Daily World - Friday, May 31, 1895

ECHOES OF THE WILDE CASE.

Mrs. Oscar Wilde, according to her American friends — and she is well known to numerous fashionable people in New York — has some idea of coming to America. Her idea is to close negotiations pending between her husband and certain theatrical managers and book publishers. Now that the announcement of her intention to obtain a divorce is seen to be premature, attention has been called to the sorry condition of herself and children. They are reduced to absolute beggary, and yet on this side of the Atlantic and in Australia Wilde's books and plays are selling and running prodigiously. Two of these productions are copyrighted, yet they have been pirated unblushingly. A subscription has been started in London to help poor Mrs. Wilde. It is well known that she was devoted to the melancholy Oscar, and, in truth, looked upon herself as his protector. She spared him everything in the way of a nervous shock, and he was to her almost a sensitive plant. It is recalled in New York that much fun was poked at him when his pet pug, Divinity, was killed. Wilde had three of these animals, one being named Distraction, another Dreams, and the third Divinity. Wilde was out walking with his wife and Divinity, when a bull dog set upon the latter. Wilde shrieked aloud and looked as if he would faint when the canines closed in mortal combat, but his wife drove the bull dog off with her parasol. The aesthete was so overcome with the shock that he would do no work for several weeks. He wrote a long letter to Charles Frohman, with whom he had important engagements, detailing the circumstances and declaring that he was in too wilted a condition for play writing.

Oscar, after he was sentenced, was taken to Holloway jail, in the northern part of London. There all his money and valuables were taken away from him by the warden. He was stripped to his shirt, and the officers wrote down in the prison register a minute account of his appearance, the color of his hair, eyes and complexion, and any peculiarities, such as a broken finger, tatoo marks and moles. Then Wilde was put into a hot bath and his shirt, the last vestige of his days of freedom, was removed. Emerging from the water he found a full suit of prison clothes all ready for him, from under linen to loose shoes and a hideous Scotch cap. His clothes are of dirty drab canvas, plentifully adorned with drabd arrows. Shortly afterward Wilde eat his first prison meal, an allowance of thin porridge and a small brown loaf. He was then taken to Pentonville, hard by the Holborn viaduct, a prison for convicted criminals. He was examined physically with great care, since upon the medical officer's report will depend what labor he is to do. If passed sound and fit for first-class hard labor, he will take his first six months' exercise in the treadwheel six hours daily, making an ascent of 6,000 feet, 20 minutes consecutively, and then a rest of five minutes. The Government inspector will visit him once a month and hear any representation or complaint, and the visiting committee of the London magistrates will call frequently at the prison for the same purpose. On his release Wilde, if he has worked well, will have earned the magnificent sum of 10 shillings. While Wilde's case has obtained the public attention recently, the London police reports show that persons accused of the offense for which he was convicted come frequently before the magistrates. On the very day he was convicted John Goodchild, 28 years old, and said to have a good education, was sentenced to two years at hard labor for the identical crime. The judge remarked that no country could remain great while such persons were allowed to live free in it. He believed, indeed, that they should not be allowed to live at all.