The Daily Telegraph - Tuesday, April 9, 1895

NOTES OF THE DAY.
(BY OUTIS.")

Exit, Oscar Wilde! The wittiest, strangest man of his day, triumphant conqueror of malicious critics, arch-priest of delicate culture, and reviver of the dialogical glories of the Restoration period, quenches his brilliant light in a damnatory torrent of foul repute, as lamps are extinguished in bad air. This is one of nature's tricks, to which the attention of thick and thin naturists may with profit be directed, the trick of doing things by halves. Here is a man in whom glorious talents were invested, mainly to the end of enabling him to write some of the most charmingly bright prose the prolific moderns have produced; to whom instincts were given which in the greater part ran to culture and refinement as ducks run to water. But for the lesser, those instincts were unchaste and inexpressible, leading their mortal frame to vileness and the old Bailey. These are the disproportions of nature, wise and frugal, the committal of which made Milton "oft admire." In our own small sphere we see the same sort of unsuitable mixture in the Impressionist artist who calls a dissident critic "a candaverous man" because he (the artist) lacks the inclination to learn his language: the clever professional man whose elbows are worn hard by long leaning on hard hotel bars; the clever one who can't do his best work until he "gets a lot into him;" and the dreamy poet who owes his tailor. And men of no talent in particular beyond a dogged, useless desire to succeed look on enviously and wonder why dissembling nature cheated them of the features they would have been so careful of.

But there is a soul of goodness in things evil, would the Supreme Court judges observingly distil it out. Crimes like those charged against Wilde make lesser criminals feel good by comparison. The ordinarily sinful man who burgles, assaults, cheats his creditors, sells bad liquor, or steals money from lady journalists at railway stations, may now dispose his hand on the left side of his waistcoat, turn his eyes skyward, and give thanks, fasting—if convicts ever do fast, which I seriously doubt—that he never did anything of that kind. Numerous champions of law and order will probably agree that on that account, because there is a depth which he hasn't sounded, it would be as well to deal leniently with him. The difficulty in such cases would be to convince their Honors, who have a painful knack of sticking to the letter of the law and making the weather sultry for the inferior sorts of wronguns. A case has occurred in the country which vividly illustrates the importance of being earnest if you dabble in crime at all. A bank officer was sentenced one day to 12 months' imprisonment on no less than four charges of embezzlement. Next day the judge recalled him, and announced apologetically that he had made a mistake—the case should have been dealt with under the First Offenders' Act. Whereupon the prisoner found sureties that he wouldn't embezzle for the next 12 months, and went on his way rejoicing. On the same day a man of 51 years was haled before a city magistrate and condignly jailed for 21 days because he tried to steal a suit of clothes valued at 32s 6d. Which goes to show now-a-days a man is more likely to be hung for a lamb than a sheep.