aiejaufccr TRussel 535 



year. " For this," wrote the proprietor, " I will expect 

 you to devote a portion of each day, less or more, 

 to the reading of newspapers, selecting and abridging 

 from them Parliamentary reports and other news. New 

 publications and the literary periodicals must have your 

 notice. And you will also have to write political 

 articles and a summary of news such as we have 

 hitherto had. On the occurrence of an election or 

 any great meeting I will require your aid in reporting. 

 And, lastly, the attacks of our political adversary 

 will be expected to produce your retort." 



The proprietor will no doubt appear to the modern 

 journalist to have wanted a good deal for his money. 

 But no budding editor sixty years ago would have 

 turned up his nose at thirty shillings a week. For 

 if the pay were poor, the responsibility was glorious ; 

 and to a young man with any fighting spirit in him 

 the vista opened by that last delicious clause must 

 have been singularly inviting. If the work were hard, 

 it was sweetened by the knowledge that close by rolled 

 the Tweed, the bonnie Tweed, the stream which beyond 

 all streams the Northern angler loves ; and it was at 

 Berwick that Alexander Russel, rod in hand, gained 

 his first knowledge of the river of which he came to 

 know every bend and pool better than any other man 

 living. 



Moreover, despite the demands which his editorial 

 duties made on his time, young Russel found leisure for 

 reading as well as sport. It was then that he gained 

 that intimate knowledge of Swift, Pope, Dryden, Gold- 

 smith, and Thomson, which supplied him with so many 



