English journalists and barristers were very much amused at the conduct of the Dreyfus case; yet, when Dreyfus was being tried for the second time in France, two or three instances of similar injustice in England were set forth with circumstance in one of the London newspapers, but no one paid any effective attention to them.  If Dreyfus had been convicted in England, it is probable that no voice would ever have been raised in his favour; it is absolutely certain that there would never have been a second trial.  A keen sense of abstract justice is only to be found in conjunction with a rich fount of imaginative sympathy.  The English are too self-absorbed to take much interest in their neighbours’ affairs, too busy to care for abstract questions of right or wrong.

Before the trial of Oscar Wilde I still believed that in a criminal case rough justice would be done in England.  The bias of an English judge, I said to myself, is always in favour of the accused.  It is an honourable tradition of English procedure that even the Treasury barristers should state rather less than they can prove against the unfortunate person who is being attacked by all the power and authority of the State.  I was soon forced to see that these honourable and praiseworthy conventions were as withes of straw in the fire of English prejudice.  The first thing to set me doubting was that the judge did not try to check the cheering in Court after the verdict in favour of Lord Queensberry.  English judges always resent and resist such popular outbursts:  why not in this case?  After all, no judge could think Queensberry a hero:  he was too well known for that, and yet the cheering swelled again and again, and the judge gathered up his papers without a word and went his way as if he were deaf.  A dreadful apprehension crept over me:  in spite of myself I began to realise that my belief in English justice might be altogether mistaken.  It was to me as if the solid earth had become a quaking bog, or indeed as if a child had suddenly discovered its parent to be shameless.  The subsequent trials are among the most painful experiences of my life.  I shall try to set down all the incidents fairly.

One peculiarity had first struck me in the conduct of the case between Oscar Wilde and Lord Queensberry that did not seem to occur to any of the numberless journalists and writers who commented on the trial.  It was apparent from his letter to his son (which I published in a previous chapter), and from the fact that he called at Oscar Wilde’s house that Lord Queensberry at the beginning did not believe in the truth of his accusations; he set them forth as a violent man sets forth hearsay and suspicion, knowing that as a father he could do this with impunity, and accordingly at first he pleaded privilege.  Some time between the beginning of the prosecution and the trial, he obtained an immense amount of unexpected evidence.  He then justified his libel and gave the names of the persons whom he intended to call to prove his case.  Where did he get this new knowledge?