He would next deal with the actual charges, and would first call their attention to the offence alleged to have been committed with Edward Shelley at the beginning of 1892. Shelley was undoubtedly in the position of an accomplice, but his evidence was corroborated. He was not, however, tainted with the offences with which Parker, Wood and Atkins were connected. He seemed to be a person of some education and a fondness for Literature. As to Shelley’s visit to the Albemarle Hotel, the jury were the best judges of the demeanour of the witness. Wilde denied all the allegations of indecency though he admitted the other parts of the young man’s story. His Lordship called attention to the letters written by Shelley to Wilde in 1892, 1893 and 1894. It was, he said, a very anxious part of the jury’s task to account for the tone of these letters, and for Shelley’s conduct generally. It became a question as to whether or no his mind was disordered. He felt bound to say that though there was evidence of great excitability, to talk of either Shelley or Mavor as an insane youth was an exaggeration, but it would be for the jury to draw their own conclusions.
Passing to the case of Atkins, the judge drew attention to his meeting with Taylor in November 1892, to the dinner at the Café Florence, at which Wilde, Taylor, Atkins and Lord A. Douglas were present, and to the visit of Atkins to Paris in company with Wilde.
After dwelling on the circumstances of that visit, his lordship referred to Wilde’s two visits to Atkins in Osnaburgh Street in December 1893. Wilde explained the Paris visit by saying that Schwabe had arranged to take Atkins to Paris, but being unable to leave at the time appointed he asked Wilde to take charge of the youth, and he did so out of friendship for Schwabe. Wilde further denied that he was much in Atkins’ company when in Paris. Atkins certainly was an unreliable witness and had obviously given an incorrect version of his relations with Burton. He told the grossest falsehoods with regard to their arrest, and was convicted out of his own mouth when recalled by Sir E. Clarke. It was for the jury to decide how much of Atkins’s evidence they might safely believe.
Then there were the events described as having occured at the Savoy Hotel in March 1892. He would ask the jury to be careful in the evidence of the chamber-maid, Jane Cotter, and the interpretation they put upon it. If her evidence and that of the Masseur Mijji, were true, then Wilde’s evidence on that part of the case was untrue, and the jury must use their own discretion. He did not wish to enlarge upon this most unpleasant part of the whole unpleasant case, but it was necessary to remind the jury as discreetly as he could that the chamber-maid had objected to making the bed on several occasions after Wilde and Atkins had been in the bed-room alone together. There were, she had affirmed, indications on the sheets that conduct of the grossest kind had been indulged in. He thought it his duty to remind the jury that there might be an innocent explanation of these stains, though the evidence of Jane Cotter certainly afforded a kind of corroboration of these charges and of Atkins’s own story. In reference to the case of Wood, he contrasted Wood’s account with that of Wilde.
It seemed that Lord Alfred Douglas had met Wood at Taylor’s rooms. In response to a telegram from the former, Wood went to the Café Royal and there met Wilde for the first time, Wilde speaking first. On the other hand, Wilde represented that Wood spoke first. The jury might think that, in any case, the circumstances of that meeting were remarkable, especially when taken in conjunction with what followed. There was no doubt that Wood had fallen into evil courses and he and Allen had extracted the sum of £300 in blackmail. The interview between Wilde and Wood prior to the latter’s departure for America was remarkable. A sum of money, said to be £30, was given by Wilde to Wood, and Wood returned some of Wilde’s letters that had somehow come into his possession. Wood, however, kept back one letter which got into Allen’s possession. Wood got £5 more on the following day, went to America, and while there wrote to Taylor a letter in which occured the passage. “Tell Oscar if he likes he can send me a draft for an Easter Egg.” It would be for the jury to consider what would have been the inner meaning of these and other transactions.
As to the prisoner Taylor, he had, on his own admission, led a life of idleness, and got through a fortune of £45,000. It was alleged that the prisoner had virtually turned his apartments into a bagnio or brothel, in which young men took the place of prostitutes, and that his character in this regard was well known to those who were secretly given to this particular vice. One of the offences imputed to Taylor had reference to Charles Parker, who had spoken of the peculiar arrangement of the rooms. There were two bedrooms in the inner room with folding doors between and the windows were heavily draped, so that no one from the opposite houses could possibly see what was going on inside. Heavy curtains, it was said, hung before all the doors, so that it could not be possible for an eave’s-dropper to hear what was proceeding inside. There was a curiously shaped sofa in the sitting-room and the whole aspect of the room resembled, it was asserted, a fashionable resort for vice.
Wilde was undoubtedly present at some of the tea parties given there, and did not profess to be surprised at what he saw there. It had been shown that both the Parkers went to these rooms, and further, that Charles Parker had received £30 of the blackmail extorted by Wood and Allen.
Charles Parker’s evidence was therefore doubly-tainted like that of Wood and Atkins, but his evidence was to some extent confirmed by that of his brother William. Some parts of Charles Parker’s evidence were also corroborated by other witnesses, as for instance, by Marjorie Bancroft, who swore that she saw Wilde visit Charles Parker’s rooms in Park Walk.
It was admitted that this Parker visited Wilde at St. James’ Place. Charles Parker had been arrested with Taylor in the Fitzroy Square raid and this went to show that they were in the habit of associating with those suspected of offences of the kind alleged. Both, however, were on that occasion discharged and Parker enlisted in the army. It was quite manifest that Charles Parker was of a low class of morality.
That concluded the various charges made in this case and he had very little to add. Mavor’s evidence had little or no value with reference to the issues now before the jury, except as showing how he became acquainted with Wilde and Taylor. So far as it went, Mavor’s evidence was rather in favour of Wilde than otherwise and nothing indecent had been proved against that witness.