Smith and Sons, the great booksellers, who somehow got wind of the matter (through my publisher, I believe), sent to say that they would not sell any paper that attempted to defend Oscar Wilde; it would be better even, they added, not to mention his name.

The English tradesman-censors were determined that this man should have Jedburg justice.

I should have ruined the _Saturday Review_ by the mere attempt to treat the matter fairly.
In this extremity I went to the great leader of public opinion in England.

Mr.Arthur Walter, the manager of _The Times_, had always been kind to me; he was a man of balanced mind, who had taken high honours at Oxford in his youth, and for twenty years had rubbed shoulders with the leading men in every rank of life.

I went down to stay with him in Berkshire, and I urged upon him what I regarded as the aristocratic view.