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Show WILDE'S DEATH AND FUNERAL. Robert Ross says in the London Sphere: Since the absurd report of Oscar Wilde being still alive appeared in the papers, I have received 278 letters from different sources asking me if the report were true. Perhaps you will make known to those interested in the subject the following fol-lowing facts: At the time of his death, Mr. Wilde owed a considerable sum of money to Paris trades-people, who, out of regard for a fallen and distinguished man (contrary to all French instincts), had given him considerable credit. When nursing him during dur-ing his last illness he asked me, as one of his most intimate friends, that, in the event of his death, I should endeavor to see that those who had been kind to him were paid. Instead of raising difficulties, diffi-culties, as they might easily have done, the French creditors, directly he was dead, accepted without any demur my personal promise that they would be paid in course of time. For a foreigner to die in Paris when he is registered at the hotel under an assumed name is one of the most expensive ex-pensive luxuries in the world, and Wilde's body was very nearly taken to the morgue. His illness ill-ness had been a great expense to his friends, and there was really no money to buy a suitable plot of ground for his grave. It also occurred to me, and to the friend who was with him at the last, that it would be in bad taste to spend a large sum of money on his grave and funeral expenses ex-penses until the French creditors, who had shown more than human charity, were fully compensated. compen-sated. I therefore hired a plot of ground at Bay-neux Bay-neux and placed a simple stone over the place, and I pay a rent to the French government for the use of a concession temporaire. It shocks a great many visitors to Bayneux to learn that the grave is only a temporary one. But two- thirds of the French creditors have been satisfied, and by next year Wilde's last wishes will have been carried out. I shall then move the remains to a permanent resting place at Pere la Chaise, and a suitable monument will be erected over them. I receive numerous letters expressing astonishment at the nature of the grave at Bayneux and the fact that it is only a temporary one, but I have given you the reason. I venture to think that no one who knows the circumstances will think that I should have followed any other course. |
