The Evening Journal - Saturday, May 11, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
ECHOES FROM LONDON.
[BY OXONIAN.]
London, April 5.
A few weeks ago I sketched in outline the events which led to the public rupture between the Marquis of Queensberry and Mr. Oscar Wilde. Those events were then known only to a few, but to-day they are spread broadcast over England. The libel was contained in four words written on a visiting card, and Lord Queensberry has pleaded that they are true, and that the publication is for the public benefit. The prosecution was a matter of a few minutes only. Mr. Oscar Wilde told the Jury the facts of his birth, parentage, and education. Then began Mr. Carson's cross-examination. It lasted eight hours, and concluded yesterday afternoon. At first Mr. Wilde was brilliant, composed, and almost jaunty. His answers, in fact, might have been excerpts from the dialogues of "An Ideal Husband, or the Importance of Being Earnest." By degrees, however, the terrible strain began to tell on him. With terrible insistence on every material fact Mr. Carson laid bare one side of Mr. Wilde's life for the past three years. The power of retort was gone, verve and esprit were confounded. "You sting me, you insult me, and unnerve me in every way by your questions" was at length his apology for a flippant answer to a most serious question. An hour later Mr. Wilde left the box. Could he have foreseen the case for the defence it is hardly possible that he would have pushed matters to this crisis.
The election of the first Commoner, the truth about the Armenian massacres, the Chitral expedition, the Australian cricket scores — all pale before the trial now proceeding at the Old Bailey. A few weeks ago I sketched in outline the events which led to the public rupture between the Marquis of Queensberry and Mr. Oscar Wilde. Those events were then known only to a few, but to-day they are spread broadcast over England. The libel was contained in four words written on a visiting card, and Lord Queensberry has pleaded that they are true, and that the publication is for the public benefit. The prosecution was a matter of a few minutes only. Mr. Oscar Wilde told the Jury the facts of his birth, parentage, and education. Then began Mr. Carson's cross-examination. It lasted eight hours, and concluded yesterday afternoon. At first Mr. Wilde was brilliant, composed, and almost jaunty. His answers, in fact, might have been excerpts from the dialogues of "An Ideal Husband, or the Importance of Being Earnest." By degrees, however, the terrible strain began to tell on him. With terrible insistence on every material fact Mr. Carson laid bare one side of Mr. Wilde's life for the past three years. The power of retort was gone, verve and esprit were confounded. "You sting me, you insult me, and unnerve me in every way by your questions" was at length his apology for a flippant answer to a most serious question. An hour later Mr. Wilde left the box. Could he have foreseen the case for the defence it is hardly possible that he would have pushed matters to this crisis.