Belfast News-Letter - Monday, April 8, 1895

THE QUEENSBERRY LIBEL CASE.

The "Daily Chronicle" says—After the statements made by Mr. Carson at great length, and his detailed and appalling description to the jury of the evidence of the witnesses whom he proposed to put in the box, no other conclusion was possible. Without prejudicing any issue yet to be tried, it may plainly be said that either Mr. Carson's brief contained a series of most wicked slanders, and all his witnesses had hardly a shred of truth among them, or else that the prosecutor perjured himself unspeakably during his long and very painful cross-examination. In explanation of this choice of evils, we must point out that the reports printed in all the newspapers did not—could not—reflect, even remotely, what was stated, denied, and reaffirmed in court.

The "Daily Telegraph" says—To those who know how to observe the man Wilde in the act of his defence condemned himself and his system by his vanity, egotism, artificiality, and distorted preceptions before the judge and jury had pronounced upon him the indirect sentence which eliminates him from the society he has disgraced. We shall have purchased the pain and shame of such an exhibition at a price perhaps not too high if it lead the youth of our generation, on the one hand, to graver thoughts of duty and propriety and the public on the other to a sterner impatience with those who, under the name of art or some other pretence, insidiously poison our stage, our literature, our drama, and the outskirts of our Press.