His place was taken by the prisoner Taylor. He said that he was thirty-three years of age and was educated at Marlborough. When he was twenty-one he came into £45,000. In a few years he ran through this fortune, and at about the time he went to Chapel Street, he was made a bankrupt. The charges made against him of misconduct were entirely unfounded. He was asked point-blank if he had not been given to sodomy from his early youth, and if he had not been expelled from a public-school for being caught in a compromising situation with a small boy in the lavatory. Taylor was also asked if he had not actually obtained a living since his bankruptcy by procuring lads and young men for rich gentlemen whom he knew to be given to this vice. He was also asked if he had not extracted large sums of money from wealthy men by threatening to accuse them of immoralities. To all these plain questions he returned in direct answer, “No.”
After the luncheon interval, Sir Edward Clark rose to address the jury in defence of Oscar Wilde. He began by carefully analysing the evidence. He declared that the wretches who had come forward to admit their own disgrace were shameless creatures incapable of one manly thought or one manly action. They were, without exception, blackmailers. They lived by luring men to their rooms, generally, on the pretence that a beautiful girl would be provided for them on their arrival. Once in their clutches, these victims could only get away by paying a large sum of money unless they were prepared to face and deny the most disgraceful charges. Innocent men constantly paid rather than face the odium attached to the breath even of such scandals. They had, moreover, wives and children, daughters, maybe or a sister whose honour or name they were obliged to consider. Therefore they usually submitted to be fleeced and in this way, this wretched Wood and the abject Atkins had been able to go about the West-end well-fed and well-dressed. These youths had been introduced to Wilde. They were pleasant-spoken enough and outwardly decent in their language and conduct. Wilde was taken in by them and permitted himself to enjoy their society. He did not defend Wilde for this; he had unquestionably shown imprudence, but a man of his temperament could not be judged by the standards of the average individual. These youths had come forward to make these charges in a conspiracy to ruin his client.
Was it likely, he asked, that a man of Wilde’s cleverness would put himself so completely in the power of these harpies as he would be if guilty of only a tenth of the enormities they alleged against him? If Wilde practised these acts so openly and so flagrantly—if he allowed the facts to come to the knowledge of so many—then he was a fool who was not fit to be at large. If the evidence was to be credited, these acts of gross indecency which culminated in actual crime were done in so open a manner as to compel the attention of landladies and housemaids. He was not himself—and he thanked Heaven for it—versed in the acts of those who committed these crimes against nature. He did not know under what circumstances they could be practised. But he believed that this was a vice which, because of the horror and repulsion it excited, because of the fury it provoked against those guilty of it, was conducted with the utmost possible secrecy. He respectfully submitted that no jury could find a man guilty on the evidence of these tainted witnesses.
Take the testimony, he said, of Atkins. This young man had denied that he had ever been charged at a police station with alleging blackmail. Yet he was able to prove that he had grossly perjured himself in this and other directions. That was a sample of the evidence and Atkins was a type of the witnesses.
The only one of these youths who had ever attempted to get a decent living or who was not an experienced blackmailer was Mavor, and he had denied that Wilde had ever been guilty of any impropriety with him.
The prosecution had sought to make capital out of two letters written by Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas. He pointed out a fact which was of considerable importance, namely, that Wilde had produced one of these letters himself. Was that the act of a man who had reason to fear the contents of a letter being known? Wilde never made any secret of visiting Taylor’s rooms. He found there society which afforded him variety and change. Wilde made no secret of giving dinners to some of the witnesses. He thought that they were poorly off and that a good dinner at a restaurant did not often come their way. On only one occasion did he hire a private room. The dinners were perfectly open and above-board. Wilde was an extraordinary man and he had written letters which might seem high-flown, extravagant, exaggerated, absurd if they liked; but he was not afraid or ashamed to produce these letters. The witnesses Charles Parker, Alfred Wood and Atkins had been proved to have previously been guilty of blackmailing of this kind and upon their uncorroborated evidence surely the jury would not convict the prisoner on such terrible charges.
“Fix your minds,” concluded Sir Edward earnestly, “firmly on the tests that ought to be applied to the evidence as a whole before you can condemn a fellow-man to a charge like this. Remember all that this charge implied, of implacable ruin and inevitable disgrace. Then I trust that the result of your deliberations will be to gratify those thousand hopes that are waiting upon your verdict. I trust that verdict will clear from this fearful imputation one of the most accomplished and renowned men-of-letters of to-day.”
At the end of this peroration, there was some slight applause at the back of the court, but it was hushed almost at once. Wilde had paid great attention to the speech on his behalf and on one or two occasions had pressed his hands to his eyes as if expressing some not unnatural emotion. The speech concluded, however, he resumed his customary attitude and awaited with apparent firmness all that might befall.
Mr. Grain then rose to address the jury on behalf of Taylor. He submitted that there was really no case against his client. An endeavour had been made to prove that Taylor was in the habit of introducing to Wilde youths whom he knew to be amenable to the practices of the latter and that he got paid for this degrading work. The attempt to establish this disgusting association between Taylor and Wilde had completely broken down. He was, it is true, acquainted with Parker, Wood and Atkins. He had seen them constantly in restaurants and music-halls, and they had at first forced themselves upon his notice and thus got acquainted with a man whom they designed for blackmail. All the resources of the Crown had been unable to produce any corroboration of the charges made by these witnesses. How had Taylor got his livelihood, it might be asked? He was perfectly prepared to answer the question. He had been living on an allowance made him by members of his late father’s firm, a firm with which all there present were familiar. Was it in the least degree likely that such scenes as the witnesses described, with such apparent candour and such wealth of filthy detail, could have taken place in Taylor’s own apartments? It was incredible that a man could thus risk almost certain discovery. In conclusion, he confidently looked for the acquittal of his client, who was guilty of nothing more than having made imprudent acquaintances and having trusted too much to the descriptions of themselves given by others.
Mr. Gill then replied for the prosecution in a closely-reasoned and most able speech, which occupied two hours in delivery and which created an enormous impression in the crowded court. He commented at great length upon the evidence. He contended that in a case of this description corroboration was of comparatively minor importance, for it was not in the least likely that acts of the kind alleged would be practised before a third party who might afterwards swear to the fact. Therefore, when the witnesses described what had transpired when they and the prisoners were alone, he did not think that corroboration could possibly be given. There was not likely to be an eye-witness of the facts. But in respect to many things he declared the evidence was corroborated. Whatever the character of these youths might be, they had given evidence as to certain facts and no cross-examination, however adroit, however vigorous, had shaken their testimony, or caused them to waver about that which was evidently firmly implanted in their memories. A man might conceivably come forward and commit perjury. But these youths were accusing themselves, in accusing another, of shameful and infamous acts, and this they would hardly do if it were not the truth. Wilde had made presents to these youths and it was noticeable that the gifts were invariably made after he had been alone, at some rooms or other, with one or another of the lads. In the circumstances, even a silver cigarette-case was corroboration. His learned friend had protested against any evil construction being placed upon these gifts and these dinners; but, in the name of common-sense, what other construction was possible? When they heard of a man like Wilde, presumably of refined and cultured tastes, who might if he wished, enjoy the society of the best and most cultivated men and women in London, accompanying to Nice and other places on the Continent, uninformed, unintellectual and vulgar, ill-bred youths of the type of Charles Parker, then, in Heaven’s name what were they to think? All those visits, all those dinners, all those gifts, were corroboration. They served to confirm the truth of the statements made by the youths who confessed to the commission of acts for which the things he had quoted were positive and actual payment.