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The final stage in the trial of Oscar Wilde was entered upon on Saturday at the Old Bailey, London. The Solicitor-General (Sir F. Lockwood), Mr C. F. Gill, and Mr H. Avory appeared on behalf of the Public Prosecutor; and Sir E. Clarke, Mr C Mathews, and Mr Travers Humphreys defended.

The Solicitor-General resumed his reply on the whole case.

The Judge, in summing up, referred to the difficulties and responsibilities imposed upon everyone connected with a case such as that before the court. He could not bring himself to give simply a colourless summing up, which was of no good to anybody; but expressed the hope that in respect of any persons which might be [...] at or conveyed [...] not as opinions to [...] to use whether [...] was the province of the jury themselves to decide, and it had been the aim of his judicial life, so far as he could, to preserve that province sacred. In concluding, he assured the jury that he had done his best to point out such things as he thought ought fairly to be said on behalf of the defendant, as well as what might be fairly relied upon on the other side; and he thanked the jury for their patient and impartial attention to the details of a disagreeable and anxious case.

The jury retired at 3.30.

At 5.25 the jury, who had previously sent a communication to the judge, returned into court. The foreman said they wished to hear the evidence of the waiter at 10 St. James’s street read over. The judge complied, and said there was not evidence that Parker slept at that house.

The jury then again retired, but after an absence of a few minutes returned with a verdict of "Guilty" upon all the counts in the indictment.

Taylor was then placed in the dock beside Wilde.

Sir Edward Clarke appealed for the postponement of sentence until next sessions on the ground that a demurrer that the indictment was bad had not been argued.

His lordship said the passing of sentence would not interfere with the argument, and he thought it right to complete the case at once. Addressing the defendants, he said that the jury had arrived at a correct verdict, and he could not entertain a shadow of a doubt. He hoped those who sometimes imagined that a judge was half-hearted in the cause of morality, because he took care that prejudice was not allowed to enter into the case, would see that that was consistent with a stern sense of indignation at the crime which had been brought home to both of them. In such circumstances he should pass the severest sentence which the law allowed him, and which was totally inadequate to such a case as this. Wilde and Taylor would each be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for two years.

Taylor, on hearing the sentence, hurried from the dock, but Wilde, who seemed quite dazed, stood with fixed gaze and trembling hands, and looking as if about to faint. Two warders were quickly at his side, but Wilde held up his hands as if to keep them off, and addressed the court in a few unintelligible words. He was then hurried below.

On Saturday evening, immediately following the passing of the sentence, the prisoners were removed to the cells in Newgate Prison adjoining the Central Criminal Court pending the preparations of the legal warrants authorising their detention for two years. Both were suffering from nervousness, and betrayed their mental anxiety. From the first they were seperated, but travelled in the same prison van to Pentonville Prison, where they will serve the preliminary portion of the sentence, a period to be eventually decided by the officials of the gaol. When handed over to the Governor of Pentonville the prisoners were taken separately to the reception ward.

The scene which closed the trial of Oscar Wilde was remarkable enough to become historic in criminal trials. To each of the six counts in the indictment the foreman of the jury said "Guilty."

The foreman was visibly affected, and as he jerked out with difficulty that one word "guilty" six times over, the effect was intensely dramatic and moving.

Sir Edward Clarke applied for a postponement of the sentence on the ground that a demurrer was to be argued.

Mr Grain, for Taylor, made a similar application; but Sir Frank Lockwood would not consent.

The judge passed sentence. He agreed thoroughly with the verdict of the jury. It was no use for him to address the prisoners, as they must be dead to all sense of shame.

It was the worst case he had ever tried. He should pass the severest sentence the law allowed--a totally inadequate one--two years’ imprisonment with hard labour for each.

As the judge concluded, Wilde clutching the front of the dock, and holding himself back at arms’ length, said pathetically, "May I say nothing, my lord?"

The judge looked at him, but did not speak. For a moment the silence in court was painful, and then there burst forth loud hisses, and

CRIES OF "SHAME!"

The prisoners were at once removed, and the court was cleared. A large crowd had gathered in the neighbourhood, and one of the most singular features of the scene was that a number of flashily-dressed women shouted and danced on the pavement outside the court.

Wilde, who seemed dazed, was conveyed in a depressed and nervous condition to the cell at Newgate, and immediately after, when the warrants authorising his detention for two years had been prepared, was taken in the prison van to Holloway. Here he found the reception warder waiting for him to deprive him of all loose cash and valuables; he was stripped to his shirt and placed before an officer, who proceeded to "take his description"; to write down in the prisoner ledgers a minute account of his appearance, his distinctive marks, the colour of his eyes, hair, complexion, any peculiarities, a broken finger, tattoo marks, moles and soforth. Not being an old hand, having no previous convictions against him, he was not measured under the Bertillon system.

After the "description" was recorded, a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, he passed into the bathroom, where a hot bath awaited him, and the barber to shear off his hair, and while he was refreshing himself his shirt, the last vestige of his days of freedom, was removed. Emerging from the water, he found a full suit of prison clothes ready for him, from the under linen to the loose shoes and hideous Scottish cap. The clothes are of the well-known dirty drab colour, plentifully adorned with broad arrows.

Being a large-framed man and of superior station, these clothes were perfectly new. Then the rules were read to him, and he was marched to a cell in the body of the prison, and shortly afterwards ate his first real prison meal--an allowance of thin porridge, the true skilly, and a small brown loaf.

SIX HOURS DAILY ON THE TREADMILL.

From Holloway he passed on Monday to Pentonville,, close by,, the prison for convicted prisoners, as Holloway takes only those awaiting their trial. The process of reception was repeated, one part of it being very minute and particular--that of the medical officer’s investigation. The exact state of his health will have an important bearing upon his prison life.

If he is passed sound and fit for first-class hard labour, he will be compelled to take his first month’s exercise on the treadmill; six hours daily making an ascent of 6,000ft, 20 minutes on continuously, and then five minutes’ rest. The necessity for close medical examination is obvious before a man is subjected to this labour, and Wilde will be ausculted and tapped and thoroughly overhauled before the decision is made.

THE PLANK BED AND FOOD.

During the first month, while on the wheel, Wilde will sleep on the plank bed, a bare board raised a few inches above the floor and supplied with sheets--clean sheets are given to each prisoner--two rugs, and a coverlet, but no mattress. His diet will be--

Cocoa and bread for breakfast at 7 30.

Dinner at noon, one day bacon and beans, another soup, another cold Australian meat, and another brown flour suet puddings, with the last three repeated twice a week, potatoes with every dinner. And

Tea at 5 30, as already stated.

After he has finished his spell on the wheel he will be put to some industrial employment, probably post bag-making, tailoring, or merely picking of oakum. He will exercise in the opening air daily for an hour, walking with the rest of his ward in Indian file, no talking allowed.

He will be allowed no communication with outside, except by special permission, until he has completed three months of his sentence, and then he may write and receive one letter, and be visited for twenty minutes by three friends, but in the visiting cell, and separated from them by wire blinds and in the presence of a warder. After the first letter and visit the same may be repeated at intervals of three months. But all these concessions are dependent first upon industry and next upon conduct. The plank bed cannot be escaped from until a certain number of marks, awarded only for work done, and in the same way letters and visits are accorded. Wilde will attend chapel every morning at 9 a m and twice on Sundays. He will be visited, if he wishes it, by the chaplain, and as often as he likes, also daily by the Governor or Deputy Governor.

HE MAY EARN 10s.

A Government Inspector will visit him once a month and hear any representations or complaints, and the Visiting Committee of London Magistrates call frequently at the prison for the same laudable purpose. On release, Wilde, if he has worked well and behaved well, will have earned the magnificent sum of 10s, which he can have all at once, or it will be doled out to him by the agent of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, if he (Wilde) has elected to apply to that institution to assist him in obtaining employment when once more free.

A REMINISCENCE.

Writing in the "Nineteenth century," Oscar Wilde said: "The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatever. After all, even in prison a man can be quite free. His soul can be free. His personality can be untroubled. He can be at peace."

MR. LABOUCHERE ON THE WILDE CASE.

Wilde and Taylor were, it will be remembered, prosecuted and convicted under "Labouchere’s Clause" in "Stead’s Act." Mr Justice Wills deplored the comparative smallness of the maximum punishment under that clause. Mr Labouchere, writing on the case in this week’s "Truth," says:--

"The verdict of the jury was amply justified by the evidence set before it. On the first jury there were, I understand, ten for a verdict of guilty and two for an acquittal. One of the two was a gentleman who, having returned a verdict on a court martial which he subsequently thought wrong, declared that he never would incur this risk again, and he was consequently impervious to all argument. Wilde and Taylor were tried on a clause in the Criminal Law Amendment Act which I had inserted in order to render it possible for the law to take cognisance of proceedings like theirs. I took the clause ‘mutatis mutandis’ from the French Code. As I had crafted it the maximum sentence was seven years. The then Home Secretary and Attorney-General, both most experienced men, however, suggested to me that in such cases convictions are always difficult, and that it would be better were the maximum to be two years. Hence the insufficiency of the severest sentence that the law allows, which, as Mr Justice Wills observed, is totally inadequate to the offence."

With reference more particularly to Oscar Wilde, Mr Labouchere says:--

"There is no question that matters had reached a pass in London which rendered it necessary for the law to be put into operation, unless it was to be treated as a dead letter. . . . As for Oscar Wilde, the curious thing in the man is that he seems to have been proud of the avowal of doctrines which the most abandoned would, even if they held to them, carefully conceal. In many instances, which, of course, did not come out at this trial, relatives and men of the world had interfered to prevent youths, with whom he was thrown, having anything to do with him and his doings, were an open secret. . . . . Of this there can be no doubt, that he has not only been a gross offender himself, but has exercised a corrupting influence, the extent of which can hardly be measured. In view of the mischief that such a man does, the sentence he has received compares but lightly with those almost every day awarded for infinitely less pernicious crimes. The spectacle, however, of his shame and degradation, and of the utter ruin which has overtaken him when at the zenith of his fame and popularity, should at least serve as a wholesome warning to others of the same class who still remain at large. There are those who think that a case like this does more harm than good. That is not my view. I regard it rather as a storm that will clear the moral atmosphere. It should teach a lesson that is badly needed, and if it does not, another lesson must be administered."