The Philadelphia Times - Sunday, April 14, 1895

WHAT INTERESTS
THE ENGLISH
SOME IMPRESSIONS FROM LONDON NOT
TOLD BY CABLE.
SOCIAL AND TRADE SCANDALS
The Wilde Case and the People It Has
Brought to the Surface
From a Correspondent of THE TIMES.

THE WILDE CASE.

Scandal-loving London is mad with joy over the revolting details of the Oscar Wilde libel case and the sharp game of parry and thrust going on between the mellifluous, epigrammatic Oscar and the acute Mr. Carson, who champions "the Markis" in the forensic arena. The testimony makes curious reading and fills the front page of every daily paper in town - with one exception - the St. James Gazette, which today prints on its bulletin board "The only newspaper that has no report of the Oscar Wilde libel case." Mr. Sidney Law, the able editor of the St. James Gazette, may take the flattering unction to his soul that to report the Wilde case in full is "a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance." Have the readers of THE TIMES cast their eyes over "The Green Carnation," I wonder. That book made a certain sensation in London at the time of its appearance, not long ago. The hero of the book was Oscar Wilde (Amarinth), and his friend Lord Alfred Douglas appears in it under the pseudonym of Lord Reggie, while a well-known London society woman and bas-bleue, a Madam G-, also figured in the volume as the friend of both. This book gives a pretty fair estimate of the men, but does not intimate anything seriously discreditable to either of them. Only folly.

A SET OF FREAKS.

In judging the Oscar Wilde case it should be borne in mind that both parties to the suit, Oscar and the "Markis," as his friends of the fancy call him, and his young hopeful, Lord Alfred, as well, are not to be summed up from an ordinary common sense standpoint. They are all "originals," almost what in our wild Western phrase would be termed "freaks."

Even when guilt is brought home to a man there's something bad in the wreck of a reputation. The contrast between Wilde’s position three days ago and now is mournful enough. But if guilt cannot be brought home to him he is socially dead, and his literary career has come to naught. Nor is it likely that Lord Alfred, in spite of his rank , will ever be able to live down the scandal that has been linked to his name. In the whole affair there are only two persons whom everyone seriously pities - Wilde's wife and the unfortunate Marchioness of Queensberry, whose eldest son, Drumlanrig, died by his own hand a short time ago.