The Gazette - Monday, May 27, 1895

Oscar Wilde will spend the next two years of his life as a convict. Justice was delayed, not balked, by the failure of the first jury to agree on a verdict. The movement of the law has been effective for its purpose, and in so far as this unhappy man's punishment can act as a deterrent, the coterie of criminals to which he belonged will be much more careful in their criminality, while others will be frightened from a course which may lead to such terrible shame and humiliation. The most wholesomely effective result is likely, however, to be in connection with the literature of the day. England has of late been the home of a class of writers whose purpose has been to ridicule and subvert the wholesome teachings of Christian religion in regard to the social relations of man and woman. Wilde was one of their leaders, and in his exposure the world sees something of what the "emancipators'" logic leads members of their own order to.