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London, April 4.

Oscar Wilde was subjected to a stringent cross-examination, with a view of showing "Dorian Grey" and some articles in the magazine 'Chameleon,' with which he is connected, are of an immoral tendency. Wilde insisted they are merely an expression of artistic faculty. His letters to Lord Douglas were prose poems, extraordinary perhaps, but not justifying immoral interpretation. He admitted he gave one of his alleged blackmailers twenty-one pounds and lunched with him in a private room afterwards. The case was adjourned, the defendant being admitted to bail.

John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry, was arraigned before Mr Newton, Magistrate, in the Great Marlborough Police Court, London, on the afternoon of March 2, on a charge of having libelled Oscar Wilde.

Mr Wilkes Lawyer, in presenting the case, set forth that his client was a husband who was living upon the 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 for Mr Wilde at a club of which both 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 any other person than Mr Wilde. The detective who arrested the Marquis at Dover on the morning of March 2 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 an abundant provocation. It has not been a secret, says the despatch, that the reason for the Marquis of Queensberry's resentment was to be found in the intimate relations existing between Mr Wilde and Lord Alfred, who, until the death of Lord Drumlanrigg placed him next in succession, was the young son of the Marquis. Owing to the friendship existing between Mr Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred, the latter became estranged from his father, who, feeling his position more acutely by reason of sundry reports considering the nature of the relations between Mr Wilde and his son, which are also common property, conceived a most violent antipathy to Mr Wilde.

At the trial on April 4th, Oscar Wilde was subjected to a stringent cross-examination, with the view of showing the "Dorian Grey' and some other articles in that magazine Chameleon, with which he is connected, are of an immoral tendency. Wilde insisted that they were merely an expression of the artistic faculty. His letters to Douglas were prose poems, extraordinary, perhaps, but not justifying immoral interpretation. He admits he gave one of his alleged blackmailers twenty-one pounds and lunched with him in a private room afterwards. The case was adjourned, defendant being admitted to bail.