The Philadelphia Times - Sunday, April 7, 1895

THE TALK OF NEW YORK
RECOLLECTIONS OF OSCAR WILDE AND
THE MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY.

NEW YORK, April 6. The talk of New York is chiefly concerning Oscar Wilde and the Marquis of Queensberry.

Sad but true.

Society and sporting circles have for the time being a common subject of conversation. Both men are well remembered here, and Wilde’s image must be cleanly impressed on the Philadelphia mind by reason of the fact that it was in that city that he began his American careeer as a bunco aesthete.

Queensberry is well described by his son’s irreverent and infamous telegram read during the course of the trial, in which he refers to his own father as "a funny little man." He looks all that those words imply, and yet those who met him during his visits to this country will agree with the statement that he made a better impression upon those who met him than the average run of British tourists. He is not, as has been frequently stated during the course of the recent London litigation, the author of the rules guiding the science of pugilism which bear his name, but is the nephew of the English nobleman with sporting proclivities who handed down to undying fame his cognomen as the autocrat of the fistic arena. The present Marquis of Queensberry came to this country in 1888, and during his stay in New York was much made of by such brainy men as Robert G. Ingersoll and John W. MacKay. He is a Scotchman by birth, descending from the famous house of Douglas, made immortal by the romances of Walter Scott. His appearance during his American visit as well recalled by those who met him in the corridors of the Hoffman House . I was among the number. He has what can be described as an inquisitive countenance. His eyebrows, which are jet black, are singularly bushy, and thick tufts of equally dark hair fringe his pair of rosy cheeks. At that time he did not appear more than 35 years of age, yet he was born in 1844. He is rather inclined to loudness in his attire. His trousers run to broad stripes. His shirts are cut low in the neck, and his favorite pattern is made conspicuous by broad horizontal bars of blue. When I last saw him an enormous pearl adorned his scarlet necktie and is silk hat tapered towards the crown. Like his illustrious uncle he was a patron of athletic sports.

It is scarcely necessary to revive the figure of Oscar Wilde as it lingers in the American eye.

Philadelphians certainly have not forgotten him. His first public appearance in this country was about fifteen years ago in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, since then destroyed by fire. His manager was D'Oyley Carte, made famous through his business relations with Gilbert and Sullivan. Those who saw him upon that occasion can never forget the figure he presented. He was tall and fat, but not fat in a Sir John Falstaff way. He did not possess the round paunch with good fat capon lined. He was simply fat all over. Bulbous, best described him. His hair was combed over his eyebrows. He wore knee breeches, black stockings, low shoes and a velveteen sack coat, in the lapel of which latter garment was a large yellow chrysanthemum. His appearance upon the platform was the most magnificent spectacle of audacity ever witnessed in the history of what are known as public entertainments. "Aestheticism" was the subject of his palaver.

Was there anybody there?

Was there anybody at Edmund Russell's readings in the New Century Drawing Room a few weeks ago in the city of Philadelphia? Russell took $6,000 net profit out of the city of Philadelphia - so New York amusement managers report - and his offered $10,000 to return to the city of Philadelphia for a return engagement. Well, so it was with Wilde. On the occasion of his first appearance in Philadelphia, Horticultural Hall was packed from stage to entrance with the swellest people of the town. After he had concluded his mumbling talk he was called upon at the Colonnade Hotel by a former schoolmate, now a member of the Philadelphia bar, who said to him: "Is it possible you are the boy Wilde whom I met at College in Dublin and had a slight physical encounter with?" Wilde laughingly admitted his identity, and when his former schoolmate said: "How in the name of common sense have you come to the this condition of dress and purpose?" The apostle of aestheticism, still in long hose and short pantaloons, opened its mouth to its generous limits and guffawed boisterously, and when he recovered his breath said: "Why, my dear boy, I am simply doing this for money. I am playing the American public."

And he did it to the queen’s taste.