The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-28 00:00:00

LYCEUM THEATRE.

Tins EVENING, at 7.30, TWENTY MINUTES WITH A
TIGER And CHILPE RIC: M. Marius, G. Vincent, Odell,
Coghlan, Lapierre, and M. Herve; Mesdames Dolaro, Fitz-
Inman, Romanelli, Nellie Nesbit, and Miss Emily Muir.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manageress, Mrs. Swanborow,h

THIS EVENING, at 7, THE HEIR, AT LAW: Mr Clarke, Mr
James, Miss Bufton, &c. With THE TOODLES. Concluding
with ISO.

WOODIN'S CARPET - BAG AND SKETCH BOOK,
Egyptian Hall. Piccadilly, every Evening (except Saturday) at
S; Saturday Mornings at 3. Admission, ls, 2s, 3s.

CHRISTY MINSTRELS. St. James's Hall, Every Night, at 8
Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 3 and 8 all the year round.

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regent's-park, OPEN daily (ex-
cept Snndays). Admission, lis.; on Mendays' 6d. Children
nnder twelve, Gd.

ROYAL ALHAMBRA PALACE. THREE BALLETS
Promenade Concert. Band of 60. Begin at 8. 18. Box-office
o pen from 11 to 4.

sum

LONDON, MONDAY, FEE. 28, 1870.

WE presume that few of our readers who have
kept clearly in view the real object of investigation in
the miserable trial which has occupied so many days
would have required more than the ten minutes' con-
sideration which the jury gave to it. It is by no
means so certain that the public generally did under-
stand the question at issue. Two judicially distinct
matters were necessarily so mixed up in the trial that
it is pardonable if ordinary readers became confused,
and supposed that the real matter of inquiry was if
Lady Mordaunt had been unfaithful instead of if Lady
Mordaunt was insane on April3o, 1869. Unfortunately
the answer to the second question could be ascer-
tained only by raising the first. Lady Mordaunt had
accused herself of adultery; that fact was indis-
putable. Lady Mordaunt is now insane; that fact is
equally indisputable. Was there any connection
between the two facts ? Was the terrible charge
merely the offspring of a diseased mind, with no real
foundation ? or was that charge no less true than the

mental disease is now real? It was natural enough
that the relatives of Lady Mordaunt should endea-
vour to save their name from blemish by asserting
the first hypothesis ; it does not seem to
us quite so natural that Sir Charles ➢lor-
daunt should have attempted to prove the second.
He cannot doubt that his wife is suffering
from the most terrible disease that can befall a
human being. He can have little doubt but that this
disease began, at all events, within a very short time
of his instituting proceedings against her. He must
have foreseen the fearful scandal to which such a
trial as this would give rise. It would have been noble
magnanimity on his part if he had suffered in silence
the cruel wrong which he believes he has suffered.

But let us not judge him harshly; we are not all
heroes. None of us can tell what we should do if
placed in such agonising circumstances as his. He
supposed himself to be in possession of perfect
wedded happiness. He had a wife "super-
latively beautiful," allied with the first fami-
lies in the land —a wife of whom any
man would be proud, and who he supposed loved
him. A. child is born to him whom he believes to
be his own. Suddenly, in a moment, he finds his
domestic honour ruined, his happiness shipwrecked.

He is told by the mother of the child that it is not
his, that it is the child of his friend, that she, the wife
whom he loved and trusted, had sinned, not once
only or with one man, but again and againwith many
men; and that instead of being the high born lady
surrounded with every luxury she had been a
miserable harlot, selling her body to every passer-by
in order to win her bread. There is something in-
credibly horrible in such a revelation as this. It is

the very lowest depths of infamy without the smallest
excuse for it; it is the nethermost abyss of hell
without the temptation. Ho will not believe
anything so fearful. He rather chooses to think that
his wife is suffering from passing delusions not un-
common at child-birth. But then came damning
proofs, evidence so strong that he is compelled to
believe it, evidence so criminating that, so far
as regards tha worst of it, there is no
attempt to set it aside on the part of those most in-
terested in clearing themselves. lie is bound to be-

lieve that ho has been shamefully betrayed ; and
what wonder if, being thus compelled to admit the
truth of one part of the accusation, he believes all the
rest, believes that his wife is not merely an adulteress,
but has fallen lower than the lowest of her sex ? and
what wonder if he, thinking this, seeks to be set free
from the loathsome bond which binds him to such a
woman ? We might have wished that he had
resolved otherwise, we might have wished him to
shew himself a hero or a martyr; but are we quite sure
that we should have been heroes and martyrs in such
a case ? Anyway this unfortunate man is greatly to
be pitied. That his wife was -guilty, that her child is
not his, no one can entertain a doubt. The non-ap-
pearance in the witness-box of those who should have
proved otherwise leaves no uncertainty upon that point,
and Lord Penzance in summing up indicated clearly
enough what his judgment would have been if
this had been an ordinary divorce case. It is some
little alleviation of the shame of this case to
think that Lady Mordaunt's moral power had been
impaired by the disease which afterwards destroyed
her mental power, and that her sin was but another
form of her terrible misfortune. For her fellow-
sinners, if there are more than one, there are no
words of condemnation too strong. They must be
left to the execration of society and the sting of their
own consciences, if, indeed, they have any.

A good deal has been said in the course of this
trial about the injury done to the morals of tho
p3ople by the publicity which the case has obtained.
There aro two sides to this question. No doubt-it is
an unpleasant thing for journalists, who have higher
a3piratious than the largest circulation in the world,
to be compelled to serve up day by day such moral
garbage and filth as this trial has provided. Doubt-
less, too, there is many a parent who resents the in-
troduction of such moral offal into his pure household.
But the second at all events have a remedy. A father
cannot say that he has been taken unawares ; he knew
well enough beforehand what his daily paper
contained, and it was easy enough for him to keep it
out of the bands of his daughters. Only let him be
quite_ sure that they do not get hold of anything