Galignani Messenger - Sunday, April 28, 1895

THE SOCIETY SCANDAL
SECOND DAY OF THE TRIAL.
EVIDENCE OF WITNESSES.
STARTLING CROSS-EXAMINATION.
DAMAGING ADMISSIONS.
ANOTHER ADJOURNMENT.

London, April 27.

The second day of the trial of Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor at the Old Bailey on charges of gross immorality is not likely to be made notable by any dramatic surprises. The gravity of the case remains, but its interest has been largely discounted by the Queensberry trial and the police-court proceedings.

All the counsel engaged in the case were early in attendance, and Mr. Charles Mathews again passed through the dock to consult with Wilde in the cells below. There is a mistaken impression that the prisoners passed the night in Newgate Prison. As a fact, they were taken back in the prison van to Holloway and slept in their accustomed cells. There was no demonstration when the van arrived at the Central Criminal Court this morning. The prisoners were dressed as yesterday, and took seats at opposite ends of the dock. At no stage of the proceedings has there been any perceptible communication between the two. Wilde seems oblivious of Taylor's presence, but Taylor occasionally looks furtively across at his companion.

The lad Alfred Wood was recalled for cross-examination, and Sir Edward Clarke, first ascertaining that the witness returned from America in May, 1894, asked, "Did you come back to respectable employment?"
"I was taken very ill," he replied in low, even tones, "and I have been ill ever since."
I take that to mean you have not been in any describable employment? Yes.
Parker has told us that you and Allan obtained £300 from a man, and that you gave him (Parker) £30. Is that true ? The witness hesitated, and then replied, "I didn't get the money. It was not paid to me."
To whom, then? To Allan, I think.
You gave £30 to Parker? I don't know what he had.
How much did you have? £175.
What for? Well, it was given me by Allan.
Then Mr. Wilde's giving you £30 to get away from this class of persons had not had a very satisfactory result? I was in employment all the time I was in America.
How did you live when you came back? On some money left by my father, I was not of age when I went to America.
Was that money spent before you had the £175? No.

Cross-examined about the letters from Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, the witness admitted that he received a letter from Sir George Lewis asking him to go to Ely-place about them. He did not go, but it was not true that he had already had the letters copied. When Wilde asked him to give the letters up, witness returned two of them, but he knew that a third was in the possession of Allan. He did not know that Allan had had that letter copied. Pursuing his inquiry into the witness's present mode of life, Sir Edward Clarke found that he was now living in Holloway, and since his return from America had visited Charles Parker. He denied that he had described himself as Parker's brother.

Re-examined by Mr. Gill, the witness positively denied that he had known any of the people mentioned in this case, or had been guilty of any improper conduct before he fell in with Taylor, to whom he was introduced by a gentleman.

Mr. Gill: Any person whose name has been mentioned in this case? No, said the witness, adding that there were other people whom he wished to escape by going to America besides those mentioned in this case.

Atkins was the next witness. He was originally introduced to Taylor by one Schwabe, and by Taylor to Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, at a dinner at the Café Florence, where, he swore, Wilde kissed the waiter. He went to Paris with Wilde as his private secretary.

Atkins described Schwabe as "about as old as I am--about 22," and described, queer incidents at the hotel in the Boulevard des Capucines, denying that he was himself guilty of any impropriety. Later the witness had an attack of smallpox, he added in cross-examination, and Wilde again came to see him at his own request, and promised to send him money. As to the witness's occupation, he had been living for three years with a man called Burton, a bookmaker, as whose clerk he attended race meetings. They lived first at 124, Tachbrook-street, Pimlico, afterwards at Osnaburgh-street. The witness had also acted at music-halls.

Sir Edward Clarke: Have you also been engaged in the business of blackmailing? I don't remember. (Laughter.)
Has Burton not obtained money from persons on the ground that they have committed indecent acts with you? No, sir.
Have you ever gone out into the streets in woman's dress? No. (The witness laughed.) I swear I have not.

Sir Edward Clarke wrote the name of a gentleman on a piece of paper. The witness swore he had never seen it before. He swore positively that he and Burton did not extort a large sum of money from a Birmingham gentleman on June 9, 1891. He admitted having passed by the name of Fred Denney.

Were you and Burton ever taken to Rochester-row police-station? No.
Did not a gentleman go home with you from the Criterion to Tachbrook-street, and did not Burton come in a few minutes late and threaten that if the gentleman did not pay you would accuse him? No.
Did you not take the gentleman's watch and chain, and give them to Burton? No.
Were you not both taken to Rochester-row the next night, and did you not then give up the watch and chain? No.

Sir Edward Clarke pursued the matter, but the witness sullenly replied no and no to every question. He admitted having lived at 35, Alderney-street, Pimlico, but denied that in August, 1892, dressed as a woman, he took a gentleman to the house. "I never dressed as a woman in my life," he said.
Did not that gentleman give Burton a cheque for £200, made out in the name of St. Denis, which he supposed to be your name? I swear that never happened.
Have you ever been to the Hotel ----- in Northumberland-avenue? I have never been inside it.
About two years ago did not you and some one else go there with two American gentlemen? I never did.
And did not Burton appear there and extort a large sum of money from those gentlemen? I have never been there.

The witness admitted he had been with Burton to Nice and Monte Carlo in the spring of last year. They were simply amusing themselves there, and there was no quarrel. On their return the witness gave up what Sir Edward Clarke called "this old-established connection," and had seen little of Burton since. He heard from him at Monte Carlo about a week ago. Being pressed, he admitted that there might have been a little "row" at Nice, but there was no question of blackmailing a gentleman there.

Then Mr. Grain took the witness in hand. "Ever been to Scarborough?" he asked. Yes the witness had been with Burton to Scarborough to sing at the Aquarium. Did not meet the foreign nobleman whose name Mr. Grain wrote on a piece of paper, but heard his name mentioned by other young men. He had a big yacht lying out in the bay.

"Now I put it to you," said Mr. Grain, "did not you and Burton obtain money from that nobleman to the amount of nearly £500?" No; the witness knew nothing of any such transaction. He had lived in the Buckingham Palace-road. "Then look at the name on that piece of paper please," said Mr. Grain, producing another of the pipelights which have become so common in the case, and about which there is unbounded curiosity. But no, the witness had never heard the name, and he was quiet certain he never took an elderly City man to his room and robbed him of his pocket-book. Neither he nor Burton afterwards went to the gentleman's office and threatened to expose the contents of the pocket-book unless they received a large sum of money.

The prisoners had followed this cross-examination with close attention. Taylor showed some excitement, but Wilde, lolling wearily in the corner of the dock with his head on his hands, was inscrutable. When the witness left the box Taylor raked the court with a bold stare, seeming specially anxious to explore the dark corners of the gallery. His eyes soon returned to the witness-box when Sidney Arthur Mavor was called, and a slim, dandified young man, in a painfully high and stiff collar, stepped up to be sworn. He repeated his previous evidence, and said he was now in partnership with a friend in the City, and lived at North Kensington. Mavor said he went to Little College-street, and met Taylor and other men. He went to tea about half a dozen times, and was introduced by Taylor to different people. He had stayed at the house. At dinner at a restaurant he was introduced to Wilde. The party was composed of Taylor, Wilde, Schwabe, and himself, and he took Lord Alfred Douglas. Witness afterwards received a silver cigarette case with the inscription, "Sidney, from O. W., October, 1892." In consequence of a letter he received from Wilde, he went to see him at a Piccadilly hotel; he had not seen Wilde in Little College-street. He denied that any misconduct occurred on the day he stayed at the hotel. He met Wilde at Taylor's rooms afterwards. At the same time he went to the hotel he was out of employment.

Cross-examined by Sir E. Clarke: No impropriety had ever taken place, and Wilde had never given him any money.

In answer to Mr. Grain, witness said two sums of money he received from Taylor were in repayment of loans.

Edward Shelley, who was in the employ of a firm of publishers with whom Wilde did business in 1892, detailed the circumstances under which he became acquainted with Wilde. He also spoke of a visit he paid to Wilde at the Albemarle Hotel and of what occurred there; also of a subsequent visit to the hotel. Wilde asked him to go to Brighton, Paris, and Cromer with him, but witness declined. Wilde gave him a set of his works. He destroyed the letters he received from Wilde about two years ago. He had received letters from Wilde, and also a set of his works. Witness said that he had torn the inscriptions out of these. He did this quite recently, when he heard of the present charges being first suggested by Lord Queensberry. He kept Wilde's letters until about a couple of years ago, when he wrote and told Wilde that he could "have nothing more to do with a man of his morality," and broke off the acquaintanceship.

The court at this point adjourned for luncheon.

In his cross-examination Mr. Shelley uniformly spoke of Wilde as "that man," and described a letter which he said he wrote to the prisoner, abjuring his wicked company. Wilde still gazed and rubbed his nose with the feather end of a quill pen in a meditative way.

The witness condoned the first misconduct, and Sir Edward Clarke suggested that this was because he thought the fact Wilde had had too much to drink accounted for his conduct. The witness said he could not swear that this was the thought in his mind. Sir Edward read fulsome letters written by the witness to Wilde. Witness said he thought Wilde was sorry for what had happened, and so forgave him. The witness's father was so much annoyed at the friendship that he ordered him to leave his house, but this was patched up again. He went to work in the City at a salary of £50 a year, and found it so insufficient that he wrote letters to Wilde begging for help, and declaring that he could accept nothing from "the viper, John Lane."

"Were you in your sound mind when you wrote that?" asked Sir Edward Clarke, referring to one of these extravagant epistles, and the witness jumped at the explanation--he thought his mind must have been disordered. He could not now remember any reason for calling John Lane a viper. "I am afraid sometimes I am not very sane," he wrote in another letter to Wilde.

"When did your mind entirely recover itself--if it has done so? asked Sir Edward Clarke, and the witness thought it must have been in October or November of last year. On second thoughts it could not have been, for in January of this year he was arrested for assaulting his father--conduct which he could not think consistent with perfect sanity.

At the request of Sir Edward Clarke the witness Atkins wad recalled, and, being first warned by both counsel and judge, admitted that in June, 1891, he and Burton were taken from 124, Tachbrook-street, to Rochester-row Police-station, and charged by a gentleman he had met at the Alhambra and taken home with him. He still denied that the charge was one of blackmailing, and said it was one of assault arising out of a dispute at cards. Then Sir Edward called in the constable who took the charge and, confronted with this witness, Atkins gave in and sullenly admitted that charges of a scandalous nature were made. The gentleman declined to prosecute, and they were allowed to go.

"Leave the box!" said his lordship, and the lad slunk out of court.

Evidence was given by Mr. Mathews (Mathews and Lane) of the fact that it was brought to his knowledge that Wilde was communicating with young Shelley; by Mr. Voegel, proprietor of the Hotel Albemarle, that he took steps to lose Wilde's custom after learning the character of his visitors; and by a silversmith of the supply of silver cigarette cases. The hearing was then adjourned to Monday.