Editing 26 Aug 1894 - Reynold's Newspaper (London)

<b>[[Case File: Oscar Wilde]]</b>

<b><center>THE RAID IN FITZROY-STREET</center></b>
Arthur Marley, 26, female impersonator, Crawford-street, Marylebone, and John Severs, 21, tobacconist's assistant, Hendon-street, Pimlico, were on Monday charged on remand before Mr. Hannay, at Marlborough-street Police Court, with being idle and disorderly persons in Fitzroy-street, W.; and Walter Pilsworth, 32, a fruiterer out of employment, Fitzroy-street; Henry Augustus Roberts, 39, sculleryman, Whitfield-street; Charles Smith, 43, butler, out of employment, Whitfield-street; William Wright, 33, valet, out of employment, Whitfield-street; Arthur Ivens, 17, clerk, out of employment, Egbert-street; George Huckle, 43, builder, Hyde-park-gardens; George Clement, 32, costumier, Finborough-road; John Dernbach, 18, valet, out of employment, Gower-place; Harold Brown, tobacconist, Hendon-street; Henry James Stevens, 28, valet, Fernshaw-road, Fulham; Thomas Coombes, ladies tailor, Finborough-road; Samuel Lee, 23, fishmonger, Bury-street, Fulham; Herbert Coulton, fruiterer, out of employment, Buckingham-street, Bolsover-street; John Watson Preston, general dealer, Fitzroy-street; Joseph Skinner, 44, no occupation, Maysoule-road, Battersea; John Hands, 31, clerk, Nemwan-street; Charles Parker, 19, no occupation, Regent-street; and Alfred Taylor, 32, no occupation, Cameron-square, Chelsea, were charged, on remand, with jointly and severally assembling and associating together in Fitzroy-street, for felonious purposes.

First came the two "ladies", Arthur Marley and John Severs, now clothed in masculine garb. Mr. Harding said Severs was an assistant in a tobacconist's shop in Pimlico kept by Harold Browne, and after closing the shop on Sunday went out, met Marley in Oxford-street, and was asked to accompany him. Severs went in a Japanese dressing-gown.

Mr. Hannay decided that the two had thereby been guilty of disorderly conduct in appearing in the street dressed as women. They had both been in custody all last week, and Mr. Hannay found it sufficient to have them bound in sureties of L5 each to keep the peace for three months.

With reference to the eighteen men arrested in the house, the police had no further evidence to offer, and the Magistrate said that whatever suspicion there might be, there was no evidence against the majority of the prisoners. He had had a number of letters informing hiim that many of them were of the vilest possible character, but no one came forward to give evidence to that fact.

Coulton, Bembach, Coombes, Clements, and Hands were ordered to find sureties in 40s each for a month's good behaviour. The rest were discharged.