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The trial of OSCAR WILDE, 40, author, and ALFRED TAYLOR, 33, upon an indictment charging them under section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act with committing acts of gross indecency, some of the counts charging Taylor with procuring the commission of those acts, and other counts charging the prisoners with conspiring together to commit and to procure the commission of those acts, was resumed.

Mr. C. P. Gill and Mr. Horace Avory conducted the prosecution on the part of the Director of Public Prosecutions; Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., Mr. Charles Mathews, and Mr. Travers Humphreys defended

Wilde; and Mr. J. P. Grain and Mr. Paul Taylor defended Taylor; Mr. Leonard Kershaw and Mr. A. F. S. Pasmore held watching briefs.

Mr. GILL said that he and Mr. Avory had had an opportunity of considering the indictment, and had come to the determination not to ask fora verdict on the counts charging the prisoners with conspiracy.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE said that if those counts had been withdrawn in the first instance he should have asked that the prisoners be tried separately. Of course, his learned friend Mr. Gill could say at any time that there was no evidence of conspiracy--that was all he could do.

Mr. JUSTICE CHARLES.--After the evidence had been given it occurred to my own mind that the counts for conspiracy were really unnecessary counts altogether.

Mr. Gill said that was the conclusion which was arrived at on going through the evidence.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE said he wanted know what exactly was position. Would his learned friend to adopt the course of asking his Lordship to strike out the conspiracy counts from the indictment?

Mr. GILL said he was adopting the course of not asking for a verdict on the conspiracy counts, because it would be suggested that there would be a difficulty with regard to calling the prisoners in consequence of the conspiracy counts being in the indictment, and that he himself might take advantage under the conspiracy counts of cross-examining to matters outside the specific charge. For that reason he desired to take the course of not asking for a verdict on the conspiracy counts to avoid any difficulty being placed in the way of the prisoners giving evidence.

MR. JUSTICE CHARLES said that Mr. Gill was entitled to take that course.

Sir EDWARD CLARKE.-- I ask for a verdict of not guilty at once on those counts.

Mr. JUSTICE CHARLES.-- I cannot assent to that course.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE.--I am entitled to a verdict of not guilty at one time or other because the prisoners have been given in charge.

MR. JUSTICE CHARLES.-- I think at the present stage of the trial it is my duty to say that I accede to Mr. Gill's application.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE.-- Then I say that at some stage of the case I shall ask for a verdict of not guilty to be entered on those counts.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE then opened the case for the defence of Wilde. He said that the announcement which had been made by Mr. Gill was one on which he should think it his duty to comment later on in the day. At that moment he thought it better to say nothing about it, as he should like to weigh the observations which he desired to make on that very remarkable incident in a very remarkable trial. He was going to call Mr. Oscar Wilde as a witness. That decision to call him as a witness had not been arrived at in consequence of the statement made by Mr. Gill--but he certainly felt strengthened in that resolution to call Mr. Wilde by the fact of this tardy withdrawal of charges which, if they were not intended to be proceeded with, ought not to have been put into the indictment--nor in consequence of the statement which his learned friend Mr. Gill had made with regard to what he felt to be the proper limits of cross-examination--limits which, if they had been applied at the beginning of yesterday instead of to-day, would have saved the trouble of reading a good deal of the cross-examination which was read yesterday. That cross-examination had been read, and there were some topics in it upon which he must address some observations. He trusted that the calling of Mr. Wilde would not materially lengthen the trial. On a consideration of the notes of the cross-examination read yesterday it became very clear to him that in justice to Mr. Wilde he should have asked that some notes of his examination in chief should be read before the jury. But then it occurred to his mind that the jury would naturally prefer to hear Mr. Wilde's statement made in the witness-box before them instead of being asked to rely on the evidence given at the hearing of the charge of libel. If the evidence in chief were to be read at all, he came to the conclusion that the jury would prefer to hear to-day Mr. Wilde's denial on oath. He was aware that that would entitle Mr. Gill to the right of reply, and that it would expose himself to the necessity of having that evidence and his own observations upon it commented upon by his learned friend and criticized by him after his mouth was closed. But he never had at any time during his professional life attached nearly half so much importance to what was called the last word that some great advocate who taught him his profession had attached to it. The conduct of a portion of the Press in reference to the ease had been disgraceful--it was conduct calculated to imperil the administration of justice and was in the highest degree prejudicial to the interests of the prisoners. Mr..Gill asked the jury to dismiss from their minds anything which they might have seen in newspapers. Mr. Gill in saying that was quite fair, but it was not fair for him to have insisted upon having the cross-examination of Mr. Wilde on his writings which they had heard. It was not fair to judge of a man by his own books. Coleridge said long ago, "Judge no one by his books. Man is more and greater than his book." The strange unfairness in the case had been that an attempt had been made, and that attempt was repeated by the reading of the cross-examination yesterday, not to judge Mr. Wilde by his own book, but by books which he did not write and to judge him by an article which he did not write and which he repudiated as horrible and disgusting. He himself should have no difficulty in defending the story of "The Picture of Dorian Gray " if it was necessary. Of all strangely unfair cross-examinations which were ever addressed in a Court of justice the cross-examination addressed to Mr. Wilde on literature with which he had nothing to do was the most unfair, and now that cross-examination was dragged in again for the purpose of biasing the minds of the jury against Mr. Wilde. He himself denounced that as violating every canon of fairness. The question of the literature was an entirely different question from that which the jury had now to determine. The last date mentioned in the indictment was 18 months ago.The jury would, no doubt, ask themselves how it was that this question now arose. The reason was that Mr. Wilde insisted on having it investigated before the public. It was Mr. Wilde's act and his act alone in charging Lord Queensberry with libel which had brought the matter before the public. Mr. Wilde's counsel and not Mr. Wilde were responsible for the course taken in withdrawing from that charge of libel. If Mr. Wilde were a guilty man, would he have provoked this investigation? It was a remarkable fact that there was only one statement in Mr. Wilde's evidence which the prosecution had called a witness to contradict--that was, the statement that he had never been to see Charles Parker at Park-walk, and the prosecution had called a witness who said that one night she was looking out of the window and saw a gentleman, whom she recognized as Mr. Wilde, getting into a hansom cab.. He should call Mr. Wilde, who would deny on oath that there was any truth in the allegations made on the part of the prosecution.

Mr. GRAIN said he should also call the prisoner Taylor, but he only proposed to make one speech.

The prisoner Wilde was then called as a witness, and, in reply to Sin EDWARD CLARKE, he said he was married and had two sons. He had the rooms in St. James's-place because he wanted to be quiet for literary purposes. His own house was small, and his two sons were not at school, so he took the rooms in St. James's-place in order to be able to write there without being disturbed. In his evidence given at the trial of Lord Queensberry on the charge of libel he gave a denial to all the charges, and that evidence was entirely true.

Being asked by SIR EDWARD CLARKE,-- Is there any truth in any one of the allegations of indecent

conduct made against you? Wilde replied.-- There is no truth whatever in any one of those allegations.

In cross-examination by Mr. GILL, Wilde repeated that there was no truth whatever in the allegations, and said that the evidence of the witnesses for the prosecution who made any allegation of indecency against him was entirely untrue.

The prisoner Taylor was then called as a witness, and in answer to Mr. GRAIN he said that his father, who was now dead, carried on a large business which was now a limited company. He was educated at Marlborough, and then went to a private tutor at Preston, near Brighton. He afterwards entered the Militia, with the intention of going into the Army, but he gave it up. In 1883 he came into a sum of 45,000. He lived in town, and had no occupation. There was no truth whatever in the allegations made against him on the part of the prosecution.

Taylor was cross-examined by Mr. Gill, and reiterated his denial of the allegations.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE, addressing the Jury for the defence of Wilde, said that the question which the Jury had to decide as to Mr Wilde was in a great degree distinct from the question which they had to decide with regard to Taylor. He said he would make some observations on the remarkable course taken by the prosecution in this ease, which he did not remember to have been taken in any other case. The jury would recollect that he himself made an objection to the indictment on the ground that in the indictment there were two sets of counts, one set of counts charging offences on the part of the defendants and the other set of counts charging conspiracy between the defendants, and that on one set of counts the defendants could be called as witnesses and on the other set of counts they could not. The learned Judge recognized the inconvenience of the way in which the law now stood, but said that the indictment containing those counts might be put before the jury. He himself accepted his Lordship's expression of opinion on the point loyally. But what about the prosecution? Had the prosecution evidence which required the counts for conspiracy to be put in the indictment or not? If they had not, then why were those counts put in the indictment, and why were the prisoners to be put to the embarrassment of having to meet an indictment upon part of which they could give evidence and on part of which they could not? He did not make any complaint against his learned friends. If there was any point of law on the indictment it still remained in spite of the course taken by the prosecution of withdrawing the counts charging the prisoners with conspiracy. But counsel for the Crown ought to have made up their minds whether they were going to allege conspiracy or not. His Lordship would tell the jury that the conversation alleged to have taken place between Taylor and the Parkers at the St. James's restaurant when they first met was no evidence at all against Mr. Wilde.

Mr. Justice Charles said it was evidence against Taylor only.

SIR EDWARD CLARKE, continuing, proceeded to refer to the evidence of the witnesses called out on the part or the prosecution. With reference to the witness Shelley, he pointed out that Shelley himself stated that when he wrote the letters which were read to him in cross-examination he thought that people were under the impression that his mind was disordered. William Parker and Mavor stated that no impropriety took place between Mr. Wilde and themselves. The only witnesses who said anything against Mr. Wilde were Atkins, Wood, and Charles Parker. Sir Edward Clarke contended that Atkins had been concerned in blackmailing, and that Wood and Charles Parker had participated in a sum of money which had been obtained from a gentleman by means of blackmail. Atkins, Wood, and Charles Parker, three blackmailers, were the only persons who said anything against Mr. Wilde. To support the charge the evidence ought to be convincing--evidence which the jury believed to be honest; untainted, and in all degrees true. Could the jury say that with regard to any one piece of the evidence which attacked the conduct of Mr. Wilde that those epithets could be applied? The jury were dealing with matters which were alleged to have taken place a long time ago, and consequently it was impossible that witnesses could be called by Mr. Wilde, who could only meet the allegations by the statement that they were false. The reason why Mr. Wilde was introduced to the young men was that he liked the society of the youthful. Sir Edward Clarke asked the jury to fix their minds firmly on the tests which ought to be applied to the evidence, and that he trusted that the result would gratify those thousand hopes which were waiting upon their verdict and to clear one of our most renowned and accomplished men of letters from the charge made against him.

Mr. GRAIN then addressed the jury for the defence of Taylor. He contended that the evidence against Taylor was uncorroborated.

Mr. GILL replied on the part of the prosecution.

The hearing of the case was adjourned until to-morrow.

London, Tuesday Evening.

On the trial of Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor being resumed today at the Central Criminal Court, London, Mr Gill, on behalf of the Crown, formerly withdrew the counts of the indictment alleging conspiracy, and said he did this to avoid any difficulty in calling the prisoners into the witness box.

Sir Edward Clarke asked that a verdict of not guilty on conspiracy counts be at once returned, but his lordship did not assent to this.

Sir Edward Clarke replied that he did not wish to appear tenacious, and he would at a later stage of the case ask for a verdict of not guilty upon those particular counts. Sir Edward at once began his address for the defence of Wilde. Having at the outset given on his client’s behalf an absolute denial to the charges brought against him, the learned counsel animadverted on the conduct of a large section of the Press, which, he alleged, was such as to prejudice his client and imperil the interests of justice. He assured the Crown counsel of having yesterday read the cross examination of Wilde in the action brought against Lord Queensberry for the sole purpose of inducing the jury to believe that the man who wrote "Dorian Grey" was likely to commit indecency, but, as Coleridge said, a man should be regarded as superior to his books. There was no single page in "Dorian Grey" where the statements made of any person being guilty of abominable sin. From "Dorian Grey" Sir Edward passed on to comment on the "Chameleon," many of the passages in which, from Wilde’s pen, he described as smart phrases in that magazine. It had bee said the story of the "Priest and the Acolyte," was a production which was a disgrace to the man who write it, to the editor who accepted it, and to everybody concerned with it, and Mr Wilde became so indignant that he wrote to the conductor of the magazine declining to be longer associated with it. The literary controversy had nothing whatever to do with the questions before the jury. The controversy as to the morality of Shakespeare’s sonnets was likely to last as long as the question of who wrote the Letters of Junius or as to the character of certain sonnets of Michael Angelo to one of his friends. He, therefore, asked the jury altogether to discard what had been urged against the prisoners in relation to "Dorian Grey'' and "The Chameleon." Coming to Wilde’s association with the Queensberry family, he observed that the prisoner was still a friend of Lady Queensberry, was divorced her husband.

Mr Gill — I protest against any attack upon Lord Queensberry, who is not now represented. It is altogether irregular to say here that Lord Queensberry was divorced.

Sir Edward Clarke said that to bear his learned friend rebuking irrelevance was rather amusing (laughter). In the case o’ Wilde v. Queensberry: he (Sir Edward) and he learned counsel acting with him for Wilde, took the responsibility of accepting a verdict of not guilty. It was perfectly clear that the jury then sitting would not have found Lord Queensberry guilty of a criminal offence. For the course then adopted he (Sir Edward) was responsible, and he was here again to meet on his client’s behalf a case which could not be properly tried at the former trial, but which could now be determined upon a proper issue. If Mr Oscar Wilde has been guilty of the charges against him would he have provoked investigation, as he did by bringing an action for libel? It was said there was a species fo insanity which caused men to commit unnatural crime; but what would they think of a man who, if he had been guilty of such offences, insisted on bringing then before the world. He was confident that the evidence of his client would be a complete answer to the allegations against him.

Oscar Wilde was then called from the dock and sworn. He answered the questions of Sir E Clarke in subdued tones. The learned counsel first took him through his academical career at Dublin and Oxford, and passed from this to his career as a dramatist and playwright.

Sir Edward — In cross-examination in Wilde v. Queensberry you denied all the charges against you. Was the evidence then given by you absolutely and entirely true evidence?

Witness — Entirely true evidence.

Sir Edward — Is there any truth in any one of the allegations of indecency which has been brought against you in this case?

Witness — There is no truth whatever in any one of the allegations.

Mr Gill began in cross-examination much on the lines adopted by Mr Carson in the former trial. The learned counsel quoted from a sonnet of Lord Alfred Douglas, to which occurred the line — "I am that love, but dare not speak its name." What was the nature of the love represented in that poem?

Wilde now gave with marked deliberation and emphasizes the following answer: — It is a love which is not understood in this century. It is the love of David for Jonathan, such love as Plato described in his philosophy as the beginning of wisdom. It is a deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect, and has dictated the greatest words of art. It is in this century much misunderstood. It is an intellectual affection between an older and a younger man. The elder man has the knowledge of the world, the younger has the joy, the hope, the glamour of life. It is something which this age does not understand. It knocks at it, and it sometimes puts one in the pillory for it (cheers in the gallery).

His Lordship — I shall have the court cleared if there is again the slightest manifestation of feeling.

Mr Gill took the witness through the evidence of the staff from the Savoy Hotel and the masseur, Mr Biggs. He denied there was a word of truth in it.

Wilde also gave the same general denials to the evidence of Charles Parker and Shelley. The latter, he said, used to write him morbid religious letters. The witness Atkins had also given a wrong account of the circumstances under which they met. It was true that Atkins and Schwabe went with him to Paris, but the account given of what took place there was untrue; it was grotesque and monstrous. Taylor’s rooms in Little College street, near the Houses of Parliament, were Bohemian. Taylor burnt pastilles there. He (Wilde) went there to smoke, chat, and amuse himself. Actors came there. Taylor was an accomplished pianist. Mavor was a pleasant, agreeable young man and was his guest at Albemarle Hotel in an ordinary way. Taylor was a young man of private means. He took the boy, Alphonse Conway, whom he met at Worthing, a trip to Brighton. Conway slept in a room off his, divided by two doors.

Did you feel the affection you have described for these youths? Oh, certainly no.

Further examined — He knew that men dressed in women’s clothes went to certain rooms in Fitzroy street, and that Taylor was once arrested there. He (Wilde), knowing that men sometimes dressed as women on the stage, could not imagine what the police were at Fitzroy street for.

Mr Gill — And you saw no reason why the police should see observations on Taylor’s rooms in Little College street?

Witness — I saw none.

Sir Edward Clarke elicited in re-examination that Atkins desired to go on the music hall stage. He communicated that wish to Wilde and obtained an engagement, the defendant purchasing for him his first song. The Allen letters he did not regard as of any importance.

Sir Edward — They were not prose poems?

Witness (smiling) — Oh, no; they contained some slighting allusions to other people which I should have been sorry to see published. I know nothing of the "Chameleon," except that I was told it was to be a literary and artistic magazine.

Wilde then returned to the dock.

The prisoner, Alfred Taylor, was then called and examined by Mr Grain. He said his age was 33, and his father formerly conducted a wholesale business which had now been turned into a limited liability company. He was educated at Marlborough, and was for some time in the militia intending to pass on to the army, but after one training he resigned his commission. In 1883 he came into possession £45,000, and had since lived a life of pleasure about town. The statements of Charles Parker alleging against witness an attempted abominable crime were absolutely untrue.

Cross-examined by Mr Gill — He never went through a sham form of marriage with a man named Charlie Mason. He had never accosted men at the Empire and at the Alhambra. He denied the statements of the Brothers Parker as to what took place in his rooms.

Mr Gill next questioned Taylor as to the incidents of the police raid in Fitzroy street. You were of one the men arrested? I was.

And you had with you Charles Parker? Yes.

How was Parker, getting his living? I understand he was receiving money from his father.

You and Parker were discharged, some were fined and some were bound over? Yes.

Questioned as to the appointments of his apartments at Little College street Taylor said he had a censer there in which he burnt pastilles.

Re-examined — The garment taken from the rooms by the police was an Oriental costume which had come from Constantinople, and had been obtained by him for a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden.

Sir Edward Clarke, on behalf of Wilde, then addressed the jury on the evidence as distinct from topics prejudicially imported into the case." He did not remember the markable course adopted early in the day by Mr Gill to have been followed in any previous case. In a case so important as this the counsel for the Crown ought to have made up their minds as to whether they would proceed for conspiracy or not, and he complained that by the action of the Treasury the defence had for three days been embarrassed. There was a cruel hardship in Mr Oscar Wilde being tried in conjunction with Taylor upon separate and distinct charges, upon which he should ask the jury to give a separate and independent judgement. He pointed this out without desiring in any way to prejudice Mr Grain’s client. It was monstrous to assume that because Lord Alfred Douglas might have — he did not say that he — published certain poems which irritated, annoyed, and outraged the moral view which the jury might apply to literary subjects, therefore Mr Oscar Wilde was to be held responsible. It was with amazement that he (Sir Edward) was forced to discuss the poems of Lord Alfred Douglas. He might as well be ask to defend a poem written on Rizzio, murdered at the feet of Mary, Queen of Scots. He could not refrain from expressing his astonishment that Mr Gill should have in that part of his cross-examination devoted to literature questioned Wilde, not upon his own works, but upon the poems of Lord Alfred Douglas. Denouncing the witnesses for the prosecution as a bend of blackmailers, Sir Edward urged that had Wilde been guilty of the charges he would have recoiled from the ordeal of the witness box. It was upon tainted evidence that a conviction was asked for. Blackmailers flourished in their frightful trade, because ant man drawn into any sort of guilty would rather exile himself than suffer his name to be mentioned in relationship with them. There was an instinctive shrinking of the guilty man; not so with Mr Wilde. He had courageously gone into the witness box to dispose of and defeat the accusations against him. He (the learned counsel) turned to the letters of the witness, Edward Shelly to erase the impressions created by his evidence. Certain portions of the correspondence (which Sir Edward read) could not possibly have been written a sane man, and it was upon the evidence of a witness who admitted that his mind had been deranged that the jury were asked to convict the accused. The jury would have to consider how they would test the evidence from the Savoy Hotel. How could Mr Wilde answer it, after a period of two years, except by a denial? There was not the smallest corroboration of the Savoy case. The jury were asked to accept the view that Mr Wilde had made the wildest and most wanton exhibition of himself. It did not require the experience of the blackmailers who appeared in this case that if they came into court with a statement wholly invented their position would be hopeless. They, therefore took the part that was true, and upon it built all the rest. Charles Parker, Wood, and Atkins were three young men who had appeared in this case under circumstances which should disentitle their evidence to the regard of any jury that ever sat. Anonymous lettre sent by persons who did not wish to be mentioned in connection with these proceedings had enabled him to drag out of Atkins the story of shameful deeds, one of which was the entrapping of a gentleman into a house at Pimlico. It deepened one’s horror that those arranging the prosecution must have had in their knowledge the deeds to which Atkins had confessed, and by which Atkins had been wholly discredited. Sydney Mavor had said absolutely nothing against Mr Wilde. The testimony against him was that of the three blackmailers, Parker, Wood, and Atkins alone. The sensitiveness of art to flattery was proverbial, and several young men did, no doubt, seek one of the most brilliant talkers and thinkers of the day as one likely to help them to a career. He asked the jury not to convict unless they found the evidence overwhelming and convincing, to guard themselves against prejudices, to fix their minds on the tests which ought to be applied to evidence, to gratify a thousand hopes, and to liberate from this terrible position one of the most renowned and accomplished men of letters. In clearing him they would clear society from a stain (applause).

Mr Grain followed by addressing the jury on behalf of Taylor, and endorsed all the observations which had fallen from his learned friend. He frankly admitted that Taylor, as a young man about town, ran through £45,000, and was in 1891, on the petition of creditors, adjudicated a bankrupt. But the jury could not for a single moment thick of convincing a man of the crime of being a common procurer upon the uncorroborated evidence of such persons as the brothers, Chas and Win Parker. Having commented on the absence of proof that nonet had ever been received by Taylor for his alleged services as procurer, the learned counsel claimed a verdict of not guilty. The evidence was tainted from beginning to end. However suspicious the case might be the Crown had failed to carry conviction, and his client was entitled to the benefit of any doubt which might exist in their minds.

Mr Gill replied on the whole case. After the learned advocate had occupied the attention of the jury for some time.

His Lordship asked did Mr Gill propose to deal with the charge against Taylor and Wilde as it affected Atkins.

Mr Gill replied that his contention in regard to that would be that Atkins was "procured" for the journey to Paris at a London restaurant, where the three dined together. It was a remarkable fact that after introductions had been given these parties were always found sleeping in adjoining bedrooms.

Mr Grain and Sir Edward Clarke interposed by pointing out that no charge remained on the record with regard to Mavor.

His Lordship endorsed this view, and Mr Gill resumed his address on another part of the case. He was still proceeding with an exhaustive review of the whole issues when six o’clock was reached, and the court adjourned.