The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-10-15 00:00:00

THE LATE SIR JOHN KARSLAKE.

The Times of Monday published a letter from Lord Cole-
ridge, eulogising the late Sir John Karslake. We make the
following extract from his lordship's letter :
I have no doubt that many other men will desire to
record publicly their feelings of admiration for Sir
John Karslake and their grief for his loss. I hope
you will allow me to be one among the many • for few
men for many years had more to do with him ; few
had better means of estimating his great powers and
high character. I first knew him in 1847, and was in-
timate with him till he himself ceased to know anyone.
Those only whose fate it was to be with Sir John
Kerslake day after day and week after week for
years, either as opposing advocate or in the intercourse
of private friendship, can fully appreciate his extra-
ordinary power. His knowledge ot, his profession,
gathered by a vigorous and retentive mind from a
legal training of unusual length, was, as far as my ex-
perience goes, unparalleled. This gave him from the
very beginning a confidence and certainty which very
few men attain after years of practice. And the
same thoroughness with which he knew his pro-
fession, always marked his knowledge of his cases.
He was never at fault; he read everything about
his case; he forgot nothing; and his strong
sense and unerring judgment enabled him to use,
with wonderful effect his great knowledge. He was
an oppressive antagonist, because, mentally and phy-
sically, he was so strong. At the end of a long day,
in times when judges sat on to hours which exhausted
juries and occasionally disgusted witnesses, Sir John
Karslake would show no symptom of fatigue; his ob-
servation as acute, his resources as much at his com-
mand, his voice as strong as in the early morning.
But if he was an oppressive antagonist, he was an
antagonist whom it was impossible not to respect and
to admire. Indirectness in word or act was simply
impossible to him. Ido not thiuk he could have been
dishonourable if he had tried and he certainly never
tried
No man could work as Sir John Karslake worked
with impunity. He did everything himself. Leas
than any man I ever knew did he—perhaps could he
—avail himself of the help of others. His standard
of work was so high, his conscientiousness so severe,
that he was never satisfied unless he had himself
traversed the whole field of his operations. So far back
as the month of June, 1866, before he was in Parlia-
ment, he confided to me the existence of symptoms
which even then filled me with alarm. He was then
overworkad ; and he was urged to lie by entirely
for six months or a year. His position, as he was
truly told, was so absolutely assured that the loss
of fees during the time of his absence was the
only loco he would have suffered. But it was in vain
to warn him. He laved his profession; he was at the
head of it; he delighted in the exercise of his great
rifts ; even when induced, as he got worse, to leave
traiaan sometimes for a fortnight, he would take
ars with him, and come back to London once or
nice, or, perhaps, oftener, for a particular consulta-
Lion or a particular argument. He worked on with
unflinching spirit for years in almost constant pain,
then with failing eyezight, at last ending in total
blindness, which compelled him to retire into private
life. Even then, while reason was spared to him, he
worked on commissions, surprising his brother mem-
hers by the extent of his knowledge, the quickness
of his appretension, and the strength and accuracy
of his memory. He bore his blindness, as he bore
his pain, with a gallant, uncomplaining spirit, which
to those who remembered what he had been, and
from what he was shut out, was not merely admir-
able ,• it moved our hearts to the very depths, becanse
Sir John Kerslake, though he seldom permitted him-
self to joke in court, was in private one of the most
light-hearted and amusing companions in the world.
He was an admirable mimic; he told stories, of which
he had an inexhaustible supply, as well as possible;
no one who ever heard them will forget his Scottish
and his Devonshire experiences; and he talked well
on any subject. . And long after he was blind he
was still the life of any company he joined; and few
suspected how much pain and sadness lay hid under
the veil el that gay courage.
Of his Parliamentary career I can say nothing of
my own knowledge; we were in parliament together
for a very short time; and I cannot remember that I
ever heard him make a speech. He must have spoken,
when he did speak, with sense and weight and strength.
But I am not attempting a memoir of Sir John
Karidake. That, I doubt not, will be done at large
by some one qualified to do it. Neither do I pretend
to sit in judgment on my friend, to cast the sum of
his virtues, or to balance them with his defects, if any
defects he had. He was great advocate; he had rare
manliness, integrity, and force of mind; he had a keen
sense of honour; he was a delightful companion, a faith-
ful friend; and standing, so to say, by his open graa e,
I, who now occupy the place he would have filled,
who knew him for 35 years, and whose friendship with
him not only survived, but was never even disturbed
by the conflicts of the Bar, or the contests of the
hustings, desire to say, what I am confident the
whole profession would say too, that when the grave
closes over his remains there will be left behind him
the brightest example, and we who knew him shall
have the memory of the noblest specimen of what an
English udvopate and an English gentleman ought to
be and can be.

papel
twicc

The remains of Sir John Burgess Kerslake, Q.C.,
were interred on Monday at Kensal-green Cemetery,
In Co pres.enee of a large number of the friends of the
deceased, and many distil:Oohed: members of the bar.