The Herald - Friday, April 5, 1895

OUR CABLES.
HERALD SPECIAL SERVICE.
A HUGE SCANDAL
IN LONDON SOCIETY.
QUEENSBERRY ON TRIAL.
FURTHER REMARKABLE
EVIDENCE.
SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE.
FULL JUSTIFICATION PLEADED.
OSCAR WILDE'S ROOMS
DESCRIBED BY COUNSEL.
FATHER AND SON.
SENSATIONAL TESTIMONY
PROMISED.
LONDON, Thursday Night.

Further highly sensational evidence was given to-day when the hearing of the charge of criminally libelling Mr Oscar Wilde brought against the Marquis of Queensberry was continued in the Criminal Court.

The cross-examination of Mr Wilde had not been completed when the court adjourned yesterday, and to-day he made a number of further remarkable statements.

The witness admitted that he had at different times contracted very intimate friendships with other young men besides Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquis of Queensberry. One of these youths was a valet, another was a groom, and a third a bookmaker's clerk. He denied that there had been anything immoral in his relations with these youths.

Mr Carson, counsel for the defence, in opening his speech on behalf of the accused Marquis, said that the latter withdrew nothing of what he had either said or hinted at in regard to the conduct of the prosecutor. Oscar Wilde had been intimate with a man named Taylor, who was notorious as a person who procured boys for abominable purposes. Counsel asserted that in the rooms where Wilde was in the habit of entertaining lads daylight was never allowed to penetrate. A subdued artificial light was used. These rooms were sumptuously furnished, and ever heavy with the odor of varied perfumes. Under these conditions it was that Oscar Wilde gave tea parties to boys.

Counsel read letters from the Marquis of Queensberry to his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. In these letters the Marquis threatened to make public what had become a hideous scandal if the intimacy with Wilde were not at once discontinued. "If the worst be true," the Marquis wrote to his son, "I would be quite justified in shooting Oscar Wilde." The father also in the course of these writings expressed the belief that his son had gone crazy, and advised him strongly to leave the country.

The reply of Lord Alfred Douglas to the letter containing this last advice was expressed by telegram in the following terms: "What a funny little man you are!" Subsequently Lord Alfred Douglas sent a post-card to his father, intimating that if the Marquis attacked either Mr Oscar Wilde or the writer he would get shot.

Mr Carson, continuing his speech, promised that all the youths mentioned in the case would be put into the witness box to-morrow in order to prove Wilde's indecencies. The man Wood would confess that filthy practice on the part of Wilde had occurred often before the letters incident — that is, the discovery by Wood in the pockets of old clothes given to him by Lord Alfred Douglas of effusive letters addressed to the latter by Oscar Wilde.

The case again to-day attracted great public interest.