The Daily Inter Ocean - Sunday, April 28, 1895

JOTTINGS.

In the uncertainty of the American courts English justice is held up to us as an illustration of equity that has no parallel in modern jurisprudence. Oscar Wilde, a man who by sheer force of shrewd advertising had made for himself a certain status in London society, but Who had behind him none of the support of family which is omnipotent in England, has been indicted for an unspeakable crime. His house has just been sold out by the sheriff, his family broken up, and he himself in prison awaiting his trial. He has been made an example, which is right so far as it goes. But this national qualm of conscience is a bit of biased, cold-blooded judgment, of discrimination that is a disgrace.

Instead of hunting down all like offenders and dragging them into the courts to stand trial with Wilde, we are informed that the men in high places who are equally guilty will not be prosecuted, to save public scandal. And, as happened a few years ago, several have been quietly notified to leave the country. At the same time Mrs. Maybrick remains in Woking Prison, sentenced to hard labor for life, her health failing hourly, the victim of a trial so unjust that from the first moment her brother-in-law began his persecution of her she had only the meagerest chance for her life. Malefactors have been pardoned; or ordered to leave and so evade arrest, but no power has been able to help or save this American woman. Is it because she is an American woman?