Truth - Sunday, June 2, 1895

TOPICS OF THE HOUR.
By "Asmodeus."
"Asmodus" caricatures the recent Glorious Victory achieved by an Inglorious Government—The Corrupting Curse of a Political Livelihood—Oscar Wilde and the Queensberry Crowd-Hunting Heiresses and Nobbling Noble-men—An Incident in the present Labor Glut.

Exit Oscar Wilde! And Society-the self-same society that once flattered and fawned upon him-now holds its nose as the ruined wretch drags his dazed form along to the prison. Personally I am sincerely sorry for OSCAR's fall, because, in the first place, I cannot conceive it possible for a thoroughly sane man to be guilty of the revolting crime for which Oscar Wilde has been convicted. There must be some unnatural kink in such a man's brain, and the proper place for a man so afflicted is not a gaol, but an asylum. In the second place, Oscar Wilde has done good service in the work of literature, and of art in general. Some of his poetry had the real ring of a genius—I remember one brilliant conceit among many others, worthy even of Tennyson, in which Oscar likened the glowing moon, as seen through storm-drift clouds, to 'the face of an angry lion gleaming through a tawny mane' -- and his recently-written plays clearly proved that his brain-power was at its best when his utter ruin occurred. It would seem, to use the line of MEXANDER, that he was 'raised the higher that he might fall the heavier,' and in common charity we should grieve for the once gifted man, whose light has failed—whose sun has set for evermore.

Apparently all concerned with the OSCAR WILDE infamy were a mad lot, and certainly the sight of Papa QUEENSBERRY sitting on his son's chest in the public street and endeavoring to jab the deah boy's empty head through the pavement was not at all calculated to impress the 'dem'd lower ordahs' with a crushing sense of the almighty dignity of England's fine old noblity. If it be true, as Solomon said, however, that 'a foolish son is the anger of his father,' the old Marquis of Queensberry has ample cause to fly off the handle and smash everything in his neighborhood, for it would be hard to find a condemnder set of fools than the sons whom he has begotten. I notice en passant (which means 'you bet your bloomin' boots'), and I trust the New Woman in the baggy breeches has noticed the fact also, that no mention is ever made of Lady Queensberry in connection with the stirring up of this high-toned manure heap. But that is always the way. When a great man astounds the world with his genius, everyone declares that he owes most of his marvellous power to the training of his gifted mother. But when an utterly irreclaimable derned ass like LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS pops up and begins to boast his tail and bray, no allusion is made to his dam at all, but everyone exclaims, 'What the devil else could you expect from such a sire?' I presume there is or there was a Lady QUEENSBERRY, for it is hardly possible that the DOUGLAS duffers 'growed,' after TOPSY's plan, and if Lady Q. is alive and has any more ass colis at foot, I would strongly advise her to knock them on the head, so as to save any further trouble.

Getting back to the Queensberry quarrel (and a very pretty one it is too), the sons of the old Marquis declare that their father is insane, while the old man on his part swears that his boys are a lot of gory imbeciles, and he can tie up one arm and belt the heads off the lot any day before breakfast. To me it seems that the Queensberry mansion has always been a lordly lunatic asylum, and that the whole caboodle therein can justly claim insanity as a hereditary right. The Queensberry family sprang from the illegitimate shoot of a great Scottish house, and it far outgrew the legitimate branch; a matter which supports the theory that great brain power is inimical to propagation. History tells of a predecessor of the present worthy son-thumping Marquis who was a kind of half-fool and whole madman, and who, in the family mansion in Edinburgh, beguiled the tedium of one wet Sunday by killing a little boy, roasting him on a spit, and then eating him—after he had piously said his 'grace before meat,' of course. Playful old burgher, was he not? And great indeed are the glories of England's aristocracy!