In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this
omission. He declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into
the witness box was an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss
Travers' story of her betrayal was true and could not be contradicted.
But the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the box was not, he
insisted, the worst point in the defence. He reminded the jury that he
had asked Lady Wilde why she had not answered Miss Travers when she
wrote to her. He recalled Lady Wilde's reply:
"I took no interest in the matter."
Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a
stranger; but Lady Wilde hated her husband's victim and took no
interest in her seduction beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and
libellous letter to the girl's father....
The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already
great reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule
Leader.
It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting
impatient to hear the verdict. Chief Justice Monahan made a short,
impartial speech, throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the
conflicting and passionate statements. First of all, he said, it was
difficult to believe in the story of rape whether with or without
chloroform. If the girl had been violated she would be expected to cry
out at the time, or at least to complain to her father as soon as she
reached home. Had it been a criminal trial, he pointed out, no one
would have believed this part of Miss Travers' story. When you find a
girl does not cry out at the time and does not complain afterwards,
and returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it must be presumed
that she consented to the seduction.
But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty
intimacy, and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said
that he was only formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant
and he could have gone into the box if he had liked and given his
version of what took place and contradicted Miss Travers in whole or
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