The Age - Saturday, July 6, 1895

THE QUEENSBERRY FAMILY.
[FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.]
LONDON, 31ST MAY.

That extremely unsavory and unpleasant episode, the trial of Oscar Wilde and Taylor, has resulted in the conviction of both of them, and their sentence to two years' hard labor. There seems some probability of Lord Alfred Douglas being prosecuted, although in the opinion of the authorities more mischief is done by the scandal of a trial than by letting men suspected of horrible practices go scot free. But Lord Alfred Douglas is behaving with such brazen effrontery that it will be difficult for the Crown to treat him with contemptuous neglect. On the day before Wilde was convicted, Lord Alfred wrote to the Paris Figaro that he regretted that it was his brother and not he who had corrected their father, and he sent the following insolent letter to the English press :—

Lord Queensberry has for some time past annoyed my brother, Lord Douglas of Hawick, and his young wife, by sending to them letters containing objectionable language. My brother both personally and through his solicitor having frequently begged him to desist, and having received no more satisfactory answer than a challenge from Lord Queensberry to fight him to a finish for £1000 a side, was at length reluctantly compelled to apply to Mr. Hannay for a summons against Lord Queensberry in order to have him bound over. This application Mr. Hannay refused to entertain, giving as his reason that he "declined to have any more dirty linen washed in his court." As Lord Queensberry continued his annoyances, Lord Douglas applied a day or two later for the second time, but again Mr. Hannay, after consultation with his confrère, Mr. Newton, declined to grant a summons. At last the annoyance became intolerable, and Lord Douglas, having twice appealed in vain for protection to the law, was reduced to the absolute necessity of adopting the course he did, that of publicly assaulting Lord Queensberry.

Now, who is responsible for the disgraceful scene in Piccadilly of a father and a son pommeling each other to the accompaniment of a chorus of the cheers and groans of a body of strangers, if not Messrs. Hannay and Newton? I venture to fancy that if anybody, say myself for instance, were to commence writing abusive letters to Mr. Hannay's wife or his female relations, he would consider himself entitled to have me summoned and restrained from doing so in future. What right, then, has this man to arbitrarily refuse, in the face of all precedent and all essential justice, to grant the protection of the law to any single citizen who with sufficient cause appeals to him for it? I notice, by the way, that it is stated in several papers that Lord Queensberry, who seem to be rapidly taking the place of the great Duke of Wellington in the hearts of the British people, was loudly cheered when he left Marlborough-street police court. Far be it from me to question the right of the great British public to choose its heroes when it wishes, but, just as a matter of curiosity, I should like to know for which of his feats he was thus greeted. Was it for writing annoying letters to a young lady, or for giving his eldest son a black eye, or simply on account of his general character as shown by his conduct during the past dozen years? I wish somebody would tell me.