Truth - Thursday, October 3, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
’Tis an ill wind—. Therefore Lord Queensberry and the other creditors of Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wills Wilde may be congratulated upon the determination of the friends of that personage to subscribe between £2,000 and £3,000 in order to prevent the stigma of bankruptcy resting on his honoured name. He had, it would seem, £2,000 per annum. But this did not suffice him; in the course, therefore, of a year or two he borrowed largely. When it is considered how he spent that borrowed money, it is certainly surprising that the most charitable should be prepared to save him from bankruptcy by subscribing it. I confess that I should be curious to see a list of the donors.
Why not a subscription for Lord C. J. Innes-Ker—debts £799. 14s. 11d., assets £2? His lordship seems to have a difficulty in keeping out of debt, because it would appear that he has already failed to meet his obligations on three previous occasions. I confess that I should not subscribe either to funds for him or for Wilde. But if I were obliged to do one or the other, I certainly should option for the nobleman. What has the other man ever done, or left undone, to justify the exercise of charity in respect to him? The next thing will be that we shall hear that his friends contemplate a statue to him.