The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, April 6, 1895

A FIN DE SIECLE TYPE.

The downfall of Oscar Wilde should surprise nobody who has followed his career. Wilde has always been an impostor. He has sought notoriety by methods that would have been impossible to any man with the instincts of a gentleman. The ridiculous humbug of "estheticism," with which he first attracted public attention, has been followed by a succession of poses equally insincere and equally absurd. Wilde has the showman’s instincts, and has always made himself his own dime museum. His vicious propensities were well known in San Francisco when he was here, and probably have not been concealed elsewhere. Indeed, the London trial ought to improve instead of damaging his reputation by giving the world its first intimation that he possesses a sense of shame. Although he professes not to take his own writing sseriously, the works in his case reflect the mind of a man, and the mind so displayed is thoroughly debased. Wilde has a certain superficial smartness, but that is the only quality on which even flattery could find a peg to hang a compliment.

This scandal has afforded the material for an interesting international comparison. However English critics of American affairs may differ on other matters, they all agree in the opinion that the American press is disgracefully sensational, that most American papers are unfit for family reading, and that British journalism sets the standard of respectability for the world. They are especially shocked by the startling American headlines, so different from the decorus, unimaginative captions of the London Times.

It appears that the headlines really constitute the essence of the indictment against American journalistic morality. The difference between the codes of propriety governing the newspapers of the two countries is well illustrated in the treatment accorded to the unspeakable nastiness of the Wilde case in England and America. The American papers put a brief outline of the story under conspicuous headlines and then said that the detailed evidence was unprintable. The English papers, with only one notable exception, followed their unobtrusive headings with pages of undisinfected sewage, exactly as it drained from the court. Any indecency is permitted by British press conventionalities if it comes in the form of a record of court proceedings. Often this unedited filth spreads over two or three pages at a time.

It takes a prolonged course of education to enable a reader brought up on American sensationalism to adapt himself to English journalistic respectability.