The Telegraph - Monday, April 8, 1895

Mr. Oscar Wilde, who charged the Marquis of Queensberry with criminal libel, but failed in his suit, was arrested this afternoon, and appears at the Bow street police court to-morrow. It appears that Oscar Wilde had been "shadowed" by the detectives for two days. He made no reply to the charge when the warrant was read to him. Lord Alfred Douglas (the Marquis of Queensberry's son) had an interview with Oscar Wilde in his cell. The warrant was issued at the instance of the Treasury.

The managers of the theatres have removed Oscar Wilde's name from their playbills, but will continue playing his pieces for the present. The pieces are "An Ideal Husband" and "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Mr. Wilde, in a letter to the Press, states that he is willing to bear the ignominy of his present position, in order to avoid compelling Lord Alfred Douglas to give evidence against his father. Lord Douglas, however, is eagerly willing to give that evidence on behalf of his friend.

[The foregoing appeared in our Second Edition on Saturday.]

LONDON, April 7.

At the Bow street Police Court yesterday Mr. Oscar Wilde was brought up. Evidence of a most convicting nature was put forward by the prosecution, which was not in the least shaken by the defence. Taylor, Oscar Wilde's chief accomplice, had also been arrested, and when confronted with him, Oscar Wilde turned deadly pale, and his entire frame shook perceptibly. An application for bail was refused.

[In connection with the case just concluded, in which Mr. Oscar Wilde withdrew his case, a telegram from London to an American paper says: John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry, was arraigned before Magistrate Newton in the Great Marlborough street Police Court on March 2 on a charge of having libelled Mr. Oscar Wilde. Mr. Wilde's lawyer, in presenting the case, set forth that Mr. Wilde was a husband who was living upon most affectionate terms with his wife and two sons. For the last nine or ten months, he said, the Marquis of Queensberry had persecuted Mr. Wilde with the utmost cruelty.

The last act of persecution occurred on February 28, when the Marquis left Wilde, at a club of which both he and Mr. Wilde are members, an open card upon the back of which was written a vile epithet. The porter of the club, upon reading the words, enclosed the card in an envelope so that it might not be seen by other persons than Wilde.

The detective who arrested the Marquis at Dover testified that when he approached the Marquis and informed him of the complaint upon which he was arrested, his lordship said, "This has been going on for two years."

Sir George Lewis, the Marquis of Queensberry's solicitor, in his address to the court, said that when the facts became fully known it would be found that the Marquis had been acting under the influence of great indignation, based upon abundant provocation. The Marquis was released on £1,400 bail, and the case was adjourned for a week.

It has not been a secret that the reason for the Marquis of Queensberry's resentment was to be found in intimate relations existing between Mr. Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, who, until the death of Lord Drumlanrig placed him next in succession, was the younger son of the marquis. Owing to the friendship existing between Wilde and Lord Alfred the latter became estranged from his father, who, feeling his position more acutely by reason of sundry reports concerning the nature of their relations — which are also common property — conceived a most violent antipathy to Mr. Wilde.]

The Daily Telegraph - Monday, April 8, 1895

LONDON, Friday, 7.40 p.m.— At the instance of the Treasury a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Oscar Wilde.

The theatres at which pieces by Wilde are being performed have removed his name as the author from the playbills and programmes, but will continue playing the pieces for the present.

Wilde has written a letter to the newspapers, in which he states that he is willing to bear the ignominy of the charges made against him so as to avoid compelling Lord Alfred Douglas to give evidence against his father. He adds that Lord Alfred was eagerly willing to appear and give this evidence.

LONDON, Friday, 8 p.m.— Oscar Wilde has been arrested.

LONDON, Friday, 9.30 p.m.— Oscar Wilde will appear at the Bow-street Police Court to-morrow.

It has transpired that he has been watched by detectives for two days. When arrested and the warrant read to him he made no reply.

Lord Alfred Douglas has had an interview with Wilde in the cell at the police station.

LONDON, Sunday.— Oscar Wilde was brought up at the Bow-street Police Court yesterday and remanded, bail being refused. The evidence given at the trial of the Marquis of Queensberry was repeated. It was very convicting against Wilde, and was unshaken.

Taylor, one of Wilde's chief accomplices, has also been arrested. When the two were confronted, the color left Wilde's face, and he trembled.

So far as we may speculate on futurity, it seems that Oscar Wilde has closed a career of bizarre brilliance. He has been a champion of culture and an apostle of beauty, leader of the aesthetic cult, a critic of art, a poet, a playwright, and about the best lampooned man of his time. When in 1892 "Lady Windermere's Fan" was being written the wits made merry over an approaching slaughter; but when the comedy was played it enforced their admiration for its remarkable wealth of epigram and paradox, its elegance of diction, and the workmanlike skill with which (with one exception, afterward remedied) the piece was built. "A Woman of No Importance," which followed in 1893, is said to be equally brilliant but repellant in theme; and his two latest plays "An Ideal Husband" and "The Importance of Being Earnest," were, with "Lady Windermere's Fan," all running in London when the last mail left. Wilde has written other plays—"Vera," produced in New York in 1882; and "Salome," a too realistic drama which the Lord Chamberlain interdicted, whereupon the author threatened to leave England and live in France. He is a native of Dublin, where he was born in 1856, his father and mother being both given to letters. At Oxford he obtained first Demyship at Magdalen College, a first-class in Moderations, a first-class in Greats, and the Newdigate prize for English poetry. He has published poems, fairy tales, a novel ("Dorian Gray"), travelled a great deal in Greece and Italy, delivered over 200 lectures on art in America, and written copiously for the magazines. At one time he was arranging with Mr. R. S. Smythe to tour Australia as one of that gentleman's gallery of "celebrities," one of his proposed lectures being on "Beauty in the House." In 1881 Mr. Wilde married the daughter of Mr. Horace Lloyd, Q.C., and has several children.

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