A GREAT SCANDAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2799, 6 April 1895, Page 4

A GREAT SCANDAL.

London, April 3. Immense crowds attend the trial of the Marquis of Queensberry on a charge of libelliug Oscar Wilde The evidence adduced to-day showed that Wilde had paid heavy blackmail for his gushing letters to Lord Alfred Douglas (the Marquis's bou), which were found iu pockets of old clothes when given away. The defence is based on the revelation of these letters. Wilde was subjected to a stringent crossexamination with a view of showing that " Dorian Grey " and some articles in the magazine Chameleon, with which he is connected, are of an immoral teudeucy. Wilde iusiated that they are merely ex pressions of the artistic faculty. Bis letters to Lord Douglas were prose poems —extraordinary perhaps, but uot justifying an immoral interpretation. He admitted that he gave one of his alleged blackmailers £25 and lunched with him iu a private room afterwards. The case was adjourned and defendant admitted to bail. Oscar Wilde explained the effusive language of the letters addressed to Lord Douglas as a natural expression of an artist attracted by personalty : that the Marquis of Queensberry visited his residence and threatened Wilde, to which that gentleman responded with " you ara the most infamous brute iu Loudon."