Belfast News-Letter - Wednesday, November 27, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
OUR LONDON LETTER.
BY OUR PRIVATE WIRE.
BELFAST NEWS-LETTER OFFICE, 169, FLEET STREET, E.C., TUESDAY
NIGHT.
[...] Some published statements are so absurd that they carry their own refutation along with them. A few days ago we were told that the leading literary men of the Continent, including M. Zola, intended petitioning the Home Secretary to reduce the sentence which Mr. Oscar Wilde is now undergoing. The whole thing is denied, and so far as M. Zola is concerned strongly repudiated. Mr. Wilde has himself made no appeal for special consideration, though I believe that he might well do so on account of his health. Anyone who saw him in the Bankruptcy Court the other day must have felt that in his altered appearance he has already more than atoned for the offence for which he was suffered much. Perhaps he may give the world his jail experiences, and so bring about a reform in our prison regulations, which on the ground of humanity are urgently needed. When the law takes away an offender's liberty it does not in principle do so in order to render him physically incapable of earning his livelihood when he returns to society ; but in many cases this is what really happens.