The Pall Mall Gazette - Friday, May 24, 1895

OSCAR WILDE AT THE OLD BAILEY.
CASE FOR THE DEFENCE.
ACCUSED IN THE WITNESS BOX.

The re-trial of Oscar Wilde was resumed this morning before Mr. Justice Wills at the Old Bailey. The Solicitor-General (Sir F. Lockwood) called his lordship's attention again to the matter of the case of Shelley, which his lordship had decided overnight to withdraw from the jury. He (the Solicitor-General) was not aware last night that as recently as June last there was a judicial pronouncement bearing upon the matter. In the case of in re Meunier, an extradition case, Mr. Justice Cave had stated that no doubt it was the practice to warn the jury they ought not to convict unless they thought the evidence of an accomplice was corroborated, but he (Mr. Justice Cave) knew of no power to withdraw a case from the jury for want of corroborative evidence. Mr. Justice Collins had concurred. He (the Solicitor-General) did not presume to re-argue the point upon which his lordship had given his decision, but he thought it his duty to call attention to that recent judgment. His lordship said he preferred to adhere to the course he had taken, which was the result of very deliberate consideration. Sir Edward Clarke then rose to address the jury upon what he called the remnants of the case. The area of the case now before them was a limited one. He was painfully conscious of the exceptional, unusual, and unjustified way in which this case had been conducted on the part of the Crown. He (Sir Edward Clarke) had held the office of Solicitor-General longer than any man in the country during the past hundred years, and it was not likely that he would speak lightly of the responsibilities of that great office. He had always regarded the responsibilities of a law officer of the Crown as public rather than personal. The Solicitor-General should be a minister of justice with the responsibilities of a judge rather than those of a counsel retained for a particular combatant in the forensic fray. Perhaps Sir Frank Lockwood would recognize that while he was speaking without the least unfriendliness, yet he hoped he might be doing something to

SUSTAIN THE TRADITIONS OF PUBLIC PROSECUTION,

and to induce Sir Frank Lockwood to remember what he seemed for a moment yesterday to forget--that he was not here to try to get a verdict of guilty by any means he could get it ; but that he was here to get at the real facts of the case, in order that the jury might judge of them. When this case was first brought against the accused there were twenty-five counts in the indictment. The evidence of the Crown was heard, and then the whole of the conspiracy counts were withdrawn. He must say he never for a moment had to remonstrate with Mr. Gill for the tone in which he conducted the prosecution. Then came down a law officer. Perhaps they did not know what that meant. It meant that, although when he was Solicitor-General he declared he never would exercise so questionable a right, yet it meant that the Crown could thereby get the last word to the jury, even if no witnesses were called for the defence. Broken as his client was by being kept in prison without bail--which was contrary to practice, and, he believed, contrary to law--broken as his client was, with the anxiety of these successive trials, he (Sir Edward) might well have spared him the indignity and pain of having again to go into the witness-box; but the Solicitor- General was here, and if Wilde were not again put into the box he could imagine what would be said in the Solicitor-General's last words to the jury. Therefore, he should again call Mr. Wilde and submit him to the cross-examination of yet a third assailant. The prisoner was then called, and was allowed to be seated while Sir Edward Clarke examined him. He repeated his former denials of the charges.

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS AND THE PARIS "FIGARO."

PARIS, Friday. - The Figaro to-day publishes a telegram from Lord Alfred Douglas, dated Rouen, asking for an apology for the falsehoods he alleges that paper printed about the Queensberry affair. At the same time he expresses great regret that it was his brother and not he himself who had " corrected" his father. - Central News.