London Star - Friday, April 19, 1895

ALFRED DOUGLAS
Chalcott House, Long Ditton, 19 April.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE STAR."

SIR,--I regret that the Marquess of Queensberry. for whose character and opinions (so far as I know them) I have the highest respect, should have misconceived the meaning of my letter to you on the subject of the Wilde prosecution. The conduct against which I protested was not that of the "agnostic" nobleman, who was strictly within his rights in protecting his son and acting in his own defence, but that of those Christian publicists who were pronouncing sentence upon Mr. Wilde before he was even committed for trial. I am sure that Lord Queensberry, who has himself suffered cruelly from the injustice of public opinion, is quite as sorry as I am for his fallen foe, and is quite as anxious as I am that he should be dealt with fairly, justly, and even mercifully. Personally, I would not condemn even a dog on the kind of tainted evidence which has been foreshadowed during the recent preliminary inquiry, but the case, as I said, is still only sub judice, and none of us yet know with any certainty whether or not a jury of Englishmen will pronounce Mr. Wilde guilty.

This being the case, I should like to ask on what conceivable plea of justice or expediency an accused person, not yet tried and convicted, is subjected to the indignities and inconveniences of a common prison, and denied, while a prisoner, the ordinary comforts to which he has been accustomed when at large? Why should he diet be regulated unduly? Why should he be denied the sedative of the harmless cigarette, more than ever necessary to a smoker in times of great mental anxiety? Why should not his friends visit him? Why, in short, should he not enjoy, as far as is practicable, all the privileges of an innocent man? Innocent he presumably is until he is tried and found guilty. If it be argued that the case is a serious one, in so far as the magistrate refuses bail and the evidence is considered strong against the prisoner, the reply is that many a case which looked far blacker has ended in an acquittal; and, at any rate, we have no right whatsoever to

ASSUME THE GUILT

beforehand. Assume for a moment that the prisoner is acquitted, what amends can be made for treatment which is unjust as it is abominable? As matters stand, we may shatter a man's health, torture his mind and his body, drive him into madness or imbecility, and then, finally, if it turns our we are mistaken, all we can do is to say, "We're very sorry!--we do beg your pardon!--you can go!"

I commend this system of things to the attention of the Marquess of Queensberry. It is only possible, I think, in a country where Christianity has got the better of justice and common-sense, and where a man may be lynched by a Christian press and a Christian public long before he is really put on trial. I have too much sympathy with his lordship's creed to think that the man who holds it would approve of such a system. So far from thinking him "notoriously corrupt," I think him notoriously brave and honest, anxious that all men should have, under Queensberry and all rules, a fair trial and fair play; and I would certainly be the last man in the world to offer him disrespect.--Yours, &c,

19 April, ROBERT BUCHANAN.