3i6 MEMOIR OF 



and when cocks of the choicest blood reared 

 expressly for the pit, were put out to walk, as 

 hounds are at the present dav, Russell held 

 aloof from the meetings, maintaining that he 

 saw no sport in the fierce and savage ex- 

 hibitions. 



And with respect to the turf, perhaps no 

 man ever loved to see an honest struggle 

 between two good horses better than Russell ; 

 but on horse-racing in general, coupled as it is 

 inseparably with betting and other dark doings, 

 he has ever looked with a wary eye. In 

 alluding to it he would say, " Have a care, my 

 old friend ; that is a game in which the best 

 horse is not always the winner — very different 

 from hunting, with twenty couple of hounds 

 racing over the moor; there's no 'pulling' nor 

 ' roping ' then ; every man does his best to get 

 at them. That's the racing to my mind — 

 nothing so honest under the sun." 



It would be travelling beyond the compass 

 and object of this memoir to tell of the various 

 agricultural meetings and hound-shows at which 

 Russell took a prominent part, as judge, during 

 the last twenty years. Sutftce it to say, with 

 respect to the latter, that in Yorkshire he 

 acted twice in that capacity ; twice at Plymouth ; 

 once at the Crystal Palace, and lastly in Dorset- 

 shire, where he was invited in March, 1878, to 

 judge the puppies of the Blackmoor Vale Hunt, 



