The San Francisco Examiner - Monday, May 6, 1895

CASE FIXING ABROAD.

The course of the Court, the police and the prosecution in the Wilde case gives abundant evidence that what is vulgarly known in America as "the pull" is quite as much an institution in London as in New York or San Francisco. This shocking discovery will be a blow to those who have been holding up the English courts and English methods of dealing with criminals as an example to Americans, and the blow will be softened but little by the observation that the pull that here is usually employed to the advantage of the lowest class of the population, is there exerted in behalf of the aristocracy.

It is evident that a strong effort was made to avoid convicting Wilde. He was warned of his coming arrest in ample time to have escaped to the Continent. The Court ruled out all testimony that would have brought in other names than that of Wilde. The Judge’s charge, which is in England an important part of the trial, was strong against the credibility of accomplices who would confess to the revolting practices alleged in the Wilde case, and on the disagreement of the jury Wilde has been released on bonds in the evidente hope that he will fly the country before a second trial.

The explanation offered is that the authorities were swayed not only by consideration for a ruined man of brilliant promise, but also by the knowledge that the unmentionable vices of which Wilde was accused have eaten their way into the heart of the aristocracy of the British metropolis. It is, of course, absurd to suppose that any large number of the members of the higher classes are engaged in any such abominations as are revealed in the Wilde case. The majority are as sane and true as ever. Yet it is doubtless of fact that the disease, weakness and moral decadence of the gilded youth of these days in the modern Babylon has found its lowest depths in a school of which Wilde is the type and representative.

The accounts from London indicate that the members of this cult have scattered from their haunts and sought safety in other countries. Yet as in the Cleveland street scandals of a few years ago there is influence enough behind them to bring the police and the courts into a conspiracy to cover up the rascality and save the guilty from either punishment or exposure.

There have been hard things said, and proved, about the American police and the American courts, but nothing that surpasses this.