London Star - Wednesday, May 29, 1895

THE WILDE SCANDAL.
Mr. Labouchere Writes Very Plainly
About it.

Mr. Labouchere writes of the Wilde scandal in this week's Truth with knowledge and daring. "There is (he says) no question that matters had reached a pass in London which rendered it necessary for the law to be put in operation, unless it was to be treated as a dead letter. . . . I had a slight acquaintanceship with Lord Queensberry years ago, and he called upon me to ask my advice as to what he ought to do, when Wilde was going to be admitted to bail, in the event of the pair (Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas) coming together. He had, he said, publicly stated that he would shoot Wilde. I strongly urged him to do nothing of the kind, but I said that, if he met them together, I thought there would be no great harm in his giving Wilde

A SOUND HORSEWHIPPING,

for public opinion would be with him. If Wilde were acquitted, and the pair went abroad together, I advised him to wash his hands of his son, having already done all that was possible to reclaim him."

Lord Alfred Douglas seems to Mr. Labouchere to be "an exceptional young scoundrel. His letter in which he expresses his regret that he was not privileged, instead of his elder brother, to assault his father, apart from anything else, puts this youth of 'slim gilt soul' and 'rose-leaf lips' outside the pale of all decent human beings." And he

"LEFT HIS ASSOCIATE IN THE LURCH."

A needed protest is made against gossiping of names. "I hear, this name and that name bandied about as those of persons who were mixed up in these iniquities. Against all this, I protest. In such matters no one ought to be defamed by gossip unsupported by any proof. Where there is evidence the law should act, however distasteful the parading of such cases in public may be; but without the clearest and most convincing evidence, no one should even be suspected."