Difference
London, Sunday Night. The issue of further warrants in the Oscar Wilde affair has given another fillip to public excitement. Everybody is speculating as to the identity of the person "B" who has been referred to throughout the trial, although judge, counsel, and all concerned have allowed "B's" name to be suppressed. Considerable surpriso has been expressed that the prosecution of Wilde has been taken out under a section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act which reduces the offence charged from a felony to a misdemeanour with a maximum sentence of two years for each offence to run concurrently or not at the discretion of the judge. There is no truth in the statemont that Sir Edward Clarke has written to his client offering to defend him without a fee.
A London correspondent telegraphs—The issue of further warrants in the Oscar Wilde affair has given another fillip to public excitement. Everybody is speculating as to the identity of the person "B" who has been referred to throughout the trial, although judge, counsel, and all concerned have allowed "B’s" name to be suppressed. Considerable surprise has been expressed that the prosecution of Wilde has been taken out under a section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act which reduces the offence charged from a felony to a misdemeanour with a maximum sentence of two years for each offence to run concurrently or not at the discretion of the judge.
I hear that the jury at the Old Bailey were prepared to return a verdict acquitting Lord Queensberry as soon as the case for the prosecution was closed. An intimation to this effect was, it is believed, conveyed to the judge, and may not improbably have reached Sir Edward Clark's ears.
It is somewhat remarkable that Mr Oscar Wilde, Mr Carson and Mr Gill, the leading counsel against him, and Mr Justice Henn Collins who tried the case are all Irishmen and are all graduates of Dublin University. Mr Edward Carson and Mr Oscar Wilde were undergraduates together upwards of twenty years ago, and were indeed members of the same class. Oscar Wilde was a scholar of Trinity and one of the best classics of his year. Mr Carson's academic career was, comparatively speaking, undistinguished.