The Yorkshire Evening Post - Tuesday, April 9, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
GOSSIP OF THE DAY.
WILDE IN PRISON.
On Saturday night Oscar Wilde received the attention of the prison surgeon for the purpose of inducing sleep, though with little effect. As a precautionary measure, unknown to him, he is being specially watched lest, in an excess of despair, he should attempt to take his life.
THE PENALTY.
A slight mistake was made in this column the other evening in reference to the penalties for the crime which has figured so much in the papers during the past few days. It seems the old penalties were altered two years ago; as "Two Articled Ones" are kind enough to point out in the following letter:—
In connection with the Wilde-Queensberry case many articled clerks in this city have been much exercised over a statement made in your columns the other night as to the minimum penalty for the offence with which Mr. Oscar Wilde now stands charged. This you stated to be ten years' penal servitude. In this respect, however, your admirable paper is hardly "up-to-date," for, by the effect of the Penal Servitude Amendment Act, 1891, the minimum sentence may be two years' imprisonment, with hard labour, or three years' penal servitude. By inserting this correction yon will not only disillusionise the [...] "B.P," some of whom will no doubt have been misled by the error in question, but you will also demonstrate to them that the rising generation in our profession know enough at least of this interesting branch of the law to be able to instruct an evening paper.
"Two Articled Ones" are quite right, and we have pleasure in publishing their letter. The clause, it seems, was introduced into the Act on the initiative of Mr. Labouchere. It may also be stated that every person charged under the Act is a "competent but not a compellable witness" both before the magistrate and, if committed for trial, before the higher Court.