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Original paragraph in
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Tuesday, May 28, 1895
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Tuesday, May 28, 1895
Most similar paragraph from
Kerry News - Friday, May 31, 1895
Kerry News - Friday, May 31, 1895
Difference
Special Cable to The Inquirer, Copyright, 1895
LONDON, May 27. — Oscar Wilde after sentence on Saturday was taken to Holloway Jail in the northern part of London, where all his money
and valuables were removed by the warden. He was stripped to his shirt and an officer wrote down in the prison ledger a minute account of his appearance,
distinctive marks, color of his eyes and hair, complexion, any peculiarity, 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 under linen
to loose shoes and a hideous Scottish cap. The clothes are of a dirty drab canvass plentifully adorned with broad arrows. Shortly afterward he ate his
first real prison meal, an allowance of thin porridge and a small brown loaf.
To-day he was taken to Pentonville, hard by Holborn Viaduct, the prison for convicted criminals. He was examined physically with great
care, since upon the medical officers' report, wlil depend what labor he is set to.
THAT TREADMILL.
If found sound and fit for first-class hard labor he will take the first month's exercise on the tread wheel six hours daily, making an
ascent of 6000 feet, being twenty minutes on continuously and then taking five minutes' rest. During the first month, while on the wheel, Wilde will sleep
on a plank bed, a bare board raised a few inches above the floor and supplied with sheets, 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
pudding with the last three repeated twice a week; potatoes with every dinner, tea at 5.30.
HE MAY PICK OAKUM.
After he has finished his time on the wheel he will be put to some industrial employment, not playwriting, although it might be most
profitable for the prison department, but probably post bag making, tailoring or merely picking of oakum. He will exercise in the open air daily for an
hour walking with the rest of his ward in Indian file.
After he has finished his spell on the wheel he will be put to some industrial employment, not play-writing, although it might be the
most profitable for the prison department, but probably post bag-making, tailoring, or merely picking of oakum. He will exercise in the open air daily for
an hour, walking with the rest of his ward in Indian file, no talking allowed.
In this exercise no talking is allowed. He will be allowed to hold no communication with the 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
the visiting cell is separated from them by wire blinds, and is in the presence of the warder. The plank bed cannot be escaped from until a certain number
of marks are awarded only for work done, and in the same way letters and visits are accorded. A government inspector will visit him once a month and hear
any representations or complaints, and a visiting committee of London magistrates call frequently at the prison for the same laudable purpose. On the
release of Wilde, if he has worked well and behaved well, he will have earned the magnificent sum of 10 shillings, which he can have all at once or it
will be doled out to him by the agents of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society if Wilde elects to apply to that excellent institution when once more
free.
NOT THE ONLY ONE.
While Oscar Wilde's case has absorbed public attention for weeks, the records of the London Police Court show that the offense of
which he is convicted comes frequently before the Magistrates. On the very day of his conviction Cohen Goodchild, 28 years old, described as of good
education, was sentenced to two years at hard labor for the identical crime. The judge remarked that no country could remain great while such persons were
allowed to live free in it. He believed indeed, they should not be allowed to live at all. In this connection the "Daily Chronicle" this morning prints a
letter, nearly a column long, from "A Mother," to which it editorially calls attention with extreme seriousness, and which for the first time gives voice
in public press to the frightful accusation for years talked of in private here against the practices alleged to be now rife and of long standing in the
great public schools of England, Eton and Harrow. When, a few years ago, a young man, member of a most prominent family, fled from England after the
Cleveland street house exposure, it was freely talked of that vice was learned at these schools and was an incident of the "fagging" system.
A MOTHER'S LETTER.
The fact that many men of prominent positions have had their names connected with the present case has revived these scandals. This
mother, to whose sad letter the 'Chronicle' gives such prominence, seems to have had personal experience of her accusation. Commenting upon the public
criticisms of Wilde and Taylor she writes: "Do these gentlemen know of the moral condition of a proportion at least of the big public schools to which
they so light-heartedly confide their little sons? Do they know that in sending their children into these training establishments they may be placing them
in a hot bed of vice, most certainly ordering for them an ordeal as by fire out of which children may or may not come forth unscathed? 'If you will bring
me any proof,' said not long ago the head master of an important school with barely veiled scorn and very evident distaste to the mother who had come to
entreat his assistance, 'I will take the matter up.
CONTINUED ON FIFTH PAGE.
WILDE'S RESIDENCE CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE.
Without such proof I must decline to interfere.' 'You then expect me, living many miles away, to do your work for you,' she
indignantly made answer. It ended in the house in question being cleared of the worst of its inmates, but not until the persistent mother, at bay,
badgered and browbeaten though she was, had declared that if this step was not taken she would remove her boy and put the public press in possession of
the story. The reason for this reluctance is not far to seek. Open inquiry in a house must mean scandal more or less widely known. It may have to result
in a clean sweep of many of the inmates of that house. A clean sweep not only involves an injury to the whole school and thereby loss of its prestige. It
further entails a dead loss to the house master whose profits would be thereby considerably interfered with."
Many, perhaps most, of the boys at Eton are lodged in houses in a village near the school, nearly all of which are kept by tutors or
other school officials.
The Marquis of Queensberry declares that if the treasury does not reimburse him for the £2000 expended by him in defense of the libel
suit which led to the present prosecution he will ask some member to bring the question before Parliament.