The San Francisco Examiner - Saturday, July 6, 1895

WILDE'S JAIL LIFE.

Little by little the truth concerning the prison life of Oscar Wilde is sifting through the barred gates of Pentonville. How is he bearing the strain of his new life as a convict? That is the question often asked by thousands who were dogged and scandalized by his epigrams, said or written, and recent London correspondence in New York World answers it so far as authentic answer is possible. It has come in the way of the correspondent to find out something about it that can be relied upon, as it comes from the best possible source. An interesting and, in one way, terrible story it makes.

All the world knows how he broke down when the inevitable end of his trial came before him; How he was dogged from the court to prison, with the scathing denunciations of the judge, with the hisses and curses of his fellow citizens; how he was sent to Pentonville, the ugliest and most savage of English prisons, there to be shorn and clad in the convict uniform and made ready for the treadmill.

The cell into which they put him and which will be his home for the next two years is in extreme contrast to his luxurious apartments of a few weeks ago. It is very small, perfectly bare, made even more hideous by a rough coating of whitewash. There is a wretched hard bed and a table, with no cloth to cover its plain board top. On the table is the only literature permitted him - a copy of the Bible. He must read this or he may not read at all.

He rises at 6 a.m., and before breakfast he must clean his cell, sweep it, make the bed, and in every way get it into condition for the sharp eyes of the inspector.

Then, at 7:30, he has breakfast - eight ounces of whole meal wehaten bread, a pint of cocoa, sweetened with molasses, or, by way of variety, a pint of gruel; Scotch oatmeal, salt and water. At 8:45 he goes to prayers, standing in the files with several hundred other convicts, and compelled to an attitude of reverence.

At noon he has his two-course dinner, which varies regularly with the day of the week. On Sunday and Wednesday it is potatoes and suet pudding. On Monday and Friday he always has potatoes and boiled beef. On other days there is a soberer, more ascetic diet of potatoes and soup. There is always eight ounces of bread. Occasionally, as a great surprise, instead of boiled beef, they give him cold mutton or beans and bacon. At 6 p.m. he has supper, a daily repetition of the frugal breakfast.

Between supper and bed he may meditate as he sits in his cell or he may read the Bible. At 8:30 p.m. lights must be out and every convict, including convict Wilde, must be stretched out in bed. Wilde has not yet reached the point where sleep straightway comes to shut out the waking hours that must seem to him a dream.

All this is detestable enough to the brutal and ignorant wretches - those "criminal classes" about whose knowledge of aesthetics Wilde was speaking with such contemptuous epigram on the witness stand in the trial of his libel suit. To Wilde, the reincarnated voluptancy of decaying Greece and debauched Rome, it is so hideous that he cannot yet believe that he is not under the spell of some frightful dream. There have been many stories that he has lost his mind. But the truth is he is still sane, but in a dazed, trance-like condition, from which he is seldom roused.

The first time he showed any signs of a realization of the depth to which he has sunk was the second day of his imprisonment, when he was put upon the treadwheel. This awful remnant of prison discipline in former years, has a wheel which the convicts must climb for six hours a day, three hours in the forenoon, three hours in the afternoon. The speed of the wheel is thirty-two feet a minute, and the convict who pauses while the wheel is in motion is struck and bruised by the edges of the ever-descending steps. At the end of every fifteen minutes there is a rest of five minutes.

The second day Wilde, dazed and automatic, was led out and put upon the wheel. Mechanically he trod the steps for fifteen minutes, took the five minutes’ rest, and began again. In the second fifteen minutes he stopped, threw up his arms, gave vent to a scream of anguish and fell in a swoon. The prison surgeon examined him and said his heart was in such a condition it would be dangerous to put him on the wheel again. So Wilde is allowed to sit in his cell. They throw in a quantity of oakum every morning, but he need not pick it unless he wishes to do so. Of late he has begun to pick the oakum. Any occupation is better than sitting idle and thinking, thinking, thinking.

The second arousing came through the gentle, earnest old chaplain, the Rev. W. Frederick Stockton. It is his duty, as well as the pleasure, of Mr. Stockton, to labor spiritually with the convicts, to strive to bring them to repentance and the consolations of religion. He was eager to begin upon Wilde, whom he regarded as the most hardened and desperate provert from Christianity that had ever come under his spiritual care.

So Wilde had not been in Pentonville many days before the old clergyman pushed timidly into his cell. Wilde, seated at the table with his face buried in his hands, glanced at the old man, saw his occupation in the cut of his cloth and flushed angrily.

"What do you mean by intruding yourself upon me?" he demanded.

The old man looked sympathetically at the fallen pagan and said in his gentlest voice:

"I wish to offer you the consolations of religion and to help you to reflect upon your condition."

"I do not need the consolations of religion and I am still capable of conducting my own reflections," said Oscar sneeringly.

"I hope you are not unrepentant," the old clergyman next ventured.

Wilde jumped to his feet in a rage.

"Unrepentant?" he said angrily. "What do you mean? How dare you insult me in this fashion? I am innocent of the crimes of which I am accused. You will kindly leave me alone."

Mr. Stockton insisted no further. He is waiting now for Wilde to get to work at the Bible. He feels that sooner or later he must read it, and, reading, soften to a more receptive frame of mind. He hopes also that Wilde will send for him. For he is allowed to see no one from the exterior world but the chaplain or some other minister of religion. And under the prison rules, which are strictly enforced, even the clergyman may not tell him any news, bring him any messages or talk to him on any subject not directly bearing upon the salvation of his soul.

Wilde still has friends who believe in his innocence, among them several women well known as writers. One of these women, wishing to send him a message of trust and hope, bethought her that a clergyman could get in to see him. But the first question asked of this clergyman was whether he came as a bearer of a message. He was too truthful to deny that he had a message, and was straightway turned away.

Oscar Wilde's wife is not one of these believers in him. She has taken another name and, with the children, has gone away to a quiet place on the Continent. She is a clever woman, and proposes to let no one know of her whereabouts and to make the new name an honorable one for the children. It is said that no one is in her secret.

Wilde will not hear from the outside world for three months. Many people believe he will go mad long before that time. But others think, and with reason, he is so facile and adaptable that he will gradually and easily slip into the prison routine and get his mind balanced by the entertainment his well-stored memory and vigorous imagination can give him.

If this proves the correct diagnosis then the prison life will do him a world of good. It will stay the rapid degeneration his dissipations had brought on and will bring him back to the normal health of a well-constitutioned man of forty years.