St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-12-06
ENGLISH VICE.

Inc GLOBE has published from day
to day during the past week, with such
omissions and eXpurgatiOns as decency
demanded, the story OF the eXtraOrdi-
nary domestic career of Earl RUSSELL,
an English lord of high degree. AS
Stunning that the evidence disclosed at
the trial of his suit with his wife is true,
there appears to be no sin in the cata-
lOgue of shameful and unnatural crimes
of which ne has not been guilty. All
the forms of vice which so amaze the
modern reader of SUETONIUS seem to
have suggested themselves to his youth
full imagination, and he had only to
dream of some outrageous exploit to
proceed to its actual conSummatiOn. He
was equipped with health and an in
come equal to his tastes, and he has run
riot with a prOdigality and disregard
of selt-restraint which entitle him to an
elevated niche in a collection of the
worlds monsters of iniquity.
Sir EDWARD CLARKE and Sir
CHARLES RUSSELL, who figured in the
GORDON CUNNING case, are pitted
against each other in the present in
stance also, and, according to all surface
indications. are netting a handsome in
come from the degeneracy Of the Eng
liSh aristocracy. Either the art of per-
jury has been developed to point Of
peculiar perfection in the British isle, or
the basis of morality on which the bet
ter classes have been supposed to rest
mas been seriously undermined. Woman
ScrapeS are characteristic of all times
aud peoples. and do not necessarily
augur decline in popular vigOr or a
lowering of general tone. Butall circles
of society seem there to be permeated
by taints and blemishes of a more seri-
GUS sort. College professors and states
men, men about town and titled gentle
men, are sought after with uncommon
eagerness by the police courts, not to
answer tor the robust debaucheries
which are born OF excess Of animal
spirits and befit race accustomed to
the chase and the open air, but
to plead guilty or not guilty to
charges of foul Outrages such as are
conceived in the fetid air of al Ottoman
seraglio by brains emasculated through
excessive indulgence in opium and
noXiouS cOrdialS. The noisy miSde-
meanorS of Tom Jones are no longer in
vogue among Our kin across the sea.
They have been supplanted by the
nameless vices depicted III the untrans-
latabie fiction of the modern French
! school.
Another curious thing about all this
is suggested by the latest culprit'S
family history. Good blood flows in his
veins as does in the veins of Lord COLIN
| CAMPBELL, an illuStriouS predecessor
of his in the same style of bad eminence
| By good blood the GLOBE means no
only the blood of prominent men, but o.
men capable of earnest work and seri
Gus achievement. No states maa il
modern times has contributed more Il
the cause of popular freedom than dIC
JOHN RUSSELL, and no contemporary
English peer has shown greater capacity
in the lines of refined intellectually
than the Duke Of Argyle. And We
out OF the loins of such chief
tains have sprung these enormities,
hunchbacked in disposition and borl
with teeth Tor rending the fabric of de
cency from the hour of their first de
liverance. The lesson, of course, is tn
old one that there is no aristOcracy eX
cept the aristocracy of accomplishment
and that the worlds monarchS are til
brave men who WreStle with circum
stances and carve their own fortune
out of opportunity with the tools of il
dustry ana persistence. No young ma
with good health need be discourage
because there are others bidding agains
; him who have the accumulationS of eal
2 lier generations to draw on for the col
test. Such are not real competitor
+ Even before the battle begins they wi
| faint by the roadside, or, if they go o
. for little while, will grow discourage
and surrender. The great prizes of LIT
are open to-day. as much as they eve
were in the years that are gone. to I'll
. courageous and the determined WI
dgrp 10 strive for thPm