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LONDON, April 7. - A report that Oscar Wilde had committed suicide at the Bow-street Police Station caused a widespread sensation to-day. The report originated in the fact that when Wilde was about to be transferred from the police station in the prison van to the Holloway Jail he was in a state of semi-collapse, suffering from hysteria, and said to the prison attendants that he would commit suicide if he had a chance.

This put them on the alert. Wilde was immediately subjected to a thorough search, and the police even removed his pearl breastpin and handkerchief lest he might stab or strangle himself.

The prospect of conviction, with the consequent horrors of a convict's life, appalled Wilde. It is that aspect of the case which seems to concern him exclusively, not the shame and degradation into which he is plunged. He is a person to whom the luxuries of life were everything, whose sole thought was self-indulgence. To such a one the rigors and deprivations of a prison are the very worst kind of punishment.

Wilde’s legal advisers declare that they never had a client less able to bear up under trial, or whose anticipatory agonies were more intense. As Wilde is heavy and flabby, with a constitution sadly undermined by dissipation, it would not in the least surprise his doctor if his troubles came to a sudden end.

LONDON, April 7. - Oscar Wilde is suffering from insomnia. The prison surgeon on Saturday night gave him a sleeping drought. It had no effect on him, and he continued pacing his cell all night long. He eats almost nothing, although he is allowed to have food sent to him from the outside. Another prisoner cleans his cell. He is not allowed to smoke and is allowed to receive only a single visitor daily.

A Plea for Justice.

LONDON, April 7. - Sydney Grundy, the dramatist, has written the Daily Telegraph a letter regarding the removal of Oscar Wilde's name from the program of his plays. He asks: "By what principle of justice or charity is an author's name blotted from his work? If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill."

GOSSIP FROM LONDON STAGE-LAND.From Our Special Correspondent

London, Good Friday, 1985.

In New York the news of Oscar Wilde's arrest sufficed to end the runs of his plays, which I imagine were not paying over well. Here in London we are less particular, and the managements of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "An Ideal Husband" have simply erased the author's name from the playbills. Some of the papers are very indignant on the subject. The Weekly Sun says:—

"Is it good taste, to say the least of it, for a fashionable house to seek to attract ladies and gentlemen to a work by a man who stands in the position of this author? It is good taste to allow English ladies to speak the words of such a man?

"The erasure of his name from the bills and programmes is mere trifling. The excuse that people would be thrown out of work is not to the point. A revival, a stop-gap of any kind, could surely have been provided, and successful managers could afford to pay their hands for a little while until the theatre could be re-opened.

"It is a very terrible business, and it seems remarkable that London managers cannot see matters in their true light.

"Does the action of such managers help to remove from this city of ours the stain, the stigma, and the disgrace that recent events have brought upon it?

"If there are managers who ask the public to patronise such a man through his work, if there is a public to support such plays—does it not show a decadence in Englishmen, a blunted feeling, a suspicion that we are saying, 'What does it matter?'"

Respecting the foregoing, Mr Sydney Grundy has delt a coup de grace to the controversy in the following epigrammatic comment:—"I wonder on what principle of law or justice, or Christian charity, an author's name is blotted from his work. If a man is not to be credited with what he has done well, by what right is he punished for what he has done ill?"