The Cincinnati Enquirer - Sunday, May 19, 1895

SCIENCE Has a Delicate Subject. Prominent Lights in the Medical Profession Tracing the Cause of Moral Perversion.

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.

NEW YORK, May 18. — The precise nature of the crime alleged against Oscar Wilde has been the subject of a great deal of speculation on this side of the water, especially among those members of the faculty who have made a study of the various forms of moral perversity.

Although the nature of the evidence as published indicates clearly enough that the aim of the prosecution was to show that Wilde's affiliations were with creatures who are to be found in every large city, there is still some doubt as to the category of degeneracy in which it was desired to place him.

In New York, as elsewhere, there is a class of depraved youths who minister to the desires of men who are lost to the charms of the opposite sex, or have acquired contrary inclinations through having become blase. "The Slidem" the notorious dive formerly kept by Frank Stevenson, in Bleecker street, was the resort of such people, who have, since the closing up of Stevenson's place, been forced to betake themselves to more obscure haunts. At a time when the vigilance of the police was more lax than it is now the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first street was by night the recognized parading ground for these creatures, some of whom were even daring enough to dress themselves in women's clothes.

"HUNGRY JOE'S" EXPERIENCE.

It was in this at that time delectable neighborhood that Oscar Wilde made the acquaintance of "Hungry Joe," the bunco steerer, who afterward relieved the susceptible aesthete of a large roll of greenbacks. "Hungry Joe" was arrested by Captain (now Inspector) Williams's men, and in a burst of confidence he gave "Fighting Alec" some of his impressions of Oscar, derived during a brief ride up Broadway in a cab.

The form of perversion most frequently indulged in here is entirely distinct from that which has been the occasion of so many scandals in England, and more than one European country. This is shown by the fact that the term of opprobrium vulgarly applied to beings of the "Princess Toto" type in New York, tends to call attention to their facial peculiarities, which are of an effeminate type. On the other hand, the word invariably applied in England implies an equally revolting, but more ancient practice. The word itself is defined in Johnson's Dictionary as "a term of endearment among sailors." The vice in question is the one alluded to in the Book of Genesis as being the occasion of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It also played a leading part in the decadence of ancient Rome, and in the orgies incident to the worship of certain Greek and Roman deities.

But the social outcasts who are addicted to one form almost always practice others.

ORIENTAL CORRUPTION.

Another fruitful source of corruption among the English is the association into which the army and Civil Service are thrown with the inhabitants of England's Oriental dependencies, among whom unnatural vices are a recognized institution.

No doubt the orgies described in the Old Bailey as having taken place in Alfred Taylor's apartments in London included every form of vicious excess. But the nature of the evidence against Wilde showed that the desire of the Crown Prosecutor was to convict him of debauching young men—a circumstance which would seem to remove all doubt as to the form of vice of which he is suspected.

THE ENQUIRER recently published an exclusive dispatch from London announcing that Dr. Forbes Winslow and Dr. Blandford had been retained by Wilde's counsel to investigate his heredity and neuropathic condition, with a view to showing that he was not responsible for his acts. Dr. R. Von Krafft-Ebing, the eminent Austrian alienist, is the originator hypnotic treatment in cases of sexual perversion, and has pursued it successfully. While admitting that where unnatural vices have been acquired they constitute a crime, he deplores the punishment by law of those whose perversion is due to pathological causes—"these stepchildren of Nature," the author calls them.

In the latest edition of his book, "Psycopathia Sexualis," Dr. Krafft-Ebing publishes a letter he received recently from "a man of high position in London."

THE OTHER SIDE.

"You have no idea," writes this unhappy individual, "what a constant struggle we all—particularly those of us that have the most mind and finest feelings—have to endure, and how we suffer under the prevailing false ideas about us and our social immorality.

"Your opinion that the phenomenon under consideration is primarily due to a congenital pathological disposition will, perhaps, make it possible to overcome existing prejudices, and awaken pity for poor 'abnormal' men, instead of the present repugnance and contempt. Much as I believe that the opinion expressed by you is exceedingly beneficial to us, I am still compelled, in the interest of science, to repudiate the word 'pathological,' and you will permit me to express a few thoughts with respect to it.

Dr. Krafft-Ebing reprints from a Berlin newspaper a graphic account of a "Woman-Haters' Ball," which might stand for a description of half a dozen such events that take place in New York every winter.