The Yorkshire Evening Post - Monday, May 27, 1895

YORKSHIRE ECHOES.

The eccentric Marquess of Queensberry has been justified by a British jury for the extraordinary action he took in denouncing Oscar Wilde. It remains more than ever a puzzle why the latter took action; perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that he is a conscienceless man, who has fed an incurable vanity upon the Decadent rubbish of Paris until he believed his own invincibility. The man has been talked of and loathed in London for years, and it is strange that, though Society could not oust him from his position, one should come forward to play the part of scavenger who himself has suffered the ban.

The ups and downs of Wilde are correctly marked by his appellations. When he was a brilliant University man, putting out erotic verse and strange prose, he was known as "the clever Mr. Wilde." His insufferable posturing and cheap paradoxes later earned for him the title of "Oscar" in many drawing-rooms. He receded to "Mr. Wilde" after the charge brought against him, and the acquittal of the Marquess put him back to "the man Wilde." The disagreement of the first jury, a successful application for bail, and a slight doubt as to his ultimate conviction, combined to make him "Mr. Wilde" again. Then he figured as "the prisoner"; and now he becomes a mere number. And in future he never will be more than a cypher in the world.