The Daily Inter Ocean - Sunday, December 29, 1895

CRISP LONDON TALK
Misguided American Asks Frenchmen
to Intercede for Wilde.

London, Dec. 10. - Special Correspondence. - It seems incredible that any American with a grain of self-respect or regard for the good name of his country should feel called upon to intercede for Oscar Wilde. But such an individual has come to the fore. It is more than Wilde’s fellow-Britons would do, and, with the exception of that manifested by a few depraved creatures like himself who are perfectly well known to the London public, there has been no sympathy wasted upon him in England. Whatever pity may be expressed is for the poor wife living in exile in France, where she will probably remain for the rest of her life, for so much do the conventional English dread public opinion that few people would dare take her by the hand, whatever their feeling for her, were she to return to London.

The American champion has confined his labours to the French and they have taken the not very original form of a petition to be signed by eminent French writers and presented to Queen Victoria. Any person of ordinary intelligence is aware that the Queen is as powerless to intercede in the process of the law as the humblest of her subjects, and even though the American should have the audacity to present such a petition, it would end there. It is interesting to know how the Frenchmen have regarded the proposition.

Daudet will express no opinion in any way. Sardou refused absolutely to have anything at all to do with the matter and spoke of it in very plain language. M. Barres also refused both signature and opinion, and so on through a lengthy list. One cannot feel very proud of the morbid sentimentality that has prompted the stupid interference of a meddler - one more offence set down to the credit of "those Americans."