Times Union - Friday, April 5, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
OSCAR WILDE'S DISGRACE.
The verdict of the London jury in the suit which Oscar Wilde brought against the Marquis of Queensberry stamps the idol of the aesthetic cult with ineffable infamy. The verdict will be heartily approved by those who have waded through the foul slough of the testimony.
Yet it is a pity about Oscar. The son of "Speranza," whose burning poems did so much to keep alive the flame of patriotism in Ireland in the stirring days of ’48, should have rounded up his career more worthily than this. There were many of those who were amused by his eccentricities when he played the part of Bunthorne, but, discerning the genius that shone even through his juvenile follies, looked for the sobering influence of time to bring him to labors worthier of his linneage. But the foul atmosphere of English aristocracy was too much for him, and those who hoped for the best must regretfully leave him wallowing in the foulest depths of the Circean sty.
It's about time for a cleaning up in England. The young sprigs of aristocracy who have nothing to do but to conjure up new methods of immorality must be deprived of the revenues which they have been allowed to draw from their hereditary bondsmen and sent to work, unless England seeks to invite the fate of the cities of the plane.
That is the moral, which radical England is likely to draw from this disgusting story. In this light, even Oscar Wilde may prove to be a public benefactor.
One of the most remarkable features of the remarkable Queensbury libel suit, is the letter which Oscar Wilde gives out for publication today, in which he states that he abandoned the suit because he did not want to put Lord Alfred Douglas in the very painful position of refuting his own father's testimony. Considering the fact that Lord Alfred has been going around calling his papa a funny little old man, and stating bluntly that he ought to be in a lunatic asylum, Wilde's desire to rescue him from a painful position is more humorous than heroic. Again, Oscar's refusal to let Douglas testify was a refusal to clear himself, providing he could, of a disgraceful charge. If Wilde is guilty, then Douglas is guilty, and the former’s assumptions of generosity shows him to be a fool as well as a beast.
If you want to know the moral standing of a paper in its community just ascertain how full a report of the Oscar Wilde-Marquis of Queensberry trial it gave its readers.