THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH,
CARTOONIST DAVID LOW
TUC
World Copyright. By arrangement with Eerning Standard.
THE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1948.
RETURNS FROM HOLIDAY
TRIALS OF
OSCAR
WILDE
by
SIR PATRICK HASTINGS, KC
our
"My dear Boy,
Your sonnet was qile lovely And
marvel that those red vos lenf Ups of yours should have bern
made no less for music of sung than for mnd...
mss of kisses."
11
remember
Important for that Ash
they first met,
38
WAN Douglas 22,
u
Wilde Alfred
Was
Wilde's own descrip tion of this lette: that it Was 12 poem. An English Jury" may
have well
taken different view.
When Lord Queens- berry became aware OR half # century the of his son's infatuation for Wille, name of Oscar Wilde has he was arinised to a state of frenzy which his son's Alppancy arren- heen a
byword in
Queensberry language. It typifies all that is Alfred Douglas threatening to rut degraded in human life, and at off his allowance unless the asso
was discontinued, Douglas the same time remains.
the tation
replled with a telegram: "What a centre of a controversy whether himny mitte man you are." or not it is for the general good
To father possessed of an 11- thut the glare of publicity solaner mind, such a telegram may should be directed upon a social well have only added fuel to the
esspil.
tuted.
Hanies.
WFOU
That controversy will Iw
Queensberry visited the various revived by the decision 14 restaurants frequented by lus sub threatening to thrash publish in the Notable Trints and Wilde
them both if they were found to series the Trials of Oscar
gether, and his persecution beemar Wille,” Should the sordid story to pronounced that Wilde contem=" which shocked the whole of plated proceedings In the Curls. England in 1895 be brought again to light, or shouhl it be allowed, fu die?
BUT that is only
finitesimal portion of
HULLO! STILL ALL WET ?
And then at last the questions and answers which brought about his downfall and Wilde's remark: "He was an ugly boy."
That Was the end. Carson worrasi him ke terrier with a rat, "Why did you add that Why? Why
2013
are
TROUBLE IN CYPRUS
ranean
By DON TAYLOR
RISIS Is rising In Cyprus, and the key to it ties
in one word-enosis.
To the 350,000 Greeks of this Eastern Mediter- island cosin spells union with Greece, the realisation of a dream.
To the 80,000 Turks of Cyprus It spells disaster, the end of the link with the British Empire.
To Britain it menus one more threat to Empire communications, one more step out of the Middle East. Trouble in Cyprus has been threatening for Hiree
years
Lord Winster, the Governor, flew to Britain recent- ly to discuss with Mr Creech Jones the refusal of Cyprus Greeks to co-operate in a new constitution.
Juat aflor, King Paul of the Hellenes augstested that Britain give Cyprus to Greece In exchange for bases in Crute.
Amid public disorders, the new constitution has been withdrawn.
DEMAND FOR ENOSIS
The cases of disaffection are:
(1) The Greek majority's demand for osta:- Centuries before Christ Cyprus was linked with Grecce. Egypt, Rome. Persia, and Arabin held sway over the Islet down the centuries, Richard Lion Heart once sold it to the Knights Templar, who sold it to the King of Jerusalens.
SIR EDWARD- CARSON A picture taken at the time of the Wilde trial in 1895.
A
mu thay be the leader of
etrele ler
IL
nry
ol
In 1873, the Turks took over. In 1078. Disruell struck one of his bargains, and Briton look on ad- ministration.
In 1914, we annexed the island, made it a colony in 1925. In 1943, we said self-government for Cyprus was contemplated after the end of the war,
And still the ancient love for Greece grew strong in Cyprus.
ECONOMIC CHÃOS
(2) Economic cliqua:-Souring prives have sent up the cost of liv ing. The adverse traie balance has been over £1,000,000 a month this year,
The Palestine war has post the theatrical island over £250,000. Imports › have artistic-in I been cut almost out of existence, which his talents The Greek Cypriots say flatly: earn for him the "We want responsibile Government in admiration, even internal affairs-and
the adulation, of Greece."
voted
unluti
with
Both Left and Right a host of young
wings are .men and de-agreed on this broad issue. But the followers. Right wing supports the legitimate private Greek Government, while the Left Lastes and habits wing supports the Communist degree that they General Marken.
It lils
vicious to a become notorious, the evil Influence that he can spread is limitless.
On Greek Independence Day both the opposing parties in Cyprus held separate celebrations.
a circle of ex- } Cyprun has
Mir Montgomery Hyde declares But they united in rejecting the that Wilde was never proved to British Government's proposals for u have corrupted youthful innocence. new government with a majority of Sir Travers Humphreys, who was Bat is that quite correct? Mr Jus-elected members, one of Wilde's counsel at the trial, tice Wills stated at the trial: "Wilde
great Intlucave in politics. But when Bishop a foreword to the book; was the centre of "we at least who were represent- tensive corruption of the
most Makarios, leader of the Right-wing
Creeks, ing him realised that the case was hileous kind among young men."
was elected
as the lost."
Archbishop of Cyprus, he announced a campaign against Communism. So the Left refused to recognise him.
Can it be wondered that the cynic murmurs: "What about
costs in Cyprus first?"
Wide abandoned his proceedings agains Lord Queensberry and within few hours he was arrested and charged with a series of un- natural offences. Al his drst trial at the Central Criminal Court the Jury disagreed, but at the second he was convicted and sentenced
Two years impelsomment. At the conclusion of his sentence he went to Paris where a few years later he died of misery.
IN a man of Wilde's position can it
be doubted that corruption of youthful innocence is almost an in- evitable consequence of the private fe he led? And it must be the same today.
A man holding a similarly exalted position either in the theatre or
The offences of whkel Oscar any other artistic circle and living Wilde was charged were alleged to that life in which Wilde storied, He was at this time prezenthut hi have been committed In private, must of necessity corrupt his de ulny The Importance of Bring and Sir Travers Humphreys refers voters. Earnest at the St. James's Theatre,
controversy 2
to the
to
Queensberry appeared at the thealte the advisability of sending to prison a It is idle to argue that his offence on the first night with the intention perruns charged with that offence.
of committing disturbance, but be
11
in
was refused admittance. He aveng-
ed himself by leaving a bout
the ર vegetables for Wilde with thes problem. A far larger question stage door kreper. arises. If the same situation
should occur again?
✩
SUCH an offence if committed in
public has always been regard- ed as criminal, but there are ac casions upon which such nets done
If again there should nopear an OUR days later Queensberry felt privately may be infinitely worse. artistic genius capable of earning with the porter of Wilde's club the mulation of youth and, by a postcard to. Wilde accusing him of example, encouraging a participa "posing" as a man of criminal habits, tion in his vicious life, should it be the actual offensive epithet employ left to an outraged father to rescued being misspell in
the writer's his son through the medium of the fury, Wilde thereupon consulted his Law Courts-or should public opinion of its own initiative insist solicitor and decided to institute pro- ceedings against Queensberry for a upon the total eradication of
criminal bel public pest?
The
trials actual criminai
of Of nil the strange episodes re- Oscar Wilde are of little, if any; enmited by the editor of this book. interest. They consist of facts and
Wilde's determination to institute evidence which can be heard alinest these proceedings would seem to be In the same terms at any session the strangest. He must have been the Central Criminal Courts, and well aware of the sordid detalls of for their accuracy Mr Montgomery his own private life. How any man, Hyde relies very wisely upon the however personally vain, can have shorthand notes taken at the trials.
e taken a course which must have mainly in the very careful preface at him open to the certain risk of written by Mr Hyde himself, who prolonged cross-examination upon almost passes com- edits the
whole book, and in the those details, story of the prosecution by Wilde prehension.
the book
Is more pathological than criminal. Such a man is a social leper, and es such should be regarded,
If that is not the true motal of the Trials of Oscar Wilde, the story not have been revived, need
ticl The present volume need never have been published.
Why can't
new
STRONG AND FAIR CASE Britain's case is a strong and fair one. But we are fumbling again.
Our administration is good. We established law and order after the Turkish oppression. Cyprus has a big stake in Colonial economic plans (nearly £1,000,000 for irrigation).
The Cypriots admit all this but the Greek connection is the breath
of life to them.
the Eastern
There is a stronger case for Britain If peace and security are to be maintained in Mediterranean, we must have a foothold, and Cyprus is only 14 mites fram Asia Minor.
Steadier heads in Greece and Cyprus recognise this. It is our job to link that argument with aspira- tions of independence. We have, too, our duty to the Turks of the island.
AND AN ANSWER TO EVERY FILMGOER'S . QUESTION-
HAVE brooded on this question off and on throughout my married life. For my wife is an American." And 1
see no reason why she mother shouldn't speak the tongue of the Mother Country.
Now M. H. L. Mencken, famous American wit, has un- swered the question for me in the monumental second sup- plement to his book on the American Language.
3334{1}{►
Americans
speak
CZE
English?
ARDEN - P
green with envy. Webster preached that words should be pronounced as They are spelt. He believed in four syllables for secretary, and in other nonsensical pedantries of the same kinki,
But not every American speaks/ the standard lingo of the Dust Bowl. Apart from local variations there is the New England deviation, which reaches its summit, or its audir in Boston. This necent has been unforgettably
described by
some
an American Journalist whom even Mr Mencken
with respect. "Con
of bastard Briticisms and inescapable nasalities.
It is delivered fram a 'mouth ap- parently brimful of steaming por- ridge
The syllables cannot really be sold to issue at all. They
their weather. nie in our blend of inchoate
He won my attention by ad- of the Marquess of Queensberry When, at a later stage, after the mitting that American speech which ended in the acquittal of the conclusion of his unsuccessful pro sounds intolerably nasnt and Marquees and the arrest of Wilde, secution of Queensberry,, be consult-
ed Sir George Lewis RS to his
to English ears. hones because there was something future monotonous course, that astute lawyer replied: "The general tune of American the
matter with
round; the consonants die' be- "What is the use of coining to me speech," he says, "affects them Mencken dismisses that theory. Not
fore
Bey are decently born, now? If you had had the tense to
because he liker the American , unpleasantly
Our
apoken American is
is Ureatened R. HYDE gives a very clear ple- bring Lord Queensberry's card to the British) Mture of the three per cher - bring bort et pince, would have
from the top down, Stang and ail elinate, but because the mean on- as the cockney, whine of the nual rainfall in many parts of the the perishing mentions of the ly concerned in the story: Wilde torn it up and thrown it into the Australians, and their discom- United States is higlier than in vulgate do not menace it one tihe himself, the Marquess of Queens- fire, and told you not to make a fool fort relights in them the old Londen, while in the American as sombrely as does this mannered berry, and the Marquess's son, of yourself." Lord Alfred Douglas.
passionate conviction of their South, where the American whine mouthing of our millionaires." Tie shows Wilde as a man of l- Sir George
was quite right. Ination that everything Ameri- seldom heard," it is more than
twice as high.
DOWN SOUTH. tense vanity, a brillant conversa- was loo late. The prosecution of can is not only inferior but also
writer tionalist. a
of the Marquess of Queensberry be villainous and ignoble." He
of Sngc Baltimore dains THE ather successful
muin deviation the main influence on the plays, and so much the leader of at the Central Criminal Court
Southern American with Clarke re-adds that when they give voice priling speech of Americans was haunting flavour of mint juleps, decadent Society that he was April 93. Sir Edward pillorted in the Gilbert and Sullivan prezented Wilde, and no counsel to their loathing "they fill the settlers from the Scottish lowlands traditional Southern courtesies and opera Patience.
describes could
better. the Americano with sentiments and the English Nopped their 's This accent is also ntleged to Hyde
have served him
ap- ap Vivien Leigh in glorious Technicolour. Carson Lord
for appeared Queensberry as being mental- Edward
parently set
neither dropped
to bo ly unbalanced, arrogant, vain, con- Queensberry, and raised the defence which match it precisely."
nor swallowed their vowels, as the English in origin. The Alabama. celted, and
-tempared. Alfred that the statements in the alleged
Southern English learned
to do in Georgle dialect, for instance, bus is Douglas
contury, eighteenth portmyéd
being D9
highly coloured by the dialect artistic and intelligent and excop-
settlers were powerfully supported of settlers from Somerset and Devon. han by school
Noah some authorities, only use English they have retained, after the wilta man had begun to lose them.
tionally good looking.
in
bel were true.
M
And only intercol In the trial fles i
The
that
the
These been
is
its
Rfound an ally on this side of the selling book prepared by
ma'ams brandishing $ The negroes themselves, according to
The personal intimacy and indeed' THOM a lawyer's point of view the philological pedagogue, Mr N. Gub Webster (of Webster's Diellonary, forms of speech which
sorry Dictionairy).
The great majority of these simply "milk→
AN ALLY
DEGRETTABLY Mancken
Atlantic. He quotes that learned affection between Wilde Alfred Douglas was extreme. There Carson's cross-examination of Wilde, with approval: "The American ac
bins, of the Sunday Express, was no inquity at any of the trinis It was Carson at his best. Some au cent is not nearly so funny as the schoolteachers wero into its precise nature, but not knowing
havo
In fact, Mr. Mencken would have unnaturally a great deaf was made that in the earlier stages, Wilde's Butt buzzing that passes for con- malds armed with hickory sticks," us believe that the subject of this of a letter from Wilde to Douglas brilliant repartees enabled him toon in rural England, the self- says Mencken, but they all taught article should be: "Why Don't the which contained this phrase:
conscious 'rcÂnement" of Kensington the gospel according to Webster. English Speak English?"" score over Carson, but, they are corkney, the strangled accents of its speller, Arst published in 1783, wrong. Deliberately and slowly English
and parsons
Away with this specious acholar- was taken through his more
shrill sold three million copies by 1014, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, by erotic writings until his decadence ring of the English upper ran to 304 editions by 1829 and allp-and put this book in the waste-
Hyde, William must have been apparent to every-
reached a print of more than 60,000,- paper basket. I had always beiloved that Ameri 000 by 1000, enough to make even... Hodge," 15.
one in court-
Charlos Wintour cans talked like adenoidal mega- Miss Kathleen Winsor just a shade
H. Montgomery
he
clark,
the
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