The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-04

alleged goodness Of her husband, hoped to
have her disgrace and his concealed. This
hope failed her in the face of her pronounced
confession and her apparent sanity, as testi-
fed TO by numerous witnesses. Only for the
period since the birth of the child and the
confession consequent thereupon have the
witnesses for the lady-and among them a
remarkable and siDgularly concurrent num-
Der of well-known physicians-mnde out
clear case of insanity. We think it shown
that If Lady Mordaunt was sane at one time
she was insane at another, and accordingly
are inclined to believe that her British
jurors have reached decent verdict from an
indecent case. It is in effect that she is not
competent to respond to her husbands suit
for divorce
Lady Mordaunt, however, is not the most
distinguished parsonage whose reputation has
stood on trial in this miserable case. The
presence on the witness stand of the Prince
of Wales, and the production of a number of
his letters, have given it certain interest to
many whom its details would utterly shock
and repel. The solemn asseveration of the
Prince that he was not guilty accords with
the exoneration given him by the lawyer of
MIR. Mordaunt, but it does not relieve him
from that blame which must signally attach
itself to the conduct of a Prince, and that
Prince the son of "Albert the Good" who is
diverted from his own good wife by another
mans bad one. 1t has, no doubt, relieved
the royal and noble and gentle mind of Eng
land to discover that the Princes letters
answer so aptly to the charitable view of Mr..
Mordaunts lawyer. They are perfectly in
nocuous. Ponies and partridges, woodcocks
and stays, sledges and muffetees-and why
not muffs?-keep from being objectless that
vacuum of high life in which the most amiable
of princes floats his powerful mind. In these
clumsy letters there is not one touch of inor-
dinate sensibility, but an endless suggestive
ness to those who write novels for the aris-
tocracy. What boundless leisure, what rich
parks and pastures, what elegant domestic
life, do not ponies, stays, woodcocks and
partridges, and muffetees, bring to mind
especially when written about by prince.
Alas for romancel Truth is stranger than
fiction. The'people of the Mordaunt drama
may be about as insipid and mean as super
fine life or superfne historian of that life
could make them; but the tragedy of luxuri-
GUS living is beyond the power of snobbery
| to depict. 1t is not the less terrible because
| 1t browns some of its actors as flies are
drowned in molasses. The occupation of the
novelist of crime is gone. He may preserve
for us curious court flies in amber, and pre-
| sent us strange crime with rose-water and
rose-color; but the lawyers, and the judges,
and the wretched men and women of every
day make sad work of his boudoir and draw
ing-room. What is the use of his limiting at
secrets of RatSOn and murder? Why does he
play with the awful game of life and death,
the reality of which makes his best efforts so
| mean? Why does he speak of love and ma
trimony in such a spoony way, when here is
| Hymens torch lighting up the madhouse
| Stop writing, man of ink There is nothing
new under the sun. There is no secret which
| you can impart. There is not plot or mys-
| terry which has not been revealed before Judge
and jury, and no scandal, no shame, no
tragedy of books which has not been fami-
| liarly outscandalized and outmurdered in this
revealing life of the nineteenth century.