division in the endeavour to establish the court for the trial of commercial causes, a project which for many years had been met by the strenuous and successful opposition of Lord Coleridge. In the same year he delivered an address in Lincoln's Inn Hall on legal education. He dwelt at length on the failure of the existing system, and insisted that no student should be admitted to the degree of barrister who had not given proof of his professional competency. He bestowed faint praise on the council of legal education, and urged that there should be a charter of a school of law with a senate not wholly composed of benchers and lawyers. His comments were resented and entirely disregarded. It was said the public did not demand any change in the existing system. The degree of barrister no more implied a knowledge of the law than the degree of the universities was a guarantee of scholarship. The old formula was repeated, that the best lawyer is self-taught. It was pointed out that prior to his call the chief justice himself obtained his knowledge of the law with the help of the readers of the Inns of Court an excellent argument for the existing system if all law students were as able as Russell. The benchers were firm ; he was vox clamantis as Westbury and Selborne had been before him.
The years following were occupied by his ordinary judicial duties ; the trial of the Jameson raiders in 1896 was the principal event ; the law was laid down by Russell with great clearness and firmness, and the defendants were convicted.
In 1896 he visited the United States for the purpose of delivering an address to American lawyers assembled at Saratoga. He chose for his subject 'Arbitration : its Origin, History, and Prospects.' He adhered to the view that he had laid before the Behring Sea arbitrators that international law was neither more nor less than what civilised nations have agreed shall be binding on one another. Amid great applause he expressed hopes for the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations.
In 1899, on the death of Farrer, lord Herschell, he was appointed in his place to act as one of the arbitrators to determine the boundaries of British Guiana and Venezuela under the treaty of 2 Feb. 1897. The arbitration was held* in Paris, Great Britain being represented by Sir R. Webster and Sir R. Reid, and Venezuela by American counsel. Though he took little part in the discussion, he displayed in the conduct of the inquiry his old power of seizing upon and directing attention to the vital points,
and of rescuing the argument from details which only obscured the real issues. The award was in favour of Great Britain, and was remarkable for the fact that it was arrived at unanimously.
In July 1900 he left town for the North Wales circuit. At Chester he was attacked by alarming symptoms of illness, 'and was advised to come home. In a few days it became clear that there was grave internal mischief. After an attempt to relieve him by an operation he died on 10 Aug. at 2 Cromwell Houses, Kensington. He was buried at Epsom on the 14th. He was survived by his widow and five sons and four daughters.
In Russell were combined qualities of character and temperament that are usually found apart. He was a blending of the northern and southern Irishman. With his keen intellect and resolute will he united much sensibility and even enthusiasm. He was a man of business and a man of dreams. Under a manner often cold and severe there lay concealed great kindliness and consideration for others.
His amusements were those of an idle man. He did not. find relaxation in books. He was an indefatigable player of whist and piquet, and a familiar figure on race-courses. His interest in horses was chiefly confined to ' blood-stock.' He possessed a store of knowledge of the ancestors and descendants of distinguished winners, and never tired of discoursing of them in congenial company. He prided himself upon his skill in identifying in the paddock the offspring of a famous sire.
His activity and energy followed him in his pursuit of recreation, and, if bent upon a project, he was careless of fatigue and labour. He was large-minded in his views of men and things, and his intimate friends included those who differed widely from him and each other in station, politics, and religion.
When hard at work he shut himself up at his chambers or at his country house, Tad worth Court, near Epsom, but when free he was indisposed to seclusion. For society he preferred many to few, and he readily accepted invitations to address public meetings upon politics, education, or for charitable projects. Even after he became chief justice he was ready to preside upon public occasions, and principally at dinners for benevolent objects. While he never failed to interest his audience his style was sombre, and he was more disposed to dwell upon shortcomings than to congratulate upon achievements. The information and statistics which he imparted to his audience had usually been
