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The trial of Oscar Wilde, the dramatic author, on charges of criminal indecency, was resumed before Mr. Justice Wills to-day.

Wilde, who was so weak that he could not stand, was accommodated with a seat in the witness box while giving evidence on his own behalf.

He denied absolutely all the charges, and said that he had always understood that Taylor, who had been previously charged with the same offence and convicted, was a respectable man. With reference to the low social grade of the persons with whom during the trial he had been proved to have associated, Wilde stated that the reason of his friendship was that personally he liked them, and considered to be "lionised" delightful.

Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., counsel for the prisoner, in addressing the jury, characterised the witnesses against his client as blackmailers, and urged that it was impossible to believe their evidence.

The jury, after deliberating in retirement for two hours, returned a verdict against Wilde of guilty on all the counts.

Mr. Justice Wills, in passing sentence on the two convicted men, Taylor and Wilde, spoke with great emotion, and said he found it difficult enough to restrain his feelings. The verdict of the jury was, his Honor said, correct beyond the shadow of a doubt. He felt that it would be useless to address the prisoners, as they must be dead to all sense of shame. The case was the worst that had ever been tried before him, and he must pass the severest sentence which the law permitted, though he regretted that this was totally inadequate.

Justice Wills then sentenced Wilde and Taylor each to two years' imprisonment, with hard labor.

Taylor bore the sentence well, and left the dock with a firm step, but Wilde seemed quite dazed and stunned. His face was frightfully haggard, and for a few moments he stared with despairing, horror-struck looks straight before him.

Then he muttered weakly a request that he might be permitted to address the judge. No attention was paid to the request, and the gaol warders immediately removed him to the cells.

LONDON, 26TH MAY.

After the removal of Wilde from the court Mr. Justice Wills was asked by the jury whether Lord Alfred Douglas was being arrested.

The judge replied that he was not aware of action being taken in that respect. So far as the present trial was concerned it did not affect Lord Alfred Douglas.

One of the jurymen remarked that if Wilde's letters produced at his trial showed him to be guilty of the offence charged against him, the same evidence applied equally to Lord Alfred Douglas.

Mr. Justice Wills concurred in this statement, but said that the suspicion that Lord Alfred Douglas was being allowed to escape trial on account of his family connections was unfounded and impossible.

The Marquis of Queensberry and his eldest son, Lord Douglas of Hawick, who recently fought in Piccadilly over a family quarrel arising out of the Wilde case, were present in court and witnessed the end of the trial.

London, May 27.—During the trial, Wilde, who appeared to be suffering from weakness, was allowed to remain seated in the witness-box while giving evidence on his own behalf. He said he always understood Taylor to be a respectable man, and, referring to his association with him, said the reason for the friendship was because he personally liked praise, and lionising was delightful to him.

Sir Edward Clarke, counsel for the accused, declared that the witnesses for the prosecution were blackmailers, and that it was impossible to believe them.

The jury asked whether it was intended to arrest Lord Alfred Douglas.

The Judge replied that he was not aware of the intention of the police, but in any case it did not affect the present trial.

The jury thought that if Wilde's letter showed him to be guilty the guilt applied equally to Lord Alfred Douglas.

His Honor concurred in this opinion, but added that the suspicion of the jury that the son of the Marquis of Queensberry was being allowed to escape owing to his connections was both unfounded and impossible.

Oscar Wilde, after being sentenced, appeared quite dazed and horror-struck. In his despair he weakly muttered a request to be permitted to address the court, but this was unheeded, and the warders hurried him off to his cell.

Mr Henry W. Lucy, writing to one of the Australian papers on the subject, says:—There is something dismally tragic in its way in the thought of Oscar Wilde in his prison cell whilst two London theatres are crammed with audiences delighted with the clever situations and light persiflage of his plays from his pen, in the full tide of their popularity, when his career was abruptly cut short. The situation was a little awkward for the managers of St. James's Theatre, where "The Importance of Being Earnest" is played, and for Messrs Waller and Morell, who had arranged to continue at the Criterion the successful run of "An Ideal Husband." They have attempted to meet it in a manner that is problematically wise, but indubitably mean. They keep on the plays, but erase the name of the dishonoured author. In the United States, where the "Ideal Husband' has been played to crowded houses, the manager has heroically withdrawn it, a proceeding in which there is at least some sign of logic. To show one's moral indignation by omitting the name of a dishonoured and degraded author, and to continue taking at the door the money he brings in, is quite another thing. It is impossible to feel any regret at the fate that has at length tracked the evil footsteps of Oscar Wilde. But the pity of it is infinite. After long struggling with costly habits and inadequate means Wilde had reached a position in which he found a fortune as well as fame. His plays, running in the United States and simultaneously in two theatres in London, brought him in large revenues. Having outlived the well-considered foolishness of his lily and sunflower days, he had before him a honourable and lucrative career. Then his sin finds him out, and all is blackness and night. The sensation created in London by the criminal proceedings are commensurate with the wideness of the circle to which Wilde was personally known, and that included everybody worth knowing. The last time I met him at dinner was at a small party in a private dining-room at the House of Commons. The host, heir presumptive to a peerage, an ex-Minister, belonged, like the majority of his guests (who included Mr Arthur Balfour), to the most exclusive set in London. Wilde, as usual amid such surroundings, was in brilliant conversational form. In his narrow cell, or hereafter in company with the coarsest of mankind, with nothing in his dress to to distinguish between them and the sybarite, he will doubtless sometimes think of that particular evening, and of many another akin to it. The bitterest part of his punishment will be these crowding memories, for truly "sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."