The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-08-26
MISCELLANEOUS.

|
Its Exigencies.'' The winner was then in
his 18th year. When he went to up to Trim
! ity College, Dublin, he selected for his tutor
according to the custom which places each
undergraduate of that institution under the
special care of one of the fellows-Professor
John Kells Ingram. This teacher was well
qualified to get the most out of a clever and
| high spirited boy. The son of an Episcopal
clergyman and professor of Greek in the
university, Mr.. Ingram twas nationalist = to
the core, and wrote the most stirring of all
Irish revolutionary ballads, ''Who Fears to
Speak of Ninety Eighth 1t may be said
incidentally that this professor of Greek
was the man selected from three specialists
of Great Britain to write the history of polit-
ical economy for the latest edition of the
Encyclopedias Britannica.
Russell did not wait to take degree, and
returned to his native town, where he was
articled to an attorney. After practicing for
a few years in Belfast he determined to try
his chances in the higher department OF
| the profession, and went over to London to
seat his dinners for the English bar. Be-
fore being enrolled as barrister he mar
ried the daughter of Dr. Mulholland of Bel
!
has been the intellectual associate of her
distinguished husband.
Like many other briefless barristers,
young Russell had to earn a living by news
paper work and parliamentary reporting.
His merit as an acute and industrious law
yer, however, soon became known to George
Lewis, the head of well-known firm of at
torneys in London. The first great suit in
| which RuSSa1I was aD1p1OUed was tha Valxyar-
ton case, and his client was an ill-used
young woman from his own part of the
country in the north of Ireland. He was
defeated in the London trial. took the case
over to Ireland and won, but The Irish de-
cision was finally reversed on appeal to the
+house of lords. RusselPs management of
this case made him famous, and from that
| time until his elevation to the bench he has
| been employed in almost every celebrated
trial. When people have said that he has
an advocate or an orator rather than pro-
found lawyer, George Lewis always had his
answer ready: "Whatever else he may be,
Charles Russell is the greatest yerdict-win-
ner in England.
| Russell was good deal of a sportsman
| as well as a lawyer, and Englishmen don't
think less of an advocate when they see him
at EPSON or New Market. He knew how to
make the most of q poor sihand'' at whist,
and in all the relations of life seems to have
been mindful of the rustic epitaph.
Life amt in holdin' good hand,
But in playln' poor hand we'll.
| In his early years at the bar he found the
advantage of being q strict teetotaler, as
upon one occasion he informed an audience
i'm his native town. Temperance in every
thing except work has been the law of hi
| life, and his capacity for continuous labor
has led his contemporaries to think that he
had learned TO do without sleep. Ready for
consultation at all hours of the night or
early morning, he could talk all day in court
and then go home to dinner as if he had Just
come from a walk in Hyde Park.
| Among the great cases with which he has
| been connected are Labouchere VS.. Levi
Lawson; the Lambri Pasha swindle; the
Belt u Lewes suit, in which most of the
artists of the Royal Academy appeared as
witnesses; the Gordon Cumming baccarat
case, in which the Prince of Wales was in
volyed; the case of Colin Campbell the
| Behring Sea commission, and, greatest of
all, PANEL against, the London Times
| While preparing his briefs in the Parnell
trial the most interchangeable of his "devils',
was Mr.. Asquith, who shortly afterward be-
came a cabinet minister. Asquith, in the
! night before the opening of the Parnell
commission, had half a dozen clever points,
made GNt for tho consideration of his leader,
| Russ Il, l;-..s.' -..<s.s n and threw the
papers iii sls .lOor. 'Asquth,'' he said,
I"that's mere 'pecial pleading. We must rise
to the height If great historic OCCASION
| This W as Toug on the learned and indus
trious junior "a I'd it may be said that as Rus
sell never spared himself he was no easy
| tasllmaSter.
His temper was not altogether angelic,
nor did he frequently resort to the soft an
swer that turneth away wrath-unless for
the purpose of conciliating a Judge or hu-
moring jury. One day while addressing
the court he felt irritated by the loud talk
of Sir Digby Seymour, who sat near him,
and with his well-marked Irish pronuncia-
| ton he said:
| 'sSaymour, wish you wouldn't talk so
loud''
"My name is Seymour, if you please" said
the other sweetly.
'Then,' retorted Russell, ''I wish you'd
see more and say less.''
For dramatic effects Russell was more
/ given to passion and pathos than to humor.
During his speech on the home rule bill in
parliament and at the close of the Parnell
Parliament and the bar are still troubled
about the reality of those tears When he
was not engaged in striking terror into a
jury his usual attitude was that of .'the
plain, honest man. into whose heart no
guile had ever entered, addressing twelve
honest, plain men, who Were equally guile
less. His method is invincible, and a few
there be who have attained to his mastery
Of that particular craft.
| In parliament it may be said that his sue
cess has not equalled the purely forsenic en-
inence, though some of his speeches in the
| house of commons have been of the very
highest order. AS some of the greatest law
yers have discovered the conditions are
quite different. In the house of lords he
| seldom speaks.
Russell contested the Irish borough of
Dundalk in 1868 and 1874. He was defeated
on both occasions by Philip Callan, but was
elected in 1880 He afterward sat for the
metropolitan division of Hackney and was
active in bringing a contingent of the Mid
dlesex members to the support of Mr.. Glad
stone.
On the death of FLord Justice Coleridge
| Russell was appointed his successor. In his
usual practical and somewhat imperious
| oh he of tn tfrup hi