THE LATE EARL RUSSELL.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5090, 31 May 1878, Page 2

THE LATE EARL RUSSELL.

A cablegram which we published yesterday morning conveyed the intelligence of ', the death of Earl Russell. The message was received at 3.30 a.m., and being dated the 28th instant, it may be inferred that his death occurred on Tuesday. Jt was not unexpected, as recent cablegrams stated that he was not '. likely to recover from the illness which . had lately attacked him. : The late Earl Russell was nearly 86 ! years of age, having been born on the ; 28th of August, 1792. He was the third . son of the sixth Duke of Bedford. The , present Duke is the nephew of the late Earl, and succeeded to the dukedom in 1872. Earl Russell was created a Peer \ on July 30, 1861. His political career i commenced in 1813, when he was rei turned to the House of Commons as the : representative of the family borough of Tavistock, in the Whig interest. He was • at that time, and for some years afterwards, a more advanced Liberal than the • generality of the Whig party, and he strove so earnestly in the cause of political reform that the name of Lord John ' Russell became associated with the liberal measures of the day, as the , etrenuous advocate of the repeal of the i Test and Corporation Acts, of Catholic . Emancipation, and of other measures of civil and religious liberty. He made his first motion in favor of Parliamentary reform in 1819, and continued to bring the subject almost annually forward, until he stood forward as a Minister of the Crown to propose the great measure of 1831, which ultimately received the royal assent on the 4th ot June, 1832. After that he introduced several other measures of reform— such as that relating to the temporalities of the Irish Church, and slso one for the reform of the municipalities of England and Wales. Besides these, he succeeded in getting a bill passed for the commutation of tithes in England, and a bill for the registration of births, marriages, and deaths. In 1837 he carried a bill for amending the criminal law, by which capital punishment was removed from forgery and several other offences. In 1841 he proposed an alteration in the existiug corn laws, and a reduction of the duties on sugar and timber, but he was defeated, and an appeal to the country ensuing the Whigs were in a minority, and the Melbourne administration, of which Lord John Russell was a member, had to give place to that of Sir Robert Peel. At that general election Lord John was returned for the city of London. In the winter of 1845, when corn had risen to a very high price, he addressed a letter to his constituents from Edinburgh, announcing his conversion to the total and immediate repeal of the corn laws. Copies of this letter were posted up all over London, and created great sensation. The letter led to the resignation of the Peel Cabinet, as Sir Robert Peel felt that the course indicated by Lord John Russell was the one that should be adopted, while others of his Cabinet did not agree with him. Lord John Russell then attempted to form a Ministry, but failed in consequence of the antipathy of Earl Grey to Lord Palmerston. Sir Robart Peel returned to power, and carried the repeal of the corn laws, but soon after he resigned, and Lord John Russell became Prime Minister. This position he held until 1852, when his Ministry being defeated, Earl Derby made an unsuccessful attempt to carry on the Government ; and in the succeeding Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen, Lord John Russell consented to fill the post of Foreign Secretary, with the leadership of the House of Commons. In the second administration of Lord Palmerston, in 1859, Lord John became Foreign Secretary, which office ho con6inued to hold, after he had been created a Peer, until he again became Prime Minister, on the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865. During the session of 1866 his Ministry was defeated on a new Reform Bill, and soon after he resigned. From that time he pursued an independent course in the . House of Lords, always leaning, however, to liberal measures. He married in 1835 the relict of Lord Ribblesdale ; she died in 1838, and in 1841 he married the second daughter of the second Earl of Minto. In " Chambers's Encyclopaedia," to which work we have been indebted for a portion of the above, the late Earl is thus

noticed :— "His language is simple, clear, plain, and terse, yet pregnant with meaning. Upon great constitutional questions and historical precedents,- he is perhaps the greatest living authority, and upon such high themes, his speeches risef to a high order of eloquence. He is an admirable and fearless debater ; and his tact, skill, and self-reliance have often enabled him to fight, almost unaided, a not unequal battle against the greatest Parliamentary orators of his time. His voice is" often weak, his delivery somewhat hesitating, mincing and affected, and his action has little variety, A certain coldness of temper has always chilled the personal enthusiasm of his followers. His indomitable self-reliance and tenacity of self-assertion were sarcastically painted by the Rev. Sydney Smith, who called him the ' Lycargus of the Lower House,' and said that he was ' utterly ignorant of all moral fear.' " We are brought into close intimacy with the home life of Earl Russell, at nearly the close of his days, in a descriptive sketch in the World (February 21, 1877), under the heading " Celebrities at Home." i After somewhat minutely describing Earl Russell's Lodge in Richmond Park, and more particularly the rooms he usually had in use, together with the furniture, &c, the writer goes on to say :— " For several years the house in Chesham-place, long Lord Russell's London residence, has been deserted by its master. In advanced age, and with decaying strength, he finds at Richmond advantages of quiet and privacy which in London would be sought in vain. But though tranquil, Pembroke Lodge is not dull. Twice a week its doors are thrown open to the miscellaneous throng of those whom, in sixty years of public life, Lord Russell has included among his acquaintance. Ambassadors and statesmen, fashionable ladies and struggling authors, politicians of .every class and shade, gay Guardsmen, and scientific lecturers and aristocratic chiefs, jostle one another on the lawns of Pembroke Lodge, and enjoy the graceful hospitality dispersed to them by the most genial of hostesses. The" central figure of the group is one with which the rising generatioo is familiar chiefly through Leach's sketches. The ponderous head and wide chest seem at first sight as if they could scarcely belong to the same body as the short legs and small fairy feet, which nothing but a substantial footstool prevents from dangling in the air. The broad forehead and the clear bright eyes still carry with them their old air of gentle dignity. The hair might be whiter and thinner than of yore, the skull cap and Bath-chair have replaced the white-beaver hat and iron-gray pony which an earlier generation will recall ; but the mind is as bright and vigorous as ever, thesurile as genial, and the eye-sight still so clear that no spectacles are required to facilitate the regular task of reading the evening papers by candlelight. About four o'clock the guests begin to gather on the lawn. Here tea and ice and strawberries prevail ; and presently the Bathchair emerges from the house, and Lord Russell appears, wrapped in fur, and tended either by his faithful Highland henchman, or his younger but not less devoted valet. Then the chair is established beneath some umbrageous oak or elm, and Lord Russell receives his guests, — a few of -whom remain at Pembroke Lodge to dine in a cool and comfortable room, papered with a bright trellis-pattern, and commanding an unequalled vista of sunset amid forest-trees. As evening changes into night they retire, probably in some way wiser than when they came ; leaving Pembroke Lodge to silence, and Lord Russell to his Times or Quarterly Review. " It is in reading that Lord Russell's days are chiefly passed. The weight of eighty years pressing on a constitution never very robust has made him so far an invalid that the only exercise to which he is equal is a promenade in his Bath-chair when the sun is warm. Much talking tires him ; and from his appearance about midday to his retirement at 10 p.m. his day is chiefly spent among his books. To read a few pages, to chew the cud of what he has read, to resume the reading, and to carry on this process for hours at a stretch, is Lord Russell's conception of study ; and the range of bo.oks which it covers is wide. History, both of Greece and England, as well as the politics of the day, is his favorite study ; Grote and Hume the authors whom he specially admires. But that few branches of literature have altogether escaped his notice is plain enough to any who converse with him over ' the walnuts and wine ' at the round dinner table of Pembroke Lodge, while he plays his part of host with the genial though punctilious courtesy which he learned at Wobum and at Holland House when the century was young. "It is a long and varied experience of life which has made Lord Russell what he iB. Educated at Westminster in its roughest days, he early learned the esaental lessons of self-reliance and self-defence. At the University of Edinburgh he acquired those principles of Liberal thought and culture which the Oxford and Cambridge of that day would have united to repudiate. Oontinential travel, during the most momentous period of modern history, served to enlarge the young student's conceptions of strategy and statesmanship. Events which most men regard as historical must be personally familiar to a man who rode with Wellington in the Peninsula, and talked to Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba. Entering Parliament at twenty-one, Lord John Russell passed quickly through the various stages of political apprenticeship to a place in the Cabinet! In 1861 Lord John Russell attained in the House of Lords the comparative repose and additional dignity to which his long services had entitled him. Since that date his life has been a gradual retirement from political strife. Step by step he has backed out of the arena which was the scene of his triumphs, and has assumed the functions of a chronicler and an authority. Now, in a bright and congenial home, tended by the most devoted of wives and children, he displays to a younger generation the mature beauty of virtues which his life has illustrated. The patience and cheerfulness which supported him through a long and arduous career find the fullest scope for their exerciso amid the increasing infirmities of advancing years. The cheerfulness and love of fun which enlivened the tedium of office are none the fainter or dimmer for physical weakness and decay. The sturdy courage with which he confronted difficulties and dangers supports him still in the immediate prospect of the close of his life. At the end of a long career of beneficent exertion he is confident and calm. " POPULAR ELECTRICITY. (From the "New York Times.") Within the present century vast progress has been made in the study of the ziature and applications of electricity. From the first sparks drawn from the back of the primeval cat by her cave-dwelling master to the discovery of the phonograph there is an immense distance. Nevertheless, it is believed by many scientific persons that we are yet oh the threshold of electricity, and that in the future we shall make discoveries infinitely moro important than those which the ablest electricians have hitherto made. It is only just beginning to be understood that the electric currents of the earth have any intimate connection with a great quantity of things. The Aurora Borealis is believed to be in some mysterious way connected with spots on the solar disc, and these spots in their turn have an influence upon our climate, and upon the spread of pestilential diseases. Recently it has been asserted that no man can sleep well unless the major axis of his bed, and consequently his personal major axis, corresponds with the position of the axis of the earth. This is due to the fact that the currents of earthly elec-

tricity flow in the direction of the earth's axis, or, in other words, from pole to pole. If they enter a recumbent human being at hia feet, and pass out at-^itf head, he becomes sleepy, while if, owing to the wrong position of his bed, they 1 enter him from one side or the other, their struggles to get out again produce such a derangement of his nervous system as to render it impossible for him to sleep. These are but a few of the hosts of facts which might be mentioned to prove the influence of earth-currents upon man and his surroundings, and we shall yet make discoveries : in this particular field which no one outside of ail insane asylum will be capable of believing. The reason why the cats whose howls disturb our nocturnal slumbers are uniformly found on back fences running in a direction perpendicular, or nearly perpendicular, to the axis of the earth has never yet been ascertained. Sir Isaac Newton attempted to explain the fact by 1 asserting that the great majority of fenced are built parallel to the equator, but this explanation is glaringly at variance with well ascertained facts. Buffon suggested that cats are mysteriously influenced by the moon, and that . hence they, prefer fences which are built in the general direction of the plane of the moon's orbit. This is certainly a plausible explanation, but it has yet to be proved that moonlight is the cause, rather than a mere incident, of nocturnal cat concerts. The other explanations which have been hazarded by lesser authorities are scarcely worth mentioning. All that we really know is the single fact that nocturnal cats are distributed around the earth in belts parallel to the equator. Fully 93 per cent, of the cats that bring us from our midnight couches, with bootjacks in our hands, and rage in our hearts, are ' found perched I upon the east and west fences, and to the truth of this assertion every New-Yorker will readily agree. In examining this very interesting and important problem, let us begin by asking why the midnight cat howls. Superficial observers have alleged that howling is the natural expression of the tender passion among cats, and that the intensity of a cat's admiration for the female of his species may be accurately measured by the lddeousness of his howls. This is an insult to human intelligence and feline self-respect. Would myfyoung man, desiring to plead his suit with the lady of his heart, place himself under her window and yell as if he were undergoing the severest torments? Of course he would not, and equally of course, no intelligent cat would be guilty of a like folly. The yells of the midnight cat bear every sign of being the expression of the keenest suffering, and only the most perverse ingenuity can regard them as the voice of love. We have thus learned., that a cat perched on a back fence perpendicularly to the axis of the earth, and to the direction of the earth currents of electricity, howls because he— or she as the case may be— is undergoing acute agony. Very possibly cats pass over fences running from north to south quite as frequently as they do over fences running in the direction of the equator, but in the former case they experience no pain, and hence do not attract attention to their outcries. The moment, however, that a cat finds himself on an east and west fence, he is racked by internal pains ; he tries to relieve his mind by howls and profanity, and he thereby excites the rage of his human audiences. Now, if we ascertain what produces these pains, we shall have found the true answer to the question under discussion. May.it not be that electricity is really at the bottom of the whole affair ? The cat, be it remembered, is more addicted to electricity than any other animal, except the electrical eel, and hence is peculiarly susceptible to the influence of the earth currents. So long as the cat walks over fences running from north to south, his axis is coincident"with. the direction of these currents. They pass smoothly through his spinal column, and beyond gently stimulating his mind and tail, they have no perceptible effect upon him. When, however, he tries 'to walk on a fence parallel to the equator, his private axis becomes perpendicular to the earth currents. They penetrate into his vitals and wrench him all to piecesin their efforts to force their way through him. Filled with anguish, he stops, clings fiercely to the fence, and lifts up his voice in frenzied agony. To some extent the muscles of the legs are paralysed, and he is unable to move until the unfeeling boot- jack comes hurling through the air, and. stimulates him into action. He then springs from the fence ; his pains vanish, and his voice is silent. Is not this a complete and scientific explanation of the question which has so long defied the ablest scientific minds ? We thus see how beautiful are the reasoning processes by which true science investigates abstruse, questions. We also see that one of the most common incidents of every-night life is due to the electricity A of the earth. Let us, then, be thankful W that we live in a scientific age, and that J there are more uses for electricity than anyone has yet dreamed of.