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LONDON, ENG., May 26. -- Wilde and Taylor, who were sentenced yesterday for heinous crimes, attended the prison chapel at Pentonville to-day. Their hair was cropped and they were in prison garb. The two prisoners will only be allowed to see their friends four times in the year, on condition of their good behavior.

Wilde was released on bail May 7, after furnishing a personal bond in £2500 and two sureties of £1250 each. The sureties were Lord Douglas, of Hawick, the eldest surviving son of the Marquis of Queensberry, and the Rev. Steward Headlam, a graduate of the Cambridge University. The latter said, "I became a surety for Oscar Wilde on public grounds. I felt that the public mind was prejudiced before the case began, and I am anxious to give him any help possible to enable him to stand trial in good health and spirits." At 12.30 Wilde was driven in a cab from Holloway Gaol to the Bow-street Police Court, where bail was formally accepted. Then, in company with Lord Douglas, of Hawick, Wilde left the Courts.

He appeared in Court on Monday, the 20th. His wife joined him immediately after his release, and since that time both have been living in seclusion at Kensington, seeing only those friends, who believe the man more eccentric than guilty. He appeared to be hopeful of acquittal.

Justice Mills, accompanied by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Joseph Renals and several aldermen, took seats upon the bench. Wilde had been driven to Old Bailey, accompanied by Lord Douglas, of Hawick, and the Rev. Steward Headlam, his bondsmen. While apparently improved in health since his release on bail, Wilde looked somewhat haggard and careworn, and smiled feebly as he walked into the prisoners' dock to a place beside Alfred Taylor, charged with similar offences. Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., counsel for Wilde, made an elaborate argument in favour of having Wilde tried separately. The Judge agreed, but decided to try Taylor first. Sir Edward then dwelt at length on the great injustice done his client by having to wait while Alfred Taylor was tried. But, in spite of the argument of his counsel, Wilde looked only too pleased as he stepped from the dock, and the Judge allowed the bail to be renewed, and he was temporarily released from custody.

A verdict of guilty in the case of Alfred Taylor, on two counts, was returned by the Jury on May 21. The counts are those where Charles and William Parker are concerned. Sentence was reserved until the verdict was reached in the trial of Wilde.

During Taylor's trial he was called to the stand, and repeated the statements he made previously. Replying to a question in regard to the visitors at his rooms, he asked to be allowed to write their names. The Judge said, "If the names are written I will read them aloud; I do not approve of mystery." Taylor did not write the names, but mentioned a few who have been connected with the case. There were no notable names among them. He denied that he had gone through a marriage ceremony with a man named Mason. After the libel trial of Wilde against Lord Queensberry the latter's solicitor, he said, had asked him to make a statement against Wilde, but this he had refused to do. He admitted he had written a letter to the man Mason, signing himself "With love."

After leaving the court-room the Marquis of Queensberry met his eldest son, Lord Douglas of Hawick, on the corner of Albemarle-street and Piccadilly. Douglas charged his father with sending insulting letters to his wife, and attempted to punish him. The father got the better of his son. The Marquis polished off Douglas in a round or two under the old Queensberry rules, and left him the possessor of a scientifically discoloured eye. Both the Marquis and Lord Douglas were arrested, and arraigned at the Old Bailey on the 22nd, charged with disorderly conduct. After evidence showing that the Marquis was the aggressor, the case was settled by the Marquis and his son being bound over, each in £500 bail, to keep the peace. Queensberry admitted that he had offered to fight his son anywhere and at any time for £10,000. The crowd cheered the Marquis as he drove away in a cab, and as earnestly hooted Lord Douglas as he took his departure.

A telegram was received by Lady Douglas of Hawick from Queensberry was as follows. It was sent after the street fight:—"I must congratulate you on the result, but I cannot congratulate you on Percy's appearance. He looks like a dug-up corpse. I fear there is too much madness in kissing. Taylor is guilty. It will be Wilde's turn to-morrow."

The Marquis went directly from the Police Courts to the Old Bailey, where he was an attentive listener to the trial of Oscar Wilde.

WILDE'S SECOND TRIAL.

The Courtroom was densely crowded. Wilde, upon entering, was accompanied by but one of his sureties, the Rev. Steward Headlam. He looked pale and haggard as he entered the dock, evidently greatly afflicted by the adverse result of the trial of his companion, Taylor, the day before.

Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., conducted the prosecution. The offences charged against Wilde, he said in his opening address, occurred between February, 1892, and October, 1893. He laid special stress upon the charge in which Wilde was involved with Shelley. Mr. Lockwood thought the jury should accept the prosecution's evidence as regarded Wilde's mode of life at the Savoy Hotel.

Edward Shelley was called to the stand, and repeated what he had previously testified to. He declared that he had resented the overtures made to him by Wilde. Sir Edward Clarke cross-examined Shelley severely. Shelley admitted that he was mistaken in his testimony in the Bow-street Police Court, giving the time of his breaking off of the intimacy with Wilde.

Wilde became indisposed at this point, and was obliged temporarily to leave the dock. The examination of Shelley was meanwhile suspended. Proceedings were resumed in a few minutes, and Mr. Elkin Matthews, publisher, deposed that Wilde was acquainted with Shelley. Shelley's cross-examination being resumed, he admitted he had a brother who was insane, and he also admitted having written a letter to Wilde, in which he said, "I am afraid that sometimes I am not very sane, but I am certain that I am sane now." He maintained, however, that the charges he had made against Wilde were true.

Alfred Wood and Charles Barker were called to the stand, and repeated the testimony previously given by them. The Court then adjourned.

The trial was resumed on the 23rd. Parker's servants, and several servants of the Savoy Hotel, were called to the stand, and repeated their former testimony. Nothing new was elicited. The case for the prosecution was closed, and Sir Edward Clarke, on behalf of Wilde, argued that that part of the indictment charging his client with misconduct with unknown persons was not sustained by corroborative evidence. The Judge dismissed that part of the case which implicated Wilde in certain practices with Shelley, remarking that he believed the latter to be mentally deranged. The Court then adjourned, Wilde being again released over night on his old bail.

WILDE ON THE WITNESS STAND.

Wilde was called to the witness stand on the 24th, and given a chair, as he seemed almost broken down.

In answer to questions, he related how he had been on terms of intimacy with the Marquis of Queensberry's family for years, and entirely denied the charges made against him.

Sir Frank Lockwood, Solicitor-General, subjected the defendant to half an hour's severe cross-examination.

The accused said Lord Alfred Douglas was in Paris whither he went three weeks' before at his request. Wilde, it appeared, was in constant communication with Lord Alfred.

When Wilde was asked about the famous letters he had written to Lord Douglas which were read at the time of the first trial, the defendant said it was a beautiful way in which an artist would write to a cultured young man.

Taking up the letter Wilde had written to Lord Alfred praising his "red roseleaf lips" and "slim gilt soul" that "walked between poetry and passion," Sir Frank asked the defendant whether he considered the letter decent. Wilde replied:

"Decency does not come into the question."

"Do you understand the meaning of the word?" asked the counsel sternly.

"Yes;" replied Wilde.

Wilde admitted that he had made repeated visits to the rooms of Alfred Taylor, where he met a number of young men. Wilde also admitted his association with the other young men whose names were mentioned in the previous trial.

Sir Edward Clarke briefly re-examined Wilde, and then made his final address to the jury, asking them to save the defendant from the ruin of his reputation, which, he added, had barely been quenched by the torrents of prejudice in the press. (Applause).

Sir Frank Lockwood followed for the prosecution, but he had barely begun his address when the Court adjourned for the day.

The Marquis of Queensberry is reported as saying "I do not wish to see Oscar Wilde further punished. He has suffered enough. I only wish to keep the beast from my son. Everyone knows Wilde is no better than Alfred Taylor." When asked what he thought the verdict would be he said, "I am willing to forfeit 1000 to 1 that Wilde is acquitted. There are many names back of this thing."

A Paris paper published a telegram, May 24, from Lord Alfred Douglas, dated Rouen, expressing regret that it was his brother, and not himself, who "corrected" their father.

CLOSE OF THE TRIAL.

Oscar Wilde's trial having reached the final stage on May 25, the Old Bailey Courtroom was filled with interested spectators. Sir Frank Lockwood, Solicitor-General, concluded his address to the jury. The prisoner's intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, and the conduct of the defendant at hotels and public places in and about London were severely commented on. Referring to the letters Wilde wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas, counsel said the jury had been told that they were too low to appreciate such poetry, and he thanked God it was so, for it showed that they were above the level of beasts. This outburst was followed by applause, which the judge promptly suppressed.

Sir Edward Clarke, leading counsel for Wilde, here interposed objections to such appeals.

Lockwood asked the jury to return a verdict which would prevent "such detestable and abominable vice from rearing its head unblushingly in this country."

WILDE'S APPEARANCE.

A more abject, pitiable spectacle than Wilde presented, says the New York World's correspondent, could not be imagined. His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot and sunken, his hair unkempt and tossed. He appeared absolutely dazed. Occasionally his body swayed to and fro as if he were suffering intense mental agony. He sat in one corner of the dock, with his face turned steadfastly towards the witness stand and the jury, avoiding with nervous terror looking in the direction of the public galleries, where many men who had known him were sitting. He sometimes sought relief in absently drawing lines on a sheet of foolscap paper with a quill pen. His trembling hand got splashed all over with ink, and great blots got on his cuffs. He looked like one in a dream, unconscious of what he was doing. The spectacle of human abasement was shocking. Those who saw this wreck of manhood must have thought he had already atoned, as far as suffering could atone, for his crimes.

SUMMING UP.—VERDICT.—SENTENCE.

Justice Wills began summing up at half-past one p.m. The general tenor of his address was favourable to Wilde. During its delivery the foreman of the jury asked whether, in view of the intimacy between Lord Alfred Douglas and Alfred Wood, one of the men whose names had been brought prominently in the case, a warrant for Lord Alfred's arrest had even been issued. The Judge replied that he thought not. The foreman then asked if it had ever been thought of. To this the Judge replied that he could not say. He added that the suspicion that Lord Alfred Douglas would be spared if guilty was a wild idea, and a matter that they could not discuss. The present inquiry was as to whether the man in the dock was guilty of immoral practices with certain men.

The jury returned at half-past five o'clock, having been absent from the court about four hours, and gave in a verdict of guilty. Wilde was found guilty on all the points of the indictment, including the charge with reference to persons unknown, who were also pronounced guilty. This probably refers to the Savoy Hotel evidence, to which place Wilde was accused of taking Charles Parker, a gentleman's servant, after treating the latter to a choice dinner in Kittner's restaurant.

The announcement of the verdict caused a great sensation in the Court, as it was the general impression that Wilde would be acquitted. When the foreman of the jury delivered the verdict Wilde, who had entered the prisoners dock a moment before, rose from the chair on which he had been seated throughout the trial and stood with his arms on the rail of the dock. The silence which prevailed throughout the court-room was really painful as Justice Wills ordered that Alfred Taylor should also be summoned before him. Then in a voice trembling with emotion the Justice said, "I never before had such a case as this to deal with. Two men such as you are by the nature of your crime, lost to all sense of remorse for what you have done. To think that you, Taylor, should be the keeper of a male brothel, and that you, Wilde, a man of culture, should be such a perverter of young men. There is no doubt but that the verdict is a just one, and I shall give you the full penalty allowed by law, and I only regret that it is not more severe. You are both sentenced to hard labour for a term of two years.

Wilde did not look at the judge while the sentence was being pronounced. His eyes roved around the room, and his face never changed colour. He looked like a man who had made up his mind to make the best of a bad situation. Taylor smiled when sentence was pronounced.

As Wilde turned in the dock, and started to go back to the prisoners' room, the crowd suddenly yelled:

"Shame!" "Shame!"

This shouting caused Justice Mills to rise and exclaim in a loud and determined voice: "Silence, silence!"

During the time the judge was debating on the verdict, Lord Douglas of Hawick strolled out of the courtroom and into the courtyard, where he walked about nervously smoking a cigarette. His eye still showed the effects of his encounter with the Marquis of Queensberry, his father, being very much discoloured.

During the final stages of the trial there was an immense crowd in front of the Old Bailey, and the windows of all the neighbouring houses were filled with highly-interested spectators.

Wilde and Taylor were, after the conclusion of the trial, conveyed without delay to the Newgate Gaol, where they waited until warrants were signed for their sentence. Both men were then conveyed in the prison van to Pentonville, where they will serve out their sentences, unless a pardon should be granted, or they should be transferred to another prison before the expiration of their sentences.

WILDE'S STATEMENTS.

While the jury was out Wilde's counsel procured for him, at the request of a representative of the Associated Press, the following signed statement:—"The charges against me are entirely untrue. Youth in every form always fascinated me because youth has naturally that temperament to which the artists try to attain. All works of art are produced in the moment of youth. I have no sense at all of social grades. I love society and the rich and well-born on account of their luxury, culture, the grace of their lives and the external accidents of comely life. But any one, a plough boy, fisherman, or street arab has an interest for me. Mere humanity is so wonderful. I do not ask of the young what they do. I don't care who they are. Their ignorance has its mode of wisdom. Their lack of culture leaves them open to fresh and vivid impressions.—Oscar Wilde."

Wilde and Taylor attended the prison chapel at Pentonville on Sunday, May 26. Their hair was cropped, and they were in prison garb. The two prisoners will only be allowed to see their friends four times in the year on condition of their good behaviour.

OSCAR WILDE'S PRISON LIFE.

After he was sentenced on Saturday, May 23, the aesthetic felon was taken to Holloway Gaol, in the northern part of London. There all money and valuables were taken away from him by the Warden. He was stripped to the shirt, and an officer wrote down in the prison register a minute account of his appearance, the colour of his eyes, hair, and complexion, and any peculiarities such as a broken finger, tattoo marks, moles, etc. Then he was put in a hot bath, and his shirt, the last vestige of his days of freedom, removed. Emerging from the water, he found a full suit of prison clothes ready for him, from underlinen to loose shoes, and a hideous Scotch cap. His clothes are of a dirty drab canvas, plentifully adorned with broad arrows. Shortly afterward Wilde ate his first real prison meal—an allowance of thin porridge and a small brown loaf. He was then taken to Pentonville, a prison for convicted criminals, hard by the Holborn Viaduct. He was examined physically with great care, since upon the medical officer's report will depend what labour he is to be set to. If he is passed as sound and fit for first-class hard labour, he will take his first month's exercise on the tread-wheel—six hours daily, making an ascent of 6000 feet, twenty minutes on continuously, then five minutes rest. The necessity for a close medical examination is obvious before a man is subjected to this labour. Wilde will receive close scrutiny, and be thoroughly overhauled before a decision is made.

During the first month on the wheel, if put there, Wilde will sleep on a 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:—Breakfast at half-past seven a.m., cocoa and bread; dinner at noon, bacon and beans one day, soup another, cold Australian meat another, and brown flour suet pudding another, the last three being repeated twice a week, potatoes with every dinner.

After he as finished his spell on the wheel he will be put to some industrial employment—not play-writing, although it might be the most profitable to the prison department, but probably post-bag making, tailoring, or merely picking oakum. He will exercise in the open air daily for an hour, walking with the rest of his ward in Indian file, no talking permitted. He will be allowed to communication with the outside, except by special permission, until he has completed three months of his sentence. Then he may write and receive one letter and be visited for 20 minutes by three friends, but in a visiting cell, separated from them by wire blinds and in the presence of a warden. The letter and visit may be repeated at intervals of three months, but all these concessions depend first, upon his industry, and next, upon his conduct. There is no escape from the plank bed until a certain number of marks are awarded for work done, and in the same way letters and visits are accorded.

Wilde will attend Chapel every morning and twice on Sundays. He will be visited, if he wishes it, by the chaplain as often as he likes, also daily by the Governor or Deputy-Governor. A Government inspector will visit him once a month and hear any representations or complaint, and the Visiting Committee of London Magistrates will call frequently at the prison for the same laudable purpose.

On his release, Wilde, if he has worked well, and behaved well, will have earned the magnificent sum of ten shillings, which will be paid to him by an agent of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society.