Bristol Mercury - Friday, May 24, 1895

The trial of Mr Oscar Wilde was resumed at the Old Bailey, London, yesterday.

William Parker, brother of Charles Parker, was first called, and was followed by witnesses from the Savoy hotel, some of the evidence not having been given before. The prisoner's evidence in the Queensberry's trial was then read by counsel. At five minutes past three the Solicitor-General intimated that the case for the prosecution had closed.

Sir Edward Clarke, for the defence, first submitted that on the counts charging the prisoner with indecencies with persons unknown at the Savoy hotel on the 9th and 20th March, 1893, there was no evidence to go to the jury, on the ground that the evidence of the chambermaids was uncorroborated.

Mr Justice Wills thought his duty led him to submit these counts to the jury.

Sir Edward Clarke submitted in regard to Shelley that there was no corroboration.

His Lordship said Shelley must be treated as an accomplice, and at present he could see no corroboration. This charge would therefore be withdrawn.

Sir E. Clarke said in the case of Wood he should again submit that there was no corroboration of the charge.

The Solicitor-General protested against the charges being withdrawn other than by the jury under the direction of the Judge.

In the case of Wood he submitted that there was simple corroboration.

His Lordship said he should leave this case to the jury, but he should point out to them in what direction it went.

The case was adjourned until to-day.

Galignani Messenger - Friday, May 24, 1895

London, May 23.

The bells of St. Paul's were ringing merrily for Ascension Day, and their music filled the Old Bailey and rather interfered with the proceedings when Wilde's trial was resumed this morning. The case had reached a dull stage. All the accomplices in the acts alleged against Wilde had been examined yesterday. It now only remained for the prosecution to make the most of their corroboration, and to call such evidence as they have of the Savoy Hotel episodes, in which the alleged accomplices are unknown. After the damaging cross-examination of two at least of the principals, it was certain that the Solicitor-General would put into the scale every ounce of corroboration he could find, and that this would tend to lengthen the proceedings.

When Wilde was called upon to surrender he stumbled on mounting the steps leading to the dock, and seemed weak and uncertain on his feet. His fixed attitude, when he wedges himself in the angle of the dock, with his head resting heavily on his right hand, bespeaks unutterable weariness.

The court was less crowded to-day, and of the counsel Mr. Horace Avory on the side of the Crown and Mr. Charles Mathews on the part of the defence were missing during the early part of the morning.

The first witness was William Parker, a dull-looking young fellow in a brown tweed suit, the elder brother of Charles Parker. His examination-in-chief was not a long business. He could only say that Taylor invited himself and his brother to dine with Wilde at Kettner's, that the dinner was a particularly good one, and that after dinner Wilde took Charles Parker to the Savoy Hotel.

"Did you know your brother was going there for an indecent purpose?'' asked Sir Edward Clarke in cross-examination, and the witness replied, "That is what Taylor gave us to understand." Did you hear such a proposal made to your brother and not interfere to prevent it? No; I didn't then. Had you intended to do the same sort of thing yourself? Yes, perhaps. "What had Taylor said to you?" asked Sir Frank Lockwood in re-examination; but Sir Edward Clarke was instantly on his feet with an objection that the question was irregular, and his objection was sustained.

Then came a branch of the case on which the prosecution seem inclined to rely largely. Mr. C. F. Gill called the bookkeeper of the Savoy Hotel to produce the records of Wilde's stay there in March, 1893, and then examined the hotel servants as to things seen and heard in his rooms.

Jane Cotter, a chambermaid, deposed that at first Wilde occupied bedroom No. 362, Lord Alfred Douglas occupying No. 361, which adjoined the other chamber. She found it necessary to call the attention of Mrs. Perkins, the housekeeper, to the condition of Wilde's room. On the third morning of his stay, about 11 o'clock, Wilde rang the housemaid's bell. She met him in the doorway of No. 361, and he told her he wanted a fire in his own room, No. 362. There she saw a boy 18 or 19 years of age, with dark close-cropped hair and a sallow complexion. Some days later Lord Alfred Douglas left the hotel, and Wilde then removed into rooms in the front of the hotel.

Cross-examined by Sir Edward Clarke, the witness said the condition of the room was much worse on the first two nights Wilde was there than subsequently. Then Sir Edward perpetrated a very neat bit of cross-examination. "Why do you wear eyeglasses?" he asked; and the imposing young lady in the lace fichu and the pince-nez replied, with a bashful giggle, that it was because she was short-sighted. Then she always wore them about her work? Oh dear no (and she snatched off the glasses at the bare thought of what the housekeeper would say; she only wore them to-day because she thought she might have to recognise somebody. Then she did not wear them when she saw the boy in Wilde's room, and had to put them on if she wanted to recognise anybody? Yes; that was about the size of it. Sir Edward seemed quite satisfied.

While Alice Saunders, another chambermaid, was corroborating this evidence, Lord Douglas of Hawick came into court, looking rather blue and puffy about the eyes, and stood for some minutes in front of the dock talking with a representative of Wilde's solicitors.

Antonio Miggz, a masseur employed at the Savoy Hotel, repeated his evidence that he too had seen "a boy in Wilde's room. In cross-examination he professed to have no recollection whether the door of the room was locked or not, but Sir Edward Clarke succeeded in convincing him that at the last trial he was asked. "Was the door, locked?" and replied, "No; the door was not locked." He could not remember whether the boy he saw was fair or dark.

Emil Becca, the dark, handsome young waiter from the Savoy Hotel, who was first called as a witness on Monday in the case against Taylor, repeated his evidence that while Wilde was staying in the hotel he had seen young men in his rooms. He had probably, seen about five young men in all. He had taken champagne and whiskies and soda to the bedroom and seen young men there, and after Wilde had the sitting-room in the front of the hotel, he had served there a supper of cold fowl and champagne for Wilde and a dark young man.

Sir Edward Clarke cross-examined with a view to show that the excellence of this witness's recollection might be due to having read reports of the last trial. "It was matter of considerable interest to everybody at the Savoy Hotel?" Yes, it was. Did you read in the papers that Parker said he had chicken and champagne for supper? I don't know. I don't remember seeing it in the paper. How many rooms had you to look after? Seven sitting-rooms. Plenty of suppers in such a busy place? Not so many upstairs. Have you seen Charles Parker? Yes, he was pointed out to me. You did not recognise him? No.

Mrs. Perkins was called to prove that in 1893 she was housekeeper at the Savoy Hotel, and that her attention was called by the housemaids at the time to the condition of Wilde's room. To further prove the intimacy between Wilde and Parker, Mrs. Marie Bancroft deposed that while the latter was living at Park-walk, Chelsea, in the spring of 1893, she saw Wilde come there in a cab one night, and the two go away together. Taylor lived close by, at Chapel-place, and was constantly in and out of Parker's lodging.

Cross-examined, the witness became less confident that Parker went away with Wilde.

Just after noon Lord Queensberry arrived, with a yellow rose in his button-hole and carrying his silk hat on the head of his umbrella.

The landladies from Park-walk and Chapel-place, who begin to be cross about having to waste so much time at the Old Bailey, repeated their reminiscences of their interesting young lodgers, and Mr. Kearley, the ex-detective inspector who conducted the inquiries for Lord Queensberry, produced the papers which he found in an abandoned hat-box at Taylor's old lodgings.

Thomas Price, servant at No. 10, St. James's-place, deposed that during Wilde's tenancy of rooms in that house he only slept there about a dozen times. A play of his was running at the St. James's Theatre at the time. The witness had seen Taylor only once. Parker was at the rooms several times.

Inspectors Richards and Brockwell, of Scotland-yard, described once more the arrest of Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel, Sloane-street, and some formal evidence of shorthand writers and others concluded the case for the prosecution, with the exception of the reading of long tracts of evidence from the previous trials. This provoked a fresh encounter between Sir Frank Lockwood and Sir Edward Clarke, who submitted that if the prosecution were going to put in Wilde's cross-examination in the Queensberry trial, they should also in fairness put in his examination and cross-examination in the last trial of this case.

The Solicitor-General would not admit that he was in any way bound to do this, but said he was perfectly willing to put in examination, cross-examination, and re-examination if Sir Edward Clarke desired it.

His lordship suggested as a compromise that the learned counsel should read such portions of the evidence at the earlier trials as they desired.

This suggestion being adopted, Sir Edward Clarke began, to an accompaniment of thunder - claps, the reading of Wilde's evidence-in-chief in the prosecution of Lord Queensberry for libel. This rapidly cleared the court.

Sir Frank Lockwood had promised that his reading should be confined to passages which related to Wood, Shelley, Parker, and Taylor. But he first read, sonorously and appreciatively, the encounter between Wilde and Mr. Carson about the prisoner's correspondence with Lord Alfred Douglas, skipping with a dry little joke, the passage in which Wilde complained of Carson's elocutionary deficiancies. In the light of all the subsequent blackmailing revelations it is worth while to recall that in the second of the stolen letters, the "red and yellow wine" letter, Wilde wrote, "I had sooner be rented all day than have you bitter, unjust, and horrible." It was explained at the time that "rented" was a cant word meaning blackmailed. Another passage of the same letter has become notable, that in which Wilde asked, "Why are you not here, my dear, my wonderful boy? I fear I must leave. No money, no credit, and a heart of lead."

Soon after three o'clock the last of the evidence of the Queensberry trial was finished, and with it the case for the prosecution.

Before going further Sir Edward Clarke submitted that in regard to the counts alleging indecent practices at the Savoy Hotel there was no case to go to the jury. Parker had sworn he left the hotel on both occasions soon after midnight, and could not, therefore, be identified with the boys whom the hotel servants declared they saw in the mornings. His Lordship said the condition of the rooms furnished a certain amount of corroboration of the charges of misconduct. The very fact that a man in such a position of life was found with a boy in his bed seemed to his lordship to be so utterly unusual that very little additional evidence would make a case to go to the jury. On the other hand, it was sworn that whatever occurred then was reported to the housekeeper of the hotel, and it was a very strange thing that she should have done nothing. He did not know what sort of person she could have been to take no steps in the matter at once.

Sir Frank Lockwood said he would certainly ask that the whole of the charges should be left to the jury, who could weigh for themselves the worth of the evidence.

Sir Edward Clarke argued that with regard to Shelley there was no corroboration.

His Lordship said he must confess that Shelley's letters left on his mind a notion of disturbed intellect. It would be a terrible thing for society at large if it were to be considered unnatural for a man to ask a younger man of good character to dine with him.

Sir F. Lockwood reminded his lordship of that letter in which Shelley said, "Let God judge the past," and of the fact that Shelley was not in the position of an accomplice.

His Lordship said that with regard to Shelley he was very clearly of opinion that he must be regarded, on his own evidence, as an accomplice, and his evidence should be corroborated. It seemed to him that there was nothing of the kind here, Shelley's own letters to Wilde Were rather against the supposition, and his lordship felt it his duty to withdraw that part of the case from the jury.

Sir Edward Clarke at once passed to the ease of Wood, and pointed out that there was no corroboration of any sort or kind of his own evidence that he had been, at Tite-street.

Sir F. Lockwood submitted that there was ample corroboration, and protested against having these cases withdrawn from the jury. There was corroboration in the payment by Wilde of the money which enabled Wood to go to America. He quoted legal authorities to show that although his lordship had rightly stated the rule of practice, it was not a rule of law, and that it was the duty of a judge to tell the jury that they might, if they pleased, act on the unconfirmed testimony of an accomplice.

Sir Edward Clarke was instantly on his feet with other authorities to the contrary, and the contention that "the wholesome practice of 200 years" was really an inflexible rule. It was cruel, he said, to suggest that the generous action of a man in giving a lad the means of getting away from bad companions to begin a new life in another country was corroboration of his own misconduct. For the first time in the course of the case applause was heard in various parts of the court at this point.

His lordship decided that he must leave the case of Wood to the jury, to what extent he would instruct them in his summing up.

Sir Edward Clarke did not extend his contention to the case of Parker. It was now close upon four o'clock, and he had to elect either to call Wilde or to allow the Solicitor-General to begin his address to the jury. He indicated his intention of putting Wilde in the box by saying, "Your lordship will not ask me to go on further to-day?"

"No," said his lordship, "I shall be glad to rise myself," and adjourned the hearing till to-morrow.

Excitement in court was intense when his lordship intimated his intention of withdrawing from the jury the Shelley case, which has been universally regarded as the strongest against the prisoner. Wilde for the first time sat up erect. Counsel for the Crown were obviously taken by surprise, and turned in confusion to their law books. The Solicitor-General for the moment lost his temper, and held towards the judge the same truculent attitude that he has throughout adopted with Sir Edward Clarke.

Wilde was again released on bail and left the court with his sureties.

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