The Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday, April 5, 1895

THE EVENING POST.
FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1895.
EXIT OSCAR.

The most sensational case of the time has come to a sensational end this morning. Sir Edward Clarke, whose position as leading counsel to Mr. Oscar Wilde was one of terrible anxiety, had to tell the Court that he could not ask the jury to find a verdict of "guilty" against the Marquess of Queensberry, and that, in effect, meant that his lordship was justified in writing the grave accusation he had made. That no other course was was possible for Sir Edward Clarke will be evident to those who read the details of to-day's proceedings. The strong line taken up by Mr. Carson in his cross-examination of Oscar Wilde—all tending to a specific series of allegations—leads up to his statement this morning that witnesses would be produced to testify to these charges. Up to that point counsel for the plaintiff might have been justified in assuming that the wiles of Mr. Carson were only directed to the purpose of securing a damaging admission from Wilde. But when Mr. Carson said he could bring evidence, and detailed to the Court what that evidence would be, the time had come to throw up the case. Sir Edward and his juniors retired for a momentary consultation, and returned to make the dramatic announcement already indicated.

Wilde from this day is a social leper, ostracised and forced into the outer darkness. When we remember his brilliant and distinguished career, the promises richly fulfilled in performance, and the possibilities before him, the mind stands appalled at his sudden damnation. But for the nonce no other feeling can occupy us but one of amazement at the insolent effrontery which led the man to bring this action, to go into the witness-box, and to stand the fire of a searching cross-examination with the clever insouciance of a man absolutely indifferent to his sins and preferring to brazen out his fate. He must have known that exposure was imminent. Yet he stood the trying ordeal with unshaken nerves, and apparently a mind at ease, keen upon phrase-making. He seemed as if he would rather lose his reputation than give up a happy paradox. He staked his future upon an epigram, and lost. Perhaps this was all part of his method as a poseur. He has posed all his life, and brought it to one of the fine arts.

The exposure was sure to come sooner or later, and one thinks with profound pity of the task which the Marquess of Queensberry had to perform. In the past the Marquess's eccentricities have not made him a sympathetic figure, but in this matter he deserves nothing but praise. He had to rescue his son fmm the dangerous attraction of Oscar Wilde. That the Marquess was successful and comes out of the ordeal triumphant is good; for thereby England, at least, gets rid of one of the most dangerous blackguards it has ever nourished as a clever personality.