the evidence of Lieutenant GALWAY, who had
been with the parties all the evening. And an
accusation against Mrs. CODRINGTON of having been
in Lieutenant MILDMAY'S room during a tour in
Switzerland was wholly disproved by a lady who
was of the party, and in whose apartment Mrs.
CODEINOTON had been during the period. After the
return to England she wu frequently in company
with Colonel ANDILEI3ON she met him at the
house of Miss Emu.: FLITHPIILL, and on one oo-
melon she accompanied him to the Grosvenor
Hotel ; but no direct evidence of impropriety was
produced. Colonel ANDERSON, being co-respond-
ant, could not be examined ; Lieutenant Mn.niux
was in India, but bad refused to give evidence on a
eonunimion which Mrs. Comm:not; had procured
and sent out for that purpose.

That, however, which may have weighed
most with the jury in pronouncing her
guilty with both officers was probably the evi-
dence of a draft letter found in her desk and
the testimony of Mrs. Wuson. The letter bore
neither date nor address, but it was evidently
intended for Colonel ANDERSON. It referred to
an announcement of his approaching marriage ; it
urged that if his vows to the writer had been
sincere he oould not now love the lady he was
about to espouse, and it urged him for her sake
and his own not to marry unless he loved. It
contained no further allusion to any passion, and
expressed the writer's willingness to renounce all
claims on him as soon as he was certain that he
loved another. Written by an unmarried woman,
it would have been a very noble and touching
appeal ; written by a married woman, though it
implied no guilt, it implied that she had listened
to vows which were guilty. Mrs. WATSON'S
evidence bore solely against Lieutenant MILDEST.
She declared that in 1861 Mn CODRINOTON had
told her of several instances of familiarity incom-1
potable with innocence, and at last confessed to her '
that five minutes before she had committed adultery,
with Mn.rousr in a public lane behind the house.l
Mrs. WATSON declared that she was shocked ; but
as Mrs. CODRINOTON was penitent she could not
but forgive her. In fact the intimacy continued
unabated, and with expressions of affection on
Mrs. WSTBO27'B part, until Mrs. CODRINOTON
quarrelled with her. Then it seems she joined
eagerly in the endeavour to prove her guilty ; but,
she withheld the evidence of the confession till
put into the witness-box, on the plea that till she
was on oath she was bound by a promise of secresy.
But on the other hand she was proved to have
written a letter, in which she described Mrs.
CODRINOTON as in the habit of pouring
out such nonsense that she could not be
considered responsible, and such as con-
vinced MTS. WATSON that " she was wandering
"in her mind," and " astray in the brain." And
in this opinion Admiral Conelsoron himself, so
late as 1862, concurred. Perhaps even now,ll
though we may be bound to accept the verdict of
the jury as scarcely avoidable on the strong evi-
deuce of fact, we may admit the darkness of this
mental shadow to cover in some degree the guilt
whose full enormity it may have partly hidden in
the hour of error.